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The summer blockbuster hit 'Finding Nemo' is spurring sales of clownfish, the type of fish portrayed as the movie's main character, Nemo. While the fish are bringing joy to many Stateline kids, there are some things you should know before you try to catch the Nemo trend.
‘Finding Nemo’ is this summers animated blockbuster; the story of clownfish lost in the sea. Nemo's fish tale is not only luring kids to the theater its fueling sales of these brightly colored clownfish.
"The ones we have here are already sold," says Steve Ramstedt of Anything Aquatics, Inc. "At first (they were hard to get) but ocean reefs and aquatics upped the volume and now I can get them no problem"
Doctor’s offices are some of Ramstedts best customers who are all requesting Nemo for their tanks to entertain children.
Dori, a blue tang who befriends Nemo, is also popular. While Ramstedt enjoys the new wave of sales, he says many people don't know how to care for these exotic fish.
"We've had a few calls where people think they can just buy a Nemo like a goldfish and put them in a bowl. That just isn't the case. You've got to have a good filtration system to keep the water quality right," he says.
You'll have to watch the movie to see if Nemo finds his way home, but we can tell you if you decide to buy Nemo, you'll want to do some research and make sure Nemo's the right fish.
Ramstedt says try to buy the fish in person to assure the best quality. Consider what other types of fish are in your tank because larger breeds could eat smaller clownfish. Keep in mind clownfish are saltwater fish and their tanks require more maintenance. Anything Aquatics sells Nemo for about $15, but they can cost as much as $25. | <urn:uuid:664d9b66-3771-48f6-a8bc-3839e383b841> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wifr.com/home/headlines/386322.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977736 | 410 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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| | Re: heart skip okay?
Re: heart skip okay?
[ Back to Messages
Posted by allison
on October 24, 2000 at 11:52:42:
In Reply to: heart skip okay? posted by Matthew on October 23, 2000 at 17:54:28:
if your skips are infrequent, and your doctor wasn't able to catch any during an electrocardiogram, i would request a 24-hour holter at least to ease my mind. i wouldn't go looking for a specialist until you've been given an event monitor and then something is found to be wrong. i wouldn't be too concerned, if your doctor said not to worry. skipped beats are common. good luck.
: I get my heart skipping beats sometimes when I exercise, for example when I go for a run. But it's not something that make me feel weak or faint. I was even told that it may be somgthing call long qt syndrom but my doctor gave me ecg and told me nothing is wrong. I don't know if that's good and I should just forget about it or if I should be looking for some kind of specialist to find wrong with me. Any ideas? Thanks.
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 12:20 AM. | <urn:uuid:b43da35b-b33e-43c8-af37-2120c5bc7c02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthboards.com/heart-disorders/3915.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967289 | 304 | 1.578125 | 2 |
News-Antique.com - Nov 16,2010 - DALLAS, TX – An intimate late career landscape by leading French Impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir –
Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Trois personnages dans un paysage – brought $167,300 on Wednesday, Nov. 10 in Heritage Auction’s Signature® Fine American & European Art Auction at the company’s Dallas Design District Annex, 1518 Slocum Street. The auction tallied $1.34 million overall, with more than 450 bidders vying for 260 total lots.
“We’re very pleased with the results,” said Ed Beardsley, Managing Director of Heritage’s Department of Fine Arts. “Certainly Renoir’s shimmering Cagnes-Sur-Mer landscape was an exciting lot, and we saw prices remain steady and bidding quite competitive across the board.”
Thomas Moran’s Venice, Grand Canal, 1903 – a painting that will be included in a forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's works – exceeded its pre-auction estimate of $70,000+ to finish the day at $131,450 amidst spirited bidding.
While perhaps best known for his magnificent views of the American West, particularly his topographically meticulous depictions of Yellowstone that played a major role in convincing Congress to make the region a national park in 1872, the revered American landscapist is also famous for his iridescent scenes of Venice. Moran first visited the jewel of the Adriatic in May of 1886 and produced a number of sketches which he later developed into oil paintings in his studio. In this wonderful example from 1903, which remains in its original unrestored condition, Moran took full advantage of the mirror-like potential of the lagoon to create a dazzling interplay of color and light through the reflections of architecture and fishing vessels on the surface of the water.
British painter Harold Knight’s By the Window yielded one of the most surprising and pleasant moments of the auction, soaring to a $44,813 final price realized, more than four times its pre-auction base estimate of $10,000+.
“The Knight was a decidedly great result,” said Beardsley. “The quality of this work is immediately apparent in the confident broad brushwork, and sophisticated color harmonies in the silvery palette. Private collectors and dealers went head to head on this lovely picture.”
Examples from Hudson River School painters continue to perform well in Heritage Fine Art auctions, with the Nov. 10 auction providing no exception as Thomas Doughty’s Catskills, c. 1848, fresh to the market after nearly 35 years in a private collection, more than doubled pre-auction estimates to bring $26,680.
The work of Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton was very strong in the auction, with his watercolor Two Bathers, circa 1919-21, more than tripling its pre-auction estimate of $8,000+ to finish at $26,680. The painting dates from a short but important transitional phase in Benton's artistic development just following his Synchromist experiments from which extant works are exceedingly rare. Hans Zatzka’s Harem Entertainers performed similarly well among feverish international bidding, as it tripled pre-auction estimates of $7,000+ to end the day at $21,510. A history painting by German artist Emanuel Leutze, author of celebrated American icon Washington Crossing the Delaware (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), | <urn:uuid:0fa5b54c-81a0-453e-a84f-e3210a57c283> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news-antique.com/?id=795260&pg=1&keys=Renoir-European-ArtAuction-Heritage | 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 | 0.944196 | 742 | 1.710938 | 2 |
NIAC Member Survey Shows Growing Concern about War and Sanctions
Concern about war with Iran has only intensified since our last member survey, and our members overwhelmingly chose to keep preventing war as NIAC's top priority.
Over the last decade, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has been steadily growing in size, strength and political influence. With approximately 4,000 dues-paying members and 43,000 supporters who subscribe to our emails and attend our events, NIAC is the largest Iranian-American grassroots organization. I'd like to emphasize the word "grassroots." Why? Well, because this word means a lot to me personally and to the organization as a whole.
To put it simply, NIAC could not exist without the support and guidance of our grassroots membership. Not only do they write and/or call in to regularly offer feedback and suggestions, but their financial support provides approximately 70% of our operating budget.
Perhaps what is most valuable is our members' role in shaping our agenda on an annual basis. They do this by participating in our members-only survey. The results help us determine how best to focus our efforts and resources as well as how to prioritize our policy positions. And, the results of this year's survey are clear.
Concern about war with Iran has only intensified since our last member survey, and our members overwhelmingly chose to keep preventing war as NIAC’s top priority. Concern about sanctions aimed at the entire Iranian population has also grown, with the issue rising to the second priority. NIAC members made supporting human rights in Iran, supporting the civil rights of Iranian Americans, and promoting Iranian cultural heritage the third, fourth, and fifth priorities, respectively.
Here’s more on the issues:
Preventing War: NIAC members emphatically selected preventing war and promoting a peaceful solution to the US-Iran conflict NIAC’s top priority. 74% made it their top priority, and 15% made it their second highest priority. Asked to rank their priorities 1 through 5, preventing war averaged 1.4, with 1.0 being the highest possible number.
Opposing Broad Economic Sanctions: NIAC members made opposing broad economic sanctions that hurt the Iranian people their second priority, with an average rank of 2.5. 86% of NIAC members “oppose sanctions aimed at Iran’s entire economy,” while only 7% disagreed with this position.
Supporting Human Rights: Supporting human rights in Iran was ranked as the third highest priority with an average ranking of 2.9. A strong majority further supported targeted sanctions against human rights abusers in the Iranian government, and NIAC will continue to support targeted human rights sanctions.
Supporting Civil Rights of Iranian Americans: Supporting the civil rights of Iranian Americans was selected as the fourth highest priority, just behind human rights in Iran, with an average ranking of 3.1.
Protecting Heritage: NIAC members ranked protecting Iranian cultural heritage, such as the Persepolis Tablets, as NIAC’s fifth priority for the year ahead. The issue ranked 3.8.
437 dues-paying members participated in this year’s survey, making it larger than the sample sizes of other surveys done of our community at-large. Although not a scientific survey of the entire community (as the survey measures the views of our active members), past NIAC member surveys have corresponded with the results of scientific community-wide surveys.
Based on the results below, the year ahead promises to be busy and, at times, difficult. But, by unifying as a community to take action and be heard, no hurdle is too high. We all know there is power in numbers, so we look forward to working together to accomplish our goals and increase our community’s political influence. | <urn:uuid:d953bd7b-538b-4d67-be4c-a718eb0c7fb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.niacouncil.org/site/News2?news_iv_ctrl=-1&cmd=articles&page=NewsArticle&security=1&id=8647&start=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960848 | 779 | 1.570313 | 2 |
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Techniques and Best Practices for Measuring Training Effectiveness
Many still view the measurement of training effectiveness as a black art. But in five years of research, I have identified key philosophies, techniques and best practices that are practical and really work.
The goal of training measurement is to deliver useful information for decision-making. You must collect consistent, repeatable data so you can make meaningful comparisons of programs, audiences, instructors, delivery methods and other factors. The most practical approach is through standardized, end-of-program assessments for learners and their managers. At Eaton University, KPMG and AT&T, learners must complete standard, end-of-course assessments that include satisfaction and effectiveness measures. The organization can then plot trends over time to identify well-designed programs and problem areas.
KMPG Canada and Randstadt each ask their learners standard questions such as, “How much did this training program help you increase your job performance?” Although they’re subjective, responses are clear indicators of relative effectiveness. Another technique is to send two assessments: one at the end of the program and another 90 days later. Although the second assessment will typically have a lower response rate, it provides a better understanding of job impact.
Use Job-Impact Indicators
One of the most important measures of a well-designed program is direct impact on job performance (called Kirkpatrick Level 3). A simple and powerful approach to measuring job impact is to use a series of standard assessments such as: How much impact did this training program have on your job? (standard numeric ranges); how well can you apply the skills and knowledge you received in this program on the job? (standard numeric ranges); what are the biggest obstacles that will prevent you from using these skills and knowledge on the job? (multiple choice answers).
These indicators will give you significant understanding of how the program is used and applied. As KPMG Canada discovered, many learning programs rated high for learning impact do not score nearly as well on job impact.
As you apply standardized assessments, you might find one program with a slightly lower satisfaction or effectiveness rating than another. Don’t jump to conclusions based on a single score. You must do additional analysis to understand which programs succeed, which fail, and why.
The Next Generation of HR: What’s Wrong? What’s Right?
May 23rd 1:00pm - 2:00pm CT
2013 CLO Breakfast Club, Boston
September 12th - 12th, 2013The Westin Copley Place
Fall 2013 CLO Symposium
September 30th - October 2nd, 2013Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa
Get the Magazine | <urn:uuid:1da3f3dc-34c7-480d-afbe-1b5b7122c71c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clomedia.com/articles/view/1390/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933487 | 627 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Calif. high-speed rail faces crucial court ruling
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California's plan to begin building its $68 billion high-speed rail system in the Central Valley hinges on a crucial court decision that could stop the project in its tracks if a judge agrees to a request for a delay from farming interests.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley is expected to decide Friday whether to grant a preliminary injunction that would temporarily halt the ambitious infrastructure project. That would prevent the state's rail authority from buying land along the proposed route and continuing with site surveys, engineering design work and geological testing that began months ago.
Groups representing Central Valley farmers claim in lawsuits that the state agency overseeing the project, the California High-Speed Rail Authority, failed to conduct the thorough environmental reviews required by California law and comply with public meeting laws. They are asking the judge to halt all work until their claims can be heard at trial.
They argue that the state should not spend millions of dollars working on a "massive and largely unfunded project."
Meanwhile, the rail authority has already surveyed more than 300 parcels of land along the proposed route since Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation giving his approval in July.
The preliminary injunction the farm groups and other opponents are seeking would effectively stop the authority from spending any more money on a 65-mile section from Merced to Fresno where construction is scheduled to begin next July. The rail authority says stopping the preliminary work could imperil $2.3 billion in federal grant money that must be spent by 2017 -- one of the only definitive funding sources to date.
Lawmakers approved the first phase of the planned 800-mile line this summer, allowing the state to begin selling $2.6 billion in bonds for construction of the first 130-mile stretch of the bullet train in the Central Valley. That approval also allowed the state to tap $3.2 billion from the federal government.
The rail authority argues against any delay in its construction schedule.
"The large scope of the project and the short time frame in which to complete (it) requires construction work at an unprecedented pace -- the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, at least 50 percent faster than the pace (approximated by dollars spent per day) of the recent Bay Bridge project," John Popoff, deputy program director for the Northern California portion of the project, wrote in a brief filed with the court.
California High-Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Officer Jeff Morales said some aspects of the overall rail plan would go ahead, even if the court ruling does not go its way.
"While an injunction would hinder our ability to begin construction in the Central Valley in a timely manner, other aspects of the program -- such as investment into existing regional transit that will tie into the high speed rail line -- will go forward as planned," he said in a written statement to The Associated Press.
Voters approved issuing $10 billion in bonds for the project in 2008, but public support for the plan has dwindled in recent years as the project's expected costs have soared. The most recent estimate is at least $68 billion for the completed project linking Northern and Southern California.
In one of their court filings, opponents say rail officials are spending furiously because they hope "to become so financially committed to the currently conceived section alignment that it will be unthinkable to later choose another course."
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:6c7288df-081d-47ad-b9c0-004c0c425981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/national/21009076862312/calif-high-speed-rail-faces-crucial-court-ruling/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955349 | 709 | 1.78125 | 2 |
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) - Legendary Hollywood film director John Huston is being honored with a postage stamp.
The U.S. Postal Service says the Oscar-winning director of 1948's "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" says the stamp will be issued next year.
The art on the stamp is inspired by the 1941 movie "The Maltese Falcon." It depicts Humphrey Bogart holding the statue of the falcon.
Huston's credits also include the Academy Award nominated films "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950),"Moulin Rouge" (1952) and "Prizzi's Honor" (1985).
The stamp is part of a four-stamp Great Film Directors series. The Postal Service announced earlier this month that John Ford and Frank Capra are other directors depicted in the series. The remaining director and the date of issue will be announced later. | <urn:uuid:4f13dcdf-2d8a-4c64-a57f-c09a8691ff24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/aug/16/postal-stamp-honors-hollywood-director-john/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940187 | 186 | 1.507813 | 2 |
During the past 33 years I have seen countless instances of people waiting until AFTER something has gone wrong to prepare for disaster. Success with computers is based on being Proactive not Reactive. Stop chasing your tail when your computer goes wild. Take my class or read on and learn to be proactive so you don’t have to be reactive! I realize that a lot of you can not take my class so I have decided to publish it over the course of one year. This will not be as enlightening as learning all that wil be presented in my class however, it will give you the big picture.
This is not a blog to answer questions in TECH SPEAK but a place where I will share my expierence with you in plain english to help you learn to be a proactive user. If your tired of relying on information you don’t understand from the internet or worst yet having to redo your work then ProactiveUser classes or this blog are your starting point. Learning ProactiveUser skils is for anyone with basic computer skills that wants to prepare for disasters. | <urn:uuid:e2bd282e-d153-4819-867e-d1b7d80eaad6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.proactiveuser.com/?page_id=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959056 | 220 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Why Get a Security System? Crime in Sutherland
One of the beautiful things about living in Sutherland is the peace and quiet. Most other people in the area have not come to shop, to do business, to study or to make trouble … they’re just getting by in their own neighbourhood, like you!
So thankfully, property crime rates across the entire Sutherland Council area are fairly low. There are however some hotspots for burglaries and robberies identified by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. It is relatively easy to figure out if your home falls within one, and you therefore need a Sutherland security system!
- The area surrounding Sutherland train station (one of the most critical areas for homes to have a Sutherland security system)
- The areas surrounding Kirrawee, Gymea, Miranda, Caringbah, Wooloware and Cronulla train stations
In 2010, THERE WERE 651 BREAK AND ENTERS to HOMES IN SUTHERLAND.
There were also 354 cases of stealing from a dwelling, and 2347 cases of malicious damage to property. Though the crimes occur in fairly well defined areas around the train stations as detailed above, there are outliers with such a high number of offences – Sutherland security systems are recommended to keep EVERY home safe.
Sutherland Community Safety Initiatives
Because of the magnitude of the break and enter problem in Sutherland, council is quite active in creating programs to support individual homes’ Sutherland security systems. These include:
- Risk assessments performed by the NSW police for residents at risk of break and enter, who may benefit from Sutherland security systems
- Personalised advice from NSW Police for victims of break and enters on prevention strategies
- Community education workshops for property protection
- Security standards developed for underground car parks
- Community education workshops to help prevent bag snatches
- Beach minding services for beachgoers at Cronulla
Suggested Instructions for Sutherland Security System Owners
Once you’ve made the important decision to have your security system in Sutherland installed, you must next leave instructions for your monitoring company on what to do in the event of a break in.
Though your instructions are modifiable (and we recommend you change the Sutherland security system instructions when you go on holiday or have changed family circumstances), these are generally accepted best practices:
- You get a 30 second grace period of alarm activation before we contact you to ensure all is well
- If the home security has been breached, we’ll notify the closest police station – at Sutherland, Engadine or Menai.
- A guard is immediately dispatched to protect your home and back up the police officer, before they arrive or once they are there
- We continue to attempt to contact you if we haven’t yet done so
A Sutherland security system can help keep both your family and all your neighbours safe. Do what you have to for protection – get a FREE quote today! | <urn:uuid:70e98b7d-cf20-4ee2-b70d-dabc3636b93b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pacificsecuritytechnology.com.au/locations/western-sydney/sutherland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937102 | 596 | 1.617188 | 2 |
- Showing 1 posts filed under: Region: North America and Caribbean [–], School [–] published between Jun 01, 2011 and Jun 30, 2011 [Show all]
Judge Irene Sullivan on learning a lesson in restorative justice from teenagers
In mid-May I traveled from my home in Florida to Evanston Township High School, just north of Chicago, to meet with students, school social workers and law enforcement officials. My intention was to talk to them about my nine years of service as a juvenile judge and the stories of the kids in court I wrote about in my book, Raised by the Courts: One Judge’s Insight into Juvenile Justice.
Boy, was I in for a surprise!
Instead of talking I was listening. Instead of teaching I was learning. Instead of being the center of attention, I was one person in a circle of 12. Instead of sharing my experiences with others, I listened while others shared some very personal and painful experiences with me. Instead of talking about guilt or innocence, crime and punishment, I found myself focused on the word “harm:” identifying the harm, acknowledging the harm and repairing the harm. | <urn:uuid:3ac38cf5-7bf8-44f9-85f0-ae581bb73ba4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.restorativejustice.org/RJOB/?Subject:list=Region:%20North%20America%20and%20Caribbean&Subject:list=School&from:date=2011-06-01%2000:00:00&to:date=2011-07-01%2000:00:00 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97699 | 239 | 1.757813 | 2 |
La Jornada, Mexico
Wal-Mart, Proverbial Illegality
Wal-Mart's main aim ... is to maximize profits and minimize costs, and according to that logic, it has engaged in predatory practices similar to those that characterize most of the multinationals ...
Translated By Robert Sullivan
12 January 2013
Edited by Natalie Clager
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)
Wal-Mart announced the removal of its president and general manager for Latin America, Eduardo Solorzano. This development comes on the heels of the scandal over alleged bribes given to Mexican authorities to expand Wal-Mart’s presence and dominance in the domestic market. The scandal was disclosed by The New York Times in April of last year, and enriched in a report released recently by U.S. Representatives Elijah Cummings and Henry Waxman. Solorzano is named in the lawsuits as the central figure of the alleged network of bribery and illegal disbursements that the company made in our country.
Although the U.S. firm reported that Solorzano will continue to lead the board of Wal-Mart Mexico, the measure has been largely interpreted as a damage control policy implemented by the largest retailer in our country and the world. The measure was accompanied by a promise of cooperation with the Attorney General's office in investigating the case and indications that respect for Mexican laws and institutions is a core value for the company.
This brings to mind that the bribes allegedly handed over to Mexican authorities, with the apparent knowledge of senior executives of American colleagues, are far from the only case tying the multinational to illicit activities in the country. Long before the New York press published the story, Wal-Mart had been accused of unfair competitive practices and questionable legality. These illegal practices came at the detriment of small businesses and entire communities. Also harmful were Wal-Mart’s anti-labor policies such as the prohibition of unions, signing contracts of employer protection and the imposition of strenuous working hours without overtime pay.
Additionally, the company is known for launching an unscrupulous and harmful corporate expansion, which is damaging to the environment. Wal-Mart builds on communal and ejido land (community land broken into private plots, an Aztec system) adjacent to archaeological sites and protected areas, which, worse still, may have been gained through bribery. These actions are hardly consistent with the spirit of the country’s laws for the preservation of archaeological, historical and ecological sites.
It is wrong, in short, to say that the company has respect for the laws and institutions of Mexico as a fundamental value. Its main aim, instead, is to maximize profits and minimize costs, and according to that logic, it has engaged in predatory practices similar to those that characterize most of the multinationals, especially in countries with weak and dependent environmental institutions such as Mexico.
The most serious and infuriating aspect of this phenomenon, in any case, is that when the aforementioned practices become known, it is because the legislative, judiciary or police institutions in the United States, or the media of that country, decided to reveal them. In contrast, Mexican institutions responsible for seeking justice have shown persistent indolence in monitoring public and private foreign entities operating in our territory. This is evidenced by the fact that, more than eight months after Wal-Mart’s alleged corruption was revealed, the Attorney General has not announced any progress in the developing investigation. Such indolence generates, in short, a breeding ground for impunity, persistent violation of rule of law and the multiplication of corruption afflicting the country. It also steadily reduces the margins of national sovereignty in confronting foreign authorities, agencies and capital.
CLICK HERE FOR | <urn:uuid:304f3876-254d-4fc2-985b-e287eec3f4b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://watchingamerica.com/News/192532/wal-mart-proverbial-illegality/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95601 | 753 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Some recent examples:
And an anti-reform chain email that’s circulating in various versions on the Internet ups the ante by claiming that the House health care bill* says that "HC will be provided to all non-US citizens, illegal or otherwise, will be provided with health care services."
One of the biggest costs in Healthcare is not even mentioned in Obama's plan.....Illegal Aliens get free healthcare!!
It just boggles my mind that we take care of ILLEGALS and their families and the unemployed but offer no assistance to a hard-working, tax-paying AMERICAN CITIZEN.
To get this latter assertion out of the way first, it’s a fiction. The bill specifically says that that undocumented aliens aren’t eligible for subsidized health insurance. See for yourself:
It’s unclear where the larger urban myth of "free health care for illegals" originated, but it’s not true either.
Here are the facts about this combustible subject:Illegal immigrants are not eligible for any of the major government-run health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP. Period.Legal immigrants have to be in the U.S. lawfully for five years to sign up for these programs and have to meet the same eligibility standards as anyone else. The 2009 revision of the Children’s Health Insurance Program gives states the option of removing the five-year waiting period for children and pregnant women; everybody else still has to wait. It’s not yet known how many states will sign on for this.
The lone federal program that occasionally covers a limited amount of health care for immigrants is an obscure one called Emergency Medicaid. Here’s how it works: if an immigrant, whether here legally or not, shows up at an emergency room with a true medical emergency, Emergency Medicaid will pay to treat it. But there are several catches. Immigrants have to meet the same Medicaid eligibility standards as citizens, meaning that if they’re single or childless adults, in the vast majority of states they’re completely out of luck because people in those categories rarely qualify for Medicaid. Also, they have to be really poor. Also, Emergency Medicaid doesn’t pay for non-emergency or routine care. "If they need a hospital admission or followup care, it wouldn’t be covered and they’d be billed for it," explains Ambegaokar.Not even the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the authoritative watchdog of government spending, has been able to figure out how much Emergency Medicaid money is spent nationwide on illegal immigrants as opposed to legal ones, as it acknowledged in a 2004 report. The proper records just don’t exist.
But in 2007, researchers from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine published a detailed study of Emergency Medicaid in their state. It turned out that 99 percent of benefits went to undocumented immigrants—but the entire program added up to less than 1 percent of the state’s total Medicaid budget that year. The vast majority of the spending was for pregnancy complications and delivering babies.The best estimate we could find of national spending on illegal immigrants came from an article in the November-December, 2006 edition of Health Affairs. (The full article requires a subscription but a good summary is here). The authors concentrated on Los Angeles County, where, by luck, a huge local survey had produced some hard-to-get information on the immigration status and health care use of adults aged 18-64. (As you can imagine, illegal immigrants don’t like to answer questions.)
While illegal immigrants were 12 percent of LA’s working-age population, they only accounted for 6 percent of health care spending. And taxpayers footed a lower percentage of their medical bills than they did the bills of native-born citizens. Extrapolating the LA results to the United States, the researchers calculated illegal immigrants accounted for about $1.1 billion in public health spending nationwide in 2000, the year studied. That was about 0.08 % of national health spending that year. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants using fake Social Security numbers are paying many times that sum every year into the Social Security and Medicare funds towards benefits they will never collect.
Oh, and one more thing. Without immigrants, we would be hard-pressed to have a functioning health-care system at all. A 2004 report from the Immigration Policy Center found that immigrants made up:
- 25% of physicians
- 12% of registered nurses
- 15% of pharmacists
- 14% of dentists
- 17% of nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides
- 16% of clinical lab technicians
If you want to learn more about this subject, here are some trustworthy resources:
Finally, a blog recently posted on Maggie Mahar’s Health Beat recently made the case that if the United States were less punitive and more generous about health care for immigrants, both legal and illegal, we would all be better off. Read it here.
—Nancy Metcalf, Senior Program Editor
*links to PDF | <urn:uuid:a6eda34e-c368-4ab3-b509-b9328c06625f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.consumerreports.org/health/2009/08/health-care-for-illegal-immigrants-the-myth-that-will-not-die-health-reform-myths-about-immigrants-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952278 | 1,048 | 1.8125 | 2 |
It’s not every day you get a bottle delivered to your house of a new product that has a note from the brand owner telling you that this is the first bottle outside of his own house. So this past Thursday, when exactly that happened, and I found in my hands a bottle of Hammer & Son Old English Gin, I was pretty excited to say the least. I’ve been waiting for the release of this product for several months, ever since Henrik Hammer (of Geranium Gin) mentioned that he had found a 1783 gin recipe in the safe at a distillery and was going to have a go at recreating it, as closely as possible within the confines of modern production techniques and current regulations.
But what exactly is an Old English Gin? Well essentially it’s the original style of gin produced in England, and is somewhere between the sweet rich flavour of Genever, and the dry style of gin we’re used to today. It differs from London Dry in that it is slightly sweetened, a tradition that goes back to a time when poor quality spirits could have some of their impurities masked by the addition of sugar after distillation. The decision not to refer to this new product as an Old Tom Gin, as some might expect, comes from Henrik’s research into the history of gin in the 1700s, and his desire to produce a spirit that would be true to the origins of English Gin. | <urn:uuid:97d77b37-6beb-4a7a-aceb-5657cb9240c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bittersandtwisted.com/category/tags/daisy | 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 | 0.981807 | 296 | 1.828125 | 2 |
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos officially gave up the mandate to form a coalition government Saturday after three rounds of negotiations proved fruitless, bringing the crisis-struck country one step closer to new elections.
The country’s wrangling politicians will have one ultimate chance at reaching an agreement for a government, when President Karolos Papoulias convenes the party leaders to try to broker a deal. If he fails, new elections will have to be called for next month, prolonging the political uncertainty and bringing Greece’s euro membership into question.
Venizelos was the third party leader to try to cobble together a governing coalition after elections last Sunday gave no party enough parliamentary seats to form a government. Voters furious at two years of harsh austerity measures taken in return for international bailouts worth €240 billion ($310 billion) rejected Greece’s two formerly dominant parties, Venizelos’ socialist PASOK and the conservative New Democracy, in favor of smaller parties on the left and right.
The turmoil has alarmed Greece’s international creditors, who have stressed that the country must stick to the terms of its rescue deals if it hopes to continue receiving the funds that have been keeping it afloat since May 2010.
Whether Greece should adhere to the strict austerity measures required for the bailout loans or pull out of the deal has been at the heart of the wrangling over creating a coalition government.
Alexis Tsipras, head of the Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, that made massive gains to come second in Sunday’s election, campaigned on an anti-bailout platform and insists any new government must cancel the austerity measures. He argues the terms are so onerous that they are giving the country’s battered economy no chance of recovery.
But both Venizelos and Antonis Samaras, head of New Democracy, have slammed Tsipras’ position as irresponsible. They say his policies would lead to disaster and force Greece out of the European Union’s joint currency — something that none of the political leaders say they want.
Hopes had been raised that a solution could be found in the form of a partnership between New Democracy, PASOK and the smaller Democratic Left party of Fotis Kouvelis, whose 19 seats put it in a potential kingmaker position. But all three parties have insisted they cannot join forces without the support of Syriza, given its strong performance in the elections.
Handing back the mandate to the president, Venizelos said that while there had been a meeting of minds between his party, Democratic Left and New Democracy, Tsipras was sticking to his position.
Papoulias could break the deadlock when he calls the party leaders for a last-ditch attempt at a solution, but chances are slim. Recent opinion polls show Syriza would win new elections if they are called. Although it would not get enough votes to form a government on its own, it would benefit from regulations that give the first party a bonus 50 seats in the 300-member parliament, putting it in the dominant position to seek coalition partners among other anti-bailout parties.
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Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 picsclose X
- 1 of 11
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin
Recent Slide Shows
- 1 of 11 | <urn:uuid:883134a8-7684-4aea-98b8-5faedf70481e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.salon.com/2012/05/12/greek_socialist_head_hands_back_coalition_mandate/singleton/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940333 | 1,522 | 1.523438 | 2 |
And he [Chavez] is seeking to lead -– together with the Castros -– a destabilizing, anti-democratic, and anti-American ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ across Latin America. President Obama’s remarks continue a pattern of weakness in his foreign policy, one that has emboldened adversaries and diminished U.S. influence in every region of the world.
Yes, Chavez has a few other governments in Latin America aligned with him in his ALBA group, but for the most part Venezuela’s influence has been diminishing in the region. If you look at the membership of ALBA, which includes such major powers as Dominica and Nicaragua, this is hardly a regional juggernaut. Perversely, the deposition of Paraguay’s president has provided Chavez and his allies with a new opportunity to make some waves, but these governments simply don’t matter as much as Romney and Rubio want us to believe.
Since Romney has raised the issue of projecting weakness, it’s worth saying a bit more about this. Does it project strength when leading American politicians are so unduly alarmed by a minor regional state that poses virtually no threat to the United States? It doesn’t seem to do that. It conveys to the world the impression that American politicians on the national stage are deeply worried about a state as weak and insignificant as Venezuela. Is such a minor government more likely to be encouraged in its ambitions by being dismissed correctly as mostly irrelevant, or is it going to feed off of public antagonism and vilification by U.S. politicians?
I have drawn attention to Rick Santorum’s obsession with the Venezuelan “threat” over the years because it always seemed a good indication of just how willing he was to overstate foreign threats. The Venezuelan fixation used to be his personal pet cause, but that is no longer the case. Unfortunately, Santorum was simply a few years ahead of the rest of his party. It has apparently become something of an article of faith now among Republicans that Venezuela is a major threat to America, so much so that the presidential nominee feels compelled to echo this view. The only problem for the GOP is that this is a preposterous view to hold.
Update: Florida Republican Senate candidate Rep. Connie Mack joins the pile-on:
Hugo Chavez is a man who has spread anti-American hatred around the globe and has formed partnerships with countries that hate the United States, like Iran and Syria. He has been deeply engaged in supporting narco-terrorists who advance his interests. He has crushed opposition at home, seeking to model the internal workings of Venezuela on the Cuban revolution. His close friendship with Fidel Castro is legendary. And he has worked closely with the Castro brothers in subverting American policy and undermining freedom and democracy across Latin America.
Everything Mack says here is more or less true, and none of it contradicts what Obama said. Obama said that Chavez has not had a “serious impact” on American national security. That’s obviously correct. Chavez is a populist authoritarian with ties to unfriendly states, and he has an interesting in exporting his brand of left-populism to other countries, but that doesn’t mean that he has had much of an impact of American security. The Republican position on Venezuela seems to be the following: “Chavez is unfriendly, has ties to unfriendly governments, and abuses his power at home, therefore Chavez is a massive threat.” That position doesn’t make any sense. | <urn:uuid:99d18dd0-83a0-4be7-a483-7b4a10f1404e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/santorums-venezuelan-fears-live-on-in-romney/ | 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 | 0.97701 | 727 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Obama Administration's intention to expand antitrust enforcement appears to be continuing apace, as a number of reports are describing the opening of a new investigation, one that targets a variety of high-tech companies in California's Bay Area. This time around, however, the target isn't anticompetitive behavior in the consumer market. Instead, the Department of Justice has apparently opened an investigation of whether the companies are colluding in the process of hiring, distorting the market for their employees by forging agreements not to recruit from other, similar ventures.
