text stringlengths 211 577k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 371 | file_path stringclasses 644 values | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.93 1 | token_count int64 54 121k | score float64 1.5 1.84 | int_score int64 2 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
To Isolate Iran, U.S. Presses Inspectors on Nuclear Data
If the United Nations’ watchdog group agrees to publicize the evidence, such as new data from latest months, it would almost certainly revive a discussion that has been dormant in the course of the Arab Spring about how aggressively the United States and its allies, which includes Israel, must move to halt Iran’s suspected weapons program.
Over the lengthier expression, several senior Obama administration officials mentioned in interviews, they are mulling a ban on financial transactions with Iran’s central financial institution — a move that has been opposed by China and other Asian nations. Also being regarded as is an growth of the ban on the purchase of petroleum products marketed by businesses managed by the country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Innovative Guards are also considered to oversee the military side of the nuclear program, and they are the parent of the Quds Force, which Washington has accused of directing the assassination plot.
The proposed sanctions occur as administration officers confront skepticism close to the planet about their allegations that Iran was behind the plot and minimal possibilities about what they can do — as properly as expanding pressure from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress to just take harder action in opposition to Iran, with the central financial institution and the oil sector high on lawmakers’ lists.
All of the proposed sanctions have with them considerable political and financial pitfalls. Yukiya Amano, the careful director standard of the United Nations group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, talked publicly in September about publishing some of the most sensitive knowledge suggesting Iran labored on nuclear triggers and warheads. But officials who have spoken with him say he is involved that his inspectors could be ejected from Iran, shutting the finest, though slim, window into its nuclear pursuits.
Similarly, China and Russia, between other main Iranian buying and selling partners, have resisted further oil and economic sanctions, saying the target of isolating Iran is a inadequate technique. Even within the Obama administration, some officers say they concern any crackdown on Iranian oil exports could drive up oil prices when the United States and European economies are weak. As one senior official place it, “You don’t want to tip the U.S. into a downturn just to punish the Iranians.”
Senior administration officials, who would not communicate publicly about inner negotiations over the sanctions, say no recommendation on acting against the central bank has gone to Mr. Obama, who vowed last week to make sure Iran would encounter the “toughest sanctions” for what he explained was its role in the sensational scheme to employ a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi envoy.
The choice to press the International Atomic Energy Agency was brewing even ahead of the plot in opposition to the Saudi ambassador was uncovered, but that discovery prompted the White House to go after a complete-court, public press of the agency to release the hypersensitive intelligence.
Officers familiar with the evidence say it generates terribly unpleasant inquiries for the Iranians to answer, but does not definitively point to the building of a weapon.
Sources and more information:
By HUGH CORTAZZI LONDON - The recent assault on the British Embassy in Tehran, which the Iranian authorities did nothing to stop until it was too late, led to the rupture of diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran. All British diplomats were withdrawn from Tehran and Iranian diplomats were expelled from London.
Share: House backs tough sanctions on Iran The House on Wednesday endorsed harsher sanctions on Iran as it seeks to weaken Tehran economically and derail its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Start the conversation WASHINGTON - The House on Wednesday endorsed harsher sanctions on Iran as it seeks to weaken Tehran economically and derail its pursuit...
( via nytimes.com )
No comments yet. | <urn:uuid:0c9b874d-cd4f-41b3-b074-644a68c8c6dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.disclose.tv/news/To_Isolate_Iran_US_Presses_Inspectors_on_Nuclear_Data/83342 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962367 | 769 | 1.757813 | 2 |
We performed a site update on April 16, 2013. Please let the admin know if you User_talk:Admin#APRIL_16.2C_2013 encounter any issues. All updates have been performed.
From BR Bullpen
Thomas David Henrich
(The Clutch or Old Reliable)
- Bats Left, Throws Left
- Height 6' 0", Weight 180 lb.
- Debut May 11, 1937
- Final Game October 1, 1950
- Born February 20, 1913 in Massillon, OH USA
- Died December 1, 2009 in Beavercreek, OH USA
Biographical Information
"Tommy was a terrific player. What made him so special was that he always played well in big games. It seemed like he never made any mistakes in the outfield. He was a true professional and an ultimate Yankee." - Bobby Brown
"Catching a flyball is a pleasure, but knowing what to do with it after you catch it is a business." - Tommy Henrich
Tommy Henrich was part of one of the greatest outfields of all time, along with Joe DiMaggio and Charlie Keller. He spent his entire big league career with the New York Yankees and played on six World Series winning clubs. Nicknamed "Old Reliable", he was known for his clutch hitting and steady defense.
Originally signed by the Cleveland Indians, Henrich never hit below .300 in the minors and showed power at the plate. After batting .346 for the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association in 1936, he appeared in line to join the major league club. However, the Indians instead sold his contract to the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association, allegedly because the club regarded Jeff Heath as a better prospect. Rather than go to Milwaukee, he and his father wrote to Commissioner Kenesaw Landis, stating their belief that the Indians were denying him a chance to reach the majors. Landis ruled in his favor and declared Henrich a free agent. He ultimately signed with the Yankees for a $25,000 bonus.
Following a brief stint with the Newark Bears, Henrich reached the majors for good with the Yankees in 1937 and hit .320 in 67 games as a rookie. By the 1940s, he was part of an outfield that consisted of Joe DiMaggio and Charlie Keller, and he hit a career-high 31 home runs in 1941. In Game Four of the 1941 World Series with his club trailing the Brooklyn Dodgers, he struck out in the bottom of the ninth against pitcher Hugh Casey. However, Dodger catcher Mickey Owen dropped the ball, Henrich ran to first, and his team went on to win the game and the series.
After missing three seasons while serving in the Coast Guard during World War II, Henrich returned to the Yankees in 1946. The next year, he made the All-Star team for the first of four straight seasons and led the American League with 13 triples, while his team went on to win another World Series crown. In 1948, he had perhaps his best year at age 35, again leading the AL in triples, with 14, while also pacing the circuit with 138 runs scored and out-slugging every one of his teammates except DiMaggio. With DiMaggio slowed by injury at the start of the next season, Henrich picked up the slack, and the team ultimately won another pennant. In the World Series against the Dodgers that fall, he hit a game-winning home run off Don Newcombe in the ninth inning of Game One, the first walkoff shot in Fall Classic history. The 1950 campaign was his last as a player, and he hit .272 and slugged over .500 as a part-timer.
Henrich played 11 seasons in the majors and hit one home run in each of the four World Series he appeared in. He had a strong lifetime OPS+ of 132, never falling under 100 in that category in his entire career.
"Tommy was a darn good ballplayer and teammate. He always took being a Yankee to heart. He won a lot of championships and did whatever he could to help us win." - Yogi Berra
Henrich died in 2009 at age 96 after a series of strokes. At the time of his death, he was the fifth oldest living former Major Leaguer and the oldest living Yankee.
Notable Achievements
- 5-time AL All-Star (1942, 1947, 1948, 1949 & 1950)
- AL Runs Scored Leader (1948)
- 2-time AL Triples Leader (1947 & 1948)
- 20-Home Run Seasons: 4 (1938, 1941, 1948 & 1949)
- 30-Home Run Seasons: 1 (1941)
- 100 RBI Seasons: 1 (1948)
- 100 Runs Scored Seasons: 4 (1938, 1941, 1947 & 1948)
- Won six World Series with the New York Yankees (1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1947 & 1949; he did not play in the 1937 and 1939 World Series)
Further Reading
- Tommy Henrich (as told to George Vass): "The Game I'll Never Forget", Baseball Digest, January 1972, pp. 67-69.
- Tommy Henrich and Bill Gilbert: Five O'Clock Lightning: Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle and the Glory Years of the Ny Yankees, Birch Lane Press, New York, NY, 1992. ISBN 1559721014 | <urn:uuid:843680a1-f6b0-468d-a611-c2c0f95005f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Tommy%20Henrich | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972225 | 1,132 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The village of Fredonia has a decision to make about whether or not to accept $1.3 million in grant money, which will not come without a financial commitment from the village.
Lieutenant Randall Butts spoke to the board at a workshop meeting Monday night and explained a grant for which he has applied on behalf of the department was approved this week. The grant, provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is called the SAFER grant, or Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response. Butts said he has submitted applications for many years for the grant, but this is the first year it has been accepted by FEMA.
The grant provides for wages and benefits only for fire departments to have 24-hour coverage with at least two paid firefighters on duty at all times, to comply with National Fire Protection Agency standards. In Fredonia, this means nine firefighters would be hired in addition to the current staff of six full-time and two part-time firefighters.
If the grant is accepted by the board, the fire department must have hired nine new firefighters to be ready to begin by May 1. The grant money would pay for wages and benefits for two years, but not training or personal protective devices.
Butts told the board the cost of PPD for each firefighter would cost $2,500 per firefighter, or a total of $22,500. The cost of training would be unknown until candidates were being considered, assuming some have a degree of prior training. Butts said he estimates the highest cost of training, if all new hires had no prior training at all, would be $4,000 per person.
"I would rather come back to you and say, 'This is how much money I saved you,' rather than me coming back and begging for more money," Butts explained. The total amount he estimated and submitted to the village for all costs associated with the hiring of nine firefighters is $63,000.
"Does it have to be nine?" Trustee Thomas Brown II asked. "Yes," Butts replied, "it has to be nine."
Concerns were raised about whether the village would be able to keep the firefighters after the two-year grant runs out or if the nine new hires would have to be laid off. Butts said the city of Salamanca laid off a number of firefighters after a series of grants ran out.
New hires would also be subject to civil service laws and contracts negotiated by the union. Trustee Adam Brown noted a "conflict of interest between the village and the union" if, after two years, the grant is not renewed and no funds are generated and allocated to continue to pay for nine firefighters. It was also noted by Village Administrator Rick St. George contract terms may increase the rate of pay for each after two years, and contract negotiations in the next two years may alter any projected costs.
Volunteer Chief Kurt Maytum said there may be a way to pay for the wages and benefits through charges from ambulance services. Currently, the village can't bill insurance companies for ambulance services provided by the village because of regulations regarding volunteers, which cannot be on calls for which the village bills. If the department has full-time paid staff, the village is in a better position to charge insurance providers for the calls, which Maytum suggested could help pay for the wages.
Butts suggested there might be a way to pay for at least some of the firefighters to stay employed. "Maybe you only lay off three instead of all nine," he said.
When asked by the OBSERVER if additional costs would be incurred from unemployment benefits if employees were laid off in two years, both St. George and Mayor Stephen Keefe said there would be costs associated with unemployment. Keefe added union contract requirements regarding callbacks to work would also be in effect.
"What is good about this is we have two years to figure out how to maintain the nine employees," Butts stated, and noted calls to the department have been steadily increasing over the year, up by 34 percent in the last ten years. Many of the calls are for emergency medical services, which he said alone have increased by 47 percent. He explained calls often come back to back, requiring personnel to leave the station for one call as soon as they return from another. He added overtime costs may be reduced by the new employees.
"The longer someone has been (an employee), the more time off they have," he said, so more employees would be able to cover vacation, sick and personal time, possibly without incurring overtime costs.
The board said it would need time to discuss the grant terms and calculate the costs before rendering a decision.
Comments on this article may be sent to email@example.com | <urn:uuid:8900f1bd-789a-420c-b130-fa1605314ab2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/581530/Grant-has-strings-attached.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982674 | 975 | 1.554688 | 2 |
We just got the word that John Grade, the installation artist who is creating the setting for Ekho, Christopher Stowell’s world premiere that is the centerpiece of our Body Beautiful program in October, will be working on another Portland-based installation project that sounds amazing!
This time, he’ll be working with PICA’s Time Based Art Project and the City of Portland to create a work that is inspired by, and in part created with the participation of, Portland’s waste water systems. Here’s the details:
Meanwhile in Seattle, he is in the process of installing a work in the Museum of History and Industry made out timbers from a deconstructed shipwreck. You can read the recent Seattle Times article about this project here.
(Here is John Grade with the salvaged timber that will become the Seattle installation. photo by Alan Berner/Seattle Times)
So what will this fascinating artist be creating for OBT? Well, with the help of 300 Portland area volunteers, he will be building hanging paper trees that look something like this:
This image is from an installation called The Elephant Bed, and these hanging items were made out of a special dissolving paper that absorbed the ink puddled on the floor just beneath them. The structures were ultimately brought from the exhibit site to the English Channel and allowed to disintegrate into the ocean, symbolically reversing the process that microscopic ocean polyps go through when they die and build up to ultimately become the white cliffs of Dover. HOW COOL IS THAT?
The hanging elements of our installation will be made out of Tyvek (the house wrap material), which is less flammable than paper (always an important consideration in a theater!) It will also have a less pronounced polyp like shape, designed to evoke tree-forms rather than ocean forms. Christopher and John are playing around with the idea that our dancers may engage physically with the pieces during the choreography, perhaps fitting inside of them or setting them swinging. Grade mentioned in a recent production meeting that he had always wanted for his artwork to dance… and to have people dance with it.
Most importantly, it will be constructed with the help of volunteers from around Portland, who will assemble the basic elements of the installation with the assistance of our technical staff. Imagine the world’s largest origami project and you’ve got the general idea.
The installation is being created for a piece by Christopher called Ekho, that is based on the Narcissus and Echo myth, a particularly apropo centerpiece for a program entitled Body Beautiful.
Want to volunteer? Contact Paul Stavish at firstname.lastname@example.org.
More about Body Beautiful | Tickets on sale September 5th | <urn:uuid:1fbe171d-d868-4c03-aa2a-a3fc06925724> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oregonballettheatre.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/two-more-facsinating-nw-john-grade-projects/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95718 | 564 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The Mercury Policy Project (MPP) works to promote policies to eliminate mercury uses, reduce the export and trafficking of mercury, and significantly reduce mercury exposures at the local, national, and international levels. We strive to work harmoniously with other groups and individuals who have similar goals and interests.
Website URL: http://mercurypolicy.org/
A European Commission study recommends phasing out dental amalgam use in the next five years. The BIOS report noted that mercury-free fillings appear more expensive than amalgam because the negative external costs associated with management of amalgam waste and effluents are not factored into the market price.
Mercuryexposure.info was created and is maintained by consumers injured from exposure to mercury vapor and particles released by their dental amalgam fillings during placement, polishing, removal and day to day use. We are dedicated to providing accurate, up to date information on the many facets of dental mercury amalgam fillings. | <urn:uuid:c621d436-33ac-48fb-9c62-5188d4c114e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mercuryexposure.info/scandals/world-health-organization/itemlist/user/213-mercurypolicyproject | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939702 | 197 | 1.84375 | 2 |
You might want to think twice before whipping out your credit card. As of Sunday, stores in most states could start charging you a "checkout fee" when you pay for something with plastic.
The new fees stem from a multi-billion dollar settlement announced in July between credit card issuers and millions of merchants.
Visa, MasterCard and nine major banks agreed to a $7.25 billion deal to settle charges that they were fixing credit card processing fees. As part of the settlement, credit card issuers said they would reduce these "swipe fees" -- fees paid by merchants to issuers when cards are used -- but only for eight months.
In addition, the settlement also gave retailers the option to tack on a surcharge if a customer uses a credit card. The retailer can only charge enough to cover the processing costs, which is about 1.5% to 3% of the total purchase, according to watchdog group Consumer Action.
This fee doesn't apply to purchases made using debit cards. And it will still be illegal to charge the new fee in 10 states, including New York, California and Texas.
Many big players in the retail industry have been up in arms about the settlement. Stores from the nation's largest retailer down to small businesses have lamented the agreement, claiming that it transferred the wrongdoings of credit card issuers to the consumer.
In November, the National Retail Federation and more than a dozen retailers asked a judge to reject the proposed settlement. In a brief submitted to a U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., the trade organization wrote that the new fees threaten a merchant's ability to keep prices low for customers.
Wal-Mart, Macy's, JCPenney, Limited Brands, Gap Inc. and The Neiman Marcus Group were among those who joined the NRF in claiming that "raising consumer prices by adding an 'interchange tax' is no remedy for Visa's and MasterCard's continuing monopoly abuse."
In a separate statement, Wal-Mart said that it would cost consumers "tens of billions of dollars each year." Target called the agreement "bad for both retailers and consumers."
Merchants have a choice as to whether to implement the surcharge, but it poses quite a dilemma for them: Either get stuck footing the bill for the swipe fees, or risk transferring the cost to customers in an already competitive environment.
Last summer, Target said it had no interest in charging customers who use credit cards more "in order to allow Visa and MasterCard to continue charging unfair fees."
Smaller merchants echoed these concerns over the deal, saying it doesn't go far enough.
MasterCard said it doesn't expect most merchants to put the surcharge into effect, since stores won't want to drive away business.
"We anticipate that they will not impose checkout fees, particularly because the value merchants derive from card acceptance far exceeds their costs," the credit card company said in a statement.
Wednesday, June 19 2013 12:31 PM EDT2013-06-19 16:31:23 GMT
HOT SPRINGS - A 1997 Ford pickup was pulling a Buick Park Avenue on a utility trailer eastbound on Albert Pike Road Tuesday afternoon when the car came off the trailer and flipped upside down.More >>
HOT SPRINGS - A 1997 Ford pickup was pulling a Buick Park Avenue on a utility trailer eastbound on Albert Pike Road Tuesday afternoon when the car came off the trailer and flipped upside down near the entrance to the Atrium Retirement Community.More >>
Wednesday, June 19 2013 10:25 AM EDT2013-06-19 14:25:43 GMT
CONWAY (Log Cabin Democrat) - A monkey made its way through parts of Conway for a short time Tuesday afternoon after escaping from a veterinarian clinic. Conway Police were able to track down the monkeyMore >>
A monkey escapes from a vet for a short time in Conway. More >>
Tuesday, June 18 2013 3:28 PM EDT2013-06-18 19:28:42 GMT
Catholic High is undergoing some upgrades this summer. Demolition is going on in the hallways to make for new technology. Principal Steve Straessle said while there's no replacement for good teachingMore >>
Construction crews are adding new windows and doors as well as demolishing some of the hallways to make way for new technology.
Bob and Barbara Schmidt dashed to their home on a dirt road in a heavily wooded area northeast of Colorado Springs as smoke from what would become the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history filled the air.More >>
A new wildfire in the foothills southwest of Denver forced the evacuation of dozens of homes Wednesday as hot and windy conditions in much of Colorado and elsewhere in the West made it easy for fires to start and spread.More >> | <urn:uuid:de397db2-6cdd-4012-bed6-392a0474f78d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.katv.com/story/20753312/wal-mart-says-it-will-not-surcharge-customers-for-using-credit-cards | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959384 | 979 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Happy Mother's Day!!
I hope all you mothers do something for yourselves today.
My first graders and I finished a poetry unit this week and will celebrate our poetry during our spring family night this week. With the craziness of life (in and out of the classroom), I began to question myself towards the end of this poetry unit. I started to wonder, did I teach them anything? Did my conferring help kids dig deeper? Did I use mentor texts that were simple enough for kids to begin to enjoy and find ideas for their own poetry? Were my mini lessons on track with what most kids needed from day to day? (I could go on with the questions.) Feeling frantic, I opened their workshop folders and began to read and dig deeper into the creating they had done over the past few weeks and then... I began to smile. Really, they had, and most of their best work as poets came when I wasn't hovering over them worried about what they were or weren't getting. Their best pieces came when I let them go.
Maeve found inspiration from a poem in a collection of poetry edited by Georgia Heard called Falling Down the Page. The poem Maeve connected with was called On the Menu for School Today. She wrote a poem called On the List For the Weekend and I think I am hoping you get a chance to read it and do something you want to do today!! | <urn:uuid:0db646dc-9d63-49f7-a95a-efda26a9c2ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://creativeliteracy.blogspot.jp/2011/05/on-list-for-weekend.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988215 | 285 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Silent Path to Foreclosure
“Don’t tell God how big your problem is, tell your problem how big your God is.”
United Methodist Women member Dianna Woodlon used these words to get through one of the most trying times of her life. When response first spoke to Ms. Woodlon, she was trying to figure out how she would pay her mortgage (See January 2009 response). After taking what turned out to be not so great advice from a trusted source, Ms. Woodlon found herself in a place she had never imagined: facing home foreclosure.
Like many other Americans, Ms. Woodlon was left with a ton of debt and no way to pay after refinancing her home with an adjustable rate mortgage that only adjusted up, as it was packaged with similar loans and sold to investors around the world in a process that enriched the coffers of many banks, mortgage companies and hedge-fund managers before a domino effect in defaults triggered the largest economic crisis in the United States since the Great Depression. Even after receiving generous donations and a slew of advice from members of her unit and congregation at Locus United Methodist Church in Columbia, Md., she did not have enough money to keep up with the mortgage payments. Hidden fees, fine print and undisclosed information left the widowed, single mother stuck.
Ms. Woodlon was also faced with the pressures of explaining to her children what was happening. At first, she chose to “internalize” the issues surrounding her financial problems in order to protect her children. “I didn’t want them to worry,” she said. The cover came off when Ms. Woodlon and her children faced the gut-wrenching reality that her daughter’s college plans had to be deferred for lack of funds.
She had only one thing left to rely on: her God.
“I had to trust God would see me through whatever storm I’m going through,” she said.
Through lots of prayer, Ms. Woodlon was able to be honest with herself and realize she couldn’t keep silent about her financial problems. She began therapy sessions, did numerous hours of research and contacted her mortgage lender to find out her options. It was through research and questioning her lender that Ms. Woodlon learned about President Obama’s loan modification program. Throuogh the program, a set amount of federal money goes toward her mortgage each month, which has played a huge role in keeping her afloat.
While not completely out of the woods, Ms. Woodlon has found that through watching her budget and saving as much as possible she is in a much better place now. She tighted her purse strings, tapped her good old-fashioned work ethic and hit the pavement in search of a second job. Now, in addition to working in the school system, she has a part-time job to help cover the bills.
Ms. Woodlon has hard-learned lessons for families going through her experience:
- Do your homework. Research and contact your lender — no matter how many calls it takes.
- Watch out for scams. Ms. Woodlon ran into a number of scam artists whose goals at the end of the day were to make money.
- Trust God and talk. Ms. Woodlon said by letting the Holy Spirit come in and help her be honest with herself, she was able to talk about her situation and find help. Had she continued to keep her financial problems to herself, there is no telling what position she would be in now.
Ms. Woodlon also has a word of advice for young women just beginning their adult life: “Reevaluate your budget, invest, save and have hope.”
Quianna Nicole Stokes is a freelance writer in New York City. | <urn:uuid:ce0f84f4-620a-4a5c-abd3-1504539878e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umw/response/articles/item/index.cfm?id=299 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985118 | 783 | 1.546875 | 2 |
My Air Force Mom
Author: Mary Lee
Publisher: Tate Publishing & Enterprises (2007)
Binding: Paperback, 16 pages
A winner in the Children's Fiction Category of the 73rd Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition, My Air Force Mom is unique. This picture book explores customs and courtesies of military culture through a child's eyes. Author Mary Lee takes your child along with her fictional character Susie on a journey of discovery. From military uniforms through a military child's 'rite of passage' full circle to Susie's development of a sense of pride and patriotism in our country. My Air Force Mom shows children that the military offers careers to women as well as men. It gives military moms and dads a book to help their young children begin to understand military life. My Air Force Mom gives civilian parents a tool to explain mysteries of military life to their children. Answers to a child's curiosity are found in My Air Force Mom."
Written from the point of view of an eight-year-old girl, this award-winning book depicts family life on a U.S. Air Force Base. Susie tells us, "When I grow up, I want to be in the Air Force just like my mom." She describes her mother's uniform, ribbons, ID card, and the meaning of the military salute. She is proud of her mother and, therefore, has decided to join the Air Force when she grows up. Ten pages in all, this is a quick read for children with colorful illustrations to hold attention. Military libraries with children's collections should acquire. Buyers of the book can also get a free audio book download from the publisher's web site.
Reviewed by: Richard Barone (2010) | <urn:uuid:0f928d57-9582-4f72-8e87-53de3817dfd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mwsadispatches.com/node/594 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952392 | 352 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Every weekday I drive my children to school for several reasons. Most importantly, I have their full attention for the few minutes it takes to make the drive. We talk about the upcoming day, “Do you have tests?”, “Good Luck”, “Are you staying after school?”, “What time?”, “Is that kid still bothering you?”, “Are you bothering him?”, “Ignore them”, “Listen to your teachers”, “to make good friends be a good friend”, etc. I get to coach them, we set intentions and they listen.
Sometimes we sing and talk. They each get to pick one song and music gets us in a good mindset to start the day, especially if it’s one of our favorites.
Recently, we have been listening to the original soundtrack of Man of La Mancha with Richard Kiley and we are strangely addicted to the music, lyrics and synergy. It is as if we all take on the day as Don Quixote and Sancho. We sing with gusto and animated gestures through our favorite tracks. It juices us and we are pumped, getting us through the lags of the days with purpose and pride. My daughter usually asks me if I am crying yet when the “Impossible Dream” comes on. I always am indignant and say “No!” until I start crying and high five her. She smiles. This is the best morning booster, anytime really, and I love that I am teaching my children that even if it seems foolish, do the right thing, even if people make fun of you for it. Be kind and “right all wrongs”. My favorite lines “My destiny calls and I go, and the wild winds of fortune will carry me onward, whithersoever they blow,..onward to glory I go!” Whithersoever indeed! | <urn:uuid:fab1a3c6-f4b2-4928-9334-7e5ae40c79b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://peaceofmindcoach.com/wordpress/?p=215 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954793 | 411 | 1.570313 | 2 |
To mark the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of 2012, this year’s British Military Tournament will cover the "life and times" of Queen Elizabeth II, starting with the events of 1926 (the year the Queen was born) and finishing with the current-day military engagement in Afghanistan.
The event is described as the largest display of military theatre anywhere in the world and will include:
More than 600 participants (including active servicemen) and 150 horses.
The bands of the Royal Marines, the Household Cavalry, the Royal Artillery and the Royal Air Force.
The horses of the Household Cavalry competing with the motorcycles of the Royal Signals’ White Helmets over an obstacle course which includes jumps and flaming hoops.
A battle re-enactment featuring the Royal Logistic Corps in a dramatic bomb disposal in Afghanistan.
The largest massed bagpipe band seen at Earls Court since the Second World War.
While the rest of the capital was sleeping, hundreds of soldiers rode on horseback through the streets of London to rehearse the State Procession for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
Members of The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment rode at dawn from the Palace of Westminster along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, then through Admiralty Arch and along the Mall to Buckingham Palace.
The route was lined with personnel from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, Foot Guards and Massed Bands of the Household Division, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment and the Queen's Colour Squadron of the Royal Air Force. In total, some 2,000 servicemen and women took part in the rehearsal.
Thousands of flag-waving well-wishers are expected to turn out for Tuesday's spectacle.
Crowds gather for Diamond Jubilee Armed Forces parade
More than 2,500 troops - sailors, soldiers and Royal Air Force personnel from nearly all areas of the Armed Forces - will parade before the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh through Windsor today. They will be joined by a tri-Service Guard of Honour for Her Majesty, and six military bands. | <urn:uuid:068a60a9-85ba-4c31-9c86-ebd413277f43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.itv.com/news/london/topic/armed-forces/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945136 | 422 | 1.773438 | 2 |
“Charly is an adult male with a cognitive disability struggling to survive in the modern world. His frequent attempts at learning, reading and writing prove difficult. His teacher, Miss Kinian, takes Charly to the clinic where he is observed by doctors who have Charly ‘race’ a mouse, Algernon. Algernon is usually the winner thanks to an experiment that greatly raised his intelligence. This experiment is given to Charly, who at first does not seem affected. However, he becomes more logically advanced, eventually becoming a pure genius. Emotional and intra-personal consequences are involved when Charly learns the truth of the experiment, and struggles with whether or not the procedure was a good idea.” (courtesy IMDB)
The best science fiction films of the sixties – apart from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – were the quiet ones not set in the future or in space, like Charly (1968) directed efficiently but without charm by Ralph Nelson, scripted by Stirling Siliphant and based on the award-winning novella (which was later expanded into a full novel) by Daniel Keyes entitled Flowers For Algernon. The story of the film follows the original quite closely, and tells of a mentally-retarded floor-sweeper who becomes the subject of a scientific experiment designed to increase intelligence, an experiment that has already been carried out on a mouse named Algernon, apparently successfully.
Most actors would jump at the chance to play a character who, within the time-span of one film, ranges from a subnormal thirty-year-old to a super-genius and then back again to subnormal. Cliff Robertson did more than jump at the chance. He formed his own production company and, after various setbacks, succeeded in obtaining the necessary finance to make the film. It was a gamble that paid off in more ways than one, and his performance as Charly won him an Oscar that year. Robertson’s best roles can be found in such films as PT-109 (1963), 633 Squadron (1964), The Honey Pot (1967), Too Late The Hero (1970), Obsession (1976), Class (1983), Brainstorm (1983), Escape From LA (1996) and Spider-Man (2002).
Cliff Robertson could also be found on the small-screen in Rod Brown Of The Rocket Rangers, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone and Batman. When he’s not acting up a storm, Cliff relaxes by collecting vintage fighter aircraft, including a Messerschmitt BF-108, a Supermarine Spitfire, and several Tiger Moths, and was given the Good Will Aviation Award by the National Transportation Safety Association. As usual, he gives an intelligent and sensitive performance in Charly as a man with the mind of a child slowly coming to full adult life and knowledge, as well as falling in love with his doctor (Claire Bloom).
Apart from being an effective showcase of an actor’s talents, the film also retains some of the evocative pathos of the original story. The main interest of the story is that the operation turns out to be only a temporary success and Charly, now a genius, has to come face-to-face with the fact that all he has gained will be lost again. His moment of realisation is certainly touching and there is a horrible fascination in watching his IQ being slowly stripped away, but it may be because the original story was never quite as good as the claims made for it. Certainly, blown up for the big screen, its elements of sentimentality seem a little over-inflated, and are milked for all they’re worth.
This mainly due to the rather wooden direction of Ralph Nelson, whose best work could be found on television. He served as Production Manager on The Twilight Zone and directed the acclaimed episode A World Of His Own. Not only did he direct both the television and film versions of Rod Serling‘s Requiem For A Heavyweight (1956 & 1962), he also directed the made-for-TV movie about the making of Requiem For A Heavyweight entitled The Man In The Funny Suit (1960). He then moved to the big screen with Lilies Of The Field (1963), Tick Tick Tick (1970), Soldier Blue (1970), The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) and Embryo (1976). He returned to television in the late seventies with a string of mediocre made-for-TV movies before passing away in 1987.
It’s certainly not the fault of the faithful screenplay by Stirling Silliphant, who is probably best known for adapting In The Heat Of The Night (1967) and writing a number of Irwin Allen blockbusters including The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Swarm (1978) and When Time Ran Out (1980). In the case of The Towering Inferno, Silliphant was tasked with blending two entirely unrelated novels (The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas Scortia) into a single screenplay. Silliphant is also remembered for his now-infamous bet with Hal Warren on whether Warren could make a successful horror film on a limited budget, which resulted in one of the worst films ever made, Manos The Hands Of Fate (1966).
Charly is a self-conscious contemporary drama, and is probably the first ever to exploit mental retardation for the bittersweet romance of it. For all of its earnestness, the audience are forced into the vaguely unpleasant position of being voyeurs, congratulating ourselves for not being Charly as often as we feel a distant pity for him. But for all the easy manipulation of an audience’s ready sympathies, this very likable though rather stiff film does have something serious, if not profound, to say about human intelligence and emotion, and the way they’re linked. After decades in which science fiction films mostly meant monsters, Charly was a very definite step in the direction of relative maturity. It’s with this thought in mind I’ll politely ask you to please join me next week when I fish-out more celluloid slop from the wheelie-bin behind Fox Studios and force-feed it to you without a spoon, all in the name of art for…Horror News. Toodles! | <urn:uuid:29117a4a-fbf7-4a8c-94bd-96851cbbb212> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://horrornews.net/66575/film-review-charly-1968/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961154 | 1,312 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Social Software Predictions on BI, Smartphones, IT
Indeed, companies with broad social networking platforms, such as IBM, Socialtext and Mindtouch, have added their own Twitter pixie dust into their suites. That is to say, these companies long ago realized they needed to make microblogging an intrinsic part of their platforms, providing security the public-facing Twitter can't. Gartner provided a sobering thought: Whether companies add microblogging tools or comprehensive social software suites such as IBM's Lotus Connections, more than 70 percent of social media plans facilitated by IT departments will fail through 2012.These plans need to be driven by business managers, with enterprises cultivating new skill sets developed around social media software. Until this happens, failure rates will remain high.In another prediction, Gartner said only 25 percent of enterprises will use social network analysis to improve performance and productivity of their social media solutions. Social network analysis, a sort of business intelligence for social software, is being adopted by some businesses. Jive Software acquired Filtrbox to gain these insight technologies, while Socialcast, Attensity and others are offering social BI. IBM is integrating business intelligence from its Cognos platform into Lotus Connections, a combination that will form the core of its Project Vulcan effort. But Gartner believes that users may be reluctant to provide accurate responses to surveys because they may resent knowing that software is analyzing their behavior. "For these reasons, social network analysis will remain an untapped source of insight in most organizations," Gartner said. Finally, some good news for people who use smartphones for work: Using newfangled collaboration apps should be second nature. Gartner said 70 percent of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from collaboration applications built for smartphones. With 3 billion phones in the world, some users will grow up using their iPhones or Android devices to communicate or collaborate with friends and colleagues. This means with such devices people will be better equipped to handle conversations within a given amount of time than with their PCs simply because they are easier to use. | <urn:uuid:06890723-3ac8-478f-8b98-00ea4f866a48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Facebook-Twitter-Trigger-Enterprise-Social-Software-Use-770261/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938025 | 422 | 1.789063 | 2 |
item sold out continue shopping
In this set, a young girl recounts the brave exploits of her female ancestors and a biography explores the role of an outstanding black educator during the years following the Civil War. Plus, one hundred women who have helped shape America are vividly rendered in an artfully illustrated book.
Seven Brave Women
Mary McLeod Bethune
Remember the Ladies
We offer such amazing discounts because we don't house any inventory after our sales end and therefore cannot process returns. However, we want you to be delighted and would never expect you to pay for a damaged or defective product. Please contact us if you run into any problems and we will be sure to make it right.
We work with thousands of different brands, and coordinating delivery from so many sources requires a little bit of extra care and time. When you order, the brand ships your item to us first, so we can inspect the quality. We also gather all your items into one package to keep the shipping cost low. That's one way we're able to offer such great deals! | <urn:uuid:e7d35fd7-18f5-439a-9814-0e6321205ec9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zulily.com/p/womens-history-bundle-46485-3257992.html?pos=ymal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949013 | 213 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Moraga Avenue will remain closed until Saturday afternoon in the wake of a landslide and downed power lines and trees, Piedmont City Clerk John Tulloch said late Friday afternoon.
"The city cannot remove the debris from Moraga Avenue until the slope above the street is stabilized," Tulloch said in a press release.
"As the slide came from private property, the City Engineer is coordinating with the property owner to minimize the possibility of additional debris falling on to Moraga Avenue as well as limiting as much as possible damage to private property.
"Once the hillside is stabilized and the City has determined that no further damage is likely to occur by the removal of the debris, the roadway will be cleared and reopened."
Moraga Avenue is closed along Blair Park, from Red Rock Road (by Coaches Field) to the city limits, east of the intersection of Moraga and Maxwelton Road.
PG&E expected to have power restored to 55 nearby households by late afternoon or early evening Friday.
The mudslide happened about 7 a.m. Friday at 3 Maxwelton Rd., opposite Blair Park.
Fueled by heavy overnight rains, the slide spread from the canyon's north side across the roadway, Tulloch said.
PG&E spokespoerson Tamar Sarkissian said the mudslide brought down a tree which landed in PG&E power lines. While the lines remained intact, the impact snapped two sets of crossarms that hold the lines at the top of the power pole and also damaged a transformer, she said. The power pole itself remained intact, Sarkissian said.
Tulloch said it took longer than anticipated to de-energize the power lines and remove the trees and other plant debris that were dislodged as a result of the slide.
The clearing process was made more difficult by the grade of the slope and the electrical, telephone and cable wires that remained in place, he said. | <urn:uuid:d0fe2ca5-db0e-495c-848a-bb4020a1bfc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://piedmont.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/moraga-avenue-to-remain-closed-overnight-6833405e | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972415 | 403 | 1.5 | 2 |
Udall introduces bill to ensure that Americans cannot be held indefinitely without charges
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Today, Senator Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, announced that he has joined Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein in introducing the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011, to clarify that American citizens apprehended inside the United States cannot be indefinitely detained by the military.
The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, passed earlier this week with the support of President Obama would authorize the indefinite incarceration of terrorism suspects without trial or formal charges, including those suspects who are American citizens. Protests over the bill, and this provision, in section 1031, have already begun around the country.
Udall, who voted for the bill, which passed in final form Thursday, has fought this provision from the beginning, but said he voted for the bill anyway because the spending authorization was vital to the nation’s interest.
Udall said in a press release that The Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011 is a response to the detention provision passed Thursday as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which could be interpreted to allow American citizens to be detained indefinitely without trial. Udall opposed that provision and fought to remove it from the authorization bill.
The Due Process Guarantee Act amends the Non-Detention Act of 1971 by providing that a congressional authorization for the use of military force does not authorize the indefinite detention – without charge or trial – of U.S. citizens. The bill also codifies a “clear-statement rule” that requires Congress to expressly authorize detention authority over U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The protections are limited to those “apprehended in the United States” and exclude citizens who take up arms against the United States on a foreign battlefield, such as Afghanistan.
“There are American citizens who have collaborated with our enemies and participated in attacks against our soldiers and civilians; those traitors should be dealt with,” Udall said in the press release. “But even in our darkest hours, we must ensure that our Constitution prevails. We do ourselves a grave disservice by allowing for any citizen to be locked up indefinitely without trial – no matter how serious the charges against them. Our national security leadership has even said it could make us less safe. Especially given the provisions in the 2012 defense authorization bill, we must clarify that the law unequivocally does not allow the government to detain Americans indefinitely on U.S. soil without trial or charge. And that is the purpose behind this new legislation.”
The Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011 is also co-sponsored by senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
Udall’s concerns with the bill have been steadfast. He made the following statement right after the original vote early this month.
“Tonight, I cast my vote with extremely serious reservations, given my grave concerns about the provisions in this bill regarding military detention. Troubling questions have been raised by the Pentagon and the directors of national intelligence, the FBI and the CIA about how this new policy will impact our ability to track down, capture and bring terrorists to justice. I continue to oppose these provisions.
“After weighing all of the possible options, I decided to vote yes on the overall bill. As a member of the conference committee, I will continue to fight for a consensus that will protect our national security and the constitutional principles on which our nation was founded. The rest of this bill is vitally important to our military. I couldn’t in good conscience vote against legislation that means so much to Colorado and our men and women in uniform fighting in two wars.”
When his initial efforts to fix the bill failed, he sent this letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI, on Dec. 9:
The Honorable Carl Levin
Senate Armed Services Committee
Russell Senate Office Building, SR-228
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Levin:
As the House and Senate Armed Services Committees meet to negotiate the final Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act in conference, I urge you to give careful consideration to a number of issues related to the detention provisions contained in the Senate bill that I believe could have significant and damaging impacts on our national security and simultaneously Americans’ constitutional freedoms. Although I have no doubt that the provisions were drafted with the best of intentions, I remain deeply concerned about the potential for unintended consequences that could impede our ability to track, investigate, capture, and exploit terrorism suspects. Therefore, I respectfully ask that you seek to address the following points during the conference negotiations and modify the language of the provisions as needed to protect national security and the constitutional liberties of American citizens.
Authorization for indefinite military detention (Section 1031):
Section 1031 contains a number of provisions that have generated significant criticism from the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, and civil rights organizations. By authorizing the military to conduct operations that have been within the exclusive purview of civilian law enforcement for over 140 years, this section has the potential to create unnecessary challenges and liabilities for the Department of Defense and other agencies.
Although it has been argued that Section 1031 does not change existing law or practices, such assertions are widely disputed by a range of policy experts, as well as senior national security and law enforcement officials. By expanding the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40), this provision effectively declares the United States a part of the battlefield. That expansion, in turn, raises a number of unanswered questions that create a significant likelihood for uncertainty and confusion in the national security community. Given that the Executive Branch already has the flexibility and resources necessary to prosecute the war against extremists, this provision could be counterproductive and ultimately harm our national security.
Section 1031 also could be interpreted as permitting the indefinite detention – without trial – of American citizens arrested in the United States. Such actions would conflict with statutory and Constitutional protections and invite legal challenges that could threaten the prosecution of suspected terrorists. Throughout American history, the government has taken actions that have infringed on civil liberties in an effort to protect the United States from attacks; the hindsight of history has proven many of those actions-such as the internment of Japanese-Americans-to be ineffective and ultimately out of step with American values. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations may endeavor to attack our citizens and infrastructure, but despite their best efforts, they do not have the capability to weaken our principles or limit our freedoms. Congress should endeavor to stand firm in defending that which our enemies seek to destroy rather than enacting legislation that weakens Constitutional protections and limits the ability of our government to use all of the tools at their disposal to fight and defeat our enemies.
Requirement for military detention (Section 1032):
The requirement in Section 1032 of the Senate NDAA to detain certain members of “al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces” in military custody could present numerous unforeseen technical, logistical, and legal challenges for various national security agencies as they work to prevent terrorist attacks. The lessons learned following the events of September 11th, 2001 made it clear that law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community, and the Department of Defense (DOD) were insulated from one another and lacked the ability to effectively share intelligence and collaborate. Over the course of the last decade, interagency cooperation and collaboration has improved markedly, and as a result, has made it possible to prevent further terrorist attacks. By requiring an inflexible course of action that runs contrary to the advice of our counterterrorism professionals, this provision could significantly impede the efforts of our law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and the Department of Defense as they seek to make split-second decisions and keep us safe.
I understand that the national security waiver in Section 1032 is intended to provide the executive branch with the authority to override the requirement for military detention in certain circumstances; however, I believe this only adds an unnecessary and time-consuming bureaucratic process that could lead to costly delays in decision making and execution of necessary actions. The efforts required to combat persistent and unpredictable terrorist threats are simply incompatible with requiring multiple senior Administration officials to certify a national security imperative in order to preserve the current flexibility they effectively enjoy today.
Finally, there are a number of questions raised in Section 1032 that remain unanswered. For example, given the unconventional nature of our enemies, it is unclear what constitutes membership in al Qaeda, what forces are considered to be associated with al Qaeda, what defines a “coalition partner,” or how it can be determined that an individual is a member of such group or has committed a belligerent act-especially within the United States- without trial. At the very least, the lack of clear due process requirements raises serious questions. It is also unclear how the requirements in Section 1032 would affect the transfer of enemy belligerents currently held at detention facilities other than Guantanamo.
More broadly, it is unclear how enacting the provisions in Section 1032 will benefit U.S. national security. Subsection (a) of Section 1031 affirms that “the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force…includes authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain” certain covered persons. In light of the stated intent of the provisions to provide the President with the authority necessary to effectively prosecute actions against al Qaeda and other unspecified terrorist organizations, it seems counterintuitive that the Congress should subsequently mandate actions like those in Section 1032 that effectively tie the hands of the Administration and the national security community.
I have enclosed suggested legislative language that I believe may help to resolve some of the concerns and ambiguity associated with Section 1032. I respectfully ask that you consider this language during your deliberations with conferees. | <urn:uuid:31efcd44-fa5f-4fd6-9ad0-ae5816790c7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coloradoindependent.com/108247/udall-introduces-bill-to-ensure-that-americans-cannot-be-held-indefinitely-without-charges | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946502 | 2,094 | 1.765625 | 2 |
If you’ve ever wanted to step into a room that feels like it goes on into infinity, well, now you can. At Tate Modern in London from February 9 to June 5, 2012, you’ll find a space filled with mirrors and small LED lights, which change color. Infinity Mirror Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life is by famous Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, an 82-year-old woman who has spent most of the last forty years of her life as a voluntary resident in a psychiatric hospital. Telegraph says that soon after “she became a household name, her signature polka dot patterns covering everything from department stores to buses.” (If the name sounds familiar, she was also the one behind The Obliteration Room at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane which we wrote about here.)
This new installation, created specifically for her retrospective at Tate Modern, is the artist’s largest mirrored room to date. Vogue UK describes it as “suspending the viewer in space.”
You can get a preview of the show on Guardian’s website. In addition to a sequence of rooms, the exhibition will feature many of Kasuma’s artworks in various media including painting, sculpture, and film. | <urn:uuid:08ac6820-01b5-49e7-9271-b372b83d50c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://synestheticcalisthenics.tumblr.com/tagged/installation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970965 | 263 | 1.765625 | 2 |
AA president Edmund King said: "With family budgets under the cosh from rising pump prices, it defies all logic for the Government to increase fuel duty.
"Drivers will pay the higher pump prices to go about their daily lives but have to find other ways to reduce costs.
Let’s unpack the ubiquitous one's latest idiocy, shall we?
It’s a bizarre mixed metaphor to talk about a budget being “under the cosh”. To use analogies with violence is particularly stupid, since less car use means less road violence. And needless to say King’s homely reference to “family budgets” excludes all those households which don’t have a car and won’t therefore be affected by a tiny rise in fuel prices.
The underlying thesis is that car use is a necessity, which of course we know it isn’t, not with most car journeys in Britain being less than five miles.
Far from it defying all logic, it makes perfect sense to raise fuel duty. It’s the fairest form of motor taxation, since it hits hardest those who use their cars most. Secondly, it’s fair because it hurts gas guzzlers more than it hurts those with fuel-efficient cars. Thirdly, it hurts the accelerate-and-slam-on-the-brake brigade more than it hurts the careful driver, since how you drive affects how much fuel you use. And finally it makes perfect logic in terms of impending climate catastrophe and the need to restrain car use.
As usual, Edmund King is spouting car supremacist rubbish – but it’s rubbish which all sections of the media are keen to publicise. | <urn:uuid:2e52b181-2090-4bc4-9a47-de58eac78b22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crapwalthamforest.blogspot.com/2009/08/ubiquitous-one-speaks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942531 | 357 | 1.523438 | 2 |
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. | <urn:uuid:4a85e832-f105-4782-a20f-b97b85a725aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://radioteopoli.tumblr.com/tagged/fear/chrono | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971575 | 79 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Chinese gov't think tank lowers 2011 growth to 9.2 pct
Updated: 2011-12-07 20:11
BEIJING - The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a government think tank, on Wednesday lowered its growth forecast of China's GDP for 2011 to 9.2 percent from the previous 9.4 percent.
CASS attributed the growth slowdown to the combination of various factors including a volatile world economic recovery and the country's tight monetary policy.
It expected the country's GDP growth to reach 8.9 percent in 2012 if "there is no significant deterioration in the global economic and political conditions and no serious natural disasters nor other problems at home."
It also projected the country's consumer prices to rise by 4.6 percent in 2012, down from the 5.5 percent it forecast for this year.
In October of this year, CASS issued a report on macro economy, forecasting the country's GDP to rise 9.4 percent year-on-year in 2011.
China's GDP rose 10.4 percent year-on-year in 2010. In the first three quarters of this year, its GDP grew 9.4 percent from one year earlier. | <urn:uuid:bbc36d87-2ef8-48dd-8689-b9b1e3b9cbef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-12/07/content_14229371.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938864 | 244 | 1.648438 | 2 |
11% of mortgages are troubled
More than 1.5 million homes are seriously delinquent and close to foreclosure.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- More than 11% of all mortgages are either delinquent or in foreclosure, according to an industry report released Thursday.
The percentage of borrowers at least one month behind in their mortgage payments - but not in foreclosure - rose to nearly 8% during the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the National Delinquency Report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). This is the highest rate of delinquency ever recorded by the survey, which began in 1972, and reflects a record 13% jump compared to the third quarter.
