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So excited to have a guest post today
from the amazing Lexi from LexiYoga!
I met Lexi at the Fitness & Health Bloggers Conference
last month in Colorado!
We had an awesome interview while we were there…
& I also told her how I have been wanting to focus more on flexibility!
I don’t know about you all; but my hamstrings are always SO TIGHT
that my lower back is constantly sore!
(I can’t even touch my toes; yikes!)
Needless to say, I need to work on this area of my total fitness.
Lexi was interested in getting more into strength training!
So I thought it would be great to collaborate with Lexi
since we both were interested in what the other was doing!
So Lexi sent me some information on the benefits of Strength & Flexibility.
Article written by - www.lexiyoga.com.
Balance Strength and Flexibility
Balancing strength and flexibility is important for optimum health.
It’s like yin and yang, you need both to acquire inner and outer harmony.
Yin is associated with the feminine side, which is considered flexible.
Yang is all about strength and power, which is considered masculine.
Both strength and flexibility seem to compliment each other,
and once you work on both, you will not only look your best, but also feel your best.
When you keep fit and strength train on a regular basis,
you increase your energy levels, improve your mood, prevent disease,
burn calories and increase muscle mass.
According to the University of Texas Medical School in Houston,
strength training is the best way to stop, prevent and reverse bone and muscle loss.
This is especially important for women to prevent osteoporosis.
Improving your flexibility not only improves posture, joint health and mobility,
but also maintains a more youthful body, mind and spirit.
With increased flexibility in your quadriceps and hamstrings,
your muscles become more relaxed, which does wonders for your lower back.
Yin yoga is a great way to open and release connective tissues, joint and ligaments,
as you’re holding onto the postures for a longer time, usually from 2 - 10 minutes.
This allows your body to become more limber and flexible.
When you’re involved in flexibility training, such as yoga,
it affects your Neuromuscular Health in a positive way.
Your nerve-impulse velocity, which is the speed at
which a signal is sent to the brain and back, is increased.
To learn more about the healing powers of yoga visit –www.lexiyoga.com.
Thank you Lexi for this awesome information!!
Does your fitness routine have a proper
ratio of strength and flexibility? | <urn:uuid:f074e90b-6e13-4a9e-a999-5574ddca454c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powercakes.net/lexiyoga/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95205 | 595 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Archive for the ‘Local Agriculture and Farming’ Category
Fresh local produce is abundant now at our local farmers markets in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. There are several farm stores in the region as well local farm products for sale at farm lanes. Foodlink Waterloo Region’s website provides up to date information on shopping from farmers in our area.
The Record featured an article a couple of weeks ago about a Kitchener teenager, Claire Matlock, who is following the 100 Mile Diet for 18 months. Her blog is inspiring as she writes about finding and preparing local foods. Do stop and check out Cooking with Claire and make an effort to buy some fresh local food this weekend.
I featured the Waterloo County Horse Sale in a post on June 27, 2009 and it is one of the most searched and viewed subjects on this blog. This horse auction is held on the last Saturday of every month at the Ontario Stock Exchange which is adjacent to the St. Jacobs Farmers Market. The sale starts at noon and today was the third time I have stopped by to take pictures. I had never seen the actual auction take place outdoors before. I put several photographs and a video clip together on iMovie and uploaded this four minute movie to YouTube.
Martins Family Fruit Farm retail store still has lots of local produce for sale at competitive prices. | <urn:uuid:1e8e1751-9f2c-4c87-b763-98a32a9b7fa6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://waterlooinsider.wordpress.com/category/local-agriculture-and-farming/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957973 | 271 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Archive for the ‘flight company’ tag
When you’re a tech startup attempting to do something as ambitious as mining asteroids in outer space, it’s good to make some well-placed friends.
So it makes sense that asteroid mining startup Planetary Resources has inked an agreement with private space flight company Virgin Galactic to utilize its new LauncherOne, a product purportedly designed to send satellites into space cheaper and much more efficiently than the status quo.
Under the terms of the deal, LauncherOne will provide launch capabilities for Planetary Resources’ “Arkyd” series of spacecraft, which are meant to explore and potentially mine and develop asteroids that are close to Earth.
Startups are notoriously competitive with one another, so it’s kind of fun to see two companies in the same space (really, no pun intended there) teaming up and sharing resources. Historically, space exploration and development has needed the backing of governments and the tax dollars of literally millions of people to get off the ground — so it’s nice that privately-owned companies are acknowledging the need to be at least a little bit collectivist in their practices. How far and wide they share any spoils they find in outer space, of course, remains to be seen.
Anyway, rock on space explorers. It’s certainly going to be fun watching this industry develop.
Here is the full press release announcing the Planetary Resources/Virgin Galactic agreement:
Bellevue, Wash. – July 11, 2012 – Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company, announced today an agreement with Virgin Galactic, LLC that will enable multiple launch opportunities for its series of spacecraft, including the Arkyd-100 low-Earth orbit (LEO) space telescopes.
Continuous, low-cost launch services for small spacecraft to LEO assists in accelerating Planetary Resources’ vision to make valuable space resources from Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) available to humanity. “While the Arkyd spacecraft line itself radically reduces the traditional cost of exploring the NEAs, the less expensive the cost to launch an Arkyd spacecraft to LEO, the more spacecraft the company will launch. The more spacecraft that the company launches, the faster it will create a future where access to asteroid resources results in a vast network of propellant depots throughout space and a future where once precious and rare materials are abundant for all. This will enable humanity’s prosperity to continue for centuries to come,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder & Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources, Inc.
Of the nearly 10,000 known NEAs, there are more than 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon. In the next few years, constellations of Arkyd-100 Series space telescopes will help fulfill the company’s early objective of identifying additional energetically-optimal, highly-valuable NEAs which will then be added to the detailed list of the company’s prospecting targets and pursued for future potential resource extraction.
“We are excited to announce this agreement with Virgin Galactic. LauncherOne has the potential to provide reliable and continuous launch service capability for small payloads. I expect Planetary Resources will launch several constellations of Arkyd-100 Series spacecraft in the coming years aboard LauncherOne,” said Mr. Anderson.
“We are developing the LauncherOne to deliver small satellites to LEO in a reliable fashion, with the capability to fly dozens of times per year. LauncherOne leverages our work in the area of commercial human spaceflight, and will provide reliable, regular launch opportunities to enable Planetary Resources to explore and develop valuable resources from asteroids,” said George Whitesides, President and CEO of Virgin Galactic, LLC.
Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer of Planetary Resources, Inc., noted that “As Planetary Resources works to expand humanity’s resource base, we also plan to increase scientific and commercial access to the Earth and deep space by developing capable and cost-efficient spacecraft. Interest in using our Arkyd-100 Series for commercial purposes – in addition to finding asteroids – has been very strong.” | <urn:uuid:3647858c-7897-441d-b211-c7d718ce4cdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seowerkt.com/tag/flight-company/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941165 | 864 | 1.640625 | 2 |
January 16, 2009
Washington—A new survey that represents "the first comprehensive ranking of the world's top think tanks" concludes that the Peterson Institute for International Economics is tied (with the Brookings Institution) as the "Top Think Tank in the World" (table 26)1. The survey identifies and assesses 407 institutions out of a worldwide total of 5,465 (including 1777 in the United States) as "the global go-to think tanks." It was prepared by The Think Tank and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania and released in January 2009.
The survey also ranks the Institute as having the second (to Brookings) most "Outstanding Policy Oriented-Public Policy Research Program" in the world (table 22). It ranked tops in the United States and second in the world, to the International Crisis Group, in "Best Use of the Media to Communicate Programs and Research" (table 24). It ranked second globally, again to Brookings, as top "International Economic Policy Think Tank" (table 18) and was cited as the tenth leading "Domestic Economic Policy Think Tank" (table 17) though it does not specialize in that set of issues.
The survey covers think tanks that address the entire range of issue-areas rather than just economics (let alone international economics, in which the Peterson Institute specializes), including multipurpose institutions (like the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings and the Heritage Foundation) that both address a comprehensive range of topics and are several times larger than the Institute. This may explain the apparent inconsistency that the Institute ranked only 12th in the United States (table 5) despite tying for "Top Think Tank in the World." This latter ranking was picked up by Foreign Policy magazine in a table (The Think Tank Index) that shows that every institution ranked ahead of the Institute had a budget at least twice as large. Its co-holder of the "Top Think Tank in the World" title, Brookings, had a budget in the reference year that was more than six times as large (and is now more than eight times as large).
1. James G. McGann, "The Global 'Go-To Think Tanks,' " January 2009. | <urn:uuid:8a59fab0-febb-4b77-8ae2-4db8edacdfae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iie.com/publications/newsreleases/newsrelease.cfm?id=143 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95448 | 445 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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New MPCA head sticks head in frac sand on Southeastern Minnesota mining concerns
In Minn. pollution watchdog says voluntary efforts by farmers can help clean rivers, an interview with AP reporter Steve Karnowski, new MPCA head John Linc Stine reveals himself to be something of a toothless guardian of the public interest, and when it comes to frac sand mining, a whole lot of ostrich.
Perhaps he hasn't heard what breathing in all that frac sand dust will do to a body; he certainly seems to have missed the point of the raft of interim ordinances passed by counties, townships and cities in Southeastern Minnesota: that the scale of frac sand mining makes it unlike the friendly neighborhood gravel pits where so many of us learned to rock hunt, shoot or drink beer.
Activists had been telling Bluestem that they hoped Governor Dayton might impose a statewide moratorium while we sort out new rules to deal with the coming tsunami of frac sand mining operations. The Stine AP interview (MPR version) dashes those hopes:
Stine said he sees only a limited role for the MPCA in an emerging mining issue — frac sand mining in southeastern Minnesota. It's been dealt with primarily as a local issue so far, and Stine said he doesn't envision that changing.
He said the silica sand sought by oil and gas companies that use it for hydraulic fracturing in other states is similar to sand and gravel that have long been mined in Minnesota, and has always been regulated locally. He said the MPCA and health department are providing advice to local governments that seek it.
Is that arrangement working? It seems just peachy for the large corporations that want to open dozens of new large operations, but not such a boon to small towns. In March, Paul Tosto reported in an MPR News Primer [on] Frac sand mining:
Where do we stand in Minnesota and Wisconsin?
Right now, we're in a bit of a standoff. Despite the money to be made and the clamor of businesses to open new mines, many officials in southern Minnesota and Wisconsin are starting to pull back the reins as they rethink the social and environmental costs.
Wabasha, Goodhue and Winona counties in Minnesota and Pepin and Eau Claire counties in Wisconsin have already adopted moratoriums on new mining operations, although Eau Claire County's is for just six months, the Associated Press writes. The Winona County moratorium is the shortest of all, expiring on May 1. The cities of Red Wing, Lake City, Hay Creek and Florence also have passed moratoriums.
Houston and Filmore counties recently agreed to a one-year ban on new mines. City of Winona officials used an emergency meeting in mid-March to pass a one year moratorium on any new or expanded silica sand mining operations within city limits.
By comparison officials Wisconsin's Trempealeau County have not seriously considered stopping the growth of the frac sand mining, the La Crosse Tribune reports.
Officials say they want more time to study frac sand mining. But state lawmakers, concerned about fairness for companies and landowners, have filled bills in the Minnesota House and Senate that would check the power of local officials to limit moratoriums.
If there's a middle ground in the frac sand mining debate, it has yet to be discovered.
Ah yes, the world is just so unfair to corporations, and it's a good thing that there are ALEC members like Mike Beard (he's on the corporate front group's Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force) working to make life better for them. The efforts to gut local control died on the senate floor, but it was a close call.
The proposed legislation would have narrowed the time frame for local governments to pass interim ordinances (moratorium) that give them time to write rules for development. The Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld the rights of townships and local government to set rules; they cannot, however, stop projects on a whim.
The governor's office never publicly signaled how Dayton would react if the legislation passed in both houses and reached his desk. It would be quite the coup for the frac sand mining industry next session if the legislation makes it to Dayton's desk and approval. Then the MPCA can leave the matter to local government, while the state takes away any real power it would have had to reduce the impact of this juggernaut or stop reckless projects.
Drawing in part from the outstanding work by Minnesota's Jim Tittle and other activists, Ellen Cantarow's TomDispatch piece ran in MoJo as How Rural America Got Fracked: The environmental nightmare you know nothing about, finally alerting many Twin Cities liberals about the mind-boggling scale of the issue.
(Of course, those living in Southern Minnesota knew about this nightmare, but like common knowledge about Allen Quist, it's not real for our progressive overlords in the Metro until some big national venue tells them to be outraged. We also do not envy their dilemma as they struggle to put aside environmental concerns in order to support the Dayton administration's pro-corporate bent on this one.) Nor does the piece get into the more recent discussion of the fracking industry's economic bubble.
But Bluestem digresses.
Cantarow's excellent piece on frac sand mining in Wisconsin--also run in the Nation, Salon, and Huffington Post--should be an eye-opener for those who haven't been paying attention; Bluestem doesn't expect Stine to open his eyes, even if he does manage to pull his head out of the ever-growing sand piles.
It's impossible to grasp the scope of the devastation from the road, but aerial videos and photographs reveal vast, bleak sandy wastelands punctuated with waste ponds and industrial installations where Wisconsin hills once stood.
When corporations apply to counties for mining permits, they must file "reclamation" plans. But Larry Schneider, a retired metallurgist and industrial consultant with a specialized knowledge of mining, calls the reclamation process "an absolute farce."
Reclamation projects by mining corporations since the 1970s may have made mined areas "look a little less than an absolute wasteland," he observes. "But did they reintroduce the biodiversity? Did they reintroduce the beauty and the ecology? No."
Studies bear out his verdict. "Every year," wrote Mrinal Ghose in the Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research, "large areas are continually becoming unfertile in spite of efforts to grow vegetation on the degraded mined land."
Read the whole thing. And a recent incident along the St Croix illustrates the dangers of frac sand mining. Madeleine Baran reports in Frac sand sediment spills into St. Croix River:
A spill at a sand mining facility in Wisconsin has dumped an unknown amount of sand and other sediment into the St. Croix River and wetlands near the Minnesota border, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources confirmed Thursday.
The sand-laden water may have harmed aquatic life, but DNR officials said it's too soon to know the extent of the damage. They plan to conduct a full investigation with the assistance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. National Park Service, and Burnett County Conservation officials.
"I'm sure there were things living there that are going to have difficulty living there now that they're covered with sand," said Tom Woletz, a senior manager at the Wisconsin DNR who specializes in sand mining and other industries related to hydraulic fracking.
To paraphrase an old saying: Frac sand water isn't healthy for children and other living things, regardless of how invigorating legal "persons" like corporations might find it to be for their bottom lines.
The rapid growth has left state and local officials scrambling to oversee the industry. Two years ago, Wisconsin had five frac sand mines and five processing facilities. Now it has 63 mines and 36 processing facilities, according to current DNR figures.
County officials are responsible for approving new mine sites, but they are not required to regularly inspect the facilities, said Burnett County Conservationist Dave Ferris.
"We go out on an occasional basis," Ferris said. "We did not have any particular inspection regime in our permit." . . .
Jill Medland, environmental coordinator at the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, said the incident shows the danger of allowing a sand mining facility so close to a pristine waterway.
"It seems that there's such a demand for frac sand that things are getting permitted quickly without full environmental review, and then things happen that should or could have been avoided," she said.
There have been other spills in Wisconsin over the last year. Yeah, not asking for any state standard has worked out so well for Scott Walker's Wisconsin.
Will this sort of thing be duplicated in Mark Dayton's Minnesota? The attempt to gut the ability of local governments to slow down the process while writing land use policy is likely to come back in the next session.
Between redistricting and retirements, the next legislature will be considerable different than the one that's kept us entertained for the last two years. The DFL caucuses are gunning to regain control. It's not too much for progressive Minnesotans to ask candidates from all parties where they stand on local control, especially in the light of runaway corporate frac sand mining.
If the DFL wants to market itself as a contrast to Walker's Wisconsin, perhaps it might pick an environment standard or two or three that will do so, rather than endorse an economic race to the bottom of the sand pits proposed for Greater Minnesota.
Photos and Video of frac sand mining operations in Scott Walker's Wisconsin, by Jim Tittle. Used with permission. | <urn:uuid:4eeb8a84-b37b-459b-b0f1-7180fa7343c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog/sally-jo-sorensen/new-mpca-head-sticks-head-frac-sand-southeastern-minnesota-mining-concerns | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951219 | 2,031 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Changing Tehran: No Pain, No Gain
by HOSSEIN ASKARI in Washington, D.C.
13 Oct 2009 20:12
So what could work? Well, additional financial sanctions by the Treasury could squeeze Iran -- cutting off all Iranian bank access to the international financial system -- but this would require the cooperation of the Europeans, and also of China, Russia, Dubai and Malaysia, countries that could front for Iran.
There is a targeted US initiative -- with no need to make concessions to China and Russia -- that could alter Iran's objectionable policies, improve its human rights and make its nuclear enrichment less dangerous. A little insight into Iran's economic conditions provides an answer.
Iran's foreign exchange reserves are being rapidly depleted because of lower oil prices and capital flight. Over the summer, because of political uncertainties and a sick economy, it was estimated at $250 million per day to Dubai alone. The last official figure for Iran's foreign currency reserves in July of 2008 placed it at a little over $80 billion. My estimate is that it now stands in the $40 to $50 billion range because of declining oil prices and rapid capital outflows. The regime is worried, and as recently as early August an Ahmadinejad loyalist was put in charge of foreign exchange transactions at the central bank to monitor the outflow of funds as the wealthy rush to get their money out of the country. More ominous for the regime, even cabdrivers say that they are changing rials into dollar bills!
Given these realities, by announcing the enforcement of a number of existing laws, the US Treasury could motivate Iranians, as well as expatriates residing in the US and worldwide, to liquidate their assets and to withdraw their money from Iran. These existing US laws include the payment of taxes by all US citizens and permanent residents (holders of green cards) on all foreign sources of income (including interest income and profits) and the prohibition of investments in Iran (requiring a license from the US Treasury's Office Of Foreign Asset Control).
The US Treasury could make an announcement, saying that it would appear that Iranian Americans and permanent residents (estimated to number more than two million) are honestly unaware of these US laws and the Treasury would give individuals an amnesty, say for six months, and from prosecution and from loss of permanent resident status, if holdings are declared, taxes paid and funds repatriated.
Why would this hurt the regime in Tehran? Many Iranian Americans and permanent residents in the US have quietly transferred money to Iran (giving dollars to individuals in the US and receiving rials in Iran, a practice that is facilitated through international trade with third countries). They have made such transfers to make lucrative bank deposits in Iran; with 3-year interest rates in the range of 15 to 24 percent and an essentially stable exchange rate (fluctuating in about a 20 percent band over the period); thus possibly earning on average about 15 percent more in annual interest, even when converted back into dollars, than on deposits in the US.
They have invested in real estate, which has been booming by more than 1,500 percent in Tehran in the last ten years. They have invested in business and have worked in Iran. Some have even fronted for the regime and received cash payments or real estate in Iran for their services. Some of these investments and transactions are illegal under US law and require a license from the US Treasury. These individuals should have paid taxes on all income and profits. Thousands of Iranian Americans and permanent residents find themselves in this predicament. The US announcement will cause a panic, not only in the US community but also in Iran, because Iranians would fear the consequences of a rush to sell and subsequent fund outflow on the value of assets in Iran and on the exchange rate of the rial. Iranian Americans, permanent Iranian residents in the US, Iranians residing in other countries and even Iranians in Iran would sell and try to take their money out before everything crashes.
The rush to take money out of Iran would put a squeeze on Iran's foreign exchange reserves as everyone tries to take their money out of Iran. The regime, already sensitive about supporting the value of the rial (for prestige, support of businessmen and the wealthy, and to keep a lid on inflation), would have no choice but to pre-empt this by instituting foreign exchange controls blocking the outflow of funds from Iran; the black market exchange rate would become multiples of the official rate; import costs for unsubsidized non-essentials would soar; and inflation would skyrocket.
More importantly, these rapid financial developments -- collapse of asset prices and currency controls -- would turn ordinary citizens, and especially those with vast assets, the wealthy, regime loyalists, and prominent bazaar merchants against the regime as their enormous wealth is decimated in terms of dollars. The ensuing inflation, already more than 25 percent, would fuel dissatisfaction among average citizens who are already struggling for survival.
Some may question the workability of the above on the grounds that the US government does not know who has transferred money to or invested in Iran. The US does not need this information to ignite panic among these individuals. Although there are rewards for information resulting in the successful recuperation of taxes, even the slightest chance of being exposed would be enough to push some investors into a panic mode. The Treasury could even play up one or two cases in the media to further ignite a panic. This is how panics do their work.
These are initiatives that the US Treasury can adopt in 24 hours. The US would need no backing from the UN or from any other country. At this stage, to get the backing of the Iranian people, these initiatives should be targeted towards improving the regime's human rights record, not the nuclear enrichment issue, which Iranians largely support. Iran's nuclear program could be better addressed with a weakened regime, or with a new regime in Tehran.
A number of human rights advocates and anti-regime activists have argued against new sanctions, or any form of pressure, that might increase the burden on ordinary Iranians. While their concerns are understandable, they should recall the experience of South Africa. Unfortunately, there's unlikely to be any gain without pain.
Yes, brave Iranians may suffer even more for a few months and Iranians living abroad may take a financial hit, but this would be a small price to pay if conditions truly improve in Iran. The illegitimate and oppressive regime will be forced to change its criminal human rights abuses or the regime collapses altogether, and in this latter case even the nuclear issue would become more manageable. Now that's an outcome worth pursuing.
This is not the time to snuggle up to the mullahs. It's the time to support the aspirations of Iranians who are risking their lives for a free and pluralistic society. It is through such a stand that President Obama can inject meaning and commitment into his Cairo speech, which was designed to bridge the divide with the Muslim masses, not with their dictators.
Copyright © 2009 Tehran Bureau | <urn:uuid:51241c46-64b9-4286-841d-ace3463132a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/10/changing-tehran-no-pain-no-gain.html | 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 | 0.970016 | 1,418 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Going to graduate school
If you have decided to pursue a secondary degree, and graduate school is on your horizon, you’ll need to give yourself the time to research the schools you're interested in, apply for admission, take the required entrance exams, and get your financial aid in place.
Although the financial burden may make you feel like graduate school is out-of- reach that may not be the case. There are many options available today to help partially or fully fund your graduate degree. With a little time and perseverance you may find that you are able to find the scholarship, financial aid or potential employer that will help cover the costs of graduate school.
Deciding on financial aid packages. Before you take that next step, have you considered employment options within your college or university? Seek out positions available as an RA, TA or Research Assistant. If you've exhausted your other options, research different financial aid packages carefully to find the lowest possible interest rate with a realistic pay-off time-frame. You can start by talking to your school registrar, your bank, as well as searching online for different rates and options at websites like http://www.financialaid.org/.
Working while putting yourself through school? Many universities have graduate programs set up specifically for working adults. Classes meet in the evenings and on weekends, and courses are often taught by professionals in the industry, so you're gaining real-world experience from someone who lives what they teach. You can also explore online education as an alternative:
Explore the possibility of your employer footing the bill.
Start by going to Human Resources to find out if tuition reimbursement is something your employer is willing to consider, whether partially or entirely. Sell yourself. Explaining the rewards your employer will gain from your continued education will help them see past the short-term expense and focus on the long-term benefits. If they agree you may need to sign an agreement guaranteeing them that you will stay with the company for a certain length of time after you earn your degree - which could ultimately benefit you both.
Delaying graduate school into the foreseeable future?
Seek out employment early on with the types of companies known for encouraging their employees to develop themselves while helping them fund it. Start with articles like Fortune Magazine ® 100 Best Companies to Work For" which typically highlights these companies and the types of extraordinary benefits they offer their employees. | <urn:uuid:1ae00f73-e808-4c25-a8b9-f658c4941ead> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cashcourse.org/ccis/articles/id/1866/categoryid/132/going-to-graduate-school | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964178 | 483 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Though the U.S. economy faces lots of problems, as we said yesterday, there are some encouraging signs out there too.
Growth was modest but solid in the third quarter. There were 104,000 jobs added to private payrolls in October — a weak increase, but an increase nonetheless. Retail sales have been better than expected.
Today, the Federal Reserve adds this bit of information — Production at the nation's manufacturers has now risen four straight months:
0.5 percent in October. 0.3 percent in September. 0.3 percent in August. 0.8 percent in July.
0.5 percent in October.
0.3 percent in September.
0.3 percent in August.
0.8 percent in July.
Overall, the Fed said, industrial production (which includes output at mines and utilities) rose 0.7 percent last month.
Bloomberg News says the report is "a signal manufacturing is contributing to fourth-quarter growth." | <urn:uuid:ff5b4cfa-c2ce-42f5-925e-15d88a8ab762> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kccu.org/post/manufacturing-output-fourth-straight-month | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964108 | 200 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Syrian regime, long a key player in the Middle East power play, has decided to fight back with full force. It seems determined to defeat the tidal wave of popular protest that smashed the regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, that is threatening rulers in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, and is now challenging state power in a dozen Syrian cities.
If the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad fails to reassert its authority, and is instead brought down or merely enfeebled by a prolonged period of popular agitation, the geopolitical implications could be considerable. Syria's allies – the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Shia resistance movement Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Hamas government in Gaza – would all come under pressure. For all three, loss of Syrian support would be painful.
Israel would no doubt view such a development with great satisfaction. It has long sought to disrupt the Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah-Hamas axis, which has challenged its regional supremacy – even acquiring a certain deterrent capability, intolerable in Israel's eyes. But Israel's feelings might be tempered by fear that Assad could be replaced by an Islamist regime, even more threatening to its interests and security.
For the moment, all that can be said is that the concessions and promises made so far by Assad have been too little, too late, and have failed to satisfy the protesters. The last few days have seen a renewed surge of demonstrations that, with their swelling numbers, fury and anti-regime slogans, are beginning to seem like an insurrection. The regime has replied with live fire, curfews, massive arrests and cordons thrown around towns and villages. Some 200 protesters must have been killed.
The gloves are now off. In a chilling warning, the Syrian ministry of interior declared at the weekend: "There is no more room for leniency or tolerance in enforcing the law, preserving the security of the country and citizens, and protecting public order."
By all accounts, hardliners inside the regime have now won the debate with reformers, if indeed debate there was. The protesters have in turn hardened their stance as a result of the regime's harsh response. Pointing a finger at key relatives of the president – his brother Maher al-Assad, commander of the Republican Guard, and his cousin Rami Makhlouf, an exorbitantly rich businessman – some are demanding not mere improvements to the way Syria is governed but a change of regime.
It seems clear that in his speech on 30 March – his only public intervention so far – the president missed a historic opportunity to assert his leadership and pull things back from the brink. Had he announced long overdue measures – such as lifting the state of emergency, freeing political prisoners and human rights activists, bringing to trial the regime's corruption bigwigs, curbing the security services' powers, allowing new political parties to challenge the Ba'th party's monopoly of the past half century – he might have been able to lead his country towards a democracy on the Turkish model, as his friend and ally Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, has advised.
He might yet save the day with a dramatic announcement of immediate reforms. But the powerful interests that depend on the regime may make such a radical change impossible. Instead, Syria may be condemned to a bruising contest between regime and opposition, fought out on the street with increasing violence. The regime's armed strength could make sure that it gained the upper hand, but at great cost to its already badly shaken legitimacy.
More broadly, the region is witnessing the unravelling of alliances formed in a critical period three decades ago that saw the Egypt-Israel peace treaty in 1979; the Iranian revolution of the same year; and Israel's devastating invasion of Lebanon in 1982, followed by its 18-year occupation of the south, which led to the emergence of Hezbollah. Having been Syria's ally in the 1973 war, Egypt changed sides and became Israel's partner in peace. Iran, Israel's ally under the shah, changed sides under the Islamic republic, becoming Syria's ally instead. Syria and Israel swapped partners.
These arrangements are now under threat. Post-Mubarak Egypt is likely to distance itself from Israel and rejoin the Arab camp, while Syria's alliance with Iran – unpopular with the Sunni- majority population, – could be endangered by any change of regime in Damascus. Other significant changes to the regional geopolitical map include the emergence of Turkey as a beneficent player, promoting trade and conflict resolution, and Iraq's slow recovery as a major Arab power from the devastation inflicted on it by Tony Blair, George Bush and America's pro-Israel neocons.
Are we then about to witness some reshuffling of alliances formed 30 years ago? Iraq and Iran, who fought a bitter war in the 1980s, could well draw closer now both are under Shia leadership. Together they will form a formidable power block. America's colossal investment in men and treasure in the Iraq war will seem vainer than ever.
Some things, however, could remain the same. Once the crisis abates, Turkey will continue to cultivate its friendship with Syria whatever the nature of its regime, because Syria will remain a key pivot of Turkey's ambitious Arab policy. Turkey may indeed come to replace Iran as Syria's main regional ally.
Nor is the crisis likely to reduce Syria's influence in Lebanon. No Syrian regime of any colour can tolerate a hostile government in Beirut. Its security – especially vis-a-vis Israel – is intimately tied to that of its Lebanese neighbour. The wave of protest engulfing the Arab world has pushed the Arab-Israeli conflict into second place. But that can only be temporary. Until it is resolved, the region will know no stability and little peace. | <urn:uuid:b2c758a7-33be-413b-962d-da46ea7b2cfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/assad-falls-region-alliances-unravel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96233 | 1,155 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The International School of Düsseldorf (ISD) is a coeducational; college preparatory school enrolling nearly 1050 students from over 50 countries in Reception through grade 12. The faculty includes teachers from close to twenty-five countries. The School was founded in 1968 by a group of American parents resident in Düsseldorf who wished to provide an international education for their children while preserving their own cultural and educational traditions.
Organization: The School is governed by a seven-member Board of Trustees + 3 ex-officio members. The first seven are elected by the parents of children enrolled in the School and by the faculty and staff of the School and have voting rights. An Advisory Board, composed of six members from the wider community and one alumni, is the guardian of ISD’s institutional memory and the bridge to the wider community.
Curriculum: The curriculum is international, centered around the programs of the International Baccalaureate with strong emphasis on academic rigor and preparation for university studies. The language of instruction is English. Foreign languages taught are: German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. English-as-another-language is offered at all grades, starting in Kindergarten. Numerous extra-curricular activities are available in sports, drama, music and visual arts. A first language (mother tongue) program is offered in an increasing amount of languages. The School is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the Council of International Schools and is an International Baccalaureate World School (authorized for the three IB programs).
Faculty: In the 2011-2012 school year there are 135 (full-time equivalent) faculty members.
Enrollment: At the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year enrollment was 1,050.
Facilities: The School’s ten-acre campus includes senior school and elementary school buildings. Several purpose-built playgrounds serve the recreational needs of the younger and older students. The senior school gymnasium houses 2 practice courts for basketball or volleyball, a competition-size basketball court, changing rooms, seating for spectators and office and storage spaces. The elementary school gymnasium is fully equipped for younger students. ISD also had 3 libraries, 7 science laboratories, 5 computer rooms, an equipped design technology room, a 400-seat theater and 3 cafeterias to serve the needs of its students. Down the road, ISD has soccer fields and tennis courts complemented by changing rooms and a club-house.
Finances: In the 2011-2012 school year, the School’s income derives from regular day tuition and membership fees. Annual tuition rates are as follows: Reception – grade 5: €13,380; grades 6-8: €14,410; grades 9-10: €15,365; grades 11-12: €17,090. The registration fee for new students is €4,630. (All fees are quoted in euros.) | <urn:uuid:9f86e5e2-1e59-4936-a64d-eb233226a8ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.state.gov/m/a/os/28100.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955122 | 613 | 1.625 | 2 |
Location: Vienna, Austria
Date: July 18, 2010 - 12:00am to July 23, 2010 - 12:00am
NIDA staff and grantees will be presenting at this year's International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria. Look below for NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow's comments on HIV and drug abuse, including some of the issues that will be discussed in Vienna. More coverage direct from the conference will follow.
- HIV/AIDS Treatment Curbs Spread of HIV Among Drug Users, According to NIH Supported Study
- Video Interviews with NIDA Grantees and scientists on the link between HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse
Messages from NIDA Director, Dr. Nora D. Volkow, M.D.
What is the scope of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and internationally?
Why does NIDA support research into drug abuse treatment as HIV prevention? | <urn:uuid:1e870eb1-cffc-4932-b5de-e8b6a46f007e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/meetings-events/2010/07/international-aids-conference | 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 | 0.937338 | 186 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Mr Aminzadeh (left), a former deputy foreign minister, went on trial in August
An Iranian opposition leader has been jailed for six years for his role in the unrest following June's disputed presidential election, reports say.
Mohsen Aminzadeh was convicted of organising protests, disturbing security and spreading propaganda against the system, his lawyer said.
He was a prominent supporter of the defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Meanwhile, opposition websites say nine journalists have been detained in the past two days, taking the total to 55.
There has so far been no confirmation from the Iranian government.
Correspondents say the authorities are tense ahead of the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on Thursday.
Opposition supporters have called for widespread anti-government protests to coincide with official rallies. The police have meanwhile warned that opposition demonstrations will be firmly confronted.
In December, eight people were killed in clashes at demonstrations on Ashura, one of the holiest days in the Shia Muslim calendar.
In a joint statement, the US and the European Union expressed concern about "continuing human rights violations in Iran" since the election and about the possibility of further violence as the revolution's anniversary is marked.
"The large scale detentions and mass trials, the threatened execution of protesters, the intimidation of family members of those detained and the continuing denial to its citizens of the right to peaceful expression are contrary to human rights norms," the statement said.
Speaking to the semi-official Isna news agency on Monday, Mr Aminzadeh's lawyer said his client had been sentenced to six years in prison by a branch of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.
"He was charged with organising gatherings and disturbing the country's security, as well as spreading propaganda against the system by giving interviews to foreign channels," Abbas Shiri was quoted as saying.
"Rejecting the charges, I will submit the appeal within the legal period," he added.
Mr Aminzadeh, a former deputy foreign minister under President Mohammed Khatami and a leading member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, was head of the opposition coalition's headquarters, according to Isna.
He was arrested a week after the 12 June presidential election, the result of which prompted millions to take to the streets demanding a re-run in the largest demonstrations in Iran since 1979.
RECENT UNREST IN IRAN
19 Dec: Influential dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri dies aged 87
21 Dec: Tens of thousands attend his funeral in Qom; reports of clashes between opposition supporters and security forces
22 Dec: Further confrontations reported in Qom
23 Dec: More clashes reported in city of Isfahan as memorial is held
24 Dec: Iran reportedly bans further memorial services for Montazeri except in his birthplace and Qom
26 Dec: Clashes reported in central and northern Tehran
27 Dec: At least eight dead following anti-government protests in Tehran; 300 reported arrested
Mr Mousavi's Green Movement said the poll had been rigged to ensure the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a charge the government denied.
At least 30 protesters have been killed in clashes since the election, although the opposition says more than 70 have died.
More than 80 people have been jailed for up to 15 years - including former government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, former vice-president Mohammad Ali Abtahi and former deputy economy minister Mohsen Safaie Farahani. Some 200 activists remain in detention.
Last month, two alleged members of a banned monarchist group were executed. Human rights groups condemned the hangings, accusing Iran of staging show trials and of seeking to intimidate the opposition. | <urn:uuid:4e0527e9-648d-4477-ab87-6245b20e38a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8504541.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97461 | 763 | 1.53125 | 2 |
By Kim Glovas and Walt Hunter
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The FBI is investigating the theft of a large sum of money from a plane that landed at Philadelphia International Airport Thursday morning.
The plane, with a shipment of $96 million on board, according to authorities, flew into Philadelphia from Dallas at 10:25 a.m. Thursday. The money was being transferred from the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas to the one in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Once the plane arrived at PHL, the money was placed inside an armored truck and then taken on the three-hour drive to the bank.
“When the money finally arrived at East Rutherford, they discovered that the packages had been opened and some money was missing,” said the FBI’s Frank Burton Jr.
Sources say a total of $20,000 was discovered missing. The packages were all 100-dollar bills that were not supposed to be distributed publicly until next year. He says they are very distinct, with a large gold “100′ on the back, lower right hand side.
He says on the front there is an orange “100″ on the lower right hand side, and a shape which looks like an orange jar next to Franklin’s head. It’s actually a Liberty Bell.
Authorities are trying to determine how and when the money was taken. A search for the suspect(s) is underway.
If anyone sees these bills, they should call the FBI at 215-418-4000. | <urn:uuid:c95b8fd4-f43f-4ae0-a21c-4d4ef25e6b2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/fbi-new-100-bills-stolen-from-plane-that-landed-at-phl/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976916 | 314 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Poetry Foundation: Is Rap Poetry?
The Poetry Foundation:
The Anthology of Rap, ed. by Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois. Yale University Press. $35.00.
One of the best comic subplots in Zadie Smith's novel On Beauty concerns the wary alliance of Carl, a brilliant but unschooled rapper, and Claire Malcolm, the well-meaning poet who enrolls him in her college writing workshop. Claire first hears Carl perform when she takes her class to a spoken word night at a local cafe: the purpose of the trip, Smith writes, is "to show her new students that poetry was a broad church, one that she was not afraid to explore." But even Claire is surprised when Carl takes the microphone and throws out "complicated multisyllabic lines with apparent ease," telling "a witty, articulate tale about the various obstacles in the spiritual and material progress of a young black man." Impressed by his gift, the poet immediately takes it upon herself to educate the rapper, Henry Higgins-style: "Are you interested in refining what you have?" she asks Carl. "We'd like to talk to you. We have an idea for you."
The idea, Claire reveals, is that Carl is a John Clare for the twenty-first century--a proletarian genius who only needs to be taught iambic pentameter in order to write great poetry. ("You're almost thinking in sonnets already," she reassures him.) Smith shows that Carl is both attracted by this kind of attention from the literary-educational establishment and rightfully suspicious of it. He tells the workshop that his writing is "not even a poem. . .It's rap.... They two different things. . .two different art forms. Except rap ain't no art form. It's just rap." Smith captures the comedy of cross purposes: to the poet, turning a rapper into a poet is a cultural promotion; to the rapper, it looks more like a forfeiture of authenticity. And it is hard to imagine why any rapper would want to make such an exchange. If Carl hits it big as an MC, he can look forward to becoming rich and famous, with an audience of millions of passionate fans. If he succeeds as a poet, he can look forward to--tenure.
No wonder that, in the real world, poets have been more interested in what they can learn from rap than vice versa. Ironically, poets who are considered aesthetic conservatives have been most enthusiastic about hip-hop. The premise of "new formalism," to use a term almost as old as the Sugarhill Gang, is that rhyme, meter, and narrative are the defining elements of poetry, and that their absence from most contemporary poetry explains the genre's unpopularity and cultural irrelevance. The huge popularity of rap, which is committed to all those traditional techniques, seems to clinch the case. Dana Gioia, in his 2003 essay "Disappearing Ink," called rap "the new oral poetry," and hoped that it could spark a "renovation from the margins" of literary poetry. "While the revival of form and narrative among young literary poets could be dismissed by critical tastemakers as benighted antiquarianism and intellectual pretension," Gioia writes, "its universal adoption as the prosody-of-choice by disenfranchised urban blacks. . .is] impossible to dismiss in such simplistic ideological terms."