In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile fights involving companies that have lured away an employee of a competing firm. In the cases that have made their way to court, such as Google-Microsoft and Apple-IBM, the employee was subject to a noncompete contract clause, and the legal battle focused on whether the work for the employee's new company actually involved competing with their former one. All of the companies listed as targets of the new investigation, however, are based in California—that state's Supreme Court declared that noncompete clauses violated state employment law, and were void within its boundaries.
All of the reports of the matter appear to trace back to two sets of sources; some spoke to The Washington Post, while others talked to a subscription site run by TheDeal.com. They could, in fact, have been the same sources speaking twice, since the stories seem to have complete agreement regarding the details of the investigation. Several major high-tech companies are said to be involved, including Apple, Google, and Yahoo, although the source indicated that the inquiry would be "industry wide."
The odd man out in the investigation is Genentech. Prior to a recent agreement that will see it folded into the pharmaceutical giant Roche, Genentech was one of the largest publicly traded biotechnology companies. The biotech job market in the Bay Area tends to be very fluid, with many employees moving around as a steady stream of startups either fold or get purchased by larger concerns. Unlike the other firms, which could largely forge agreements among themselves, there's no obvious candidate for Genentech to to have colluded with, which does suggest that the inquiry will ultimately spread well beyond the Bay Area.
In any case, the investigation is likely to be a challenging one. It's pretty unlikely that any agreements of the sort were ever formally committed to paper, which would mean that any legal action that resulted would ultimately rely on retained emails or personal testimony. Cases of that sort have been successfully pursued, but they tend to be more challenging, since it can be difficult to establish whether an employee's words reflected official company policy.
One possibility is that the DOJ isn't pursuing the investigation with the expectation that it will ultimately lead to legal action. The administration could simply intend to signal to companies that it is watching, and count on the threat that a business' hiring practices would be subject to extended legal oversight to be sufficient to restrain anticompetitive practices. | <urn:uuid:807a3583-bc95-4412-89a7-fbb1c81272fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/high-tech-hiring-under-investigation-by-the-doj/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979008 | 609 | 1.625 | 2 |
It is the mission of the Samuel Harrison Society to restore
and preserve Reverend Harrison's homestead; use it as a place
to teach the values embodied in his noble life, his enduring
beliefs, his extraordinary writings; and to define a chapter
in the story of us as a people by providing greater insight
into African-American history.
Interior Restoration of the Samuel Harrison House
Faith & Freedom Walk; June 22nd, 2013
Grand Opening of the Samuel Harrison House
Heritage Walk; Septemer 21st, 2013
Heritage Walk; October 5th, 2013
For upcoming events, please view our Calendar of Events. Our Events Page can be also viewed for details on upcoming and other past events.
|Interior restoration begins, grand opening 2013!|
The exterior work on the
Samuel Harrison House at 82 Third Street was completed during
the winter of 2008-2009. Interior work was started in the fall of 2011. The interior is expected to be completed by the summer of 2013.
|Greylock Federal Credit Union donates $50K!|
The Greylock Federal Credit Union announced on Friday, July 1st, 2011, that they are donating $50,000 over the next three years to support the restoration of the Samuel Harrison House and the opening of the museum.
The Samuel Harrison Society (SHS)
celebrated the beginning of the restoration and preservation
of the Samuel Harrison House by holding a Groundbreaking
ceremony. On Friday, August 22nd, 2008, the ceremony was attended by Senators,
Representatives, Friends, Neighbors, and descendants of Samuel
|National Register of Historic
The Samuel Harrison Society is
pleased to announce that the home of Samuel Harrison, located
at 82 Third Street in Pittsfield, was accepted for inclusion
in the National Register of Historic Places on March 22,
2006. His home is a landmark representing his place in
history and physically represents his lifestyle and position
in his community.
|Creating a New Museum|
The Samuel Harrison Society with the help of public and private funds plans to restore and preserve the homestead of Samuel Harrison with the goal of creating a new museum. Through exhibts, displays, recordings of (Samuel Harrison's) writings and personal memorabillia, the museum will track the Reverend's struggles and triumphs and describe the profound effect he had on 19th century American history.
|Pittsfield moves to save home of Rev.
City officials are predicting the Harrison
house on Third Street can become a museum honoring a locally
famous African-American leader, after successful overtures
have been made to place it on the National Register of
Historic Places and transfer its ownership. The house of Rev.
Samuel Harrison, abandoned and falling into decay, was placed
on a list of structures slated for destruction two years ago
by a city committed to neighborhood revitalization. As a
matter of routine, the city submitted the list to the
Massachusetts Historical Commission for its review. The
commission wrote back on Oct 21, 2002, stating that the house
at 82 Third St. was a “historic and archaeological asset of
the Commonwealth” and that it was eligible for the National
Register of Historic Places under three separate categories of
|Quote - April 16, 2006|
Article ID: 3716480 Publication: Berkshire Eagle, The
(Pittsfield, MA) "I think the Reverend Harrison would be
astounded to know that his house is now one of Pittsfield's
historic landmarks." — Linda Tyer, first president of the
Samuel Harrison Society
Samuel Harrison House Location in Pittsfield, MA
View Larger Map
If you're interested in restoring, preserving, and supporting one of America's Treasures you can give to the Samuel Harrison Society by clicking donate. The Samuel Harrison Society thanks you for your support!
Copyright © 2004-2013 Samuel Harrison Society
P.O. Box 378, | <urn:uuid:167b32c0-c4a9-4364-a40f-5b5013a9ee50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://samuelharrison.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939771 | 827 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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Open inhaler, close your eyes, inhale and repeat your positive thought or meditation. Repeat a meditation during your studies and when recall is desired. | <urn:uuid:57762e2c-1531-44db-bf4c-53b4d4fef139> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drsuggested.com/supplements/herbal-formulas/study-inhaler.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95465 | 143 | 1.59375 | 2 |
INDEPENDENCE, Ky. (AP) -- A new Kentucky statute allowing counties to use GPS tracking devices in domestic violence cases has been in effect for two weeks, but a published report says the key provision isn't being used.
The Kentucky Enquirer reports county officials say the law is an unfunded mandate and they can't afford to place a tracking device on people charged with domestic violence.
Democratic political consultant Dale Emmons, who lobbied for the law, says the argument is bogus.
The much-discussed measure was enacted after state employee Amanda Ross was fatally shot in September outside her home in Lexington. Former state legislator Steve Nunn is charged with murder in her death.
The newspaper reported Kentucky's Administrative Office of the Courts could not find any county that has implemented GPS monitoring.
"For someone to use money as an excuse not to use Amanda's Law is absolutely not being truthful to the people they are talking to," said Emmons, also a spokesman for Ross's family.
Emmons said ordering a defendant to wear a GPS tracking device would cost taxpayers between $4-$7 per day, while ordering someone to the Kenton County jail would cost about $31 each day.
House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, who introduced the legislation, said it's not an unfunded mandate since the legislation was rewritten to make GPS tracking optional for counties.
"Amanda's Law is a tool designed to do two things: Increase the safety of domestic violence victims and save counties money on jail costs," he said. "By using electronic monitoring devices in such cases, counties will reap great savings."
Denny Nunnelley, the executive director of Kentucky Association of Counties, says the law is vague about who will pay for GPS tracking devices and that's one reason it's not being adopted quickly.
Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore he supports the intent of Amanda's law, but there's no money to fund GPS trackers.
"Like so many things that are happening now, this is an unfunded item from the state government," he said.
Moore said he plans to meet with judges and county administrators to get ideas on funding.
"It is very early in the process," he said, "and we are still sorting through all the issues."
Linda Bramlage, family court judge for Boone and Gallatin counties, said one option is for counties to work together to operate a regional GPS tracking system.
"In all honesty, the person who violates the (protective order) is supposed to pay for it, but the county has to get it started somehow," Bramlage said. "They have to find some funds for that."
Information from: The Kentucky Enquirer, http://www.nky.com
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:1565cb9c-858f-40fb-b21f-1fb90af76807> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whas11.com/news/local/Newspaper-Counties-not-using-GPS-monitoring-99256254.html | 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 | 0.96917 | 588 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Love is dangerous--as casualties Woody Allen, King Edward VIII and fictional philandering ad-man Don Draper could all attest. In the workplace, though, it is fraught with special peril.
That an office romance gone sour might unleash a hail of legal arrows (suits alleging sexual harassment or discrimination, say) seems not to impede cubicle-mates from hooking up.
In a survey of office workers just released by CareerBuilder, 39 percent say they have dated a co-worker at least once in their career. Of the ones who dated, 29 percent dated a higher-up; 16 percent dated their boss. Most workers said they had been open about these relationships, but 35 percent kept them secret.
Clarence Belnavis, a partner in the Portland, Ore., office of Fisher & Phillips, counsels clients on the dangers of office romance. It's no secret, he says, says why love is blooming in the office: It's where people spend most of their time, he tells ABC News. "You spend more time at work than you do sleeping. No wonder a good number of people find their significant others there."
Even so, he says, most employers don't know how to deal—or don't want to deal—with the legal issues raised by these relationships. "Very few deal with it in a pro-active fashion," he says.
There's nothing illegal about love in the office, provided it's consensual and not the result of intimidation or coercion.
Nor is it illegal for a lover to show favoritism at work toward his beloved. "Paramour favoritism" is the legal term for that, says Belnavis, and courts have found it to be neither harassment nor gender discrimination, for purposes of the Civil Rights Act.
The reason, says Belnavis, is that the favoritism shown to the paramour disadvantages all other employees equally, whether they are male or female. Further, according to The Legal Intelligencer, paramour favoritism does not run afoul of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines, which permit isolated instances of preferential treatment based on consensual romantic relationships.
Favoritism shown a paramour may be unfair to other workers, the commission has ruled, but the unfairness is based on considerations other than the gender of the disadvantaged parties.
What makes consensual office love relationships problematic for employers, Belnavis says, is that consent can be withdrawn at any time.
"Today's consensual relationship," he says, "can be tomorrow's breakup disaster." Suddenly, one party's attentions are no longer welcome to the other. Put another way: "High school is alive and well in the workplace."
Despite the danger that the jilted lover will sue, alleging, say, that the relationship was coercive and that the employer allowed it to exist, Belnavis says most employers choose not to intervene in office romances. "They feel it's taboo for them to interfere in that aspect of employees' lives."
Michael Woolley, associate general counsel for trucking company C.R. England in Salt Lake City, Utah, tells the Wall St. Journal his company does not ban in-office relationships. But when and if management learns of that two employees are pitching woo, it calls a meeting with them, to discuss the situation. | <urn:uuid:fef4705f-1368-4ed2-9e56-812e1671247f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Business/valentines-day-office-romance-rules/story?id=18492213 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960677 | 674 | 1.554688 | 2 |
WikiLeaks Haiti: The Post-Quake 'Gold Rush' for Reconstruction Contracts
Disaster capitalists were flocking to Haiti in a “gold rush” for contracts to rebuild the country after the January 12, 2010, earthquake, according to a secret cable from US Ambassador Kenneth Merten.
Leaked documents provide an extraordinary glimpse of US maneuvering in Haiti from before the 2004 coup through the devastating 2010 earthquake.
The February 1, 2010, cable was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to the Haitian newspaper Haïti Liberté, which is collaborating with The Nation on a series of reports on US and UN policy toward the country.
“THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!” Merten headlined a section of his 6 pm situation report—or SitRep—to Washington. “As Haiti digs out from the earthquake, different [US] companies are moving in to sell their concepts, products and services,” he wrote. “President Preval met with Gen Wesley Clark Saturday [January 29] and received a sales presentation on a hurricane/earthquake resistant foam core house designed for low income residents.”
Former US presidential candidate and retired general Wesley Clark—along with professional basketball star Alonzo Mourning—was fronting for InnoVida Holdings, a Miami-based company, which had pledged to donate 1,000 foam-core panel-built houses for Haiti’s homeless.
“AshBritt [a Florida-based disaster recovery company] has been talking to various institutions about a national plan for rebuilding all government buildings,” Merten continued in his dispatch. “Other companies are proposing their housing solutions or their land use planning ideas, or other construction concepts. Each is vying for the ear of President in a veritable free-for-all.”
One man who had the ear of President Préval was Lewis Lucke, Washington’s special coordinator for relief and reconstruction, who was heading up the entire US earthquake relief effort in Haiti. He met with Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive two weeks after the quake, and at least one more time after that, according to the cables. Lucke, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the US Agency for International Development, had overseen multibillion-dollar contracts for Bechtel and other companies as USAID mission director in postinvasion Iraq.
Lucke stepped down as Haiti relief coordinator in April 2010, after only three months, telling his hometown newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, “It became clear to us that if it was handled correctly, the earthquake represented as much an opportunity as it did a calamity…. So much of the china was broken that it gives the chance to put it together hopefully in a better and different way.”
Within eight weeks of stepping down, Lucke had signed a lucrative $30,000 per month agreement with AshBritt and its Haitian partner, GB Group (which belongs to one of Haiti’s richest men, Gilbert Bigio). Lucke helped them secure $20 million in construction contracts.
But in December 2010, Lucke sued AshBritt and GB Group for almost $500,000. According to the Associated Press, he claimed the companies “did not pay him enough for consulting services that included hooking the contractor up with powerful people and helping to navigate government bureaucracy.” Before the lawsuit was settled, Lucke had already joined masonry product supplier MC Endeavors. The firm sent out another of many press releases this past May advertising its ability to build homes and applauding Haiti’s newly inaugurated President Michel Martelly’s declaration: “This is a new Haiti that is open for business now.”
The post-quake “gold rush” described by Ambassador Merten began as Haitians were still being pulled from the rubble. Since then, USAID has doled out nearly $200 million in relief and reconstruction contracts. By this April, just 2.5 percent of the money had gone to Haitian firms, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Lucke, for one, is not bashful about making a fortune off others’ misfortune. “It’s kind of the American way,” he told Haïti Liberté. “Just because you’re trying to do business doesn’t mean you’re trying to be rapacious. There’s nothing insidious about that…. It wasn’t worse than Iraq.” | <urn:uuid:7561d8c2-bafc-423e-a8d3-b81b38886574> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenation.com/article/161469/wikileaks-haiti-post-quake-gold-rush-reconstruction-contracts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96324 | 946 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Favourite Hobbit Stories
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Elementary, My Dear Gandalf: 2. Observed
I long to question Gandalf, but the wizard has vanished as well --- or more accurately, the instant Bilbo disappeared he strode off briskly, without a word to me, and was soon out of sight around a curve of trees. If he had asked, I would have eagerly accompanied him, but I have known him long enough to have sensed that he didn’t want me to come --- he wanted me to stay. And so I continue to observe, and deduce, and try without success to quell this feeling of unease.
What did Bilbo Baggins find in that dragon hoard? What device or enchantment can explain this? How can the Shire, of all places, be the heart of such a mystery?
For the most part, the assembled hobbitry is in an uproar, clamoring for an explanation. (The children, after the initial squeals, have apparently forgotten that anything at all has happened, and are happily darting back and forth among the benches and tables, snatching bits of food and shrieking joyfully at jokes or games.) The band resumed playing almost at once, and some adult and many young hobbits, shaking their heads at what they apparently accept as well within their eccentric neighbor’s bag of tricks, have resumed eating, drinking, and enjoying the party with or without its guest of honor.
And Frodo Baggins is… the boy, surrounded by his friends, appears still to be frozen in shock. Mere seconds after Bilbo’s disappearance, a mug of mostly untasted ale slowly fell from his hand and crashed to the ground, unnoticed. He hadn’t known, then. He hadn’t been watching Bilbo, on and off all evening, because he suspected a magical occurrence. A young hobbit sitting next to him, with golden curls and an earnest, concerned face, is talking to him, but Frodo doesn’t seem to hear him; he keeps looking from where he last saw his vanished relative, to the path that Gandalf took.
I find myself thinking back to what the wizard said to me earlier --- “I may know more after tonight.” He suspected that something would happen, then. Perhaps he even had a hand in it. But to young Frodo --- this has been startling and upsetting. Is he suddenly feeling as a 12-year-old orphan again, believing himself to be unexpectedly abandoned once more?
And why --- this I wonder most of all --- why did Gandalf really ask me to be here tonight? Is there something he wanted me to see? Or not see, I think wryly. It was important to him that I identify this youngster --- that I observe him and perhaps recognize him in some other place, at some other time.
Frodo is besieged now, by angry relations demanding explanations. I sense they don’t truly care where Bilbo has gone, or why --- they need to be reassured that the Shire hides nothing unnatural or unexpected. Life is good here, and perhaps they are wise to try to protect their homeland from things they can neither control nor understand. The shock is wearing off, and now the boy is acquitting himself well; he speaks in a quiet, calm voice, assuring them that everything will no doubt be cleared up in time. As the Shirefolk reckon things, today he comes of age --- but it is in these moments that he has truly become an adult.
Several of his companions have come to quietly to stand at his side, lending their silent support. He has true friends, then. Although I do not know what lies ahead for this lad, my instincts tell me he will need them.
Playlist Navigation Bar | <urn:uuid:61757e13-d358-4e5e-96da-62e4dd8cbd49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.henneth-annun.net/playlists/chapter_view.cfm?spordinal=2&sqid=32&sxid=123 | 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 | 0.983633 | 788 | 1.757813 | 2 |
What does CTC's membership think about infrastructure?
CTC is currently reviewing all its policies. On the fraught topic of cycle infrastructure and road design CTC decided to elicit cyclists’ views on the matter to inform the development of a new policy.
The survey gathered comments and measured attitudes to statements on the subject of cycle infrastructure and transport planning for cyclists. 1,130 people responded to the survey, mostly members of CTC.
Support for the statements of policy was extremely strong, with most people welcoming a commitment to promoting high quality design of cycle facilities in certain circumstances.
Respondents were offered a set of conditions that CTC suggested be met before implementation of cycle tracks. These include cyclists having priority over turning traffic, adequate width and a high standard of maintenance. Support for these conditions was very high, with 88-95% of respondents saying that these were very or quite important.
In addition to gauging people’s views on a set of statements and conditions, the survey also offered respondents the opportunity to make their own comments.
Around half of the respondents made suggestions, 28% of which referred to the need for better quality cycle facilities, 18% suggested that driver behaviour needed improving, 16% stated strong support for segregated facilities. A further 10% felt that the right to cycle on the road network must be retained if facilities are built, and another 10% referred to the need for better maintenance of roads and paths.
The results suggest that although CTC’s proposed policy line is strongly supported, there remain opposing currents of opinion within the cycling community.
The small proportion of non-members who took part in the survey appear much more enthusiastic about segregation, whereas members tended to be either sceptical or understood the need for segregation, but wanted to ensure that design standards of such facilities are high.
CTC will need to weigh up the benefits from providing stronger support to segregation despite the risk that this may undermine conditions for existing cyclists. The strongest message is that the existing quality of cycle facilities is of considerable concern for all road users and CTC must prioritise their improvement.
The survey will inform CTC’s formal revised policy which will be examined by CTC’s Council over the coming months. To read the full report please download it below. | <urn:uuid:c5e46a68-98f6-49dc-8bc0-772bbb7661f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctc.org.uk/news/2012-05-22/what-does-ctcs-membership-think-about-infrastructure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967362 | 465 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Elementary School teachers to stage walkout next Wednesday.
Published Friday, December 7, 2012 11:15AM EST
Last Updated Friday, December 7, 2012 1:06PM EST
The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario just gave notice it will stage a one day walkout on Wednesday, Dec. 12. The walkout affects schools with the Ottawa District School Board.
The Board says it will close schools on that day.
Here is the Board’s notice to parents.
– Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) has advised the district that a one-day walk-out will take place across our district on Wednesday, December 12, 2012.
All elementary schools will be closed to students on that day. Parents should make alternate childcare arrangements for the day as elementary students will not be able to attend school. There will be no elementary school bus service.
Secondary schools will be open on that day and secondary students are expected to attend school. School bus transportation for secondary students will continue as usual; delays are possible.
All extended day programs (before and after school) will also be closed on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 for one day.
Community use permits issued for elementary schools after 6 p.m. on Wednesday, December 12th will continue as per usual.
CTV's Norman Fetterley is following this story. Follow @NormanCTV on Twitter for the latest then watch CTV News at 6. | <urn:uuid:638fe948-bb62-4efa-a2a9-02bf9aa160ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/elementary-school-teachers-to-stage-walkout-next-wednesday-1.1070214 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966158 | 294 | 1.6875 | 2 |
What indeed is couch surfing?
Well, couch surfing is a common social and travel phenomenon. It’s not so common in some place and no wonder many people ask about it. As a phenomenon, couch surfing is the cheapest way to travel. Basically, travellers choose to travel close to their hosts. Basically, it connects travellers with free places or cheap places to crush when they travel.
This phenomenon has been around for slightly more than a decade. It can accommodate more than just able people. You can get connected to travel mates of different status, depending on your needs. This phenomenon has even led to the rise of Couchsurfing.com. This is a travel social networking website. The intent of this website is to connect travellers, student portals and host in over 240 countries around the world.
The benefits of couch surfing
The most obvious benefit of coach surfing is finding a free place to crush when you travel. Considering that the cost of accommodation in new lands is often staggering, this characteristic is of great importance to any traveler.
Couch surfing also improves the benefit of the travel experience. For instance, when you are connected to a host who understands their locality, there is no limit to how much experience you will get there. This has a far deeper insight than what travel guidebooks give. As such, instead of being stuck in a hotel with other tourists, you are actually in a real place with real people. Besides, having a friend to guide you locally can enable you discover cost effective, cool and fun destinations. If you had travelled in an agency situation, getting these cost incentives would be next to impossible.
The last third benefit of couch surfing is the kitchen benefit. Many people assume it’s a privilege. It would be bad enough eating in a restaurant for all meals. Couch surfing allows you to prepare home, sweet, affordable meals.
Is couch surfing safe?
The media often paints couch surfing as unsafe. Let’s face it, how good would the news be without an element of danger? Even then staying with total strangers can be dangerous. That’s the reason why systems and websites like Couchsurfing.com exist.
This service allows you to determine what the best student communities or others you can choose to stay with if you are a student. The website allows you to select hosts based on marital status, age, etc. you also get to read reviews by other travellers. This is a great way to keep your travel experience solid safe. Despite all this, couch surfing is a great way to travel.
Image Credit: freedigitalphotos.net | <urn:uuid:ecd12393-aecd-4a16-bdce-a1f23ed91c14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.momsupsndowns.com/2012/09/what-is-couch-surfing.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 | 0.949441 | 529 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The $4.2 million project represents the opening phase of both the Pavement Accelerated Repair Implementation Strategy (PARIS) and the Pavement Management Program. PARIS was approved in September. The Pavement Management Program was adopted in March.
The resurfacing may last through December.
"One of the major priorities of the (City) Council is to fix streets," said Fred Mousavipour, the interim municipal utilities and engineering director. "This is one of those projects that most residents support. It's going to be good for everyone."
The city increased trash collection bills, to take effect in February, to raise money to repair and repave damaged streets. That decision was based on a study commissioned from TKE Engineering that stated that trash trucks cause $16,500 in damage per mile of residential streets, and $7,000 per mile to arterial streets, over 50 years.
For residents, trash fees will increase by an average of a little more than $2 per month at the beginning of the program. Average residential trash bills will be nearly $8 higher than current levels after three years.
At least a dozen streets and intersections will be affected.
This latest beautification project will likely be the first of many for the city in the near future, Mousavipour said.
"Every year we have a project of this magnitude," Mousavipour said. "From this point on, it will happen more frequently. This is the beginning."
Mousavipour said the city has resurfaced at least 88 miles of streets over the last three years. Residents can expect more street work will be done.
"It's going to start to quadruple," Mousavipour said. "We will spend about $47 million on street resurfacing over the next five years. That means about two-thirds of the streets in the city will be addressed."
Mousavipour added, "It's going to be a major program for the city. This is something that took a while to come to fruition but it is here. It will move forward."
Reach Ed via email, call him at 909-793-3221, or find him on Twitter @TheFactsEd. | <urn:uuid:8a037c75-2824-4238-a822-b182253d9bb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/dodgers/ci_22101409/street-resurfacing-scheduled-start-monday-redlands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962244 | 457 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Adolf Hitler shuffles around the tightly-packed briefing room, screaming at his generals that they are cowards, traitors, and scum.
Adolf Hitler is played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz
"You studied for years at military academy - just to learn how to hold a knife and fork!" he rages, his hand shaking with Parkinson's disease.
This scene from The Downfall, the new German film on Hitler's last days in the bunker, shows Hitler as one might expect him.
But the film, on show across Germany from Thursday, has sparked controversy by also presenting another view of Hitler - a human one.
We see him showing tenderness to his secretary, and receiving a chocolate birthday cake from his mistress, and later wife, Eva Braun.
"He is a human being, not a psychopath. It is true that he was charming. He had his soft spots," said screenplay writer Bernd Eichinger.
"This is what makes the whole thing so dangerous, because there's an animal in all of us - that's the message of the movie," he added.
It is a message that has not gone down well with some sections of the German press.
"Should a monster be portrayed as a human being?" asked the tabloid newspaper Bild recently.
The rest of the media has been eagerly discussing the same question for weeks now, long before the film was even premiered.
"There is for instance one moment where we see Hitler cry, but I think if you want to have an intelligent film on his last days you shouldn't do it like that," said Cristina Nord, a culture critic for the Tageszeitung newspaper.
"It's important to make films about perpetrators, to show how they think. But seeing Hitler cry doesn't make me know what was going on there in the last days of the Third Reich," she added.
Made at a cost of 13.5m euros ($16.4m), The Downfall is one of the most expensive German films for years.
It juxtaposes the battle for Berlin with the claustrophobic world of the bunker. But it is the portrayal of Hitler that has received most attention.
At the press launch, Swiss actor Bruno Ganz set the tone when he said that he needed to feel some compassion for Hitler - for fractions of a second, as he put it - in order to play him.
"I cannot only hate this person," he said.
But for all the media debate - and a huge amount of hype - it is not the first time Hitler's last days have been dramatised in a German film.
In 1955 Georg Wilhelm Papst's film The Last Act was based on a screenplay by Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.
Remarque saw it as a way of reviving memories. Concerned about the creeping rehabilitation of Nazi functionaries in western Germany, he followed it up a year later with the essay Be Vigilant in the London Evening News.
Juliane Koehler played Hitler's wife Eva Braun
Other films followed. A 1970s film mixed fact and drama by including recorded comments from one of Hitler's servants.
But many critics argue The Downfall goes a step further in showing Hitler's private side.
Film historian Gertrud Koch believes it is a logical consequence of new documentaries in recent years that used previously unseen home movies of Hitler.
"There was a famous series where all these private films done by Eva Braun and the whole crew around Hitler were shown," she said.
"I think this tendency to see Hitler more like a kind of private person was created through this historical footage," he said.
One of the most harrowing scenes from The Downfall is where the wife of prominent Nazi Joseph Goebbels, Magda, poisons her own children. She is convinced there can be no future after National Socialism.
"Drink, drink!" she shouts, forcing her screaming child to take "medicine".
But we do not see Hitler's suicide. The film is supposed to be as authentic as possible, and Hitler killed himself alone in his room with Eva Braun.
The Downfall brings Hitler closer to us, but there are limits. | <urn:uuid:928c2d08-b6af-42c4-a474-8e385bebb203> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3663044.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975884 | 873 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Our Faith-Based Justices
In their recent abortion ruling, did five justices ignore the critical line between religious belief and public morality?
BY: Geoffrey R. Stone
InGonzales v. Carhart
, the Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision,upheld the constitutionality of a federal law prohibiting so-called “partial birth abortions”
(properly described as “intact dilation and evacuation” or “intact D & E”) -- despite the absence of any statutory exception that would allow the procedure to be used when necessary to protect the health of the woman. Seven years ago, before the appointments of Justices Roberts and Alito, the Supreme Court held a virtually identical state law unconstitutional.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made clear in her scathing dissenting opinion, the Court’s decision has put at risk the health of women who suffer from heart disease, uterine scarring, bleeding disorders, compromised immune systems, and certain pregnancy-related conditions, such as placenta previa and accreta, as well as those women carrying fetuses with certain abnormalities, such as severe hydocephalus. In all of these circumstances, and many others, the availability of intact D & E may be necessary to ensure the health of the woman.
It is important to note that the prohibition of intact D & E has nothing to do with preserving the life of a fetus. The “partial birth abortion” law does not prohibit any abortions. Rather, it prohibits only a particularmeans
of performing abortion. If the woman is willing to undergo a greater than necessary risk to her health, she may terminate her pregnancy by other, less safe, methods. She may, for example, have the fetus terminated by injection prior to extraction, or removed by cesarean, or extracted by non-intact D & E (which involves dismembering the fetus in utero).
What, then, explains this decision? To be frank, the Court’s opinion is a hodgepodge of confusing and sometimes offensive ramblings about how women may “regret” having abortions and about how intact D & E “resembles” infanticide. But none of the Court’s musings credibly distinguish its earlier precedents. Never before has the Court allowed the state to restrict a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancywithout an express statutory exception to protect the health or life of the woman
, the Court flatly rejected that long-standing principle.
Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are not Catholic all followed settled precedent. It is embarrassing, indeed mortifying, to point this out. Perhaps it is mere coincidence. But it is too obvious to ignore.
However awkward the question, it is legitimate to ask whether, in deciding this case, the five justices in the majority ignored the critical line between religious belief and public morality. To be sure, this can be an elusive distinction, but in a society that values the separation of church and state, it is fundamental. The moral status of a fetus is a profoundly difficult and rationally unresolvable question. For that reason, as the Supreme Court has recognized for more than thirty years, it is not for the state -- or for the justices of the Supreme Court -- to resolve that question on the basis of personal religious belief, and especially not at the expense of the health of the woman.
In 1972-73, I had the distinct privilege of serving as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, then the Court’s only Catholic justice. It was in that year that the Court decidedRoe v. Wade
. Justice Brennan struggled in that case, as he struggled in earlier cases involving such issues as school prayer, to separate his personal religious views from his views as a justice. He joined the decision inRoe
because he believed in the separation of church and state and because he was convinced that his religious views must be irrelevant to his responsibilities as a justice.
As the Court observed fifteen years ago, “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” It is disconcerting that Justices Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito may not have honored this precept. | <urn:uuid:e8584cf6-3975-479b-8c47-4d493077b628> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2007/05/Our-Faith-Based-Justices.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953375 | 927 | 1.835938 | 2 |
It turns out that the new two-baht coin is only one of several changes to Thailand's circulating currency. On February 2, the Treasury Department announced changes to a number of coins. The two-baht coin just happened to be the first one released.
The most visible of the other changes (even though these coins are mostly obsolete) is that the 25- and 50-satang coins are now made with copper-clad iron instead of aluminum bronze. The new color looks something like an American penny:
Other changes are less noticeable. The one-baht coin will switch from cupronickel to nickel-clad iron. The five-baht coins will be a hair less thick, and thus will drop in mass from 7.5 to 6.0 grams. The one-, five- and ten-satang coins are also getting minor tweaks, but I'm not even sure why those are still minted at all.
And as with the two-baht coin, it appears that the portrait of the king will be updated on all coins.
I noticed a poster at 7-Eleven that explains the changes. I took a crappy picture with my phone. It's too bad they don't distribute this nice poster as a file on the actual treasury website. | <urn:uuid:b2122235-69cb-469f-a3b1-c5ee42b581eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rikker.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-changes-for-thai-coins.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960667 | 260 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Read/Search this Article
Aqueous methyl p-hydroxybenzoate (MPHB) solutions containing various amounts of α-cyclodextrin (α-CD) were freeze-dried. The crystalline states of MPHB and the freeze-dried products have been investigated. From a comparison of the powder X-ray diffraction patterns, it was found that rapid freezing provided amorphous products, while slow freezing provided crystalline inclusion complexes. To estimate the amorphous MPHB fraction, crystalline MPHB was removed by means of sublimation treatment, and residual MPHB was determined by ultraviolet spectrophotometry. It was found that the amount of amorphous MPHB in a rapidly frozen sample was greater than that in a slowly frozen sample.Amorphous MPHB molecules were considered to exist in two different states, namely the included state in the α-CD cavity and the dispersed state in the intermolecular hydrogen-bonding network of α-CDs. From studies with linear oligosaccharides, it was suggested that the freezing condition influenced the amount of MPHB molecules dispersed in the intermolecular hydrogen-bonding network. | <urn:uuid:69074834-5b0b-4aed-b269-4f079145c12b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110003627881/en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963851 | 242 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Two dramatic breaking events and two long-simmering story lines were among a list of subjects competing for media attention in an unusually heavy news week, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index from February 25-March 2, 2007.
The breaking news stories were very different kinds of events—tornadoes in the South and a financial plunge on Wall Street. The simmering, slower developing subjects were the growing controversy about treatment of soldiers at home—for the second week running—and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
They joined two stories that typically dominate the Index—the 2008 Presidential race and the debate over Iraq policy—on the roster of top stories last week.
The devastating March 1 tornadoes that swept through the South and left 20 dead was the fourth biggest story (filling 6% of the overall newshole). The Dow’ s 416-point freefall on February 27—the biggest single day loss since after 9/11—was right behind as fifth biggest story (6%).
