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You never know where you might find electricity. But one thing is for sure, if you’re not careful it will find you.
Accidents involving electricity can have tragic outcomes. At CL&P, safety is always the first priority. CL&P takes this approach on behalf of our employees, their families and friends, our neighbors and the 1.2 million customers we serve in 149 communities across Connecticut. It’s important to CL&P that everyone knows where a potentially dangerous situation may occur, and how to prevent or respond to a situation that involves you!
First and foremost, NEVER touch power lines - there is no way for you to know if a wire is dead or alive, and the risk is just too great. Don't put your life on the line. Whether you’re on the job, in the yard, or in your home, electricity can hurt you. CL&P cares for the safety of its communities. Read safety tips and learn more ways to keep your own family safe around electricity. | <urn:uuid:33fabe91-0d7f-441d-9cbf-1a9ce62be998> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cl-p.com/Home/Safety/Safety/?MenuID=4294984945 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953144 | 210 | 1.5 | 2 |
Council passes law requiring 2nd line vendor permits
Dave Cohen Reporting
Should people selling water, food, handbags and other goods have to have a permit at neighborhood second lines? The New Orleans City Council says yes.
Council members say historically the NOPD has looked the other way at neighborhood second line parades and not required that people selling goods have permits. Today the council voted to mandate vendors purchase a $25 permit or be shut down.
"There are some things that are just sacred," Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell insisted. "We ought not be fooling with it."
She was in the minority.
Councilwoman Diana Bajoie led the effort to pass the new law "at a request from many of the people who sell the goods."
She says, "It gives them an opportunity to have a permit to do that."
Councilman Ernest Charbonnet added, "For the life of me I can't figure out why a vendor would want to be at the mercy of whether or not a police officer wants to turn and look the other way."
Some vendors attending the meeting agreed and applauded the new law to require permits, others complained it was government interfering with neighborhood traditions at the dozens of second lines each year across the city. | <urn:uuid:17c7c6c8-57f7-42eb-b8fe-4d958328eb98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwl.com/pages/14435691.php?poll121186ViewResults=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968787 | 258 | 1.539063 | 2 |
“Firewater, Todos Santos, Baja California, 2002″ Kodak e100vs
Not so long ago, a fellow photographer friend sent me a link to an interesting story on Salon.com about the demise of film, in particular Kodachrome one of my favorite color emulsions. I thought the author’s assessment was pretty spot on, and the last paragraph especially resonated with me:
“To shoot a roll of film was to take a leap of faith. The digital evolution has eliminated a lot of uncertainty from the process, and that’s probably a net gain — especially if you’re an amateur shutterbug. Unfortunately, some other wonderful elements have disappeared as well: mystery, poetry and the element of chance.”
The ongoing debate of film vs. digital and what looks better is a personal preference, but what made this article interesting is that it made me think about my overall approach to taking photos. I don’t plan on going digital and I don’t think film will disappear entirely, but if I did, how would it change the process, in particular for situations like the preceding photograph?
I was hanging at a beach-side hotel with family at sunset, when all of a sudden the ocean and sky turned bright red. I ran down to the water to take a few shots, panning one or two to create a look of movement. I finished the roll, then put it away forgetting about it until a week or so later when I got home and had it processed. When I got the film back, most of the shots were ordinary, but this one really stood out, far exceeding my expectations.
Now, if I had used a digital camera, I could have shot away until I saw that I had something decent, and probably had more versions of the scene. But I fear that knowing my results before the colors of sunset had faded would have removed all mystery, poetry and any element of chance, and I would have lost what attracted me to photography in the first place. | <urn:uuid:6ee4cc42-b83a-4290-a8cf-00476bbe227a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.joecurren.com/blog/tag/film-vs-digital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973834 | 420 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The Augusta-Aiken area lost 1,600 jobs last year, about 400 more than it lost during the previous year.
Although the figures released Thursday by the Georgia Department of Labor were not positive news, economic forecasters say the city and the state are poised to rebound this year from the struggling economy.
"We're definitely turning the corner," said Jeff Humphreys, the director of the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth. "This is the beginning of some good news."
The Georgia Department of Labor, which released the 12-month job figures Thursday, said employment loss in the five-county area amounted to 0.8 percent - from 195,700 in January 2002 to 194,100 in January 2003.
The Selig Center's latest economic forecast predicts Augusta will finish 2003 with 1 percent job growth.
"Employers will start hiring again because they need too. We've had five quarters of growth without an employment gain," Dr. Humphreys said. "The only thing that could derail the economy is war with Iraq."
Augusta's job loss was the second worst in the state, behind Columbus. Atlanta's 0.7 percent decrease in jobs was only slightly better than Augusta. Savannah posted the highest job gain in the state.
Most of the jobs lost in Augusta during the period were in the "goods producing" sector - including most manufacturing, mining and construction - which saw employment decline by 1,100.
The rest of Augusta's job loss was split among service industries such as retail, information technology and transportation. Government employment growth was flat.
Last year was marked by see-saw economic activity, said Beverly Johnson, the director of the Labor Department's Augusta Career Center.
"We had the BellSouth call center open with 120 jobs, but at the same time we had Qwikset in Burke County close," she said. "We get good news on one hand and bad news on the other."
Ms. Johnson and Charlie Haneman, the director of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission's office in Aiken, both said they have been busy retraining displaced workers for other careers.
"It's not uncommon nowadays for someone to change careers five or six times in a lifetime," Mr. Haneman said.
One of the few bright spots was the health care industry, which grew 3.3 percent. Dr. Humphreys wasn't surprised.
"Health care is a necessity during good times and bad times," he said.
Georgia lost 13,100 jobs last year; that's down significantly from the year before, when the state lost 93,700 jobs.
The state Labor Department also reported that Georgia's unemployment rate was 4.5 percent in January, down from 4.6 percent in December. In January 2002, the jobless rate was 4.4 percent. January unemployment figures for Augusta have not yet been calculated.
Reach Damon Cline at (706) 823-3486 or email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:f8447dc5-7c9d-4cd3-98dc-ec3d99b30531> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2003/03/07/bus_368170.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974144 | 618 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Paul regarded death with holy indifference. For many people, death is the greatest loss of all, but for Paul death was a promotion. Then he would see what he now believed. And so he declares in verse 21: “For me to love is Christ and to die is gain.” Christ was the purpose, power, and passion of Paul’s life.
This declaration poses a test for us:
“For me to live is ______________; to die is ______________.”
We fill in the blanks…
“For me to live is money--to die is to leave it all behind.”
“For me to live is popularity and prestige--to die is to be forgotten.”
“For me to live is pleasure--to die is the worst possible end of the party.”
“For me to live is power--to die is to lose it all.”
“For me to live is everything--to die is to cease to exist.”
Do we see death as our enemy, or as a gift? It's not easy to share Paul's ambivalence; let's at least try for his faith.
New & Notable Book Reviews
10 hours ago | <urn:uuid:04dd4417-b77e-4887-8c8c-b58d4bd976b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cliftondalecc.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948974 | 265 | 1.570313 | 2 |
During my last game (Emperor, tech victory, playing the Greeks) I managed to build the Manhattan Project, giving me a free nuke. Some turns later, I got the report that the Egyptians were 7 leaders/wonders away from winning a cultural victory.
Since I was in a democracy, congress prevent me from using the nuke. I went into anarchy, launched the nuke on Egypt's main city (5 wonders + 2 leaders, it wasn't their capital) completely wiping it of the map. The result? Egypt was set back severely in their attempt to win a cultural victory, and I suffered NO consequences. Nothing at all. I wasn't at war with the Egyptians. Nuking their city apparantly doesn't trigger a war. And since I was in Anarchy for one turn, I suffered no cultural penalty either. Next turn I switched back to Democracy, happily sold my Atomic Theory tech to the Egyptians I had just nuked, and went on my merry way to win the Space Race.
This has got to be an unintended bug. Other than having to be in anarchy for a mere 1 turn, there are no drawbacks for using a nuke. | <urn:uuid:57789dd9-40f6-4264-9c48-cc2c2881d3c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?18279-Using-Nukes-without-suffering-the-consequences&p=300579 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971172 | 240 | 1.5 | 2 |
Why Grayson Perry’s British Museum show is sensational
There are eight million objects in the British Museum. Which mean the most to you?
This is a question answered by Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry in his new show, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, opening later this week. Perry was given his pick of the museum’s collection and over the course of two years whittled his favourite 1,000 objects down to 170.
His starting point was the kind of themes he likes to explore in his work – pilgrimage, craftsmanship, sexuality and gender… So in a way he operated in the opposite direction to most artists who are invited to respond to a museum’s collection. And he chose objects which responded to his work, rather than the other way round.
So we find pilgrim souvenirs such as modern badges and medieval lead-alloy brooches, a 250,000-year-old flint hand-axe, folk costumes, a Russian icon and even a Hello Kitty hand towel.
But as well as choosing artefacts from the museum’s collection, Perry has also produced his own new work inspired by the collection, such as the title piece, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, a monumental cast-iron sculpture in the form of a ship, cleverly referencing the museum’s collection, much of which comes from tombs and was created by unknown artists, whilst also cheekily drawing attention to Perry’s own status as a major art-world celebrity – a status presumably crucial to his invitation to curate the show.
Of course, by now it’s a long-standing convention for a museum or gallery to invite a contemporary artist to respond to and interact with its collection. But it’s become much more popular over the last few years as there’s been an increased focus on opening up our museums to wider audiences.
So The National Gallery and the V&A have both tried it – as has the British Museum, albeit on a much smaller scale to this new show. The appeal is quite simple – this kind of initiative is a highly effective way of giving a collection which can seem old and fusty a contemporary relevance and making it feel very much alive.
But there’s another point to be made here. Inviting contemporary artists like Grayson Perry to curate a show predominantly made up of objects from the British Museum’s collection is also representative of a new focus on the role of the curator which has been sweeping museums and galleries for the last few years. These days, a definitive detailing of information about an exhibit is often seen as less important than individual interpretation – for better or worse.
One of the most effective shows I’ve seen in recent weeks was Cornelia Parker’s selection and display of works from the Government Art Collection at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London. By settling on a colour-coded selection and display, Parker delivers a stunning and totally unique show which is very much informed by her own sensibility as an artist. And it’s hard to think of a more straight, less curator-led approach being half as effective.
But it has to be said that there’s a downside to this fashion to focus on the curator. Much of the criticism of the recent Modern British Sculpture show at the Royal Academy and the Miró exhibition at Tate Modern centred on both shows being too curator-led – at the expense of the work itself.
In the case of Modern British Sculpture, the title suggested a definitive overview of the form when instead what we were given was the no less fascinating take of the two curators – but one which left many visitors feeling cheated by the many omissions in the supposed survey. And in the case of the Miró, many critics felt that a heavy focus on the perceived political motivation behind the work was at times laboured – and didn’t allow the work to speak for itself.
On the other hand, maybe a sharper focus on the curatorial voice is simply more honest – as an exhibition can only ever be the product of one (or two) individual’s choices and tastes. And in the case of the Grayson Perry show, concentrating on the way that an artist rather than an expert interacts with a collection sends out a clear message to the viewer.
Not only does it tell us that what we’re experiencing here is the product of Perry’s inner world – but that our own inner worlds matter too. And that we shouldn’t be afraid of following through or even expressing our own personal and inevitably subjective responses to the work. Particularly as Perry’s own personality is such a strong and unavoidable presence throughout the show.
The overall effect is an empowerment of the viewer – made all the more impactful by the fact that the exhibition is taking place in one of our most revered institutions, the British Museum, which is often seen as an unassailable bastion of high culture and learning.
As the artist himself told me earlier today, “Big institutions like this can be very intimidating. People think there’s a right way and everything in them has got to be good and correct and true. And I want to say, your opinion counts too. Of course there are experts, but you don’t have to like everything, you don’t have to agree with everything, you can make your own choices, your own world, your own culture out of it.”
Hopefully, visitors to The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsmen will come out of the exhibition not just thinking that they’ve seen a sensational show – which it is. But they’ll also come out thinking about which of the British Museum’s eight million objects they would have selected for their own exhibition. If they do, then the exhibition really will have succeeded.
Follow Matthew Cain on Twitter | <urn:uuid:b239a8ef-1c46-48b2-b992-96f7b73d85c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.channel4.com/culture/1726/1726?intcmp=rss_news_perspectives_rise_in_china | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973688 | 1,218 | 1.617188 | 2 |
16 churches from 6 Copenhagen deaneries have been listed for closure by the Diocesan Council of Copenhagen. The main reason given is demographic changes over the years leading to underuse and overspending to keep ailing churches alive.
“In the course of the last 50 years the population has decreased markedly in many areas,” says Bishop of Copenhagen, Peter Skov-Jakobsen in a press release. “It has been a difficult decision. These churches contain many feelings, for here people have worshipped and rejoiced over new births and new loves and mourned their losses and sad memories. But the Diocesan Council has agreed unanimously that we must adapt to the changing circumstances.
Chair of the Copenhagen Diocesan Council, Inge Lise Pedersen, adds that closing some churches will strengthen others nearby.
Aalholm Kirke fights for its life
In the coming months the 16 churches will be able to argue their case before the list is handed to the Minister for Church Affairs, Manu Sareen, in November for the final decision. One church that will fight its corner is Aalholm Kirke in the suburb of Valby, where Pastor Ole Petersen finds it difficult to understand the decision to close his church. “We have on average 45 churchgoers at Sunday service“, he tells the daily, Berlingske Tidende. “We are financially viable, and have an active congregational life. The decision is simply wrong.”
Aalholm Parish Council is fighting the diocesan decision. On their website and elsewhere they are drumming up support with 4 major reasons for staying open:
- You don’t close a ’branch’ that is making a profit; you close one that isn’t.
- There are 5 other churches in our deanery with a lower membership percentage than ours, which is 69.17 %. A number of other parishes also have fewer members to keep their church running, whereas Aalholm has 5,142 church members.
- Aalholm Kirke was built through house-to-house collections during the 1930s. It really is ’our church’, and it would be immoral, almost a theft, to take it from us.
- Our budgets have always been sensible and stuck to, whereas other parishes have spent millions on community centres, modernising or renovating their churches, buying expensive works of art etc. | <urn:uuid:58977043-28a0-4c50-b903-53ac654bc41e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.protestantnews.eu/denmark/15923 | 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 | 0.96463 | 505 | 1.640625 | 2 |
I need to have an image printed as a poster 32″ by 18″ (about 80x45 cm) at 300 DPI, but I am unsure of how big the file must be.
Also, what file format is best?
The straightforward answer to your question is very simple arithmetic: 32×300 = 9600 and 18×300 = 5400, so 32 inches by 18 inches at 300 dots per inch is 9600 by 5400.
However, it gets a little more complicated when you consider a more complicated relationship between pixels and colored dots in your output medium. For details on this, take a look at jrista's answer to a similar question: What DPI should I resize my image to for best printing quality?, at What does DPI mean?, and at Is there a general formula for image size vs. print size?
Also consider that 300dpi may be overkill for a poster, unless you expect your viewers to come right up to it and look closely. A much lower resolution will look great from a few feet away.
It sounds like you're doing something specific, though. In that case, the best answer is to ask your print service what they recommend — and the same thing goes for file format (and color space, a whole 'nuther can of worms).
If your print service offers multiple file types as an option, lossless TIFF or PNG will ensure that you don't introduce additional JPEG artifacts, but in practical terms you can get excellent results from a high-quality JPEG. (With high enough JPEG quality and no repeated edits, you probably will not be able to find experts who could tell the difference in a blind test.) | <urn:uuid:4f4bc510-1214-4dae-b9b8-103567451f56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/20856/how-large-an-image-do-i-need-to-print-a-32-by-18-poster-at-300-dpi?answertab=oldest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954364 | 343 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Handel: The Sonatas for Violin and Continuo
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
David Schrader, harpsichord
John Mark Rozendaal, cello
Cedille Records CDR 90000 032
Handel's violin sonatas, familiar to violinists and chamber audiences, have been inexplicably neglected on disc. These intimate, inviting sonatas show the seldom-heard side of Handel's genius.
The violin sonatas span Handel's long career, from the early, Corelli-inspired G Major Sonata, HWV358 (c. 1706-8) to the exciting Sonata in D major (c. 1750). On the CD, the works are sequenced for a pleasing progression of key relationships and mood changes.
The CD opens and closes with sonatas that are authentically Handel's and written expressly for violin: the Sonata in A Major (HWV371), notable for its virtuosic treatment of violin and continuo parts and its noble melodic lines. Handel's last violin sonata, it's widely considered his masterpiece in the genre.
Scholars agree that some sonatas were erroneously attributed to Handel. Three of these are included in the program (HWV368, 370, and 372). "Regardless of authorship, they are very beautiful and well worth playing and hearing," cellist Rozendaal writes in the CD booklet. Another, the Sonata in E major (HWV373) is excluded, "not because of its questionable authorship but because of its inferior quality," he adds.
The program also includes several fine (and authentic) pieces from the 1724-26 period: the Sonatas in d-minor (HWV359a) and g-minor (HWV364a), the a-minor Andante (HWV412) and the c-minor Allegro (HWV408)
These performances are "historically informed," employing a combination of 18th-century and modern practices and equipment. Ms. Barton Pine plays a 1617 Amati violin, in "modern" condition with steel strings. Mr. Rozendaal plays a 1740 cello in restored Baroque condition with gut strings. The bows used are reproductions of 18th-century models. Mr. Schrader plays a 1983 US-built harpsichord based on one in the museum of the Conservatoire National de Paris.
"GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL: THE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND CONTINUO"
by John Mark Rozendaal
Handel's solo sonatas for violin, oboe, flute and recorder are less
celebrated works of a major master composer. Yet their beauty has
earned for them a cherished place in the repertoire of instrumentalists
as works both satisfying to play and effective for audiences.
Handel's surviving violin sonatas span his entire career, beginning
with the brilliant HWV358 in G major (c. 1706-08), and ending with
the great D-Major sonata of c. 1750, HWV371. Unfortunately, nothing
is known of the occasions for which these works were created or
their first performances. However, careful study of the autograph
manuscripts has allowed scholars to establish dates of composition
with some accuracy.
HWV358 survives in a manuscript that dates from Handel's brief Hanover
residence (1710). Its style suggests it was composed previously,
however, possibly early in Handel's Italian sojourn (1706-09). While
in Rome, Handel received the support of the Arcadian Academy, a
group of the most prestigious patrons of the arts in the eternal
city. His work in the palaces of Prince Ruspoli, Cardinal Pamphili,
and Cardinal Ottoboni brought him into collaboration with Arcangelo
Corelli, the most influential violinist of the time. Corelli's impassioned
playing and refined Apollonian style of composition became the ideal
for violinists throughout the eighteenth century. Personal contact
with this paragon clearly influenced Handel's concept of writing
for the violin. Corelli participated in the first performances of
some of Handel's works; he was concertmaster for the famous 1708
production of Handel's oratorio La Resurrezione. It is tempting
to imagine that Handel composed HWV358 for Corelli, perhaps as an
offering at one of the meetings of the Arcadian Academy. The theatrical
brilliance of the piece suggests an ear-opening prelude to a sumptuous
cantata or serenata. Yet the style of this early sonata - virtuosic
fast movements connected by a brief linking Largo - suggests that
Handel had not completely absorbed the more lyrical Corellian approach
to the violin and the sonata genre.
Corelli's influence is more clearly heard in the beautiful sonatas
of 1724-26, with their extended cantabile slow movements. These
sonatas all conform to the sonata da chiesa (church sonata) layout
typified in the second part of Corelli's Opus V. Each sonata consists
of four movements arranged in a slow-fast-slow-fast order, with
the fast movements most often in canzona style (fugue-like, with
imitative entries), only occasionally in the form of a dance movement.
A number of these works (including HWV371) were published c. 1730
by John Walsh in a collection entitled Twelve Sonatas or Solo's
for the German Flute, Hautboy and Violin, and sometimes referred
to as "Opus I" (six of these were for violin). Walsh's
earliest publications of Handel's music were not authorized, and
much confusion has been caused by Walsh's unscrupulous methods.
In an effort to conceal his involvement in this pirated edition,
Walsh's first printing of the collection carried a fraudulent title
page indicating that it was published by the Amsterdam printer Etienne
Roger in 1724. The collection also includes a number of sonatas
which are almost certainly not by Handel. We have included three
of these in our program (HWV368, 370, 372). Regardless of authorship,
they are very beautiful, well worth playing and hearing. The sonata
in E-major, HWV373 is excluded from our program, however, not because
of its questionable authorship, but because of its inferior quality.
Special mention should be made of several fine pieces from the 1724-26
period that do not appear in their original form in the Walsh publication
(the sonatas are in Walsh but transcribed for different instruments):
the sonatas in d-minor (HWV359a) and g-minor (HWV364a), the a-minor
Andante (HWV412) and the c-minor Allegro (HWV408). These relatively
little-known works, all surviving in autograph manuscripts in the
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, (and therefore securely attributed
to Handel) have much to recommend them. Note the lively Italianate
dialogues between the violin and the bass line in the second movements
of both sonatas; the broad lyricism of the Andante; and the Beethovenian
drive of the c-minor Allegro.
Handel returned to the violin sonata one last time, around 1750,
to compose his masterpiece in the genre: the Sonata in D-Major (HWV371).
This exciting piece, unpublished in the composer's lifetime, surpasses
its siblings in its virtuosic treatment of both parts and the nobility
of its melodic lines. Handel thought so highly of this work that
he reused its last movement in the oratorio Jephtha to give special
brilliance to the appearance of the angel.
The performers on this recording have attempted to create historically
informed performances using a combination of 18th-century and modern
practices and equipment. Ms. Barton's violin was made in 1617 by
Nicolo Amati (see note below); it is in "modern" condition,
strung with steel strings. The cello is the work of the Roman maker
Jacobus Horil from circa 1740, in restored baroque condition with
gut strings. The bows used are modern reproductions of early 18th-century
models. The double-manual harpsichord used in this recording was
built in 1983 by Lawrence G. Eckstein of West Lafayette, Indiana.
It is based on the Dumont-Taskin harpsichord which is kept in the
museum of the Conservatoire National de Paris. It has two sets of
unison-pitched strings and one set tuned an octave higher. Extensive
work on the instrument's action was carried out by Paul Y. Irvin.
The pitch used in this recording is the modern standard of A=440.
Given this mixed approach, the listener may ask whether this is
an "authentic" rendition or a "modern" one.
In fact, our performances are probably more conditioned by our particular
temperaments, attitudes, and training (including performance practice
study) than by any of the conditions noted above. The truth is,
we strive, as all artists should, to reveal beauty in the music
by whatever means seem best; and that is the most important authenticity.
About the Violin
Rachel Barton plays the "ex-Lobkowicz" Antonius &
Hieronymous Amati of Cremona, 1617, on generous loan from her patron.
The Seal of the Lobkowicz Family on the back of the violin identifies
it as one of the instruments held by this illustrious European family.
Prince Lobkowicz was a significant patron of Beethoven.
The Amati family is responsible for the violin as we know it today.
Andreas Amati invented the violin c. 1550. His sons Antonius and
Hieronymous, known as the Brothers Amati, brought violin making
forward into the 17th century. Hieronymous's son Nicolo continued
to nearly the end of the 17th century and was the teacher of Andreas
Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari.
The violin Miss Barton plays is a particularly fine example of the
makers' work and is excellently preserved. The top is formed from
two pieces of spruce showing fine grain broadening toward the flanks.
The back is formed from two pieces of semi-slab cut maple with narrow
curl ascending slightly from left to right. The ribs and the original
scroll are of similar stock. The varnish is golden-brown in color.
"Violinist Rachel Barton triumphs in her first release for
the Cedille label
Indeed, Rachel Barton's wonderfully vital
Handel performances bring us some of the most refreshing, life-enhancing
Baroque playing heard in years."
"The exuberance of Barton's ornamentation, the naturalness
of her lyricism in these consummately melodic Sonatas, and her technical
command in general (and of nuanced and fleet bowings and clean intonation
in particular) are complemented by the skill and energy of the continuo
support, which never diverts attention from the soloist's starring
role... Recommended. Period."
"[Rachel Barton] is one of the rare mainstream performers
with a total grasp of Baroque style and embellishment, and the whole
disc is a delight
The exhilarating bravura of her incisive
articulation and sharply pointed rhythms is matched by Barton's
singing line in her poised and elegant lyrical movements. Superb
continuo players David Schrader and John Mark Rozendaal contribute
to the real sense of ensemble teamwork."
have gotten inside this procedure [of ornamentation] as convincingly
as violinist Rachel Barton. Her playing is splendid on all levels
- lovely tone, wonderfully expressive phrasing, secure technique,
and strong involvement with the music. But the most unusual aspect
of Barton's Handel is the convincing and imaginative way she embellishes
the repeats in the music - adding runs, ornaments, and flourishes
that give a different aspect to a phrase we've just recently heard
They help to enliven a cherishable disc."
"A spritely partnership between violin and cello, with deft
rhythmic accompaniment on harpsichord
The music's virtuosic
character is rendered with superb, resonant double and triple stopping
and de-emphasized dance motion in the allegros. Barton lets the
music's raw, improvised feeling hang out a little, giving the recording
a refreshing zest."
"[Rachel Barton] uses a baroque bow with her modernized 17th-Century
violin, making a wonderfully warm yet still focused sound, and her
passage work is brilliant yet lyrical - much like the cascades of
a coloratura - and her ornamentation is both thoughtful and virtuosic.
This is a wonderful recording."
American Record Guide
"With two excellent partners, Rachel Barton has given us an
edition of Handel's Violin Sonatas that is one of the more gratifying
recordings of Baroque violin music in the current catalogs."
Editorial Review - Amazon.com | <urn:uuid:14919a87-2898-4d70-a247-7546b7c4116a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cedillerecords.org/music/product_info.php?products_id=497 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935827 | 2,877 | 1.5 | 2 |
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Russian Protestants Again Under Fire
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, western missionaries have had almost an open door to evangelize in Russia. Protestant congregations have been established and much humanitarian relief has flowed into prisons and orphanages. Protestant leaders rejoiced at this window of opportunity but knew in the back of their minds that it probably would not last.
During the Soviet era, all religions were outlawed, although many leaders of the Russian Orthodox cooperated with the government for survival. KGB agents also infiltrated the Orthodox ranks. Now, during the tenure of President Vladimir Putin, he has pushed hard to restore pride in Russian nationalism. Therefore, since the Russian Orthodox church has been the national church for several hundred years prior to the Soviet era, restoring its status and influence is a significant part of rebuilding national pride.
And since Russian Orthodoxy is a part of the ritualistic, priestcraft-centered block of false Christianity similar to Roman Catholicism, it is not about to tolerate the presence of true Bible believers. Satan’s strategy of aligning a false religion with a totalitarian government is as old as Rome. True Christians have had to flee to the caves from this strategy for most of history. The few hundred years of religious freedom enjoyed in modern times is an exception in the overall scope of history.
Russian Christians are not alone in feeling pressure from governments to restrict soul winning. Laws against “proselytizing” are being enacted in most countries that have a government-favored religion.
Their greatest fear is soul winning because they see the superior spiritual power of the gospel over these satanic religions.
This is true of all the Islamic nations, the Hindu and Buddhist countries of the Orient and even Roman Catholic cultures. None of these can compete with the gospel in lifting people out of the bondage of sin.
It is estimated that more than 50,000 Christians die each year for their faith. American Christians enjoy a freedom and safety not available to most of the rest of the world.
Yet few have ever won a soul to Christ or even bothered to leave a gospel tract where someone might find it and get saved. Jesus said in John 9:4 that He had to work while it was day because the night was coming “when no man can work.”
In fact, it was the Jewish religious leaders who persuaded the Roman government officials to crucify Jesus. Our times are similar. Attacks are mounting on our freedom to witness from sodomites, Islam and even Roman Catholicism.
Soul winners, we need to redouble our efforts and recruit others to join us!
©1984-2013 Chick Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Some portions of www.chick.com are copyrighted by others and reproduced by permission,. as indicated by copyright notices on individual pages. | <urn:uuid:fbe4199e-68ee-461f-a8b3-62e48b507401> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chick.com/bc/2008/russia.asp | 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 | 0.961814 | 575 | 1.601563 | 2 |
When it comes to beverages it’s important to remember that you are what you eat. Or more specifically in this case, you are what you drink. Just as important as the solid food you consume on a daily basis, you should think about drinks and beverages as well. There are far too many people who enjoy on healthy options these days such as soft drinks or juices loaded in sugar. This is definitely going to have an impact on a wide variety of factors, and your skin is one of them. How long do you think you’ll be able to get away with drinking highly caffeinated beverages that are loaded with natural ingredients? Just as drinking water can benefit your skin by hydrating it naturally, soft drinks, coffee, and beer can have the opposite effect. It’s time to get back on track with better looking skin by utilizing beverages in a smart way.
Obviously water is the best thing you can drink, and any alternative close to it is a good second choice. But the farther you get away from natural water, you increase your chances of drinking something unhealthy for your skin. So stay away from energy drinks or things that contain artificial ingredients. In most cases, a natural fruit juice with no added sugar is a great way to go. These types of drinks can replenish your skin while giving your body essential nutrients and minerals for a natural repair. Best of all, fresh fruit juice tastes great and it’s something you can put together quite easily on your own.
Another great alternative is something like green tea that comes with antioxidant properties that are perfect for helping you with how to get rid of acne. Green tea that is naturally steeped at the perfect temperature can really reduce stress in your skin and promote proper healing. It can also balance your inner chemistry to keep hormones in check and limit oil production on your face. By incorporating these healthier elements and getting rid of high calorie drinks, your skin will start to look better and feel rejuvenated. | <urn:uuid:22b35540-13af-43d8-bb38-d46c686d52c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hotbeverages.org/tag/beverages | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95828 | 399 | 1.789063 | 2 |
© 2005-2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). All rights reserved worldwide.
Lori Baur, Cancer Patient/Survivor, Breast Cancer
Lori Baur is an eight-year breast cancer survivor. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32. In 2007 the cancer returned and in 2009, she found out her breast cancer had spread and was incurable. At that time Lori, wife of musician Fredi Meli, was a master's level music therapist, licensed creative arts therapist and an adjunct faculty member at New York University.
Lori began painting again after her mastectomy in 2008. “I listened to music and put colors on the page as I felt drawn to them. I painted this specific piece while listening to an aria called Bachiana Brasielieras by composer Villa Lobos,” she said. “I felt my soul and creative spirit rise up and fill me with life as I painted. Eventually a butterfly emerged.”
“Now, while I live with metastatic breast cancer, I continue to reach towards hope, and I find my life force is best manifested in my creativity,” said Lori.
More information about the Expressions of Hope calendar is available at www.cancer.net/expressionsofhope. | <urn:uuid:4b5881d5-91b7-412d-b122-c7aa9961e239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cancer.net/survivorship/survivorship-artwork/meet-2011-expressions-hope-calendar-artists/august-2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968068 | 271 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Student Development and Activities is home to more than 50 recognized
student organizations. See below a brief list of organizations and their mission statements.
You don't see what you are looking for? Create it. We can help.
Pre-Professional and Academic Interest [+]
Association for International Development (AID)
The Association for International Development [AID] at The New School addresses issues above and beyond international development. We gather international affairs practitioners, NGOs, grassroots advocates, and members of the academic community in the same venue. [AID] is designed for students who wish to develop a professional or academic interest in the issues surrounding of international affairs.
City Services Lab
The City Services Lab begins with the notion that alternative practices need to be seen as crucial urban services. We expand the idea of who serves the city and who should and can be contributors to the city. We recognize the role of the artist, the activist, and all people serving the city in both traditional and nontraditional ways. We position our organization within the evolving city, to strengthen and realize the potential of all those engaged with the city.
Given a culture that is increasingly reliant on digital technologies to display information and create products, and given also that there is no community that focuses on this technology aspect at The New School, the Code Club is a place for students of all departments to join and learn the skills and gain the understanding necessary to become the most proficient programmers they can be.
Fostering an environment of learning, networking, and collaborating, dorkShop is a series of student-led, skill-sharing workshops. The purpose of dorkShop is to facilitate the exchange of creative ideas and help develop an individual's skills and strengths within an informed and interested community.
Dress Practice Collective
The Dress Practice Collective is a multi-disciplinary student organization that explores the ways in which dress and fashion intersect with and transform human experience, cultures, and social structure. The Dress Practice Collective explores these concepts by engaging a variety of mediums, from films and exhibits to publications and workshops.
Entertainment and Film Production Organization (EFPO)
The Entertainment and Film Production Organization (EFPO) aims to create a structured framework for students to collaborate on film projects. The organization functions to produce films written, directed, captured, edited, and scored solely by students at The New School. Screenplays advocating social justice or progressive representations are given special consideration.
New School Science Club
The club offers a supportive environment for students interested in science. Members share class discussions, articles, books, events, news, and questions with each other, learning to think critically as a community about science, technology, ethics, and policy.
Phenomenology Research Group
Hosted by the Department of Philosophy at The New School, the Phenomenology Research Group is an interdisciplinary and multi-departmental group among the Consortium of New York City universities interested in the phenomenological tradition. The group's membership is open to any graduate student of any department and includes members of the philosophy department, historical studies, media studies, and politics. Membership is also open to students outside of the university who express an interest in the phenomenological tradition.
PhotoFeast is a student organization at The New School. Its programming presents new perspectives and emerging insights in the visual and media arts and beyond. Its mission is to create a dialogue concerning how contemporary art is being shaped and interpreted. In response to emphasizing these ideas, PhotoFeast will host lectures, workshops, panels, and various events to generate in-depth conversations.
The Psychoanalytic Workshop at The New School is a student-based initiative that emerged from the Department of Philosophy to encourage and foster intellectual exchange and innovative scholarship among graduate students in preparation for professional academic careers. The workshop aims to build a community of critical discourse within the New York metropolitan area by inviting scholars from local and international institutions to present a paper and participate in a subsequent one-hour discussion. The workshop typically holds three to four meetings per semester.
SOMOS OLA is a platform and space for students to engage with urgent
issues related to Latin America. In addition to action, SOMOS OLA
fulfills diverse interests with regard to the Latin American region and
its impact on the global context.
The New Voice
The mission of The New Voice Toastmasters Club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every individual member has the opportunity to develop oral communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.
Social and Special Interest [+]
American Sign Language Organization
The American Sign Language Organization is a way for hearing and deaf
students at The New School to come together and learn about deaf
culture, as well as learn a variety of words and phrases in American
Sign Language. As the third most common language in America, students
will be able to expand their horizons by using their face, hands, and
body to communicate with others.
Asian Student Society
The mission of the Asian Student Society at The New School is to bring together students from and/or interested in Asia to create a safe, inclusive, and empowering space that provides mutual support, facilitates interdisciplinary engagement and cultural exchange, and thereby enhances the representation of the Asian community at The New School.
DREAM:IN NY’s mission is to collect people’s dreams as a way to build a canvas for creative thinking. The organization creates a dynamic database of dreams gathered within the university and the five boroughs of New York City to act as a source of inspiration for social innovation. We mobilize these dreams, talents, and resources through our workshops whereby members and select external experts will collaborate and identify areas of opportunity to generate viable solutions and implementation strategies. Original ideas that address social well-being will be carried from vision to realization.
We make things. Real, tangible things. We learn how the world works by taking things apart, reconfiguring and reusing them. We find creative ways to connect the digital and physical worlds within art and design.
New School Bikes
Our mission is to promote bicycling beyond its recreational value as a sustainable alternative mode of transport.
The mission of Nuev@ Latin@ is to create an open and safe learning environment for Latinas and allies, allowing us to become educated about our culture and our growing stature within the Unites States. We focus on Latina issues without the exclusion of other cultures and share the passions we have for life with those around us. More importantly, we create a university-wide community of Latinas and allies that remains with us long after our college years.
New School Game Club
The New School Game Club
promotes the study and appreciation of games within the entire New
School community, and serves as an outreach and contact point for the
New York City game design community.
New School Students for Sustainable Cities
Join a group of New School students dedicated to exploring and expanding
the links between the sustainability community in New York City and
sustainability resources at The New School. Its main interests are
renewable/sustainable energy, environmental justice, food issues,
transportation systems, waste systems, responsible consumption,
community engagement, and whimsy.
New School Urban Forestry Club
Our mission is to maintain and build a greener and healthier campus by
taking care of the trees in our urban environment. The Urban Forestry
Club engages the school's community to be responsible for the trees in
the surroundings and enhance their benefits by stewardship activities.
The group also brings awareness of the importance of the green
infrastructure in urban areas and builds a community of students with a
common interest that benefits their environment.
NSFP Forum is an organization run by members of The New School Free
Press. We intend to foster community at The New School and its
surrounding city and create a link between students, faculty, and staff
and the members of the press who cover the university. We want to create
a level of involvement for members of the university and break down the
barrier between the members of the university and the Free Press.
Sisters on the Runway at The New School
Domestic violence is a serious problem in our society that does not get enough recognition or attention. Every day, thousands of cases of abuse towards women go unreported. There are shelters that help women and children with the psychological and physical pain associated with abuse as well as offer a place to live and job training. These shelters need donations in order to continue their good work. We, as students, want to help our neighbors in need. Sisters on the Runway at The New School strives to raise funds and awareness for these shelters by involving our communities in fundraising efforts.
Slow Food TNS
We are engaging The New School community to create access to good, clean, and fair food by creating a space for members to gather in a social setting and centered around food. We create an opportunity for students to afford and enjoy healthy food that is locally sourced and homemade on a student budget in an expensive city and within a student schedule where time is precious. We create opportunities for people to learn about the local food system and food cultures and practices of our peers.
Students for Social Justice
Students for Social Justice seeks to foster and encourage dialogue on social justice perspectives. It aims to create a supportive and inclusive environment for students of various backgrounds and those passionate about serving underrepresented groups and communities.
Students of the African Diaspora (SOAD)
SOAD provides, secures, and creates a space that fosters production and growth, exchange, support, mentorship, activism, critical engagement, and consciousness-building and awareness-raising among students of the African Diaspora and the New School community at large.
Political Action and Advocacy [+]
This organization aims to destigmatize mental health disorders by promoting open, enlightened discussion of mental health and to create a better life for all who suffer. It also serves to capitalize on the energy and dedication of young adults in the fight against the stigma that surrounds mental health disorders, and to educate, enlighten, and empower all young adults to ensure their own mental health before it ever reaches a tragic stage.
Feminist Collective is a coalition of
students who challenge gendered oppression through inquiry, education,
and activism within the university and beyond. By confronting pervasive
injustices like sexual violence, harassment, exclusion, and repression
we work towards fostering a more safe, respectful, and liberated
community of individuals. We insist that feminist politics and ethics be
considered seriously by our university, and together we confront the
fundamental problems of social organization while honoring the founding
principles of this educational institution and its commitment to civic
Global Migration Group
The Global Migration Group brings awareness and direct advocacy of global migration issues to The New School community and beyond, creating a dynamic forum for dialogue across diverse disciplines and cultures.
New School Student Democrats
New School Student Democrats is a political organization created for
students for who desire progressive political change. We work to provide
students with opportunities to be politically active at the grassroots
level, organizing students to give back to their community with days of
service and to campaign for change. We hope to encourage political
activism within the entire body of The New School and open our doors to
students from any political affiliation.
New School Students for Justice in Palestine
New School Students for Justice in Palestine is a student organization advocating solidarity with existing Palestinian movements for self determination, justice in Palestine in accordance with International Law and Human Rights regimes, and democratic society in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Platypus Affiliated Society
Platypus is a project for the self-criticism, self-education, and, ultimately, the practical reconstitution of a Marxian Left. At present the Marxist Left appears as a historical ruin.
ReNew School is a group of students dedicated to advancing the cause of sustainability on campus and engaging the student body and administration in efforts to fulfill the university's commitment to environmental stewardship. The group acts in three capacities: (1) informing students on environmental issues and giving these students the tools and connections to pursue their interests and goals, (2) aiding the administration in achieving its sustainability goals, and (3) connecting the university as a whole to other local, national, and global groups dedicated to sustainability.
V-Day at The New School
V-Day is a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention to the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery. Through V-Day campaigns, V-Day at The New School produces annual benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, Any One Of Us: Words From Prison, screenings of V-Day's documentary Until The Violence Stops, and Spotlight Teach-ins to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within our local community.
International Interest [+]
Chinese Student and Scholar Association
The Chinese Student and Scholar Association aims to enhance the connection between the Chinese community and The New School. It is dedicated to provide support and resources for Chinese students and scholars and serves as a platform for the interaction of the Chinese community. We promote cultural exchange through organized activities.
We are a student body represented by The New School representing the Greek community. We want to collaborate with students from around the greater New York area to promote positive networking platforms for different fundraising organizations in the Greek community and among students themselves.
Hong Kong Student Association
The Hong Kong Student Association helps Hong Kong students of The New
School to create a network of friends from a familiar culture. HKSA
strives to help Hong Kong students adjust to New York and provides an
introductory platform for students from other cultures to get to know
International Club strives to foster the international community at The New School. Through collaboration with other clubs, outside organization, and our own activities, we provide immersion into a multitude of cultures.
International Student Advisory Board (ISAB)
The International Student Advisory Board (ISAB) holds an open forum for students to voice feedback concerning New School services, websites, programs, and outreach. The purpose of ISAB is to make studying at The New School and living in New York a better experience for international students. Our meetings provide a forum for exchange, discussion, leadership, and collaboration.
New French Connection
The purpose of this organization is to experience French culture in an informal and engaging way. The group aims to enrich campus life by creating a community that celebrates Francophone culture and language.
The mission of Project Africa is to promote a greater understanding and increase cross-cultural awareness of the continent and its people. Through its efforts, it seeks to inspire students to further their knowledge of Africa through constructive dialogue, personal research, or interdisciplinary engagement.
Taiwanese Student Association
The mission of this club is to provide opportunities for Taiwanese students at The New School to meet other Taiwanese students in the city, and to provide assistance and advice for adjusting to the life in New York.