The appearance of the massive new Anthology of Rap marks a new phase in this rapprochement. At first glance, the anthology, published by Yale University Press and edited by two English professors, Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois, might look like a Claire Malcolm-like act of cultural patronage, assimilating rap to the critical and scholarly ideals of literary poetry. As the editors' introduction declares, "it tells the story of rap as lyric poetry," and is meant to illuminate "its fundamental literary and artistic nature." Bradley is the author of Book of Rhymes: the Poetics of Hip Hop, an intelligent book about the forms and techniques of rap, in which he writes that he and DuBois "both had the privilege of studying poetry with Helen Vendler, a magnificent teacher"; and the notes to the Anthology suggest a Vendler-like interest in genre. Thus Ice-T's "6 'N the Mornin'" is described as not just "a gangsta rap classic" but also "an aubade, as it begins at the crack of dawn, and partakes of the picaresque as it moves through its series of episodes."
This is not really accurate--an aubade is a poem about lovers parting at dawn, whereas "6 'N the Mornin'" begins this way:
But it's clear that the editors' intention is honorific. The poetic terminology, like the whole presentation of the anthology, is meant to encourage skeptical readers to give rap the kind of attention they are used to giving poetry. Bradley and DuBois are well aware that this means doing a kind of violence to rap, by severing lyrics from performance, the MC from the DJ. Ordinarily, you don't read Ice-T, you listen to him, and his voice and affect, as well as the producer's contribution of hooks and beats, are crucial to the overall effect. In fact, the editors write, most of the lyrics they include in the anthology had never been written down. They had to be transcribed, entailing a whole series of choices about lineation, punctuation, and orthography.
Yet while the editors acknowledge that "reading rap will never be the same as listening to it," The Anthology of Rap is meant to be more than a collection of song lyrics. As scholars of poetry, they naturally believe that reading is a more dignified form of apprehension than listening--DuBois is the editor of a book called Close Reading: The Reader--and the premise of this anthology is that MCs are essentially writers: "This is not, after all, a collection of lyrics from rap's greatest hits, but rather a collection of rap's best poetry." | <urn:uuid:718a895e-5c7e-40b5-855d-6463d115ad37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/poetry-foundation-rap-poetry_n_818265.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969083 | 1,258 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The first day of business of President Barack Obama's second term began with a prayer service Tuesday, but it will take more than spiritual guidance to change the divisive culture of Washington politics.
Conservative critics of the president wasted no time ripping into an inaugural address laden with progressive themes such as climate change, gun control, gay rights and immigration reform.
More specifically, they targeted the president's vigorous defense of costly but popular entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
"One thing that is pretty clear from the president's speech yesterday -- the era of liberalism is back," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky. "An unabashedly, far left-of-center inauguration speech certainly brings back memories of the Democratic Party of ages past."
If Obama "pursues that kind of agenda, obviously it is not designed to bring us together and certainly not designed to deal with the transcendent issue of our era, which is deficit and debt. Until we fix that problem, we can't fix America."
Obama's inaugural address "was trying basically to throw a bone to every left-wing activist group he could," said Rep. Dave Schweikert, R-Arizona.
Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that focuses on fiscal policy, labeled Obama's speech "harshly ideological" and akin to "a liberal laundry list."
The group will "be in the vanguard of the effort to oppose the president's big government policies," its president, Tim Phillips, said in a statement Monday.
In his inaugural address, Obama insisted that programs such as Social Security and Medicare -- long targets of conservatives seeking to cut the size of government -- remain vital to the maintenance of America's safety net for the elderly, poor and disabled.
"We, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," Obama declared, adding that tough decisions on how to address the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt must avoid choosing between "caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future." | <urn:uuid:a96d1d50-b5fd-421c-bcbf-b0cabb809beb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wxii12.com/news/politics/After-inauguration-political-reality-returns/-/9677658/18236458/-/abj6l9z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956225 | 431 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Born in 1936 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. He is a graphic designer, illustrator, printmaker and painter. He is one of Japan's most successful and internationally recognized graphic designers and artists. He began his career as a stage designer for avantgarde theatre in Tokyo. In the late 1960s he became interested in mysticism and psychedelic, deepened by travels in India. His complex and multi-layered imagery is intensely autobiographical and entirely original. By the late 60s he had already achieved international recognition for his work and was included in the 1968 "Word & Image" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Four years later MoMA mounted a solo exhibition of his graphic work organized by Mildred Constantine. In 1981 he unexpectedly "retired" from commercial work and took up painting. His career as a fine artist continues to this day with numerous exhibitions of his paintings every year, but alongside this he remains fully engaged and prolific as a graphic designer. | <urn:uuid:25c0b840-60aa-4f68-b8bd-af75d68e09e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moleskine.com/en/authors/tadanori_yokoo | 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 | 0.985971 | 199 | 1.664063 | 2 |
7 Tips to Make Vacation Travel Less Stressful
Medical Author: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
Traveling is an integral part of taking a vacation for
many people. While traveling any time can be a major source of stress,
travel, with the kids along, can be even
more nerve-racking. Although you can't eliminate the stress associated with
vacation travel, these tips can help you lessen the impact of vacation travel stress.
- Accept the situation and plan ahead. Crowded airplanes and highways, weather, harried personnel,
and unexpected delays are all aspects of your trip which are beyond your
control. Assume you're likely to encounter most or all of these obstacles and
that you aren't going to be able to change them. Instead, focus on your
reactions to these stressors. Anticipation of
stressful occurrences, and forming a mental plan for remaining calm and
dealing with them, will greatly reduce your perception of stress.
- Give yourself enough time. Whatever your mode of travel, allow yourself more time than you can
possibly imagine that you will need when traveling during peak season. This is
particularly important for heavy-travel days (such as spring break in the U.S.). On these days, just about everything, including
check-in lines, finding a cab, and airport parking can be expected to take
longer than usual. Business travelers accustomed to a travel routine may also
find that traveling with the family along doesn't run quite as smoothly or
efficiently as when traveling solo. Knowing that you have adequate time to
deal with any unexpected occurrences can help prevent anxiety and stress. Should you arrive at the airport early, remember that sitting
in an airport lounge working or reading is far more relaxing than sitting in
a traffic-stalled taxi 20 minutes before your flight departs.
- Make a few contingency plans. Consider the truly unexpected
circumstances. Always check weather,
traffic, and parking reports before departing and have some backup ideas
(leave earlier, leave later, use another mode of transportation) ready to
- Check your bags. If you're traveling by air and are dedicated to your
carry-on, consider the advantages of checking your luggage. The risk of
delayed or lost baggage is actually very small, and the freedom of movement
gained during your journey is often worth the risk, particularly if you'll
have layovers in crowded airports. Think about possible delays and decide if
you're up to hauling those carry-ons everywhere you go. Planes (and overhead
compartments) are going to be at their fullest capacity.
- Keep the kids happy (and well fed). Travelers with young children will want to plan for amusements and
distractions for long waits, drives, or flights. Having a few "surprise"
novelty items to hand out at intervals is a good technique to combat boredom
and fussiness. Since children (and adults!) tend to be more anxious and
stressed when hungry, bring along some snacks (preferably of the non-sticky,
non-melting variety) and a bottle of water. Don't count on the airplane meal
appealing to your child's tastes or even being served when you'd like it.
Likewise, plan for long highway stretches and traffic jams, which mean you
won't have instant access to food vendors. Another advantage is that you yourself won't fall
into the trap of becoming cranky due to hunger pangs.
- Think about changes of clothing. If your children belong to the baby/toddler set, consider having
an accessible change of clothing for you as well as for the little ones, since
your little frequent flyer may decide to spill his food on you rather than on
himself. You can also dress in layers which can be removed if necessary. If
you must arrive looking your best, think about traveling in comfortable
clothes and changing on the plane or at a rest area before you reach your destination.
Last Editorial Review: 3/25/2008
- Plan ahead for the next vacation. This is the last thing you're likely to want to do in the midst
of a vacation. But if you find that your vacation travel is unbearable, use
this vacation to discuss alternate plans for the next one. | <urn:uuid:6971bcd2-3bd4-441b-8a45-107867edfe81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=59946 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939097 | 922 | 1.617188 | 2 |
School DazeTrick brain teasers appear difficult at first, but they have a trick that makes them really easy.
Tom has never missed a single day of school, but he hasn't turned in a single homework assignment this year, either. He's always talking in class and hasn't passed a test in years. Even so, Tom has never gotten into trouble with any school staff, even though they know full well what he's doing. Tom isn't a special student and doesn't get unique treatment. So why does Tom never get into trouble?
HintYou're going to have to listen to your teachers and think outside the box for this one!
AnswerTom is a teacher!
See another brain teaser just like this one...
Or, just get a random brain teaser
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of
which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Back to Top | <urn:uuid:136ee9d3-5b02-42f9-9e53-247dab198c3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.braingle.com/brainteasers/44848/school-daze.html | 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 | 0.984201 | 195 | 1.554688 | 2 |
U.S. House approves Veterinary Services Investment Act
According to the bill, the competitive grants program would be administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Grants would be awarded in cases that would "substantially relieve veterinary shortage situations" and support or facilitate private veterinary practices engaged in public health practices.
The American Veterinary Medical Association remains in support of the legislation, as reported in DVM Newsmagazine.
"Rural areas are facing a critical and growing shortage of large-animal veterinarians," says Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.). "These veterinarians are the first lines of defense against animal disease and a crucial player in ensuring the safety of our food. This bill will encourage veterinarians to serve these areas where their skills are needed."
The bill was first introduced in July 2009, and now moves to the Senate for consideration. | <urn:uuid:173c8391-7435-4b08-82ab-369132d0030b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veterinary+Food+Animal/US-House-okays-vet-services-legislation/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/687383?contextCategoryId=46877 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962362 | 180 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Responding to Jim Derry's article "iPads being distributed at 8 New Orleans area Catholic high schools," reader oneworddescription commented:
"This seems a big gimmicky. I know that they can likely do what they need to do for the classroom, but you aren't doing the kids any favors by sending them to college with an ipad as their primary computing experience in a educational setting.
"Good luck taking notes on an ipad. I own one I type on it often. It's hard to keep up with a teacher while typing on laptop (writing shorthand is MUCH more efficient). It's going to be VERY hard to take good, organized, and useful notes with an ipad. As much as I appreciate the device and its capabilities, I just see it falling short in a few key areas that will be needed in an educational setting... Even if it works very well the kids are going to be ill-prepared to use their laptop to its full capability once they are dropped into college and really need the skills."
Join the conversation; reply to oneworddescription. | <urn:uuid:0d935a9a-00a2-44ad-9083-1b49900b6b66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/06/reader_comment_ipads_should_be.html | 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 | 0.979687 | 224 | 1.5 | 2 |
HOUSTON, Jan. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Apache Corporation (NYSE, Nasdaq: APA) and officials from the city of Houston, including Mayor Annise Parker, gathered in Memorial Park on Arbor Day to commemorate the planting of the 3-millionth tree donated by the Apache Foundation's Tree Program.
"Given our headquarters is located in Houston and that our employees have turned out for years to plant thousands of Apache-donated trees in Memorial Park, we thought this was the perfect place to commemorate the planting of our 3-millionth tree," said Roger Plank, president and chief corporate officer of Apache.
Since 2005, Apache has awarded 3 million trees to non-profit organizations in 16 states, with the intended goal to enrich the communities where the company operates. The trees selected are native to the areas where they were donated so they may reach their maximum potential for growth. Recipients must confirm they will properly care for their trees.
The 3-millionth tree is a large live oak approximately 9 inches in diameter and 25 feet tall that was raised from a sapling at a private tree farm outside of Houston. The tree was transplanted to a field at the northwest intersection of Memorial Drive and Memorial Loop Drive. The area previously was barren of trees and potentially will serve as a site for future donations from Apache Tree Grant Program."Apache has been involved with the growth of Houston's Urban Forest for many years," said Mayor Parker. "Their continuing support has been even more significant since the 2011 drought. The planting of their 3-millionth tree in Memorial Park is a symbol of their commitment and of our city's appreciation for their support of Houston's Urban Forest." Beyond the planting of the 3-millionth tree, volunteers planted some 20,000 trees today to add to Houston's forest canopy, which will provide cleaner air, shade and a more beautiful landscape for tomorrow. Apache contributed 2,000 trees for the Arbor Day event at Memorial Park that were planted by more than 50 Apache employee volunteers. The company also donated 300 trees to Hermann Park and 200 to the Bayou Land Conservancy for their Arbor Day plantings today. " Houston is home to Apache and almost 1,300 employees," said Plank. "We care about the communities in which we live and work and know firsthand the devastation the state's tree population has suffered here. While the impact of trees takes time, their beauty is irreplaceable. We hope that over time Apache's efforts will contribute to making our Houston community a better place, including providing much-needed shade during the hot summer months." For more information, please click here to learn more about Apache's Tree Program. A video on how the program has benefited communities such as Pflugerville, Texas, is available on YouTube. Apache Corporation is an oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Canada, Egypt, the United Kingdom North Sea, Australia and Argentina. Apache posts announcements, operational updates, investor information and copies of all press releases on its website, www.apachecorp.com. SOURCE Apache Corporation
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- Options TV | <urn:uuid:4022c7ec-ee21-4356-9931-e749c3cb1ddb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thestreet.com/story/11823354/1/apache-plants-3-millionth-tree-in-houstons-memorial-park.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950505 | 804 | 1.65625 | 2 |
LGBT web access
Thu October 27, 2011
Mid-Mo. school sued over access to LGBT-related websites
A lawsuit over access to LGBT-related websites at a mid-Missouri public school was heard today in federal court in Jefferson City.
The case involves filtering software used by the Camdenton R-3 school district’s library. The suit was filed by Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Tony Rothert, Legal Director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, says the Camdenton Schools' library uses filtering software that blocks any mention of sex, not just pornography.
“Students are unable to access any information that’s positive about gay, lesbian or transgendered people," Rothert said. "The filter they’re using categorizes everything that’s negative about gay and lesbian people as religion, and they don’t block religion...students are free to access all kinds of information with the opposite viewpoint: that gay people are evil, lesbians are damned."
Tom Mickes is an attorney representing Camdenton schools.
“No school district has the manpower to check every one of those websites, so they’re blocked until somebody, a faculty member or a student, requests access," Mickes said. "If they’re not pornographic, obscene or inappropriate, we open them up."
Mickes also accuses the ACLU of using the lawsuit to intimidate school districts.
"They want (a) screening (system) that is more politically correct," Mickes said. "It's not the school district's job to keep the ACLU happy; it's the school district's job to keep our students safe."
A ruling in the case has not been issued. | <urn:uuid:41b24572-83cd-4ad5-a08a-fd8177e474f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.stlpublicradio.org/post/mid-mo-school-sued-over-access-lgbt-related-websites | 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 | 0.96433 | 375 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Handling Morning Highs
Somogyi Effect vs. Dawn Phenomenon
By Theresa Garnero, APRN, BC-ADM, MSN, CDE
Have you ever gone to bed with a relatively normal glucose reading, only to wake up with a much higher value? Do you wonder why glucose numbers can swing during sleep or pre-dawn hours?
This slideshow will address readers' questions about the difference between two possibilities: the Somogyi effect and dawn phenomenon.
Tropical Berry Squares with Rum Homemade Orange Sherbet Cheddar and Mushroom Breakfast Squares Creamy Mushroom Chicken Turkey & Pepper Roll-Up Artichoke Tapenade Broccoli With Garlic Cheesy Rotini Pasta with Eggplant Southern-Style Cajun Pork Mediterranean Mayonaise
Glucagon is one of those things that hasn't changed much in the diabetes world, in terms of packaging, dosing, method of delivery, since the time of my diagnosis in 1982. It's also one of those items that you buy in the same vein as say a generator. You might never use it, but it sure as heck is handy to have should your lights go out. The first time I was given glucagon was on the front lawn of my childhood home. What I remember of that night was going to bed after a... | <urn:uuid:a8d350d4-e098-4409-bae8-06b4964a2c6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dlife.com/dlife_media/diabetes_slideshows/handling-morning-highs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942355 | 274 | 1.5625 | 2 |
LANSING (AP) -- The state House late Friday night was locked in a stalemate over raising Michigan's personal income tax. The Democrat-led House began voting on a proposal to raise the current 3.9 percent rate to 4.6 percent, part of a plan to avoid a partial state government shutdown looming for Oct. 1. The voting began Friday afternoon and was threatening to spill over into the weekend because there is no time limit for a vote to be taken. The proposal would cost a person with a taxable income of $50,000 an extra $350 each year in state taxes. It would raise about $1 billion, a large chunk of the projected $1.7 billion shortfall in state government for the budget year that starts next month. Lawmakers can vote to raise the income tax with a simple majority vote. More than six hours after voting started, 43 members of the 110-member House -- all Democrats -- were voting in favor of the proposal. Fourteen Democrats had yet to vote, and one Democrat, LaMar Lemmons Jr. of Detroit, was voting against the proposal. Democrats hold a 58-52 majority in the House, enough to pass the increase without any Republican votes, but it wasn't clear if enough of them would support the measure to advance the plan to the Senate. House Speaker Andy Dillon, a Democrat, said he wanted to make sure any tax increase proposal sent to the Senate also had the support of some House Republicans. Dillon said that would give the proposal a better chance of passing the Republican-led Senate. "Today is a rather historic day," Dillon said. "We have a very tough decision before us. A decision to raise revenues is never easy, especially in these very difficult economic times, when families and the state are struggling." But Dillon said revenues are needed to preserve state services, some of which are teetering on insolvency if a solution isn't reached soon before the new budget takes effect in two weeks. Other lawmakers, primarily Republicans, disagreed with the call to raise taxes. Several GOP members said they've gotten calls and e-mails from voters in their districts with a clear message -- cut state government spending and don't raise taxes. "Now is not the time to raise taxes," said Rep. Craig DeRoche, the top Republican in the state House. "People are hurting." Some Republicans questioned if Democrats were demanding GOP votes only to protect some of their own more vulnerable members from having to vote in favor of a tax increase. Earlier proposals that would have given voters the option of raising the sales tax or implementing a graduated income tax didn't come close to passing the House Friday afternoon. Those measures required voter approval because they would have changed the state constitution. The income tax vote was connected to the sales tax issue. If both measures were to pass, voters in January would decide whether to replace the higher income tax with a higher sales tax. If the income tax increase passes, it would raise the rate back to where it was in 1993. The state's income tax rate hit a high of 6.35 percent in 1983, the last time an income tax rate increase was passed to raise revenues during an economic slowdown that contributed to a major budget deficit. The rate dropped to 4.6 percent in 1986 and to 4.4 percent in 1994. It was trimmed a tenth of a percentage point a year from 2000 through 2004 and now is 3.9 percent. The House also could vote on what some call a luxury tax or a sales tax on certain types of services, possibly including concert and sporting events tickets. A wide range of other tax increase proposals -- on everything from liquor to cigarettes to phone service -- also may be considered. Democrats were setting up a room equipped with air mattresses and food so lawmakers and staff could recharge if the House session lasted into Friday night and possibly Saturday. The Senate was not meeting Friday, but leaders said they were ready to react to any House action if needed. Earlier attempts between the Democrat-led House and Republican-led Senate to reach an agreement that would address the budget shortfall have failed to end a monthslong stalemate. The House is concentrating on plans to raise taxes, a move supported by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The governor, through her non-state Web site, sent e-mails to supporters urging them to turn up the heat on lawmakers. The Senate soon may consider votes to continue the current budget plan into next fiscal year, or eliminate the projected deficit entirely through spending cuts that even supporters acknowledge would mean deep cuts to cities, universities and state services. Both opponents and supporters of tax increases have swarmed the Capitol in anticipation of the upcoming votes, trying to sway undecided lawmakers and avoid a possible government shutdown. A coalition supporting a tax increase passed out copies of John F. Kennedy's book "Profiles in Courage" to lawmakers. "We're urging them to do the right thing," said Mike Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, which represents the state's public universities. Leon Drolet, a Republican former state lawmaker, has threatened to lead recalls of certain lawmakers who vote in favor of tax increases through a group called the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance. The group's mascot -- a half-ton, hardened foam pig named Mr. Perks -- was parked outside the Capitol much of the day Friday. | <urn:uuid:800cac3c-8b51-4811-af5c-50c3dbc89387> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2007-09-15/news/26790508_1_income-tax-tax-increase-proposal-sales-tax | 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 | 0.973745 | 1,075 | 1.625 | 2 |
Keating: Katrina Lessons to Ensure Better U.S. Disaster Response
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2006 Lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina have been applied to ensure a faster, more efficient and coordinated U.S. emergency response, the commander of U.S. Northern Command said today.
Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating pointed to a wide range of initiatives, all adopted after Hurricane Katrina, to improve the way military troops and assets are used during an emergency when called on by the president or secretary of defense. These include:
-- Thousands of active-duty troops are now on alert at any given time to respond to an emergency. These troops are organized into “force packages” sized according to “the magnitude of the potential catastrophe,” Keating said.
-- New off-the-shelf communications capabilities ensure a steady communication flow even if local cell phone towers or the electrical grid are disabled or destroyed. “We literally put up a small, portable tower, fire up the generator and start handing out cell phones,” Keating said. “That lets us get a first-hand assessment of the situation on the ground — a capability that wasn’t in place last summer.” Keating noted that while DoD has three of these systems, the Department of Homeland Security has about 12.
-- The national response plan, revised by DHS in coordination with DoD and other agencies, ensures a better emergency response. “It is a more effective more efficient, more timely way of providing our citizens the response capability they need,” Keating said.
-- Full-time, active-duty military defense coordinating officers are now positioned in each Federal Emergency Management Agency region to coordinate with DHS and other emergency responders. By building relationships and an understanding of capabilities and requirements before they’re needed, this ensures a faster, better coordinated response, Keating said.
-- NORTHCOM exercises its response capabilities “frequently and vigorously” and continually improves on its disaster planning and coordination. Keating noted an upcoming exercise, Vigilant Shield, which will test the U.S. response to a simulated nuclear accident.
As NORTHCOM fine-tunes its plans and procedures, Keating emphasized, the military’s job isn’t to run emergency response efforts, but rather to support civilian authorities when directed by the president or defense secretary.
“We will respond, as directed, with the capabilities that are in the DoD and the arrows that are in our quiver,” he said. “We’re not interested in taking charge. We’re interested in saving lives and reducing human suffering.”
That mission requires a deviation from the traditional military emphasis on command and control, he said. Now the big watchwords, he said, are “communication and collaboration.”
“You have to be able to talk to each other,” he said. “You have to be able to assess the situation and you have to collaborate — not just coordinate, but collaborate—on the capabilities we can provide, that the first responders can and can’t provide, and that the National Guard under the auspices of their commander in chief, the governor, can provide.”
This collaboration will ensure a better response and “avoid efficient overlap but at all costs, eliminate the seams,” Keating said. | <urn:uuid:904ff422-b05d-46fd-a75b-d799c2a00d44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2162 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942173 | 714 | 1.515625 | 2 |
"This is the year to reform the Rockefeller drug laws," Gov. David Paterson has just finished saying Tuesday morning in Albany. He stands before a crowd of hundreds as a man with shaggy gray hair approaches him with a stack of signatures. Paterson shakes the man's hand and smiles. One by one advocates from across the state present the governor with piles of petitions and declare their support for the "full repeal of the Rockefeller Drug laws," New York's harsh rules on sentencing of drug offenders. Advocates are excited to have Paterson listening to them.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith also have dropped by to support the cause. But the truth is, Paterson and these advocates are talking about two different things. The advocates, who carry a total of 30,000 signatures, are demanding full repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws, while Paterson is advocating changing the laws.
This Tuesday, hundreds of drug reform advocates descended on Albany, and, in sharp contrast from their chilly reception in years past, found the governor, Senate majority leader and Assembly Speaker all waiting to greet them and listen to their concerns.
The Assembly recently passed a Rockefeller drug law reform bill that emphasizes the importance of treatment over incarceration and restores a hefty amount of judicial discretion in the sentencing of drug cases. It is what New York State drug reform advocates have always wanted -- sort of.
What the Assembly Bill Does Not Do
Advocates of major changes to New York's drug laws are walking a thin line between jubilation and disappointment these days. The Assembly's legislation would make about 50 percent to 60 percent of currently incarcerated offenders eligible for treatment instead of incarceration. It would increase funding for drug rehabilitation programs and community-based alternatives to prison. But it does not restore judges' discretion in a number of cases.
Offenders subject to mandatory prison sentences would include people who sell more than a half ounce or possess more than four ounces of a hard drug; people who have a violent felony conviction in the last 10 years; and adults who sell drugs to minors.
Advocates stress that they object not to such limits but to the fact that the Assembly bill leaves mandatory sentences intact and still judges offenders by the amount of narcotics in their possession at the time of their arrest. Reform proponents want to see offenders judged on the individual's prior record and what his or her role in the transaction was. They say it is important to differentiate between an addict selling drugs to maintain a habit and a higher-level drug dealer.
Politicians, though, find it difficult to do away with mandatory minimum sentences on offenders whose crimes seem serious because politicians don't want to be seen as soft on criminals.
In other words, the Assembly bill is not full repeal. "The public needs to know that this is not what we have been fighting for," said Caitlin Dunklee of the Drop the Rock Campaign. She estimated the Assembly legislation would leave 50 percent of future drug cases subject to the constraints of mandatory sentencing.
In this, there is a sense of deja vu. Dunklee said that in 2004 and 2005, when the legislature made some reforms to the drug laws, "it was painted as full repeal. People stopped caring and we continued to have these harsh laws on the book."
Whatever its shortcomings, though, the Assembly bill might not become law even though Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the governor's mansion. This presents a bit of a quandary for those advocating repeal. They have to push the Senate to act on a bill similar to the Assembly's and at the same time remind legislators that this is not the end in the fight to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws.
"The stars are the most favorably aligned they ever have been, "said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York. "We have a Democratic governor, the Democrats control the Senate, and we have the fiscal crisis. Because in the end this is an issue of money."
The Senate's Turn
Insiders say Silver has rushed forward on progressive bills such as drug reform to earn himself political capital and reaffirm his base after facing two primary challengers last year, all the while knowing that Smith would not have the support to pass them in the Senate.
Gangi admitted that there is a lot of opposition to the Assembly reform bill in the Senate. "We hear it is not just Republicans but blue dog Democrats," he explained.
Democratic Sen. Craig Johnson of Port Washington, for one, has made it clear that he has "significant reservations" about the Assembly's reform bill, although Johnson's spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, said that Johnson "is not prepared to negotiate those reservations in the media."
Rather than try to hash out the differences between his conference members on an individual reform bill, Smith has decided to make Rockefeller reforms part of the Senate budget package. Smith told the gathered advocates on Tuesday, "I want to assure you all that what we are going to do, in this year, in this budget, is reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws."
Azzopardi said Smith's decision to move the drug reform legislation into the budget process makes "a certain amount of sense, as both sides of the debate have economic implications."
Advocates for Rockefeller reform and repeal say that changing the drug laws and allowing judge's to send offenders to treatment rather than jail will drastically reduce the amount the state spends on incarceration. Opponents say sending offenders to treatment will be a financial burden on the state.
Republican opponents of Rockefeller reform do not find Smith's decision as appealing. Republican Sen. Frank Padavan of Queens told the Post, "I think we ought to be very careful when we start talking about putting 2,000 drug pushers on the street. That's outrageous to put in the budget. It's the worst form of political chicanery."
Uncertainty in the Senate is not the only obstacle standing in the way of the Assembly's bill becoming law; advocates are growing ever more concerned that the man who started the discussion of drug law reform this year, mentioning it in his State of the State address, might be wavering in his support. They say that Paterson's representatives at the negotiating table want to scale back parts of the Assembly's bill. One of the sticking points apparently is restoring a judge's discretion in drug cases where the offender has committed a second felony.
Advocates say that Paterson or his staff are posturing in preparation for the 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
Paterson's position has indeed changed since he was Senate minority leader in 2004. Back then, Paterson proposed drug law reform that would have included restoring judicial discretion for all second-felony drug offenders convicted of B-E level felonies (felonies are graded from A to E by their level of seriousness) as long as they did not have a violent offense in their history.
A spokesperson for Paterson said, "On the biggest issue the governor agrees on the fact that judges should be able to exercise discretion on non-violent felonies. The governor has put together a working draft bill to discuss with the Assembly and Senate, and they are working on their differences." The spokesperson said that disagreements exist over mandatory minimum sentences and to what extent any changes should be retroactive.
Paterson’s office reportedly is concernedthat making the law retroactive would be prohibitively expensive because of the number of resentencing petitions that would be filed.
The Next Moves
In the end, if Smith's gambit pays off and the Senate moves on reforms, advocates say they will celebrate but at the same time know that there is more to do. They say they have known they were in a battle for "incremental change" from the start. In their opinion there are a lot of good aspects to the Assembly bill. They just worry that another time where the political stars align may not come along soon.
Albany County District Attorney David Soares, who has been a staunch critic of the Rockefeller drug laws, said there is one gigantic benefit of the Assembly bill if it should pass: funding for alternative treatments. "The criminal justice system is open 24 hours a day," said Soares. "It's a shame people have to come here to get the help they need. But because of this reform less people will have to go through the criminal justice system to get that help."
Last Updated (May 22, 2013) | <urn:uuid:25d715d8-2b7c-4377-9393-d76d2dcf5d56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/topics/158-the-tough-battle-to-repeal-tough-drug-laws | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967871 | 1,715 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Jay Taylor, Durbin
When I moved to North Dakota, about 30 years ago, I was a new non-smoker. I had only stopped smoking for about a week or so and maintaining that stance wasn't easy (as a matter of fact, I relapsed once and it wasn't pretty).
I quit for a number of reasons: Smoking had killed my Dad at age 56; it had caused my Grandfather to lose a leg; and tobacco would go on to kill a number of good friends and relatives.
But the main reason I quit was because I was acquiring an instant family: a wife with asthma and two little daughters.
I came here as a respiratory therapist to work in a large hospital in Fargo, already with some 14 years in the field, and yeah, yeah, I knew smoking was bad for you and honestly, I already knew first-hand how hard it was to quit. "Just quit, ya big baby!" That was the advice I got. Not helpful... but I did manage to finally quit.
We knew nothing of the real dangers of second-hand smoke and I'm pretty sure the term hadn't even been thought of as yet. I knew that growing up in a smoke-filled household that breathing in other peoples smoke was very unpleasant but we just didn't know how unpleasant.
Now we know how dangerous it is! Even if you don't smoke, you do smoke if you're around smokers. You're breathing in the same toxic stew of harmful chemicals as the smokers around you. Tobacco smoke contains thousands of dangerous elements and chemical compounds, including formaldehyde, arsenic, cadmium, benzene, polonium, ammonia, carbon monoxide, methanol and hydrogen cyanide.
Second-hand smoke has been linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; low birthweight and lung problems in infants; ear infections; asthma, etc.
Second-hand smoke can cause lung cancer and heart disease in non-smoking adults.
It can cause former smokers to relapse. It's linked to stroke, chronic lung problems and a variety of cancers!
Yeah, I know, rant on! Well, this rant will be shorter than I am capable of.
All I'm really asking of the folks in North Dakota is to vote 'yes' on Initiated Measure 4 during the election on Nov. 6. This will protect a large portion of the population, including your kids, from the public exposure to second-hand smoke.
No one says you can't smoke, the measure just regulates smoke away from my nose and lungs.
Of course if you want help quitting (the best option) there's lots of help out there. Start with the ND Quit Line or your own care provider! Quitting today is a whole lot easier than ever before! | <urn:uuid:17abb383-dbf6-42df-85c0-54e0ac2362f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/570032/Vote--yes--on-Measure-4.html?nav=5008 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975612 | 571 | 1.625 | 2 |
|Arts, Poetry & Literature
viewing the Best Books About Montana topic in the Arts, Poetry & Literature
Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 5/6/2006 2:54:34 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Gunnar Emilsson, 5/30/2006 4:01:02 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Buck Showalter, 5/30/2006 7:36:48 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Big Dave, 5/30/2006 7:59:38 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 5/31/2006 6:55:41 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Brian A. Reed, 5/31/2006 2:33:14 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Cory Cutting, 5/31/2006 3:27:43 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Van, 5/31/2006 3:58:30 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Brian A. Reed, 5/31/2006 6:12:31 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Big Dave, 5/31/2006 8:12:30 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Brian A. Reed, 5/31/2006 8:41:31 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Frank E. Ross, 5/31/2006 10:44:42 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Buck Showalter, 6/1/2006 1:50:33 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Brian A. Reed, 6/1/2006 8:47:28 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Bridgier, 6/1/2006 1:21:35 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Brian A. Reed, 6/1/2006 2:34:30 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 6/1/2006 2:47:14 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Kyle L. Varnell, 6/1/2006 4:51:43 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Buck Showalter, 6/2/2006 1:22:38 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Buck Showalter, 6/2/2006 1:32:54 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Gunnar Emilsson, 8/14/2006 11:02:35 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Big Dave, 8/14/2006 2:52:25 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Ken Ziebarth, 8/14/2006 8:24:30 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Jack McRae, 8/14/2006 10:31:08 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 9/24/2006 9:16:52 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Frank E. Ross, 9/24/2006 6:30:03 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 9/25/2006 8:08:55 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Dona Stebbins, 9/25/2006 10:20:00 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Ken Ziebarth, 9/25/2006 9:29:24 PM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 9/26/2006 7:39:36 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Hal Neumann, 9/28/2006 6:16:00 AM
RE: Best Books About Montana, Big Dave, 12/11/2007 12:44:31 PM
|Fritz, Harry W. "Essay On The West: The Best Books About Montana, Twenty-First-Century Edition," MONTANA: THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY, Autumn 2002.
Your favorite five books about Montana?
|Good to see my favorite Montana book, "Stay Away Joe" on the list...another Dan Cushman book, "Montana, the Gold Frontier" should be on it.
I would also add "Smoke Wars".
|My favorite is Counting Coup by Larry Colton. It's a heartbreaker.
|Just couldn't let this one pass without throwing out one of my favorites, "The Conquest of the Missouri". This book is about Grant Marsh, the guy who piloted the Far West up to the mouth of the Little Bighorn and then took wounded soldiers back to Bismarck. It is a biography of Marsh, but contains tons of interesting history.
And, I cannot argue with any of the other choices. Just finished Counting Coup - loved it.
Man it's hard to come up with just a handful of favorites - I can probably pull 50 or more off of my shelves that I think people should read and another 100 that they ought to read. And about all I have on the shelves are histories. When you take into account the fiction and other non-fiction genres it gets even harder
But, whoever the idiot was who started this thread limited it to 5 books - - so in no particular order:
Mary Clearman Blew. ALL BUT THE WALTZ: A MEMOIR OF FIVE GENERATIONS IN THE LIFE OF A MONTANA FAMILY
E.C. Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith. WE POINTED THEM NORTH: RECOLLECTIONS OF A COWPUNCHER
William Kittredge and Annick Smith, eds. THE LAST BEST PLACE: A MONTANA ANTHOLOGY
AB Guthrie. THE BIG SKY
Mark Herbert Brown. THE PLAINSMEN OF THE YELLOWSTONE: A HISTORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE BASIN
(I'm sure dating myself with this selection)
|Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West is a good read. But for all the hoopla about Counting Coups, I really dislike it because of its inaccuracies and the chicken-s**t way Larry Colton avoided getting sued by changing certain names in the book. Cowgirl coach Gary Vels? I mean, c'mon...
Ask Coach Veis how he feels about the book...and then stand back.
|Was Coach unflatteringly portrayed in the book?
|Anything by Norman Mclean. A River Runs Trough it
|You could say that, Cory. That's why he was referred to as "Gary Vels" in the book instead of Cary Veis.
My guess is that renaming bit characters happens frequently with warts and all books like this. Veis was at best a bit player, so why would an author get hung up on that issue when the real issue is publishing his book. My question for you would be, if that was Colton's honest opinion of Veis' coaching style, should he have not included it? I guess I would like to hear why Veis is so torqued. As I recall there was nothing slanderous or libelous, but Colton darned sure didn't appreciate his coaching. I liked Colton's commentary about writing the book in that he held a mirror up to the community in Hardin and on the Crow Reservation - maybe Veis should try looking at it from that perspective. So I guess another question for you would be, "Did Colton accurately portray the characters and the world of Hardin basketball inaccurately?"
I don't think there are too many people that can be pleased with their portrayal in the book, but I think it was all pretty accurate.
|It's my understanding that Veis felt (and I can see why) that Colton portrayed him as a misogynist and racist tyrant. There have also been reports that Colton asked questions of the girls in the book that no man should ask a high school girl (or anyone for that matter).
|My vote for some of the best books about Montana.
Any and all of James Welch's books: Fools Crow and The Death of Jim Loney in particular.
Mary Clearman Blue: All But The Waltz.
Norman Maclean: Young Men and Fire.
Ivan Doing: This House of Sky and Heart Home.
Western Prose and Poetry edited by Rufus Coleman.
A Bride Goes West by Nannie T. Alderson and Helena Huntington Smith.
Plenty-coups Chief of the Crows by Frank B. Linderman.
|I'm not going to read the rest of this jacksh*t, but I guess you never met Carey Veis or have gone further west than Forsyth. I didn't say you were going to get a pretty picture, just an accurate one.
This is where the edit begins:
First, an intenet cliche - LOL
Veis a mysogynist and tyrant? No offense to the guy, but have you met him? Give me frickin' break.
I think I mentioned the 1997-2001 Cowgirls as a serious contender for MC's best - now let's see if we can remember that title game against Colstrip. Tyrant? Hmm... yeah, guess so. Mysogynist? Hard to substantiate.
Larry Colton never surprised me, he just put MT life on paper.
If I had any money, I'd put it where my mouth is. 12 angry men can tell you that this is Montana (as bleak as it is - lest we forget who cares about the last 30 all-state lineman)
[This message has been edited by Buck Showalter (edited 6/1/2006).]
|Buck, I was the sports editor for the Star from 2001-03. I continue to keep the record book for the Cowgirl basketball team. I graduated from CCDHS in 1995. You could say that I have met Cary Veis, having had him as a teacher and having worked with and around him.
He is an enigma in many ways, but I have never questioned the devotion he has toward Cowgirl Basketball and Custer County District High School. Adrenaline sometimes gets the better of him during game situations, but I can't think of a coach who cares more about his players than Cary. I say this having known him for 15 years.
"I think I mentioned the 1997-2001 Cowgirls as a serious contender for MC's best - now let's see if we can remember that title game against Colstrip."
If you can remember a state title game against Colstrip then I can't help but question everything else in your post. The Cowgirls have never played Colstrip in a state championship game - MC defeated Livingston for the 1988 and 1989 state titles, Lewistown for the 1998 state championship and Glendive for the 2000 championship. They lost to Laurel last season (it was a long time ago, so just in case you forgot...)
If you mean a divisional championship game between the Cowgirls and Fillies, there were a few of those: 1997, 1998 and 1999, with the Cowgirls winning all three. I believe the game to which you were referring was the third-place game in 1997, which Colstrip won 46-44 over Miles City. Would you like the complete series history between the Cowgirls and Fillies? How about the score of every game the Cowgirls have ever played?
Question my taste in books if you like, but if you want to argue CCDHS sports history, at least know what you're talking about before you mock me.
[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (edited 6/1/2006).]
|Coaches are an odd breed. I know several who are the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet, but when the clock starts they turn into raving nutjobs.
Is Veis intense? Yup. Do the kids love him? If I remember correctly, they did. Is it possible that he went over the line in a third place game at divisionals? I've seen coaches cross the line in a junior high jv wrestling match between a pair of 60 pounders, so I'm going to suppose he probably could.