Read the full article and view charts on the Project for Excellence in Journalism Web site. | <urn:uuid:2e536a1d-39e6-4752-997e-1a7febca85d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=21306&category=456 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961048 | 222 | 1.5625 | 2 |
One of Western Kentucky University's most in-demand programs is getting some federal funding. Senator Jim Bunning was at the Knicely Conference Center at WKU's south campus to present a $400,000 check.
The check is for the accelerated Master of Science in the nursing program. Fifteen graduate fellowships will offset the cost of advanced education.
Beverly Siegrist is the coordinator of the program. She says, "I'm talking to applicants from all over Kentucky- Louisville, Elizabethtown. So the word is getting out. We hope to put about 15 more faculty out in the workforce in about a year."
The accelerated program will allow nurses to graduate in less time. This program will help address the serious shortage in nursing faculty-which is another complication to the shortage of nurses nationwide. | <urn:uuid:86500f38-0c0d-4e9c-9e38-96f0e8da3043> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbko.com/home/headlines/685297.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961865 | 165 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Around the World by Bike and as Brothers
A three year bike test.
By Sal Ruibal
Everyone who rides a bike has at some point thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to ride my bike around the world?”
And perhaps after a few beers, you and a couple of your best buddies make a solemn vow to make this global trek, only to totally forget about it when you sobered up.
In 2010, three French cyclists—Morgan Monchaud, 27, Siphay Vera, 24, and Brian Mathé, 24—made that vow, but are actually pulling it off. They left their comfortable professional lives in business management and engineering to pedal around the globe on a $10 a day shoestring budget. That’s like one McD’s drive-thru a day for all your expenses over 50,000 miles of pedaling.
They had a bit of family history to guide them: Monchaud’s father explored Antarctica over 30 years ago, and he wanted to experience adventure travel, literally in his father’s footprints.
Their goals are to “explore the world, discover remote cultures and destinations and inspire solidarity of the human race as they befriend thousands along their journey.”
And now, about halfway through their journey, they have endured Saharan sand storms, Amazon rivers teeming with parasites, walls of snow and ice in Antarctica, muddy roads that forced them to push their bikes uphill not just for hours, but for days.
It hasn’t all been physical torture, Mathé says.
“We have received a lot of help from people everywhere we went,” he says. “The hardest part is finding food in very remote places, but the local people have been very generous to us. We have even been able to surf and sail with the people we meet.”
They must filter almost every drop of water they drink to avoid diseases that could not only stop the trip, but also endanger their lives.
And for a trio of handsome French guys on an exotic journey, interaction with the opposite sex has been a special treat from time to time.
“We don’t really write about that in our blogs,” Mathé says, “but we are men and we are French.”
Their rugged Surly Long Haul Truckers are almost obscured by the gear they must carry, but they have been trusty steeds. Equipped with Rohloff internal-geared hubs, they have avoided all but one major mechanical problem—if you consider broken pedals, snapped shift-levers and broken saddles as minor problems in snow, sand or mud.
The trio has had few flats and despite the distance, their Schwalbe tires have been remarkably sturdy, with just a handful of flats and only a couple of trashed tires.
They are now in Oregon, where they will be feted at the Filmed by Bike Festival on April 13-18. After leaving North America, the trio will travel to New Zealand and then across Australia in the heat of the summer. The journey will then take them up the Malay Peninsula across India, Pakistan, Turkey with final return to France scheduled for August 2013.
Mathé says the biggest hurdle is being away from their families for three years. They met with their families in Costa Rica, “but leaving them again was very hard for us.
“But we are a family ourselves. We keep each other going. When one is down, the others pick him up. That’s how we get through this, as brothers.”
Follow their journey here: solidream.net. | <urn:uuid:e20000c6-f24c-43d9-8047-c3fca975449f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bikemag.com/news/around-the-world-by-bike-and-as-brothers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972094 | 764 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Caring for Your Perennials
Improving Your Success with Perennials
There are a number of factors to consider and procedures to follow that will enhance the success and performance of your new perennial. We have compiled some brief summaries of areas that will improve the production and longevity of your new plants below.
Upon receiving your new plants, it is important to open the shipping box(es) immediately. Carefully remove all packing materials and containerized plants from the carton(s). Do NOT keep the plants in the shipping boxes as this will reduce plant quality and may lead to plant disease or death.
If the potting mix is dry upon arrival, apply water to the containers until the root zone is thoroughly moist. When possible, plant your new perennials within 1-3 days after they have been received. If it is not possible to plant them within this time period, keep them in an area that provides some degree of shelter from the natural elements (sun, wind, rain, etc…) until they can be planted.
Choosing the Right Perennials for Your Location
There are several factors to consider when choosing perennials for your landscape. The most important consideration is the environment that you will be planting them in. Several environmental factors that may affect the performance of perennials include the amount of sunlight (full sun, partial shade, shade) the site receives, the moisture characteristics of the site (wet or dry), and the temperatures the perennials are going to be exposed to during production.
Each perennial performs best when it is planted in its preferred environment. Planting perennials in locations with inadequate conditions will greatly reduce their appearance, performance, and longevity. For example, planting a perennial with a full sun requirement in a location that has full shade will reduce the appearance of the plant, decrease the number of blooms produced, and the flowering will usually be delayed compared to the same perennial planted in a sunny location.
Also consider the USDA Hardiness Zone designation of each perennial before purchasing and planting perennials into your landscape. This provides an indication as to where each perennial is likely to survive the winter months. Use USDA Hardiness Zone recommendations as guidelines as many factors such as the actual snow cover and moisture levels of each site will also affect a plants ability to withstand cold temperatures.
For improved success, choose varieties that are known to perform well in the type of area you desire to plant them in. When planted in a suitable environment, perennials will flourish and provide you with years of relatively maintenance free beauty.
There are numerous ways to utilize perennials in the landscape and around the home. In the landscape, perennials are used as accent plants, border plants, groundcovers, or in mass plantings. They are often used to attract birds and butterflies into the gardens. Many people use perennials as containerized patio plants, in combination planters, or as cut flowers.
Perennial Planting & Soil Preparation
In general, most perennials prefer being planted in sites with well drained soil. The drainage in poor soils can be improved by adding organic matter like, compost, leaves, peat moss, or aged manure. For new perennial beds, incorporate 4 to 6 inches of organic matter into the soil before planting. When transplanting new perennials into an existing garden, incorporate a few handfuls of organic materials into the hole prior to planting.
In general, dig a planting hole at least 50% larger then the size of the container you are planting. Larger sized holes should be dug when you intend to mix in organic material. Carefully remove the perennial from the container by holding one hand over the top of the pot and turn the container upside down. Gently tap the bottom of the pot to loosen the root zone from the container and gently pull the pot away. If the container does not easily come off, it may be necessary to squeeze the container until the plant comes out of the pot.
Next, place the plant in the hole so the top of root ball is at the same level as the top of the hole. It may be necessary to remove the plant and place a little soil back in the bottom of the planting hole and retry aligning the top of the hole with the top of the root ball. Many perennials do not tolerate being planted too deeply and may not grow very well or may succumb to crown and root rots. Conversely, perennials planted too high may not grow properly and are more susceptible to drying out. Once the plants are at the proper height, fill in the planting hole with soil, gently packing the soil around the roots and being careful to not overly pack or compact the soil around the new planting.
After planting, it is important to water them well. For the first couple of weeks or so, it is important to keep the soil moist, but not soaking wet. Keep in mind that many new plantings do not perform well or even die because they are either over- or under-watered. Once they are established, most perennials can tolerate less moisture. For optimum growth, it is recommended to deliver 1 inch of water per week either by rainfall or through irrigation systems.
To optimize performance, improve plant appearance, and ensure longevity there are a few maintenance activities that gardeners should consider. Most perennials can be grown successfully with relatively little maintenance, while other perennials will require more work to keep the in good condition.
Although most perennials are not considered to be 'heavy feeders', it is important that they are produced with an adequate nutrient supply. Mulching the perennial beds with compost each year often supplies an ample supply of nutrients. In beds covered with bark mulches, it is recommended to fertilize once or twice per year with a general purpose fertilizer. Applying too much fertilizer causes many perennials to grow too quickly and become floppy. Do not apply fertilizer directly on top of the crown or severe injury from the salts may result. Perennials with tall flower spikes or full heavy flowers, such as Alcea or Delphinium, may require staking to prevent them from toppling over following heavy rains and high winds.
Several perennials benefit from deadheading, thinning, or cutting them back. Deadheading entails removing the dead flower heads and faded flowers; this practice keeps the garden looking nice and encourages many perennials to continue blooming for an extended period and improves the appearance of the plant. A few perennials benefit from thinning or removing some of the stems from the dense bushy clumps in the early spring which allows more air circulation and reduces the conditions for certain foliar diseases such as powdery mildew. Similar to deadheading, cutting some perennials back after they flower will often rejuvenate the clump by regenerating new growth and may possibly lead to another flush of flowers later in the growing season. Cutting back is also used to prevent some perennials from flopping over or to prevent the centers of the plants from opening up and appearing ragged following bloom.
Another important consideration is to prepare perennials for the winter. Do not fertilize perennials after they stop growing in the late summer or early fall. This will allow them to prepare for dormancy rather than encouraging them to remain actively growing. Many perennials go completely dormant (die back to the ground each year) and should have the foliage trimmed back before winter. Removing the existing foliage will make the perennial beds look cleaner and will decrease the likelihood of diseases setting in over the winter months or being carried over and infecting next years growth. Other perennials, such as ornamental grasses, are often trimmed in the spring allowing the foliage to provide some structure to the winter landscape. In northern zones or where tender perennials are being grown (marginal hardiness in your area) it is beneficial to apply mulch after the ground has frozen to help protect these perennials during harsh winters.
Written by Paul Pilon: Perennial Solutions Consulting
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It's not often that a CEO sends a public note to key constituents taking responsibility for a bad decision.
But Netflix CEO Reed Hastings did exactly that last September in his apology letter to customers. While some bloggers commented that the confession was like suicide, many others found his willingness to share the decision making process refreshing.
Last year, Netflix created Owikster to spin-off the video streaming part of its business from its core DVD-by-Mail operation. To encourage on-line downloading, it unbundled its virtual and snail mail offerings, jacking up the combined price about 60 percent. Hundreds of thousands of enraged customers dropped their subscriptions in response. Netflix's profit was badly hurt as well as its image and trust: its stock price has declined over 65 percent during the past year.
One wonders how a successful entrepreneur seasoned by years of growing his company could make such a bad call. In his note, Hastings revealed the flawed assumptions about what customers’ really valued and he acknowledged that their priorities were not properly evaluated. He bared his thinking process offered a mea culpa, and in the process invited derision as well.
The bigger the job, the loftier the title, the weightier most decisions get.
Employees and others usually help prepare the tough decisions that the chief gets to call. Whether it's executing a big strategic move, evaluating resource tradeoffs, or addressing a minor issue, it’s assumed the more experience and seniority the leader has, the better their decision making will be.
You need to find a middle ground between shooting from the hip and forever analyzing without pulling the trigger. Sometimes experience and personality get in the way, not to mention market changes.
This is a dangerous assumption. You need to find a middle ground between shooting from the hip and forever analyzing without pulling the trigger. Sometimes experience and personality get in the way, not to mention market changes.
In contrast to Netflix's rash decisions, quite a few leaders get wrapped around the axle due to "analysis paralysis." They are loath to make a call without proof to support their decisions. They seem unable to set an appropriate risk threshold that allows decisions to be made in a timely fashion. Their quest for the perfect decision causes them to miss windows of opportunity while frustrating their minions in the process. As Winston Churchill warned, the maxim "Nothing but perfection" often translates into costly paralysis.
In our recent survey with over 15,000 managers, the ability to decide ranked lowest among six distinct skills crucial to strategic thinking. Many leaders scored themselves poorest on the essential act of making a choice. Formal feedback on the decision-making process is usually non-existent in companies. Most people are evaluated on results– not on the quality of their decision process.
Effective leaders combine experience and a strong decision process that forces them to evaluate, listen, adjust and learn from each decision. Strategic leaders typically build in these three core steps when evaluating and arriving at Winning Decisions.
1. Carefully frame and then reframe your decisions. Strategic thinkers consider what truly needs to be decided right now. They ask themselves: What is the crux of problem you need to solve or the opportunity you want to capture? Will the decision advance overall goals?
2. Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Endless analysis loops do not make for a good decision; it takes courage to decide based on incomplete information and conflicting opinions, or when uncertain consequences lurk, and naysayers abound.
3. Remain flexible. Strategic leaders often break the decision down into smaller options or sub-steps. They reframe a binary yes/no decision as entailing more than two alternatives. They stage the decision over time and run pilot tests on key assumptions if valuable.
If CEO Hastings at Netflix had applied these basic steps, he likely would have changed the timing of the decision, tested it with a pilot customer group, and reframed the decision toward things customers truly cared about. If so, he would have made a very different call. But his remarkable candor by admitting his mistake, and then publicly dissecting his decision process, is a welcome lesson for all of us. We should likewise learn from our mistakes by conducting post mortems and then turn these into pre-mortems so that we – or others we care about - don’t repeat the same mistakes.
This article was co-authored with Samantha Howland and is fourth of in a series examining the key components of strategic aptitude: anticipating, thinking critically, interpreting, deciding, aligning, learning. For an overview of all six skills see 6 Habits of Strategic Thinkers. | <urn:uuid:63ce58d7-3e38-4cb3-9f2b-e5d221694465> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/3-easy-ways-to-make-better-decisions_Printer_Friendly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962638 | 944 | 1.601563 | 2 |
More storms could crop up across Maryland tonight, potentially raining on the Baltimore Ravens' preseason opener at M&T Bank Stadium tonight at 8 p.m.
Most of the country, in fact, is included an area with a threat of severe weather today, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center. The strongest risk is along the southern Appalachians and the southeast.
Maryland is also included in an area with 5 percent chances of damaging winds and hail.
A handful of factors could limit the severe weather threat in the mid-Atlantic, but storms are expected to form ahead of a cold front moving through the region.
With high temperatures expected around 90 degrees, that heightens the chance for storms as the cold front arrives, according to Foot's Forecast.
The weather service's Sterling, Va., office's forecast calls for a chance of storms around 6 p.m. with storms more likely around 9 p.m. and later. Overall, the forecast calls for a 60 percent chance of rain after 6 p.m.
The passing front will cool things off significantly for the weekend, and continuing into the early part of next week. Highs are expected in the low 80s this weekend in Baltimore, with a 60 percent chance of rain Saturday. | <urn:uuid:8ee8c5df-ce8b-4da0-8420-98dd4fd4c823> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/weather/weather-blog/bal-wx-slight-chance-of-severe-storms-20120817,0,6216387.story?track=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958846 | 258 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party (Slovak: Slovenská demokratická a kresťanská únia – Demokratická strana, SDKÚ-DS) is a christian - democratic political party in Slovakia. Before its merger with the Democratic Party on January 21, 2006, it was called the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ).
It used to provide Slovakia's head of government, Mikuláš Dzurinda, and led a coalition government with the Party of the Hungarian Coalition in the years 2002-2006 (the Alliance of the New Citizen was a member of that coalition until September 2005 and the Christian Democratic Movement until February 2006).
In the parliamentary election of 17 June 2006, the party won 18.4% of the popular vote and 31 out of 150 seats.
As of February 2008, the party is struggling with ever decreasing party polls. Juraj Liška, one of the party's deputy leaders, asked Dzurinda to resign as the party leader.
SDKÚ-DS is a member of the European People's Party (EPP). | <urn:uuid:b705684d-9b8f-4c21-9f07-6b8df90c15f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reference.com/browse/Slovak+Democratic+and+Christian+Union+%E2%80%93+Democratic+Party | 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 | 0.942687 | 241 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I was raised in the fast food test-marketing capitol of the United States. Nearly every major fast food chain and prepared grocery product company tests its new ideas in Columbus, Ohio. Twenty major fast food companies (they prefer the term “quick service”) are headquartered in the Columbus metropolitan area, including White Castle, Bob Evans, and Wendy’s.
When I was five years old my father took me to the very first Wendy’s on its very first day, after which we crossed Broad Street to visit the Center of Science and Industry (COSI), where I first learned of the importance of science in the production of food. We wandered the artificial streets of “Yesteryear,” only to turn the corner and see what progress had wrought – from woodstoves and grain mills and hand-baked bread to microwaves, TV dinners and Wonder® Bread, all in the blink of an eye, both figuratively and literally.
At the Agriculture exhibitions both at COSI and the enormous Ohio State Fair (where I would get lost that same year), I began my indoctrination into the world of consumerism. It was made clear to me that “Better Living Through Chemistry” was not only possible, it was preferable. Chemical inputs made food grow faster, last longer and taste better. Companies like DuPont, Dow, and Battelle would promise to solve every problem a farmer or a consumer could face.
One year later Wendy’s would revolutionize fast food. It was Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, who took Henry Ford’s assembly line to the next level when he began using it to turn out burgers at a furious pace. But it was Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas who took it full circle, not only using assembly-line precepts in the construction of his “Hot & Juicy” hamburgers, but reconfiguring the old “drive-in” of bobby-sox and poodle skirt days into the drive-thru, which took us the next step closer to feeding our children the same way we fueled our cars.
Fast food was not the only industry that was evolving. In a curious sociological coincidence of the time, we no longer had to leave our beloved cars to feed ourselves, but the service station gave way to the self-serve pump. We needn’t expend any more effort than to press on the accelerator to feed our families, but to fuel our cars we then had to leave their confines and do the work we once paid others to do.
Three decades later, we would fuel both our families and our cars with the same ingredient – corn – which grows plentifully in my boyhood home of Ohio, and even more so in my adult home of Iowa, the heart of the agribusiness beast.
Over my half-century of life in America I have witnessed what might one day be referred to as the most rapid and uncontrolled period of social evolution in human history, in which a mind-boggling array of influences conspired in a perfect storm of high technology and rampant, vapid consumerism. Cause and effect were conflated to a point where it was impossible to tell, most of the time, which was which. And somewhere in that rigmarole, America made the decision, as a culture, that it was preferable to leave not just food production, but also the actual act of feeding our families up to large, distant corporations. Our lives were moving so fast that anything that appeared to be a time-saver was immediately adapted as a saving grace. This so that we could have more time for work, to make more money, so we could buy more of these timesaving products. Or it was so that we could have more time to spend with our families, which we very rarely actually did, except when in our cars or in front of the television, made feasible with all our perceived extra time
It is at about this point, when I discuss such things with people, that someone will begin to formulate the accusation that I am a Luddite. The first time it was alleged, I admit, I had to look it up. It turns out that the original Luddites were early-19th century English garment workers, incensed that their jobs were being taken by machinery and low-skilled labor. They responded my smashing the new automated looms and often resorted to full-scale battle with the Royal Army. Today the term is used to label anyone who, according to Wikipedia, is “opposed to industrialization, automation, computerization or new technologies in general.”
I would like to think that the fact that I just referred to Wikipedia, or the fact that I wrote this blogpost on an iMac, might allay any such fears. But then I find myself going on about the absurd fact that very soon after H. Cecil Booth invented the modern, motorized vacuum cleaner, wall-to-wall carpeting became the home flooring of choice, thus creating the need for more vacuuming.
The same sort of thing has happened to one degree or another, with almost every technological advancement of the last 50 years. We have luxuriant cars and now must commute further than ever. Our computers and mobile phones and hi-def televisions have made office work, communications and entertainment nominally faster, cheaper and easier, but we now spend hours upon hours glued to one or the other of them, often even all three, in lieu of real time spent with real people. We have, in the words of the old original Slow Food Manifesto, fallen victim to “the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.”
In the meantime America was sold a bill of goods. We were tricked. Hoodwinked. Hornswoggled. We were deceived, cheated and misled into believing that that most sacred of acts – that of preparing food to sustain our families – was a chore on par with washing windows: something to be avoided if possible, or better yet simply left to others, and then done only very grudgingly and quickly and only if there is no other option at hand. The simple result is that if we are what we eat (and we are), then most of us are fast, cheap, and easy. What’s more, if you are what you eat, then who owns your food owns you.
The worst of many bad results of this cultural regression which we were assured was progress was this: we reared an entire generation who never learned how to cook, and today that generation is rearing yet another.
“But no!” I am often reassured. “Look at the size of our grocery stores! Witness the popularity of the cooking shows on television!” These are intended as examples of America’s love of cooking. In reality, they are examples of America’s love of consumption (which you may recall was once a name of a disease). Those grocery stores of 50 years ago gave way to the supermarkets of 40 years ago, which gave way to the hypermarkets and “big box” stores of today. The stores get bigger and bigger, but the amount of actual, fresh, wholesome food shrinks in nearly exact inverse proportion. Variety and quality are sacrificed to the gods of expedient mediocrity.
Meanwhile on our televisions most (though admittedly not all) of the food programming is insipid, gossipy, self-flagellating melodrama of supposed cooking competitors stabbing each other in the backstage with name-brand cutlery. The rest of it is pure pornography: people who are prettier than the rest of us doing things we’ll likely never do, in places we’ll never visit, and doing it better than any of us could hope to. But this is America! We love to consume that too.
Where once the great Julia Child ruled with a soft hand, admonishing us that “You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients,” we now have Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, which are far more about judgmental insults and manufactured suspense than cooking.
Real cooking is about none of those things. It is a very simple craft, yet it can inspire deep passions. Like architecture it is built on a few basic fundamentals – a foundation if you will – and like architecture, if you have a strong foundation the possibilities are nearly limitless. After all, the source of the word “foundation” is the Latin fundatio, which is also the root of the French word for soup stock: Fond, which in turn is the very basis of modern Western cuisine.
Cooking is a simple act of love. It is, in fact, the single most tangible demonstration of our love for our families and our friends. It deserves appropriate reverence.
How, then, can we recover from our industrialized computerized malaise? We must rejuvenate the kitchen and table as vital centers of our everyday lives, and we must reconnect food and pleasure with awareness and responsibility. Here I do not mean merely the upper-middle class McMansion types with their kitchens that cost more than most people’s homes (although in my experience those kitchens usually do not receive anywhere near the actual cooking activity necessary to justify their costs). No, I mean everyone, and most especially the overworked single moms, the two-parent gotta-get-to-soccer-practice mini-van families, the recent immigrants who feel bewildered in a Walmart Super Center, the college kid with a dorm room hotpot, and the young couples with new babies, who never learned how to cook at their parents’ or grandparents’ apron strings
To do this, we must create legions of cooks, and then inspire them to create still more legions, and so on. In order to be effective, it must be based on the precepts of what Slow Food calls “Good, Clean, & Fair” food. “Good” means that it is good tasting, good for you, and good for the environment where it’s grown. “Clean” means there is nothing in the food that isn’t food (and if it wasn’t food 100 years ago, it still isn’t food now). And “Fair” means that the people who produce the food should be justly compensated for their efforts – from farm to table.
The Public Hearth is an effort to create legions of cooks, starting in farmers markets and church basements, youth clubs and social halls. It starts with a neighbor sharing grandma’s tamale recipe, sure, but more important than the recipe is the technique, the skills involved. We must marshal the resources necessary to make everyone know the difference between roast and braise, to be able to choose the best potato for a salad as opposed to a French fry, to make a stock from scratch and feed two people three meals from one chicken.
Also more important is that simple act of sharing, of being with family and friends and passing along knowledge and skills. That is what builds community. In Colonial America, and many parts of the world before then, villages would often have a central community oven, where townspeople would bring their dough to be baked, thus saving time and money by sharing the labor and fuel. They would trade ideas and community news and baking techniques even as they traded loaves of bread. The Public Hearth was a gathering place where communities grew closer together though the simple act of breaking bread. And at the risk of too much Latin etymology, it is useful to know that the word “Companion” come from con panis, literally “with bread.”
Let’s get cooking.
~kmf, February, 2013 | <urn:uuid:85539d3a-6aa9-44a6-bd66-1b057ac1cb47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kurtfriese.com/?p=541 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96995 | 2,451 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The King Estate raptor program continues to develop, with more nest boxes and releases, as well as the addition of ten new predator perches around the estate.
Food For Thought, a new radio show on Eugene station KLCC 89.7 FM airs on Sundays at noon. The hosts are Boris Wiedenfeld and Ryan Dawe-Stotz. Boris is the manager of Sundance Wine Cellars and Ryan is the “wine and food guy” at Marché Provisions (Marché founder Stephanie Pearl Kimmel was King Estate’s first culinary director). Both are active in the local food and wine community and are dedicated to shedding light on what “sustainability” means and why we should care about it. The guest host of the July 18 episode was Adam Bernstein, executive chef at Adam’s Sustainable Table who is well-known for using local and organic produce. Adam says sustainability is “about being able to create a dynamic where we are able to use renewable resources to have the smallest possible impact on our environment and the world at large, preserving as much for future generations as humanly possible.”
At the end of February we harvested some beautiful organic daffodils grown alongside our pinot gris and pinot noir vines. Employees joined in cutting flowers and bundling bouquets for the American Cancer Society, and of course they took a few home for themselves too. The flowers, along with everything other than grapes, are grown under the watchful eye of Jessie Russell our Garden Manager and resident horticulturist.
Yesterday afternoon marked the return of some of our favorite little farm workers. Sheep are naturally gifted when it comes to weeding, mowing, watering, and fertilizing.
We currently have 552 sheep grazing on the property, weeding, mowing, and of course they do a bit of fertilizing and watering as well. There is a wide range of breeds but they are mainly Suffolk Sheep and there are about 133 lambs in the flock. | <urn:uuid:6da44295-21b4-477e-82cb-a5414315fdd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kingestate.com/tag/farming/page/3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957704 | 414 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Signal: News and Notes from the Pharos Team
Pharos Unveils New Product Category – Interior Semi-Gloss Paints
There are hundreds of paint products on the market today. In early spring, we sent a request to the leading paint manufacturers, asking them to provide information about their paint products, with a focus on the products that they consider to be the most “green.” Many of those products you will see displayed in Pharos in the upcoming weeks.
In order to keep the list manageable and provide a consistent comparison across products, we list only the semi-gloss version of each product. In subsequent blogs, we will discuss some of the toxicity differences associated with sheens and tints, to help specifiers identify potential issues related to the variety of offerings from paint manufacturers.
When you view the products, you will see a range of high and low scores, depending on the impact category. Some products score high in the VOC (volatile organic compound) impact category, with zero VOC content; while other products scored poorly in Manufacturing Toxicity (MfrTox), because manufacturers chose not to disclose fully the material contents of those materials.
One of the many things we learned undertaking the research for both high performance coatings (HPCs) and interior paints is that there is a wide range of disclosure from paint manufacturers. Some report a long list of chemicals and materials that are included in a product’s ingredients, while others report merely one or two chemicals/materials, sometimes accounting for only 5-10% of what is actually in the product. Not only does this remind us how limited Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) can be, but should inspire Pharos Project users to urge manufacturers to disclose fully the chemicals and other ingredients in their products.
We’ve learned several things about interior paints that we will be discussing further in upcoming blog posts:
- Interior paints avoid some of the most toxic chemicals used in HPCs because interior paints do not require the durability expected of HPCs. For example, our research and manufacturer disclosure indicate that the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA) found in many HPCs is not included in interior paints.
- Added tints and different sheen types sometimes
come with additional VOCs or other changes in the toxic content of
paint products. Some manufacturers have
invested resources in developing zero- or low-VOC tints, which is a
- Some manufacturers are adding antimicrobials to
paints, with questionable efficacy. In
addition, most paints have biocides added to the can to prevent mold and
smells before opening.
- Current certification programs and low VOC regulatory standards for paints – even GreenSeal and SCAQMD – are generally lagging well behind the market today. Many paint companies have offered low- (<25 g/L) or zero-VOC paint for several years now, while the standards and certifications mostly allow anything under 50 g/L as “low VOC”. It is time for the standards to catch up to what industry can deliver.
- There is still much controversy about how to measure short-term VOC emissions from wet applied products. As a result, interior paints (unlike carpets, resilient flooring and other non-wet interior finish products) are currently evaluated on the actual content of VOCs in the product, rather than their emissions.
There are some strong products on the market that contain zero- or low-VOCs. However, because of chemical exclusions from VOC measurements and the potential presence of hazardous non-VOCs, full disclosure of material content is required to really understand what products can release into our homes, our offices, our schools, and our hospitals. Very few of the manufacturers who entered data about their products chose to fully disclose 100% of their contents. We are confident that engaging in the Pharos Project can transform the market so that paint manufacturers begin to be more forthright in sharing what their products contain.
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Note: All new comments will need to be approved by a moderator before they will be displayed publicly, in order to keep spam off the site. Thank you for your patience! | <urn:uuid:7ce6037b-201f-495b-938d-5ba6df4a8ae8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharosproject.net/blog/detail/id/59 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940712 | 898 | 1.601563 | 2 |
OPINION No. 16/1999 (CHINA)
Communication addressed to the Government on 11 January 1999
Concerning Liu Nianchun
The State is not a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
1. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was established by resolution 1991/42 of the Commission on Human Rights. The mandate of the Working Group was clarified and extended by resolution 1997/50. Acting in accordance with its methods of work, the Working Group forwarded to the Government the above-mentioned communication.
2. The Working Group conveys its appreciation to the Government for having
forwarded the requisite information in good time.
3. The Working Group regards deprivation of liberty as arbitrary in the following cases:
(i) When it manifestly cannot be justified on any legal basis (such as continued detention after the sentence has been served or despite an applicable amnesty act)
(category I) ;
(ii) When the deprivation of liberty is the result of a judgement or sentence for the exercise of the rights and freedoms proclaimed in articles 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20
and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also, in respect of States parties, by articles 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26 and 27 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (category II);
(iii) When the complete or partial non-observance of the relevant international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the
relevant international instruments accepted by the States concerned relating to the right to a fair trial is of such gravity as to confer on the deprivation of liberty, of
whatever kind, an arbitrary character (category III).
4. In the light of the allegations made, the Working Group welcomes the cooperation of the Government. The Group transmitted the reply of the Government to the source and received its comments. The Group is in a position to render an opinion on the facts and circumstances of the case, in the context of the allegations made and the response of the Government thereto.
5. According to the information brought to the attention of the Working Group, Liu Nianchun, a labour activist and veteran Democracy Wall campaigner, was arrested on 21 May 1995 after signing several petitions. He was apprehended at his home in Beijing, and allegedly held incommunicado for one year without charges and without trial. In July 1996, he was sentenced to three years of re-education through labour.
6. Liu decided to challenge his administrative sentence by suing the Public Security Bureau and the Re-education Through Labour Committee. His case was heard on 17 September 1996. Reportedly, no friends or relatives were able to attend the hearing, and Liu was only allowed to meet his lawyer a few hours before the trial. Two months later, his case was rejected. At the time of submission of the case, Liu Nianchun remained detained at Shuanghe Labour Camp, and his health allegedly was poor. According to the source, his sentence was extended by more than 200 days in May 1997, again without a trial.
7. In its reply, the Government confirms that Liu Nianchun was assigned to three years’ re-education through labour on 14 May 1996, by decision of the Beijing Municipal Re-education Committee.
8. The Government notes that Liu Nianchun objected and on 16 July 1996 requested his wife, Chu Hailan, to submit an administrative appeal to the courts. On 17 September 1996, the Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing conducted a public hearing with Chu and the lawyers she had hired. The court determined that the facts in the Re-education Through Labour Committee’s decision were clear, that the evidence was ample, that the law had been correctly applied and the proper legal procedure observed. It therefore upheld the Committee’s decision assigning Liu Nianchun to re-education. Liu objected and appealed to the Beijing No. 2 Higher People’s Court. On 18 March 1997, a collegiate bench constituted by the court conducted a hearing, in which it found that the facts in the decision of the court of first instance were clear, that the law had been correctly applied, and that the trial procedure had been lawful. It accordingly rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgement.
9. Subsequently, considering Liu’s appearance and physical condition in the re-education facility, the Chinese law enforcement authorities decided to allow him to seek medical assistance. Liu and his relatives requested that he be allowed to go to the United States to seek treatment and visit his family, and permission was obtained. He and his family left for the United States on 20 December 1998. According to the Government, his period of re-education was never extended.
10. The Working Group has taken note of the release of Liu Nianchun for health reasons. Having examined all the information submitted to it, and without determining whether the detention of Liu Nianchun was arbitrary or not, the Working Group accordingly decides, and pursuant to paragraph 17 (a) of its working methods, to file the case of Mr. Liu Nianchun.
Adopted on 15 September 1999 | <urn:uuid:e1a2170a-8f90-48c4-9a42-b68877aad5e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/wgad/16-1999.html | 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 | 0.972063 | 1,064 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Review: Wordsmith / Wordsmith Craftsman by Eclectic Montage
Review by Eclectic Montage
Review: Wordsmith / Wordsmith Craftsman
Wordsmith / Wordsmith Craftsman
Author: Janie B. Cheaney
Age: Middle School / High School
Web Site: http://www.timberdoodle.com/
Writing is one of the most challenging subjects for a homeschooling parent to teach. Yes, physics, chemistry and calculus are difficult; however, they come with answer keys. Writing, on the other hand, doesn’t. It’s subjective. Your experience with writing impacts your ability to teach your children how to write.