Art, Music, Performance [+]
BriCollab Art Initiative
The BriCollab Art Initiative at the New School is a DIY art initiative which encourages all New School students to see each others' works and give/receive feedback by organizing meetings where they can show their finished works or works-in-progress, curate student-run themed conventional and/or alternative exhibitions, produce new works collaboratively, organize theoretical and practical workshops in an exchange system, and sponsor art-related field trips and talks. The objectives of the initiative are to improve dialogue, artistic practices, and to provide opportunity to display art works of members regardless of the degree they are pursuing and to develop interpersonal, leadership, and organizational skills as well as building a well-connected community at the New School.
Collective Arts Club
Creating a platform for artists and makers of all kinds to share work, events, ideas, inspire discussions, find materials, and everything else in-between.
Diversity Works is a student-initiated, student-run university organization seeking to utilize theatrical arts to explore issues of diversity in thought, history, and/or culture. It also aims to act as a platform for underrepresented student artist to express/celebrate their diverse gifts/talents.
Experimental Writing Collective (EWC)
The EWC's mission is to create a community around the exploration of primarily
poetry but also other modes of art at The New School. We want to promote
both experimentation through poetics and shared dialogues with other
writers outside the classroom setting. The idea is to think of
ourselves not only as students, but as contemporary writers working
together to advance our art.
Fashion Design and Textiles Group
This group aims to further expose students to various skills in the fashion design area outside of the classroom experience. Many students, not only at Parsons, but also in other The New School major programs, have strong interests in learning and practicing new fashion design and textiles knowledge and skills; but the busy time schedules and huge workloads make them difficult to find time and resources to do so. Therefore, we aim to fill those gaps and fulfill the students’ needs through the various workshops and lectures organized through this group.
Filmmakers United is an organization that promotes and encourages community among students, professors, artists, musicians, and independent filmmakers who share a passion for media studies and film production including, screenwriting, film production, editing, music, multimedia design and more. Our mission is to foster a respectful, inclusive, and participatory atmosphere through which its members can receive and give feedback, share resources, exchange ideas, gain production experience, and build their own reels and/or portfolios.
MFA Collective Works
MFA Collective Works acts in the interests of the MFA Fine Arts students, and the broader Parsons community within the New School. Our mission is to:
- offer events, workshops, and discussions on issues related to visual art practice, research, exhibition, and professional development
- connect and network between Parsons Fine Arts students and the broader New School community
- provide support and community-building to students, faculty, and staff interested in visual culture at New School and the broader society
- connect the work of artists at Parsons with the vibrant New York arts community
Musical Theatre Organization (MTO)
MTO is the musical theater organization within The New School community. Our mission is to create a company capable of performing throughout the school and the city. We are a group of performers, directors, stage hands and managers, costumers, musicians, theatre lovers, composers, writers, and dramaturges who use our talents to create cabarets and full-scale musical theater productions. If you are interested in joining us please send us an email and we can set up a meeting.
New Light Opera
To bring the opportunity of vocal performance to the New School community in a setting that educates students in all aspects of how an opera company runs.
New School Improv
Our mission is to practice and promote improvisation as an art form. We will foster a safe environment where students can engage in spontaneous, creative, and rewarding performances. We will provide an opportunity to build confidence in the classroom, the workforce, and everyday communication.
The Theatre Collective works to supports student theater artists in pursuing their theatrical endeavors whether it is in the form of creating original works, reviving established pieces, or experimenting in different roles in the theatrical process. The collective aims to provide students with the resources necessary to build projects of their own vision.
Faith-based, Religious, Spiritual [+]
Ecclésia Christian Ministry
Ecclésia Christian Ministry is a graduate and undergraduate student group founded for the purpose of providing all students at The New School a place to learn about living an authentic Christian life where we experience the love of God and are transformed to impact the world. We want to have an international perspective on the Christian faith by looking at the global church, hosting scholarly seminars on faith and culture, and serving our campus, local communities, and beyond. We also want to explore how we can express our faith creatively through the use of art, music, and media.
Faith and Fashion
We are an inter-denominational and evangelical gathering which seeks to integrate the Christian faith with our work in fashion. We welcome the spiritually curious from any or no religious background.
Jewish Student Union
The Jewish Student Union is a community for Jewish and non-Jewish students at The New School with an interest in creating the space to talk and act on various topics related to Judaism. Such topics can include Jewish culture, pluralism, spirituality, Jewish identity, Jewish studies, social action, and Israel. In order to create a vibrant community, we are a pluralist organization, open to all people from all points of view. The organization, therefore, is not "Reform," "Conservative," or "Orthodox," nor "left-wing" or "right-wing." It is our desire that the JSU honors our predecessors at The New School, allowing our school's history, deeply embedded in Jewish issues, to be a light on our organization's actions and our members.
New School Remnant Christian Fellowship
We are a community that is striving to grow in our knowledge of God's heart, but at the same time grow in embracing the reality of His love and in turn be an encouragement and testimony of Christ to our campus. We truly desire to be a place where anyone can come, be themselves, and search for the peace that comes with understanding who God is through Jesus Christ.
Health and Recreation [+]
To provide a venue for students to collaboratively explore the sport of mountaineering through education and fellowship.
New School Outdoor Club (supported by the Office of Recreation and Intramural Sports) | <urn:uuid:08b4f00c-525c-4f7c-bd99-d164b2cd14bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newschool.edu/student-services/student-development-and-activities/student-organizations/recognized-organizations/ | 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 | 0.938781 | 4,531 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Cheap electricity customers living in an East Sussex town could benefit from a grant given by one of the Big Six energy suppliers.
EDF Energy has handed £30,000 to The Community Project based at Laughton Lodge near Lewes, which will be put towards installing a wood chip biomass boiler for the benefit of residents who live there.
The energy supplier's green fund manager, Mark Thompson, commented: "We're delighted to announce that The Community Project has been successful in its grant application. EDF Energy is extremely happy to support what is a very innovative and exciting project.
"Thanks to customers on our green tariff, EDF Energy has been able to invest millions of pounds into small-scale renewable projects through the fund, all part of our commitment to diverse low carbon solutions across the country."
Householders wanting to do their bit for the environment could sign up to one of the green electricity tariffs available online.
If you want to find out more about gas and electricity and how you could save up to £453 in minutes, click here.
Share this story with your friends:- | <urn:uuid:7fea6777-17e6-46c1-8248-3ff58bbd68af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energyhelpline.com/moneyfacts_internet/fri/domesticenergy/news/article/800684654 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958111 | 221 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Members of a local church are upset after the City of Tulsa shut down their fireworks stand at 111th St. and S. Yale Ave.
The Broken Arrow Church of the Nazarene had set up the stand to raise funds for church camps and a mission trip.
"We go to camp every year, and a lot of us wouldn't be able to pay for it if we didn't do a fundraiser like this," Nina Underwood, 16, said. "We didn't know our stand was going to have these problems.
After the City of Tulsa got complaints from residents in the area about the stand violating city ordinances for selling fireworks in city limits, the fire marshal and several Tulsa Police officers shut down the stand on Wednesday.
The stand sits on restricted Indian land owned by members of the Muscogee Creek Nation. The property owners got a permit from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to sell fireworks on the site, and the Muscogee Creek Nation then gave them a license.
But city leaders say that creates a complicated issue.
"It's sort of on an island, but it's completely surrounded by Tulsa land," Jarred Brejcha, Tulsa mayor Dewey Bartlett's Chief of Staff, said.
Brejcha said people could have bought fireworks legally at the stand, but the second the stepped off the property they would have been in violation of the fireworks ordinance. The ordinance dates back to 1938, and makes it illegal to buy, sell, light or even possess fireworks in Tulsa city limits.
But Underwood said enforcing the ordinance in this case was unfair.
"It's surprising, because there are so many other fireworks stands that we feel that are doing pretty much the same thing," she said.
Brejcha said several stands are located near city limits, but no others are actually inside Tulsa's boundaries. One stand located on Pine Street between N. Yale Ave. and N. Harvard Ave. is the closest to city lines.
"That location is not inside the incorporated city limits of Tulsa. It's actually in Tulsa County," Brejcha said.
"When they leave that facility and then get on, for example, Pine, they’re not getting into solely Tulsa
incorporated city limits, they’re actually going onto a fenceline."
So there would be no violation of the city ordinance.
"There is no other example," Brejcha said. "If there was, we'd be reacting in the same way."
While the church has stopped selling fireworks at the stand, it remains set up, filled with the explosive products. Church members were holding out hope somebody would help them find another site to set up that wouldn't violate any ordinances. If that doesn't happen, they will have to pack everything up and ship the fireworks back to the distributor.
Those caught buying, selling, lighting or possessing fireworks in Tulsa city limits could face a maximum penalty of up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.
Anybody who sees people with fireworks in city limits is asked to call and report the information to the City of Tulsa's non-emergency line: 918-596-9222. | <urn:uuid:aad72089-f8aa-42a9-8653-e1f598f94e91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/City-of-Tulsa-shuts-down-church-groups-fireworks/mLOYnjeGwkO4FmaTS-_f8Q.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973712 | 649 | 1.625 | 2 |
RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Seven Marines from a North Carolina unit were killed and several injured in a training accident at a military depot in western Nevada that serves as a storage site for munitions and an important training facility for special forces headed overseas.
The cause of the accident at the Hawthorne Army Depot shortly before 10 p.m. PST Monday is under investigation, officials said in a statement from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp LeJeune, N.C.
It was not immediately clear how the Marines were killed. Officials earlier characterized it as an explosion, without giving specifics about what happened.
The injured were taken to area hospitals for treatment and further evaluation.
Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, the area's major trauma hospital, took nine patients, including one who died, three who are in serious condition and five who are in fair condition, according to spokeswoman Stacy Kendall. All the patients are men under the age of 30, she said. Kendall described their injuries as penetrating trauma, fractures and vascular injuries. The identities of those killed were not released pending notification of their families and a 24-hour waiting period after that.
It wasn't immediately clear how many were airlifted and how many were transported by ground, and Kendall didn't know if any patients were sent to other hospitals. A nursing supervisor at Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center said her
"We send our prayers and condolences to the families of Marines involved in this tragic incident. We remain focused on ensuring that they are supported through this difficult time," said the force's commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond C. Fox. "We mourn their loss, and it is with heavy hearts we remember their courage and sacrifice."
The Hawthorne Army Depot stores and disposes of ammunition. The facility is made up of hundreds of buildings spread over more than 230 square miles.
Hawthorne has held an important place in American military history since World War II when it became the staging area for ammunition, bombs and rockets for the war. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection says that the depot employed more than 5,500 people at its peak. Nevada was chosen for the location because of its remoteness in the wake of a devastating explosion at the government's main depot in New Jersey in the 1920s.
It opened in September 1930 as the Naval Ammunition Depot Hawthorne and was redesignated Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant in 1977 when it moved under the control of the Army, according to its website. In 1994, the site ended its production mission and became
Nevada's political leaders expressed their sympathy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., gave his condolences to victims of the explosion during a Tuesday morning speech on the Senate floor.
Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller tweeted, "Thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost a loved one in the Hawthorne Army Depot explosion. Grateful for their service."
"I am deeply saddened to hear of the incident at the Hawthorne Army Depot this morning," Republican Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement. "The men and women who work and train there put service ahead of self each and every day. Kathleen and I wish to extend our deepest sympathies to those killed and their families. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured and we pray for their speedy recovery."
Jelinek reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Michelle Rindels contributed to this report from Las Vegas. | <urn:uuid:5dc6a797-195f-4e11-87e2-d850997167de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sbsun.com/breakingnews/ci_22822393/explosion-during-nevada-training-kills-7-marines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980731 | 703 | 1.632813 | 2 |
AUBURN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- A stretch of Route 4 between Auburn and Turner has drivers and DOT officials concerned.
It's not that the accident rate is unusally high, but it's the ratio of accidents to fatalities that's troubling: a DOT study found it to be four times the state average.
According to the Maine Department of Transportation, there's been 55 accidents since 2003 at the intersection of Route 4 and Lake Shore Drive in Auburn, a common place for cars to turn into Lake Auburn.
In total, there have been more than 600 accidents on the corridor between Auburn and Turner on Route 4 since 2003.
Five were fatal, and 32 resulted in incapacitating injuries.
In 2012, there have been four accidents at that one intersection of Lake Shore Drive and Route 4 alone.
One of them involved a five-year-old girl, Danicka Demayo.
"My daugther actually thought she'd be ordering a casket for my granddaughter," said Patricia Demayo, Danicka's grandmother.
Patricia was riding in a car with her daugther, Danicka, and another passenger. Danicka asked her mother, Amy, if they could stop the car to stretch their legs at Lake Auburn.
"Her mother told her yes and she said 'I love you mommy,' and that was it. We were hit."
They had been stopped in a line of cars waiting to turn onto Lake Shore Drive when another car rear-ended them, injuring six people and fracturing Danicka's skull.
Since the accident in August, Danicka is recovering, but still going to therapy instead of starting school.
Patricia said the family is still suffering from the emotional impact of the crash, and it comes back every time she reads about an accident on Route 4.
DOT officials have made some changes to the stretch of highway: installing signage and rumble strips, along with a flashing light sign right before the Lake Shore Drive turn.
But accident prevention may require more: a warning to distracted drivers.
"Looking at what we've seen in the crash reports, I think there's some inattentive driving," said Stephen Landry, engineer with Maine DOT.
"It could be cell phone use, could be texting, could be playing with the radio, so those things are difficult to fix," he said.
One option is making one of the four lanes on Route 4 a turning lane, but Landry said it could cause its own set of problems.
He said they'd have to favor one direction of traffic over the other, and it could just send accidents to a different part of the road.
Additionally, it could cause speeding cars to switch lanes and pass cars in the turning lane.
Other options include reducing the speed limit.
Route 4 goes up to 55 mph, but Landry said lowering it would not necessarily mean less accidents.
He explained that drivers tend to go as fast as they feel -- and if the corridor lends itself to a speed limit around 55, that's how fast they will go, regardless of speed limit changes.
He said lowering the limit would cause some drivers to slow down and obey it, but other drivers will keep speeding.
Studies have shown that the greater the difference between driving speeds, the greater frequency of accidents.
Still, DOT officials want to discuss possibilities along Route 4, and listen to public comment.
There will be a public meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. in the Auburn Hall. | <urn:uuid:5d15310b-c7d0-4f38-8a7d-4a1753a3ec67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcsh6.com/rss/article/219079/2/Drivers-DOT-concerned-about-Route-4-between-Auburn-and-Turner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971683 | 723 | 1.601563 | 2 |
RALEIGH — Whether the setting is Raleigh or Washington, the tax reform debate will inevitably come down to one Big Question: Are you willing to trade current tax preferences for lower tax rates?
Most economists think the answer is obvious. Of course households and businesses should be willing to trade in special credits or deductions for a broader, flatter tax system, they say. There is strong empirical evidence for the proposition that such a system lowers compliance costs and increases economic growth. It also tends to promote fairness in the tax code — assuming that tax fairness is (correctly) defined as avoiding political favoritism or large differences in taxes paid as a percentage of income or assets.
To some taxpayers, however, revenue-neutral tax reform that offers to trade lower rates for fewer preferences may lack appeal. If you work in a sector that benefits from special treatment, such as high-end real estate or wind energy, those breaks may well be more valuable to you than lower rates or compliance costs. Also, if you suspect that the terms of today’s tax reform won’t stick — that politicians will use lower rates as a pretext for abolishing tax breaks, then raise the tax rates in the future — you may say no even to a deal that appears to benefit you in the short run.
These are among the reasons why tax reform is a bit like a TV meteorologist. That is, it looks great from afar, or on a low-resolution screen. Close up, in high definition, imperfections become evident.
Still, we watch. And as for tax reform, we can’t afford not to move forward. Our effective tax rates on corporate income and capital formation are among the highest in the world. They reduce the competitiveness of our economy and reward current consumption over long-term, productivity-enhancing investment.
The key to unlocking the tax-reform door is to recognize that it isn’t really all about marginal tax rates. The best-available tax system isn’t the one that tallies up everyone’s gross income and applies a tax rate to it. Yet some descriptions of “tax expenditures” assume exactly that. They list both the mortgage-interest deduction (which truly is a special-interest tax break that disproportionately benefits upper-income taxpayers and those who build their homes) and the deduction for deposits into IRAs and 401ks (which is a policy for making taxes neutral with respect to current vs. future consumption). Such a description is utter nonsense and unhelpful to policymakers.
You have to start with valid definitions. Income isn’t just transferring cash from one pocket to the other. It is best understood as a current monetary return on some prior investment — a return on financial or physical capital, in the case of dividends and capital gains, or a return on human capital, in the case of wages. If government taxes the resources taxpayers spend to accumulate and deploy that capital in the first place, such as deposits into investment accounts or the rearing and education of future workers, then it shouldn’t also tax the return on those investments. Otherwise, its tax code discourages long-term investment in favor of short-term consumption. The results are complexity, unfairness, and weaker economic growth.
So a properly structured tax system would retain tools such as generous personal exemptions (especially for children) and savings deductions. These tools shield capital formation from tax at the front end, since the returns on that capital are taxed later. Reformers shouldn’t try to persuade or compel taxpayers to give up these safe harbors in the tax code.
On the other hand, narrow tax preferences for housing debt, municipal bonds, eco-friendly projects, or non-wage benefits favor some forms of capital formation and maintenance over others. Any sensible tax reform ought to reduce or eliminate them, in exchange for lower rates.
In reality, most households and small businesses take standard deductions and forego complex tax filings. They do prefer simplicity to preferences, and form a large consistency for tax reform. They deserve to get what they want.
John Hood is president of the conservative John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, which has just published First In Freedom: Transforming Ideas into Consequences for North Carolina. | <urn:uuid:8d66bfad-0af8-4833-b3a6-3f3fd79e3a65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/opinion-columns/the-tax-reform-door-1.111724 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948524 | 864 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Ernest Becker wrote in his Pulitzer Price winning book, The Denial of Death, many profound things about how man copes with the fact of death. In Christian circles, idolatry (making anything else but God one’s ultimate significance) is often seen in illegal or immoral categories, but Becker’s interpretation is insightful, idolatry is a coping mechanism, to intoxicate oneself by indulgence to forget the fact that the moment we are born, we are all dying:
Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget. In the mysterious way in which life is given to us in evolution on this planet, it pushes in the direction of its own expansion. We don’t understand it simply because we don’t know the purpose of creation; we only feel life straining in ourselves and see it thrashing others about as they devour each other. Life seeks to expand in an unknown direction for unknown reasons…..
Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don’t know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one’s dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that’s something else.
It seems he was picking up on a fact that was given to us even in Ecclesiastes 9:
It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the su, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
D.A. Carson, the NT scholar, said once in a talk that the last taboo in our current culture is the subject of death, that we can openly talk about sexually explicit content without a blink, yet when you mention that someone is dying, everyone begins to squirm and silence feels heavy in the air. This may be because we are creatures of hope, we don’t realize that hope is something that cannot last in things that are seen. Even people who think they place hope in unseen things, many times don’t believe it, they don’t live it. And as Becker observed, we start to indulge ourselves, whether with alcohol or shopping, to forget our finitude. Hope is an interesting thing; it is only as strong as what you place it in, and lasts as long as its object.
Though Becker’s description was correct, I do not think he gives a proper prescription for the problem of death. He says that we often are in denial of it, yes, but, I think, the solution is not far off. We deny death. Of course, not of our own accord or power because, again, we all die. But we deny death through one where death could not consume, where death was left impotent, where death was only a marker in time. Hope in such changes death from the end of all things to the beginning of the rest of everything.
Here is a story (from SOULPANCAKE) of a man who died today, of Zach Sobiech, who I want to believe, had this kind of hope. No, more importantly, I want to believe, he placed his hope in someone that is greater. But regardless, we can affirm that he left something respectable, something great behind for the rest of us, who will all sometime, somewhere, somehow face our death.
(seen first on “Upworthy“) | <urn:uuid:5a8cc96f-7c90-4860-87b5-80195cd620bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pauljpark.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975525 | 1,176 | 1.84375 | 2 |
(ARA) - It's no secret that shoes can either make or break an outfit. But can uncomfortable shoes also affect your confidence?
According to a recent study, 94 percent of women say they feel good when their feet feel good. Stacy London, style expert and host of TLC's "What Not To Wear," has partnered up with the makers of Dr. Scholl's For Her. She agrees that when it comes to shoes - women can look good and feel good at the same time.
"As a stylist, I know that finding a balance between fashion and comfort can sometimes be tricky. And chances are that most women have experienced "Fabulitis" - the discomfort caused by the decision to wear uncomfortable, yet fabulous shoes," says London. "That's why I use Dr. Scholl's For Her insoles - because I can wear the shoes I want and feel comfortable doing it."
Helping women get back on their feet
One of the most inconvenient times for women to face "Fabulitis" is during a job interview, especially since the right shoes are an essential component to feeling comfortable and confident. That's why the makers of Dr. Scholl's For Her are launching an interactive campaign to support Dress for Success Worldwide, a nonprofit organization that offers professional attire, a network of support and career development tools to women entering the workforce. The program will help empower women by contributing confidence-inspiring footwear and insoles to keep them comfortable while interviewing for jobs.
Stacy London's interview wardrobe tips
London shares her tips for achieving fashion, comfort and confidence when tackling a job interview:
Comfort is key: Such a big part of achieving success is feeling comfortable in your own skin - and shoes for that matter. Go for heels and add a Dr. Scholl's for Her insole for comfort.
Suit up: Suits (pant or skirt) are always appropriate. Pair suits with more feminine, colorful or textured tops to add flair.
Must-haves: Every woman should have a comfortable closed-toe heel for suiting and separates, a pencil or simple A-line skirt and a suit.
Walk the talk: Choose clothes and shoes that look and feel good for your body type, stand up tall and show your style with confidence. | <urn:uuid:5773e564-4aaa-490b-b689-fd0b5717f908> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kljb.com/story/15368533/finding-shoes-to-inspire-confidence-and-comfort | 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 | 0.942478 | 468 | 1.789063 | 2 |
URI Ghost Hunting Team shares campus tales, stories of supernatural encounters
Published: Friday, October 28, 2011
Updated: Friday, October 28, 2011 19:10
Likewise, Kelvey said he has a friend living in Adam's Hall who awake with a girl's face next to hers, despite her roommate being away at that time. Like others, Kelvey said she may have experienced the "fear cage," or anxiousness and paranoia, often associated with paranormal experiences.
From a spiritual perspective, however, these occurrences may not seem so odd. Kelvey explained that souls tend to become attached to places they have spent a lot of energy in their physical life.
"When you put energy into something, it causes an attachment since you're there so much," he said, adding that it makes sense that ghosts would attach themselves to Greek houses or dormitories because of the amount of time individuals spend in them.
Kelvey added may be why the older buildings on campus, such as those around the quadrangle or URI's oldest structure, the Oliver Watson House, are generally the center of ghost stories. No matter how "fun" ghost hunting may be, he said one should still be careful of such encounters, especially at a place with such a colorful history as URI. | <urn:uuid:7a9cd414-2eb4-4098-a4dd-1aaed20ef13f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ramcigar.com/uri-ghost-hunting-team-shares-campus-tales-stories-of-supernatural-encounters-1.2673058?pagereq=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973278 | 261 | 1.71875 | 2 |
May 2, 1883.
MY DEAR LIZZIE, — Your last letter gave me such a lively idea of what was going on in New York that Burgos, by contrast, seems a little dull. Nothing goes on in Burgos but the cathedral bells. My breakfast, for which I am waiting, does not seem to go on at all. But if I think of you all in New York, it will make my head spin as much as is good for it, in this quiet place, so I am going to answer your letter, in hopes to get another.
Wildes would have been so proud and delighted if he could have seen me this morning at 1.17, in fact, from that to 3.12. No trains in Spain ever connect with any others, so I was left over all that time at Venta di Banos, on my way from Leon here. And I sat in the railway restaurant at that dead hour of the night and read the report of the Eighth Church Congress, which had reached me just before I started on my journey. Think of it ! . . . Was ever such a tribute paid to the general secretary before ? I was listening still to Dr. Shattuck's account of the early Ecclesiastical History of Boston, when the express train from Madrid came along, and I got in, and soon the cathedral of Burgos came in sight. It really is a very great cathedral, the first I have seen in Spain.
The glorious things I have seen in Spain have been, first, the approach to Gibraltar and the Pillars of Hercules ; second, the Alhambra, with the Sierra Nevada behind it; and third, the pictures of Velasquez at Madrid. Those things are all superb, worth the journey here to see, if there were nothing else. There is a lot else scattered along the road, but those are the great things, and as to Gothic architecture, he who has seen Chartres, Rheims, Amiens, and Cologne (to say nothing of York and Durham) need not be impatient about seeing Seville, or Leon, or Toledo, or even Burgos ; though Burgos is far the finest of them all, and must rank, though not very high, among the greatest cathedrals of the world.
There is something in their architecture that is like the people, a trace of something coarse, a lack of just the best refinement. The people whose great mediaeval glory is the Inquisition, and whose great modern delight is the bull-fight, must have something brutal in their very constitution. Now the Moors were thorough gentlemen, not a touch in them of the sham which was always in the Hidalgo ; so the Moorish architecture is exquisite in its refinement, and Velasquez was too great for the national coarseness to spoil him, though he has it, and Gibraltar belongs to England ! So that Nature and the Moors and Velasquez have done the finest things in Spain.
... To-morrow I go to Paris, whence I started last August to join you in Cologne. It has been a long loop, and has inclosed a lot of pleasant things. Now the summer is almost here, and then comes — home. My friend Mr. Paine, of Boston, talked before I left of coming over to join me, about the first of July, and I think he will do so. Write me what you and Arthur are doing and planning. My love to him. | <urn:uuid:275fba79-ece3-42f0-a76c-813a049f9325> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oldandsold.com/articles29/travel-letters-8.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977078 | 712 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Men striving to lose weight tend to drop more pounds when there are no women around, says research from Leeds Metropolitan University in the U.K. Researchers monitored 62 overweight men as they attended weekly Weight Watchers meetings without any women.
And at the end of the 12 weeks, the guys who were in the all-male environment lost roughly 14 pounds on average, while the guys who were in co-ed meetings only lost about seven.
So what gives? It all boils down to confidence and being comfortable with your surroundings, the researchers hypothesize.
Since Weight Watchers is often thought of as a “women’s weight loss program,” the guys in the all-male environment felt less embarrassed and more competitive without the female influence.
Need more convincing that Weight Watchers is manly enough for you to try? Then listen to basketball legend—and current Weight Watchers spokesman—Charles Barkley, who has dropped over 42 big ones since joining the program. (Weight Watchers CEO David Kirchhoff isn’t just an employee, he’s a client too. Discover the secrets behind the world’s most popular weight loss program by reading Weight Loss Boss.)
1. Moderation Is Key
Don’t feel guilty if you have that occasional beer or steak while watching the game. “Restrictive diets don’t work,” said Barkley. “Honestly, you can’t give a fat person small meals and think they’re not going to cheat.” It’s all about moderation and learning how to eat, he explains. Plus, if you eliminate every guilty pleasure from your routine, it’ll just lead to a destructive binge later down the road.
2. Call Up Your Bros
“Men don’t talk to each other about dieting and losing weight, but they should,” said Barkley. “Losing weight is better if you’ve got people around you who can keep you motivated.” But your buddies can do more than motivate. In fact, losing weight is more effective when you’re around other people who have the same goals and positive outlook, according to a recent study in Obesity. Plus, there’s nothing wrong with a little competition, said Barkley. (Read about Barkley’s own competition with a fellow ex-baller and learn How Shaq Got His Groove Back.)
3. Don’t Slack on Your Routine
“I didn’t realize how much my weight was affecting me until I started losing it,” sais Barkley. “I was always active when I was in the game, but after I retired, I slowed down and let myself go.” Your move: Find a way to be active every day. Make the deal with yourself and stick to it. It doesn’t matter if it’s hitting the gym or playing 18 holes, you just need to make it a priority, said Barkley.
4. Mix Things Up
Avoid eating the same foods day after day. “You might lose weight eating a salad for every meal, but that’s just going to make you crazy,” said Barkley. His suggestion: Keep a large variety of healthy foods on hand. “I have fruit every afternoon because it keeps me full and I like it,” he explains. “People don’t get fat eating fruits and vegetables.” (Need new meals to enhance your diet? Discover `15 Fired-Up Foods That Burn Away Fat.') | <urn:uuid:b9bc8109-d99c-4797-b259-56a851a51a49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/06/18/drop-weight-like-charles-barkley/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95852 | 742 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Johnnie Pendarvis, Levy County Landfill Recycling Coordinator, said that there are 26 recycling trailers strategically dotting the county.
"We've got them from Morriston to Inglis to Fanning Springs," he said.
They are there for residents to put their aluminum, tin cans, plastic bottles and newspapers for recycling.
Recycling helps in many ways. It relieves pressure on the landfill, plus the county receives a small fee for the recyclables according to weight.
There are two things Pendarvis stresses. | <urn:uuid:05eb2540-7ad9-44ee-b04b-7dfba3ddfe92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chieflandcitizen.com/news/todaysnews?page=554&mini=calendar-date%2F2013-04 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943245 | 114 | 1.75 | 2 |
Everything you need to know about starting a blog
Our goal with this site is to explain how to start a blog in the simplest way possible. Starting a blog can often be the first step to a new career or even a new life, but you need to know what to do so that you don’t make any time consuming mistakes that could have been avoided from the beginning.
After reading through just this one page you will have everything you need to know to start a blog today.
There are 4 simple steps you need to complete to start a blog. We will go through each of these steps in greater detail below.
- Pick your blog topic. We will assume that you already have some idea the topic you want to write about.
- Choose and purchase a domain name for your blog. E.g. www.myawesomeblog.com – there are lots of places where you can buy a domain – you have probably heard of GoDaddy.com
- Pick a blogging platform. This is just the online tool you will use to write your blog posts – most people use WordPress – and we think it is the best choice as well.
- Find a place to host your blog. All your blog content will be stored on a computer/server on the internet. You have to pick a company where you install your blogging software and store your blog posts.
Pick a Blog Topic
Most successful blogs are about one or maybe 2 topics. If you stick to a single topic it helps you stay focused and it also works well for your audience. For example, if your blog topic is restaurant reviews, and you stick to that topic, then over time you will build an audience of people who also frequent restaurants and are interested in your take on them. They will become loyal readers – a blogger’s best friend.
If you want to blog about 2 or more completely different topics, you should probably consider creating a blog for each one. That is enough about blog topics. You probably already know what you want to blog about anyway.
Choose and Purchase a Domain Name For Your Blog
Technically, this step is not mandatory. You can set up a blog for free on services like Blogger or WordPress, but there is one major drawback. With a free blog you don’t get your own domain name. Let’s say you want to name your blog www.myawesomeblog.com, you can’t do that with a free service. With a free blogging service your blog address would be something like myawesomeblog.wordpress.com or myawesomeblog.blogger.com. If you are even the least bit serious about your blog, I would just get your own domain name. A domain only costs about $10 – $15 per year.
Where to search for and buy a domain:
There are many many places you can buy domains, but there are 3 that I recommend.
- GoDaddy.com – Almost everyone has heard of GoDaddy and their Danica Patrick commercials. They are a legit company and when I am searching for a domain, I almost always go there. Even if I don’t buy the domain name from them, I like their search and search suggestions the best.
- Bluehost.com – These guys are know for hosting (which we explain further below) but you can also get the domain from them, which makes the hosting setup much easier.
- HostGator - Another company that is known and recommended for hosting, but they also let you search for and buy domains.
Remember, for simplicity, I highly recommend you buy your domain from the same place you that will host your blog. All three of the options above let you buy the domain and host it. You really can’t go wrong with any of them. If you are price sensitive I’d go with Bluehost or Hostgator because their hosting plans are cheaper and they don’t have as many add on charges as GoDaddy, but they are all good choices. The cost of hosting has become extremely cheap, so we’re talking about less than $10 per month.
Pick Your Blogging Platform
I’ll make this simple. You should use WordPress. There are other services out there like Blogger or Tumblr, but WordPress is by far the most popular and if you ever need any help with anything, almost everyone knows WordPress. If you choose one of the blog hosts above, installing WordPress can be done in 2 minutes with one click.
Pick Your Blog Host
The final step to starting your blog is choosing a blog host. The host is where you will install WordPress and all your blog stories and pictures will be stored. As we also mentioned above. We recommend that you buy your domain from the place you want to host your blog. If you buy your domain from GoDaddy, let GoDaddy host your blog. Don’t try to buy the domain one place and have it hosted elsewhere. It can be done, but it is a bit of a pain, especially for a beginner.
Our recommendations are: GoDaddy, Bluehost, and Hostgator. I personally have blogs hosted at all of them. Bluehost and Hostgator are very similar. GoDaddy is a little more expensive, but might also be slightly easier for beginners, though they are all very easy. | <urn:uuid:c352ea6d-fe2e-4a66-97c4-b2cffc19aa74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.startingablog.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956086 | 1,101 | 1.796875 | 2 |
- Lord Voldemort: "And here we have Crabbe… you will do better this time, will you not, Crabbe? And you, Goyle? The same goes for you, Nott."
- Nott: "My Lord, I prostrate myself before you, I am your most faithful —"
- Lord Voldemort: "That will do."
- — Lord Voldemort to Nott at Little Hangleton graveyard.[src]
Nott was a pure-blood wizard, most likely a Slytherin student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and one of the earliest Death Eaters of Lord Voldemort, having joined in 1955 . He fought in the First Wizarding War, and travelled to Hogsmeade in order to "wish good luck" to Tom Riddle in trying to get a teacher position at Hogwarts. He was the husband of Mrs Nott, who died in the 1980s, and the father of Theodore Nott, a Slytherin student at Hogwarts from 1991 to 1998. Nott didn't search for Voldemort after his downfall, but this was forgiven after Voldemort's return in 1995. Nott fought at several battles of the Second Wizarding War, including the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, in which he was injured. After the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's final defeat, he was presumably killed or imprisoned in Azkaban.
Nott was born into the pure-blood Nott family, which placed much interest in purity of blood. He began attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the age of eleven and was most likely Sorted into Slytherin House. He might have been a classmate of Tom Riddle, as well as a member of his gang. While part of the student body, he seems to have become a friend of Horace Slughorn, and as such was likely part of the Slug Club, although the professor denied this connection in later years, after Nott was revealed to have become one of the first Death Eaters.
First Wizarding WarEdit
Nott fought in the First Wizarding War, and, along with Mulciber, Rosier and Dolohov, he had travelled to Hogsmeade, to "say good luck to Voldemort, during his attempt to ask for work at Hogwarts." Nott was able to avoid being sent to Azkaban after the downfall of Lord Voldemort in 1981. An elderly widower, Nott raised his son, Theodore, after the death of his wife sometime before 1991. Nott was also one of the Death Eaters who did not search for Voldemort after his downfall.
Second Wizarding WarEdit
Battle of the Department of MysteriesEdit
The following year, Nott participated in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. He grabbed hold of Harry Potter as he and his friends fled the Hall of Prophecy, but was stunned by Hermione Granger, leaving him incapacitated as shelves filled with prophecies collapsed around him. The group leader, Lucius Malfoy, ordered the other Death Eaters to leave Nott behind, stating that his injuries would be considered nothing by Voldemort compared to the loss of the particular prophecy which Voldemort sought. After the battle, Nott was exposed as a Death Eater and imprisoned in Azkaban.
After this, Nott most likely escaped from Azkaban along with many other Death Eaters in the summer of 1997 and served Voldemort during the height of the Second Wizarding War. He possibly fought in several battles, including the Battle of Hogwarts.
Behind the scenesEdit
- Nott attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry along with Tom Marvolo Riddle and attended one of Horace Slughorn, Head of Slytherin House's dinner parties.
- He is played by Paschal Friel in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Mentioned only)
Notes and referencesEdit
Alecto Carrow | Amycus Carrow | Antonin Dolohov | Augustus Rookwood | Avery (I) | Avery (II) |
Barty Crouch Jr. | Bellatrix Lestrange | Crabbe | Evan Rosier | Gibbon | Goyle |
Jugson | Lestrange | Mulciber (I) | Mulciber (II) | Nott | Rabastan Lestrange | Rodolphus Lestrange | Rosier | Selwyn | Thorfinn Rowle | Travers | Walden Macnair | Wilkes | Yaxley
|Death Eaters who Defected:|
|Death Eaters' allies:|
Vincent Crabbe | Golgomath | Gregory Goyle | Fenrir Greyback | Narcissa Malfoy (defected) |
Quirinus Quirrell | Scabior | Dolores Umbridge
Dementors | Giants (Golgomath's control) | Muggle-Born Registration Commission | Snatchers | Werewolves | <urn:uuid:1fe5744c-55ae-4c40-bf14-81fca7390aae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Theodore_Nott's_father | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949871 | 1,067 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Tarpaulins only shelter for thousands after tsunami
The Premier of remote Temotu Province in Solomon islands says thousands of people are sheltering under tarpaulins as they wait for a supply boat to arrive.
At least eight people are confirmed dead and several are still missing after a tsunami swept through more than 15 low-lying villages in the province on Wednesday.
Premier of Temotu Province, Charles Brown Beu, told Radio Australia the tarpaulins are not enough to keep people safe from the rain.
"Some people are virtually outside, no tarpaulin on top of their heads," Mr Beu said.
"The rain has been pouring down for the last 10 minutes, which virtually means some people are now out in the wet."
A Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office boat was due to leave Honiara for the islands on Friday afternoon, carrying relief supplies to affected communities.
Authorities said the boat may take two days to arrive at the islands.
Australia's foreign minister will travel to the Solomon Islands on Sunday for talks on the progress of the recovery effort.
Senator Bob Carr said his thoughts were with the families of those reported missing.
"This has been a devastating experience for the people of low-lying communities in Temotu Province," Mr Carr said.
"The Solomon Islands Government has requested assistance in delivering emergency aid.
"I'm proud we've been able to meet this request by supporting urgent supplies of medicines, food and logistical support."
Australia will provide $50,000 to the Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office for aircraft fuel and logistical support, and a further $250,000 to the Solomon Islands Red Cross.
The government has also sent an RAAF Hercules to provide aerial reconnaissance around the remote islands.
These tarpaulins cannot keep these people safe from the rain.Premier of Temotu Province, Charles Brown Beu
Charles Brown Beu said the water source for Lata - capital of Temotu Province - had been damaged by the tsunami and was now "undrinkable".
Apart from that collected in water tanks, Lata is now without water.
Mr Beu said people were facing severe food shortages after crops in the villages hit by the tsunami had "all been washed away."
However, food gardens remain intact on the higher plateaus of the province.
Mr Beu said people were now sharing their food with others who had lost their crops.
He said an emergency committee had been formed and was waiting for the supply boat to arrive.
The committee would be split into groups to unload, organise and distribute the supplies to the community. | <urn:uuid:9e14002c-6ab5-4cdf-9c4f-ff9486c3978d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-08/an-sols-aid-may-not-arrive-for-2-days/4508826?section=sport | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977091 | 543 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Lonza di fico
di fico" is a countryside speciality called also "salame,
lonzetta di fico secco, lonza di fico" or "salamino".
brings back images of a grandma going in the field with children to pick
figs. At the end of summer, in September, picking of fruits would start.
Nuts and figs were picked thinking about winter supplies. Since figs
abundantly ripen all at the same time, they could certainly not be left on
the ground. Instead, they would be dried up under the sun.
skilful hands of a housewife would add rum or a spoon of "mistrà"
(liqueur), and sometimes almonds. Lonza would be wrapped in green fig
leaves and fastened with a string.
children would have three slices of that sweet sausage for a snack. These
flavours and fragrance reach far from memories and should not be
upon a time, in order to preserve their quality, September figs and “brogiotti”
(sort of fig), sweet as “ambrosia
of Gods” and “rich with
sweet honey juice”, would be dried up under the sun and in ovens of
countryside houses. Strung up on home-made cords and hanged on ceilings,
some of those fruit rings would wait to be given to the proprietors of
estate; others to be eaten during feasts. All of them would stand for
poverty and gift.
becomes more and more difficult to find
salame or lonzetta di ficosecco,
called also “torrone”. This small fig sausage, at times baked in the
oven, is made of dried up figs, ground together with candied squares of
cedar, almonds and anise seeds.
golden brown sausage is then wrapped in fig leaves and fastened tightly
all around with strings of wool. The bigger the morsel is, the better the
flavour is tasted. Slices, therefore, cannot be thin.
is how the old tradition of the countryside of the Marches hands over to
us this small sweet sausage prepared with figs dried up under the sun,
ground, mixed with sapa, anise, almonds, nuts and then wrapped in fig
leaves in order to give it shape.
is excellent cut into slices and served with sheep cheese. Lonza di fico
is a sweet food product belonging to the category of Intermediate
Moisture Foods (IMF) that remain stable at the room temperature for
about three months.
is, therefore, advised to preserve that sweetness in order to enjoy it in
the most exquisite moments.
© 2001 Liberation Ventures Ltd. | <urn:uuid:f366c75e-f735-4fbb-945a-1c39c411caea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.paradisepossible.com/Passion/Place/tabid/85/Default.aspx?pk=150&description=Lonzino%20di%20fico | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940632 | 592 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Journalists love to write about how Amazon Publishing will destroy the book business, but a Nation story about “The Amazon Effect” offered a more measured perspective.
In the essay, Yale University Press executive editor-at-large Steve Wasserman looked at the ways Amazon has already succeeded, as well as the places where it has yet to prove itself. The essay noted some publishers “professed little anxiety” about the bookseller’s publishing arm, headed by Larry Kirshbaum. Check it out:
It remains to be seen, however, whether spending a reported $800,000 to acquire Penny Marshall’s Hollywood memoirs is ultimately profitable; a number of the publishers I spoke with thought not and professed little anxiety at Amazon’s big-foot approach. They are not inclined to join the hysteria that largely greeted Kirshbaum’s defection, feeling that a recent Bloomberg Businessweek cover story depicting a book enveloped by flames had exaggerated by several orders of magnitude the actual threat posed by Amazon’s new venture. If Amazon wants to burn the book business, as the magazine’s headline blared, publishing books the old-fashioned way struck them as a peculiar way of going about it. Was there really a “secret plot to destroy literature,” as the magazine alleged? It seemed far-fetched, to say the least. | <urn:uuid:fb9f881f-6085-4462-a47f-f469afeccaaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/amazon-publishing-hysteria-fact-or-fiction_b52359 | 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 | 0.956347 | 283 | 1.546875 | 2 |
On this Earth Day I reflect on some one the small, easy ways I've found to make a difference in the environment. I've switched from plastic sandwich bags to reusable plastic containers. I've switched to green cleaners. And I realize that I can do small things to make a difference in my community and for others.