"Subprime ARM loans and prime ARM loans, which include Alt-A and pay-option ARMs, continue to dominate the delinquency numbers," Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the MBA, said in a prepared statement. "Nationwide, 48% of subprime ARMs were at least one payment past due, and in Florida over 60% of subprime ARMs were at least one payment past due."
The number of homes in the foreclosure process rose to 3.3%, an increase of 0.33 percentage points from the quarter before and up 1.26 percentage points from a year earlier. That represents nearly 1.5 million homes at risk of sliding all the way through foreclosure.
Combined, the number of delinquencies and loans in foreclosure came to 11.18%, the highest ever recorded by the MBA.
And even though the number of loans entering into the foreclosure process remained steady, the number of loans stuck there was particularly high, according to Brinkmann.
"This is mainly attributable to various state and local moratoria on foreclosure sales, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac halt on foreclosure sales announced in late November, a general reluctance by servicers to proceed with evictions in the last few weeks of December and a slowing down caused by an overburdened legal process in some areas," he said.
Because of the moratoria, the number of loans very far past due - 90 days or more - jumped sharply to 3% from 2.2% a quarter earlier. In the past, many of those loans would have been cleared out of the system by lenders completing the foreclosure process.
The Obama administration's new foreclosure prevention program, which includes refinancing options and loan modifications, is another attempt to slow the rate of foreclosures.
The MBA report underscores the need for some foreclosure relief, according to Nicholas Retsinas, director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
"It raises the ante for the Obama plan," he said. "It justifies it, but at the same time it raises the question of whether it's sufficient to solve the problem."
Still, it is unclear how helpful the plan will be, according to Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research.
"Previous foreclosure prevention efforts have had a spotty record," he said, "with many loan modifications simply postponing the inevitable."
Even though delinquencies are still driven by problems with non-traditional mortgage loans, Brinkmann said more fundamental, historic causes of foreclosure are also making an impact.
"The delinquency rates continue to climb across the board for prime fixed-rate and subprime fixed-rate loans - loans whose performance is driven by the loss of jobs or income rather than changes in payments," he said.
Five states - California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Michigan - once again dominated delinquency statistics during the quarter, but the number of loans 90 days late or more also increased significantly in New York, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and Mississippi.
According to Brinkmann, the nation is in for many more months of problem delinquencies. Historically late payments follow a pattern that begins with the economy slowing, which leads to job losses and then to increased delinquencies.
"It's difficult to deal with mortgage issues separately," he said.
He does not project a pick up in the economy until the end of the year, followed by an increase in employment late in 2010 and improvement in delinquency rates some time after that.
Retsinas pointed out that this foreclosure cycle is very different. Most delinquency increases in the past were kicked off by job losses. Not this time, which could have implications for the recovery. | <urn:uuid:a4cb6cd9-1389-4cad-a3e4-3b61912fe4c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/05/real_estate/record_delinquency_rates/index.htm?postversion=2009030511 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964221 | 888 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A bill providing a public subsidy to offshore wind generation received preliminary approval from the House of Delegates Wednesday.
The bill, one of Gov. Martin O'Malley's initiatives for the 2013 Maryland General Assembly session, would add $1.50 to the average consumer's electric bill once the windmills are built and start generating electricity.
The turbines would likely be built 10 to 30 miles off the coast of Ocean City.
The bill was passed despite attempts by Republicans to derail it because of concerns about costs.
The House passed a similar bill last year but it later died in the Senate. The bill is expected to pass the General Assembly this year.
The House of Delegates could schedule a final vote on the legislation as early as Thursday or Friday. | <urn:uuid:60809e13-9c2e-41c5-bfdb-78e3a340ae88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://towson.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/wind-bill-get-preliminary-house-approval | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967035 | 154 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Global Inside Out street art project is on display on Xavier's campus and in the neighborhood
Black and white photographs are part of a large-scale participatory art project
The Inside Out art project may be global, but it’s showing up locally in Xavier’s neighborhood this weekend. A variety of black and white photographs are being displayed at the Evanston Recreation Center, on the Xavier University campus and at selected sites throughout Evanston on Saturday, Oct. 22.
The Inside Out project, created by French street artist JR, is creating a movement in which people stand up for what they care about by contributing to a large-scale, participatory art project. The local project kicks off at 12:30 p.m. at the Evanston Recreation Center. The public is welcome, and admission is free.
This local effort of the global Inside Out Project was introduced by the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) to communities across Greater Cincinnati. The local Evanston-based group is comprised of the Flavor of Art Studios, Xavier University’s Eigel Center for Community-Engaged Learning, and the artist’s collective, Satellite Projects.
“The Contemporary Arts Center is providing an overall umbrella and support system, helping people from Greater Cincinnati take part and have a voice,” explains Raphaela Platow, the center’s Alice & Harris Weston director and chief curator. “By taking this approach and shaping the CAC initiative as we have, our whole region is able to participate in an important way.”
Each community group is self-organized, has created its own statement and has its own unique story to tell.The Evanston group brought together Lt. Colonel Michael Cureton of the Cincinnati Police Department, Anzora Adkins of the Flavor of Art Studios, Sean Rhiney with Xavier University’s Eigel Center, and the Satellite Projects artists Joel Armor, Joe Civitello and Annie Stephens, who recently opened an artist project space in Evanston.
“As a new resident of Evanston, Satellite Projects wants to engage the community where we reside,” said Armour. “We are extremely excited about the relationships we have formed already and look forward to continued engagement within the Evanston Community.”
The group asked participants to think about what they bring to the community. Many included an object in their picture representing their unique voice. Photo subjects include long-time Evanston residents, children, teachers, musicians, community leaders and Xavier students, faculty and staff. Photographs were taken by students at Xavier and by Xavier’s director for photography Greg Rust, John Curley, Alyssa Konerman and Sean Dunn.
“Xavier has a long-standing relationship with Evanston, both as a partner and as one of the important neighborhoods that make up our campus,” says Rhiney. “It’s a natural for us to share this project so we can continue to learn more about one another and foster even greater relationships." | <urn:uuid:155e1891-548a-46c6-ac94-cdb942a14d34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xavier.edu/news/news/9119/1/no | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945163 | 618 | 1.617188 | 2 |
by Stella Fayman on February 21, 2012
This is the conclusion of a series of posts by entrepreneur Pooja Vithlani, creator of Sass Factory, a customizable, paper-doll inspired t-shirt and applique line for girls age 5-12 with an interactive web experience.
Pooja concludes her guest posting series with the last four steps you need to take before launching and after you start a business while holding a 9 to 5 job, then ask five crucial questions during the startup process.
1) Once you have decided on a concept, you need to identify the skills you have versus the skills you need to source. I know I have a range of skills, but I also know what skills I don’t have. I knew I needed graphic designers, web designers, developers and manufacturers.
As I got closer to launch I also needed talent/models, hairstylists, lawyers, photographers, etc. On top of that, I needed all of these skills within my limited budget. I worked with people across the US, as well as companies in China, Malaysia and India to get what I needed done. Many were volunteers – yes, people who asked for NOTHING in return. I had a photographer, a graphic designer, models and even had an established PR specialist and a copywriter volunteer for me. You will be surprised how many people are willing to help you if you just ask.
For everything else, pay as little as you can. Use daily coupon sites like Groupon and Living Social to see what services you can use for lower cost, post projects on freelance sites (I had a terrible, fraudulent experience on Guru.com and don’t recommend that site, but I use Elance.com frequently), and visit online B2B marketplaces to find manufacturers abroad that you can often connect with in real-time on chat. Whenever the option is available, ALWAYS use trustworthy escrow services when dealing with offshore vendors to protect yourself from fraud.
- Outsource to freelancers on Elance or Freelancer & How Freelancer Works – how to video
- B2B global product sourcing on Alibaba
- Bootstrapping Your Start-Up Business with Little or No Money
2) Validate your product or service. The best thing you can do for yourself before going into production or further investing on a prototype is testing it with your target audience, potential customers or clients, venture capitalists, and industry experts. I conducted a focus group early on and it resulted in changing the entire design of our products. We found moms wanted the characters on the t-shirts to look extremely wholesome, while girls wanted them to look more voluptuous. We needed to do some more design work and came to a happy medium that would appeal to both.
3) Prepare to go to market; make a list of all the launch activities you will need to invest in and start building them early on. Decide on your story – what problem are you solving, how does your product/service differ from other competitors, what is your brand voice and what do you want to be seen as having expertise in? Start researching influential connected people with clout in your field and engage with them on interesting topics. Create a social media following early on, engaging them with content that you know will appeal to them.
For example, I began a Twitter account early on where I would tweet about appropriate fashion for tween girls, a problem my business offers a solution for. As a result had over 600 Twitter followers before even launching my business – 600 more people I could market my business to directly once I launched. Also consider attending relevant trade shows to get a good lay of the competitive landscape.
- Product Launch and My Pre-Launch Checklist
- Press release distribution with PRWeb
- How to Write a Social Media Press Release
4) Lift off is by far the scariest thing. Having just launched, this is the stage I’m in now, and I can say with absolute honesty that nothing has been more frightening than working hard to get your product to market and the fear of it not taking off.
I’ve heard plenty of successful entrepreneurs say success doesn’t come overnight, but it’s still nerve-wracking. There is a whole world of social media that is constantly evolving and tons of competition for shelf space. Juggling post-launch marketing in this world of new media, and a full-time job is probably tougher than the work leading up to launch. That said, every minute is worth it and I am still full of hope that my venture will be successful. | <urn:uuid:7492229b-3ded-4372-b441-e5839982a9dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com/blog/before-launch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961037 | 946 | 1.59375 | 2 |
When I was 20 years old, a friend of mine murdered two of my close friends.
He shot them execution-style in a warehouse in West Hartford, Connecticut.
We never got the chance to ask him where he acquired the gun which he used to shoot his friends in this senseless act. The next day his self-mutilated body was found two states away in Vermont. He had killed himself.
Now, more than two decades later, 28 people are dead in Newtown, Connecticut, a sleepy New England suburb where trees and lakes are more plentiful than murder investigations. It is much like the Connecticut community where I grew up near Hartford. The shooting Friday of innocent students and school personnel was one of 62 mass shootings that have occurred in the United States since 1982, according to the Washington Post.
Having experienced the surreal shock of losing two friends to bullets, I can only imagine the agony these parents, teachers and children are experiencing in Sandy Hook, a village in Newtown. It took me at least a year to get over the sensation that would wash over me frequently, a fear that someone might shoot me for no logical reason. It is only a coincidence that both these shootings happened in Connecticut, of course, but they are similar in that they both involved young men, guns, and mental health problems, undiagnosed or not.
Since the shooting, which sent me and my friends to three funerals in a single
Here is a fact to ponder. In the vast majority of the 61 mass shooting in America since 1982, the guns which killed the victims were purchased legally — and most likely, easily. You can buy guns at Walmart.
I used to work as a mental health counselor, and I acknowledge that we do not devote enough resources to treat the mentally disturbed people who eventually turn to guns to carry out their twisted plans. Nor do we find alternatives for the teenage boys, and 20-somethings lured to video games the way they used to be seduced by
But when it comes to guns in the real world, here's a simple fact, and there is no getting around this. It is far easier to kill someone with a gun than a knife or a baseball bat, or just about any kind of weapon you can think of. Without the precise, long-distance capabilities that a gun affords, the killer who took my friends would never have been able to take down two people, one of them more than 6 feet tall. Nor could the Newtown killer have annihilated an entire classroom. Not even six- and seven-year-olds.
It is simpler to buy a gun in America than it is to get a driver's license at a time when we should make it as hard as possible to purchase one. That way, if someone is mentally disturbed, we will put up a nice fat roadblock that could derail a massacre.
One of my friends who was murdered is buried just 100 feet from where my parents are laid to rest. And, one thing I do know. If his killer had no gun to bring into that warehouse that March night, I would have one less grave to visit every time I return to my Connecticut hometown.
Deborah Petersen is the Social Media Editor for the Bay Area News Group. Reach her at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:d9a85ac5-e547-4901-bcb5-2c476afb0f08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-living/ci_22199900/petersen-gun-control-and-murder-my-two-friends | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980267 | 672 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Social media influence: It’s not the number of friends you have … it’s the quality
We race for numbers because they’re easy to … well … quantify. Number of Facebook ‘friends’ or ‘fans’. Number of Twitter followers.
It reminds me of Valentine’s Day in grade school. I picture cute little Lynn, who, I noticed with the wisdom of a 7 year old, had all the little boys falling all over her, chasing her in the schoolyard, hoping for a kiss. On Valentine’s Day, her box floweth over with cut-out and hand-drawn valentines, courtesy of her young admirers. My box? Not so full. I didn’t envy Lynn, I don’t think, but I was fascinated by the phenomenon, viewing it with the detachment of a young anthropologist, trying to figure out a civilisation known as Boy. Maybe the reason envy didn’t raise its ugly head was that even then I recognized that the value of relationships isn’t in quantity, but in quality. And for me, there was this little boy named Sean …
The true richness of social media comes from connecting with people interested in THE thing you’re interested in. If you’re into green glowing snow-ball abacuses, and there’s only a widow in Wales and a teenager in Chile interested in green glowing snow-ball abacuses too, your goal should be to have them in your network. Not their sister-in-law, your corner store butcher and the odd guy from Turkey you’re following only because he follows you and you don’t want to be rude.
Real ROI comes not from numbers, but on what those numbers do for you. If the 250 other people you have listed as Facebook friends can’t trade abacuses with you — if they never exchange a word with you or bring you anything interesting, whether it be conversation or the trade of an antique abacus you’ve been dying to get your hands on — then give yourself a break. The next time you see someone racing to reach 1 million followers, tell yourself you’re better off with your widow and your teenager.
The same goes if you’re a car manufacturer or sell crafts online. What’s important is the conversion – it’s building a network around people who care. Not about attracting a bunch of people with some shiny promotion, and for all the wrong reasons. Yes, by joining your Facebook page they’ll automatically let the 200 people in their network know they have. But when you realize that people surround themselves with people a lot like them, chances are that your page won’t interest those 200 people either. You don’t want dead weight. You want a tribe, not a bunch of meaningly numbers.
Unless you’re trying to break a Guiness record or are a social media guru with a book deal in the works. Then, maybe, numbers count. | <urn:uuid:b40ca679-d367-4638-ad5a-05aa6bde6b97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michellesullivan.ca/2010/12/social-media-influence-its-not-the-number-of-friends-you-have-its-the-quality/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937198 | 638 | 1.6875 | 2 |
It’s fairly apparent that Obama’s recent push for post-Newtown gun control is not reasonably related to the facts of the case, but exploits it instead as an opportunity to use the public’s emotional reaction to it (and some children, in a photo-op) to pass some legislation (or at least issue some executive orders) that serve other ends.
There’s been a lot of speculation on what those ends might be. I think there’s a multitude—but one of them is sticking it to the bitter clingers, and letting the latte crowd know he’s with them, whether the legislation they want gets passed or not.
Remember those bitter clingers, bitterly clinging to their guns and religion? Well, that’s not all they were clinging to, according to Obama. In case you’ve forgotten, here the quote:
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Obama was speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco not long after his swing through Pennsylvania during his 2008 campaign, so it’s not surprising he was talking about that state. But he was speaking less of a state than of a demography: white, blue-collar, rural, Christian. And note how he characterizes their guns and their religion: driven by negative emotions like bitterness, rather than conviction or principle, and co-existing with xenophobia and racism.
Not a pretty picture, but one that’s mild compared to the general San Franciscan attitude towards these people in PA, the Midwest, or especially their brothers and sisters in the South (or in Alaska; see Palin). Although in 2008 Obama saw fit to couch his description in a sort of condescending, seemingly-empathic patronization, that’s really no longer necessary, is it?
And so even though the bitter clingers have become ever more bitter and ever more clingy, he’s going to try to pry some of their weapons from their cold, live, hands.
I was reminded of all of this by this post by Andy at Ace’s. He writes that, in the current push for gun control:
We [gun owners] are now “The Other” who are bent on killing your kids at school by our mere existence. We buy off congressmen to do our evil bidding. We’re like the Nazis and the KKK all rolled into one.
Now, I’m more akin in my own demographics to the San Franciscans than to the bitter clingers. But somehow I never got the memo about the latter. However, I run in circles that trash them enough to make me quite familiar with the prevailing attitude, which is that they are, to put it crassly, cretins out of “Deliverance,” and terrible racists to boot.
It doesn’t escape me that a great deal of the talk on blogs on the left lately is about the heinous “gun culture,” rather than anything more rationally related to murder or mass murder. As for the Second Amendment, it’s often considered an outworn relic of another time, not necessary—and even counterproductive—in this Brave New World of ours, where government is always your friend (unless it’s a conservative government). | <urn:uuid:18e96a7f-aec5-4f56-80b3-e5d29e764ff7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neoneocon.com/2013/01/17/obama-the-left-and-the-bitter-clingers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965948 | 795 | 1.640625 | 2 |
by Virginia Law
We are all helping each other with causes - Most of the Causes are personal and help our Cases - This Cause Helps all of us - and the Future us. We need to take Absolute Judicial Immunity off the table to hold the Judicial Community responsible for their actions - So the intimidation will
RAPE is the worse of all crimes. Other crimes have motives.. what motive does this have? it is just pure evil, and those who commit it should be shown no mercy. They are not human who commit such a crime. It can be understood when a poor man steals to feed his family... It is men like these who not
First they tease her, then they start misbehaving, then assault physically and rape her, not once not twice but for 2 hours in a moving bus by six people. Not only the girl student was raped (GANGRAPED) she was assaulted with Iron rod. Hitting her with an IRON ROD everywhere, even her private
You should sign this petition because what happened to this young boy was wrong. George Stinney Jr. was in the history of the United States, the youngest to be executed in the 20th century. He is a part of our history that has been forgotten and ignored. So I am asking that you stand with as we
We will not allow Pakistan's to kill our son's so easily.
by Mirza Abbas
I think this punishment should not only bring the culprits to justice but also inflict terror in the hearts of men that dare do these kinds of things.
1.Demand for a Local Court at each Police Station of India to deal with crime against women. There are 15015 Police Stations in India. 2.Imagine how many cases of crime against women can be solved with 15015 Local Courts in India. 3.No need for the construction of new
This cause is important to me because I live in a state that does not have the Death Penalty (Iowa). I believe that opens us up to being vulnerable to people who want to face the minimum danger while fulfilling their barbaric desires. This summer we have several cases of attempted abductions, most
George Stinney Jr. is a 14-year-old black boy that was the youngest to be executed in the 20th Century for a crime that he didn't commit. It was a travesty of justice; a crime against a boy that was too young to defend himself, a crime perpetrated by the very government and its officials that | <urn:uuid:f34b1950-ef8f-4e9e-b549-2dea9ffff8c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.causes.com/issues/death-penalty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976732 | 507 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong has announced the 12 final nominees for the 2010 Toy Hall of Fame. The nominees are Cabbage Patch Kids, chess, the dollhouse, dominoes, Dungeons & Dragons, The Game of Life, Hot Wheels, Lite Brite, Magic 8 Ball, playing cards, pogo stick, and the Rubik’s Cube.
Criteria for induction include: icon-status (the toy is widely recognized, respected, and remembered), longevity, discovery (the toy fosters learning, creativity, or discovery through play), and innovation. The 2010 toy inductees, to be chosen by a national selection committee, will be announced at the National Toy Hall of Fame on November 4 at 10:30 a.m. Last year’s inductees were the ball, the Big Wheel tricycle, and the Game Boy. The Strong, located in Rochester, N.Y., recently changed and shortened its name from Strong Museum of National Play. | <urn:uuid:cfffcc21-0734-45d4-b5e6-7bcd9f893e0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toybook.com/tag/2010-national-toy-hall-of-fame/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945162 | 201 | 1.59375 | 2 |
On October 11 Christies
Post-War & Contemporary Art department will offer for sale two extraordinary large-scale paintings created by the most celebrated contemporary masters. Realised on an epic scale, 5 Türen II (5 Doors 2) (1967) is a seminal work dating from an intensely productive and pivotal moment in Gerhard Richters celebrated oeuvre (92⅞ x 213¼in. / 233.5 x 541.5cm.; estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000). The largest painting from Miquel Barcelós famous cycle of Bullfight ever to appear at auction, Areneros y Muleros (1990) announces the grand finale of a corrida (102⅜ x 81⅛in. / 260 x 206cm. ; estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000.
Francis Outred, Christie's Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe: I am delighted to be handling these two indisputable masterpieces by Gerhard Richter and Miquel Barcélo. In both works, scale plays a vital role in their impact; these works need to be seen to be believed. Conceived in 1967, Gerhard Richter's 5 Türen II is a landmark, conceptual art work in which the idea of a painting as a mirror is turned into painting as a door, with an apparently infinite space opening up behind it. These doors are painted so meticulously on a life-size scale that the work invites the viewer to step into its illusory space. Very rarely seen, 5 Türen II has been in the same collection virtually since it was made. The market has seen many works by Richter since Christie's broke the world record in 2011, but there has never been a painting like this at auction in my professional career. Equally there has never been a bullfight by Barcélo of this scale; the format accentuating the drama of the scene where both the bullfighter and the painter have left the arena.
Marking an important, constructive step forward in Gerhard Richters post-modern practice 5 Türen II (5 Doors 2) was painted in 1967. One of two works to depict five doors, the other, 5 Türen I (1967) is housed in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, where each of the doors opens in step to reveal more and more of the evacuated room behind. In both of these works, the viewer experiences a heady sense of movement as if walking through a series of Eadweard Muybridge action-still photographs, accentuated by the fact that the work is life-size.
During this period Gerhard Richter began his journey taking the medium in new and unchartered directions and emerging as the greatest pioneer of painting the twentieth century would ever see. Responding to the fertile artistic milieu in Europe and the conceptual and minimal impetus of artists such as Carl Andre, Lawrence Weiner, Sol LeWitt and Richard Serra who exhibited in Düsseldorf at the time, Richter began to dramatically expand the possibilities of paint. In these revolutionary years, Richter experimented widely with the different languages of painting, depicting colour charts, townscapes, seascapes and Alpine scenes, pivoting between abstraction and figuration. In all of these contemporary works, Richter was playing with perception, optical effect and the very nature of objective depiction versus illusion.
By far the largest painting of the Bullfight series ever seen at auction, Areneros y muleros by Miquel Barceló (B. 1957) announces the grand finale of the corrida (102⅜ x 81⅛in. / 260 x 206cm.; executed in 1990; estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000). In this work, the texture of the arena is referenced by the central surface of the canvas, which has been obtained by mixing sand into paint. Here, Barceló focuses directly on the ballet of the bullfight as a metaphor for painting itself, as we see the marks left by the duel between bullfighter and bull in the sand directly replicating those left by a painter on canvas. In fact the bullfighter has left the ring, but here we see the bull being carried by a procession of Muleros out of the thickly carved exit in the bottom left hand corner, a trail of blood soaks the sand in its wake. | <urn:uuid:1a99f4ff-5784-48b1-a4b4-94ca01bdf156> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=57848 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943517 | 916 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Emmitt Hendricks had never even seen an ocean or been on a ship when he went into the Navy in January of 1945. Before the year ended, he had been all the way to Japan.
Hendricks was assigned to the airacraft carrier U.S.S. Bennington. When the ship wans't in battle, Hendricks was the ship barber. During battle he was in "bomb breakout", which involved bringing the bombs up from below. In spite of the danger of his job, Hendricks say the Japanese suicide bombers were the biggest threat.
After the Battle of Japan, Bennington was on standbye during the signing of the Japanese peace treaty.
Because he had a wife and three children back home, Hendricks was one of the first sailors on the Bennington to be released after the war.
Wednesday, May 22 2013 10:22 AM EDT2013-05-22 14:22:02 GMT
Flash floods took over several streets in Athens, TX as a line of storms moved into East Texas Tuesday night. A designated flood area had high and fast moving water near Trinity Valley Community CollegeMore >>
Buildings in Gilmer and Whitehouse are damaged, trees are down in several areas, and many are without power.More >>
A Lufkin woman was struck and killed by lightning during last night's storms.Around 10:30 p.m., a 32-year-old I-HOP employee was standing in the parking lot holding an umbrella when lightning struck her,More >>
A Lufkin woman was struck and killed by lightning during last night's storms.More >>
Tuesday, May 21 2013 7:38 PM EDT2013-05-21 23:38:51 GMT
We're all familiar with the underground storm shelter. Now there is an alternative to digging a hole in your yard. We found a man who can turn an interior closet into a debris-proof safe room. Rudy WrightMore >>
We're all familiar with the underground storm shelter. Now there is an alternative to digging a hole in your yard.More >> | <urn:uuid:51a34cee-eee9-419a-83fc-1eac5a5e224e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kltv.com/story/8738201/freedom-fighters-emmitt-hendricks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979196 | 423 | 1.757813 | 2 |
"Jesus wasn't sinless – He became angry when He cleared the temple."
And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves. ~Mark 11:15
The temple of God was filled with the day's equivalent of money-grabbing televangelists. Jesus called it a "den of thieves" (v. 17), because the moneychangers were not interested in God but in taking financial advantage of those who came to worship. Anger at hypocrisy isn't a sin -- it's a virtue.
Taken from Ray Comfort's The Evidence Bible, page 842 [Bridge-Logos].
TJ's Personal Note:
There comes a time when taking a risk is a good/healthy thing; however, this is not one of them. Look at it this way: Let's say that the Bible is wrong, and all Christians (past, present, & future) are not redeemed by the Savior. Then on the unfortunate day you die, nothing will happen. You won't even have the opportunity to say "I told you so!" But WHAT IF the Bible is correct, and all -- and only -- Christians are redeemed by the Savior. Then you will not just spend eternity separated from the presence of God, but as the Bible puts it, forever burning/tormented in Hell, where the fire NEVER quenches & the worm NEVER dies!!
Out of love we, Christians, are only asking that you consider the WHAT IF...before your time runs out. If you are saying, "Well, I don't want to make a decision out of fear...that doesn't seem genuine; or it seems like a cop-out." The Bible says that it is the fear of the Lord that men depart from evil/sin! Therefore, let that fear work in your favor! If you were on an airplane and you knew you had to jump, isn't it the fear of the law of gravity that entices you to put on a parachute?! Well, the same thing spiritually, let the fear of the Law of God and His justified wrath entice you to put on His parachute...the Lord & Savior Jesus the Christ!! Repent once and for all for your sins -- and name them if you can -- and then place your faith & trust SOLELY in the Savior for your salvation! Do it today, because tomorrow isn't promised to anyone. Thank you for reading and God Bless.
Remember: "Grace is what He gives; Mercy is what we need. Relationship & Righteousness is what He longs for; Salvation & Holiness is what we'll receive!" - Terrell D. Jackson | <urn:uuid:428879d9-f77c-4d54-9db2-ef682e4bc47c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.2beproductive.blogspot.com/2010/08/common-questions-objections-jesus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968109 | 572 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Face.com’s CEO has shrugged off rumors that it is being acquired by Facebook for up to $100 million when we asked. But the addition of its facial recognition tech to Facebook’s mobile apps could make sure friend tagging continues as the social network’s user base shifts away from desktops.
In fact, about 45% of users of Face.com’s app KLIK end up sharing their photos on Facebook, which shows how popular mobile facial recognition could be.
For the record, Face.com people are keeping their cards close to their chest. Face.com’s CEO Gil Hirsch flatly tells TechCrunch: “We have nothing new to announce or share at this time.”
But even while Facebook has been pushing a lot of fancy new enhancements to its mobile offerings (its Camera mobile app being the most recent) there are still a surprising number of features that have yet to be covered by the company.
So, perhaps because nature abhors a vacuum, we’re now getting a full whack of reports of what the company might buy or launch to make up for that, including today’s Face.com news that Facebook is looking to buy mobile/PC browser company Opera and hiring ex-Apple hardware engineers to work on its own phone. (Btw Opera is also giving a similarly no-news line: “Everything I’ve read has been news to me,” one Opera person told me.)
We may just, quite possibly, be in the middle of a Facebook news bubble and that half of what we are reading about Facebook and mobile may never come to pass — or could take ages to come to fruition: Buffy the Android slayer is reportedly still six to 12 months away going by the timing in the AllThingsD post from November. And this is not the first time we’ve heard that Face.com is in the Facebook acquisition line.
But, if you swallow that large grain of salt, there is a huge amount of sense in the social network looking at beefing up its mobile arsenal with companies like these, which offer features that Facebook currently does not, and therefore offer the promise of getting mobile users to spend more time on the social network — something that is a concern for the company.
At the moment, Facebook’s popular photo tag suggestion feature does not work from mobile, only on web uploads on PCs; on mobile, users can tag by starting to type a name for tagging options to appear, a spokesperson notes to us.
Face.com meanwhile offers facial-recognition software both for PC-based and mobile usage, with the key being that it covers mobile.
These include facial recognition, facial-friendly photo filters and a location-based photo network — all services you could see sitting naturally in Facebook’s existing services.
Face.com tells us that Klik had over 100,000 downloads of the app in the first three days — signs of stickiness and popularity.
Equally interesting, Face.com also offers an API to integrate its technology into other apps. (One company suggested for an integration: Path.)
The API functionality could come in handy as Facebook looks at more ways of extending its functionality and touchpoints outside of its walled garden, especially since an Android version is likely to come soon from Face.com.
Opera, last week’s acquisition rumor, offers a similar promise of covering new ground for Facebook.
In its case it’s about a web browser — which, as others have reported, would be an essential feature if Facebook were to launch its own mobile platform.
That would be to compete against the likes of Android from Google and iOS from Apple in smartphones. But having web browsing capabilities could also help Facebook make more of a push in the lower-end feature phone space — an area where it has already made advances with services like Facebook Zero and its acquisition of Snaptu to improve the feature phone experience to target users in developing markets.
Coincidentally, Opera pushed itself as a “social mobile” company in February, when it launched the Opera Mini Next browser, offering “Smart Page” social media sharing features specifically for feature phone users.
Opera says it has some 200 million users of its browsers today, but if its social functionality that Facebook is after, there may be others worth watching, too. For example, the social mobile browser company Rockmelt, which has raised nearly $40 million from Andreessen-Horowitz, Accel, Khosla Ventures and others, currently offers an iOS app.
In the meantime, Opera has seen a little lift in its fortunes since the rumors broke last week: today its share price appears to have been its highest in a year, rising by 24.4 percent and closing at €5.70 a share.
[Additional reporting by Josh Constine]
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
Face.com is helping people find photos, using our home grown best-in-breed facial recognition technologies. The first deployment of our tech is our Photo Finder application for Facebook, today’s largest photo sharing site, which scans public photos in your social network and suggests tags for untagged faces. face.com has offices in Tel Aviv and New York.
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software. Opera handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones, but for other devices it must be paid for.
Rockmelt is a social web browser built off of Chromium and boasts deep integration with both Facebook and Twitter with its “Edges” which are filled with friends that are online and feeds that you follow complete with update badges. It also sports what some believe to be the next big search revolution. Unlike Google’s universal navigation field, RockMelt has a dedicated search field that shows complete search results as a drop down overtop web pages. This is helpful when switching... | <urn:uuid:0b96c7fc-7af2-41bb-9a1e-6e435e214f36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/28/face-com-may-give-facebook-a-mobile-klik-but-ceo-tells-us-nothing-new-to-announce/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960038 | 1,360 | 1.5 | 2 |
I think most of us agree that you should believe in your own talent even if no one else does. However, Drake just might have taken his beliefs about his contribution to music to another level and can now only be summed up in one word: Delusional. During an interview with The Jewish Chronicle, they quote him as saying about his music:
There were people who incorporated melody before me but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.”
I’m sorry, what now? Did the name Lauryn Hill escape you during this interview? Did the name Nate Dogg, who was basically the “king” of singing and rapping hooks slip your mind? Perhaps he was overly excited about the concert he was about to give in London so the names of all the successful rappers who also sang in their songs conveniently disappeared from his mind. If that’s not the case and he really believes that he’s the first successful rapper to mix singing and rapping then he really might be living in a dream world.
Drake also goes on to say that his style of wearing his heart on his sleeve when he creates his songs is not a gimmick. He says, “This is not a gimmick. I just sort of exist and people embrace me. I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself everyday.” Yes, I suppose that’s why your style is eerily familiar to someone named Kanye West. Yes, that’s why a lot of the music he’s put out lately had a bit of a depressing tone.
But Lauryn Hill, Queen Latifah and many others were way years ahead of you incorporating rapping and singing. Never forget it…and show some respect! | <urn:uuid:fb3a0cc3-5f7a-4a51-bf35-52519882a879> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://madamenoire.com/200907/take-care-drake-makes-a-bold-statement-about-his-music/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987588 | 367 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The Inglewood Unified School District last week recognized the accomplishments of 59 students who scored perfectly in math or language arts on the 2012 California Standards Test.
District officials on Nov. 14 also lauded the efforts of principals and teachers who partnered to garner outstanding Academic Performance Index scores in excess of 800 at Bennett-Kew, Highland, Kelso, Oak and Payne elementary schools.
"We are all proud of our students' achievements and the short-term goal is to make continual strides to expand this list of perfect CST scores," said Kent Taylor, the state-appointed lead administrator of the district. "The atmospheres at our schools are so conducive to learning that students rarely notice visitors during classroom observations."
Each school and district throughout California is assigned an Academic Performance Index (API) rating between 200 and 1,000 based on a batch of exams taken by students in the spring. | <urn:uuid:123dadde-063d-46cb-a615-59178255ce10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailybreeze.com/education/ci_22022284/inglewood-unified-school-district-lauds-59-students-perfect | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949099 | 177 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Each year, around this time, I start seeing the bunny- and egg- themed trinkets in the stores, along with the pastel candy wrappers. Why, oh, why does candy have to be a major focus of each and every major holiday?! I know it’s just to derail my efforts at staying in shape!
Anyway, with all the allure of Easter Baskets and a mysterious, life-sized bunny who breaks into our houses at night, it’s hard to keep the focus on the real message of Easter: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ! There are so many fun things we can do to keep Christ’s death and resurrection in the forefront of our families and teach the important messages of redemption! While at Christmas, many kids see Jesus as merely a baby, Easter brings home His full purpose for coming to earth.
One thing that we do is to make Resurrection Buns! (Click here to get the recipe). You put “Jesus” (aka Marshmellow) inside the “tomb” (aka. Biscuit dough) and after they cook, the tomb is empty! These are fun to make for Easter Morning, but you can really do it any time in the lead up to the holiday.
Children’s books and stories are also a great way to keep the focus on Jesus. Even if they are overwhelmed with bunny ears and chocolate at the stores, read a book before bed and they will think about it as they drift off to sleep!
What do you do in your family to focus on Jesus at Easter? I would love to hear from you in the comments!
About a year ago, I broadcasted my live MomTV Show on this very topic! I made the Resurrection Buns live, and featured a Tommy Nelson Author interview.
This episode wwas sponsored by Tommy Nelson Publishing, who shared some awesome children’s resources for the season! If you’ve never heard of Tommy Nelson, here is a little bit about them:
First and foremost,Tommy Nelson is a children’s company that creates, markets and distributes books, Bibles, home video and audio products, music and other related ancillary products such as plush toys, games and action figures aimed at children ages 0-14. This is our specialty. We love what we do for we have full confidence that God has uniquely designed each child’s life. Our role is to assist the connection and stimulation of these promising minds and hearts. Read more…
Tommy Nelson has wonderful Kids’ Books for Easter Here are some of the books I love (click the images to see more info about each book):
Disclosure: I received these books from Tommy Nelson to review,and love them all! Originally posted March 2010 | <urn:uuid:d0fd95ba-f054-4146-a5f1-cae576aeb698> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reallifeblog.net/how-do-you-share-the-easter-message-with-your-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957203 | 576 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Diabetes UK condemns 'tragic failure' of West NHS
Health services in the Westcountry have been shamed as some of the worst in the country for delivering checks for preventable diseases.
A new report from Diabetes UK revealed that just 25 people in Cornwall – almost zero per cent – were offered the NHS Health Check in 2011-12 while in Plymouth it was only 4.2%.
The checks, which test people aged 40 to 74 for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and kidney failure, were significantly higher in Devon at 12.3% but still below the England average of 13.9%.
In its report – called Let's Get it Right – Diabetes UK warned poor local implementation of the NHS Health Check meant people who were at high risk of Type 2 diabetes were missing the chance to get the information and support they need to help prevent the condition.
Business Cards From Only £10.95 Delivered www.myprint-247.co.ukView details
Our heavyweight cards have FREE UV silk coating, FREE next day delivery & VAT included. Choose from 1000's of pre-designed templates or upload your own artwork. Orders dispatched within 24hrs.
Terms: Visit our site for more products: Business Cards, Compliment Slips, Letterheads, Leaflets, Postcards, Posters & much more. All items are free next day delivery. www.myprint-247.co.uk
Contact: 01858 468192
Valid until: Friday, May 31 2013
Graham Cooper, South West regional manager for Diabetes UK, said: "The failure to properly implement the NHS Health Check has potentially dire consequences.
"It means that people at high risk of Type 2 diabetes are missing out on the information and support to make the lifestyle changes that can help prevent it.
"It is also vital that people with the condition are diagnosed as early as possible to reduce their risk of complications and those people who missed being diagnosed last year are at increased risk of amputation, blindness, kidney failure and stroke. Put together, this means the poor implementation of the NHS Health Check is a tragic failure.
"NHS and local authority leaders in the area need to start giving this programme a much higher priority than has previously been the case.
"Until this happens, it will be letting down local people who have either undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes or are at high risk of developing the condition. Urgent action is needed."
A spokesman for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust said the checks had not been "prioritised" last year, although a successful pilot scheme was now seeing the service rolled out across the county.
The local programme is to start in the north and west of the county with people being offered the check every five years. Twenty-eight practices are to start the programme this month. The rest of the county will follow from April next year.
"The NHS Health Check aims to save lives by supporting people to make lifestyle changes and, if necessary, to start medication early to hopefully prevent the onset of disease," said Gwyn Williams, NHS Health Checks manager for NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.
"To complement the roll-out, we are also developing initiatives that we hope to introduce into workplace settings to help address health inequalities." | <urn:uuid:023b93e5-fcb0-4dca-8b49-216e98d70b1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/Diabetes-UK-condemns-tragic-failure-West-NHS/story-16954608-detail/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960864 | 675 | 1.8125 | 2 |
I know a place where everyone knows your name.
Its a place where learning is apparent in every classroom, and in every hallway.
Children are excited to move from one room to the next and to experience
wonderful and beautiful things in nature and in life.
Its a place where we are composting with children ages 4-18.
Then, the compost soil is used to grow vegetables and herbs in our garden outside the elementary wing, which are then used for food in our food classes and in our Thanksgiving meal.
By the way, at Thanksgiving, we sit down and have dinner togetherthe entire student body, faculty, staff, board members, and special guests.
On Earth Day, we pick up trash along the highways and then spend the afternoon learning about the Adirondacks and how we can help to save it.
I know a place where seniors support and encourage eighth graders on the soccer team.
The eighth graders look to them for leadership and guidance.
A place where parental support for our youth is continuous and encouraging for our future sports teams.
Our skiers and skaters have custom education plans to accommodate their training schedules.
I know a place where the middle school students visit the senior citizen assisted living home to play bingo with the elderly and at Halloween, they parade through town in their festive costumes.
At Christmas time, the student body participates in a gift exchange and has been known to sing carols and holiday songs at the end of the day.
Its a place that offers multiage trips to countries in Europe.
A place where special guests perform dance and musical routines for both our student body and community so that our students are enhanced by various cultural activities.
I know a place where children can use laptops in any room in the building to further enhance their learning experience. | <urn:uuid:e45628eb-9319-40f1-8fc1-12a83728f325> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.denpubs.com/news/2007/oct/13/i-know-a-place/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95835 | 373 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Theatre Design Division is designed for students who wish to become theatrical designers and stage technicians. Students learn by doing, through hands-on instruction in stage lighting, sound design, costuming, make-up, hair, set construction and stage management. Theatre Design students provide resources and support to NOCCA student productions in all the performance arts.
Audition Expectations: Auditioning students are expected to present a written or typed resume/ training and experiences in theatre design, performances and backstage work. Sample work in theatre design (design renderings, paperwork, photos) and/or practice designs of sets (simple sketches), costumes and/or lighting for a generally recognized play should be submitted at the audition.
Students currently in 6-11th grades are eligible to apply. | <urn:uuid:4ecc963d-ffac-4e0e-948d-2622cc9dd4da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nocca.com/arts-instruction/theatre-arts/theatre-design/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952213 | 157 | 1.828125 | 2 |
While this page is up and running we were hoping to have all the required pieces in place for you, but sometimes things don't always work out the way you planned, unfortunately we're still ironing out the kinks, so please bare with us. Getting to Home is a relatively new program for the Skills Centre, therefore not everything is in place yet.
The primary goal of WICWP is to support inclusive, welcoming and vibrant communities in B.C. where immigrants can realize their full potential, racism is eliminated, and cultural diversity is valued and celebrated. With this in mind, the Welcoming Communities program delivers workshops to businesses interested in learning more about making your workplace an inviting place for immigrants.
The Welcoming Communities program helps employers integrate new immigrants into the workplace. We facilitate workshops on the subject as well as work with employers one-on-one. If you are a new immigrant looking for information which will provide you with additional support, please click on the following link: Welcome Map
Are you an new immigrant looking for work in the Trail area? The Skills Centre may be able to help with the Skills Connect program, call us today to find out if you qualify: 250-368-6360. Also check out the Welcome Map for information that may help you with other aspects of finding your way around a new community.
Canada Summer Jobs is a Government of Canada initiative that provides funding to help employers create summer job opportunities for students. It is designed to focus on local priorities, while helping both students and their communities.
What are you passionate about? What would you like to do every day? Do you find your current career or job fulfilling? These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself in order to get answers to important aspects of your career. You need to understand what is important to you and what matters the most. The Skills Centre offers a variety of one-to-one career assessments in order to help you answer these and many other important questions in the career planning process.
16 years or older and working 19 hours or less per week?
If you fall under any of these two categories we have lots of ways to help!
For over 15 years the Skills Centre has been successfully helping people find a direction. We offer one-to-one appointments with a Career Counsellors in order to assist you with career decision-making, job search, training, or, tips on how to keep a job. Make an appointment or register online (see the sidebar) to explore the following services:
Whether it is finding the right job, advancing your career, getting trai-ned, discovering your HR
needs, or starting a social enterprise we’re here to help you map your future. Give us a call or email us to start planning today. | <urn:uuid:2bd003e3-4c89-4319-9ffc-07c6e3d7447f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.communityskillscentre.com/category/page-categories/public-programs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958368 | 566 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Autistic Colorado man wandered desert, ate frogs to survive
DENVER — The Associated Press is reporting the amazing story of a Colorado Springs man with autism who wandered lost in the Escalante Desert for weeks before being rescued.
William Martin LaFever, 28, said he scavenged — catching frogs and eating roots — and drank water from the Escalante River when an attempted 90-mile expedition from Boulder, Utah to Page, Ariz. went awry. He was discovered Thursday after spending at least three weeks in the desert.
“It is some of the most rugged, unforgiving terrain you will find anywhere on Earth, jagged cliffs, stone ledges, sandstone, sagebrush, juniper,” Garfield County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Becki Bronson told the Associated Press. “There are no people. There are no towns.”
LaFever was making the trip to page to collect money from his father, John LaFever. John said William called him on June 6 or 7 to say he had been robbed of most of his hiking equipment and had run out of money.
John told William to catch a ride to Page, where John could wire some funds. The form of transportation William was planning to seek was of the aquatic variety. According to the sheriff’s department, William planned to hike down the Escalante River to hitch a boat ride along Lake Powell to Page. His dog came along on the journey.
The Sheriff’s department said William’s dog left him, he ran out of food and then abandoned all of his hiking gear except the clothes he was wearing when he was found.
The phone call in early June was the last time anyone had heard from William until he was discovered. His sister reported him missing Monday.
Much of the credit for William’s discovery is being given to Deputy Ray Gardner, who had been specially trained for search and rescue missions involving people with autism. Gardner said he felt “certain that in another 24 hours (William) would not have been alive.”
“I have never seen someone so emaciated,” Gardner said in a sheriff’s department release. William was so weak he could not stand when he was discovered. | <urn:uuid:979d55df-f659-4436-a9e5-bfc9e3247ad7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kdvr.com/2012/07/13/colorado-springs-man-with-autism-wandered-desert-ate-frogs-to-survive/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985379 | 466 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Getting Dressed Conversation Book - Paperback
Joseph Sparling, Ph.D., an early childhood educator and former schoolteacher and principal, is currently an investigator on Partners for Literacy, a national intervention study of Even Start programs. Sparling is the first author of LearningGames, The Abecedarian Curriculum, Partners for Learning, and Conversation Books, educational resources that have been used widely in the USA and abroad. He is a Fellow of the Frank Porter Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a Research Professor at Georgetown University. In addition to his work in the USA, Dr. Sparling has done curriculum development, training, and intervention in orphanages in Romania. | <urn:uuid:43aff5fd-edc0-4cf6-9ab8-80231373565b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kaplantoys.com/store/trans/productDetailForm.asp?CatID=product&PID=10935 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93869 | 145 | 1.601563 | 2 |
All 2 entries tagged The Leopard
June 09, 2007
Visconti’s The Damned (La Caduta degli dei ) 1969:
Representing Nazism and Nationalism
Switzerland / Italy / West Germany
(The film was shot in English at the insistence of Warner Brothers)
Visit other Visconti historical films: Senso and The Leopard
SA Orgy on the "Night of the Long Knives" from Visconti's The Damned
Introduction: Visconti, History & Nationalism
Through an analysis of The Damned (1969) with some comparative work of Visconti’s The Leopard (1962) this article argues that the work of Visconti is overdue critical revision in terms of the sophistication of his oeuvre regarding the nature of history related to two critical turning-points in modern European history namely the Risorgimento and the accession to and consolidation of power of the Nazis. These two films represent the major triumphs of nationalism of the 19th century often seen as progressive Garibaldi for example was greeted by massed crowds when he visited London hailed as being very progressive by British radicals. The closure of this era of nationalism, which by the 1930s can be seen as highly regressive in all European countries, was represented by The Damned. It represents the corrupted coming to power of the Nazis and the heinous activities they undertook to maintain and consolidate their hold on Germany. The massacre of the Night of the Long Knives is a direct echo of the off screen execution of Garibaldian radicals as the Prince of Salina returns home from the ball at the end of The Leopard.
Post First World War nationalisms had led to the establishing of several reactionary governments across central and Eastern Europe as well as in Italy and later Spain. For Visconti Nazi Germany represents the nadir of this wider reactionary nationalism. Historically Nazism was to play out the end of this nationalist urge movement in the most melodramatic of ways. The Damned functions as a film about the few critical months between February 1933 - June 1934 which saw the installation and consolidation of a regime that would bring Europe crashing to its knees and end the period of liberal nationalism the Risorgimento symbolised as it mutated into reaction. For Visconti The Damned is nothing less than a representation of an attempt to turn back the tide of history.
The argument presented here seeks to show that Visconti’s notion of anthropomorphic cinema, which combined a unique blend of Gramscian and Lukacsian Marxism, consistently and successfully uses some great European realist works of the 20th century to represent the trajectory of history through cinema in ways which have yet to be matched by any other director. This posting draws upon recent scholarship of the Nazi period to cross- reference Visconti’s approach. As a result the article takes issue with Nowell-Smith’s (2003) suggestion that Visconti shifts his interest in history towards culture. I argue that for Visconti they are intimately intertwined. The article also takes issue with the other main critical work in English on Visconti by Bacon (1998). Bacon’s otherwise interesting and insightful work also fails to grapple fully with Visconti’s understanding of history which as a result leads him to re-inscribe Visconti as a Liberal democrat. The argument here is that a careful reading of Visconti’s work reveals a very profound and decidedly Marxian approach to history and representation.