Sure, there are rules – spelling, grammar, mechanics. There is structure – parts of a paragraph, parts of an essay, and genres of writing. Nonetheless, when it comes to evaluating writing, a parent is limited by his own opinion, bias (we all love our kids and don’t want to discourage them) and perspective.
I think that’s what makes finding a good writing curriculum so difficult – there just isn’t a packaged deal complete with answer key and the solution to what is good writing.
There are good curriculum out there, however. Timberdoodle has asked me to look at Wordsmith by Janie B. Cheaney. I received the Creative Writing student and teacher’s guide aimed at 7th to 9th grades and the Wordsmith Craftsman, a self-directed high school program.
Wordsmith 7th to 9th provides a step-by-step approach to understanding the foundations of writing. Much like with any other subject, if you don’t have the foundation, you can’t build upon it. Wordsmith starts with basic grammar, works its way to building strong sentences using the parts of speech and then on to developing paragraphs and finally essays. The focus is on creative writing – description, narrative, dialogue. This allows the young writer to use his or her experiences in the writing rather than having to pull from research or build a case in their writing.
The approach is simple, but effective. As a short course, I think it does provide the foundation for getting a young writer on the path to understanding that writing is more than just putting words on paper. There is an approach, there are rules, and being able to apply those effectively are the key to success. If you have never had your child really sit down and walk through how to construct sentences, paragraphs, and finally a full essay, then I can easily recommend this program. Writing cannot be taken for granted – it must be taught.
As I noted earlier, teaching writing is difficult. The teacher’s guide provided with this edition is very effective. Not only does it help with the grammar and basic structure that an answer key can provide, but in a conversational tone helps the parent understand how to evaluate his/her student both through encouragement and constructive criticism.
Prompts are provided throughout the teacher’s text to help you help your child. Here’s an example:
“Read season poems out loud and comment positively on any details you especially like. Then go over each line and check for weak spots. Pay special attention, once again, to nouns and verbs. Are they concrete and vivid? Are all the senses included?”
The teacher’s guide is excellent! It truly empowers the parent to work with his or her student to strengthen his writing. I’m very impressed.
Wordsmith Craftsman is focused on the student alone. As a high school student, independence is key; however, I do wish there was an included parent guide for this book as well. The level and depth of material covered would benefit from parental guidance, especially for the weak writer.
The books starts by discussing taking notes and outlining. I can’t stress these two skills enough! Homeschoolers don’t always learn how to take notes since they don’t sit in classrooms often. Teach your child to take notes – they will thank you in college! Outlining is the linchpin for success in writing – if you teach your child to outline, he or she will have far more cohesive and unified papers!
Letters are covered next. I like this approach because they are simple and allow for different genres – personal and business. I teach letters in my college course. What surprised me was the feasibility study required at the end of this chapter. It goes well beyond what is covered in the chapter and may be overwhelming for a student.
Paragraph techniques followed by word choice emphasis and finally essay are covered. Each of these skills, as noted previously, are incredibly important. The essay section begins with descriptive, narrative and expository allowing the student to pull from personal experience to write a paper. Next comes more common types of research papers found in college – critical and persuasive.
While the research paper is covered, it isn’t in quite enough depth. The need for understanding research, citation, third-person perspective and applying style (APA, MLA, etc.) are not addressed.
I could see this text being a good beginning in tenth or maybe eleventh grade; however, to really be prepared for college, your student needs to explore research in more depth in twelfth grade to be fully prepared for collegiate expectations.
Writing is just as important as math, science and history. Don’t let it slide! Don’t just trust that people naturally know how to write. This just isn’t true. Writing well is a learned skill just like algebra or biology. In fact, maybe even more so since every class they encounter in college will require some level of writing. I’ve even challenged my boys to come up with a career that never requires them to be able to write – they haven’t been able to.
*** I received these programs free of charge as a member of Timberdoodle’s review team in exchange for my honest review. | <urn:uuid:fd51611d-899c-4574-a7ae-a54d72a039af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.becausemomsaid.com/2012/10/review-wordsmith-wordsmith-craftsman-by-eclectic-montage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963324 | 1,247 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Bistro and brasserie cuisine is essentially casual food; seasonal and regional favorites that have evolved over many generations with necessity as their driving force. These dishes are not only about sustenance but also comfort. In this course, you’ll prepare delicious bistro classics such as hearty stews, rustic tarts, and simple, yet elegant desserts. You’ll also enjoy step-by-step chef demonstrations of cooking techniques and recipes from the pages of the CIA’s Bistros and Brasseries.
As a participant in this class, you will receive a CIA logo apron and a copy of an award-winning CIA cookbook to take home. | <urn:uuid:ba13a894-92e2-44de-b1ac-c04868073ce5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ce.culinary.edu/ciachef/CourseListing.asp?master_id=1397&master_version=1&course_area=AE&course_number=1460&course_subtitle=00 | 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 | 0.940391 | 138 | 1.523438 | 2 |
I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites, and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi, or of the land of our fathers’ first inheritance, and having been sent as a spy among the Lamanites that I might spy out their forces, that our army might come upon them and destroy them — but when I saw that which was good among them I was desirous that they should not be destroyed. . . .
And yet, I being over-zealous to inherit the land of our fathers, collected as many as were desirous to go up to possess the land, and started again on our journey into the wilderness to go up to the land . . .
And I went into the king [of the Lamanites], and he covenanted with me that I might possess the land of Lehi-Nephi, and the land of Shilom. And he also commanded that his people should depart out of the land, and I and my people went into the land that we might possess it. . . .
Now it was the cunning and the craftiness of king Laman, to bring my people into bondage, that he yielded up the land that we might possess it. . . .
Therefore it came to pass that king Laman began to stir up his people that they should contend with my people; therefore there began to be wars and contentions in the land. For, in the thirteenth year of my reign in the land of Nephi, away on the south of the land of Shilom, when my people were watering and feeding their flocks, and tilling their lands, a numerous host of Lamanites came upon them and began to slaw them, and to take off their flocks, and the corn of their fields. . . . (from Mosiah 9)
Discuss, with extra credit for any modern-day applications (keep it civil, folks). ..bruce..
P.S. I should have noted this in the original post: the phrase “useful idiot” has a long history in geopolitics. | <urn:uuid:2183e53d-a2ed-42dd-b561-9f69d9bf0218> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mormonmentality.org/2008/06/27/zeniff-noble-idealist-or-useful-idiot.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986248 | 442 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Renee Farwell is a 21-year-old undergraduate sociology major from a small town in rural Iowa who has found her calling in the West African nation of Ghana.
Farwell, who joined Roosevelt University in 2007 because she liked the University’s social justice mission, took advantage of an amazing opportunity to not only live the University’s mission but also to help some of the world’s poorest children get ahead during her study-abroad experience in 2009-10 in Ghana.
Today, the Roosevelt Scholar and winner of the Matthew Freeman Social Justice Award from Roosevelt’s Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation is spearheading an initiative of a lifetime by building a school for poor children in a small village outside Ghana’s capital city of Accra. This project is not a pipedream.
“I’ve seen a lot of students make transformational changes through the study-abroad experience,” notes Rubee Fuller, director of International Programs at Roosevelt University. “But I’ve never seen one make these kinds of strides.”
Much has already been accomplished toward making the project a reality by Farwell, who will graduate this spring, and move to Ghana in September. In an interview with Roosevelt Review Associate Editor Laura Janota, the senior honors student talks about her experience and future plans.
RF In 2005, I went to Mexico City through my church and worked and lived with poor people in one of the neighborhoods there. It was a different culture and lifestyle and I thought about going back, but with the drug wars going on, I didn’t think it was safe. I figured Africa could give me a different kind of experience. My choices were South Africa and Ghana, and I chose the University of Ghana.
RF I was copying a book at the University of Ghana when a man working at the machine named Kwame Agoe started talking to me. He told me about where he lived — a place called Kissemah Village, which is just outside the capital city of Accra. I learned that the kids in his village couldn’t afford to go to school because they had to pay for books, uniforms and the paper for their exams. Kwame would go around when he had time and pick up these kids, taking them to this porch in the village where he taught English, ABCs and counting. He invited me to visit. At that time, I’d only been in Ghana three weeks so I was leery, but everyone I asked said it should be fine. So I went.
RF Going there made me nervous. I took the trotro – it’s the form of transportation they use. It seats 25 people and I was by myself. I remember being dropped off. The village’s roads were narrow dirt paths. The houses were tiny and made from scraps of wood and metal. There was no running water or electricity. But what overwhelmed me was the kids. When we went to their houses they came running out, screaming and hugging us because they knew we were taking them to learn.
RF First we focused on teaching English, and it was frustrating. There were days when the kids didn’t seem to get anything. Then, there were other days when breakthroughs came. Later, we started teaching the older kids basic science, math and how to read English. I remember having a map of the world and showing them where they lived and where I was going when I went home. They didn’t get it at all and I knew they needed to know more about the world.
RF One day in November, Kwame and I were talking. At the time, we had 40 or 50 kids of all ages, from three years old to 18 years old, on that porch. It was too many, and we had to turn some of them away. I was supposed to be going home the next month. Kwame told me, “If you go back now, it’s going to fall apart. Can you live with that?” I couldn’t imagine going home and telling people that I’d been teaching kids in Ghana and then I just left. I said, “Let’s see how difficult it would be to extend my stay.” I knew I couldn’t just abandon them. I had to start somewhere.
RF It never crossed my mind that I’d be a teacher, either in the United States or in Ghana. What really appealed to me is that the kids over there are so eager to learn and I never realized how seriously happy I would be seeing kids learning. Before I went to Ghana, I had been a volunteer with Roosevelt’s Jumpstart program tutoring preschool kids in the inner city, and the experience was really beneficial. It helped me figure out how kids learn, which was really important to know when I started teaching in Ghana.
RF We are putting up a building that will have two dormitories for 40 boys and 40 girls and six classrooms for as many as 200 kids. It will be, first and foremost, for orphans. These are kids who float around. They don’t have a bed and they don’t have a home. They can’t afford public school but our program will be free. It will have volunteer teachers helping kids of all ages with English, basic math, geography, art and science.
RF It is a non-governmental organization called Mawuvio’s Outreach Programme. “Mawuvio” is from the region’s Ewe language. It means God’s children. The decision was made to call it an outreach program instead of a school or orphanage because the ultimate goal is to reach out to the community as a whole and to offer services to all kinds of people in need of help.
RF When I went home to Iowa for the break in December 2009, I was able to raise $8,000. When I went back to Ghana, I bought some land — about two acres outside the village in a fertile area where we can do subsistent farming, growing corn, yams, pineapples, bananas and potatoes. The foundation for the building is finished and we’re trying to raise $5,000 for pipes and running water. A social welfare certificate has been obtained from local authorities there that will allow us to house and care for these kids. A relationship also has been established with the Student Youth Travel Organization (SYTO) and the University of Ghana, which are providing volunteers.
RF The main thing is to get funding. With $40,000, the project could be finished in a month. There is also a need to look for grants, and in order to do that, the project needs not-for-profit status, which I have been working on. Jewelry made by the kids is being sold to try and raise money. I’m also looking at the possibility of asking people to sponsor a child with a monthly donation.
RF We had a benefit concert in Iowa and we had an event at Roosevelt. Both were held last semester. But I don’t want the focus to be on fundraising. I believe it’s more about awareness. People need to know there are places in the world, like Kissemah Village, where kids get no education at all.
RF I’m taking five classes. My GPA is about 3.8, and I’m lucky. I’m one of those people who doesn’t have to try hard to do okay. And it hasn’t been difficult to keep up. Ghana is six hours ahead, so I usually call in the morning. I also email several times a day. When I talk with the kids on the phone, they say “You need to come soon. You’ve been gone too long.” It’s painful for me to hear.
RF I’m not nervous about doing it at all. I’m going to buy a one-way ticket and I plan to stay there for about five years. I have a little sister who is 13 years of age, so that will be a little difficult. But I’ve talked so much about this with my family. They know that this is what I want to do and where I need to be.
RF I want to bring some of these kids to the United States. I probably won’t have a school, but we could have a cultural center or a boy’s and girl’s club. There’s a large Ghanian population in the Bronx. It might be a good place to start. Really, I’d like to bring them to Chicago, but I haven’t explored the possibilities yet.
RF None of this would have happened if I didn’t take the opportunity. I had qualms about going to Ghana, but I took the opportunity. I also took the chance to visit Kissemah Village. I say take an opportunity if you get it. Sometimes, things just fall into place.
430 S. Michigan Ave.Chicago, IL 60605(312) 341-3500
Directions & Maps
1400 N. Roosevelt Blvd.Schaumburg, IL 60173(847) 619-7300
Directions & Maps | <urn:uuid:82e2b20f-60a6-420b-afbb-d2cf87a8e489> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roosevelt.edu/News_and_Events/News_Articles/RR/SP2011/RR-SP11-ReneeFarwell.aspx | 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 | 0.982906 | 1,939 | 1.789063 | 2 |
- About Us
FMC Playing it Safe
The FMC Corporation in southwest Wyoming annually mines the most trona in the world. And the firm is playing it safe with a longwall-mining project that could cause ground subsidence in areas with gas pipelines. This summer FMC teamed up with an emergency response consultant, the Sweetwater County Emergency Management team, law enforcement, first responders and fire department representatives to develop an action plan in the case of subsidence. Subsidence is the effect of sinking ground levels often caused by underground mine voids. County Emergency Management Coordinator Dave Johnson welcomed the proactive approach by FMC. Johnson says that as a result there is a plan in place if something should happen. | <urn:uuid:fd5ea1ef-fc34-4cc0-9a59-f20d20d8c352> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theradionetwork.net/content/fmc-playing-it-safe?quicktabs_1=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933002 | 143 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Auto-frosting windows could soon be coming to cars
NEW YORK, April 30 — If you’re the kind of person who sinks as low as possible in the car to avoid seeing someone you don’t like, help could be coming soon from Mercedes-Benz.
The automaker is reportedly exploring ways to bring its “Magic Sky Control” — used to make sunroofs tinted — to other glass panels in the car, potentially offering windows which can shade over on demand.
Magic Sky Control uses electricity to “frost” sunroofs at the flick of a switch, rendering a previously transparent pane of glass opaque electronically.
Now, it looks like the same technology could be coming to other parts of the vehicle, with several blogs reporting that Mercedes-Benz officials have confirmed that they are working on adapting it for side windows.
Similar to the technology used in the Boeing 787, windows equipped with the technology would be able to shield occupants from the sun at the flick of a switch, or perhaps block the attempts of a nosy camera lens for celebrities.
Hooking the windows up to the car’s main systems may even allow cars to automatically activate the shields when parked in a sunny area, helping to prevent the interior from overheating on a hot day, for example.
The technology, officials note, still needs plenty of work, not least because many countries have varying rules on tinted windows and safety requirements when it comes to window panels are stringent.
Nevertheless, it look like hiding from view inside a vehicle is about to get a lot easier. — AFP-Relaxnews | <urn:uuid:cbf2d7e5-4025-4633-9e75-9f9443e2cf0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/drive/article/auto-frosting-windows-could-soon-be-coming-to-cars/ | 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 | 0.935567 | 337 | 1.625 | 2 |
But the three top Republicans seeking to challenge her this November unanimously expressed opposition to the bill, the Kansas City Star reports, suggesting that efforts like this to reduce the significant wage gap between pay for men and women are not necessary:
- Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO): voted against the measure in the House in 2010 and, through a spokesman, called it “more government intrusion into the marketplace.”
- Former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman (R): dismissed the need for any such legislation, calling the bill “political posturing intended to deflect attention from the horrific employment numbers and faltering economy.”
- Wealthy businessman John Brunner (R): said that the problem has already been solved by existing law, saying “I’ve been in the workplace for 30-plus years here, and the whole issue is there are systems in place for those issues of discrimination. I believe these issues are fully covered.”
With women still making just 77 cents for every dollar, the Paycheck Fairness Act would represent a much-needed step toward gender equity. | <urn:uuid:cc752b01-b559-4ffc-b0dc-31366d1ed58f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/05/495187/missouri-senate-republican-equal-pay/?mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968125 | 223 | 1.710938 | 2 |
BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Irish police arrested a 38-year-old man on Saturday on suspicion of attempted murder after shots were fired at police officers during protests over the removal of the British flag from Belfast City Hall.
Police used water cannon against more than 100 protesters hurling fireworks, smoke bombs and bricks in the eastern part of the city shortly after a demonstration outside City Hall calling for the flag to be reinstated on a permanent basis.
Pro-British loyalists began rioting a month ago in the most sustained violence in the city for years after a vote by mostly nationalist pro-Irish councilors to end the century-old tradition of flying the British flag from Belfast City Hall.
The violence, which stopped over Christmas, began again on Thursday and 19 police officers have been injured since then, bringing the total number of officers hurt since early December to more than 60.
Loyalists blamed Saturday's fighting on anti-British Catholic nationalists who they said attacked them first.
Militant nationalists, responsible for the killings of three police officers and two soldiers since 2009, have so far not reacted violently to the flag protests, limiting any threat to 15 years of peace in Northern Ireland.
However, Peter Robinson, the British-controlled province's first minister, said on Friday that rioters were playing into the hands of nationalist groups, who would seek to exploit every opportunity "to further their terror aims".
At least 3,600 people were killed during Northern Ireland's darkest period as Catholic nationalists seeking union with Ireland fought British security forces and mainly Protestant loyalists determined to remain part of the United Kingdom.
The violence was mostly ended by a 1998 peace deal.
(Reporting by Eamonn Mallie; Editing by Louise Ireland and Padraic Halpin)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp | <urn:uuid:c68bdf7a-1dbd-4e9a-92e6-d31081bf48ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50372685/ns/world_news-europe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963019 | 386 | 1.539063 | 2 |
At many beaches in Hong Kong there are shark nets that are put in place to protect against, uh, sharks. You’re not supposed to touch the shark nets.
On Lamma, we took full advantage of the fact the lifeguards never yell at you and played a game that we called “Shark Netting”. Muhuhaha.
Here’s what you do: Swim out to the Shark Net. Hoist yourself out of the water and onto the top of the Shark Net. Try and run (or in my case, gingerly take some steps) for as far as you can. Be careful getting up (or falling off) to not get scraped up by all of the sharp barnacles that have grown on.
It’s harder than it looks. It’ not steady, it sways and bobs with the ocean and the top is kind of slippery. Even more slippery if there’s algae on it. But it’s so fun. Once I saw my fella run 17 or 19 steps. My forte was standing up doing a yoga tree pose and then diving off.
Here’s an ode to Shark Netting in haiku form.
Dear Lamma Lifeguards,
Sorry we like to have fun.
Shark Netting is boss. | <urn:uuid:f15edcaa-831c-42e4-bee1-ba4c6912bd04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnehappiness.com/2012/08/11/shark-netting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954824 | 277 | 1.617188 | 2 |
In the mid 1990s nearly three quarters of the directly let properties in the village of Newton St. Loe were occupied by retirees and of these two thirds were living on their own. The old properties often had awkward stairs and in some the bathrooms were not easily accessible. Many of the tenants had spent most of their lives in the village and wanted to remain in their cottages rather than moving to purpose built council accommodation.
In 1995 the Duchy carried out a local consultation exercise which indicated overwhelming support for some single storey manageable homes in the village so that the older generation could stay as long as they were able to.
Virtually no new housing had been built in the village for 100 years, so site selection was dealt with sensitively. Various sites were short listed for consideration and consultation with villagers before taking the preferences to the planning authority. The favoured site was outside the development boundary of the village in a quiet location with southerly views out across the parkland. Consent was granted under the “exceptions” basis that there was a demonstrable local need that could not easily be answered elsewhere.
Design inspiration came from the nearby Lodge at Newton Park with its attractive chimneys, beaver tail roof tiles and stone mullioned windows. The accommodation comprised a ground floor of 56 square metres including a living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom with gas fired central heating. However, each cottage also had a proper staircase in the hall leading to an extra 41 square metres in the roof space divided into two rooms overlooking the rear gardens. This meant that tenants who were still able to use stairs could have a bedroom on the first floor or at have somewhere for visiting relatives to stay with plenty of space for storage.
Using local builders, Shellard Winter & Co, the Bath architects Watson Bertram & Fell completed the four cottage terrace in 2002 and in the autumn The Prince of Wales officially opened them, just a couple of weeks before the first tenants took possession.
The planning conditions ensured that that the new occupiers were over 60 years of age and were previously tenants of the Duchy on the Newton Park Estate. This meant that there were immediately four new vacancies in the village which, after works of refurbishment, were available to let to younger generations.
The development was not only a resounding success with local residents but it was also recognised by Bath & North East Somerset Council Building Control who, in January 2003 presented the scheme with a Design Quality Award and a Building Quality Award. | <urn:uuid:9a253c68-08eb-424e-90fd-d33d2a5ba77f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.duchyofcornwall.org/designanddevelopment_rural_retirement.htm | 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 | 0.987751 | 505 | 1.664063 | 2 |
"I didn't really see [teaching yoga] as something that was going to be lucrative," says Watson, who trained for one weekend each month for eight months to earn her certification. "[But] it is going to end up, I think, being a decent supplement to my income."
Watson paid about $3,000 for a 200-hour course—that's typical pricing for teacher training—and she'll begin teaching three classes each week in May. "I'd estimate in about the time it took me to get my certificate, I'll get my money back," she says, "which is a lot more than I can say for graduate school … The return on investment is pretty decent."
Others aren't so optimistic about the potential to earn cash through the profession. "I would not say that becoming a yoga teacher is a path to instant riches," says Stephanie Brail, 41, who earned her certification in 2008. "The training can be very expensive, [and] it can be challenging to get classes at first."
Brail, too, enrolled in teacher training for health and professional reasons—to compliment her Internet-based, holistic-health business—rather than a strong desire to teach. But she decided to look for gigs in Los Angeles, where she lived at the time (she has since moved to Austin), and found the yoga market saturated with teachers. After substituting consistently, she was able to land several teaching positions, but she cautions that doing so isn't always easy.
Whether the number of teachers outpaces students' demand for classes depends on where you live; in Los Angeles, Brail says, yoga is so popular that "there's a danger of it becoming shallow and trendy." In New York City, where yoga is arguably just as trendy, Laird, the marketer-turned-full-time-teacher, says there's plenty of work to go around.
"It's almost like yoga studios are becoming like Starbucks," Laird says. "There's one on every corner now. So there's plenty of opportunity for teachers—it's just a matter of finding your way into the studio."
Corrected on 4/26/2011: In a previous version of this story, Cristie Newhart's name was misspelled. | <urn:uuid:d00e29ae-3749-4e78-8ecd-f4d278e90d8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2011/04/26/yoga-teaching-increasingly-popular-as-second-career?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985437 | 466 | 1.585938 | 2 |
DUE DATE: Request for Information Regarding Financial Products Marketed to Students Enrolled in Institutions of Higher Education
Monday March 18 , 2013
- By: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
New York, NYMap: maps.google.com
College is a time when many of us signed up for our first bank account. Often schools set up agreements with financial companies to offer cards and accounts to their students. Today, some students can use their student ID card to pay for everything from washing a load of laundry to shopping online.
With credit cards, financial companies have to publicly disclose these types of agreements with schools. However, we know less about these arrangements when it comes to other things, like debit cards to access your student loan funds and student checking accounts. We've heard from students that sometimes these arrangements are a convenience, while other times we've heard that they didn't feel they had a choice. We want to see if students are getting a good deal and what schools can do to help them through the process.
That's why we need your help. We want to hear about your experience with financial products designed for college students.
Email us at CFPB_StudentsFedReg@cfpb.gov by March 18 to tell us about any aspect of your experience .
Today, we're launching an initiative on student cards and bank accounts and we want your input. We've published a Notice and Request for Information Regarding Financial Products Marketed to Students Enrolled in Institutions of Higher Education in the Federal Register. The title might sound a little formal, but the reality is simple: we want to hear from you.
We'll use your comments to work with school officials on ways they can make sure that schools and students are getting off on the right foot when it comes to managing their money during college. We'll also publish a summary for everyone who contributes and let you know how you can continue to help make sure the market is working for everyone.
Tell us your two cents today, and learn more about the CFPB's work for students. | <urn:uuid:9ae4ad30-8afb-47ae-a499-3047a40b10a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.probono.net/ny/consumer/calendar/event.462689 | 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 | 0.971482 | 417 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Washington's Pro-Hamas Foreign Policy
By Elan Journo (Southwest News-Herald, May 17, 2006)
America's policy of backing "land for peace" deals in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was supposed to stop Palestinian terrorism and culminate in a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel "side by side in peace and security." But after years of Israeli concessions, and after American pleas to embrace "leaders uncompromised by terror," the Palestinians chose Hamas--a terrorist group committed to destroying Israel and creating a totalitarian Islamic regime.
Washington proclaimed itself shocked at this development. But the ascendance of Hamas should have been expected; it is the logical product of America's foreign policy.
The U.S.-endorsed "Road Map to Peace"--like the "Peace Process" and sundry initiatives before it--rested on the rationalization that Palestinian terrorism is primarily the result of a legitimate grievance: the Palestinians' frustrated wish to establish their own civilized, peaceful state. The way to end Palestinian terrorism, then, is not for Israel to defeat its attackers, but to give them land and loot with which to fulfill their supposed aspirations.
But as has been proven repeatedly by their actions and by numerous polls--and now by the recent election--the overwhelming majority of Palestinians aspire not for a civilized state but to eradicate Israel and replace it with a brutal dictatorship. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. During Arafat's brutal reign, they abetted his terrorism and celebrated his atrocities. They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups.
Yet Washington, deluding itself that Palestinians seek legitimate goals, rationalized Palestinian barbarities as the lashing out of oppressed victims. And so, as they mounted more attacks, Washington urged ever more concessions to the Palestinians. It has urged Israel to respect, not punish, them. The United States forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders, like Salah Shededah. When Israeli forces found this organizer of suicide bombings and assassinated him, President Bush condemned Israel for its "heavy-handed" measures. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House.
Even as Palestinian terrorism raged, in defiance of Palestinian obligations under successive "peace deals," America continued to dole out rewards. It sent hundreds of millions in aid to the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority. When Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip, rendering itself more vulnerable to predations, America wholeheartedly approved--and insisted on further land concessions. Palestinians, who swiftly began rocket attacks from Gaza, were jubilant; they correctly saw themselves as the victors whose terrorist war had won our approval and forced Israel to retreat.
American policy teaches Palestinians that their goal of destroying Israel--and the terrorism they employ to achieve it--is legitimate and practical. The ascendance of Hamas therefore was predictable. It is by far the more consistent proponent of that murderous goal.
Hamas openly seeks the destruction of Israel; it righteously wages a war of rocket attacks and suicide bombings against Israel. The once-dominant Fatah has also long sought Israel's destruction, but it never delivered final triumph over Israel. That failure--Hamas and many other Palestinians conclude--stems from lacking dedication to the goal. Fatah's leadership, more interested in retaining power than in advancing the people's cause, deviated from the path of war: it countenanced negotiating with and recognizing Israel.
Who is better able to fulfill the Palestinians' wish to obliterate Israel? Fatah leaders who halfheartedly mouth a vague and withered ideal--to create a nationalist Palestinian homeland--or the ardent proponents of a deeply resonant moral ideal--to destroy the enemies of Allah? It is Hamas that can invoke a rousing moral justification for its violence. It is Hamas that, fully understanding its objective, can consistently embrace the means of accomplishing it. Compared with Fatah, the zealous murderers of Hamas stand out as being more consistent and therefore more efficacious in pursuit of the people's wish: Israel's destruction.
America's policy of appeasement has encouraged Hamas, it has weakened a crucial ally, and it will cost us dearly. Like the Taliban, al Qaeda and Iran, Hamas marches under the banner of Islamic totalitarianism. Hamas's political ascendance is a victory for the enemies of America--and will further encourage the worst religious militants throughout the world. America must stop evading the nature of the Palestinian cause and embrace the principle of self-defense. A first step would be to urge Israel to annihilate Hamas, smash its terrorist infrastructure, execute its leaders--and for America to proclaim that all Islamic totalitarians will meet with the same fate.
Elan Journo is a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, focusing on foreign policy. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
For more articles by Elan Journo, and his bio, click here. | <urn:uuid:2a08e52d-29c9-4cd5-934f-75e642484879> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12580&news_iv_ctrl=1510 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93649 | 1,068 | 1.5625 | 2 |
January 17, 2010
The Substance Behind the Tea Parties
By Michael Barone
In his New York Times column last week, David Brooks contrasted "the educated class," which supports Barack Obama and his liberal worldview, with the tea party movement, "a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against ... the concentrated power of the educated class."
Many conservatives read Brooks as putting down the tea partiers. I think he was indicating distaste for both sides. "I'm not a fan" of the tea party movement, he wrote, but he also noted, "Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the year."
Still, it sounds like Brooks was indulging the conceit of so many liberals that they are, well, simply smarter than conservatives.
But when you look back over the surges of enthusiasm in the politics of the last two years, you see something like this: The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.
Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama's rhetoric. "We are the change we are seeking," he proclaimed. "We will be able to look back and tell our children" that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
A lot of style there, but not very much substance. A Brookings Institution scholar who produced nothing more than that would soon be looking for a new job.
In retrospect, the Obama enthusiasts seem to have been motivated by a yearning for a rapturous, nuanced leader. Send that terrible tyrant with his tortured sentences and moral certitude back to Texas and install The One in the White House, and all would be well.
The Obama enthusiasts have achieved that goal, and perhaps it's not surprising that, as polls show, they're not much engaged in the details of the health care bills or cap-and-trade legislation or looming tax increases and the like. They, or at least most of them, were never much interested in those things anyway.
In contrast, the tea party protesters, many of them as fractious and loudmouthed as Brooks thinks, are interested in substantive political issues. They decry the dangers of expanding the national debt, increasing government spending and putting government in command of the health care sector.
Their concerns have basis in fact. The national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of the economy over 10 years, and the Democrats' health care bills threaten to bend the cost curve up. Higher taxes could choke off economic recovery and keep unemployment up near double-digit rates for years.
Last year's stimulus bill surreptitiously raised the budget baseline for many domestic spending programs and sent money to state and local governments -- a payoff to the public employee unions who spent more than $100 million to elect Democrats in 2008.
Agree with the tea party folk or not, these are substantive public policy issues of fundamental importance.
Or look at other issues on which Brooks notes, correctly, that Americans have been moving away from positions "associated with the educated class."
The educated class thinks that gun control can reduce crime. But over the last 15 years, crime rates have plummeted thanks to Rudy Giuliani-type police tactics and while 40 states have laws permitting law-abiding citizens to get licenses to carry concealed weapons.
"The educated class believes in global warming," Brooks notes. But ordinary Americans have been noticing that temperatures have not been rising in the last decade as climate scientists' models predicted, and they may have noticed those Climategate e-mails that show how climate scientists have been jiggering the statistics and suppressing opposing views.
On these issues the educated class is faith-based and the ordinary Americans who increasingly reject their views are fact-based, just as the Obama enthusiasts are motivated by style and the tea partiers by substance.
As the educated class bitterly clings to its contempt for the increasing numbers not enlightened enough to share its views, other Americans have noticed, even in the liberal heartland of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown seems on the brink of an upset victory in the special Senate election next Tuesday. That would have reverberations for the educated class an awful lot like that tea party back in 1773. | <urn:uuid:6c83dccc-bca4-4f3e-9c9f-2c358d95bd8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://monroetalks.com/forum/index.php?topic=17463.0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972246 | 889 | 1.523438 | 2 |
I have several children and they're all different but I get further with negotiation (not because the kid won't obey-- but because I get no inward pleasure making my son do something that is just a smokescreen for his own passion in life). I want my kids to find the direction for their own lives. So yes, if my son loves to write, I might really encourage him to try the newspaper class or I might get him a journal. But if my son likes computers, I wouldn't sign him up for a newspaper elective; I would find out what he needs to take to be eligible for AP Computer Science. I am the biggest encourager in the world-- but I try to take my cues from them. (The times we have disagreed about class schedule was when they haven't wanted to take a class that they need for the colleges or majors that interest them.) But to each his own. God gives us our children for a reason. Perhaps what works with mine won't work with yours. | <urn:uuid:4c7ecbe5-a17c-4693-8f74-a09e3ad00990> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/6031680-post15.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984912 | 203 | 1.664063 | 2 |
North Korea's heir debuts at giant military parade
PYONGYANG (Reuters) - North Korea's leader-in-waiting, the youngest son of ailing ruler Kim Jong-il, took center stage during a big military parade on Sunday, making his first national appearance in the secretive state.
Kim Jong-un stood near his father on the dais, clapping and saluting thousands of goose-stepping soldiers, and reviewing missiles, tanks and artillery rockets.
The young Kim's prominent role at the parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square marked his military debut and showed his standing in one of the world's largest armies.
Until his appointment as a general last month -- along with his naming to a key political post -- little was known about the young Kim other than that he was educated in Switzerland.
"The future of our country is rosy and bright because Kim Jong-un was elected vice chairman of the military commission of the Workers' Party," said a government official, who asked not to be identified.
"We have a proverb in Korean that great teachers produce great students and great parents produce great children.
"Kim Jong-il is healthy enough to lead our country and to give spot guidance in every field including economic, agricultural, industrial, military and arts."