Members Project is donating $200K to five causes every three months and they need your help to decide. You can vote once a day for your cause from now until May 24, 2010.
Whether you have an hour, a day, or a week, your time can make a difference. Find an opportunity to volunteer through American Express and you'll get Membership Rewards® points!
Use your American Express card to donate to one of 1,000,000 public charities that Members Proejct supports. You can even donate your Membership Rewards® points or set up a recurring donation to spread it out over a year.
What small thing will you do today for the Earth, or for someone else?
Disclosure: This post is an entry to win a gift card from One2One Network and was written to promote the Members Project from American Express. All opinions here are mine and were not reviewed or approved prior to publishing. | <urn:uuid:77072aa1-d816-4d1f-8e5d-580e48d10e23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.twofermom.com/twofer-reviews/tag/earth-day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963404 | 253 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Oliver North
WASHINGTON — Four years ago, when then-Sen. Barack Obama was campaigning for president, he said of Afghanistan: This is “a war that we have to win.” He also claimed, “The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared.” But after three years of Obama’s being commander in chief, it ought to be clear that he never really believed his own campaign rhetoric. Now, in the aftermath of recent setbacks, his words are further evidence of presidential ambivalence and uncertainty. None of this bodes well for those who hope for a positive outcome in the shadows of the Hindu Kush.
This week, after a U.S. soldier allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians in Panjwai, a hamlet in Kandahar province, Obama appropriately promised to “make sure that anybody who was involved is held fully accountable with the full force of the law.” Though Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reiterated this commitment during a long-planned but unannounced two-day visit to Afghanistan, other unanticipated events — a reality in all wars — clouded the message.
Even before Panetta arrived, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was demanding that U.S. and NATO troops cease combat operations in populated areas and be confined to major bases. Then, as Panetta’s aircraft approached Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province, an Afghan national crashed a commandeered pickup truck, which burst into flames just off the base runway. By the time Panetta arrived at a meeting with American, British and Afghan personnel, U.S. Marines and British troops that mustered for a “meet and greet” with the secretary had been ordered to remove their weapons from the site.
Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters that the unprecedented order to disarm was “unrelated” to the runway incident. But other officials, speaking on background, said the decision was prompted by “an abundance of caution” after six Americans were murdered last month by Afghan personnel. Yet another story in widespread circulation attributed the order to “fairness” for Afghan troops, who are “not allowed to carry weapons in the presence of senior U.S. officials.” Whatever the truth, the order quickly became a public relations nightmare — and yet another distraction in shoring up public support for those who are fighting this long and difficult war.
For that, Obama has no one to blame but himself.
Ever since he decided to provide fewer “surge troops” than requested by his hand-picked battlefield commander and announced an arbitrary “timetable for withdrawal” during a speech in December 2009, the president’s rhetoric has been devoid of words about “winning,” “defeating the Taliban” or even “peace and security for the Afghan people.” Gone, too, is any attempt at comity with Karzai. And while Obama repeatedly reminds us that “we got Osama bin Laden,” his efforts to repair relations with neighboring Pakistan have ground to a halt.
This week, in the aftermath of multiple reversals on the ground, the president reiterated that he still intends to withdraw 23,000 of the 91,000 U.S. troops currently deployed in Afghanistan before our presidential election — and before the “fighting season” comes to an end. In Kabul, Panetta renewed the administration’s commitment to “bringing home” all of the remaining 68,000 U.S. troops by 2014.
Taliban leaders immediately announced that they were suspending long-awaited “peace and reconciliation talks” in Qatar because of the “shaky, erratic and vague standpoint of the Americans.” What they didn’t say is what everyone already knows: The O-Team is getting out of Afghanistan no matter what’s happening on the battlefield. All the Taliban have to do is wait until we’re gone.
Obama still claims he is “confident that we can continue the work of meeting our objectives” and “accomplish the mission” while implementing his “exit strategy.” But then he says his goal is to “responsibly wind down this war” and “bring our troops home.” This isn’t a “strategy,” and it’s not a valid reason to send young Americans into harm’s way in one of the most difficult and dangerous places on earth. The commander in chief we hired nearly four years ago still hasn’t learned that the only “responsible” way to end a war is to win it.
On the day Taliban leaders announced they were pulling out of any further talks, I was visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. While I was there, the mother of a severely wounded Marine said to me, “I hope my son’s sacrifice was not in vain.” I share her hope. We all should — even our ambivalent commander in chief. | <urn:uuid:e2cfe304-da9e-4fc0-bbab-691b6773004d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/16/afghan-ambivalence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97423 | 1,055 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The stage is set for a battle with Vodafone Group if the government decides to raise a fresh tax demand on Vodafone, following the passage of the Finance Bill.
Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament said, “There cannot be a situation where somebody will make huge capital gains on the assets located in India and will not pay tax to either India or the country of origin by making some arrangements through tax haven locations through a complicated setting up of series of subsidiaries.”
In May 2007, Vodafone had purchased Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd’s 66.98% stake in Indian telecom company Hutch Essar Ltd for $11.2 billion (around Rs.52,300 crore). Hutchison controlled its Indian telecom subsidiary through a Cayman Island company called CGP. CGP’s shares were sold to Vodafone, which consequently became majority owner of the Indian telecom firm. No capital gains tax was paid.
The government and Vodafone battled the matter in the Supreme Court which was ruled in favour of Vodafone. | <urn:uuid:274ee2dc-db68-40f3-a554-35da997c3d6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goodreturns.in/news/2012/05/09/fresh-government-battle-vodafone-likely-121736.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966788 | 227 | 1.695313 | 2 |
How To Buy Saltwater Rods
Finding a rod to go saltwater fishing starts with three basic considerations: your experience, your preferred way of fishing and the type of fish you're after. You then have a choice of several styles of rods to get the job done.
How to buy saltwater rods
There are two main types of rods--baitcasting and spinning. The type of rod you buy depends as much on the reel you buy as the type of fishing that you plan to do.
- Baitcasting rods
- Baitcasting rods take a baitcasting reel
- The reel and line are seated on top of the rod
- A trigger grip, a grip that looks simimlar to a trigger on a gun, lets you hold the rod securely while releasing the thumb bar/line release
- Spinning rods
- Spinning rods use a spinning wheel
- These rods have three main differences from casting rods:
- The reel hangs from the bottom of the reel seat, and the line guides are on the bottom as well
- The handle length is balanced against the rod's length
Triggers are not used on spinning rods
Length & weight
Length and weight depend of the type of fish that you want to catch and your fishing style. Typically, the bigger the fish, the longer the cast so the longer the rod.
- Bottom-fishing rods run about 10 feet long and normally take 6- to 30-pound test line
- These rods also usually take baitcasting reels
- Boat rods are smaller--5 1/2 to 6 feet--but they handle 50-130-pound test lines
- These also usually are for baitcasting reels
- Surfcasting rods come in lengths from 6 to 15 feet
- The length you need depends on how far you want to cast and what weight of lure you may be casting
- A 10-foot surfcasting rod will allow you to throw a 2- to 4-ounce lure 200 feet easily
- These rods work mainly with spinning reels
- Action basically describes the way a rod is designed to perform when casting or reeling in a fish
- It also relates to the lure or bait you need and the strength of the reel that should be used
- The smaller the fish, the lighter the action that you'll need; the heavier the fish, the heavier the action that you should buy
- Most manufacturers use terms such as ultra-light, light, medium-heavy or heavy
- Lure and line weight also play into rod selection. The heavier these are, the longer and heavier the pole that you should buy.
Most rods today are made from either graphite or fiberglass, or a composition of these two materials.
- Graphite has been refined over the years to provide lighter, more flexible rods that give you "sensitivity," a big plus in feeling when a fish begins to nibble on your bait
- Fiberglass provides more durability than graphite but sacrifices some sensitivity and is heavier than graphite
- Composites give you the best of both graphite and fiberglass-- the durability of fiberglass combined with the lightweight, power and sensitivity of graphite
- Pistol grip
- A pistol grip is the shortest type of grip
- It is contoured to the shape of your hand with a hook for your index finger
- This hook helps in casting more accurately
- A longer triggerstick is used for two-handed, longer casts
- Materials come in two general styles - cork or EVA foam
- Cork is a traditional material that has a good feel and solid grip
- EVA foam offers more durability because it is more resistant to temperature changes and water wear
- Line guides can be made of plastic, metal or ceramic, listed from least to best quality. These circles are positioned to the rod's shaft to control fishing line.
- In casting rods, line guides are positioned on top of the rod. They are smaller to reduce the play in the line and allow for easier casting and quicker retrieve.
- Spinning rods place the line guides on the rod's bottom. These guides get larger toward the base of the rod.
- The number of line guides is determined by the rod's length as well as by the quality of the rod
Return To Top
How to buy combos
- If you are new to fishing, combos are a great way to start. Manufacturers match the right reel with the right rod.
- All you need to do is determine the type of fishing that you want to do and then find the combo that best suits your needs
- Like anything else, the more features in a combo, as well as the more quality components, the more you will pay. A good combo, though, can provide a lifetime of fun.
Return To Top | <urn:uuid:29674e64-3a75-48d4-8c6f-4fd321c3d571> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportsauthority.com/info/index.jsp?categoryId=222925&backTo=12910954&infoPath=222980 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937157 | 986 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Oops. Even a blind hog will stumble across an acorn now and then, but this time the vice president had hit on an essential truth, one that can be verified by just a glance at the country's unemployment rate, which still hovers around 8 percent after almost four years of another kind of Obamacare.
Then there is the growing number of Americans who are slipping into poverty under this administration -- 15.1 percent or 46.2 million as of 2011, or about one in six. That's up from 14.3 percent in 2009, when Barack Obama took the presidential oath of office.
The official poverty level is an annual income of $23,050 for a family of four, and the 46 million Americans that now have slipped below it is the largest total since the Census began reporting that number in 1959. How's that for hope and change? Change, maybe. Hope, not so much.
A record number of American households are now on food stamps: 22.4 million, or 15 percent of the population. That's a telling statistic. Perhaps even more revealing than the unemployment rate.
To quote one economist, Peter Cardillo at Rockwell Global Capital, "the unemployment data is not really telling us the true story of how many people are underemployed." But the growth in food stamps is "a good indication of how the income of the work force has stagnated and more and more people are applying for food stamps."
So when Joe Biden says the middle class has been buried the last four years, he may be understating the case for once. The working poor are getting poorer, too. Having committed the cardinal political error of telling the truth, our vice president immediately began backpedaling, retracting, explaining what he really meant to say, and in general trying to hide behind Campaign Obama's usual talking points, which grow more and more unconvincing.
The Great Recession of 2008-09 was bad enough; the Obama "recovery" could be even worse because its ever more disappointing performance threatens to become permanent -- especially if this president is re-elected and gets to continue his misguided policies. Or, frightening thought, gets to introduce even more of them. Joe Biden will doubtless be able to explain how successful they are, too, except on those recurrent occasions when he collides with the truth.
Whenever the vice president of the United States flies into one of his tirades, some of us feel like sinking to our knees and uttering a fervent prayer for the health of the president of the United States. For his No. 2 man is not just a loose cannon but a whole battery of them.
That this president should have chosen a character like Joe Biden as his running mate was only a foretaste of the kind of judgment Mr. Obama would show in managing the economy. (Foreign policy is a whole other disaster zone these days.)
Barack Obama may be the joker in this pack, but our vice president is the joke. He has proven an inexhaustible treasure of bloopers, but only the rare ones are as revealing as his latest. Unless that buried middle class is revived, and Americans put to work again, far worse is to come.
On that cheery note, let me end with a thank-you to the vice president. Sometimes he pulls back the curtain on this wizard's act, and gives the country a glimpse of what's really happening to it. It ain't pretty, but at least it's the truth -- which is no small service in the hurly-burly of an election year.
"In our time," George Orwell complained in a classic essay about politics and the English language, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." Like this administration's abominable record on the economy, a natural enough consequence of its misconceived remedies, reforms and panaceas galore.
But now and then, good ol' Joe Biden comes along like a clown wandering into the center ring of this circus, and, without meaning to, falls into honesty. As he did on this occasion. Such excursions are all too rare in our telepromptered times. Which makes them all the more welcome.
The Hon. Joseph R. Biden is a kind of relief in the overscripted world of dead political language -- a walking treasure of insights by accident.
Fox News' Roger Ailes: Administration's Excuses Won't Work, Americans Died For Press Freedom | Katie Pavlich | <urn:uuid:b56b6aba-1275-43b5-be18-91f247826dff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/2012/10/05/the_inexhaustible_vice_president_or_of_hogs_acorns_and_joe_biden/page/full/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960761 | 919 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Rich to pay more 2013 taxes no matter what
New taxes tied to health care reform kick in
The rich will pay more in taxes next year regardless of the outcome of the fiscal cliff. That's because two new taxes enacted to fund President Obama's health care reform are kicking in come January.
The new levies will help foot the bill for the program to expand health care coverage for the uninsured, which involves government subsidies for lower- and middle-income Americans.
The vast majority of taxpayers will escape unscathed, however. Fewer than 2% will be subject to the new taxes, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
Here's what's coming:
Medicare payroll tax: Single taxpayers earning more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000 will have to pay an additional 0.9% payroll tax on the amount they earn above those thresholds.
Unlike traditional payroll taxes, however, this tax will be based on household income, not individual earnings. So couples may find themselves subject to it even if they each make less than $250,000.
That could lead to a surprise at tax time since employers withhold payroll taxes only on their own workers.
For instance, if a husband and wife each earn $175,000, they will owe the additional tax, but their employers likely will not have withheld it. So they will owe $900.
Investment income tax: Wealthier taxpayers with investment income could be subject to an additional 3.8% levy. Investment income includes interest, dividends and capital gains, among other things.
The formula is somewhat complicated. Only those with modified adjusted gross incomes above a threshold of $200,000, or $250,000 if married, need be concerned.
But filers don't always owe tax on all their investment income. It's just on the investment income that exceeds the threshold.
For example, if a married couple has income of $300,000, of which $275,000 is from wages and $25,000 is from investments, they would owe the tax on all the investment income, or $950 in taxes.
But if the same couple had $125,000 in investment income, they would owe tax only on $50,000, or $1,900 in taxes, because that's the amount that exceeds the threshold.
Deduction for medical expenses: Also, it will become harder to deduct medical expenses, though this deduction is more common among middle class taxpayers.
Until now, taxpayers could deduct medical expenses that exceeded 7.5% of their adjusted gross income. This level is rising to 10% next year.
One-third of the people who took this deduction had income in the $50,000 to $100,000 range in 2010, according to a CNNMoney analysis of Internal Revenue Service data. Only a tiny fraction of the rich took advantage of this deduction because their high incomes made it hard to reach the threshold.
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:0c8a1102-4768-4227-95aa-5f0916a35627> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickondetroit.com/money/Rich-to-pay-more-2013-taxes-no-matter-what/-/1719116/17909758/-/format/rsss_2.0/view/print/-/uyehg/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970335 | 633 | 1.734375 | 2 |
A former General Motors engineer convicted of stealing thousands of pages of hybrid technology was sentenced Wednesday to just a year and a day in prison, far below the punishment sought by the government in a case that involved her husband and an alleged scheme to take the trade secrets to China.
When we drive, we get into a glass bubble, lock the doors and press the accelerator, relying on our eyes to guide us -- even though we can only see the few cars ahead of and behind us. But what if cars could share data with each other about their position and velocity, and use predictive models to calculate the safest routes for everyone on the road? Jennifer Healey imagines a world without accidents.
Scientists at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart have unveiled a third generation robot prototype, designed to assist the elderly in their homes. The 'Care-o-bot 3' is equipped to detect, grasp and carry ordinary household objects on command, and bring a measure of independence to the aged and infirm.
The U.S. economy has been expanding wildly for two centuries. Are we witnessing the end of growth? Economist Robert Gordon lays out 4 reasons U.S. growth may be slowing, detailing factors like epidemic debt and growing inequality, which could move the U.S. into a period of stasis we can't innovate our way out of. Be sure to watch the opposing viewpoint from Erik Brynjolfsson.
As machines take on more jobs, many find themselves out of work or with raises indefinitely postponed. Is this the end of growth? No, says Erik Brynjolfsson -- it’s simply the growing pains of a radically reorganized economy. A riveting case for why big innovations are ahead of us … if we think of computers as our teammates. Be sure to watch the opposing viewpoint from Robert Gordon.
Today, there is an extensive amount of data produced relative to the manufacturing process. However, this data is typically “trapped” in equipment used in the production of products or the operation of the facilities or it is recorded on paper where it cannot be easily analyzed. The purpose of MTConnect is to “unlock” this data and provide it in a format that can be used by software applications.
Lawmakers have advanced a bill intended to attract more wind-energy companies to Nebraska as long as residents receive some of the benefits. The measure would make it easier for renewable energy firms to qualify for sales-tax exemptions under an existing state program — the Rural Community-Based Energy Development Act — that was created to encourage wind-energy projects.
Ford Motor Co. announced its entry into Myanmar on Tuesday, saying it plans to open the nation's first sales and service showroom for new vehicles by August. Myanmar's vehicle market has been stunted by decades of international sanctions and strict import controls put in place by the military junta that ruled for nearly 50 years, handing out import licenses to a few favored tycoons.
Thankfully, rather than simply doing a quick visual assessment of the roof and deciding it needs to be replaced, today’s roofing professionals can rely on several different non-destructive moisture tests to help make solid recommendations based on unbiased scientific information. The decision of when to repair, restore or replace a large commercial roof often involves a million dollars or more.
Researchers at Georgia Tech University have developed an organic solar cell made of wood. The biodegradable, transparent films are designed to replace the layers of glass or plastic found in conventional solar cells, heralding the possible development of solar panels that are 100 percent recyclable. Reuters' Ben Gruber reports.
Boeing Co.'s chief engineer for the 787 Dreamliner said Saturday that changes to the lithium-ion battery system are fully sufficient to ensure the aircraft's safety, although the company has been unable to find the cause of the original battery failures earlier this year that led to groundings of the plane worldwide since mid-January.
General Motors Co. wants a long prison sentence next week for a former employee and her husband who were convicted of stealing hybrid vehicle technology for potential use by competitors in China. Trade secrets were found on at least seven computers owned by ex-GM engineer Shanshan Du and Yu Qin, according to prosecutors.
The story of Silicon Valley Silicon Alley is a tale of two digital cities competing for national dominance. Google's Jared Cohen and New York City's Chief Digital Officer Rachel Hunt join the NOW panel to talk about the age of American innovation.
Researchers at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta are programming robots to work together. The scientists believe that in the future, robotic swarms could play an important role in assessing threats at high profile events like the Boston Marathon where two deadly bombs went off last week. Reuters' Ben Gruber has more.
Your smartphone may feel like a friend—but a true friend would give you a smile once in a while. At TED2013, Keller Rinaudo demos Romo, the smartphone-powered mini robot who can motor along with you on a walk, slide you a cup of coffee across the table, and react to you with programmable expressions.
Engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center have begun experimenting with 3D printers for some spacecraft design. CNET's Sumi Das visits one of its newly open workshops, which is filled with state of the art equipment.
It's certainly one of the most talked about stocks, so what is it going to take to turn Apple's profits around? Apple's profits fell 18 percent to $9.5 billion in the second quarter. As profit margins decrease on iPads and iPhones, pressure increases on Apple to enter a new product category.
Wirelessness alone doesn't make for truly usable mobile devices — just ask the professionals who’ve dropped cell phones into water, vibrated tablets to death on their dashboards, or watched PDA screens shatter as they hit the ground. To continue to drive true workforce mobility, data devices need to be compact, connectable, quick and able to withstand whatever they encounter — whether that’s a river, a sandstorm or a warehouse floor.
U.S. traffic safety regulators are expected to propose stronger measures to keep drivers from being distracted by in-car touchscreens. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator David Strickland have scheduled a news conference for Tuesday afternoon to address distracted driving.
Through an agreement with The National Authority for Government Innovation, 4Sight will help the Government of Panama continue its mission to achieve technological excellence by improving interoperability of systems, optimizing processes, advancing quality control and continuous improvement, and facilitating Business Intelligence.
As manufacturers continue to increase plant automation, virtualization is gaining traction as a way to control costs, increase efficiencies, and drive better long-term planning. Virtualization, the practice of using a software layer to let one physical computing server run multiple applications on virtual machines, enables manufacturers to maximize their return on hardware investments while conserving real estate on the plant floor.
Mobile devices are necessary tools to increase the efficiency and productivity of workers across many industries and markets, including the warehouse. But wearable, voice-directed and multimodal mobile technologies are helping to transform the warehouse environment at an even faster pace than standard mobile tools in other markets.
Clear Automation, a leading engineering integrator of robotic and machine vision systems, today announced it has received FANUC Robotics' award for Outstanding Sales Growth for 2012.Clear Automation has been an Authorized System Integrator of FANUC robots for 5 years.
Investors who stood by Boeing during its 787 crisis have been rewarded. Some investors bailed out, spooked by the latest snag with a plane considered to be a key to Boeing's future. Others were confident that Boeing Co. would quickly fix the battery problem and raved about its long-term prospects.
Manufacturing floors don’t have Lego stations and pool tables – and yes, OSHA may take issue with throwing empty cans from the mini bar into the same bin as the scrap metal from the lathe, but that doesn’t mean that the industry has any fewer engineers flocking to it. | <urn:uuid:e99065b6-9408-4583-bc4d-641a447a5b57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.impomag.com/topics/technology-developments?page=1&qt-recent_content=1&qt-most_popular=0 | 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 | 0.949218 | 1,675 | 1.539063 | 2 |
During Interzoo 2012, Poul Valdemar Nielsen, founder of Uniq Nordic Gold dog food in Denmark, explains how his products contain only local, natural ingredients, much like the food made by famous Danish chef René Redzepi.
Cornelia Ewering, veterinarian and pet nutrition expert for Mars Petcare Germany, said pet owners should keep feeding diaries to properly manage pets' weight. She participated in a full program of talks at the Mars stand during Interzoo 2012.
Responding to a question during Interzoo 2012, Dr. Cornelia Ewering of Mars Petcare Germany explains that in the wild, dogs and cats eat smaller, more frequent meals. So pet dogs' daily food should be divided into at least two meals, more for cats.
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If you have any issues logging in or any other need feel free to contact us. | <urn:uuid:686a6f80-8bc8-47b4-8ce2-72705d2be904> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petfoodindustry.com/RelatedContentList.aspx?id=46259&tag=pet%20food | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94804 | 187 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Hate crimes in Los Angeles County soared last year to their highest mark in five years even as overall crime dropped across the region, according to a report released Thursday.
The annual report by the county's Human Relations Commission shows 763 hate crimes were reported in 2007, a 28 percent increase from 2006.
The numbers buck last year's overall crime trends, which saw a decrease of 6 percent in Los Angeles County and 5 percent in the city of Los Angeles, the report notes.
The most common hate crimes were those motivated by race, with 310 committed against black people and 125 against Latinos. However, crimes in which anti-immigrant slurs were used dropped slightly.
Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who had not seen the report, said it is important to remember that hate crimes represent only a tiny percentage of overall crime numbers. She said the increase is likely a reflection of economic times.
"When economic times gets tighter, hate crime violence goes up," she said, adding that child abuse and domestic violence often increase for the same reason.
Gangs are a factor in many hate crimes. In all, 16 percent of hate crimes last year were committed by gang members. According to the report, gang members committed 120 hate crimes last year, an increase of 14 percent from 2006.
The extent to which race is driving the area's gang crisis is a subject of ongoing debate. Sheriff Lee Baca has said he considers it a major factor, while Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton and other officials downplay suggestions of racial tension.
The report notes that friction between black and Latino residents continues to be a major instigator of hate crimes. There were 116 hate crimes unrelated to gangs that were committed by Latinos against African Americans and 26 such crimes committed by African Americans against Latinos.
Information in the report is compiled from law enforcement agencies, schools and universities, community organizations and directly from victims. The commission then decides which incidents fit the legal definition of hate crimes, so numbers in the report do not necessarily reflect the outcome of criminal investigations.
The report states that white supremacist activity continues to be "surprisingly high," with 131 hate crimes showing evidence of being committed by white racists.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, for every hate crime that is reported to police, as many as 28 are not reported, often for fear of retaliation or concerns about talking to authorities. | <urn:uuid:9ca33b92-0b4e-4a4d-ab05-4431eb945a22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hate-crimes-hit-5-year-high-panel-says-3203465.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977959 | 480 | 1.632813 | 2 |
After his studies in ceramics, Tiberio Colantuoni worked as a cercamics painter for five years. He entered the comics field in 1954 under the guidance of Benito Jacovitti. He moved to Milan, where he studied at the Academy di Brera. He illustrated several series for the publishing house Alpe, such as 'Cucciolo', 'Sfortunino', 'Maramao' (created by Luciano Bottaro), 'Sceriffo Fox' (created by Giorgio Rebuffi), 'Volpetto' and 'Nonna Abelarda'. In addition, he joined the publishing house Bianconi in 1955, where he launched his most famous creation, 'Bongo'. He also produced artwork and scripts for 'Felix', 'Braccio di Ferro' ('Popeye') and 'Pinocchio'.
Colantuoni alternated his comics work with cartoon work for the daily Il Giorno (1960-1961) and promotional illustrations for Mondadori publishers. From 1963 to 1973, Colantuoni collaborated on Rolf Kauka's 'Fix und Foxi' for the German publisher Kauka Verlag. He joined Il Corriere dei Piccoli in 1974, where he drew the series 'Big Tom' until 1975. As a member of the Bierreci studios, he illustrated the series 'Prato e Asfalto', as well as Disney comics for Topolino since 1974 (often in cooperation with Maria Luisa Uggetti). | <urn:uuid:dd20de59-b235-47cc-b260-d068f96966ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/colantuoni_tiberio.htm?lan=english | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939739 | 318 | 1.664063 | 2 |
JACKSONVILLE We first noticed them on Friday night, as a string of relatively slow-moving, revolving yellow lights coursing down the darkened highway. We saw three more of them on Saturday in the daylight, entire convoys of wood-chippers, power wagons, and bucket trucks. Usually, there was a pick-up truck at the front of each line of vehicles, and another one at the end of it, and, when everybody wanted to duck off to a Love plaza up on a hill, one of the pick-ups would park itself at the base of the exit ramp and make sure the other trucks were herded up in the right direction.
There were electrical workers from Pennsylvania, and from North Carolina, and from Indiana and New York. There were tree workers from Indiana and Illinois and Michigan. They were from the parts of this country where there is electrical work and tree work to be done at all times of the year. There is that work to be done in the winter, after the blizzards, and in the early spring, after the sucker-punch ice storms, and in the later spring, after the ice melts and the floods come. There is that work to be done in the heat of the summer, when the tornadoes form over the flat, drought-sickened landscape, and the sirens sound and then, when the terrible roaring is faded and gone, they come out to clear the trees and free the wires, and dig battered normality out of the rubble once again. And they keep doing it long after the cameras and the microphones and the network anchors have moved on to the next pile of wreckage. These are the people who work with angry weather, and with a climate driven mad, in places where there is weather all throughout the year. This week, though, they piled into their trucks and headed south, to this place, where there is weather and work for them to do only in a small sliver of time at the end of every summer, when the storms come.
They came rattling down Dwight Eisenhower's great national highway system because the National Weather Service, which is itself part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, relying on satellite technology and the National Hurricane Center, told them that a storm named Isaac was going to slam into this country somewhere along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. They were prepared to move in any direction along Ike's great idea because the storm might hit New Orleans or Mobile, or up along the Florida Panhandle. Some of them were ready to go all the way down to the Keys, because it looked as though that was the only place the storm was guaranteed likely to make American landfall. They even thought they might have to follow the information that the National Hurricane Center fed to the National Weather Service and drive hellbent down the west coast of Florida to Tampa, where the Republicans already had called off one entire day of their quadrennial informercial that, this year more than any others, is dedicated to the proposition that the national government is a useless parasite that does no good for anyone. Better for "the states" or, even more gloriously, your county sheriff to be in charge of warning the rest of the country that you'll be needing your powerlines to be disentangled from the oak tree that just fell on your Escalade.
There will be some who believe to this to be unfair. I don't care anymore. The reckless right has translated its reckless rhetoric into reckless action once too often for me. In 2009, the Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by the zombie-eyed granny-starver who is their presumptive vice-presidential nominee, took a meat-ax to all of those programs, cutting over $450 million from NOAA's budget alone. Some of the leading conservative intellectuals which is to say, some of the most lucratively subsidized corporate tools have long advocated privatizing the National Weather Service, essentially arguing that the NWS was scaring people with its warnings. ("Intellectuals," you may have noticed here, is a relative term in this context, in the same way that, say, "andiron" is a relative term in the context of food.) Rick Santorum, the place horse in this year's Republican primaries, climbed on that bandwagon as well. One thing we've learned since Todd Akin unlimbered himself concerning the secret secretions of the ladyparts, and since Willard Romney told his "birther" joke and gave the crowd around him a chance to howl with delight, is that anything the Republicans refer to as a "fringe" idea is merely one the common wisdom of the party that you're not supposed to say out loud. That is where we are with them a cult of the Kabbalah of Stupid.
The influential conservatives in this country are now dedicated to nothing less than the ultimate delegitimization of the concept of a national self-government. Some of them are in it for the bucks; state governments are more easily bought and controlled. Some of them are in it out of pure ideology, and out of tired ideas that already have caused far too much historical mischief. Some of them are in it because, frankly, they don't know any better. But the overriding goal of the modern conservative movement, which its adherents will make obvious no matter how truncated their convention is this week, has been to make something alien out of something that is essentially ours and, historically, the best vehicle through which to exercise our better selves, as a people and a country.
I watched these long lines of trucks and thought, again, of Dos Passos's great, deep sigh at the end of the portion of USA that deals with the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. "All right," he writes, "we are two countries." That may still be so. But we are one people still. A lot of the people in these trucks probably could have been on vacation. Certainly some of them had work to do back in Harrisburg, or Columbus, or Elkhart. But they were on the road south because a place that usually doesn't have a lot of weather was about to get a lot of it from a demented climate. Certainly, the companies they work for sent them off, and, certainly, those companies will turn a tidy profit, not enough of which may filter down to the people driving the trucks. Hurrah for free enterprise. But they were driving on our highways, on information from our scientists, to try and help our fellow citizens. Competent, intelligent self-government is the finest product of a free people. It provides the context within which our highflown ideas become real. It illustrates the manuscripts of our founding documents. It lays out the detailed maps for the pursuit of happiness. We are all invested in it because we all are, or damned well ought to be, invested in the work of creating it. It cannot go rogue. If our self-government fails us, it is because we have listened to the fundamental heresy that our national government is something alien to us. The people in those trucks, pulling off the highway to grab a burger or a nap, were not moving through the American night as Indianans or Pennsylvanians or New Yorkers. They were Americans, come south to help other Americans. I was proud to share our highway with them.
Thomas P.M. Barnett, Chris Jones, Tom Junod, Scott Raab, Eric Rauchway, John H. Richardson, Eli Sanders, Mark Warren, John Weaver, and other smart people, occasionally.View All Posts | <urn:uuid:2fd67d8c-c5e0-4a4c-a4dc-2617bd14c892> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/hurricane-isaac-2012-12058876?src=rss | 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 | 0.97704 | 1,549 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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Tue January 27, 2009
Unemployment remains even in Hunt County
By Scott Harvey
Hunt County – Even though Hunt County unemployment figures for December didn't go up, they didn't go down either.
The local unemployment rate remained unchanged between November and December, but dozens of jobs were lost from month to month and hundreds more people filed for unemployment last month than did in December 2007, according to the report last week from the Texas Workforce Commission.
The 6 percent unemployment rate in December for Hunt County is well above the 4.6 percent reported in December, 2007.
179 positions were reported lost over the span and a total of 2,369 people filed for unemployment in December. The county's Civilian Labor Force shrank month to month, from 39,874 in November to 39,682 in December, which helped keep the unemployment rate steady.
Hunt County is listed by the Texas Workforce Commission as part of the Dallas-Plano-Irving Metropolitan Division, which also includes Dallas, Collin, Delta, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman and Rockwall counties.
Kaufman County posted the region's highest unemployment rate last month, at 6.5 percent. Denton County had the lowest rate for the month, at 5.2 percent. Dallas County was listed with 6.3 percent unemployment, Collin and Rockwall counties each posted 5.5 percent unemployment, while Delta and Ellis counties each recorded 5.9 percent unemployment in December.
Among other nearby counties, Fannin County posted a 7.2 percent unemployment rate during December, Hopkins County 4.7 percent, Lamar County 6 percent, Rains County 6.1 percent and Van Zandt County listed a 5.1 percent unemployment rate last month. | <urn:uuid:0f732d57-3763-4746-ab3f-55db00f92277> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ketr.org/post/unemployment-remains-even-hunt-county | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954156 | 359 | 1.78125 | 2 |
I find this all very hypocritical. The US Govt has been instrumental in torturing and killing many innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan and its soldiers don’t get the death penalty.
And what happened to those that killed innocent Vietnamese? Here’s what happened to them?
The My Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰɐ̃ːm ʂɐ̌ːt mǐˀ lɐːj]; English pronunciation: /ˌmiːˈlaɪ/ ( listen), also /ˌmiːˈleɪ, ˌmaɪˈlaɪ/,Vietnamese: [mǐˀlɐːj]) was the mass murder of 347–504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, conducted by “Charlie” company, 1st battalion, 20th infantry, 11th infantry brigade, of the Americal Division, United States Army. All of the victims were civilians and most were women, children (including babies), and elderly people. Many of the victims were raped, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.
The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War. While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at Mỹ Lai, only 2nd Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader in “Charlie” company, was convicted of killing 22 villagers. Originally given a life sentence, he served three and a half years under house arrest.
Whether Troy Davis is guilty or not the Death Penalty should never be an option, Never.
I pray that Former FBI Chief William S. Sessions’ appeal will stay this execution.
If we cannot create Life, what gives us the right to destroy it?
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om | <urn:uuid:00134ec6-d2f0-48c5-a94e-58f80acfac91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://my.telegraph.co.uk/markulyseas/markulyseas/1712/breaking-news-%E2%80%93-stop-troy-davis-execution-says-former-fbi-director-william-s-sessions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963507 | 428 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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"This farm teaches people about the woods. I get both schoolchildren and tourists here. I don't hand out lessons, I go on walks with them and answer questions before sitting down to a good snack. Every tree has a history. We have very beautiful forests here and quality wood: oak and ash trees (the latter were highly used in the manufacture of traditional tools), as well as beech trees, chestnut trees in the south of Laon, hornbeams, birches, a hard wood contrary to popular belief, and lime trees. There's also alder, a wood that grows along the river that was used a lot in Thiérache in construction. The forest is my passion. I like teaching people about it and passing on my experience. People are very interested and realise that they don't know it well. They go on walks there often, but they're passing through a world that they don't know."
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Feds Could Approve Vegas-Phoenix Link This Week | News
LAS VEGAS -- The federal Transportation Jobs Bill expected to be approved later this week includes Interstate 11, which would better link Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The two-year transportation bill would restore millions of miles of worn roadways, railways and bridges.
In a statement, Sen. Harry Reid said that by connecting two of the largest cities in the southwestern U.S. would create jobs, increase commerce and boost tourism to Nevada.
"For years, I have worked with local stakeholders to make Interstate 11 a reality," he said. "I fought long and hard to get this provision included in the transportation bill and I am pleased the House agreed to keep my Senate provision."
Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce CEO Kristin McMillan said connecting the two cities would allow Las Vegas to transform into a distribution hub.
"There's momentum at this point, and we're in the middle of redefining our economic diversification efforts within the state of Nevada," she said. "We will have a lot of support for this."
There's also the potential to extend the highway north toward Canada and south to the Mexico border.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Interstate 11 would be "a significant step in continuing to foster economic development and tourism, build stronger transportation infrastructure for the Intermountain West and support national and international trade."
The governor's office said Phoenix and Las Vegas remain the largest U.S. cities not linked by an interstate highway corridor.
The combined population of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas and Reno was less than 700,000 when the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was enacted.
Their combined population currently is 8 million and expected to keep growing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:3b6e8863-9cf4-4bc7-8514-77a2fe4a9ace> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bouldercity.8newsnow.com/news/news/132121-feds-could-approve-vegas-phoenix-link-week | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959682 | 363 | 1.664063 | 2 |
You often hear about executives that follow their mentors from one company to another. But Paul Duffy, a 31-year veteran of
Sandoz—and then Novartis— followed a molecule to his new post as executive vice president of Alamo Pharmaceuticals.
Back in June 2003, Novartis reallocated the promotional dollars behind Clozaril (clozapine), a product used for treatment-resistant
schizophrenia that faced significant generic competition to newer brands. Although Novartis offered Duffy other opportunities
within the company, he wanted to continue working with the physicians and patients to whom he had devoted the last 13 years
of his life as the brand's steward.
Before very long, Duffy was contacted by Neil R. Cutler, MD, founder of the maker of FazaClo, a drug that enhances the clozapine
molecule by offering an orally disintegrating tablet delivery system. He asked Duffy to run the commercial side of the company,
Alamo Pharmaceuticals, and Duffy accepted.
In February 2004, the FDA approved FazaClo, and put Alamo on the map. Duffy had to get the commercial operation off the ground
by creating Alamo's sales force, and marketing and distribution functions from scratch.
Here, he talks about that challenge, the company's first product, and working with the government to improve access.
Pharm Exec: The industry is using more orally disintegrating tablets. What are the benefits of that formulation?
Duffy: For one, it is very discreet. When patients open the blister packaging, it looks like they're taking a breath mint. The formulation
also helps patients to avoid skipping doses, because they can take their medication even if there is no water available—if
they're at their job as a cashier in a grocery store or if they're on a subway or bus. Patients don't have to stop and say,
"I have to go get some water. It's time to take my medicine." When that happens, they remind themselves, and everybody around
them, that they are ill.
FazaClo's minty taste also makes it easier for the patient to remember. Because it appeals to that sense, patients are more
apt to say, "Gee, I took my last dose this morning. It's time to take another one now."
What type of patent protection does FazaClo have?
FazaClo is manufactured using the patented OraSolv technology, licensed from Cima Labs. We have two patents on the manufacturing
process of the product. This licensed technology presented a unique development opportunity. Often we see brands come onto
the market, followed by generics—and that's the end of the story. Here, we have a brand that is followed by generics, fol
» lowed by a new patent-protected brand. That also is happening in some other places. Klonopin (clonazepam), for example,
was branded in tablets, then followed by generics, and now Roche Laboratories has introduced the new Klonopin wafers.
In our case, it presents some interesting dynamics, particularly with payers, because our patients often rely on Medicaid
to pay for their medications.
What are the dynamics?
One of the biggest issues in antipsychotic therapy today is the use of polypharmacy. Harvard recently conducted a study that
pointed out that polypharmacy can cause more side effects, have increased costs, and offer no better outcome. So if you have
a product that is more effective in a particular disease state and that becomes a generic, and the product loses its champion,
then what rushes in to fill the void are other, newer patented products. But they may not be as effective and may require
polypharmacy to get the same effect. So the revival of the former champion to its original status and its rightful usage levels
will help to reduce polypharmacy and the costs to state payers.
Are payers open to hearing about new formulations of products when generics are available?
It has puzzled them a little bit. We have given numerous presentations to various states, and they have listened carefully.
When we lay out our rationale and give them supporting documentation, they begin to see the sense of our proposal, and that
it is a viable strategy for the states. | <urn:uuid:83d63d5e-154c-4912-b502-6a801250ab29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/DELETE/Thought-Leader-Molecular-Stewardship/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/168147 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962267 | 909 | 1.546875 | 2 |
DISTRIBUTION CENTERS ARE SPREADING
Increase in distribution centers a real estate phenomenon
Published: Monday, February 25, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, February 23, 2013 at 4:43 p.m.
Hurricane Sane is long past, but in its wake, retailers and others are modifying "just-in-time" inventory practices and carrying appropriate levels of merchandise.
The shift to "just-in-case management" has led logistics companies to add distribution hubs nationwide, according to CoStar Group, a leading real estate research firm in Washington, D.C.
In turn, the hubs are sparking real estate opportunities in markets off established distribution paths and prompting growth in unorthodox markets.
At a time when extreme weather and other events are more the norm and not the exception worldwide, just-in-case planning should help retailers keep merchandise on store shelves if their supply chains become disrupted.
The trend comes in response to vulnerabilities in just-in-time supply chains, said Rene Circ, CoStar's director of industrial research.
Since the 1990s, just-in-time has reduced costs for companies by keeping smaller inventories on hand, as technology has enabled retailers and manufacturers to closely track and ship items to replace merchandise sold. It has also reduced transportation costs.
By combining just-in-case with just-in-time strategies, Circ said, companies are striking a balance between "carrying the minimum inventory possible, yet never running out of things, because inventory equals cost."
As an example, Ranger Steel, a Houston company that is among the largest privately owned steel-plate distributors nationwide, recently expanded its network of distribution centers.
Until the late 1990s, Ranger Steel regularly trucked heavy steel plates from its distribution center at the Port of Houston to customers throughout the U.S.
"For a long time, that concept worked like a charm," said Jochen Seeba, the company's vice president and chief operating officer.
"Then you started to see the spike in fuel pricing, and new governmental rules and regulations on insurance coverage for truck drivers that made truck transportation very expensive."