On the one hand, Mr. Colton's book (which I haven't read) was about the HARDIN basketball team - and any tangential characters probably didn't get much more than a cursory treatment. If all he saw was one instant of a coach behaving badly, then it probably wasn't flattering. After all, how do most people remember Woody Hayes?
|Good point, Bridgier. Kudos on the usage of "tangential" by the way. I've always liked the word "tertiary" myself.
|>> A Bride Goes West. . .
Ah great choice.
another good read (although taking place later in time) is Percy Wollaston's book on Ismay.
Wollaston, Percy. HOMESTEADING (New York: Lyons & Burford, 1997).
|My question to everyone is this: Are there any good books (preferably non-fiction) about Custer County in general, and the Miles City area in specific?
I'd love to learn more about the area where my mom's parents were born (actually my mom's dad was born in Tennessee and moved to MC when he was roughly 12) and spent a significant portion of thier lives. I suspect that some of the more common/obvious reading will be about Custer & the Battle Of Little Bighorn.
While I'd certainly enjoy reading the many books about his "Last Stand" I'd prefer to read things about Custer County that aren't as well known or are as talked about as the Last Stand is.
Thanks for any recomendations you can give me.
|My bad - Colstrip, Glendive, Lewistown. I mixed up my city, but you're the expert, so you know the title game I refer to.
The other reality is that Miles City is a small place. I guess you can disagree with Colton's view and I can agree. Everyone who knows Veis can judge for themselves. And it's hardly a book about him anyway - the tension between MC and Hardin and red and white is only a side story. Why would Colton use Veis' name, risking a lawsuit (that he would win anyway) when there are total of 8,000 people who know or care that Veis exists?
[This message has been edited by Buck Showalter (edited 6/2/2006).]
|I will give you one thing, come to think of it. Why call him Gary Vels? He could have been Bob Smith or any other thing, as I complain that only 8,000 people know him. Odd.
I still think it's accurate though. And a really great story of events that continue to occur in the lives of a whole new generation on Montana's reservations.
|So I just read "Counting Coops" this weekend (spent far too much time flying to, from, and in the MSP airport)...for the life of me, I don't see why any of you gets so worked up over the "Gary Wels" character...he is briefly mentioned twice in passing, and he is hollering at his own team, not the opposition...not a thing anywhere that would give anyone a hint of rascism about him or Miles City, for that matter. Billings Central got most of the rascist brunt of things...and since it is Billings, who cares?
I liked the book...perfect read for being stuck in the airport.
Was the book about quantifying buildings in which chickens reside?
Just couldn't resist on that one.
|I would certainly second (or third) the recommendation of Mary Clearman Blew's ALL BUT THE WALTZ. The best descriptions of the kinds of issues and occurances faced by our Montana ancestors.
And BADLAND by Jonathan Raban is a fascinating history of people, both 'stickers' and 'bolters' who settled in the eastern Custer County area around Ismay. My grandparents were a little farther east, just across the state line, but it was clearly about their generation.
|I'm going to have to re-read Badlands as I didn't find it that impressive when it first came out. Trouble is I can't remember why anymore--maybe not enough sex and violence.
What do you all think of Ivan Doig's latest book--The Whistling Season? I enjoyed it more than a lot of his books.
|The Montana Center for the Book's OpenBook website has some great "Montana reads" in it's list of books.
It would be interesting to go through the books we've listed in this (and other threads) and see about coming up with a (formal or informal) milescity.com OpenBook series.
My input on your asking about Ivan Doig's latest book "The Whistling Season". I purchased the book before it was available from my local book store on the recommendation of someone else. I should know bettter!
When first starting the book I was reminded of some of the crap that Stan Lynde has written, but it got better as I went along. I liked Doig's upholding the good that Montana's rural schools have done although (I attended one in Montana for a number of years) I think he gave them too much credit. Anyway in retrospect, I would not have purchased the book if I had read it in advance. I have never appreciated Doing's novels although his two non-fiction books are classics in both literature and in Montana history!!!
Could someone tell me why some of the input previously made to this site, forum, thread (what the hell ever you call it) has been deleted.
I would also like to take this opportunity to tell everyone about a book I have recently read (and has recently been published).
It is titled "The Looming Tower" Al-Queda and the Road to 9/11 written by Lawrence Wright and published by Knopf. I feel it should be required reading for every voting citizen of this country (and I don't say that lightly).
Frank E. Ross
|I was kind of disappointed with BADLANDS. It's a good read and Raban does a good job of summarizing homesteading as a national event . . . but I didn't come away from the book with a sense of place.
It could have been the story of any of hundreds of homestead communities across the American West. I guess I was hoping to read something more firmly rooted in Southeastern Montana. Part of that is because I have family who homesteaded and ranched in and around Ismay, in the Knowlton Hills, and along the lower Powder River. So, I suppose, I was wanting to read something that was more firmly anchored in the land.
I wouldn't not recommend Raban's book, but I would recommend that folks also read other works on homesteading in Montana and not rely solely on his work.
One that I would recommend would be Percy Wollaston's memoir. Raban cites it extensively in his book, so why not go straight to the source
Wollaston, Percy. HOMESTEADING (1997).
Notes: Pioneers -- Montana -- Ismay -- Biography; Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana -- Ismay; Named Person: Wollaston, Percy, 1904- -- Childhood and youth; Ismay (Mont.) -- Biography; Ismay (Mont.) -- Social life and customs.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Frank E. Ross wrote
>> Could someone tell me why some of the input previously made to this site, forum, thread (what the hell ever you call it) has been deleted.
Frank, part of the problem is that we have two "Best Books" threads going - this one and another. I picked the wrong one when I posted yesterday - I meant to resurrect this one - sorry
|I recommend "Perma Red" by Debra Magpie Earling. She deserves to be better known.
|I agree with Hal's description of Badland, but liked it for the descriptions of the varied kinds of people who tried to homestead in Eastern Montana, Western Dakota, rather than the descriptions of the land. I was especially interested in the observation that when people left they often went straight west, ending up in Western Montana or the Pacific Northwest rather than California. In the fall of 1935 my parents got married (young) and took his brother with them west. They ended up in Yakima picking apples. They didn't stay there, but went back every winter for several years. In the '50s we went back there on a family vacation and met the people they worked for and with. When they finally left farm/ranch life it was to Miles City when I needed to start school.
Speaking of moving west, brings me to the new Doig novel. I didn't find it as good as the earlier ones. Somehow the family wasn't has well constructed as the 'English Creek' ones and the story wasn't as gripping as either Bucking the Sun or Prairie Nocturne. But my wife thought it was his best yet.
I have to agree with you - - it is interesting to read about what happened to the folks who didn't make a go of it homesteading. I think their stories are as interesting and as important as are the stories of those who managed to stay on the land.
When you think of what life threw at them, all those who tried their hand at homesteading in the early 1900s lived responded to some big challenges.
- - Severing old ties and moving to Montana.
- - The rigors of trying to make a go of dry land farming.
- - Building a life on the farm / building new communities.
- - Meeting war-time challenges.
- - The 1918 Influenza out break (some sources now say that 10 percent or more of Montanans died from that flu out break).
- - The bottom dropping out of the ag prices at the War's end.
- - The drought of the 1920s / grasshoppers, hail, wildfire, etc.
Those who hung in there and stayed with the land were some tough and stubborn folks. But life sure wasn't any great bed of roses for those who left the homestead and scrambled for other ways to support themselves and their families.
Although it's set (for the most part) in Spokane Breaking Blue (1992) by Timothy Egan does a good job of telling the story of some of those who were "displaced" from the land in the 20s and 30s and ended up in eastern Washington, Idaho, and Western Montana. On the surface Breaking Blue belongs to the "true crime" genre, but Egan does a great job of showing what life was like for some who lost the farm and had to move West and scramble to survive.
|Book Review: "Motherlode"
"'Motherlode' Honors Butte’s Hidden Resource - Its Women"
By Edwin Dobb
September 27, 2006
- - - - - - - - - -
Janet Finn and Ellen Crain, editors. MOTHERLODE: LEGACIES OF WOMEN'S LIVES AND LABORS IN BUTTE, MONTANA (Livingston, MT: Clark City Press, 2006).
Just found another book that should be on this list. Maybe it was mentioned and I missed it. The book is "Tough Trip Through Paradise" by Andrew Garcia. I plucked it off an airport rack, and I love it. Interesting story and the writing is outstanding. Can't remember laughing that many times when reading normal history. | <urn:uuid:ccea8621-5ce6-4a25-b078-e0793ca50d1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://milescity.com/forums/posts/view/19458/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961653 | 4,979 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Banks Collect Overdraft Opt-Ins Through Misleading Marketing
Survey finds low opt-in rate, high number of misperceptions
When it came to convincing customers to opt in to high-cost overdraft coverage, it was as if the banks rigged the election but still lost the vote.
A Center for Responsible Lending survey indicates that most consumers do not want high-cost overdraft coverage for their checking accounts, and that opt-ins are largely based on aggressive and misleading marketing, rather than clear and accurate information from banks.
Many banks routinely cover any transaction that overdraws a customer’s account, including checks, ATM withdrawals, and point-of-sale debit transactions. They charge a fee of about $34 and call it “overdraft protection.”
Scare Tactics and Threats of Bounced Checks
When the Federal Reserve Board issued a rule requiring that banks and credit unions obtain customer consent before approving debit card transactions for a fee, many banks conducted aggressive campaigns aimed at getting customers to opt-in. Marketing materials often created the false impression that emergency action was needed on the account. For example:
We Need to Hear From You . . . To keep your account operating smoothly . . . To avoid any interruptions in how we service your account, we need to hear from you.
Your Debit Card May Not Work the Same Way Anymore Even If You Just Made a Deposit.
Please keep in mind that this option [not opting in] may prevent you from completing everyday transactions including Any store and gas station purchase, Emergency home and car repair...Purchases when traveling, Medical or health emergencies.
Banks also conflated the treatment of checks and debit cards, implying that opting in would protect them from bounced check fees:
Save money by avoiding retailers’ returned check fees
Relax and protect yourself from the inconvenience of an overdrawn account and retailer fees
The Bounce Overdraft Program was designed to protect you from the cost and embarrassment of having your transactions denied. (emphasis added).
You can protect
yourself from the inconvenience of declined transactions and additional fees normally charged
to you by merchants for returned items. (emphasis added)
Survey Shows Low Opt-ins, Misperceptions
Even given misleading marketing, only 33 percent of accountholders opted-in to overdraft coverage, and most who did based their decision on information that was deceptive. The survey found:
Sixty percent (60%) of consumers who opted in stated that an important reason they did so was to avoid a fee if their debit card was declined. In fact, a declined debit card costs consumers nothing.
Sixty-four percent (64%) of consumers who opted in stated that an important reason they did so was to avoid bouncing paper checks. The truth is that the opt-in rules cover only debit card and ATM transactions.
For almost half of those who opted in, simply stopping the bank from bombarding them with opt-in messages by mail, phone, email, in person, and online banking was a factor in their decision.
These findings strongly suggest that an opt-in rate of 33 percent exaggerates interest in high-cost overdraft coverage for debit card transactions. Rather, the banks succeeded in confusing and wearing down some of their customers to the point that they accepted a product that would ultimately cost them unnecessary, exorbitant fees.
These quotes are from the marketing materials of a representative sample of banks on file with CRL.
Published: April 26, 2011 | <urn:uuid:1e0d0b5b-007a-40c8-b490-eacc187dc382> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.responsiblelending.org/overdraft-loans/policy-legislation/regulators/banks-misleading-marketing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95127 | 723 | 1.726563 | 2 |
To hashtag or not to hashtag…that is the question. If you are new to Twitter, you might not understand that question yet.
Listen up, all you non-taggers, because the amazing hashtag is going to help you get more out of Twitter. The hashtag, also known as the pound sign or crosshatch (#), is a grouping or searching tool you can use in your Twitter posts.
When you tweet, only your immediate followers see you…unless you put a subject specific hashtag in your tweet that describes your topic. This hashtag will include your tweet in the ongoing chat stream that people on Twitter follow.
When I tweet this blog, I’ll probably add #writing and #amwriting on the end of the post since those are two searches that I’ve created columns for in TweetDeck (this app is discussed in the next Twitter blog).
Let’s put this hashtagging business into perspective:
If your followers see your tweet, that is a wonderful thing. These are your Followers, your Tweeties, your peeps who think you have something valuable to say. It’s like your local lemonade stand where everyone on your block walks by, chats and gives you a quarter for a cool beverage. It’s a groovy, fuzzy thing and you’ll probably pay off your lemonade ingredients.
By adding a hashtag (#LemonadeStand for example) to the post, you and your little stand will be on the Twitter equivalent of Google or Bing, searchable to all the world, or at least all of the world that is so interested in lemonade stands that they follow the chat stream for #LemonadeStand.
Your local little tweet becomes part of a global “scene” with the hashtag. If you write to share your thoughts with the world, this is heady indeed. It is also informative.
A few weeks ago, I had Twitter open during lunch, just eating and watching the feed from the people I follow. Out of the corner of my eye I saw @MargaretAtwood and tuned in.
There on the screen was “Interview at 1 pm with @MargaretAtwood. Go to #followreader to tune in.” All I had to do was click the #followreader hyperlink and I was watching a live interview with, as one of the other followers said, “Margaret Freaking Atwood. OMG!” She is a long-time favorite of mine and it was a shot of adrenaline to see her answer questions from her fans, live and in color.
The experience was amazing and way better than a crowded conference hall where you have to leave your seat and walk over to an open mic to ask a question. For this Twitter chat, we could ask her any question we wanted and, as long as we put #followreader on the end, it showed up for everyone in the chat (including Margaret Freaking Atwood!).
Note: The same goes for the #AskEditor chat the second Friday of each month at 3 pm EST. Editors abound, waiting for YOUR question. (I expect to see all of you hanging with the editors the next #AskEditor Friday, OK?)
Isn’t one of the huge draws of Twitter the ability to interact with people all over the world who you’d never be able to meet or get near otherwise? Though I think there is some narcissism at play in Twitter’s astounding popularity, I think the real excitement is the sense of community and the depth of knowledge that’s available. The hashtag will help enhance the experience for you, I promise.
It is interesting to note that the hashtag was not originally built into Twitter. The workers, particularly Chris Messina, wanted it but the management didn’t. They thought it looked too geeky. Many of the program’s features come from IRC (Internet Relay Chat), which was almost twenty years old at the time, and the hash mark has its roots there too.
It’s surprising that a technology group was worried about the nerd factor. Still, the users wanted the “channel” feature and just organically began to use it. Twitter has in many ways been driven and defined by its user community which is, in my humble opinion, part of its charm.
For a great resource on Twitter (and social media and branding), I recommend that you visit Kristen Lamb’s blog and read all of her Twitter Tuesdays posts – TT #2 deals with hashtags and delves a bit deeper on some of the topics here.
If you would like to see a list of popular hashtags, go to one of the following sites:
- Specific to writers: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/40-twitter-hashtags-for-writers/
- http://tagal.us/ is working hard to be the dictionary on hashtags. It is a cool site and worth looking at since a list of tags drops down as you type and the hashtag definition shows in the search results.
Please feel free to add any other hashtag references or sites into the comments section below. We’re interested to hear what your favorites are.
In the meantime, enjoy some new Twitter functionality. Happy writing! | <urn:uuid:2af9cf8d-cdb7-41d5-9962-4366a5c3b680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jennyhansenauthor.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/why-i-love-the-hash%E2%80%A6tagging-in-twitter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951225 | 1,091 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Earth is our Business
Polly Higgins launches her latest book ‘Earth is our Business’ at the RSA, her second book after the award winning ‘Eradicating Ecocide’. Both books are available online at www.earthisourbusiness.com and www.eradicatingecocide.com. In Canada, Earth is our Business is available in paperback from amazon.ca
Earth is our Business: Changing the rules of the game by Polly Higgins
“… the book isn’t another wild diatribe against business ‒ rather it is an examination of international law and how environmental protection has somehow been left by the wayside… [It] asks everyone to re-examine the legal framework within which we are attempting to accomplish this, and provides business leaders with a golden opportunity of making it happen.”
Earth is our Business takes forward the argument of Polly Higgins’ first book, Eradicating Ecocide. This book proposes new Earth law, but it is also about something more than law: it advocates a new form of leadership which places the health and well-being of people and planet first. Polly Higgins shows how law can provide the tools and be a bridge to a new way of doing business. She argues, in fact, that Earth is the business of us all, not the exclusive preserve of the executives of the world’s top corporations.
Like her award-winning first book, Earth is our Business is written for anyone who is engaging in the new and emerging discourse about the future of our planet. Instead of merely examining the problem, Earth is our Business sets out a solution: new rules of the game. They are, says Polly Higgins, a new set of laws based on the sacredness of all life.
Polly Higgins, barrister and international environmental lawyer, proposed to the United Nations in April 2010 that Ecocide be classed as the 5th Crime Against Peace alongside Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes of Aggression and War Crimes. In June 2012 world leaders will meet in Rio for the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit to discuss global governance mechanisms for creating a green economy. Making Ecocide a crime will be among the issues raised.
Eradicating Ecocide won The People’s Book Prize for non-fiction in 2011. | <urn:uuid:a667aa26-0ad1-4d07-8938-81dafc680535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eradicatingecocideincanada.org/earth-is-our-business/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934992 | 474 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Well, my friend Jonathan has declared the word ‘cool’ unutterable, and at this point it’s only for children under 10 years old – or should I say seven… kids are so grown up these days. Born out of the sixties and reborn in the nineties, cool has done double-time, unlike its siblings copacetic and groovy that never made it past 1975. At a slightly higher degree of enthusiasm, awesome seems exclusively reserved for kids under 15 – who else? Do students still say awesome post-1998? Beautiful seems old-fashioned. Gorgeous, fabulous, sound too much like fashion talk. Fantastic and terrific seem off the mark… a bit over-enthusiastic perhaps? What’s left? Nice, great, are wonderfully neutral but so hackneyed they lack any kind of flavor. But again, lack of flavor gets people places, like donning a corporate uniform.
My artist friend Arleen Schloss has found a new way around this curious language problem. She makes up short versions of these same adjectives and uses those instead, and says, “that’s gorg’… that’s groov’…â€, which ends up sounding a little more sophisticated than the fully uttered version, but a bit odd as well.
I am at a loss for superlatives… but on the other hand, certain nouns have found a new fountain of youth in media language. You may have read my earlier July article about the ‘revenge of the nerds’, holders of the prized knowledge of the web… A recent issue of Time Out devoted its cover story to what they are touting as the new leading edge of culture, Nerds, Dorks and Geeks, with venues like weird spelling bees, dork dj collectives, trivia quizzes, campy cabaret, video game parties, Star-Trek characters impersonators, etc. Nerds, originally referring to shy, socially misfit individuals given to wearing white socks with black shoes (a transgression generally unforgiven in American dress code) and eyeglasses, have evolved from negative to positive over the last 30 years. Although a few rednecks may still refer to geeks negatively, a positive association occurs when the geek or nerd fixes your computer, gets you exposure on the net and becomes the new century hero. Maybe the new superlatives should be dorky, nerdy and geeky… What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? | <urn:uuid:128a1b21-9368-44b7-80e1-f2ea9e0ea4e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sequenza21.com/lauten/2006/09/dorky-new-york-and-paucity-of-adjectives/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937829 | 562 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Food writer, historian and “full red-blooded carnivore” Fussell (Masters of American Cookery, 2006, etc.) finds beef, specifically steak, to be the most American of foods.
It is, like us, “mobile, improvised, casual, egalitarian, reliable, raw, bloody, and violent,” she writes. Yet within the world of late-19th-century beef production, the fantasy of an autonomous cowboy freely riding the range rounding up the stray calves had little to do with the reality of an industry reliant on technology (the refrigerated railroad cars that transported butchered meat) and the division of labor in its vast meat-packing plants. Today, the author reports, 30 million cattle are harvested each year, held in feedlots holding 100,000 or more steers. They are fed corn—or candy bars, pretzels, whatever is available—quickly slaughtered and dismembered within automated systems, wrapped in Cryovac (which keeps the meat pink no matter its age) and sent to market. It is a secretive, largely unaccountable process that robs us of any sense of human connection with the animals we eat. This troubles Fussell, as does the rush to fulfill America’s insatiable demand for beef that may expose us to such dangers as mad cow disease and the E. coli virus. Her thesis is not new, but the author displays a captivating gift for capturing the essence of places and people. Though she clearly admires maverick ranchers who eschew feedlots and still graze their herds, slaughter and market locally, this is no mere jeremiad against industrialized beef. Fussell explores with humor and obvious pleasure the culture of cattle as well: the rituals of the rodeo, how to buy just the right cowboy hat, the joys of a good steakhouse and a fine steak. She even provides tips on how to cook the perfect steak and shares some favorite recipes she has collected along the way.
An engaging, eclectic examination of the role of beef in the formation of American myth and reality. | <urn:uuid:8edbcd9e-1a36-4eef-8c16-07c748c7beca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/betty-fussell/raising-steaks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948446 | 436 | 1.773438 | 2 |
MMZ-Belomo made more half-frame cameras than any other Russian/Soviet manufacturer.
|RafCamera - Russian
Lenses, Accessories, Manuals
(1984 - 1989) Comes with a 28mm, manually-focusing (f2.8-16) lens. This ultra-compact (about the size of many 16mm cameras), inexpensive (they currently sell, new, for about $40.00) camera came in two models. This version appears to be designed, at least originally, for the western market. The name of the camera and the name of the lens appear in English, and "made in USSR" appears on the back. The lens focuses from infinity to 0.9 meters (parallax indicators in viewfinder). The shutter and aperture are integrated into a "manual-programmed" exposure method. First the film speed is dialed in -- oddly enough DIN markings from 15 - 27 (ISO 25 - 400). Then the aperture is selected, or alternately six idiot-weather symbols (which appear on the other side of the same ring). There is no meter. The idiot-symbols or the f16 rule are your guides. When the aperture is selected the shutter speed is also selected. At f2.8, the speed is 1/60; at f16, the speed is f250. This is not the first camera or the first submini to use this approach. Built-in hot shoe with cover. No PC contact. Built-in tripod socket and cable release socket. Filter thread of 22mm. Strange, but effective, depth-of-field scale on the lens barrel. A wrist strap threads into the cable release socket. DIN-ASA conversion scale on the back. Body pops apart to load the film. Comes with clear plastic lens cover. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, new versions may exist. The rewind handle on these cameras are very fragile and break easily. It's best to remove the film from the camera in the darkroom, outside of the camera. Scales in yellow or red. The quality of the lens is good, but the shutter/aperture tends to be erratic.
(1988 - present?) Basically the same camera as the Agat 18 except for the following items. This model appears to be designed, at least originally, for the home market. The name of the camera and the name of the lens appear in Russian, and "CCCP" appears on the back. The film speed is dialed in -- oddly enough ISO markings from 25 - 1600. This is a much wider range that the Agat 18. There is no DIN - ASA conversion scale on the back. The lens cover is black (instead of clear) and is attached to the wrist strap so you can't lose it (nice idea). The f-stop scale is the same but there are seven idiot symbols instead of six (I guess you can be a "finer-tuned" idiot with this version). The main difference between these models is that with the18K, you have the option of using a rapid film cassette system. That is, the take-up spool can be removed and an empty 35mm cassette can be installed instead to takeup the film. This makes for quick removal of film, if pairs of cassettes are loaded ahead of time. For the normal shutterbug, it's a pain because the take-up spool is looser than normal in this model and has a tendency to fall over when you are trying to close the camera. But I'd still opt for the Agat 18K over the Agat 18 due to the increased film speed range.
(1965) This was the first in a compact, well-made series of half-frame cameras. 28mm (f2.8-16.0) focusing lens. Close focusing to 3 feet. Speeds of B, 1/30 - 1/250. PC contact, cable release connection and tripod socket. Exposure is strictly manual with no built-in meter or exposure guide. The shutter release button on this series is on the front of the camera, and unfortunately a little too easy to push by mistake as you are advancing the film! This model is easy to identify from its rectangular shutter release button. Unlike the later models, this one did not have an interchangeable lens mount. It also lacked a filter thread on the lens. It had a nice little film speed reminder on the bottom of the camera, but some people are confused by this and think that the camera has some sort of built-in meter! Despite its proto-typical flaws, it is a well-made camera.
(1971) New body style and some new features. It has the same interchangeable 28mm f2.8 lens with a Leica 39mm thread. Apertures from f2.8 to f16. The main difference is the addition of a selenium meter to the top of the camera. first, dial in the film speed into the meter (GOST speeds from 16 to 500). Next select a shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/250. There is no B setting on this model. Next, point the camera at the scene and turn the meter dial until the needles match. Finally, transfer the f-stop setting to the lens. But there were other changes and improvements as well. For example, parallax compensation marks were added to the viewfinder and cold flash shoe was added to the top of the camera. A PC contact was on the front of the camera. The square shutter release of the original model made a return, but the cable release connection is completely gone. The camera does still have a tripod socket however. Another change is that the film advance lever is now on the bottom of the camera. Over 500,000 of these were made.
similar to Chaika III but without meter
(1970) 28mm (f2.8) lens. Used Agfa "rapid" cassettes and had a spring motor built in. Great idea but the film was hard to get. Selenium meter around the lens. Speeds of 1/30 - 1/250. Focusing to 0.8 meters. Hot shoe and PC contact. Cable release and tripod socket. A 24x24 version may have been made.
(1970) An advanced version of the Rapid. Available with either a 28mm (f2.8) or 30mm (f2.8) lens. The features on this camera were the same except that this model came with two shutter releases for dual exposure settings.
COPYRIGHT @ 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Joe McGloin. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:da3fd042-45b3-41d2-85d0-5036528fb337> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.subclub.org/shop/mmz.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944819 | 1,386 | 1.78125 | 2 |
It’s Saturday morning. It’s raining. I’d love to linger in bed and turn my daily writing exercise to flights of fancy, or the latest tales of teenage folly around my little household.
But given the discussion this past week – of very real and pressing social ills that affect millions of us – I prefer to point you to an important article on Huffington Post, written by Barbara Hannah Grufferman.
While Barbara’s immediate target audience may be women, and specifically, women over 50, her weekly columns continue to impress and insist that we get off our apathetic butts whatever our age, and take action to chip away at the challenges that plague this country.
A “can do” attitude? Sure, that helps. But attitude and intention accomplish little, without action.
Just yesterday, in response to my post on dealing with obese kids by removing them from their homes, it was Tina who said “We are big talkers in this country but do not take action.” Tina went on to offer wise words from her experience. And it was Mutant Supermodel who wrote “Where does one begin?” and expressed her sense of futility at the enormity of issues that confront us, to do with children, education, health care, and politics as usual.
How right they both are.
Words to Motivate
Barbara’s provocative piece, headlined Can Protesting Make America Happier And Healthier?, is not only worth reading and reading again, but it’s message deserves more – crafting a plan of action.
One thing. Two things.
Something – tangible, manageable, and important to you.
We’re overwhelmed with the details of our day-to-day lives: working, or looking for work; taking care of our families and our immediate communities; and just trying to live our lives. Understandable. But, based on discussions I’ve had and research I’ve read, if we don’t turn anger into action, our dissatisfaction grows.
I get it. I’m there. I’m one of the over 50, over-educated, overqualified – and unemployed.
That doesn’t mean I don’t work – I work all the time – frequently in an underemployed capacity, but also for long stretches when this site is my sole “work” and obviously without pay, when simultaneously searching for paying projects is my work, and of course – executing on those projects, while running a household and raising children which has comprised my “other” profession for years. And naturally, unpaid.
When I am generating revenue through contract and freelance positions?
None of it provides benefits. Rarely does it add up to a sufficient income, given the costs of raising children. I’ve juggled, like most of you. I’ve lived on credit – just to get by.
I’ve dealt with ex issues and health issues, solo parenting dramas and my own “stuff.” There are good days and bad days, some that seem to beat me to a pulp, and others in which I write with a vengeance and connect to those who are doing something. Those who can teach me how to peacefully protest, which perhaps we could envision as acts of peaceful reconstruction.
Facing Up To Reality
I often write about France with affection – and even longing. It is an imperfect nation (as are they all), and a country I love. But this is my country, and we can do better.
This is where I live. This is where my children live.
This diverse, complex and naive assemblage of more than 300 million people participates in a larger community of nations – and in that community we can all learn from each other, and respect one another. I want to live with less fear. I want to live with more dignity. I want my skills and knowledge and work ethic to be useful, and properly compensated in dollars – so I may keep a roof over my head and food on the table, and so I may cover basic medical expenses without going bankrupt.
Is that honestly too much to ask? For any of us? A decent life? A dignified life?
I want to be able to help those of you who don’t have jobs (and not for lack of trying), who are still fighting for enforcement of child support or reasonable custody (and worn down from doing so), who are trying to feed yourselves and your families in a healthy, affordable fashion, who are trying to make sense of the latest ways to “best” parent your children in a confusing culture.
I want to be able to demonstrate to small organizations and larger ones that millions of us continue to offer competencies that can contribute to the welfare of our society (as well as the bottom line) – regardless of our age or our gender, much less our marital status and family obligations.
Moreover, there is joy in giving. And giving back.
Please stop by and read Barbara’s articles. They are worth your time. They will help you see just how many of us are afraid, worried, overwhelmed – but willing to do something about it.
You aren’t alone in being tired or feeling helpless. We’re in this together. We can act – together – each of us in ways that make sense.
As for my own plan of action, I resolve to do the following and keep you posted:
- to inform myself better on critical economic issues
- to inform myself better on candidates and their platforms
- to document and share what I am learning about healthy foods on an extremely restricted budget
- to share what I have learned about educational opportunities for those who have been devastated (financially) by post-divorce life, and who don’t fit into the usual “categories” when it comes to providing data to educational institutions
This may not sound like a lot, but I hope it’s something of value. Like many of you, I am also finishing the job of raising a family alone, and seeking revenue-generating projects. Both of those, obviously, take a good deal of time. But they can’t be used as excuses, or none of us – the women especially – would take any social or political action for 15 or 20 years.
Action must take precedence over apathy. Action is the only way forward.
For all of us.
I believe we can make a difference if we stand up, if we turn apathy into action, if we seek to peacefully restructure by asking questions, by informing ourselves, by picking our battles, and by working for change.
- Will you make a plan of action?
- Will you share it with us?
- Will you commit to doing what you can? | <urn:uuid:7c1d1475-c7bd-4241-afe3-c4978e23c019> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailyplateofcrazy.com/2011/07/16/apathy-into-action/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960403 | 1,427 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Diamonds naturally attract grease. In order to keep your diamonds clean and brilliant for years to come, it's best that you soak and wash your diamond jewelry in warm, sudsy water. Make sure that you use a mild liquid detergent. When you're done washing it, dry it with a soft, lint-free cloth.
You can also use ethyl alcohol, ammonia solutions, and jewelry cleaning solutions to clean your diamond jewelry. Alcohol is really good as a cleaning solution. It evaporates quickly and doesn't leave any water spots. Ammonia solutions are especially good for cleaning unfilled diamonds and brightening metals such as yellow gold. Alcohol and ammonia solutions may not be suitable for cleaning jewelry with other stones. If you have jewelry containing fracture-filled diamonds, you shouldn't clean them with solutions that are acidic or contain ammonia. These types of solutions could cloud, discolor, or remove the fillings.
If the grease and dirt still hasn't come off after soaking your diamond jewelry, you can also try using a tooth pick, a water pick, or unwaxed dental floss to remove the dirt. Be careful when using water picks because the bristles could scratch the gold mountings.
You can also have your diamond jewelry professionally cleaned with a steamer and ultrasonic. An ultrasonic is a machine that shakes dirt loose with a vibrating detergent solution using high-frequency sound waves. These two types of devices shouldn't be used to clean diamonds that are severely cracked or flawed. To have these rings professionally cleaned it may take a couple of hours to be cleaned effectively. In some cases, the ultrasonic and the steamer can't remove the dirt and metal residue. In these instances, you can boil your diamonds in sulfuric acid. Fracture-filled diamonds should never be cleaned in acids.
- It's always best to clean your jewelry on a regular basis to avoid lengthy, risky cleaning procedures down the line.
- If you wear your jewelry daily, you should try to clean it at least once per week.
- Always consult with your jeweler to find out which cleaning solution is best for your type of jewelry.
Storing Diamond Jewelry
- When you're storing your diamond jewelry, it's best that you wrap your jewelry individually in soft material and place them in pouches or pockets of padded jewelry bags.
- Try not to store the jewelry on top of each other because doing so can cause the diamonds and the metal mountings to get scratched.
- Make sure that you store your jewelry in a safe and secure place in your home.
- Avoid storing your jewelry in jewelry boxes or on top of tables or dressers because thieves tend to search for these items in these locations.
- Costume jewelry should be stored in jewelry boxes.
- If you have jewelry that you rarely wear, it's best to store them in a safe deposit box instead of your home. | <urn:uuid:03fd5508-4659-4be8-9055-2253211cb78f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibraggiotti.com/diamond-and-jewelry-education/diamond/diamond-care/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931903 | 597 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Basic Travel Advice
We advise against all travel to Mali. The Government of Mali declared a State of Emergency across the whole country with effect from midnight on 12 January. We advise Irish Citizens to leave the country if you do not have an essential reason to stay.
There is a high risk of kidnappings and terrorist attacks in Mali. For this reason, the Department of Foreign Affairs advises against all travel to the northern part of Mali, including the provinces of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal, Koulikoro (north of the town of Mourdiah), Segou (north of the town of Niono), Mopti and the border areas with Mauritania, Algeria and Niger. We urge travellers to exercise a high degree of caution in other areas of Mali.
All Irish citizens intending to travel to or reside in this country are strongly advised to register their details with the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Travel Registration system is available here .
It is imperative that all intending travellers purchase highly-comprehensive travel and personal medical insurance prior to leaving Ireland. Travellers should ensure that the insurance policy includes cover for acts of terrorism and for the cost of medical evacuation by air to Ireland. You should fully understand the terms and conditions, check for exclusions and ensure that your policy covers all specialised activities you wish to undertake whilst travelling.
Please be advised that the Irish Government assumes no responsibility whatsoever for expenses incurred by Irish citizens as a result of a personal emergency whilst travelling.
Ireland does not have an Embassy or Consulate in this country. As such, it is not possible for us to provide detailed travel advice as we have no way of objectively verifying information and ensuring that it is accurate, appropriate and up-to-date. Likewise, the level of consular assistance and support we can provide to Irish citizens in times of emergency may be limited. Irish citizens may wish to bear this in mind before making plans to visit this country.
In countries where Ireland does not have any formal representation, emergency consular assistance, advice and support may be sought through resident offices of other EU member states.
Irish citizens requiring emergency assistance in this country should first approach their tour operator representative, local tour guide or hotel management and contact their insurance provider. In the event of an emergency or for help and advice you can also contact the Consular Assistance Unit at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin on +353 1 408 2000. However, once again, please be advised that the level of service and assistance we can provide in this country may be limited.
For entry requirements and immigration information, please contact the appropriate Embassy or Consulate of the country.
You may wish to review the travel advice for this country as presented by other Anglophone Foreign Ministries. Suggested links are provided below. Please be aware that The Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland is not in any way responsible for the content contained therein and is not in a position to endorse or validate any of the information supplied by other Governments. These links are merely intended as helpful suggestions for further research in advance of your trip.
•UK: Foreign and Commonwealth Office
•Canada: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (www.voyage.gc.ca)
•New Zealand: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (www.safetravel.govt.nz)
•Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (www.smartraveller.gov.au)
•USA: Department of State (www.travel.state.gov) | <urn:uuid:0c20a523-ed28-4ecf-b85a-ec8cfeb80d49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.embassyofireland.au.com/home/index.aspx?id=8575 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932313 | 714 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Governor Eliot Spitzer announced the appointment of Avi Schick as Chairman and David Emil as President of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
“With new leadership and a new direction, a reinvigorated LMDC will help revitalize an area that is important as an economic hub to New York and as a symbol of our freedom and resilience to all Americans,” said Governor Spitzer.
David Emil is a businessman who owns and operates several businesses in the metropolitan area. Mr. Emil was the owner of Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the World Trade Center. On September 11th Windows on the World was destroyed and 79 of Mr. Emil’s employees were killed in the attack. Mr. Emil and two colleagues founded the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund, raising more than $25 million to assist the children and families of restaurant workers killed on September 11. Between 1979 and 1994, Mr. Emil held several positions in state government, most notably as President and CEO of the Battery Park City Authority from 1988 to 1994.
Avi Schick serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Empire State Development Corporation where his responsibilities include coordinating the state’s activities related to Ground Zero. Mr. Schick previously served as a Deputy Attorney General in the New York State Attorney General’s Office where he represented the state in significant litigations and in matters relating to the $200 billion tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was created in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks to help plan and coordinate the rebuilding and revitalization of Lower Manhattan, and is charged with ensuring that Lower Manhattan recovers from the attacks. | <urn:uuid:c21007dd-b2a6-4b82-bef6-bd8aa38aaef3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.akatsimatides@renewnyc.com/displaynews.aspx?newsid=11dd9b2b-28c4-4d8f-802b-b57efc1b9655 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968989 | 334 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Forum inspires Asia-Pacific cultural cooperation
More and more countries in Asia-Pacific are investing in cultural industries as a key part of their socioeconomic progress. A timely three-day forum in May, organized by the Bangladesh Ministry of Cultural Affairs, brought representatives of 33 countries together in Dhaka. The focus was on exchanging experiences and exploring how UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions can further boost cultural industries and international cooperation in the region.
The Forum concluded with the adoption of the Dhaka Ministerial Declaration on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. This landmark statement provides a foundation for future collaboration among participating countries.
Through plenary sessions and discussions, ministers of culture, experts and civil society representatives shared information and knowledge on a range of topics. These included: cultural policies and programmes, ways of growing cultural industries, as well as the successes and challenges they face in promoting and protecting the diversity of cultural expressions. Also on the agenda was weaving culture into sustainable development programmes, and the value of involving stakeholders when it comes to governance for culture.
Opened by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, the high-profile event was widely covered by the national media and created a momentum across the cultural sector. “I believe this Forum … will further the cause of tolerance, democracy, human rights, and cumulative cooperation …,” Ms. Hasina stated in her address.
Supported by the International Fund for Cultural Diversity, the event also called on UNESCO to take three actions: help implement the Dhaka Declaration; foster regional cooperation among networks of cultural industries professionals; and step-up awareness efforts about the Convention among Asia-Pacific countries so as to encourage its ratification. Already, UNESCO regional offices are marshaling resources to help meet these goals.
UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova was the event’s guest of honor. With cultural and creative industries making up more than 3% of global GDP and growing at a rapid rate, she expressed “cultural diversity holds keys to releasing the creative energies societies need today.”
By participating in the forum and unanimously adopting the Dhaka Declaration, Asia-Pacific nations proved their commitment to promoting cultural and creative industries and to strengthening regional cooperation in this area.
The resulting Declaration is a practical and important step forward, said Danielle Cliche, Secretary of the Convention, who also attended the forum. “The conversation started in Dhaka is essential for the Convention’s vision to promote universal engagement,” she noted.Back to top | <urn:uuid:c27159bc-b600-4138-bf01-3aaeb7bfa4b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/cultural-diversity/diversity-of-cultural-expressions/funded-projects/2010/bangladesh/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933244 | 520 | 1.585938 | 2 |
David Pickup, a marriage and family therapist who practices in Glendale, supports so-called reparative therapy, which was banned for minors in California by a law signed Sept. 30 by Gov. Jerry Brown.
California has become the first state in the nation to ban so-called “reparative” or conversion therapy aimed at changing a minor’s sexual orientation.
Under the terms of a bill signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday, therapists who use such techniques on children and teens will face disciplinary action from the agencies that license them.