Helmut Berger cross dressing as a cabaret artiste in Visconti's The Damned
The Damned has often been regarded as the first of Visconti’s films described as ‘The German Trilogy’ the others being Death in Venice (1973) and Ludwig (1973). Henry Bacon (1998) specifically categorises these films together under a chapter ‘Visconti & Germany’ an approach which is perhaps in need of revision. Previously Visconti’s films had analysed Italian society during the Risorgimento and post-war periods. Bondanella has seen the ‘trilogy’ as a move to take a broader view of European politics and culture. Stylistically ‘They emphasise lavish sets and costumes, sensuous lighting, painstakingly slow camerawork, and a penchant for imagery reflecting subjective states or symbolic value’[i] comments Bondanella. He also notes that much critical discourse has confused the examination of decadence in Visconti’s later works with a recommendation for its continuation. Visconti himself has commented that he was interested ‘in the analysis of a sick society’, and there is a marked difference between the representation of rising modernity and its links with the bourgeoisie in The Leopard compared with the stasis of Europe. This stasis is examined through allegory encapsulated by a sick fin de siecle Venice and a moribund Bavarian monarchy. Both are studies of decadence which Visconti considers is an outward symbol of a society entering into its death throes. These represent issues raised by the construction of the Bismarckian strong state and aspects of the weakness of the old empire of Austro-Hungary and its former ally
The Damned takes as its subject matter the relationships between the heavy industrialists in the late Weimar Republic on the cusp of Nazi success. There was a clear need for the Nazi leadership to discipline, and revise its approach should it wish to reach the heights of power with the blessing of the powerful industrialists as well as win over the army. This manufacture of consensus – albeit temporary – precisely illustrates the workings of hegemony as understood by Gramsci. This case study seeks to analyse The Damned through the lens of Visconti’s notion of ‘anthropomorphic cinema’. Nowell-Smith defines this notion as a situation where ‘the movement of social forces is reflected in the actions and passions of individuals expressed through the representation of character’ (Nowell-Smith 2003, p 151). Furthermore anthropomorphic cinema within The Damned relates the historical processes in which Visconti develops Gramsci’s notions of ‘Hegemony’ as a political process which can emerge as a regressive not just a progressive force.
Critics have commented that Visconti has been strongly influenced by William Shirer’s ‘Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ and also by Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. It is also noted that Visconti read other historical publications apart from Shirer. Shirer was an American journalist covering events in situ which he later turned into a book. It was certainly a widely influential book, however historiography of the Nazi period has moved on considerably since then [ii]. Visconti might well have been strongly influenced by Italian historiography of the time which in general has been viewed as ‘ethico-political’ by Martin Clark (1984) in a standard British text of Italian history. Clark notes that the ‘mainstream Marxist’ historians of Italy who were members of the Communist Party were strongly influenced by Gramsci. Gramscian ideas certainly helped formulate one of Visconti’s main theoretical lenses in constructing his historical films. Nevertheless it is stressed below that Visconti was not trying to construct a conventional drama-documentary of an historical event, rather, I argue, he was trying to bring to the fore the notion of underlying historical processes at a deeper and more universal level through his cinematic practice.
The search and attempts to represent universals is currently deeply out of fashion as critics, theorists and practitioners tinker with post-modern ideologies such as ‘the end of history’. Nevertheless ‘Great Art’ has usually been identified as a matter of seeking universals from specifics and the wheel of intellectual fashion may well return to this approach in due course.. Artistic licence is precisely bending situations, not being concerned with representing the specific moment naturalistically but transforming it into the universal. Many consider Shakespeare’s Macbeth to have been influential upon Visconti in preparing for this film. Macbeth is a dramatic version of an historical event a real Macbeth in Scottish but worked over so that it has become a classic interpretation of power and desire leading ultimately to downfall. Shakespeare’s tragedy is modelled upon Greek lines in that fate plays a part. Where Visconti has improved artistically upon Shakespeare is by removing fate and destiny and its role over the individual actor from the realm of individuals to a representation of historical processes by developing his concept of anthropomorphic cinema. Viscontian tragedy is thus an inversion of Greek classical tragedy through his understanding of historiography.
Visconti’s Anthropomorphic Cinema and Gramscian Hegemonic Theory
The breaking down of Visconti’s work into differing categories is a critical construction which vitiates against other interpretative structures. What is argued here is that The Damned can be seen not simply as a ‘German’ film but as a film about the role of nationalism within modern history. Thus it can be argued that by linking this film with The Leopard for the purposes of critical analysis at the level of historical theory Visconti can be seen to be using the processes at work within the Risorgimento as a representation of progressive liberal nationalism. The progressiveness is limited for as the character Tancredi famously points out, everything does change in order to re-establish stability and embed the reconstructed social elites. Often, as Clark (1984) notes, the leaders of disaffected groups are perfectly willing to become absorbed into new social formations but it is the troops who remain recalcitrant. In The Leopard the troops were the Garibaldian hard-liners who are executed off screen at the end of The Leopard. The Damned acts like a mirror of The Leopard in a misrecognition in which the recalcitrant leadership of the SA fails to become absorbed into the new consensus which Hitler needs to construct in order to develop his project.
It has been traditional to view the nationalisms of the 19th century as largely progressive whilst the 20th century nationalisms, at least within Europe, have been viewed as regressive by post Second World War historians. Both Senso and The Leopard provide a critical historical background to the process of the Risorgimento but the cinematic approach of the former is closer to that of The Damned. The Damned uses the methods of ‘anthropomorphic cinema’ to show how German nationalism was doomed to failure. Visconti is careful to choose key historical turning-points to develop his ideas of history. These are times when historical changes requires a reconfiguration of the ruling elites to contain more progressive elements and form a stable social structure capable of meeting the change as in the case of the Risorgimento films. The difficulties and price of reconfiguration amongst the elites in Nazi ruled Germany leads to disaster as in The Damned.
The compromises and self-seeking attitude of the aristocracy was examined in different ways in the two Risorgimento films. In The Damned Visconti shows the failure of liberal democracy and the industrial imperative of capitalism to forge a progressive agenda. Other major industrial countries France, Britain and the United States at the time had, through a variety of different paths, established liberal democracies albeit with problems. Germany by comparison did not: the founding moment of the Weimar Republic was a poisoned chalice which was handed over by a militaristic leadership facing defeat in 1918. These elites were trying to save themselves and regroup. Consequently the old Prussian elites were never comprehensively defeated. Throughout the time of the Weimar Republic they exerted a strong reactionary influence refusing - unlike the Prince of Salina in The Leopard - to engage constructively with the formation of a new hegemonic social formation which could provide a stable ruling elite. Bacon quotes Visconti as saying ‘...but Nazism seems to me to reveal more about a historical reversal of values.’ (Visconti cited Bacon, 1998 p 145 my emphasis) but Bacon doesn’t follow this insight up.
The inability to become involved in the construction of a new hegemonic order by the older elites in Germany is represented in a very persuasive way by Visconti. The opening scenes of the film follow Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde) being tempted by the SS into a murderous plot amongst scenes from a family celebratory gathering which ends in murder and mayhem. At the gathering, the head of the Essenbeck family and the overall controller of the steel company, Baron Joachim, clearly displays his dislike of the new order as does one of his vice chairman Herbert the husband of his niece. Joachim’s second son Konstantin has clearly decided to back Hitler through his membership of the SA.
Visconti’s The Damned is analysing Gramsci’s notions of hegemony applying them to an emerging historical conjuncture. A new elite will, if necessary, be created by force and will create a cultural and social order to match. In Italy the previous ruling elites, whether in Piedmont or in
The failure of Joachim can also be discerned by comparing his attitude to the rising Bourgeoisie exemplified by Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde). In the opening scenes Friedrich is in a car with the SS officer Aschenbach bemoaning the impossibility of being able to marry Sophie the widow of Joachim’s elder son because of Joachim’s unenlightened attitude typical of the Prussian elites trying to freeze the processes of history. In The Leopard the Prince of Salina encourages and supports Tancredi’s marriage with the rising commercial classes. By comparison Joachim is entirely opposed to a similar possibility. That Joachim is murdered by Friedrich could be seen as the outcome of not accepting social change in an ordered way. His refusal to let change happen disillusions and disarms the new commercial classes and also makes a potential power vacuum into which other social forces such as Nazism can emerge. Thus it can be seen that anthropomorphic cinema is working effectively through individual characters.
In Gramsci’s classic analysis of hegemony, state power is used in the last instance to maintain the state and the processes of hegemony allows for a political restructuring of the social orders in a controllable way. However, the Weimar state was disintegrating especially between 1931 and 1933. The breakdown of hegemony necessitated a new power struggle, Aschenbach and Konstantin represent the contenders in the process of re-hegemonising German society. The Joachims, Friedrichs and Sophies have no sense of historical processes in the way exemplified by the Prince of Salina.
Let us take another comparison between the role and function of the marriages in The Leopard and The Damned. In the former marriage symbolises the new vehicle in which the new Italian order will be crystallised. The fabulous ball scene at the end of The Leopard lasts approximately 40 minutes. Visconti shows us a situation in which the officers of the new army will marry into the daughters of the old order who are depicted as interbred and running about like monkeys. Less historical criticism has focused upon the surface sumptuousness of Visconti’s set at the expense of displaying a full understanding of Visconti’s attempt to represent as the culmination of his film the full process of re-hegemonisation.
By comparison, in The Damned, the marriage between Sophie and Friedrich has come far to late. There is no possibility of an easy re-formation of the old orders with the new. Both the older elite represented by Sophie and the rising elite, Friedrich, have in Bridge parlance been ‘endgamed’, it is the Nazis who control the play. It is an empty marriage going nowhere, and held in isolation not at the centre of society. The embittered son Martin has crossed into the camp of the emergent monster which has erupted through a rent in the thin democratic fabric of Weimar society. This was because of the failure of the old elites to combine with the rising mercantile classes. The Weimar collapsed because of the failure to form a consensus amongst the ruling elites.
This astute analysis of historical processes is a fundamental strength of Visconti’s anthropomorphic cinema. In reality the economic desires of the industrialists who have supported the Nazis are stymied by 1936 with the take over of the economy under the second four year plan headed by Goring. Their desire for the creation of a consumer based, highly profitable economy once the communists and unions are brought under control is diverted into the project of total war[i], and Germany’s ultimate damnation is its trial by fire leading to ‘Germany Year Zero’.
Here Helmut Berger is asserting his newly discovered power within the Essenbeck family. From Visconti's The Damned
I have argued that the Essenbeck family around which the film is centred acts as a synecdoche for German society as a whole. The period covered by the film starts about three weeks after Hitler’s invitation to become Chancellor by Hindenburg at the behest of von Papen at the end of January 1933. Von Papen had hubristically and wrongly ‘guaranteed’ that Hitler and the Nazis were controllable. This way of looking at the film tends to invert the emphasis that the family is torn apart by the pressures of Nazism which often how critics have seen the film. The Essenbeck quarrels represent key conflicting currents and strands amongst the Weimar German elites.
The first section of The Damned shows events leading up to, during, and after an important family dinner taking place on the night of the Reichstag fire. The fire itself was interpreted by Visconti as a pretext - twice underlined by the film’s dialogue - for the Nazis to severely repress the Communists in particular in the remaining days coming up to the last ‘free’ election of the Weimar Republic’ in March. This is probably the case although there is no discovered direct evidence linking the Nazis to the fire according to Richard Evans (2003). The subsequent implosion of the Essenbeck family parallels the collapse of institutions in Germany as the Nazis pursued their policy of ‘Gleichshaltung’ or ‘co-ordination’, which was a reasonably pleasant sounding term for the total repression of potential political opposition within Germany. It also meant the taking over of the political institutions at local and regional level once total control at the centre had been achieved.
Cinematically there is a useful comparison to be made between the way in which family dinners are handled in The Leopard and in The Damned which features two dismal dinners. In The Leopard the dinner at the Prince’s residence in Donnafugata is a vehicle in which the possibilities for the processes of hegemony can take place. Tancredi first sees an adult Angelica (Claudia Cardinale ) and is smitten. Cinematically and socially the dinners in Visconti’s historical films function as a vehicle for integration and progressive change in The Leopard or disintegration and regression as in The Damned.
The Damned takes the viewer to the end of the period of Nazi ‘co-ordination’ finally finished by the 1934 Nuremberg rally. Famously this rally saw the making and release of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. The rally was a follow up to the infamous ‘Night of the Long Knives’ which took place at the end of June 1934. This action was centred around the political beheading of the Sturmabteilung or SA headed by Rohm who were agitating for a ‘Second Nazi Revolution’. After the full accession to power by Hitler in March 1933 and the take-over of the constitutional institutions by a carefully contrived fait accompli the SA were in the forefront of the fight against the Communists, Social Democrats and Trade Unionists who tried in the early days to offer some resistance to Hitler. They also played an integral role in the harassment of Jews, informally before April 1st 1933, and in an increasingly organised way afterwards, starting with a boycott of Jewish businesses on this date.
The Nuremberg rally which Riefenstahl filmed was not simply a propaganda stunt, it was a public declaration in the most powerful way possible backed by cinema to fully establish in the minds of the Nazi party itself that Hitler was the ‘Fuhrer’ and that the Germany was now united along its path to an historic future. The film which features the German Army as well as the SA and other Nazi organisations is the outcome of Hitler’s ideological cull. The presence of the German Army and its leader von Blomberg at the 1934 Nuremberg rally was symbolically immensely important for Hitler. The Nazis were reliant upon the army to achieve his long-term aims of ‘Lebensraum’ or colonial expansion mainly directed towards the east. By 1936 Hitler against the desires and advice of most capitalists and his economics minister and governor of the central bank Schacht was determined to pursue economic policies of rearmament. Overy argues that these policies were being carried out with the express intention of preparing Germany for a total war in which it could survive for up to 15 years.
It can now be seen that that Visconti has been very precise in the historical moment that he has chosen to represent. Nowell-Smith (2003) is surely right to note that the film operates on three levels of history, drama and myth. Nevertheless Nowell-Smith’s critical comments, like those of Bacon, do not exam the history closely enough. Instead they focus too closely upon the literary and the critical influences within the film at the expense of the historical process which is being represented. As a result they both tend to glide over an essential feature which Visconti certainly wished to represent. It is also important to note that the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis was itself an operatic trajectory in real life and it was intensely melodramatic. It is worth bearing in mind that Hitler was obsessed with Wagnerian opera. After defeat at Stalingrad in 1942 Hitler then eschews Wagner. For Visconti opera in such films as Senso could be represented as progressive liberal Italian nationalism albeit undermined by the ruling elites. Wagner by comparison was infused with a regressive Germanic 19th century romantic mysticism. Wagner was also intensely anti-Semitic. The Damned is thus open to a thorough reading of Visconti’s ideas on the role of opera in culture considering Verdi as progressive and Kultur through Wagner as regressive. However discussion of this is beyond the scope of this entry.
The Reichstag Fire
Visconti correctly picks the night of the Reichstag fire as an historical turning-point marking the beginning of the final collapse of Germany into its path of damnation - the outcomes of which are well documented by Rossellini’s ‘Germany Year Zero’ (1947). The first dialogue of Aschenbach ( the SS officer) and Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde) gives rise to a hint of something about to happen, in the entrance hall Aschenbach even more strongly signals that on this night in particular it will be important for Friedrich to act. It is clear that Aschenbach is in possession of some a priori knowledge. This is an invitation to murder Joachim the head of the family and the steel company. The prizes for Bogarde are Sophie and effective control of the company. The time for personal morality is dead states Aschenbach. The question at this stage is will Bogarde accept this Faustian pact?
The Reichstag Fire is announced by Konstantin the coarse and vulgar SA member of the family who also announces that the ‘culprit’ a communist has already been captured. The culprit in reality was captured on the site of the Reichstag trying to set alight yet more curtains. Van den Lubbe was not however a communist. He was an unemployed fairly deranged anarchist with bad visual impairment who had several years ago been flung out of the Dutch communist party for promoting arson and other acts of sabotage. As yet there is no precise historical evidence to definitively link the fire to a piece of agent provocatuerism on the part of the Nazis. However, we are asked to believe that this character in his physical state was easily able to break into the Reichstag without discovery only a few days after being released from a police force which was already thoroughly infiltrated by active Nazis as well as being controlled by the Nazis at the top. In reality the Nazis immediately arrested hundreds of Communists in Berlin and this carried on in the following days and weeks leading up to the election. It effectively ensured that the Communists couldn’t make an effective election campaign. By not banning the Communists outright Hitler ensured that their votes were unlikely to go to the Social Democrats. This fire effectively sealed the fate of Germany which Visconti was clearly well aware of.
Night of the Long Knives
The melodramatic themes of the film are carefully interwoven with a clever analysis of real events. The tour de force is the representation of the infamous ‘Night of the Long Knives’, when the SS (Black-shirts) massacred the leadership of Eric Rohm’s SA (The Brownshirts). This was a crucial moment in the rise to power of the Nazis. The Brownshirts represented the mobster populist element upon which the Nazi party was based, this populist element represented the so-called ‘socialist’ element of the ‘NSDP’. It was an element that was unsympathetic towards large capitalist organisations seeing them as exploitative of the ‘little man’ and the petit-bourgeoisie. If Hitler was to take the final step to power then he was going to have to purge his party of these elements and reconfigure the basic ethos of his party. The leader of the SA Eric Rohm had a strong personal power base and had been a colleague of Hitler’s since the beginnings of the Nazi party and had been a member of the paramilitary Freikorps before that. The ‘Night of the Long Knives’ also saw the murder of other leading figures such as von Schleicher who had been the Conservative Chancellor before Hitler was manipulated into power by von Papen. It is important to note that the German army colluded in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’. Reichenau made the agreement with Himmler to keep the army confined to barracks during the 1934 Rohm Purge. After the event Reichenau even issued a statement justifying the murder of General von Schleicher. It was effectively the last major act in the reformation of the ruling elites but a formation that was now on the road to an even worse fate than befell Germany in the First World War. That was also a war which the Prussian military elites had encouraged.
The final step to power for the Nazi party was based upon a compromise between, on one side, Hitler and his closest allies in the Nazi party underpinned by the rise of the SS as an elite corps answerable only to Hitler. This dishonourable political marriage to gain power was made with the most powerful of the German industrialists many of whom were members of, or sympathetic to, the Nationalist party, which was small but highly influential amongst the upper classes of Germany. A prominent leader of this party was Hugenberg who not only took over UfA after its near bankruptcy but also became the Minister of Finance when the Nazis first won a majority in the Reichstag. Whilst the plot of Visconti’s film initially appears complex, the family of ‘misfits, powers seekers, and perverts’ as Bondanella describes the Essenbeck family which is loosely based upon the Krupps family can be read as a trope for the confused state of Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Bondanella would probably not subscribe to a reading of this nature for he asserts that Visconti did not intend the film to be taken as a serious sociological or psychological reading of German culture in Weimar Germany.
Bondanella’s position also runs counter to Nowell-Smith’s final comments in his reading when he argues that ‘Visconti’s focus of interest has shifted from history as such, in the sense of a given set of events of which people are the agents, to culture in the sense of the objects which people have produced in history, to represent or to form part of the world they experience.’ (Nowell-Smith 2003, p 156).
Has Visconti's prior concern with history changed?
More on the issue of culture below, but firstly let us take the assertion that Visconti’s focus upon history as such has shifted. That the film is loosely based upon the Krupp family is important. It is well known that the head of Krupp wasn’t keen on the Nazis coming to power and it is certainly true that that the Krupp family had to make compromises to fit in with the demands of the Nazi regime. However it is important to note that the whole of the capitalist class was forced to do this as well. Visconti’s film is not a history of Nazi Germany it is a representation of the socio-political forces at work in the country in a very tight time-frame. If the Essenbecks are seen as representative not just of the Krupp family but as industrial capital within Germany in general then the perfidy, confusion betrayal and counter-betrayal makes more sense. It is important to note for example the example of Thyssen below and compare that with a brief outline of the Krupp family. In the film Martin can be seen as being close to the character of Alfred Krupp (see box below). The role of Herbert is more difficult to assess. Perhaps he should be seen as a portmanteau character who represents those in the ruling elites who recognise the fate which awaits Germany and leave. That Herbert reappears briefly because his family has been held hostage is also significant. Recent work on the Nazi Terror shows how the Gestapo went to great efforts to track down communists who left the country in the early 1930s, even those who were not especially important. These people were often used as sources of intelligence because their families were threatened with torture and the camps[i] . In reality the ruthlessness of the Nazis against former supporters is shown when the leading industrialist Thyssen and Schacht, the architect of early Nazi economic success both end up in concentration camps
One important concern is how to represent a period in which the KPD on Stalin’s orders had declared the German Social Democrat Party (SPD) ‘Social Fascists’. As much as anything this contributed to the rise to power of the Nazis when they achieved electoral success in 1933. At the time the film was made in Italy the communist party was still strongly allied to Moscow, it was only later in the 1970s that the cracks wrought by ‘Eurocommunism’ began to show. A critique of this nature would not have served Visconti well thus the working class as a class force in a Marxist sense disappear from view. Instead this is replaced by the bitter incestuous infighting in the grab for power by the elites.
By taking this artistic route Visconti was able to focus his critique upon the false hopes of redemption promoted by populism. Populism fails structurally to be a historical force able to liberate the socially excluded. The populists in the SA, like the working class nationalists in The Leopard meet their comeuppance. In The Leopard the bourgeoisie can still be seen a social force moving society forwards - in Marxist terms achieving their historical role. By comparison, at a time when modernity has become strongly installed in Europe and when the Weimar Republic represented one of the most advanced constitutions in the world the liberal bourgeoisie are forced out by a failure to connect socially or politically with the masses. Liberalism is subject to betrayal by unenlightened members of their own class who have tied their fortunes to Nazism as a mythological force doomed to failure. It is here that Visconti’s mise-en-scene described so well by Bondanella acts to signify this historically doomed trail up a one way street. The colour red comes to symbolise a hyperbolic and horrifying vision of a family embodying a corrupt culture that wilfully pulls the world down around its Ears’. (Bondanella, 2001, p 206).
The Role of Culture
Within Visconti’s notions of anthropomorphic cinema it is useful to discuss the role of culture and to consider culture in relation to civilisation. The stock question which always seems to be asked is ‘How can such a “cultured” nation have descended to the depths of such depravity?’ It enjoyed its cultural heritage this even down to enjoying to the greatest icons of European classical music such as the romantic lieder of Schubert and Beethoven symphonies after a busy day offloading Jewish deportees in the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Kultur for Germany has been associated with the ‘spirit of the nation’ unlike France and to some extent Italy which focused on ‘civilisation’ seen through German eyes as superficial and manneristic ‘feminised’ in the view of some. Bacon describes The Damned as a description of the ’utter negation of German culture’. The greatest success of Aschenbach was the winning over of Gunther (the cello playing son of Konstantin) to the evil of Nazism. Gunther can be seen as a synecdoche for the institutional liberal cultural establishment within Germany which makes its accommodation to Nazism. The likes of von Karajan for example spring to mind. Richard Evans 2003 gives a useful review of the cultural turn in post-Weimar Germany discussing some of these concerns. Bacon turns to George Steiner to try and provide some insight into this seeming cultural paradox. Steiner in a footnote comes up with an explanation which argues ‘If your brain, your nervous system, your imagination, your sensibility, your professional skills are completely and deeply invested in the great arts of the imagination and in abstract thought, speculation, instead of becoming more human, you may, unless you are terribly careful become less human...’ (Steiner cited Bacon 1998 p 240). For Steiner the paradox which arises it that there may be a desire for barbarism and also an indifference to barbarism. This, for Steiner, explains the capability of those in charge of the camps being able to play the cultural classics very, very well.
The other aspect of culture / entertainment which is represented is the cabaret. It is seen by all the observers as a culture of decadence which leads into perversion. As cabaret was strongly implicated with Jewish Bohemianism and Bohemian culture was seen in Nazi eyes as the degradation of the country associated with being non-German it was obviously rejected. The interruption of Martin’s performance and the subsequent walking out can be read as the filmic equivalent of marking the end of this culture. The grand walk out by the family could well be read as a marker of cultural pessimism of the kind espoused the likes of Spengler in his ‘Decline of the West’.
Martin is obviously incensed at this development, for it has been his rather feeble raison d’etre as someone entirely decadent. The film sees Martin changing from a lover of Bohemian decadence as a guilty cultural transgression into being able to take his place as a ‘richtige’ man. His paedophilia itself is a repressed desire for power at the start of the film, he isn’t a ‘real man’ he can only sing way about this in a self parodying way, dressed in a woman’s nightclub outfit at the start. By the end of the film he has reversed the tables over his viperous mother exercising his sexual power over her. Having driven her into a state of semi-madness he officiates over the marriage and death of Sophie and Friedrich. The bait of power left by Sophie has shifted from little girls to the capability of exercising any act without any sense of culpability whatsoever for Martin always displayed the amoralism desired by Aschenbach. Aschenbach has found his ‘willing executioner’ who can act with pleasure. This is unlike the purely selfish motives with which ‘the Macbeths' (Sophie and Friedrich ) conduct their heinous crimes. Martin will clearly revel in orchestrating millions of deaths. If Aschenbach is imagined as the ‘banality of evil’ as as Hannah Arendt has mistakenly described the organiser of the Holocaust [i] then the pure nastiness of Martin seems rather closer to that of the Nazi executioner Heydrich. Martin had something to keep hidden but is represented at the end of the film as the face of evil.
Visconti has chosen to represent this important historical period in a very clever dramatised way. The film is neither a historicisation of psychology nor is it, as Micciche argues, a psychologisation of history. That Martin, for example, is an example of the worm that turns is a comment upon how Nazism learned to appeal to the weak through an ‘armoured strength’ propping up masculinity in crisis provided by the unremitting structures of Nazi power [i] . This psychoanalytical approach begins to make sense of the tendency of directors such as Rossellini to over exaggerate the evils of Nazism by de-masculinising them. Roma Citta Aperta and Germany Year Zero feature Nazis as gay, lesbian and paedophilic. These outcasts could become a part of that discourse of power safe in its solidarity. There was no morality except that of service to a greater notion of the Nazi ideal provided by the almost godlike figure of the Fuhrer. Visconti has shown how ruthless the Nazi party was in pursuing its ends. It played upon class weakness, personal weakness and manufactured situations in which it could take advantage at both these levels of weakness.
Visconti of course used technical artifice such as the use of colour and mise en scene to make the film partly a melodrama. But at its heart it never seemed to veer from the position of anthropomorphic cinema. None of the characters were exact representations of real characters of the moment, they were portmanteau characters crystallising certain currents and tendencies in a way which managed to universalise from the specific precisely because the film was removed from the constraints of being documentary realism into an operatic / melodramatic register. Thus, it is possible to agree with Bacon that by interweaving these strands the film shows that the historical forces which led to the rise of Nazism can rise again, a fact witnessed by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, and the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Rwanda and during the break-up of Yugoslavia.
When it comes to a question of culture this film is especially interesting for Visconti is exploring the nature of the relationship of culture to politics. High art and culture when it is taken out of its context is no guarantor of civilisation. The Gods (Hitler) are kept in the twilight but are seen as directly responsible for the downfall of society, the Wagnerian dreams far from the trends of modernising society are trashed for they can only be regressive. Visconti doesn’t offer the viewer any pleasant futures for we already know the future of Germany. Instead the film functions as a route towards an explanation provided by history for the possibilities of a dystopian future not only for Germany.
This analysis by taking two of Visconti’s most developed historical films seeks to explore whether there is a clear structural link between Visconti’s explorations of history through culture and culture through history. I have argued that there are strong grounds for rethinking Visconti’s oeuvre as part of a more coherent framework than is currently recognised. By re-categorising his work away from the Risorgimento / German binary which has been critically established this analysis can be pursued further by revisiting his other ‘German’ films Death in Venice and Ludwig. Visconti is trying to explore through the cultural framework how European society managed to implode triggered by start of the First World War leading to a European Thirty Years war. At an international level this war functioned as the completion of a process in which empires as they were previously known largely disappeared in the following few years. They were now clearly redundant and a new dynamic force in the shape of the USA had replaced the old orders. Arguably the USA is the absent other which came to thrive out of the chaos and decadence of a Europe which had gone past its ‘sell by date’. Visconti chose to examine this process using the works of Thomas Mann and the drama of Chekhov through a Lukacsian based filter. Here, the best realist work can be seen to be representative of the processes underlying socio-economic change in society through their characterisations in ways unrecognised even by the authors. But Visconti’s theoretical concerns also lead to a blending of Gramscian Marxism with Luckasian Marxism in ways which will be fruitful to explore further for Lukacs of course made his own famous contribution to thinking about history in History and Class Consciousness however that is a task beyond the limits of this article.
Visconti’s The Leopard and The Damned are probably the two best films ever made about history from a Marxist perspective. More work remains to be done in revising the rest of his later works from this perspective. This article parts company with Nowell-Smith by reading Visconti as being thoroughly imbricated with history. The article also parts company with Bacon by insisting that rather than being a liberal democrat in his later years Visconti‘s primary concern is to be exploring the processes of history at a very deep level. Visconti should be taken at face value when he argued that he was interested in analysing a sick society. That he chose to do so using some of the great works of European fiction within a realist mode should not detract from his project. The analysis here provides evidence that Visconti was working on a great project pursued steadily through his work. This project was driven by combining Gramscian and Lukacsian insights developing his own contribution to critical analysis and artistic representation which was the concept of anthropomorphic cinema.
Below are some links to separate positings about important historical people in Nazi Germany who Visconti has explicity or implicitly represented in The Damned:
Heydrich, Reinhard (1904 - 1942).
Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfred (1907-1967)
Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Gustav (1870-1950).
Lubbe, Marianus van den (1909-1934)
Reichenau, Walter von (1884-1942)
Thyssen Fritz (1873-1951)
Bacon, Henry. 1998. Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Bondanella, Peter. 3rd edition. 2002. Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present.
Cesarani, David. Eichman : His Life and Crimes. Heinemann 2004.
Clark, Martin. 1984. Modern Italy 1871-1982. London: Longman
Evans, Richard J. 2003. The Coming of the Third Reich. London: Penguin /
Fischer, Klaus P. 1995. Nazi Germany a New History. London: Constable
Johnson, Eric. 2002. The Nazi Terror: Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans. London: John Murray
Mommsen, Hans. 2003. Alternatives to Hitler. London: I. B. Tauris
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey. 2003 3rd edition. Luchino Visconti. London: British Film Institute
Overy, R. D. 1995. War and Economy in the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Taylor, Richard. 1998. Film Propaganda Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: I. B. Tauris
Wheal, Donald James and Shaw Warren. 1997. The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich. London Penguin
Germany Year Zero (1947) Rossellini
The Damned (1969) Visconti
The Leopard (1962) Visconti
Triumph of the Will (1934) Riefenstahl
Please note these sites were not used in the writing of this article they are being provided for visitor information only.
THE DAMNED (LA CADUTA DEGLI DEI) BBC 4 Page
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF COUNT LUCHINO VISCONTI . A BBC 4 Arena program it is the best available documentary in English on Visconti. I believe it is available as an extra on one of the BFI Visconti films.
Visconti's Cinema of Twilight by Maximilian Le Cain on the Senses of Cinema site. This is a runmination on Visconti's ouvre in general but has a couple of intersting comments on the Damned. immediately below he comments on the cinematic technique of the constructio of a disorienting cinematic space to emphasise change in the social order. Thiws seems a pertinent reading.
The disorientating violence of the zooms in The Damned literally pulls the space out from around the characters, enveloping them in a panicky state of alienation from their surroundings which are changing too fast. This constant spatial disintegration reflects the insecurity of the often ruthless characters' scrabble for power in the crucible of a new and very dangerous society. (Maximilian Le Cain).
I am less convinced by another of Le Cain's comments below. The article above argues that the later films wern't just personal projects and that a deep level of politics THROUGH historical analysis was embedded in all his films. Whilst one might choose to make a reading of The Damned as a comment upon the developing political instabilities of Italy at the time it needs to be argued not asserted as it is in this article:
the committed communist Visconti was adamant that all his previous films were in some way political. The Damned, although set during Hitler's rise to power, represented a despairing comment on the events of 1968 after which the director gave up political filmmaking to concentrate on purely personal projects. (Maximilian Le Cain)
The sort of comments represented by this review in DVD Times are precisely the ones which this article argues against. Lured by surface and Nazis for Dummies kind of history it can sound convincing until the detail is worked through. It does represent those who feel that soemhow Nazism and the Holocaust have to be treated with a reverential attitude which is entirely linked to naturalism. This ironic given Hitler's propensity to melodrama.
The New York Times review By VINCENT CANBY Published: December 19, 1969. This is lovely review which is refreshing and open to the experience of the time. Gaining information about the reception of films in their contemporary settings usually enriches our understandings.
May 28, 2007
The Historical Context of The Leopard, (1963):director Luchino Visconti
Visit analyses of Visconti's other historical film: Senso and The Damned
Visconti needs to be recognised as one of the most important film directors of the 20th century. Visconti's aesthetic approach is fascinating and other themes such as homosexuality are very important to his oeuvre but it is the way in which Visconti develops these themes within an overarching intellectual framework which I think will ultimately lead to a wider recognition of his greatness. Some of Visconti's greatness stems from his treatment of history itself. Something which Geoffrey Nowell-Smith has commented upon:
It is in the quality of his meditation on history that Visconti distinguishes himself from all other film-makers, past or present. There have been great film-makers who have occasionally delved into the past for one reason or another... But none of these, not even Eisenstein, applies to his re-creation of the past a serious and thought through theory of history... Perhaps it is because we no longer expect movie-makers to be profound thinkers that Visconti's greatness is no longer appreciated as it should be. (Nowell-Smith 2003, p 216)
Sometimes it is only in retrospect that true greatness can be appreciated. Even Nowell-Smith one of the most important commentators writing in English on Visconti admits that his original criticism of Death in Venice missed many things of importance. If only all critics could be so honest about their errors accordingly.
Introduction: The representation of history
This posting functions only as a brief synopsis and introduction to Visconti’s film The Leopard (1963). a full synopsis will be provided in a different posting. This posting is primarily concerened with establishing the background history to the film and providing an analysis based upon this. This piece was part of a presentation which argues that The Leopard can be bracketed with The Damned (1979). Taken as a pair of films I argue that amongst other things Visconti is seeking to examine the limited modernising role of Liberalism through its use of nationalism and the contradictory nature of this Liberalism which always has the potential to revert into a non-modernising political formation through nationalism. The Damned and its representation of Nazism epitomises this potential.
Nationalism for Visconti on this reading is therefore within a doomed or even negative dialectic in which the progressive impetus originally embedded within Nationalism as a political force which could overthrow the Ancien Regime will become compromised by that regime and ultimately become a reactionary force within society.
My presentation argued that the two films can usefully be compared as representing the flawed highpoint of 19th century Liberal / National revolutions The Risorgimento through The Leopard whilst The Damned shows the ultimate dangers of nationalism through the barbarism of Nazism. Thus Visconti has framed an important period of European history in a bracket of attitudes to nationalism. Many of his future films sought to combine a cultural and political historical approach to this period eschewing historical approaches which tend to separate the two strands of history. For Visconti it appears as though they are strongly intertwined.
Frequently the reviews of these films largely miss the exploration of the mechanisms of history which Visconti was keen to represent and at times are considered firstly as 'heritage' films as in the case of The Leopard. Heritage films are reliant upon costume drama for their mise en scene set in an historical period different to our own but make little or no claims upon historical authenticity neither do they examine the mechanisms of history.
By comparison The Damned has been understood as a slightly aberrant and 'melodramatic' exploration into the sexual depravities surrounding Nazism in The Damned. This does the film an injustice by dehistoricising it.
Garibaldi's Redshirts at the battle for Palermo
Visconti is renowned for his attention to detail. These shirts were soaked in tea and left in the sun in order to replicate the fading of the originals which would have happened during the course of the campaign.
Historical Background to The Leopard
Visconti made two historical films about the period of the Risorgimento (This translates as Resurgence / Rebirth) which is the process of the unification of Italy during the 19th century. The first stirrings of nationalism can be discerned as early as the late 18th century during the period when Napoleon Bonaparte governed Italy. The overthrow of Napoleon led to Italy being carved up at the Congress of Vienna (1815) when the great powers allotted the regions of Venetia and Lombardy to direct control of Austria to ensure that France didn’t have an easy invasion route into Italy again.
Before Napoleon Italy had never been a unified state. It was comprised of eight separate regions with their own Princes (The Pope controlling the Papal States) and each area with a distinctive dialect, rather than a regional accent, which many can still speak today. As a language Italian was underdeveloped and certainly didn’t exist as a form of ‘Received’ language and pronunciation.
After the Congress of Vienna a number of secret societies formed called the Carbonari (Charcoal Burners). They weren’t especially well educated, neither was there a clear manifesto, and the elements comprising this movement were fairly heterogeneous. They were loosely linked by a desire to unify Italy and get rid of foreign powers although whether the Italy of their dreams should be a widely enfranchised democracy or just a liberal bourgeois regime united behind a constitutional monarch was an underlying polarisation which was to continue throughout the whole of the unification process. The unification process was drawn out not being completed until 1870.
There are a range of historical perspectives on the Risorgimento which were strongly political. Visconti was well aware of these and was making his films in such a way as to challenge right wing nationalist views on the period.
The key historiographical positions which have developed are usefully outlined by Martin Clark 1984 who also stresses that historical writing in Italy is very clearly ‘committed’ ‘to cheer on their own team’. Much historical writing is then hagiographic, or denunciatory, or ‘Whig’.
They have tended to be dominant within academia. Their major influence has been taken from Benedetto Croce with an ‘ethico-political’ approach. Croce stressed men and ideas and spent little time on either social structures or economic issues. In the 1950s historians like Rosario Romeo opened up the economic history arena challenging the Marxist historians of the time. Liberals like others, suggests Clark, have moved towards an overemphasis upon documents and ‘facts’ rather than interpretation and synthesis.
Another leading school was mentored by Salvemini and Gobbetti. Denis Mack Smith a British historian is their best known exponent. They are anti-Facist, anti-Catholic, anti-Communist and to some extent anti-Liberal. This is because they criticise weakness of liberal governments, lack of popular support and a a ready acceptance of Southern corruption. Radicals are ‘delightfully pessimistic’ (whatever that is meant to mean) don’t write ‘total history’ but do reach a huge audience.
Clark argues that this school has been perhaps the most influential since 1945. Grouped around the journal Studi Storici . The main influence upon this group has been Gramsci whose work was published in Italy in 1945 after the end of the war. Gramsci’s main influence has been on the examination of the development of hegemony and consensus as a governing practice oiling the wheels of social change. Furthermore, the role of the intellectual as a disseminator of ideas of social change was emphasised. Gramsci also focused on the political importance of the peasantry as well.
Clark suggests that this school of Marxist thought had its limitations for they were ‘strangely uninterested in class divisions’. For them working class history usually meant a history of working class leaders. ‘Abstract entities , like proletariats and petty bourgeois, filled their pages; real workers and peasants rarely appeared, much less details of factory work, labouring skills or farming implements’. One can compare this attitude to that of British historians influenced by Marxism such as Hobsbawm and E. P Thompson).
Visconti’s Risorgimento Films: Senso (1954) / The Leopard (1963)
Visconti produced two films about the Risorgimento. At the time he made these the main historiographical perspectives were as outlined above. As a Marxist he was by now strongly influenced by Gramsci but also some of the work of the Radicals such as Gobbetti. His film Senso was strongly attacked by the army and there was a huge battle with censorship as well as with the producers. Even the final product went down as a political storm for it was very critical about the dominant way in which the Risorgimento was being represented.
Between 1949 & 1954 there were twelve films with the Risorgimento as their central theme made. Only Senso made a critique of the dominant position which was that Italian Unification had been brought by a spirit of self sacrifice. That passions were high on this subject as well as an underlying need to represent a united Italy following the take-over by Christian Democrats in 1948 is evidenced by the critical reception by one Italian historian of Dennis Mack’s (Radical) Italy a Modern History (1959) a few years later. ‘ The Risorgimento was not due to fortunate circumstances or to selfish interests ... It was a spirit of sacrifice, it was suffering in the way of exile and in the galleys, it was the blood of Italian youth on the battlefields ... It was the passion of a people for its Italian identity’. (quote taken from an ‘A’ level textbook and naughtily not sourced).
Senso was about the victory of the Austrians over the Italian army near Custoza (June 1866). Due to general mismanagement and incompetence based upon a story by Boito which recounts the infidelities of a Countess both to her husband and to the nationalist cause by falling for an Austrian officer. Visconti’s adaptation was very different but incomplete because of censorship. The historical reality was that France had made different secret deals with both Prussia and Austria by then at war with each other. In both cases Napoleon III promised to remain neutral provided that the winners passed Venetia firstly to him and with the understanding that it would then be passed to the Italian kingdom which had come about in 1861. In reality the Prussian victory at Sadowa meant that Venetia was passed to France and thence to Italy without the Italians being able to win it, much to the chagrin of the Italians.
This story wasn’t what was required at the time the film was made. It would have had contemporary resonances of the Allies being the primary liberators of Italy and undermine the myths of resistance and national solidarity which were being strongly promoted. As the Communists had been cut out of government by then there were clearly strong underlying political stakes. Senso is probably best seen as a cultural political intervention within the politics of the moment.
The Leopard is a less melodramatic film in the English sense of the term but it is deeply suffused with a sense of history at the meta level. Visconti manages to combine a range of intellectual influences into this film which perhaps will come in due course to gain the full recognition it deserves. It is informed by Marx and Gramsci at the level of history as well as by Lukacs whose sense of realism revolves around the character type. For Lukacs this means a character who is someone entirely of their class but who embodies the contradictions of history most fully.
Without once representing the working and peasant classes as a fundamental force of progress The Leopard combines a deep level of class analysis with an understand of the contradictory forces of history. The Prince understands along with Don Calogero, Angelica (Claudia Cardinale) and of course Tancredi (Alain Delon) that Italy is at a turning point. Tancredi’s youth, dandyism and vigour as well as being a nephew from a more impoverished branch of the aristocracy thus slightly outside of the establishment have led him to understand that the invasion of Garibaldi’s 1,000 in Sicily gives him an opportunity to break away from the static society of Sicily where his only hope for the future would be marriage to the shy Concetta his cousin and daughter of the Prince. This would perpetuate the physical and cultural inbreeding of the Sicilian gentry which, Visconti implies, is gradually sapping the elite of its vigour.
Tancredi quickly persuades his uncle the Prince of Salina that everything must change on the surface so that fundamental social relations don’t change. There is no loyalty to the new young King of Naples who has failed to respond positively to the winds of change emanating from Piedmont and who is effectively allied with Austria. Tancredi is attracted to the romanticism and panache of the adventurist Garibaldian ‘Redshirts’. The Prince even gives him some money to help him on his way. The Prince has quickly realised that the fundamental social order will not be changed in a revolutionary manner but that a reordering of sorts is necessary in order for his class to survive.
The Prince has an important discussion with the priest in his study surrounded by telescopes. These function as a metaphor for farsightedness, they are redolent of Galileo and his relationship to the Church, and they establish the Prince as a man of Enlightenment, an intellectual. This is contrasted with the house of another of the Sicilian aristocracy where the ball scene is held at the end of the film.
Here the Prince and his family are greeted on their arrival by the inhabitants of his summer retreat in Donnafugata.
The film shifts to the fighting in Palermo where the Redshirts win. The film moves to the Prince’s summer residence in Donnafugata away from the hotter Palermo area. They have already gained a travel permit from the Garibaldians. Many of the Garibaldian officers are from a similar class background to Tancredi. Tancredi’s position as a captain in the Garibaldian army allows them to get through a roadblock whilst the peasants are noticeably not allowed to pass. This is a clear indicator of the social limits of the revolution against the Bourbons.
In Donnafugata the processes by which a new social elite is recomposed from a mixture of old and new elements is represented. Don Calogero is the mayor and a scheming businessman who like a Hyena preys upon the needs of a distressed aristocracy, buying up some of their lands when they are desperate for some cash to support their old ways of living. Throughout the film Don Calogero is portrayed as a man who is Dickensian in many ways knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Don Calogero has a beautiful daughter Angelica (Claudia Cardinale) who he introduces into polite society when invited with other petit bourgeois locals to dinner with the Prince. Sexually and erotically Tancredi is swept of his feet much to the disgust of Concetta who wants Tancredi. The prince goes into the background of Angelica’s family and quickly realises that Angelica would be a suitable match for Tancredi and vows to help him.
Here Tancredi has been courting Angelica in an old part of the Prince's palace. Angelica is playing hard to get. As a potential member of the rising bouregois class allied to the aristocracy she knows her virginity is a key part of her road to success. She is clearly not interested in having an illegitimate child with a member of the local aristocracy. Here mise en scene, in which actor performance is an essential part, has been raised by Visconti's direction to a level in which the history of class and sexuality in terms of power and history is literally embodied in a single scene.
To do this he has to overcome the protestations of both his wife and don Ciccio the Church organist who is an honest and faithful loyalist to the now deposed Bourbon dynasty. It is he who makes it clear to the Prince that the plebiscite in October 1860 was rigged by Don Calogero. The Prince is determined to make it as easy as possible for Tancredi and overrides these protestations. It is the Prince who has the foresight to be able to act in the interests of his class.
It is important to make a voluntary match of a dynamic couple bringing in new blood as well as money for his fortune must already be split seven ways. A match with Concetta would not be a happy one. The Prince also recognises that a match with another of
Throughout Visconti makes it plain that ‘being in love’ is more of a social mechanism than a permanent state of being. Throughout the film Concetta cannot get over Tancredi although he has never signalled any direct intentions towards her. She turns down other opportunities, and towards the end Angelica tells her that she needs to be more pragmatic and change her views. Concetta is stuck in a demure Catholicised torpor and shows none of the flirtatious dynamism required of Angelica if she is to make the grade in the new society. Concetta represents the fading world of the aristocracy of the past whilst Tancredi backed by the Prince recognises the mechanisms of social change and the need to adapt to survive.
Although many make a point of the Prince’s tiredness and awareness of death it is as a synecdoche of a fading class. The other family members are also highlighted like this at the ball for when the Prince is rejuvenated by his dance with Angelica; Concetta, her brother and mother look on totally enervated. They don’t appear to have the vibrancy to take a full place in the developing new Italy. By comparison just as the Prince is leaving the ball Tancredi tells him that he is going to be a candidate for the new government in Turin.
A role in government of the new order is something that the Prince recognises he cannot become involved in even when he is offered a place in the senate by Chevalley who is a representative of the Liberal regime under King Victor Emmanuel II. The Prince isn’t temperamentally trained or suited to making legislation and he also recognises that he is a part of the old order and someone who is sympathetic to it. Chevalley is disappointed and astounded, he is a Liberal idealist and he doesn’t at all like the suggestion of Segaro (Don Calogero) who he knows to be totally opportunistic and unscrupulous taking a political position. Nothing will change he argues. When Chevalley leaves the Prince famously comes out with the statement that the Lions and Leopards (the Aristocrats) will be replaced by Hyenas and Jackals. This is a reference to don Calogero’s abilities to gradually pick off the weaker aristocracy by gaining their land and then a weaker aristocrat (Tancredi) by marrying into the status (symbolic capital of the aristocracy). It was something that Visconti was familiar with from his own background.
Visconti’s representation of the Risorgimento
The film continuously critiques the myth of the Risorgimento as a homogenous struggle of the popular masses. It was a myth which the Italian centre and rightwing had long promoted and their resistance had led to Senso running foul of the censors. In The Leopard Tancredi and his officer friends who were Garibaldians have by the winter following their victory in Palermo changed their uniforms from Garibaldi’s Redshirts to being officers in the new Piedmontese army. They reappear at Donnafugata after November 1860 when Garibaldi would have entered Naples in triumph accompanying King Victor Emmanuel.
It was at this time that Garibaldi was offered the rank of Major General along with various privileges. These he turned down as he thought that his Redshirts were being badly treated by the Victor Emmanuel. Tancredi now represents the ruling elites who had been incorporated into the official forces. Some critics such as Bacon, have seen Tancredi as opportunistic ‘whereas Tancredi’s portrayal is nothing if not critical , that of the prince is quite the opposite...’ (p 94).