Adding distribution centers has cut overall delivery times because the company is now closer to customers.
Today, Ranger Steel has seven distribution centers, from which drivers usually deliver orders within 24 hours.
The more significant advantage is the ability to serve and retain customers better, Seeba said.
With just-in-time management, smaller on-site inventories put companies at greater risk of running out of merchandise.
Shaw Lupton, CoStar's senior real estate economist, said companies are trying to mitigate that risk by diversifying supply chains. He also notes there has been a slowdown in the rate at which the largest warehouse markets have captured market share over the past decade.
Some researchers say that retailers, in particular, face competitive pressures to establish distribution centers near major population centers. That's because many states -- including Florida -- are considering forcing online retailers to pay sales tax, a move that would level the field with brick-and-mortar stores.
In an effort to maintain their advantage, online retailers are increasingly offering rapid shipping from nearby distribution centers, Circ said.
"It's driving this reconfiguration of supply chains and the building of these large warehouses, not just in a few key markets, as it used to be, but a lot more widely spread" across the country, he said.
The closer to the customer that a company can transport its goods, the greater the efficiency and cost savings, said Tim Feemster, senior managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, a real estate company.
In late January, Amazon.com announced plans to open three fulfillment centers in Texas, each measuring more than 1 million square feet. Since 2011, it has unveiled plans for eight such centers, in unlikely locales such as Middletown, Del., and Dupont, Wash.
The supply chain redesign has introduced some new distribution paths, too. One of Amazon's fulfillment centers in Texas will be north of Fort Worth. Another will be in Coppell, near Dallas. A third is northeast of San Antonio.
But the shift is not for everyone.
Benjamin Butcher, chief executive of STAG Industrial in Boston, which owns and manages more than 29 million square feet of industrial space in 31 states, says many companies are reluctant to alter established supply chains.
"In the tenants we're dealing with, there is a lot of stability," he said.
"They don't tend to move unless there is a fairly strong and valid business reason to do it."
This story appeared in print on page D10
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:9071b349-6c04-4778-9e5e-12ff2d3bdf04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130225/ARTICLE/302259989/0/www.heraldtribune.com | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956368 | 1,002 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Move through Fantasy and Reality while watching Asian Drama!
Description: In 1988 Hokkaido's Hokusei Yoichi High School became the first high school in Japan to accept students who had previously dropped out of high school from nationwide. Hokkaido Broadcasting (HBC) has been covering this school for 15 years and aired a documentary last spring that caused a stir all over the country. Now TBS in cooperation with HBC will create a drama based on the school. The drama will follow a former gang member, dropout and graduate of the school who returns as a teacher. We will follow him as he helps graduating students out into the world. The teachers and students will, as you would expect, confront all the issues of youth and society today. At this school, there are no compromises, no lies. This drama will move you as both students and teachers face a variety of issues head on. This is a moving story that is created by people coming together and learning to believe in each other. -TBS | <urn:uuid:2a58707b-6a1d-478a-9255-a6fd5b22ac9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dramacrazy.net/yankee-bokou-ni-kaeru-images/923 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982168 | 205 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Archive for the ‘Citroen DS’ tag
It could be said that the introduction of the Citroen DS changed the automotive universe forever. When the DS – pronounced “day-ess,” which sounds like deesse, the French word for “goddess” – was exhibited on October 6, 1955, at Paris’s Salon de l’Auto, the futuristic bullet signaled that everything else that was up-to-date was suddenly, hopelessly, archaic. From its Flaminio Bertoni styling and interior design to its complex self-leveling air-oil suspension and equally complex hydraulic system actuating the power disc brakes, semi-automatic transmission, automatic clutch and power steering, Citroën forged a brave new path. It’s been said the innovative automaker received 12,000 orders for this new and unproven car during that 1955 Salon, and Citroën built 1,456,115 examples in plants around the world until the model was retired in 1975.
To celebrate the DS’s unveiling at the 1955 Salon de l’Auto, the Swiss collector-car speciality firm Lukas Hüni AG will partner with the famous Salon Rétromobile to showcase a selection of early and late Citroën DSs on a special stand in Hall 3.
For the uninitiated, Rétromobile is one of the most popular, and most imitated classic car events in the world. The 2013 showing is the event’s 38th anniversary.
Taking place between Wednesday, February 6, and Sunday the 10th, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center, this year’s Rétromobile will welcome more than 70,000 visitors and 400 exhibitors. Additional special features will include a tribute to Roland Garros – the first man who (in September 1913) crossed the Mediterranean by air – with a display of his type H plane, “Morane,” and a period-style exhibit of Marcel Leyat’s propeller-driven Hélica cars, 23 of which were built between 1913 and 1926. Everywhere you turn will be automaker and prominent collector displays, parts sellers, restoration specialists, classic car dealers, automotive craftsmen, fine artists, club displays and more. The Artcurial Motorcars auction brought massive interest and huge money last year, going down in history as France’s highest-grossing automobile auction- 2013 may top that record.
Four-Links – Boss 302 prototype, Ruxton rundown, driving the Aston Martin DB5 in “Skyfall,” Le Caddy
* Ronnie Schreiber at Cars in Depth recently tracked down the owner of the alleged Boss 302 prototype and declared that it appears to be the real thing.
* Over at The Old Motor this week, David Greenlees gave us the rundown on the Ruxton front-wheel drive car. Yes, that color scheme is one that Ruxton offered from the factory.
* If you’ve been following all the news surrounding the upcoming James Bond flick, “Skyfall,” you’ll already know that the famous Aston Martin DB5 will return, after sitting out “Quantum of Solace.” This week, Business Insider’s Getting There blog posted some tidbits on driving the Aston from stunt driver Ben Collins (formerly the Stig).
* The Petrol Stop this week rounded up some info and photos on the Chapron-built Citroën DS Le Caddy convertible.
* As with Automobiliac’s call for a vintage road race in Central Park, this week the Chicane asserts that the Golden Gate road races should be resurrected as a vintage racing event.
It’d be easy to blame the remarkable condition of this 1970 Citroen DS21 Pallas for sale on Hemmings.com on the Southwestern climate it’s enjoyed throughout its life, but plenty of Southwestern cars don’t look as good as this goddess after more than 40 years. Rather, the car’s two owners have done a commendable job maintaining it over that span. From the seller’s description:
Once owned by a concert violinist who lived in the Phoenix area that spared no expense maintaining this car. I have a thick folder full of receipts for the maintenance performed on this car since he owned it. I bought the car from his estate 10 years ago. I have all of the receipts for the parts and service I put in the car while I owned it. Most of the work while I owned the car was performed by me and a good friend who is well known in the Citroen circles.
The black leather interior is very good shape (the rear seat & headliner were redone several years ago). It has updated retractable seat belts. It has cold-blowing A/C (I just installed 2 fresh rebuilt condenser fans). All lights and switches work. The clock does not work but I have 3 others to see if one can be made to work by a clocksmith. The previous owner installed a radio that I replaced with a newer unit. I have an uncut dash that will be supplied with the car if desired. We can talk about the old and correct continental radio that goes in the right location. The pictures do not show the belly pan under the engine but I have it. When I took the pictures, it was removed.
Good mechanicals with about 5,000 miles on engine & clutch with new water pump, spheres, fuel pump, axle boots, and rebuilt steering rack. I rebuilt the original alternator & rebushed the carburetor. I recently installed a stainless exhaust that fits tight with no leaks. It has a PerTronix electronic ignition. The front brake calipers have been rebuilt – the front brake rotors are nice and thick and the pads along with the parking brake are in fine shape and functions correctly. The radiator has a high efficiency core that runs cool, even on the hottest days with the A/C on. The semi-auto gearbox shifts like a Citroen should. It creeps off when you release the brake button and shifts smoothly at speed. I did all of the mechanicals that keep this car roadworthy and put it into the final position to finish the project.
Nothing prevents this car from being driven wherever you would like. To make this a stunning show car, I would redo the door panels and freshen the body and paint it.
View past picks: Hemmings Find of the Day Archive
See more Citroëns for sale on Hemmings.com.
Four-Links – Michelin’s tire-testing rig, SASCO closing, Kirkland concours, MAX the 100 MPG diesel Seven
* In 1972, Michelin wanted to test truck tires at high speeds, but worried about the disastrous consequences of high-speed blowouts in big rigs, so they built the PLR, a mishmash of Citroën DS parts and two small-block Chevrolet V-8s. Apparently, Ixo made a 1/43rd-scale diecast model of it too.
* News came this week that one of the last (if not the last) vestiges of Studebaker, SASCO, housed in the historic Building 92, was sold off to settle a debt. the story mentions the city’s desire to demolish the building as well, so do like Flickr member jpenrice did and grab your photos of Building 92 sooner rather than later. (via)
* Them boys over at RustyHeaps.com recently took in the Kirkland Concours d’Elegance at Carillon Point in Washington state. The show included some great race boats and Big-C Classics, but very few rusty heaps.
* There’s some neat vehicles competing in the Automotive X Prize, and one of them is MAX, a Seven-type roadster built pretty much from scratch using a Kubota three-cylinder diesel and chronicled in the pages of Mother Earth News. (via)
* Finally, the UK’s Autocar reports that the British cash for clunkers program may get a cash infusion similar to the one that kept its American counterpart going for a couple weeks longer. Though originally designed to last through March, current estimates have the program running out of money next month. A cash infusion would prolong it through February. As for the other Euro clunkers programs, Edmunds has a roundup. Summary: They don’t want it to end.
Your Dodge Dart is all well and good, yes, but does it have the hydropneumatic suspension like the Citroen? No. Does it have the hydraulic steering and semiautomatic gearbox like the Citroen? No. Does it have a steering wheel with but a single spoke, and a little button for a brake pedal, like the Citroen? No. I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Previous in the break battle: brokebreak mountain: Dodge Dart
On Sunday, November 26, TVR owners made a statement that no car lover should forget. As a show of support for the workers of the soon-to-be outsourced Blackpool, England, car maker, almost 500 cars rolled into the seat of England’s government with a simple request: Keep our beloved TVR British.
Despite pounding rain, at least 478 cars came (probably more). From all over the UK, convoys formed up before embarking on a seven-mile parade through the city, culminating at Parliament in Whitehall where they delivered a petition with almost 2,500 signatures to the Blackpool MP.
Has the passion of owners ever saved a marque? We don’t know, but if it ever does, this will be the time. Read our history of the decline and fall of TVR, and decide for yourself.
These images are just a tiny sample of the hundreds from this weekend at Pistonheads; cruise on over to be amazed.
UPDATE: We think they’re going to have a mighty hard time claiming the record, when at the Citroën DS 50th anniversary celebration in Paris last year, something on the order of 1,600 DSs formed up for a promenade…
Want to get a look at the next Citroëns? How about Citroëns about 48 years down the line?
According to HSPN, Citroën was directly involved in creating the cars featured in Christian Volckman’s film, Paris 2054: Renaissance. Volckman is quoted as saying he originally wanted the film’s protagonist, Karas, to drive a Citroën DS, but Citroën offered instead to have their in-house design team work on creating a car for the film.
Our French isn’t…well, let’s just say that four years of high-school French, plus a year of tutoring, never resulted in a passing grade, so it’s possible there may be some bleu language in the clips on the Renaissance site. But if the film, which opened if France in March, ever comes to the US, we’ll be first in line (there’s already a French-language DVD, and it looks like the US version is on the way). But the clips move fast, so here are a couple more previews:
And this, we presume, is Karas: | <urn:uuid:38b82f4c-76ac-49fa-b7b6-30bb6d923d2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/tag/citroen-ds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94042 | 2,435 | 1.671875 | 2 |
We are a boarding school for grades 1-8; and use the PACE program; along with computer-based programs to help those children who are behind in their studies to move up to grade level. Each boy is assessed regarding his academic proficiency by grade level and subject area. A plan is developed to specifically attend to each student's academic needs. This program also helps those who are more academically inclined to move ahead and become more challenged as their PACE's increase at a higher grade level. We are a Christian-based program; and therefore use scripture and biblical truth to further instruct the boys in our program.
In addition to traditional core curriculum subjects, we also teach unit-studies in areas like poetry, music (choral and instrumental), sailing / kayaking, crafts, and introduction to golf (utilizing local PGA Senior Tour volunteers). | <urn:uuid:0a3a9542-0689-4734-870c-22d276110c09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thesamaritancenter.org/p/22/school | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973809 | 173 | 1.671875 | 2 |
In Italy artists and musicians made a charity song to raise money for victims of the recent earthquake. Like most music these days the song found its way onto P2P networks before its official release. Italy’s answer to the RIAA reported the situation to the police, who are now reporting they have tracked down and arrested the leakers.
In April hundreds of people were killed after an earthquake hit L’Aquila in Italy, prompting several initiatives to raise funds for those affected. One project saw 56 artists and musicians come together to record a song called “Domani 21/4.09″ (Tomorrow 21/4.09).
Inevitably the song leaked onto P2P networks before its official release. Normally, the leak of any other song would be met with relative silence since it’s such a common event these days, but Italy’s answer to the RIAA, (FIMI, the Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana) decided to take advantage of the delicate nature of the leak to rally public opinion against file-sharing. They claimed that people were downloading the song instead of giving to charity, something which we seriously doubted in our earlier report.
Nevertheless, FIMI decided that the leak was so odious that it should be reported to Guardia di Finanza, an Italian police force dealing with everything from smuggling, money laundering through to copyright violations. FIMI claims that the leak has already cost the charity 1 million euros but provides no evidence of this.
So, to find the people responsible for the leak, Guardia di Finanza launched Operation Jackal and it hasn’t taken long to get some results. It’s now being reported that three individuals have been tracked down after uploading the track to various file-hosting sites and distributing it via an unnamed Direct Connect hub. The arrests were made in Rome and Milan.
At a press conference, Luca Vespignani, secretary general of the Federation Against Music Piracy said that they reported the leak to the police after they noticed “dozens of illegal download every day.”
FIMI president Enzo Mazza commented, “Whoever put this song on the file-sharing networks has done something evil and knowingly damaging the [fund-raising] initiative.”
As we noted previously, giving to charity is a voluntary act, done from the heart. Those that give to charity do so of their own free will and don’t avoid doing that, for instance, by downloading a song for free. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand why people donate in the first place.
Donations to the fund can still be made here. | <urn:uuid:7c87ecac-15bd-4017-9a01-b2125a3a95d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://torrentfreak.com/police-track-down-charity-song-pirates-090527/ | 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 | 0.966505 | 553 | 1.75 | 2 |
Sightseeing Cruise Strikes Rock, Takes On Water
About 70 people were rescued on Sunday from a sightseeing boat that struck a rock near Glacier Bay waters.
The 79-foot Allen Marine vessel Baranof Winds reported it was taking on water Sunday morning. The Coast Guard, National Park Service, and a Holland America Cruise ship responded, said Petty Officer David Mosley with Coast Guard public affairs.
“The cruise ship was already there on scene and when they heard about the need for assistance they immediately diverted. They were there before our helicopter could get there from Sitka,” Mosley said.
Most of the passengers transferred to the cruise ship Volendam. It took them to Bartlett Cove where another vessel was planning to bring them back to Juneau.
Two passengers were transported by the National Park Service.
Mosely said four crew members remained on the boat to ensure it would stay afloat until it can be towed o Sitka.
“They’re going to stay on board until they can get the vessel taken care of, meaning a response will be planned by the owner of the vessel to come out and to salvage it, to tow it back into port, where they can make repairs,” Mosley said.
The MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Sitka delivered a dewatering pump to the Baranof Winds. The cutter Anacapa also diverted to assist the crew.
Mosley said Coast Guard Sector Juneau is sending response personnel to investigate the cause of the grounding and look for potential fuel leaks. No pollution had been discovered as of Sunday afternoon.
Allen Marine offers tours near Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. | <urn:uuid:ce259a5a-dc20-480c-ad0e-6de68fb8a61d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alaskapublic.org/2012/08/20/sightseeing-cruise-strikes-rock-takes-on-water/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aprn-news+%28APRN%3A+Alaska+News%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974706 | 348 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Michael H. Mendeszoon, M.D. Anesthesiologist
It was the first day on a new rotation as resident-on-call for Michael H. Mendeszoon, M.D. At the time, he was an intern at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. On that particular day, he was working in the operating room when suddenly a patient was rushed in, medical staff running alongside the stretcher while feverishly trying to keep him alive. The patient had suffered a ruptured aortic aneurysm, a condition that causes severe pain, massive internal bleeding and, without prompt treatment, death.
“A person with this condition would have about a 95 percent chance of dying either in transit, upon arrival at the hospital or once they’ve made it to the operating table,” says Dr. Mendeszoon, recalling the day as one of the most memorable in his career as an anesthesiologist.
The patient was bleeding profusely and the medical team took diligently to the task of saving his life, applying their skills separately, yet in precise harmony. The work of the attending anesthesiologist stood out most for Mendeszoon, and, to his amazement and delight, the patient survived despite odds stacked heavily against him. “That day, I knew that I had chosen the right field. The attending anesthesiologist coordinated his intense knowledge of human physiology, pharmacology and bioengineering, and he was able to control the outcome and save someone’s life,” Mendeszoon says.
The first physician in his immediate family, Mendeszoon today is the medical director of perioperative services at Kings County Hospital Center, Brooklyn, with responsibility for all of the attendant staff and pre-, intra- and post-surgery operations, which include nursing, housekeeping, technical support and biomedical technicians. In his approach to his work, he is driven by the belief that “if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.”
His cousin, Frank Ognelodh, who today is an orthopedic surgeon, persuaded him to pursue a career in medicine. The two shared a great passion for the field of science and, as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Mendeszoon volunteered in the emergency room at a nearby hospital. “That did it for me,” Mendeszoon says, explaining that the experience fueled his desire to enter the field of medicine even more. “People came in with great need and the staff was able to help them. This had a profound effect on me. At that time, I never knew that the sciences could be applied in a way that allowed you to improve the human condition.”
The work of an anesthesiologist is very intricate, requiring an immense understanding of various medical specialties. “You are basically putting patients in a coma and giving them amnesia. You have to make them comfortable and make sure they don’t remember going through the surgery. You are their critical-care person. Their lives are in your hands.” says Mendeszoon, recalling attempts to dissuade him from entering the field.
Most people assume that patients rarely remember their anesthesiologist. However, explains Mendeszoon, the perioperative care an anesthesiologist provides requires much more interaction than they realize. Generally, anesthesiologists are involved with treating patients from the moment the patients enter the hospital to the time they arrive home. They work with patients prior to surgery in order to make appropriate assessments in their preparation for medical procedures, and they must always be informed of what the surgeon is doing with the patient at every stage of the procedure. Often, the anesthesiologist’s calming voice is the last voice a patient hears before the anesthesia takes effect and the first voice the patient hears upon awakening. Checking in on patients when they are recuperating at home is also an important part of the anesthesiologist’s role.
Mendeszoon joined Kings County Hospital in November 1995 as the clinical director of anesthesiology and after one year was promoted to chief of anesthesiology. In September 2000, he was appointed to his current position as medical director of perioperative services. He was instrumental in revamping the hospital’s entire program for perioperative-care program. At the time, the hospital’s CEO, Jean Leon, was bent on changing the way business was done. Mendeszoon introduced a model called “product line management” and was given the green light to implement it, a move that ultimately transformed his department into a more efficient operation. He recruited new staff, seeking out the best and the brightest talent he could acquire. “I believe we provide the best anesthesia care in all of Brooklyn,” he boasts.
In 2009, New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., the $6.7 billion system that operates the city’s public hospitals and clinics, hired consultants to come up with a breakthrough process to make the system more productive and efficient. Mendeszoon’s model proved helpful in managing the new process. He served as chair of the corporation’s preoperative task force and participated in the development and implementation of the Surgical Safety Checklist, currently used at 11 of the group’s medical facilities. He continues to serve on the safety strategic task force. In March 2009, HHC presented him with the Doctor’s Award, adding to the myriad accolades he has received for his work, including an award for “outstanding leadership and dedication” as president of the Medical Board, from Kings County Hospital Center; an “America’s Top Physicians” award, granted by the Consumers’ Research Council of America; “Businessman of the Year,” awarded by the Business Advisory Council, and the “Health Service Administrator Award” from local Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr.
The accolades are well deserved, for Mendeszoon is focused on the well-being of a patient at all times. “The one thing that you cannot compromise is the safety of the patient and customer service. I stress that the patient is satisfied. We treat them with respect and do our best to preserve their dignity,” he says.
But he is equally concerned about the well-being of his staffs. “I try to be proactive and democratic. I’m not a dictator. I want you to apply your talent and grow your career. I want to hear your feedback. I want to empower the people working for me. I want them to know that they have a vested interest in making things work.” he says.
Mentoring is one of Mendeszoon’s greatest passions. He is a faculty mentor at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center; serves on the center’s promotions committee and the Medical Student Task Force committee; and is a member of the Legacy Society of Downstate Medical Center, an organization that promotes giving back to the community while recruiting young people for careers in health care.
Beyond medicine, Mendeszoon enjoys Broadway shows, movies and reading. An avid sports fan, his favorite teams are all of the New York major leaguers: the Jets (football), Knicks (basketball) and the Yankees (baseball). As a teenager, he ran track and played both basketball and football. Few are aware of his love of writing. While he majored in biology as an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, he minored in English. “If I wasn’t a physician, I’d be a writer,” he says, adding that he still hopes to pen a book one day.
Mendeszoon completed his medical studies at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn and received an MBA in health-care administration from Baruch College/Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Graduate Program in Health Care Administration. He was born and raised in Brooklyn and still lives there with his wife, Elsa. | <urn:uuid:5a171a7b-404f-4f65-aaa8-692091af636e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tnj.com/michael-h-mendeszoon-md-anesthesiologist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974931 | 1,683 | 1.523438 | 2 |
AIN Blog: Just Say No
Flying is going to become more costly and constrained, if the U.S. government persists in efforts to tax business aircraft operators and limit their freedom to operate in the name of security, not to mention FAA actions that are causing more work for everyone.
Writing in the Inside Washington column in the National Air Transportation Association’s second-quarter 2012 Aviation Business Journal, Eric Byer, NATA v-p of industry and government affairs, pointed out that government agencies are circumventing the rulemaking process by issuing guidance material that becomes “considered mandatory even though technically it is not.”
For a long time, we have worried about the Transportation Security Administration’s plans to impose regulations on business aircraft operations. While the TSA claims to have evaluated the security risks posed by general aviation, it has refused to share the tiniest scrap of information with the stakeholders, those who operate aircraft. Without any real information, we are left to assume that the TSA is simply seeking ways to justify growing its bloated bureaucracy by regulating GA security. The TSA keeps promising to issue new proposed regulations on GA security, covering large aircraft operations, so watch out.
The FAA seems to generate its own procedures to over-regulate GA regularly. This appears not only with the guidance material that Byer aptly describes, but also with arbitrary requirements that have no safety benefit. For example, an avionics manufacturer told me of vibration requirements to meet helicopter certification standards. This particular unit has to be able to withstand a vibration so severe that any human occupants in the helicopter would be torn apart. Ummm, OK, so the avionics survived but the pilots were killed? Right.
Another example: the growing proliferation of Letters of Authorization required for operations that any skilled pilot can easily handle. Did you need an LOA to shoot your first ILS approach? Or to fly your jet at extremely high altitudes? Or to land at John F. Kennedy Airport at rush hour? All these LOAs do is increase your costs, add to the FAA’s burden (more bureaucracy, please) and do nothing to improve safety.
Now we have the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is ignoring decades of rulings and legislation in a reinterpretation of what type of operators pay the so-called “ticket tax.”
It is abundantly clear in reading the legislation that created the ticket tax that it applies to commercial flight operations, which means airlines and charter flights. And previous IRS rulings support that claim. Yet in March, the IRS Office of the Chief Counsel issued an internal memo, a Chief Counsel Advice (CCA) document, that justifies applying the ticket tax (Federal Excise Tax or FET) to Part 91 operations, specifically aircraft managed by management companies. As Byer noted, “Although the CCA is not technically able to be used or cited as precedent, it has already widely circulated within the agency and will certainly influence how ongoing and future audits are approached. The general aviation industry has enough to worry about nowadays, let alone an IRS fishing expedition that has legally been repeatedly shot down and is simply a free-time activity for a bunch of pencil pushers.”
So what should you do about government over-reaching, not only into your and your owner’s wallets but also the abuse of your rights and basic freedoms?
Just say no.
When the IRS says that it wants FET for a private flight by an aircraft owner in his or her airplane on his or her own business, say no. The rules clearly do not require a tax on Part 91 flights.
And when the FAA tries to tell you that guidance in an advisory circular or inspector policy document must be followed, just say no. Rules are rules and must be complied with, but FAA inspectors are not allowed to make up their own rules. Period.
And when the TSA issues the next version of the Large Aircraft Security Program, read the proposed regulations carefully and submit your comments. If the rules don’t make sense, that is, they do not specifically improve the security risk posed by GA operations, then say so, loud and clear.
And, added Byer, “I strongly encourage you to take action! Write your members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.” Both NATA and NBAA have handy online tools for contacting your legislators.
We have let our government consolidate too much power and we are allowing agencies to chip away at our freedoms. “I wonder,” wrote NATA president James Coyne in a recent President’s Letter, “if our founding fathers could even imagine how much regulatory power their limited federal government would one day command.” | <urn:uuid:56556625-16d2-47e4-9ee9-fa09a009ec3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ainonline.com/comment/1272 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958405 | 969 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen
Virginia Wynette Pugh was born in Mississippi in 1942 but grew up in nearby Red Bay, Alabama. Hardcore country music fans know most of the basic facts of her life, although some of what passes for common knowledge is largely exaggerated, often by Wynette herself (such as her supposedly poverty stricken girlhood or the kidnapping that never was). Tragic Country Queen aims to set the record straight. It covers all five of Wynette’s marriages, including the most famous one to George Jones and the final and most tragic of them all, to George Richey. It explores Wynette’s volatile relationship with her daughters, the serious health issues she suffered, the resulting addiction to painkillers, her musical success and failures, and everything between.
McDonough also devotes a significant number of pages to the country music producer Billy Sherrill, the man with whose help Wynette found early success and blossomed into “The First Lady of Country Music.” The chapters on Sherrill are an informative mini-biography that will be of great interest to music fans curious about the Nashville music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. The author does the same for Wynette husband number three, George Jones, providing a short Jones biography before getting into the details of their toxic marriage – and what seems to be a permanent love affair both found it difficult to get over.
The marriage to Jones was bad enough, but the real tragedy of Tammy Wynette’s life would come later. Husband number four would last only 44 days before Wynette would pay him to go away, clearing the way for her marriage to the villain of the Tammy Wynette story, George Richey. As McDonough sees the relationship, Richey was in it for the money and fame, certainly not because of his great love for Wynette. Wynette suffered debilitating intestinal problems by this point in her career, having already had much of her stomach removed, and Richey made sure that she had the painkillers she needed to keep herself on the road – and the money flowing. That George Richey controlled all the money coming in and going out, seems certain. That he made sure that Wynette’s daughters would get nothing when she died (and that the Richey family would do quite well, thank you) seems almost as certain.
It is unlikely that anyone will ever know the exact circumstances of Tammy Wynette’s death but McDonough offers an interesting theory or two as to what might have happened in her home the night she died there. Most bizarre of all, is what happened during the several hours her body was allowed to remain on the couch upon which she died while a house full of Richey’s guests drank and smoked around it.
Tammy Wynette wanted to be a country music legend and she got her wish. Sadly, this is most certainly not what she had in mind.
Rated at: 5.0 | <urn:uuid:fa2e4e53-f3b5-4dbe-b6d7-05f4014e15d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bookchase.blogspot.com/2010/09/tammy-wynette-tragic-country-queen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976447 | 623 | 1.679688 | 2 |
On Afghanistan, waterboarding and COIN:
The very prospect of some success by July 2011 increases the likelihood that U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan in substantial numbers for years. In effect, the proficiency of the American military causes it to be overextended. British Major General Richard Barrons, a veteran of the Balkans and Iraq now serving in Afghanistan, told me he learned during the most depressing days in Baghdad that “the long view is the primary weapon against fate.” If you are willing to stay, you can turn any situation around for the good. But that is an imperial mind-set, with its assumption of a near-permanent presence, which today’s Washington cannot abide, even as its own strategy drives toward that outcome.
Our distance from the population, and the enemy’s proximity, encourage the people to alert the insurgents when our troops approach. They encourage the people to keep quiet about IEDs, which are now powerful enough to kill passengers in our best armored vehicles. Force protection measures thus result in less protection for our troops.
The risk aversion among American commanders has many sources. Fear of casualties and doubts about our purpose in Afghanistan cause segments of American society to pillory units that sustain large casualties, and to ignore units that cling to large bases and accomplish little. Talk of troop withdrawal dates discourages leaders from taking short-term risks for long-term gain.
Part of the blame lies within the military, which has often promoted risk-avoiders ahead of risk-takers, and has undervalued other attributes of vital importance in counterinsurgency such as creativity, sociability and empathy. The extent to which American units collaborate with Afghan security forces and obtain assistance from the population depends primarily on these attributes, and it varies widely.
On millenials, the economy and the coming anarchy (light reading, I know, sorry Linda):
Look at the projections of fiscal doom emanating from the federal government, and consider the possibility that things could prove both worse and better. Worse because the jobless recovery we all expect could be severe enough to starve the New Deal social programs on which we base our life plans. Better because the millennial generation could prove to be more resilient and creative than its predecessors, abandoning old, familiar and broken institutions in favor of new, strange and flourishing ones.
Imagine a future in which millions of families live off the grid, powering their homes and vehicles with dirt-cheap portable fuel cells. As industrial agriculture sputters under the strain of the spiraling costs of water, gasoline and fertilizer, networks of farmers using sophisticated techniques that combine cutting-edge green technologies with ancient Mayan know-how build an alternative food-distribution system. Faced with the burden of financing the decades-long retirement of aging boomers, many of the young embrace a new underground economy, a largely untaxed archipelago of communes, co-ops, and kibbutzim that passively resist the power of the granny state while building their own little utopias.
…at least there’s always music, check out this sweet visualization - Rock ‘N Roll Metro Map | <urn:uuid:c9c77364-4426-4e27-a646-b2686d397e37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schaefersblog.com/what-im-reading-03-15-10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937263 | 645 | 1.625 | 2 |
As a chronic sufferer of a variety of foot ailments, most of which result directly from running, I can’t stress the importance of good shoes. So when Brooks sent over their 2010 Glycerin 8 shoes – I was keen to try them out.
The shoes are supposed to be made of non-Newtonian material, Brooks DNA, which means the soles can “tense up” as you run. Presumably this gives you more support during hard strikes and a softer ride when you’re not running as hard.
At first glance we’re talking about good design and normal weight (12.6oz). The shoes fit well and don’t pinch anywhere. There is excellent airflow through what looks like > 85% of the upper. These shoes also have an outersole is made of HPR Plus that is supposed to reduce wear and prevent scuffing. After using them for 3 months I can say that it works. Only the laces show wear and dirt.
For me, the most important thing for a running shoe is if it can handle the harsh impacts of running on NYC city streets. Brooks DNA material disperses these forces so well, that I have not had any recurring issues with my feet, knees or hips. I had my doubts at first – but they really work, which is mostly the reason I’m talking about it on the site. After lots of Vibram Five Fingers coverage, we thought it would be interesting to explore something a bit more traditional.
These shoes also pay attention to the environment thanks to the use of BioMoGo, the world’s first-ever bio-degradable midsole and laces made from 100% recycled materials.
Bottom Line: For a person that never tried Brooks shoes before, I’m quite impressed – excellent quality and performance. Try before you buy for fit and padding. | <urn:uuid:8b5c961b-68b0-464c-b9a3-4dc111e5a209> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/15/review-brooks-glycerin-8-running-shoes/ | 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 | 0.966482 | 392 | 1.5 | 2 |
By Michael Musto
By Capt. James Van Thach told to Jonathan Wei
By Kera Bolonik
By Michael Musto
By Nick Pinto
By Steve Weinstein
By Michael Musto
By Michael Musto
Something is burning this week, but it's not the site of the former World Trade Center. It's what's left of the First Amendmentand every self-respecting journalist should sign up for the rescue mission. Of course, by the time the first war of the 21st century is over, there may not be much left of what liberals used to call free speech.
In its place has come a heinous kind of propaganda in which antiwar sentiment is dimmed and right-wing pundits denounce their counterparts on the left as madmen and enemies-from-within. According to the party line, the public must choose: Either give up your right to free speech or live in the terrorists' camp forevermore. And since the public is willing to make the sacrifice, goes the argument, the press should be, too. During wartime, you see, anyone who criticizes the government is a traitor, and any journalist with access to military intelligence a potential threat to national security.
The fallout started soon after the WTC attack, when the Justice Department sought the power to tap voice mail and e-mail without a court order. According to Paul McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum, "In such an atmosphere, voices of dissent grow silent, probing questions by the press are viewed as unpatriotic and subversive, and whistle-blowers within the government are quieted."
Indeed, McMasters says, if a proposed ban on leaks of classified information had been in place last week when Orrin Hatch told reporters that the U.S. had intercepted a call from a suspected terrorist, Hatch "could be facing a felony charge." The Pentagon was not pleased and the White House quickly stanched the information flow to Congress.
Fear of being blacklisted may explain why mainstream media are downplaying all kinds of stories that connect the WTC attack to ill-conceived homegrown policiesfrom America's decision to train Afghan rebels in the 1980s to U.S. support of Israel's crackdown on Palestinians to U.S. sanctions against Iraq, which are believed to have caused the deaths of some 500,000 children.
Those are uncomfortable stories to tell. But journalism is not a popularity contest, and in a democracy, there is no requirement that we offer unconditional support for a war. "The prosecution of war involves political decisions," says David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation. "The commander in chief need not be micromanaged, but he also need not be given a blank check. The media should do all it can to provide the full context of the decision-making process."
All the same, it's not easy to cover a war that is largely waged undercover. According to recent reports, Operation Infinite Justice will combine air attacks with small commando raids by Special Forces troops trained in the arts of kidnapping and assassination. The troops are already assembling at remote air bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and northern Pakistan, from which helicopters will drop them into Afghanistan.
Such raids are impossible to cover. "If they kill five people and they take out a terrorist cell somewhere," says Corn, "the Pentagon is not going to have a press conference. They don't disclose this stuff at all."
The challenge of covering a covert war will only be made harder by media restrictions that were imposed by then defense secretary Dick Cheney during the Gulf War. In accord with Cheney's 1991 ground rules, a limited pool of reporters was given access to combat zones. Pool reporters were chaperoned at all times by a public affairs officer, and their dispatches were censored to prevent the release of "sensitive" information. Soldiers were banned from giving off-the-record interviews, a practice that had seriously damaged military PR during the Vietnam War. Critics say the point of such censorship is to hide military flaws.
According to McMasters, some top Pentagon people continue to believe that the Vietnam War failed precisely because "the press had too much freedom to cover it, and the American people got too much information." From the point of view of these cynics, Dan Rather wrote in the Harvard International Review this past spring, reporters are potential adversaries who must be spoon-fed lies with the greatest care and precision.
During the Gulf War, the mainstream media's willingness to accept the new censorship led to an "ignominious defeat," says John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's and the author of a book on censorship during the Gulf War. For example, the media exaggerated the success of U.S. bombing raids and downplayed enemy casualties. CNN's Ted Turner was one of the few who defied the press rules, says MacArthur, by allowing Peter Arnett to continue broadcasting out of enemy territory in Baghdad.
In 1991, Harper's, The Nation, and the Voice, among others, sued the government, claiming that Gulf War restrictions violated the First Amendment. But none of the TV networks or major dailies signed on, and the lawsuit was dismissed by a judge who deemed the issues important but better left for another day. "All I know is, my fellow publishers are very bad about this," MacArthur sighs. "They imagine that they'll beat the competition by ingratiating themselves with the Pentagon."
In 1992, press reps met with Cheney to renegotiate the restrictions. But MacArthur calls the meeting a "face-saving effort" that changed nothing, and McMasters concurs.
Under the legal doctrine of prior restraint, the government must meet a very high threshold before it can stop the media from publishing a particular account. For example, if the news report revealed troop movements during war, that would be considered a real threat to national security. But very few government secrets are so precious. In 1971, when the U.S. government tried to stop The New York Times from publishing a secret study of the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court allowed the printers to roll.
Historically, says MacArthur, "no reporter has ever committed treason," that is, reported a story that damaged military operations or put troops in danger. On the contrary, the press tends to exercise voluntary restraint. In 1961, the Times knew about the Bay of Pigs attack before it happened, but toned down the story at President Kennedy's request. Kennedy later told the Times' publisher, "I wish you had run everything on Cuba. I'm sorry you didn't tell it at the time."
So far, the ground rules for the new war have not been announced, but indications are not good. On September 19, the Taliban ejected CNN's Nic Robertson, the last Western journalist in Afghanistan, saying his safety could not be guaranteed. Rumor has it the Pentagon doesn't want any pool reporters this time around. The Department of Defense's Captain Riccoh Player did not return a call for comment.
Given the likely media blackout, MacArthur predicts, "This may turn out to be the freelancer's war." But even a brave loner who gets across the Afghani border could be ratted out by a competing pool reporter or arrested by a U.S. battalion. Says MacArthur, "This may be the first war where an American reporter is killed or garroted by a Green Beret for getting in the way."
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Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:441a9de9-e09b-403b-b7a4-803f7bff17cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-09-25/news/the-return-of-censorship/full/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961559 | 1,560 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Coverage of the Chinese Space Programme, with some amazing artwork from the 1960s onwards!
The succesful launching of the Shenzhou V, the Divine Vessel, on 15 October 2003, withtaikonaut Yang Liwei on board, marked a giant leap forward in the Chinese space program that saw its origins in the 1960s. With this result, China joined the club of space-travelling nations that previously had been limited to the United States and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation. A previous Chinese launching , in 1970, had already brought a satellite into orbit that endlessly broadcast Dongfang hong (东方红, The East is Red), not the national anthem, but probably one of the best known Chinese tunes, eulogizing Mao Zedong. The success of this mission was solely ascribed to the genius of Mao Zedong Thought, which had guided the scientists and workers. In reality, Qian Xuesen (1911-2009), a rocket engineer formerly attached to the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, U.S., who had been expelled in the 1950s for suspected Communist sympathies, designed China’s first missiles, earning him the accolade of being the father of the space program. – continue reading and to see more art!
Little guests in the Moon Palace, early 1970s
Troubled young runaway Aydee escapes her abusive home and stumbles across a bookstore called Lost Pages. After a series of bizarre encounters with a variety of creatures and divine beings, Aydee is befriended by Lost Pages’ shopkeeper Lucas and his myriad pet dogs. Together with Lucas, Aydee works and grows up at Lost Pages while dealing with its peculiar customers and the strange books in stock. But far from being a peaceful haven, Lost Pages thrusts Aydee into an ancient conflict between old gods and monsters until she is forced to confront the uncomfortable reality of her own true identity. Read more »
The Best Erotic Fantasy & Science Fiction edited by Cecilia Tan and Bethany Zaiatz is a cohesive, balanced collection of stories that definitely live up to Circlet Press’ goal to find new ways to break open the strictures and formulas of the science fiction and fantasy genres in tandem with breaking open the formulas of erotica. There is a little something for everyone as long as you keep an open mind and aren’t shy about the s-word. As you might imagine this book is definitely all about SEX. But it’s also about many other things, most especially love. Love in all its wild and varied forms, from first love, to unrequited love, to obsessive love, to downright strange love. Read more » | <urn:uuid:11ba47fa-092c-4b34-8f42-02f995db9884> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldsf.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952417 | 559 | 1.5 | 2 |
Learning French is more than taking classes, more than learning all the little grammatical rules that apply on a daily basis... it's complete and total immersion that's the key. Living in France alone doesn't always resolve this problem, as social creatures, we tend to group around those we can communicate with... within our expatriate community, our American social group, French people that can speak in English. Unfortunately in this search for social comforts we tend to lose many great moments when we could learn French!
To fix this problem that I've had in my own discovery of French life (Bri speaks English, and establishing a relationship in one language is difficult to change) I've found some ways to continue my education in my daily life.
Watch French television: While in the States I was rarely the TV type, here in France I make an effort to turn it on in the morning when drinking coffee. The commercials are simple, many of the shows were originally American... so it's easier to follow. Often I'll pop on the subtitles and follow along with the French. Hearing it first thing in the morning helps to wake up my French thoughts.
Avoid "VO" Movies: There are Original Versions of films around Lyon, but for me I try to watch the French version; even if these versions resemble a badly dubbed "Kung Fu" movie, I find that I can relate to the movies and understand them- plus it's interesting!
Read French News: Everywhere on the internet are free news sites in French. Beyond this, Metros tend to give away free news- read this on the Metro. Listen to French radio; learn about the things that are going on in France and learn some new phrases!
Practice at the Shops: Instead of buying bread or veggies or even meat at the Super Marché, go to the Boucheries, the boulanger... all the places where you must practice French phrases and don't be afraid. The marché is a great place to practice; just be aware that they have clients and not a lot of time to shuffle through bad French; be prepared!
Find a French Social Group: One of the best ways to practice is to man-up and find some French people to go out with. You'll be guaranteed to be lost about 50% of the time, and the jokes they might make between each other will make no sense at all and be completely illogical. Worse, you'll feel like a 5 year old at times.. but in a good group they will be patient. The best feeling is when you are talking to someone in French and they understand all, even better is when they compliment your french... and you will get there.
Read French Books: For only 5€ a year you can get a library card that will work around Lyon. Pick up books that are interesting to hobbies, for me, food. I read books about gastronomy in France... the French is sometimes complicated, but with a trusty dictionnaire everything is understandable.
Use a French-French Dictionary: I find a huge Anglophone mistake is to use French-English dictionaries, while these are convenient, they do nothing for learning more French. It's better to gt a French-French dictionary which will enable you to understand meanings of French words in French; much more effective and will help to stick to the memory and get your brain thinking in French.