Kim Jong-il, 68, is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but he has shown no sign of losing his grip on power and was reappointed last month as secretary-general of the ruling Workers' Party.
He stood for over an hour during the parade and waved to the crowds, but limped noticeably and reached to the balcony for support.
State television broadcast the parade live, giving North Koreans their first real look at their next leader, known only to be in his mid- to late-20s.
A stable succession would be a relief to North Korea's economically powerful neighbors -- China, South Korea and Japan -- which worry that a regime collapse could result in massive refugee flows and domestic unrest.
The young Kim, the third son of the ailing leader, is poised to continue dynastic rule in the isolated state which also has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.
SHOW OF STRENGTH
Among the guests at the parade, the biggest in the North in years, were foreign diplomats and Communist Party officials from China -- the destitute North's only major ally on which it relies for food and fuel aid.
Foreign media were also invited to watch the parade which marked the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party and gave the world its first independent look at the protege.
Kim Jong-il, who now has a large, unexplained mark on the right side of his face, was greeted with thunderous applause and chants of "Long Live Kim Jong-il."
Thousands of soldiers marched to the tune of brass bands in the square, dominated by a giant portrait of the state's founder, Kim Il-sung.
A sea of red and pink flowers, waved by spectators, served as a backdrop to the show of power.
"This military parade shows that we are certain of success if the United States dares to attack us," said Kim Yoon-jong 21, a factory worker at the parade wearing traditional red, white and pink dress.
"We have a single mind, which is stronger than nuclear weapons," she said through a translator.
Later on Sunday, father and son returned to a brightly lit Kim Il-sung square for a fireworks display and a spectacular pageant of dancing and music.
The military parade was the climax of celebrations which started at the end of last month with the staging of a rare party conference to pick a new leadership.
After months of speculation, the untested Jong-un was made second-in-command to his father on the ruling party's powerful Central Military Commission, as well as being appointed a party Central Committee member.
Rising with him were the leader's sister Kyong-hui and her husband, creating a powerful triumvirate ready to take over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since its founding after World War Two.
(Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by David Fox)
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Seniors are among the lucky few who still can scoop up banking freebies.
How to choose a bank
Many banks and credit unions offer seniors free checking accounts; some even pay interest. These accounts usually are aimed at customers who are 50 years old or older, and are a painless way to avoid bank fees that ding younger folks.
But scoop up these goodies while you can, says Dave Kaytes, managing partner at Novantas LLC, a consulting firm in New York. The days of free checking, even for seniors, are fading fast. "Bank profits are being squeezed," he says, translating into fewer freebies for anyone. "There were lots more senior banking accounts seven years ago."
Seniors in Massachusetts are the lucky exception. The state's chartered banks must offer seniors older than 65 free checking and savings accounts. State law prohibits banks from charging monthly service fees. Even bounced-check fees are capped at $5 there.
Checking options for seniors
For other seniors, start your search with community banks or credit unions, says Robert Laura, president of Synergos Financial Group in Howell, Mich. "Benefits like free checking are better than what big banks can offer. You'll also get other fees reversed more easily."
For example, at one bank in New Mexico, people who are 55 or older can sign up for a free checking account and get a free debit card as well.
Other community banks and credit unions are sweetening other senior banking deals. Some have no minimum balance requirements, discounts on safety deposit boxes and free iTunes downloads.
Take one Utah bank. It offers a senior checking account with no minimum balance for seniors who are 55 and older. Free perks include no-fee money orders, online bill pay and a Visa check card. A credit union in Pennsylvania has a senior checking account for 50-plus members. Besides free checking and dividends for balances of more than $500, there are also free traveler's checks and free financial planning.
A Georgia bank offers one plan with benefits for customers 50 and older that go well beyond free checking. It offers members free notary service, discount brokerage services and emergency cash advances, as well as travel, theme park and movie discounts. The bank's stepped-up checking plan, which costs $5 monthly, even includes prescription discounts, grocery coupons, custom trip routing and a free safe-deposit box for the first year.
Some big banks still offer senior checking. For example, one major banking institution has a senior checking account program with tiered interest. It includes free deposit boxes, no fees for cashier's checks and a savings account with no monthly maintenance fee. However, its minimum balance requirements and monthly maintenance fees are hefty.
Kick the tires on all accounts
But don't let freebies sway your banking decisions. Make sure you're getting something other than a free toaster and watch out for "gotcha fees," says Sally Hurme, senior project manager of AARP education and outreach.
"Wise consumers should shop around and compare senior accounts," she says. "Make sure your package is better than the one down the street." To do that, take a promotion from bank A to bank B, she explains, to help compare rates.
"Seniors are targeted by anyone with a pitch, and banks have their marketing strategies, too," Hurme says.
Here are some points to consider when vetting checking accounts aimed at seniors.
Is the bank conveniently located? Driving across town and getting stuck in traffic to save money on an amusement park ticket doesn't make sense, Laura says. "A lot of incentives are nice but only if everything lines up. Otherwise, they're a marketing tool," he says.
For example, seniors who spend their winters in warm-weather locales may need a bank that waives fees for wiring money to transfer funds into another checking account. But know what the trade-offs are, Laura says.
Watch out for cross-selling. Free checking accounts are money-losers for banks. That means some banks will want to sell you other products such as brokerage accounts and services because some seniors are debt-free, own their homes and may have sizable assets, making seniors attractive targets, Laura says.
Get a second opinion. It never hurts to bring someone such as a family member with you and ask questions when considering a new bank account, Laura says. | <urn:uuid:8f707b60-5d34-49ff-a7ed-2635f5ff5979> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/08/29/banks-target-seniors-for-free-checking/?intcmp=featuredmedia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951581 | 896 | 1.570313 | 2 |
It was during a recent job search that Donald Bell gave in to the temptation to bug his own e-mail. Mr. Bell, 55, had e-mailed dozens of resumes to prospective employers and received scant response. Naturally he wondered: was he being rejected, or had his messages gone unread?
Anyone who has been left hanging knows it is the sort of nagging question that is rarely answered. But thanks to a furtive application of a feature common to the latest e-mail programs, Mr. Bell was able to learn, undetected, that the intended recipients were indeed opening his messages. With a service he found on the Internet, he could even tell precisely when a recipient read his e-mail messages and if the message was sent on to anyone else.
''It feels a little naughty, because you can't do this with postal mail,'' said Mr. Bell, who has since started his own company in San Francisco and sometimes uses the e-mail service to check whether colleagues forward messages that he considers confidential. ''But e-mail is a different animal. You have to just reach into your heart and decide what you're going to do.''
Mr. Bell is not alone in taking advantage of new e-mail software that makes certain kinds of monitoring easy and nearly imperceptible. At a time when many Internet users have come to grips with advertisers' tracking their anonymous trail of clicks across the World Wide Web, the frontier of the electronic privacy wars is shifting to the more personal realm of the e-mail ''in'' box.
Marketing companies now regularly keep tabs on which prospective customers open their e-mail solicitations, and at what time of day, arguing that consumers benefit because the information is used to devise more personalized promotions. Individuals who have used e-mail tracking services say they feel entitled to monitor their own correspondence in a medium where it is so easily passed along or ignored.
But privacy advocates contend that such practices open a new window of surveillance on a traditionally private sphere of communications. They compare it to having someone who leaves a message on your answering machine -- a telemarketer, say, or your mother -- alerted the moment you listen to it. More troubling, they say, is that the same technology can be used to match a recipient's e-mail address with previously anonymous records of the Web sites visited from that person's computer.
Connecting the data collected through files known as cookies with an e-mail address, the privacy advocates argue, will be irresistible to marketers seeking to identify the buying habits and personal tastes of individual consumers. The linked databases, they say, could also be consulted by law enforcement agencies, insurance companies, employers and others who would need only an e-mail address to look up a record of an individual's activities on the Web.
''You can buy 50,000 addresses of people who subscribe to The New Yorker,'' said Richard M. Smith, chief technology officer of the Privacy Foundation. ''But you don't know what articles they're reading in it, or what books they've bought or what medical problems they've been researching lately. That's very much a possibility within this technology.''
The technology in question is seemingly innocuous: the ability of the latest e-mail programs to send and display images. E-mail senders use the feature, based on the Web's computer language, to create colorful messages known as HTML mail.
But many also use it to embed tiny images that are invisible to the recipients. Marketers call them pixel tags and say they are used to gauge the success of e-mail campaigns. Privacy advocates prefer a more ominous name -- Web bugs. | <urn:uuid:79430bdd-b28d-4db3-8011-9086c0b9f8d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/business/software-that-tracks-e-mail-is-raising-privacy-concerns.html?src=pm | 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 | 0.967338 | 740 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Good morning. Today is the 299th day of the year. A short article in the Oct. 25, 1902 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle had the somewhat misguided headline, “Merry War With Stones.” The article informed readers that public and parochial-school students in Greenpoint declared “war” on each other. The main sufferers, the article says, were not the students, who seem to have escaped injury, but nearby residents, whose windows were broken. Eventually, the article continues, police arrested several of the young stone-throwers after the mischief “became too gay.”
Well-known people who were born today include actor Brian Kerwin, former college basketball coach Bobby Knight, signer Katy Perry, singer-songwriter Helen Reddy and author Anne Tyler.
Today at 6 p.m., Borough President Marty Markowitz will honor members of Brooklyn’s Latino community at “Una Celebracion de Latino Heritage” at Borough Hall. The celebration will honor Grisel Amador of the United Senior Center of Sunset Park, Radames Millan of the Brooklyn Three Kings Parade, and the store Brooklyn Cupcake. ... Today at 4:30 p.m., author Jonathan Dee will read from his book, “The Privileges,” at St. Francis College, 180 Remsen St. Dee is the winner of the second bi-annual $50,000 St. Francis College Literary Prize. | <urn:uuid:ac4842e2-e24e-44ef-8b30-4b4a25610618> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklyneagle.com/node/4745 | 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 | 0.96346 | 303 | 1.59375 | 2 |
As you gather with friends, family, co-workers and loved ones this week to celebrate this annual international event you may want to reflect on the humble beginnings of this renowned holiday. Yes, it’s true. We’re in the midst of the official Customer Service Week as proclaimed by the U.S. Congress in 1992 as a nationally recognized event celebrated annually during the first full week of October.
The International Customer Service Association began Customer Service Week in 1988. In fact, it’s an international event devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and honoring the people on the front lines of the service revolution.
I may have been a little glib in my assumption that you would be celebrating this little-known annual celebration. In fact, that was my point. In the past few days, I have had the opportunity to observe several major retail malls, several shopping centers, hotels, theaters, restaurants, a major airport, and many other businesses which should be concentrating on the delivery of outstanding customer service. I saw no evidence of the celebration, promotion, or observance of Customer Service Week. I’ve seen nothing in the local or national newspapers, no television or radio content and nothing on the Internet without exploring search engines.
Has customer service fallen to this level of obsolescence? No promotion? No recognition? No pride? No celebration? It’s a sad commentary on times.
I’m off to Boston tonight to speak to the leadership and staff of New Balance, a leading global athletic products company that is very proud of the fact that they have been producing superior footwear and athletic apparel for 100 years. The occasion? The celebration of Customer Service Week.
In preparation for any keynote presentation or seminar, I spend time with the client researching the organization, the event and chosen content. In chatting with their leadership team, I heard a great deal of conversation involving heritage, mission, philosophy, core set of values, integrity, teamwork, and total customer satisfaction.
They plan on celebrating their past accomplishments in serving their customers as well as the need and expectation of continuing their tradition of service. They’ll be updated on how they’re improving their technology and production methods to remain competitive and continue to offer the customer service they’re so well known for.
This, of course, boils down to the creative use of basic communication as a leadership, marketing and competitive advantage. But that’s pretty much common sense, isn’t it? Stephen Covey would respond to that question with his famous quote: “What is common sense is seldom common practice!” Maybe that’s why I’ve seen little or no recognition of Customer Service Week.
How is your organization observing this week? Based on the current state of the economy, trade imbalance, recalls, marketplace, and competition — shouldn’t every week be Customer Service Week? | <urn:uuid:2dec838a-8392-4800-a117-4fa75cee969e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.achievemax.com/blog/2007/10/03/customer-service-week/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958954 | 594 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Anxious parents await word about their children's safety during a lockdown at Wilson Southern Middle School and Cornwall Terrace Elementary on Tuesday morning. Police said a 14-year-old boy stabbed another 14-year-old boy four times with a pocket knife at Southern, and that the victim was hospitalized. There were no other injuries, and police apprehended the suspect.
A social media feud might have led to a Wilson Southern Middle School eighth-grader stabbing another eighth-grader Tuesday morning at the school.
The 14-year-old student attacked the other boy, also 14, in a second-floor hallway as classes were changing, Spring Township Police Chief Bryan D. Ross said.
The attacker stabbed the victim four times with a pocketknife: once in an arm, the abdomen and a shoulder blade, police said. The location of the fourth stab wound was unclear.
Police and school district officials did not release the names of the boys.
The victim was initially taken to Reading Hospital and was listed in stable condition, Ross said. Police said he was later transferred to Hershey Medical Center.
"His wounds are not superficial by any means, but they are not life-threatening," Ross said.
The suspect was charged as a juvenile with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and related offenses. He was turned over to Berks County juvenile authorities and is being held in Abraxas juvenile detention center in New Morgan, police said.
Ross said the teen is the only suspect in the case and that he specifically targeted the other student.
Investigators learned there was some kind of communication between the two boys on the social media site Facebook that precipitated the attack, Ross said.
"Obviously, we're going to have to delve deeper into the motive for this incident," he said.
After the stabbing, the victim ran into a classroom and called for help. Police said the suspect fled through a rear door of the school building and at some point threw the knife onto the roof of a nearby apartment building.
The first call to police came from the school at 8:28 a.m.
The first officer arrived at the school at 8:31 a.m. School officials led him to the victim, who told the officer his assailant's name and what the boy was wearing.
Meanwhile, an estimated 50 officers from 10 area police departments, state police, the Berks County sheriff's department and the district attorney's office surrounded the middle school and the Cornwall Terrace Elementary School, which is connected to the middle school at 3100 Iroquois Ave. About a dozen Spring fire rescue and ambulance personnel were also on the scene.
When Dan O'Brien dropped his kids off at school, he wondered if had delivered them into some kind of nightmarish scenario torn from recent headlines.
"I dropped my sons, Jeremy, a first-grader, and Dylan, in second grade, off around 8:30 a.m., and as I was leaving I saw the first of the police cars arriving," O'Brien said.
Soon police, fire and ambulance vehicles were speeding by him into the parking lot. Sirens could be heard wailing from blocks away as officers made their way to the school.
"It's terrifying," O'Brien said. "The things that go through your head. It's very scary."
Catching the suspect
Some officers did a room-to-room search of the two school buildings while others ringed the buildings and began patrols in the neighborhoods around the school in search of the suspect.
A Cumru Township police sergeant who had responded saw a boy matching the description of the suspect at Shakespeare Drive and Tennyson Avenue and took him into custody without incident at 9 a.m.
Dr. Rudy Ruth, superintendent, spoke with hundreds of parents outside the school shortly before 10 a.m. while the school remained in lockdown.
"Everything is safe and secure," he said. "The children are fine."
Both schools were closed for the day, and children were released to their parents or allowed to board buses home beginning about 10:15 a.m. The schedule at both schools was to be normal today.
Shivering parents, shut classroom doors
On Tuesday, parents - many of them dressed lightly because they weren't expecting to be out in the cold - shivered while waiting for their children in front of the building.
Among them was Shawn Olanin, whose twin 12-year-olds, Kyla and Cole, are sixth-graders in the building.
Olanin was at work when he got a text message from his wife that a student had been stabbed, but the victim's name wasn't known.
"I called her and she was hysterical," he said of his wife, Christy.
Olanin drove to the school, where police told those waiting for news that the parents of the injured student already had been notified.
Kyla Olanin said an announcement was made during second period that teachers should keep students in their classrooms. A second announcement informed everyone the school was in lockdown.
Kyla said her class and her teacher huddled in the corner for about 30 minutes.
They stayed silent the entire time, part of the lockdown procedure that they coincidentally practiced last week, Kyla said.
She said it was hard not knowing what was happening.
"We were all kind of scared," Kyla said.
Shawn Olanin said he felt likewise, especially in the wake of last month's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.
Other parents had similar fears after learning of the stabbing from media reports.
"I just melted when I heard," said Caterina Amoroso, mother of eighth-grader Lorenzo Cappa.
Contact Dan Kelly: 610-371-5040 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:5d1c7cac-22a5-48a7-9cc3-b2e869c24c18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=443817 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988553 | 1,197 | 1.507813 | 2 |
to Real Ale Homepage.
We at pub-explorer will be
identifying publicans who have been awarded the Cask Marque. Here is
their explanation of what this means.
After the growth in cask ale sales in the
U.K. in the 70's and 80's, helped and supported by CAMRA, the 90's have
seen a reverse in this trend. Many explanations have been put forward,
but our research shows (see section Why Cask Marque?) that quality is a
key issue. We need both to retain the traditional cask ale drinker as
well as attracting new younger drinkers to this sector. This can only be
achieved by raising standards and delivering to the consumer a cool,
refreshing and consistent pint every time.
To improve the quality of cask ale at the
point of dispense by awarding a nationally recognized and respected
Marque to the licensee when quality standards have been met. This should
achieve the following :
BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH RESULTS
Cask ale has been showing significant volume decline over the last 2
years, currently over 10% per annum. There are a number of reasons for
this - the main areas are the growth of “nitrokegs”, the effect of
the hot summers of ‘95, ‘96 and ‘97, possible stocking of cask
ales in unsuitable outlets during the early ‘90's. Cask ale
throughputs have declined, and it is believed that this will have
The four brewers, Adnams, Greene King, Marstons and Morlands who have
initiated and sponsored this project had clear anecdotal evidence of
poor quality standards but no hard evidence, so a comprehensive piece of
field research was commissioned.
A survey was conducted in the Spring of ‘97 using qualified
auditors who visited over 1,000 pubs throughout England of which 82%
stocked traditional cask ale. An independent Market Research specialist
determined the sample frame and methodology.
Its findings showed:
a) The quality of the pint in the glass was so poor in 23% of the
outlets that inspectors stated they would not buy the pint again.
b) Poor quality was directly linked to the number of hand pulls on the
bar. In 54% of the cases where inspectors stated they would not buy this
pint again, too many brands on the bar was cited as a contributory
factor. Pubs with over 5 hand pulls saw a marked drop in mean scores.
c) The other major cause of poor quality was failure to serve beer at
the appropriate temperature (20% of all samples), but this was often
linked to overall impressions of poor quality pub management in these
d) The worst performers with regard to beer quality were the independent
free trade outlets, particularly in the south and south west of the
e) Poor quality was found in all types of pub, without significant
variance between food pubs, rural pubs or city centre outlets.
WHY IS AN ACCREDITATION SCHEME NECESSARY?
Having explored a number of options for trying to address the quality
issue, an industry-wide accreditation scheme was considered to be the
most effective way of achieving a quick and lasting improvement.
Many companies have taken individual quality initiatives, some
setting very high standards and investing a lot of money. However, none
appears to have achieved national recognition, and none are seen as
entirely objective. The research results show that the net effect of all
this effort has not been satisfactory.
An accreditation scheme will achieve wider consumer awareness in the
medium term (3 years depending on level of adoption and surrounding P.R.)
but should achieve high awareness among the Trade, opinion forming
drinkers and the Trade press within 12-18 months. The latter point will
be the key to its initial effectiveness - licensees will want the award
to confirm their cask ale skills and a stigma will be attached to
failure. This will allow training to be focused and its importance
accepted by the Trade. The scheme will focus only on cask ales, but in
practice a licensee who handles his cask ales well will apply the same
hygiene and stock rotation to his entire range.
The scheme must be seen to be independent
and objective if it is to achieve credibility and status - the industry
will need to fund and will set the initial parameters for accreditation,
but must not influence the detailed operation.
How does the scheme work?
The scheme is operated by an
independent body called Cask Marque Trust which is a limited
company, limited by guarantee, and a non profit making organisation.
The company is run by a management committee elected by its members.
The members who effectively pay a subscription will include
representatives from brewers, retailers, trade bodies and consumer
Pubs that apply to join
are visited by the independent assessor unannounced on two successive
occasions in the first three months and subsequently twice a year,
once in the winter and once in the summer.
The assessor check all cask ales
for - temperature, appearance, aroma and taste.
If the pub passes it receives a plaque
framed certificate and merchandising material to inform its
customers of the award and their rights.
The customers are encouraged to
comment independently on the quality of cask ale in the pub to the
Cask Marque organisation.
Temperature is now one of the key
objectives for judging a good cask ale, along with appearance, aroma
and taste. Cask ale should be served cool not warm ideally at cellar
temperature 11°- 13°C (53° - 55°F).
We have RAISED THE PROFILE OF
QUALITY within the trade. We now need to educate the consumer
on what they should expect.
To view our website please click on the | <urn:uuid:824284bf-99d3-48f9-a841-fe9df1d2b659> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pub-explorer.com/realale/caskmarque.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939674 | 1,252 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Significant changes in the regulatory structure of the 125-year-old electric utility industry have allowed for competitive sales of electricity by a new set of restructured retail power sellers and service providers. As a result, the past decade has seen a steady increase in commercial and industrial (C&I) customers that are able to purchase electricity from sellers other than their incumbent utility. Since the California power crisis a decade ago, though, no additional state has opened its market to competitive providers. In fact, several states and regulators have imposed limits and financial requirements, as well as increased their scrutiny of competitive players, with the goal of protecting consumers. According to a recent report from Pike Research, the competitive market is poised for further growth in the coming decade, as competitive electricity purchases will nearly double from $29.4 billion in 2009 to $55.9 billion by 2020. Regulatory policy, however, remains the single biggest limiting factor on the development of an open and competitive market for electricity supplies to commercial and industrial customers.
“Even though some 20 jurisdictions have enacted restructuring laws and policies designed to open their electricity market to new competitors, only about a dozen states allow for full-scale access to competitive markets for all customers,” says vice president of research Bob Gohn. “Even in these states, laws and regulations tend to impose costs that are meant to ensure that expenses caused by the departure of other customers to competitive suppliers are not passed on to customers who remain with incumbent providers.”A decade after suspending new retail competition in the wake of the power crisis, California has begun opening the door slightly to further access to competitive providers in regulated utility territories. Because the Californian market is so large, this will have a significant impact on both the total national market and other states’ general perception of how much pent-up demand there is for competitive supplies. There are no indications that states that have previously avoided restructuring have intentions to reexamine their policies. However, several other states that have frozen their efforts may restore competitive options for larger customers. In particular, Arizona and Michigan represent strong potential markets for competitive procurement. | <urn:uuid:95644be3-ca7f-4ece-988d-fcea78a6b001> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eqmaglive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6095:regulatory-policy-continues-to-limit-growth-of-competitive-electricity-markets&catid=116:power-rad&Itemid=174 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967464 | 426 | 1.835938 | 2 |
U.S. President Barack Obama meets with representatives from the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major Counties Sheriffs Association at the White House on January 28, 2013 in Washington, DC.
President Obama travels to Las Vegas today to outline his proposals for changing the current immigration system. So what makes Vegas and the middle of the Mojave Desert the soapbox of choice for a seminal speech on immigration? Adam Burke from the Fronteras Desk explains.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak in Las Vegas on Tuesday to offer his ideas on immigration reform. And while some might see the middle of the Mojave Desert as an odd place for a seminal speech on immigration, Las Vegas may be the perfect soapbox.
Nevada is home to some 190,000 undocumented immigrants -- some of them politically active. Take 49-year-old Marisa Espinosa, for example, who works low-paying jobs making fast food, and cleaning houses. Last fall, Espinosa helped Barack Obama win in Nevada.
"He was my hope," she said. "For me and for a lot of undocumented people.”
Espinosa canvassed neighborhoods. She worked at phone banks. And she rallied other undocumented immigrants. When undocumented people told her they were powerless to act because they have no vote, her response was:
"Maybe you have a friend, a neighbor, family, that they are citizens. And they know how you are working hard for this country. Just tell them: you know vote. Vote. Because you can be my voice, you can help me, getting my papers.”
Espinosa was part of a successful grassroots mobilization that brought a record number of Latinos to the polls in Nevada. Some 80 percent of Nevada Latinos voted for Obama.
And as he delivers his remarks on Tuesday in Las Vegas, Obama will be reaching out to a constituency here that he and the Democrats need.
"Nevada’s Latino community is a perfect microcosm of the people that president Obama needs to be speaking to about what his case is and why this matters so much," said Andres Ramirez, a Democratic Party organizer and consultant in Las Vegas.
“If you look at the Hispanic population in Nevada, it’s very representative of what it is, nationally," Ramirez said. "The breakdown of Hispanics between Mexicans and Cubans and Central and South Americans. And also between those that are citizens, non-citizens and those that are undocumented.”
President Obama’s decision to speak in Nevada is many things. It’s part love letter to the Latino voters who helped hand him a second term. It’s part policy -- a chance to outline the big pieces of the bipartisan legislative effort that seems to be close at hand. And it’s political stagecraft in the Southwest, a region that’s become increasingly significant to the Democratic Party over the last decade.
David Damore a political scientist based at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and an analyst with the research polling group Latino Decisions, said the Southwest is important ground for Democrats.
“You see the shift in the Democratic Party to really compete in this region, Damore said. "Trying to secure the Latino vote going forward. Not just here but obviously Colorado, New Mexico, and eventually Arizona here. So there’s a great deal of political significance to this region for the Democratic Party."
Some Republicans will be looking to ride the president’s coattails too. Damore points to recent polling data that shows nearly half of Latino voters don’t affiliate strongly with either party.
"If the Republican was to help pass comprehensive immigration reform, with a pathway to citizenship, Latino voters would give them a second look," Damore said. "This then would give the Republicans the opportunity to promote some of the other issues that have largely gotten drowned out, because of the saliency of the immigration issue within the Latino community."
But this is the President’s moment at the bully pulpit. And Damore said one of Obama's targets will be first-time voters. In Nevada, some 40 percent of Latinos who voted had never voted before. And if these new voters credit the Democratic Party with bringing home immigration reform, that could be a huge win for Democrats.
"This could create a strong identification between younger Latino voters and the Democratic Party moving forward," Damore said.
So in his speech, President Obama will attempt to cement the Democratic party’s relationship with a generation of new Latino voters, while hitting all the right notes for the rest of the country. | <urn:uuid:d48bf2a2-6882-4be1-a784-10cc3ccf1d0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2013/01/29/30260/obamas-choice-of-las-vegas-for-immigration-speech-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964468 | 947 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The 1966 event mentioned in the newspaper article above was apparently not the only UFO incursion at Minot’s missile sites that year. According to retired USAF Captain David D. Schindele, he was involved in an incident at another flight, during which several nuclear missiles became temporarily unavailable for launch. On April 10, 2010, he told me:
|By Robert Hastings|
My recollection of a ‘UFO incident’, while serving in the US Air Force, has diminished with time and it has been difficult to recall some of the specific details of what I experienced. I attribute this lack of memory to the fact that it occurred some 44 years ago and also because I was officially told to forget what I experienced and to never speak of it...I recently asked Schindele if he had ever spoken with his former missile commander after retiring from the Air Force. He responded, “I did manage to contact T------- on March 24, 2011, but actually talked to his wife most of the time. She mentioned that he was 85 years old, had Alzheimer's since the mid-to-late 1990s, and had difficulty remembering much of anything. She said that he retired in his 60s as a Lieutenant Colonel. Last November 1st, I received word from his family that he had passed away on October 23rd.”
At the time, I was a First Lieutenant and Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander in the 742nd Squadron of the 455th Strategic Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. As a Launch Control Officer, I was part of a two-man crew that monitored and controlled ten nuclear-armed Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. My commander and I were together for about a year and a half; from January 1966 to August 1967. In the back of my mind, it seems that the incident occurred not long after I married my wife in mid-July 1966.
My primary duty site was at a Launch Control Center called ‘Mike Flight’, which was designated as the Squadron Command Post and one of five Launch Control Centers in the squadron that included Kilo, Lima, November, and Oscar...Each of these was located 60-feet below ground, underneath their respective Launch Control Facility, which housed the topside support and security personnel.
The following is what I remember:I lived in town (Minot, North Dakota) and awoke early in the morning to get ready for my scheduled duty at November Flight, which was a change from my regular duty at Mike Flight. As usual, I had the TV on while having breakfast and heard on the local news that residents of Mohall, North Dakota had witnessed strange lights near their town during the night that were attributed to a UFO. This caught my attention because November Flight was only about three miles west of this town.
At the pre-departure crew briefing on base that morning, where all 15 missile crews were gathered before departing for their assigned Launch Control Centers, we were told that the crew at November Flight had experienced some unusual circumstance and a situation where some missiles came ‘off alert’. This general statement was made without undue detail, but there was a suggestion that some unexplained, mysterious event was connected with this. I then immediately recalled the TV news report that morning and immediately linked that with what I heard in the crew briefing. As my commander and I traveled to the Launch Control Facility, we were anxious and curious as to what we would discover upon arriving.
The normal procedure upon arriving at the Launch Control Facility was for us to first inspect the facility and to also debrief ‘topside’ personnel. While inspecting the facility, I talked with the topside Site Manager who detailed to me his unique and bewildering experience of that evening. He indicated that a large hovering object was sighted close by, out of the windows on the west side of the facility in the dark of night, and it had bright, flashing lights.
I queried him on what this object looked like but he was unable to discern its shape (perhaps because of the flashing lights), but he knew it was not a helicopter because the object was much larger and did not have the associated noise. He also could not adequately explain to me what the flashing lights really looked like; he could not put it into words. He then said that the object proceeded to move to the front right side of the facility, but it was not completely visible then because the view was partially obstructed by the on-site garage. All of this activity transpired for quite some time; a matter of minutes.
I also talked briefly to security personnel about their experience and they essentially confirmed what the site manager told me. My crew commander was more involved with debriefing security, and I was more involved with talking with the site manager...
The first thing that caught my attention when I arrived at the capsule below ground was the launch control console. The two-man officer crew provided my commander and me a thorough briefing of the past evening’s events and current status. I still recall the feeling of awe and wonder, the concern for the situation, and the feeling of helplessness that the crew had experienced. They related that lights on the missile console had illuminated—the ones you would not normally expect to see—and then missiles had gone ‘off alert’ (monitoring of them was lost).
It concerns me that I can no longer remember much of my duty on this day in the Launch Control Center; it is like a mental block, but I do remember that our duty shift consisted of controlling communications and monitoring a missile console that showed little missile status. It was like there was nothing to do. In the back of my mind, my feeling is that a majority of the ten missiles were ‘off alert’ (if not all of them) when we relieved the crew and that a majority of them remained ‘off alert’ during our 24-hour duty there...
I remember that when we were relieved the next morning and arrived topside, I attempted to query the Flight Security Controller, who told me he could not speak about the incident. It was then that my commander also informed me that he had received word, during my rest break below, that we were to never speak about the incident.
My recollection of this experience is that it was unique, and that it was not shared at any other Launch Control Center at the time. From my memory of the morning crew briefing, only November Flight was mentioned and involved. After returning to base, and from that time on, no further discussion or reference to the incident was ever made, that I can remember. The incident was, however, high on our minds and we were always keeping our ears open to find out if there was ever any resolution or answers to it. I have no other recollection or knowledge of any other such events taking place at Minot Air Force Base during my time of duty there, although I’ve learned since then that my experience was not unique.
Schindele’s experience may or may not be related to the UFO incursion mentioned in the newspaper article above. A declassified document (see below) confirms that the August 25, 1966 event took place at Mike Flight, which is adjacent to November Flight.
Regardless, Schindele’s incident is comparable to one reported by former USAF Captain Robert Salas—which took place at Malmstrom AFB’s Oscar Flight, probably on March 24, 1967—and also similar to an earlier incident at Malmstrom, on March 16, 1967, at Echo Flight.
Salas’ former missile commander, now-retired Col. Frederick Meiwald, has confirmed a multiple-missile shutdown at Oscar, occurring at a time when UFOs were reported at the flight’s Launch Control Facility and one of the ICBM silos. Similarly, now-retired Col. Walter Figel has confirmed multiple reports of a UFO-presence at one of Echo’s silos during the full-flight malfunction there.
The other launch officer at Echo, then-Captain Eric Carlson, recently denied remembering any “credible” reports of UFOs associated with the 10-missile shutdown but Col. Figel has described the incident to me in great detail. He says that Carlson was “sitting two feet away” from him when he took a radio call from a guard who reported a “large round object” hovering directly over one of Echo’s silos. Figel told me that the witness “was serious but I wasn’t taking him seriously.” Figel also says that he and Carlson were ordered not to talk about the event. Those audio-taped conversations may be heard at my website.
Carlson’s son, James, continues to support his father’s version of events relating to the Echo Flight shutdown case, claiming on countless blogs that Robert Salas and I are “liars and frauds” because we insist on publicizing Col. Figel’s taped statements, as well as Col. Meiwald’s taped statements about UFOs at Oscar Flight, eight days later. A fuller discussion of these two cases may be found in an article at my website.
my website; a great many more are discussed in my book UFOs and Nukes.
Continue Reading . . .
Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) By Robert Hastings - 1 of 3
UFO Tracked on Radar at Minot AFB: It Was Near Nuclear Missile Sites At The Time
The UFO-Nukes Connection:
Relevant Declassified Documents
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
↑Grab this Headline Animator | <urn:uuid:54d00ea3-bea4-4ccb-99d1-1b6241fb48b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theufochronicles.com/2012/09/ufo-hovered-near-missile-launch-control.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986556 | 1,994 | 1.507813 | 2 |
As Memorial Day approaches and the temperature starts to rise, many Americans reach for an ice-cold beer. Or perhaps, the wine lovers reach for a chilled chardonnay. While I enjoy both, when the weather turns to summer and white shoes emerge from the closet, I turn to one cold beverage-Rosé.
I am not talking about the sticky-sweet fermented juice that gives pink wine a bad name. The kind my great-grandmother liked to drink, and kept in a gallon-sized jug inside her fridge.
No, I mean a dry, crisp rosé from the South of France. Where, when you open the bottle, you can almost hear the drone of cicadas in the plane trees, the hum of sleepy bees in the lavender, old men playing pétanque in the town square. To me, it tastes like liquid summer in a bottle.
It surprises me how resistant people can be to trying a crisp, Provencal rosé. If they are unfamiliar with what pink wine can be, they often have bad flashbacks-to fruit punch with a kick of alcohol, to sticky jugs in the back of their great-grandmother's refrigerator.
At parties, too many of my friends give me a suspicious glance when I offer them a glass of chilled rosé. I can see in their eyes what they are too polite to say out loud, "Pink wine? Really, Sara? I thought better of you."
My response of, "It's from France!" does not usually seem to help.
"They eat snails in France," my friends' eyes tell me, "Please don't make me drink pink wine and eat snails. I thought you liked me."
But because I have always been a little bossy, and believe that in this case I do know what's best, I do not back down. Instead I pour a little into their wine glass, and over any protest, insist they give it a shot.
Those who are brave (or susceptible to peer pressure) enough to try the rosé are usually converted. Especially in the summer, a nice rosé is so much more than simply pink. As light and refreshing as any white, it is so much broader in flavor, that it can stand in the place of many reds that are too heavy in the heat. Its clean taste is invigorating as an aperitif, while it can also hold its own against the summer favorites of barbecued meat.
This makes sense, considering that the usual way to produce a rosé is halfway between that of red and white. After the grapes are crushed, the dark skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a few days, no more than three, and then are discarded before the rest of the fermentation process takes place. In this way, the skins impart some tannins and some color, in order to create that signature pink.
So this Memorial Day, while others twist off bottle caps, I will crack open my first rosé of the summer. A glass of shimmering pink in my hand, I will toast the warm weather and wearing of white, in the way I like best.
Sara Joyce Robinson is a native of Southern California, where she was raised, educated, and still lives. She received her MFA in Fiction from the University of California, Irvine, and you can see what she is up to at SaraJoyceRobinson.com. | <urn:uuid:55d60c88-8519-43cf-a241-4f22ee1004dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tastingpanelmag.com/Blog/2012/May/Summer-When-It-Sizzles.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962561 | 716 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Moderncat reader Alexis sent in photos of some terrific DIY projects, all inspired by things that she read right here. First, she and her husband did an outstanding job creating this beautiful litter box hider. Due to space limitations, they needed a litter cabinet with an opening in the front, rather than on the side. They decided to build a custom wooden box (sized perfectly to fit their automatic litter box) using these directions from eHow. Then they borrowed an idea from this project on Instructables to place a grate inside the cabinet that helps reduce litter tracking. Finally, they used sticky-backed shelf paper to cut out the tree and bird silhouettes for decoration. After a little testing, Alexis noticed that the kitties were bypassing the grate and jumping straight out of the box, so she fashioned a barrier out of wood to create a passageway to the door.
I think the manufacturers of litter box hiders could learn a thing or two from this excellent design! | <urn:uuid:e8966733-3349-42ca-a83c-285326cfc0b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moderncat.net/2009/05/25/alexis-trio-of-moderncat-diy-projects/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946949 | 198 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Providing Insights that Contribute to Better Health Policy
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Growth of Medicaid-Dominated HMOs
Data Bulletin No. 11
edicaid enrollment in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) has grown dramatically--from 2.6 million (8 percent of beneficiaries) in 1993 to 7.7 million (23 percent of beneficiaries) in 1996. Nearly half of all enrollees in 1996 were in Medicaid-dominated plans in which Medicaid beneficiaries comprised at least 75 percent of the total enrollment. New plans entering the market maintained this same balance, with more than half being Medicaid dominated.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDICAID-DOMINATED PLANS
n 1996, there were 156 Medicaid-dominated HMOs, which accounted for 48 percent of all plans serving Medicaid. The Medicaid-dominated plans have several characteristics in common:
CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPATING HEALTH PLANS
ven though there are more small plans, the majority (54 percent) of Medicaid enrollees in 1996 were in large plans--those with 100,000 or more members and nearly one-third were in very large plans--those with 250,000 or more members. Enrollees in large plans were evenly split between independent plans and those affiliated with a major health plan system.
Commercial health plan participation is relatively widespread across the country, with heavier pockets of participation in the Mid-Atlantic and Pacific states, and lower participation in the South-Central and South- Atlantic regions. (See graph.) Eighty-seven percent of Medicaid enrollees in HMOs live in just 16 states: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington. As of June 1996, 15 states had no full-risk plan serving Medicaid.
The group of plans that first began serving Medicaid enrollees in 1994 was evenly divided between plans that were operational in 1993 and newly formed plans. But this balance changed dramatically in 1995 and 1996 as newly formed plans began to heavily dominate the mix of plans new to Medicaid.
While the number of plans participating in the Medicaid market more than doubled between 1993 and 1996, 62 plans left the market. There is concern about whether commercial-based plans will pull out of the market as states reduce their capitation rates, but the 1996 data do not show that these plans represent an increasing proportion of plans leaving. Some of the plans that appear to have left may actually still be serving the Medicaid market under another name due to a merger.
IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICYMAKERS
rom a public policy perspective, it is not clear yet whether Medicaid-dominated plans are a positive development. If traditional safety net providers are more involved in these plans than plans with a broader mix of enrollees, then they are likely to be better attuned to the needs of Medicaid enrollees. However, the role of safety net providers in these plans relative to other plans is not yet well understood. Since Medicaid-dominated plans may not have the resources--or pressure from employers--to deliver all contracted services or to develop state-of-the-art quality improvement systems, there is a greater burden on state policymakers to monitor their quality of care.
This Data Bulletin is based on data from Health Care Financing Administration Medicaid managed care enrollment reports for June 1993-1996, the Group Health Association of America Directory of HMOs for 1993-1995, the InterStudy directory for 1996 and a list of national and multiregional HMOs with more than 100,000 enrollees developed for the Center for Studying Health System Change. The term HMO is used here to encompass full-risk plans serving Medicaid, regardless of whether they are licensed as HMOs.
This Data Bulletin is adapted from "Changes in Health Plans Serving Medicaid, 1993-1996," by Suzanne Felt-Lisk and Sara Yang, which appeared in the September/October 1997 issue of Health Affairs. The research was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., in collaboration with the Center for Studying Health System Change. | <urn:uuid:c153251b-a30e-4cee-8b2f-f11c623802c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hschange.com/CONTENT/86/?topic=topic01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94628 | 898 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.
The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller. She followed that with Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change The 21st Century, published by Random House in 1993, and Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, published in 1997. Misconceptions, released in 2001, is a powerful and passionate critique of pregnancy and birth in America. In 2002, Harper Collins published a 10th anniversary commemorative edition of The Beauty Myth.
Ms. Wolf's latest book, released in May of 2005, is The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from my Father on How to Live, Love and See.
Naomi Wolf is co-founder of the Board of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, an organization devoted to training young women in ethical leadership for the 21st century. The institute teaches professional development in the arts and media, politics and law, business and entrepreneurship as well as ethical decision making.
She lives with her family in New York City. | <urn:uuid:d5a5ef02-1783-4665-943f-5d39ddfddc87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fora.tv/speaker/3155/Naomi_Wolf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96574 | 289 | 1.703125 | 2 |
As a photographer, running out of ideas is one of the worst things that can occur. Sometimes our heads are simply empty and photography doesn't interest us as it used to. But luckily you will find multiple approaches to counter this challenge, one being by starting a photography project.
Creative photography projects like these will assist you to go back your motivation and in addition provide you with new and fresh ideas. These projects are meant to be challenging and some of these last lengthy too. But with no further ado, why don't we get started!
1. My Life
This project is about you. The concept is that you simply develop a photoseries that tells your story. List important events and things in your own life and then try to make a method to tell that story through photography. This is fun, challenging as well as the smartest thing is the photographs you create allows you to remember those important moments later on too.
2. 100 Words
The thought behind this is that you simply need to think of a set of 100 random words. To create this list you are able to ask the aid of your mates, brainstorm their email list on your own or even make use of a random word generator (Google it). After you have come up with this list, you commence going through the list one word every day. Take photographs that represent these words in some manner.
3. The 365 Project
Here is the renowned photography project and it's also also probably the most difficult ones. As the name suggests this project lasts an entire year. There are different variants with this one, in fact the rule is that you simply need to take an image about yourself each day. Your physique doesn't have to look within the photograph, but nevertheless the 365 project is a lot more difficult than it appears like.
Firstly it's very hard to photograph yourself every single day, it is extremely easy to stop trying. Secondly it is extremely hard to produce new things and fresh every time you photograph. So if you want a serious challenge, this one is for you!
4. Strangers Series
If you are a shy person this is hard for you. The idea of this challenge is to take 100 photographs of strangers, talk to them and write experience story on them. The story doesn't need being long, just write some fundamental information down and it's really fine. Also, you are able to take as numerous photographs each day as you want to, so long as you get all 100 photographs taken.
On this project you will choose 5 different colors, list them in any order you want to and have the list weekly. The concept is you have to are the listed color in all your photograph which you take through the week and also you must photograph each day. But including the color isn't enough, it also has to be the dominant colour of the picture. | <urn:uuid:56091178-d587-4835-aafc-a555992bd2f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://creativephotographyprojects.webnode.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976065 | 576 | 1.726563 | 2 |
A recent article on NBC Latino drew attention to a recent IPC Fact Sheet,...
IPC Cited in Washington Post
Published on Wed, Feb 20, 2013
An IPC report was cited in a recent article in the Washington Post on the Obama administrations push to give judges more leeway in deciding who can be deported:
"Under current law, non-citizen immigrants convicted of what’s known as an “aggravated felony” face automatic penalties that make it far harder for them to be spared from deportation. While the term suggests a crime of a serious and violent nature, the definition of an “aggravated felony” has been expanded over the years, to the point where it includes crimes that are neither “aggravated” nor “felonies.” Obama’s draft immigration bill would narrow the definition of an aggravated felony by giving immigration judges greater discretion to grant leniency to individual immigrants convicted of minor offenses.
Originally, only a small handful of serious crimes were classified as “aggravated felonies” in immigration law, but the definition was expanded in 1996 to encompass a host of other more minor offenses. “As initially enacted in 1988, the term ‘aggravated felony’ referred only to murder, federal drug trafficking, and illicit trafficking of certain firearms and destructive devices,” explains a brief from the Immigration Policy Center, an immigration advocacy group. “Today, the definition of ‘aggravated felony’ covers more than thirty types of offenses, including simple battery, theft, filing a false tax return, and failing to appear in court.”"
Published in the Washington Post | Read Article | <urn:uuid:ccb58d60-1db4-4f63-b052-ce0f4076f633> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://immigrationpolicy.org/newsroom/clip/ipc-cited-washington-post | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954024 | 351 | 1.796875 | 2 |
CNN — French-led troops in Mali now control the ancient city of Timbuktu, the city of Gao and the swath in between that was an Islamist stronghold for almost a year, the French Defense Ministry said.
"We are winning in Mali," French President Francois Hollande said at a news conference Monday, but he added that militants still control parts of the north.
Hollande did not say how long France will maintain troops in its former colony.
The country has 2,150 soldiers on Malian soil, with 1,000 more troops supporting the operation from elsewhere.
The United States has also stepped up its involvement in the conflict by conducting aerial refueling missions on top of the intelligence and airlift support it was already providing.
Britain said Tuesday it will provide military support but won't take part in combat. The United Kingdom is prepared to deploy up to 40 troops to a European Union military training mission in Mali, and up to 200 troops as trainers in English-speaking West African countries, British Defence Minister Philip Hammond told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
In addition, the European Union said Tuesday it will contribute $67 million to support the African-led International Support Mission to Mali.
The nations are joined together in an effort to prevent the Islamists from turning the once peaceful democracy into a haven for international terrorists.
The Islamic extremists carved out a large portion in northern Mali last year, taking advantage of a chaotic situation after a military coup by the separatist party MNLA. They banned music, smoking, drinking and watching sports on television. They also destroyed historic tombs and shrines there.
But with the French-led offensive sending the militants on the run, residents once again roamed the streets without fear.
Flushing the Islamists out of Timbuktu, Mali's historic cultural center, is a big symbolic gain.
Amid international outrage, the Islamists repeatedly targeted Timbuktu's ancient burial sites. They regarded such shrines as idolatrous and thus prohibited by their strict interpretation of Islam.
As a column of military vehicles drove through Gao over the weekend, villagers chanted "Mali! Mali!"
Young men on motorcycles rode alongside the convoy, wildly waving Mali's flag and euphorically praising France and freedom.
Others lined the sides of the street, holding up beer bottles. They could once again drink, free from the oppressive dictates of the Islamists.
The mayor of Gao returned from exile and addressed the boisterous crowd. No one could hear a word he said. But it didn't matter. He was back -- another sign that normalcy was returning.
Raising money for Mali
Other countries in Africa and around the world have pledged $455 million at a donors' conference for Mali in the Ethiopian city of Addis Ababa.
Among the donors, Japan pledged $120 million, the United States pledged $96 million, pending congressional approval, and the European Union pledged just over $67 million. Senegal, Nigeria and Ghana pledged $3 million each, and China and India pledged $1 million each.
"I thank you on behalf of the people of Mali," Malian President Dioncounda Traore said. He announced plans to hold elections on July 31.
The money will support military efforts led by the African-led International Support Mission in Mali and the Malian army, the work of the Economic Organization of West African States on Mali and humanitarian assistance.
U.N. gears up for returns
More than 380,000 people have fled northern Mali in the last year: 230,000 are internally displaced, and more than 150,000 refugees are in Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Algeria, the United Nations says.
But now, as French and Malian forces take back ground from militants, the U.N. refugee agency is preparing for the "possible spontaneous return of thousands of conflict-displaced people."
The agency, in a statement, reported that displaced people interviewed in the capital, Bamako, said they hoped to return soon.
"Returns are not yet a wide trend, but they are already being seen in some instances," the agency said.
Displaced people told U.N. interviewers that they hope to return soon to areas such as Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal. U.N. officials say people are returning to Konna, which many residents fled after militants overran that city.
The seizure of Konna, on January 10, prompted the French military intervention in Mali. The town is back under Mali's control. | <urn:uuid:13482cb8-e4b9-4c00-a8d3-d958268d2442> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kadn.com/news/french-president-we-are-winning-mali | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955402 | 932 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Greece as Harbinger of Socialist Europe and perhaps the US
This well-written story does a good job of concretizing the situation in Greece, including its cause: the entitlement mentality bred by the socialist state. An excerpt:
Spray paint is ubiquitous, besmirching the marble steps leading up to the front of the Parliament, the walls and columns of the surrounding streets, and the storefronts in the nearby shopping district. The odor of urine is an unwelcome companion, not just in back alleys but along the sidewalks of major streets near the Parliament and along the walk to Hadrian’s Arch. Windows have been broken, marble walls and columns smashed.
Let’s be very clear about who is being targeted here. The shops that have been trashed are not just the chic brand names one finds in major cities all across Europe. No, these noble protestors have not confined their destruction to icons of wealth and power. They are equally destructive of small religious goods stores and assorted “Mom and Pop” establishments. They disrespect all businesses, small and large, in the same ugly fashion.
The police, union members after all, have done little to prevent the violence and property destruction. And their inaction, as we heard many say, has simply emboldened the thuggish elements among the protestors.
For ordinary Athenians the ongoing “occupation” has had a variety of unpleasant consequences. A young schoolteacher we know shops for her parents; they are afraid to leave their apartment. Other Athenian friends tell us that union thugs sympathetic to the “indignants” frequently intimidate ordinary citizens, whether they are shopping or going to work or simply out for a walk. This is understandable when one considers that the protestors’ goal is to bring everything to a halt. Quite simply, that means disrupting the public’s ability to carry on with daily life. People are told they should have known what would happen, they should stay off the streets.
The disruption, of course, is aimed at more than the general population. The strikes and other unannounced work stoppages cause electricity and water service outages frequently. Many of these are deliberately timed for late afternoon, to maximize discomfort for tourists checking into hotels, for restaurants preparing evening meals (it’s tough to cook and wash dishes without electricity or hot water), for merchants trying to make sales at the peak shopping time of day (electronic cash registers and inventory systems go “down” when the power fails), and so on. | <urn:uuid:cf5a63d2-10ae-4e36-82ef-007b3cf296da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://amitghate.blogspot.com/2011/12/greece-as-harbinger-of-socialist-europe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96289 | 518 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Old Christmas decorations, some stuffed animals and a tandem bicycle wheel might not look like much to the average garage sale hunter, but to one group, those items might make a world of difference to the animals they love.
SAFE, the San Antonio Ferret Enthusiasts, is an all-volunteer, 300-member group dedicated to promoting, providing for and protecting the welfare of domestic ferrets. SAFE hosted a June 23 garage sale in Kirby to help ferrets and their owners through rescue, rehabilitation, adoptions, ferret sitting, education, veterinary referrals and emergency first aid care.
SAFE's no-kill rescue shelter and foster program is the only one of its kind in South Texas.
“People see (ferrets) in the pet shop and they think they're cute, but they don't know how much work they are,” said Candi White, shelter director and one of SAFE's founders. “You need to know your financial limitations and time requirements because they're just like 2-year-olds forever,” White said with a laugh, as she sold an old carousel horse to a customer.
White said that ferrets love to run and play and will get into almost anything, so responsible ferret owners need to keep an especially careful eye on the little, furry creatures.
Established in 1992, SAFE works to help educate people about the needs of ferrets and wants to help improve the human/ferret bond. If, however, a person finds they can no longer care for their ferret, SAFE will help.
“We take in as many as we can,” said Rita Sellers, SAFE president.
The group's representatives declined to discuss specific numbers of ferrets currently in rescue or foster care; however, they admitted ferret shelter populations are much less than other domestic animals such as dogs and cats.
“Ferrets aren't like dogs and cats; you don't hear that much about them,” Sellers said.
Money raised from the garage sale will help with veterinary bills for sick and injured ferrets in rescue and foster care settings, White said.
“We use the Universal City Animal Hospital. Dr. Leo Gates is fantastic and his whole crew is just amazing,” she said.
When looking for a vet for a ferret, SAFE recommends interviewing several before settling on the one who is the most knowledgeable about health issues facing ferrets.
And, because ferrets only have a 6- to 8-year lifespan, making sure they have the best quality of life possible is SAFE's goal.
“They are short-term (pets), but they put the most they can into those few years,” White said.
SAFE routinely has ferrets in need of good homes. For a $60 donation, SAFE will provide the full series of canine distemper shots and a rabies shot. The website — www.saferrets.org — has adoption application and adoption agreements online.
For information about adoptable ferrets or to make a donation, contact SAFE at 661-2284, 661-9195 or 661-0608.
Pamela Howell is a San Antonio-based freelance writer. | <urn:uuid:f2276c5f-6864-4601-a127-431a51a9420c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysanantonio.com/community/northeast/news/article/Rescue-group-takes-funds-to-help-keep-ferrets-SAFE-3682430.php | 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 | 0.961435 | 679 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Suppressed Madeleine Foundation book by Tony Bennett, 2008
- Release date
- October 14, 2009
British libel lawyers Carter-Ruck, acting on behalf of Kate and Gerry McCann, have issued a demand to Madeleine Foundation co-founder Tony Bennett to have this book and all electronic copies to be destroyed. The file has never been released and was used to create the book "What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann: 60 Reasons which suggest she was not abducted".
The book sold thousands after its launch at the end of 2008 and continues to sell, albeit at a peppercorn rate or sent free by Mr. Bennet to journalists and politicians. Due to the prospective financial implications of facing a libel case against arguably Britain's top libel firm, Mr. Bennett has been forced to capitulate even though his supports say he stands by each and every allegation in the book.
The methods used by Carter-Ruck while acting for Kate and Gerry McCann have been to silence anyone who challenges the abduction story that they told the police and which forms their alibi in the Madeleine McCann disappearance in Portugal in May 2007.
This file is easily verifiable against the many copies of the book in circulation - including a copy sent to every British MP in the spring of 2009.
If this file is suppressed and the book is destroyed, the public will not be able to read an alternative history of the case case as the McCanns have sought an injunction in Portugal against the chief inspector on the case who has recently had his own book injuncted pending appeal.
It should be noted that WikiLeaks does not have an opinion on Mr. Bennet's arguments or the McCann case. Our interest here is to protect the integrity of the historical record. | <urn:uuid:db370fa8-9559-4d31-80de-696183e361fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wikileaks.org/w/index.php?title=Suppressed_Madeleine_Foundation_book_by_Tony_Bennett,_2008&redirect=no | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971992 | 356 | 1.6875 | 2 |
If I had written the State of the Union
Last week, President Obama gave his third State of the Union speech to Congress and to the American people. Since the pundits, both liberal and conservative, have analyzed this speech ten ways to Sunday, I will refrain from doing so.
However, I will give a short opinion beginning with the fact that the speech was too long. Boring is the next word that comes to mind followed closely by unrealistic, recycled, and pitiful. If I were president and my speech writers had concocted something this bad and ill-suited for the occasion, I would not only fire them, but I would run them out of Washington Obama proclaimed boldly and often that “America is back.”
Who believes this? We are not back, and there are no signs on the horizon that we will be back anytime soon. To mislead the American people is an act that will come back to haunt this President. The American people are not stupid.
If I had been President Obama’s speechwriter, I would have written the following:
My Fellow Americans:
I stand before you tonight to tell you that freedom as you and I know it is balanced precariously on a razor’s edge, and we can tip either way. Our people are without jobs and the unemployment numbers continue to rise. We cannot remain a great people if our citizens cannot find work to support themselves and their families. Our national debt is unsustainable.
Our Constitution is under attack. Some lawyers have labeled this time in our history “the post-constitutional age.” The Constitution of the United States is the greatest document for self-government ever written, yet we are treating it as an obstacle to be overcome rather than following its mandates. The Constitution was written specifically to protect the rights of the individual citizen and to protect him or her from the government. History has proven over and over again that governments become oppressive very quickly when they grow too big.
Unfortunately, our federal government has grown too big. Already, our lives are being affected by oppressive laws and regulations that extend to the type of light bulbs we purchase to our health insurance. Never before in the history of this country have citizens been compelled by law to purchase anything by the government – not until Obamacare, that is.
This legislation will require every citizen to purchase health insurance. How long will it be before the federal government requires its citizens to purchase Chevrolet Volts?
We live in a dangerous world, yet our military is literally being gutted. If we plan to remain a Superpower, we must maintain a strong national defense. Without it, Hugo Chavez and his sponsors in Iran can cause so many disruptions in our economy and our way of live that we will crumble like a wooden shack in the midst of a tornado. Freedom is expensive. We must maintain our military so that no one, not Russia, China, or anyone else dares to attempt an attack on this country or its assets located across the globe.
We have heard attacks on capitalism from every Democrat in Congress. Without capitalism, there is no American dream. When people tell you that want to be “fair,” they are telling you that they want to redistribute wealth and ensure equal outcomes for every citizen.
This thinking is not American thinking. This is the type of thinking they do in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. The federal government is not an instrument to redistribute other people’s wealth. The government’s main function is to guarantee individual freedom and allow every citizen to follow his own interests.
Some people will succeed. Others will fail. Some will obtain great wealth, but this is no concern of the government unless the wealth is gained in an unlawful manner. In a capitalistic system, more people will succeed than fail, and the economy will be such that all but a few individuals will have opportunities for meaningful, productive work. No system yet invented can distribute goods and services as well as capitalism.
American produced energy is important to our national wellbeing. The Keystone Pipeline will be allowed to begin construction immediately. The Gulf will be opened for the drilling of oil immediately, federal lands will be open for drilling, and the money used to invest in “green energy” will be suspended. “Green energy is a utopian dream hatched by some liberal to return this country to the 19th century. This country runs on oil. Until there is a technological breakthrough where alternative energy is available at unlimited quantities, we must drill for oil, refine it, and use it. Gasoline should return to a stable price of around $1.85 per gallon.
Ladies and gentlemen, the State of our Union is weak. We cannot continue down the road we have chosen. If we do not change, our economy, which is burdened by nearly 17 trillion dollars in debt, will guarantee that your children, their children, and their children will live in poverty the likes of which we have never seen. With God’s help, I believe that we can correct these problems, reduce our national debt, care for our elderly and disabled, and set an example for the rest of the world to follow. After all, we are Americans. Thank you, and may God bless America. | <urn:uuid:3c13ea38-ca93-468c-a510-f298fcf39af1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yazooherald.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2011:if-i-had-written-the-state-of-the-union | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969749 | 1,068 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The Land Rover, a classic British Staple, originated in 1947. Designed by Maurice Wilks, who was the chief designer at Rover Company, Maurice was inspired by an American WWII Jeep. Here is a picture of the original.
The early choice of color, various shades of green, was determined by a surplus of military aircraft cockpit paint.
This classic British Automobile, stood for superiority, wealth, and safety. Take a look at our favorite ads- | <urn:uuid:ac9a0f13-f77b-4535-89dc-e7c1db049f7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://macraedesigns.blogspot.com/ | 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 | 0.969221 | 93 | 1.804688 | 2 |
||Asira Al-Qibliyeh, West Bank
|Nature of incident:
|Date of incident:
||19 May 2012
On 19 May 2012, Israeli settlers from the settlement Yitzhar attack the village of Asira Al-Qibliyeh, in the occupied West Bank and shoot a Palestinian resident.
“I was at home doing some house work on Saturday, when I heard some whistling outside at around 4:45 pm,” recalls Khadra. “I looked out the window and saw settlers wearing white shirts coming down the hill towards the village. My house is closest to the settlement of Yitzhar where radical settlers often launch attacks against us. The last time they launched such an attack was in December when a large group surrounded our house in the middle of the night and threw rocks at our windows. It was such a frightening experience that I felt sick for days,” says Khadra.
Khadra went up to the roof of her house and started filming with a video camera given to her by the Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem. “When the settlers were about 40 metres away from our house men from the village started to walk in their direction to stop them approaching any further. I immediately knew there was going to be confrontation and hoped the soldiers would show up soon,” recalls Khadra.
“More and more settlers came down the hill and more and more men from the village went out to confront them. Both the settlers and the men threw stones at each other. Some were carrying sticks. It took the soldiers a long time to show up but when they finally did, they didn’t do much,” says Khadra. “I saw a settler with a pistol aiming it at the men in the village as if he was about to shoot. I was so scared,” recalls Khadra. “I heard gun shots. I also saw another two settlers aiming their big guns at the men throwing stones. There were more gunshots. Seconds later I realized a young man had been shot in the head,” says Khadra.
“This dreadful situation went on for nearly two hours and during this whole time the soldiers did almost nothing,” recalls Khadra. “Then they shot tear gas and everybody started to clear the area. The situation was very tense until about 7:00 pm. I could not sleep that night,” says Khadra. “No matter how much I tell myself I should not be afraid I cannot help it. Deep in my heart I was sure the situation would change the minute the soldiers came, but I should have known better. It is a disturbing feeling to know we are completely on our own; nobody is there to help or protect us,” says Khadra. | <urn:uuid:f277d7e3-4c77-481c-b34d-6c85ca6be4fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wclac.org/english/etemplate.php?id=1080 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987215 | 580 | 1.75 | 2 |
– Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby
In three years, we’ll actually be referring to him as F. Scott Fitzgerald 1917. In April 2013 the Class of 2017 pops into being, and Fitzgerald’s epoch, always otherworldly in many important senses anyway, officially will be of another century.
He and Zelda Sayre were married 90 years ago, a week following the publication of This Side of Paradise – a convenient juncture that allows us to dwell on the vicissitudes of celebrity, the strengths of literature and ideas, and the weaknesses of humankind. Since Fitzgerald died only 20 years later with a copy of PAW in his hands (making notes about the football team, which regrettably over time has had that effect on others, too), we here at Your Favorite Periodical owe him no less.
But as mesmerizing a paean as This Side of Paradise is, as much as Fitzgerald went nuts for Hobey Baker 1914 (greetings, brand-new Class of 2014!) and the Triangle Club, he fit far better with the Prospect Avenue end of Princeton than the Pyne Library side. His class card resembles more a World War I battlefield than an academic experience; leaving Princeton for the war after two unsuccessful assaults on his junior-year academic load may not have seemed as dramatic a change to him as to us.
Is Fitzgerald’s noblesse oblige Princeton really important anymore? Is there really anything left to say about the Jazz Age, except that he named it? As the tenured history faculty grapples with those – a good cane-wrestling match always cleanses the gray matter, in my experience – why don’t we focus instead on that fateful issue of PAW, and the reason ol’ Scott was probably perusing it in the first place? Let’s look at the Class Notes of 1917; as you certainly should be aware, Class Notes are by far our most-read feature (I don’t take that personally, mostly). Believe it or not, Fitzgerald even kept a chart tracking his classmates.
The ’17 class secretaries faced an 800-pound gorilla from the day This Side of Paradise was published until the day Fitzgerald died, and even afterward: How do you publicly handle a classmate who’s a lightning rod, whose writings and wanderings are the stuff of the gossip mags, whose notoriety more than overbalances the other 483 guys in the class? Let’s take a glimpse at how they did it.
In college, Fitzgerald hardly was the most notable guy in the class, but classmates knew him well. The Class Poll in his Nassau Herald mentions him only twice: as seventh “wittiest,” and very tellingly as fourth “thinks he is.” The die was cast, although perversely he listed as his career goal: “He will pursue graduate work in English at Harvard (??), then he will engage in newspaper work.” Maybe he was just trying to be witty.
In any event, his Army career (mostly in Kansas) appears only perfunctorily among the notes of the extensive military exploits of the self-named War Baby class – 21 of whom (5 percent) died in Europe. But in March of 1919 he showed up at a class dinner in New York while living there, one of the very few organized class events he ever attended; his civilian occupation is unmentioned. Then the following January “it is reported” that a prominent publishing house has accepted one of his books.
The March 3, 1920, Class Notes mention that The Saturday Evening Post is to publish some of his stories – no note of the novel. This Side… came out on March 26, sold out in days, by the next week was a sensation for Scribner’s, and his entire role in the world changed. The effect on his generation was so pervasive that there was a short satire of the book in a class reunion promotion only six weeks later. It was assumed everyone already knew who “Amory” was.
The class secretary notes in May that “most of the characters are members of our Class, and are easily discernable,” and that Scott and Zelda are now married. By December, he notes the “great diversity of opinion” over This Side…, but opines “that [Fitzgerald] is no mean businessman, and is writing a movie scenario for D.W. Griffith for $15,000.” The strangeness of this is hard to overstate: Realize, this is Scott Fitzgerald writing a silent movie. In short order – April 1921, only a year after his first publication – perhaps the most foreshadowing note of all: “Mr. and Mrs. Scott Fitzgerald will sail for the Continent in early May.” He left behind his completed The Beautiful and the Damned for publication.
From that point, common traits in his dozens of PAW Class Notes items accrue rapidly:
He’s removed. Always in the third person (who knows which items were submitted by Fitzgerald, which by classmates?) and never quoted directly, the blurbs have a social-page feel to them: “The Scott Fitzgeralds have returned form Bermuda. …”
He’s famous. Names are dropped: Scribner’s, Esquire, Cavalcade, D.W. Griffith, Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson ’16, Jimmy Stewart ’31.
He’s sophisticated. He and Zelda are forever going somewhere, but somehow never arriving for long: Capri, Great Neck, Hollywood, Bermuda, Baltimore, Paris.
He’s the novelist. He is always “working on a novel,” his often-brilliant stories somehow an afterthought. Noted in early 1923, The Great Gatsby comes out in 1925. Already promised in 1926, Tender Is the Night is published serially in 1934. Wistful novel promises recur after that, but notes on movie-script assignments and dramatizations of his previous work begin to intrude by the mid-’30s. Three weeks before he died in 1940, Fitzgerald wrote class secretary Harvey Smith ’17 that his new novel was done. The Last Tycoon, of course, wasn’t close.
Along the way, bit by bit, things changed. Defensiveness begins to intrude in the notes: Gertrude Stein’s observation that he sparked a new generation with This Side of Paradise and Gatsby, and that he’ll be read when most of his contemporaries are forgotten, actually appears twice under separate secretaries. Tender Is the Night is immediately praised overshrilly as “the best thing he has written.” Then acceptance of decline begins to surface, beginning with the notice of his Esquire autobiographical article “The Crack-up” in 1936. He starts to give published interviews about his long-ago escapades and his wistful feelings for Princeton, sounding like he’s in the Old Guard; he is 40 years old.