However Tancredi made clear at the outset that his allegiance was to Victor Emmanuel and that he was only a Garibaldian volunteer because there was no other option. The Prince has always understood the contradictions. In historical reality those who marched with Garibaldi were never an homogenous political grouping representing only a loose political alliance. Many Mazzinian republicans fought with Garibaldi working to a more radical agenda than Garibaldi would have supported.
It was another factor which caused the mistrust of Garibaldi amongst the elites as well as his adventurist approach in general. I argue that Tancredi is entirely true to his class position. By recognising that his material position isn’t good he is acting in both his own as well as his class interests this is why the Prince of Salina is supporting him. Concetta is entirely unable to understand the social and class dynamics of events. When Tancredi says that the rabble who deserted to support Garibaldi were justly to be executed Concetta rightly turns on him and says he wouldn’t have talked like that earlier, but no officer of any military force is going to look favourably upon mutiny.
The Prince’s class needs people on the inside and the fact that Angelica recognises the role of the Prince while they are dancing reinforces the point.
Garibaldi’s adventurism is commented upon in the Ball sequence for there the regular officers of the new Army of the now King of Italy, (Victor Emmanuel was crowned King of Italy in 1861), are talking about the Battle of Aspromante which happened in 1862.
The battle was between regular government troops and Garibaldi who had started a march on Rome from
This could lead to a false sentimentality for Garibaldi amongst audiences. Garibaldi himself was no radical politically. Despite appealing to the Sicilian peasantry by supporting land reform in the few weeks that he was in direct control of
Where the film functions well is in showing how the state was prepared to act very firmly in the interests of Liberalism which had clear strategic aims and an agenda. Adventurists like Garibaldi tied to an idealist concept of Nationalism were not the people who were going to develop and embed the new political order. A period of stability was required to consolidate and Garibaldi was stopped.
Here the Prince (Burt Lancaster) dances with Claudia Cardinale (Angelica) at the ball which takes approximately 40 minutes of the end of the film. It functions amongst other things as a public recognition of angelica as an arrivant. The scene cuts to the rest of the family watching the couple dance, with Concetta and her mother looking faded and draw. Again it is Visconti's use of mise en scene which encapsulates class relations and the underlying dynamics in an instant. This is part of the genius of Visconti.
Overall The Leopard makes it clear that nationalism as ‘the passion of a people for its Italian identity’ was never a reality. The Sicilian peasants needed deep seated social reforms. Visconti makes it implicitly clear rather than explicit that the rising power of the Jackals would do nothing to change the poverty which was endemic under the Bourbons. Chevalley represents modern social thinking which argues that good quality social administration would increase the lot of the poor. This was a position which was enacted for the first time under Bismarck of course. Visconti when interviewed later is firm on the point that his ‘pessimism’ within the film by not showing the rising peasantry leaves the intellectual space to imagine that something far greater than mere national unification is needed if social inequality is to be eradicated.
Elsewhere I will be posting an analysis of The Leopard combined with Visconti’s treatment of Nazism in The Damned (1969). In this I argue that Visconti has deliberately explored the failures of European Liberalism to be able to deliver the promise of social progress through a route which is dependent upon nationalism. It is nationalism which is ultimately irreconcilable with social progress and in its Liberal formulation is doomed to a failure marked by barbarism. Visconti by treating the Risorgimento as the highpoint of Liberal Nationalism is able to contrast it to the depths plumbed by Nazism. Interestingly revolutions of both a progressive and a regressive nature tend to eat their children, a point made by Zizek in his foreward to the recently reprinted book by Adorno In Search of Wa,gner (Verso, 2005):
Is not the key paradox of every revolutionary process, in the course of which not only is violence needed to overcome the existing violence, but the revolution, in order to stabilise itself into a New Order, has to eat its children. (Zizek, Slavoj, 2005 p xxvi).
This is something which Visconti clearly seems to understand for the closing scenes of The Leopard feature the sounds of the exectution of radical Garibaldians who have their opposite numbers in the slaughter of the SA in the 'Night of the Long Knives' which he depicts more openly in The Damned.
Link to Tales of a Festival site with link to live Visconti interview en francais!
Link to Buffalo film Seminar Series on The Leopard. contains extracts from both Nowell-Smith and Bondanella on the film.
For other internal links see: | <urn:uuid:35f44429-7167-4111-9a10-9274c1d9ce9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/tag/the_leopard/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967613 | 15,480 | 1.710938 | 2 |
By Dan Schneider
There was a time when the backdrop for Occupy Boston’s General Assemblies was a mosaic of movement-related imagery, spread across the wall of a Big Dig ventilation building. In the months since the group’s eviction from Dewey Square, you’d be more likely to see a golden cross.
Absent of a physical encampment, occupiers have turned to Boston’s churches for space to hold their numerous assemblies, gatherings and community events. Those that the group frequents most include Arlington Street Church, Emmanuel Church, Community Church of Boston, and St. Paul’s Church. All four are within a mile of each other in downtown Boston, and are either Unitarian Universalist (Arlington Street, Community Church) or Episcopalian (Emmanuel, St. Paul’s).
When Occupy Boston was evicted from Dewey Square in early December, staff of St. Paul’s Cathedral implored the dean, the Very Reverend Jep Strait, to let the group meet in the Church. “There was a suggestion of letting them hold General Assemblies in the church… I was a little nervous, because I wondered if they’d occupy the church and never leave,” Rev. Strait explained with a laugh. Ultimately, he says Occupy Boston has been incredibly respectful of the church and that he’s come to “admire their process for including everyone’s voice.”
“I hope that by giving them space, we help to in some small way bear witness to whatever they want to do,” Strait said. Since December, St. Paul’s Cathedral has been host to a number of ‘community gatherings’, discussion nights hosted each weeks by one of Occupy Boston’s many working groups.
Neighborhood-based Occupy groups have also moved many of their planning meetings and events to church basements and meeting spaces. Occupy Somerville has been meeting at the 1st Church of Somerville UCC and Occupy Jamaica Plain has found refuge at Hope Central Church. In some cases, space has been provided with the same indifference as open mic nights; but a growing number of pastors, congregations (and congregants) are moving from being mere hosts to being active participants. At a protest of Bank of America organized by Occupy Somerville, the Associate Pastor at 1st Church of Somerville, Jeff Mansfield, was one of five people who stepped forward to close his personal account at the bank.
To many people, a connection between mainstream religion – especially Christianity – and the Occupy movement might seem to be out of the question. Those folks probably haven’t heard of the Protest Chaplains.
Protesting in the Name of the God
The relationship between Occupy movement and sympathetic Christians dates back to just about a week before the first sleeping bags hit the ground at Zuccotti Park in New York City. A small group of students from Harvard Divinity School and a few members of the Christian organization The Crossing decided to take part in the action they had read about in Adbusters that summer.
Heather Pritchard, a member of the original group that ventured to Occupy Wall Street, recalls that “we wanted to bring an explicitly Christian voice to the protest.” Dressed in full Albs and carrying a cardboard cross through lower Manhattan, the Protest Chaplains were born amidst the same burst of activist energy that would find its way to Boston just a week and a half later. Five of the Protest Chaplains came to Occupy Boston’s first General Assembly on September 27th, where they immediately formed the Faith and Spirituality Working Group.
As Occupy Boston grew in size and diversity, so did the Chaplains. In the face of the inclusive and egalitarian ethos of the Occupy movement itself, the group decided to accept other faiths into their group: Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and anyone whose drive to protest inequality came from a spiritual conviction.
Yet the original, singularly Christian intent of the group is what makes them so unique within this movement. As a result of the Chaplain’s efforts, many congregants who otherwise would have never approached the protests came down to see what was going on. Many of them ended up coming back; some for the Vespers services held at the encampment’s main stage, and others to just sit and talk with the protesters.
“A lot of individuals at Occupy Boston came to the movement wanting to promote secular things. They’re not trying to make this a religious movement,” Pritchard explains, “but a lot of people bring their faith. They believe in things like equality and human rights because of their faith.”
Speaking of her fellow protest chaplains, she added, “We strongly believe that Christ came to this earth to liberate the poor and the oppressed. That’s why he specifically spent his time with the beggars and the prostitutes and the lepers.”
The Altar on the Left
Since the 1980s, the Christian Right has been a political powerhouse, able to mobilize droves of supporters at the drop of a hat and strong enough, in some areas of the country, to make or break the candidacy of those vying for elected office. Their focus has been on a handful of divisive areas of domestic social policy: abortion, gay marriage and prayer in schools, to name a few. Generally speaking, the Christian Right has no voice of its own on matters of economic policy; the group largely follows in lock step with traditional conservative Republicans.
All the more reason, it seems, to reconsider of a term not frequently used: the Christian Left.
“It’s not a phrase I’d use naturally,” said Dan McKanan, a professor at Harvard Divinity School and author of the book Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition. McKanan describes the Christian Left as a group focused on those parts of Jesus’ teachings which advocate for a compassionate economic system, from the story of the Good Samaritan to the Beatitudes (“blessed are the poor in spirit”, for example).
He also describes them as a group that, despite having these strong faith-based convictions about the need for social and economic justice, isn’t nearly as organized or culturally relevant as the Christian Right.
“Part of the reason that left Christian organizations don’t have the same muscle as, say, Focus on the Family, is that a lot of religious leftists are putting their time and energy into organizations that aren’t specifically religious in character,” McKanan says. The Occupy movement is just one example.
That the Occupy movement could conceivably partner with mainline Christianity would be no surprise to McKanan. He points to a long history of radical Christian activism to support this, from labor-rallying Catholics Dorothy Day and César Chávez, to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Both at the national and local level, the stage appears to be set for a revival of this strain of Christian thought. When the battle over Wisconsin’s state budget came to a fever pitch last year, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki issued a statement in support of the state’s public unions, quoting at length from Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical.
“The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine…for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past,” Pope Benedict XVI wrote.
Here in Massachusetts, the Unitarian Church, the Black Ministerial Alliance and a number of other faith-based organizations have come out against the state’s new “three strikes” bill, which would require mandatory maximum sentences for repeat felons. Churches have partnered with and community organizations (including Occupy the Hood) to build a grassroots campaign against the bill.
In collaborations like this one, activists are taking up the message that legendary Boston activist Mel King delivered at Occupy Boston’s Martin Luther King Day community gathering in Arlington St. Church last month. King, a long-time Boston community activist and political leader, urged the gathering to make the churches and their congregants their allies.
On one hand, Mel King is challenging Occupy activists to organize outside of their comfort zones. On the other, he is challenging Christian congregations to answer and act on this question: “Which side are you on?”
As groups like the Protest Chaplains and others make their way through Boston’s houses of God, America’s often overlooked Christian Left seems poised to grow, and perhaps answer King’s question. If so, money lenders – among others – may once again have to worry about their tables getting turned over. | <urn:uuid:9131ca01-2357-4489-af7f-f839340cf2ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bostonoccupier.com/occupy-boston-and-the-return-of-the-christian-left/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960335 | 1,833 | 1.507813 | 2 |
My concern is not just that Tillich be treated accurately as a
matter of historical precision. With the clear defects of his
all-too-philosophical theology, we should bear in mind his warning that
God is not simply an antity in the world alongside other entities. &
the defects of Tillich's idea of God are in fact shared with many of the
traditional God concepts of theology with their "perfectly
simple", a-temporal & impassible character. These are as much "the God
of the philosophers" as Tillich's. Fortunately many theologians have
displayed a blessed inconsistency by letting the biblical picture of God
have more of an influence on their work than their philosophical
constructs allow. & IMO the same can be said of Tillich.
> When Tillich would preach, and he did, some might
> hear of the God of the historic Christian tradition, but that would be by
> God's grace, not Tillich's intent.
This isn't the impression one gets from his sermons - note my
last sentence above. | <urn:uuid:8b83835e-f0df-488a-809a-5f496fd37c58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.asa3.org/archive/asa/199703/0117.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96106 | 228 | 1.78125 | 2 |
In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Avanti Products Inc. of Miami, FL, U.S. has recalled about 124,000 water dispensers.
Consumers were advised to stop using recalled products due to the possible malfunction of a child-resistant safety feature on the hot water faucet. The device can malfunction so that the faucet will not turn off, causing burn injuries to children. Avanti has received 10 reports of the hot water not shutting off, nine of which resulted in burn injuries to children, including a 10-month-old baby who suffered burns on his arm and chest.
Six water dispenser models with hot water faucets are included in the recall. The water dispensers have model numbers WD32, WD 50, WD 50.1, WDT51, WDR 52, or WHC 59. Model number WDR 52 is a combination refrigerator and water dispenser. All six models have removable drip trays and can hold either 3- or 5-gal bottles of water.
The recalled units were manufactured in China, but were sold in the U.S. at Office Depot, Staples, and other appliance and electronic stores from July 2000 August 2004 for between U.S. $120 and $250.
to Daily News | <urn:uuid:6758a6cb-ae21-4893-8539-8444cd30d318> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.appliancemagazine.com/news.php?article=7615&zone=0&first=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96623 | 267 | 1.757813 | 2 |
UTPA Program Credited for Helping Local Businesses
Several local businesses are crediting a UTPA program for helping them cut costs and improve their operations. The program is also providing college students with much needed experience and preparing them for the workforce.
With the state of the economy weighing heavy and industry, manufacturers from around the globe must cut costs if they want to continue to succeed. At UTPA, there is a program in place that helps local businesses not only find ways to save money, but also eliminate waste from their daily operations and increase the speed of production. The Lean Six Sigma Academy, as it's called, partners a company with a graduate student from UTPA's College of Engineering and Computer Science and has them follow a business management strategy to create a plan of action. For more information on this program call the Lean Six Sigma Academy at 956.665.7011 or visit: | <urn:uuid:06ad9faf-4e7a-4d5b-a641-6ff6b55e2767> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kveo.com/news/utpa-program-credited-for-helping-local-businesses | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963809 | 181 | 1.804688 | 2 |
CUNA said Monday night that its website was one of at least 30 major organizations struck by hackers and is advising all CUNA.org users to change their passwords.
The trade group said the compromised data was limited to information used to log on to the site, such as email addresses, phone numbers, titles and business addresses.
“We have analyzed the data potentially accessed by this group and want you to know that it includes no personally identifiable information (e.g., driver’s license, credit card or Social Security numbers) from credit union or league personnel, or other users of CUNA’s website,” the trade group said in a statement.
The trade group said a group called Team GhostShell was behind the attacks, which CUNA said also targeted federal government sites including NASA, legal and educational institutions, the European Space Agency and the Texas Bankers Association.
“The hackers claim they have data on 85 million people. This hasn’t been verified, and we can assure you that CUNA does not store any information for individual consumers who are credit union members,” the CUNA statement said.
The trade group said users of cuna.org will be advised to change their passwords on their next log in and advised that users do the same on any other site where the same password is used.
“We do not believe any sensitive personal information from our web site was accessed,” said CUNA President/CEO Bill Cheney. “However, we are contacting all users of our website to advise them of the breach. Further, we will continue to analyze the information posted online by the (hackers) group, as well as continue to validate that no other risks exist. We will also continue to monitor our website and take increased security measures to ensure it is safeguarded.” | <urn:uuid:07420246-5c50-408d-bd1b-43c717fb5819> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cutimes.com/2012/12/10/cuna-reports-hack-into-its-website?t=technologytcredit-union-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964211 | 375 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
FREE Delivery | In Store | Click & Collect
Archaeologist and puzzle master Professor Layton, his wide-eyed apprentice, Luke are called to the village of St. Mystere when a wealthy Baron passes away. The townsfolk, bizarrely, speak in riddles and use puzzles to hide their secrets, so when it becomes apparent that the Barons treasure can be located somewhere in the town, the Professor and Luke must untangle the puzzle that nobody else is capable of doing.
Within the mystery, Professor Layton must tackle more than 130 puzzles to get to the centre of the town’s treasure mystery. These include mazes, logic riddles and picture puzzles. The use of the Nintendo DS stylus makes working through the puzzles all the easier and the game will stay challenging as new puzzles are available weekly for download.
Released to Buy:
07 November 2008
You can find this and other similar products in these themed collections: | <urn:uuid:e434c1c7-4436-4707-abc6-22dc5fbbf207> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/product/buy-online/ds/ds-games/210544/professor-layton-and-the-curious-village.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95308 | 200 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Please log in to view the Report.
ATMs: The Bank Brand Sitting in the Footprint of a Microwave
NEW RESEARCH REPORT BY MERCATOR ADVISORY GROUP
This newest report from Mercator Advisory Group's Retail Banking Practice is focused on the ATM and the multifaceted role it plays in the retail banking market. While ATMs are no larger in footprint than a microwave, they are a strong tool for keeping customers connected to their money, and more importantly, to their bank. Automated teller machines in service today far outnumber traditional bank branches, and so can extend the bank's brand well beyond its expensive bank branch system. Technology enhancements, footprint deployment saturation, surcharges/surcharge-free networks and transaction channel optimization are keys to banks leveraging their current and future installed base of ATMs.
Banks have long been committed to the ATM, growing the number of installed units steadily. But in recent years they have experienced competition from alternate channels - whether from potentially cannibalizing technology such as online banking or the rapid growth of the credit unions' surcharge free networks. In order to allay these competitive forces, there has been a surge in deployment of more technologically-advanced ATMs.
One of the 9 Exhibits included in this report.
With more than four times the number of ATMs than bank branches in the U.S., an ATM is both a billboard for the bank as well as an anchor to the customer's relationship with their financial institution. With 2 million ATMs worldwide, the ATM has the potential to be the ultimate customer-facing technology and brand messenger.
Fee surcharges for using other banks'/nonbanks' ATMs are just one barrier banks erect to drive their customers' loyal use of their own ATMs.
As millions of bank customers involuntarily find themselves (post-merger or post failure) with new banks, the ATM provides the perfect platform for banks to introduce themselves to their new customers. Providing leading edge machines with enhanced services in convenient, surcharge-free locations might be the ultimate introduction.
Mercator Advisory Group research has found that ATMs featuring technology capable of imaging bank notes and checks - a basic function of envelope free - can reduce costs a breathtaking $1 per transaction.
Elizabeth Rowe, Group Director of Mercator Advisory Group's Banking Advisory Services and author of this report, comments, "The convergence of a number of forces is affecting the current ATM market landscape. Competition, emerging technologies, a vastly and rapidly altered retail bank network affected by the subprime market and recent mergers and acquisitions are key factors in how banks will manage and deploy current and future ATM networks. Mix in consumers' constantly evolving payment preferences, and this is just about the most significant time in the history of ATMs."
"A lot is riding on the ATM, much more than fee income derived from transactions. Banks leveraging off-premise ATMs are essentially extending their brand beyond the branch. Fulfilling consumers' demand for enhancements such as envelope-free deposits could turn the ATM into a customer acquisition tool. This is indeed an exciting time for the entire ATM supply chain, from manufacturer to consumer:
The report is 25 pages long and contains 9 exhibits
Other recent research from the Debit Advisory Service:
Members of Mercator Advisory Group have access to this report as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access and other membership benefits.
Please visit us online at http://www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com/.
For more information call Mercator Advisory Group's main line: 781-419-1700 or send an email to mailto:email@example.com
Please log in to view the Report. | <urn:uuid:7e38b348-9879-4ac3-a589-13c0b03d0512> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mercatoradvisorygroup.com/index.php?doc=Banking&action=view_item&id=340&catid=17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940464 | 767 | 1.820313 | 2 |
More posts about buildings and food.
The 2000-acre farm is divided into four equal parts: coffee, sugarcane, pasture and forest. Coffee has been grown here since the 1840s; the main house is from the 1850s.
The coffee is beautiful. Isabela only roasts Brazilian beans (it’s the law: you can’t bring unroasted beans into the country - it’s easier to buy a Ferrari in São Paulo than a cup of Kenyan coffee), not that it matters when you source from farms such as Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza.
This coffee made me very happy.
The patio on the side of the house is flat out pleasant. I took a seat, ordered from a nice dude in a jumpsuit and watched as my coffee was prepared for me at my table.
All this in what passes for winter in São Paulo.
It’s not a superficial tribute. Isabela spent time roasting both at the Coffee Collective and at Tim Wendelboe, and her roasts are also clean, light, bright.
The Coffee Lab is in a two-story house built in the 1940s.
The front yard is a now a terrace with tables; the garage is a climate-controled storage facility for green beans; and upstairs there’s a training lab with classes for the public.
The Coffee Lab reminds me of the Coffee Collective in Copenhagen, only with a garden by the door: walk inside for the first time and you’re not sure what to do. There are tables and chairs and people drinking coffee, but there’s no register, no line. Instead, somebody in a jumpsuit comes up and orients you (if you look lost), or takes your order (if you know the drill).
It’s as disorienting as it is welcoming.
The Coffee Lab doesn’t get started until late, 10 am during the week and 11 am on Saturdays. (It’s closed Sundays.)
This guy was waiting for the coffee lab to open, pulled a pipe out of his jacket.
The Coffee Lab is in Vila Madalena, a leafy district in central São Paulo where young couples live in apartments and the houses have been converted into the fashionable restaurants and shops that travel writers like to write about.
Isabela said she didn’t mean to be in such a trendy area.
Later, Marcelo and I got a couple of drinks at one of the juice bars downtown (he had tangerine juice; I had coconut water from a coconut)…
You can’t tell from the street, but all the apartments have floor-to-celing windows that are sliced into three by tiled sun breaks that run the length of the building (the direct light is never overwhelming), and each apartment has two exposures (there’s always a breeze).
The apartments in the Edíficio Copan are airy, temperate, comfortable. No need for air conditioners, or even window shades.
I was taken to the Edifício Copan by Marcelo, a project architect at Andrade Morettin Arquitetos, and when we stopped for a coffee on the ground floor we ran into Vinicius, one of the two principals at the firm.
Vinicius asked if we wanted to go into one of the apartments.
The Edifício Copan, by Oscar Niemeyer (who took his name off the project): 38 floors, 1100 units, nine years of construction that started in 1957. It’s really five buildings linked together in one thin, towering ribbon.
It looks like it should be facing a beach, but it’s in the middle of São Paulo. | <urn:uuid:e57727f1-3bad-4b4b-9289-22b493ea70c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oliverstrand.tumblr.com/page/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964046 | 794 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The first and foremost reason why players hate those Goddamned Bats, and the means by which many Ledge Bats send players plummeting to their doom....
Knockback is a Video Game simplification of basic physics where if a character is struck by an attack, it will physically push them aside some measure of distance. Modern games featuring full physics engines can incorporate numerous factors (relative mass, speed, gravity/wind, etc.) to calculate the exact force and direction of it, while older and simpler (and by extension, Retraux) will use extremely simplified rules, such as whether the attack originated from the right or left of the player.
But regardless of its technical implementation, its actual effect on gameplay can be sorted into rough categories:
Flinching: Short-term knockback yields little more than a 'flinching' animation and may interrupt whatever action the player was performing (a combo or Charged Attack, say). The knockback otherwise does not impede or interfere with player movement or control.
Knocked back: The most common manifestation of knockback interrupts the player's action and momentum and pushes them back a short distance (perhaps one or two steps); the character recovers their footing quickly, and the player is able to resume action in short order.
Knocked down: In its extreme manifestation, the player's character may be knocked back a significant distance, and the player is unable to control them until the character comes to a stop and is able to get back up onto their feet again.
The final segment of the Final Boss of Beyond Good And Evil suddenly ramps up the effects of the game's knockback—while present-but-negilible before, even a small attack will now result in the heroine getting totally decked. During one sequence of attacks, it is entirely possible to get "stunlocked" and make the fight Unwinnable until you inevitably die and get sent back to the checkpoint.
Deadly Towers has Prince Myer get knocked in whatever direction is opposite the way he's facing quite a distance without a way to stop himself. Unfortunately, this game also features Bottomless Pits...
Explosive weapons and melee attacks in Iji cause knock back, while weaker weapons cause flinching. This applies to both enemies and the protagonist. The knock back from some weapons reaches Blown Across the Room levels - Many secrets in the game can only be obtained by taking advantage of this.
Many fighting games feature "grapple" and "throw" moves, and knocking an opponent out-of-bounds can trigger a Ring Out in various titles.
Some fighting games like Guilty Gear have a pushblock mechanic that allows a defender to enter a state where the opponent is pushed away when their physical attack is blocked.
The Super Smash Bros series is based entirely aroundRing Outs; characters do not have depletable HP but instead receive greater knockback as they take damage, until they are inevitably thrown from the arena.
Some games such as later King of Fighters entries take Knockback to an extreme, making some attacks capable of bouncing an opponent off the wall/floor in order to extend combos.
A key game mechanic in Dissidia: Final Fantasy, in the form of Wall/Floor/Ceiling Rush. Essentially—many attacks send the opponent away from the fighter at high velocity. If an attack has the ability to wall rush, and there's a wall somewhere along the victim's trajectory, they'll slam into it for extra damage (base value of one-half of the damage done by the original hit in Dissidia, one-quarter in Duodecim). Interestingly, various attacks have various 'likelihoods' of wall rush—a lot have zero chance of rushing, no matter if your opponent is right up next to the wall/ceiling, some have wall rush for a certain amount of distance (e.g. Bitter End can wall rush, but the opponent recovers if there's no wall for a long way), and a very amusing few (Nightglow, Shadow Bringer, and Cross Slash, for few) basically have guaranteed wall rush—so long as there is a surface to slam into, the opponent will do it—even if the closest wall is hundreds and hundreds of meters away.
In fact, Cloud's fighting style is aggressively dependent on Wall Rushing. Almost all of his skills have a high chance of Wall Rush, and his most basic attacks will generally send the opponent flying into a wall (or enable a chase scene, if the wall is too far away). Abusing this mechanic is his raison d'etre: he's not just hitting you hard, he's hitting you hard, then slamming you into a wall for more damage while he rushes after you to rinse and repeat.
World of Warcraft featured knockbacks by various NPC mobs and bosses from when the game was first released, but players didn't get access to them until Patch 3.0, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, when a small handful of abilities were given to various classes that would knock NPCs or other players back. NPCs don't take falling damage and can run up some sheer cliffs so Knockback abilities are generally underpowered against them, but in certain limited circumstances Knockback effects can be very, very powerful in PvP.
Humorously, they can get so annoying in dungeons (they disrupt positioning and can knock enemies into reinforcements) that several classes have the ability to turn off the knockback aspect of the spell through the use of a glyph (Mages, Druids, and Shaman, for those who care.)
The flinching ability is available from the start however, in the form of various stuns as well as interrupts.
City of Heroes has three versions: knock back, knock up, and knock down. Almost all melee classes have a power that resists these effects. There also exist enhancements that provide the player with resistance to it, which are in very high demand as most players hate being knocked around by enemies. There also exist enhancements for increasing the knockback in your own powers.
As an action MMO, Dragon Nest practically requires players to exploit the various forms of this trope as even Mooks can easily do the same. Resistance to this trope can be a Gamebreaker especially in PVP.
Star Wars: The Old Republic has it in various forms. From the simple 'interrupt' ability that interrupts abilities being cast or channeled (and preventing it from being cast again in a few seconds), then there are 'stun' and knock down abilities that is as good as it sounds (but also on very long cooldown), to knockback abilities that sends the enemies flying.
La-Mulana utilized significant knockback. Touch even the slightest enemy or brush up against a spike and Lemeza is sent sailing across the room at full velocity, with no ability to alter his trajectory until he lands.
In the sidescrolling Mega Man titles, knockback always occured relative to the direction Mega Man was facing, regardless of the direction of attack. In the "classic" series, it also interrupted charged Mega Buster shots (starting in 5, 4's Mega Buster was more stable), and in 9, Proto Man suffered double the knockback of Mega Man.
The ROM HackRockman 4 Minus Infinity averts this for the most part... aside from the Jumbig, who has an incredibly large amount of knockback. In fact, it's possible to get catapulted into the next screen by touching him at one point in Toad Man's level!
The sidescrolling Super Mario Bros. games generally provided Mercy Invincibility without knockback, which allowed players to short-circuit the fights with Bowser simply by running through him and grabbing the axe at the far end of the arena. This was changed in New Super Mario Bros, where coming in direct contact with Bowser knocks Mario back, away from the switch at the opposite end of the arena.
In the Wonder Boy series (as well as its many ports), Mercy Invincibility only protected the player from further HP loss; it did not protect the player from being knocked back or juggled by repeated attacks.
The rocks in the first game, which were the only non One-Hit Kill hazard, tripped Wonderboy when he ran into one, potentially bouncing him into an enemy or Bottomless Pit.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has two distinct types of knockback. Usually, taking damage just shoves Alucard back a couple of steps, but if he takes one hit that depletes half or more of his maximum HP, he goes flying and won't stop until he hits a wall, at which point he briefly sticks to it before falling down. In the special Luck Mode, this severe knockback is what lets you skip the screen where Death steals Alucard's equipment thanks to his greatly lowered stats allowing the Warg's charge attack to do enough damage to trigger it: in normal gameplay, the only time you're likely to see it happen is if Galamoth hits you with one of his more damaging attacks.
The first Flintstones NES game made the player fall back and be stunned for a second when hit, often down the pit. The second game removed the knockback, although the stun effect remained.
The protagonist in Cave Story receives knockback only based on the direction he was hit from. This is an interesting case because while the character receives knockback, you're still in full control, enabling you to affect the distance of the knockback to a certain degree. In fact, the character rarely gets knocked back, but often forward or forward and up. Furthermore, abusing vertical knockback from crashing into a flying enemy is the only way to get a certain item without backtracking (or grabbing the Machine Gun).
In Holy Diver, knockback is a major hazard when fighting enemies near Bottomless Pits, which occur all too frequently.
In Viewtiful Joe and the sequel installment, any hit from a stage obstacle or enemy will knock Joe, Sylvia, or any other character to the ground, which will deduct from your final ranking whenever it happens in a "Just Go For It!" segment of the game, miniboss battle, or boss battle. By purchasing the move "Ukemi" in the game at some point (which requires a hefty amount of coins), with expert timing and a specific button combo, you can recover from the knockback just before you hit the ground and flip yourself back into the air, which recovers a heart in your health meter and rescues your ranking from being lowered. The same can't be said for the higher, insane difficulties that punish you for making any mistakes- Ukemi still recovers only 1 heart, which won't help you in dire straits or save face when you get your ranking after taking eight hearts of damage. Some enemies will actually deliver rapid and brief slashes, such as the ninja, that don't send the player to the ground on a hit, but make them flinch and leave them open to multiple hits until they suffer a legitimate knockback, which are impossible to counter when the player gets trapped in the Cycle of Hurting.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 has the Final Boss of the Sequel game in an arena where Sonic has to climb up a platforming challenge repeatedly to hit it. If it takes too long to hit the boss, it will spin Sonic and Tails around using gravity and forcibly blow them into a wall, forcing the loss of all your rings.
Nebulus has a variation in which getting hit by an enemy will cause you to fall to the next lower platform, which will cause you to drown if there isn't one. This is actually a useful way to reach otherwise inaccessible platforms.
In Mass Effect 2 when your character is hit by "impact" attacks (Explosive or telekinetic powers) he or she will stumble and move back a step or two. This is completely logical given that they are being hit by a physical force, but this effect is rather egregious when your character is hit while ducking behind cover. In this case, when you are already crouched down on the ground, your character will stand up before they stumble and take a step back. This means your character is deliberately moving out of cover, since they take an independent action (standing up) before they are uncontrollably knocked back by the force, instead of simply falling down or stumbling where they were.
This is the primary criticism of the Geth faction in the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. Apart from the standard Geth Trooper, every Geth enemy you face has a stun attack. It's especially bad on the higher difficulties, since the Geth Prime fires its cannon in three-shot salvos.
In Skyrim, a power attack will cause an opponent to stagger, and the Unrelenting Force shout will stagger an enemy, or send them flying at it's highest level.
One of the higher tier archery abilities, Power Draw, introduces knockback to arrows, half the time. Needless to say, the ability to stun an opponent at range over and over again is almost a Game Breaker. The only reason it isn't is because it only affects creatures that are about as big as the player; dragons, for example, don't care about knockback at all.
In Diablo II, knockback is a specific effect that can be either part of an attack, or a modifier on a weapon. Knockback is guaranteed to make an enemy flinch and interrupt their attack, but it may take longer to kill enemies in melee because you'll have to keep walking up to them.
In Xenoblade Chronicles, enemies are susceptible to fall damage, so the well-timed use of attacks with knockback on them can shove them off cliffs for an instant kill. Coupled with moves that induce the sleep status (Which are both difficult to dodge, and reduce the affected enemy's evasion to zero), this can allow you to kill enemies that are much higher leveled then you, and reap the overpowered rewards from it. For this reason, bosses are completely immune to knockback. Of course, enemies are also just as capable of doing the same thing to you, and with greater ease, as while your attacks only shove them back a few body lengths, their attacks can send the party flying about five times as far, with the added annoyance of almost always causing you to be dazed from the landing.
Also present in the game is the Topple status, which knocks the victim off their feet, and makes them completely unable to act or avoid attacks. It's essential to defeating some early bosses that can't be hurt while standing on their feet, and also turns into a bit of a Game Breaker later on, as topple inducing attacks can potentially be chained together to the point where the enemy can never get up until they're dead.
Specific chips like Air Shot in the Mega Man Battle Network series have this property attached to them and are handy for getting your opponents into the appropriate range for followup attacks. They can also be used on the otherwise harmless Rock Cube chip to send it flying into a target, which causes an excellent amount of damage early on.
The Dragonslayer Greatbow from Dark Souls deal tremendous knockback, even when blocked. This is exactly the reason why the weapon is so feared: the damage isn't that great unless you stat for it, but in several maps, getting hit by just one can spell an early doom by getting knocked back into a Bottomless Pit. You get to know this firsthand by having two snipers with said Greatbow sniping you from high atop a perch while you traverse a fenceless buttress. The archer also gets a little knockback from firing it, something that no other weapons do.
In Live A Live, there are certain skills that cause the targets to be pushed back a square or two, negating any charging skills they might have been using. While supremely annoying while trying to pull off some of your most powerful attacks, it can be used to your advantage by constantly delaying the enemy's most devastating skills.
In Tales Of Symphonia and Tales Of Vesperia, certain characters can have a special trait called "Glory" that prevents them from being knocked back. This was actually dangerous against some enemies, since characters with Glory would take multiple powerful hits when normally they'd only take one hit and be knocked away.
As mentioned, Rocket Jumping is a common technique exploiting the blasts from explosive weapons.
Golden Eye 1997 and Perfect Dark have a knock back for the player if they get shot. This also stops the player from shooting for a brief second. Combine this with several enemy soldiers and you're bound to lose more than half your health while unable to to fire back. Luckily, the enemy AI is programmed to stop firing for a moment and then resume.
Perfect Dark Zero also has it, making enemies that duel-wield machine pistols especially dangerous, with the possibility of stunlock.
The Medal of Honor games also have hit-stun. If an enemy catches you off-guard at close range with an automatic weapon on Hard difficulty, you may be stunlocked. Conversely, due to the use of Hit Scan, the knockback doesn't affect the enemy's aim, so they can continue shooting at you while apparently flinching. The snipers in Allied Assault not only deal the most damage and knockback of all mooks, but they also fire at a higher rate than the rifle infantrymen.
In Team Fortress 2 regular attacks have an amount of knockback generally proportional to damage and only something like the Heavy's minigun does enough damage for this knockback to impede movement instead of just messing with aim. There are some special cases which do much more: explosives, the Scout's Force-A-Nature, sentry guns (which can be even harder to deal with than its damage, especially since the default Ubercharge does not protect against knockback), melee Critical Hits, and the Pyro's airblast (which does nothing but knockback). Probably the most bizarre thing is that damage over time (fire, bleeding) causes upward knockback for the sake of messing with the user's aim. The Soldier's Mantreads and the Quick-Fix's Ubercharge reduce knockback by 75% and 100% respectively (though the Mantreads do not protect against airblasts).
Gears of War 2 and 3 implement a "stopping power" system where being shot slows the player's movement toward the shooter. This was added to prevent players from charging through a hail of machine gun fire for a close-quarters execution with a shotgun. In addition, smoke grenades in 3 (and post-patch 2) cause a flinch effect, while in 1 and pre-patch 2 cause full-on knockback, though they deal no actual damage in either case.
In P.N.03 the amount of knockback varies with the amount of damage inflicted by an enemy attack, with the strongest attacks blowing Vanessa clear across the room. In some cases, Vanessa mysteriously is knocked forward.
While Warcraft III doesn't feature knockback, the trope's omnipresence is such that it's a very rare (custom) map that doesn't have this mechanism (such as Defense Of The Ancients and its variants).
Dawn of War has knockback for artillery and some units. Justified for some (Super Strength, Psychic Powers, etc), but it does get a bit ridiculous when the Kroot (lanky hollow-boned bird-men) are upgraded to knockback units such as seven-foot-tall Power ArmoredSpace Marines with the same ease as ordinary Guardsmen and Gretchin. Also a fallen unit ordered to move will do so while playing their "get up" animation, so they end up gliding majestically along the ground before getting up.
Myth 1 and 2 have a flinch mechanic that is fairly central to gameplay as it allows certain rock-paper-scissors balancing. For example, the fast but unarmored Berserks can often kill heavily armored Warriors by whaling on them fast enough that the Warrior can't get a swing in from all the flinching. However, the same Berserks have a tough time against archers, as being hit causes the Berserk to stop running while he flinches—making him an easier target. Those heavily-armored Warriors are less likely to take damage from arrows, and still less likely to take enough to flinch.
Hoshigami has an entire game mechanic centered around knocking enemies into a chain of allies to incur massive damage and have a chance at stealing an item, but unfortunately setting up such a chain leaves your party very vulnerable so it's only useful for eliminating the last enemy on a map.
Dwarf Fortress has knockback as a possible effect of blunt attacks, launching the enemy a short distance calculated according to a staggering number of different variables. In previous versions this was insanely but hilariously overpowered, with even fairly unremarkable warriors able to launch opponents six or seven tiles. The recent combat mechanics overhaul makes knockback possible with all weapons, now that slashing or piercing attacks are re-rolled as bludgeoning ones if they fail to overcome the target's armour check, but for better or worse it also severely nerfed it.
Hack-and-slash Die By The Sword has a knockback system calculated by its complex physics engine, involving the strength of the swing (which is itself determined by character movement speed and mouse swing speed) and the relative sizes of the both characters (the larger Orcs will knock the smaller Kobolds around with even minimal mouse movement). Useful when knocking opponents into environmental hazards like spinning blades, bottomless pits, or lava.
Both character's weapons also get knocked back in a successful block, which directly affects their position for subsequent moves.
The knockback is explicitly exploited in the "Ogre Hockey" arena of the expansion pack, where the whole point is to knock the "ball" character into the opposing team's goal.
Despite the utter ubiquity of this phenomenon in video games, the actual Trope Namer for it is not a video game. The term "knockback" was first used to describe this effect in a game by the creators of Champions and the Hero System. When video games came along, the term had become so widespread among tabletop gamers (having migrated from Champions to GURPS to Dungeons and Dragons) that it was natural to call it this. | <urn:uuid:c0eb5a0d-2474-4ff4-a7fd-f1c266a420c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Knockback | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95836 | 4,589 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Essays on Moral Realism
Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, ed. (Cornell University Press: Jan 1, 1989), 317 pages.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the best single volume on the realism/anti-realism dispute in contemporary meta-ethics. Basically, what is at issue between realists and anti-realists is the objectivity of ethics. According to Sayre-McCord, the central issue is the existence of moral facts. Realists claim that such facts exist; anti-realists deny their existence. There is more to the debate than this, however. The following is a list of claims that most realists will make about morality: (i) there are moral facts (or moral truths), and these facts (or truths) are mind-independent in some important way; (ii) cognitivism about moral discourse is true: that is, moral moral claims purport to describe moral facts (or moral truths), and (at least some of) these claims successfully do so; and (iii) moral knowledge is possible, and we have some of it. ~ ctdreyer | <urn:uuid:f929450b-9feb-4317-a737-cd715f546264> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://afterall.net/books/490717 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937913 | 235 | 1.773438 | 2 |
When Metallica made their first promotional video for the song One they bouth the movie rights to the film "Johnny got his gun" and used it in the video. This movie classic is now available on DVD for the very first time. As a bonus, the Metallica "One" video is included in the extras.
The song's theme is based on Dalton Trumbo's 1939 novel Johnny Got His Gun. It is based on the story of a soldier whose body was severely damaged after he was hit by German artillery during World War I. His arms, legs, eyes, mouth, nose and ears were gone and he could not see, speak, smell, or hear; but his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body.
Johnny Got His Gun is a 1971 anti-war film based on the novel of the same name written and directed by Dalton Trumbo | <urn:uuid:44b339d4-9d06-4ced-9a64-311b66fdd02d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.encycmet.com/news/2009-05-03d.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990256 | 179 | 1.585938 | 2 |
On July 30, 1990, MLB commissioner Fay Vincent "banned" George Steinbrenner from baseball and brought a close to one of the more sordid chapters in the sport's history. Steinbrenner had paid $40,000 to Howie Spira, a Bronx gambler with mafia ties, for dirt on Yankees outfielder Dave Winfield, with whom Steinbrenner had long feuded in and out of court. (You can read about the seamy episode here.) Vincent determined that Steinbrenner's behavior ran against "the best interests of Baseball," not to mention a few tenets of human decency:
[I]t did not occur to [Steinbrenner] during this sorry period that what he was doing could run afoul of the rules of Baseball. In essence, he heard no internal warning because none went off. … I must be mindful of the importance of focusing Mr. Steinbrenner on his obligations to be more sensitive to the best interests of Baseball….
That's what Vincent wrote in his decision, a copy of which is attached to the bottom of this post, along with some other rarely seen documents concerning Steinbrenner's ouster from baseball. The irony of the case is that Steinbrenner was never more right than when he was defending himself at his worst—at least as regards his appraisal of the "best interests" clause, a roseate term etched in the MLB constitution that has provoked much brow-furrowing over the last century. Commissioners use the clause to unilaterally impose their will on owners or players. It's the sports equivalent of, say, Article 48 in the Weimar Republic. Absolute Executive Control.
A totalitarian like Steinbrenner would have gleefully battered people with that kind of power, which is why it's so entertaining to find him railing against Vincent's application of the clause in the Spira case. But there's a meta-irony on top of the mini-irony: In protesting the Spira decision so vociferously, Steinbrenner helped force Vincent out as commissioner and install a replacement who, in 20 years, has almost never used the "best interests" clause within baseball because he's almost never stood in any real opposition to owners. What vestiges of independent authority remained in the commissioner's office got boxed up with Vincent's three-hole punch as he exited the building.
As detailed in a series created from FBI documents we received from a FOIA request, Steinbrenner operated according to his own "best interests" clause, one that held little regard for others. Most of our documents deal with an internal FBI investigation into Steinbrenner's "improper association" with the bureau's Tampa office, with which Steinbrenner cultivated a tight relationship in the '80s. He lavished gifts and favors and, occasionally, jobs on agents. They, in turn, would be asked to perform certain tasks for Steinbrenner—like fix his overflowing toilet in the middle of the night or run a possibly illegal background check on a giant redneck who terrorized Steinbrenner with jet skis.
The documents at the bottom of this post are different. They strike at the heart of what it means to rule baseball. Who controls the sport? And what exactly do the "best interests of Baseball" signify?
The "best interests" clause is inscribed in bas-relief on the ideological temple of our national pastime. You'll find it plastered on clubhouse walls as part of Major League Rule 21(f) and spoken in reverent tones by men who forget that they describe a game and not a religion. The words date back in some form to baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former federal judge brought in to clean up the sport following the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Landis had a powerful tool: the 1921 "Major League Agreement" that placed National League and American League teams under the thumb of a single commissioner. The agreement contained the first "best interests" clause but lacked a mechanism to appeal decisions by the commissioner, which gave Landis an imprimatur to do whatever he pleased. And he did. The first commissioner wielded his power like a tomahawk.
After Landis's death, owners amended the Major League Agreement to restrict the commissioner's power and allow for court appeals. But the "best interests" clause stuck. By the time of Vincent's investigation of Steinbrenner, it had been deployed controversially in several instances. In 1976, for example, commissioner Bowie Kuhn blocked Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley's fire sale of Vida Blue, Joe Rudi, and Rollie Fingers. In 1989, commissioner Bart Giamatti used the clause to evict Pete Rose from baseball. When Giamatti died soon after, Vincent moved into the top office. A reasonable, wonky sort, Vincent had once worked as a lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission. He'd been a high-ranking executive at Columbia Pictures and Coca-Cola. He was an outsider. Steinbrenner would pose one of his first big challenges.
Initially, Vincent proposed a two-year suspension for The Boss over the Spira scandal. But Steinbrenner thought the term "suspension" would jeopardize his membership on the U.S. Olympic Committee and, amazingly, asked for and received a permanent "restriction" from baseball, which tells you all you need to know about the "competence of the Boss' legal thugs," according to John Dowd, the lead MLB investigator in the Steinbrenner inquest and the man who took down Pete Rose a year earlier.
"I think [Steinbrenner] got terrible advice," Vincent tells Deadspin. "I think that he meant to go and use his sons and outmaneuver us" by handing over control of the Yankees to his family but remaining a silent partner. He continues: "We anticipated that he would do this, reasonably good lawyers that we were. We had the agreement right there. I said, 'Look, if you sign the agreement, I'm not going to negotiate it. If you want to sign it, sign it.' This was probably 10 o'clock in the morning, and the whole day went by. The guy was unbelievable. He was getting two sets of advice. One was, Screw the commissioner, sue him, let's fight this, and the other was, Take it, you're fed up with baseball anyway. It went on all day, and finally at 6 o'clock at night, I scheduled a press conference to announce that he was out for two years. I got on the elevator, and one of the lawyers stuck his arm in the elevator and said, 'He'll sign.'"
The agreed sanction "received a standing ovation in Yankee Stadium that night," according to Dowd. Compare that tableau—thousands of fans standing to applaud the banishment of their team's owner—to the soft-focus retrospective the Steinbrenner legacy has undergone in recent years. After death, it's become easy to forget how incorrigible Steinbrenner was in life.
"Like many of us, he was more than one person," Vincent says. "There was a George Steinbrenner who could be enormously thoughtful and generous. ... There was another side to him that was very vicious. He never saw complexity. He saw things in very simple terms. Black and white. There was no subtlety to George."
Steinbrenner may have talked his way into a lifetime ban, but he continued to sow discord. As Vincent tells it, Steinbrenner left MLB headquarters that day in high spirits, crowing into his cell phone that he'd outfoxed the commissioner. (One of Vincent's detectives overheard Steinbrenner's side of the conversation.) After announcing his victory, the Yankees owner paused. He seemed taken aback by the response he was getting. "No, no," Steinbrenner barked into the phone, as Vincent recalls. "I know what I was doing. I got the better of him. You're wrong."
If anything was apt to turn The Boss's mind to revenge, it was the realization that he'd been had in negotiations. That was why he'd begun feuding with Winfield. (Steinbrenner felt he'd been rooked by Winfield's agent.) But who was the man on the phone preying on Steinbrenner's pride and vanity?
"I'm almost certain it was [Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls owner] Jerry Reinsdorf," Vincent says. "But that's supposition."
Steinbrenner soon branded the MLB investigation "a mockery of justice" and accused Vincent of "serious and oppressive conduct." He accused Dowd of something worse—altering transcripts of sworn depositions taken of Steinbrenner and other witnesses during the investigation. It was a serious allegation. Even if true, however, Steinbrenner had no way under the terms of the agreement to challenge Vincent's decision. So what'd he do? He went after the smallest guy in the room and threw him up against a wall—he sued the court reporter who transcribed the depositions. Vincent called the lawsuit "an imbecilic act."