Above All... Enjoy it: French is a challenge, but eventually your brain will click and it will seem to flow naturally. For me I am able to understand about 90% of what people are saying in daily conversation and speak at about an 80% understandable level.. in the beginning I was weak. I moved my hands around, I tried to talk... mostly I was afraid to talk. The best feeling is being able to speak a second language...
After? Start thinking about learning a third language.. | <urn:uuid:cdae9624-554e-4d0b-8cf4-2f3b7c8cd334> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://flipflopfrance.blogspot.com/2011/01/advice-learn-french-everyday.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968229 | 797 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The war against Osama bin Laden is also a contest for the world's largest producer of oil--and a way of life that underlies the American economy.
Hijackings and Anthrax could be just a warm-up to a very different kind of terrorism. The next thing we may have to worry about is a civil war in Saudi Arabia that turns oil into a weapon against the U.S. economy.
Forget all the rhetoric about ousting infidels and saving starving Iraqis and oppressed Palestinians. Osama bin Laden's primary goal is to overthrow the ruling Al Saud family of Saudi Arabia. This subpopulation of 30,000 (in a country of 22.7 million) includes some 5,000 princes who control virtually all aspects of government and the military. Success would turn the kingdom's 260 billion barrels of crude--25% of the world's proven reserves--over to hostile hands. A fundamentalist government in Saudi Arabia would be "ten times more powerful [than] Iraq or Iran," says Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi-raised oil expert and Ph.D. candidate at MIT who has written extensively about internal struggles in Saudi Arabia. "They could make the Iranian mullahs look like babies."
Most observers, Obaid included, consider such a revolution unlikely. But bin Laden, Saudi Arabia's own homegrown terrorist, could wreak havoc with oil supplies in other ways--starting with simply surviving the attacks. The longer bombs fall on Afghanistan, the stronger the sympathy for the militants. The Al Saud family is vulnerable to intense internal pressure, especially from the ulema, or senior Muslim clerics. These are the self-appointed guardians of Saudi Arabia's dominant Wahhabi faith, a puritanical strain of Islam from which the royal family derives its legitimacy. The ulema could force the rulers to choose between loyalty to Wahhabism and adherence to a West-leaning policy favoring stable oil prices.
It has happened before. Threatened by Iraq, the house of Saud tilted westward during the Gulf war and kept exports flowing. But in 1973, Obaid suggests, the ulema pushed King Faisal to impose an oil embargo on the U.S. to punish it for supporting Israel in the October war of that year--helping to shove America into a 15-month recession.
The U.S. is even more dependent on Saudi oil than it was when we were driving gas-guzzlers in 1972. Even as the average car's fuel efficiency has risen 58% since then, U.S. oil consumption has risen 19% to 19.5 million barrels a day. Domestic oil production over the same period has fallen 39% to 5.8 million barrels. The rest of the crude is imported, with 1.5 million barrels coming from Saudi Arabia, a close second to Canada.
America imports almost as much oil from Mexico and Venezuela. But the Saudis hold the whip hand in the oil market, thanks to their ability to increase production by as much as 2.5 million barrels a day--or cause a worldwide shortage by turning off the spigots. A terrorist bomb like the one that destroyed Khobar Towers in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. servicemen in 1996, could achieve the same thing as an embargo by taking out Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura export terminal, which can pump up to 5 million barrels a day into supertankers. "It doesn't matter if we find 1.5 million barrels from somewhere else, if 5 million barrels a day are removed from the world market, prices will spike," says David Pursell, a director at Simmons & Co. in Houston.
Any price increase has devastating effects on the U.S. economy. Each dollar increase in the per-barrel price of oil trims airline margins by half a percentage point and cuts profits by $450 million, says Goldman Sachs analyst Glenn Engel. Consuming 45 billion gallons of fuel a year, truckers are vulnerable, too: Trucking-company failures tripled from the previous year to 1,320 in last year's third quarter, as fuel prices rose 50%.
The pain has a widening circle. Since oil is easily substituted for natural gas in many industrial and electrical turbines, prices of the two commodities tend to be correlated (coal less so). Stephen Brown, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, estimates that a 30% increase in the price of oil, sustained for two years, would trim U.S. gross domestic product by nearly 0.8%, or $800 billion a year, and decrease employment by 0.3%.
And that's just an increase to $28 a barrel. Push the price of oil past $40 and refiners and petrochemicals manufacturers wither as economic activity plunges and costs rise faster than the prices they can charge.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve could stave off calamity only so long. With 570 million barrels of crude, it covers 50 days of imports. Even if Vice President Dick Cheney's energy plan were adopted tomorrow, it would take two to three years to meaningfully increase North American production.
Nothing new about this scenario. The U.S. and the Al Saud family have been in an awkward embrace since the 1930s, when Harry St. John Philby, father of the infamous Communist spy Kim Philby, converted to Islam in order to serve as a top-level intermediary between then-King Ibn Saud and Standard Oil of California (now ChevronTexaco). Even as World War IIwas raging, Franklin D. Roosevelt took a detour on his way home from the Yalta conference to meet with Ibn Saud, promising the cash-strapped ruler $20 million in aid and a private DC-3 in exchange for honoring the U.S. oil concession.
The Al Saud family has been fighting to protect the flow of oil and dollars ever since--against conservative religious elements that have little sympathy for the U.S., partly because of its support of Israel. Out of that discontent--aimed as well at Saudi rulers, who are vilified as ineffectual and corrupt--have emerged extremists like bin Laden, with the enthusiastic backing of some wealthy Saudis.
You might ask why the royal family tolerates violent dissidents who seek its destruction and why it doesn't do more to cut off the finances of terrorist groups. (Ten of the 19 hijackers are thought to have been from Saudi Arabia.) But that's like asking why the store owner pays protection money to the mob when that money is used to hire thugs to extract yet more protection money. The millions of dollars that flow to groups like bin Laden's al Qaeda are, in effect, a payoff to avoid civil war. The royal family has learned to cut its enemies just enough slack to keep itself in power. It learned that painful lesson after fundamentalists seized the holy site of Mecca in 1979 and forced then-King Khalid to rout them in a bloody two-week battle. "That's when the determination set in that never again would [the royal family] have someone to their right on religious issues," says Richard Murphy, senior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations and U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1981 to 1983.
Key to a peaceful kingdom are stable oil prices. "Where they get in trouble is when oil is down around $10 a barrel," says David Butter, editor of Middle East Economic Digest. That's because the Saudi government--nominally run by King Fahd, who suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995, but actually controlled by his half-brother Prince Abdullah--still gets 70% of its revenue from oil. A decline to $10 a barrel from the recent $22 would slice revenues from $66 billion to $30 billion, well shy of the estimated $57 billion 2001 budget. That hits the country's staggering 15% unemployment rate--20% for people 30 and younger, the breeding ground for new militants--and does little to help provide for a population that is growing at 3% a year.
Like it or not, the U.S. may be betting big on the survival of the house of Saud for decades to come. That helps explain why the Bush Administration has chosen not to be confrontational about the Saudis' lack of help on intelligence, as well as closing down Islamic "charities" since the Sept. 11 attacks. Ed L. Morse, an executive adviser at Hess Energy Trading Co., has studied the fuel dilemma as chairman of the Joint Task Force on Strategic Energy Policy formed by the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute at Rice University. His conclusion is radical: Shift from oil to alternatives like fuel cells burning hydrogen. "The cost of government subsidization of technology to change dependence on the internal combustion engine," he argues, "would be less than the military costs of defending Saudi Arabia." | <urn:uuid:d5450745-655f-45b0-a935-6296fadc5d82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/1112/064_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956298 | 1,798 | 1.765625 | 2 |
From The Times : November 4, 2004
Spirited away: why the end is nigh for religion
Christianity will be eclipsed by spirituality in 30 years, startling new research predicts. Our correspondent reports on the collapse of traditional religion and the rise of mysticism.
In the beginning there was the Church. And people liked to dress up in their best clothes and go there on Sundays and they praised the Lord and it was good. But it came to pass that people grew tired of the Church and they stopped going, and began to be uplifted by new things such as yoga and t’ai chi instead. And, lo, a spiritual revolution was born.
It is unlikely that you, the average punter going to your aromatherapy or meditation group this evening, imagine that you are revolutionising the sacred landscape of Britain. But, little by little, you are.
Study after study appears to prove that people are increasingly losing faith in the Church and the Bible and turning instead to mysticism in guises ranging from astrology to reiki and holistic healing. The Government, significantly, said this week that older people should be offered t’ai chi classes on the NHS to promote their physical and mental wellbeing.
More and more people describe themselves as “spiritual”, fewer as “religious” and, as they do so, they are turning away from the Christian Church, with its rules and “self last” philosophy, and looking inwards for the meaning of life.
p style=”text-align:justify;”>Twice as many people believe in a “spirit force” within than they do an Almighty God without, while a recent survey hailed a revival of the Age of Aquarius after finding that two thirds of 18 to 24-year-olds had more belief in their horoscopes than in the Bible.
If you don’t believe it, take a walk around Kendal, Cumbria, population 28,000. Since the millennium dawned, the ultra-traditional home of the mint-cake has been the subject of a spiritual experiment. Linda Woodhead and Professor Paul Heelas, both specialists in religion at Lancaster University, chose the town to measure the growth of the “holistic milieu” and the decline of Christian congregational worship.
The conclusion of their new book, The Spiritual Revolution, is dramatic: Christianity will be eclipsed by spirituality in this country within the next 20 to 30 years. Many people believe that this “New Romantics” movement will prove more significant than the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
This is gloomy stuff for the traditional churchgoer. Only 7.9 per cent of the population now attends church, down from 11 per cent 20 years ago. Although holistic practices are still comparatively small (less than 2 per cent of the population nationally participate) it is the phenomenal rate of growth not just among the young but also the middle-aged and much older that is threatening to overshadow traditional churchgoing.
Kendal mirrors the national statistics with eerie precision: 2,207 people in the town — 7.9 per cent of the population — attend church on Sunday while 600 — 1.6 per cent of the population of the town and environs — take part in some kind of holistic activity.
During the 1990s, when the town’s population grew by 11.4 per cent, participation in the “new spirituality” grew by 300 per cent. Woodhead and Heelas contend that “mini revolutions” have already taken place, and point out that in Kendal the holistic milieu now outnumbers every single major denomination apart from Anglican. (There are 531 Roman Catholics, 285 Methodists and 160 Jehovah’s Witnesses.)
“If the holistic milieu continues to grow at the same linear rate that it has since 1970 and if the congregational domain continues to decline at the same rate that it has during the same period, then the spiritual revolution would take place during the third decade of the third millennium,” they write with prophetic zeal.
If you were searching for a symbol of this revolution, you need look no further than the United Reformed Church in Dent. This building was once the nucleus of the Christian community of Dent, a quintessentially English village a few miles outside Kendal. But over the years apathy crept in and the congregation declined until it was down to one. To raise money, the church hired out its old schoolroom as a spiritual meditation centre. Local interest in meditation ballooned. When the church was forced to sell the building the meditation group bought it and refurbished it. Now it is flourishing where the old church failed. One of its trustees is a Church of England warden.
So what does meditation have that conventional worship does not? Neutrality, suggests Elizabeth Forder, who runs the centre. “We are not affiliated to any religion and there is no belief system imposed on anybody here,” she says. “I was brought up a Christian, but it held no real meaning for me. I would class myself as a universalist, believing that all religions offer the same end. At its simplest, meditation is giving the body and mind a very deep level of rest, freeing us to be ourselves.” She mentions an 87-year-old man who used to belong to the congregation and now meditates regularly.
If disaffected churchgoers are seeking neutrality, they are also in flight from judgment. “I don’t want to be preached at any more”, “I’m sick of being made to feel guilty” or “I don’t need to be told how to live my life,” people will say when asked why they stopped attending church. And when they speak of their spiritual malaise, they use the language of the therapist’s couch. One Kendal woman in her forties summarised her spiritual shift thus: “A one-hour service on a Sunday? It’s not really enough time to address your self-esteem issues, is it? I didn’t find any help in the churches. I found it in a 12-step programme. That was the start of my personal journey.”
Critics will say that this is merely the end product of a prosperous me-me-me society that has encouraged navel-gazing and pampering of the self via routes ranging from personal therapy to facial massage. This is too simplistic, insist Heelas and Woodhead. “It is standard to lash this kind of thing and cite it as evidence of the narcissistic self,” says Woodhead. “But I would say it is inaccurate to say that people are doing this just for pleasure. Trying to become yourself but better through your relationships with others is a very noble activity.”
Heelas adds: “It’s a shift away from (the idea of) a hierarchical, all-knowing institution and a move towards (having) the freedom to grow and develop as a unique person rather than going to church and being led. A lot of the comfort of religion is in postponement — a better life after death. But belief in Heaven is collapsing, so people believe it is more important to know themselves and make themselves better people now.”
The need to “know thyself” is now so entrenched in our culture that Heelas’s statement hardly sounds revolutionary. Striving “to be a better person” sounds Christian — perhaps because those struggling to shore up organised religion have been so keen to adapt to modern mores.
That is part of the problem, suggests the Rev Brian Maiden, of Parr Street Evangelical Church in Kendal. He believes that the liberalism of Christianity has turned people off it. “The people of Britain have been inoculated with a dead, mild form of Christianity, which has given them resistance to the real thing. It has been diluted with human philosophy. People want to be told what to do and how to do it. Often they don’t realise that ’s what they want until they hear it. The message here is traditional Protestantism. We teach the message of the Gospels and that there will be a Judgment.”
Those who think they can find the god within are swiftly put right. “To try to find the solution in oneself is bound to fail because human nature is fallen,” says Maiden. “Christianity isn’t about us trying to make ourselves better people. It is about God trying to do something for us 2,000 years ago which redeemed people.”
Perhaps he is right, but some of those losing their religion were brought up with just the kind of dogmatic beliefs that Maiden is describing. Take Julie Wise, 44 and a mother of two, who was raised on a Lancashire farm in the Church of England tradition. Three decades of religion failed to touch her, she says, and it was only in her thirties, when she went to an exhibition in Manchester and saw a man performing Infinite T’ai Chi, that she felt truly spiritually touched. “It was like divine intervention,” she says. “It was one of the most beautiful, meaningful things I had ever seen.” She is now an Infinite T’ai Chi practitioner and performs “soul readings”, a way, she says, of seeing life patterns and energies that haven’t been released in the past.
You might expect those visiting her to have been raised in broadly godless households, but this is not the case. “About 50 per cent of the people I see were brought up quite religiously, so the seed of spirituality was there but the Church wasn’t fulfil-ling their spiritual need,” she says. “People are so much better educated now. They are less inclined just to accept what they are told; they need to know it for themselves.”
Not that she sees any conflict between her practices and Christianity. “The Christian mystics taught that you can know God only through your own experience. All great religions taught ‘know thyself’. That is what this movement is about, experiencing it yourself rather than through a priest.”
It’s an intriguing comparison. Once, mystics were the minority, the outsiders: what most people wanted was to come together and share in something greater than themselves. Increasingly, the reverse seems to be true. Joyce Armstrong, a former resident of Dent and a regular at the meditation centre, was raised according to strict Christian traditions. In her forties she converted to Buddhism after discovering that the Church did not speak to her. Before Buddhism she had been attracted to Quakerism — which has a strong history in Ken-dal — partly because of its lack of a priesthood and its tradition of silent contemplation.
“I had always been interested in personal spirituality, but the Church seemed so set in everything,” she says. “Until you have a hold of yourself, you can’t know what it’s all about.”
But must the rise of new forms of spirituality necessarily mean the decline of Christianity? There are life-long Christians who think not. Among them is Victor de Waal, 75, the former Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. He meditates daily and regularly visits the centre at Dent. “I don’t see it as an alternative; I see it as deepening one’s faith,” he says. “Because it’s not committed to a particular tradition, it is open to all”.
But isn’t it self-indulgent to look inwards? “It is not about discovering your ego, but the divine within yourself,” he says. “Most religious traditions make a distinction between the ego and the self. In the New Testament Paul talks about ‘Christ in me’. It is about finding one’s deepest humanity. People who have been on the fringes or have given up the Church enter into their own spiritual selves and discover it again.”
This, certainly, has been the spiritual journey of Martin Rayner, a kitchenware businessman from Windermere, Cumbria. Martin stopped attending a Christian church when he was 20, disillusioned by the break-up of his parents’ marriage. Years later his own marriage broke down. He met a new partner and began meditation. He also attends yoga and t’ai chi classes. Eventually, Rayner’s “New Age” spirituality led him back to his faith, and to the Church, which he attends regularly. “My biggest criticism of Christianity at the moment is that it is very verbose,” he says. “You don’t get a chance to be your silent self.”
It was meditation, not traditional worship, that allowed him to be quiet. “I did feel in a spiritual vacuum, but I am now a lot more grounded and focused on what really matters in life. The world is getting faster and faster and meditation helps to order things in your mind. The Church has a great tradition of meditation, but seems to have lost it.”
Conservative believers — Roman Catholics and Protestants — are adamant that New Age spirituality is merely a new form of gnosticism which turns the proper order upside-down by putting human beings in the place of God.
But there is no doubt that spiritual language is starting to seep into everyday discourse. The Spiritual Revolution points to terms such as feng shui and yin and yang now being common parlance. By contrast, theistic language has lost its vitality in ordinary language. The word “goodbye”, for instance, used to mean “God be with you”. It marks the shift away from the Church and towards the social empowerment of individuals in modern times. In other words, it is simply part of a general “flight from deference”.
So where does this leave the typical Christian church? The Rev Ron Metcalf, of the majestic Holy Trinity Church in Kendal, which achieves an average congregation of 200 on Sundays, does not criticise the new seeking of spirituality. “If it leads to something better, then I can’t say that I’m going to condemn it,” he says. “The spiritual quest is not in itself unhealthy; that search is important, though I myself don’t see how it is fulfilling.”
He pauses. “I think [people] will find that yoga won’t get them very far.”
~ End of Article ~
In September 2004, the Church of England launched its “Fresh Expressions” initiative (Phase 1), and more recently, in June 2009, has launched “Fresh Expressions” Phase 2, complete with new website featuring New Monasticism and Contemplative Spirituality. | <urn:uuid:4bcf4255-80c3-4bd0-aa3f-e60613bdf688> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.girdedwithtruth.org/2009/07/09/uk-warnings-of-mysticism-reported-in-2004/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972155 | 3,131 | 1.632813 | 2 |
2012 trade data released
Australia's goods and services exports surpassed $300 billion in 2012 for the second calendar year running, according to new data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australia recorded a seasonally-adjusted trade deficit of $427 million in December 2012 - an 85 per cent improvement on the revised $2.8 billion November deficit, and the largest month-on-month recovery in the trade balance since April 2010.
Media release: Trade deficit narrows in December
New Parliamentary Secretary for Trade
Victorian MP Kelvin Thomson was this week sworn in as Australia's new Parliamentary Secretary for Trade as part of Prime Minister Julia Gillard's cabinet reshuffle. Mr Thomson replaces The Hon Justine Elliot MP.
Media Release: Changes to the Ministry
Plurilateral services agreement – call for public submissions
Australia has been leading, with the United States, discussions on a plurilateral services agreement in Geneva. The agreement is aimed at developing a ‘new pathway' on services trade reform that will support the multilateral trading system. DFAT is seeking submissions from interested stakeholders that will assist in assessing the costs and benefits of a plurilateral services agreement and in formulating Australia's priorities and objectives in negotiations.
Japan's Trade Policy in 2013
The Brookings Institution has released analysis of Japan's trade policy direction in 2013, as it considers four major trade negotiations: the China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an FTA with the European Union, and membership to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With potential export coverage of around 77 per cent, these ‘Big Four' agreements are top priorities on Japan's agenda this year.
Brookings Institution: Japan's Trade Policy in 2013: Possibilities and Pitfalls
Supply chain trade and the WTO
Policy portal Vox has published two opinion pieces on the impact of supply-chain trade on global trade architecture. Richard Baldwin writes that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has not kept pace with the need for new rules on trade, investment, intellectual property and services, and that a new international organisation is needed: a ‘WTO 2.0'. In his article ‘How much global trade governance should there be?', Simon Lester argues that the WTO should focus on reducing protectionist barriers, leaving responsibility for issues such as intellectual property and regulatory expropriation to governments. | <urn:uuid:3399ff58-9ecb-462d-abea-e1014de59bfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dfat.gov.au/trade/trade-talk/trade-talk-20130208.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933653 | 480 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The 1969 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on October 5 1969 at the Watkins Glen Racing Course in Watkins Glen New York. It was a race of attrition beating up cars and drivers and ultimately only 6 of the starting 18 cars finished the race. That also meant that the pace car for that race this 1969 Camaro L78 convertible would get quite a workout.
This is the actual car that paced that race back in October of 1969 and retains its original engine transmission rear end and all ancillary parts. It recently received an extremely high quality restoration to correct pace car specifications and is one of the most important 1969 Camaros ever built. They built a lot of Indy pace car replicas but this is the genuine article and not a replica built for the general public.
Refinished in the original Dover White with black SS stripes on the front fenders along with an accurate decal kit this car is in exactly the same configuration it was on October 6 1968 during that amazing race. On race day a crowd of 93000 began to show for an expected strong American showing. Jochen Rindt survived an early duel with newly-crowned Champion and close friend Jackie Stewart and claimed his first Grand Prix victory the first ever by an Austrian. Piers Courage finished second driving a Frank Williams-prepared Brabham and out-racing Sir Jack Brabham himself and Jacky Ickx in the works Brabhams. John Surtees took third place at The Glen for the second straight year this time in a BRM. Once again the American race offered a record purse and the total of $206000 included $50000 for the winner.
Befitting a car with such a pedigree the restoration is immaculate in every way. The body has been refinished well beyond factory specification and fits together superbly. Panel gaps and alignment are spot-on including the hood and deck lid with the optional SS spoiler. The paint is two-stage urethane in place of the original single-stage enamel but it is right and glossy in a way that the original paint could never quite manage. The simple black-and-white graphics package on the car during the race is a pleasing contrast to the brightly colored pace cars we have today perhaps inspired by the serious business of F1 racing in the late '60s. The code X22 blacked-out tail panel is a nice finishing touch.
Of course all the chrome and trim on this car has been restored to show condition including the bumpers and gill trim on the rear quarters. The stainless windshield surround has been professionally polished and all the emblems and bezels are of a uniformly high quality. The black convertible top has been expertly installed and fits tightly without any wrinkles and sags along with a crystal clear rear window.
If you're going to pace a Formula One race you need some serious blasting powder under the hood and in this Camaro's case it comes in the form of a fire-breathing L78 big block. With a forged rotating assembly solid lifter cam 11:1 compression and rectangular port heads it made a grossly underrated 375 horsepower in the 1969 Camaro. Whatever the number it was enough engine to effortlessly yank the relatively lightweight Camaro to race-pacing speeds and hold them without strain. Fully rebuilt to stock specifications the matching-numbers block in this car is now dressed in a proper coat of Chevy Orange paint along with its bright chrome valve covers and air cleaner atop the big Holley carburetor. Exceptionally original even things like the alternator are the original pieces with correct date codes and markings throughout the engine bay. Due to the high-winding nature of the solid-lifter engine A/C and power steering were not available with the L78 and you won't find them under the hood today. However you will find power brakes correct hoses and clamps and production line shift stampings on the firewall. A reproduction Delco battery lives in the tray and the exhaust manifolds are so pristine I have to believe this engine has almost no run time on it since it was restored.
For pace car duties an automatic transmission is a smart choice and the TH400 behind the 396 is the original piece. In back the original 12-bolt remains in place spinning 3.55 gears on a Posi. Like the engine bay and body the chassis has been restored to concours condition with correct finishes markings and materials used throughout. That means satin black floors brightly plated fasteners and a correct exhaust system complete with transverse muffler. Everything has been rebuilt from the brakes to the fuel system which features a new reproduction gas tank. Wheels are correct Rallys wearing Goodyear Polyglas bias-ply tires.
This pace car is also nicely dressed with the code 712 custom black interior a nice upgrade over the standard buckets. It also includes a lot of reasonably realistic looking wood grain details on the console and dashboard and you've undoubtedly noticed that this car also includes a rare RPO N34 rosewood steering wheel. Like the rest of the car the interior has been restored to an extremely high standard with virtually every part being new or expertly restored. The gauges have been restored but the 44277 miles shown are believed to be accurate. Additional options that were probably quite useful in a pace car include the auxiliary gauges on the console and seat belts. A matching black vinyl boot covers the top when it's stowed and the trunk is equipped with a correct mat spare tire and jack assembly.
Documentation includes an owner history as well as a certified letter proving that this is the USGP pace car.
There's a lot of history packed into this white SS. For Camaro fans it's another feather in the Camaro's cap with the privilege of pacing an F1 race. For F1 fans it's a piece of racing history from an era when heroes were made on the track and competition was intense. Beautifully restored to original condition with all matching numbers it is also quite simply a very rare correct concours-quality L78 Camaro convertible. This is a rare opportunity to own a one-of-a-kind collector's piece. Call now! | <urn:uuid:9172ba70-de77-4c37-89e2-5fed44ff991c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/chevrolet/camaro/1208291.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960515 | 1,261 | 1.5625 | 2 |
This is it. This is the way San Felipe was almost a generation ago. The power is out, night has fallen and in every direction there’s darkness as far as the eye can see.
Whether Mexican or American, shoulders shrug and arms go up in feigned disbelief, knowing all the while anything can happen down here. Any wayward helicopter or plane can drop a blanket of darkness over an entire valley and perhaps compel its population of friends and strangers, if only for one evening, to adopt older and quainter ways of communication.
A helicopter that was flying over the Baja 1000 route came down today, right before 3PM, leaving a death toll of two, plus two other people in critical condition.
January 30, 2008 UPDATE
The Helicopter Crash proceedings from the reports from an American helicopter pilot supporting racers from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas:
""From the security of our [race organization name deleted] command post in Cabo San Lucas we were tracking the movement of casino owner Roger Norman in his trophy truck. He was making tracks through Valle de Trinidad when we heard the chatter on our Weatherman radio. “There has been a helicopter crash near mile marker 127. At least two people are dead…and several are injured. It’s believed to be the race helicopter for the Aztec Warriors race team.” Roger had only passed through there seconds before.
That moment would ignite a chain of events that would only add to the mystique surrounding the infamous Baja 1000, the world’s most prestigious and dangerous off-road race. Since 1967 the Wild West frontier of Baja California has lured American icons such as Steve McQueen, James Garner, Parnelli Jones, and Ivan “The Ironman” Stewart. Modern-day legends such as Robbie Gordon, Jesse James, Patrick Dempsey, and Jeremy McGrath continue that tradition.
This year the fabled race was hyped up for its 40th anniversary. To commemorate the milestone it was extended by a distance of over a 1/3 more than last year, and would span from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas…1296.39 miles. The time limit to finish was 56 hours.
[deleted] Adventures, was attempting to achieve their own milestone by entering off-road race cars. More of an innovative race team, professional athletes, and adventurous celebrities can compete with reliable, well-prepared race cars and complete event coordination. Their goal to finish 18 of 18 cars.
With an army of committed staff both north and south of the border, [deleted] had already experienced success twice before finishing 100% of their entrants…an impressive feat in a race where typically only 50% of the competitors finish. In this race, however, [deleted] the owners knew it was time to raise the standard in the area of race management. With this many cars in this long of a race, they knew the odds were stacked against them more than ever before.
They incorporated the most modern communications equipment, which due to the vastly unpopulated terrain of Baja California consisted heavily of satellite-run tracking, two-way radios, and internet. This was equipment that had never been utilized to this degree in a large-scale competitive racing organization. With the high costs associated with satellite use, however, they had to get creative in being able to manage 126 drivers and 250 crew members spread out over almost 1000 miles in 18 race cars, over 60 chase vehicles, six planes, and a couple helicopters.
That’s how we, a group of Southern California firefighters, found ourselves spread throughout the Baja Peninsula. Utilizing a fire department-based incident command system, our team of 12 experienced firefighters (with racing and Baja experience) were recruited to run [deleted] race operations during the allotted 56 hour time frame. Along with the command center in Cabo, there would be two comm posts spaced out evenly throughout Baja…one in Catavina and one in Loreto. In addition there would be 24-hour air relay coverage with two planes leap-frogging down the Baja in shifts.
As night came and went on Day One we found ourselves busy dispatching chase trucks to race cars needing tires, suspension parts, transmissions, and a variety of other problems resulting from the rugged terrain. In only ten hours we had logged 34 incidents.
Then, in the middle of the night we got word of something occurring back near the starting line in Ensenada. Two dozen men with machine guns had pulled up to the city morgue in blacked-out SUV’s. They had barged in and snatched the body of one of the men killed in the helicopter crash earlier that day. A gunfight ensued on the streets with the local police and before it was over two officers were killed. With the wives and families of some of our team members still in Ensenada there was definitely concern, but the overwhelming question was…who were the guys in that helicopter really?
Daylight brought the second of the three day race. Fortunately there were few major incidents and chase crews were able to resolve the standard problems quickly. They were consistently able to get the drivers back on the road, many times within a half hour of breaking down. It was impressive work in a setting where access is difficult and distance is measured in hundred-mile stretches.
Also, during the day we found out the explanation for the shoot out in Ensenada the night before: Apparently there was a last-minute trophy truck entered in the race by a team calling themselves the Aztec Warriors. They registered a chase helicopter as well and had already drawn attention with the presence of machine gun toting guards. Regardless, they had passed SCORE’s inspection and were entered in the race.
When the helicopter crashed the sun was low and was obscuring power lines traversing the course. At speed the Jet Ranger ran into the wires…and on video it appeared to be slapped down tail first by a giant invisible hand. The pilot and co-pilot survived, but the two passengers in the back were killed. It was discovered after the commando-style corpse breakout that one of the men killed was Leon Hinojosa, a.k.a. "El Abulón,” (The Abalone), the purported leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel. It was believed they had entered the trophy truck and helicopter as a method of moving contraband undetected, using the race as cover. Expectedly, the trophy truck vanished after the crash.
Despite the high degree of peripheral drama, however, the race continued and as night fell for the second time the activity shifted back to it. At one point SFFD firefighter Marc Pearson marked our field around Loreto (mile marker 920) and found that all but two of the BC cars were within a 60 miles stretch…and the race was 70% over with almost a day to spare. It seemed that the combined efforts of the communication and chase crews were going to achieve our goal of finishing all 18 cars.
We were barely done patting ourselves on the back when Oceanside FD Captain Terry Collis received a call from one of our chase vehicles. They were near mile marker 980 with BC2, actor/racer Patrick Dempsey’s sponsored car, and the co-driver (name unknown) was exhausted. His relief from the last pit had failed to show…he had already been in the car for 24 hours. He was over it. He wanted to drive the car to the nearest airport…park it…and fly home. Game over. This incident would become one of the most dramatic and personal as the driver (Tanner Foust, Drift/Rally champion; X-Games Gold Medalist) and I all weighed in on the situation. The incident took about eight hours to resolve and became just another example of how the Baja 1000 pushes people beyond their limits.
No sooner had we resolved the BC2 car issue did we get a report from another team that the BFGoodrich car, BC13, was involved in a serious accident. The car was being driven by Bud Brutsman, creator of the TV shows Overhaulin’ and Rides. For at least 15 minutes we couldn’t get any information. We didn’t know if they had been mowed down by a trophy truck or had center-punched a palm tree. We dispatched Air 2 to see if they could get within VHF range to get a response. BC13 was also being filmed for a feature-length documentary called “Chasing Baja”, so we knew there had to be a film crew in the vicinity. #2 got in range they discovered there were no injuries, but the entire left side of the car was destroyed. Once again our hope of finishing all cars dissipated. Every single component on that side needed to be replaced. It took an hour to locate what would amount to five chase vehicles that had all the parts. They all converged on the accident site, most with a two-hour ETA. It was almost midnight and they were less than 100 miles from the finish line.
Meanwhile two of our planes, Air 1 and 2, were experiencing their own excitement as they took turns relaying the hectic radio traffic and landing for fuel. At one point Newport FD Lifeguard Captain and pilot Josh Van Egmond was descending into what Orange County firefighter Bret Clark perceived as total darkness. Then, about 100 feet above the ground some headlights came on illuminating a short, dirt runway. As a man with a sombrero fueled the plane from some rusting, dented drums Bret noticed a group of headlights racing towards them. Josh hurriedly shuffled the man away, cranked the plane, and took off before they could reach them. A close call? Who knows.
By now BC17, driven by Jim Christensen, was pulling into Cabo taking the checkered flag as the winner of the 2007 SCORE Baja 1000’s BC Division. The first overall vehicle to cross the line was the 1x Honda motorcycle of Robby Bell with a 10 hour lead, followed by Mark Post in the Riviera trophy truck only an hour behind.
John McInnis’ BC15, the Alabama Motorsports Park car, came in second, and after that most of the BC pack funneled in at hour-or-so increments. BC16, made a dramatic entry as it died only a hundred yards short of the finish line. SCORE owner Sal Fish looked on as driver Paul Thacker and his co-driver pushed the car across the finish line, straining and chugging Monster’s all the way to the checkered flag. Around the same time Jesse James crossed the finish line in his Monster Garage trophy truck, finally finishing a Baja 1000 in his third attempt. Roger, who had experienced some transmission trouble in the middle of the night, was able to get it replaced and finished as well. He ended up finishing 18th out of the 29 trophy trucks that had entered.
[Added by the Editor: BC13 had run into a plam tree and demolished half of the race car. At one of our favorite spots on the peninsula, the "Chasing Baja" project accomplished the Baja 1000 40th Anniversary Ultimate Baja Fail. Next time BFG, call the experts to get you through that section]
After several hours of CPR on the demolished BC13 the chase crews were able to revive it with a completely new left side. The film crew said it made for some impressive footage. (After the race it was the only car I really wanted to see.) As it made its way along the final 100 miles we had a warning that a new booby trap had been set approximately 300 yards before the finish line, with a 20 foot drop. What’s ironic is that we had also started the race with a similar “pitfall” booby trap.[Welcome to Baja Racing!]
After avoiding the fate of being abandoned BC2 rallied for 300 more miles and was the last BC car to cross the finish line, with about six hours to spare. Waiting at the finish line…for last place…was one of the largest crowds that had gathered to watch a Baja 1000 finisher. By finishing under the allotted time frame BC2 helped make history.
Three days later all the race drivers and crew were packing to head home. Most everybody was exhausted from endless celebration, which included an all-out VIP party hosted by Baja Safari, at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
While most of the crew were either flying commercially or driving (ouch!) home, I had the opportunity to co-pilot one of the helicopters back to San Diego. Myself and Terry hopped in Dave Martz’s Bell Jet Ranger and, along with two other helo’s, we made our way out of Cabo.
Seeing the span of Baja California from less than 100 feet was nothing short of magical…especially from the vantage of three helicopters in formation. The flight was estimated to take eight hours, and we had to make it before sunset because helicopters aren’t allowed to fly at night in Baja. (For many reasons, one being to prevent drug running) We skimmed the surf up the Pacific side, and then crossed over to the glassy Sea of Cortez side to fuel in Loreto. One of the helicopters had an NBC High Definition cam on the front and the cameraman got some amazing footage of us flying. Because of the distance we would have to fuel three more times before reaching the US, which meant we would have to fuel from 55 gallon drums that had been stored for us. We completely dusted the entire town (and several of its citizens) of San Ignacio as we stopped for fuel and food. There’s something incredible about dropping out of the sky for lunch in some remote place.
Our next stop was a ranch outside Catavina, a small town in the middle of Baja about 400 miles south of the border. The owner of the ranch had an agreement with San Diego-based Corporate Helicopters to store a few fuel drums there. We buzzed the town and landed in a tiny clearing surrounded by large cactus. An old man and his grandson came out of nowhere in a rusted out Toyota pickup to watch. As we tipped over the drums and rolled them through the silt to the helo’s we heard another truck approaching. This time it wasn’t just casual observers. It was a Humvee with a dozen anxious looking soldiers armed with machine guns. They piled out and completely encircled us. A young officer approached us and started barking questions in Spanish. Tim Sears, another pilot, had the best Spanish so we left all the talking to him. We continued to fuel but the situation was a little nerve racking. When they pulled up the old man and boy suddenly disappeared. That left just us and the soldiers. No other witnesses. I thought back to the story Bret told of the headlights rushing towards them when they were fueling at night.
We realized that they were most likely antsy due to the Arellano Felix cartel helicopter incident. They searched all the helo’s and made a half-hearted attempt at a shakedown. Problem was we didn’t have anything. Fortunately Mandy Patterson, the VP of Operations at Corporate, came up with the proper documentation to satisfy the officer.
We were able to leave Catavina without incident; however the delay gave us another problem. At the rate and distance we had to travel we were going to run out of daylight. Given our experience with the military all we wanted to do was get across the border. As it was we were going to run out of light a half hour shy of Ensenada.
Two hours later we watched the sun dip beneath the horizon, which happened to be obscured by a thick blanket of fog. Not only were we going to be flying into Ensenada at night, we were going to do so with little visibility.
Chip Page, one of other pilots, had the fastest helicopter (an Astar) so he sped ahead. He was going to contact the Ensenada control tower to see if we would get permission to land directly on the lawn of the Hotel Corona in Ensenada. At this point all any of us wanted was a cold beer and a shot of tequila. Thankfully, the tower was understanding and allowed us to land at the hotel provided we return in the morning to close our flight plan.
We flew over the airport and past the Ensenada hospital. The fog was starting to set and with all the power lines in the vicinity it was without a doubt a dangerous landing. Ultimately we fit all three helo’s in a tight, grassy area with high, secure fences. The best part was that the hotel bar was only 20 feet away with about 20 patrons all gawking at us through the window. Within five minutes we were alongside them with shots of chilled Patron lined up.
After checking in we decided to go out to dinner. As we walked along the main drag in Ensenada we noticed several military and police cars speeding around, apparently looking for someone. We didn’t care, though. Our day was done.
The next morning we woke up to pounding on the door. It was the NBC cameraman with an armful of Mexican newspapers…with Tim’s black Astar on the front page…twice. “We have to get out of here!” he said. The headline translated into: “The Presence of Helicopters Alarm Police- Believed to be Assault Commandos”
We knew the police and military in Ensenada would still be touchy after the police slayings that had occurred only days before. Their association with helicopters obviously didn’t help either. As the receptionist at the hotel front desk translated the article it became clear that “touchy” didn’t even start to describe the tension in Ensenada.
When we flew in the night before we passed over the hospital, under cover of both night and fog. What we didn’t know is that the hospital was being protected by the military because the surviving members of the helicopter crash were being treated there. And after the obvious lengths the people involved were willing to go for corpses, they feared the worst for the live ones.
When we passed overhead they immediately assumed we were an assault team coming to grab the living members of the crash. After all, in Baja only criminals fly helicopters at night. The atmosphere was so tense they didn’t even think to contact the control tower to find out if they knew anything.
The military, as well as local and federal police, were dispatched throughout the city to locate the whereabouts of the helicopters. Meanwhile, the military barricaded the hospital with tanks and armored cars. They had no idea their suspects were the gringos right in front of them casually strolling down Avenida Lopez Mateos looking for street tacos.
Eventually they figured it out, and they came to the hotel and saw the helicopters weren’t commando raiders. Interestingly, they didn’t even come and wake us up.
When the fog lifted we flew to the Ensenada airport and closed our flight plan. The soldiers knew what had happened and were laughing at us. At…not with…
We flew over a 747 jet landing at Tijuana International Airport and landed at the customs area at Brown Field. Finally, the trip that seemed it would never end…did.
A couple of days later, this time from the security of my own home, I flipped on CNN and saw footage of a long armored transport traveling through Mexico City with the survivors of the Arellano Felix cartel helicopter crash being moved from Ensenada. They mentioned our "false alarm" and how it was enough to warrant their relocation.
The 40th Anniversary of the running of the Baja 1000 was one for the record books in several different ways. Record-making finishes, helicopter crashes, mangled race cars, shoot-outs, and street tacos con cerveza.""
January 29, 2008 UPDATE
November 13th a Bell 206A-1 helicopter
(serial #41754) bearing tail number XB1MN
that was monitoring the 40th running of the
“Baja 1000” auto race between Ensenada and
Los Cabos, Baja California Sur crashed near
the “Mike Sky Ranch” in the vicinity of
kilometer 136 of the Ensenada – Valle de
Trinidad highway. The helicopter fell less
than 300 meters from the highway. According
to witnesses, the aircraft flew into a high
voltage power line supplying electricity to the
town of San Felipe. As a result to the crash
power was out in San Felipe for over five hours
before being restored around 8:10 p.m.
Initial reports indicated that two passengers
tentatively identified as Israel Romero Reyes,
age 33, and Pablo González G. died in the
crash. The pilot, Isaac Sarabia Roque, and
copilot, Rodolfo Calvillo Ibarra, were
seriously injured. They were transferred to
Ensenada by a helicopter (tail number
N549SA) belonging to Score International Off
Road Racing and then taken to the Hospital
Velmar medical facility’s intensive care unit
The bodies of the two dead passengers were
taken to the Ensenada morgue where they
arrived around 8:00 p.m. on the day of the
crash. Efforts began almost immediately to
confirm their true identity as rumors began to
circulate that they were actually
narcotraffickers associated with the Arellano
Félix Organization. According to data
filed with the race organizers they were
owners of an Ensenada radio communications
company located near the intersection of
Calles La Cortés and México.
The mystery surrounding the crash intensified
on Wednesday evening. Around 8:40 p.m.
that evening, a group of armed men arrived at
the Ensenada morgue in a convoy of fifteen
vehicles and stole one of the bodies, that
tentatively identified as Pablo González from
the facility. They also forced two employees
of the morgue named Juan Sigala and
Salomón Carlos to accompany them as
hostages as they fled the city. At some point
the vehicles in the convoy may have dispersed
with some taking the coastal route north
toward Tijuana while others took the
Ensenada – Tecate highway. An alert went out
to all police units in the area and around 9:10
p.m. Ensenada Municipal Police officers
manning an aid station in the town of
Francisco Zarco in the Valle de Trinidad
located near kilometer 76.5 of the highway,
approximately 30 kilometers northeast of
Ensenada, attempted to stop the group of
vehicles that was heading toward Tecate.