Then, unexpectedly, there’s a blaze of light. In March of 1939, Fitzgerald writes to the secretary – for quotation – of a chance encounter with Bert Hormone ’17, the imaginary bon vivant and world traveler who acted as a 1917 talisman and in-joke (a precursor of J.D. Oznot ’68). Bert, in mid-trip from Brazil to Tahiti, has confided to Fitzgerald his bitter disappointment that his ne’er-do-well son has been turned down by an ever-more-selective Princeton. Fitzgerald commiserates, reminding Bert that his own child – his beloved daughter Scottie – also couldn’t get in, and was forced to settle for Vasser. This wonderful flight of fancy, an imaginative way to let the class know about Scottie, is a unique and simple piece of beauty. Two years later, he was dead.
Lord, Lord this man could write. The Modern Library lists Gatsby as the second-best English language novel of the 20th century (after Joyce’s Ulysses, a pretty impressive work, to be sure), but bear in mind it also lists Tender Is the Night as 28th, above such as Animal Farm and Sister Carrie. Fitzgerald could make the mundane sing: In addition to the Bert Hormone whimsy for Scottie, consider the following from a 1927 article intended simply to describe Princeton to teenagers:
In my romantic days I tried to conjure up the Princeton of Aaron Burr, Philip Freneau, James Madison and Light Horse Harry Lee, to tie on, so to speak, to the 18th century, to the history of man. But the chain parted at the Civil War, always the broken link in the continuity of American life. Colonial Princeton was, after all, a small denominational college. The Princeton I knew and belonged to grew from President McCosh’s great shadow in the ’70s, grew with the great post-bellum fortunes of New York and Philadelphia to include coaching parties and keg parties and the later American conscience and Booth Tarkington’s Triangle Club and Wilson’s cloistered plans for an educational Utopia. Bound up with it somewhere was the rise of American football.
A more succinct and evocative history lesson is impossible to imagine. His ability to feel and emote were monumental; his ability (and poor Zelda’s, of course) to live life day-to-day fitful at best. When his heart gave out over the 5-2-1 football team, his classmates understood that better than anyone. His PAW memorial (Jan. 20, 1941), one of the very best of its kind, explains:
Many of us of the Class of 1917 felt that a bright page of our youth had been torn out and crumpled up when we learned of the death of Scott Fitzgerald.
We remember that every day of his life in Princeton he was, unconsciously perhaps, laying the groundwork for the very stories which afterward brought him fame.
He continued until his death to be the gay young magician with words, still occupied with proms and debutantes, and as careless of the workaday world of middle age as in college he had been of any but his favorite studies.
The Class has lost its best known member; its first to attain nationwide fame; its first to appear in Who’s Who; and perhaps its only member who in spirit never grew much older than the college boy we all knew. | <urn:uuid:e3c57cad-3ab4-46d5-ae79-2c1b26f62f7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2010/04/07/pages/1697/index.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974516 | 2,202 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Spring is a great time in the redwoods- the air is crisp and warming up and the area is fresh, green and deserted. You'll have the trails to yourself, but be prepared for spring showers and some trail damage after the winter. Whales hang around the mouth around April and May. Some of the larges Rhododendrens in the world live right by the Inn.
Summer is gorgeous- don't believe the myth that it's always rainy and foggy on the coast! Average temperatures range between 65 and 75F. We won't lie though- there is fog during summer that usually burns off by noon. Traffic picks up a bit too with the fishing season. Parks are busy during July and August with families, but still not crowded by city standards.
Fall is when Requa comes into its own during- the pace slows down and blue sky days end in crisp evening. Why do anything else except snuggle?
Winter is definitely the stormy season on the Coast with most of the 100 inches of rain falling between December and April. Still, temperatures seldom drop below the low 40s and there is nothing more dramatic than enjoying a Pacific storm at Requa! Not unusual to have a few lovely 60 degree days, and our tulips are blooming by the end of February.
Klamath is home to the "Tour-Thru Tree" - a hollowed out old growth redwood tree that you can drive through! Also worth visiting are:
- Trees of Mystery in Klamath - an icon of Hwy 101 for over 50 years. Ride the Skytrail and explore the Redwood forest. Check out the famous Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox too!
- Ocean World in Crescent City is a friendly, prviately owned acquarium that caters to all ages and has an incredible amount of marine life.
- Klamath River Jet Boat Tours offers a 50 mile guided jet boat tour of the Klamath River from May through October. Likewise, Likewise, Jerrys Rogue Jets and Mail Boat Hydo Jet Trips offer jet boat tours of the Rogue River in Gold Beach Oregon, about an hour and a half north of the Inn.
- Explore Del Norte is an excellent tool offered by the Del Norte County Visitor's Bureau to plan out your Del Norte County trip. The Klamath Chamber of Commerce and the Del Norte Chamber of Commerce also offer a host of information about local activities.
- Redwood National and State Park offers comprehensive information about hikes, trails and histories of the area. Six Rivers National Forest also has great resources for trails and information related to the Six Rivers National Forest and the Smith River Recreational Area
- The Redwood Coast Geotourism site offers comprehensive information about the cultural, social, historical and contemporary life of the Redwood Coast between San Francisco and the Oregon border. The site features user generated content and is an outstanding resource for trip planning to the region.
We'd like to thank Bernadette Johnson of Bernadette's Classic Photograhy for the amazing photos that she has contributed to our site! If you need a local photographer, check her out! | <urn:uuid:b5bdbde5-a6bd-4d9f-8d74-2802d1ddbdf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.requainn.com/the-area/seasons-attractions.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940974 | 648 | 1.5625 | 2 |
In Connecticut: Prayers, Grief, Questions ... And Stories Of Heroism
Originally published on Sun December 16, 2012 3:46 am
The day after one of the worst mass murders in the nation's history, Americans are learning more about Friday's horrific attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children and six adults lying dead.
Late in the afternoon on Saturday, state officials released a list of those killed in the assault. All of the children who died were first-graders.
The man authorities have identified as the killer — 20-year-old Adam Lanza — also died at the scene. One other person was found dead at a home in Newtown. Authorities have told NPR and other news outlets it was Lanza's mother. Their bodies will be examined by state medical officials on Sunday.
Friday morning, a spokesman for the Connecticut State Police told reporters that the gunman forced his way into the school. The investigation into exactly what happened, and why, is still ongoing and more details are expected from the State Police on Sunday. It may still be a couple of days, however, before investigators finish working at the bullet-ridden school.
We followed the story as it developed on Friday. Today, we'll update the news in this post and look for related stories.
Update at 8:01 p.m. ET. Peter Lanza Issues A Statement:
The Associated Press is reporting that Peter Lanza, the father of the man identified as the killer, has issued this statement:
"Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones and to all those who were injured. Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy. No words can truly express how heartbroken we are. We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can. We too are asking why. We have cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so. Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired."
Update at 7:17 p.m. ET. Obama To Meet With Families:
In a statement released tonight, the White House said President Obama would travel to Newtown, Conn., on Sunday to meet with families of the victims and thank first-responders. The statement also said he would speak at an interfaith vigil tomorrow night at 7.
Update at 5:50 p.m. ET. A Father Speaks:
In a moving and compassionate encounter, Robbie Parker spoke to the media early Saturday evening about the loss of his 6-year-old daughter, Emilie. Parker described his child as "a mentor to her two little sisters," an exceptional artist and always the first person to offer help to others in need of a lift. He told reporters:
"She was the type of person who could light up a room; she always had something kind to say. ... She is an incredible person and I'm so blessed to be her dad."
Parker offered his support to the families of those affected by the shooting, including the family of the young man thought to be the gunman. "I am not mad," he said.
When asked how he would handle the tragedy, Parker said his instinct is to seek help and to help others in their time of need. But he admitted there wasn't a clear path forward:
"I don't know how to get through something like this. ... We find strength in our faith and our family. ... I just hope that everyone can get the help that they need."
The family moved to Newtown about eight months ago when Robbie, 30, took a job as a physicians assistant at the hospital. Parker described Emilie's teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary as a joy and the Newtown community as welcoming to the family.
Update at 5:30 p.m. ET. Connecticut's Governor Addresses State:
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy addressed the Sandy Hook tragedy late Saturday afternoon in televised remarks to his state. Malloy's message was one of comfort and faith in a time of sadness:
"Too often, we focus on what divides us as people, instead of what binds us as human beings. What we saw yesterday were those bonds, that sense of community.
"In the coming days, we will rely upon that which we have been taught and that which we inherently believe: that there is faith for a reason, and that faith is God's gift to all of us."
Update at 4:40 p.m. ET. A List Of Victims:
At the news conference noted in our previous update, state medical officials released an official list of the 20 children and six adults killed in the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary. We have created a separate post with the names and ages of the victims.
Update at 4:03 p.m. ET. Medical Examiner Provides Details On Investigation:
Speaking at a news conference, Connecticut's Chief Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver II told reporters:
"I've been at this for a third of a century ... this is probably the worst I have seen, or the worst that I know any of my colleagues have seen."
Carver said that his team arrived within hours of the crime scene being secured and that they worked there until 12:30 a.m. The bodies were then transported to Farmington, Conn., where examinations began Saturday morning.
All of the children had been examined by 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. Families did not see the bodies directly, with identification taking place through photographs of the victims.
Carver said that he personally examined seven of the victims, each with between three and 11 wounds. All deaths have been classified as homicides resulting from gunshot wounds. Most of the wounds did not appear to have been inflicted at close range in the victims Carver examined.
The body of the man identified as the gunman and the body found in the gunman's home have not been examined. That work will take place Sunday morning.
A team of four doctors, 10 technicians and other support staff participated in the examinations with Carver.
Update at 3:25 p.m. ET. School Teacher Identified By Newspaper As A Victim:
Lauren Rousseau, a 30-year-old teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary, has been identified by The News-Times of Danbury, Conn., as one of those killed in Friday's attack. Rousseau's mother is an editor at the paper. From their report:
"Lauren, after years of working as a substitute teacher, — while working other jobs to earn a living — landed a permanent substitute teaching job at Sandy Hook Elementary School in October.
" 'It was the best year of her life,' said Teresa Rousseau, Lauren's mother and a copy editor at The News-Times."
Update at 1:52 p.m. ET. School's Principal Was Among Those Killed, Official Says:
A school official in Newtown has told NPR that Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung was among the six adults killed in the school.
Her death had been reported earlier by other news outlets. NPR has been pushing to get independent confirmation before posting or broadcasting such news.
Update at 1:50 p.m. ET. "There Are Bad Guys Out There Now, We Need To Wait For The Good Guys," Teacher Told Children As They Hid:
Fox News has gripping video of third grade teacher Kaitlin Roig talking about how she and 14 children hid in a bathroom. She told the children they had to be absolutely quiet. "There are bad guys out there now, we need to wait for the good guys," a tearful Roig says she told the kids.
Update at 1:20 p.m. ET. In Hiding, Librarians Tried To Keep Children Occupied With Paper And Crayons.
From The Associated Press:
"Maryann Jacob, a clerk in the school library, was in there with 18 fourth-graders when they heard a commotion and gunfire outside the room. She had the youngsters crawl into a storage room, and they locked the door and barricaded it with a file cabinet. There happened to be materials for coloring, 'so we set them up with paper and crayons.'
"After what she guessed was about an hour, officers came to the door and knocked, but those inside couldn't be sure it was the police.
" 'One of them slid his badge under the door, and they called and said, It's OK, it's the police,' she said."
Update at 12:55 p.m. ET. All Three Guns Were Used, Senator Says:
Asked on CNN moments ago about the two handguns and one rifle found in the school, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said "all of them were used in some way." Blumenthal was Connecticut's attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 2010. He was in Newtown when he spoke with CNN and earlier in the day was with the police who are investigating the shootings.
Update at 12:15 p.m. ET. Will The Shootings Shift Public Opinion On Guns?
Polling in recent years indicates that the news may not have a significant, lasting impact on public opinion — unless the murders of 20 school children at their school is just such a shock.
Update at 11:15 a.m. ET. On Nancy Lanza:
Though State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance has not yet publicly named the deceased woman found in a Newtown home, he has said that she was a relative of the gunman. Federal law enforcement officials have told NPR's Carrie Johnson that the woman was Nancy Lanza, Adam Lanza's mother. It is not clear yet if she had any connection to the school, though there have been reports she may have done some kind of work — possibly volunteering — there.
Update at 10:45 a.m. ET. State Police Statement On The Attack And Investigation:
Along with the news briefing the Connecticut State Police just held, the agency has also posted a statement about the shootings and the investigation. It's the first such document from that agency. Much of the information had already been stated during Lt. J. Paul Vance's news briefings. Here two sections that add to previously reported information:
-- "The deceased victims have been transported to the Office of The Chief State's Medical Examiner where a post mortem examination will be conducted to determine the manner and cause of death."
-- "A second crime scene was located by investigators at a residence on Yogananda Street. A female was located deceased inside the residence. ... Preliminary information determined that the deceased was a relative of the 'shooter' at the Elementary School.
Another detail: During his news conference this morning, Vance told reporters that "the weaponry that was recovered by our investigators was recovered in close proximity to the deceased." Earlier today, NPR's Carrie Johnson was told by a "law enforcement official on the ground in Connecticut" that there were three weapons found in the school — two handguns and a .223-caliber rifle. On Thursday, there were reports that the rifle was found in the car that the gunman drove to the scene.
Update at 10:25 a.m. ET. State Police: When Victims' Names Are Released, "Please Respect Their Privacy;" Shooter "Forced His Way Into The School."
At a news briefing, Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance just said that the names of all the deceased and the gunman are going to be released soon by the local medical examiner's office — perhaps within the hour. All the families of the victims, he said, have asked that news outlets "respect their privacy. ... I'm asking you and I'm pleading with you ... to please abide by their requests," he said.
Vance told reporters that the evidence indicates that the gunman "was not voluntarily let into the school at all. ... He forced his way into the school." There have been reports of broken windows (some were smashed by police when they arrived on the scene because the school had been locked down) and that the gunman may have shot his way into the school through a window.
Investigators will likely still be working at the school through Sunday and into Monday, Vance said.
Update at 9:50 a.m. ET. Connecticut's WSHU Plans Live Special Coverage Today:
Our colleagues in the state say there will be a "2-hour, live, call-in special today, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., on all WSHU frequencies."
Update at 9:40 a.m. ET. How To Help? Governor's Office Points To United Way:
At the official website of Gov. Daniel Malloy, D-Conn., a "how to help Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims" headline links to United Way of Western Connecticut's Sandy Hook School Support Fund.
Update at 9 a.m. ET. All Families Have Been Formally Notified:
"By early this morning, we were able to positively identify all of the victims and make some formal notification to all of the families of the victims," Connecticut State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance tells CBS This Morning: Saturday. He also confirmed the earlier reports that all the bodies have been removed from the school.
Update at 8:50 a.m. ET. Video Of News Conference:
The cable news networks are planning to broadcast the news conference that authorities are supposed to hold any time now. It's also being streamed by several news outlets in Connecticut, including WTNH-TV.
Update at 8:35 a.m. ET. "No Sense Of Motive," Local Police Official Says:
"Newtown police Lt. George Sinko, the department's public information officer, told Patch Saturday morning that investigators have no sense of what prompted the gunman to act. 'There is no sense of motive at this time,' Sinko said."
We're still waiting for a news briefing to begin in Newtown.
Update at 8:15 a.m. ET. Victims Have Been Identified:
State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance is due to brief reporters shortly. Fox Connecticut says it spoke with him and that Vance says investigators have identified all the victims, that the bodies have been removed from the school, and that he expects to be able to publicly confirm the killer's identity. Adam Lanza's name has been relayed to news outlets, including NPR, by law enforcement sources. Vance, the public spokesman on the investigation, has not yet formally released that information.
6:45 a.m. ET: As the day dawns in Newtown, here's a look at some of the overnight headlines and developments:
-- Stories of heroism: A custodian "ran through the school halls making sure classroom doors were locked from the inside." Library staffers rushed students into a storage closet and barricaded the door with file cabinets. Principal Dawn Hochsprung "warned several colleagues who were about to step into the hallway behind her, and into the shooter's direct line of fire" before being shot herself. (The Newtown Bee)
-- "The shootings took place in two first-grade classrooms." (The Hartford Courant)
-- "No motive known." (The New York Times)
-- "Police say it's clear that the gunman who opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday was on a mission to kill as many people as possible." (CBS News)
-- Adam Lanza was a "quiet, shy" boy growing up, says school bus driver and neighbor. (The Boston Herald)
-- "Two federal sources told ABC News that identification belonging to Ryan Lanza [Adam's brother] was found at the scene of the mass shooting." That may be why some officials initially said the gunman's name was Ryan. (ABC News)
-- In Newtown, "the peace and quiet has been shattered, and residents are trying to make sense of what's happened." (Weekend Edition Saturday)
Shootings In Newtown, Conn.
Shots - Health News
Around the Nation
It's All Politics | <urn:uuid:193b5c55-da48-48c8-a2e2-c296c86505d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kunc.org/post/connecticut-prayers-grief-questions-and-stories-heroism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978775 | 3,312 | 1.578125 | 2 |
C³ - Combat to Campus to Community
Creating Bridges for Student Veterans in Transition
Shoreline Community College has received a $370,000, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support military veterans returning to school.
The money will help create a Center of Excellence for Veterans Student Success as Shoreline’s nationally recognized Veterans Program focuses on helping veterans move from their service experience to college and into the community.
“Shoreline is committed to serving the growing number of veteran students that are moving from combat to campus and then into the communities they served and protected,” said Kim Thompson, Director of the Office of Special Services.
At Shoreline, veterans already get help enrolling, utilizing their veterans’ benefits and navigating the post-secondary system. “Now we’ll be able to do even more,” Thompson said. The program design uses a multi-faceted approach to expand veteran student success as it provides transitional bridges and extra supports at critical points to mitigate barriers veterans face in adjusting from combat to campus and campus to community.
The grant provides funding for a full-time veterans’ counselor, new computers for the Veterans Resource Center, funding for textbook loans as well as short term childcare and housing loans. The funding will also support getting the word out to veterans that Shoreline is here for them and that once they are here, the services are here to help them succeed.
The Veteran Counselor/Academic Advisor position will be funded for the entirety of the three year grant. This individual will have the knowledge and skills necessary to support the unique experiences and transition issues of veterans.
The grant award also provides funding for a peer mentoring program that matches current veteran students with veterans entering school. “We sat down with our student veterans and asked them what would be helpful,” Thompson said. “We wanted to really hear from them what kinds of barriers they were facing and what strategies they thought would be helpful.”
Those conversations helped Thompson put the grant application package together as did help from faculty and staff from across campus.
“It was a group effort. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the help of a lot of people,” Thompson said. The application was released on June 30, and proposals were due by July 30, 2010. “We had to put it together very quickly and the campus community really came together to ensure that we had all the information necessary.”
Thompson recognized the extraordinary effort made by people from across the campus community. Vice President for Administrative Services Daryl Campbell, along with Sharon Wines, Holly Woodmansee and Stuart Trippel of the Administrative Services office made sure that Thompson had everything necessary on the financial end. They also reviewed the final proposal. Chris Taylor from Enrollment Services and Joe Duggan, institutional researcher, helped define some of the data. Thompson was most grateful, to the Special Services team, OSS program coordinators, Angela Atkinson and Angela Hughes, and her supervisor, Vice President for Student Success Tonya Drake.
Additionally, letters of support from U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., Shoreline Community College President Lee Lambert, the state Department of Veterans Affairs, Vetcorps, the Washington State Approving Agency, American Legion Post and from members of the college’s Veterans Club. | <urn:uuid:025933b8-56c2-4fdf-82df-a338dcd542f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oscar.ctc.edu/academicsnews/blog/default.aspx?dtf=20101001000000&dtt=20101031235959 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96583 | 694 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
KABUL (Reuters) - Advancing women's rights in Afghanistan is key to preventing the Taliban from reimposing a radical form of Islam once most foreign troops leave by the end of 2014, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces said on Saturday.
Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, but fears are growing such gains could be traded away as Western forces prepare to leave and the Afghan government seeks peace talks with the group.
U.S. General John Allen said the Taliban would have to soften their views to gain acceptance in an Afghanistan that has somewhat opened up since the hardline group was toppled in 2001.
"It's going to be very difficult for the Taliban to reassert themselves, absent of fundamental change in their philosophical approach," he told Reuters in his office at the headquarters of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul.
"If they are seeking to make themselves in a manner that could be palatable to the Afghan citizens, they're going to have to soften some of these uncompromising qualities of their nature and how they treated women and how, I think, they will treat women," the Marine Corps General said.
He spoke a day before handing over command to Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, ending a 19-month tour which was arguably one of the most difficult periods in the NATO-led war, now in its eleventh year.
Allen directed ISAF's transfer of most security across the country to the Afghan army and police, coinciding with dwindling public support for the costly war in the U.S. and coalition countries.
Dunford is expected to be the force's last commander, overseeing the withdrawal of most foreign troops.
GIRLS BACK AT SCHOOL
Despite recent advances, Afghanistan was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women in a poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2011.
Allen said the mass drive to educate girls -- whose enrolment now stands at almost four million, compared to zero during the time of the Taliban -- is crucial in changing the tide of public opinion in the country of 30 million.
"Here's an opportunity for this young generation for whom the Taliban was the nightmare of their parents, not necessarily a personal experience, to grow up in an environment where education is inherent in who they are".
Some in the Taliban say a more moderate branch is emerging, including a different approach to women's education as its leaders eye a political return, but Allen dismissed this. "I don't believe it, I don't believe it for a second".
NATO will play an important role in advocating "the rights of all Afghans in general, but women in particular" going forward, Allen said.
"We're going to work very, very hard to ensure that our interest and commitment does not diminish in any way by crossing that temporal seam of 31st December, 2014," he said, referring to the day the coalition officially ends its mission.
The White House said last month it will nominate Allen as NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, after the Pentagon cleared him of professional misconduct over emails to a Florida socialite linked to a scandal that led his predecessor David Petraeus to resign as director of the CIA.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Edited by Jason Webb) | <urn:uuid:6ea7298a-c88e-4326-b3d6-73e3a6ba86c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://krro.com/news/articles/2013/feb/09/exiting-us-general-says-afghan-womens-rights-are-key/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972979 | 689 | 1.765625 | 2 |
What’s in season?
From consumers, chefs and leaders in the health industry – I am shocked at how many people consistently don’t know what’s in season. A month back, I got an email from a local college here in Nashville from a woman who was contacting me to see if I knew of any farmers who could come speak at their Health and Wellness week. Her idea was to help educate students on sourcing their healthy snacks locally. She asked if we could bring something we sell from the farmers including bananas and oranges. My jaw dropped. Surely she knows bananas and oranges don’t grow in Nashville!
Then today, I received a comment in a Facebook post for the farmers market “Our favorite late night snack are blueberries since the fruit is packed with vitamins, antioxidants, and more than 4 grams of fiber. Looks like we should stop by to pick up some from the market!” Clearly this person doesn’t understand the concept of in-seasonal produce, as blueberries have been out of season for about 2 months.
So let’s play a little game of What’s in Season:
Winner gets this amazing 12 Print Collection from Claudia Pearson called Perpetual Harvest
- As a comment to this post: Guess when each fruit or veggie is in season
- Tell me what part of the country you live in
- Subscribe to this blog
- Tweet or Facebook the Following : Do you know what food is in season? Take the quiz from The Locavore Mama @mary_crimmins http://ow.ly/echb0 | <urn:uuid:061ce127-fa00-4069-9226-d2382507d5ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marycrimmins.com/whats-in-season/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961854 | 331 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Mike Petrilli’s quandary will be a familiar one to lots of Twin Cities parents. Before the arrival of their two sons, Petrilli and his wife — modest earners both — enjoyed living in the heart of the city, in their case Washington, D.C.
They liked being able to bike to work, access to public transportation, restaurants, museums and other cultural amenities. And they, and lots of their Gen X and Gen Y brethren, liked the affordable housing and the diversity. And they firmly believed in equity as a principal, and that the ability to navigate a multicultural society is both a personal blessing and a professional necessity.
But the arrival of kids can pose tough choices regarding schools. For earlier generations of middle- and upper-class parents, a move to the suburbs usually guaranteed a good if segregated education. But many of today’s young parents want their kids to attend racially and socioeconomically diverse schools. For them, the struggle is with low test scores and seemingly draconian school cultures.
Petrilli has a leg up on the rest of us, though. He’s one of the nation’s top names in education policy research, the kind of guy who reads the studies and the footnotes and edits the influential journal Education Next (full disclosure: which several years ago gave me a thoroughly pleasant assignment). In short, he can sift the lore from the numbers.
And as executive vice-president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one can assume he’d have the pull to make sure his kids share story hour with Sasha and Malia Obama if he wanted. But he doesn’t. He wants what many of us want for our kids: a good education in a stimulating, integrated neighborhood school.
What luck for the rest of us, then, that Petrilli kept his policy-wonk hat on while he went in search of a school for his kids, a journey he chronicles in the brand-new, commendably readable “The Diverse Schools Dilemma: A Parent’s Guide to Socioeconomically Mixed Public Schools.”
Research-based, but written for parents
Though it’s packed with interesting information from the scholarly research that crosses his desk, “Diverse Schools Dilemma” is written for parents. I whipped through it in an afternoon and found something that resonated on virtually every page.
So can all those Gen X and Gen Y progeny be a part of the solution without sacrificing their own potential? Let’s start with the take-away: Not all urban, integrated schools are the same, and the simplest, surface-level data on student performance they are now required to report isn’t necessarily the best way to drill down on the standouts.
Rather, Petrilli suggests, with data proliferating on the internet, a parent armed with a basic understanding of what makes kids and schools successful can shop for a program much the way we now shop for housing. We’ll come back to this in a moment.
All students, Petrilli argues persuasively, do best in middle-class schools without high concentrations of poverty which, as in Minnesota, means integrated schools, yet “the issue of school segregation is rarely mentioned nowadays within policy circles,” he writes. And integration, a short history reminds us, has proven maddeningly elusive.
Adding up the factors
Over the last couple of decades education reformers instead have tried to end-run the problem by figuring out what the exact elements of that equation are. Is it the poverty itself? The impact of peers? The tendency of the best teachers to gravitate to affluent schools? An aspiration gap? His answer: All of the above, plus parenting styles, parental investment in the schools, inequitable funding and a host of other factors.
Both President George W. Bush’s and President Barack Obama’s education policies have sought to make inner-city schools work, so far to little effect. “Yet the sobering truth is that none of these efforts — nor similar ones going back 25 years — has been very successful,” he writes.
“While demography need not be destiny, reforms to date have been generally ineffective at severing the link between advantage and achievement. Identifying high-achieving schools with a high concentration of poor or minority kids is like finding needles in a haystack.”
If you’re new to the research and policy histories of either desegregation or efforts to reach impoverished learners, the book is a painless primer. It lays out enough information to give an anxious parent some context before moving on to its larger point: Middle-class white students generally do fine in diverse schools.
Students of all races and backgrounds do better with a critical mass of higher-achieving peers and worse when their classmates are poor and lower-achieving. White, middle-class students enjoy some insulation from this. “Increasing a cohort’s proportion of black students by 10 percentage points lowered black achievement gains quite significantly, but just barely decreased white gains,” Petrilli reports.
The highest achievers, however, are the affluent kids most at risk. There are ways to offset this, helping teachers learn to “differentiate” their instruction to reach all or grouping kids for part or all of the day roughly by ability so teachers aren’t trying to reach both extremes.
And when Petrilli gets to the school-touring phase of his research he reports on some promising approaches in schools that are deliberately trying to get at this seeming impasse. But it’s delicate, intentional work and, at least in the instances he chronicles, done in an effort to encourage diversity for its own sake.
“Still,” he writes, “the ideal situation for low-achieving kids is to be in class with higher-achieving peers most of the school day. But the ideal situation for high-achieving kids is to be with other high achievers most of the day. If there’s a sure way to square that circle, I haven’t found it.”
What about the odds-beating schools?
So what of the odds-beating schools, the aforementioned needles in a haystack which have both super-concentrated poverty and high test scores? Their student bodies tend to be overwhelmingly minority. Why don’t their sometimes eye-popping ratings draw affluent white families?
Petrilli wades right in and lays out research showing that parenting styles are behind these powerful reactions. White parents generally want environments that suggest their whole child will be honored, with programming that encourages creativity and an emphasis on self-esteem. Poor minority parents often want strict discipline and an emphasis on the basics.
He’s right. I’m a frequent visitor to odds-beating programs and while I have never encountered the rote, “drill-and-kill” focus only on tested subjects that detractors suspect them of, I often choke on the question of whether I’d send one of my kids there. It’s never the academics.
This disconnect can make a school’s gentrification via an influx of well-intended white parents desirous of a “progressive, child-centered” education a dicey process. The schools that manage it well, Petrilli writes, have principals who deal with issues of race and class head-on, and communities that are willing to go to painstaking lengths.
Uncomfortable though it makes you, ask, he suggests. If the principal doesn’t see addressing these issues as part of his or her job or suggests you are pushy for trying to find out, run the other way. If you choose not to, opting to “stick around and try to improve the school you’ve been dealt,” you’ll appreciate the final chapter, “How to gentrify a high-poverty public school.”
Petrilli goes to some lengths not to disclose his family’s decision until what is essentially an epilogue to the book. I won’t give it away, but will just say my two cents worth is he remains as ambivalent as the rest of us frequently feel.
‘Screen, match and explore’
Instead, I’ll suggest that if you are in his position, it’s well worth the $12 the book will set you back to read his “screen, match and explore” approach. Petrilli provides detailed instructions on how to look past a school’s overall test scores to figure out how many kids in less-than-privileged schools are achieving at high levels, who they are and why.
He suggests you use GreatSchools.org, but I got the same results using the Minnesota Department of Education website, which offers the advantage of allowing users to compare groups of kids, grade-level cohorts or even entire programs via slick interactive graphics.
I’ll also tell you that his approach will yield essentially the same impressions you’d glean visiting schools for a living but in a much shorter period of time. Will it tell you which of the top candidates will pass the all-important “gut check”? It will not, but it will certainly help you, as your child’s first and most important teacher, feel equipped to navigate the dilemmas within dilemmas. | <urn:uuid:c3cbdfd3-8338-46fd-8ee8-3d9ec91afaa7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://extractpc.info/?p=11132 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951852 | 1,980 | 1.804688 | 2 |
November 23, 2006
City Begins Overhaul of Zoning
In an effort to revive what has become an embattled planning and zoning system the Memphis City Council appointed Alderman Brian Brush as the city’s new zoning administrator.
The move was made in an effort to expedite the building permit process. Brush will be able to review building permits and respond to the applicants within two or three days. Previously applicants had been forced to wait until the monthly meeting of the city council to receive approval of building permits.
The move also was made necessary after the city’s planning and zoning committee voted at its November 1st meeting to disband.
Committee members have voiced concerns about the planning and zoning process and had expressed frustration with the lack of enforcement.
City attorney David Peppard stated that no violations have ever been turned over to him by the committee for prosecution.
“The only way we are going to get people to follow planning and zoning is to go to court with one or two of these cases and make the public aware of the consequences of not following the rules,” Peppard said.
As zoning administrator, Brush will work with Peppard to ensure the city’s planning and zoning rules are adhered to by all citizens. | <urn:uuid:5752d8ca-fc50-44a0-8b40-7808620c3eba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://memphisdemocrat.com/2006/news/061123_zone.shtml | 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 | 0.976206 | 255 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Frontiers Club Holds 28th Annual MLK Day Luncheon
Utica, NY (WIBX) - It was a full house at the 28th Annual Mohawk Valley Frontiers Club MLK Day Luncheon held at the Radisson Hotel in Utica.Officials from across the region were at hand to mark the occasion, and to honor the legacy of the Civil Rights leader. The organization presented two honor-roll students from Proctor High School with scholarships to further their education, and recognized two community leaders for their volunteer efforts.
Congressman Richard Hanna praised the work the group is doing, and highlighted the issues many still face when it comes to racial inequality. He said, “I think that we are ultimately judged by how we operate, how we take care of all of ourselves, not just the wealthy, not just the poor, but how we build our society and the things we show respect to.” The congressman goes on to say, “You can change behavior with the law … takes time to change peoples behavior in their mind. I still think we have a society that is somewhat bigoted and I thnk that we’re working through that. My hope is that we are and I believe that we are.” And, he says how Congress responds to the needs of all people, is a reflection of its commitment to the advancement of everyone regardless of race, creed or religion.
Councilman Jerome McKinsey says since the days of Martin Luther King, Jr., progress has been made, but says there is still a lot of room for progress. He says the recent issue involving the Utica Police Department supposedly planting drug evidence on two African American suspects may have been taken out of context on the edited version of the released tape released on YouTube, however he says the incident opened up some old wounds. “Yes, it did open up some old wounds but sometimes that’s necessary for proper healing. You can have a real nasty scar and then if you go to have it removed, the surgeon has to cut that old scar off so that it can heal properly. So, it’s opened up some old wounds and I think that the people on deck for the struggle are in position, competent and educated enough to take these old wounds, or these old problems and handle them in a way that they’ll be dealt with properly, so you know, I think that the recent events are paving the way for even more progress.”