Among the FBI papers below is a FD-302 form, which bears the code the FBI assigns to summaries of interviews conducted by agents. Of particular interest in the FD-302 are details about MLB employees changing the statements of Steinbrenner and other witnesses during the investigation. Here's the relevant part of the document, which contains several redactions:
[Redacted] provided information regarding the false certification of transcripts made in connection with the GEORGE STEINBRENNER matter before the baseball commission. ...[I]t was determined that numerous changes had been made to their original testimony. … from twenty-five to fifty substantive deletions had been made from various transcripts made during the course of the commissioner's inquiry. These changes were made to virtually every witness's statements. The changes basically involved deletions of certain harsh questioning conducted of the witnesses by [redacted].
[Redacted] was subsequently interviewed...and he acknowledged the improper deletions out of the transcripts. [Redacted] told them that the only reason he altered the transcripts was because [redacted] had told him that he was working on a private contract and that the depositions would never be used in court. [Redacted] further advised that [redacted] or his associates received a rough draft transcript on a daily basis in the evening and it was on this transcript that the changes were made and then returned to [redacted].
We know the guy altering the transcripts is court reporter Philip Rizzuti because his name is on the lawsuit Steinbrenner filed against him in October 1990. Rizzuti says the lawsuit was frivolous. "Steinbrenner and his lawyers did what they had to do," he tells me. We also know Dowd is the guy who told Rizzuti to change the transcripts because Dowd freely admitted to doing so before Steinbrenner filed suit, claiming that the alterations were minor and immaterial to the testimony.
More important to note is the person the FBI interviewed to put together the FD-302. Behind the first redaction, you'd almost certainly find "Robert Gold," a lawyer who helped Steinbrenner assail the legitimacy of the MLB investigation. The offensive didn't sit well with Dowd, a former Marine and a well-regarded attorney who's represented a slew of high-profile clients, including John McCain and, most recently, Raj Rajaratnam, the former hedge fund manager convicted in 2011 of insider trading. In his biography of Steinbrenner, Bill Madden recounts a wild scene in which Dowd confronts Gold after Steinbrenner filed his lawsuit:
A few months later, Bob Gold was boogie-boarding with his daughter on Cisco Beach, in Nantucket, when he noticed a tall, heavyset man in a dark suit, carrying a briefcase, approaching him on the beach. It was John Dowd. Gold could not believe his eyes as Dowd walked right to the water's edge, the surf splashing over his expensive leather shoes.
"How could you do this to me, Bobby?" Dowd said. "I thought we were friends."
"John," said the incredulous Gold, "I can't believe you came all the way up here to seek me out just to tell me that. You're a fucking madman!"
Dowd disputes the tale. "Never happened in any shape, form or fashion," he says. "This is what George does to people."
Steinbrenner had, nevertheless, created doubt among team owners about Vincent, who dared put "the best interests of Baseball" ahead of the best interests of the rich men who controlled baseball. It's instructive now to read Steinbrenner's thoughts from his MLB hearing on July 5-6, 1990, a transcript of which was later made public by MLB. Among other tidbits, the transcript contains a great detail about when Steinbrenner learned he'd been charged with making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon. (Steinbrenner remembers it as opening day in 1973, though it actually happened in 1974. In any case, he got the news while on a plane with, from the sound of it, Sen. Ted Kennedy, whom Steinbrenner had tapped to throw out the first pitch. Steinbrenner had to turn the plane around.)
More pertinent to Vincent's purposes—and ours—was what the Yankees owner said about the "best interests" clause:
The clause that deals with the best interests of baseball is a term with little or no definition in the 17 years I have been in baseball. It's been allowed to linger for many, many years. It's been there in an undefined, and in my opinion, kind of dangerous state. It can be viewed as an omnipotent tool. … But the rule itself is not only too broad, it's dangerous. And it's a dangerous burden for leadership to carry.
That's not a veiled threat. It's a blatant one. Oddly, Steinbrenner sounds lucid at times when describing the clause.
"George was right in a sense," Vincent says. "It's very imperial. It smacks of a totalitarian dictatorship. ... But the only time a 'best interests' clause is ever going to be used is when there's no other remedy available to a commissioner."
In which case you better have a good commissioner. And Vincent had the makings of a good one, at least as far as baseball—sorry, Baseball—was concerned. He was no lapdog for owners, and his response to Steinbrenner's gripe during the hearing was every bit as high-minded as you'd expect from an upright attorney:
[T]he best interests' clause is like the clauses we know constitutionally, due process, equal protection. They are hardly self-defining. And we as lawyers know that we have to make the best we can with not much guidance. … If baseball isn't run fairly and with a sense of integrity and with a sense of order, as you put it, then baseball won't have the popularity, and the thing that you have invested in and done magnificently with no longer has the value that you want it to have.
There's no question that Vincent should have punished Steinbrenner for the Spira mischief. And there's no question that he and Dowd went about it fairly: A federal judge threw out Steinbrenner's transcript-tampering lawsuit the following year. You can read the opinion below, but it confirms everything Dowd and Rizzuti told me. The changes to the testimony were immaterial. Steinbrenner had had a fair hearing.
But baseball was on the verge of a sea change, and Vincent marked the end of an era in which the commissioner could operate as an independent voice in MLB. He'd already angered owners by pushing a reasonable collective bargaining agreement to end a work stoppage. Later, he upset them by reasonably making former Negro League players and their wives eligible for MLB's health plan. He upset them by reasonably divvying up expansion money when the National League added two teams. He upset them again by reasonably using the "best interest" clause to reasonably realign the National League, which ultimately—and unreasonably—led to his downfall.
At one point, Vincent recalls, Reinsdorf confronted him to explain that baseball commissioners are "a joke" and merely employees of the owners. "Well, that's a really respectable point of view," Vincent says now. "I'm not sure it's not a more realistic position. ... Guys like me tried to be independent but we ran into trouble because of it."
Steinbrenner's ban sent tremors rippling through the owners' ranks. A commissioner had used the "best interests" clause against a member of their species. "I think the owners didn't like the idea that a commissioner could throw him out of baseball," Vincent says. "That's a menacing power. I can understand why owners would say: 'That's ridiculous. We shouldn't let him do anything like that.'"
Aided by the endless machinations of Steinbrenner, who later attacked Vincent in court through his proxies, the concern about the commissioner festered into a coup. Vincent reduced Steinbrenner's ban to the original two-year prohibition. But it was too late. The owners wanted a water-bearer. A used car salesman. In 1992, they found one in Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig.
Did the Steinbrenner affair help undermine Vincent? "I'm sure it did," Vincent says. "I was having an awful lot of trouble on various fronts and I don't think it helped. I think Selig and Reinsdorf and others were way ahead of me. I didn't realize they were trying to push me out. I knew they were trying to cause trouble. It never occurred to me that Selig wanted to be commissioner."
During the last 20 years, the owners have ceded Selig more power than any commissioner since Landis and for very different reasons, few of which have to do with the players or the fans, or even, necessarily, the "best interests of Baseball." On Selig's watch, TV revenue exploded as salary growth for players diminished. Objectives were aligned. Friction between the commissioner's office and the baseball barons disappeared. The owners had raised up one of their own to the high seat.
Unless baseball suffers a crisis on the order of the Black Sox scandal—and steroids isn't that—MLB may not have another commissioner who doesn't, in some fashion, exist as a stooge for owners. Selig is adept at winning votes but refuses to push unpopular issues. He's never forgotten whom he works for and, for that reason, he's almost never used the "best interests" clause, at least not within baseball. Selig invoked the clause early in his tenure to punish Marge Schott—duh—and he's invoked it a few times against players or agents who were involved in non-baseball gambling, according to Andrew Zimbalist, an economist and the author of an indispensable book about Selig. More recently, Selig invoked "best interests" to intervene in the Frank McCourt-Los Angeles Dodgers fiasco. Aside from that, it's hard to find an instance of Selig using the clause as anything other than a threat. He rules by consensus, the ultimate small-group politician, in lockstep with management.
"In the hands of Bud Selig, the 'best interests' clause has no significance." Vincent says. "It has no meaning."
And that might be the pithiest testament to what Selig has accomplished during his reign, which could be described as a triumph in steadying boats on rising tides. So secure in his role is Selig that he doesn't even need his tomahawk. Were George Steinbrenner still alive, he'd be rendered mute with admiration. | <urn:uuid:1c77d496-79cc-4189-bf35-a00cea323ec7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://deadspin.com/5883511/fbi-docs-how-george-steinbrenner-helped-kill-off-baseballs-last-real-commissioner?tag=the-boss-files | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982925 | 4,171 | 1.789063 | 2 |
26th Meeting of the Ramsar Standing Committee -- Agenda papers
|26th Meeting of the Ramsar Standing Committee |
Gland, Switzerland, 3 - 7 December 2001
|Agenda item 14.3 (ii)|| |
Proposal to establish a Ramsar Trust Fund to resource the SGF
|Action requested: The Standing Committee is requested to receive the views of the Subgroup on Finance on this proposal and to take a decision on it.|
1. Resolution VII.5 of Ramsar COP7, related to the Ramsar Small Grants Fund for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use (SGF), inter alia:
"9. EXPRESSES its conviction that the critical review submitted to Ramsar COP7 of the first nine years of operation of the SGF demonstrates that this mechanism continues to be extremely valuable for facilitating the implementation of the Convention in developing countries and countries in transition;
10. REITERATES its conviction expressed in Resolutions 5.8 and VI.6 that the level of resources available to the Ramsar SGF should be increased to at least US$ 1 million annually;
11. URGES that a mechanism be developed for receiving commitments of contributions to the SGF, if possible for a three-year period at a time, and REQUESTS the Contracting Parties that will chair the Standing Committee and the Subgroup on Finance of the Standing Committee in the next triennium to seek to initiate this mechanism, with the assistance of the Ramsar Bureau and the Standing Committee as a whole;"
2. The Senior Advisor on Environment and Development at the Ramsar Bureau has devoted particular attention and energy to identifying a mechanism to resource the SGF, as requested by the COP in the Resolution quoted above. His work has concentrated primarily in the bilateral development assistance agencies, which are perceived as the main depositories of funds for the type of projects funded under the SGF.
3. Nevertheless, the conclusion has been that the nature and modus operandi of the SGF (very small projects by bilateral aid agency standards, projects that do not always have a clear poverty alleviation component, and a mechanism open to all countries in the OECD/DAC list) does not make it very attractive to the development assistance community, and the agencies do not seem to be prepared to enter into a regular and more or less long-term commitment to provide funds.
4. In parallel, Wetlands International has carried out an exercise to explore the interest of the business community in supporting wetland conservation-related work, through consultations with some 30 major multinational companies and a workshop chaired by the CEO of Evian Mineral Waters. The conclusion was that, in general, and at least for the time being, companies do not perceive wetlands as a "selling" issue that they would be prepared to invest considerable funds in.
5. Consequently, the Ramsar Bureau has reached the conclusion that the creation of a Ramsar Trust Fund could be at present the most promising alternative in order to resource the SGF at the level foreseen by the Conference of the Parties (one million US dollars available for disbursement every year).
6. In order to achieve this target, the Trust Fund should obtain donations to create a capital of some 10 million US dollars/Euros, which when appropriately invested should generate one million of interests/benefits per year to resource the SGF. Ten million dollars is, on the one hand, a significant amount and, on the other, a tiny amount when compared with the billions of dollars devoted every year to environment and development issues in the developing countries and countries in transition (not always with the degree of efficiency demonstrated by the Ramsar SGF mechanism!).
7. The Bureau has circulated a discussion text on the Ramsar Trust Fund to a large number of agencies and individuals that have experience in the establishment and running of trust funds, of which there are many, for many different purposes around the world. In general, the idea was well received and a number of useful comments about its modus operandi were made.
8. Attached is the proposal prepared by the Bureau, which includes at the end draft Provisional Rules for the operation of the Fund.
Proposal for the establishment of a Ramsar Trust Fund to Resource the Conventions Small Grants Mechanisms for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use
Background on the Small Grants Fund (SGF)
1. The SGF was established by the Conference of the Contracting Parties (COP) to the Ramsar Convention at its 4th meeting (1990) with the name "Wetland Conservation Fund". It was created as a mechanism to assist developing countries in implementing the Convention and to enable the conservation and wise use of wetland resources. At its 6th meeting in 1996, the Ramsar COP, through Resolution VI.6, adopted the current name of the Fund and decided that countries with economies in transition should also be eligible for funding. As it is today, the SGF provides financing for small projects up to a maximum amount of 40.000 Swiss francs.
2. Projects eligible for funding by the SGF are:
a) activities that clearly contribute to the implementation of the Conventions triennial work plan adopted at each COP;
b) responses to emergencies affecting Ramsar sites;
c) assistance to non-Contracting Parties to prepare the designation of its first Ramsar site in order to adhere to the Convention.
3. The wise use of wetlands, including poverty alleviation, is a very important priority for the Convention. The Convention was a pioneer in introducing the concept of "wise use" in its text: Article 3.1 states that the Contracting Parties "shall formulate and implement their planning so as to promote the conservation of the wetlands included in the List, and as far as possible, the wise use of wetlands in their territory."
4. Ramsar COP3 (Canada, 1987) gave the following definition to the concept of wise use:
"the sustainable utilisation of wetlands for the benefit of humankind in a way compatible with the maintenance of the natural properties of the ecosystem".
The concept of wise use, or sustainable use, is therefore central to the work of the Convention. Unfortunately, it is also a difficult one to apply in the field, and much work remains to be done to convince decision-makers that wetland conservation constitutes one more tool for poverty alleviation and sustainable economic development. The SGF has been a modest but very important instrument in promoting this kind of pilot sustainable development projects.
5. The Ramsar Bureau , under the supervision of the Standing Committee, administers the SGF, which is financed from voluntary contributions and additional revenues received by the Bureau. The financial management follows the Terms of Reference for Financial Administration of the Convention adopted by Resolution V.2 in 1993.
6. The project cycle is governed by the Operational Guidelines for the SGF adopted by the Standing Committee for each triennium. The Guidelines include a Format for Request for Funding; a Project Proposal Assessment Form; a Format for Progress Reports; a Format for Final Reports; and an Evaluation Form for Completed Projects. The Standing Committee periodically reviews these procedures and adjusts them as required.
7. From its establishment in 1991 to 2000, the SGF has attracted a total amount of 5,080,880 Swiss francs (some 3 million US dollars / Euros) and provided financing to 137 projects. All projects received an initial payment of 80% of the full project grant at the time of signing the contract. The 20% balance of the funds is retained pending the submission of an acceptable final report, which should include a statement of expenditure for the funds provided.
8. At the request of Ramsar COP6, the Ramsar Bureau carried out an in-depth evaluation of the functioning and pertinence of the SGF. This evaluation was endorsed by the Ramsar Standing Committee in October 1998 and submitted to Ramsar COP7 in May 1999. Following this report, the COP expressed its conviction that "the critical review submitted . . . demonstrates that this mechanism continues to be extremely valuable for facilitating the implementation of the Convention in developing countries and countries in transition." The COP also urged "that a mechanism be developed for receiving commitments of contributions to the SGF, if possible for a three-year period at a time".
9. The 1998 review stresses that the SGF has supported a wide range of projects in an increasing number of countries. Both the quality of the projects and the cost-effectiveness of the programme improved greatly over the years. The SGF proved to be a particularly valuable instrument for the implementation of the Convention through small-scale projects dealing with a variety of wetland management issues, taking into account the varieties of regions and countries (see list of projects funded in annex 1).
10. The following table summarizes the operation of the SGF in its 10 years of existence.
Table 1: SUMMARY OF PROJECTS FUNDED, 1991-2000
|Year||No. of projects submitted||No. of countries that submitted projects||Projects considered suitable for funding||Projects funded||No. of countries that received funding||Total allocated in CHF, incl. 10% admin. Charge|
Table 2: SUITABLE PROJECTS NOT FUNDED BECAUSE OF LACK OF RESOURCES IN THE SGF, 1991-2000
|Number of projects NOT funded||Year||Number of projects NOT funded|
|10 (out of 17) |
15 (out of 27)
13 (out of 28)
10 (out of 20)
14 (out of 25)
|3 (out of 15) |
27 (out of 55)
30 (out of 48)
70 (out of 86)
39 (out of 47)
231 (out of 368)
11. The following table indicates the number of progress and final reports received, and reports still due for projects funded under the SGF. It should be noted that as from 1999, the Ramsar Bureau, under the instruction of the COP and the Standing Committee, is devoting more attention to reporting issues, and since then no new projects are funded in countries where final reports of previous projects have not been submitted by the agreed deadline.
Table 3: SGF FINAL REPORTS RECEIVED
|Projects funded||Reports submitted||Reports due|
|7 in 1991||5 final||2 final (out of 7)|
|12 in 1992||9 final||3 final (out of 12)|
|15 in 1993||10 final||5 final (out of 15)|
|10 in 1994||7 final||3 final (out of 10)|
|11 in 1995||7 final||4 final (out of 11)|
|12 in 1996||5 final||7 final (out of 12)|
|28 in 1997||16 final||12 final (out of 28)|
|18 in 1998||2 final||16 final (out of 18)|
|16 in 1999||1 final||15 final (out of 16)|
|8 in 2000||-||First progress reports are due in 2001.|
12. The SGF is particularly appreciated by the recipient institutions and partners for its flexibility, especially in providing "emergency assistance", and for its relatively simple application procedures.
13. The overall conclusion of the evaluation exercise was that the SGF constitutes a highly successful mechanism. However, despite this success, the optimal functioning and use of the SGF are hindered by some limitations:
Limitations and need for improvement
14. The size of the SGF, the irregularity of the funding, and earmarking of the funds. Ramsar COPs 5, 6 and 7 established and reiterated a target of US$ 1 million per year to be distributed amongst the different regions of the Convention. This target has never been reached and the availability of funds varies considerably from year to year (see above table). This raises the problem of opportunity-cost of the management of the Fund. Is it really worth investing so much staff time for (some years) such a small amount of money?
15. The irregularity of the contributions also implies serious planning problems. The transparent functioning of the SGF relies on public calls for proposals, but Bureau staff never know in advance how much money is going to be available. Hence the strong disappointment for institutions submitting good proposals, at the Bureaus invitation, only later to see their proposals turned down due to the lack of sufficient resources.
16. Country eligibility and funding sources: For some donors, it is not clear whether the SGF is a development cooperation fund or an environmental fund. Ramsar Administrative Authorities (in general, nature conservation agencies) who are willing to give funds might be reluctant because they are not supposed to give funds for development cooperation work, which is the competence of other institutions. On the other side, development cooperation agencies are sometimes reluctant to give funds for "environmental protection" because their agenda is clearly linked to poverty alleviation. Some development cooperation agencies want to concentrate on "least developed countries" or have priority countries or regions and are therefore not willing to give unrestricted funds that might be used in richer countries.
17. The project approval process and the role of the Standing Committee: Project proposals are carefully screened by Bureau staff and rated according to a very objective system of points. Once approved by the technical Bureau staff, proposals are submitted to the Standing Committee for final approval.
18. Project monitoring and the process of learning lessons: Both the project size (maximum SFr 40,000) and the availability of staff time within the Ramsar Bureau do not make it easy to monitor all projects closely and therefore to report adequately to the donors. Monitoring is done when Ramsar Regional Coordinators have to visit countries where a project is being implemented or when Ramsars International Organization Partners have the opportunity of doing so on behalf of the Ramsar Bureau.
19. The cost of systematic in situ monitoring makes it far too expensive to do it for all projects. The same applies to the process of learning lessons from projects and communicating these lessons to other State members. A serious effort is being made by Bureau staff to monitor and evaluate as many projects as possible. But, as decided by Resolution VII.5 (1999), other ways should also be sought to allocate the necessary time to improve project monitoring and follow up, including through a better involvement of Ramsar Partners, Ramsar Administrative Authorities, the Scientific and Technical Review Panel, and the Ramsar Standing Committee. A special financial allocation should be set aside for this purpose.
Option for a reshaped, financially sustainable SGF
20. A considerable number of Contracting Parties see the Ramsar Small Grants Fund as one of the most important tools of the Convention. The October 2000 Ramsar Standing Committee insisted that all efforts should be made to make the Fund much more efficient as a tool to help developing countries and countries in transition to implement the Convention.
21. The Ramsar Bureau has been requested to give priority to trying to establish a more reliable and long-term funding mechanism for the SGF. To that end, a reshaping of the functioning and capitalization of the Fund will be necessary. The Ramsar Bureau therefore has prepared the following proposal to respond to each of the limitations mentioned above.
22. There are two ways to avoid the irregularity of the capitalization of the SGF: (1) to negotiate regular donation agreements (framework agreements) for the SGF with interested donors, both private and public, and (2) to create an endowment Fund. Both possibilities have pros and cons.
23. After several months of consultations with experts, donor representatives, Standing Committee members, and financial institutions, the Ramsar Bureau has come to the conclusion that the best way forward is to establish a "Ramsar Trust Fund to Resource the Conventions Small Grants Mechanisms for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use" (Note: the proposed name will imply changing the "SGF" into the "SGM", to avoid having the word "fund" twice in the name of the Trust Fund.)
24. The Trust Fund would have two "windows": a "sinking fund" window and an "endowment fund" window.
25. The sinking fund window ("sinking" because the resources received are not invested but used immediately to finance projects) will operate as the SGF operates at present, with earmarked donations for a particular year and/or project, and will continue to be the main window until the endowment fund window receives enough contributions to allow it to start generating benefits to resource the SGM.
26. The endowment fund window represents the funds that are not used to finance projects but put in an interest-bearing account or invested wisely in some other way, not using the capital but only what it yields the interest produced or the proceeds of the investment to finance projects. This window may take some time to reach the appropriate level of capital, unless one or two significant donations are obtained soon. It could constitute an attractive mechanism for bequests, for example.
27. The endowment fund window has the advantages of being a secured long-lasting financial instrument and of providing a relatively good estimate of the amount of funds available for funding projects each year.
28. One limitation of this mechanism is that, at the beginning, before the window has a critical mass of capital, it may compete with donations that could be used to fund projects immediately (the sinking window). This limitation is tempered by the fact that the proposed Trust Fund might be sufficiently attractive to raise the minimum mass of capital soon after its start. A minimum of US dollars 3.5 million or Euro 4 million would be necessary to benefit from the lower institutional management fee offered by financial institutions.
29. It will therefore be important to make every effort to reach that minimum as soon as possible.
Sources of funding and country eligibility
30. It is expected that the sources of capitalization of the Trust Fund will be multiple and varied, including donations specifically obtained for this purpose and other non-earmarked income. This leads to important questions regarding the efficient functioning of the mechanism: some degree of conditionality will have to be accepted but too much conditionality will make the mechanism difficult to manage and perhaps less attractive to recipients or even potential contributors. A good balance will have to be sought between an exaggerated subordination to donors preferences and a lack of attention to them.
31. Attention will also have to be paid to returns to contributors in terms of visibility. This is especially important for the private sector contributors but also for public donors.
32. While at present its seems that the prospects of big business supporting wetland work are still dim, it should always be taken into account that motivation is key to attracting private sponsors. Companies only sponsor activities if there is a direct or indirect benefit to them. Supporting wetland conservation and wise use has many direct positive implications for a series of private companies, the most evident of which is the access to clean natural water that comes into the industrial processes: drinking water companies, soft drink companies, canning companies, food companies, etc. For those companies, wetland degradation imposes considerable additional economic cost on water treatment. The Ramsar/Danone-Evian partnership is a good illustration of this. The same reasoning may apply to many other sectors: tourism, agriculture, electricity, transports, fisheries, and so on.
33. An indirect benefit has to do with the increasing importance of the public concept of social and environmental responsibility of private companies, be it in the sector of goods or of services. Good environmental and social records for a private company are seen as a very important element in the marketing approach. Today, even financial institutions and banks are pushed by the growing number of green investors. Nevertheless, the interest of the private sector should not be overemphasized.
34. The reasons why the public sector should be interested in investing in the Ramsar Trust Fund are twofold: 1) because it is within their mandate to support sustainable development and environmental conservation in developing countries and countries in transition; and 2) because it is in their interest to support policies and activities which mitigate both local and global negative effects of wetland destruction.
35. Bilateral development assistance agencies may wish to put restrictions on the use of their funds. Understandably, most agencies will certainly give priority to their poverty alleviation agenda. This should also be a very important part of the Ramsar agenda and should be taken into consideration in the evaluation of the project proposals submitted to the Bureau. Accepting other kinds of restrictions for every potential donor would tremendously complicate the management of the Trust Fund and the reporting on the use of its proceeds. If a donor wishes to give funds with conditionality attached to the donation, these funds should be put in the sinking fund window.
36. Another important element to take into account is the origin of public funding. In the past, most of the voluntary contributions to the SGF came from environment ministries or institutions. The public mandate of these institutions is to protect nature and not to promote development in developing countries. Therefore, it is not within their mandate to support development cooperation activities, which is the responsibility of the international development agencies or ministries.
37. It is therefore important that the Ramsar Trust Fund be presented as both an environment Trust Fund and a sustainable development cooperation financial mechanism.
Proposal to the Standing Committee
38. The Bureau invites the Standing Committee to formally establish the "Ramsar Trust Fund to Resource the Conventions Small Grants Mechanisms for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use", if need be ad referendum of the Conference of the Parties at its meeting in November 2002. A decision of the Standing Committee to establish the Trust Fund will allow the gain of almost one year in the process to raise funds to capitalize the Fund.
39. The Bureau also invites the Standing Committee to consider and approve, with the amendments that may be introduced, the attached Provisional Rules for the Trust Fund.
Decision of the Standing Committee of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) at its 26th Meeting held in Gland, Switzerland, on 3-7 December 2001
Establishment of the Ramsar Trust Fund to Resource the Conventions Small Grants Mechanisms for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use
1. The Standing Committee of the Convention, pursuant to Resolution VI.6 of the Conference of the Parties, which "authorizes the Standing Committee to review the functioning of the [Small Grants] Fund, including the mechanisms for deciding on grant allocations, and to implement any changes in functioning which it considers necessary"; and Resolution VII.5, which "reiterates its conviction expressed in Resolutions 5.8 and VI.6 that the level of resources available to the Ramsar SGF should be increased to at least US$ 1 million annually", and "urges that a mechanism be developed for receiving commitments of contributions to the SGF", decides to establish, ad referendum of the Conference of the Contracting Parties at it next meeting, to be held in Valencia, Spain, on 18-26 November 2002, the Ramsar Trust Fund to Resource the Conventions Small Grants Mechanisms for Wetland Conservation and Wise Use, hereafter referred to as the Ramsar Trust Fund or RTF.
2. The RTF shall have two windows: a sinking fund window and an endowment fund window.
3. The sinking fund window will be used to administered funds donated to finance projects submitted by Contracting Parties in line with the Guidelines adopted by the Standing Committee for each triennium.
4. The endowment fund window shall receive funds for deposit in an interest-bearing account and/or for investment in some other way. The endowment fund window shall seek to constitute a capital of Euros 10 million.
5. As soon as the endowment fund window has reached the critical mass of Euros 4 million, the benefits produced by the endowed capital shall be reverted yearly to the sinking fund window for financing projects submitted by Contracting Parties.
6. The RTF shall be administered on behalf of the Standing Committee of the Convention by a Ramsar Trust Fund Board composed of nine members representing a broad range of skills in the field of finance, environment, development, administration, fundraising, and marketing. The RTF Board members shall include: representatives of three Contracting Parties to the Convention; one staff member of the Ramsar Bureau; three representatives of the Ramsar International Organization Partners; two representatives of the donor community; and the Ramsar Secretary General as an ex officio member.
7. The members of the RTF shall be appointed by Chairperson of the Standing Committee in consultation with the Committee.
8. The RTF shall operate with no interference from other bodies but within the parameters established by these Rules. The RTF shall submit reports to the Standing Committee twice a year, covering all aspects of the operation of the Fund.
9. The Board shall take all the necessary steps to obtain contributions to the RTF for the endowment fund window and/or the sinking fund window, so as to reach the target established by the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention, namely 1 million US dollars per year dedicated to finance small projects for wetland conservation and wise use in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.
10. The Secretary General of the Convention, in his/her capacity of an ex officio member of the RTF, shall have authority to sign all financial documents related to the RTF, in accordance with the existing financial rules and regulations of the Ramsar Bureau, and as mandated by the Board.
11. The members of the Board shall serve in their personal capacities, and for a period of 3 years. To assure a much needed continuity of the work of the Board, a mechanism by which there is a turnover of approximately half the appointed members shall be put in place, taking into consideration an equitable turnover between Ramsar regions.
12. No members shall serve more than twice on the Board.
13. The Board shall meet at least twice a year, either in person or through video or teleconference.
14. At its first meeting, the Board will elect its Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson and assign responsibilities to each Board member.
15. The Rules of procedure of the Conference of the Parties shall apply, mutatis mutandi, to the work of the Board.
16. The Board shall adopt a triennial work plan, which shall include a fundraising and marketing strategy.
17. The Board shall take a decision at the earliest possible time to open a Ramsar Trust Fund account in a bank located in one of the countries of the European Union.
18. The Board shall adopt a strategy for the investment of the funds in the endowment fund window and shall take decisions concerning the minimal critical mass of capital required before starting to disburse the proceeds of the endowment to the sinking fund window of the RTF.
19. The Board shall seek to ensure that the funds in the endowment fund window will not be invested in institutions that may finance activities with a negative impact on the environment and/or any other kind of unlawful or unethical activity.
20. Based on recommendations from the Ramsar Bureau and on the objective criteria set by the Operational Guidelines adopted by the Standing Committee, the Board will approve projects submitted by Contracting Parties twice a year.
21. The current Operational Guidelines for the Ramsar Small Grant Fund shall apply for the disbursement of funds. The Board shall submit to the Standing Committee revised guidelines for the disbursement of funds for consideration and approval at its first meeting after each meeting of the Conference of the Parties. | <urn:uuid:381ba318-9ca7-4cc9-94b7-843b5b8e7747> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ramsar.org/cda/en/ramsar-documents-notes-2001-26th-meeting-of-the-22109/main/ramsar/1-31-106-145%5E22109_4000_0__ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932669 | 5,646 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Its an common belief that every family history will uncover at least one of the following:
It is certainly true that you should be prepared to uncover family secrets that are revealed whilst you delve through historical records.
In my own family tree somethings were well known and talked about such as one ancestor being the son of his mother’s employer and not her husband. Another distant cousin had been jailed for manslaughter. One of my great grandfather’s died from the complications associated with syphilis (a much more common disease in the 19th century than you might think).
What we didn’t know until I requested my 2x great grandfather’s police employment records was that he was thrown out for embezzlement. I haven’t yet had a chance to visit Preston to discover the details of his crime to see quite how bad he was.
Another interesting find was brought to light when I ordered my 3x grandparents marriage certificate and their eldest daughter’s birth certificate. When I looked at the date her birth was recorded as the day after their marriage. It does make you wonder if they did make it down the aisle on time or they falsified her birth registration!
A couple of my ancestors have appeared in listings for bankruptcy as these were widely published back then and are well indexed now. At least one went bankrupt more than once so he obviously wasn’t a very good business man.
So keep your eyes open as you look in the records. Dates on certificates and church records can be very informative as can household composition on census returns. | <urn:uuid:d8a605ea-d8b7-4aad-aa94-296d2a268bcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lakesmum.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/skeletons-in-the-family-closet/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=dd1ec55e91 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988861 | 321 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Cabrini students have several options for financial aid.
Scholarships and grants are available. These may be based on academic merit, financial need, or both. These awards are considered "gift aid" and do not need to be repaid by the student.
The Yellow Ribbon Program offers financial aid for veterans. Cabrini and the Veterans Administration will help fund tuition expenses.
Student loans are a form of financial aid that requires repayment of the funds received, usually with interest. Some loans may be in either the student's or the parent's name.
Alternative loans are offered by banks or lending institutions to help students and parents bridge the gap between the cost of education and the amount of financial aid received. These are private supplemental loans that are NOT guaranteed by the federal government.
Student Employment is funding that a student earns with a job, typically on campus. As part of their financial aid award, students receive funds through either the Federal Work-Study Program and/or the Cabrini Work Grant Program. | <urn:uuid:41c2520a-758c-4062-9a85-89bf671834b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cabrini.edu/Admissions/Financial-Aid/Types-of-Financial-Aid.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959783 | 207 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Broad Institute welcomes new core faculty members
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard proudly welcomes two scientists who will join the institute as core faculty members in 2011: Myriam Heiman, currently a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University, and Feng Zhang, now a junior fellow at Harvard University. Each scientist has developed and applied unique tools for studying individual cell types in the complex environment of the brain, offering new ways to study the functional implications of genetic variants and cell identity on psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions. Their ground-breaking approaches will open up new areas of research that align with the work currently being done at the Broad to identify the genetic roots of psychiatric disease.
Heiman has been a postdoctoral researcher at The Rockefeller University since 2003. During her academic career, Heiman has worked with increasingly complex organisms, beginning with bacteria during her undergraduate research, then studying yeast as a graduate student and most recently mice as a postdoctoral fellow. After receiving training in classical bacterial genetics at Princeton University, Heiman pursued her PhD at The Johns Hopkins University. There she studied calcium signaling pathways triggered by stressful growth conditions in yeast, a topic that is relevant to the development of new antifungal drugs.
Heiman’s graduate work on cell signaling triggered a desire to study neuroscience. Despite her lack of formal training in the field, she was given the opportunity to pursue postdoctoral research with Paul Greengard at The Rockefeller University, a turn of events she said she looks back on as fortunate, because the interdisciplinary nature of the lab allowed her to carry out work that combined genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology. “Coming from a basic genetic background was very useful,” she said. “I wanted to bring the purity of bacterial and yeast genetics to the mouse, specifically in the nervous system.”
Heiman said she was struck by the longstanding problem of cell identity in the structurally diverse environment of the nervous system. The brain contains many different types of cells that are organized in a complicated way and have unique functions with relevance to disease. “How one studies individual cell types in very complex tissues is a fundamental question that has, for many decades, hampered neuroscience research,” she said.
In collaboration with Nathaniel Heintz at Rockefeller, she and Greengard took a genetic approach to solving this problem. The team attached a molecular handle to ribosomal proteins in a subset of nerve cells. Using the molecular tags, the scientists were able to biochemically purify all the messenger RNA — representing which proteins are being made in the cell — from a single cell type. “It’s a very simple idea, but very powerful because we haven’t had this kind of molecular access before,” she said. “It’s a very exciting new ability to investigate what is being done by particular types of cells at particular times — during normal function and in diseased states.”
After she joins the Broad, Heiman plans to continue this work, applying the approach to neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease, specifically using mouse models of Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia. She would like to use the models to determine why certain cell types — and not all cells in the nervous system — are most affected in diseased states, in addition to the functional consequences of genetic variants found to play a potential role in disease. “The Broad offers an ideal place to do these studies because it is without peer in its expertise and leadership in genomic research,” she said.
Heiman will hold joint appointments at the Broad and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. “I’m excited to be part of the Picower Institute because of its wonderful strengths in molecular and cellular neuroscience,” she said. In her role as a core faculty member of the Broad, she will also have strong connections to the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad, which aims to discover genetic risk factors for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
The second new core faculty member is Feng Zhang, currently a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratories of Paola Arlotta at Massachusetts General Hospital and Broad senior associate member George Church at Harvard Medical School. After moving to the United States from China at the age of 11, Zhang fulfilled an early interest in biology by working as a research assistant in a gene therapy lab during high school. He later studied chemistry and physics at Harvard College, where he investigated how viruses enter cells.
As a graduate student at Stanford University, Zhang worked with adviser Karl Deisseroth to develop a new tool for tackling the problem of cellular complexity in the brain. In 2002, a group of researchers discovered a protein in green algae that responds to light by opening or closing a pore in the cell membrane. Deisseroth, Zhang, and their colleagues realized that this protein could allow them to use light to control the activity of neurons.
To develop a tool that altered the activity of individual cell types in the brain of a live organism — a powerful tool for neurological research — the team next created a transgenic system to get only certain cells in an animal’s brain to express the algae protein. By then using fiber optics to deliver light directly to the area of the brain with the cells of interest, the team could control the activity of a target cell type.
This “optogenetic” tool has implications for basic research into the brain’s function and a variety of neurological disorders. “We can systematically look at one type of cell at a time to figure out what each one does, and how they work with each other,” said Zhang. The team has successfully demonstrated the optogenetics tool’s power in studying motor function, sleep, and the reward system. But the major question is how neural activity correlates with behavior. “There are tens of billions of cells in the brain, and at any one moment many cells are firing at different patterns,” said Zhang. “Some are important for perception, some for happiness, some for memory. This tool allows us to begin to answer the question about what those patterns mean, in a real-time way in an animal, using behavior as a readout.”
In his current position as a postdoctoral fellow, Zhang studies the development of the brain. “The way the brain is put together is very important to neurological and psychiatric problems, such as autism or schizophrenia,” he said. “A lot of them involve the way cells are connected in the brain.” With Arlotta and Church, Zhang has been investigating the specific patterns of genes that are turned on or off during development, with the goal of understanding what is altered in disease. “If we can understand the patterns that give rise to necessary cells and what are the crucial genes that malfunction in the process, then we have a target to treat this problem.”
In his new role at the Broad, Zhang plans to pursue methods for perturbing genes and controlling gene expression to understand the role genes play in development of disease. “That’s where my work fits in best here, as a follow-up to genomic efforts,” he said. “We can begin to modify and interact with the genome to see if variants we observe mimic defects in animal models, and if those are necessary and sufficient for disease.”
At the Broad, Zhang will collaborate with members of the Stanley Center. He also will hold a joint appointment at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Zhang is looking forward to joining the community of researchers at the Broad. “I can learn a lot from the diversity of approaches here,” he said. Zhang also values the Broad’s mission of openly sharing data and tools. “When you’re building tools, it’s important to get them out into the community,” he said. “The Broad has this entire system in place for sharing and collaborating, and that’s what I believe in too. You build a tool, send it out, people use it and tell you it’s not working well, and you fix it. That kind of feedback drives things forward.” | <urn:uuid:f5c5ab23-c22f-4387-afe5-6f4a7f9e58fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.broadinstitute.org/news/1502 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960357 | 1,688 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Featured on NBC's Today Show!
Start your favorite little peanut on the path to lifelong success with these award-winning Little PimŽ language learning gift sets. A series designed specifically for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers, Little PimŽ is an adorable panda bear ?teacher? who gets kids speaking simple foreign words and phrases for everyday activities and lays the foundation for a bilingual future. This set arrives in a colorfully trimmed clear tote and includes 3 language DVDs, a cuddly Little PimŽ plush and a comfy 12-month baby bodysuit. Take advantage of young children?s natural ability to learn languages?the benefits last a lifetime!
- Award-winning 3-set Little PimŽ DVDs include lessons in eating and drinking (Disc 1), wake up smiling (Disc 2) and playtime (Disc 3)
- Designed specifically for kids 0-5
- Includes cuddly plush Little PimŽ and 12 month baby bodysuit
- Arrives in a colorfully trimmed clear tote
- Available in Chinese, Spanish, French and German
- Studies show that young children who learn a second language have superior reading, writing, analytical and social skills, as well as more extensive vocabularies than their monolingual peers.
Little PimŽ was created in 2006 by Julia Pimsleur Levine, a mom who grew up bilingual and was looking for fun ways to introduce her young son to the French language. When she discovered there were no high quality videos/DVDs for teaching toddlers a foreign language, she decided to create them herself? something for which she was uniquely qualified as a filmmaker, language teacher and mother. Pimsleur Levine was inspired in part by having grown up in the language teaching business. Her father, Dr. Paul Pimsleur, created one of the most popular and acclaimed audio teaching language methods for adults.
Pimsleur Levine created a series that delights kids as much as any purely entertainment show, and treats play and learning as seamless activities. The Little PimŽ DVDs and products all make language learning fun and easy for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and their monolingual or bilingual parents.
Little PimŽ?s unique Entertainment Immersion Method leads with distinctive fun and high quality, and provides total immersion in the language. The method uses proven repetition techniques that help children retain the new vocabulary.
Little PimŽ is the most comprehensive series available today for introducing a foreign language to young children between the ages of 0 and 5. The series has won 10 awards, including iParenting, Mom?s Best, Creative Child and Mr. Dad. | <urn:uuid:7630db31-206e-4551-86c0-c69b19e528ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.1800baskets.com/Little-Pim-Gift-Set-Baby-Gift-Language?cm_cid=d11151 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94904 | 555 | 1.570313 | 2 |
“Art belongs in homes and hearts. It should reflect something about who we are as individuals and the life that we deserve to create.”
Art in your home is all about making a statement. It lets people know they have arrived somewhere special. The art you hang on the walls of your home tells others about the type of person you are. It speaks volumes about the lifestyle you enjoy and brings a sense of worth and achievement into your life. Great art reinforces your style and portrays a real sense of success and reward.
Entranceways become breathtaking galleries whilst family and living areas burst into colour and activity. Studies and dining rooms become mellow and subdued with careful placement of subtle works.
Most importantly, art ties a home together and completes the overall look and feel. It celebrates life, fun and feeling good.
Reward yourself with art in your home knowing that you deserve all that you have worked hard to create. Choose art because you love it. Make it something you want to live with for life. | <urn:uuid:e8d2ff83-b5a9-40de-887c-33c4ebddadc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davidhart.com.au/art-appreciation/art-in-the-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964175 | 206 | 1.578125 | 2 |
|7607726||Movable seat back tray||October, 2009||Orlo et al.||297/125|
|7520552||Console box||April, 2009||Nakamura et al.||296/24.34|
|6702375||Activity center for a vehicle||March, 2004||Laskowski et al.|
|6547323||Folding seat part with integrated table||April, 2003||Aitken et al.||297/113|
|6273310||Portable laptop computer workstation||August, 2001||Gregory||224/275|
|6220660||Vehicle activity center||April, 2001||Bedro et al.||297/188.04|
|6199948||Interchangeable module system||March, 2001||Bush et al.||297/217.3|
|6135549||Vehicle seat with computer storage and work table||October, 2000||Demick et al.||297/188.1|
|6059358||Seat back mounted fold down auto office||May, 2000||Demick et al.||297/188.04|
|6032587||Folding table||March, 2000||Salenbauch et al.||108/44|
|3666319||POWER OPERATED ARMREST||May, 1972||Moloney, Jr.||297/113|
|2866496||Furniture employing arm rests movable horizontally into a back member||December, 1958||Glass||297/113|
|DE4343242||June, 1995||Verstaubare Tischeinrichtung an einem Sitz|
|DE19854985||May, 2000||Armrest for location between seat backs of rear seat in motor vehicle has pivot bearing installed between table top and rotatable component and has two sections which are connected to pivot around axis perpendicular to vertical axis|
|WO/1999/035003||July, 1999||VEHICLE ACTIVITY CENTER|
I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a motor vehicle seat of which the backrest can fold onto the seat cushion in such a way as to form a tablet.
II. Description of Related Art
Document DE 4 343 242 describes a tablet, fixed to a retractable support, positioned beside a motor vehicle seat. When the support is lowered, the tablet, which is articulated such that it rotates to one side of the support, about an axis perpendicular to the latter, can be unfolded and brought in front of the seat to allow it to be used by a user sitting in the seat. The support may comprise two tablets, each articulated on one side of the support, so that they can be used by users sitting in seats positioned side by side. This type of device is very bulky because it is necessary to provide enough space to fix the tablet support between the two seats.
Furthermore, it is known practice to use the rear face of the folding backrests of certain motor vehicle seats as tablets. This type of seat comprises a seat cushion, fixed to the floor of the vehicle, and a backrest which can be folded onto the seat cushion and the rear face of which comprises a tablet-forming element, which, when the backrest is folded onto the seat cushion, forms a flat surface substantially parallel to the floor of the vehicle and which can act as a tablet. This type of tablet is, however, not very ergonomic because the working area offered remains small and distant from a user sitting on a seat positioned beside the folded seat.
It is an object of the present invention to propose a motor vehicle seat of the type comprising a seat cushion and a backrest that can be folded onto the seat cushion, the rear face of which comprises a tablet-forming element that can be readily used by a user sitting beside this seat, when the backrest is folded onto the seat cushion.
This object is achieved by means of a motor vehicle seat comprising a seat cushion, a backrest that can be folded onto the seat cushion, which comprises a rear face at least partially covered with a tablet-forming element and which can be brought into a substantially horizontal position when the backrest is folded onto the seat cushion. According to the invention, the tablet-forming element comprises a turntable pivot-mounted on the rear face of the backrest about a first axis, substantially perpendicular to the rear face, so that it can be brought into a position in which a portion of the turntable protrudes laterally from the rear face of the backrest. This laterally protruding tablet portion itself constitutes an increase in the surface area of the rear face of the seat that can be used as a tablet. Moreover, its lateral position makes it very readily accessible to a user sitting beside the seat according to the present invention.
According to a first embodiment, the backrest has a longitudinal axis and a headrest-forming portion, and the first axis of rotation of the turntable is positioned in the region of the headrest-forming portion. The turntable is thus pivot-mounted in the region of the front part of the seat cushion when the backrest is folded onto the seat cushion.
According to a second embodiment, the backrest has a first edge connected to the seat cushion and a longitudinal axis, and the first axis of rotation of the turntable intersects the longitudinal axis near the first edge of the backrest. When the backrest is folded onto the seat cushion, the turntable is pivot-mounted in the region of the rear of the seat cushion as this advantageously allows the table to be brought closer to the user with ease.
The tablet-forming element may comprise a storage housing accessible from the rear face of the backrest and located at least partially under the turntable. This housing may be used for storage, for example, for a laptop computer that will later be used on the turntable when the backrest is folded onto the seat cushion.
This housing may be positioned in such a way as to be accessible by rotating the turntable about the first axis of rotation.
A part of the turntable may also be pivot-mounted about a second axis of rotation, substantially parallel to the rear face, so that it can be raised, above the tablet-forming element so as to open access to said storage housing.
According to one particular embodiment, the backrest comprises a frame, the tablet-forming element comprises a rigid carcass which is fixed to the frame of said backrest and which supports the turntable.
The present invention also relates to a motor vehicle comprising a row of at least two seats. According to the invention, at least one of the seats is a seat according to the invention.
The row of seats may comprise at least three seats and the seat according to the invention may then be positioned between two seats.
According to the invention, the row of seats is a row of front seats or a row of rear seats. Thus, the seat according to the invention can be used in the front of a vehicle comprising a row of one or two seats situated beside the driver's seat.
The present invention, its features and the various advantages it affords will be better understood from reading the description which follows of two exemplary embodiments given by way of nonlimiting examples, and which makes reference to the attached drawings in which:
FIG. 1 depicts a perspective view from the rear of a first embodiment of the seat of the invention, when this seat is in the unfolded position;
FIG. 2 depicts a perspective view of the first embodiment of the invention, the backrest being folded onto the seat cushion and the turntable being pivoted to one side of the backrest;
FIG. 3 depicts a view from above of a second embodiment of the seat of the invention, the backrest being folded onto the seat cushion and the turntable being pivoted to one side of the backrest;
FIG. 4 depicts a perspective view of part of the backrest according to an alternative form of the second embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 5 depicts the backrest part depicted in FIG. 4, part of the turntable being lifted up to open up a housing; and
FIG. 6 depicts the backrest part depicted in FIG. 4, with the turntable pivoted to open access to a housing.
With reference to FIG. 1 which describes a first embodiment of the invention, the seat of the invention comprises a backrest 1 and a seat cushion 2 which is fixed to the floor of a motor vehicle and which is substantially perpendicular to the backrest 1, when the latter is in its unfolded position, as depicted in FIG. 1. The backrest 1 is connected to the seat cushion 2 at a first edge 3. The backrest 1 also comprises a headrest-forming portion 4 which extends the backrest 1 vertically when this backrest is in its unfolded position. The rear face of the backrest 1, which is the only face visible in FIG. 1, corresponds to that face of the backrest that does not come into contact with the back of a user sitting on the seat cushion 2. This rear face is the opposite face to the front face of the backrest 1 which does come into contact with the back of the user sitting on the seat cushion 2. This rear face comprises a substantially flat tablet-forming element 6 which completely covers it and forms a substantially planar and continuous rigid surface extending from the first edge 3 of the backrest 1, which constitutes the junction between the seat cushion 2 and the backrest 1, and the free edge 7 of the headrest-forming portion 4. Because the backrest 1 comprises a headrest-forming portion 4 it is therefore longer than a standard backrest, the tablet-forming element 6 completely covering the rear face of the backrest 1 (including the headrest-forming portion), and so the tablet-forming area is therefore considerably enlarged by comparison with the seat that has no headrest built into the backrest of the seat. Furthermore, this large surface area allows the use of an extensive turntable.
As depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2, a turntable 8 is attached to the tablet-forming element 6 of the backrest 1. This turntable 8 is articulated such that it rotates about an axis X perpendicular to the plane of the rear face (i.e. to the tablet-forming element 6). In the first embodiment depicted here, the axis of rotation X of the turntable 8 is positioned near the free edge 7 of the headrest-forming portion 4. The portion of the tablet-forming element 6 that is situated near the first edge 3 of the backrest 1 comprises cavities 9 used, for example, as a support for a can of drink or a cup.
With reference to FIG. 2, when the backrest 1 is folded onto the seat cushion 2, the rear face of the backrest 1 which is covered with the tablet-forming element 6 becomes a tablet or work surface positioned between the two seats 10 and 11 located on each side of the seat according to the invention and facing in the same direction thereas. The turntable 8 can be pivoted either toward the driver, as it is in FIG. 2, or toward the passenger, by rotating about the axis X. The position of the axis X of rotation, which in the present embodiment is positioned along the longitudinal axis Z of the backrest 1, makes it possible to obtain symmetric excursion on each side of the backrest 1, providing the same additional working area on each side. The size of the turntable 8 and that of the rear face 6 of the backrest 1 make it possible, by rotating the turntable 8, to cause a portion of the latter to protrude beyond the rear face and laterally thereto, thus creating an additional work surface situated in close proximity to a user sitting in a seat adjacent to the seat of the invention, and ideally oriented.
According to another embodiment that has not been depicted, the axis of rotation X is positioned off the longitudinal axis Z of the backrest, thus creating asymmetric excursion of the table, making it possible to improve the working ergonomics of a user sitting on the side of greatest excursion, at the expense of a user sitting on the opposite side.
The elements of the second embodiment, which is depicted in FIGS. 3 to 6, which are common to the elements of the aforementioned first embodiment, bear the same references.
In the second embodiment depicted in FIG. 3, the axis of rotation X of the turntable 8 is positioned on the longitudinal axis Z of the backrest 1, but toward the first edge 3 of the backrest 1, that is to say on the opposite side to the position of the axis of rotation X in the first embodiment. This position also allows the turntable 8 a large excursion. In FIG. 3, the turn-table 8 is pivoted toward the passenger sitting beside the seat of the invention, which is folded. As in the first embodiment, the pivoting of the turntable about the axis X creates an additional tablet portion close to the passenger and which therefore can be easily used.
Thus, as depicted in FIGS. 2 and 3, the two embodiments of the invention facilitate the use, for example, of a laptop computer 20 placed on the turntable 8, by bringing it closer to the users sitting on the adjacent seats 10 and 11, and also by allowing it to be oriented, by pivoting the turntable 8 about the axis X.
FIG. 4 depicts in greater detail an alternative form of embodiment of part of the backrest corresponding to the second embodiment of the invention. The tablet-forming element 6 comprises a carcass 13 which covers the frame of the backrest 1 (not depicted) and therefore forms the rear face thereof. The carcass 13 is a rigid shell which forms a storage cavity or housing 14, visible in FIGS. 5 and 6, which is set into the thickness of the padding of the backrest 1. The open face of the storage housing 14 is covered by the turntable 8, when the latter is positioned along the longitudinal axis Z of the backrest 1, as depicted in FIG. 4. Opposite the axis of rotation X of the turntable 8 there is a portion 15 which is fixed and which comprises storage cavities 9. Near the axis of rotation X of the turntable 8 there is a hinge 17 parallel to the first edge 3 of the backrest 1 and to the free edge 7 of the headrest-forming portion 4. As depicted in FIG. 5, it is therefore possible to lift up part of the turntable 8 (the part which does not comprise the first axis of rotation) by pivoting it about the hinge 17. The turntable 8 thus acts as a lid to the storage housing 14.
As depicted in FIG. 6, it is also possible to uncover the storage housing 14 by pivoting the turntable 8 about its axis of rotation X.
It is also possible, without departing from the scope of the present invention, to provide a storage housing 14 which is only accessible simply by pivoting the turntable 8. In this case, there is no need to equip the table with a hinge.
The carcass 13 described with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6 may be adapted to the first embodiment, the fixed tablet portion is then located close to the first edge 3 of the backrest 1. | <urn:uuid:98a90674-3ff4-4961-8d6b-142c641d139c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8167366.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932131 | 3,209 | 1.539063 | 2 |
- Clinical Trials
- Research News
- Industry Trends
- Agency Actions
- Drug Safety Issues
- Approvals, Launches, & New Indications
- Health Care Reform
Galantamine (Razadyne) Lowers Mortality in Alzheimer’s Patients
Smaller cognitive decline also seen versus placebo (Dec. 5)
New study findings have shown a significantly lower mortality rate in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) who were treated with galantamine (Razadyne, Janssen Pharmaceuticals) — approved for the treatment of mild to moderately severe AD — versus those who received placebo. Patients treated with galantamine also had a smaller decline in cognitive impairment after 2 years compared with patients in the placebo group, according to data presented at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 51st Annual Meeting in Hollywood, Fla. Janssen Research & Development sponsored the study.
At the trial’s final interim mortality analysis, an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board recommended early termination of the study due to an imbalance of deaths between the treatment group and the placebo group. Subsequent unblinding of the data indicated that the mortality rate was significantly lower in patients treated with galantamine compared with those who received placebo (3.1% vs. 4.9%, respectively; P = 0.021). In the final analysis, a total of 89 deaths were recorded: 33 (3.2%) in the galantamine group and 56 (5.5%) in the placebo group (P = 0.011).
The patients treated with galantamine also had significantly less cognitive decline — measured by the change from baseline in the Mini Mental Status Evaluation (MMSE) at month 24 — compared with the placebo group. The mean MMSE scores deteriorated from a baseline of 19 to 17.5 and 16.9 for the galantamine and placebo groups, respectively (P < 0.001).
In addition, there was significantly more decline from baseline in the MMSE at month 6 in the placebo group compared with the galantamine group (P < 0.001). The change in activities of daily living — as measured by the Disability Assessment in Dementia (DAD) scores from baseline to month 24 — was significantly worse in the placebo group than in the galantamine group (P = 0.002).
The trial enrolled a total of 2,051 patients (1,028 in the galantamine group and 1,023 in the placebo group). The patients’ mean age was 73 years (range: 45 to 92 years). Most of the patients (65%) were women. The galantamine group initially received 8 mg of drug daily, and the dose was increased to 16 to 24 mg daily during the first 12 weeks of the study. Thereafter, patients were maintained on 16 to 24 mg of galantamine daily.
Galantamine is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor approved to treat the symptoms of mild to moderate AD, such as memory loss. There is no evidence that galantamine alters the course of the underlying process of dementia. While the precise mechanism of galantamine's action is unknown, it is believed to achieve its therapeutic effect by increasing the concentration of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine by inhibiting the enzyme cholinesterase, which breaks down acetylcholine.
Although the cause of cognitive impairment in AD is not fully understood, it has been reported that neurons that produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, degenerate in the brains of patients with the disorder. The degree of this neuronal loss has been correlated with the degree of cognitive impairment and the density of amyloid plaques (a neuropathological hallmark of AD).
Source: Johnson & Johnson; December 5, 2012. | <urn:uuid:6894dc54-5f5b-4f14-8464-5786167d04fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ptcommunity.com/news/DailyDetail.cfm?chosen=66862 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944716 | 776 | 1.53125 | 2 |
IK Impact Test Schedule
The "IK" code is a coding system described in BSEN50102 that indicates the degree of protection provided by an enclosure against harmful mechanical impacts. It is similar to the IP rating system and consists of the letters IK followed by two digits, which indicates the impact resistance. These digits run from "00" (not protected according to the standard) through to "10" which is for an impact of 20 joules.
However it is our experience, gained over many years, that this level is completely inadequate to guarantee protection against regular or severe vandalism.
For this reason, we test our vandal resistant range well above the low standard, in fact to the very high level of 150 Joules, some 130 Joules above the provisions of the standard.
In order to indicate the relative strengths of these products we have extended the IK system as shown in the graph. It can be seen that we have chosen IK16 as the 150 Joule level with additional intermediate levels from IK10, the limit of the standard. Where appropriate the IK levels are shown on the product pages. In general products rated IK16 (150 Joules) are available with our unique Lifetime Guarantee against breakage.
The means of testing is the pendulum hammer to EN60068-2-75, which details the apparatus, & method we use to carry out our tests. | <urn:uuid:5419e12b-7dee-4f72-bde3-980a9e908629> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designplan.co.uk/content/ik_explanation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933337 | 286 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Lucrezia Borgia - Synopsis
Felice Romani after Victor Hugo
Young men are discussing the horror stories being told about the curse on the Borgia family, warning each other to be careful in any dealings with them, especially with Lucrezia,
of whom it is said that she poisons people. The young men have their reasons: they denounce Lucrezia as the murderer of their relations.
Gennaro is the lone wolf in the group. He has no idea who his mother and father were. When a woman appears to him, as if in a dream, he immediately feels drawn to her. The woman takes him tenderly in her arms, like a mother cradling a child. But Gennaro’s friends wake him: the woman to whom he feels so close is Lucrezia Borgia.
In Ferrara. At night. At the court of the Duca D’Este and his wife, Lucrezia Borgia.
Gennaro and his friends have been invited to Ferrara by the Venetian ambassador. Spies, thieves and murderers surround them. The Duca D’Este suspects that Gennaro is his wife’s lover. Even Gennaro’s friends tease him, hinting that he is having an affair with Lucrezia. This provokes Gennaro to destroy Lucrezia’s coat of arms on the duke’s palace. Lucrezia demands of her husband that he should have the person guilty of this crime killed. The Duca has Gennaro arrested and brought before Lucrezia. Lucrezia, having insisted that the culprit should be killed, is forced by her husband to poison Gennaro. At the last minute she is able to save him by giving him an antidote. Gennaro cannot understand why he is drawn to Lucrezia again and again.
Hours later in Ferrara. It is again night.
Gennaro wants to leave Ferrara but his friend Maffio Orsini reminds him how they have sworn to stay together always, through life and in death.In the end, Lucrezia has all Gennaro’s friends poisoned, all those who destroyed the dream of her life that day in Venice, the dream of being unrecognized andloved by someone just for herself. She now takes her revenge and becomes the poisoner the whole world has always taken her for. But again her revenge falls on the one she loves: Gennaro. This time he refuses to accept the antidote. As he dies he finally learns what has always drawn him to Lucrezia.
She is his mother. | <urn:uuid:6edb314e-c428-404c-9309-50e2a724c473> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bayerische.staatsoper.de/885-ZG9tPWRvbTEmaWQ9MTU1MyZsPWVuJnRlcm1pbj0xMTkyMQ-~spielplan~oper~veranstaltungen~inhalt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971869 | 551 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The most important and ultimate goal of Karikuy; Project Ñawpa Kutiq aims to build green communities in the Andes. Promoting the advancement of Art, Science and Culture, Ñawpa Kutiq; "return of the past / return of the future" builds on ancient models of communal service and organization to enhance labor and the quality of life for it's residents.
A free and responsible social democracy is the foundation on which Project Ñawpa Kutiq will be built. Self sustaining technology will gradually be implemented in creating a carbon free community. Organic agriculture and the expertise of generations old farming techniques will feed the entire populace as it once did during the Inca Empire.
Phase 1 of the Ñawpa Kutiq Project consist of raising funds to acquire land to begin work on Phase 2 which will begin to lay the foundation of housing and town infrastructure. Through your help this project will manifest from vision to reality. Your business with Karikuy and/or direct involvement with the project will undoubtably help us succeed in this goal of not just providing a better future for Peruvians but also serving as a model for communities worldwide.
Our current project is almost as ambitious as Ñawpa Kutiq. The Perupedia Project, now also known as the Karikuy Volunteer Program has been cataloging articles, media, and informational resources in a sleek and easy to navigate web site since 2009. Perupedia is a wiki at heart, based on the popular Wikipedia platform it gathers information on all topics concerning Peruvian culture. Currently there are entries for all the major Provinces of Peru and a wealth of information on history, music and travel as well as a database of other volunteer programs inside Peru.
Our current volunteer program is $65 a week and is aimed at writers/researchers who wish to spend time in Lima and learn about Peruvian culture. Our volunteers also have access to our lowest fares and tour prices during their stay. If you want to volunteer please submit an application. | <urn:uuid:8d0d2c66-c770-4dc1-a8d1-edea3dba5afb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.karikuy.org/about | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951285 | 413 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Germany staged an impressive recovery from the 2008/2009 global economic crisis, but there are increasing signs that the boom is now coming to an end.
After almost two years of strong growth, its economic outlook is starting to deteriorate, due to a slowdown in major emerging markets including China and fears of a possible United States recession caused by $2.4 trillion in spending cuts linked to the debt ceiling deal.
Various indicators released in recent weeks point to a deceleration of Europe's largest economy.
The Ifo business climate index for July fell sharply to its lowest level in nine months, and analysts say it is likely to keep dropping. The ZEW investor sentiment index showed the weakest level since January 2009.
And the Markit/BME purchasing managers' index for the German manufacturing sector fell 2.6 points in July to 52 points, its lowest level since October 2009. "New order levels went into reverse in July, as fewer export sales helped end a two-year period of sustained growth," Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit, said.
German engineering orders in June rose by just 1 percent year-on-year, after having jumped 21 percent in May, the VDMA engineering industry association said. "There are initial indications that demand for invesment goods has become less dynamic in Germany and in the other euro member states," said VDMA economist Olaf Wortmann.
In addition, top German firms have given more cautious outlooks for the remainder of 2011. Analysts have been paying particularly close attention to what is being said by the chemicals industry, which is regarded as a bellwether for the general industrial outlook because it supplies many different sectors.
BASF, the world's largest chemicals company, last week reported a slowdown in sales growth in the second quarter and said its business momentum was likely to continue weakening in the second half.
Corporate Outlooks Revised Down
Analysts have been lowering their 2011 earnings forecasts for many top German companies in recent weeks following a second-quarter reporting season that failed to live up to expectations.
Over the last year, the German boom has been impervious to surging oil prices, an appreciating euro and the European debt crisis.
Its success in achieving far stronger growth rates than most of its European partners has been attributed to the German business model, with officials and economists praising the country's long-term approach to business, its strength in technical innovation, and the culture of consensus between employers and trade unions that has kept wage costs down for over a decade.
However, Germany has also faced accusations, particularly from the United States and France, that it has been growing at the expense of other major economies. German firms have boosted their competitiveness over the last decade by keeping wage costs in check, thereby limiting consumer spending and imports and ensuring that Germany has been running trade surpluses with most of its major partners for years.
Calls by Paris and Washington for the government to boost domestic demand and redress the chronic trade imbalance have fallen on deaf ears in Berlin.
The German recovery was led by surging exports to high-growth emerging economies, especially China, which has had a nearly unsatiable demand for the products in which Germany specializes -- high-performance cars and machinery.
Bad News for the Rest of Europe
The slowdown in the Chinese economy is beginning to bite, however. Faltering growth in Germany will have knock-on effects on the rest of the euro zone, which has relied on its core economies, Germany and France, for growth while the high-debt nations such as Greece, Portugal and Spain are weighed down by austerity programs aimed at overcoming their debt problems.
First-quarter gross domestic product growth was so strong that Germany is still likely to achieve 3 percent growth in 2011.
Peter Bofinger, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, a panel of economic advisers to the government, said the debt crises in the US and Europe could lead to a marked slowdown in the German economy.
"We will see significantly weaker growth rates in Germany than in 2010 and 2011," Bofinger told Rheinische Post newspaper on Monday. "Growth rates of more than 3 percent are a thing of the past."
Stay informed with our free news services:
|All news from SPIEGEL International||Twitter | RSS|
|All news from Business section||RSS|
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2011
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH | <urn:uuid:f12cdccd-e2c5-4dc4-8c7d-175541d16a62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/outlook-dims-for-european-juggernaut-german-economy-starts-to-cool-down-a-777930.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971262 | 920 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Operation AntiSec has made a return, this time leaking a file containing 1,000,001 unique device identifier numbers, or UDIDs, for Apple devices. The hackers are claiming that the data was stolen from a laptop belonging to the FBI, and that in total, it contained more than 12 million UDID numbers.
The file containing the data was accompanied by a longer than usual Pastebin post, which claims that in March, a Dell laptop belonging to “Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl,” who works for the FBI’s Regional Cyber Action Team, was compromised using a Java vulnerability and a variety of files downloaded from it.
One was the above list of 12,367,232 UDID numbers, along with other personal data such as user names, Push Notification tokens, telephone numbers, address and the originating device.
According to the post, the personal data has been removed prior to uploading, but the UDID, notification token, device name and device type apparently remains. Forbes.com’s Andy Greenberg downloaded and decrypted the file, and found it contains a massive collection of 40-character strings, all of which could pass for Apple UDID codes.
Real UDID codes?
As you’d expect, the leak raises more questions than it answers. To whom do the UDID’s belong too, and why — presuming the information on the source is accurate — would the FBI have a single file listing 12 million of them.
While labeling its existence as proof of a conspiracy will be popular, there is an equally good chance the file is part of an investigation, or was supplied to the FBI quite innocently. There’s also the chance it didn’t come from the FBI at all, but from a developer. It’s also not the first time AntiSec has targeted Apple.
In its Pastebin text, Anonymous says that the “FBI is using your device info for a tracking people project or some sh*t,” and calls for UDID codes and similar device-identifying numbers to be “erradicated (sic) from any device on the market in the future.”
Apple’s use of UDID numbers has caused controversy in the past, with even Apple telling developers to stop tracking users using the codes. UDIDs themselves don’t carry personal data, but can be combined with other information to aid device tracking and monitoring.
Over at Hacker News, at least two contributors claim to have found UDID codes relating to their personal iOS devices. One lives in the USA and the other in the UK, but no common link between them or the apps they have installed has been established.
Interestingly, Cydia developer Jay Freeman (AKA Saurik) adds to the conversation, saying that 16.7-percent of the UDID’s in the file come from jailbroken iOS devices, according to his research.
As for Special Agent Christopher Stangl, it appears he exists, which potentially adds some weight to Anonymous’ claims. There is a LinkedIn profile for someone under that name, who works for the FBI and has that job title; plus in 2009, FBI Agent Chris Stangl made a video for Cyber Security Awareness Week at NYU.
His name also appears on an FBI email list published on the Internet earlier this year, which led to hackers listening into a conference call discussing the activities of LulzSec and Anonymous. It’s speculated that these addresses were phished and led to a compromised website, where a Java vulnerability was exploited.
Anonymous has said it won’t be providing any further details, but hopes that due to the large amount of leaked information, “someone should care about it.” While we’re not expecting much from the FBI, it’ll be interesting to see if Apple provides a response.
If you’re wondering whether your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch’s UDID appears on the leaked list, then this website offers a quick and easy way to check; but first, you’ll need to know your UDID number.
Luckily it’s not that difficult to locate. Simply open iTunes, plug your device into your computer, then select it from the Devices list. Click where it says Serial Number, and the UDID will magically appear. Copy it to the clipboard, then paste it into the box on the site above. If you need clarification on how to find your UDID, whatsmyudid.com provides easy to follow instructions with images too. | <urn:uuid:c50486fd-a397-4cb5-8901-123b83fa45e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/one-million-ios-device-indentifiers-leaked/?showall=1&flagcomment=458828 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945862 | 940 | 1.6875 | 2 |
By Josh Richman
Monday, October 15th, 2012 at 12:40 pm in 2012 presidential election.
A Berkeley-based public policy advocacy group working for communities of color is urging the presidential candidates to “play the race card” and answer tough questions at tomorrow’s debate, even as a major documentary on race in U.S. politics is set to air at tomorrow as well.
“People of color are well on the way to becoming America’s new majority, but neither the major-party candidates nor the media have done much to address the real needs of our communities,” Greenlining Institute Executive Director Orson Aguilar said in a news release. “We hope debate moderator Candy Crowley and town hall participants will borrow some of our questions and press both candidates for real answers about poverty, the racial wealth gap and growing divisions in our country.”
A column by Aguilar titled “Obama, Romney: Please play the race card” appeared in select newspapers across the nation this past weekend. Now he and the institute want the candidates to answer questions like these:
- Racial Divisions: During this campaign, we have seen what many believe to be racially coded appeals and campaign advertising. Meanwhile, surveys have found that whites, blacks and Latinos have starkly different beliefs about the level of racial discrimination and racial inequality in our nation. As president, what will you do to heal these divisions?
- Unemployment: Over the past forty years, black and Latino unemployment rates have consistently been higher than that of whites. What long-term strategies do you propose to reduce the racial disparity in unemployment rates?
- Homeownership: While foreclosures are down since 2010, 1,887,777 foreclosure filings, auctions and bank repossessions occurred in 2011. The foreclosure crisis has hit communities of color hard. While blacks and Latinos represented 7.8 percent and 11.2 percent of people who received a home loan from 2007-2009, they represented 11.6 percent and 16.2 percent, respectively, of all foreclosures. What will you do to reduce foreclosures, both overall and specifically within communities of color?
Meanwhile, the Public Broadcasting System is teasing its “Race 2012” documentary, set to air at 8 p.m. Tuesday – right after the second presidential debate – and again at 9 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 19. Directed and produced by Phillip Rodriguez, it aims to document the changing face of America and how that face may affect the nation’s political future, according to a news release.
PBS today offered “a sneak peek of five surprising facts” from the documentary, presented here verbatim:
- 1.) As recently as 1980, 80 percent of the United States was white. The 2010 census showed that the country’s overall population is now slightly less than 64 percent white.
- 2.) In contrast to the 19th and 20th century move to change the names and cultural identities of U.S. immigrants to appear more “Americanized” or “white,” white Americans and African Americans increasingly are adopting Latino names and cultural touchstones to fit the diversifying communities in which they live. A growing number of African Americans in San Francisco’s Bay Area hold quinceañeras for their children, and have piñatas at their parties. And El Paso politician Robert O’Rourke, who is white and speaks fluent Spanish, goes by the traditional Latino nickname “Beto” and unseated a Latino incumbent in the Congressional primary.
- 3.) Conservatives tend to assume Asian-Americans vote conservatively because as a group they’re considered hard-working, industrious and entrepreneurial – characteristics stereotypically associated with white Americans. Yet the Asian-American community consistently votes 2 to 1 for liberal candidates.
- 4.) For the first time in 70 years, the majority of white parents believe their children will not be financially better off than themselves, while African Americans and Hispanics are now considerably more optimistic about the next generation.
- 5.) Although conservative policies are perceived as harder on immigration, in the past few years the U.S. has had a record deportation level. In each year of the Obama administration, deportations outnumbered any year of the Bush administration.
The film already is making waves. John Ziegler, a documentary filmmaker who was interviewed for “Race 2012,” issued a statement today saying it’s “fundamentally biased against both whites and conservatives, and also makes unsubstantiated charges of racism against the Romney campaign.”
Ziegler, a conservative former radio talk show host who created www.HowObamaGotElected.com and the documentary “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected,” has written a scathing critique of “Race 2012” for the Media Research Center, a conservative organization dedicated to “exposing and combating liberal media bias.” In that piece, he calls it “nothing more than a PBS-sponsored liberal hatchet job on conservatives which doesn’t even pretend to be fair.” | <urn:uuid:cc8a1dca-1c4a-4aeb-a9db-24ce19073c36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2012/10/15/delving-into-race-issues-for-election-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953043 | 1,064 | 1.625 | 2 |
The State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs held a seminar on preserving Vietnamese language and culture in Hanoi on September 14-15.
Delegates from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also attended the event, as well as representatives from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Overseas Vietnamese (OV) from Poland, Germany, Laos, France, the US, the Czech Republic and Russia.
Delegates emphasised the role of OV’s in preserving and developing the country’s culture and language. With about 4.5 million OVs globally, the community has not only shown solidarity, but also advertised Vietnam’s landscape and people all over the world.
Nguyen Thanh Son, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, noted that economic integration and cultural exchange have many impacts on multi-faceted aspects of life.
According to culturist Huu Ngoc, second and third generations of OVs are appearing. He proposed to establish Vietnamese cultural houses in foreign countries to preserve Vietnam’s cultural values for the next generation of OVs.
Delegates also raised the question about clarifying concepts of national values under the circumstances of modern life and urbanisation that are having great influence on Vietnamese lives. | <urn:uuid:a780e57d-7960-40b9-adfb-cd6148fc2fea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vietnamtopresorts.com/Vietnam-travel-guide/Vietnam-discovery/Preserving-Vietnamese-language-and-culture-in-the-global-integration-process/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946081 | 250 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Speed Racer was always using gadgets to survive and win. His opponents had some as well, though not all of his opponents survived. Beyond raceday lap count, what were the rules? Were there any?
(Note: Info below is specific to the American, Speed Racer (1967) TV series only.)
As I remember it there were multiple episodes that had a rule infraction resulting in disqualification. However, many of the races were not held in a stadium, where Race Direction could easily monitor the cars. These races were Cross Country, where circuits (laps) are huge county-sized affairs, or even some Gumball Rally type races city-to-city. For these open-road races perhaps this quote sums it up best:
Also, in that era, racecar drivers were mostly independent amateurs, and could enter various leagues and one-off races with organizers who all had their own non-standard rules. (I’m reminded of James Dean driving his car up to a race when he was killed.) So logically, there is no standard rule-set for the entire original TV series, because it just was not indicative of the times - but there were definitely rules, because some of the episodes mention them explicitly.
However, in some episodes there are unsanctioned races where it’s recognized outright that anything-goes – no rules. (e.g. organized by a terrorist group to settle a feud and designed to kill drivers – last man standing - blood sport.)
Here are a few things I’ve found:
I can find only one explicit itemization of race rules. In, “Junk Car Grand Prix”, where the Baron Von Vondervon has them read out. He has organized a race to find a replacement for his long lost daughter. Trixie is entering for Team Racer. (S1:E48 @1:30.)
Speed wins the race in, “The Great Plan: Part 2”, (S1:E2 @20:50) but because of rule violation Race Direction canceled the results.
And, this episode guide documents various references to race rules, but does not go into detail on what the rules are. A few excerpts below:
That is some low hanging fruit. I’m sure there are more examples of rules in the series. | <urn:uuid:380d2b2d-33c7-456c-8e55-9d59200e59b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/2258/what-were-the-race-rules-in-the-speed-racer-cartoon-series?answertab=active | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981498 | 486 | 1.5625 | 2 |
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MA – The Obama family began their week-long vacation this weekend. The Kraken at the heart of Hurricane Bill was diverted out to sea to avoid any complications.
Like many hurricanes, Hurricane Bill was caused by an angry kraken who had been woken from his slumber. Unconfirmed reports say the filming crew of a Discovery Planet fishing show was responsible for awakening the beast. As the monster raged, a category 3 hurricane grew around him.
Given the already overstretched government resources, and the Presidential vacation set to begin Sunday night, officials were willing to take drastic action to veer the monster further away from shore. “Well, it wasn’t easy” said Mike Angiakis, FEMA specialist on Sea Monsters. “But when you consider the alternative, there really wasn’t a choice.”
Dozens of government helicopters airlifted 50 thousand of pounds of dead fish leading the monster out to sea. Coating the fish was 16 thousand pounds of tsatziki sauce, which “krakens are highly partial to” says Angiakis. The yogurt seasoned fish stretched for miles into the Atlantic in a line that could be seen from space.
Hurricane Bill’s path had been following the US East Coast northward, causing storms and tidal disturbances. Thanks to the sudden change in course it avoided any landfall in the northern US and the Obama vacation in Massachusetts was able to proceed without incident.
Some are wondering if the government only stepped in with this hurricane to assist in the President’s vacation. “Preposterous!” said Angiakis. “The government dealt with this sea monster because it was the right thing to do!”
The kraken is believed to have been sated by the massive meal, and is currently hibernating off the coast of Greenland. | <urn:uuid:a8019aee-2ac5-468d-bd81-efa44482a4f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weeklyworldnews.com/mutants/11114/obama-vacation-delayed-by-hurricane-bill/?like=1&_wpnonce=b93d0ca0fa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959221 | 392 | 1.617188 | 2 |
CatalinColegiul National "Ienachita Vacarescu" Targoviste, Dambovita, Romania
Anca DianaColegiul National "Ienachita Vacarescu" Targoviste, Dambovita, Romania
CarmenColegiul National "Ienachita Vacarescu" Targoviste, Dambovita, Romania
19 & under
Catalina VladColegiul National "Ienachita Vacarescu" Targoviste, Dambovita, Romania
Science & Technology
Online Activity / Game
Reading Guide / Book Guide
Science / Lab Experiment
Teacher Resources (Lesson Plans, Worksheets)
Video / Sound
We came with a lot of ideas about what the topic of the website should be, and we all agreed upon "High-Tech: Robotics", a subject we did not know we all have an interest in, big or small. We all discussed about what the website should contain and on how it should look like. When we had to divide our tasks, it was very easy, because Carmen was very good at programming, and has a passion for web design, so she made her part of job very well. Catalin accepted to do the content of the website, which was a very challenging and demanding task, and our future architect, Anca, got herself busy with the sketches, images and the layout of the website. We always confronted our work, gave each other advices, and kept each other up-to-date with everything we worked on.
When we came with the idea of interviews, everyone was thrilled to do it. We thought listening to what other people think about our website`s theme would be an interesting and exciting experience.
We know it is important to be informed, but also to have practical experience, so in our researches we even tried to visit industrial sites in our town or in the vicinity of the area that use industrial robots, but we only found manually operated devices, and the only robotic device we could entertain ourselves with were toy robots.We also faced the problem of the images. We wanted our project to be one of a kind, so we thought the best way is to gather information on how a certain type of robot should theoretically look, and sketch them.
As we mentioned in "Team collaboration", the diversity of our team made the creation of this website possible. When Carmen came up with the idea of participating at the contest, the other members did not show much enthusiasm, because they had other skills, ideas, future plans, interests. But when we started discussing this project, we ended up looking for themes for the website. Soon, everyone started to find his place in this project, and was eager to begin working on it.
Carmen is very good at web programming, so she was happy with doing this part of the website. Catalin, future doctor, loves to do essays so he enjoyed gathering materials for the website`s content, thinking it would be a great way to learn new things, especially in an area where he had almost no experience. Anca, having plans of becoming an architect, was delighted to do the sketches, and to work at the layout of the website.
We only wanted to have a lasting memory of this last year of high school, and we thought that working at something together and overcoming all the challenges will keep us united, give us an everlasting memory and sense of accomplishment, and help us in our future plans. | <urn:uuid:7f3aba79-4057-4fad-8fb7-5cc5fc5afc7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkquest.org/pls/html/f?p=52300:100:6130315478479104::::P100_TEAM_ID:479283687 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957095 | 718 | 1.640625 | 2 |
WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, together with Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Larry Craig (R-ID), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kit Bond (R-MO), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), today introduced the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2008, a bill that reforms the licensing process for authorizing construction, operation, and closure of the Yucca Mountain repository.
Senator Inhofe, Ranking Member of the EPW Committee:
“I believe that a vibrant and growing nuclear energy industry is vital to the energy security of our nation and the health of our economy. I am concerned however, that continuing delays in opening our nation’s repository at Yucca Mountain will hinder the resurgence of nuclear energy in the U.S. The task before us therefore is to develop a repository that protects public health, public safety and the environment by providing a permanent solution for our nation’s nuclear waste. It’s high time that we accomplish this task. We’ve passed laws and resolutions to do it. We’ve collected over $27 billion dollars from electricity consumers to pay for it. And courts have affirmed that we have a legal obligation to do it. As the generation that has benefited from the use of nuclear energy and the resulting spent fuel, I believe it is incumbent upon us to manage spent fuel in a manner that is fair to current generations and generations to come. I am introducing a bill today that will do just that.”
"For America to have energy security, a strong economy, and a clean environment; nuclear energy must play a vital role in our nation’s energy portfolio. Without a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, our country will become more dependent on foreign sources of energy and pollute our environment even more. Yucca Mountain is the most studied piece of earth on this planet, but sadly, opposition is based on politics, not on sound science. In 2002, Congress voted to open Yucca Mountain. It’s time we move forward and remove the regulatory hurdles standing in the way. Opponents of Yucca have wasted taxpayer dollars, reduced our energy security, and threatened the health of our economy."
“Idaho signed an agreement with the federal government in 1994 that requires all of our Cold War legacy waste material to be removed from Idaho and stored permanently at the Yucca Mountain site no later than 2035. Let me be clear: there is no other option for these types of waste but to permanently dispose of them in this fashion. The citizens of our States will be relying on strong leadership from future Administrations to make this happen. What I heard in Nevada last week deeply troubles me, and I suspect is troubling the people of South Carolina this week. This serious issue deserves better than political pandering. More than 30 states, including my own, are acutely involved in the safe and timely disposal of spent nuclear fuel and defense waste; that is why I am cosponsoring this bill, and why I introduced a companion bill with Sen. Domenici last year. Together, these two bills will allow Yucca Mountain to accept and safely dispose of the waste from all these States on a predictable timeline, replacing the uncertainty that we have today.”
“Nuclear power is one of the best ways to achieve reliable, carbon-free electricity,” said Alexander, a member of the Environment & Public Works Committee. “Solving the problem of nuclear waste disposal is a critical step toward increasing the role of nuclear power in our nation’s energy portfolio. Tennessee Valley Authority ratepayers have already paid hundreds of millions of dollars into Yucca Mountain, so the federal government should move forward with Yucca Mountain to provide both a solution for nuclear waste storage and to make sure that this investment by TVA ratepayers isn’t wasted. Ultimately, solving the disposal problem is important for the entire nation because we need more nuclear power to increase our energy independence and clean our air.”
"Americans want clean energy solutions, and nuclear power with zero air pollution and zero carbon emissions is our best option. I hope the ‘Not In My Back Yard’ attitude will not block this nuclear bill and deprive our families, workers and the environment from this clean energy solution they deserve."
"Yucca Mountain has already been designated as the site for a permanent repository; this legislation provides the avenue to make that repository a reality. The construction of a permanent and environmentally-safe repository will not only benefit those states with interim storage facilities, like my home state of Idaho, but also allows for increased independence from fossil fuels and foreign sources of energy by clearing the way for the development of new nuclear plants. While allowing for the production of nuclear energy, this bill also ensures public safety by meeting the standards set by the Environment and Public Works Committee." | <urn:uuid:64ecdbee-d66a-4855-80cd-ca91447e8b4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=ac12979d-802a-23ad-400c-40c241278a64&IsTextOnly=False | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935321 | 1,016 | 1.828125 | 2 |
A national polemic arisesas the executives of the Palm Atlantis (Dubai),have announced that they will not release the whale shark that they capturedfrom the waters of the UAE almost a month ago.
Atlantis announced thecapture of the juvenile whale shark recently which was found in shallow waters,“fatigued and disorientated”. Whale Sharks are protected by CITES(Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species) and apparentlythe hotel was urged to release the animal. Environmentalists have hit out at the management ofAtlantis hotel for performing an apparent change of mind by deciding to keep awhale shark caught off Jebel Ali.
OnSeptember 9, the luxury resort issued a press release to say its marine expertshad rescued a struggling four-metre whale shark. The statement went on to say that the femaleanimal had been taken to the hotel’s 11-million-litre lagoon “for medical careand observation” – with no mention of a permanent capture.
Althoughit was initially reported that the shark would only be kept until it had recovered froman unspecified medical problem, Mr Leibman said there were no plans to releaseit. In an article published in the National newspaper on October 4th, he says “I’mnot sure where that statement came from,” he said.
He has also told 7 days “We have probably the mosttalented marine science people in the industry monitoring it and making sure itis well.”
Ibrahim Al-Zu’bi, environmentaladvisor for Emirates Diving Association, says he has seen the whale shark andbelieves it should be put back into the Arabian Gulf. “It should be tagged and released, thesooner the better,” he told 7DAYS. “Iknow Atlantis is under pressure at the moment because they have only justopened, but we’ve been told they would release the whale shark. “They are using it for educational awareness.But they will have to release it because it can grow up to more than ten metres- it’s common sense.” Al-Zu’bi also madereference to the in the aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia.
In thearticle released by 7 Days today, written by Paul McLennan, various public comments say that one visitorto Atlantis said: “I think it’s disgusting that they are using this poorcreature as a tourist attraction. “It should be released back into the wildwhere it belongs and as soon as possible.” And AliHood, director of conservation at UK-based Shark Trust, added: “We certainlywould not support any venture that would use a whale shark merely as afinancial attraction.”
Despitecalls to Atlantis for an explanation into the future of the whale shark, thehotel was unavailable for comment. Whale sharks are listed as a vulnerable species by The WorldConservation Union and are protected by CITES (Convention for the InternationalTrade of Endangered Species), which is an agreement of which the UAE is a signatory.
UAEresidents are calling out for the shark’s immediate release.
Photo: Mike Ralph | <urn:uuid:12905b0b-3067-411e-a254-346e3cf0306c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deeperblue.com/atlantis-will-not-release-captured-whale-shark/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969252 | 672 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Buffalo Bill and Psycho
On November 17, 1957, police in Plainfield, Wisconsin arrived at the dilapidated farmhouse of Eddie Gein, who was a suspect in the robbery of a local hardware store and disappearance of the owner, Bernice Worden. Gein had been the last customer at the hardware store and had been seen loitering around the premises.
Gein's desolate farmhouse was a study in chaos. Inside, junk and rotting garbage covered the floor and counters. It was almost impossible to walk through the rooms. The smell of filth and decomposition was overwhelming. While the local sheriff, Arthur Schley, inspected the shed with his flashlight, he felt something brush against his jacket.
When he looked up to see what it was he ran into, he faced a large, dangling carcass hanging upside down from the beams. The carcass had been decapitated, slit open and gutted. An ugly sight to be sure, but a familiar one in that deer-hunting part of the country, especially during deer season.
It took a few moments to sink in, but soon Schley realized that it wasn't a deer at all, it was the headless butchered body of a woman. Bernice Worden, the 50-year-old mother of his deputy Frank Worden, had been found.
While the shocked deputies searched through the rubble of Eddie Gein's existence, they realized that the horrible discoveries didn't end at Mrs. Worden's body. They had stumbled into a death farm.
The funny-looking bowl was a top of a human skull. The lampshades and wastebasket were made from human skin.
A ghoulish inventory began to take shape: an armchair made of human skin, female genitalia kept preserved in a shoebox, a belt made of nipples, a human head, four noses and a heart.
The more they looked through the house, the more ghastly trophies they found. Finally a suit made entirely of human skin. Their heads spun as they tried to tally the number of women that may have died at Eddie's hands.
All of this bizarre handicraft made Eddie into a celebrity. Author Robert Bloch was inspired to write a story about Norman Bates, a character based on Eddie, which became the central theme of the Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Psycho.
In 1974, the classic thriller by Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, has many Geinian touches, although there is no character that is an exact Eddie Gein model. This movie helped put "Ghastly Gein" back in the spotlight in the mid-1970's.
Years later, Eddie provided inspiration for the character of another serial killer, Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Like Eddie, Buffalo Bill treasured women's skin and wore it like clothing in some insane transvestite ritual. | <urn:uuid:9e7db597-1b9c-465c-a205-89a7575808cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gein/bill_1.html?sect=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977508 | 595 | 1.757813 | 2 |
|Published 572 days ago|
USU Eastern's SUN center partners with United Wayline
The SUN center has always been involved in helping with community projects including this weekend's recent pumpkin sales to provide direct support for United Ways Angel Tree Program. With the holiday season right around the corner, many families are starting to worry about how they are going to find the funds to get their children something for Christmas. To help some of these struggling families, the SUN Center is working with United Way of Eastern Utah and The Community Angel Tree. Angel Tree is a program that is hosted by United Way, and its mission to give every family in the Carbon and Emery county communities the opportunity to have a Merry Christmas. The SUN Center is doing all that they can to help United Way accomplish this. The SUN Center also has a goal of trying to encourage every student to be involved in service to the community. Angel Tree is a great way to help this happen. Each year the SUN Center adopts various names from United Way's Angel Tree program so that the students at USU Eastern have an opportunity to help the children of those families who are struggling to just make ends meet this holiday season. This project allows students to have fun doing community service as they shop for the various wish items; as well as giving them the opportunity to have a part in giving a child the kind of Christmas they would otherwise not have been able to have. Throughout the entire academic year the SUN Center has and will work to provide service opportunities for USU Eastern students.
|Related Articles |
Best viewed with Firefox | <urn:uuid:d3dc156d-89d0-4577-8f6b-adbc70dc9108> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunadvocate.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=23290&poll=268&vote=results&poll=271&vote=results | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97094 | 317 | 1.632813 | 2 |
When Mikaela was 5, we ran out of fairy tales.
Of course, I turned to Edith Hamilton. Yes, that Edith Hamilton and her 1942 classic Mythology.The very same book that nearly made me abandon English class completely and swear off literature forever in the 7th grade. The very same book that, as a first year instructor without any "cred" to choose the curriculum, I found myself having to teach to ninth graders. (No way around it, the department chair insisted, plus it was the year's required first unit - couldn't have some of the 9th graders doing different things, could we? No, that would be utterly unthinkable, I agreed silently.) Reluctantly, I searched for my old, battered edition with its drab, mostly missing, black & white cover, in disbelief that I was put in a position to try to present this deadly-dull stuff to others. But, once I confessed these very feelings to my students, all of us unwillingly embarked on our Greek mythology misadventure together. Probably because of this shared sense of dread and the "freshman naïveté" of both students and their 23-year-old teacher, we had a fantastic time, employed any and every creative approach to get through the material and learned more Greek & Roman mythology than even good ol' Edith could bunker. (And that's no Bullfinch's.)
Years later, I again pulled out Hamilton's Mythology, this time its cherished remnant of a cover barely hanging on, askew from its binding despite numerous applications of scotch tape. Little colored post-it notes were peeking out from between the pages now, tempting my daughters with all the hidden intrigue and secrets they suggested. We began with my favorite stories, sometimes reading the text verbatim, but mostly picking out only a descriptive line or two and then breaking off into old-fashioned storytelling mode. We also supplemented with the children's classic D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, geared for kids so Mikaela could read it aloud to her sister, but the girls preferred Edith's detail-oriented prose interspersed with my elaborations. Soon, they knew the stories as well as my high schoolers and thought it was super fun to take the "so easy" quizzes they found folded up in the back of the book.
But, after a while, we ran out of those fairy tales, too. Luckily, it just so happened that we were studying ancient Greece anyway - my subtle segueway to get the kids primed for watching the 2004 summer Olympics (a very educational experience to be had while sitting on a couch eating potato chips, btw).
So, I turned to Homer. After all, he was Greek to me. Why not share?
For about 20 minutes each morning, we started the day with a book from The Odyssey, taking turns reading significant passages aloud and learning new terms like epic simile, extended metaphor or "gray-eyed Athena" epithet (that last one sidetracked us for a full day, suspending all other activity, so M&K could dwell on making up fitting nicknames for various stuffed animals, playmates and relatives). We used Robert Fitzgerald's translation, the version college profs liked when I was a t.a. & that I then taught to those Greek-lovin' 9th graders. For, despite my unorthodox practices to make literature accessible & engaging, I'm not a big fan of retellings which lose the writer's voice or "dumb down" the story. "Big words" do not have to belong to adults-only - as the experts say, young kids can soak up language more easily than at any other age, so why deny them the joy of knowing those 25 cent words (that mean the same thing as the ones they already know - so there is some context - but the new, fancy lingo provides entertainment because it "sounds funny" rolling off the tongue... and, bonus, these words, now memorable because they were learned in small doses, will then be all-too familiar when they show up again on that all-important SAT). Admittedly, it's a strange combo - I'm somewhat of a purist as far as text goes & retaining the beauty of an author's poetry, but, once we've paid homage to the language, I have no problem digressing from there, freely taking poetic license & following things out to their illogical conclusions... My focus this time around was simply to expose the girls to The Odyssey as an exciting story, the way it was originally meant to be sung (no, c'mon, I didn't really do that to them - the way it was meant to be told, I should say), before it became nothing more than a dry topic for a Humanities essay or was reduced to a cram session for some loathed final exam. And, besides that, there was just a certain something about our Homer boy's bardy humor that inspired us to go 3-D with our homeschoolese aMusements...
Our Homeric tale began where all great sagas do - in a plastic hotel. Inexplicably, someone had thought (and this was well before our "globeschooling" began) that it was the perfect present for our girls - Barbie and Ken meet the Radisson? For a long time, we did not properly appreciate the pleasingly pink - with aquamarine décor highlights - toy or its inherently transcendent & imaginative qualities. Until at last we realized, by Zeus, this playset was just the thing to stage our production of The Odyssey!
In Homer's version, Athena cleverly crafts a bronzed-tan Odysseus to better secure Princess Nausicaa's favor. Similarly, in our version, Odysseus is played by a perfectly sculpted, god-like 'Ken' knockoff, with the words "Made in China" imprinted on the back of his head. Close enough, right? In Greek, I've been told, that phrase translates to lead-in [Pb] man (though I wouldn't want to be tested on it). His son, Telemachus, was the hotel's nondescript and very stiff - a suitably immovable action figure - bellboy, who doubled as the elevator operator in the one nifty feature of this wonderful motel de résistance (somehow it included an ingenious crank & pulley elevator system, excellently illustrating that scientific principle for our Simple Machines study). Of course, it wasn't long before we began Trojan horsing around. Odysseus had to trick Troy into letting him enter their fortified Lincoln Log walls, did he not? Yet, the hotel did not come with a horse - after all, it was no New England bed and breakfast. Alas, the playtime must go on so we improvised. Oh, what would the "wily Odysseus" do in this situation? (Aside: we watched several Wile E. Coyote cartoons to reinforce that vocab word - or actually, in the case of the coyote - and, an often shockingly obtuse Odysseus - the antithesis of the word.) Why, isn't it obvious? He spied Mr. Potato Head! Surely you've noticed that discreet trap door on the potato gentleman's posterior, where all of the spudly accessories belong (but are never properly stored since they most often are used to provide invaluable traction on the playroom floor instead). Into the hatch went the Greek soldier-sailors (aka, NASA playset astronauts - isn't it remarkable how the connections abound since that's a Greek word, thus indisputably, authentically Homeric?). Later, in a pinch, Mr. Potato Head had to step up again, for he was the understudy in a second minor role, that of Cyclops. The Playskool makers had mistakenly left out a single myopic eye when they boxed ours up, but we made do with a Halloween eyeball eraser secured with some Tacky glue (fyi, I see no correlation there). Odysseus then speared Polyphemus' eye with a handy pick-up stick, rendering the giant's gangly, permanently outstretched white-gloved arms ineffectual in snagging any more of the manly morsels strapped beneath the escaping sheep (combined herds from our Noah's Ark and Old MacDonald's Farm).