They may not have aware of the alert. Their
effort to stop the vehicles was met with
gunfire and two officers, Enrique Lemus
Hinojosa and Salvador González Quijano
perished in the exchange. Authorities later
recovered over two hundred spent cartridges
at the site.
The two morgue employees who had been
abducted were found several hours later in
Tijuana after having been released by their
captors along Bulevar Insurgentes.
It was later unofficially indicated that the
stolen body of Pablo González had been
identified by a team forensic experts sent from
Mexico City by the Federal Attorney
General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la
República / PGR) before the theft as actually
that of Francisco Merardo León Hinojosa,
a.k.a. “El Abulón”.
He belonged to the
infamous narco-juniors of Tijuana and at one
time was suspected of membership on the
AFO governing council. Individuals claiming
to be members of the “González” family had
requested release of the body to them during
the day of the theft, but their request was
denied when they could not present
documentation confirming a familial
relationship. That identification was
questionable from the outset and soon a
separate rumor, also unconfirmed, began to
circulate suggesting the deceased was not
León Hinojoso but rather the son of María
Alicia Arellano Félix and consequently a
nephew of the cartel leaders.
The Ensenada Morgue
There has been no further information
concerning the second crash victim who was
tentatively identified as Israel Romo Reyes.
Authorities seemed satisfied that it is his true
name was found and released the body. The body was
released to relatives in Ensenada. Preliminary
inquiries indicated that the downed helicopter
had been rented by “Pablo González” on behalf
of a company named Xtreme Team based in
Tijuana from a business named “Del Río Helicopters”,
located at kilometer 115 of the Trans-peninsular
Highway in the vicinity of the former Ejido
González supposedly paid US $24,000 for 30
hours of flight time.
The helicopter was reportedly monitoring and videotaping
the progress of race car number 133 driven by Carlos García of
Tijuana who was part of the Azteca Warrior team.
Unconfirmed reports indicate he is now in custody, but
there has been no official information published concerning
his status and he may well be a fugitive. At the request
of the PGR, the Eleventh Federal District Penal Court
issued a house arrest order on November 18th for
the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft.
On Wednesday November 21st Sarabia was taken
from the Hospital Velmar to the nearby “El Ciprés”
military air filed and flown to Mexico City for further
questioning and the possible filling of formal criminal
charges bye the PGR’s Organized Crime Specialized
Investigation Division (Subprocuraduría de Investigación
Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada (SIEDO).
According to Zeta, the transfer was rushed to
safeguard Sarabia from an AFO plot to kill him
before he could cooperate with authorities. Calvillo
remained at the hospital where he is scheduled to
undergo surgery on the spinal column to treat
injuries sustained in the crash.
[Comment: The name Fernando has been floated
as that of the alleged Arellano nephew. María Alicia is
not known to have a son by that name; however,
her sister Norma Isabel has a son named Fernando
Sánchez Arellano (born c.1974) who in turn has a
young son also named Fernando (born c. 2000). That
child is believed to be the minor on board the
sports fishing vessel “Doc Holliday” when Francisco Javier
Arellano Félix was captured by the U.S. Coast Guard.]
The "Doc Holiday" Story will be EXPOSED NEXT
(so it took two years!)
Stay Tuned to Baja Racing News.com
Baja 1000 Helicopter Crash Videos
HELICOPTER CRASH STORY GOES SIDEWAYS:
SAN DIEGO -- Fifty heavily armed men cruised the streets of Ensenada on Wednesday night in an ominous show of force usually reserved for carrying out kidnappings of businessmen or organized crime rivals.
But this convoy of 14 vehicles pulled up in front of the city morgue on Calle Guadalupe. The attackers stormed the building, snatched a corpse, loaded it into a vehicle and sped off through the hills toward Tecate, where two police officers had set up a roadblock.
"They tried to stop them. The gunmen answered with bullets," said Edgar Lopez, a spokesman for the Baja California state police.
Even by the grim standards of violent crime in Baja California, the body-snatching incident set a bizarre precedent. Federal authorities are investigating whether the body is that of drug cartel figure Francisco Merardo Leon Hinojosa, nicknamed El Abulon -- The Abalone.
The gunmen fired more than 120 rounds from AR-15s and AK-47s at the officers, killing them before escaping near the wine-growing region of the Valle de Guadalupe. Hundreds of state and federal police officers followed in a fruitless manhunt.
In a crime-weary region where masked gunmen often leave a trail of beheaded or torture-marked bodies, people could only speculate on a motive.
"Maybe it was sentimental reasons," said David A. Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. The attackers, said Shirk and others, may have wanted to ensure that the man's funeral was attended by his friends. "If he was buried by authorities, they would expose themselves by coming out for any kind of public funeral," Shirk said.
The string of events occurred during the Baja 1000, which began Tuesday. The popular off-road race from Ensenada to Los Cabos draws hundreds of competitors from the United States. Among the last-minute entries were two men who registered a black pick-up truck called Azteca Warrior, according to media reports and Ensenada city spokesman Daniel Vargas.
One of the men, registered as Pablo Gonzalez, was tracking the race team's progress in a helicopter when it crashed into high-tension wires, killing Gonzalez and another passenger and injuring two pilots.
Two people who said they were relatives of Gonzalez showed up at the morgue Wednesday and tried to claim the body, but were not allowed to take it, authorities said. A few minutes later, the gunmen struck.
Authorities are investigating whether Gonzalez was really Leon Hinojosa, an alleged lieutenant of the Arellano Felix drug cartel.
Mexican authorities believe Leon Hinojosa took on a larger role after the cartel's suspected leader, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, was arrested last year by U.S. officials. He was sentenced this month to life in prison.
Dozens of federal and state police officers Friday guarded the morgue and the hospital where the two helicopter pilots were being treated. More than 1,000 mourners attended the funeral Mass for the two officers, one of whom had five children.
THE ORIGINAL STORY:
TWO KILLED TWO INJURED
LINK TO BAJA CRIME WAVE 9 | <urn:uuid:d7b6db2f-194d-434e-a5c3-c07de34fa40f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bajasafari.blogspot.com/2007/11/good-morning-off-road-race-fans-we-are.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973481 | 6,440 | 1.5 | 2 |
You receive a message in Gmail's inbox and after sending a reply, Gmail shows your conversation and a list of options: "back to Inbox", "Archive", "Report spam", "Delete", "Older" and more actions. Most of them don't make any sense in this specific context, but they're kept for consistency. You'll probably go back to the inbox and read the next message, but if you like to have a clean inbox you'll also archive the message you've just replied to.
A new feature available in Gmail Labs lets you automatically archive a message after sending a reply. The default button becomes "Send & Archive" and it will perform the following actions:
* send the message
* archive the conversation
* go back to inbox
"More often than not, as I reply to a message I also want to archive it so I can enjoy the satisfaction of a pristine inbox. Having clicked "Send" followed by "Archive" a few million times, I started to wish there was a way to just click once and accomplish both actions at the same time," explains Pal Takacsi, who added the small new feature.
Another multi-action button that would make many people happy could combine labeling conversations and archiving them. What other smart buttons would you like to see?
Behind the Fine Words
37 minutes ago | <urn:uuid:67350855-e5ad-4498-9b31-7cb65e1c7d74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/01/send-and-archive-multi-action-gmail.html?showComment=1354016692208 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953694 | 276 | 1.554688 | 2 |
On February 3rd and 4th, 2013, Palestinian activist Iyad Burnat will culminate his United States speaking tour with three public events in Washington, DC that narrate personal stories of life in the occupied West Bank and outline strategies for non-violent popular resistance to the Israeli occupation. This is a crucial moment in the Palestinian struggle for equality and Iyad’s tour has been instrumental in U.S. solidarity with this growing movement.
In the past two months, Iyad has visited 20 states and over 50 cities. He has spoken to large crowds at universities, non-governmental organizations, and places of worship.
As the head of the Bil’in Popular Resistance Committee, Iyad and his neighbors have organized weekly protests against the Israeli separation wall for the past eight years.
Israeli and international peace activists routinely join Bil’in protesters, maintaining non-violent methods of resistance in the face of repression from Israeli soldiers and settlers. Israeli soldiers have confiscated large swaths of the villagers’ farmland, which are mainly annexed by an illegal, Jewish-only settlement nearby. The weekly protests in Bil’in are also the subject of the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated documentary 5 Broken Cameras, co-directed by Iyad’s brother, Emad Burnat.
Iyad became involved in popular resistance as a teenager, and was arrested by the Israeli military for the first time at age 17. He was accused of throwing stones, and imprisoned for two years. Iyad has since been arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli military several other times.
Iyad’s first speaking event in DC, at Busboys and Poets (14th and V St NW), will take place on Sunday, February 3, 2013, from 9 am – 11 am. Iyad’s presentation is accompanied by photographs and video clips that document the daily realities that he and his fellow villagers experience under Israeli occupation.
Iyad’s second speaking event will take place the same day at 1 pm at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, located on 5301 North Capitol Street NE. Finally, he will appear at the Palestine Center on Monday, February 4th at 12:30pm, located at 2425 Virginia Avenue, NW. | <urn:uuid:2ac8ea6e-c75c-4e3b-bb76-a673050c95fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mondoweiss.net/2013/01/see-iyad-burnat.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969517 | 470 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The "Walk A Mile In Her Shoes" campaign urges men to walk a mile in high-heeled shoes in order to end domestic violence against women, but are their efforts doing more harm than good? Weigh in after the jump.
The Beehive Design Collective is wrapping up its national tour! Initially an all-women collective, this Maine-based group (they work in a renovated grange house!) fuses grassroots political activism with some unbelievablly intricately-rendered and conceived graphic posters meant to inspire awareness and change regarding global politics and dynamics, especially in the Americas.
Each week, a few brave souls here at Bitch jump into our feminist time machine and travel back, back, back in time to pay homage (femage?) to a feminist pioneer of the past. Join us this week as we journey to the year 1637 and gain a bit of feminist insight into the life of Massachusetts Bay Colonist Anne Hutchinson.
We figured there would be some reaction to our use of the term "douchebag." Just to be clear, we did not choose the term lightly. When we had our blog meeting last week, many terms were bandied about for our new weekly awards, including "schmuck", "putz," and a few others.
We decided on douchebag, and here's the logic behind why we consider it both appropriate and non-misogynist:
The Netherlands may be known throughout the world for their quaint wooden shoes and their progressive drug and prostitution laws, but soon they might be known for something else: forced sterilization of women. You read me right, a draft bill currently before the Dutch parliament will, if passed, force women deemed to be "unfit mothers" to take oral contraception for a period of two years. | <urn:uuid:f20cd4f1-28ab-48da-9c84-5bb7cb4a0b1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bitchmagazine.org/blogs?page=444 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962516 | 365 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it’s so simple and so pure. It’s about cooking, eating and sharing. Period.
Unlike some holidays, Thanksgiving results in very little waste (apple and onion peels can be composted), and as for leftovers—well, leftovers are kind of the point, aren’t they? Turkey sandwiches, pie in the fridge and reheated stuffing. Yum.
I also have a lot of respect for the Thanksgiving traditions. When I think of the effort it must have taken to pluck, clean and roast a bird or to bake a pie 400 years ago, I’m in awe. And when it comes to this celebration, many of us—no matter how busy we are—have the urge to get back to those basics and mindfully prepare a nourishing, heartfelt meal.
Returning to basics, in fact, was the inspiration for these recipes. I took my cue from the folks at Slow Food, a group that advocates eating seasonal, local and organic foods as much as possible. Founded in 1986 in Italy, the now international Slow Food movement encourages us to make smart choices at the market—choices that affect our physical and emotional health and the planet’s well-being.
As farmer poet Wendell Berry says, “eating is an agricultural act.” This year, why not try an heirloom bird, some old-fashioned apples or maybe just some local honey? Each step makes a delicious difference.
Roast Turkey with Apple Cider Gravy
Organic and heirloom birds have a more pronounced (read: less bland) “turkey” flavor. (Organic poultry is raised on certified organic feed or grass and contains no antibiotics, growth hormones or artificial flavors and colors.) Basted with a cider-Port mixture, the skin bakes up brown and slightly sweet. Apple-flavored gravy is rich and tangy. You will need to make the stuffing and glaze first.
The sage, thyme, leeks and sausage in this stuffing serve as savory foils to the slightly sweet gravy. The stuffing can be prepared up to a day ahead, but don’t place it inside the bird until ready to roast. Bring the stuffing to room temperature (for an hour) before stuffing the turkey.
Double Cranberry Compote with Pears and Almonds
This sweet-tart condiment, made with both fresh and dried cranberries, can be prepared up to four days in advance.
Pumpkin Pie with Cream Cheese Topping
This version of a Thanksgiving classic has a jazzy cookie crust and rich topping. | <urn:uuid:cd7366fc-b015-46df-8ab6-a7fcb4fd320a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherearthliving.com/cooking-methods/thanksgiving-feast-recipes-homemade-holiday-dinner.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940484 | 550 | 1.539063 | 2 |
I think I'm pretty Web savvy.
I know my fair share of HTML code, and have a lot of experience measuring the performance of websites. But when I was asked if I'd like to attend some
Google Analytics 101 training I jumped at the offer—even before I knew breakfast and lunch were going to be free.
I am kind of a nerd and enjoy looking through analytics and putting all the data together to tell a story. Although it's great to say "page views are up 15
percent over last month" or "the bounce rate for site A decreased over the past two months," many will yawn at these numbers, and others will scratch their
Perhaps more important, it is great fodder to get your boss/client/advertiser excited about the work you're doing because they are seeing (and
For example: "Hotdogs.com saw a 15 percent increase in visits from April to May," versus, "People who searched 'best hot dogs' in Google landed on our home
page and subsequently visited two more pages on our site proving they are finding our content relevant. Our efforts in improving content and SEO have led
to a 15 percent increase in page views over the last month."
To me, the second example better explains the data and lends to some important insights.
The first step to understanding Google Analytics lies in knowing what to look for. Though I'm sure many of you know the basic user interface, day one of my
two-day analytics training threw some interesting curveballs.
Here are five things you may not have known about Google Analytics.
1. The true definition of a visit.
Seems simple enough, right? A visit is the distinct number of times someone interacts with your site. However, there's actually one more part to this
definition. If the person is inactive for more than 30 minutes, that visit is over. For example, say you go to lunch and leave www.hotdogs.com open and
you're gone for 30 minutes, your visit is over. If you come back and click on another page, that becomes a whole new visit.
"Think of this like the number of times people enter the front door of a store," said Jonathan Weber from Luna Metrics, a training presenter. They can come
in and realize they forgot their purse, and then go out and get it. Hey, that second time entering the store is a new visit.
2. A unique visitor may not be what you think.
Unique visitors are all about cookies. These visitors really aren't about the number of people visiting the site, but the number of unique cookies
recognized. Many don't clear their cookies for two years or so, therefore, these users are only counted once over a specified time period, even if they
visit your site multiple times.
"Unique visitors are only as accurate as the cookies," Weber said.
What this means is that if a person views a site from the office, then the same site from home or even via Internet Explorer and then Chrome, he/she is
3. Tracking traffic is not always straightforward.
Many companies and organizations have newsletters that are sent via email. But it's hard to measure the success of these campaigns depending on where the
email ends up.
For example, if a user clicks on the newsletter URL through Outlook, that will count as direct traffic. Yet, if the email goes to a person's Gmail account,
it will be counted as referral traffic. How do you to get around this? There's a nifty tool called Google Analytics URL Builder, which will generate a trackable
Just follow the three steps below. Shorten your link as needed in bit.ly, and email away. If there were a newsletter called Hotdog Weekly, I would enter
the URL in step one and then have a consistent source and medium for every issue, for example, source=newsletter and medium= email. It's all case-sensitive
so e-mail and email will create different URLs and not bring all of the data to one place in your analytics.
4. Comparing relative success is relatively easy.
Google Analytics enables you to compare metrics for traffic sources, pages, etc., against the site's average. In the screen grab below, it shows how this
feature gives you the ability to see how visits from different traffic media compare with pages/visit.
The line down the center represents the average, and in general those pages in the green are performing well and those in red are doing poorly. Don't fret.
This can help you tell your story and figure out how to improve content on your site and where to put your focus.
This screenshot shows that although referral traffic sent more than 2,705 visits in the last month, visitors aren't going much further than where the URL
they clicked sent them. Though organic search sends more than 65 percent, visitors are viewing more pages upon visiting.
5. Social media is measurable
Google Analytics recently added a feature under the traffic sources tab that breaks down social visits from social networks. Instead of digging in your
referral traffic, you can now see all social engagement in one section. There's even a nice line graph comparison of all visits and visits via social
One other cool feature with the social traffic sources is those sources that are social data hub partners (e.g. reddit, Google+, and Diigo), you can click
on a tab called "Activity Stream" and see all conversations including links to your site in a specified time period. I recommend that you explore this new
Jackie Roy is a digital content associate at TMG Custom Media. A version of this article first appeared on | <urn:uuid:aadc6742-6d3d-4422-999c-8ee2c866ac87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prdaily.eu/PRDailyEU/Articles/5_things_you_probably_didnt_know_about_Google_Anal_11995.aspx | 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 | 0.948042 | 1,166 | 1.820313 | 2 |
DAMARIEL, THE UNBOUND - Aetolia Online Help
11.2.2 DAMARIEL, THE UNBOUND
The Unbound is a fusion of Divinity and mortality, His Divine aspects fueled by the once-forgotten essence of Lord Lanos. As Lord Severn wielded the Axiom, the very same weapon that Lord Arion held prior to His journey to the Shadow Plane, He attempted to trap His Brother Haern's essence within it as well, the result being far from expected or desired--all the Divine essence contained within the Axiom was released in a violent expulsion and merged in a mortal man named Danerran. Thus Damariel, the Unbound was born, ascending the mortal shell that was a refugee from Albedos. A combination of the residual memories from Lord Arion and the essence of the long-dead Lord Lanos manifests in Damariel's tenets, although Danerran's own experiences and values colour them: Truth, Freedom, and Spirit are held above all. Damariel has often been represented by a white sparrow or a white horse, though He is more accurately symbolized by a warhammer set against the backdrop of a steel horseshoe, quartered on a field of blue and silver. The selfsame shackles that bound Him as a mortal under the Dreikathi are now some of the God's preferred armaments, a reminder of the triumph against tyranny that led to His freedom. Through these trials and tribulations suffered, He has become a paragon for those under slavery and foreign rule, and as such He has often been dubbed "the Shepherd". Those mortals who have been granted the privilege of Lord Damariel's presence describe Him as a tall, statuesque man of grizzled features, a true vision of a hero and savior. | <urn:uuid:e20d1921-0bf0-4c58-8d43-a171983437b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ironrealms.com/game/helpview/aetolia/damariel-the-unbound | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949534 | 371 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Last month, the City Council of Phoenix, Arizona passed sweeping nondiscrimination protections, ensuring that people have equal access to employment, housing, and public accommodations regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. One state lawmaker, Rep. John Kavanagh (R) is not pleased that transgender people will be protected when using the correct bathroom, and so he has introduced a new bill to ban them from doing just that.
Kavanagh gutted a Senate Bill about a Massage Therapy Board to use as a shell for his new amendment, which prohibits a person from entering a “public restroom, bathroom, shower, bath, dressing room, or locker room” if the sex designation of that facility does not match the individual’s birth certificate. He defended his “show your papers to pee” bill in an interview with 12 News Phoenix:
KAVANAGH: The city of Phoenix has crafted a bill that allows people to define their sex by what they think in their head. If you’re a male, you don’t go into a female shower or locker room, or vice versa. It also raises the specter of people who want to go into those opposite sex facilities not because they’re transgender, but because they’re weird.
Violating this law would constitute “disorderly conduct” and could be prosecuted as a class 1 misdemeanor. The bill describes itself as “an emergency measure that is necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety and is operative immediately as provided by law.” Inappropriate behavior, such as the potentially harmful or invasive actions of the “weird” people Kavanagh referenced, is already illegal.
In Arizona, it is possible for transgender people to receive a new birth certificate with their proper gender, but only if they undergo gender reassignment surgery, which not all trans people choose to pursue. In addition to being quite expensive, it also results in sterilization. Were Kavanagh’s bill to pass, trans people would have to sacrifice their ability to ever have children just to legally use the proper bathroom. | <urn:uuid:8c0fceb6-9687-48e3-9970-e3c0b20c6fc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/03/20/1748851/arizona-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-prosecute-transgender-people-who-use-the-wrong-bathroom/?mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964452 | 436 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Video that Changes the Debate
Session Type(s): Screening Series
Starts: Saturday, Jun. 9 1:30 PM
Ends: Saturday, Jun. 9 2:45 PM
So you’ve been told to create a “viral video,” whatever that means. How do you create media that not only succeeds online but also changes the debate? How do you make content that people pass around that also pierces the national conversation? We’ll examine these questions in-depth, speaking with those responsible for creating or spreading political videos that have made an impact—and learn how to do the same in our own activism.
Andy Menconi is a graphic designer and animator who has been creating viral content since 2000. While working as a web designer for Bank of America he won ‘Bush in 30 Years’: a flash animation contest sponsored by MoveOn.org which opened the door to being the graphics guy for many leftist political organizations.
He went on to form Agit-Pop Communications, an award winning viral media firm with partners John Sellers of the Ruckus Society and Andrew Boyd of Billionaires for Bush. On tax day in 2010, Agit-Pop communications began a new project called ‘The Other 98%’ as a meme to help shift the dialogue of the culture war to one of economic justice.
Andy Menconi was born in Texas, graduated from AAC in San Francisco, loves punk rock, the NFL, green chile and romantic dinners on the beach.
Andy Cobb is the Political Director of Second City New Media, the online video arm of the legendary Chicago-based comedy troupe. He writes, directs, and performs videos that have been seen over 15 million times online, as well as on MSNBC, ABC, CNN, FOX News (yep), Current TV, Al Jazeera, and a mess of other places. On the web, his work has been promoted, featured, and covered on sites such as DailyKos, HuffPost, Perez Hilton, Gawker, Young Turks, Wonkette, Andrew Sullivan, Americablog, Politico, RealClearPolitics, Jezebel, Alternet, Media Matters, Atlantic.com, Media Bistro, New York Times.com, Defamer, Crooks And Liars, Slate Magazine, Salon.com, and many more. Recent clients for directing, writing, performing, and producing video projects have included MoveOn.org, Courage Campaign, Americablog, Brave New Films, Current TV, SEIU, and Americans Against Escalation In Iraq. He often blogs with the fine folks at Crooks and Liars.
Haik Hoisington is a Brooklyn-based freelance animator. He strives to use animation to illustrate alternative perspectives of urgent social and political issues. His work has been shown in film festivals, broadcast on television and featured in on-line and print publications. It includes award winning music videos for musical artists Eminem and the Coup, as well as animation for the feature length documentaries American Blackout and Lockdown USA.
Haik is a graduate of the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.
Anne Thompson writes, directs, shoots and edits political videos.
Emcee and community activist Jasiri X is the creative force and artist behind the ground breaking internet news series, This Week with Jasiri X, which has garnered critical acclaim, thousands of subscribers, and millions of internet views. From the controversial viral video What if the Tea Party was Black?, to the hard hitting truth of A Song for Trayvon, Jasiri X cleverly uses Hip-Hop to provide social commentary on a variety of issues. A six time Pittsburgh Hip-Hop Award winner, Jasiri recently became the first Hip-Hop artist to receive the coveted August Wilson Center for African American Culture Fellowship. A founding member of the anti-violence group One Hood, Jasiri started the New Media Academy to teach young African-American boys how to analyze and create media for themselves. | <urn:uuid:39cedc1b-208c-4f8b-a4e1-524eeb3adb67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netrootsnation.org/nn_events/nn-12/video-change-debate/?filter0=Melinda%20Gibson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942502 | 817 | 1.703125 | 2 |
As I moved from being politically progressive to a radical leftist, I began to question how I could fight “classism” by going beyond advocating being nice to poor people but actually challenging what causes poverty in the first place. My friend JOMO recently wrote a post called Queer Liberation is Class Struggle that articulates many of my problems with middle class activists challenging “classism” without challenging capitalism. She calls for analysis of oppression that goes deeper than simple “intersections” that compartmentalize our identities. She powerfully argues that queer liberation is invested in class struggle.
Here’s a few of my favorite passages:
The erasure of class in the intersectionality theory is most clearly expressed through the replacement of class oppression with the defanged term, “classism.” Rather than advocating for class struggle of the working class and the poor taking over the means of production and the running of society, the “classism” analysis is an attempt to raise the consciousness of the rich, to be NICE, FRIENDLY, SENSITIVE to their poorer brethren. Under “classism” ideology, working and poor folks become the rich man’s burden, not an agent for change in our own right. In fact, the organizing that arises from such an ideology is as condescending and patronizing toward working class and poor folk as the snobbishness it aims to criticize.
On the criminalization of non-nuclear, non-heteronormative families:
Yet under capitalism, these [non-nuclear] families are illegitimate. Single mother households, or households with people with disabilities, or extended families with elderly and young dependents, or communities that take in non-blood relatives as their own, struggle to survive off of welfare checks or minimal paychecks. These families do not readily and predictably churn out the future, obedient disciplined workers that will deliver their bodies to capitalism, in exchange for a pittance of a wage. Our rejection of capitalist discipline is written off, as our cultural inadequacies. Perceiving our labor as unwanted and untrustworthy, capitalists reject us from the economy and ship us off to prisons, nursing homes, mental institutions or into the informal economy of the streets, still managing in the process, to extract some profit for themselves through our oppression.
Criticism of non-profits as a “solution”:
Middle class ideology cannot liberate us because it reiterates capitalist attacks on our chosen, non-heteronormative families. It will teach us to reject the families we have, and to settle for the more nuclear, more hetero, the more “responsible” family. Yet another non profit will offer us job training programs for the worst, cheapest, most demeaning service sector jobs and expect us to be thankful. Clinton’s welfare act did just that and masqueraded itself as a well-meaning “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” program. This is couched in terms of us learning “life skills,” learning to be responsible citizens under a capitalist system, to unlearn our rebellion. Yet there is no understanding that many of us disdain these programs and these jobs, not because we are lazy, but because class oppression at the workplace, in the service sector is not a desirable alternative. That we would find a minimum wage job ruled by an increasingly heavy- handed managements, demeaning and undesirable, is then blamed on us: We are undeserving, lazy and untrustworthy.
On working class men’s investment in liberation:
The fraternity of male supremacy also institutionalizes this division to prevent male workers from questioning their own oppressions — there is always someone worse off. Through the process of slavery and white supremacy, the U.S. ruling class realized that it could keep white workers under its thumb by giving them better wages and other benefits denied to Black workers. It encouraged them to reflect on the fact that, as miserable as they may be, at least they’re not Black. Similarly, too many male workers congratulate themselves for not being sexualized, objectified and devalued as women workers under the capitalist system. There is always someone worse off. Under this binary, gender benders, trans workers cannot find a stable liberated place. To the male supremacists, the transwomen have betrayed their gender, and transmen desecrate the male gender. By their crossing, both render the division undesirable, indefensible and transgressible. | <urn:uuid:18ae4993-f92f-4dc6-9219-96c29a745ba3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lake-desire.com/newgameplus/archives/107/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959092 | 922 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Unintended consequence – an unregulated U.S. credit rating industry? – The Scott McCleskey Report
By Scott McCleskey, Complinet
Suppose a law were passed that made driver licenses optional. If you want one, you’d still need to pass exams and pay fees every few years, and you’d be subject to fines for speeding and parking violations. Or you could just say ‘no thanks’, turn in your license, and get back on the road. Of course, no lawmaker would contemplate such a thing. But flawed provisions in the Dodd–Frank Act would do exactly that for the credit ratings agencies, making regulation an optional multimillion dollar expense.
The license in question is designation as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO). Having this status used to mean something. NRSRO ratings have been written into the financial regulations for a good thirty years, so that the designation was a license to print money. Yet until Congress passed a law regulating them in 2006 (only implemented in late 2007), there were virtually no regulatory requirements imposed on NRSROs and their activities. We all know how that turned out.
OUT FOR BLOOD
The 2006 law imposed requirements, costs and penalties for non-compliance on the NRSROs, but it was still worth the bother to be one because the designation was required in order to do business. But the financial crisis exposed both the flaws in the way the NRSROs conducted their ratings and the widespread damage that their mistakes could cause, and the politicians were out for blood.
Putting a large portion of the blame on the rating agencies was not unfair. (Disclosure: I was responsible for compliance at one of the NRSROs, but have testified in Congress against the firm and we are no longer on speaking terms). Yet the policymakers’ obsession with killing off the NRSROs led them to take the foolhardy approach of requiring the removal of references to NRSRO ratings from all federal regulations. In so doing, they will remove the primary reason to be an NRSRO, taking away the benefit and leaving only the cost.
And the cost is not small: In the quarterly report most recently issued by Moody’s, the firm estimated the cost of complying with new regulations to increase by approximately $15m in 2010 and $15m to $25m in 2011. That’s on top of whatever they’re spending now, and it’s a safe bet that S&P and Fitch are also writing some pretty big checks. Only a fraction of that figure will actually go to compliance departments, as the figure no doubt includes defending themselves in court and the cost of lobbying Congress. Nonetheless, that’s all money they could keep if they didn’t have to comply with NRSRO regulations.
So why bother? At some point in the next few years, maybe sooner, the big NRSROs could say ‘no thanks’ to NRSRO status and de-register.
Would they really do it? You bet. The Big Three fired their warning shots right after Dodd–Frank passed, when all three refused (independently, mind you) to allow their ratings to go into offering documents because the new law removed their existing protection against liability. This collective labor strike effectively shut down new issuance of asset-backed securities, among other things. The SEC blinked, and for the time being has waived requirements that offerings include the rating. The rating agencies had made their point.
But regardless of whether they actually de-register, it is clear that the ultimate sanction under the 2006 law – losing the NRSRO license – is now an empty threat. By removing the risk of punishment for cutting corners or bad behavior by NRSROs, Congress has inadvertently created a whole new kind of moral hazard.
There are still remedies available. The most straightforward would be to change the scope of the 2006 law and the relevant Dodd-Frank provisions to apply to all credit rating agencies, rather than just NRSROs. Registration would no longer trigger oversight, but providing ratings would. Extending the reach of regulation this way would not be an easy task in a Congress where the GOP has just found its ‘mojo’, but even free marketeers should support the move rather than watch the rating agencies run and hide.
A swifter remedy would be to designate the major rating agencies as systemically important non-bank financial institutions. Doing so would require a few regulatory contortions but would bring the rating agencies under the purview of systemic risk regulations. This is better than nothing, but is not ideal since those regulations are aimed primarily at the financial soundness of targeted institutions. Also, they are not supervised by the SEC, where responsibility for NRSRO regulation currently lies.
CUSTOMER AS COMPETITOR
The regulators’ ultimate weapon in the long run is to make rating agencies irrelevant by enabling financial institutions to do the job themselves. The SEC has already taken a big step in this direction by proposing rules for asset–backed securities which would require that the creator of the pools underlying the securities publish the relevant data on each loan in that pool, as well as relevant information such as payment priorities and credit enhancements. That is hugely significant. As long as the industry can’t assess creditworthiness efficiently by itself, firms will go to the rating agencies regardless of whether regulations require them to do so or not. But when it becomes cheaper for firms to do their own due diligence, raters will find themselves staring all day at a phone that doesn’t ring.
Whatever else happens, Congress would do well in the future to remember the warning of former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox: “Voluntary regulation doesn’t work.”
Scott McCleskey is managing editor, North America, at Complinet and is the author of When Free Markets Fail: Saving the Market When It Can’t Save Itself (John Wiley and Sons). The views he expresses in this column are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Complinet or its parent, Thomson Reuters Inc.
Complinet, part of Thomson Reuters, is a leading provider of connected risk and compliance information and on-line solutions to the global financial services community. Established in 1997, Complinet serves over 100,000 industry professionals in 80+ countries. Our connected approach provides one single place to get all the relevant regulatory news, analysis, rules and developments from the region to support firms in highly regulated industries. | <urn:uuid:c07237ac-35dc-4682-8c91-4d4b70b041c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/financial-regulatory-forum/2010/11/11/unintended-consequence-%E2%80%93-an-unregulated-u-s-credit-rating-industry-the-scott-mcclesky-report/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964029 | 1,328 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Mark Twain, dressed in the white he loved so well, lay there with the nobility of death upon him, while a multitude of those who loved him passed by and looked at his face for the last time. The flowers, of which so many had been sent, were banked around him; but on the casket itself lay a single laurel wreath which Dan Beard and his wife had woven from the laurel which grows on Stormfield hill. He was never more beautiful than as he lay there, and it was an impressive scene to see those thousands file by, regard him for a moment gravely, thoughtfully, and pass on. All sorts were there, rich and poor; some crossed themselves, some saluted, some paused a little to take a closer look; but no one offered even to pick a flower. Howells came, and in his book he says:
I looked a moment at the face I knew so well; and it was patient with the patience I had so often seen in it: something of a puzzle, a great silent dignity, an assent to what must be from the depths of a nature whose tragical seriousness broke in the laughter which the unwise took for the whole of him.
That night we went with him to Elmira, and next day—a somber day of rain—he lay in those stately parlors that had seen his wedding-day, and where Susy had lain, and Mrs. Clemens, and Jean, while Dr. Eastman spoke the words of peace which separate us from our mortal dead. Then in the quiet, steady rain of that Sunday afternoon we laid him beside those others, where he sleeps well, though some have wished that, like De Soto, he might have been laid to rest in the bed of that great river which must always be associated with his name.
MARK TWAIN’S RELIGION
There is such a finality about death; however interesting it may be as an experience, one cannot discuss it afterward with one’s friends. I have thought it a great pity that Mark Twain could not discuss, with Howells say, or with Twichell, the sensations and the particulars of the change, supposing there be a recognizable change, in that transition of which we have speculated so much, with such slender returns. No one ever debated the undiscovered country more than he. In his whimsical, semi-serious fashion he had considered all the possibilities of the future state —orthodox and otherwise—and had drawn picturesquely original conclusions. He had sent Captain Stormfield in a dream to report the aspects of the early Christian heaven. He had examined the scientific aspects of the more subtle philosophies. He had considered spiritualism, transmigration, the various esoteric doctrines, and in the end he had logically made up his mind that death concludes all, while with that less logical hunger which survives in every human heart he had never ceased to expect an existence beyond the grave. His disbelief and his pessimism were identical in their structure. They were of his mind; never of his heart. | <urn:uuid:94088ed7-d183-418f-8b6b-b059f044b221> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/2987/119.html | 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 | 0.988962 | 634 | 1.78125 | 2 |
West Georgia students in all majors are eligible to participate in a growing number of intern programs. Internships broaden the scope of undergraduate and graduate curricula by offering students a new type of community-based learning experience. Students work in business, public service agencies, and governmental institutions on a full-time basis (generally for one semester or part-time) and may earn academic credit. Internships prepare students for service in their chosen field of study, develop the student's intellectual capacity, help students understand and appreciate democratic institutions, and stimulate students toward the examination and development of personal and professional values. The internship program offers students an opportunity to address real-life problems under the supervision of professionals. Internships may be paid or unpaid.
West Georgia students, primarily in their junior and senior years or in graduate school, may participate in formal, established internship programs. Information, applications and/or interviews can be obtained through the Professional Practice office. Arrangements for academic credit must be made through the academic department chair. While on assignments, students are regarded as regularly enrolled students of the Institution.
Numerous listings of internship opportunities are publicized regularly through the office's Website. Students desiring further information can come by the Professional Practice Office in Parker Hall, 3rd floor, or call 678-839-6431, or visit the Career Services homepage at http://careerweb.westga.edu. | <urn:uuid:d86ec992-738b-46f7-a159-97e996136947> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.westga.edu/undergrad/1610.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940479 | 283 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The business press is starting to get used to this crisis-and-collapse thing. There was an eerie prescience in this morning’s papers, a jittery and feverish anticipation that broke wide open in today’s markets.
The mood in the markets fed the mood in the papers which transmitted it back to the markets, creating a ferocious feedback loop of information without clear beginning or end. It has familiar echoes of the subprime drumbeat that began in the spring of 2007.
To their credit, the papers walked a fine line between sounding alarms, which they clearly were hearing, and sounding alarmist, and mostly did a good job. News analyses this morning tended to be on the muted side, but the issue of the Greek financial rescue and its implications was fully vetted before markets opened.
The Wall Street Journal captured the spooked sentiment well, in a report this morning:
“There is probably nothing more frustrating for policy makers [than] to see that the Greek program is already being brushed aside by the market, which is now entirely concentrated on a full-blown contagion across euro-area countries and euro-area asset classes and spilling over to global markets,” analysts at the Royal Bank of Scotland wrote in a research note Thursday.
The FT’s Alphaville put some meat on those bones, with a report that showed the credit market “was in the midst of its most severe correction since the early months of 2009.” Want more proof that something bad is about to happen? “Spreads have now widened beyond the last three spikes in bank spreads: the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman failure and the latter stages of the banking crisis in March 2009.”
Right. This Greek story should have our attention. The Journal, to its credit, has gone to town to tell it, with lots of reporters, bells and whistles. When it comes to explaining how that contagion would work, it’s a good place to start.
At the FT, Martin Wolf’s Wednesday analysis of the $145 billion rescue stood out for its clarity.
For other eurozone members, the programme prevents an immediate shock to fragile financial systems: it is overtly a rescue of Greece, but covertly a bail-out of banks. But it is far from clear that it will help other members now in the firing line. Investors could well conclude that the scale of the package required for tiny Greece and the overwhelming difficulty of agreeing and ratifying it, particularly in Germany, suggest that further such packages are going to be elusive. Other eurozone members might well end up on their own. None is in as bad a condition as Greece and none has shown the same malfeasance. But several have unsustainable fiscal deficits and rapidly rising debt ratios. In this, their situation does not differ from that of the UK and US. But they lack the same policy options.
This story, in short, is not over.
That’s pretty clear, and pretty convincing.
Peter Boone and Simon Johnson offered their own threat assessment, and the headline makes clear where they stand: “It’s Not About Greece Any More.” They looked more at the fears of contagion that prompted the EU to act.
Last week the European leadership panicked – very late in the day – when they realized that the euro zone itself was at risk of a meltdown. If the euro zone proves unwilling to protect a member like Greece from default, then bond investors will run from Portugal and Spain also – if you doubt this, study carefully the interlocking debt picture published recently in the New York Times. Higher yields on government debt would have caused concerns about potential bank runs in these nations, and then spread to more nations in Europe.
When there is such a “run” it is not clear where it stops. In the hazy distance, Belgium, France, Austria and many others were potentially at risk. Even the Germans cannot afford to bail out those nations. | <urn:uuid:c4bfd15c-846e-4fb4-aa60-0d15eeaaa49d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/greek_omens_bizpress_was_around_the_contagion_story_not_too_alarmist.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965101 | 820 | 1.6875 | 2 |
A family caregiver myself, I was honored when asked to write an article in recognition of November as National Family Caregivers Month. One in five adults in the United States provides unpaid financial, physical or emotional support to a family member or friend older than 50.
Estimates show the United States has approximately 28.8 million caregivers and they provide more than 30 billion hours of care each year. According to conservative estimates, the economic value of unpaid, informal care friends and family provide nationwide is $306 billion per year.
When caregiving demands intensify, caregivers take leaves of absence from their paid jobs, reduce their work hours or quit entirely. These decisions take a heavy financial toll. In a study of employers, more than two-thirds reported staffing problems related to an increase in caregiving in the past 10 years. Yet 40 percent had no plan in place to assist employees who are caregivers. This lack of planning costs American businesses dearly.
Since my target audience is you — my fellow busy caregivers — I’ll get straight to the point: There is assistance available in Alexandria you probably haven’t heard of, and I want to convince you to reach out for help. You may be thinking, “Yes, but that’s for other people. I can manage caring for my family member and don’t need any help.” Or maybe you’re saying, “Sure, but it’s not that simple: My situation and loved one’s needs are unique — no one else could really understand.”
Believe me, I have said and felt all of these things. Eventually, however, I decided to accept a helping hand in caring for my mom — and I’m happy I did. I elected to participate in a support group at the Alexandria Adult Day Center for those who have loved ones with dementia or physical impairment.
In the group, members treated me (and my mom) as infinitely special, and because our stories were more similar than different, the group members really could understand me.
And because they understood, they could offer me compassion, acceptance, helpful advice and useful resources. By taking advantage of the caregiver support group, I gained far more than I expected, and I recognized the power of accepting help.
The City of Alexandria has services that offer similar help, hope and support. Many options are available, and many are free or low-cost and can give you much-needed relief and support. These include help with transportation to doctor’s visits; daytime programs, like the Alexandria Adult Day Center, to provide you a break from caregiving; meals on wheels; in-home care options; and legal services. The city’s division of aging and adult services is available to answer questions and to offer advice and resources at 703-746-5999.
These services are provided because our community recognizes the needs of family caregivers. Perhaps there is something that can help you that you haven’t heard of before. During this month designated for honoring what you do as a caregiver, honor yourself by reaching out and accepting a helping hand.
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Words Move Me – Sony adds social networking around reading (but doesn’t seem you can *buy*)– "Words move me" was created by Sony to celebrate the words that move us and to share our reading experiences with others. Connecting with readers around literary moments enables us to express our individuality, share our own stories, and find commonalities with others.
- Sony’s Daily Reader – Kindle Competition: Touchscreen Plus AT&T, for $399 – Includes software to link with local libraries and check out a library-based electronic book. Also has portrait reading mode (showing two pages), touchscreen, and broadband wireless access to add books without a PC.
- IKEA as destination retail, in Beijing – Although the store is designed similarly to Western IKEAs, the meaning and usage has changed. In Beijing, It's a place to rest and eat, more theme park than shopping emporium.