The therapies are based on the idea that sexual orientation can be changed, and that feelings of attraction for someone of the same sex is the result of childhood trauma. They use a variety of techniques, including aversion training, persuasion and pornography to convince gay teens and others that they can become straight.
These methods and the ideas behind them are far from the mainstream of thought among doctors and therapists. Most medical opinion holds that the therapies are ineffective at best, and psychologically devastating at worst.
But they are supported by some in the religious right and other communities.
"I will admit there’s quackery out there," said David Pickup, a marriage and family counselor who lobbied against the new law. "But reparative therapy, which is I what I do, authentic reparative therapy is absolutely based on science, good research and it works.
Pickup, who practices in Glendale, said the new law would limit therapists' abilities to treat children who have been sexually abused. He spoke to NBC4's Patrick Healy about the bill earlier this year.
But state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) called the practice “evil,” and said it has led to suicide, depression and self-loathing among people who are forced to undergo it.
“No one should stand idly by while children are being psychologically abused, and anyone who forces a child to try to change their sexual orientation must understand this is unacceptable,” said Lieu, who sponsored the bill to ban the therapy for children and teens.
Lieu has said he would ban the practice for adults as well if he could muster the political support.
Brown, in signing the bill, said the new law would assign conversion therapy to the “dustbin of quackery.”
The law takes effect Jan. 1. | <urn:uuid:1441760b-3dbe-4fb2-ac43-0f85b4c511f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/California-Bans-Controversial-Ex-Gay-Therapy-Minors-Conversion-Reparative-172137181.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971715 | 498 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Connect to share and comment
Austria's media authority condemned on Monday the capital Vienna's biggest free daily newspaper Heute for an article deemed racist and insulting to Muslims.
The December article in Heute ("Today") reported that a suspect in a murder trial was the sort of person "who thankfully tends to live in the shadow of the moon crescent."
The newspaper, read daily by several hundred thousand commuters as well as children on their way to school, said that in such countries "during prayer the backside is higher than the head".
The Pressrat authority ruled that this constituted a "denigration of people of Muslim faith" as well as "discrimination on religious and/or racist grounds and vilification of a recognised religious community".
The authority praised the newspaper however for its disciplinary action against the two journalists behind the article, who have said they are ready to do community work for Muslim organisations in recompense. | <urn:uuid:c626ecd0-6e67-4cc1-b398-89788d481677> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130204/free-austrian-daily-rapped-islamophobic-article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96204 | 186 | 1.609375 | 2 |
HIGHWAY TO HELL
By David J. Stewart
They're On a Highway to Hell (VIDEO)
“But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee...” —Luke 12:20
Sadly, at the young age of only 33, AC/DC's lead singer Bon Scott (pictured far right), “drank himself to death,” according to the official coroner's report...
Bon Scott recorded six studio albums with AC/DC, beginning with 1974's "High Voltage." It was shortly after the release of the somewhat foreshadowing sixth album, 1979's "Highway to Hell," that Scott died (February 19, 1980). In keeping with his rowdy persona, the official coroner's report stated that Scott had drank himself to death. "Highway to Hell" sold over a million copies during its initial run (it has sold seven million to date) and climbed to place at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart.
Scott epitomized the role of a God-hating rebel who abused drugs and indulged in sinful living. His death is just one of hundreds in the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Shame. Psalm 55:23, “But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.”
Scott was found dead in his car after an indulgent binge left his body lifeless and his soul at the reality of the “Highway to Hell” which Bon Scott recorded just months prior to his tragic death. Scott had been taking medication for liver damage prior to his death.
Bon Scott, who wore a Satanic pentagram around his neck, sang in his infamous song entitled Highway to Hell...
“Hey Satan, paid my dues, playing in a rockin' band, I'm on a highway to hell.”
Circus Magazine reported:
“Throughout the AC/DC catalogue, there is a disturbing correlation between pleasure/sex/drunkenness and unconsciousness/death, which has now reached its tragic culmination.”
In their album, BACK IN BLACK (which has sold over 42,000,000 copies in the U.S. alone); one of the most popular songs is HIGHWAY TO HELL. All across the world in bars, nightclubs and concerts, ACDC fans sing along in unison, “I'm on a highway to Hell.” And they certainly are! America is on a Highway to Hell.
AC/DC's philosophy and music not only drove Bon Scott to a premature death, but the U.S. Army used AC/DC's music as “psychological torture” to drive Manuel Noriega out of the Vatican Embassy and into prison. During the American invasion of Panama in 1989, troops blasted AC/DC's “Highway to Hell” in order to drive Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega from the Vatican embassy where he had taken refuge (a tactic also used by the FBI at Waco). What do you think this type of mind shattering music (noise) does to a teenager's mind?
AC/DC was up-front with their fans when they made it clear that they not only achieved fame as a rock band by Satan's power, but that they also desire to drag their listeners into eternal damnation with them...
“if God's on the left, I'm on the right, I'm gonna take ya to hell, I'm gonna get'cha, Satan got'cha, Hell's Bells, If you're into evil, you're a friend of mine.”
SOURCE: Lyrics from AC/DC's hit song titled, HELL'S BELLS
Can you imagine having to answer to God for putting such evil thoughts into the hearts of millions of teenagers? Bon Scott's eternal destiny in the Lake of Fire will be hotter than anyone could possibly imagine (Psalm 9:17; John 3:36; 2nd Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelation 20:11-15; 21:8). It is so sad. Where will you spend eternity friend? Will you also sing gleefully with reckless endangerment that you're also on a highway to Hell?
I saw a YouTube video of a recent AC/DC concert. Brian Johnson leads the audience, tens-of-thousands of fans, to sing in unison... “I'm on a highway to Hell.” There are giant movie screens on stage behind the band, showing flames on both sides, mocking the Bible. The band and many fans are wearing hats with devil's horns. The guitarist, Angus Young, sticks his guitar between Brian Johnson's legs, near his crotch, making it look like an erect penis. It is shameful and evil. It is hard to actually witness tens-of-thousands of people all gleefully singing that they're going to Hell. It is tearful if you believe the Bible and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you care that the souls of billions of lost sinners are headed straight for the Lake of Fire.
Here are the very sad lyrics to HIGHWAY TO HELL by ACDC...
Livin' easy, lovin' free, season ticket on a one-way ride
Askin' nothin', leave me be, takin' everythin' in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing that I'd rather do
Goin' down, party time, my friends are gonna be there too
I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to Hell
I'm on the highway to hell
Highway to Hell
No stop signs, speed limit, nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it, nobody's gonna mess me around
Hey Satan, payin' my dues, playin' in a rockin' band
Hey Mumma, look at me, I'm on my way to the promised land
Oh, how Satan is a beautiful liar! Do you think you'll meet all your friends in Hell and have a big party? That's not what the Bible teaches. You'll be screaming in the torments of molten sulfur (brimstone, Revelation 21:8). The only promise that the wicked have is that God will punish them in flaming fire for all eternity (2nd Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelation 20:15; 21:8). If your friends are in Hell when you get there—you won't be partying together, holding hands and singing campfire songs. You'll be tormented day-and-night forever!
You will have company in Hell, but it will be beyond your worst nightmare (Revelation 9:1-11). The Bible says that these horrific scorpion-like creatures will come out of the bottomless pit during the Great Tribulation (i.e., the last 3 1/2 years of the 7-year Tribulation), from whence comes the smoke as of a burning furnace (Revelation 21:8). God will cast each and every unbeliever into the Lake of Fire as 2nd Thessalonians 1:8-9 and Revelation 20:11-15 warns! God will not be mocked by evil men and women. If you die in your sins (John 8:24), God the Father will be your Judge in eternity (Revelation 20:11-15).
Won't you repent toward God and trust upon Jesus' precious name for the forgiveness of your sins? Thank God, He has made a narrow road which leads to eternal life and Heaven for those who come by faith, as guilty sinners to be washed in the precious blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; BUT WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1st Peter 1:18,19).
There are many frightening aspects of dying a Second Death in the Lake of Fire that should scare you if you're an unbeliever; but one particular phrase in Revelation 14:11 below jumps out at me as being the most frightening for those who go to Hell... “no rest day nor night.” If you are a Christ-rejecting unbeliever, the Bible teaches that you WILL go straight to Hell when you die. You will be tormented in flaming fire, for ever and ever. And the Bible teaches that you will have NO REST, neither day nor night, for all eternity. Are you willing to take that chance with your soul? I'm not.
The tragic part is that NO ONE has to end up in Hell, but they choose to go there anyway. It is a choice that is yours alone to make. I chose Jesus at age 12, trusting upon His name to take away my sins. That was decades ago. I've felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life ever since that moment (Romans 8:9). You can know Jesus too my friend. It begins with you acknowledging your sinful and hopeless condition. You are a guilty sinner for breaking God's Laws. Burning in Hell forever is the punishment for one's sins(2nd Thessalonians 1:8-9).
The good news (which is commonly called the Gospel) is that Jesus paid for our sins. The Godhead became incarnate in the flesh of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:9 - All Scripture references are quoted from the inspired King James Bible). Jesus was born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23), being the only begotten Son of God (John 3:16). Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life (Hebrews 4:15; 1st Peter 2:22). Jesus was crucified for our sins, dying a shameful death that He didn't deserve to die (2nd Corinthians 5:21). Jesus died, was buried and rose again after 3-days (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). Jesus ascended into Heaven and applied His shed blood to the mercyseat in the heavenly tabernacle (Hebrews 9:12,22-24; Revelation 21:3).
Salvation was made freely available to ALL, to WHOSOEVER shall call (appeal unto) upon the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13). Salvation comes by repentance toward God to be forgiven of one's sins by faith in Jesus' name. Acts 10:43, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” Please get off the highway to Hell. I have just shown you the narrow way which leadeth unto life, which few people ever find because of the vail of unbelief over their heart (2nd Corinthians 3:14-17). I beseech you to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins to be saved.
Revelation 14:11, “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”
ACDC's Brian Johnson Wants a God Who'll Look After Him | <urn:uuid:bb9724f2-0045-43ff-8240-de66eb40a2c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Rock-n-Roll/highway_to_hell.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958101 | 2,378 | 1.515625 | 2 |
One of the major issues facing small listed or micro-cap stocks is that they tend to have low visibility with investors. The mainstream media is not particularly interested in reporting on them and small caps fall below the radar screens of most institutional investors. However, social media can help redress the balance and maybe even boost their valuations, according to research.
As such signs that a small cap company is adopting a long-term social media programme can be good news for its shareholders. North American small companies are ahead of their UK and European peers in this regard with Facebook and Twitter being the two most popular social media platforms for investor relations activities.
The price of invisibility
The problem of permanent low visibility is that it tends to translate into wider bid and offer spreads with the shares languishing at often deep discounts to net asset value. This makes the cost of capital more expensive when that company needs to issue new shares to raise finance and is also frustrating for shareholders. The Nobel laureate economist Robert C. Merton argued a quarter of a century ago in a paper - A simple model for market equilibrium with incomplete information that there is a rationale for listed companies to use public relations and advertising to reach target investors. He explained that: “An increase in the relative size of the firm’s investor base will reduce the firm’s cost of capital and increase the market value of the firm.”
Specialist metals information service Metal Pages said in a recent report that following through on Merton's advice small companies should be using social media to attract investors as it is also very cost effective. The report called junior mining companies should use social media early in the fund raising cycle goes as far as arguing that social media programmes should start preferably before the IPO even. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan conducted a study called Dissemination, Direct-Access Information Technology and Information Asymmetrywhich concluded that social media can raise investor awareness and understanding of small companies with a positive outcome for the liquidity of shares and their values.
Social media is in effect democratising the flow of information and real-time platforms such as Twitter allow the maximum number of people to receive news simultaneously and instantly. This is a very positive development for market transparency and for smaller companies. Twitter now often rivals news wire services such as Reuters for breaking important news stories, which can move share prices. Being able to reach investors directly makes small caps less dependent on traditional media outlets and broker reports to raise their investor-profile. Many North American small caps are building investor communities via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Importantly for small cap companies, retail investors, a key source of funding for them, are turning to social media to monitor their investments and to share ideas. The Metal Pages report points out that the socialisation of investing is picking up pace with stock brokers integrating social media into their trading platforms in North America and Asia and with the rise of crowd-funding where small start-ups raise capital directly from the general public. The report says that smaller companies benefit disproportionately from using social media as their much larger counter-parts are already closely followed by brokers and the media.
The limitations of social media
Though social media can certainly help highlight a neglected small cap with a great story to tell – it does have limitations. If the company is badly run it is likely to get found out and shunned in the social sphere and word gets around quickly. Howard Lindzon, CEO of US-based real-time investors community, StockTwits, warns it also won't stop the share price falling if a company is in an out of favour industry sector.
Being in an out-of-favour sector can mean certain death for the share price and liquidity of a small cap. At least maintaining visibility whatever the market conditions via active investor relations and social media programmes means that once the sector returns to favour momentum investors are likely to discover the company quickly. Whilst value investors and other long-term shareholders will at least be encouraged that the firm is shareholder-driven and will eventually get discovered. The worry for value investors is getting caught in value traps – that is shares of companies, which somehow remain invisible whatever the stock market conditions or have genuinely problematic businesses.
They're doing it over there...
Two examples of small caps using social media effectively are Australia-based explorer Iron Road (ASX:IRD), which is using it to highlight its A$2.5 billion iron ore project in Southern Australia and to engage with investors. It is also now using social media to raise its profile in China, a key market for iron ore, via a local social media platform called Sina Weibo. Iron Road is looking to social media to support its fund raising efforts to advance its project. The other example is Canada-based rare earths explorer Ucore Rare Metals (CVE:UCU), which has developed a very large following on Twitter, bigger even than mining giant Anglo American (LON:AAL). It also uses it's website as a very effective multimedia platform and education centre for investors. As a result it enjoys a much higher profile than most of the other junior rare earths explorers many of which struggle to gain investor recognition. | <urn:uuid:b03a493f-89fc-450a-a520-ff06bfd2fe31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/content/social-media-lifting-the-veil-of-invisibility-for-small-caps-69037/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95104 | 1,043 | 1.625 | 2 |
Talese, in customary Italian suit and Panama hat, creates a new template for the modern-day soccer writer. He says of the Chinese footballer Liu Ying that “she was like a beacon drawing me toward her, illuminating possibilities. I thought of her in those terms.” (Photo © Joyce Tenneson)
On Sunday morning, July 11, 1999, I listened to my pastor, down the street from our home in Decatur, Georgia, warn parishioners about the dangers of nationalistic revelry. The occasion was the aftermath of American victory over China the previous afternoon in the Women’s World Cup final. The game finished 0–0, with the United States prevailing 5–4 in the penalty phase. “Let’s not forget the Chinese players,” our pastor said. It was the only time I have heard him, in 13 years, mention soccer within the worship context. “The TV cameras did not let us see their faces. What were their players thinking? What were they feeling as they watched all the American flags?”
Gay Talese refers to the setting at the Rose Bowl—the tableau of winning penalty-kick taker Brandi Chastain mobbed by teammates in a swirl of confetti and California sun—as a “stadium sky jet-streamed with jingoism.” Soccer, as Talese says in a Jul 16 podcast, has never been nor will it soon become the national pastime. But on this one Saturday, the lure of the unfamiliar international pastime overpowered Talese’s own lifetime affection for baseball.
Interview with Talese, from New York, Jul 16. (51:00) Download »
As the New York Yankees toiled on another television channel before surrendering to the crosstown rival, Talese, like some 40 million other viewers in the United States, could not take his eyes from the American and Chinese players. He had tuned in to watch the advertising icon Mia Hamm. But questions came to mind, not unlike those that my pastor posed in his homily. Talese, 77, a former sportswriter who calls himself “the Miss Lonelyhearts of locker rooms,” thought especially of Liu Ying. U.S. goalkeeper Briana Scurry‘s left-gloved save of Liu’s penalty effort secured the gold medal.
Talese lays out the roots of his curiosity about Liu Ying in A Writer’s Life, the chronicle of his career in literary nonfiction. He imagines Liu
sitting tearfully in the locker room. Nothing in the life of this young woman of twenty-five could have prepared her for what she must have been feeling. … Was she surrounded now in the locker room by sympathetic teammates? Was she sitting in isolation after being rebuked by her coach? … I was asking questions as if I were a born-again sportswriter with access to the locker room, and if I were, she would have been my story, she who would probably not sleep tonight and might forever be haunted by the remembrance of her woeful moment in the sun while much of the world was watching.
In China, where it is acknowledged that most parents lack enthusiasm for the birth of females, what amount of enthusiasm would greet this particular female when she returned to her homeland?
Liu’s tale consumes much more than a footnote in Talese’s 429-page memoir. Her heartbreak, in fact, takes pride of place. She provides the point of entry and coda for the career of a writer devoted to pursuing similar burning curiosities. Her loss certainly exceeded that experienced by the Yankees on July 10, 1999, and even the saga of woebegone heavyweight fighter Floyd Patterson, whom Talese had covered at the New York Times in the 1950s.
To Talese, Liu became a beacon drawing him out of depressive reverie to action, onto a plane to Beijing in Oct 99 where he would pursue Liu’s life story for the next five months.
“That’s a writer’s life—indulging your curiosity, and not only indulging your curiosity in terms of pursuing it but sometimes taking a long time, having the patience to stay with the subject,” says Talese of how Liu became so central to his narrative of nonfiction craft and its relationship to the writer’s experience. The Los Angeles Times in a profile of Talese calls the Beijing trip his biggest reporting challenge, comparing his work there to Truman Capote‘s Midwestern sojourn while researching In Cold Blood. Both Talese and Capote, far removed from Manhattan, were exemplars of the non-native. “Especially with a language barrier,” Talese continues, “you’re not going to get much from what people say, because they’re guarded with a foreigner. … So the language as spoken isn’t as important as your capacity to hang out with people, to spend time with them, to observe.”
Talese set about writing the interior of Liu’s life—literally from inside 74 Wuding Hutong, part of a warren of communal dwellings in downtown Beijing decimated in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics. This was where Liu was reared, where her football boots formed part of the landscape of household effects. Talese knew that Liu was not a central character in world football, but a symbol of cultural transformation. Through Liu’s moment of mass-consumed anguish, Talese could speak of gains and losses at the level of society, especially within the erratically unfolding story of Chinese women’s physical liberation. “I imagine their grandmothers having bound feet,” Talese says of the women soccer players of China, “and here are the granddaughters running around in cleated sneakers in front of the world kicking the ball.”
Historians of Chinese sport date the cessation of footbinding, a thousand-year-old custom, to challenges to Confucianism mounted by spirited peasant women in the mid–19th century and also to the arrival of Christianity, which helped bring to women “the normality of unmutilated limbs.” In millennia past, based on evidence preserved in fresco paintings, women had participated in the stylized kicking game of cuju, one of football’s earliest forms. In the modern era, as early as 1924, a physical-education teacher in Shanghai translated an English football rule book into Chinese. Backed by the school principal, who saw soccer as symbol of sexual liberation, women students started playing the game against men. Such physical emancipation continued under Communism, motivated by a desire to boost military and economic development.
But despite Maoist rhetoric of women “holding up half the sky,” Liu’s penalty-kick miss in Talese’s work presages a cataclysm of loss. Her sobs, transmitted via telephone to Beijing early on Sunday morning, spread in close quarters within the hutong. Her twin sister must apologize on her behalf; her grandmother, Madam Zhang, cloaks the television screen in black. “It is a part of life,” she tells neighbors. In the coda to the book, we learn that this hutong lies in ruins, an early victim of the Olympic improvements. Although Talese followed her career for several more years, Liu fades from view as she faded from the consciousness of most Americans, drunk with victory, on July 10, 1999.
At last contact, in 2003 or 2004, Talese says that Liu, now 35, was teaching high school soccer. “That’s a worthy profession,” he says.
In this chiastic framing of A Writer’s Life, the writer’s regard for craft develops in parallel to Liu’s existence. At the opening Talese confesses a conflicted relationship to the game (“I am not now, nor have I ever been, fond of the game of soccer”). Liu meets her nadir as Talese acknowledges his own fascination with defeat. But to him, the women players exist at a remove, as objects for consumption. Talese rakes his subconscious for forthright observations that are far from politically correct:
It … appeared to me that the Americans’ bodies were more curvesome and fully feminine than the Chinese. The latter were inclined to be quite narrow-hipped and boyish in figure, and, with one or two exceptions, to have smaller breasts than the Americans. Actually, I had not noticed large-breasted women on either team.
He does not stop there. Talese momentarily imagines them “gamboling in G-strings in a rain forest on the Playboy Channel.”
By the end, however, Talese’s affection for truth-telling and for his subject expresses itself. Liu Ying, whom he had identified in project notes as the “wrong-footed Chinese soccer maiden,” has become a human being, even heroic, situated within the classic Chinese appreciation for long-suffering women able to eat bitterness (chi ku). Talese has ventured across boundaries of the known world and brought himself to a new vantage point. Both soccer player and author have taken a great leap forward.
Note: An excerpt from Talese’s writing on Liu Ying is available in The Global Game: Writers on Soccer (University of Nebraska Press).
Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism, and Freedom: The Liberation of Women’s Bodies in Modern China, Sport in the Global Society (London: Frank Cass, 1997); Fan Hong and J. A. Mangan, “Will the ‘Iron Roses’ Bloom Forever? Women’s Football in China: Changes and Challenges,” chap. 3 in Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation: Kicking Off a New Era, ed. Fan Hong and J. A. Mangan, Sport in the Global Society (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 47–66; Jere Longman, “The Great Wall of China,” chap. 6 in The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World (New York: HarperCollins, 2000); Mei Fong and Loretta Chao, “The Great Women of China,” Wall Street Journal, 13 Jun 08; Gay Talese, A Writer’s Life (New York: Knopf, 2006).
The Paris Review (summer 09) queries Talese about his writing techniques (Katie Roiphe, “Gay Talese: The Art of Nonfiction No. 2”). He discloses that he takes notes on cardboard from dry-cleaned shirts. “I cut the shirt board into four parts and I cut the corners into round edges, so that they can fit in my pocket,” he says. “I also use full shirt boards when I’m writing my outlines. I’ve been doing this since the fifties.” | <urn:uuid:7fce3fcb-04cd-4927-8104-0aa1367f7b75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2009/07/womens-football-the-wrong-footed-soccer-maiden-who-bridged-manhattan-and-beijing/?wpmp_tp=1&wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967212 | 2,301 | 1.640625 | 2 |
There is a rising chorus from Washington and beyond warning about the risk that sovereign wealth funds - especially those of non-democratic governments - pose for US national security and “economic sovereignty”. The chorus usually begins by praising the benefits of foreign investment, whether private- or state-directed, but ends by singing a different tune.
Senator Evan Bayh, chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance, argues: “Occasionally, foreign governments will have agendas different from our own. They will pursue them using all resources at their disposal, including financial levers. No great nation can permit such interference with its sovereignty.” And he claims: “If sovereign wealth funds become the global investor of last resort, recipients of their largesse in times of distress will have enormous incentives to comply with all manner of requests.”
“No one is as careful with the taxpayers’ money as with their own.”
But foreign governments have no jurisdiction in the US. Moreover, the recently revamped Committee on Foreign Investment can vet foreign direct investments that prove to be a “credible threat” to US security.
In fact, sovereign wealth funds are typically strategic investors with long-term goals and are sensitive to political backlash from home and abroad. China’s newly formed sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, has no intention of getting involved in another imbroglio like China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s bid for Unocal that Congress short-circuited in 2005.
More important, one could make a strong case for diversification, given the falling US dollar and the fact that the People’s Bank of China now holds foreign exchange reserves worth more than US$1.5 trillion. So far, China Investment Corporation has acquired about US$200 billion, with most of it going to domestic financial firms. Of the US$60 billion or so that will flow into foreign investments, the initial US$3 billion that it injected into Blackstone Group has lost a third of its value.
An iron law of economics is that when you are spending or investing “other people’s money”, as in all cases of government largesse, inefficiency and corruption will follow. No one is as careful with the taxpayers’ money as with their own. The real question is why China does not allow its citizens to gain control over so-called state assets by widespread privatisation, including establishing private mutual funds using excessive foreign exchange reserves. Most of those funds would be invested in China, the world’s fastest-growing economy, rather than in US government securities.
Creating fully funded private accounts, in which the Chinese people could hold foreign as well as domestic assets, would give the Chinese people a stake in the future of global capital markets and help liberalise their own markets.
Focusing on the dangers of sovereign wealth funds diverts attention from the US government’s failure to limit its growth and to encourage private saving and investment in productive assets.
Without the ideal of widespread privatisation in China’s socialist market economy, establishing a sovereign wealth fund that invests in the US private sector would give China a greater stake in global capitalism. Moreover, as China’s state-owned enterprises move closer to the market, discover the value of diversification and are held responsible for their investment decisions, market liberalism will take a firmer hold in China.
Blocking foreign investment in US assets when there is no real security threat, while demanding full access to foreign markets, smacks of “investment protectionism”. If foreign governments are not allowed a wide range of investment choices in the US, they will take their business elsewhere. Without external financing, the US current account deficit would not be sustainable, America would face a deep recession and the US dollar would ultimately lose its status as the key reserve currency.
For its part, China would do well to listen to Justin Yifu Lin , the newly appointed chief economist at the World Bank. According to Mr Lin: “It is essential for the continuous growth of the Chinese economy to establish a transparent, rule-based, legal system that protects property rights so as to encourage innovations, technological progress, and domestic as well as foreign investments in China.”
The US, meanwhile, needs to address its lacklustre private domestic saving and its growing fiscal deficit - not by increasing taxes but by reducing the size and scope of government. The danger is that sovereign wealth mania will accelerate and result in costly protectionism under the guise of safeguarding US sovereignty. In reality, such a policy would destroy the individual sovereignty that is at the heart of the American dream. | <urn:uuid:9170e7c8-34cd-4284-afa0-148c17a75cba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/sovereign-wealth-paranoia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955819 | 957 | 1.820313 | 2 |
BOXING: Tributes were paid on Friday to Terry Spinks, the youngest Briton to win an Olympic boxing gold medal, who died at his Essex home aged 74.
Spinks, who had fought a long battle with illness, won flyweight gold at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 at the age of just 18, beating Romania's Mircea Dobrescu in the final.
As a professional the east Londoner won 41 of his 49 fights, including winning the British featherweight championship, before retiring at the age of 24.
British Boxing Board of Control general secretary Robert Smith said: "We are very sad Terry has passed away. He was a great boxer and a very nice guy.
"He was an Olympic gold medallist at 18, which is very young, certainly when he was fighting boxers from Russia and the Eastern bloc, men who were 25 or 26.
"He was also a very good professional boxer, but most importantly he was a nice person."
After hanging up his gloves Spinks enjoyed a successful career as a trainer, which included coaching the South Korean boxing team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
In 2002 Spinks was awarded an MBE for services to boxing and charity work.
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Donate to the Fighting Fund here | <urn:uuid:1bbb624c-7d13-4356-8084-28edfcad9feb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/118332 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990554 | 284 | 1.625 | 2 |
- Special Sections
With less than a month until the April 15 tax filing deadline, Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced legislation to provide grants for volunteer assistance sites and to make the funding more permanent.
“As the economy continues to move forward there are a lot of things that Ohioans can do to save themselves and their families money,” Brown said, explaining the reasons for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Act of 2013, or VITA Act, Wednesday during a weekly media teleconference. “Every tax cut, every way to save a dollar earned means more groceries, more gas money, more money pumped into the local economy.”
He said more than 32,000 Ohioans did not file a tax return in 2010, leaving $26 million in unclaimed tax refunds on the table, with the median refund totaling $561, more than the typical family of four spends on groceries in a month.
He explained taxpayers have until April 15 to file this year’s tax return and amended tax returns reaching back to 2009 to claim tax credits they were eligible to receive. After that, these credits will be lost — which is one reason Brown introduced the VITA Act.
“The VITA Act is to help more middle class and low income Ohioans claim vital tax credits by offering specialized assistance to low and moderate income individuals who otherwise cannot afford it,” Brown said. “Hardworking Ohioans should not be loaning Uncle Sam money and the VITA Act plays a vital role in informing Americans of tax credits they may be entitled to and help ensure those tax returns are filed in a complete and timely manner.
“This bill would keep those VITA sites operating and ensure Ohioans get the biggest refund possible,” he said. “Filing taxes is complicated enough and saving money you’ve earned should be easy. So my new webpage is informative and user friendly, and VITA sites offer tax help for low-to-moderate income families so they can claim important tax credits.”
He outlined three tax credits low-to-moderate income families can take advantage of including the Child Tax Credit which provides families with $1,000 worth of tax relief for each child under age 17.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which is a tax credit favored by both parties, is a federal tax credit available to working individuals, making less than $13,450, or families, making less than $50,000 per year.
For the 2010 tax year, Ohioans lost $2,103 on average. Last year, 942,470 Ohio taxpayers claimed the EITC, returning more than $2 billion into the economy. Ohioans failed to claim approximate $532 million by not taking advantage of the tax credit.
The American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), which was passed as part of the Recovery Act and was extended as a part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act in January, provides a partially-refundable tax credit for college tuition and expenses.
A dollar-for-dollar match is available for the first $2,000 spent on college costs for each child, with the total deduction worth $2,500 or credit worth $1,000. The average credit in Ohio last year was $2,100. In 2010, an estimated 346,500 Ohioans failed to take advantage of this tax credit.
In Auglaize County, 2,105 are enrolled for the credit but 1,300 failed to take advantage of the tax credit.
“Since the benefits of the AOTC are clear for the middle class and for our economy, I hope to increase the number of families in 2013 who can take advantage of it and that is the reason for this call supporting the VITA,” said Brown, who also launched a web site to alert Ohioans of tax credits and tax help. “My hope is to alert every Ohioan to free tax preparation services and critical, but often unclaimed, tax credits.” | <urn:uuid:de5b8af0-d4b8-4f03-abbf-1685fb12c58a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wapakdailynews.com/content/brown-pushes-tax-bill?quicktabs_2=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965289 | 834 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The Recently-Released McCarthy Secret Hearing Transcripts:
|By JOHN W. DEAN|
|Friday, May. 09, 2003|
Lately, charges of a new McCarthyism have been swirling. By far the most persuasive - and alarming - case has been made by Georgetown Law Center professor David Cole in an article in the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review entitled "The New McCarthyism: Repeating History in the War on Terrorism."
Professor Cole argues that "just as we did in the McCarthy era, we have offset the decline of traditional forms of repression with the development of new forms of repression. A historical comparison reveals not so much a repudiation as an evolution."
To support his claim of a New McCarthyism, Cole cites the censorship of speech considered subversive; the resurrection of guilt by association; and the redefinition of the laws of terrorism to reach what surely are unintended consequences. He explains how we have substituted administrative processes for criminal justice to make it easier to round up suspects, and to ignore the protections the Constitution affords criminal defendants.
Yet for many, the idea of McCarthyism itself lacks such specificity. One conservative McCarthy defender and National Review writer claims - quite unfairly, but not entirely baselessly - that "McCarthyism has come to mean anything liberals or leftists consider to be unfair, unjust, [or] un-nice." Meanwhile, the term is used as loosely today by the right as it is by the left.
In this context, the new availability - including on this site - of the transcripts of Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy's closed hearings in 1953 and 1954 could not be more helpful. These hearings remind us all exactly what McCarthyism means.
That privacy part, however, had to be minuscule. McCarthy was, and remains, an embarrassment to the Senate as an institution, and to all but a few right-wing Republicans. Undoubtedly, the Senate kept these records sealed as long as possible in an effort to minimize their stench.
"These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur," the ranking members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations explained in releasing them.
But is that past in fact recurring - perhaps, as Cole contends, in a new incarnation - now? For those considering the question, the transcripts are invaluable to show what McCarthyism really meant.
The Advent and History of McCarthyism
Senator Joe McCarthy, elected in 1946, stumbled into the national limelight in 1950 with a Lincoln Day speech in Wheeling, West Virginia. Waving a piece of paper, McCarthy claimed to "have here in my hand a list of 205" names of Communists who, he said, were working in the State Department.
By this time, President Truman had been at work for several years prosecuting Communist spies like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had leaked atomic secrets to Russia. In addition, the Truman Administration had established working precautions against further national security espionage. But none of this deterred Joe McCarthy.
After McCarthy's speech, Truman, and Senate Democrats, met McCarthy's accusations head on. They appointed a committee to investigate, and it soon showed that McCarthy's charges were baseless.
But the Wisconsin Senator had tasted national attention, with his sensational charges, and wanted more of it. After the Republicans won control of the Senate in 1952, McCarthy's seniority gave him the chairmanship of an obscure subcommittee on investigations of the Committee on Government Operations. With his subcommittee, McCarthy launched his infamous witch hunt for Communists. Soon the term "McCarthyism" was introduced into the language as shorthand for the tactics he employed.
Defining McCarthyism and Applying It To the Transcripts
It is defined a bit more broadly by The American Heritage Dictionary: "The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence." Or: "The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition." A similar definition is found in The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.
The five recently released volumes of Senate executive session hearings are replete with literally hundreds of examples certifying the accuracy of these definitions of McCarthyism. Clearly, McCarthyism as the term is widely understood is not merely something liberals find disquieting. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how some conservatives can embrace the legacy of this jackass.
I appreciate that few will want to read all 4,316 pages. Fortunately, each volume has twenty-eight pages of introductory material, as well as helpful notes that provide context for witnesses, as well as occasional footnotes, which make using the material easier. One need only sample a few witnesses to get a feel for McCarthy's browbeating tactics (which were employed by his counsel Roy Cohn as well) and why they earned him his disgrace.
McCarthy's shenanigans when hauling some 214 witnesses before his committee for public hearings are well-known. But until the release of these five volumes, it was not known that McCarthy used his closed hearings to test witnesses, calling about a third of those he tested in closed session for a public appearance.
Those who stood up to his bullying in the closed hearings were not called for public hearings. However, those who were intimidated, had to appear in the public hearings as well. There, he used them as fodder for his baseless assault on public and private organizations he claimed to be infested with Communists.
What the Transcripts Do Not Show
These newly available transcripts of McCarthy's closed hearings show how McCarthy, and his aides, abused witnesses. But what they don't show are the careers and lives this man ruined with his endless stream of false charges.
Conservative historian Paul Johnson reports in A History of the American People that "[t]here is no evidence that he ever identified any subversive not already known to the authorities and the only consequence of his activities was to cause trouble and distress for a lot of innocent people and discredit the activities of those genuinely concerned to make America safe."
I mark this emphasis because there are McCarthy defenders who incorrectly claim McCarthy was, in fact, serving a useful purpose by removing Communists. Johnson, whom conservatives also tend to swear by, has made clear that this is a fallacy. | <urn:uuid:372ec50b-9f7e-409b-a24f-58e8ef867b10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030509.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971254 | 1,269 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The Individual Investor's Guide to the Top Mutual Funds 2013
This year’s Top Funds Guide is published on the heels of a good year for mutual funds. Mutual fund assets totaled $12.872 trillion as of November 30, 2012, versus $11.627 trillion on December 31, 2011, according to the Investment Company Institute (ICI).
Credit the performance of the markets, domestic and foreign, for this increase. Many stock funds achieved double-digit returns in 2012, as did funds focused on long-term bonds, high-yield bonds and convertible bonds.
In this article
- How to Use This Guide
- Which Funds Were Included
- A Key to Terms and Statistics
- Performance Tables
- More on Mutual Funds
- Category & Style Definitions
Share this article
The increase in assets under management may have been even larger had investors not pulled money out of stock funds. Domestic stock funds experienced weekly outflows 47 times during the period of January 4, 2012, to January 2, 2013, according to the ICI’s estimate of weekly mutual fund flows. In other words, there were only six weeks last year when domestic stock funds saw an estimated inflow of cash from investors.
One area where investors did put their investment dollars was target date funds. These funds are designed to adjust their portfolio allocations as the target date (e.g., 2015) approaches. Their popularity has been boosted by automatic enrollment and default allocation policies used by 401(k) and similar employer- sponsored retirement plans. Many investors are also choosing target date funds because of the allure of an “all-in-one” approach to portfolio allocation.
To read more, please become an AAII Registered User or CLICK HERE. | <urn:uuid:4438fbd9-09d6-425b-8f0e-f1f1879c3f58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aaii.com/journal/article/the-individual-investors-guide-to-the-top-mutual-funds-2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953155 | 357 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Lawmakers and fishermen gathered in Washington, D.C. Wednesday.
They're protesting against federal regulations they say are too rigid and put the livelihoods of fishermen in peril.
They say they understand the need for regulations to rebuild over-fished populations but argue the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Magnuson-Stevens Act is too restrictive and needs to be modified.
The act was passed in 2007. It mandates a 10-year period to restock over-fished species.
Designed by Gray Digital Media | <urn:uuid:4623a505-c212-44c2-b4e7-e3929ee67ca7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtvy.com/news/nation/headlines/Fishermen_Protest_Magnuson-Stevens_Act_in_Washington_143752106.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9473 | 112 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Further to my previous post, here is the upside.
There are lots of ways to be together that are not monogamy. You can be polyamorous, non-monogamous, in-an-open-relationship, swingers, Ethical Sluts, or [insert your own word here]. Each has as many different meanings as there are people who practise it, so for the sake of simplicity I will use 'poly' and try to cover as many aspects of all forms of non-monogamy as possible
Polyamory is not polygamy.
Polygamy sounds like it's closely related to monogamy, and linguistically it is. Within religious denominations such as the Mormons, to quote an American example, it's also an unequal system, in which men get to have multiple wives while women are expected to stay faithful to their shared husband. It's another male-focussed social system with sightly different ratios of male:female. (I'm aware this is not true of every polygamous society worldwide, but once again I'm focussing on traditions descended from the Abrahamic laws). Polyamory is about both women and men having freedom to have sex with more than one person. It also holds none of the expectations on women of sexual availability, child-bearing and economic dependency that are frequently found within polygamous Mormonism.
Polyamory is not a way of cheating without saying you're cheating.
Poly is, like good kink, safe, consensual, and well-negotiated. Poly doesn't just happen to a relationship without mutual consent. It needs to be talked about, common ground is sought and found, and boundaries are made clear. Poly couples have ground rules, and partners need to stick to those. Some people insist on only same-sex partners, on only playing when out of the family home, on only playing as a couple, on meeting a partner's potential partners first.
Which brings me to...
Poly is safe if you make it safe.
A major ground rule for most poly couples is safer sex. While monogamy pretty much removes the opportunity to be frank about the use on contraception and barrier methods with other partners, poly negotiations pretty much require an agreement on safer sex.
That is where fidelity to your primary/ies happens - you don't just trust them with your heart, but quite literally with your life. And they trust you with theirs - and if that isn't a big damn incentive not to take risks that you might take if it was just you, I don't know what is.
Poly does not make you a bad parent
I'll be brief on this one, not having tried it myself. But it's still asumed that poly parents, like gay parents, means children automatically suffer from growing up in an atypical household. There are always going to be some parents who don't put their child first, but why should anyone assume they're always the non-monogamous, non-straight, non-Normal ones? This is not the case. Having extra adults involved in their care is a good thing for children, they get more attention and affection and time. The nuclear family, that recent invention, can stand to grow and stretch and include more people in more bonds. Extended families of multiple adults were caring for children long before economic forces created the two-parent, one-earner-one-carer model - which, by the way, is going out the window anyway, now that women can work and one wage won't feed a growing family. Extended familys of parents and partners who are happily together in whatever combination are a bonus for a child.
Poly is not just for bisexuals...