Oh, please, will this duality never cease? No. But to summarize: The effect of Circe's magical powers, which subtly revealed the inner nature of Odyssey's men, was portrayed by our family's cute & cuddly male chauvinist pet pig, the mechanized walking & snorting "Oinky" (another thoughtful? gift). The sirens were represented by the motel's complimentary bikini-clad young lady with her alluring Madonna-esque tunes (I ask, who wouldn't want to crash into some rocks after listening to that? OK, I hear ya - going back to minding my own beeswax). For Charybdis, we first tried constructing a "tornado in a bottle," which, like so many of our science experiments, turned out to be a disappointing failure. So, we reconciled ourselves with the dramatic realism afforded by watching Odysseus in his (Captain Feathersword pirate) ship swirling around our bathtub drain. Argos was our very own panting dog, complete with feebly wagging tail, waiting patiently on the patio until we could tear ourselves away from the non-stop action to let him back indoors. And, finally, after twenty agonizing years (condensed into 3 weeks) of this off-oh-so-off Broadway production, the Kenly Odysseus returned to his hotel and identified the tree (well, sort of a neon green, ferny, Triassic period tree) that grew right through the lobby so he could be recognized by the ever faithful Penelope - duh, Barbie. For months afterwards, M&K referred to all of these assorted toys and dolls by their Greek-given names, effortlessly reinforcing the events and our lessons from Homer's Odyssey. Sadly, they eventually learned to put away such childish things as "ancient history" (unlike their mom, who kept busy figurine out ways to exhume them for the occasional Iliad-conceived revival).
When we'd nearly finished our little odyssey, Mikaela let slip what we'd been doing to another homeschooling mom. "Ah ha," she accused, "I knew you followed The Well-Trained Mind!" I had no idea what she was talking about. She didn't really believe me, but proceeded to inform us that I was obviously following a very particular kind of "Classical Education." The truth was that I was blissfully & quite intentionally ignorant of homeschool teaching methodology or factions. Moreover, I had no plans to change my approach - we were already too busy trying to cover all of the topics Mikaela had thought up once we'd decided to homeschool & I'd unwittingly asked her, "So, whaddya want to learn this year?" However, within days, I found myself at the library reviewing the gigantic tome of classical education, at first impressed by its weighty reading list - indeed, it did include The Odyssey (though not for kindergarteners) - if not the sheer "heaviness" of its 764 pages of content suggestions.
Yet, based on my cursory review, it seemed the primary exercise for children's history lessons was showing mastery of a subject by outlining chapters. Parents could feel assured that following this rigid format would instill discipline, plus provide superior college preparation to boot. I have no doubt it succeeds at both, but my overriding impression was "You choose to homeschool your kid so you can do this?" Displaying the kind of hubris which only emerges when one feels fully threatened & insecure, I made Chris listen as I droned on about the mind-numbing potential of chapter outlining for the rest of that evening. Three or perhaps four hours later, Chris had finally achieved deep REM sleep and I was wide awake, once again absolutely confident that I was right to summarily dismiss this approach....
The next morning, I sat Mikaela down in her little school chair at her little school table, which was laid out with clean, lined paper, sharpened pencils at the ready. I made her read a few pages of a children's typical history text. I demonstrated how to outline the first paragraph. Then I told her to outline the next two. No pressure. Just to prove she could. Pshew, she could. I then promised her that she would never, ever have to do that again. Our sole attempt at "classical education" was exhausting.* That's so Classical.
Meanwhile, back at playgroup, when an unrestrained Mikaela explained a bit more about the specifics of our Homeric similes (ie, personification by Ken & Barbie), a different mom felt obligated to let me in on yet another sacred educational theory. "Oh, I NEVER allow my daughter to play with plastic things. Not good for the tactile sensory functions, you know? Waldorf encourages all-natural toys - like from nature, you know?" No, I didn't know. Oh, the shame and embarrassment. Sensing my distress, she empathized, "Honestly, I just threw out our plastic toys a couple of months ago. Replaced them with only natural toys, so we can reconnect with nature - like our seashell collection. I got a whole bag of 'em on sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond!" Immediately, I realized what a fool I'd been... if only we'd told the Odyssey using mollusks, river rocks & twigs, imagine the superior learning & retention possibilities. A lost cause, I didn't dare tell her that I'd already planned our next storytime - Beowulf - based solely on the fact that we'd recently acquired "Rex," a tyrannosaurus puppet that came with a fast food kids' meal to promote Toy Story 2. Turned out, he served very nicely as the terrorizing dragon.
*Despite my protestations, our reading selections probably do align most closely with those considered 'Classical Education' or, at least, "the classics." But, our approach to learning from & experiencing the material resists formality or static categorization. Like many homeschoolers, we take the "easy out" and, if forced, define ourselves as 'eclectic homeschoolers,' picking & choosing from a variety of styles (most often, our own). | <urn:uuid:91725439-cd8d-4ef3-8ab4-c546d9a707e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globeschooling.com/2009/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969177 | 3,030 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Lucas123 writes "Western Digital subsidiary HGST today announced that after 10 years of development it is preparing to release 3.5-in data center-class HDDs that are hermetically sealed with helium inside. The helium reduces drag and wind turbulence created by the spinning platters, all but eliminating track misregistration that has become a major issue to increasing drive density in recent years. Because of that, HGST will be able to add two more platters along with increasing the tracks per inch, which results in a 40% capacity increase. The drives will also use 23% less power because of the reduction of friction on the spindle. HGST said the new seven-platter helium drives will weigh 29% less per terabyte of capacity that today's five-platter drives. In other words, a seven-platter helium disk will weigh 690 grams, the same as today's five-platter drives."
Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook
hypnosec writes "Having procured permission from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit managed to disrupt more than 500 different strains of malware in a bid to slow down the threats posed by the Nitol botnet. Microsoft, through an operation codenamed b70 (PDF), discovered Chinese retailers were involved in selling computers with a pirated version of Windows loaded with malware. Microsoft believes the malware could have entered the supply chain at any point, for the simple reason that a computer travels among companies that transport and resell the computer. The Windows 8 maker carried out a study focused on the Nitol botnet, through which it found nearly 20 percent of all the PCs that were purchased through insecure Chinese supply chains were infected with malware."
Techmeology writes "Thieves have discovered how to steal BMW cars produced since 2006 by using the onboard computer that is able to program blank keys. The device used — originally intended for use by garages — is able to reprogram the key to start the engine in around three minutes. The blank keys, and reprogramming devices, have made their way onto the black market and are available for purchase over the Internet."
New submitter planetzuda writes "Invisible nano QR codes have been proposed as a way to stop forgery of U.S. currency by students of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Unfortunately QR codes are easy to forge and can send you to a site that infects your system. Banks would most likely need to scan currency that have QR codes to ensure the authenticity of the bill. If the QR code was forged it could infect the bank with a virus."
another random user writes "A vulnerability in the widely used chip and pin payment system has been exposed by Cambridge University researchers. Cards were found to be open to a form of cloning, despite past assurances from banks that chip and pin could not be compromised. In a statement given to the BBC, a spokeswoman for the UK's Financial Fraud Action group said: 'We've never claimed that chip and pin is 100% secure and the industry has successfully adopted a multi-layered approach to detecting any newly-identified types of fraud.'"
MojoKid writes "During the Day Two keynote address at Intel Developer's Forum, Renee James, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Software & Services Group, talked about software development, security and services in an 'age of transparent computing.' During the security-centric portion of the keynote, James brought out a rep from Intel's McAfee division to show off a beta release of their McAfee Social Protection app. If you're unfamiliar, McAfee Social Protection is a soon to be released app and browser plug-in for Facebook that gives users the ability to securely share their photos. As it stands today, if you upload a photo to Facebook, anyone viewing that photo can simply download it or take a screen capture and alter or share it wherever they want, however they want. With McAfee Social Protection installed though, users viewing your images will not be able to copy or capture them. In quick testing, various attempts with utilities like Hypersnap, Snagit or a simple print screen operation to circumvent the technology only resulted in a black screen appearing in the grab. Poking around at browser image caches resulted in finding stored images that were watermarked with the McAfee Security logo."
An anonymous reader writes "A Wired article discusses the relative decline of Dell, HP, and IBM in the server market over the past few years. Whereas those three companies once provided 75% of Intel's server chip revenue, those revenues are now split between the big three and five other companies as well. Google is fifth on the list. 'It's the big web players that are moving away from the HPs and the Dells, and most of these same companies offer large "cloud" services that let other businesses run their operations without purchasing servers in the first place. To be sure, as the market shifts, HP, Dell, and IBM are working to reinvent themselves. Dell, for instance, launched a new business unit dedicated to building custom gear for the big web players — Dell Data Center Services — and all these outfits are now offering their own cloud services. But the tide is against them.'"
Today Phil Schiller took to the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where he announced the long-expected iPhone 5. The casing is made entirely of glass and aluminum, and it's 7.6mm thick, which is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. It weighs in at 112 grams, which is 20% lighter than the 4S. Schiller confirmed that the iPhone 5 has a 4" display, with a resolution of 1136x640. It's a 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen is the same width as a 4S, but it's taller. To accommodate older apps, they either center the app or add black bars to make it look right. The new device also has LTE support. Tim Cook spoke earlier about the iPad, making some interesting claims: "Yes, we are in a post-PC world." He also claimed 68% tablet market share for the iPad, and says iPads account for 91% of tablet-based web traffic. The event is continuing, and we'll update this post as further announcements appear. A real-time liveblog is being quickly updated at Ars Technica. Update: 09/12 18:16 GMT by S : Further details below.
wiredmikey writes with this excerpt from Security Week: "The Disttrack/Shamoon malware, while destructive, appears to be the work of amateurs and not elite and sophisticated developers, according to the latest analysis. The malware proved that it was possible for developers to subvert legitimate kernel-mode applications for malicious purposes, but it appears that the malware could have been even more destructive and dangerous, if it had not been for a series of programming mistakes in the code, according to recent analysis from Kaspersky Lab. Other suggestions that the developers behind the Shamoon malware are not high-profile programmers include that the command-and-control server is hard-coded as two addresses, which limits the tool since if the address ever changes, the infected machine can no longer receive instructions. The developers were most likely motivated by political reasons, as the malware overwrote existing files with a fragment of an image of a burning American flag. The Malware has also been reported to be linked to the recent Saudi Aramco attack, which some reports have suggested that insiders may have been partly involved. Saudi Aramco hasn't officially said what type of malware hit its systems."
Mansing writes "Citizens need to evaluate if they are indeed safer for all the 'security precautions' put into place. 'The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has rushed to acquire a new, multibillion-dollar version of the BioWatch system for detecting biological attacks without establishing whether it was needed or would work, according to a new report by a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress. ... The existing system's repeated false alarms have triggered tense, high-stakes deliberations over whether to order mass evacuations, distribute emergency medicines or shut down major venues.' Is this just more money funneled to U.S. companies, or is this really keeping the U.S. safer? Are the same types of 'security precautions' being instituted in Spain and the UK? Or is this preying on fear a uniquely U.S. phenomenon?"
snydeq writes "Self-taught technologists are almost always better hires than those with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a huge student loan, writes Andrew Oliver. 'A recruiter recently asked me why employers are so picky. I explained that of the people who earned a computer science degree, most don't know any theory and can't code. Instead, they succeed at putting things on their resume that match keywords. Plus, companies don't consider it their responsibility to provide training or mentoring. In fairness, that's because the scarcity of talent has created a mercenary culture: "Now that my employer paid me to learn a new skill, let me check to see if there's an ad for it on Dice or Craigslist with a higher rate of pay." When searching for talent, I've stopped relying on computer science degrees as an indicator of anything except a general interest in the field. Most schools suck at teaching theory and aren't great at Java instruction, either. Granted, they're not much better with any other language, but most of them teach Java.'"
miller60 writes "GoDaddy says yesterday's downtime was caused by internal network problems that corrupted data in router tables. 'The service outage was not caused by external influences,' said Scott Wagner, Go Daddy's Interim CEO. 'It was not a 'hack' and it was not a denial of service attack (DDoS). ... At no time was any customer data at risk or were any of our systems compromised.' The outage lasted for at least six hours, and affected web sites and email for customers of the huge domain registrar."
jfruh writes "Apple's spent more than a decade on version 10 — or, rather, X — of its flagship operating system, with .x versions named after big cats (and many of them, it turns out, after the same big cats). Ubuntu Linux is scrambling to find ever more obscure animals to alliteratively name its versions after. And let's not even talk about Windows, whose current shipping OS is sold as Windows 7 but is really Windows NT 6.1. Why is this area of software marketing so ridiculous?"
chicksdaddy writes "The cloud-based hosting firm MediaFire has reversed a decision to suspend the account of virus researcher Mila Parkour after Naked Security raised questions about copyright violation complaints made against her by the mysterious firm LeakID. In an email to Parkour on Friday, MediaFire's director of customer support, Daniel Goebel, said that the company was restoring Parkour's access to her MediaFire account and apologized for the interruption in service. MediaFire also said it was asking LeakID, the Paris-based firm that accused Parkour of sharing copyrighted material, to 'confirm the status of the counterclaim [Parkour] submitted.' However, the firm is still blocking access to files that LeakID alleged were violating the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a strict copyright enforcement law in the U.S."
Trailrunner7 writes "Saudi Aramco says that the virus attack that compromised tens of thousands of the company's workstations last month never endangered the company's oil production capabilities and that all of the affected systems have been brought back online and restored. The attack on Aramco has been linked by researchers to the Shamoon malware, but company officials did not comment on the nature or provenance of the malware. The attack hit Aramco, one of the larger oil producers in the world, on August 15 and the company soon took its main Web sites offline as it investigated the extent and nature of the compromise. A group of attackers calling itself the Cutting Sword of Justice took credit for the attack through a post on Pastebin, saying that the operation had destroyed data on 30,000 machines, including both workstations and servers. The company originally did not comment on the extent of the damage to its network, simply saying that it had suffered an attack and was in the process of cleaning it up. On Monday, company officials said that security staffers had restored all of the infected machines and that its operations were back to normal." | <urn:uuid:c01bd749-4458-4a99-bf13-0db7895d5fcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://it.slashdot.org/index2.pl?section=&color=green&index=1&view=stories&duration=-1&startdate=20120913&index=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963257 | 2,574 | 1.773438 | 2 |
While gays in the military currently have the spotlight, a more urgent issue is the problem with many women in the ranks who are either pregnant or single mothers, both of which deeply impact the ability of America’s military to achieve its mission. The case of Alexis Hutchinson, who refused deployment last year because she had no plan in place for her young son, was just settled:
A single-mom soldier who says she refused to deploy to Afghanistan because she had no family able to care for her young son will be discharged from the military instead of facing a court-martial, the Army said Thursday. Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, was arrested in November after skipping her unit's deployment flight. Hutchinson, 21, said she couldn't leave her son because her mother had backed out of plans to keep the child a few days before the soldier's scheduled departure.
So here we have a difficult situation—our tactical strength depends on a military force that consists of a large number of pregnant women and single mothers. It has hit the Navy particularly hard.
Navy Times recently reported that pregnancy rates in the Navy spiked by 50% in two years. Ship crews suffer when pregnant sailors are unavailable for deployment or require early evacuation. Instead of re-assessing misguided policies that worsen the problem, the Navy plans to extend them to the submarine service. Never mind that short-handed crews and mid-ocean evacuations due to female medical emergencies would compromise undersea missions and put everyone at greater risk.
There is the logistical problem that they cannot meet their responsibilities, but an added morale problem when the pregnancy is the result of the wide-spread “fraternization” in the ranks. This widespread behavior both flouts regulations and weakens unit cohesion, and yet the feminist response has been two-fold: to have ready-access to the controversial “morning after” pill and abortion (both on the tax-payers’ dime) and when necessary to place charges of sexual assault against the father of the child to protect the mother’s career. This plays havoc with troop cohesion and can easily spiral into emotional circuses.
We should all be concerned about how feminists are playing games with the armed forces -- especially since we all know families with loved ones already serving in dangerous settings. One must dig to know that many gender feminists have clearly tipped their hands and posited that war itself is a natural extension of patriarchy. These women (and men) believe that gender mainstreaming is a good way to “de-militarize” the military, and to that end, pregnant soldiers and disobedient young mothers are the poster children for a castrated force. The problem is that many fine young men and women will pay the ultimate price for a social experiment gone mad. | <urn:uuid:62ca02d8-e114-4abb-b796-4307d0da34aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://feminine-genius.typepad.com/femininegenius/2010/02/a-compromised-mission.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970804 | 576 | 1.84375 | 2 |
What? You Don’t Own a TV? Why?
That’s a question I get quite often. And the answer is simple: because I’d watch it. A lot.
You see, I really enjoy TV. It’s easy to watch. It’s passive. It’s entertaining at times. And I don’t have to do much work (unless you consider pushing the buttons on the remote to be work). But there are so many other important things I can do with my life.
Costs vs. Benefits
But the costs drastically outweigh the benefits.
Money. Sure, there are the monetary costs associated with TV. There is the TV itself, which can cost up to a few thousand dollars. I have a friend who has eight flatscreen TVs in his house—that’s a lot of money. There’s the monthly costs of cable or satellite (plus all the little extra fees for cable boxes, DVRs, HD service, premium channels, etc.). There’s the DVD or Blu-ray rentals or purchases, many of which we don’t watch. Come on, I bet you’ve done it before: you’ve rented a DVD just to return the unwatched movie a week later. It’s OK, we’ve all done it before. The trick is to stop doing it though. And there’s all those fancy ancillary items that we think we need: the surround sound system (I have another friend who owns a $4,000 surround sound system), the multi-disc DVD player, the Blu-ray player, and don’t even get me started on video games, that’s an entirely different—and equally troubling—story (I know grown men in their thirties who play video games more than five hours a day). But TV costs us a lot more than money.
Time. TV viewing robs us of our time, our most precious asset. Even with the internet, the average person watches more than five hours of TV a day. That’s 35 hours a week. That’s a lot of TV. If you get rid of your TV, you can reclaim this time for yourself. We’ll talk about what you can do with this newly found free time in a moment.
Attention. TV robs us of our attention. Sometimes we think we’re “multi-tasking” if we’re doing other things—folding laundry, working on the computer, etc.—while we’re watching TV. Deep down we know this isn’t true though. We know that TV distracts us from our tasks, which causes us to either: a) take more time to complete the task (look TV is robbing us of even more of our time), or b) it reduces the quality of what we’re working on (e.g., have you ever tried to write something—a paper, an email, a work assignment—while watching TV and noticed that it just wasn’t that good? That’s because we aren’t able to focus our attention on several things at once and still expect the same quality in our finished product.)
Awareness. Awareness is the most precious kind of freedom. We should cherish it. But TV often makes us oblivious to the world around us. And thus, in a roundabout way, TV robs us of our freedom.
Relationships. If you’re watching TV—especially if you’re watching it alone—then you are taking away from your relationships with other people, time in which you could contribute to others in a more meaningful way, time in which you could add value to someone’s life.
Creativity. If we are constantly consuming, then we are not creating. Thus, TV has the ability to rob us of our creativity.
Sure, watching TV is easy. But is it worth it? That’s the question you must ask yourself. I’m not suggesting that you have to get rid of your TV to be a minimalist. You don’t. But you do have some options:
- Ryan disconnected his cable service during our journey into minimalism. He got rid of all his DVDs and video games, but he kept his TV. We still watch movies on that TV from time to time, which brings up another point…
- If you get rid of your TV like I did in 2009, you can schedule time to watch TV with other people. I don’t do it often, but if I want to watch something, I can watch TV at someone else’s house (this includes movies), and we can discuss what we watched afterwards. Such planned viewing is far less passive and helps you build and strengthen your relationships, rather than take away from them.
- You can get the TV out of your bedroom. Joshua Becker wrote a wonderful article about this.
- You can limit your viewing to one day a week. Schedule it and don’t deviate from the schedule.
- Or, if you need to take baby steps, try to turn off your TV for one week. Unplug it and put it somewhere out of sight if you can. Or cover it with a sheet and make sure you don’t turn it on for a week.
What To Do With Your Free Time
So, if you get rid of your TV (or drastically reduce your viewing), what are you going to do with all your reclaimed time?
The short answer is: you can do whatever you want. You can create something. You can exercise. You can focus on your relationships. You can contribute to other people in meaningful ways.
It’s liberating to not have a TV. Television sucks so much life out of our lives. It takes our money, our time, our attention, our awareness, our freedom, our relationships, and our creativity. And in return it gives us a little entertainment, it pacifies us for the moment. For many of us it’s our drug of choice. | <urn:uuid:662120c8-f97c-4280-8a4f-d3ba0545dd4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theminimalists.com/tv/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951805 | 1,275 | 1.53125 | 2 |
As a child I used not to be able to look anybody in the eyes for more than a few seconds. I can't remember if I thought much about it, but I can remember how extremely uncomfortable it was. As I grew older, I began to realise how important eye contact was, and I started working on making eye contact for longer periods – not because I found it necessary, but I wanted to communicate like other people did, I wanted them to like me, and I still believed that “one day when I grow up, I will stop being different”. I wanted to be seen as trustworthy, honest and self assured – all the things that seemed to depend on eye contact. So I forced myself to look others in the eyes when I talked to them. I could manage it after a while, but the price was high. Making eye contact made me hear less of what was being said. It took so much energy that I probably could read even less non-verbal clues than usually. I don't know what I looked like, but I can remember folding my arms tightly to help me feel a bit grounded and safe. I remember struggling to breathe, I can remember frowning. The hardest was keeping the dizziness under control. I can vividly remember the feeling of the room starting to 'move' from side to side. And my head with it – I had to concentrate on keeping my neck and my body still while feeling so dizzy.
I would not blame people if they thought then that I seemed awkward and unfriendly and rigid, the immense struggle was all on the inside.
On the whole I think it was worth it. I hope it was worth it. I have no idea if I am seen as honest and self assured, and I hope that people feel less uncomfortable talking to me than they would have if I did not make eye contact. And I do like looking at people without feeling dizzy.
Still, I do not think the eye contact I am making is the same as when two non autistic people do it. I often feel as if I am looking at somebody's eyes instead of into them. With everybody except close family, the eye contact is guarded without me trying to keep it like that. I think part of it is protecting myself. It often happens that I make sudden eye contact with somebody, usually a stranger, and that contact is real. The reason I look at them is usually because I realise they are upset in some way, and they catch my eyes before I can avert them. And then my guard is down, and I look into their eyes. And it feels like a wave of emotion that physically hits me. My throat closes, and I usually can't prevent myself from crying, I am not even surprised if I have a anxiety attack any more. It is like jumping right into someone's pain, and being burnt by it. It is overwhelming. And it is not useful – all that I can do is to get away, there is no way I can help or console or do anything for the other person.
I am autistic. I am supposed to have very little empathy and compassion. That is not true. I turn away and seem cold and aloof because I feel too much, I have to save myself from being consumed. | <urn:uuid:32cef648-83fa-4b1b-965b-548d0e771a71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gnus-wombats-ducks.blogspot.com/2011/03/eye-contact.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98757 | 666 | 1.617188 | 2 |
|You are here: Main / Customer Services / Public Communications Division / 2007 / City Teams Up With HOSEF To Offer Wireless Internet Access In Ewa|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 26, 2007
Release No. M-11-07
CITY TEAMS UP WITH HOSEF
TO OFFER WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS IN EWA
Mayor Mufi Hannemann announced today that the City and
HOSEF is a group of volunteers and information professionals dedicated to free and open source software. In addition to the wireless local area network, HOSEF maintains eight refurbished computers and established a computer lab at
Scott Belford, HOSEF’s executive director, said, “Mayor Mufi Hannemann and his administration have long been working to seed our communities with innovative technologies that perpetuate hope within our youth. Now our youth are learning on computers as much as playing pool and ping pong.”
The free wireless network was installed with the assistance of local entrepreneur and innovator Jim Thompson and support from the City’s Department of Information Technology.
Mayor Hannemann said, “In my campaign for mayor in 2004, I called for wireless communities throughout
“Our City Department of Information Technology, under the leadership of Director Gordon Bruce, looks forward to working with Scott and his team of students on future projects of this type,” Hannemann said.
DIT Director Bruce said, “Not only is HOSEF providing the WiFi point, but it is providing and maintaining the computers. Those computers were just more E-waste. Instead of them creating disposal problems or ending up in the landfill, these computers have a new life.
“This is just another example of innovative programs that we are working on at the City and
Gordon Bruce, Director, Department of Information Technology, 768-7601
|Friday, January 26, 2007| | <urn:uuid:7b80c429-5ac5-49b9-9b38-88cdc318e326> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.honolulu.gov/refs/csd/publiccom/honnews07/cityteamsupwithhoseftoofferwirelessinternetaccessinewa.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942897 | 396 | 1.507813 | 2 |
I'll never forget the first time I heard someone put the now ubiquitous emphasis on the The in The Ohio State University: during freshman orientation the summer I enrolled at OSU.
My folks and I had come up for the event, and after walking across the man bridge from West Campus toward the Towers, we were herded into an auditorium at Drake Union (truthfully, that was the only time I think I was ever in that building). President William English "Brit" Kirwan gave the opening speech... I don't remember anything at all about what he said (it was probably something about the Academic Plan or the Diversity Plan, which were really big topics during my years on campus), but I remember vividly that he really punched the The as though it were a personal point of pride rather than a mere definite article.
I wasn't the only one who noticed, as it turns out. As we walked out of the session, Mom leaned over and asked, "What's with all the Thee-s?" Good question, Mom, I really have no clue, I thought.
Growing up a Buckeye fan, I don't recall people placing so much emphasis on the definite article in the name of our university, but obviously over the past decade, we've all more or less done it, and other people have noticed. While I've heard multiple explanations for the origin of the emphasis, several of which are outlined in the pieces linked previously, we know that the proper name of the university is The Ohio State University, and has been since it was renamed from the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College.
When do you remember the emphatic The going mainstream? Is it a relatively new piece of our collective lexicon, or does the practice predate me (and President Kirwan)? | <urn:uuid:3b653728-4bc9-4ee8-b980-20e1e48d4800> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elevenwarriors.com/forum/anything-else/2013/02/origin-of-the-in-the-ohio-state-university?page=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984767 | 360 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The following is not a best-of list or a series of reviews, but short discussions of why these books are some of my favorites from 2007, and would be favorites in any year in which they appeared. I focus a few things that I find particularly interesting in each story as a way of trying to explain something that I find appealing about the cartoonist’s approach in general.
In the middle three panels, the ha ha (which begins as a line of dialogue and then appears as images) becomes increasingly larger as the panels become increasingly smaller; not only does the ha ha come to dominate the way Natalie thinks about the relationship, it dominates and even overwhelms the confines of the last panel; it is too large to be represented within it. In the third panel of her memory, the ha ha is placed in between the two word balloons and you read it as a part of a sequence of text: her words are interrupted as she hears his laugh in her head and then he asks a question. But you also experience the words as a part of the panel’s picture; they are Natalie’s thoughts, but they assume the shape and presence of physical objects, casting a literal and figurative shadow. Comics is often defined as a medium in which two distinct things - words and images - are used to tell a story. But Clowes’s art here complicates that claim by blurring any boundary between them.
The kinds of things I talked about in Hernandez and Clowes are often absent from his work. Tomine prefers mid shots and medium close ups and only occasionally uses slightly high angles -- this creates a rhythm different than Hernandez’s and yet one that’s equally engaging. Unlike Mister Wonderful, every page in Shortcomings uses either 6, 7, 8, or 9 square or rectangular panels arranged in a traditional grid and has a consistent margin size and gutter size; there are no thought balloons or narration boxes; sound effects are limited to roughly two different types of hand-lettered ‘fonts’ with some, but not much, variation in lettering size (page 43 is an exception); and there are no motion or emotion lines or any similar kinds of effects . . .
He uses the whisper version of the word balloons, in which the balloon is made up of dashes, and the telephone conversation word balloon, in which the tail of the unseen speaker’s balloon takes the zig-zag shape often used to represent electricity:
This story is also remarkable for the ways in which it interweaves a series of recurring and connected images -- sleeping people, cut or wilting flowers, a circular birth control pill pack, a clock, the main character’s leg and prosthesis, a quarter, rooms, windows -- and ties them to themes of alienation, sexual desire and frustration, incompleteness, maternity, mortality . . .
More so than many cartoonists, Ware repeatedly focuses on objects, showing how the most mundane item can be invested with emotional weight (perhaps in Ware objects perform the role of geography in Hernandez . . . ). The main character engages in reveries about other people’s lives inspired by seemingly random objects, such as a camera, or in this case, a hook:
Sunday, December 23, 2007
*Gilbert Hernandez Chance in HellOne of the things that’s so compelling about Hernandez’s work is its use of striking visual shifts; he often transitions from (in film terms) a very long shot into a mid shot, or alternates directly between shots that imply a dramatically different scope. Moving between these kinds of shots draws a reader’s attention to the ways that various locations, geography, and the characters interact. This is particularly true in Chance in Hell, the first part of which takes place in a wasteland on the edge of a city:
Many of the longer views feature a beautifully stylized, yet almost oppressive sky, which seems on the verge of enveloping the characters:
He also often moves between starkly different perspectives and distances, and frequently uses high angle shots, as in the second panel:
Most eye-level shots assume an adult perspective (the image of the man on the first Chance in Hell page above takes a conventional adult point-of-view.) But in the last panel directly above, Hernandez draws from the child's level.
These different shots, angles, and shifting POVs help to create something that’s very hard to define, in Hernandez’s story or anyone else’s: its rhythm. And a way to get at one of the many kinds of rhythms found in a comic is to look at patterns the artist creates with shots or angles (or with the length of scenes, density of panel compositions, variation in the grid/page layouts, etc . . .). [Some argue that you should not use film terms to talk about comics. But as long as you recognize the many differences between comics and films -- i.e., the comic panel doesn’t frame out reality in the way a camera typically does -- I think you can use them whenever they are helpful.]
Also, note the careful design of the above page: the 1st and 3rd panel switch the placement of the sun and the girl (who is seen in silhouette towards the side of the panel); while the 2nd and 4th panels feature her figure in the center (and not as a silhouette.)
Hernandez has a sense of rhythm, scale, and drama that recalls adventure comics and films of the ‘40s and ‘50s, yet he has a genuine sense of strangeness and unpredictability that separates his work from conventional genre stories.
*Daniel Clowes Mister Wonderful
In a powerful scene from chapter 7, Natalie recounts some of her ‘relationship history’ to Marshall (they are on a blind date):
Some of Clowes’s weekly installments have a rhythm in part suggested by their serialization -- a kind of subtle punch-line at the end of each installment; and here the formal inventiveness of the penultimate panel quickly gives way to the traditional comics of the last panel, as Natalie’s emotional recollection is interrupted by the waitress’s mundane comment. Each episode of MW is remarkable for the shift in rhythms it employs, some of which are created by Marshall’s vacillation in moods; his conflicting desire both to confess and to withhold truths about himself from Natalie, the reader, and himself; or from changes in drawing and coloring styles.
[Here’s a different kind of word-picture moment from Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library 18, and one that's equally powerful:]
Much of the elegance of Tomine’s stories derives from the constraints he places on his comics. There’s a profound clarity in his work that comes from a decision to avoid many of the techniques other cartoonists use. These choices encourage us to focus on his dialogue and accompanying facial expressions and bodily gestures, and Tomine is a master of panel composition with a broad range of subtle poses and positions for characters:
While avoiding many techniques, he employs some familiar, unpretentious devices that have long been staples of comics; for example, he repeatedly introduces a change in setting with a conventional establishing shot, often of the restaurant in which in a conversation is talking place or the theater in which the main character works:
The storytelling in Tomine is literally straightforward -- the narrative is completely linear and each panel depicts external, objective reality (whereas in Mister Wonderful, for example, Clowes includes flashbacks or panels that features images from a character’s fantasy). Yet the seeming transparency that arises from Tomine’s formal choices is balanced by the story's complex look at issues of ethnicity, sexuality, and identity. And Shortcomings is never burdened by the moralizing that sometimes harms narratives that tackle these kinds of issues.
Overall, his use of familiar cartoon devices in the context of his stripped-downed, austere approach creates a style at once elegant and friendly -- a very unusual combination.
*F. C. Ware Acme Novelty Library 18
Critics have sometimes said that Ware’s comics emphasize design over story, and that his formal innovations come at the price of limiting or obscuring the story’s emotional content. I’ll let this page, which addresses the alienation and everyday routines of the main character at different times in her life, answer those criticisms:
Even though the objects are often depicted in small panels (and critics have said that such panels are typically read faster), for me these panel seem to want greater attention; we expect a cartoonist to center on people and places, and so when he focuses an entire panel on a lock we should linger for a moment and consider why.
Every now and then you read a comic in which a character describes or undergoes something unusual and meaningful that has happened to you, and the artist represents it in a way that seems undeniably true:
These kinds of moments are a hallmark of all of the cartoonist discussed above. | <urn:uuid:16a711ec-608d-443e-a292-4ef2e6bce9b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogflumer.blogspot.com/2007/12/four-great-stories-of-2007.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956755 | 1,867 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Mel Gibson: racism isn’t even the half of it
It’s disturbing how easily Hollywood overlooks violence against women.
What an edifying week this has been for those of us who are female. I know it sometimes slips the mind of many, male and female alike, so let me take this opportunity to remind readers that females are more than half the human race. We're not a special-interest group, or a niche category.
But you wouldn't know it from the responses to a horrifying series of stories featuring violence against women that have dominated the news on both sides of the Atlantic over the past week. In ascending order of importance -- measured crudely in terms of numbers of victims and actual physical and psychological harm done -- let's begin with Mad Max. Mel Gibson has been dropped by his agents, and most of Hollywood, for his "racist rant".
It's good to know that Hollywood objects to racism. I trust that the rest of us do, too. What troubles me is that the racism, as disgusting as it was, was incidental to the purpose of Mel's alleged rant, but it's only the racism that anyone seems to care about.
The claim is that Gibson screamed at his then-girlfriend that the way she dressed meant that she deserved to be raped by a pack of "n----rs". The so-called "n-word" is so totemically powerful that no one will even print it, and its use has finally placed Gibson beyond the pale: his own agents issued a statement saying that no one in Hollywood would touch him with a 10-foot pole. Because of his racial attitudes.
But what about the (alleged) threats and assaults against his then girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, who claims that he broke two of her teeth, and attacked her while she was holding their baby? Those are mentioned in passing as "misogyny" or "domestic abuse". Objectionable, maybe, but not enough to end a Hollywood player's career.
Using a racist word is, on the evidence, a far greater social crime than a man physically assaulting his girlfriend, or telling her that she deserves to be gang-raped. How is this possible? Let's ask Roman Polanski.
If anyone is in doubt whether punching his girlfriend, or telling her she should be gang-banged, would have been sufficient to cause Gibson's downfall without the casual racism tossed in to underscore the threat, that person need only consider Hollywood's reaction to the US's attempt to extradite Polanski for a rape to which he has admitted. Polanski did indeed rape a 13-year-old girl, after drugging her, but has had a litany of excuses offered up by Hollywood stars -- far too many of whom are female (for shame, Tilda Swinton and Whoopi Goldberg) -- to excuse his conduct.
The most legally cogent of these, of course, is that he's an artist, which apparently gives him licence to sodomise children. Or maybe it's acceptable because it happened so long ago; in those days rape was probably fine, and if not, well, we've all forgotten about it by now.
Attitudes change, according to the novelist Robert Harris. Yes, of course, they do -- like racism, which used to be acceptable, and now it's not. Whereas raping girls used to be unacceptable, and now it is?
Alternatively, Polanski should be free because the victim wants to move on. Of course she does; that's why the state, and not individuals, prosecutes criminals, because it is supposed to be a question of impartial justice and the upholding of the rule of law. Polanski should be jailed to send the message that, as a society, we don't tolerate the drugging and sodomising of girls. Oh, except I forgot. Clearly we do. Especially if we're Switzerland, which cares so little about the rights of half its population that it didn't give them the right to vote until 1971.
Let me ask another rhetorical question while I'm at it. Does anyone think that if it had been a 13-year-old boy that Polanski had pleaded to guilty to raping, Hollywood would be defending the rape on the basis of passage of time? Rape doesn't have a statute of limitations for a reason: because it's one of the most serious crimes our culture recognises -- when it can be bothered to recognise it, that is.
Polanski told an interviewer that raping a girl was both negligible and admirable: "If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But . . . fucking, you see . . . and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!" The repentance is palpable, isn't it?
Anyone who thinks that Polanski's comparison of rape to murder was casual, or coincidental, should pause for a minute and consider the appalling reaction on the part of a terrifyingly large group of people to Raoul Moat's homicidal spree last week. A Facebook page called "RIP Raoul Moat You Legend" has nearly 30,000 people who have signed it and said they "like" it, as of the time of writing this.
When I logged on to the page, I found these representative messages, posted within the last few minutes:
R.I.P Raoul..!! I blame your ex..!! Little whore..!!"
If my mrs ever does to me what she did to Raoul i hope im brave enough to do a Moaty.
Thus a new expression enters the language: doing a Moaty, otherwise known as "bravely" attempting to murder women who have the unmitigated gall to try to end a relationship with someone who is, in fact, homicidal. How dare we?
All of these stories have a sickening common denominator: they are about men who think that it is permissible, even estimable, to attack women. And they are about the society that so concurs with this attitude that it doesn't even notice. Edifying, like I said.
Sarah Churchwell is the author of "The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe" (Granta Books, £18.99).
More from New Statesman
- Online writers:
- Steven Baxter
- Rowenna Davis
- David Allen Green
- Mehdi Hasan
- Nelson Jones
- Gavin Kelly
- Helen Lewis
- Laurie Penny
- The V Spot
- Alex Hern
- Martha Gill
- Alan White
- Samira Shackle
- Alex Andreou
- Nicky Woolf in America
- Bim Adewunmi
- Kate Mossman on pop
- Ryan Gilbey on Film
- Martin Robbins
- Rafael Behr
- Eleanor Margolis | <urn:uuid:bdd75fa0-e188-4448-b059-0ad34247770a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2010/07/mel-gibson-polanski-hollywood | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971657 | 1,422 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Despite my mockery of its terrible title, German Novellas of Realism I is a first-rate anthology. Besides two good Stifter stories, it contains The Jews' Beech Tree by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf, and the sparkling gem, Mozart's Journey to Prague by Eduard Mörike. There was one story, besides Stifter's Granite, that I had not read before, The Poor Musician (1848) by the Austrian playwright (and friend of Beethoven) Franz Grillparzer.
The Poor Musician is the least of the stories in German Novellas of Realism I, and not exactly recommended, not too strongly. The narrator, at the St. Bridget's Day festival in Vienna, is intrigued by a puzzling street musician, and extracts his life story. It involves a girl who sings a beautiful song and a stolen inheritance and who cares what else.
The aesthetics of the musician caught my attention. He spends the morning practicing, the day performing on the street, and the evening:
"In the evening I remain at home, and" - at this his voice dropped lower and lower, a flush came over his face and his gaze became fixed upon the ground - "then I play from inspiration, without any score and for myself alone. Improvisation, I believe, is the term given to it in books of music." (219-20)
Like the narrator, I wanted to hear his improvisations. Is the poor musician, not quite competent on the street, a Chopin or Paganini on his own?
A soft sound which certainly came from a violin grew very loud, sank, and died out, immediately rising gain to the shrillest of shrieks: in fact, it was always the same note repeated with a kind of joyful insistence. At last there came an interval - a fourth. (222)
And so on, "repeated again and again with a rapid whirl, with the same intervals every time and the same notes." What kind of avant gardist, exactly, is this violinist? A Steve Reich-like minimalist? A precursor of Ornette Coleman?
The musician plays scored music, too, the classics, but in his own way:
Rather than emphasize a piece of music according to sense and rhythm, he stressed and prolonged the notes and intervals that were pleasing to the ear, not hesitating to repeat them capriciously, while his face would often take on a look of ecstasy He rid himself of the dissonances in a short a time as possible, whereas, out of conscientiousness, he did not miss a note of the passages that were too dificult for him, but rendered them in a time far too slow when set against the entire piece... (224)
So Coleman, no, since the violinist prefers euphony over cacophony. Minimalism, yes: see Norwegian minimalist Leif Inge's 9 Beet Stretch, which pulls and prods Beethoven's 9th Symphony until it is twenty-four hours long. Grillparzer's "poor" musician, like Balzac's painter Frenhofer, is simply too far ahead of his time, ahead, even, of the author who created him. | <urn:uuid:abe22284-d4c1-4d72-ad2e-c9e38c54a968> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2010/02/then-i-play-from-inspiration-franz.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973263 | 684 | 1.5 | 2 |
Club Atletico Boca Juniors is the most popular soccer club in Argentina and one of the most decorated clubs in the world. Throughout its storied history, the club has recruited and developed dozens of star players. In his eleven years at Boca Juniors, president Mauricio Macri has significantly increased the club's net worth and annual revenues. However, he faces a constant challenge to remain competitive on and off the field. In November 2006, Macri is approached by Spanish and Italian soccer powerhouses, seeking to purchase the players Fernando Gago and Rodrigo Palacio. Should Macri enter negotiations with the clubs interested in buying the star players? If so, how should they approach the talks? Allows for an in-depth examination of Boca Junior's business model, and how it differs from that of the richer soccer clubs in Western Europe. Also enables an assessment of successful talent and brand management strategies in the context of a sports franchise with a worldwide reach.
To evaluate Boca Junior's talent and brand management strategy, an to consider the risks and opportunities involved. To consider challenges and opportunities in running sports businesses with a global appeal but a relatively small domestic market.
Brand management; Branding; Globalization; Marketing strategy
- Geographic: Argentina
- Industry: Soccer
- Company Employee Count: 1000
- Company Revenue: 200 million | <urn:uuid:4b6e39bf-09e3-4b28-9637-cec84ef2f6a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam?R=509S06-PDF-SPA&conversationId=2053161 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935438 | 271 | 1.59375 | 2 |
|Injured rebels were taken for treatment by Ecuadorian forces following the attack [Reuters]|
Ecuador has denied Colombian accusations that its government has strengthened its links with the Farc group, after a Colombian raid on a rebel base in Ecuador threatened to spark a regional crisis.
Ecuador and Venezuela both sent forces to their borders with Colombia following the raid, in which Raul Reyes, a Farc leader, was killed.
Francisco Suescum, the Ecuadorian ambassador withdrawn from Bogota, said: "This is a lie. Neither the government of Ecuador or President Correa has ever had such an attitude.
Correas said there was "no justification" for the raid, seeming to reject a Colombian apology for the incursion.
The US, however, said it backed Colombia's efforts to respond to the "threat and challenge" from the Farc movement.
Tom Casey, a US state department deputy spokesman, said: "We consider the Farc - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - to be a terrorist organisation. We support the government of Colombia in its efforts to respond to that threat and challenge."
Regional governments said they would help to resolve the standoff with Brazil cautioning that the tensions were destabilising regional ties.
France, which has worked to free rebel-held hostages, also called for restraint on all sides.
The Colombian government had accused Rafael Correa, the Ecuadorian president, of having ties with Farc, the largest Colombian rebel group.
A spokesman for Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president, said documents found in the wake of the attack on the camp inside Ecuador yielded information "that ... Correa has a relationship and commitments with Farc".
Colombian police said the documents were apparently written by Reyes.
Correa had expelled Colombia's ambassador and withdrawn his own envoy from Bogota on Sunday in protest against what he said was an intentional violation of his nation's sovereignty.
|Chavez warned that Colombia's actions could |
start a war in South America [AFP]
Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader, had its embassy in Colombia to be shut and diplomatic staff withdrawn, warning that Colombia's actions could spark a war in South America.
"We do not want war but we are not going to let them ... come and divide and weaken us," Chavez said on his weekly TV show.
The Venezuelan leader said he was ordering 10 battalions - about 6,000 troops - to the border with Colombia.
Chavez called Uribe a "criminal", saying: "Not only is he a liar, a mafia boss, a paramilitary who leads a narco-government and leads a government that is a lackey of the United States ... he leads a band of criminals from his palace."
On Saturday, Colombia's military announced its troops had killed Reyes, during an attack on a jungle camp in Ecuador, a blow to the group behind Latin America's oldest uprising.
Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian defence minister, said commandos, tracking Reyes through an informant, first bombed a camp on the Colombian side of the Ecuadorean border.
He said the troops came under fire from across the border and encountered Reyes' body when they overran that camp.
"It was a massacre,'' said Correa, who accused Colombia of lying and said some rebels were shot in the back.
Uribe has complained before that Farc fighters take refuge in frontier areas, though neighbours say his troops are not doing enough to prevent the conflict spilling across the borders. | <urn:uuid:9900e8d1-8fff-41c7-8f89-51d89d194b00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2008/03/2008525125240186711.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973468 | 721 | 1.515625 | 2 |
SFLC Establishes Conservancy to Give Aid to Developers
The Software Freedom Law Center, a provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance free and open-source software, has set up the Conservancy to provide free financial and administrative services to those projects.
The Conservancy will also provide individual developers protection from personal liability for their projects and will work to get participating projects tax-exempt status, which will allow them to receive tax deductible donations.
The Conservancy will also file a single tax return that covers each of the members projects and will handle other corporate and tax related issues on behalf of its members, said Dan Ravicher, legal director for the Software Freedom Law Center and one of the initial directors of the Conservancy, in a statement.
The Conservancy can also hold project assets and manage them at the discretion of the project, which removes another fiscal burden from developers who are focused on software innovation, he said.
The establishment of the Conservancy follows hot on the heels of last weeks news of a fund established by the OSDL (Open Source Development Labs), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux and open-source software, that will provide financial support to software developers working on Linux and open-source community projects that dont have access to financial resources or support.
The mission of the Conservancy is to provide free and open-source software developers with all of the benefits of being a tax-exempt corporate entity, without them having to do any of the work of setting up and maintaining this, Ravicher said.
"Letting projects pass off the mundane administrative burdens placed on those wishing to benefit from nonprofit status is a significant way to keep developers focused on what they do best: writing software," he said.
Initial members include the Wine Project, SurveyOS, BusyBox and uClibc.
"We understand the importance of having our legal, financial and administration houses in order, but our focus and energy needs to be on our code," said Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard.
"The Software Freedom Conservancy gives us the opportunity to join with fellow community projects to gain needed legal and fiscal protections in a market where disruptive technologies such as open-source software sometimes generate aggressive actions from other market participants," he said.
Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest open-source news, reviews and analysis. | <urn:uuid:f8792cc8-e852-4c2d-89d8-75d1ff8041ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eweek.com/print/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/SFLC-Establishes-Conservancy-to-Give-Aid-to-Developers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93777 | 487 | 1.6875 | 2 |
- Food Trucks and their loyal customers rely on good quality ice coolers to keep food fresh and drinks icy cold
Best food truck ice coolers are important for the entrepreneur when there’s a lot of money to be saved in keeping the food colder, keeping ice longer, and having stronger longer lasting ice coolers.
The best food truck entrepreneur does his or her best by providing fantastic, fresh, and delicious food for the mass of customers who arrive at the food truck.
In order to focus on the customers, reliable equipment is needed – gas cooker, food warmer, and ice cooler. It’s worth to shed extra dollars for these quality reliable equipments in order to get years of reliable service.
The best ice coolers will keep food fresh all day long in any condition. The ice will stay frozen no matter how frequent the lid is opened. Drinks will stay ice cold just how exactly the customers want or love it. Food and meat will stay fresh until the time you need it so it will always have the flavor when it gets to the customer.
Carry handles that are strong and convenient allow easy carrying in and out of the truck are essential. This task will be done on a daily basis.
Food grade materials in ice coolers are essential for food truck vendors. It means that the ice cooler is designed from all-new virgin materials so it is safe for food and commercial use. Watch out for the coolers that only have a food grade liner because the rest of it is made from cheaper plastics that are not safe for food. The best ice coolers are entirely made from the best quality food grade polyethylene materials.
Hinges and latches in ice coolers are also important for the food truck vendor due to constant opening and closing all throughout the day. Strong stainless steel hinge pins and big hinges for strength makes up the hinge design – which is also recessed for convenience.
Another important thing is to keep that ice longer that’s why it’s a good idea to choose the cooler with the best ice retention. Polyurethane is the perfect insulator that’s why it is commonly used in commercial fridges. It’s perfect for your ice cooler because it takes a long time for the heat to travel from the outside to the inside, which means the temperature stays down and that makes the food fresh and ice melt slower.
True Blue Coolers offers a good range of ice cooler sizes and shapes which are important to every food truck vendor due to their different requirements. As you’ll see from browsing our website, the specifications of our ice coolers are perfect for food truck vendors and commercial catering.