The organization presented Proctor High School seniors, Kiearra Arthur and Shakur Henry with Scholastic Achievement Awards. Darlene Mack-Brown and Warren E. Molo were presented with MLK Community Service Awards. Mack-Brown received a special recognition and civic award for her leadership and work with the group and in the community. The award, presented to her by Assemblywoman, Claudia Tenney, was a special surprise for Mack-Brown.
The Mohawk Valley Frontiers Club is a non-profit organization founded in 1936, to advance civic participation among community members. Other officials in attendance include, Assemblyman Antony Brindisi, Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol, City of Utica Mayor, Robert Palmieri, Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente and State Senator Joseph Griffo. | <urn:uuid:e5cdc463-8416-404f-83d5-6c7d99a65ebb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wibx950.com/frontiers-club-holds-28th-annual-mlk-day-luncheon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970631 | 669 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Local & Regional
Mon June 22, 2009
Recession has One Business Booming
By John Durkee
Tulsa, OK – At a time when many retail outlets, not only here, but across the nation are struggling this one is booming. Not only is business good but so is the cause.
This is Goodwill Thrift Store on Southwest Blvd. in Tulsa. Because of the recession Goodwill is attracting more customers. Across the nation Goodwill sales are up nearly six percent. The Tulsa District's nine stores are surpassing that.
The outlets do not look like what you would expect a thrift store to look like. The aisles are wide, the store is clean and soft music is playing in the background. It is arranged much like any other department store. In fact, the Southwest Blvd. facility used to be just that. Back in the 1970s this was the Stockton's Discount Center.
There is more to this thrift store than just deep discount. It is a training facility for those displaced or facing job barriers.
Norma Scott is among those taking part in job retraining. She is updating her computer skills so she can seek employment as an administrative assistant. | <urn:uuid:358fd87a-5744-4e26-8fad-c42de7676326> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwgs.org/post/recession-has-one-business-booming | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965333 | 246 | 1.640625 | 2 |
As the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) engages in peace talks with the Colombian gove...
Friday, Oct. 23
BOGOTÁ, Colombia – With less than seven months until the presidential elections, Colombia has witnessed the murder of two municipal councilors on the outskirts of Bogotá, the death of 21 guerrillas in combat and the nationwide capture of at least 40 FARC collaborators. These events have raised the alert among President Álvaro Uribe's government and the civil population, who fear a possible resurgence of armed violence in the country.
Local politicians María Fanny Torres and Fernando Morales Pabón, from the Colombian Liberal Party, were kidnapped and murdered by rebels from the FARC's Front 53, reported El Tiempo, south of the capital in Sumapaz on Oct. 19. The operation bore the hallmarks of being "selective killings" by the guerrilla group, which is trying to recover a district they have traditionally used to infiltrate the Colombian capital.
Authorities reacted by offering a US$26,000 reward for information leading to arrests and set up a permanent police commando base in the area with 100 officers and helicopters available to respond immediately to any FARC threats.
Meanwhile, at least 21 FARC combatants were killed in recent clashes against the army in Cauca province (south-west), reported W Radio. Seven troops also lost their lives in rural Toribio, a strategic corridor for smuggling drugs and arms to Colombia's Pacific coast.
According to Colprensa, the Colombian intelligence agency (DAS) arrested 40 alleged members of FARC's logistic branch, which extorts tradesmen, recruits children and gathers funds in the departments of Arauca (on the Venezuelan border), Boyacá (center) and Casanare (east).
Furthermore, two rebels planning to attack the presidential plane were captured in the central-eastern province of Huila.
The wave of FARC-related attacks and clashes comes just seven months away from the presidential elections, where Uribe hopes to stand for a third consecutive term if the favorable referendum results are ratified by the Constitutional Court. FARC is the main target of Uribe's Democratic Security measures that spearhead Colombian domestic policy. | <urn:uuid:93535f6b-7283-4207-970d-06a2e60e936a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://infosurhoy.com/cocoon/saii/xhtml/en_GB/features/saii/features/2009/10/23/feature-04 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948901 | 460 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Born in Troy, Missouri, Robert Wilson McCoy studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, The American Academy, and the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, where he later served on the faculty. As a commercial artist, he made paintings for Liberty Magazine covers, calendars, prints, pin-ups and advertisements for major companies. When his friend Ray Moore served in the military during WWII, McCoy took over the responsibilities of illustrating the syndicated newspaper strip, 'The Phantom'. His wife, Dorothy, did the lettering.
In his artwork for this adventure comic, McCoy could draw from his own experiences as a world traveler, since he had visited far-off jungles and native tribes himself. McCoy continued to draw the strip until his death from a heart attack in 1961, after which it was continued by Bill Lignante for a short while, and then Sy Barry. Wilson McCoy's popular work on 'The Phantom' has been featured in comics and continues to be reprinted today. | <urn:uuid:78151967-7d4a-4a42-bed8-d7bcd4c3b413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/mccoy_wilson.htm?lan=english | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987834 | 197 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Lee v. Dodge - 72 U.S. 808 (1866)
U.S. Supreme Court
Lee v. Dodge, 72 U.S. 5 Wall. 808 808 (1866)
Lee v. Dodge
72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 808
In this case, which was a controversy of fact chiefly, a decree of conveyance of land alleged to have been agreed by correspondence to be conveyed was refused, the court being compelled, from all the circumstances in proof, to think that the only witness who testified that a letter making a proposition of sale had been answered, accepting it, labored under a mistake.
The appellants were the heirs-at-law of G. W. Lee, and, on the strength of the title which they had inherited from him, and obtained in the circuit court just named, a judgment in ejectment against Dodge and others for a part of lot 4, block 53, of the City of Chicago. The defendants in that action set up a conveyance from Lee to Lois Cogswell, and showed by sundry mesne conveyances, they were in possession
of the lot under that deed. It was, however, proved on the trial, that the deed to Lois Cogswell was left by Lee at his death among his papers, signed and acknowledged, but with a blank space where the name of the grantee should be; and that this was filled up with the name of Lois Cogswell, and delivery of the instrument made without authority, after G. W. Lee's death, by B. T. Lee, his administrator. As both parties claimed title under Lee, the plaintiffs of course had a verdict and judgment, and thereupon the defendants in that suit filed a bill in the same court for an injunction, and for a conveyance of the legal title. The case was thus:
On the 4th May, 1836, Lee, who resided in the West, and was about to start on a tour from New York to Illinois, entered into a written agreement with Jonathan Cogswell, Lois Cogswell (sister to Jonathan), and F. S. Kinney, Esq. (a member of the bar), by which he agreed to invest in real estate ten thousand dollars furnished by the other three parties to the contract, in the proportion of $5,000 by Jonathan Cogswell, $3,000 by Lois Cogswell, and $2,000 by Kinney. Lee agreed to pay to each of his partners one-half the sum advanced, with interest, within three years, and to give his personal attention to the business. The profits and losses were to be shared, one-half by him and the other half by the others. He was at liberty to make purchases to the amount of $40,000 partly on credit. The titles were in the first place to be taken in Lee's name, and he was afterwards to make such conveyances as the state of the venture required.
Lee invested the ten thousand dollars as agreed, getting among other purchases six canal lots in Chicago, which were bought largely on credit. He also purchased for himself about the same time and in the same manner, lot 4, block 53, which was also a canal lot. He seems to have been engaged in various speculations about that time, and shortly after became much indebted and embarrassed. Not being able to pay his partners the half the money they had invested, when the three years elapsed, he confessed to J. Cogswell, for their joint benefit, a judgment for the $5,000 and interest.
Towards the close of 1841, he availed himself of a privilege allowed by the statute of Illinois, and consolidated his payments on the canal lots -- that is to say he concentrated all the payments which he had made on six lots, upon two and part of another, and thereby paid in full and obtained clear title for these, and relinquished his claim to the others. In doing this he made his own lot 4, block 53, one of those on which payments were consolidated, and thus became debtor to the partnership for about $1,500, a little more than one-third the cost of that lot.
On the 26th March, 1842, his health having been for some months broken down, he addressed a letter to Kinney, enclosing one to the Cogswells, dated the 20th of the same month from Mishwaukie, Illinois.
In the letter to Cogswell, he makes a full statement of the transactions concerning the canal lots; says that he is not able to hold any part of the property, and would like to have some arrangement made by which he could give up his interest in all of it, and be released of his debt to them; and adds that he lives at such a distance from the property that other agents can attend to it at less expense than he can.
In his letter to Kinney he says:
"I enclose a letter upon the subject of the canal lots, and you will see how it stands; but how to manage it without our being together I know not. As I am not able to own the property, and really, in the depressed feeling I am in, am not fit to take care or look after it, I would like them to take all and give up my note, I paying property enough to make them secure. For instance, the property to be all theirs, which is at one-third less than cost now. It will include $2,172 of my own property. I will give, besides, the west fractional half of section 19, which ought to go with the east half, now owned by the company, $400. I will also (if they actually ask -- it ought not to be required) -- give all my school section lots in Chicago, worth $1,500 cash now. I feel so much depressed and so unfit to take care of these matters that I will, if the whole matter can be settled, give up this property and have it off my mind, if the whole is asked. "
This letter Kinney filed and preserved, as he did other letters of Lee; including letters between the date of the proposition and Lee's death. Lee himself, after lingering in disease and embarrassment for some months, died in November, 1842.
What was done by Cogswell or by Kinney in the way of action upon these two letters of Lee was a chief point in issue. The defendants in the bill, who were in possession of the lot and who claimed it under the deed of the administrator, set up that the letter contained a proposition, and that this proposition had been accepted; that so there had been a contract; that the deed from the administrator had been in pursuance of that contract, and that no conveyance ought to be decreed. The complainants, Lee's heirs-at-law, on the other hand, denied that there was any contract; asserting that the letter of the 26th March was not a definite offer, but only a statement of what he, Lee, would be willing to do if the parties could meet personally and so "manage" things; and asserting, moreover, that even such a plan as was suggested had never been responded to or accepted.
The evidence on this last point, as it appeared on the one side and on the other, was thus:
In favor of the idea that it had been accepted. Kinney testified that soon after receiving Lee's two letters, he had different conversations with Jonathan Cogswell and his sister, in which they agreed to accept Lee's offer; and that some six or eight weeks after the letter of Lee was written -- he thought in the month of May -- he wrote him a letter accepting, on behalf of himself and the Cogswells, the offer of Lee, without exacting the school section lots in Chicago; and he further stated that he thought that he received a letter from Lee acknowledging the receipt of this letter of acceptance. He also stated that he had promised Lee to go to Illinois that summer on this business.
Certain facts were relied on as confirming this testimony, as:
i. That Lee had left at his death a deed (found among his papers after that event) signed and acknowledged, but with
a blank space where the name of the grantee should be, and that this deed was with another deed, a deed of the partnership lots.
ii. That there was found among Lee's papers a letter from Cogswell, dated October 18, 1842; a long letter, detailing the pecuniary troubles of the writer, and expressing his desire to realize from the lands in which he had invested with Lee. He speaks of the lands which were conveyed to his sister, mentions the canal lots, and says if the deed has not been recorded that the name of the grantee should be changed, and they should be conveyed to him, and then directs that the deeds be recorded. But there was no specific mention of lot 4, now in controversy.
iii. Letters of Kinney also were found among Lee's papers, urging the conveyance, and recording of deeds for real estate.
The blank, as to the grantee's name, in the deed from Lee for the lot 4, was, as already mentioned, filled up by Lee's administrator, one B. T. Lee. Kinney, it appeared, went, in June, 1843, to Chicago, and had a full settlement with B. T. Lee, administrator of G. W. Lee, of an individual claim which he had against Lee's estate, and also of that of the partnership. In that settlement he received the deed already mentioned, of the lot in controversy, found among Lee's papers, and by his advice and with his knowledge the blanks in the deed were filled with the name of Lois Cogswell, and delivery made by B. T. Lee. These arrangements, Kinney testified, were made with the purpose of carrying out "the contract," and that B. T. Lee, the administrator, understood things in that way.
On the other hand, the testimony of Mr. Kinney was given twenty years after the date of the alleged transaction.
No letter of acceptance was produced from any source, nor any alleged copy of one.
A letter thus, from Kinney to Lee, dated July, 1842, was found among Lee's papers:
"DEAR FRIEND LEE:"
"The last letter I had the pleasure of receiving from you related to the lands in Chicago &c. Dr. and Miss Cogswell had it for a time, and perhaps the former took it with him, as I am not able to find it at present. I will therefore defer saying anything in reply until I find the letter. It is in fact a difficult matter to say what is best to be done under the circumstances. . . . Your management of the matter was one great inducement to enter into it, and we might almost as well throw the whole away as attempt to manage it ourselves at this distance. My main object, however, in addressing you at this time is in regard to taxes, which I wish you to attend to, and see paid, on all the property we are jointly interested in."
That the deed for the partnership property -- found after Lee's death among his papers with the deed having the grantee's name in blank, for this canal lot 4, block 53, in controversy -- was fully executed, and only needed delivery.
As to B. T. Lee, the administrator's, understanding that a contract existed when Kinney went to Chicago in June, 1843, and had a full settlement with him there, B. T. Lee himself testified that he had never at that time heard of a contract, and that none was spoken of during the settlement. Two full memoranda of agreement, showing the terms of settlement, relating the one to a personal claim of Kinney's against the estate, the other to the joint claim of Cogswell and himself, made no reference to any existing contract. | <urn:uuid:940720a2-9571-4e17-acc3-624bf0a774e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/72/808/ | 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 | 0.989206 | 2,505 | 1.5 | 2 |
Businesses have a new resource available to help them grow. The Lighting Technology Greenhouse (LTG), a program of the Lighting Research Center (LRC), promotes the growth and success of lighting-related businesses by acting as an interface for businesses to facilitate the commercialization of lighting products and services that enhance sustainability.
The LTG is the only program of its type, with a goal of providing assistance in the establishment and growth of lighting companies. It offers a wealth of services to businesses within and outside of New York State, including networking with commercialization players interested in the growth of lighting-related businesses such as large companies interested in acquiring smaller companies, small companies looking to grow, entrepreneurs, inventors, and investors. A list of lighting-related businesses, including lighting manufacturers and distributors, as well as companies offering lighting-related services or capable of building components or prototypes for new lighting products is also available.
"LTG can also provide assistance in identifying and securing federal, state, and regional funding opportunities,” said Mark Rea, the LRC’s director. “Although LTG does not provide funding itself, it can help with proposal planning, writing, and editing assistance to secure funding on behalf of New York State lighting-related businesses.”
Other services include technical and market assessment assistance for companies trying to benchmark and improve their products, provide due diligence for technical evaluations, or document lighting product success stories.
At the core of the LTG are the Lighting Research Center and Linc, a new, not-for-profit corporation. Together, they “envision a vibrant cluster of lighting companies within New York State” that will provide useful lighting products and services throughout the world.
“The LRC is a unique, but heretofore unrealized asset for lighting companies coming to and growing in New York State,” said Rea. “As the leading independent third party for lighting research, the LRC has not been directly involved in the development and commercialization of lighting products.”
That is where Linc comes in. Linc – The Lighting CultivatorTM – provides the conduit between the LRC and the private sector to foster commercialization of new lighting concepts. Linc was created through funding by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Through collaboration with Linc, the LRC provides resources to the private sector while maintaining its integrity as the world’s leading independent authority on lighting science and technology.
"Linc is a new model for technology commercialization, business development, and technology evaluation in the lighting industry—bridging the worlds of research, tech transfer, and manufacturing," adds Eugene K. Schuler, Executive Director of Linc.
For more information about the Lighting Technology Greenhouse, visit www.lightingtechnologygreenhouse.org or contact Mark Rea, LRC Director, at 518-687-7100 or email@example.com.
For more information about Linc - The Lighting Cultivator, visit www.lightingcultivator.org or contact Gene Schuler, Jr., at 518-424-7187 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:296b566b-b538-4534-869a-f79259b4f2a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/newsroom/enews/fall07/Research49.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941339 | 658 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The irrigators' Conservation Committee that is planning to apply for grant funding to pipe irrigation ditches in Surface Creek Valley has distributed a question and answer sheet covering discussions with the project contractor, Harward Irrigation Systems of Springville, Utah. Below are some of the items from that dialogue.
Question: What is Harward's plan to prevent financial risk?
Answer: Harward has never run over cost on a project. On one project, they ordered 400 truckloads of pipe to protect cost of the project. They build 15 to 20 percent contingency and work within the Bureau of Reclamation guidelines to accomplish this.
Q: How does Harward estimate costs for the environmental requirements of the project?
A: Harward generally use the bureau's 5 percent guideline and also works with the Army Corps of Engineers.
Q: The bureau mentions "in kind" opportunities. What are those and how do they work?
A: There would be opportunities for (the ditch companies) to do some installation or some other things on the project which would lower costs.
Q: How does Harward manage and man current projects?
A: Someone from Harward becomes the single project manager.
Q: Will Harward use local labor and equipment?
A: Harward will work with local companies on the bids. Contractors will have to be fully vetted, bonded, and insured — a bureau requirement.
Q: What happens with the bureau requirement that existing ditches be filled in when they are still needed here for tail water?
A: That is okay for drainage, but it counts against the project on the salt load removal calculation.
Q: How does Harward provide for stock water if necessary?
A: Take-outs for stock watering are doable if Harward is obligated to do them. However, the take-outs are costly and could hurt the project. Anyone affected should contact OCID.
Q: What happens to cultural resources and who is responsible?
A: This (cultural resources survey) is done after design and approval. A Montrose contractor has been used in the past.
Q: How does Harward make sure it is covering costs for "very rocky ground?"
A: It will be built into the costs. Local excavators are being consulted. Pipe will have to be bedded.
Q: What other funding is available, how do we get it, and how does Harward estimate for it on the application?
A: Some $50,000 to $300,000 might be available from (state agencies) as augmentation money to help buy down the project. There might also be money available related to water conservation through the Gunnison Basin Roundtable.
Q: How does Harward determine indirect cost for things like administration, electricity, rent, etc.?
A: Part paid by Harward and part by OCID. Responsibility for items will be determined after any grant is awarded.
Q: What is Harward's guesstimate of the total cost of all four projects?
A: Harward now has a "guesstimate" on this number, but it is not willing to share it because it could affect how other ditch companies finish their grant applications. If anyone asks this question, tell them Harward is looking at $25 million to $30 million.
Q: What will be the alternate delivery system throughout the project?
A: Under discussion.blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:5a3fd2e1-7f7e-4de2-a264-d7679b540d42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deltacountyindependent.com/index.php/sc/2989-q-and-a-on-irrigators-grant-bids | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95238 | 705 | 1.8125 | 2 |
German Cabinet approves Mali mission
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet has approved a plan to send up to 330 German military personnel to Mali to help train the country's soldiers and provide logistical support.
The plan passed Tuesday, which still needs Parliament's approval, does not authorize any German participation in combat operations.
Up to 180 soldiers will be part of the European Union's task force of about 500 that is being sent from nations across the 27-nation bloc to help train the Malian army.
Its goal is to make that army good enough to patrol the whole country, including its huge northern region, where French and African troops are fighting to unseat Islamist rebels.
The decision allows for up to 150 Germans to take part in ongoing aerial transport and refueling operations. | <urn:uuid:92324389-6db2-476c-865f-76a265c802ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20130219/API/1302190584/German-Cabinet-approves-Mali-mission | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955132 | 155 | 1.609375 | 2 |
When a hurricane has set its sights on Longboat Key and is rapidly approaching, there should be no thoughts about what to do once an evacuation order is issued for the island.
“Get out of town,” said Richard A. Dickerson, the town’s new fire chief. Dickerson served as the incident commander for Sanibel and Captiva islands during Hurricanes Charley in 2004 and Wilma in 2005.
Dickerson, 49, said he saw too many people not take heed when evacuation orders were issued.
And, he said the second most important thing to do, especially for seasonal residents, is to make sure your insurance information is up-to-date and that someone has been appointed to oversee your home and brace it for a storm.
“There were way too many homes in Sanibel that were left unattended, which led to unnecessary damage,” Dickerson said.
Dickerson said Hurricane Charley was so tightly wound, or compact, that the hurricane didn’t create much storm surge.
But the new fire chief believes that Longboat Key can’t hope for a lucky break.
“A slow-moving storm could be extremely deadly for Longboat Key,” said Dickerson, who doesn’t want residents to be complacent because a storm hasn’t impacted the island for years.
Town Manager Bruce St. Denis appointed the former Sanibel Fire Rescue Chief to replace Longboat Key Fire Rescue Chief Julias Halas, who takes over as director of the state fire marshal’s office May 1.
“He has a lot of experience,” said St. Denis about Dickerson. “He is absolutely the guy to replace Fire Chief Julius Halas.”
Dickerson, who served as Sanibel’s fire chief from 2000 to 2007, most recently served as a shift leader, emergency-management coordinator and infections-control officer for the Captiva Island Fire District.
The starting salary for Dickerson will be $92,393.60, compared to the $107,681.60 salary that Halas currently receives for the position. Dickerson earned a salary of $106,000 per year as Sanibel’s fire chief.
Dickerson, whose first official day is April 27, has 27 years of public-safety experience, beginning as a paramedic in Lee County before moving on to Sanibel as a paramedic in 1979 and, later, fire chief.
His tenure Sanibel’s fire chief is similar to his new Longboat Key post. Dickerson oversaw a staff of 28 employees on the slightly smaller island. Dickerson now oversees a staff of 33 employees on Longboat Key.
At the Thursday, April 16 Town Commission regular workshop, Dickerson was introduced to the commission and pledged his commitment to the town.
Dickerson took a moment at the podium to congratulate Halas on his recent promotion and explain his one tie to Longboat Key.
“Hurricane Charley was supposed to hit here, I do remember that,” Dickerson said. “But it made a right turn right into my community.”
Dickerson said he is looking forward to working with the town’s police officers and firefighters, as well as forming close relationships with other departments.
Dickerson’s wife, Kim, is the deputy chief of the Lee County emergency-medical services and is responsible for and oversees all facets of the county’s 911 response and inter-facility operations.
Contact Kurt Schultheis at email@example.com.
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18 Crunch Kidz Homelessness Zumbathon
18 An Island Affaire
6:00 pm - 11:00 pm
1 Floridafitfest and 5K Treasure Run
9:00 am - 4:00 pm
Hat's off to Dee Pelton, volunteers
Dee Pelton held a luncheon that will be tough to top.
Youth sailors descend on City Island
Approximately 250 people hit the water Saturday, April 20 through Sunday, April 21, for Sailfest. The regatta, Sarasota Youth Sailing's biggest fundraiser of the year, included four classes of competition — Optimus, 420, Laser and Multi-hull — and a barbecue feast.
Book club sunsets for the season
The Sunset Beach Book Club, in its 10th year, ended this season with a luncheon and discussion of the book “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn, April 18, at Lazy Lobster. Discussion moderator was Ricki Carroll. Together, the group read five books this season. | <urn:uuid:ff49828e-396a-4c5c-9586-678de3279152> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yourobserver.com/news/longboat-key/Front-Page/0423200914/Town-hires-new-fire-chief?page=384 | 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 | 0.956785 | 969 | 1.507813 | 2 |
For King and country
The 23-year year old Spaniard Fermín Cacho Ruiz stood on the start line for the Olympic 1500m final in Barcelona with nothing to lose. Back in 1992 he was not the World or Olympic Champion and he had not even clocked the fastest time in the world that year. His personal best for the distance was a steady 3.32.03. In fact, Fermín, from the town of Ágreda in the Province of Soria in Northern Spain, was not remotely favoured to claim the Olympic title. Cacho's best result prior to Barcelona had been as runner-up in the Indoor Championships in Seville a year before. This time, however, Fermín would be running in front of his home crowd, not to mention his King, Juan Carlos.
The hard yards
Cacho won his heat and second place in his semi-final earned him a spot in the final. Starting on the inside lane, Cacho broke to the front of the pack in the first few metres. Boxed in, although at the front of the pack, Fermin maintained a steady pace and managed to avoid tripping in the confined space he found.
The final lap
It had been a slow race and that suited Fermin, who seized his moment with just 300m remaining. A space opened up in front of him and he nipped into it, taking the lead as the race entered the final 200m. Once out in front, no one would catch him. The sound of the crowd and thoughts of Olympic glory in his mind, Cacho even pulled away from the rest of the field despite expecting at any moment to see another runner appearing over his shoulder.
Arms raised high above his head, Fermin Cacho Ruiz crossed the finish line to claim the Olympic gold medal. The time on the clock was a pedestrian 3:40.12, more than over ten seconds off World Record pace, and the slowest Olympic 1500m final for 36 years. Few, though, had their eyes on the clock, least of all Fermin, the new Olympic Champion. Spain’s first ever at that distance.
Cacho’s leap to Atlanta Silver
Four years after winning his Olympic title, Fermin Cacho was back in the Olympic 1500m final in Atlanta to defend his title. It was not to be. Morocco’s Hicham El Guerroui fell in front of him, forcing Cacho to leap to avoid crashing out of the race altogether. The 1992 Olympic Champion finished in silver-medal position behind Noureddine Morceli of Algeria. | <urn:uuid:3fd7bab6-459b-4fff-a81a-8d14e3ea9609> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.olympic.org/content/Olympic-Games/All-Past-Olympic-Games/Summer/Barcelona-1992/Calendar/Barcelona-1992--011-Fermin-Cacho/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974611 | 542 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The BigPharma Alternative or BPA – join the movement!
Our email address: bartsmsblog[at]gmail.com
There's a lot of info about the connection between EBV and MS. Is there any connection between herpes simplex virus type 1 and MS? I never came down with mononucleosis (though my best friend did) but I did experience my first cold sore when I was in high school. Just wondering if maybe that opened the door to MS.
Re: "There's a lot of info about the connection between EBV and MS. Is there any connection between herpes simplex virus type 1 and MS?"The link or association between HSV 1 & 2 and MS is not nearly as strong as EBV. There is really no data to link it causally to MS. However, viral infections are a trigger of MS attacks or relapses and recurrent herpes infections could almost certainly trigger clinical attacks.
For RRMS it seems like Tysabri is the most effective drug out there right now. The jury is still out on Gilenya, but I personally like the fact that Tysabri leaves the white blood cells in most of the rest of the body where they presumably do their job.My question is, from your perspective, is there a drug in development now or soon to be released that will make Tysabri a thing of the past?If Tysabri is the iPhone4, is the next big drug likely to be the iPhone4S or the iPhone5? (minor or major upgrade) And what are those drugs?
My question is, from your perspective, is there a drug in development now or soon to be released that will make Tysabri a thing of the past?There are new drugs in development each will have its own side effect some are like the next addition to the iphone others are completely different the blackberry or android.I would not see it as making drugs a thing of the past but new additions to the armoury.
Why is this post considrered to be "unhelpful"?
Don't you think that injectables like Rebif etc will become a thing of the past when BG12 comes online-apart from those people who love them and have done well on them, unless the pharma companies make them dirt cheap.ps I know a lot of bloggers seem to hit out in response to posts- how's that going to help? what a waste of time? we need results now, not in 20 years? Please don't think what is the point? so many of us have learnt so much from these blogs.
Influential MS blogger has linked to the Research Day videos on youtube and your Google Trends post from January (to the copy on shift.ms)
Did you see the article on the MSRC website within the past 2 days that EBV stimulataes the torque teno virus into replication, and may be implicated in MS?
I seem to post questions but don't get answers. Or, quite possibly the arrangement of comments and questions is extremely poor. I think the Q & A section needs major work.Either of the neurologist brave enough to attempt an answer to my question about EDSS posted around Tuesday? If you have answered, then the response is not able to be clearly detected. Maybe invite a person who has experience in web design to assist you. Most of the UK MS websites know how to do this. I know that answering questions is a public service but I think if managed in a more user friendly way for both parties, there would be less angst all round. And someone else should be doing the data input answers for your questions - as it is pretty clear that your keyboard skills pale in comparison to your neurology skills - is there not secretarial support or research assistants upon whom you can inflict these tasks?
Dear HelenRe your question on EDSS. They were answered under the post you asked the question; see below. The Q&A are all linked to a specific post around which the discussion occurs. I suggest your register to get email alerts from the blog; in this way all answers come to you via email. We use Google's blogger for this site; the way it is designed is beyond our control. http://multiple-sclerosis-research.blogspot.com/2012/03/hopefully-new-treatment-for-spasticity.html
Did you see the article on the MSRC website within the past 2 days that EBV stimulataes the torque teno virus into replication, and may be implicated in MS? Yes thanks a post has been done, we are trying not to post 5 posts a day so some things arrive sloer than others.
Should we get rid of the British Royal Family and elect a UK president instead?Also, what are you thoughts on the existence of Bigfoot?
Sorry Load of of Rubbish from a republican point of view as well as a royalist point of view. What relevance has this comment got to do with anything on this blog?.Bigfoot does not exist
We love the QueenP.S. Can I have a Knighthood NowProf G for OBE!
Just in case it's slipped under the radar- there was a report on MSRC that a Danish team have implicated HERV-Fc1 and the gene TRIM5 in MS.
Does having a beard limit vit D through the face?
Re: "Does having a beard limit vit D through the face?"Yes, it reduces the surface area of skin that can be exposed to the sun.
The Telegraph says:"Vitamin D is crucial to activating our immune defences and that without sufficient intake of the vitamin, the killer cells of the immune system – T cells – will not be able to react to and fight off serious infections in the body.""For T cells to detect and kill foreign pathogens such as clumps of bacteria or viruses, the cells must first be ‘triggered’ into action and "transform" from inactive and harmless immune cells into killer cells that are primed to seek out and destroy all traces of invaders.""The researchers found that the T cells rely on vitamin D in order activate and they would remain dormant, ‘naïve’ to the possibility of threat if vitamin D is lacking in the blood."Therefore. what I want to know is does having too much vit D as an MSer risk encouraging misbehaving T cells that are out to destroy my CNS?
This is on blog navigation.Could you add a blog archive section where you click a year to get a list of months and click a month to get a list of posts in the month? As in this blog http://googlesystem.blogspot.comAlso, I don't think the long list of labels on the left is useful.
Re: "Could you add a blog archive."Done! | <urn:uuid:ff009181-5ea0-4633-a96d-2991fa4c63c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://multiple-sclerosis-research.blogspot.com/2012/03/march-unrelated-blogger-comments.html?showComment=1331757602921 | 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 | 0.960324 | 1,414 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Artist Marc Awodey Passes at 51
It is with deep sadness that I report the passing of Marc Awodey, longtime art critic for Seven Days. At 51, Marc died of a heart attack this weekend.
Marc was also a talented painter, an art teacher at area colleges, a poet — and haiku champion! — founder of the Minimal Press and one-time creator of poetry vending machines that served up tiny verses for quarters. He was a collector and seller of coins. He was a cofounder of the long-ago Rhombus Gallery on College Street and, in recent years, of the online Vermont Art Zine . He was smart, funny, inquisitive, passionate, gentle, kind and sensitive. And he never missed a deadline.
Marc also once ran for Burlington City Council (and lost) as a Democrat, and was a justice of the peace. He even had an unlikely stint in real estate. But mostly, he was an indefatigable painter.
Due to his poor health from diabetes, Marc "retired" from art criticism about a year ago, but continued to teach and make art. He had a large and lovely solo exhibit at Johnson State College's Dibden Center last year, filled with his signature evocative, somewhat melancholic scenes as well as still lifes bursting with color and energy. Yet Marc, who studied painting at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, declared himself more concerned with the formal essence of art making than with subject. As his son Clay quoted on Marc's Facebook page:
"I am a figurative painter who is, nevertheless, more focused on formal issues than narrative content. Narratives are egocentric, and I am an artist of the Id. Textures, color, and line are the Id. I establish a dialog with each canvas, and let it develop on its own terms - so my pictures are very simple and direct."
Marc's art reviews were astutely analytical, with a deep respect for and knowledge about art history. He had an abiding, and amusing, disdain for navel-gazing artists' statements.
In August, Marc was on Church Street reading Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. It's fitting that a photo of him doing so — and adopting the look of a 19th-century man — is his final Facebook profile.
From his chapbook, no, this ain't no haiku (Minimal Press, 2000):
longing for heaven
i rubbed sand
into my hair
and leapt at the clouds.
Goodbye, Marc. You made an indelible mark in the hearts and minds of many in this community, and beyond. You will be missed. Thank you for the paintings, the poems and the memories you left behind.
Marc Awodey Memorial: A visitation with the family will be held on Saturday, October 20, 2-4 p.m. at Burlington College, Room 253. Those wishing to pay their respects are welcome.
A visitation with the family will be held on Saturday, October 20, from 2 — 4 pm at Burlington College, 351 North Ave, Room 253. Those wishing to pay their respects are most welcome.
A larger community memorial will take place Friday, November 2, at 5 p.m. in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Burlington. All those wishing to celebrate Marc’s life by sharing art, music, poetry, or memories are welcome to speak. Find out how to reserve a spot on the list of speakers at marcawodey.org . | <urn:uuid:f3d19dde-927c-447d-aaf0-0df0b22c8063> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.7dvt.com/print/98424 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972051 | 729 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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