...although the two do go together like Baileys and coffee. But poly can work for every orientation, and the notion that it's just us bisexuals, having all the cake and eating it as usual, is an unfounded stereotype. You can be straight and be poly, and you can be gay and poly. People of any orientation can have a great time with partner-swaps, swinging, V-shaped relationships, cruising together and getting involved in group sex for any number of players. But, speaking personally, being bi and poly is a particular delight. Being bi makes it tough to be monogamous, because not only do all the girls look hotter once you're paired up, but all the boys do too. It's good to be in a relationship which doesn't preclude you from taking an active interest in the other end of your attraction spectrum.
I'd argue the same is true for people of all sexual orientations - one person, however much they make you swoon, however well they know you, is unlikely to be the only person in the world you're turned on to. It happens, certainly, but there is much more extra-curricular attraction going on than we think, and it's not always guilty. You can be twenty years happily married and still nourish a yen for James Taylor, or spinning with first love but also watching every Kiera Knightly film you can get your hands on. And that's OK. Poly makes it negotiatedly all right, not just to have those attractions, but to act on them.
Poly keeps you talking.
Lovers have to talk. It's the difference between foundering and salvation. Having an atypical relationship means you take nothing for granted and discuss everything - you have to renogiate everything with your partner because the rules aren't the same. This is also true of kinky relationships, queer relationships of every sort, and any sort of relationship that swims against the tide of normality. You have stuff you have to talk about, because you're in unmapped terrain, and all the practise comes in handy when the trivial little deal-breakers like the dishes and the dusting rear their ugly heads.
Poly is frubbly.
There's a word I want to see written into the OED, not because it sounds nice, but because we need it. It's the diametric opposite of jealousy. The nearest antonym of jealousy I can find is 'trusting', which is defining jealousy as irrational posessiveness. It's more than that. It's biting insecurity and silent fear and frustration and stress. Frubble is the opposite to all those things. Frubble is when you send your Significant Other off to be with zir Other Significant Other, knowing they'll both be glad to see you when you all meet tomorrow. It's when you phone your primary to talk about the amazing weekend you had with someone else, and ze's genuinely pleased for you. It's when you are glad that your lover is finding something ze needs with another lover, something that you didn't necesarily have - be it a shared interest in cooking, complementary kinks, or an eostrogen-based body.
Poly is fun
Poly is tricky. In one way, it's monogamy squared, cubed, endlessly expanded to include new people. It's harder to make time, to balance commitments, to keep things even and open and negotiated. But it can also let you out to have fun and give you a place to come back to. It can allow friends to bond sexually and erotic interest to stay above-board and safe. It lets men, women and everyone else do things they've been told, for no good reason but Normality, that they can't.
I'm not saying it's not tough. It's hard work, it can go horrendously wrong, it can be painful and difficult and break your heart. It can also be fantastic, uplifting, comforting, sexy and so uniquely good it makes you cry.
Bit like love, really. | <urn:uuid:8ed36c9d-129b-4d28-8da1-43ed4785be60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://today-i-am-a-boy.blogspot.com/2009/03/monopoly-2-of-2.html?showComment=1237961040000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975081 | 1,584 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Riesling - While the rest of the world has often misappropriated the name--Welchriesling, Riesling Italico, Gray Riesling and Emerald Riesling are all names applied to varieties that are NOT Riesling--this exceptional German varietal has managed to maintain its identity. Perhaps its biggest claims to fame are its intoxicating perfume, often described as having honeyed stone fruit, herb, apple and citrus notes, and its incredible longevity - the wines lasting for decades. Aged Rieslings often take on a distinctive and alluring Petrol-like aroma. Within Germany, the grape seems to do best in the warming slate soils of the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. Other German regions that turn out great Rieslings include Pfalz, Rheingau and Nahe. German Rieslings are made in a range of ripeness levels. The top wines are assigned Prädikat levels to describe their ripeness at harvest. These are: Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese. Riesling has also achieved acclaim in France's Alsace, the only region in that country where the grape is officially permitted. Alsatian Rieslings are typically dry and wonderfully aromatic. Austrian Riesling is also steadily gaining praise and fine Riesling is also produced in Italy's Alto-Adige and Friuli, in Slovenia and much of Central and Eastern Europe. In the New World its stronghold is Australia, where it does best in the Eden and Clare Valleys. It is also planted in smaller amounts in New Zealand. In the US, winemakers are eschewing the syrupy sweet versions of the 1970s and 1980s, instead making elegant and balanced wines in both California and Washington State. | <urn:uuid:2e153bd7-3597-4e66-a256-8fcac33b153a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1075488 | 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 | 0.947702 | 390 | 1.710938 | 2 |
This post is In Memory Of Andrew Callighan, who died 21 April (Saturday), two days after he was struck by a pickup truck while riding his bicycle in Michigan. Andrew, who was not wearing a helmet, was thrown several feet from his bike by the impact of the crash and was found on the side of the road when police and other rescue workers arrived. He sustained severe and multiple skull fractures and was pronounced dead Saturday at Helen Devos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids. Michigan has no state law regarding the use of bicycle helmets.
There's that saying that when your number comes by, its time to go. But the more stubborn of us are bound to challenge that and ask : "Really?"
Leaving out any religious connotations, I'm convinced by the fact that if you hold yours or someone else's life in your hands, and if you choose to rule out common sense and smart thinking in favor of stupidity or negligence, then its more likely that you or the other party is at higher priority on death's list. In this case, the 18 year old driver who handled the pickup probably made some poor driving judgments that took the life of the 12 year old boy, who also decided (or maybe even taught to do) that day that he would avoid wearing a helmet and take some risks.
On a third level are the noble folks who build structurally unsound products that don't function when they are called to do so. I have nothing to say to these people if they don't realize the damage they're doing, but hey...that's for another topic another day.
Over the years, the above 3 elements have finger pointed at each other whenever a traffic related issue came up. Drivers complain about stupid cyclists, cyclists complain about stupid drivers, and both of them complain about stupid cars, stupid bikes, stupid helmets and why, even stupid transportation laws and politicians. I am sorry to say that I'm ashamed of all three parties! Human tendency is to always hold self righteousness high and pass the soup bowl of blame to someone else, or provide an excuse for stupidity. If only one of the three could have done the right thing themselves, and followed the rules, or made life easier for the rest and lived and let lived, or did something like they said they would do, then we could be a more safe and constructive society.
Accidents can be avoided. Injuries can be prevented. Even wearing a helmet may not prevent the accident, but just like entering a lottery increases your odds of winning by a huge margin than your neighbor who didn't (probability of winning by not entering is a big zero), wearing a helmet increases the odds of preventing critical head injuries that could otherwise rob the quality of your life pretty quickly. [See Brain Injury Library, TBI Consulting]
The cabal of cyclists who don't support the wearing of helmets always have some excuse to make. Fine. If you don't like them, that's your choice. But by choosing to do so, you're agreeing to taking a huge risk with your critical 3 pound brain, your skin, your bones, the value of your life and that of your family's.
But there's one interesting thing here. To make their case loud and clear, they do some sketchy things. Among them is pulling up statistics from heaven knows where that show the growth of some negative events for cycling and attribute those events to some form of helmet law. The event can be anything from the decrease of cyclist numbers on the road to the increase in head injuries.
How they come up with this definitive correlation is not explained to the rest of us. What matters to them is that it correlated, somehow. Finally they come to the wonderful conclusion that helmet laws are indeed responsible for decreasing cycling. Or that helmets actually increase the rate of head injuries.
But for every explanation, there are alternative ways to think. For instance, in the first scenario, did wearing helmets really decrease cycling or did cyclists just stop riding, having found something better to do with their time and money? In the second scenario, did helmets increase the rate of head injury or did cyclists ride more faster (due to the false sense of security) and push the helmet they were wearing beyond design conditions for which it was made?
Oops. Didn't think of those, did you?
Sadly, in the age of the internet, we don't have too much of information anymore. We have too much of mis-information. Mis-information is spread by people who have more time to waste than the person willing to read and agree to them.
Be careful with statistics and spurious looking "graphs". At best, they can help understand a trend and simplify this complex world we live in. At worst, they can be employed by the person creating and using them to deliberately tie in two unrelated events and LIE. When they are presented to the rest of the world, the flu is passed around. Misleading people with the use of statistics is called Statisculation. The people most likely to be misled/awestruck are the ignorant who don't give a damn how statistics work or how the figures presented to them were arrived at. If they have a thought process to begin with that they absolutely stand by, and if they find any 'statistic' that will support that thought process, they will welcome it by all means and pass it onto others. [See How Statistics Can Lie, United States Golf Association]
CASE-STUDY : DID THE HELMET LEGISLATION REALLY DECREASE CYCLING IN AUSTRALIA AND LEAD TO OBESITY?
JACOBSEN'S FIRST FORMAL ANALYSIS OF THE SAFETY PRINCIPLE : In 2003, in a paper written for Injury Prevention, P L Jacobsen famously validated the "Safety In Numbers" principle, a well known concept in transport circles. The paper proved this principle by using census data to show that the likelihood of a collision between motorists and cyclists in many Californian cities decreased as the numbers of cyclists and pedestrians increased (inverse proportionality). This principle was represented by his exponential growth equation relating "relative risk of cycling" with the "amount of cycling". If cycling doubled, he said, the risk per km falls by 34% according to his exponential relationship. You can read the original paper here [Free, PDF].
D. ROBINSON'S RESEARCH TO VALIDATE JACOBSEN : On the other end of the globe in Australia, D. Robinson, a researcher from University of New England in New South Wales, tried to replicate and validate Jacobsen's safety principle. In 1990, a mandatory helmet law was passed in Australia, making it the first in the world to do so. Robinson sought to also find out if there was any correlation between the injury rates as reported by hospitals prior to and after 1990 (year of helmet law), compared with the number of cyclists on the road in the same time periods. She chose localized areas in Australia for this reporting, as opposed to several cities and communities that would make up the continent. You can read the original paper here [Free, PDF]
BEFORE THE HELMET LAW WAS PASSED : Robinson reported that cycling dramatically gained popularity in WA in the 1980's and as a result, cycling became more safer because the number of cyclists being admitted to hospitals decreased as per information from WA Health Department! Between 1982 and 1989, number of regular cyclists on the roads doubled. Take note that Robinson defines a "regular" cyclist as anyone who cycled at least once every week. The number of injuries and deaths per 10,000 cyclists decreased from 5.6 in 1982 to 3.8 in 1989, a 32.14% decrease. She rounded that to 33%, and finally concluded that it is consistent with Jacobsen's growth rule which states that if cycling ever doubles, the risk per km falls by 34%.
ESTIMATIONS WERE USED : Australia did not have data on bicycle use for these years. So Robinson used "estimates" that she borrowed from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for 1982, 1986 and 1989. The amount of error in these estimations are unknown and how they were estimated is also largely upto the guessing of the reader of the paper. If the estimations had error in them, we might as well find that the number of cyclists didn't increase, but they fluctuated or stayed somewhat constant in that time frame. In that case, the data wouldn't really validate the Jacobsen's growth principle for Australia or the rest of her theory that is to follow.
ROAD VEHICLE TREND? What gets cloudy here is that she does not show how the trend of motor vehicles on the road varied in this time frame. Suppose the number of motor vehicles decreased (due to population migration, motorists choosing biking instead of driving, or other reasons) then logically, that reason could also be attributed to the lesser number of fatal injuries in cyclists. No data of number of vehicles and the trends in their use during these years in WA has been provided to us.
AFTER THE HELMET LAW WAS PASSED : Robinson reported that certain "surveys" showed cycling had decreased in the years following the legislation year of 1990. The graph on the right side is extremely unreadable, as obtained from the original paper, so I've obtained a better one from a primary source that Robinson cited in her references. This primary source happens to be a 1995 paper from Monash University by Carr et. al which I will discuss a little below. You can access the paper here here [Free, PDF].
SMALL DATA SAMPLES : Even if the surveys were well documented and have 90% confidence , they reported on a small sample set for Melbourne, Victoria for the years 1987 to 1992. The number of years in that sample after the legislation was passed is a mere 2. It is not for the whole of Australia either. It is for Melbourne, Victoria. More importantly, the counting of cyclists was done in the same month (May) between 1990-92. What about the rest of months? Did the count decrease or increase? People may have different agendas from the May of one year compared to the May of the other year. Some may just be late to get on the bike due to being busy with other engagements. Robinson's data does not explore the cycling trend in those other months.
THE CYCLING TRENDS BETWEEN 1990-92: Now for years 1990-92, for the month of May, the decrease is not so dramatic as shown by Table 2. More cyclists were wearing helmets and the number of cyclists counted decreased in the first year and then rose again in the next if you check the numbers. Going by Robinson's numbers for adult cyclists, there was a 29% decrease change in cycling counts in 1991 from 1990, after the helmet legislation. However, in 1992, there was a 34% increase change in adult cycling counts from 1991. The levels had almost returned back to 1990 levels. Robinson doesn't delve into this too much, but still diverts the reader's attention to decrease in child cyclists and injuries.
DEDICATION OF CHILD CYCLISTS VS ADULT CYCLISTS : We all know that children are fickle minded. As they grow up, or due to some form or another of peer or parental pressure, their interests and hobbies and life goals change. Pretty darn quick. Children also could have been discouraged of cycling not because of helmet laws, but due to the fact that the helmets they were now required to wear by law were DORKY LOOKING, uncool, user unfriendly, or plain ugly to show around in public. I'm very much interested to see a sample helmet from 1990 in Australia and what kids thought about it THEN. Was there a survey of that?? Robinson does not go deep into this very important issue at all. But she's quick to take the naked numbers of decrease in child cyclists and point fingers at helmet laws. It is adult cyclists who are the dedicated ones. They have to go to work, and if that is to be done by riding a bike, they'll do it because they're the ones to put food on the table, not their kids. In the year following helmet law in 1990, according to table 2, the decrease in adult cyclists was lesser than the decrease in number of child cyclists compared to 1990 (-461 adult to -649 child, 1991) . In 1992, the increase in number of adult cyclists from 1991 was more than those of child cyclists (+378 adult to +89 child, 1992). As one can see, child cycling never recovered properly in that year compared to adult cycling. Robinson really didn't question this and find out WHY? She just quickly moves on to prove her big theory.
ROBINSON'S LOGIC : From the data in the table above, Robinson's logic is that the increases in numbers wearing helmets were "generally" less than decreases in numbers counted...which led her to write that this proves non-helmeted cyclists are more likely to be discouraged to wear helmets and continue cycling.
Wow. Wait a minute.
How can she relate 'discouragement' in Australian cycling with numbers for a small sample set of 30 days for 2 years for Melbourne, Victoria?? I can't understand that logic. Also, the more dedicated of cyclists are in the adult population, not in children. The decrease in child cyclists was more than that of adults.
SEASONAL VARIATIONS UNACCOUNTED FOR : The data also doesn't account for seasonal variations in cycling precisely because it investigated only the month of May. We all know that cycling is a seasonal activity. Only few are brave to venture out in winter in the elements. Victoria has a winter season. People ski there on its slopes, among other activities. Melbourne is colder than other mainland Australian state capital cities in the winter. More commonly, Melbourne experiences frost and fog in winter. Also looking at a climate chart from the Bureau of Meteorology, the month of May is one of the coldest in Melbourne, with temperatures ranging between a low of 9 deg C to a high of 17 deg C.
PRE-MODIFIED 8 YEAR HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS DATA (June, 1986 - June, 1994) : This comes from the Monash University citation that Robinson provided in her paper. The original data from hospitals for cyclist head injuries showed a decrease after 1990 but a sudden increase in 1993 and it was determined by "examiners" that this apparent increase was due to some "Casemix" anomaly in the Victorian Hospital System (increased admissions from hospitals because of the promise of more hospital funding from the government that year). So anyway, the original Hospital Admissions data for head injuries for cyclists was then modified through some sophisticated "multi-variate time-series modeling techniques" that even I have a hard time researching what they exactly did to the data. Anyone who didn't complete a sophisticated course in statistics can really bite the dust here.
MODIFIED 8 YEAR HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS DATA WITH MULTI-VARIATE TIME SERIES ANALYSIS : The modified graph after they applied their time-model to it just surprised me. Observe the lessened curve in helmeted cyclist head injuries after 1990 as shown by dotted line, compared to the solid lines that show the same before the model was applied. Again, the original data was modified through sophisticated statistical methods that only the researchers know exactly. Anyone has to seriously question the validity of these 'intervention analysis' techniques employed by different groups of researchers and understand it thoroughly before taking it, misplacing it and chanting slogans with it. At this point, I challenge all the people who decry the use of helmets : Do you fully understand these type of sophisticated statistical tools that researchers use to modify and play around with data? Do you understand the complex decisions that are behind these actions? Can you blindly say yes, before you've done your research and link to these articles to support your cause? A course in Time Series Analysis to fully understand what the Monash researchers have done in this paper requires atleast a semester or two of university-level study. This isn't the introductory level statistics that you do in your biology class.
The modified hospital data looked encouraging for cycling than the original. It was estimated from these modified data that in the first four years of helmet legislation, a 39.5% reduction in the number of head injuries was observed in Victoria(level shift). I presume that is what this graph shows. However, in comes at group of Australian researchers - Cameron et al, Mead et. al etc - who suggests that hey, the decrease in head injuries is dramatic compared to pre-law levels and then declare that this decrease MAY have been due an overall decrease in bicycle use, and not helmet use at all. Infact this has been suggested in Page 1 of the Monash report.
CONFLICTING RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS/SUGGESTIONS : Interestingly, in page 21 of the Monash report, there's evidence of some conflicting statements. They say their analysis is insufficient in distinguishing between reductions due to helmet wearing and reductions solely due to the possible reductions in exposure, and then boldly go on to say a little later that they think "its fair to assume" from their analysis that helmet legislation and the subsequent discouragement in cycling caused the decrease in head injuries that they "modeled" all this time. So what's the correct and final story on this one?
If you also didn't read between the lines of the report, page 15 says that the researchers didn't even investigate other measures of road safety in their models which may explain what happened to the decrease in head injuries to cyclists. How safe is this ignorance?
The rest of the paper from Robinson, which referenced the Monash paper for food, delves into injury rates for Victoria and finally concludes that : "Thus, as predicted by the growth rule, the risk of injury per cyclist increased when cycling decreased because of helmet laws in Australia."
Robinson's paper provides an inadequate picture of what really happened to cycling in the months after the helmet legislation in Australia. More so, one of the prominent references from Monash University she's given in her citation (Carr et al) use murky modeling techniques to modify original data, (which needs deep and further study). They also seem to be inadequate in their research as reported by themselves and make conflicting statements in several pages of their report, yet they say its "fair to assume" that helmet legislation decreased cycling numbers and hence cycling head injuries.
Robinson uses all this to do too much generalizing. She uses small sample sets, and data for localized regions in Australia (possibly from other researchers) to arrive at the grand conclusion that because the helmet law was passed in 1990, cycling collectively decreased in Australia in years thereafter! I may agree with the fact that there is safety in numbers but I cannot validate this paper to make a conclusion that helmet laws decreased cycling in Australia and dramatically increased the risk of injury just due to it. The trends for cycling that Robinson has reported is episodic and localized, and I would encourage her to investigate the effects of cycling over a long period of time and in many different places, at the same time, also delving into some of the other causes, apart from helmet law, that affected the numbers. I highlighted some of these possible causes in the writeup. It doesn't hurt to sometimes ask "WHY", even more than once.
Without giving a picture of all the factors mentioned above and their relative contributions to Australian cycling, no intelligent person reading Robinson's paper can accurately put faith in the fact that helmet law was the prime motivator for a long term, permanent, and nation wide cycling decrease in Australia. I urge her and the umpteen groups of researchers who have all fed on each other's research material to give these old papers a good second look. Continue to explore alternative explanations for a decrease in cycling levels. See if they are accurate, and still really relevant for 2009.
These are the papers that are being used to bring down safety laws in several countries of the world. I'm not even sure that the people who reference this material fully understand the use of your sophisticated statistical analysis techniques, and data manipulation tools and the implications of these actions.
PASS IT ON, BUDDY!
Many different websites, bloggers, forum participators and "medical experts" link directly to cycle-helmets.com, a website which makes it own interpretations based on Robinson and other Australian papers. Then they twist it to their liking and start throwing the bombs. Like this misinformation, portraying helmet laws as fighting with public health :
Most people who read this would not have read the original research papers but will assimilate other people's wrong interpretations of it and finally, what they'll receive, believe in and spread out to others are false assertions such as "helmets decrease cycling", or "helmets cause more injuries" or "helmets decrease public health" and so on and so forth.
If Australia has an obesity problem, does it really have to do a lot with "punishing" helmet laws or more to do with laziness of people (an age old problem, even before helmet laws), personality and psychological issues, and the human desire to put in more calories into the body than what is burnt. There is a definite science behind obesity and understanding it will help solve problems. Does the author of cycle-helmets really believe that there is some sort of major underworld partnership going on between obesity in Australia and bicycle helmet legislation?
Many other sections of cycle-helmets.com contain mis-information through videos. My favorite one was the following below, a link to a video showing a car running over a helmet, as if suggesting to the reader that a helmet should be somehow designed with super powers to withstand the weight and force of a car over your head.
Oh, and if it breaks, it must be a worthless piece of junk right?
Websites like cycle-helmets.com are easily visited by people because of its suggestive URL. Any one trying to do an internet search for cycle helmets will be caught unwary and visit the link. Then they'll be pulled into reading some fantastic BS on the drawbacks of helmets, helmet laws and how it brought down the entire continent of Australia and continues to do so.
Choose wisely what you read. Scrutinize everything, especially research papers. Case in point : After multiple peer reviews, Ed Coyle's research study on Lance Armstrong (Improved muscular efficiency displayed as Tour de France champion matures, 2005) which tried to show how Armstrong's body became more efficient between 1993 and 1999, was found to have some glaring calculation errors in the delta efficiency. [See Coyle Study on Armstrong : A Minor Error Or Scientific Hoax?] Ofcourse, Lance will not talk about this on his Twitter page. He may not even understand how the numbers were arrived at.
2. SPORTING PREJUDICE
Taking the example above of the "helmet laws & decreasing cyclists" correlation, it could very well be that the number of people cycling decreased because some of them discovered another sport and chose to commit to that over biking. I'm not saying that's exactly true, but what if it were? The question to ask then is : Is cycling the only way to keep fit?
If a person wants to be healthy and lead a better life, cycling is not the only avenue. If he got discouraged in cycling because of the need to wear helmets, he may not necessarily have gone back to drinking and smoking and sitting on the couch watching football all day. Unless you can prove that, this argument has no weight in it.
As cyclists, we all love to support our cause and make ridership grow. No harm in that. But healthy living comes in many forms. Bicycling is a solution. But its not THE solution. You can walk to work, golf, or play tennis on weekends, or even chill out in the swimming pool. Why the heck do you have to ride a bike to remain fit? Is it the only sport around? Please stop the desire to homogenize sporting and let people be themselves. Embrace your hobby and talk about it, but learn to shut up and let people do their own thing. Simple. Lately, pushing has come to shoving to make people ride more. I do not approve of this behavior, either from cyclists, advocates, or public health politicians. Promote all healthy ways of living, don't bias yourself to one.
CASE-STUDY : DOES LACK OF CYCLING SUDDENLY CAUSE DISEASE?
In a letter to the editor of the Canadian Family Physician, Thomas DeMarco MD argues that helmet legislation could decrease cycling. In his writeup, he references an Australian experiment with helmet law and connects it to the falling in ridership. We already covered the Australian Helmet Law crisis above and the flaws in a prominent research paper. But the citation given here is some 'C. Komanoff' who read 'some data' from a so-called 'Monash University' at some 'pro bike conference' in Ore, 1994. Great. What the heck is that 'data'? We won't know.
NO CYCLING = DISEASE ARGUMENT : In the following lines, he emphasizes that "most importantly, less cycling means less physical activity which translates to more atherosclerosis, obesity, non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis." Wow! Thats a big bunch of disease. How did Mr. DeMarco arrive exactly at the definitive correlation? No cycling = disease? And did he begin with the false thinking that cycling is the only sport, past time or recreation around, or that people who don't commit to cycling suddenly commit to physical inactivity in an instant, which inturn gets them sick and about to die? Can you please prove that?
IS CYCLING THE ONLY WAY TO STAY HEALTHY? What gives Thomas DeMarco the monopoly to generalize the human mind and the complex wants and desires of people? Or ignore other sports that can help one stay healthy? Most importantly, what gives cycling the monopoly to make people healthy? If this was the only way to be fit, we'd imagine a health fanatic world full of cyclists. That's not the case.
I, for one, am thankful that cycling is not the only sport/recreation around. I'd go beserk, otherwise.
The more I think about people complaining over helmets or helmet laws, the more I feel that they just care about the advance of their dogmas to others. They don't really care for their safety first and foremost. They don't think about the situation and environment they're cycling in (Europe is very different from America, where the status quo is motorship), and for them, the sport of cycling is the only salvation to a better life. If helmet laws are passed, they say that it will quickly bring down the numbers of cyclists on the road by quoting and data mining from questionable research articles and surveys done in other countries in different time periods. Then they argue that if ridership decreases, the number of people with AIDS, malaria, obesity, osteopororis, diabetes, blood pressure, cancer and any other ailment that you can think of will INCREASE. And we are to believe that.
False interpretations of statistics, or statisculation, and making absolutely baseless correlations between two unrelated events have been the defacto tools for these groups of people to fight helmet laws.
Yet, given all this, you oddballs may still opt to rule out helmets and decry the need for safety to ride the way you feel is best. Which is absolutely fine, as long as you don't mis-inform others, while forgetting the personal risks of going riding without a helmet.
But there could be a point when you arrive at the cross-roads. Say it was a Monday morning and you see your 12 year old kid, your own life and blood, walk out of the house with a bicycle. He's going to ride beside the road to get to school, which is about a mile away. He's not wearing a helmet. (At least that's what he learnt from the family growing up).
In a chilling moment a few hours later, the telephone rings at your house and the local cops have some life changing news for you and your wife. Its very distressing and there are no words to describe that sinking feeling. They happened to bring some really bad news about your son. He was riding his bike to school but apparently... he never made it there. They are requesting you at the scene immediately. Suddenly when your world was going all smoothly, someone in your family has become a statistic.
What will your line of thinking be then? I'm just curious.
ADDITIONAL/RELATED RESOURCES :
The Effectiveness Of Bicycle Helmets : A Review by Dr. Michael Henderson, who is a physician who has spent most of his professional life in highway safety research and administration. He established and ran Australia's first government crash research group and test lab, and he chaired the Standards Australia committee that wrote the first standard covering bicycle helmets.
* * * | <urn:uuid:bad90600-0887-4710-aa3c-4c520985c770> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cozybeehive.blogspot.com/2009/03/statisculation-sporting-prejudice-in.html?showComment=1238174640000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968371 | 6,007 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Photo courtesy of Jon Adler.
The Public Safety Officers' Benefits (PSOB) Act was signed into law in 1976, and it codified a means for the families of fallen law enforcement officers to file claims with the Department of Justice for financial assistance. Specifically, the documented beneficiary of any full-time sworn law enforcement officer who died in the line of duty is eligible to file a claim for a one-time payment from the federal government. Currently, this one-time payment is $328,612.
In 2003, the Hometown Heroes Survivors' Benefits Act amended the eligibility criteria of the PSOB Act to include heart attacks and strokes as covered causes of line of duty fatalities under certain circumstances. The PSOB will consider claims that demonstrate the heart attack or stroke was the result of a "non-routine stressful or strenuous activity or training" that occurred during duty hours or within 24 hours afterward. The PSOB has additional information on this posted at its Website.
Sometimes entire agencies are unaware of the PSOB. This happens because the persons with knowledge of the PSOB retire, and take the institutional knowledge with them. To prevent this and to provide for their officers, agencies should ensure that PSOB information is disseminated annually to all personnel.
To address the information void and other issues, the Department of Justice recently formed a working group of public safety organizations. In January, Director Denise O'Donnell of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and PSOB Director Hope Janke hosted the first working group meeting. O'Donnell emphasized three important objectives to improve the claims processing system:
- Improve case processing transparency regarding the path every claim takes. The PSOB Website has been updated with the goal of increasing the percentage of claims filed online. This will help streamline the process.
- Utilize outreach specialists that will contact agencies.
- Stand up an efficient hotline that will be prepared to answer claimant and agency questions.
The working group plans to address the role of the Office of General Counsel and how to expedite claim acceptance and accelerate the processing of claims involving training fatalities. Fatalities that result from law enforcement officers intervening in violent situations during their personal time will also be examined.
At presstime, 11 officers had died in the line of duty in 2013. As we pull together to support the families of our fallen brothers and sisters, we need to ensure that they are aware of the PSOB and are being assisted with filing their claims. Great organizations such as the Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) are available to help the families with the process.
One emerging issue that requires immediate attention is the need for all law enforcement officers to file an annual declaration of beneficiaries with their agencies. Absent any declaration, the PSOB has published the following regarding the issuance of payments:
The PSOB program has a defined order in which claimants can file for the death benefit.
- If an officer is survived by only a spouse, the spouse receives 100% of the death benefit.
- If the officer is survived by a spouse and children, the spouse receives 50% of the benefit, with the remaining 50% split equally among the children.
- If only children survive an officer, the entire death benefit is split equally amongst the eligible children.
- If the officer is survived by neither a spouse nor children, the benefit is paid to the individual designated by the officer in his or her most recently executed life insurance policy on file with the employing agency.
- If the officer is survived by neither a spouse nor children and does not have a life insurance policy, the benefit is equally distributed between the officer's surviving parents.
Every law enforcement officer has the right to declare a beneficiary, and should submit an annual sealed beneficiary affidavit to his or her agency. There have been circumstances where PSOB personnel were unable to make payment due to the ambiguity of undisclosed prospective beneficiaries. Since relationships sometimes change, an officer may need to update his or her beneficiary preferences. The starting point is ensuring all officers understand the PSOB. Please help disseminate information about the PSOB and the importance of updating the list of beneficiaries. | <urn:uuid:c10b1576-c4b9-42e3-972e-c164336ac29a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.policemag.com/channel/careers-training/articles/2013/03/death-benefits.aspx | 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 | 0.962893 | 833 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Sudan civil servants told to 'donate' wages to pay for conflict
Sudan's government has ordered its civil servants to donate part of their salaries to support the army, according to the official state news agency.
Sudan's finance minister Ali Mahmud al-Rasul has also cut the petrol rations of government departments by 50%.
The measures follow clashes in which the Heglig oilfield was occupied by forces from neighbouring South Sudan.
South Sudanese forces held the oilfield for 10 days, and oil production facilities were damaged.
Both sides have blamed each other for the damage to the oilfield.Heglig
State employees in Sudan have been told they must sacrifice two days' pay to help bridge a gap left by the loss of oil supplies and revenue from Heglig.
The field normally produces around 50,000 barrels of oil a day, which is all used for domestic consumption.
Analysts say the measures are a sign that Sudan's economy has been badly hit, both by the loss of revenue from when South Sudan became independent last year, and by the recent clashes between the two nations.
Sudan declared last Friday that its army had forced Southern soldiers out of Heglig.
But the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir had already announced his troops were conducting "an orderly withdrawal", which was completed on Sunday.
South Sudan became independent after a civil war that lasted two decades and in which an estimated 1.5 million people were killed. | <urn:uuid:3e6627c6-4d5c-4c20-a871-4fc6ec030734> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17853074 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988947 | 309 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The Prophet was very clear on how best to ride an individual Time Trial; start as fast as possible and finish as fast as possible. As for the middle, his advice was to ride that as fast as possible.
The same can be said of climbing; as we covered in Part I and Part II of the Sur La Plaque series, the key to climbing well is to hit the bottom as hard as possible, and then move into the big ring as you go over the top in order to finish the climb as fast as possible. As for the middle section; well, hit that as hard as possible and focus on keeping your momentum going.
The trouble is with this pesky notion we have of “gauging our efforts”. Certainly, the perfectly measured climb would result in riding the whole of it à bloc before moving Sur La Plaque over the top, blast down the other side and – just as you hit Escape Velocity – explode spectacularly, using your perfectly honed LeMond Tuck to recover in time to crush it in the valley to the next climb where you repeat the process. Panache.
Panache is a dualistic thing; almost without exception do we admire it in others, and almost without exception are we too cowardly to hold it inside ourselves. Panache doesn’t speak of caution, or of measured action. It speaks of impulse – compulsion, even – to attack despite one’s better judgement. It speaks of throwing caution to the wind. It weighs heavy with the risk of exploding magnificently and trading angel’s wings for the devil’s anchor.
But those who venture freely into that realm have blown up so many times that it hardly features in their reasoning. Pain and climbing are inseparable; what difference does it make if you blow up and suffer a bit more for a bit longer? And, should we blow up often enough, we will learn how to suffer through and push to the top with grace. And perhaps by that same grace, will we recover enough to try again on the next climb.
Vive la chance. Vive le Grimpeur. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
Exhibit A: The master of Panache, Marco Pantani. And the master of blowing with grace, Richard Virenque. For a prime example of how to blow up properly, jump to 2:00. | <urn:uuid:3681f0cd-5d54-43b1-ba7f-d299d426787f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/look-pro-eclatant-de-la-panache/all-comments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964224 | 486 | 1.773438 | 2 |
What is a "sacrificial poet"?
I've been writing about the Buffalo area literary scene for over a quarter century, but have never heard the term. There's been a lot of talk about budget cuts in the arts lately, to say nothing of the withering of liberal arts programs in higher education. But I never thought it would come to this.
Fortunately, my talented friend N'Tare Gault assuaged my worst fears. The hard-working founder of the Njozi Poets and dynamic spoken word artist in his own right patiently explained to me the meaning of the term in his press release for tonight's QEW Regional Poetry Slam running from 5 to 9 at the 2nd Cup Cafe, 36 Broadway (near Ellicott Street) in Buffalo.
"A 'sacrificial poet' in the competitive culture of poetry slams is a poet who helps calibrate the judges," Gault explained. "They're not actually in the competition but they are timed and get scored as if they were. This is done so that the first person in the competition is not dealing with 'cold' judges resulting in a lower score than they might otherwise deserve. To be invited to be a "sacrificial poet" at a poetry slam is actually an honor and connotes a position of esteem in the community."
The "sacrificial poets" for tonight's event will be Ronald “Rock Bottom 137” Jackson and Jennifer Elinge. They will join featured performer, host, and master or ceremonies William Evans of Columbus, Ohio, a multiple prize-winning veteran of the national poetry slam circuit.
As for QEW Regional Poetry Slam itself, Gault couldn't be more enthusiastic. The annual event brings 24 of the leading slam competition poets from Western and Central New York and the Southern Ontario area together to compete for individual honors as well as represent six "teams" of performers for regional bragging rights.
Even if you aren't into the competitive aspect of poetry slams, this is an exciting showcase of two dozen of the top spoken word artists in the upstate New York and southern Ontario region performing their strongest material," Gault explains. In 2009, Ontario's Burlington Slam Project edged Gault's Buffalo based Njozi Poets by the narrowest of margins--just three tenths of a point in the judges' scores -- to take the overall title, but this is a new year Gault assures us, and the competition will be even keener.
The six teams competing tonight's honors include:
The Underground Poetry Spot (Syracuse):
Marquis Woolford aka Prophesa X, Michael Gaut aka Mic Tha Poet, Ruthine Angrand aka Rae of Sunshine, and Seneca Wilson aka Kind of a One
The Njozi Poets (Buffalo):
Erika Haygood, Brandon Williamson, Ntare Ali Gault and Toronto’s Dwayne Morgan
Uncommon Sense (Buffalo):
Marquis “10,000” Burton, Johnny Proper, Matt Murdock and Monique Murphy
The Burlington Slam Project (Burlington):
Tomy Bewick, Truth Is, Jogindra Siewrattan and Made Wade
Lineup to be announced
Toronto Poetry Slam (Toronto):
Yehuda “Pan” Fisher, Kay’la Fraser and two poets to be announced
Tickets can be purchased for $15 in advance at Doris Records on 286 East Ferry St. in Buffalo (883-2410)and for $20 at the door. For more information call (716) 553-9491. | <urn:uuid:4c89030e-123c-44c1-a310-4e6fcc2e2928> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.buffalonews.com/gusto/2010/12/qew-regional-poetry-slam-tonight-at-2nd-cup-cafe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933624 | 749 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Who are the Jam-eaters
Last updated at 13:33, Thursday, 02 October 2008
FOR decades, there has been an ongoing feud between Whitehaven and Workington folk about who are the jam eaters. Now The Financial Times, no less, has entered the debate.
For a brief moment putting the global financial crisis to one side, the city newspaper ran a piece on famous feuds. And on the rivalry between the two towns, it said: “Legend has it that one town’s miners had jam on their sandwiches and the other did not, but no one agrees on which town it was or whether they did it because they were snobs or peasants.”
That prompted a letter from a Maryport reader who said he was neutral but believed the term referred to Whitehaven folk.
Both sides of the argument agree that the term goes back to mining days. The common view is that the term is insulting because it implies people could not afford to buy meat for their sandwiches, so they had to eat jam instead.
The insult has stuck over the years, and even now can cause offence to both sides.
Ray Devlin, local mining author, said: “In my opinion, the jam eaters were the ones from High Siders.
“When we worked in the pits, it was very warm. You couldn’t take much down there apart from bread and jam. Ventilation in the Whitehaven mines improved and because it was a bit cooler, we could take sandwiches with corned beef, Spam and other kinds of meat down there.
“When the mine at Clifton closed, some of the Workington lot came through to the Haig Pit and they were still eating jam sandwiches, when we had sandwiches with meat in them!”
Martin Brough, club secretary for Wath Brown Hornets disagrees. He said: “In my view the jam eaters are people from Moor Row. The term jam-eating comes from when people worked in the mines. If you look at old maps, the mines are mainly concentrated in the Moor Row area.
“Never mind about it being people from Workington or Whitehaven people, it’s the people from Moor Row.”
Robert Baxter, archivist at the Whitehaven Record Office said: “In terms of traditional evidence, we do not have any records of who the jam eaters are. It seems to be one of these informal terms of abuse or friendly banter that just seems to be in living and oral tradition.”
Who do you think are jam-eaters? Cast your vote - see panel on the right-hand side of this page.
First published at 19:11, Wednesday, 01 October 2008
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk
Have your say
At a very young age,I was taught catagorically that men from Workington had to be termed "Jam eaters" and believe me it was not intended to be complimentary!
i was a good friend of the late ike douglas who was from whitehaven and worked the mines for over 50 years.This conversation came up many times and he even said it was the whitehaven miners who where jam eaters.
View all 10 comments on this article | <urn:uuid:9c98f229-8160-4c29-ab4a-61a9d1a2d7bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/who-are-the-jam-eaters-1.248985?referrerPath=features/money-talk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982442 | 680 | 1.695313 | 2 |
of Samuel 17:32-33.37.40-51.
David spoke to
Saul: «Let your majesty not lose courage. I am at your service to go and fight this
But Saul answered David, "You cannot go up
against this Philistine and fight with him, for you are only a youth, while he has been a warrior
from his youth."
David continued: "The LORD, who
delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will also keep me safe from the clutches of
this Philistine." Saul answered David, "Go! the LORD will be with you."
Then, staff in hand, David selected five smooth stones from the wadi
and put them in the pocket of his shepherd's bag. With his sling also ready to hand, he approached
With his shield-bearer marching before
him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David.
When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful, and ruddy, and handsome in
appearance, he held him in contempt.
said to David, "Am I a dog that you come against me with a staff?" Then the Philistine cursed David
by his gods
and said to him, "Come here to me, and I
will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field."