Our Denali 158qt ice cooler is the most popular among the commercial caterers for its extra long ice retention and easy rope handles for moving the cooler in and out of the food truck. Smaller Denali coolers are equally good.
The Yosemite range ice coolers is also a popular model since it’s very stylish, its modern in design and look great customized even though it doesn’t have the rope handles.
True Blue Coolers offers customized coolers with your very own logo sticker on the cooler at a reasonable rate. Some food truck vendors even sell their customized coolers to their clients as a way of making extra money. The customers are always very interested and make it a great talking point where the value of a good quality cooler is better demonstrated than a food truck vendor.
Go to the home of quality ice coolers for information on the True Blue Coolers range and place your orders today. | <urn:uuid:bfb7679a-de60-4e62-998c-f03b8e74cefc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://campingcoolers.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957053 | 736 | 1.5 | 2 |
to Your Helmet Questions
Summary: Helmet answers in fast-reading format.
What's the best helmet to buy?
We think you should pick a helmet that fits you well, is round and smooth on the outside, and has a sticker inside certifying that it meets the CPSC standard. There is not enough verifiable difference in impact performance to make recommendations.
Consumer Reports last published a full helmet article in 2006, and an article on kids' helmets in 2009. Most of the models are no longer available, and they were not able to cover many brands. We have a detailed page on Helmets for the Current Season if you want more info. We also have a long description of what we consider to be the ideal helmet.
Marketing hype aside, coolness always depends on ventilation, and that depends mostly on the size of the front vents. Consumer Reports found all of the adult helmets they tested were at least Good for ventilation and only one was Excellent. But you can look at a helmet and see 90 per cent of the ventilation story. Most riders will not need all the vents you see in the most expensive models, but in some climates cooler is better.
Who makes the coolest helmet?
Our local K-Mart, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart discount stores have smooth, round, helmets meeting the CPSC standard on sale regularly for about $10 to $25, and most discount stores are under $30. Local bike shops have major brands for $35 to $200.
What will I pay for it?
Yes! We submitted samples of six helmet models to a leading U.S. test lab: three in the $150 to $200 range and three under $20. The impact test results were virtually identical. There were very few differences in performance among the helmets. Our conclusion: when you pay more for a helmet you may get an easier fit, more vents and snazzier graphics. But the basic impact protection of the cheap helmets we tested equaled the expensive ones.
Is a cheap helmet as safe as an expensive one?
Helmet standards test for things you can't judge in a store: impact performance and strap strength. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission's bike helmet standard is law now for every helmet made for the US market after 1999. So CPSC is the benchmark standard. ASTM and Snell B-90 are similar to it, and Snell B-95 is a little better, if you can remember all that in the store. (The old 1984 ANSI standard you may remember is dead.) We have a page comparing the standards if you want details. But every bicycle helmet sold in the US will have a CPSC sticker inside.
What about helmet standards?
There are lots of helmets for kids from one to five years old. There are no tiny helmets on the market because nobody recommends taking a very young infant on a bicycle. Kids need vents in hot weather even if they are not pedaling, and most toddler helmets have sets of fit pads of different thickness to adjust for growth. We have more on kids helmets, more on taking a tot along and a page on
trailers or bicycle-mounted child seats too.
Several manufacturers have XXL helmets, listed on our page on helmets for big heads.
Where can I find a helmet for my extra large head?
We recommend that bald riders pick their helmet carefully, add light screening in the top vents, or wear a kerchief or use sunscreen to control those tan lines. We have more advice from other bald riders.
What about my bald head?
When do I need to replace a helmet?
For details, see our inevitable page on when to replace your helmet.
- Did you crash it? Replace!
- Is it from the 1970's? Replace.
- Is the outside just foam or cloth instead of plastic? Replace.
- Does it lack a CPSC, ASTM or Snell sticker? Replace.
- Can you not adjust it to fit correctly? Replace!!
- Do you hate it? Replace.
The ASTM standards for Inline Skating and bicycle helmets are the same. Inline skaters asked to have it that way after using bike helmets for a decade and finding them adequate for skating protection. For other activities you are on your own with a bicycling-only helmet. There are a few multi-purpose helmets on the market that meet Snell's N-94 multi-purpose standard. And of course we have a page up with more on multi-purpose helmets.
What other activities can a bike helmet be used for?
On some helmets it isn't easy. Some helmets have a "Front" sticker. The brand is normally on the front, and the nape straps go toward the back. We of course have a page with detail on
finding the front of your helmet.
How can I tell if my helmet is on backwards?
At least 21 states and 145 localities in the US. All of Australia, and parts of Canada. Here is our list of laws.
Who has mandatory helmet laws?
Here, on our statistics page. Lots of them, and they don't agree, so you can take your pick!
Where do I find statistics on helmets?
Very well indeed, as long as they are fitted securely and buckled when you crash. Helmets provide a 66 to 88% reduction in the risk of head, brain and severe brain injury for all ages of bicyclists. Ask any club cyclist, whose shared experience with other cyclists has shown them the pattern clearly. The down side is that many helmet users are not securing their helmets level on the head and adjusting the straps carefully. Those cute kids with helmets tilted back have their big, bare foreheads right out there ready to crack. A helmet has to be fitted carefully to do its work.
How well do helmets work?
Not if you want your helmet to fit well. If the beads interfere with fit, they can make your helmet less safe. So does the brim of your baseball hat, and the thickness of the hat. In addition, beads in your hair or the steel ball at the top of many baseball caps can concentrate the force of an impact on one spot, or the beads can shatter in a fall, cutting you. We have a page up on hairdo's with beads braided in and wearing baseball caps under a helmet.
Can I wear beads braided in my hair or a baseball cap with my helmet?
There are plenty of hard shell helmets, but most are skate-style, and they have the classic skate shape with tiny vents. A company in Taiwan, Hopus Technologies, is making hard shell helmets in bicycle styles, and you can find at least one of them as a PTI brand helmet at Target stores. Check our page on helmets for the current year and search for the word "hard" to find more.
Where can I find a hard shell helmet?
That's not a quick question! Check out our Toolkit for Helmet
Promotion Programs for an amazing array of helpers.
How can I promote bike helmets?
Check this page on how to get our pamphlets on paper or as Word or .pdf files.
Where can I get pamphlets?
Certainly! Please follow our press rules.
Can we quote you?
We don't get salaries! We are an all-volunteer program funded at less thal $12,000 per year exclusively by consumer donations, most of them very small. We do not accept funding from any helmet manufacturer or industry group. That lets us take a free swing when we go to an ASTM standards meeting or write up a review of this season's helmets. Our FAQ, or "Can you trust this site?" page has more description of who we are.
Who pays your salary?
It's amazing what volunteer labor can do for you on the Web. To see how we run our link at minimal cost and reasonable speed, check out our network description. We have been around since 1974, and on the Web since 1995, so we have a lot of stuff for you. Then notice how often our pages are updated from the dates at the bottom. People count more than money if they care.
If you're so poor, what are you doing with a big, fast site here on the Internet?
This page was last revised on: June 5, 2013 | <urn:uuid:94742b14-8fe6-43ef-bc11-b84b807d0efe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bhsi.org/quick.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946504 | 1,718 | 1.578125 | 2 |
According to published accounts of the content of the proposed settlement agreement, Facebook would agree to obtain advance, express consent from users before sharing any material that was posted prior to the new guidelines.
For example, under terms of the agreement, if a user were to upload or update his online status or personal information, intending it to be viewable only by a select group of “friends,” then Facebook would be prohibited from subsequently making that photo or that updated information accessible to anyone outside the group of people originally authorized by the user.
The Wall Street Journal reported
that a source told the newspaper that changes made to privacy settings unilaterally by the popular site resulted in more personal information being shared than users were accustomed to or had consented to in the Terms of Service (TOS). The identity of the source was undisclosed pending final approval of the settlement.
If ultimately signed off on by Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission, the agreement mandates that Facebook request and receive consent to share personal data in advance of taking such action, particularly if the user was unaware of how the information might be displayed.
The settlement does not address the implementation of new features or how consent for sharing of any new data subsequent to installation of those features should be obtained.
Despite the punitive nature of the terms of the settlement reached in the case, no mention was made in published reports of any monetary compensation that will be paid by Facebook as a result of the government’s investigation of its practices.
There are, however, allegedly provisions in the settlement for an annual, independent audit of Facebook’s conformity with the new privacy-protecting rules imposed by the FTC. Such yearly reviews will continue for 20 years, according to the anonymous source close to the negotiations.
Neither Facebook officials nor Federal Trade Commission representatives commented on either the content or existence of the rumored settlement agreement.
The probe into the privacy controls set up by Facebook began after a complaint
against the company was filed in late 2009 by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), an online privacy advocacy organization. EPIC was joined by nine other consumer advocacy concerns who signed on as co-plaintiffs.
The suit alleged that subscribers to Facebook suffered harm when the site altered previously accepted privacy settings without notifying users of the effects of the changes. These changes left users without “meaningful control over personal information.”
As for the specific privacy policies fiddled with by Facebook, the 2009 complaint points to changes
that encouraged users to reveal their names, profile photos, lists of friends, pages they are fans of, gender, geographic regions and networks to which they belong. The FTC should compel Facebook to allow users to choose whether to disclose personal information and to choose whether to fully opt out of revealing information to third-party developers....
The lawsuit and the subsequent inquiry by the government agency tasked with the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination and prevention of behavior believed by regulators to be damaging to competition and to fairness in business practices are not Facebook’s first run-ins with those patrolling online privacy.
Facebook is regularly reprimanded for its porous privacy protections, as well as for inexplicably and without warning changing settings to various elements of user accounts.
Reportedly, management has attempted to address these issues by placing privacy controls in a more conspicuous location on the the profile page maintained by subscribers.
Although based in the United States and a domestic phenomenon, Facebook is immensely popular overseas and its practices have come under scrutiny abroad, as well.
According to a story
published recently by the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle
Facebook Inc. may be fined by a German data-protection agency over a feature that uses facial-recognition software to suggest people to tag in photos on its social-networking site.
Facebook introduced the feature in Europe "without informing users or getting the required consent" it is obliged to under European Union and German laws, the Hamburg data- protection authority said in a statement on its website Thursday. A solution proposed by Facebook is "insufficient" and would only apply to new users, not the more than 20 million existing German users, the privacy regulator said.
"After the months of negotiations we have had with Facebook, the result is disappointing," Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg data-protection representative, said in the statement. "There's still a breach of European and national data-protection law, which now has to be stopped."
The regulator's action adds to probes of the Palo Alto company by the Irish data-protection agency and Norway's privacy watchdog. A group of EU regulators said in June they will look for possible privacy violations in Facebook's facial-recognition feature.
Commenting on the worldwide appeal of the social media giant and the confusing foreign regulatory maze it must walk, Tim Keanini of nCircle told one technology news source
, "It's important to remember that the FTC is a national agency, but Facebook is a global business. When it comes to privacy laws, the U.S. is nowhere near as strict as other countries.”
Although undoubtedly the largest, Facebook is not the only one of the online social media outlets to be forced to run the federal regulatory gauntlet. Google and Twitter have already acquiesced to the FTC’s rules earlier this year. An eWeek.com article
chronicling the government’s quest to plug up privacy holes plaguing the Internet reported:
Google agreed to a similar settlement to pay $8.5 million into an independent fund and develop a "comprehensive privacy program" that it will submit to independent review every other year.
Twitter has also agreed to outside audits for 10 years after the FTC charged the site with "serious lapses" in its data security after hackers broke into several high-profile accounts.
Regardless of the federal government’s apparent concern over the unapproved sharing of the digital details of the lives of citizens, there are some who wonder who is the wolf and who is the lamb.
"If you voluntarily use social networking tools, your IP address, and so your entire Internet history, must be revealed to the authorities. It is not just about what social networks do with your data, it is also about what the government thinks they have a right to look at," Pim Bilderbeek, principal analyst at GigaOM Pro and founder of Bilderbeek Consulting, told TechNewsWorld
Once the agreement is finalized and the details of it become public, users and other interested observers will be able to monitor Facebook’s diligence in toeing the bureaucratic line.
Tim Keanini reminded readers that the bottom line is the bottom line:
The real test of the FTC agreement will be in Facebook's implementation. No social media can implement strict user privacy controls without serious damage to their business model. Every social media platform is in the business of selling information about users to third parties.
Photo: AP Images | <urn:uuid:32a81175-42f2-44d6-81b3-bf892635a963> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/7233-facebook-and-ftc-rumored-to-have-reached-privacy-agreement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950547 | 1,408 | 1.804688 | 2 |
New Jerseyans can learn what farm life is like and sample produce at the Northwest Jersey Farm and Food Open House, also referred to as "A Taste of the Garden State." Beginning at 10 a.m., the farms will throw open their doors to visitors, particularly families, offering tours, hay rides, and a guide to what Garden State farmers produce -- which turns out to be everything from fruit and cheese to beef and broccoli.
The day is sponsored by a few partnering organizations to support the Northwest New Jersey Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign, says Mikey Azzara, outreach director at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey. The group represents organic and sustainable-agriculture farmers across the state. The event is also sponsored by Whole Foods Market, the Foodshed Alliance and Northern New Jersey Chapter of Slow Food.
"The tours will have all kinds of activities, some stuff for kids as well as adults," Azzara says. "There will be an emphasis on tasting for adults and on exposing kids to what food is and how it grows."
Each farm will feature something different. Most will offer a special children's tour of the farm to teach them how New Jersey produce is grown and harvested, Azzara says. Some of the farms may demonstrate jam-making, canning and freezing -- techniques for enjoying summer farm produce well into the fall. "We are really striving to be fun, family-friendly and educational.
"There will be cooking at all of the farms, including a variety of fresh food tasting and some cooking demos," he says. The food will be prepared by area chefs and volunteers.
Sept. 8 was selected for the open house because this time of year is "the epitome of the bounty" of Jersey farms, Azzara said.
Allison Freeman can be reached at email@example.com or at (973) 392-5984. | <urn:uuid:368868b4-4c70-4d16-a0b9-28fe94ff7c61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2007/09/see_firsthand_why_this_is_the.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95718 | 390 | 1.65625 | 2 |
dolores: What is "Cyberfeminism"?
Plant: I'll begin at what might be the beginning. It's important to say that there is no "-ism" called Cyberfeminism. It's interesting in itself that there is that pressure for any new idea to become a new "-ism". The term "cyberfeminist" was used by myself and also a group of australian women - and quite possibly many other people I don't know - but more or less at the same time in the early 1990ies. I came across it in the australian womens' work - they are a group of visual artists called "VNS matrix". We got in touch and realised that we've both been thinking in similar lines even though it was on completely different sides of the world. That in itself interests me because that's rather like the internet itself: it developed without really having a place of origin or starting point and without necessarily having somebodys name attached to any particular piece of work. It's a much more anonymous type of media. So it's very appropriate that the term "Cyberfeminism" came up. It doesn't have an author or a point of origin but it was a much more evolutionary idea, that grew up by itself.
dolores: Does it then interest You to publish anonymously?
Plant: Yes, because what's most important is, that certain things get said or get done. For example if you look at music, which I think is an advanced area of cultural production, a lot of music is produced as white label without having a name on it. That doesn't do anything to stop it from circulating. That may cause all sorts of problems from the commercial point of view: who gets the money and who gets the credit. Nevertheless the most important thing is not who is circulating but what is circulating.
dolores: But isn't it - especially for women - important to show their voice, to be identified with a thesis?
Plant: Yes, that is an issue that can't be ignored. I don't publish much of my work anonymously. However, it's an interesting issue at the moment and in the near future as well, because we are living at a time when it will no longer be necessary to have to claim that voice and claim that status. Rather it's women having to catch up with men in terms of promoting their own names and their own voices. The very idea of individual ownership of a name and a voice is in itself being in collapse, for men as well. Ironically, women will perhaps find that their ways of publishing, which often have been anonymous or under male names or different names, maybe will begin to become important in themselves. Perhaps for women it will become a very useful skill to be able to produce work without feeling the need for your name to be on it. Everybody will find themselves having to do that.
dolores: You once stated, that identity, the self, hierarchies or dichotomies will dissolve. How do You see the impact of deconstruction in that?
Plant: Deconstruction has always been a very academic theory, partly because it came out of the literary world. So it has grown up to be in the academy. It's a shame that it has never had any so significant impact. It has had an impact in a wider context, but it was invented in the academy. Whereas there are other, more politically engaged or more materialist postmodern approaches. Deleuze/Guattari and Foucault, who have been much more involved in the world outside the academy. Their ideas about the collapse of identity are much more interesting than the deconstructionist ones. Because the deconstructionist ones tend to be very much a collapse of identity in theory, it's like in a philosophical question. What I'm interested in, is how people do experience that. For example the way in which you want to be many different people at once. In the not too distant past you wouldn't have to do that. That's something which women have always had to do - women more than men - have always had to play many different roles and be many different people, dependant on who they were talking to: to be a wife and a mother, have a job, etc.. For men it has been much easier to just be one thing: to be a man. That was very much to men's advantage in the past. But increasingly it's to women's advantage to have that flexibility, because everybody will find themselves needing that flexibility.
dolores: You claimed that women and technology were similar because both had been used as means to ends or as commodity, but over the time they gained more autonomy. What changed in the relationship between electronic media or networks and women since then?
Plant: It's a lot easier to see these things retrospectively. We will look back in the near future. We will see that there were things happening now that we can't see. There is a surprising number of women who - it's not only that they use the net or that they produce visual art - recognize that this is a very new medium which offers very different kinds of communication: kinds of communication which women have a lot of practiced, like their own informal networks for example. It's all a part of the same shift, that informal networks used to be what you had to do if you couldn't do it properly. But increasingly, especially with the net, they will become the normal way to do something. The older forms of communication will become less important. It's an ongoing relationship between women and technology.
dolores: Can women use the net subversively?
Plant: Yes, but my big worry about the internet is, that it will become a big corporate market place before anybody even noticed that it was there and began to think about what you could do on it. At the moment - like a lot of electronic media - it's still being used to translate from old formats into new formats without changing the nature of the content. For example you have something on paper that you want to put on the net. But it needs for people to start thinking about how you can produce work or put information onto the net (or any of the new media) that is taylor-made just for the net and is special to it, that pays attention to how it works. That may not sound particularly subversive, but it is, because that would encourage the much more anarchic side of the internet, the side which is much more about it working in ways which haven't been available in the older culture. For example decentralised, horizontal communication. That in itself is potentially subversive, because things are still very centralised, vertical and hierarchical. Anything which can be done that encourages that side of how the net actually works is great. Women can and will do and are doing that.
dolores: But how do You see the relationship between women who have access to the net and women who don't?
Plant: The access question will be solved very quickly. All of the corporations who are involved desperately want to get everybody onto the net. At the moment you still have to go and try to get onto the net. But that will turn around. The problem soon probably will be how you avoid it, rather than how you get it. Computing generally is one of the few commodities that has dropped in price ever since that is has begun. They get cheaper and cheaper. The access issue now is not so much about money, because with about 300 pounds you can get a computer and get onto the internet. When you compare that to a car or a washing machine or a TV, that is a relatively small amount of money. It's about people and women in particular still having a fear of technology, which a lot of men - and some feminists actually - still want to encourage ("it's not for you, it's a male thing"). That has more to do with the access issue now than the the fact money, because they are not that expensive. If you think of a car or living in a car culture: clearly not everybody owns a car, but nevertheless everybody somehow ends up with access to motorised transport. That's the direction things are going: that not everybody may end up owning a computer - although probably I think they will. But even if they didn't, it would still have a much bigger cultural impact than just the question who owns it. What's really interesting is how you can make the connections between what happens on the net and what happens in other contexts. It's not just a question of putting all of the energy into the net but how you can learn for example from the way in which information travels in the net and then translate that back into other sorts of social activity. It's a broader question about technology not just in a sense of particular machines but ways of doing things, in any context.
dolores: You underlined that it becomes increasingly advantageous to be female. What is feminine?
Plant: All that we know is, what it is to be male. What's so exiting about the other side of that, is the fact that it is to be discovered. What is advantageous now, is to be more open-ended, less already fixed. The danger with masculinity is that it's already so certain. Whereas the female - whatever that is - has to be something to be explored and experimented with. That's precisely what's good about it.
dolores: Do You think that femininity is socially constructed or essential?
Plant: It's not just socially constructed. Especially now - not least because of the computer-revolution - all of the new studies of for example microbiology, show that you can look at the way in which male and female bodies work and chromosomes and genes. There is a fascinating world of gender differences at that material biological level. In the past that would have been very difficult to say, because bodies used to be thought of as much more big scale thing (can you have a baby or not) rather than this much smaller level of activity. But there is a continuum between the social and the biological.
I've always tried to find a third way that is neither socially constructed nor biologically essentialist. Neither works. There is a way of thinking through the middle of those two. If it was simply socially constructed then you could just chose to be. It's not that simple. I wish it was that simple. There is a gay bar in Birmingham which has a big neon-sign on it that says: "You can be whoever you want to be". I think: if only that would be. That's my problem with Judith Butler's work: you can't just go out and perform anything, if only you could.
an interview by Antonia Ulrich | <urn:uuid:33f20e25-48f4-4e34-a104-b1b5280f0840> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.t0.or.at/dolores/interviews/plant2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981731 | 2,211 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Journalists Examine Possible Strengths and Weaknesses of Obama PresidencyContact: Patrick Verel
Photo by Michael Dames
Barack Obama’s confidence and cool-headedness are partly why he was elected president of the United States. But if that confidence curdles into arrogance, it will be his downfall.
That was one of the messages delivered by an all-star panel of print and broadcast journalists at “The Changing of the Guard in Washington: What to Expect,” held on Jan. 15 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.
Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,
headlined the evening with a lecture on domestic and international issues facing Obama. She then joined the panel discussion hosted by Bill Baker, Ph.D., Claudio Acquaviva S.J. Chair and Journalist in Residence at Fordham.
The panel featured Neil Shapiro, former president of NBC News and current president of Thirteen/WNET; Jodi Kantor, Washington correspondent for The New York Times; and Caren Bohan, political correspondent for Reuters’ Washington bureau.
In her opening remarks, Woodruff noted that it was customary for journalists to be jaded about politicians who talk about change, but that there is a tangible feeling of excitement in the nation’s capitol. That is fortunate, she added, because the United States has not faced such an array of grave challenges in 75 years.
“Even the smartest experts worry about the fragility of our financial institutions,” she said. “Who would have thought that under a Republican administration and a Republican central banker, that the federal government would be bailing out Wall Street?”
Obama’s supremely self-assured nature was the subject of much discussion. Woodruff said that confidence will serve him well when working with his cabinet of political and intellectual heavyweights.
“To be sure, there’s a danger of hubris, or too much self-confidence,” she added. “As David Halberstam so greatly chronicled years ago, [it is] the arrogance of the best and the brightest. But the antidote to that is not the worst and the dumbest.”
|from l to r: Jodi Kantor, Caren Bohan, Neil Shapiro and Judy Woodruff
Photo By Michael Dames
Kantor, who has covered Obama since early 2007, talked about how she was assigned to poke holes in his official biography.
Even when he was a student at Harvard Law in the early 1990s, fellow students produced a parody of him talking about his background—proof that he has long been using his life story to connect with people politically. He also has an almost relentless appetite to win over people who don’t share his views, she said.
“If Obama has a flaw, and this is something that’s tripped him up a couple of times in life, he really thinks he can win everybody over,” she said. “He has a lot of confidence that he can meet somebody from a totally different culture, who he agrees on nothing about, and still form a connection to that person.”
Shapiro, who helped launch the nightly international newscast Worldfocus
, said he was struck by how pragmatic Obama is. As a presidential candidate, his initial support for public financing vanished when he realized he had a 7-1 advantage over John McCain.
This might be helpful when trying to predict how he will deal with challenges abroad, which have become tightly entwined with economic and domestic policy. In addition to China, Shapiro predicted that Japan will play a huge part in the United States’ fortunes.
“Japan is the world’s second-largest economy, and where, for a time, we’ve basically ignored our issues about Japan. Now I think they’re going to be a huge force. Are they helping us and buying our debt, or not?” Shapiro said.
“As the world gets smaller—both in terms of communication and in the terms of economics—domestic politics, economic politics and international politics converge,” he said. “That will put even more pressure on the president.”
The panel was the inaugural event in the Phi Beta Kappa Lecture Series and was sponsored by the Graduate School of Education at Fordham. At the conclusion, both Baker and Woodruff were made honorary members of Phi Beta Kappa. They were honored for their dedication to furthering intellectual discourse in the public sphere.
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 14,700 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in Westchester, and the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y. | <urn:uuid:1629367a-a035-486f-8443-40564490938b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fordham.edu/campus_resources/enewsroom/archives/archive_1449.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967731 | 1,032 | 1.507813 | 2 |
How to Embark on a Stress Free Senior Year
By Stephen Burleigh
“I was really stressed this weekend. I have a calculus class coming up, which means I have to do the homework for the past two weeks. I also have a physics quiz, which, of course, I was behind in that class by two chapters. So I played field hockey on Saturday with the team, and then did all the physics homework on Saturday and Sunday. Then I had two papers for English class. They are short papers, but still, I had to read the stories and then try to say something intellectual about them and relate them to my life. So I took No-Doze on Sunday night and kept drinking coffee, but I fell asleep writing my physics lab. A few hours later, like at 4 AM, I woke up with a stomachache, but I had to do these papers, so I drank more coffee, and just kept writing. I had severe stomach pains this morning which is probably like appendicitis or something, but look at me, I am still drinking coffee! I will finish the papers during lunch and then try to do all this stuff for ASB. I swear I am not going to make it; I am going to die!”
This is how Eve Lin described high school life in Denise Clark Pope’s excellent book, “Doing School”. In Pope’s study all six students profiled said they experienced severe anxiety or breakdowns, and four out of six had persistent health and sleep problems.
Eve is, in her words, “preparing for acceptance to the Ivy League.” Many students believe that acceptance to a selective college is the key that unlocks the door to success in life, and that enduring any amount of stress is worth the reward. The average admit rate for all Ivies this year (2008) was about 12%. Does that mean the other 88%, many of whom had perfect SAT scores or were valedictorians, are failures?
The first step to a less stressful senior year begins with you. Try to approach the college application phase of your life organically – from the inside-out. Ask yourself some questions, keeping in mind Polonius’ famous advice to Horatio in Shakespeare’s Hamlet,“this above all things, to thine own self be true.”
- What are my core values?
- What do I enjoy doing?
- What am I passionate about?
- What would I like to change about myself?
- Where would I like to be in ten years? Fifteen years? Twenty years?
- What career inspires me?
- Who do I admire?
- What physical, cultural, and academic environment supports my sense of self?
If you’re unsure about the answers consult with parents, teachers, counselors, or mentors for advice. The better you know yourself, the better your chances of escaping the pressure of becoming a slave to a list of colleges picked from a rankings magazine designed to impress your parents or your best friends. Define yourself, pursue your own path, and be bold enough to set your own realistic expectations.
Of course, applying to college doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The demands of your senior year won’t come to a halt because you’re busy preparing for and taking standardized tests (SAT & ACT), researching colleges, visiting, interviewing, filling out applications, getting letters of recommendation, making sure your transcripts go out on time, writing essays (and more essays), and filling out financial aid applications. There’s still your day job as a fully functioning high school senior to deal with. That’s the flash point at which many hard working students run the risk of becoming like Eve. According to the Nemours Foundation advice on teen health, symptoms of chronic stress can be:
- Anxiety or panic attacks
- A feeling of being constantly pressured, hassled, and hurried
- Irritability and moodiness
- Physical symptoms such as stomach problems, headaches, or even chest pain
- Allergic reactions such as eczema or asthma
- Problems sleeping
- Drinking too much, smoking, overeating, or doing drugs
- Sadness or depression
A little stress can motivate us to work proactively to find solutions to our problems, but too much stress can defeat us in pursuit of worthy goals. If allowed to continue unchecked, it could put us in the hospital.
Stress, however, is a fact of life. It’s a byproduct of the fight or flight function of our nervous system. Acute stress can save us in a crisis or cause us to rise to the challenge of an important event, but chronic stress brought about by the pressures of daily life; i.e., deadlines, assignments, tests, expectations, family dynamics, uncertainty, can be debilitating unless managed. Here are some tips for managing a stressful work load:
- Develop time management skills. Don’t over schedule your day. Create realistic expectations and deadlines. Plan ahead and prioritize tasks.
- Pace yourself. Remember that life is a marathon, not a sprint. That goes for school and the college admission process.
- Don’t let little things become big things. Take care of small tasks as they arise, don’t put them off until that growing stack of papers on your desk becomes an even larger pile of guilt.
- Remember, nobody’s perfect. Don’t demand perfection from yourself or from others.
- Take time out of your busy schedule to have fun or relax. Find out what activities engender a feeling of well being within you. It could be reading for pleasure, playing music or singing, meditation, deep breathing exercises, an afternoon power nap, a game of chess – anything that takes your mind off school and relaxes you.
- Regular exercise is a proven method of minimizing stress. Don’t over train, but find something vigorous to do that increases your heart rate for at least twenty minutes a few times a week.
- Eat well, be well. Too much junk food or fast food will contribute to your high stress levels. Good nutrition is essential to a healthy mind and body.
- Get plenty of rest. Avoid all-nighters, and eleventh hour cram sessions fueled by caffeine or other stimulants. That night of sleep you lose can never be recovered. Sleeplessness and chronic fatigue exacerbate stress.
- Stay positive. Don’t get caught in a cycle of negativity and frustration. Look for solutions to problems. Learn to be patient and understanding of other people’s behavior.
- Seek professional help if you feel overburdened and unable to cope. Don’t put off talking to a counselor or health care professional if you feel overwhelmed by stress.
- Don’t shut out your parents. According to the Mayo clinic, “Adolescents who have positive relationships with their parents tend to handle stress more effectively as adults.”
If you’re college bound you can reduce senior stress by getting a head start on the college process. Use the summer prior to senior year to visit colleges, interview with admissions representatives, prep for a standardized test, and most importantly, to begin drafting personal statements. Most colleges post the personal statement on their freshman admission web pages, often under the “Apply” tab. Look for college essay workshops at local community colleges, high schools, even at pubic libraries. The college essay can be the most time consuming and demanding part of the application process. The more college admission work you do before school resumes the less likely you’ll feel like Eve in November.
-written for NextStep Magazine | <urn:uuid:f8cdfc23-a61d-4b0e-95b5-ed4e5e4b6a59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.college-pathways.com/category/nextstep-articles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952466 | 1,597 | 1.726563 | 2 |
|XII FINA World
Congress on Swimming Medicine, Goteborg, Sweden
Andy M Stewart, Scottish Institute of Sports Medicine and Sports Science, Glasgow, Scotland
Ross H Sanders, Department of Human Movement, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia
Sportscience News Sept-Oct 1997
|Presentations reviewed: Training and Performance · Immunology · Ergogenic Aids and Performance · Altitude · Muscle Fatigue · Tests and Training Prescription · Swimming Technique · Propulsion and Drag · Swimming Injuries|
This year's conference of the world governing body of swimming (Federation Internationale De Nation Amateur or FINA ) was held in beautiful Goteborg, Sweden on April 12-15, 1997. Meetings have been held every two or three years and for the first time, this year's conference was held in conjunction with the World Short Course Swimming Championships. FINA plans to adopt this approach for future conferences as it apparently cuts the costs of getting all members of their Medical Committee together in the same place at the same time - not a bad idea! Over 200 delegates attended the well-organized conference. Summarized below are those papers that we were most interested in. For those of you who are interested in swim research, we hope to see you at the VIII International Symposium on Biomechanics and Medicine in Swimming in Jyvaskyla, Finland, June 28-July 2, 1998.
TRAINING AND PERFORMANCE
A contentious issue in swim training is specificity vs long, slow distance. Stewart, Sanders and Hopkins asked 12 coaches to prescribe a race-specific, high-intensity, low-volume training program for a period of six months, while another 12 coaches in a control group were expected to prescribe training using their usual long, slow program. There was a gain of a few percent for sprinters (50-m and 100-m events) in the race-specific group relative to the controlgroup, and no real difference between the groups for middle-distance swimmers (200-m and 400-m events). But the coaches did not comply well with the training programs, so we still don't know for sure which type of training is better.
Is there a difference between stroke rate and stroke length at various levels of effort? Kohji Wakayoshi presented results from a study investigating the relationship between physiological parameters and stroke technique at aerobic and anaerobic intensities. All tests were conducted over 400 m in which paces equivalent to 80% to 85% of best pace and 90% to 95% best pace were found to be primarily aerobic and anaerobic respectively. The pace equivalent to 85% of VO2 max was found to have a strong affinity to maximal 400 m pace (r=0.978). Swimmers maintained their stroke rate and stroke length while swimming at aerobic intensities, but stroke rate and stroke length increased and decreased respectively during intensities that enduced primarily anaerobic metabolism. Bottom line: train at paces that will increase your ability to maintain the high stroke rate and stroke length required in competition.
There's a fine line between that training load that may lead to optimal adaptations in the immune system and one that leads to immunosuppression. Bente Klarlund Pedersen presented one of the more popular papers at the conference discussing the the "J Curve". Most of us were familiar with this theory: little or no exercise leaves the individual open to some infections, moderate exercise leads to enhanced immune function, while high-intensity exercise leads to immunosupression. But just what is the association between the endocrine and immune system? In essence, stress hormones mediate the changes in the immune system by blocking hormone production and receptors. She reported that athletes should accept that acute immunosuppression is expected and indeed necessary to enhance the chronic immune response, because moderate "doses" of immunosupression would probably lead to a stronger defense system when the athlete engages in periods of heavy training. We asked Dr Pedersen for her opinions on an association between the neuroendocrine system, the immune system, and proteolysis of skeletal muscle, but we were unable to stimulate much discussion on that subject.
ERGOGENIC AIDS AND PERFORMANCE
Priscilla Clarkson gave an update on current opinions on nutritional ergogenic aids, antioxidants, and physical performance. She reported that creatine supplementation was beneficial for repetitive (~2 mins or less) high-intensity exercise bouts (i.e. training or in repetitive competitions that are less than 5 mins apart), but not for one-off sprints. Amino acid supplementation might enhance the action of growth hormone, but diarrhea is a major side effect. Ephedrine has a potential role in weight loss, especially if combined with aspirin. Chromium potentiates the role of insulin to get glucose and amino acids into the muscle, but whether there is an enhancement in performance is not clear. She suggested that chromium supplementation might help athletes who have been on a calorie-restricted diet. Forget magnesium supplementation! Supplementation with vitamins C and E, other antioxidants, or antioxidant mixtures were found to reduce symptoms or indicators of oxidative stress caused by exercise. Trained athletes showed less evidence of lipid peroxidation to a given exercise and an enhanced defense system compared with untrained subjects. She reported that it is unclear whether the body produces sufficient antioxidants to counter oxidative processes or whether additional antioxidants are required, but she warned us that long-term high doses of antioxidants might have harmful side effects. Bottom line: consume a diet rich in antioxidants, and don't waste your money on supplementation!
Bengt Saltin and Bo Berglund delivered provocative addresses on altitude training, which were met with the usual discussion of "yes it works" vs "no it doesn't". Their presentations had begun by stating that the reduced maximal oxygen uptake at high altitude does not recover significantly during a prolonged stay and that training at high altitude improves performance only at high altitude. Bengt Saltin suggested that the same mechanisms involved in the decrease of max HR, red cell volume, and stroke volume are also at work during moderate altitude (1500-3000 m). In his words, "there is no effect of acclimatization on maximal oxygen uptake in athletes training at least at moderate altitude". The data also do not support a further increase in maximal oxygen uptake on return to sea level. Equally clear are the data on skeletal muscle adaptation: any positive effect of training at medium altitude would be primarily related to an elevated anaerobic energy release (possibly due to an enhanced buffer capacity and changes in the ratio of lactate dehydrogenase1-2 to lactate dehydrogenase3-4). So where does that leave us with altitude training? Well, "living high and training low" seems to work. The problem with that approach is the time involved in coming down to near sea-level in order to train. One possible way around the travel time is follow the Scandinavian approach and build "nitrogen houses" at sea-level that simulate altitude. We will have to wait and see if there are positive benefits to sea-level performance from such an approach.
Westerblad proposed that the early force decline during fatigue was ~10% in the central nervous system and ~90% in the muscle. The impairment in skeletal muscle involves a reduced ability to produce force, a reduced shortening speed, and slowed relaxation. The popular notion is that acidosis (due to lactic acid accumulation) is the major factor causing such impairment, but acidosis has little effect on contractile function at normal physiological temperatures. Instead, it would appear that the early force decline during fatigue is due to accumulation of inorganic phosphate and the additional force decline in severe fatigue seems to be caused by impaired intracellular Ca++ release due to localized energy imbalance (increased Mg++, reduced ATP, and/or increased ADP). He postulated that the reduced shortening speed seems to be caused by accumulation of ADP in the vicinity of the contractile proteins, possibly at the site of Ca++ release and uptake between the T-tubule and sarcoplasmic reticulum.
TESTS AND TRAINING PRESCRIPTION
A number of groups reported different ways of prescribing training intensity. Some German scientists indicated that they have used blood lactate testing for over 20 years and stated that lactate testing is still the most practical parameter for the evaluation of the individual training load. A group of scientists from Portugal reported that they used a similar testing protocol to that of the Germans, while they also use an analysis of ammonia kinetics. In addition, Rama reported that rating of perceived exertion and training impulse (based on Banister's definition of training load) were useful for quantifying training. Heart rate was not a good indicator of training intensity.
SWIMMING TECHNIQUE AND EFFICIENCY
Monique Berger and her associates in Amsterdam investigated the relationship between propelling efficiency and swimming velocity. Propelling efficiency depends on the amount of energy lost to the water by giving the water kinetic energy. The more energy given to the water, the less the propelling efficiency. Propelling efficiency increased with increasing velocity, but at the highest velocities some subjects showed a decrease in efficiency.
A Japanese team led by Futoshi Ogita investigated the effect of hand paddles on anaerobic energy release during supramaximal swimming. Their findings indicated that the faster swimming with hand paddles was due to mechanical factors such as higher propelling efficiency due to the larger propelling surface area and not due to metabolic factors.
How do stroke mechanics impact on swimming economy in freestyle swimming? Alves and Gomes-Periera from Portugal reported that a high elbow recovery and a long glide relative to the total stroke duration are associated with economy.
PROPULSION AND DRAG IN SWIMMING
Hideki Takagi and his Japanese colleagues presented a method for estimating active drag. The provocative finding: active drag might not be proportional to the square of swimming velocity as has been commonly assumed. Their data indicated that the exponent is less than two.
Peter Hollander and Monique Berger resurrected the old argument of whether drag or lift forces from the hands contributes more to propulsion. Neither drag nor lift can fully explain the propulsion produced by the hands in swimming, because energy losses due to force generation exceed those indicated by measures of oxygen uptake during swimming. The authors speculated that energy is recaptured from the water, possibly due to energy being absorbed from the vortices created by the hand and arm movements.
Does the shape of the hand affect force generation? Ross Sanders reported that he altered the shape of a hand model to yield four different shape conditions. The findings: thumb adduction did not alter drag forces, but affected the generation of lift. Palmar flexion of the wrist influenced drag as well as lift. The drag force was higher when the hand was flexed.
Ross Sanders presented implications arising from a study of lift and drag forces of the hand at all possible orientations. Continuous three-dimensional surfaces representing lift and drag coefficients as functions of pitch and sweepback angles were produced. The model included surfaces to take account of the effect of "added mass" occurring during periods of hand acceleration. The results showed clearly that the musculature surrounding the adducted thumb has a large influence on the magnitude of lift forces. The model showed that with intermediate pitch angles of around 45 degrees large forces are produced when the sweepback angle is near 45 degrees and 135 degrees. Swimmers may commonly attain 45 degrees of sweepback with 45 degrees of pitch during the insweeps of freestyle, breaststroke and butterfly. Swimmers may commonly attain 135 degrees of sweepback and 45 degrees of pitch during the outsweep/backsweeps of freestyle, breaststroke, and butterfly.
SWIMMING INJURIES AND REHABILITATION
The bane of many swimmers is shoulder impingement syndrome: the pain and disablement resulting from repetitive collisions of the rotator cuff muscles with the coraco-acromial arch. Bak presented a case for preventing and rehabilitating the problem by prevention programs focusing on supervised strength training in pre-adolescents to ensure proper function of the scapular stabilizers and shoulder rotators. Coaches need to focus on sound technique rather than high mileage to help swimmers avoid this injury.
Johannes Holz and associates from Germany emphasized the need for appropriate exercises to ensure appropriate muscle balance to avoid overuse syndromes in the shoulders. They found that age-group swimmers have muscular imbalances between the internal and external rotators. A strength training program was effective in correcting the imbalance.
Leif Sward highlighted the risk of lower back problems among adolescents. Scheuermann's disease, which includes disc degeneration, reduced disc height. He reported that Schmorl's nodes, an abnormal configuration of the vertebral bodies, were more common in athletes than non-athletes.
A group from the host country, Sweden, reported on the possibility of shoulder impingement being due to the thickening of the supraspinatus tendon. By comparing supraspinatus tendon thickness of the dominant and non-dominant arms of swimmers, tennis players, and soccer players, the group showed that overhead exercise increases the supraspinatus tendon thickness. Implication: overhead activity practiced from a young age may be a risk factor in the later development of shoulder impingement syndrome.
Training in water has become a popular way for injured players of many different sports to rehabilitate and maintain their aerobic fitness. Leen T'Jonck and her Belgian colleagues investigated the effects of water running in the rehabilitation of medial tibial stress syndrome (shin splints). The water training group significantly improved their VO2max by 7.5%, while the non-training control group decreased their VO2max by 3.9%. | <urn:uuid:beb2bc22-7ae4-4aab-926a-2e35a1c464cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sportsci.org/news/news9709/fina.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950402 | 2,856 | 1.71875 | 2 |
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- As the final stretch of the 2012 tax filing season unfolds, the Internal Revenue Service reminds taxpayers they can get valuable last-minute tips by following the IRS on Twitter.
The IRS Twitter news feed, @IRSnews, provides the latest federal tax news and information for taxpayers. The focus of the IRS Twitter messages is on easy-to-use information, including tax tips, tax law changes, and important IRS programs such as e-file, getting a filing extension and "Where's My Refund."
The IRS said it is planning a special series of tweets as the April 17 tax deadline approaches.
And, the agency expects nearly thousands of Alabamians to file tax returns or request filing extensions in the next week.
"Don't panic, but be sure to act by the April 17 deadline," said IRS spokesman Dan Boone. "The IRS offers tax-filing extensions and payment options for those who need more time to file or to pay."
The fastest and easiest way to get the extra time to file is through the Free File link on IRS.gov, he said.
"In a matter of minutes, anyone, regardless of income, can use this free service to electronically request an automatic six-month filing extension on Form 4868," Boone said. "The filing extension does not offer more time to pay."
The IRS also helps those who are having trouble paying what they owe.
Boone said those taxpayers usually qualify for payment plans and other relief.
"Last month, for example, the IRS, as part of its Fresh Start initiative announced penalty relief for unemployed taxpayers and self-employed individuals whose income has dropped," he said.
Either way, Boone said, taxpayers will avoid stiff penalties if they file either a regular income tax return or a request for a tax-filing extension by this year's deadline. "Taxpayers should file, even if they can't pay the full amount due."
Anyone with a Twitter account can follow @IRSnews and they can also follow the IRS Twitter news feed using IRS2Go, a free app for Apple and Android devices.
In addition to Twitter, the IRS's social media tools include YouTube videos, to help taxpayers before the tax deadline. | <urn:uuid:5734bea0-aac1-4f20-93cf-9ddf4ba846dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.al.com/huntsville-times-business/2012/04/irs_offers_last-minute_tweets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944346 | 459 | 1.515625 | 2 |
If I had the money, I would send Tina Rosenberg on an all-expenses-paid trip to Cairo. Here’s why: Back in 1987, the MacArthur Foundation, which does have the money, awarded her a “genius” grant. Rosenberg used it to research and write an excellent book, Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America. Afterward, she turned her attention to Eastern Europe and to the moral, political, and ethical difficulties of apportioning guilt and innocence in post-Communist nations. The resulting book, The Haunted Land, possesses a rare combination of nuance and force. It also possesses a rare combination of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Rosenberg has thoughtfully tracked the difficult transition to democracy on two continents, and I’d love to hear her reflect on the current turmoil in the Middle East. But it turns out she had other plans. “Problems were in endless supply,” she writes in her new book. “But it was starting to seem more interesting and valuable to write about solutions.”
That new book—Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World—is, to put it mildly, an unlikely third act. The Haunted Land concerned not just the madness of tyrants but the complicity of the masses—all those “card-carrying members” of one of the most catastrophic clubs in history. So why is Rosenberg suddenly championing the virtues of being a joiner? Because, she says, she stumbled on something called “the social cure”—a panacea so powerful that it can help you quit smoking, lose weight, escape poverty, ace calculus, combat Islamic terrorism, overthrow a dictator.
That sounds promising, assuming Utopia is your thing. But it also sounds odd. As readers will remember from their D.A.R.E. days, peer pressure is better known for less salutary effects: We drop acid, wear jeggings, turn a blind eye when our neighbors are dispatched to the Gulag. Rosenberg’s response to this is homeopathic: We should fight bad peer pressure with good. Accordingly, she showcases situations where social conformity produces positive results. South African teens practice safe sex. Minority college students improve their grades. Serbian citizens bring down a despot. Members of a megachurch befriend their neighbors and grow closer to God.
Rosenberg’s readers will presumably find these outcomes largely laudable. So do I. But there’s something discomfiting about them, and it’s not just that giving up cigarettes is up there with ousting dictators and skinniness is next to godliness. Once you burn off a lot of definitional fog, the “social cure” reveals itself as nothing more than peer pressure applied toward ends that Rosenberg supports. That raises a question that, bafflingly, she never addresses: Who gets to decide what constitutes acceptable peer pressure? Your idea of a good peer group might be my idea of a cult. Your worthy goal might be my worst nightmare. Rosenberg cherry-picks positive outcomes, but the process she describes as “the social cure” is fundamentally neutral—equally useful to Samaritans and to Stalin.
How did someone as smart as Rosenberg miss this? Specifically, how did she wind up coining a catchy name for an everyday phenomenon whose benefits she overstates and whose demerits she overlooks? The answer, as Zen masters like to observe, lies within the question. Rosenberg, too, yielded to peer pressure and joined a club: the club of the Big Idea book.
Big Idea books have been around for a long time; see The Communist Manifesto. But the Big Idea Book Club (I mean “club” as Rosenberg defines it: an identifiable in-group with enough status to influence the behavior of others) is a recent phenomenon. Its accidental founder and president in apparent perpetuity is Malcolm Gladwell. Its membership, like the membership of most powerful groups, is largely male. Its combined sales are stratospheric; whatever these books are hawking, we can’t stop buying it.
As for the books themselves, I’ll generalize (as, often, do they). Big Idea tomes typically pull promiscuously from behavioral economics, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology. They coin phrases the way Zimbabwe prints bills. They relish upending conventional wisdom: Not thinking becomes thinking, everything bad turns out to be good, and the world is—go figure—flat. (With Gladwell’s Blink, this mania for the counterintuitive runs top-speed into a wall, crumples to the ground, and stares dizzily at the little birds circling overhead. This is, let me remind you, a best-selling book about the counterintuitive importance of thinking intuitively.)
Before I get any further, let me say this: I am very much in favor of books that contain ideas. (And, full disclosure, I wrote a book that fits some of the above criteria.) What troubles me about the Big Idea Book Club is the way ideas often slide toward ideologies—grand unifying theories of culture, cognition, happiness, talent, the Internet, the future, you name it. “The Hidden Side of Everything,” “The Story of Success”: the italics are mine, but the emphasis is theirs. | <urn:uuid:9c1625a6-e57a-460b-870b-ab48c129b7a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/tina-rosenberg-2011-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936062 | 1,120 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.