- The lost art of reading: David Ulin on the challenge of focus in an era of distraction – Who do we want to be, she asks, and how do we go about that process of becoming in a world of endless options, distractions, possibilities? These are elementary questions, and for me, they cycle back to reading, to the focus it requires. When I was a kid, maybe 12 or 13, my grandmother used to get mad at me for attending family functions with a book. Back then, if I'd had the language for it, I might have argued that the world within the pages was more compelling than the world without; I was reading both to escape and to be engaged. All these years later, I find myself in a not-dissimilar position, in which reading has become an act of meditation, with all of meditation's attendant difficulty and grace. I sit down. I try to make a place for silence. It's harder than it used to be, but still, I read. (via Putting People First)
Here’s some more articles, projects, websites, and other online ephemera that we’ve come across since we posted part 1.
- A series of humorous videos from Green Apple Books comparing the Kindle to a book
- Books and Browsers (audio link) – Dave Gray (IDEA2008)
The book as a form factor has been around for about 2,000 years, since Julius Caesar first decided to fold up a scroll, accordion-style, and mark the pages for later reference. In 1455, Aldus Manutius was the first to publish the portable paperback, and it has remained relatively unchanged since. XPLANE Founder and Chairman Dave Gray explores several questions about the future of the book and the web browser.
Sony has launched the latest salvo
a sub-$300 touch-screen “Reader Touch Edition” and the $199 “Reader Pocket Edition,” which features a 5-inch display. The company is also lowering prices of ebooks. New releases and best-sellers will all be $9.99, matching Amazon’s price point for the first time.
- NPR Science Friday broadcast exploring Who Owns Your Digital Data?
- NPR on Amazon removing Orwell books
Lynn, you cover books and publishing for NPR, so do you have a Kindle or an e-book Reader?
LYNN NEARY: Actually, I don’t, Linda. In fact, my cubical at NPR and my night table at home are loaded down with good, old-fashioned books because even though I’ve actually seen the Kindle work and I’ve talked to a lot of people who love it, I still can’t imagine reading some of my favorite novels on the Kindle. What about you?
WERTHEIMER: I love it. It’s especially nice for traveling. I really do not leave home without it. But I did have a very peculiar experience with Kindle. I was reading a book and all of a sudden, I was back at the beginning of the book. So I thought I’d punched some button somehow. But no, what I had was a book in two pieces.
- CHART OF THE DAY: Most People Still Have Never Seen A Kindle
Some 40% of North Americans who responded to a Forrester Research survey in Q2 2009 had heard of, but had never seen, an e-reader. Another 17% had never heard of one. But ownership more than doubled year-over-year to 1.5%.
- A short piece from Steve Haber, who developed the Sony Reader
When Eddie Bernays, the father of modern publicity, was asked by a group of book publishers to increase book sales, he said, “Where there are bookshelves, there will be books.” And then he went on to convince architects, construction companies, and interior designers to install bookshelves in new homes. That helped to launch the modern day publishing and selling of books. (thanks to Joshua Treuhaft)
- Cathy Marshall’s publications about reading, interaction, electronic periodicals, and ebooks
Smarter Books – Envisioning the uses & future of print, electronic, & new media books
This site is dedicated to design thinking for re-envisioning books, publishing models, and the cognitive activity we call reading. The many markets and models for books and distribution are changing radically and continuously. We, authors and designers, need to share what we have learned and are doing to recreate the forms, meaning, and thinking of books of all kinds. Sponsored by Redesign Research
- The unbook is a concept originally developed by Jay Cross. The concept evolved based on discussions between Jay and Dave Gray
The Diamond Age is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. The Primer in The Diamond Age is a complex and highly elaborate descendant of today’s hypertext.
Unlike the very static version we are familiar with today, the Primer is fully interactive. It not only offers the reader an open-ended narrative, but it also changes to the reader’s demands, among many other features.
- Vogon Heavy Industries is proud to make the The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy available to Earth Internet users under licence from Megadodo Publications, Ursa Minor.
- Visualization of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book
- Fore-edge painting – Pictures along the page edges, hidden behind gilt
- Exhaustive list of book terminology
- Digital Book 09, a conference put on by IPDF (International Digital Publishing Forum)
- Wholesale eBook Sales Statistics
Starting any project means we inevitably come across any number of articles that pertain to the topic or the themes that emerge from the research and synthesis.
Sometimes we’ll dedicate some time at the beginning to collect articles and summarize ‘em, but more often we’ll just do a quick scan and opportunistically look for issues to inform our recruiting and planning for fieldwork.
Here’s what we’re reading now (and we’ll do a part 2 if and when we find more articles of interest):
- Kindle and the Future of Reading – Nicholson Baker in the New Yorker
- NPR Books: July 7, 2008 – “A challenge for amazon’s Kindle e-reader: how does it stand up to a visit to a pool?”
- Hotels Offering eBooks as Amenities – jk OnTheRun (also this from the same site)
- Amazon Taps Its Inner Apple – Adam L. Penenberg in Fast Company
- Barnes & Noble unveils largest ebookstore
- Some Thoughts on the Anthology – A Working Library
Among the many complaints made about the shift from reading on paper to reading on screen, perhaps the most common—and most difficult to counter—is that we are moving from a medium that requires concentration to one that sows distraction into every syllable. This complaint assumes that the act of flitting from one reading to the next is necessarily inferior; but what if that were not always the case?
- Possible ou probable? – Video of a future scenario for the book itself
- Amazon’s Orwellian deletion of Kindle books- Boing Boing
- Universities Turn to Kindle Sometimes To Save Paper – NYT Green Inc. blog
- Jeff Bezos on NPR’s On Point
- NPR Books: June 26, 2008 – “Chinese fiction writers are using the Internet as a way to reach and entertain their readership”
- Comparison of eBook devices (also here)
- Devices from Wikipedia
Prominent examples include:
• Plastic Logic (2010)
• txtr by the German start-up txtr (to be presented in the Oct 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair)
• Cybook Opus by Bookeen (August 2009)
• Readius foldable eBook reader by Polymer Vision (Will never release due to bankrupt)
• COOL-ER ereader by Interread (2009)
• Digital Reader 1000 SW by iRex (2009)
• Kindle 2 by Amazon (2009)
• Sony Reader PRS-700 by Sony (2009)
• Digital Reader 1000 by iRex (2008)
• Sony Reader PRS-505 by Sony (2007/8)
• Kindle by Amazon (2007)
• Cybook Gen3 by Bookeen (2007)
• Hanlin eReader by Jinke (distributed as “Lbook” in Estonia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine as “BeBook” in Europe; also distributed by Pixelar) (2007)
• Wattpad (2006) for Mobile Java devices and other mobile phones
• Sony Reader PRS-500 by Sony (2006)
• iLiad by iRex (2006)
• Librié by Sony (2004)
- iPhone as eReader – Lexcycle
Lexcycle today announced that more than 2 million users have downloaded Stanza, the popular electronic book reader application for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch, since it was launched one year ago. Stanza’s award-winning reading experience, which features customizable formatting, searching, library management and over-the-air book downloads on demand, has led to more than 12 million book downloads.
These milestones highlight that many people are quite comfortable reading full length books via Stanza on their iPhones and iPod touch.
- Is the iPhone the Ultimate eBook Reader? – ReadWriteWeb
- Why Apple’s iTouch Tablet Will Become Its Flagship Product – Seeking Alpha
We’re very excited here at Portigal Consulting to announce the start of a new self-funded project–Reading Ahead.
In Reading Ahead, we’ll be exploring the evolution of reading and books from a consumer perspective–what it means to be a reader, how artifacts from traditional books to devices like Amazon’s Kindle affect the experience, and what the future might hold for readers, product developers, and beyond.
Over the course of the project, we’ll be blogging both about how we work and what we see and learn.
Steve Portigal (left) and Dan Soltzberg, project kickoff, July 27, 2009
Understanding our client
One of the first steps in any project is figuring out what the project is really about. So the first piece of research we do is often focused on our client.
As we work with our clients to establish the scope and approach of a project, we also interview key stakeholders in their organization to better understand what they know and what they need to know. (This doesn’t always map to what they think they know and what they think they need to know, and it’s important to suss out the differences.) These interviews help us understand the dynamics of the team and the organizational culture.
In this case, we’re our own client, so we sat down and asked each other some fundamental questions
- What is it we want to know that we don’t know now?
- What are we going to do with what we learn?
- What are the people, places, things, behaviors, etc. that we think we want to focus on.
- How broadly or tightly do we want to draw the scope of the exploration (at least at the outset—this can change as the project moves forward). In this case, to what extent might we want to be looking at bigger categories like content, entertainment, free time?
The way we answer these project definition questions will have a huge affect on how the work unfolds. As in most projects, we’ll be looking for the sweet spot that is constrained enough to give the project a clear focus but open enough to leave room for the unexpected.
- Robert Fabricant of frogdesign considers whether understanding users means that design is or isn't persuasive/manipulative – How do we decide what the user really 'wants to achieve'? The fact is that there are a host of different influences that come to bear in any experience. And a host of different needs that drive user behavior. Designers are constantly making judgment calls about which 'needs' we choose to privilege in our designs. In fact, you could argue that this is the central function of design: to sort through the mess of user needs and prioritize the 'right' ones, the most valuable, meaningful…and profitable.
But according to what criteria? These decisions, necessarily, value judgments, no matter how much design research you do. And few designers want to be accountable for these decisions. From that perspective, UCD, starts to seem a bit naive, possibly even a way to avoid accountability for these value judgments.
[Obviously no easy answers here; even defining the terms for the discussion is challenging, but the dialog between Robert and others is provocative]
- Dave Blum, treasure hunt designer, offers 100 treasure hunts around the world – I was always a puzzle and a game kid. I had a friend when I was growing up in Millbrae, Mike Savasta, and he and I were just board game and card game fanatics. Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Stratego.
In college, I played thousands of games of cribbage. I like the intellectual challenge, the analytical challenge. I'm very much a "play-it-by-ear" kind of guy, so I like a game where you have to think on your feet.
After college, I lived in Japan for 3 1/2 years and taught English. Then I spent 11 months traveling through Asia and Europe, and when I came back to San Francisco, I worked in tourism for a while. I said, "I need to find a career that I really love." I thought if I could combine group work, travel, games and puzzles – that would be the ultimate job. I started Dr. Clue in 1995.
- What Does Your Credit-Card Company Know About You? – "In 2002 J. P. Martin, a math-loving executive at Canadian Tire, decided to analyze almost every piece of information his company had collected from credit-card transactions the previous year. His data indicated, for instance, that people who bought cheap, generic automotive oil were much more likely to miss a credit-card payment than someone who got the expensive, name-brand stuff. People who bought carbon-monoxide monitors for their homes or those little felt pads that stop chair legs from scratching the floor almost never missed payments. Anyone who purchased a chrome-skull car accessory or a “Mega Thruster Exhaust System” was pretty likely to miss paying his bill eventually. Why were felt-pad buyers so "upstanding? Because they wanted to protect their belongings, be they hardwood floors or credit scores."
The article goes on to describe how debt collectors build relationships with (rather than harass) debtors, who pay off more to the brands they have a relationship with.
- We Are Now In The Age Of Nice – another Sunday NYT unsubstantiated trend-attempt – That amiable guys and uncomplicated sweethearts could be today’s pop heroes is one sign of an outbreak of niceness across the cultural landscape — an attitude bubbling up in commercials, movies and even, to a degree, the normally not-nice blogosphere.
- Can supposedly-predictive quantitative market research techniques help Hollywood? – Still, is it smart to bring on pricey consultants when corporate overlords are demanding cost cuts? And what of the parade of failed attempts by consumer research firms to break into Hollywood? Few people in the industry can forget Tremor, the research firm that was owned by Procter & Gamble. It came to Hollywood in 2002, signed up with Creative Artists Agency and roped clients like DreamWorks — though its ideas often proved prohibitively expensive.
- Mass Customization of the Fiat 500 – A number of folks we recently met in Europe mentioned this new (although an updated classic) car as being perfect for their needs. The variation and customizing, while perhaps not unique in today's marketplace (I'm imaging the Mini's variability is similar if not beyond) was still striking: "The 500 is available with four different trim levels: Naked, Pop, Lounge, and Sport. Customers can choose also between 15 interior trims, 9 wheel options, 19 decals, and 12 body colours. There are over 500,000 different personalized combinations of the 500 that can be made by adding all kinds of accessories, decals, interior and exterior colours, and trims."
- Searching for Value in Ludicrous Ideas – Allison Arieff writes about "inventor/author/cartoonist/former urban planner Steven M. Johnson" whose "work tends toward the nodes where social issues intersect with design and urban planning issues." I'm reminded of my formative experiences with Al Jaffee features from MAD magazine where he's describe future products or technologies, or explain (fancifully) the workings of some current product (i.e. bars of soap that are made with quick disappearing stuff on the outside and then a small interior core that takes a long long time to dissolve).
- Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt – Suggested to me by René Vendrig at the Amsterdam UX Cocktail Hour, after my talk on looking at cultural differences based on everyday observations. He tells me "It is about traffic, but the real subject is human psychology and how we deal with that kind of situations."
- It's Not TV, It's HBO – HBO's standard-creating slogan, giving words to the premium experience of their programming.
- It's not just coffee, it's Starbucks. – New ad campaign for Starbucks attempts to differentiate on quality, but sounds just a bit familiar.
- All This ChittahChattah | Flying the sneaky skies – (see link for screen grab)
While checking in online for a United Airlines flight, you may be offered the opportunity to upgrade to Economy Plus. It’s likely that most people decline upsells in many situations, though. The default would be to click “no thanks” and move on to completing the transaction. But United has done some tricky and manipulative interface design. The bright yellow arrow with bold text placed on the right is almost irresistible. E-commerce sites have trained us to envision a transaction moving from left to right (granted that they’ve landed on that model since it corresponds to how we read and other cultural factors); it’s very easy to click on the arrow and make a purchase you didn’t want. It takes cognitive work to search for the preferred option which is a lowly blue-underlined unbolded text link off to the left.
- Evil-interface design in airline website design spanked by European Commission – "Another common problem is the use of prechecked boxes offering services like travel insurance; consumers must uncheck the boxes to remove the unwanted charge." I've written before about United's website being slightly more subtle in their evilness, by offering an upgrade during check-in where the highly visible (colored graphic arrow) button in the default location will cost you tons of money; it's more effort to realize, locate, and decline the offer. Why do we live in a world where major brands want to sell us things that we don't want by tricking us? It's unconscionable that any company can claim to respect consumers and then pull crap like this.
- Cyd Harrell of Bolt | Peters reacts to the ludicrous Dell campaign trying to sell computers to women, in 2009 – "…a woman, with the last Dell I will ever own. It’s my current laptop, and I chose it because I needed a computer powerful enough to run screensharing tools and high-res video; I needed mobile broadband to stay in touch with my clients and employees, and not just my kid (heresy!); I needed my screen to look great when I go to meetings with clients. That is to say, I needed it for work. Dell, let’s make it official: you can bite me and the millions of other women who take themselves and their technology seriously."
I love the articulate passion here, as well as the insight into what may have happened organizationally/culturally at Dell (ahem, really crappy research) that leads to such a horrendously offensive sales pitch to HALF of their buying population
Artpiece made of clocks, Chicago MOMA
This list of 10 workplace skills of the future is going around the various ‘Scapes and ‘Spheres (it came to me on Twitter via Chris23). Without getting into whether the list is entirely correct or comprehensive, I think it’s incredibly thought-provoking.
For anyone involved in designing products–especially work environments and tools–it will be crucial to explore people’s daily lives and see what’s really happening: how these types of shifts are manifesting behaviorally and emotionally, and what new opportunities are being created as a result.
10 Workplace Skills of the Future
(From Bob Johansen’s book, Leaders Make the Future. Originally posted by Tessa Finlev in The Future Now blog.)
Excellent responsiveness to other people’s requests for engagement; strong propensity and ability to reach out to others in a network
Seeing a much bigger picture; thinking in terms of higher level systems, bigger networks, longer cycles
Creating content for public modification; the ability to work with massively multiple contributors
The ability to sense, almost intuitively, who would make the best collaborators on a particular task or mission
Fluency in working and trading simultaneously with different hybrid capitals, e.g., natural, intellectual, social, financial, virtual
The ability to do real-time work in very large groups; a talent for coordinating with many people simultaneously; extreme-scale collaboration
Fearless innovation in rapid, iterative cycles; the ability to lower the costs and increase the speed of failure
Knowing how to be persuasive and tell compelling stories in multiple social media spaces (each space requires a different persuasive strategy and technique)
Filtering meaningful info, patterns, and commonalities from the massively-multiple streams of data and advice
The ability to prepare for and handle surprising results and complexity that come with coordination, cooperation and collaboration on extreme scales
Magazine kiosk, San Francisco, 2008
be going the way of these…
Dead pay phone bank, Honolulu Airport, 2008
This Engadget piece on R&D efforts at the New York Times got me thinking about what gets lost as technology changes our physical routines. How gestures like folding up a newspaper and putting it under your arm to walk down the street become obsolete.
How many aspects of our behavior are influenced by the differences between how we consume online and print-based media?
What physical routines would you be sorry to see go away?
(This post originally appeared on Core77)
There’s a strong fascination cum infatuation with semi-secret rules that explain why we do what we do. Even In Treatment uses Gladwell (the form’s biggest popularizer) to forward a common misconception about therapy while creating dramatic tension.
In a recent counter-intuitive example, a study indicates that people ordering from a menu that includes healthy and less-healthy options will feel more free to choose the less-healthy option. The theory isn’t totally clear (perhaps a vicarious “I’ve been good” hit comes from the presence of those other items) and its extensibility to other choice behaviors isn’t at all clear.
And in the “no duh” category, another study that looked at radiologists found that “when a digital photograph was attached to a patient’s file, radiologists provided longer, more meticulous reports. And they said they felt more connected to the patients, whom they seldom meet face to face.” Although I wonder if the folks at the passport office, with their surplus of mortifying headshots, would support this study, it really just makes sense and could be applied to all sorts of intermediated interactions, both asynchronous (i.e., mortgage applications) and synchronous (ie., tech support chat). For further study, does an avatar or a stock photo work as well as photograph? Do other biographical details work as well? And how long does this effect last?
Meanwhile, we’re ready to casually cite the classic marketing/business/social science examples, such as the Add An Egg phenomenon, the Kitty Genovese effect, how a waiter’s tip can decline precipitously based solely on the waiting-time for the bill (citation anyone?) and the Hawthorne Effect.
- Harley-Davidson: You Can File Our Obituary Where The Sun Don't Shine – Passionate and 100% on-brand response to rumblings about Harley not making it through 2009. Seen as full-page ad in today's New York Times and presumably elsewhere
- Very slight story on how and why we use lines from movies in regular conversation – It also turns out that using movie quotes in everyday conversation is akin to telling a joke and a way to form solidarity with others, according to a researcher who has actually studied why we like to cite films in social situations.
"People are doing it to feel good about themselves, to make others laugh, to make themselves laugh," said Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University.
Harris decided to ask hundreds of young adults about their film-quoting habits after he and his graduate students realized it was a common behavior that no one had looked at closely before.
He found that all of the participants in his study had used movie quotes in conversation at one point or another. They overwhelmingly cited comedies, followed distantly by dramas and action adventure flicks.
As for horror films, musicals and children's movies, "fuh-get about it." They were hardly ever cited.
When asked about their emotions while quoting films, most people reported feeling happy.
- Paul Graham writes on "Why TV Lost" – Lots of interesting points in Graham's essay, but I found these two, about the underlying media component of many startups, and the temporal aspect of TV-watching especially thought-provoking: "Now would be a good time to start any company that competes with TV networks. That's what a lot of Internet startups are, though they may not have had this as an explicit goal. People only have so many leisure hours a day, and TV is premised on such long sessions (unlike Google, which prides itself on sending users on their way quickly) that anything that takes up their time is competing with it."
- Where does Twitter go from here? – My post on Core77 about how Twitter can think about evolving its overall user experience as it straddles lead users and mass awareness
- Logic+Emotion: Skittles Smackdown, A Sociological Viewpoint – Nice words from David Armano, pulling out something I wrote yesterday about the Skittles/Twitter PR experiement
Every drummer knows, it’s hard to find a place to practice.
Drummer, Highway 9, Santa Cruz mountains
So when I drove by this guy rocking out on the side of the road, I thought, “yes, that makes so much sense.” Plenty of space, no neighbors around to get pissed off at you.
So how come the roadsides aren’t dotted with drummers?
Even though it’s a great solution, it takes a certain degree of chutzpah to go drum in the woods.
Lots of seemingly innovative ideas never take hold. Some of these concepts may be asking customers to “drum in the woods”– to behave in ways that might stick out, feel weird, or refute what they’re comfortable with.
Nicolas Nova further explores why ideas do and don’t take hold in his visually rich Inflated/Deflated Futures presentation.
Earlier this week I spent the day with the design team of a global technology company. I can’t say much more but I can share a couple of photographs from different bathrooms.
The standard soap dispenser has been repurposed for hand lotion. The soap comes from the other kind of standard dispenser, a foot away, next to the sink.
Washing your hands is a fairly unconscious behavior, you assess the space visually and quickly move through the various tasks…so who stops to read the sign that says Hand Lotion? That sign serves more of a “here’s how you messed up, buddy” explanation than as a preventative measure. I had a hard time stopping myself from getting hand lotion when I wanted soap.
We did have a group discussion about observing signs in the environment to identify workarounds and opportunities for improvement and so I was pleased to have an example from their environment to share back. This ended up in the always enjoyable men’s bathroom vs. women’s bathroom comparison…in this office the women’s bathroom includes a dispenser for hand sanitizer (in addition to soap and lotion). Unfortunately I didn’t get in there to take a picture. But, oh, the mode errors!
I was struck by the presumed need for this sign in a different bathroom, explaining what locked and unlocked look like. I had this quick “well that’s dumb” reaction, took the picture, used the facility, and then upon exiting realized that I had failed to lock the door! I’m not sure exactly how I managed to not lock it, since that is another automatic behavior.
In both cases, the signs themselves caught my attention, but I still exhibited the behavior they were trying to prevent (taking lotion instead of soap, leaving the door unlocked).
See also Signs To Override Human Nature, previously.
Given what we’re trying to figure out and plan for here at Portigal Consulting (essentially growth in all the ways one might define that), I enjoyed listening to two brief podcasts about starting and growing (design) consulting firms, one with Chris Fahey and another with Myk Lum. Both are in the category of here’s what I did which is very different than here’s what you should do. That’s not a criticism, of course. Anyone who is has been in similar situations will hear a number of head-nodding-in-recognition moments, and maybe find a few ideas for things to try. | <urn:uuid:5a2eda26-c203-48fa-a44e-c7f9c33c3feb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.portigal.com/tag/behavior/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950484 | 6,569 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Bible vs Another Gospel
“My Words . . . Never Cease,” Ensign, May 2008, 91; “Some Christians, in large measure because of their genuine love for the Bible, have declared that there can be no more authorized scripture beyond the Bible. In thus pronouncing the canon of revelation closed, our friends in some other faiths shut the door on divine expression that we in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hold dear: the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and the ongoing guidance received by God’s anointed prophets and apostles. Imputing no ill will to those who take such a position, nevertheless we respectfully but resolutely reject such an unscriptural characterization of true Christianity.” – Jeffrey R. Holland
John 10:27-28; “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
Hebrews 2:1; “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
Well given what the Lord has revealed in His word it’d be hard to justify adding “another gospel” to what He’s already provided.
I also find it interesting how the words of this apostle have referred to Christians as “our friends”. The whole reason Mormonism was given birth to was because the body of Christ had turned into an enemy of Christ according to Joseph Smith.
They’ve begun to exchange their diatribe in for caressing compliments making their falsehoods easier to swallow.
I’ve always laughed at the phrase “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”, but in this case truer words have never been spoken. Watch out for the trickery! | <urn:uuid:574a2408-69bc-4369-a7dc-ebbc5197d5b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifeafterministry.com/2012/11/20/mormon-dilemma-442/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943108 | 383 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Thu December 20, 2012
Assault-Style Weapons In The Civilian Market
As the country reels after Friday's massacre in Newtown, Conn., the question of how assault rifles like the one used at Sandy Hook Elementary School entered the civilian market is front and center.
The semi-automatic weapon found at the site where Adam Lanza shot to death 20 children and six adults, for example, is a variant of a type of gun developed for troops during Vietnam.
"It is one of a variety of assault rifles that militaries of the world developed," Tom Diaz, a policy analyst for the Violence Policy Center, tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "when they realized that most soldiers do not, when they're engaged in combat ... take accurate aim, do not fire at long distances, but rather just spray bullets in the general direction of the enemy at short to medium range. ... [S]oldiers are not marksmen, and they tend to just fire in bursts at ambiguous targets and, in fact, most battlefield injuries are the result of just being where the bullet is and not someone actually aiming at you."
Diaz — who is also the author of the forthcoming book The Last Gun, about changes in the gun industry and gun violence — and his colleagues have conducted extensive research on gun violence in the United States and have written reports on assault weapons, as well as on the National Rifle Association and the corporations that fund it. What gun manufacturers have done to rejuvenate their markets, Diaz tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, is to emphasize military-derived semi-automatic guns and, in marketing, "appeal to the inner soldier, the insurrectionist feelings and high-tech desires to market these military-style guns."
The only difference, Diaz says, between the semi-automatic rifles sold on the civilian market and those issued to soldiers "is that the purely military rifle is capable of firing what's called 'fully automatic fire,' " meaning the gun will continue to fire until it expends all of the ammunition in its magazine.
When it comes to potential bills that could be introduced in Congress in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Diaz says it's crucial to focus on this question of magazine capacity. Lawmakers must ask, Diaz says, "What actually are the design features? What are the real functions of assault weapons? ... Can you put a high-capacity magazine into this gun that will hold 20, 40, 60, 100, 110 rounds of ammunition? And, if that's true, then it's an assault rifle and we will not allow their manufacture or import."
On the Bushmaster rifle found at Sandy Hook Elementary
"[It's] a variant of a type of gun called the AR-15 ... which was designed and developed for military use roughly during the Vietnam War period. It is one of a variety of assault rifles that militaries of the world developed when they realized that most soldiers do not — when they're engaged in combat — do not take accurate aim, do not fire at long distances, but rather just spray bullets in the general direction of the enemy at short to medium range. When the military accepted this as a fact — that soldiers are not marksmen, and they tend to just fire in bursts at ambiguous targets, and in fact most battlefield injuries are the result of just being where the bullet is and not someone actually aiming at you — the militaries of the world said, 'OK, we need a type of gun to give our soldiers that will do just that.' ... This was the genesis of the assault rifle. The first one was developed by the Germans in 1944. It was called the StG-44. The Soviet army quickly ... made a design similar to it, which is called the AK-47, probably the most widely used rifle in the world."
On how the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban defined a semi-automatic weapon
"It defined a semi-automatic assault weapon in terms of a gun that had at least two of certain features. One of them was the actual crucial feature, which is the ability to take a high capacity magazine. ... The others were ... almost decorative features that were on these guns, such as a bayonet mount, which means you could put a bayonet on the gun; a thing called a ... flash hider, which means that the flash from the barrel of the gun is less observable; a stock in the rear that could be extended or shortened. ... The requirement that you have at least two of those meant that gun manufactures could say, 'Aha, we can keep the ability to take the high capacity magazine and just knock off the rest of these bells and whistles [and] we still have essentially the same gun, ... but it's now federally legal. And that's what Bushmaster figured out. They actually rose to prominence after the 1994 semi-automatic assault weapons ban because they took off all the truly irrelevant bells and whistles and just produced a basic gun."
On Beretta's marketing strategy for a semi-automatic pistol that entered civilian market
"Prior to the early- to mid-1980s, most handguns in the United States, including those used by law enforcement officers, were the old-fashioned revolver, which had a capacity of about six rounds — relatively cumbersome. In the 1980s, Beretta, an Italian company, decided to compete to replace the U.S. military standard sidearm. Dating back to 1911, there was a gun known as the Colt Model 1911, .45 caliber, semi-automatic pistol, and it was thought to be antiquated, not suitable for the modern battlefield.
"So there was a competition and Beretta actually won the competition for its .9 millimeter, high-capacity semi-automatic pistol. Beretta executives later in interviews on public record which we've documented ... said, 'Look, our strategy was this: ... What we want to do is get the cache of military sales so that we can then turn to the much bigger, much more profitable American civilian market and make a lot more money doing that.' And that's precisely what they did. Beretta's advertising [strategy] to this day ... is, 'This is a gun that we sell to the military. It's made for them but you can use it.' "
On the FN 5.7, a gun designed for counterterrorism purposes that has entered the civilian market
"It was specifically designed for use by counterterrorism teams because it fires a very small but very high-velocity bullet that will penetrate body armor — what people call ballistic vests or bullet-proof vests. When FN first manufactured this gun, they recognized how dangerous it would be on a civilian market and they claimed they would never sell it to civilians, that it would only be for police and counterterrorism units. In fact, it's become a very popular gun on the American civilian market and is exported to Mexico, where it's called the mata policia, or police killer, cop killer."
On why he — himself a former NRA member and gun owner — switched sides on the debate
"When I worked for Congressman [Chuck] Schumer, who was then chairman of the House crime subcommittee — about 1993, 1994 — I inherited the gun legislation account. And one of the things I had to do was generate a hearing on, we called it 'Kids and Guns,' and, in the course of preparing a hearing, staff members such as I was [would] actually go and interview the witnesses. ... I talked to some of these children and I realized that their world had nothing whatever to do with this kind of mythical world of the National Rifle Association, and so that set me to thinking, and ... I realized that I was living, frankly, in a dream world. I mean, I was living in the world of when I was a Boy Scout." | <urn:uuid:c51ef687-e3f3-4f8a-aba8-8c86b6dd5988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wdiy.org/post/assault-style-weapons-civilian-market | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97745 | 1,592 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Of the thinkers and writers commonly identified today as market-oriented left-libertarians (that is, leftists—opposed to workplace hierarchies, cultural authoritarianism, arbitrary exclusion on the basis of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, and aggressive war—who are also market-oriented libertarians—opposed to aggression against people’s bodies and justly acquired possessions), almost all are anarchists; Chris Matthew Sciabarra is perhaps the only relatively visible one who’s not. The question is: how contingent is this connection?
It is possible, for instance, that many left-libertarians have been influenced by Murray Rothbard, and that they affirm both anarchism for something like Rothbard’s reasons for doing so and left-libertarianism on the view that it’s a logical extension of Rothbard’s views.
But this explanation wouldn’t cover those whose links with Rothbard are, like mine, pretty tenuous. And it would really just push the fundamental question back a step, in any case, since we’d still have to ask why the relevant views could be found in Rothbard’s own work.
Obviously, the answer will depend in part on just what one thinks might make a position leftist; I suggest that one intuitively appealing answer might be that a position is leftist if it opposes subordination, exclusion, deprivation, and war. I think there are at least four reasons why a version of libertarianism that is leftist in this sense would likely be anarchist as well.
The most important is the central role of libertarian class theory in left-libertarian thought. Since libertarian class theory tends to focus on the creation of the state through conquest and the dominance of the state apparatus by those who employ it to exploit, there really is a deep-seated connection between left-libertarianism and a suspicious view of the state that certainly might tend to dispose someone toward anarchism. Subordination and deprivation, on a typical left-libertarian analysis, are rooted in privileges secured by the state; exclusion is characteristically reinforced by such privileges; and wars are characteristically fought to create or extend such privileges and, in general, to advance the interests of the power elite who are the principal beneficiaries of these privileges. Opposing these privileges means opposing what the state is doing at present; but it also means opposing the characteristic tendency of state action for millennia. It would seem, at minimum, enormously difficult to cabin the options available to state actors in ways that would prevent them from seeking and conferring the privileges left-libertarians oppose. Thus, the simplest way to eliminate these privileges is to eliminate the state apparatus that has persistently secured them.
A further relevant fact is that leftism of the kind I’ve sketched above is radically decentralist, in favor of grassroots institutions and opposed to top-down control. The influence of the New Left is obvious. This sort of leftism naturally militates against centralized political authority—and thus, ultimately against political authority of any sort. (My sense is that when they talked about “neighborhood power” and similar ideas, New Leftists were talking first of all about reconceiving the state—as Bill Kauffman says, you can have your home town, or you can have the empire, but you can’t have both—though of course decentralizing worklife, creating “human-scale” workplaces, has also mattered enormously to both New Leftists and left-libertarians influenced by them.)
Roderick Long has, I think rightly, emphasized the centrality to his way of thinking of the idea of equality of authority—the idea that no one has any inherent or natural right to govern anyone else. This idea is simultaneously a source of support for anarchism—since it undermines the claims of state actors to rights others lack—and a source of support for (what an ugly word) leftism—since, as Charles Johnson observes, it would be possible but weird to support equality of authority while being concerned about subordination, exclusion, and deprivation only when they they result from aggressive violence while regarding it as unworthy of attention when people are pushed around nonviolently. Presuming most left-libertarians aren’t unduly given to weirdness, their commitment to equality of authority ought to be linked with a commitment to anarchism.
The basic libertarian opposition to war is also a factor. To the extent that one is opposed to state-made war (and to most violence more generally), especially if on moral rather than merely prudential grounds, it’s easy to see unavoidable state self-aggrandizement as the culprit, and so to see anarchism as a remedy for war. At the same time, obviously, while there have been lots of principled opponents of war who have been in some sense conservatives, the opposition to imperial ambition and concern for the vulnerable that mark opposition to war are often thought of as leftist positions, and a contemporary position that wasn’t pretty strongly anti-war would be hard for me to recognize as authentically leftist. Given the centrality of war-making to what the state does (and, indeed, its centrality to quasi-Hobbesian justifications for the state), it’s easy to see why opposition to war could provide considerable support for opposition to the state, since it is difficult to see how violence could be nearly as destructive absent the state’s ability to tax, conscript, misdirect research funding, and create fiat money to facilitate its war efforts.
Are other factors relevant? If so, which? | <urn:uuid:128049fd-9b4b-44a6-ac9d-a449da153ec9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://liberalaw.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-are-so-many-left-libertarians.html?showComment=1283202554055 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96153 | 1,145 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Blender Foundation just posted news of two e-books issued by the government of Thailand, one covering the 3d content creation suite Blender and one covering the GNU Image Manipulation Program, aka GIMP. I have a special affection for both of these programs, for several reasons.
Nowadays open source seems so inevitable, so commonplace, that we are not surprised to find it running everything from the New York Stock Exchange to the White House website. Of course there was a time when the idea of sharing source code seemed radical, but there was a time, too, when ideas like electricity were literally demonized. Now open source is everywhere, and more importantly, the idea that open source can do anything is even more prevalent. The GIMP was one of the first programs to really break free software (and later open source) out of the conventional mindset that open source was just for geeks, and that no open source program would ever have end-user appeal or functionality.
By the time that Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis began hacking on GIMP, the company I founded (Cygnus Support) was headed toward double-digit millions in revenues and silicon valley venture capitalists were about to make their first (and one of their most profitable) investments in open source. Due to the success of Cygnus (which included appearing on the Inc 500 list (several times), the Software 500 list, and Fortune's 25 Coolest Companies), those who had first denied that it would ever be possible to build a successful business based on free software had to revise their theory, which they did by saying "well, other than Cygnus, it's impossible. You have been successful because of your niche, but there will never be free software that a non-technical end-user, like an artist, could ever use." When I learned of the email from Peter Mattis, I contacted him, and he and Spencer Kimball made the trip to visit me in Mountain View.
My memory of that meeting was that Peter and Spencer wanted to know "could they ever do something like what I had done at Cygnus?" Yes, I told them: but they should protect themselves and use a good license, like the GNU General Public License. Remember that Peter and Spencer were students at UC Berkeley, home of the then-famous BSD license. I argued that the GPL would provide them, and their software, with stronger protections than BSD, should their programming project ever take flight. My name has been lost in the GIMP history files, but I believe that that conversation inspired them to make GIMP part of the GNU project rather than the Berkeley Standard Distribution, and the rest, as they say, is in fact history: GIMP has become a truly important end-user application, even becoming the basis for 2d animation workflow in Hollywood.
GIMP proved that open source is not limited to uber-geeks and embedded systems. But the skeptics continued, revising their theory to say that "well, GIMP is just 2D, and that's really not very hard. You'll never see a complete open source 3D suite offering fully professional capabilities." And hence my special affection for Blender, which has done precisely this. GIMP and Blender (and let's not forget Inkscape) have really proved the generality of open source as a way of empowering users and developers to work together, to break down barriers and to lift up hope. I am thrilled that the Thai government has seen the same virtues I saw in these two programs, and has seen fit to promote them to their own creative communities. I look forward to seeing the fruits of those newly planted seeds. | <urn:uuid:d4dfff65-641f-491e-9c35-82e676bc4e3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opensource.org/node/483 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975189 | 756 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The first-time visitor to Manchester cannot fail to be struck by the grandeur of its Victorian civic buildings. The Town Hall, pictured above, is a mighty declaration of municipal pride and confidence. It is proudly provincial but there is nothing pejoratively provincial about it. Nor is Manchester alone: Newcastle and Leeds and the other great English cities built their own sandstone monuments to themselves.
In hard hat, hi-vis vest and wielding a trowel, the prime minister turned brickie today on a building site in Chorley - the same Lancashire town Ed Miliband visited on Monday. He insisted that this was not the first time he'd laid b... Read Post
Listening to David Cameron talk about Afghanistan these days, I’m struck by two things. Firstly, how optimistic and upbeat he is about progress there, and how confident he seems that most British troops will have left by the next ge... Read Post | <urn:uuid:3c0a75e1-b02d-46d1-bf15-261bdefe9d30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://regator.com/p/255915804/camerons_municipal_failure_all_hat_and_no_cattle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95094 | 190 | 1.53125 | 2 |
VATICAN CITY — “It’s SNOWING,” the 7:51 a.m. text message from CNS reporter Cindy Wooden proclaimed. I rolled out of bed and headed with excitement to St. Peter’s Square, a mere seven-minute walk from my apartment near the Vatican. But the snow wasn’t sticking yet, and turned into rain just as I arrived in the square.
Snow hadn’t stuck to the ground in Rome since 1986, so the chance to get snow pictures is not an everyday event.
After getting very wet, I stopped for coffee and breakfast treats at a nearby bar with friends. Just as I finished a caffè macchiato and a cornetto, it began to snow again. I headed back to the square, but it was just a slushy mess when I arrived.
At about 10 a.m. I decided to head home, dry up and hope that it would start snowing for real. It continued to alternate between rain and snow, but just wouldn’t stick. I came up with a backup plan to drag out a 500mm lens and bring a tripod back out to the square to make a close up photo of snow falling around the statue of Jesus on the façade of the basilica.
But as I walked up Borgo Pio, I realized the snow was starting to stick! When I arrived in the square at 10:45 a.m., it was falling heavily and sticking. Tourists with their umbrellas took delight as they snapped photos. Several large tour groups got an unexpected treat as they trekked with umbrellas through the wet snow.
The snow fell with gusto for a time, even obscuring the dome of the basilica and the statue of St. Peter himself. As the snow slacked off around 11:20, seminarians from the North American College collected slush from the cobblestones and pegged each other. Other young people also did their best to throw icees at each other.
Although I didn’t get hit by a slush ball, my jeans were sopping wet. My cameras were in even worse shape. The viewfinders were completely wet and had fogged over and I could barely photograph. My wife came out to rescue me and my excessive load of gear.
As quickly as the snow had come, it was over. This was Rome’s biggest snow in 24 years, and it lasted just about 45 minutes.
As I headed for yet another treat at the bar, I remembered National Geographic photographer James Stanfield talking about photographing snow in St. Peter’s for his book “Inside the Vatican” while dragging around his 600mm lens after photographing a Mass in the basilica.
I realized that history had repeated itself and I even had the big glass on me as Jim did in the 1980s. I had always admired Jim’s shot of the snowfall in St. Peter’s Square, and felt privileged to have the opportunity to replicate it in 2010. | <urn:uuid:ec076031-faa8-4ea0-a04b-e06fc0e576e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/slogging-through-slush-for-snow-treat-in-rome/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=9514d1f115 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983332 | 635 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Mon August 13, 2012
Jesse Jackson Jr. Is Being Treated For Bipolar Depression, Says Hospital
Originally published on Mon August 13, 2012 12:00 pm
The Mayo Clinic says Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois Democrat, is being treated for bipolar depression at its clinic in Rochester, Minn.
"Congressman Jackson is responding well to the treatment and regaining his strength," Mayo Clinic said in a statement.
Jackson Jr.'s condition has forced him to take a leave from Washington since June 10. His whereabouts have led to widespread speculation and calls for him to release more details of his condition.
The Mayo Clinic said Jackson is suffering from bipolar II, "a treatable condition that affects parts of the brain controlling emotion, thought and drive and is most likely caused by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors."
Bipolar disorder is characterized by high and low mood cycles. WebMd describes bipolar II disorder as being similar to bipolar I, except that the "up" moods "never reach full-on mania."
There is no word on what this means for his political career. Jackson's spokesman refused to comment when the AP inquired.
The AP quoted an aide last week saying that Jackson was expecting to return "within a matter of weeks." | <urn:uuid:b9a1db4f-0487-4f62-96b4-4c66a3ae3c55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kazu.org/post/jesse-jackson-jr-being-treated-bipolar-depression-says-hospital | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971667 | 262 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The past three months have been terribly challenging for all of us. We are so grateful for the support and commitment that you and all the friends of homeless and poor Americans have shown during this time of national tragedy and crisis.
At the Law Center offices in downtown Washington, we were fortunate not to suffer any immediate personal loses. But as advocates, we are especially aware of the impact of the crisis on poor and homeless Americans.
Increased security measures mean that those living on the streets are even more likely than before to be rousted from their refuge of last resort. Increased
demand for emergency services means even fewer
resources are available. And the economic downturn, already in the works but made worse by the crisis, has affected the most vulnerable first: indeed, formerly homeless people have been among the first to lose their jobs.
As national policy and funds focus on war and fighting terrorism, many fear that funds and support for badly needed social programs will be withdrawn, and that support for such efforts will disappear.