David answered him: "You come against me with sword and spear and
scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel
that you have insulted.
Today the LORD shall deliver
you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your
corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field;
thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God.
All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves.
For the battle is the LORD'S, and he shall deliver you into our hands."
The Philistine then moved to meet David at close quarters, while David
ran quickly toward the battle line in the direction of the Philistine.
David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with
the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he
fell prostrate on the ground.
(Thus David overcame the
Philistine with sling and stone; he struck the Philistine mortally, and did it without a
Then David ran and stood over him; with the
Philistine's own sword (which he drew from its sheath) he dispatched him and cut off his head.When
they saw that their hero was dead, the Philistines took to flight.
Of David. Blessed be the
LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war;
My safe guard and my fortress, my stronghold, my deliverer, My shield,
in whom I trust, who subdues peoples under me.
O God, a
new song I will sing to you; on a ten-stringed lyre I will play for you.
You give victory to kings; you delivered David your servant. From the
of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 3:1-6.
Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered
They watched him closely to see if he would cure
him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.
said to the man with the withered hand, "Come up here before us."
Then he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to
save life rather than to destroy it?" But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the
man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians
against him to put him to death. | <urn:uuid:70f3bf38-b332-49f5-9e08-4a68aa5c4934> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=7324&grupo=Podcast%20%20Webcast&canal=Liturgy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972254 | 876 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The idea behind the YamDaisy Cafe is that every one should be able to access delicious, nourishing food.
The idea of the menu is to make such food part of a sustainable business (a whole franchise of YamDaisy Cafes!).
Most of the ideas of this menu comes from the idea of a great mum providing wonderful food every day to a big family.
Now, what does a YamDaisy Cafe menu look like?
The first thing is that there are only a few options every day. More like "What's for dinner mum?" than "let's have a look at this wonderful long menu!"
Next, the meals are made from scratch using local, seasonal ingredients. This is like the best mum in the world! No processed shortcuts! This also means that the meals will be made of ingredients that are at their freshest, and cheapest! Win, win!
This isn't restaurant food, it is the sort of food your doctor will encourage you to eat to prevent and manage chronic illness. It is the sort of food that a mum will feel proud, instead of guilty, to be giving to her family.
This is easy food! It is delicious, and even people on pensions can afford it!
Yes there IS takeaway!
Here are the nuts and bolts of it:
5 daily menus (M,T,W,Th,F) will be served each week through the month.
All can be takeaway.
The costs below are for registered clients. Others may pay a little more. They are in Australian dollars.
The four dishes of the day are:
COULD YOU DESIGN A YAMDAISY MENU ?
You will need to consider your community and the produce available at the time of year.
Keep costs low with seasonal ingredients, less meat and cheaper cuts.
Choose 'everyday' meals that will appeal to the community (your local community).
Make them mouthwateringly delicious.
Consider the range of the people you are cooking for. For example, can you please someone who hates fish, someone who adores fish, someone who is a diabetic and also a dedicated meat eater so they can all have something from your menu?
Consider the small kitchen and how the chef will organise. Don't let everything need to be baked in the oven!
They may only have help for a few hours a day, so keep it simple, we want meals that are made from scratch on the premises!
$7.50 meal for 60: for ingredients you can spend $150
Soup: Potato Soup with Fresh Thyme
Click on the link for more details of this delicious menu!
Joy's Autumn Menu Part One and Part Two
Andrea's Summer Menu
Joy's Summer Menu:
|We all need delicious nourishing food. let's have a system where people who are ill, poor or struggling don't miss out.| | <urn:uuid:12b869ae-3e8c-458f-846e-e90c270fa1bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://home.vicnet.net.au/~yamdaisy/menu.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941528 | 596 | 1.523438 | 2 |
By Kelley Currie, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Kelley Currie is a senior fellow with the Project 2049 Institute in Washington. The views expressed are her own.
As President Obama's second term gets underway, there are significant changes ahead in his national security team, including among those managing Asia policy. The imminent departure of the strategic-minded Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific, is occurring at a time of growing tension between China and America's historic allies in the region. Meanwhile, there remain questions about the sustainability of the Obama administration's much-vaunted "rebalancing" or "pivot" toward Asia.
Amid these swirling issues, there's a growing focus among China thinkers on the issue of strategic distrust between the United States and China -- a fundamental driver that shapes both U.S. policy toward Asia and the region's perceptions of its own security challenges.
From talk of "strategic reassurance" early in Obama's first term, to the more recent attempts to explain "the pivot" as being about more than China, the administration has struggled to get the right balance in terms of its policy and posture. As the Asia commentariat has zeroed in on the issue of strategic distrust, both they and the policymakers responsible for this vital region are starting on a more honest discussion about the limits of the U.S.-China relationship. In particular, it was interesting to hear Assistant Secretary Campbell speaking on this subject at a recent forum hosted by the Carnegie Endowment. In his remarks, Campbell shared his view that issues of strategic trust operated on two levels: aspects that deal with matters like personalities and differing perceptions of history and culture; and deeper issues that are rooted in differences in political systems and values.
He acknowledged that most efforts at building strategic trust have been focused on this first level, which he identified as the easier of the two to tackle. Unfortunately, even the results on this more approachable element have been limited and may prove ephemeral upon the arrival of a new Asia team in the second term. As other commentators continue to observe, China remains mired in a victim mentality in its dealings with the U.S. and other Western powers -- a posture that is increasingly at odds with its growing global power and authority.
The dearth of well-developed regional and bilateral mechanisms for dealing with this strategic distrust contributes to a situation where policy is managed via personal relationships, an endless series of formalistic dialogues, and ad hoc crisis response. While the Obama administration has made some progress in formalizing channels for dialogue, it remains unclear how much actual trust and cooperation can be institutionalized through these channels.
On the more fundamental question of how to deal with strategic distrust based on political values and systems, the Obama administration has been largely silent up to now. But while it is useful to hear the administration's leading thinker on these issues acknowledge the challenges presented by our fundamentally different worldviews -- even on his way out the door -- it is worrying that there has seemingly been so little effort put into this essential aspect up to now.
For better or worse, whoever replaces Campbell is unlikely to share his penchant for "big think" strategy and his indefatigable commitment to shaping the U.S. presence in Asia according to his particular design. Yet there will need to be someone in the administration who is focused on developing these fuzzy yet foundational ideas about the basis for strategic trust with China, and what it is reasonable for us to expect from Beijing in this regard.
Without a serious understanding of our own limits in terms of accommodating China's values and aspirations, the rebalancing will continue to rest on an extremely unstable equilibrium. Not only is this dangerous for the U.S.-China relationship, it keeps our friends and allies in the region from being able to make their own strategic calculus with any degree of confidence. | <urn:uuid:ad0ab3d7-a1e3-4c1f-8301-1aea1c1ea590> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtae.com/news/national/U-S-China-strategic-distrust-matters/-/9681152/18343228/-/f4l19t/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958995 | 783 | 1.648438 | 2 |
I, like many others in the meet and greet section, had a few fish in the bowl when I was a kid. I always liked them but I was not diligent enough, didn't look after them, they passed on, and dad wouldn't buy me more as a life lesson. Now that I am in my mid 40's I am older and wiser (wife isn't so sure about more mature though) and I have been thinking about getting an aquarium for a few years.
So I announced before xmas I was interested in putting together an aquarium and the wife looked at me like I was from mars. I mentioned I could get a bearded dragon instead. She said fish are fine.
So now that I sorta kinda have permission I dove into research. I am a tad anal about doing things the right way and this time it seems that is in my favour. I didn't know the difference between a nitrogen cycle and a unicycle. Now I know just about enough to be dangerous, just hopefully not to the fish.
After reading a lot on the net, and especially in this forum, I am planning on getting a 55-75G ish size tank and build it planted. I am looking into "themes" from a region of the world but am undecided and am open to suggestions. A couple of Byron's tanks from the Amazon look very interesting. One issue we have is VERY hard water in Alberta so at this point am unsure how that will affect the fish/plants from the Amazon. More research is obviously required.
I am glad to be here. It looks like a lot of people that enjoy their hobby and are happy to help. And boy do I need the help :) | <urn:uuid:7ebdcd10-e676-4e60-ac83-d738d98479a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/meet-community/greetings-frozen-north-34452/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98836 | 347 | 1.75 | 2 |
10 December 2011
Posted in Our Planet, Our Universe
Recently, the Science Center welcomed Dr. Jim Bell of Arizona State University. Dr. Bell is a key contributor on the Mars Rover projects, including the most recent project - Curiosity. In this video, Dr. Bell discusses what it's like to work on these projects. | <urn:uuid:9457ad96-300b-40d7-9fd2-7683d9fe17e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.osc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=729:interview-with-mars-rover-scientist-dr-jim-bell&catid=103:our-planet-our-universe&Itemid=15 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932712 | 66 | 1.679688 | 2 |
"Nothing ever feels like home," says Inocente Izucar, the main character in the short documentary entitled "Inocente", an Academy Award-nominated film created by husband and wife team Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine.
Back in 2009, when the film was made, Izucar was a fifteen-year-old facing the ordinary challenges of finding her own personal identity; at the same time, she was facing the extraordinary challenges of homelessness and parental abuse. Nevertheless, hers is a story of hope come to life, through Izucar’s art and her own unique buoyancy.
At the time, the Fines had become greatly affected by the high frequency of homelessness amongst children, especially after learning about an alarming statistic. According to The National Center on Family Homelessness (which has since merged with the American Institutes for Research), 1 out of 45 children in America lives in a transient state, whether in motels, cars, shelters or out on the street. This awareness became a powerful impetus for the Fine’s work on the documentary.
Per chance-or perhaps by the powers that be--the couple was introduced to Izucar by artist Matt D’Arrigo, founder of ARTS (A Reason To Survive), a non-profit organization that focuses on using art as a form of therapy and healing, for children and young adults struggling with major life challenges.
Several years earlier, after facing his own series of trials and tribulations, D’Arrigo had discovered how art’s transformative power enabled him to endure. In 2001, he founded ARTS, making it possible for him to share his philosophy that through art, people can not only survive, but actually change their lives for the better, as well.
Among the many youngsters who participated in ARTS’ programs, over the ensuing years, was Izucar. At age twelve, she made her way into the ARTS San Diego location.
Without a doubt, D’Arrigo knew Izucar had talent; he also knew that her story needed to be told. The Fines agreed.
And so began the chronicling of Izucar’s life, told through the lens of a camera, vérité style...
Upon arising each morning, Izucar first uses her face as her canvas, painting it with vivid designs and colors, before she heads off into a world filled with an abundance of insecurities.
She speaks of the past and of her father’s violence toward his family, now blaming herself for her family being homeless. After all, it was after a physical altercation with her, that her father was deported back to Mexico.
The strain in the relationship she has with her mother is more than obvious. Perhaps there would be no story to tell if her mother had succeeded with her plan to jump off a bridge, with Izucar at her side.
Izucar’s schoolmates might provide some solace if they knew she was homeless. But sharing her plight is too risky and so Izucar pretends she is what she isn’t…at least for a little while.
However, this teen with countless dreams has finally found a safe haven. At ARTS, she is able to express herself and create artwork as never before.
Each year, ARTS serves approximately 5,000 young people. When the organization's annual art show comes around, only the very best young artists are given the opportunity to exhibit their work. In November 2009, it was Izucar’s turn; the thirty pieces of her artwork that were on display were all sold.
Izucar’s life has changed in many ways since she began studying and working with ARTS. The documentary about her has tremendously increased her visibility and her popularity. Earlier this month, when “Inocente” was screened in Washington D.C. at the House Visitor's Center, there she was smack in the middle of all those powerful politicians. She’s been busy, too, readying herself for Oscar night.
These days, many, many people want to purchase her artwork, so she is on a sort of hiatus from selling, until a newly designed website is up and running, one where patrons can directly make purchases of her paintings.
And she’s renting a small apartment, a place she can finally call home.
One of her goals is to “help other homeless kids”. She has already served as an inspiration for some, touching their lives and sharing her hope with them.
Inocente Izucar’s story is proof positive that art can change a person’s life.
But also, she has become a part of a much bigger picture, one in which the tradition of people helping people is beautiful beyond words. | <urn:uuid:86552c43-9378-4224-bb7e-20ac753d0017> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/arts-leads-to-the-creation-of-academy-award-nominated-film-inocente?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982888 | 1,002 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Five young students, and their teacher, Xinming Simon Guo, took advantage of Chicago’s recent Family Fun Festival to introduce go to a larger audience. The Chinese-American Museum of Chicago prepared an assortment of activities to promote Chinese art and culture for visiting families and day-camp groups. Guo and his students staffed a booth on June 25 and 26, and taught over 60 visitors how to play. ”The highlight of the weekend is no doubt the story of a fourth grader from Springfield IL who visited the event tent on Saturday,” reports Guo. “He said he was pretty good at chess and won the champion in the tournament for 7th graders. He showed great interest in go and learned how to play it immediately. I gave him a cardboard set as a reward for having played his first complete game. On the second day, everybody was astonished to see this boy again. His mom told me their original plan was to visit Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, but this boy was so attracted by this new game that he gave up the aquarium to revisit the weiqi desk to learn more about go. ‘How can a fourth-grader choose a game of go instead of visiting Shedd Aquarium — rated as the number one attraction for kids??’ his mother asked. That’s the magic of go, I answered with a smile.” Guo began his class at Xilin North Shore School in 2010, with the the support of the American Go Foundation. Since then, the project has attracted about 25 kids to learn go. “This weiqi (go) demo event is a great opportunity for kids to use what they have learned during the last year. It’s also a chance for them to learn how to serve the public,” added Guo. Students who taught in the booth were Hann Diao, Edward Lee, Jiangao Fang, Ray Li, and Jeffrey Tang. -Paul Barchilon, E.J Youth Editor, Photo: Guo is at left, the fourth grader mentioned is at right. Photo by Xinming Simon Guo.
American Go E-Journal
Monday July 11, 2011 | <urn:uuid:b3ac9a09-52a4-40af-b140-1299e17f5ad6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usgo.org/news/2011/07/a-game-of-go-or-shedd-aquarium-an-answer-from-a-fourth-grader/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982934 | 451 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Hurricane Sandy took its toll on October car sales, but like the resilient residents of the storm-ravaged East Coast, they’ll bounce back and then some.
Car-shopping website Edmunds.com estimates Hurricane Sandy cost 30,000 vehicle sales in October, reducing the closely-monitored Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of car sales to 14.3 million vehicles from the pre-storm forecasted 14.8 million vehicles. However, those sales weren’t lost for good but merely deferred. Edmunds.com expects the sales will be made up in coming months, and additional sales could result as storm victims replace their vehicles damaged or destroyed by the hurricane.
“We don’t have a handle yet on how many vehicles were destroyed or damaged in the storm, so we don’t know what the incremental volume will be in the next few months,” said Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell. “But we know there will be increased interest in both new and used vehicles as people replace vehicles damaged in the storm.”
Edmunds.com Chief Economist Lacey Plache noted that about a half-million vehicles were damaged by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding area, which is much less populated than New York/New Jersey. “Sandy’s impact may well be higher. But even if 100,000 damaged vehicles are replaced by the end of the year, it could boost auto sales three to four percent for the quarter,” she said.
Automakers recognize the plus-business opportunity and are offering incentives on vehicle purchases to storm victims. General Motors announced a $500 rebate to buyers in the region. Nissan is providing employee pricing to them. Toyota announced a 90-day deferred first payment program to assist consumers in the region.
Hurricane Sandy struck one of the biggest car-buying regions at the worst time of the month possible. Typically, 30 percent of all sales across the U.S. occur in the closing days of a month, and about 20 percent of all U.S. car sales come from Mid-Atlantic and New York/New Jersey region.
Honda, Toyota and Nissan, in that order, rank highest in sales in the area. Midsize sedans are the most popular vehicles in the Greater New York and Northern New Jersey area, accounting for 20 percent of all vehicle sales there. The redesigned Honda Accord and Nissan Altima midsize sedans are just now in launch model. Compact cars make up more than a third of sales in the area.
Luxury car sales also rely heavily on East Coast markets. So far this year, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. combined to account for 25 percent of Acura sales, 24 percent of Mercedes-Benz sales, 23 percent of BMW, Infiniti and Volvo sales, according to Edmunds.com’s analysis of Polk registration data. Honda is the most popular brand in New York accounting for 14 percent of all new car registrations so far this year. Ford is the No. 1 brand in Philadelphia with 14 percent of the registrations. Toyota is D.C.’s top brand with 16 percent of sales.
A storm-induced sales bump combined with increased lease terminations, growing consumer confidence and a recovering housing market are contributing to a positive outlook for fourth-quarter car sales. Edmunds.com is forecasting full-year 2012 light vehicle sales will total about 14.3 million vehicles. | <urn:uuid:d704386b-fb08-4da3-b43a-181bd0259a15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellekrebs/2012/11/05/hurricane-sandys-lost-october-car-sales-will-return/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949476 | 719 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Murphy, John -> Alabama>Georgia ?>Kentucky
I am looking for any information I can find on John Murphy. John was born in 1859 in Russell County Alabama to William S. and Sarah Linn (Dickson) Murphy. He was the first child of this couple. Their second child wasn’t born until 1866, so it’s possible William was serving in the Civil War. With a name like William Murphy in Alabama it’s difficult to find the records to prove this, though.
John grew up in Russell/Lee County Alabama with many cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. The Murphy family in this area was very large, and all in the area appear to be related in some way.
In November of 1894 John married Maggie Askew in Lee County Alabama. John and Maggie had one child, a son, named Sheppie. We believe this to be short for Shephard. We also believe that John named his son after his father. John’s father was William S. Murphy. Could that S stand for Shephard? Even more, could it be William’s mothers maiden name? (Her name was Nancy ? and she was married to Felix Murphy in Georgia).
Sometime between 1894 and 1902 John got in to some trouble. It was said to have been some sort of assault charges brought against him. John Murphy escaped from the County jail and ran away. We have found one court record from 1897 that shows a John Murphy having been charged with assault. We’re not completely certain this is our John, but we found it interesting that this particular John Murphy had charges filed, but they were never dismissed, nor was he brought to trial. If this was our John in 1897, where was he from 1897 to 1902? By 1902 he was living in Meade County, KY under the name John Floyd. John married Lilly Fenix on April 10, 1902.
John and Lilly had eight children, five lived to adulthood.
Here are a few clues about where he may have been from an old family bible that belonged to one of his children:
1. He lived near where a circus wintered.
2. He lived near a swamp. (Georgia??)
3. He lived at Grandma Dickson’s boarding house. (note from me: We have checked in many different places trying to find this. It could be that Grandma Dickson was his grandma on his moms side, which would help us a lot since we know nothing of her family!)
If anyone has any information on John Murphy, specifically his whereabouts between 1897 and 1902, I would love to hear from you.
Contact the submitter by posting a comment here or <a href=”mailto:firstname.lastname@example.org”>email direct</a>. If you email direct, please post the information you pass on here for everyone to view for years to come!
the attachments to this post: | <urn:uuid:dde6857d-320d-4ed9-9747-1003e566b315> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.familypuzzler.com/hello-world/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985524 | 619 | 1.703125 | 2 |
I may have sent this directly to Dr. Holtz, but thought it may be of some interest to other members as well.
I've just read HP Holtz's paper on Tyrants' Phylogeny and Taxonomy in "Mesozoic Vertebrate Life" and have some questions(not necessarily directed to the author... answer freely if you feel).I apologyze if questions like these have already been answered in the past or if they're of obvious answer.
1)What do the "-"s in front of some character (as listed in appendix 7.3) mean? (e.g. -83.0 )
2)The Kirtland shale aublyosodontine is said to show the condition .2 for character n° 59, but in the character list there's no such state. Should it be 59.1 or is the 3rd condition for character 59 missing in the character list?
3) Could someone enlighten me on character 106 states? just can't visualize them....
thanks in advance | <urn:uuid:f4cf4c6a-d460-498a-94a1-f5c5a08601e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dml.cmnh.org/2001Dec/msg00712.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95129 | 217 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Green Papers: A Review of Three Options for Environmentally Friendly Print Making
Text and photography copyright © Carl Battreall. All rights reserved.
The production of photography has never been an environmentally friendly process. Photographers have often balanced the massive resource demands of the medium by using their images to champion environmental and social causes.
When it comes to natural resource use and pollution, digital photography is an improvement over traditional analog photographic processes, but it isn’t perfect. Electronic waste is one of the major environmental issues of our time and photography equipment and computers play a major role in contributing to this problem. One piece of the digital production pie, print making, has begun to experiment with more environmentally responsible alternatives.
I have chosen three unique and very different papers for this simple overview. All of the papers were tested on an Epson R2400 printer using color profiles provided by the manufacturer (when available). This is not a very scientific review; it is a touchy-feely experience and not based on any technical experiments
Red River Paper Company
Red River Paper Company is a small paper company from Dallas, Texas. They produce a variety of high quality inkjet papers and Green Pix is no exception. Green Pix is made from 100% post consumer waste. The paper’s smooth coating is applied to a bright white, archival base. Unfortunately, the longevity of the paper can’t be determined because Red River can never know exactly what has been recycled and put into the paper.
Green Pix has the same look and feel as other heavyweight, matte photo inkjet papers. The visual print characteristics are very similar to Epson’s Premium Presentation Matte, with nice deep blacks and a clean image. I haven’t noticed any surface imperfections that distract from the printed image, which can be common with recycled paper. The color profile I downloaded from Red River’s website produce an accurate and saturated print.
Green Pix is an excellent choice for a proofing paper or for making high quality prints for home or family. However, where this paper truly shines is as a greeting card paper. The print quality is excellent and the back of the paper is printable and writable. The thickness (254 gsm) feels sturdy and professional and creates a card worthy of framing. Red River sells a complete line of Green Pix greeting card packages that include matching recycled envelopes. Green Pix is of course, available in standard sheet and roll sizes too. For many fine art photographers, the unknown longevity of the paper out weighs its green production, which is a disappointment because the paper has plenty of potential.
Premium Inkjet Photo Paper
I stumbled onto this paper while shopping at my local office supply store. I was so intrigued I bought a box. ViaStone claims to make all their paper through a non-environmentally damaging process that combines rocks and minerals. They also boast that they don’t use up any natural resources or produce any hazardous waste when creating their “stone” paper. I couldn’t help but wonder what stone-mineral process doesn’t involve some kind of mining and resource extraction. I contacted ViaStone with this question but didn’t get an answer.
The surface of the paper is what most photographers would call luster or pearl - not glossy like the box claims. It is a thin, flimsy paper that feels synthetic. It doesn’t have any characteristics of paper, or stone, for that matter. ViaStone’s website doesn’t offer any color profiles so I used Epson Ultra Premium Luster. I was surprised with the color, though the image did have a strong blue cast. It was pretty accurate for not using a dedicated profile. The image was sharp but the shadows were horrible, blocked up and grey with a terrible milky reflection. Yuck!
Personally, I wouldn’t have any use for this paper. I don’t think I would even print a snapshot with it. And even though I am still intrigued that this paper is made without any natural resource destruction, even if ViaStone could prove their claim, they would still have to improve the image and aesthetic quality of the paper in order for me to take it seriously.
There are few companies that can claim to be over 400 years old and Hahnemuhle is one of them. They have been in the paper business since 1584, so you could say they have some experience. Hahnemuhle is known as one of the world’s leading fine art paper makers and their line of papers is used by some of the world’s leading photographers. Hahnemuhle has tried to keep the production of their papers as “green” as possible and now they have created their first “green” paper made from bamboo. Bamboo is a grass, which is considered an excellent renewable resource because of its quick growth. However, bamboo cultivation can be just as destructive as wood. This is especially true if wild bamboo is being harvested. So I contacted Hahnemuhle and asked them where they purchased their bamboo and how was it harvested. I got the run-around and never got an answer. But for now, I am going to give Hahnemuhle the benefit of the doubt here because of their long record of using responsible sources for their wood and cotton and for their commitment to the environment.
Bamboo 290 is rag paper that has a natural white base and is very, very thick (290 gsm). As a paper itself, it is absolutely gorgeous. It has a textured, moon like surface, the roughest surface I have ever used. I personally have never liked the really textured papers, preferring a smooth or semi-gloss surface, so I had a rough time with it (no pun intended). This may also be the reason why it seems super thick to me. Most textured fine art papers are thick and I am not a frequent user of them.
At this moment, Hahnemuhle only offers color profiles for Bamboo 290 for a small selection of printers and the 2400 is not one of them. This is such a high quality, world class paper that I decided I would make a custom profile for it, since it deserved to be tested properly.
The paper’s warm base wasn’t super obvious during my first examination, but when I compared it to other papers and to the bright white board I usually mat prints with, its cream color was very apparent. Honestly, the work I do doesn’t go well with warm based papers and I have always preferred neutral or cold tones. Nevertheless, the print quality is superb. The blacks were rich and dense and the highlights were alive with detail. To my surprise, the texture wasn’t as distracting as I thought it would be, and didn’t prevent the paper from producing a sharp image.
Bamboo 290 is a museum quality, exhibit worthy paper that is available in standard sheet and roll sizes. I want to love this paper, but it just doesn’t match my work. This is a disappointment because this paper is a great example of ingenuity and environmental consciousness. Any fine art photographer,who uses rag papers, doesn’t mind a warm base and wants to make a statement about the environment, should seriously consider this paper.
I believe these three papers are a step in the right direction. If only the printer, computer and camera manufacturers would get the hint and get on board the green machine. It’s time the process of photography becomes as green as the images that are created with it.
Red River Paper Company www.redrivercatalog.com
Comments on NPN digital printing articles? Send them to the editor.
Carl Battreall is a professional mountain photographer and glacier guide. He is considered one of Alaska's leading conservation photographers and the winner of the 2007 Daniel Housberg Wilderness Image Award for Excellence in still and conservation photography. Carl's work focuses on Alaska's most remote and unprotected mountain regions and has been widely exhibited and published throughout North America. More of Carl's work can be seen at www.battreallphoto.com. | <urn:uuid:6a536c80-37f6-45bb-9434-5beeb661b2e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0608/cb0608-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962888 | 1,678 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Steam conditioning equipment is a specialized section of Severe Service equipment. Accurate control of superheat is very important to processes and process equipment. Maintaining temperature control provides efficient heat transfer which may reduce the size of equipment. As well, it protects valuable process products and provides safety to both equipment and personnel.
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Check out Steam Conditioning Equipment on the Emerson website | <urn:uuid:bde5136a-d9ba-4f59-81dc-d272b6c3ef07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.directcontrols.com/products/direct/fisher-steam-conditioning-equipment.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940768 | 165 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Most of those lucky enough to see Edwina Ashton’s performance at Jerwood Space in the next five weeks will be, presumably, non-plussed. How else to react to people dressed as lobsters?
For three hour stretches the lobsters may be seen to rearrange objects. There may be more to it, but that’s the gist. It’s a response to the little known fact that real lobsters rearrange their caves.
This is an extensive a tribute to a crustacean whose most famous fan was the 19th century French poet Gérard de Nerval. It was him that characterised them as “peaceful, serious creatures.”
Said term might of course also apply to artists. In which case, the piece is a good demonstration of “the choreography of positions between artist, artwork and audience.”
It is only through this arrangement, according to Catherine Wood, that dancing lobsters and the like can be comprehended. This curator’s essay is well worth reading in the online catalogue.
And this rule applies to painting and sculpture just as much as performance; performance merely foregrounds it. The implications are incredible and a little frightening.
Positions on a dancefloor or indeed a stage change all the time. The movement of the audience will therefore determine the meaning and certainly the value of any piece of art.
But of course we are being moved around in our turn by the artist, via whatever channels they hope to communicate, and the various appearances of the work.
If proof be needed that the quality of your aesthetic experience boils down to social context, look no further than lobsters and a second essay, this one by David Foster Wallace.
The novelist points out that until the 19th century, lobster was dished up in prisons. Many said it was inhumane to make the inmates eat today’s delicacy more than once a week.
You would think that a taste for food might be less subjective than a taste for art. But as lobster numbers dwindled they became more desirable dance partners. Inevitable really.
We can only be non-plussed for so long and no one can respond to a piece of art in isolation. Other people’s discourses are then part of what we are looking at. It’s lobster, after all. Eat it up!
I haven’t even seen this piece yet, by the way. I’m planning to next week and will report back. It’s being performed at Jerwood Space as part of SHOW, until April 21 (Tuesdays and Thursdays 2–5pm). See gallery website for directions. | <urn:uuid:0822e2d6-b2e3-445c-90bf-140802a01394> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.criticismism.com/2011/03/18/edwina-ashton-peaceful-serious-creatures-lobster-arranging-2011/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969649 | 557 | 1.734375 | 2 |
There is an interesting dynamic that appears to be growing in the computer industry … and in society in general. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it, and don’t want to be judgmental about it. It’s not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad, but does seem to bring into question respect for intellectual property and the law.
Today I read this article, Hack Attack : Install Leopard on your PC in 3 easy steps! which describes how to install the new Apple operating system – Leopard – on a PC. This would be all fine and dandy if Apple was selling Leopard for this purpose … but they are not. Instead, it appears that once again some people have taken it upon themselves to reverse engineer the software, and create some patches, to allow it to be installed on non-Apple hardware.
Don’t get me wrong … I’m all for the challenge and proving ones skills, but there is something that just doesn’t sit ok with me about this. Also, anyone that knows me understands that I am not a huge Apple fan, and have long questioned their proprietary lock-in hardware and world … but I fully respect their legal rights to what they have created. Even the author of the article states “If you noticed I haven’t posted the links to the Torrent that contains the DVD image and the zip. Well I haven’t posted them because I am sure the lawyers over at Apple are going to sue the hell out of me.“ A full acknowledgment about the questionable nature of what is being done.
Over the last decade I have really had to do some soul searching about the issues of stealing music over the Internet … stealing videos … stealing software … and now stealing operating systems. In the end, I just can not justify it. I don’t do it, and do not believe it represents honesty and integrity when you steal. Period.
What is sad to me is that somewhere within our society there seems to be a growing acceptance of stealing and theft of property and services. People who want to argue and justify their stealing of MP3s over the Internet … stealing of movies … stealing of applications … and now others that want to distribute stolen copies of operating systems. In some ways I just wish those who do choose to steal all of this content simply admitted that they are thieves … that they choose to steal from others and that they can create reasons and justifications that make it ok for them.
I’m not close to perfect … I also break the law. I often exceed the speed limit when I am driving. I don’t make excuses and try to justify my actions … I choose to speed at times. Oh … and if I get caught? The police officer is not an @$$hole for pulling me over … he’s doing his job, and I am being given the consequences of my actions. I am the one that caused and created the ticket.
For all of the people out there that choose to steal … why not come clean and at least own that you are a thief, and accept the punishment if it ever comes your way. Oh, and also … make sure to teach your children about this also. I worry about the nation of thieves that we are creating … all with nice clean excuses and justifications. At some point I believe that the example we are setting is going to come back and bite us. It seems we are raising our children and younger generations with a distorted perspective of respect for intellectual property rights, when they are quickly moving into a world where we – as a country – are leaning harder and harder on revenues from intellectual property.
Less than 24 hours after the release of a new product representing the work of hundreds – if not thousands – of Apple employees … it’s already being given away across the Internet. It will be interesting to watch this trend … and see where it goes.
For quite a while now while driving, I’ve seen the square “hazard” signs on various tanker trucks and semis. These signs almost always have some number within them, and of course I realize that the numbers have to align with the load/freight that they are carrying.
In my driving boredom I began to wonder about what these numbers represent … time for Google. As I began to search I found a vendor who sells the DOT placards and then a reference to hazardous materials numbering. Well, this second site had an interesting set of pages that allow you to browse through the various numbers and identify the materials. At the bottom of one of them was the quote:
Data Source for our online 2004 ERG
This information was compiled from the 2004 Emergency Response Guidebook (2004 ERG) which is produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Bingo! So the next search for ‘emergency response guidebook’ took me to the US Office of Hazardous Materials Safety. And yes … they have a guide book and more! The Emergency Response Guidebook page has a whole slew of formats that you can download the lists of materials … and complete details about their numbering system. They have .PDF versions, and even PDA and PC software versions of their guides. When I didn’t see a Palm version I did a little more searching and found the WISER site. WISER is the Wireless Information System for First Responders, and it has a wide range of tools for looking up the materials, and also looking for how to deal with them. WISER has a Palm version of software I’m going to check out.
After finding what I was looking for, I was amazed at the numbering system, and the details explained in their guidebook … it’s interesting to see the amount of detail that can be extracted by just looking at the patterns of the numbers. (Check out the page numbered 20 in the PDF …)
Well … my driving boredom got me to spend an hour or so to learn something new … and maybe this is a new travel game in the car for vacation trips! “Ok kids … lets see who can find the most variety of hazardous materials between here and St. Louis!” or “Alright, on this part of our trip we want to find the truck carrying the most highly flammable liquid that reacts dangerously with water, emitting flammable gas!”
Uh, that last one would be labeled “X323″, not to be confused with “339″ which would be a “highly flammable liquid which can spontaneously lead to violent reaction” … see page 21 in your PDF.
This last week I spent some time checking up on some projects that I have been following over the last number of years. While looking at some projects that I was aware of, I came across one that I had not seen – Scratch. I have to admit that after playing with Scratch for a few days, and showing it to my son, nephew, and niece, I am thoroughly impressed.
Scratch is a project being worked on at MIT, with some affiliation with UCLA, and sponsored by a wide range of backers … and it is an impressive development tool … for kids! Their own website describes it as:
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.
Coupled with the Scratch language and environment, there is also a “social” site where Scratch users can upload programs and sample code, and download these same programs to then learn from them, modify them, and re-upload them. I sat down and wrote my SpiroSprite program in maybe 10-15 minutes … and uploaded it to my Scratch account.
The environment and language is influenced by the Logo and Smalltalk languages, and presents a very simple, yet powerful way to learn login, event-driven programming, and create fun software. From what I understand it is written in Squeak … which seems to be continuing to slowly gain momentum.
For anyone that wants to explore the concepts of programming, with or without their kids, I’d suggest downloading a copy of Scratch and beginning to experiment. It’s really an impressive project!
A friend of mine sent me a link to WeatherBill today. This is pretty wild. You can actually take out “contracts” to hedge against the weather. Almost like “weather-insurance” …
The site is pretty good … there is a tutorial/learning page, and then the actual quotes page. Hmmm … I can buy a contract for $854 for next Saturday if it rains more than 1″ of rain they’ll pay out $10,000!! They have a lot of examples of using this for golf courses or any range of businesses or events. Picnic insurance!
It seems that maybe someone will think about how to game this for some real income …
Wow … September came and went. There was just too much going on. I got back from my Caribbean Cruise – Puerto Rico, Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten, and St. Thomas – and it was already the 10th of September! The cruise was nice, however there was too much to do when I got back. I immediately got back into coding mode – I’m working on three different start-up ideas right now – and several contract development projects.
We completed our first cut at the Adobe Developer Desktop – an AIR application – that we built for Adobe. The intention is to create an extensible application in AIR that Adobe developers can use to track outstanding bugs and issues, report bugs to Adobe, and access other information quickly. It’s been fun, and we’re continuing to extend this application.
I also took off on the road for three conferences that were very interesting. The first two were in New York – the Millennials Conference, and then the Tweens Conference. The Millennials are people born from 1982 to 2000, and the Tweens are a subset of this group that were born from 1995 to 2000. Both conferences were impressive, and if you want to hear about some of the topics discussed we talked about it on one of our latest ITConversations podcasts – Technology Travels. The core thing that I realized is that our youngest generations growing up in America are becoming fully integrated into the Internet. To them … the Internet just *IS*. It has always been here for them … they are using it daily … it is an extension of who they are … their community already includes “close friends” that they have never met in person. It is extending their world.
I then went on to Adobe MAX 2007 in Chicago. I had gone last year, and so this was my second year seeing what Adobe is up to … and to me it is very impressive. Adobe announced and demonstrated a string of new products and projects … on top of the new Flex and AIR development foundation that has been growing. There were too many things to think about … but Adobe seems to have a lot of momentum, and is pushing hard to become a cross-platform solution for developers, corporations, and end-users. Some of the cool things that the showed and talked about:
- RIAForge.org – Open Source Projects built on Adobe Technologies
- OSFlash.org – more Open Source Flash
- Red5 – the Open Source Flash Server
- Spaz.AIR – a cross-platform twitter client written for AIR
- Agile Agenda – an AIR Agile project management tool
- Digimix – an amazing audio mixing application written for AIR (demo)
- Buzzword – a truly impressive web-based Word Processor … Adobe bought these guys!
- MTV Adobe AIR Challenge – developer contest
- … and more. I’ll post more in a future post …
One other thing that was really fun about New York and Chicago … mass transit. In New York I stayed with a friend who doesn’t even own a car anymore. It was actually fun to ride the trains and the metro … back and forth without ever having to sit in traffic. Chicago was the same … I took the train from the airport to my hotel downtown. Adobe ran buses from the hotels to the convention center. It was nice to not rent a car … | <urn:uuid:04f97dc8-7608-452a-ae77-4fe4a72e0c6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the.inevitable.org/anism/?m=200710 | 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 | 0.962798 | 2,633 | 1.53125 | 2 |
At a Wednesday news conference held by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Menendez, left, said the GOP “must understand that, on this issue, it must work with us to achieve what is good for the country and good for the immigrant community.”
“We have never required English-language ability for permanent residency,” Menendez said. “We have required that for U.S. citizenship but not for permanent residency, so it is a higher bar.”
Although the group represents only a small fraction of Congress, incoming Chairman Rubén Hinojosa, D-Texas, said he has reached out to the other members of what is known as the Tri-Caucus — the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus — to increase their collective influence over legislation. He said he wants to “build on the synergy of these 85 votes” and that he would ask Obama to meet with the groups as the immigration debate begins in earnest, most likely next year.
Even as the Hispanic Caucus unveiled its priorities, however, partisan complications were clear.
The House is scheduled to vote Friday on legislation (HR 6429) that would make 55,000 green cards available to foreign-born graduates of American universities in the fields of science, technology, engineering or math. The concept is popular in the business community and on both sides of the aisle, and it is one of the principles included in the Hispanic Caucus’ list.
The Republican-backed legislation, however, would make those green cards available by abolishing a separate program that awards green cards known as “diversity visas” though a lottery system. Democrats view that trade-off as unacceptable, and members of the Hispanic Caucus said Wednesday that they would vote against the Republican proposal when it comes to the floor Friday.
Menendez said the House proposal “didn’t follow the bipartisan effort that it could have” and that House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, did not do enough to bring Democrats aboard. “There was a deal on the table. It could have been had,” he said.
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., said the bill is insufficient because it does not allow family members of green-card seekers to remain with their loved ones during the application process. Relatives currently must wait in their home countries and away from family members for up to two years; in their bill, House Republicans addressed the issue by cutting that period in half.
Of House Republicans, Gutierrez said, “It’s almost as if they didn’t hear the call from voters on Nov. 6.”
Roll Call has launched a new feature, Hill Navigator, to advise congressional staffers and would-be staffers on how to manage workplace issues on Capitol Hill. Please send us your questions anything from office etiquette, to handling awkward moments, to what happens when the work life gets too personal. Submissions will be treated anonymously. | <urn:uuid:65c48a88-01b0-4dd2-86ca-bf68c6bbff1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rollcall.com/news/hispanic_caucus_unveils_principles_it_requires_in_an_immigration_overhaul-219495-1.html?pg=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973982 | 611 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Service number 130578
Born: March 22nd 1918
Died: May 25th 1944
Kit was the elder son of Philip Walter Mathew and his wife Agnes Gwendolen Grant-Cook. He was born in Colombo, Ceylon. His father [1884-1974] who had been born in Heavitree, Devon was a doctor. His mother [1890-1971] was the daughter of Alexander J. Grant-Cook [1860-1912]. Born in Ross-shire, Grant-Cook had spent some time in New York, later going to Ceylon as a Tea Merchant and founding a dynasty of tea planters. [He shot himself on May 8th 1912, whilst travelling on the train from Colombo to Kandy.] Philip and Agnes married in Colombo in 1914.