But we should not simply accept the withdrawal of
funds to meet critical social needs: indeed, these needs are now more important than ever, as more and more people lose their jobs as a result of the economic downturn. Rather, we must insist that the responses to September 11 also incorporate a commitment to
address social injustice: the horror of the devastation it wreaked does not take away the everyday horror of homelessness and hunger in the midst of plenty.
Indeed, the September catastrophe confirms that our world is more interdependent than ever, and that it is imperative to find a way for all to share the planet in peace. While terrorism must be condemned and fought, gross social injustice must also be condemned and eliminated.
At the Law Center we are pursuing our work on behalf of homeless Americans with renewed vigor. As you will read in these pages, over the past few months we have seen major successes in each of our projects: on behalf of homeless children, mentally disabled
homeless people, and those homeless people living on the streets. We are preparing to kick off a new
national membership network that will strengthen the advocacy capacity of communities across the country, provide up-to-date information and support, and also provide a forum for all of us who care about social
justice to come together.
Now more than ever, our voices must-and can-make a difference. Thank you so much for your continued commitment and support. And all best wishes for a
safe and peaceful holiday season.
Positive Changes on the Horizon
The recent focus on our Homeless Children?s Project has been the pending reauthorization of the education provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act. Project attorney Patricia Julianelle and many other dedicated
advocates have worked closely with Congress to draft the law and usher it through the legislative process. While the events of September 11 have delayed the passage of the law, we hope to see it signed this month. The new law will significantly increase the rights of students who are homeless.
To ensure implementation of the new law, Ms. Julianelle is developing educational documents collaboratively with other national organizations and will be taking to the road to bring the law to families, educators, providers and advocates. She will speak at state and regional meetings in Colorado, New York, Oklahoma and elsewhere, as well as national legal aid, service provider and child welfare conferences. Leading workshops is not new to Ms. Julianelle, as she has conducted over 20 trainings on the McKinney-Vento Act in her ten months at the Law Center. In response to a training she conducted at a continuum of care meeting, the county?s Homeless Prevention Coordinator remarked: ?Your presentation helped make the education of homeless students a priority for our community.?
Along with her national legislative work and training efforts, Ms. Julianelle continues to advocate for
individual children who need help. She has worked with local attorneys, educators and providers to enforce the McKinney-Vento Act around the country. For example, Ms. Julianelle worked to ensure that a school district in Maine provided transportation for a young boy with autism to finish the school year at his school. The child?s caseworker exclaimed: ?Kenneth would not have been able to go back to the school where he was comfortable and familiar with the day-to-day routines if it were not for the intervention of Patricia Julianelle. She had a tough case as the school was adamant in their refusal to help. I am sending this letter of thanks and support for her work with this homeless family that was unable to get any help from any other resource that we contacted.?
To help remedy the lack of local resources in Maine, Ms. Julianelle personally met with several teams of lawyers in the state, who agreed to represent homeless students in the future. Ms. Julianelle is replicating this work in other states around the country. She has provided training and resources to over one hundred attorneys and plans to reach many more in the coming year. Ms. Julianelle also continues to work with the U.S. Department of Education, seeking to increase its involvement in enforcing and implementing the McKinney-Vento Act.
In November, Ms. Julianelle was fortunate enough to speak directly to children about the many challenges facing families and youth in homeless situations. She was a Homelessness Awareness Month speaker for D.C. Public Schools and led two seminars at the National Youth Leadership Forum, where student
participants commented: ?She made me think deeply and critically about these issues;? and ?This seminar was the best part of the forum so far.? Such direct contact with students reminds Ms. Julianelle of the
meaning and value of her work.
Many readers received our most recent booklet, ?The Education of Students with Disabilities in Homeless Situations.? Over 3500 copies of this informative, readable booklet have been distributed to date.
Readers are invited to contact Ms. Julianelle at firstname.lastname@example.org or phone the Law Center for assistance
with issues regarding the education of homeless children and youth.
Law Center Helps DC Homeless Workers
Assists Those Eligible to Recieve Earned Income Tax Credit
This Winter, the Law Center will once again be helping eligible homeless workers in DC to obtain the Earned Income Credit, a refundable federal tax credit for low-income workers. Working with a network of trained volunteers, the Law Center will partner with local shelters and other service facilities to provide free tax preparation clinics for working homeless persons.
While many homeless persons are eligible -- as many as 40% have worked within a given month -- some of those who are eligible do not receive it because they do not know about it or have difficulty filing their tax returns. The credits can be valuable: a single individual can receive up to $364 and a family with
dependent children can receive up to $4,008.
The Law Center will be working with local shelters and drop-in centers in the District of Columbia in the early part of 2002 to set-up tax preparation clinics for working homeless residents.
The Law Center is looking for additional accountants who would be willing to
volunteer their services to help working homeless individuals and families.
Are you able to volunteer? Send an email to email@example.com for more volunteer information.
Massachusetts Man Bicycled Cross Country for Homeless
Raises Awareness of Homeless People?s Needs and Funds for NLCHP
In September, 2001 Joseph McColley - a former English teacher from Massachusetts - linked up with the Law Center to support the Center?s work using the law to help a segment of society that has no voice and to
promote awareness of homelessness across the country. Flying from Boston to San Diego, California, he
embarked on a two-month long bicycle ride across the country through the Southwest desert heat, Midwest thunderstorms, Western Pennsylvania snow and the uncertainty following the September 11th terrorist attacks on our nation. Throughout his travels he kept a journal that was published weekly by The Eagle Tribune in his hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
A supporter of the Law Center wrote, ?Joseph, thank you for following your heart - you saw a need and were willing to do something to make a difference! Your journal published weekly was wonderful - it allowed us to travel with you. I also thank you for your courage and for not giving up after September 11, 2001. Thank you for trying to raise awareness of homelessness and the needs of people in this great country?.
Introducing NLCHP's National Membership Network
Network Provides Forum for Individuals, Law Firms or Corporations to Interact with Each Other and NLCHP Project Attorneys
The National Law Center is pleased to announce the National Membership Network, which is developed and designed to provide the foundation for legal support where none now exists ? ensuring essential
assistance and resources for homeless families, children, and their advocates at local and community levels.
The Membership Network will provide solutions to access problems, explanation of rights granted to homeless children, access to housing and public benefits information, and easy access to legal resources.
Bringing together groups in a national membership network will afford a powerful voice to our work, and strengthen efforts to influence opinion and affect policy change on behalf of homeless families,
children and individuals? greatly enhancing the reach and potential impact of our work.
The Membership Network will provide the legal community, service and shelter providers, educators, and communities at-large with legal information and assistance including; access to legal resources, referrals, on-line assistance, fact sheets, manuals and much, much more.
You Won?t Want to Miss the Opportunity to Stay Up-To-Date with the
Latest and Most Current Information!
Add your name to the list & receive the
official kick-off announcement by emailing your name/address information to firstname.lastname@example.org or calling 202-638-2535 ext. 200.
SSI Project Makes Progress on Hill
Changes in Bill Would Require Social Security Administration to Develop a Plan to Better Assist the Homeless
This September, the Law Center?s Social Security Income (SSI) Project worked closely with staff from the Senate Appropriations Committee, to insert language into the Labor, HHS, Education appropriations bill. The language requires the Social Security Administration (SSA) to develop a plan to better serve homeless persons, and to report to Congress on the status and content of this plan when the agency submits its fiscal year 2003 budget request. Similar language was also inserted into the House version of the bill. Currently, the bill is in a House-Senate conference committee, but the final version is expected to include NLCHP?s
language. This language is important because, for the first time, SSA will be forced to detail specific steps that it will take to better assist homeless persons.
As a follow-up to this legislative language, the Project worked closely with several other national
organizations, to develop a detailed list of policy recommendations for SSA. The Project has requested a meeting with the SSA Commissioner, in order to present these recommendations, and to urge the agency to work with the Law Center, and other national groups, to implement these proposals and improve service to homeless persons.
In addition, the Project has worked extensively with the Department of Health and Human Services. The Project received a HHS grant, to prepare a training manual for case managers who serve homeless persons with mental impairments. The manual, to be completed by July, 2002, will teach case managers how to help their clients obtain SSI benefits. Finally, Jeremy Rosen, the Project staff attorney, will be making a
presentation at a December HHS conference on homelessness and mental illness. Mr. Rosen?s topic will be how homeless service providers can help their clients obtain SSI and food stamp benefits.
If you have questions, need assistance, or wish to receive a copy of any materials referenced in this article, please contact Jeremy Rosen at 202.638.2535, ext. 207 or e-mail him at email@example.com.
Back to the top | <urn:uuid:593801e8-22a9-435e-aa29-b06324baf16b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nlchp.org/view_newsletter.cfm?id=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956265 | 2,482 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Why is partnership firm a good option for Start Ups?
Jul 10 2012, 14:30 | By SME Mentor
Undoubtedly there are many advantages of getting into a partnership.
Easy Registration: Since the registration process is rather simple and hardly takes a week, it is the easiest way of setting up a business organisation.
Tax: Its ideal for start-ups since there are much lesser compliance issues; And the tax advantages are many (as there is no double taxation).
Capital: In terms of capital as well, unlike a private limited company, there is access to a larger pool of capital and more managerial capability. However, as a partner you maybe liable for the action of the others as compared to a private limited company where there is limited liability. (for more information refer to story on registration of a pvt ltd)
Making the Agreement: Under the Indian Partnership Act (1932) a partnership is defined as "a relation between persons who have agreed to share the profits of a business carried on by all or any of them acting for all". The definition however, is silent about sharing the losses. It is merely implied that the losses have to be shared in the proportion that the profits are being shared.
Siddharth Mahajan, founder and partner of Auxilium Partners, a Delhi based legal firm that has assisted many budding entrepreneurs' advises entrepreneurs' to hire the services of a legal expert in drafting the partnership agreement as it requires "careful and meticulous drafting". Mahajan points out that the agreement should not only cover the logistical details about the partners and the firm it should also describe in details the nature of the business, capital that is to be brought in by each of the partners, the ratio in which profits are going to be shared, salaries and commission to be drawn by each of the partners and the method of the valuation of the goodwill of the business.
Stamp Duty: Once the partnership agreement has been drawn up and finalised, stamp duty has to be paid. One can obtain stamp paper of the requisite value and then print the agreement on it. The stamp duty varies from state to state as is applicable under the Stamp Act of the state in question. In order to register a partnership, you will also require certain documents (see box below). The one important aspect to keep in mind is that a partnership is a separate a taxable entity, and unlike a proprietorship, one has to apply for a separate PAN card for the firm. An application for the Pan card for a partnership can be made online at https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/form49A.html.
Income tax is applicable on a partnership firm at a rate of 30 per cent. In addition to this a partnership firm must pay an education cess at the rate of 3 per cent. There is no issue of double taxation as partners are not liable to pay any taxes on the profits that a firm makes. However depending upon the nature of the business, a partnership firm may be liable to pay certain indirect taxes such as service tax or sales tax.
Kruti Desai, Partner ALMT legal and Sneha Patwardhan company secretary ALMT Legal, a Mumbai based legal firm, point out "In case a partnership is unregistered, it may lead to several conflicting situations later. In case of a conflicting situation, a partner cannot sue any other partner, if the firm is unregistered. Further an unregistered firm cannot even sue a third party to enforce any right under a contract." Also, in case of dissolution of a firm, a partner will not have any rights to realise any part of the property. Therefore, for aspiring entrepreneurs' who are willing to begin a business together should ideally get into a formal partnership agreement.
Involving Relatives and Friends into your partnerhship?
A partnership can have a maximum of 20 partners and 10 in case it is a banking firm, but should one consider entering into a partnership with relatives or friends? This is no easy question to answer! Legal experts such as Mahajan point out that the keyword in any partnership is "trust". A partnership with relatives and friends should only be considered if there is a high of level of mutual trust. Also personal and professional boundaries should be clearly chalked out from the very beginning in order to avoid conflicts at a later stage. Needless to say, the vision and goals of the partners in question have to be in sync for the partnership to succeed!
Documentation required for registration of partnership:
a) Duly executed partnership agreement on non judicial stamp paper
b) Address and identity proof of all the partners
c) Passport size photographs of the partners
d) Treasury challan of Rs. 10
e) Address proof of office
f) Lease agreement of the office
g) Duly signed partnership firm registration FORM-1
Post Your Comment
Recent Comments (2)
May 20 2013, 21:04
May 20 2013, 20:41 | <urn:uuid:de5b2441-d94b-4c04-9f45-fd593a3e93e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moneycontrol.com/smementor/how-to/starting-up/why-is-partnership-firmgood-option-for-start-ups-728265.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954764 | 1,016 | 1.695313 | 2 |
On March 14, shares of Zion's Bacorp (NYSE: ZION) jumped 10.5%.
The bank wasn't announcing earnings for another month... it wasn't increasing its dividend... and there was no mention of a stock buyback.
What happened then? Here's the story...
On that day, the bank told investors it got the okay from the Federal Reserve to repay $1.4 billion of the monies it had received from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). (TARP is the official name for the bailout given to struggling financial institutions during the sub-prime mortgage crisis.)
The U.S. Federal Reserve's stamp of approval marked a turnaround for the Salt Lake City lender. It meant the Fed believed the bank could access enough capital to repay its bailout money and still withstand another credit crisis like that of 2008...
See, when banks exit TARP it isn't just a one-time event. It has a long-term positive effect on earnings and share-price performance.
In return for taking TARP money, banks were required to give the U.S. Treasury preferred stock yielding 5%. By paying off TARP, Zions will save about $70 million annually in dividend payments when it redeems all $1.4 billion of preferred stock.
Zions isn't the only bank stock that's benefited from TARP repayments either. Across the board, shares of banks that recently exited TARP have had huge run-ups.
Regions Financial (NYSE: RF), completely exited TARP last month, and has advanced more than 40% so far this year. By comparison, the S&P 500 is ahead less than 6%.
RF still might have room to run... but banks that have yet to exit TARP provide a better starting point in the search for the next Regions Financial.
In order to find these potential turnaround plays, I looked at all the banks that had not completely repaid TARP yet.
As of March 31, 351 of the 707 banks stilled owed TARP money. The Treasury expects that "a number" of banks will repay the funds over the next 12 to 18 months.
Banks have ample incentive to do so too... banks that are still in the program by November 2013 face increased costs. Their preferred stock dividend payments will rise from 5% to 9%.
Since our focus is on income investing, I limited my search to those banks that have yet to repay TARP and also have common or preferred shares yielding 5% or more.
I found six names, as listed below:
|First Bancorp (Nasdaq: FNLC)
|Popular 8.25% Series B (OTC: BPOPP)
|Zions Banc 9.50% Series C (NYSE: ZB-PC)
|PrivateBancorp Trust IV 10% (Nasdaq: PVTBP)
|M&T Capital Trust IV, 8.50% (NYSE: MTB-PA)
|Synovus 8.25% tMEDS (NYSE: SNV-PT)
The first is a common stock, First Bancorp (Nasdaq: FNLC). Like Zions, the bank repaid last August half of its $25 million TARP debt out of retained earnings. It has paid a steady and rising dividend every quarter for more than a decade, without missing a beat even during the recession of 2008 to 2009. The current rate of $0.78 per share annually carries a solid yield of 5.2% at today's price.
The other names listed above are preferred shares. Popular's (Nasdaq: BPOP) series B (OTC: BPOPP) and Zion's series C (NYSE: ZB-PC) are both equity shares that throw off qualified dividends.
Neither can be called until at least a year from now. BPOPP pays a rich monthly dividend and can't be called until May 2013, but the shares are considered a highly speculative "CCC+" by Standard & Poor's, meaning the risk of default is reasonably high. Zion's series C shares are considered slightly safer at "BB."
The next two names on the list are trust preferred securities: PrivateBancorp Trust IV 10% (Nasdaq: PVTBP) and M&T Capital Trust IV, 8.50% (NYSE: MTB-PA). Their stated call dates aren't until 2013, but under the Dodd-Frank legislation they could be called earlier if the company wishes to recapitalize and declare a "capital treatment event."
Given that both securities are trading above their $25 call price, the early call possibility is a risk factor.
The final name on my list, Synovus 8.25% tMEDS (NYSE: SNV-PT), is a note that converts into Synovus (NYSE: SNV) shares on May 15, 2013. The issue is rated a speculative "B-" by Standard & Poor's.
Let me warn you though, paying back TARP is by no means a miracle cure. It might improve liquidity, but some of these banks may still hold risky assets, have poor profitability, and weak capital ratios.
That said, all of these securities could attract some positive attention when TARP repayments or restructuring improves their credit quality. Each of these stocks requires further analysis, but personally, I find First Bancorp's common shares to be particularly interesting. With its long-term dividend track-record, it could be a good stock to keep your eye on as the November 2013 deadline approaches.
Carla Pasternak's Dividend Opportunities
Disclosure: In accordance with company policies, StreetAuthority always provides readers with at least 48 hours advance notice before buying or selling any securities in any "real money" model portfolio. Members of our staff are restricted from buying or selling any securities for two weeks after being featured in our advisories or on our website, as monitored by our compliance officer. | <urn:uuid:b9f7bcd0-c7ff-4d64-a24f-006ef1222729> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://globaldividends.com/newsletter.asp?d=6743 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956631 | 1,238 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Movement and Dance Division
The Movement and Dance Division represents around 30 exercise, movement and dance organisations, each providing social, artistic, fitness and training opportunities through a nationwide network of highly trained teachers. There are 5.5 million adult participants in this sector of recreational activity in the UK.
Members work together to promote exercise, movement and dance as enjoyable physical activities for people of all ages and abilities. They participate regularly in exhibitions, displays and festivals around the country, providing information and free, open workshops to the general public. Every five years they produce a spectacular movement and dance showcase, the last of which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
To receive the Sport and Recreation Alliance’s free daily sports news summary, a round-up of the day’s most interesting and informative news articles on sport and recreation, including links to original sources, email email@example.com | <urn:uuid:4b586bb7-ee13-4631-b472-a6193e2ee2f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/membership/benefits/divisions/movement-and-dance-division | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941133 | 187 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The BBC Trust has recently released its review of its coverage of the Arab Spring with a focus on impartiality. You can read that here http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/arabspring_impartiality/arab_spring.pdf
Some within the pro-government section in Bahrain have attempted to use this report to discredit the opposition, most notably this article in Al Watan http://www.alwatannews.net/(S(ez5aytasepgsiceg0n5ylzqz))/PrintedNewsViewer.aspx?ID=PKqLIuHJvMCDuJxsIkcgSA==&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
The article leads with the headline “BBC confesses to being unbalanced in Bahrain coverage”. It also contains a number of claims about the report that are not wholly inaccurate but slightly misleading.
One thing needs to be made clear at the outset. This report is not political and does not set out to make political judgement. It exists for BBC (publicly funded body) to hold itself accountable for it’s coverage. Therefore a) this report needs to happen and b) addressing some criticisms does not necessarily mean endorsing those criticisms. Anyone can accept the right of another to criticise him or her, without agreeing with those criticisms.
Furthermore the very purpose of such a review is taking into consideration the criticisms that existed. By no means was this review definitive, indeed it publishes some conflicting statements from their staff about the coverage on Bahrain, showing the attempt to look at all views and not necessarily come to a comprehensive conclusion.
The idea that the BBC has suddenly decided it was in favour of the opposition and this was wrong and therefore they apologise is wrong and misleading.
To go through Al Watans claims:
BBC admits it was unbalanced.
Actually no that’s not true. At no point does the report say their coverage was unbalanced. They make the point that the Bahraini authorities accused the BBC of this but they certainly don’t confirm this view.
The real meat of the review argues that the coverage at the beginning was too simplistic and did not fully understand the issues in Bahrain. Al Watan claim that this implies that this means the BBC were guilty of seeing the uprising as the same as other countries in the Arab Spring and ignoring the sectarian element in Bahrain.
The review addresses this concern, but they do not wholly confirm it is true.
They certainly do admit that in the beginning of the uprising it was mistake not to mention the sectarian division in Bahrain, as it did not provide the viewer with the necessary background information of the country. The report argues that this was due to reporters coming into Bahrain straight from Tahrir Square with little knowledge of the country.
“If this had been the sum total of the BBC’s reporting, the unease expressed by some executives, and some of the complaints made by the Bahraini authorities and their supporters, would be justified. Here was an incomplete account, which showed no awareness of Bahrain’s specific history and context, but saw the conflict there through the prism of revolts elsewhere in the region. But it was not the sum total.”
So the authorities claim could be true if the lack of context characterised the whole coverage, but it didn’t. This is no ringing endorsement of the authorities criticisms.
The review then goes onto question whether the existence of more detailed information on Bahrain then contributed to a different playing out of the events. This is what Al Watan seems to be hinting at, that the lack of understanding led to the wrong coverage.
But the report seems quite clear that even after adding more knowledgeable reports, such as Frank Gardner, who understood the complexities, the overall coverage remained the same. Therefore looking at the sectarian dimension to Bahrain didn’t really change the story or how it was told.
“Gardner also noted that the opposition had “hesitated” when the Crown Prince offered them dialogue, thereby hinting that they at least shared responsibility for the current state of affairs. But his conclusion was hardly flattering or reassuring to the government:
This peaceful scene is deceptive. The regime’s hardliners have got their security clampdown, the reformers have been sidelined and there’s a pretence that things are going back to normal. For now the lid has been put back on the boiling pot. But the brutal way it’s been done is like stoking fire beneath it.
In other words, while Gardner added important nuance, he did not reverse the line taken in earlier reports.”
On the one hand it is fair to say that the BBC admitted not understanding the full reality of Bahrain at the beginning. But it is not fair to suggest that this means they got it all wrong, were completely unbalanced and biased in favour of the opposition. This is not said in the review.
An important section of the review reads,
“Although there were variations, a fairly consistent narrative was conveyed to the public: the Shia, a numerical majority with a deep sense of grievance justified by decades of discrimination and oppression, were now demanding their rights and being met with brutal and lethal violence. This was true as far as it went, and not seriously contested by any of the government’s Western friends or apologists. To a large extent it was substantiated later in the year by a commission of inquiry appointed by the king himself and composed of eminent international human rights lawyers.”
BBC ignores Government
Al Watan also claims that the BBC admits to not giving enough airtime to the Government. The review shows countless examples of the BBC doing exactly this and even says that where they couldn’t interview the Government it was because their journalists were not being accredited. This lays the blame on the step of the Government more than anything else.
“Also, official accreditation for foreign journalists was not easy to obtain, and most if not all of the BBC reporters was working without it, which made it harder for them to cover the government side of the story.”
It’s interesting to note that a similar thing is said by the Producer of the Al Jazeera Documentary ‘Shouting in the Dark’ in response to claims that she didn’t interview the Government enough.
Government behaves with restraint
Another claim by Al Watan focuses on a section in the review that says that the Government did not behave as brutally as Gaddafi or Assad and between 19th February and 14th March they behaved in a decent manner.
Yes the report says this. However it should again be noted that this review was not trying to analyse the events in Bahrain and should not be taken as the truth of what actually happened. However they are clear in describing the escalation of the crackdown after this period and actually criticise themselves for not reporting on it enough.
Expats criticise BBC
Al Watan rightly claims that a number of expats and people from the Sunni community criticised the BBC’s coverage. The report confirms this. But we already knew this and it is nothing new. Yes they criticised the coverage, but in no way do the BBC admit this is justified criticism.
In fact one of the main points of the review was conveniently skipped over by Al Watan. This was the constant questioning of whether the real mistake of the BBC was not to give enough coverage to the situation in Bahrain as a whole – something many in the opposition have been saying for a long time.
The review justifies this by saying that Libya was a bigger story and therefore took up more space but admits they should have given Bahrain more.
“To expect that Bahrain would receive as much coverage as Libya would be unrealistic and disproportionate. But the contrast was perhaps a little too sharp.”
So in all the attempts by those supporting the regime to use this review in their favour are wrong, misguided and misleading. The claim that the BBC admitted there was biased is simply not true. The Government have repeatedly condemned foreign media for their coverage of Bahrain and they are trying to use this review to support those criticisms.
With a real reading of the review it’s clear they cannot and should not do this. The real conclusion of the review is that the BBC needed to understand Bahrain better but in reality the Government was brutal and the BBC were right to show this. | <urn:uuid:8b25a599-6791-4485-9df5-ecc4f377090d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bahrainjdm.org/2012/06/28/a-clearer-reading-of-bbc-trusts-analysis-of-their-coverage-on-bahrain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976643 | 1,743 | 1.671875 | 2 |
If you plan to hit the road or catch a flight out-of-town for the Thanksgiving holiday, pack your patience. More than 40 million Americans are expected to travel by plane or by automobile between Wednesday and Sunday.
Thousands of people are expected to hit the road or catch a flight to visit family or friends for the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
The Thanksgiving travel day season gets underway Monday at South Florida airports and on South Florida roadways.
Thanksgiving is about spending time with family, eating a lot of turkey and of course, traveling. | <urn:uuid:8b241ac3-1c4f-431c-b45e-e8dc5bc19072> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miami.cbslocal.com/tag/thanksgiving-travel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952476 | 110 | 1.5 | 2 |
Pool/Getty Images Europe
John Isner of U.S. (top), winner of the longest match in Grand Slam history, leaves the court with Nicolas Mahut of France, his opponent in the historic contest.
The longest professional tennis match ever — the Wimbledon marathon between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut that finally ended Thursday after 11 hours and five minutes spread over three days — should be celebrated with the shortest of poems?
That conceit comes from the mind of Matt Harvey, Wimbledon's official poet laureate. Harvey shared the idea with All Things Considered co-host Robert Siegel Thursday.
An excerpt from the chat:
HARVEY: I want to put a call out for people to tweet to @wimbledonpoet. I want to make a collective effort of haiku.
ROBERT: OK. (laughs) Then you must set a good example right now.
HARVEY: Here we go. Here we go —
High performance play.
All day and yet no climax.
It's tantric tennis.
That's pretty good, actually. Small wonder he's the official poet for the prestigious tennis tournament.
Harvey offers more explanation on his web site.
So please send lines in about this epic match to my Twitter account @wimbledonpoet. Send haiku, one-liners, flowery couplets, anything that'll fit into 140 characters. I'll put them up on this blog tomorrow. Or soon. I promise.
*a haiku is of Japanese origin, a short poem of three lines, each of five, seven, and five syllables respectively. I met a Japanese/English poet who told me not to get hung up about counting syllables. So I don't, and hope you won't either.
So start sending Harvey your haiku. | <urn:uuid:bba2d6d3-0264-45e4-9df5-d01310428eb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/06/24/128088716/mark-the-longest-tennis-match-with-short-haiku | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933782 | 381 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The Simpuflex (しんぷーフレックス) is a Japanese 6×6cm TLR camera announced by Kyokutō in 1937, about which almost nothing is known. It is only mentioned in an advertisement in Asahi Camera August 1937 for the Semi-Tex, reproduced below. The document says that the camera would be released soon, and gives no further detail.
It is likely that the camera was never sold, and it is not even sure that a prototype was made. The announcement of the Simpuflex came the same month as that of the Prince Flex by Neumann & Heilemann.
|Advertisements in Asahi Camera August 1937. (Image rights)| | <urn:uuid:9502a5a7-bbe3-4a96-acc9-3239e5ced136> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Simpuflex | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97002 | 144 | 1.78125 | 2 |
In this centennial anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic there has been much comment about its lack of lifeboats. In fact the real question is why it had any lifeboats at all. The contract the majority of passengers had with the White Star Line was to get across the Atlantic as cheaply as possible. If, at the design stage, prospective passengers had been able to influence the designer, Thomas Andrews, they would probably have urged him to remove all the lifeboats in return for more berths and lower fares.
After all, the ship represented the peak of Edwardian technology. It had steam power, electric lights and wireless. Only a few decades before westbound passengers faced weeks of sailing into headwinds on a sailing ship heeled over with precious few creature comforts and no prospect of being able to radio for help.
This might seem far removed from the world of investing, but there are parallels. These days the mantra is to reduce the cost of a fund to the lowest possible level. The annual management charge, (AMC), the total expense ratio (TER) and the total cost of ownership (TCO) are pushed down by ferocious competition between product providers who use ever more sophisticated technology to reduce costs. It is routine now to use derivatives, synthetics, swaps and options to create something that looks and behaves like an index fund. Yet under the wrappers of some ETFs the contents are a long way from what it says on the tin.
All is fine of course in smooth waters. With no waves or icebergs these products happily sail on delivering the returns of the index they purport to represent. But this lulls the investor into the Titanic Effect, which is:
ďOne of a number of self-fulfilling behavioural biases where your expectations bias your behaviour and make it more likely that youíll fall foul of the very problems you think youíve overcomeĒ
In other words you drive faster if your car has airbags which may increase the risk of an accident.
Modern, low cost ETF index funds use all sorts of techniques to reduce cost. But these techniques increase the risk of a mighty disaster if they hit a financial iceberg. Little regard is paid to the risk the counterparties in the transactions might fail and leave investors out of pocket. Of course if they donít collide with a large object they have achieved the financial equivalent of crossing the Atlantic at great speed and at low cost and the lack of lifeboats made their trip cheaper. However, if the synthetic fund hits a monetary crisis the consequences could be dire. Will investors question what level of safety they require and, even more important, will they pay the extra?
Modern ships and aircraft donít give you a choice. Cruise liners have enough lifeboats, even if the crew of the Costa Concordia didnít know how to use them. Aeroplanes have more devices than you can imagine that prevent pilots doing stupid things. Though even these did not stop the co-pilot of Air France flight 447 putting the A330 into a stall at 38,000 feet and ignoring all warnings until it crashed into the Atlantic.
The world of investing is different though. Safety devices are not mandatory and, even worse, investors are not told they are optional extras, missing or not wanted on the voyage. These oversights are compounded by labelling that is positively unhelpful. Who would suspect that something labelled as a FTSE 100 ETF only has one UK share in it? The rest of the portfolio consists of Asian shares and sundry financial instruments. It is as if the Trades Description Act, so protective of pork pies, sundry cheeses and European dried meats, has no relevance to financial products whatsoever. If the things it owns are not stocks in the FTSE100 who knows what the real risks are? They are certainly not the same as a fund that holds the shares it says it does and has not lent them out.
It is not just increased risk that is being miss-sold. There are other knock-on effects of this disconnection between labels and contents. Complex financial products reduce the ability of asset managers to exercise their rights of corporate governance. How can they vote on takeovers and pay packages of companies that are ostensibly in their index if they donít own the underlying stock?
Maybe passengers would still have boarded the Titanic if it had no lifeboats on the basis that the fare was low enough to take the gamble. But how many investors in low cost funds fully understand the hazards they run and would they like to be told? Do they want their funds to have so much risk with no safety net and do they have any appreciation of the counterparty risks they are incurring?
It took the loss of 1500 lives and a Board of Inquiry before it was mandatory for ships to sacrifice economics for safety and carry enough lifeboats. What kind of accident will it take before the FSA requires funds to do what they say on the label?
(The S & W Munro UK Fund is a physical long-only smart-beta fund that invests in the FTSE 350 Index and complies with The Stewardship Code.) | <urn:uuid:c5a6b1a1-9966-4a15-9637-ae8d8e522165> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://themunrofund.com/081205_the_munro_blog_may_2012.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969952 | 1,050 | 1.757813 | 2 |
- Language Tips
ISTANBUL - Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Istanbul on Monday that Russia is not an advocate of the Syrian government.
"We are not protecting the regime, and we are not advocates," Putin said during a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "What worries us is the future of Syria. We do not want recent mistakes to be repeated."
Russia's President Vladimir Putin gestures during a news conference after their meeting with Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul Dec 3, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]
Turkey and Russia explicitly have opposite views about Syria. Moscow is a key ally of Syria while Ankara is supporting the opposition trying to replace Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"Our positions on Syria are the same but we have different ideas on how the future of Syria will be constructed. We are exchanging views with our Turkish friends. We have developed new ideas during our meeting with the Turkish premier on which we will work," said Putin.
Putin arrived in Turkey Monday amid tensions between Moscow and Ankara over the Syrian crisis.
"Syria is not in a position to use nuclear weapons," Putin told reporters, adding that "There are no nuclear weapons in Syria. They are not even close to make it."
Regarding the Syrian shell that had landed in Turkey earlier, Putin said "Turkey and Russia are neighbors who have great responsibilities. We will continue to consult with our Turkish friends and work on new ideas."
"Russia understands Turkey's concerns, however, deploying Patriot missiles is not the model we prefer," Putin said, responding to a question over deployment of Patriot missiles along Turkey's border with Syria. "We think that this is the not the right model and could deteriorate the situation."
The two countries' relations deteriorated when Turkey forced a Syria-bound plane to land in Turkey in October, claiming that it had Russian-made defense equipment on board. Moscow said the plane was legally carrying radar parts for Syria.
Although Turkey and Russia have different viewpoints over Syria, their economic relations continue to grow in high speed. The two countries aim to increase the trade volume to $100 billion in the coming years.
Putin's visit to Turkey is his first trip since October. He was suffering from a serious back trouble or other illness, according to rumors. | <urn:uuid:c7b9bb94-6e40-45c8-b820-92e1629774d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-12/04/content_15983793.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968829 | 467 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Jewish films coming soon to a screening near you
NEW YORK — The New York Jewish Film Festival closed this week after showcasing 37 films from around the world. Here are a few films to look out for as they travel to other cities in the coming months.
Directed by Elie Wajeman (France)
Set in the grungy streets of Paris, “Alyah” offers a glimpse into the raw and dark life of Alex, a 27-year-old Jewish drug dealer from a broken home who must constantly pay off the debts of his abusive older brother, Isaac.
Presented with the opportunity to move to Israel with his cousin and open a restaurant in Tel Aviv, a withdrawn and endearingly wounded Alex faces the challenge of breaking free from his destructive brother and sorting out his complicated love life.
Dreaming of a better life in a land he’s never known, Alex looks to the streets for some fast cash but finds that love and betrayal are just the beginning of what obtruct his path to the Holy Land.
Alex’s attempts to escape the disorder of his Paris life are portrayed convincingly by French director Elie Wajeman. The film’s enticing storyline, spoken in French with English subtitles, was a favorite at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the Philadelphia International Film Festival.
"Alyah" is scheduled to screen at film festivals in Atlanta, Miami, Toronto, Cleveland and Chicago.
“The Fifth Heaven”
Directed by Dina Zvi-Riklis (Israel)
In a film Illustrating prestate Israel’s growing pains during World War II, Dina Zvi-Riklis beautifully portrays the tragic world of 13-year-old Maya, an orphan abandoned by her parents and left to fend for herself in a Tel Aviv orphanage.
As Maya faces frequent bullying in her attempts to adapt and fit in, she befriends the orphanage head, Dr. Markowski, an old friend who knows her parents and tries to get them to take Maya home.
The production team did extensive research to accurately portray Israel of the 1940s, and the film boasts beautiful cinematography that enhances its subplots such as the pressures of life under the British Mandate and the smuggling of weapons in the fight for independence. The film is based on a book by Rachel Eytan that Zvi-Riklis read as a teenager and decided the storyline was important to preserve.
“The adults and the kids are kind of orphans waiting for the end of the Second World War, which will deliver salvation, waiting that someone would save them from their loneliness but ironically comes a new war,” Zvi-Riklis wrote in an email. “What interested me is to tell the story from the perspective of women. Usually we see this period through the male heroic perspective. I wanted to confront the emotional side and femininity.”
“The Fifth Heaven” is scheduled to screen at festivals in Baltimore, Boca Raton, Fla., and Middletown, Conn.
“The Cutoff Man”
Directed by Idan Hubel (Israel)
Few films put a human face on society’s worst jobs quite like Idan Hubel’s “The Cutoff Man.” The film revolves around Gaby, a father of two living in northern Israel who faces unemployment. He is forced to make a living off the hardship of others, cutting off the water supply of those who don’t pay their bills.
Driven to put food on the table and fulfill his son's dream of becoming a professional soccer player, Gaby is subjected to sleepless nights, physical and verbal assault, humiliation and gut-wrenching sorrow. He struggles to maintain his dignity while following corporate instructions to punish the impoverished.
The film is dry and slow, unapologetically forcing the audience to stomach Gaby’s harrowing assignments, which earn him nothing but a few shekels for each water pipe he closes.
Hubel, whose father worked as a cutoff man for 14 years, has no problem leaving minute-long moments of silence to emphasize the agony of the situation. And Gaby, played by the celebrated Israeli actor Moshe Igvy, barely speaks in the film as he drags himself miles and miles to close a few more water pipes to pay his bills.
“The Ballad of Weeping Springtime”
Directed by Beni Torati (Israel)
Produced like an old American Western but spoken in Hebrew, “The Ballad of Weeping Springtime” is an adorable tale of a musician who fulfills the wish of his dying best friend to perform a song they wrote together many years earlier.
The protagonist, Yosef, once played lute with a legendary Mizrahi band, The Turquoise Ensemble, but retreated to northern Israel and opened a bar after being sent to prison for a fatal car accident. When Amram, the son of his former bandmate, comes with news that his father’s dying wish is to hear his arrangement of “The Weeping Springtime Symphony” performed, Yosef embarks on a peculiar journey to organize the perfect band.
Director Beni Torati adds absurd adventures as the plot thickens, with each eccentrically dressed musician added to the band enhancing the movie's comical mise-en-scene.
"The Ballad of Weeping Springtime" is scheduled to screen domestically at festivals in Atlanta, Michigan, Miami, Santa Barbara, Calif., and Austin, Texas, as well as internationally in Montreal, Toronto and Paris.
Directed by Daniel Burman (Argentina)
An amusing romantic comedy from Argentinian director Daniel Burman, “All In” is the story of Uriel, a hotshot professional gambler who has lots of luck with cards and ladies but keeps a poker face with everyone else in his life, including his two children.
Newly divorced and eager to explore his reclaimed bachelorhood, Uriel decides on a whim to have a vasectomy. He then accidentally rekindles a relationship with an old flame. Facing middle age, Uriel, played by the Oscar-winning actor Jorge Drexler, must face down his web of lies and cut himself free of gambling.
The film has some quirks -- Uriel confiding in his urologist like he’s a shrink; the reenactment of a vasectomy with a cookie; and the concert performance with a Chasidic rock band called the Rabbi-ing Stones. Still, Burman manages to extract from this mess the uplifting notion that true love is available to anyone, no matter how puerile.
"All In" is scheduled to screen at festivals in Pleasantville, N.Y., Hartford, Conn., Toronto and Houston. | <urn:uuid:fd1dec4d-c137-438e-8e70-7bc7c1bea8b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cjnews.com/node/95807?q=node/101361 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959755 | 1,423 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Muhlenberg Undergraduate Biology Research Program
Undergraduate students from Muhlenberg and other colleges have been active participants in research conducted in the Muhlenberg Biology Department. Students at Muhlenberg publish their work in scholarly journals and have gone on to win competitive national graduate fellowships and acceptance at the nation's top graduate and medical schools, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton and Penn. Participation in undergraduate research is now a basic expectation for a student's application for graduate study.
You can perform research for academic credit during either academic semester. Anyone can receive 0.5 or 1.0 course unit for performing research by registering for BIO 970 (Independent Study/Research). Most projects culminate in a written or oral presentation. One unit of research may be substituted for an upper-level elective in the Biology major (although not for a 200- or 400-level requirement). Consult your academic advisor for more information. A special form, available at the Registrar's Office, is required to enroll.
You can perform research on a part-time or full-time basis during the summer. In some cases, you may receive a stipend (often $3000 for ten weeks) and/or receive free housing from the College. Students who are interested in summer research may want to submit an application for an undergraduate summer grant from the Dean of the College for Academic Life. These competitive awards provide free housing and a summer stipend for research carried out in the laboratory of a department faculty member. The Biology Department also offers summer student awards through the Vaughan, Trainer and Neuroscience Research Awards. For these awards, be sure to begin talking to potential faculty mentors late in the preceding Fall semester.
If you are interested in performing research, you should seek out faculty members who would be appropriate mentors for your project at least a half-semester before you want to do research. Faculty often fill their available summer research positions by February or March. You don't need to know exactly what project you want to work on, just some basic ideas of what kind of research interests you. Choose a faculty member with research interests that parallel your own. Your project may be suggested by your faculty member, emerge through conversations with him/her, or develop independently from participation in lab journal clubs. We encourage all students interested in research to read the research descriptions on individual faculty pages in order to find the most appropriate match.
Students of biology may also be interested in the research labs of faculty from the interdisciplinary science majors, including neuroscience, biochemistry, and environmental science. Interested students are encouraged to consult the websites of these programs to learn more about interdisciplinary research on campus.
Several departmental faculty (including Byrne and Cronin) are interested in educational assessment, science outreach, public health, and increasing the quality of science teaching at secondary and undergraduate institutions. Students who are interested in these issues or participating in science outreach or related internships are encouraged to contact these faculty. | <urn:uuid:f536f303-16c2-401d-8024-db1b607a41a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/biology/research/get_involved.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947936 | 600 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Collected Videos of Late Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs at D, Now Free on iTunes
But by far the largest trove of video of the legendary innovator candidly answering unrehearsed questions and explaining his views on technology and business comes from his six lengthy appearances at our D: All Things Digital conference, from 2003 to 2010.
In these onstage conversations, Jobs explained his — and Apple’s — evolving philosophy of where the digital world was heading, and of business itself. He discussed competitors, controversies and his own sense of what matters most. He stressed the importance of building products for their actual users, not “orifices” like corporate IT departments or cellphone carriers. He explained why it was often more important to decide what products and features not to build than to pick the ones that were built. He even appeared jointly in a historic conversation with his lifelong rival, Bill Gates.
So, as a memorial to a great man and in the spirit of sharing a priceless piece of history, we are making all six of these appearances available on iTunes for free, in high-quality video. We thank Apple for its cooperation in making these videos available for all.
– Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher | <urn:uuid:669893f6-7156-46c4-b83f-7b98a680c0aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allthingsd.com/20120530/steve-jobs-at-d-podcasts/?mod=ATD_iphone | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967112 | 249 | 1.609375 | 2 |
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