Kit was educated at Lancing from September 1931 until July 1936. He was in Seconds House and was a member of the Football XI in 1935, the Tennis Team in 1936 and was a Cadet Officer in the Officer Training Corps. He gained his School Certificate in 1934 and was appointed as a House Captain, Head of House, Prefect and Head of School in 1935. He Matriculated in 1936. He spent the summer of 1937 in Ceylon, returning to England in September. On the manifest, he described himself as a student and his address at 26 King Street, S.W.1.
At the outbreak of war he went for training at the Officer Cadet Training Unit at Sandhurst and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He transferred from the infantry to the Royal Armoured Corps as a Lieutenant on the 28th of December 1942 where he was in the Provost Company, Armoured Division.
The 51st Royal Tank Regiment landed at Naples on the 18th of April 1944, moving inland, in their Churchill tanks, to Lucera near Foggia where they joined the 1st Canadian Division. On the 12th of May they crossed the River Gari and joined the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade prior to their joint attack on the Adolf Hitler Line.
At 6am on the morning of the 23rd of May 1944 the battalion (less B Squadron) moved forward behind an artillery barrage with infantry of Canadian 2nd Brigade following close behind them. The tanks managed to silence all of the enemy machine gun fire but during a fierce engagement they lost a number of tanks and their crews. At 12.15pm they withdrew to rearm and refuel while the Canadian infantry completed the second phase of the attack without serious further opposition.
The 51st lost 14 tanks and had 30 men killed in the attack with many more being wounded.
Kit was killed on May 25th
He is buried at Cassino War Cemetery Plot II Row K Grave 13
His name is on the Roll of Honour at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
In his obituary in The Times, his parents who were living at Cranford, 2 Arundel Road, Eastbourne, requested, “Please no letters except from his friends. Ceylon papers please copy.”
Registered Charity Number: 1143423 | <urn:uuid:fb042728-2521-4ed2-816a-9e66e755ed5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/cathedral/memorials/WW2/christopher-mathew&print=true | 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 | 0.988532 | 649 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Ore is extracted from four zones: T-Antiform, PQ Deeps, Esker and Moose. Most of the T-Antiform reserves have been extracted, and mining in this zone is expected to reduce. The PQ Deeps zone is taking over as the primary ore zone, with contributions from the newly-discovered Lynx zone. Drilling continues to expand the Lynx zone vertically and along the plunge to the north.
Musselwhite’s processing includes crushing, grinding, leaching by cyanidation, carbon in pulp recovery and electrowinning, to achieve an overall recovery of approximately 96%. | <urn:uuid:f6beb59d-d1fd-44c4-85a6-de9f013e5faf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goldcorp.com/English/Unrivalled-Assets/Mines-and-Projects/Canada-and-US/Operations/Musselwhite/Mining-and-Processing/default.aspx | 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 | 0.952124 | 126 | 1.84375 | 2 |
New Zealand Naval Frigate (Benchill)
Here is the latest commentary from the Living Church of God (LCG):
Need To Be Towed?By Charles Knowlton
In my younger years, I served aboard a ship of the United States Navy. Navy ships were always in one of three conditions—they were either underway, anchored, or in need of assistance in the form of a push or tow. This is true of any working vessel. In the commercial world, a ship under power is productive. If it is anchored, it is doing nothing. If it needs assistance, it is usually helpless. Have you ever felt like you were in any of these conditions?
We often find this pattern in people’s lives. Some seem to be underway and productive—working hard, getting things together, making progress. Others seem to be anchored and “resting” in place. Finally, some appear to need a push or shove. Many in this last category are unaware of their need, but others are searching desperately, crying out their “S.O.S.” This is especially painful to see, especially when it involves people’s spiritual lives.
What can we say about productive people who are like moving ships? God clearly expects His people to reach this point in their lives. We read: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). The instruction here is to move forward in Christian life with power and strength. God’s calling requires Christians to be “under power” to fulfill their calling.
What about those who are anchored in place? Notice how Christ described people who become unproductive: “Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). When the water gets rough, they quickly “drop anchor”—as did the lazy servant in Christ’s parable of the talents: “But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money” (Matthew 25:18). Far from being productive, some people simply quit willfully—they stop working, or in their spiritual lives stop praying, studying or attending church. Some even give up on God completely.
Then, we have what appears to be a very large group—the ones who only seem able to move under the assistance of another. In the book of Acts, we find a powerful example of one such person. When the Ethiopian came reading about Isaiah, the Lord sent Philip to him (Acts 8:26). Asked if he understood, the Ethiopian replied, to Philip, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (v. 31). When Philip preached the gospel, the Ethiopian was quickly baptized, and he set out on a new course in life: one that brought him great joy and purpose (vv. 38-40). And all it took was a little nudge.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way” (Romans 14:13). Do you heed this advice? Do you go out of your way to assist and encourage others? Or, if you are in need, has anyone helped you in a meaningful way? It is no shame to ask for help, but it is a shame to quit dead in the water. Pridefulness is not a Christian quality, as Paul reminds us: “For you see your calling brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called” (1 Corinthians 1:26). We are not so great as to be above asking for help, nor should we ever be above giving help to those who need us.
A little help goes a long way—especially when we feel weak or helpless. And by the power of God’s Spirit—the ultimate help (John 14:16)—even the weak may plot a course toward eternal life. Read our eye-opening booklet Your Ultimate Destiny, and start moving forward today!
An article of related interest may include:
What is the Meaning of Life? Who does God say is happy? What is your ultimate destiny? Do you really know? Does God actually have a plan for YOU personally? | <urn:uuid:17e4aada-23c1-426a-8c99-035e6bd9406b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cogwriter.com/news/doctrine/lcg-need-to-be-towed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967042 | 967 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Materializing 'Six Years': Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art
- Dates: September 14, 2012 through February 17, 2013
- Collections: Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
MATERIALIZING SIX YEARS LUCY R. LIPPARD AND THE EMERGENCE OF CONCEPTUAL ART
Chronicling the years 1966 to 1972, Lucy R. Lippard’s groundbreaking book Six Years, published in 1973, catalogued an explosion of radical creative experimentation that became known as Conceptual art. Lippard’s expansive notion of Conceptual art—which she described as “work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious and/or ‘dematerialized’”—engaged a generation of artists from around the world, connecting their investigations to the ideological struggles of the times and prefiguring her own work in cultural criticism, feminist politics, and advocacy for feminist art.
As Conceptual art began to intersect with Pop, Minimal, Post-Minimal, and process art in the mid-1960s, it became clear that this next phase of creative exploration would test the limits of what a work of art might look like and what it could be made of, as well as how it could be critically evaluated and effectively displayed. Lippard’s book identified diverse practices that shared a spirit of inquiry into the nature of art itself, and made no effort to impose analytical judgments, incorporating textual pieces, various forms of documentation, and excerpted quotes into a listing of straightforward facts, with very little commentary, allowing the artworks and artists to speak for themselves.
This exhibition gathers examples of these creative experiments to evoke a time when the challenges to Cold War American society represented by the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and anti–Vietnam War movements were paralleled by artistic rebellion against the entrenched formalism that had reigned in New York cultural circles since the 1940s. Materializing “Six Years” follows the book’s chronology, presenting artworks and events specifically noted in its pages and interweaving the development of Lippard’s own approach to curatorial projects, criticism, creative collaboration, and political activism. Reflecting Lippard’s growing commitment to political activism, specifically her increasing dedication to feminism in the 1970s, Materializing “Six Years” ends with an epilogue: her groundbreaking 1973 exhibition of women Conceptual artists. Presented just after the period covered by Six Years, that exhibition demonstrated feminism’s place within the Conceptual art movement as well as its impact on Lippard and many of the artists of her generation.
After repeatedly hearing the claim that there were no women making Conceptual art, Lippard decided to set the record straight. In 1973, she organized a final “numbers” exhibition; this one featured only women artists and illustrated the complex relationship between Conceptual and feminist art. The show, called c. 7,500, took its title from the population of Valencia, the location of the California Institute of the Arts, its first venue, and toured to a number of institutions across the United States before ending its run in London.
Ideologically as well as chronologically, c. 7,500 marks a departure and developmental leap from projects undertaken during the period of Six Years. Unlike the detached approach of much earlier Conceptual art, many of these instruction-based projects introduced personal content and brought the artists’ individual differences and experiences to the foreground. As a group, these artists powerfully highlighted the conceptual and socially constructed nature of identity and gender, and affirmed that it was appropriate for advanced art to investigate how these identities are formed. Through c. 7,500, Lippard positioned feminist art, often criticized as less intellectual than “pure” Conceptualism, as instead extending its theoretical claims into new territory. | <urn:uuid:dc77eca9-2ec0-4bae-a51f-b5549199fc19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/3264/Materializing_Six_Years%3A_Lucy_R._Lippard_and_the_Emergence_of_Conceptual_Art/image/11497/Materializing_Six_Years%3A_Lucy_R._Lippard_and_the_Emergence_of_Conceptual_Art._%7C09142012-02032013%7C._Installation_view./right_tab/posse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962337 | 822 | 1.710938 | 2 |
A Glimpse of the Other China
by C. Fred Bergsten, Peterson Institute for International Economics
Op-ed for The Washington Post
© The Washington Post
Several recent developments have highlighted the dark side of contemporary China. The reconnaissance plane incident is a reminder of the truculence of the People's Liberation Army and the extreme nationalism among the Chinese people. The oppression of Falun Gong and the arrests of foreign scholars, as described so chillingly by Professor Gao Zhan in the Post on Aug. 26, underline the continuing repression of some human rights.
But there is another China that is much more congenial to American and global values, much more open and pluralistic in its demeanor, and hence much more promising for a peaceful and cooperative future. That China was on vivid display at a recent two-day conference in Beijing on China's economic reforms, sponsored by Premier Zhu Rongji and managed by the Development Research Center of the State Council, the highest governmental authority in the country and rough equivalent of our Cabinet.
Several dozen foreign businessmen and economists participated in the session along with a large number of ministers, other top officials and nongovernmental economists from China itself. The conference was stunning for its openness and candor. It was as freewheeling and spirited as any seminar at my Institute for International Economics, and any other American think tank or university: Chinese government ministers sharply criticized each other. The minister for economic restructuring berated the ministers who continue to run and defend the failing state enterprises. Nongovernmental economists stridently attacked the ministers and other government officials. One harangued the government for running an "approvals economy" that was bereft of real reform. Corruption, manipulation of data, the continued coddling of vested interests and other highly sensitive issues were openly discussed. Prominent government critics were accorded full opportunity to join the discussion. One, Mao Yushi of the Unirule Institute, has been publicly chastised and mildly disciplined for espousing political and economic reform. He was seated in the front row and participated fully in the debate.
There were several conferees from other parts of Asia. A high official from South Korea observed that such openness would be impossible in his own country. He and others doubted that it would even be countenanced in Japan. The substantive focus of the conference was equally striking. Nearly all of the ministers had clearly internalized China's pending entry to the World Trade Organization, were in the process of altering their policies and practices to conform to its rules, and were in fact using its requirements aggressively as justification for reforming their economy and greatly increasing its transparency.
The most striking presentation came from the minister for legislative affairs, who reported that he was revising more than 100 current statutes to bring China into compliance. Imagine the reactions from our congressmen and women if they were told that a US official was making such wholesale changes in American legislation to meet the standards of an international organization. Virtually all of Chinese participants in the conference, including those from the government, fully realize the significance of what they are doing.
The substance of the reforms and the open process through which they are being developed and implemented, albeit limited to economic issues, have the potential to eventually transform the entire society. Though there was no overt criticism of the ruling Communist Party, the very existence of such a conference indicates that even the party recognizes that reform is necessary and inevitable.
The economic role of the Chinese government is changing profoundly, with the state-owned sector having already shrunk from essentially 100 percent in 1979 to less than 40 percent today. It is hard to see how the authoritarian political system the state seeks to preserve can be sustained in such a climate. The Chinese economists at the conference, many of whom have studied in the United States or otherwise spent time here, clearly believe that such a transformation is inevitable.
These policy directions have been set at the very top of the Chinese political leadership. At a small meeting in November 1999, just after China and the United States had negotiated the basic terms for China's accession to the WTO, President Jiang Zemin indicated that he saw China's membership "in the context of our country's deep sleep during its feudal period while the West was advancing smartly after the Renaissance."
His comment recalls the disdainful response of the emperor of China to the proposal by a British envoy in 1793 to initiate trade between the two countries, to the effect that "You have nothing that we want." China' top leaders understand that the country must never again cut itself off from the world, or else it would once more become poverty-stricken and defenseless. Was it all a show for gullible foreigners and even gullible Chinese? There is no way to know for sure. But it seems implausible, even in such a politically regimented country, that a charade involving hundreds of top intellectuals from such a wide variety of positions could be pulled off or even seriously attempted.
Of course, the United States and the rest of the world would be irresponsible to drop their guard against the risks of a hostile China as that country resumes its role as a global power. But we would be at least as foolish to ignore the open and pluralistic China revealed by the events and attitudes described, which is bound to compete aggressively for the soul of the country and its future leadership, along with the ongoing reforms themselves and the country's obvious openness to new ideas.
There can be little doubt which China we prefer and which China we hope will emerge victorious. Nor is there any doubt that democracy led by economic reform has prevailed in a variety of other national settings, ranging from Franco's Spain and Pinochet's Chile to Korea and Taiwan in East Asia itself. We should clearly do all we can to support and strengthen the Chinese reformers, to both assure their success and speed the day when it will prevail. | <urn:uuid:a2c7632d-d2a0-4fe7-9291-5c4e5f5df893> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iie.com/publications/opeds/print.cfm?ResearchId=419&doc=pub | 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 | 0.972878 | 1,189 | 1.617188 | 2 |
| Quote #7
Fire Chief: "'The Dog and the Cow,' an experimental fable. Once upon a time another cow asked another dog: 'Why have you not swallowed you trunk?' 'Pardon me,' replied the dog, 'it is because I thought that I was an elephant.'"
This little story in many ways explains the play as a whole and actually the Theatre of the Absurd itself. As we discuss in "Versions of Reality," it's nearly impossible to tell whether the animals in the story are cows, dogs, or elephants. It's even harder to figure out why anyone would want to tell such a weird and seemingly pointless story. The nonsensical nature of the fable is reminiscent of The Bald Soprano and many other Absurdist plays. Many audiences have probably wondered what the ultimate point of watching such crazy plays is. In the Absurdist view, however, the "real" world is just as nonsensical and pointless. It's up to each one of us to make sense of it for ourselves.
| Quote #8
Fire Chief: "'The Head Cold.' My brother-in-law had, on the paternal side, a first cousin whose maternal uncle had a father-in-law whose paternal grandfather had married as his second wife a young native whose brother he had met on one of his travels, a girl of whom he was enamored and by who he had son who married an intrepid lady pharmacist who was none other than the niece of an unknown fourth-class petty officer in the Royal Navy and whose adopted father […]" (392)
Does this story make your head hurt? Even this little chunk we've included above makes us feel a little dizzy, and the whole version is three times as long. The Fire Chief goes on and on merely recounting lots of people and the ways in which they are connected. Most of these people don't even seem particularly remarkable, like the "unknown fourth-class petty officer" mentioned above. Why is the Fire Chief wasting our time with this? Especially since the point of the whole story is nothing more than the fact that all these people once "caught a cold" (405). That seems like a pretty pointless point to make. Of course, to an Absurdist most every point is pointless. In some ways, this seemingly meaningless story could be seen as highlighting the idea that all our lives are meaningless. We're all running around doing lots of things that don't ultimately add up to much in the end.
| Quote #9
Fire Chief: "all this is very subjective…but this is my conception of the world." (466)
It looks like the Fire Chief is an Absurdist. The idea that everything is "subjective" is at the heart of the philosophy. Absurdists believe that the universe is ultimately unknowable and that reality itself is uncertain. It's up to each individual to decide what is meaningful and indeed what is real for themselves. In a way, this is the light at the end of the tunnel for what is often accused as being a pretty depressing philosophy. It doesn't have to be a bad thing that nothing matters. In a way, the idea can be seen as liberating. We're all totally free to make our own choices, as long as we're willing to live with their consequences. | <urn:uuid:bdacc60c-deba-4642-bed6-0ae65bccab21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shmoop.com/bald-soprano/philosophical-viewpoints-the-absurd-quotes-3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982006 | 679 | 1.5625 | 2 |
What would drive a crowd of unionized state employees to boo the very governor they helped elect? The answer is about $83 billion of pension underfunding, a broken labor contract and a lot of jobs in jeopardy.
When Gov. Pat Quinn stood before a crowd of fellow Democrats and union members on Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair last month, the usually sympathetic group booed so loudly that not a word of Quinn’s speech could be heard. Quinn wasn’t the only Democrat on the stage booed that day, but he was the main target.
From the union members’ perspective, Quinn’s offenses are many. He has attempted to close union-staffed facilities across the state, ignored union contracts calling for raises, attempted to force union workers to take pay cuts and supported legislation to limit union membership. That seems like a slap in the face for union members, whose campaign contributions and union dues pumped money into Quinn’s 2010 campaign for governor. Now, they say Quinn is acting less like a labor-friendly Democratic governor and more like his Republican opponent, Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, who proposed cutting state agencies 10 percent across the board.
But Quinn isn’t the only worry for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31, the largest union representing state employees in Illinois. AFSCME now faces one of the biggest challenges in its 60-year history: how to address the underfunded state pension systems. The system has an estimated unfunded liability of $83 billion, caused mainly by years of lawmakers diverting money intended for pension payments into other funds. In the resulting political battle, the focus isn’t on holding lawmakers accountable, but on what concessions state employees should make to fix the problem.
Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, portrays this as a critical time for the union. The political climate has soured toward unions, which Bayer says are portrayed by anti-union interests as “fat cats” living on the public dole, and AFSCME now faces “unprecedented” challenges to both its members and its influence. And because the union represents state workers who perform vital public services ranging from issuing driver’s licenses to investigating child abuse, he reasons that if the union suffers, everyone suffers – from unionized state employees to private-sector non-union workers.
AFSCME itself began in 1932 in Wisconsin, during a period of often violent confrontations between workers and businesses. For the public employees who organized, their concern was less about work conditions or wages and more about losing their jobs because of patronage – the practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs. The first public union in Illinois was formed in 1942, and numerous state and local government workers began organizing local unions during the 1950s and 1960s.
AFSCME is a branch of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the main union organization in the United States, which covers 56 trade unions and about 12 million workers. The Illinois branch of AFSCME, known as Council 31, has about 75,000 members and represents dozens of public employee labor unions across the state, including a handful of unions in Springfield.
A bevy of threats
AFSCME members currently face several threats to their jobs, pay and benefits, and they’ve been handed some resounding defeats lately.
In June, lawmakers passed a law requiring state retirees to pay premiums for health insurance, prompting at least two lawsuits – one from a group of unions including AFSCME and another from retired appellate justice Gordon Maag – which claim the law diminishes state employee pension benefits in violation of the Illinois Constitution. The lawsuits await a court ruling.
In early August, AFSCME began holding emergency meetings to deal with a negotiation proposal by Quinn to reduce union members’ pay in their next contract. That controversy hits an especially raw nerve in the midst of an ongoing court battle over the previous contract. In January 2011, Quinn and AFSCME struck a deal in which AFSCME members would give up half the value of their contractually mandated pay raises in exchange for a promise that Quinn would not lay off 2,600 workers or close any state facilities until July 2011. AFSCME also accepted voluntary furlough days and other concessions to save the state about $50 million.
Quinn later reneged on the deal, saying the Illinois General Assembly hadn’t appropriated money for even the halved raises. AFSCME filed suit, and despite a state arbitrator’s ruling that Quinn should pay the increases, a U.S. district court and a U.S. appellate court both backed Quinn. On Aug. 30, a Cook County judge ordered Quinn to set aside funds to pay the raises in case AFSCME prevails on appeal.
The governor also wants to close seven facilities statewide, including the Jacksonville Developmental Center and the super-maximum security prison at Tamms in southern Illinois. AFSCME filed a lawsuit to stop the Tamms prison closure, saying it would endanger guards and public safety. AFSCME claims that recent searches of guards at Illinois prisons across the state were retaliation for guards speaking out about prison conditions. Speaking to reporters at the Illinois State Fair, Quinn denied the retaliation claim and declined to discuss the issue further.
There are even instances of Quinn’s administration allowing state jobs to be sent outside Illinois. In May, the state awarded a $248,650 contract to Jacksonville, Fla.-based call center company Veritech Solutions to take calls for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation’s mortgage fraud hotline. A separate contract for another state phone bank is currently up for bid.
A brewing battle
AFSCME’s biggest threat is the ongoing battle over pension funding. The outcome of this highly controversial issue could set precedent for years to come and could change how the state’s constitution is interpreted with regard to state employee benefits.
Each of the state’s five pension systems have enough money to pay current retirees for the next several years, according to their annual reports. In fact, Dave Urbanek, spokesman for the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, says TRS could survive until at least 2030 even if the legislature cut its annual appropriation for pension payments by $1 billion. Urbanek says pension underfunding is a long-term problem, not an immediate crisis as it has been portrayed.
While none of the five state pension systems is in danger of collapse any time soon, the cost of benefits is expected to grow faster than the combined value of contributions and the pension systems' income from investments. Put simply, money is expected to go out faster than it will come in. That's why lawmakers passed a law in 1995 requiring the state pension systems to be funded to 90 percent of total liability by 2045. That law requires a “ballooning” state contribution that gets progressively larger with time, putting more strain on the budget.
Henry Bayer, AFSCME’s executive director, says state employees have always contributed their share to the pension system, but lawmakers have not followed suit. Urbanek says, for example, between 1970 and 2011, the legislature redirected $15 billion in funds that should have been invested in TRS.
But Paul Kersey, director of labor policy for the conservative think-tank Illinois Policy Institute, says AFSCME shares some of the blame it assigns to lawmakers.
“A union’s responsibility doesn’t end with negotiating a big pension; they should monitor things to make sure the employer follows through,” Kersey says. “Less energy should have gone into coaxing politicians into making new promises, while more should have gone into making sure they’d keep the ones they’d already made. Some of this is 20-20 hindsight, but at best the union miscalculated badly. At worst, they were indifferent and reckless with their members’ retirements, or are reckless with taxpayer money and didn’t think it ever would run out.”
The variety of proposals to make up the shortfall vary widely in their impact and potential for controversy. The already-enacted law to make retirees pay health insurance premiums would save the state about $1 billion per year, but has spawned a lawsuit and could be ruled unconstitutional because of the Illinois Constitution’s prohibition on diminishing public employee pension benefits.
Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat from Northbrook, introduced a pair of bills in early August that attempt to comprehensively address the pension issue. Those bills would make state employees hired before Jan. 1, 2011, choose between receiving health care benefits as retirees and having raises count toward their pensions. AFSCME is likely to challenge the constitutionality of those bills, which would also gradually shift payment of downstate teacher pension contributions from the state to school districts. A special session day called in August to deal with the pension issue produced no action on those bills.
The Chambers for Pension Reform, a group composed of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and several local chambers, has a more Spartan plan. They say the state should raise the retirement age for state employees, increase the amount employees contribute toward their pensions and reduce the level of benefits that have yet to be earned.
The group’s most controversial idea – shared by the Illinois Policy Institute – is changing pensions from a system in which benefits are defined beforehand to a system in which the state makes no promises about benefits. In the latter scenario, called a “defined contribution” plan, retirees receive whatever they have saved plus whatever the state has contributed toward their pension. AFSCME opposes that idea because it represents the possibility for greatly diminished future benefits.
If the General Assembly adopts any changes along those lines without first getting AFSCME on board, the union is likely to challenge the changes in court. The reason is the Illinois Constitution’s Article XIII, Section 5, which states that membership in the pension system is a contractual right, “the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.” Plans like that of the Chambers for Pension Reform are careful to address only benefits to be earned in the future, which could be interpreted as not impairing benefits already owed.
But AFSCME sees the promise of benefits as a contract itself. When a worker begins employment with the state, the worker is promised certain benefits as a term of employment. For AFSCME, reducing that promise of benefits for people already employed amounts to breaking the contract protected in the state constitution. Whether or not the benefits have been earned to date doesn’t matter in AFSCME’s view.
Should AFSCME lose a court challenge to a plan that amends benefits, it would likely open avenues for more benefit cuts. While the state probably won’t switch state employees to defined contribution plans as the Chambers suggest on this go-round, reform advocates – especially those hostile to the union – could view a court-approved benefit cut as a declaration of open season.
Contrarily, if AFSCME wins such a challenge, it would eliminate talk of reducing benefits and instead focus attention on ways to reduce state spending or increase revenues. In the current political climate – already soured by the 2011 income tax increase that didn’t solve the state’s financial problems – further revenue increases are likely to be considered toxic for any politician seeking reelection.
AFSCME has its own ideas about how the pension issue should be handled. The organization’s pension reform framework states union members would be willing to pay “a little more, even though they have contributed their portion over the years.” That concession would be given in exchange for a promise that the state would pay its share toward the system. AFSCME also calls for closing “tax loopholes” like those that excuse from taxation the offshore profits of oil companies and foreign dividends of large corporations. The union says those changes could generate nearly $900 million annually, all of which AFSCME says should go toward the pension system.
Bayer says the state should go one step further and enact a graduated income tax instead of the current flat tax. A graduated tax would create a higher tax rate for those with larger incomes, which would require a constitutional amendment. A handful of lawmakers have proposed such legislation, to no avail.
Budget trumps alliances
How did this political climate develop, in which a Democratic governor who has long touted his support for unions now pursues policies that practically make him the union’s nemesis?
Dr. Kent Redfield, a longtime observer of Illinois politics and a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield, contrasts Pat Quinn with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who created a firestorm last year when he attempted to rescind many collective bargaining rights for state workers in Wisconsin. Quinn and Walker share a desire to improve their respective states’ financial standings, Redfield notes, but their ideology differs. He describes Walker’s views as “free-enterprise, government is the enemy,” while likening Quinn to the good-government political reformers of the 1960s and 1970s.
“Quinn’s trying to balance the budget,” Redfield says. “He’s ambitious. I take him at his word in the sense that he wants to solve the state’s problems. It really all goes back to the budget. The hole was so deep that even with the temporary tax increase, you couldn’t get your way out of it.”
That massive budget hole – as much as $8 billion by some estimates – caused Quinn to shift from idealistic to pragmatic, Redfield explains.
“The things that you can control with the state budget are public employee wages, hiring, pensions, that kind of thing,” he says. “There aren’t a lot of options on the expenditure side that don’t involve employees. Even if you fired every state worker, you wouldn’t have enough money to get that hole filled, so it isn’t the public employees who cause the problems, but there aren’t a lot of other options for cuts.”
Henry Bayer, the AFSCME executive director, says another force is at work. He notes that former Gov. Jim Thompson – a Republican – signed the law that gave public employee unions statewide the power of collective bargaining.
“It’s hard to fathom a Republican governor signing a collective bargaining bill now, because politics have moved so far to the right,” Bayer says. “The political climate has changed dramatically, and the financial and business community has more say in shaping public policy. It’s a much more conservative climate that is hostile to working people.”
But while Bayer classifies the pension reform battle as “an assault on the middle class,” the Illinois Policy Institute sees the situation as the natural outcome of years of mismanagement.
“What’s assaulting them is reality,” says Paul Kersey, director of labor policy for IPI. “Illinois’ pension system is unsustainable. Without reforms, there is a distinct possibility that the systems will eventually collapse, leaving retirees with close to nothing. Organizations pushing reform such as the Illinois Policy Institute could well prove to be state employees’ best friends.”
Kersey sees AFSCME and other unions as roadblocks rather than victims.
“AFSCME is increasingly becoming a negative force in Illinois, not just for taxpayers but for their own members,” he says. “First, the political machine AFSCME and other government unions have built is an obstacle to creating the leaner government Illinois needs. But perhaps worse, without reform it is AFSCME’s own members who will be hurt. If the pensions are not reformed, we will get to a point when the funds run dry and it’s state workers who don’t get their retirement money.”
Meanwhile, Redfield says AFSCME’s voice on the pension issue is less influential because of the perception that there aren’t many options for reform except cuts to state employee pay, pensions and benefits.
“People who are their traditional friends are really under a lot of cross pressure,” he says, adding that the political debate sometimes misses the mark. “Talking about ‘greedy public employee unions’ sounds good at one point, until you need a policeman or a fireman, or you want good teachers so your kids can get an education. There’s no Bureau of Waste and Fraud. The abstract is very different from the reality. The state provides essential services.”
Those services could suffer if Illinois doesn’t get back on track soon because the state “is getting a reputation as a very undependable employer,” Redfield says.
“You want the best and the brightest to come work for your universities, your schools, your regulators, your prisons, and all of that,” he explains. “If you don’t get good, confident people, then you’re going to get even less in the way of services because they’ll be inefficie
nt and ineffective.”
The current election cycle could mean even more trouble for AFSCME because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which rejected limits on independent expenditures favoring a particular political candidate. Because Republicans tend to have more money to spend on election advertising, Redfield expects Democratic election messages to be overshadowed and diluted.
Bayer says he has seen the effects of the decision already in congressional campaigns.
“There’s no way the labor movement can raise anywhere near the amount of money they have,” he says, referring to business interests.
Meanwhile, both Bayer at AFSCME and Paul Kersey at IPI recognize the importance of this moment in political history.
Kersey sees the circumstances as an awakening of people concerned with government waste.
“The Wisconsin reforms, the passage of right-to-work in Indiana, and Michigan’s labor reforms over the past few years have woken up people in the Midwest,” he says. “Government unions having a monopoly over public services is becoming an antiquated way of living, and that’s why Illinoisans are pushing back.”
Bayer, on the other hand, sees it as part of a nationwide battle between business interests and workers.
“There are strong forces out to destroy the unions,” he says. “They want to weaken the labor movement so they can have their way politically. We’re prepared to do battle. We think this assault on the middle class, if successful, is going to change this country.”
Contact Patrick Yeagle at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:a5ee6b80-0b1e-4819-98af-2ab54fdc7dd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-10467-afscme-under-siege.html | 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 | 0.962945 | 3,926 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Returning Soldiers and PTSD Explored in AFSC Forum
By Lydia Kirior
On July 6, 2011 a public forum on the psychological effects of war was held at Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting House. This forum was organized by the AFSC Iowa Peace Building Program as part of its effort to create awareness on the multiple and varied costs of war. The forum focused its evaluation on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Acording to The People's Voice, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of life-threatening events.... People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person's daily life.”
To examine and explore the lingering effects of PTSD on soldiers returning from combat, selected chapters from the Home Box Office documentary, WARTORN 1861-2010 were viewed at the AFSC forum….
The forum’s panel guests included Mollie Michelfelder, MSW, LISW, specializing with PTSD clients, including returning soldiers; Greg Helle, Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Vet, CPA accountant (retired), author and PTSD survivor; and Bob Kraus, also a combat veteran.
Helle shared his personal struggles with PTSD. The theme most evident in his case was the military and society’s stigma on PTSD. Mollie brought her expertise on the clinical aspects of behavioral health issues, effectively explored the symptoms of PTSD and discussed available treatment.
Kathleen, AFSC Iowa Program Coordinator, acknowledged the attendance of members of the Veteran for Peace. Bob Kraus discussed his homeless veterans project, whose aim is to provide wraparound services to veterans in a “one-stop shop” environment/campus.
From this forum it is clear that the psychological effects of war impact not only those who see combat -- their families likewise are secondarily impacted. Often therapy sessions will include family members in the therapist’s effort to implement a system of care approach to bring the victim of PTSD to a point where they can live a meaningful and productive life.
While this effort to help those who suffer from combat experience are well-meaning and applauded, we want to emphasize the most effective intervention is to deal with the true “source” that initiates PTSD. That source is W-A-R. If we can advocate for peaceful and political resolutions to problems and totally abstain from military and violent responses to disagreements among nations, then PTSD (as it relates to war) will be a non-factor. | <urn:uuid:2a23e3c7-021d-433f-909e-13d2f09e8758> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://afsc.org/story/returning-soldiers-and-ptsd-explored-afsc-forum | 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 | 0.95279 | 546 | 1.835938 | 2 |
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Columbus visited these islands during his second voyage and thought they were so beautiful that he named them after the 11,000 virgins of Saint Ursula. Burt tours the three major islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, explains why they are the freest free ports in the Caribbean, what to buy, what to eat, why Bluebeard's beard was blue, what are the advantages of a yacht charter vacation, what it's like to take a guided tour of a coral reef in a diver's helmet, and how to have a virtual wedding on the internet.
Sorry, this episode has no rebroadcasts scheduled at this time. | <urn:uuid:fec12102-cbd0-4e67-a440-8c16b96e80e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vpt.org/show/8734/308 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954868 | 168 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Victory for tech industry: H1B visas could double
Washington, March 21 : In a major victory for the tech industry, US visas for high-skilled foreign workers, including those from India, could double under a bipartisan Senate immigration plan, according to the Washington Post.
The proposal would also give permanent legal status to an unlimited number of students who earn graduate degrees from US universities in science, technology, engineering or math, the influential US daily reported citing people familiar with the negotiations.
The number of H1Bs visas for highly skilled workers would approximately double from the current limit of 65,000 per year under the plan of eight senators working on a deal between the Congress and the White House to overhaul the immigration system, it said.
Critics suggest that H1B programme has become a way for outsourcing firms to bring lower-paid employees to the US. Most of the top 10 employers of H1B visa holders, for instance, are India-based technology consultancies with large US operations,
Those firms often train workers in the United States before sending them back home to do the same jobs for considerably less money, according to critics cited by the Post.
The Post cited these critics as saying that companies commonly use the visa to bring employees from India to work in the US for up to three years, train them and then return them to India to continue the same work, often for a US company buying the services from a contractor.
But advocates for tech companies welcomed the developments, describing the still-evolving immigration plan as a potential watershed moment.
"We're encouraged," Scott Corley, executive director of Compete America, a coalition of companies that includes Intel, Google, IBM and other tech giants, was quoted as saying by the Post.
The foreign-worker piece of the immigration debate has been one of the thorniest for the eight senators, who are trying to reach a full agreement among themselves by Friday, the daily said. Staffers will then take the next two weeks to draft a bill.
The Post citing familiar with the talks said the senators group has agreed to a citizenship plan that would immediately legalise millions of undocumented immigrants, including about 250,000 Indians, but would require certain expenditures on border security and internal enforcement before allowing people to gain a path to citizenship. | <urn:uuid:ad35be54-3933-4e00-9b20-8de3d6def0b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-145733.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965876 | 466 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Melissa Walker: The art therapy is provided to every service member that comes through the NICoE program. It's part of their standard of care, which is huge, because, in a lot of facilities or institutions, it's a complementary alternative. But here it is the norm. And the treatment team has really grasped it as an important piece to understanding person as a whole, we're all about holistic care. So I can attend the treatment team meetings, and we all talk about the cases, and then I can actually show them the artwork. So a lot of times there are things that maybe they hadn't seen -- they couldn't see -- through verbal interaction that is there in the artwork. It's just really been amazing to be a part of this integrated team that really respects and responds to art therapy.
Jo Reed: That was Melissa Walker, she designed and coordinates the Healing Arts program at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Welcome to Arts Works, the program that goes behind the scenes with some of the nation's great artists to explore how art works.
I'm your host Josephine Reed.
Because of superb and rapid medical treatment, soldiers who are wounded in combat are surviving more traumatic injuries than previously. And while this is undoubtedly a blessing, it also brings new challenges. We find many of the returning wounded veterans grappling with traumatic brain injuries, or multiple blast injuries, coupled with post traumatic stress.
That's where the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (or NICoE) comes in. It's a four week program for service members suffering from traumatic brain injury, PTSD and other psychological trauma. This state of the art facility on the Walter Reed campus provides an integrated approach to treatment in a holistic, patient-centered environment. Along with psychotherapy and physical therapy, the Healing Arts Program which consists of the visual arts , music, and writing, plays a central role in the assessment and treatment of these veterans.
The National Endowment for the Arts is partnering with NICoE to investigate the impact that arts interventions may have on the psychological and cognitive health of these wounded veterans. In fact, beginning this past January, NICoE has incorporated the NEA's writing program Operation Homecoming into therapeutic sessions with patients and their families.
We're following the progress of the Healing Arts program in all our social media and in our magazine NEA Arts. Later in the summer, there's a special issue of NEA Arts focusing on arts and the military, and I'll be talking to the Operation Homecoming writing instructor, Ron Capps. Today, Melissa Walker is going to give us an overview of the Healing Arts program, focusing on its visual art component. As the program's designer and coordinator as well as its sole visual arts' therapist, Melissa is an enthusiastic and thoughtful guide to the role that art can play in healing.
Melissa begins her four week program with the service members by having them make masks; she closes the program by asking them to create a montage.
When I spoke with her in the art therapy studio at NICoE, the colorful artwork created by the service members lined the walls of the big open space, providing snapshots of the their struggles with wartime memories and the transition to a civilian life.
I began my conversation with Melissa by asking about the service members who come to NICoE. Who were they and how were they selected for this extraordinary program?
Melissa Walker: The service members that are selected to come to NICoE, that are referred to come to NICoE, are normally complicated cases, and that they haven't responded to conventional treatment in the way that they'd hoped to or their providers would hope to. Often it's their primary providers or their home bases that are referring them to the program. They have had either multiple blast injuries or traumatic brain injuries, and they're also dealing with psychological health issues, so it has to be a combination of both, so that's that co-morbidity. They come here and they are exposed to just a vast array of therapies and modalities, alternative medicine, conventional medicine, and they have more sessions with providers in four weeks than they would in years in a conventional outpatient treatment facility.
Jo Reed: You designed the Healing Arts Program at NICoE. What went into your thinking when you created the program?
Melissa Walker: When I first arrived at NICoE, I'd actually just been working at Walter Reed on an inpatient psychiatric unit for a few years, so I had a good idea of what I might be seeing here, some of the psychological health issues, but I knew this would be a little bit of a different population, just because of the co-morbidity, the mix of the traumatic brain injury and the posttraumatic stress, and other underlying psychological issues. So I really wanted to come in with an open mind. I realized rather quickly that while it's was going to be a set amount of time, it was two weeks, we've expanded to four since then, that I would have the opportunity to develop a curriculum, which was rather exciting because I knew that I could really hone in on the modalities that I've seen that have really worked, the directives that I've seen that have really worked. So in order to do that, I decided to meet with each service member individually, and really talk about history, their goals for treatment, and figure out what it is that they're really trying to address while they're here. And one of the main themes that I saw was the search for identity. A lot of them are in transitional phases, due to the fact that they've been injured. It changes what they can do within the military, and they're trying to figure out this new sense of self, this new self they're developing as they heal. So I quickly realized that I needed to do something surrounding identity, and one of the activities that I noticed the inpatient psychiatric patients really picked up on was the mask-making, and I started implementing that as a group for the NICoE service members, and they really, really opened up to it. A lot of different themes presented themselves. I was seeing, after a few months, many of them were trying to process their sense of selves, so when they're deployed they felt like they're one person, and when they return home they feel like they're another. And part of the struggle is, of course, re-integrating back into our society and with their families. So it was interesting to see them trying to really understand the parts of the selves, and do you keep them compartmentalized, and what happens when one spills into the other? And then I was also seeing actual pieces of trauma, memories that they'd seen, that'd been frozen in their minds that they wanted to express and then try to start to understand.
Jo Reed: And we're talking about a mask that one would put over one's face?
Melissa Walker: One of the writing instructors here actually likes to say that there's something very interesting about a mask because it can both hide part of your identity, and it also, in this case, it expresses part of the identity. And when I go to introduce them to the directive, I actually say, "Focus on who you are and what it is that you want to express about yourselves. Don't worry so much about the product. It's all about the process. And what you put into it of yourself, your personal stories will make that work rich." And that normally leads them to feel pretty safe to create. It's literally kind of symbolic for themselves, in a sense, it's externalized, it's their own face, it's their own self, that they can then process, they look at, visualize, hold in their hands, and begin to talk about. I think that really helps start to piece together what it is that they're dealing with, what they've seen, what they're going be like moving forward. So it's very interesting, I've had a few service members say there's something so different about the art therapy, because when you are trying to talk about what it is you just created, part of the pressure of describing a horrific moment they remember, or parts of themselves that they're ashamed of, that pressure is alleviated a little bit because everyone's staring at the creation and not right at them. It's a two-way street, really, here. We're into integrated care, but they can then go and talk with the psychiatrists, the psychologists, about what it is that they just created. And sometimes they'll even come up here, the other providers. They'll look at the work and they'll start to process with the patient. Sometimes the service members will open up about things they haven't before with those providers, and then they'll come here and they need to express what it is they just talked about. I see that, too, within the different arts modalities, the different types of creative arts that we provide here.
Jo Reed: Because you provide visual arts, music--
Melissa Walker: The visual arts.
Jo Reed: And writing.
Melissa Walker: Music and-- yes, and creative writing. I've had service members say, "Once I started writing, then I felt safe creating the art." I've had service members say, "The art really got me, you know, wanting to write, because once I started to express all that, I realized I had a story to tell. I had things that I wanted to express, that I wanted everyone to know about, and that felt good, kind of getting off of my chest." And it's the same with the music, and, you know, some things aren't for everybody. But the nice thing is, is normally, of those three creative arts options that we can give them here, they can connect with at least one, if not all.
Jo Reed: What are some of the unique needs that service members who come here have?
Melissa Walker: It ranges, of course, case to case, but the main needs that I see, it's really, the ability to focus. They really want to be able to focus, and their memories aren't the same. And there's the isolation piece of posttraumatic stress, the hyper-vigilance and inability to trust. So one of the things that we're really focused on here is building that community, and helping them know that there is there is support out there, and there are people they can trust with what they've been through. I think many of them feel like they can't open up, because they'll either be judged or they won't understand. And what's lovely about being here is that when you're in a group, specifically for me, what I've seen in the art therapy groups, they'll open up about something, and they're surrounded by their peers, and their peers understand, and they're nodding their heads, and they are really validating what that person has been through. This comes up a lot, and it's a big theme for me, but this need to express themselves, to tell their stories, it's there, and I think we're giving them many different ways to go about that, and it's, as I said, validating, and it's important. It's important for us to know what they've been through, and they don't need to be ashamed.
Jo Reed: I know you have done a great deal of research about how art really helps with healing. Talk a little bit about what you've seen, with the research that went into this.
Melissa Walker: Some of the most interesting research I've seen is the way that the brain works when you're working with the arts. Those who have been traumatized often have a hard time verbalizing what they've been through, because neuroimaging scans have shown that the Broca's area of the brain, which is the speech area of the brain, shuts down when individuals try to recount a trauma. However, the part of the brain that encodes the trauma, the sensory kind of aspects of that-- sight, sounds, smell, feel-- that's the part that lights up, and it's the same part of the brain that you utilize when you're creating art. What's interesting is once. I believe once you create the art, you're utilizing parts of the brain that you don't normally, maybe, or that are accessing those traumas. And then you then verbalize what it is that you were trying to express, that you're then reintegrating the brain, which is how a healthy brain works. The left and right hemispheres communicate with each other. So, scientifically, that's what I believe is happening, and we're looking into how to really see that for ourselves here at the NICoE.
Jo Reed: Well, Melissa, since your therapeutic area is visual arts, I want to focus on that. We talked about masks and how you use them in therapy. Another technique you use is montage. Explain what that is and explain how you use it.
Melissa Walker: I love the idea of the montage. The montage is literally the collaging of different elements of art. So they'll have magazine clippings, they can use clay, they can use buttons, they have everything. Anything that they can get their hands on they're allowed to use in these images, and they really convey very powerful messages. And I love how symbolically the layering of all of these elements-- it's very much like how they come to us. They are layers and layers of complications. I mean, our service members, they have so many different aspects to themselves, they have so many different stressors that many of us may never understand, so, symbolically, they're able to collage and show this through the montage. So montage painting, I felt, would be important to introduce in the third or fourth week that they're here, because they have so much happening, and I think, as they come and they're telling their stories, and the waters clear a little bit, and they start to grasp where it is that they're headed next, and they start to feel a little better, I wanted to give them the opportunity to really focus on how the process is going for them: the NICoE experience, and in more general terms-- past, present, hope for the future. And in many of these montage paintings, what's so great is they can express that there's hope. So we see many montage paintings go from a chaotic past, and then what happened while they were here, as they heal, and a hopeful future. I think that's important, too, to remember to focus on, "I can be better"-- have positive thoughts about the future - it's nice to give them that opportunity.
Jo Reed: When the service members first come, how do they initially respond to the idea of art therapy?
Melissa Walker: I must admit, and I am so used to it, so it never hurts my feelings. At this point, I know the process so well, and I trust it so well, that it does not even affect me, but there are so many smirks in the room
Jo Reed: And rolling eyes?
Melissa Walker: From the moment they sit down for the first session, and I get it. I mean, these are warriors. I just don't think people -- I don't think they even visualize themselves sitting in their uniforms painting, or using clay, or creating a mask. But it's all about how it's presented to them. They're surrounded by beautiful work of their peers. It's so powerful, and I think many of them can connect with the message that the work conveys. And I make sure to tell them that this is just about exploration, and not like your typical art class, where you're going be critiqued or graded, and that it's a judge-free environment for them to just express themselves in a different way than they have before. And, you know, I say, "I know you've been telling your stories over and over to the doctors, and here is just a different way you can tell your story, utilizing, a nonverbal modality." And really, I tell them, "Don't focus on the product or the aesthetic quality of how it looks at the end. Focus on investing yourself into the piece, and that's what'll make it rich." And it's amazing. Every single time - they'll sit for a moment and think about it, and next thing you know, they're in it. They are in the process, and they will sit there for two hours. And afterwards, they'll just be surprised. They'll say, "Wow. I mean, I get it now." Then they'll come back for more, and it is very, very rare that I encounter a service member that won't create art.
Jo Reed: What do you think it is about art that allows for that kind of healing and that kind of expression?
Melissa Walker: I honestly think it's a mixture of things. It's the material itself is alluring, and you have complete control over what you want to create. You have control over that memory, for once, and I think that's very powerful. And then the actual visualization of something, and then the execution of it, and overcoming something that may be a challenge at first, just, I think, allows them a sense of confidence and mastery that they maybe are not getting in other aspects of their lives at this time. And I think at the same time, I mean, it's art, you're using everything. I mean, you're using your hand and eye coordination, your motor skills, you're using different parts of your brain that you maybe don't normally exercise, and it's nonverbal, and I think that they feel safe. I think it's this concrete piece of themselves that they can talk about. They can understand themselves better, and then explain.
Jo Reed: What first drew you to art therapy?
Melissa Walker: I was an artist growing up, so I just, completely for myself, understood the power of the use of art in understanding myself, instilling confidence, and having something that I could call my own. I went to undergrad for art education, but I always had an interest in psychology, I had a minor in psych. And when I went to teach, I realized there's something more to this. I have the utmost respect for teachers, but I realized I wanted to be able to get to know each student better than I could in that scenario. So I continued on, I got my master's in art therapy at New York University, and it was this wonderful mix of psychotherapy and theory and art, and it was just -- I loved it. It was perfect. And while I was in grad school, I was an intern at Bellevue Hospital on an inpatient unit, and I knew that I-
Jo Reed: In New York City?
Melissa Walker: Yes, in New York City. And I realized that I really did have a love for trauma and psychiatry and psychology. So I decided that's where I want to go. I want to do something with that. I don't know where it will be, I'll move if I have to. And up came this announcement for Walter Reed, and I looked at it and said, "That's exactly what I need to do." And it was interesting because I have military history in my family, and my grandfather both are veterans. And my father was also a corpsman. So, I had military history, but the most important piece of that history was that my mother's father was wounded in the Korean War, and I believe I grew up around somebody who was dealing with posttraumatic stress. So for me, it was very interesting to kind of connect, like, "This is the effect that war has on somebody," and, it's sad because we didn't really have the same name for it then, and the treatments that we do now, and, , they had, of course, different names for it-- shellshock, a thousand-mile stare, but I think that left an impression on me, and so I was always very interested, and I just kind of gravitated towards the education of trauma, and understanding how to treat it. So it came full circle.
Jo Reed: It sure did. How long have you been working with the military now?
Melissa Walker: I started working for the DoD in 2008, so I'm coming up on four years, and it's just been humbling. I'm so honored to have worked with this population. They're special, they really are.
Jo Reed: We have seen research about the benefits of creative therapies as part of treatment plans. Can you just talk a little bit about how the art therapy is integrated into their treatment.
Melissa Walker: I'm very fortunate to be working among colleagues that believe in the power of art therapy, and have actually, it is implemented, and it is integrated into the treatment team. It's been so interesting, because we all talk to each other. We communicate about each case, each service member, and I'm actually able to use the art itself, and show them, the providers, what the service member created, and talk about the symbolism that he or she wanted to depict, and it helps the treatment teams gain a whole picture of the person. So a lot of times, there are things that maybe they hadn't seen -- they couldn't see -- through verbal interaction that is there in the artwork. I think that they're very accepting of this as an alternative medicine and psychotherapy. And service members are opening up about things that they hadn't before, and I think that's huge. And helping instill hope for things that they're capable of, that they can overcome challenges, that they can move forward.
Jo Reed: What makes you feel very successful here? Or "satisfied." That's probably a better word.
Melissa Walker: I'm most satisfied-- I'm probably what kind of keeps me going are the, as I like to call them, and I think many art therapists before me like to call this moment, it's the "aha moment," and that's when a service member really just, they look at what they've done, and all the pieces fall into place, and then they express what they've done, and they say, "I can't believe I just said that," or "That was so enjoyable." "That was really relaxing," or, "I really get this." This moment of - it just really connects, and it's art. It's so neat to me to watch it work. And I talked about really trusting the process, but it's incredible. And I think it's just amazing when they connect with it in such a way that they say, "This is the thing. This is what helped me." One service member said, "This was the key. This was everything that was bothering me in one place, finally, and I could talk about it." And he took his mask with him and shared it with his psychologist post-discharge, I think in every session for quite a while, just to continue to talk about what it meant to him. So to have that much weight and importance and personal meaning put into something that they've created is powerful and special, and that's when I'm satisfied: they get it.
Jo Reed: What's surprised you in your work?
Melissa Walker: Oh, gosh, everything. With this population, specifically, I was so surprised by their openness and their willingness and their bravery to dive in to the arts, which is, many times, something that they had never really explored before. So that was a wonderful surprise, to see them hungry for this, and then really respond. All the time, I'll sit in a group, and I'll look around, and I'll see all the service members focused on their work, and I just can't help but think... sometimes it's just like... I don't know how I can put this. I mean, it works. Oh, my gosh! This thing that I loved and studied and wanted to share is working. They're really responding to it. They really love it, and for me, it was not so much a surprise, because, as my intuition said, "This is what I need to do, and this is what people need, and I need to be an advocate for this, and help people feel safe to try it." But the fact that, you know, you look around and you see it, and I have these moments where it's just never gets old. Every new piece of work is a surprise.
Jo Reed: Melissa Walker, thank you. Really, thank you.
Melissa Walker: Thank you.
Jo Reed: And thank you for the fantastic work that you do.
Melissa Walker: Thank you very much.
Jo Reed: It's my pleasure. Thank you.
That was Melissa Walker. She coordinates the Healing Arts Program at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (or NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
You've been listening to Artworks produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. Adam Kampe is the musical supervisor.
Excerpts from Mabel Kelly from the CD "Morning Aire," performed by Sue Richards used courtesy of Maggie's Music
Original guitar music composed and performed by Jorge F. Hernandez.
The Art Works podcast is posted every Thursday at www.arts.gov. And now you subscribe to Art Works at iTunes U -- just click on the iTunes link on our podcast page.
Next week, filmmaker Na'alehu Anthony.
To find out how art works in communities across the country, keep checking the Art Works blog, or follow us @NEAARTS on Twitter.
For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening. | <urn:uuid:cc6db1bf-7bc4-42a3-b4bf-ac856d029cad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arts.endow.gov/av/avCMS/Walker-podcast-transcript.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985328 | 5,384 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Frozen Charlotte and Other Stories
February 23 - March 31, 2012
Thurs., Feb 23 from 6pm to 8pm
Martha Posners work is marked by an emotional rawness which is due in part to her evocative and corporeal transformation of materials: beeswax, synthetic hair, pigment, mud, fabric and fibers. (Ann Landi, ArtNews) Her sculpture and drawing combine autobiography, mythology, alchemy, history and fairy tales.
In her earlier work, Posners signature garments are empty vessels filled with associations. In the artists newest sculptural series, Under, the previously omitted figures have taken form. Their life-size child-like bodies are caught in a moment of transformation. The implied movements and added life forms suggest pagan mythology yet leave themselves open to other stories. In addition to the sculptural work, a Victorian doll that was given to girls as a cautionary tale at the turn of the 20th century inspires the drawings in the Frozen Charlotte Series. All the work addresses the questions at the core of Posners practice: What makes an object greater than its materials? Why is the mask of a shaman or the surface of a Greek icon more than feathers, wood and paint? When is the moment of transformation?
Martha Posner has had solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad: Centro Cultural de Cooperacion, Buenos Aries, Argentina; Heidi Cho Gallery, New York City; The Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; The Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ; Albright College Museum, Reading, PA; The Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL and The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland OH, among others. Her work is held by numerous private and public collections including The George Gund Foundation, The Allentown Art Museum, The Butler Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH; and the Great Northern Corporate Center, Cleveland, OH. She has received the Mary H. Dana Award from Rutgers University, The Experimental Printmaking Award from Lafayette College as well as Fellowships from The Ragdale Foundation and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Posner lives and works on a farm in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania. | <urn:uuid:935ebd25-b944-4264-adad-082fdc8ea5ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://accolagriefen.com/exhibitions/martha-posner-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935039 | 448 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Friday, March 16, 2012
Saint Patrick's Day is upon us, and our Irish president (who traces his family back to the aptly-named village of "Moneygall") is celebrating his roots by spreading the Blarney even thicker than usual.
Specifically, Barack O'Bama says he is now considering opening our nation's strategic oil reserves to help drive down the price of gasoline, and drive up his own plunging poll numbers.
While some might see this as pure politics and sham (or shamrock) policy,
Hope n' Change recognizes that keeping the strategic oil reserve intact is really only of value in case of a far-fetched emergency like the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, or Israel and Iran getting into a shooting war, or Arabs deciding they don't like America. And fortunately, since our Nobel Prize-winning president brought lasting peace to the Middle East, none of those things could possibly happen!
Still, it's odd that until now the president has insisted that there is no relationship between the availability of oil and the price of gas...a belief which has informed his decisions to prevent the Keystone XL pipeline, to shut down oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and bring the issuing of new oil leases to a crawl.
But now he's out on the stump claiming that no one is a bigger proponent of drilling than he is, with the possible exception of Sandra Fluke.
Frankly, Hope n' Change is writing off all of this nonsense as just some good-natured St. Patrick's Day joshing by Mr. O'Bama - none of which should be taken seriously.
And all of which should be washed down with a significant quantity of green beer. | <urn:uuid:6341bda3-34c6-4ab6-8a9a-8f4c52d5305f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/2012/03/green-energy.html?showComment=1331909343900 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968451 | 352 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Father Figure: Matt Keegan Takes on Robert Moses's New York
In his third show at D'Amelio Terras in New York, Matt Keegan explores the iconography of New York. Take, for instance, the show's title, a collaboration with designer David Reinfurt, which replaces the "♥" in "I♥NY" with an apple—and not just any apple, but the logo for De Appel, the contemporary art center in Amsterdam. "I'm very interested in the space between language and photography or language and image, so I love the pause that this may generate for the viewer," Keegan told A.i.A. prior to the opening. The result is a statement that reads pictographically, "I Apple New York," and a set of hermetic references.
Fifteen panels of sheet metal are mounted on three of the gallery's walls, creating an architectural wrap and mat. The colors on the monochrome sheets match those of the bridges that connect the boroughs of New York. On this standardized armature, Keegan scattered 60 photographs he took while walking the city—a meandering set of manhole covers, storefronts, streets, people and objects that are of personal interest and often surprising humor. A portrait of the New York subway ad celebrity, Dr. Zizmor, shows him posing for Keegan's camera. Nearby hang an image of an American Windsor chair in a white apartment, the ad on the back of a U-Haul truck and a nondescript brick wall. All are familiar but disorienting sights. Because of their relative anonymity, most could have been taken on any number of streets in New York's grid.
Not least because Keegan photographs manholes, this show invokes Lawrence Weiner's exploration of New York's urban terrain, In direct line with another and the next (2000). While the title suggests a grid structure, Weiner prints the text on 19 manhole covers scattered below Union Square, creating temporary public monuments of deliberately under-the-radar forms. The two projects are also linked by both artists' interest in revolutionary city planner Robert Moses, whose interventions into the city's public spaces radically re-determined them.
Keegan's 9-minute video, Biography Biographer, features the artist's father, who as a teenager worked as a caddy at Moses's golf club and worked closely with several of Moses's associates. Riffing on the documentary form made popular by PBS, Keegan's video presents a portrait of his father and New York as told through the layered understanding of Robert Moses as a highly contested city planner and architect of New York as we know it.
Keegan's 2008 artist book, AMERICAMERICA, accumulates multiple, inter-generational voices in the art world, all seeking an answer to the question "How did we get here?" This show directs that same question to New York, while focusing on social history, architecture, photography and sculpture. Circulation, a crinkled aluminum wall relief, hangs above the gallery's entrance portal, and can only be read when approached from an angle. | <urn:uuid:34523295-a957-481d-af10-042c62e42c2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/news/2011-05-10/matt-keegan-damelio-terras/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943036 | 642 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Mon March 26, 2012
Supreme Court Justices Weigh Health Care Law
The U.S. Supreme Court signaled Monday that it likely will resolve the constitutional challenge to the Obama health care overhaul, sidestepping the procedural issues that could derail the case until 2015.
The first of the three days of arguments proved, as expected, to be arcane, dense and probably unimportant in the long run. At issue was whether the court could decide the constitutional challenge to the health care law at this point, since to do so would violate the general rule requiring people to pay their taxes first, and then litigate any objection later. That rule was enacted by Congress in 1867 to ensure a steady flow of revenue to run the country. But the court has allowed exceptions to the rule, and during Monday's arguments, the justices seemed inclined to view this case as one of those exceptions.
Because the Obama administration and the challengers want the case resolved now, the justices appointed lawyer Robert Long to defend the proposition that the court should wait to hear any challenge until a penalty is paid in 2015, after the individual mandate kicks in.
Long, however, faced considerable skepticism.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, for instance, asked what the harm would be if the constitutional challenge is resolved now, before any tax penalty is paid.
"What is the parade of horribles that you see occurring?" she asked.
Lawyer Long responded that the government would face a flood of legal challenges to other taxes, thus tying up revenue collection in the courts for years.
Justice Antonin Scalia, tongue firmly in cheek, disagreed. "What's going to happen is you are going to have an intelligent federal court deciding whether you are going to make an exception ... and there will be no parade of horribles because all federal courts are intelligent."
Is The Penalty A Tax?
The justices asked Long why the penalty provision in the health care law is a tax at all, since there is no punishment for failure to pay it.
He replied that the tax penalty is calculated by the IRS, based on income, and collected by the IRS at the time taxes are filed.
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., arguing for the government that the case should go forward, seemed to have a slightly easier time of it, except for one particularly thorny question from Justice Samuel Alito.
"[Solicitor] General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax," Alito said. "Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax."
Verrilli replied that penalties enacted under the congressional taxing power are not necessarily taxes.
Gregory Katsas, representing the challengers, also argued that the court should go ahead and rule on the constitutionality of the law without waiting for someone to be assessed a penalty.
More Sparks To Come
His argument prompted Justice Stephen Breyer to challenge Katsas on Congress' intent when it passed the 1867 law.
"One thing that's relevant in my mind is that taxes are, for better or worse, the life's blood of government," Breyer said. Congress quite reasonably usually requires people to pay their taxes before challenging them in court because to do otherwise would mean that "500 federal judges" would "be substituting their idea" of when there should be an exception to the tax law. By requiring people to pay first and litigate later, he suggested, Congress was ensuring a more orderly process.
Katsas answered that the challengers don't dispute the constitutionality of the tax penalty in the Obama health care law; the challengers only contest the mandate. Chief Justice John Roberts didn't seem to buy the argument.
"Why would you have a requirement that is completely toothless?" he asked. "You buy insurance or else. Or else what? Or else nothing."
If Monday's argument was a hallmark of legal gibberish, Tuesday's argument challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate is likely to provide plenty of fireworks.
The lawyers have already laid the fuses. Tuesday the justices will light them.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. After months of anticipation and preparation, the arguments began with the usual formality.
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: We will hear argument this morning in case number 11-398.
BLOCK: The Supreme Court began hearing three days of arguments on the federal health care law.
SIEGEL: The justices' decision could have a major impact not only on the law but on the upcoming presidential election. And as evidence of the gravity of the case, the court has released same-day audio of today's proceedings - something it rarely does. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg has the story.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEMONSTRATION)
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Outside the court, there were demonstrators chanting, singing and even presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Inside, the court added close to 100 chairs to accommodate as many bigwigs and members of the public as possible. But the dark-suited men and women who sat thigh to thigh in the crowded courtroom were as quiet and well-behaved as kids on the first day of school. The Obama health care law requires all Americans by 2014 to have health care coverage of some sort - Medicaid, Medicare, employer-provided - or if none of these, then you have to buy it individually, or you pay a penalty assessed on your income tax.
The legal problem before the Supreme Court today is that the general rule for challenging taxes or tax penalties is pay first, litigate later. And since nobody will be assessed a penalty until 2015, the question before the court was whether the challenge to other provisions of the law, namely the individual mandate, can proceed. Now, this is where you might expect to hear some riveting argument from the first day with the justices and lawyers engaging in Olympic-style verbal jousting - think again.
JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN: So Reed Elsevier seems in multiple respects on all fours with this case. Why is that wrong?
SOLICITOR GENERAL DONALD VERRILLI: I don't think so, Justice Kagan. We think the closest analogue is the very next provision in the United States Code - 7422(a) - which this court has held is jurisdictional and is phrased in exactly the same way as 7421(a).
TOTENBERG: That exchange between Justice Kagan and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was what it sounded like for most of the hour and a half of argument this morning. The bottom line, however, appeared pretty clear: the justices seemed inclined not to be sidetracked by the 1867 law that generally requires taxes to be paid before they can be challenged in court. Both the administration and the challengers want the case to go forward for different reasons. So the justices appointed lawyer Robert Long to defend the proposition that the court should wait to hear any challenge until a penalty is paid in 2015 after the mandate kicks in. Long, however, had a tough time. Justice Sotomayor wanted to know what would happen if, in this case, you could litigate first and pay later.
JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: What's the parade of horribles that you see occurring?
TOTENBERG: Justice Scalia followed up, tongue firmly in cheek.
JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: What's going to happen is you're going to have an intelligent federal court deciding whether you're going to make an exception. And there will be no parade of horribles because all federal courts are intelligent. So...
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
TOTENBERG: Justice Breyer noted that taxes, for good or ill, are the lifeblood of government, but he wondered since there's no punishment for a failure to pay the individual mandate penalty and since Congress specifically did not call the penalty a tax, why is it, in fact, a tax? Long responded this way.
ROBERT LONG: The amount of the liability and whether you owe the liability is based in part on your income. It's assessed and collected by the IRS.
SCALIA: There's at least some doubt about it, Mr. Long, for the reasons that Justice Breyer said. And I thought that we had a principle that, unless it's clear, courts are not deprived of jurisdiction. And I find it hard to think that this is clear.
TOTENBERG: That last was Justice Scalia again. Solicitor General Verrilli, arguing for the government that the case should go forward, seemed to have a slightly easier time of it, except for this very thorny question from Justice Alito.
JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO: General Verrilli, today, you're arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow, you're going to be back, and you'll be arguing that the penalty is a tax.
TOTENBERG: Verrilli replied that penalties enacted under the congressional taxing power are not necessarily themselves taxes. Representing the challengers, lawyer Greg Katsas also argued that the court should go ahead and rule on the constitutional questions without waiting for someone to be assessed a penalty. The challengers don't dispute the legality of the penalty, he said, only the mandate. Chief Justice Roberts didn't seem to buy that argument.
ROBERTS: Why would you have a requirement that is completely toothless? Pay, you know, buy insurance or else. Or else what? Or else nothing.
GREG KATSAS: Because Congress reasonably could think that at least some people will follow the law precisely because it is the law.
TOTENBERG: If today was a hallmark of legal gibberish, tomorrow's argument challenging the constitutionality of the mandate is likely to provide plenty of fireworks. The lawyers have already laid the fuses. Tomorrow, the justices will light them. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:03db5f2d-5aea-4de6-8636-c98c6843505f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kuer.org/post/supreme-court-justices-weigh-health-care-law | 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 | 0.958478 | 2,127 | 1.570313 | 2 |
On February 25, 2011, a bipartisan group of over 270 state legislators representing 44 states voicing their solidarity with the “Wisconsin Fourteen” state senators and urging them to stand firm in their fight.
.As we reported last week, legislators and advocates in several states are gearing up to oppose legislation that would roll back long-accepted labor standards and weaken prospects for a meaningful economic recovery. Proponents of those measures are polarizing the political climate by vilifying unions and public sector workers. While, in most of these cases, the subject legislation may never be enacted, there is a danger that under cover of such divisiveness, other major anti-labor initiatives could quietly squeak through by being packaged more moderately.
On the heels of December’s tax-breaks-for-unemployment-insurance hostage crisis and news of record levels of profit-making failing to result in job creation, conservatives are planning a slew of attacks on workers’ rights and labor standards in 2011. This exploitation of anger about unemployment and economic insecurity must be exposed as an effort to ensure that everyone becomes a have-not and to guarantee that the Great Recession only ends for a select few.
This week, New York Governor David Paterson signed the Wage Theft Protection Act into law, ending a long grassroots and legislative campaign to address the myriad ways workers are routinely cheated out of a fair day's pay by their employers, all in direct conflict with federal and state wage and hour laws. The problem is widespread, and of colossal proportions in many low-wage industries, including the garment, retail, and service sectors.
Arizona continues to focus on catering to its rightwing ideological zealots rather than addressing its devastating revenue and economic crisis. The most recent example is Arizona Governor Jan Brewer calling the legislature into special session to revise Proposition 108, a controversial ballot measure that was ruled unconstitutional in its original form by the State Supreme Court last week.
April has seen two major industrial accidents that have captured the national eye. Explosions at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana claimed the lives of forty workers and injured thirty-eight. Much of the media attention
on these tragedies has focused on the culpability of employers and enforcement capacity at federal agencies responsible for regulating mine and offshore
drilling safety. However, there are proactive steps states can take to address occupational safety hazards and ensure people do not have to sacrifice their personal safety in exchange for a paycheck. | <urn:uuid:5eb40b77-a63e-4dd0-88a1-de7a4d62a275> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://progressivestates.org/tags/issue/77?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960619 | 505 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Michael Winter shared the link to this video, writing, succinctly, “I think this is important”.
I felt it was a powerful protest against many of the laws, legislations and policies that are being put together, including SOPA and ACTA – and yes, you can argue that the song’s lyrics are America-focussed, and that President Obama did not support SOPA. The point is though that there are some conversations underway the world over that have serious implications for what, how and with whom we share and collaborate with over the Internet.
I was listening to something just the other day where there was a lot of head shaking and ‘doom and gloom’. The suggestion is that without increasing security then cybercrime will erode business’s Intellectual Property, wreck economies, and bring down countries.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I would suggest that locking things down will actually only make things worse…raises the challenge bar, while preventing the openness that may actually be the solution to the issue. What are your thoughts? | <urn:uuid:4879d4e8-e0ab-4f87-a928-9f1721e5b2c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ictenhancedlearningandteaching.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/sharing-openly-on-the-internet-the-solution-or-the-problem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971704 | 226 | 1.632813 | 2 |
CAES Researchers Earn $18.2 Million, Provide Significant Return On Investment For Idaho
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter announced today that the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) during the past year provided Idaho taxpayers with an 11-to-1 return on their $1.6 million investment in the partnership – a rate most investors would envy.
CAES researchers earned $18.2 million in competitive research grants, infrastructure and other funding in federal fiscal year 2011 – which ran through September – pushing the center’s cumulative earnings to $41.9 million.
A University of Idaho economist estimates that CAES generated $26.8 million in regional sales, 366 jobs and $620,000 in tax revenue in fiscal 2011 alone.
“CAES is a great example of what the Idaho universities and Idaho National Laboratory can accomplish by working together,” Governor Otter said. “The CAES partnership has proven to be a great investment for taxpayers, and you’re going to see more of that kind of collaborative public-private effort from my administration in the years to come.”
CAES researchers earned more than 25 different grants and competitive awards in fiscal 2011. Some of the projects funded include: a center that will train engineering students to assess the energy efficiency of manufacturing facilities; researching methods to recover uranium from seawater; a software tool to help developers identify preferred locations for solar energy farms; and developing sensors to monitor conditions inside a nuclear waste container.
“It was a great year for the CAES partnership,” said CAES Director Bill Rogers. “The collaborations we have built between the CAES partner institutions and with industry are starting to flourish and result in new research grants and other funding.”
CAES, which was created in 2005, is a partnership between Idaho National Laboratory and the State of Idaho through its three researcher universities – Boise State University, Idaho State University and University of Idaho.
The State of Idaho has contributed $4.8 million over the past three years – $1.6 million annually – to help support university researchers’ involvement in the CAES partnership.
The U.S. Department of Energy and Battelle Energy Alliance, the contractor that runs Idaho National Laboratory, also have contributed significantly to the partnership.
Battelle Energy Alliance recently invested more than $6 million to equip the CAES Microscopy and Characterization Suite (MaCS) with an atom probe and other high-end instruments to advance materials research. The lab also provided CAES with $1.4 million in funding for exploratory research projects.
For more information about the CAES partnership, visitwww.caesenergy.org. | <urn:uuid:0c98509d-89ce-43e8-94fa-c12713e3b0f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://commerce.idaho.gov/news/2011/10/caes-researchers-earn-18.2-million-provide-significant-return-on-investment-for-idaho.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934656 | 558 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Damage dealers, as the name implies, are players who are responsible for dealing damage in the group. It is almost always abbreviated as DPS (Damage per second) or DPSer in-game. All of the ten classes can play as DPS with the right spec in the right gear. Their importance should not be neglected because without reasonable DPS it may take a long time to kill the mobs. The difference between good DPS and bad DPS is the most obviously seen in encounters where the mobs must be killed within a certain time for various reasons.
As mentioned above, all of the ten classes can be DPS. Among these, four classes are exclusively pure damage dealers no matter which specs they choose: hunter, mage, rogue, and warlock. Nevertheless, each of their specs has different damage dealing potential and function, so it is still important for players of those classes to choose the right specs.
Of the remaining six classes, they can be DPS with the right specs: shadow priest, balance/feral druid, elemental/enhancement shaman, fury/arms warrior, retribution paladin, and death knight of any spec with dps talents.
Types of DPS
- Caster: Most of their damage is spell damage: mage, warlock, shadow/discipline priest, balance druid, and elemental shaman.
- Melee: Most of their damage is physical damage dealt within melee range: rogue, fury/arms warrior, retribution paladin, enhancement shaman, feral druid, and death knight.
- Ranged: Most of their damage is physical damage dealt from a distance: hunter.
For the sake of simplicity, hunters and casters are often collectively called ranged DPS in contrast to melee DPS. It is not necessary for casters to stay at range during a fight, although it is usually advisable to do so.
Primary function of DPS
The primary function of DPS is dealing damage to the mobs. Good damage dealers help the group to run smoothly by killing the mobs in a short time. Running instances with a group full of bad DPS means prolonged time will be needed for the fighting and completing the instances. The risk of the need to deal with respawn will also be higher. Besides, prolonged fighting increases the risk of the healers becoming out of mana, resulting in wipe of the party. Furthermore, some boss encounters must be completed within a certain period of time before the bosses enrage (e.g. Mechano-Lord Capacitus, Netherspite), and some encounters will become harder and harder to handle as the fights go on (e.g. Kargath Bladefist, Gruul). If the rate of damage output is too low in these situations, the party is going to wipe when the bosses enrage or the bosses/adds are too difficult to handle eventually.
Secondary Functions of DPS
Many DPS classes can also perform secondary functions in the group:
- Crowd Control: Some of the DPS classes have good crowd control abilities, such as Sheep, Freezing Trap, Sap, Seduce, Hibernate, etc.
- Off tanking: Ideally, the tank should be tanking the mobs that need to be killed first and everything else are crowd controlled. However, sometimes the CC'ed mobs break free prematurely, or someone aggros adds. Those mobs should be CC'ed or picked up by the tank immediately but if that is not possible, DPS with high armor or avoidance should try to get aggro from them, so that they will not kill the healers in two hits.
- Healing: Normally, healing is exclusively the job of the healers. However, if the healers are killed, or the healers cannot keep up with all the healing job due to exceptionally high damage or AOE damage from the mobs, the DPS classes that can heal should help healing in order to save the party from a wipe.
- Dispelling: There are numerous mobs in the game that can cast debuff on the players. Some of them can be fatal if not removed immediately (e.g. Maiden of Virtue's Holy Fire). De-cursing becomes the top priority for the healers and DPS in such encounters, before healing and dealing damage respectively.
- Buff/debuffing: Alongside those longer buffs such as Fortitude or Blessing of Kings that should be casted before the fight, some DPS classes have beneficial buffs to the party during fight, such as shamans' various totems, beast mastery hunters' Ferocious Inspiration, etc. Some classes can cast debuffs on mobs to weaken them or increase the damage they receive. Warlocks' various curses, warriors' Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout, and retribution paladins' Heart of the Crusader are some examples.
- Mana Regeneration: shadow priests are famous for their mana regeneration ability Vampiric Touch to mana users in the party. Having a shadow priest in the group means there will be less down time for drinking. Survival hunters' Hunting Party is another group mana regeneration talent added in WotLK. Paladins' Judgement of Wisdom and shamans' Mana Spring Totem also help the group's mana regeneration but to a much lower extent.
- Pulling: Hunters' Misdirection is a great skill in raid. It gives a good initial preload of threat to the tanks. Furthermore, in some encounters, it allows the tanks to stay at their desired tanking position and the hunters can misdirect the mobs straight to them. This makes some difficult pulling, like that of High King Maulgar fight becomes much easier.
In conclusion, dealing damage is unquestionably the primary job of DPS in group. However, their secondary functions should not be forgotten. No matter how good their damage output is, a hunter who does not know how to trap or misdirect, or a mage who always forgets to re-sheep does not deserve a spot in a raid.
Improving Damage Output
Despite the fact that damage dealing is the primary job of a DPS class, people who join PUGs a lot, or join casual guild raids, know there are a lot of damage dealers with low damage output. Despite this, it is very easy (and common) for the DPS as well as their groupmates to be unaware of their poor performance. In a 5-man instance group there are (usually) three DPS. If the other two DPS are doing excellent job, the group can still clear the instance without any problem. (The same is true in 10-man or 25-man raids. The low damage output of an individual is not easy to notice, unless someone has damage measuring addons installed (e.g. Recount (Addon), etc.). Any DPS who care about their own performance, as well as the raid leaders who want to check the performance of everyone should have at least one of those addons installed.
Nevertheless, the interpretation of the result of those addons should be careful. Depending on the design of the addons, damage output can be underestimated significantly. For example, if the addon does not record pet damage of a beast mastery hunter, his reading can easily drop to the last of the DPS, despite the fact that he and his pet may have actually done the most damage. Moreover, some classes/specs are not meant to do as high damage as the others, yet they are still valuable to the group for their utility (e.g. Replenishment, raid-wide damage enhancements, debuffs on mobs).
In order to monitor damage output it is important to install one of these addons to see how one is doing and what sort of improvements are workin. There are many things a DPS can do to increase damage output:
Hybrid classes need to focus their talent points on talents that helps their job as damage dealers. Even for the four pure DPS classes, some talents are good for PvP but useless in PvE. You can refer to the individual class guides for optimized talent builds. Inspecting the talent builds of more experienced players, or asking for the others' criticism of your build on the class forums are also useful.
By itemization, it does not mean trying your best to get yourselves more epic gear. It means the way you gear up yourselves. For example, I have two chest pieces of the same quality and similar item level. Which one will give me more damage improvement? What should I enchant/gem it with to give the best outcome? Such questions are frequently ignored by new players, as they usually think they will be better once they have more epic gear. This is only partially true. It is possible that an epic gear does not have the best stats for damage, so a good blue gear concentrated on damage stats will be a better choice. It is even harder to decide when both of the items are epic from sources of similar level. In that case, knowing the damage stats priority of individual is important.
- Main article: Spell hit
It is EXTREMELY common to see new or casual-player casters neglecting the most valuable damage stat: hit rating. For any casters joining raids, their spells have 17% chance to miss the bosses (i.e. level-based misses as bosses are always treated as 3 levels above the player, not elemental resists). 17% of extra hit from talents and gear is needed before reaching the "hit cap". Hit rating is normally the most valuable damage stat because each point of hit rating produces more increase in overall damage than each point of critical strike rating or spell power before the hit cap. (As a side note, DPS classes usually should max accessible talents that improve the hit chance of their primary type(s) of damage, unless they have very good gear that provides enough hit, or a talent budget is so tight that you need to sacrifice hit talents for other vital talents.)
For casters with zero extra hit chance from talents, 447 hit rating is needed to reach the hit cap at level 80. This is very unlikely for any newly level 80 players to reach such value. Fortunately, most DPS classes have talents that improve their hit chance. For example, a mage's Elemental Precision provides 3% to hit with frost/fire spells, so they only need 368 hit rating to reach the cap. Draenei fire/frost mages' Inspiring Presence (racial trait) and Elemental Precision give them 4% hit chance altogether. Therefore, only 342 hit rating is needed to reach the cap.
After the hit cap is reached, generally haste rating, spell power, and critical strike rating are the stats to stack next. Intellect indirectly improves damage output by increasing spell critical rate. Also, with certain class talents such as Mind Mastery or Spiritual Guidance, intellect or spirit can also increase spell power. Which one of the above is more important depends on the class and spec in question. Please refer to the respective class guides for details. Spell penetration is normally not very useful in PvE.
For DPS classes dealing mainly physical damage, weapon is the most important determinant of the damage output. First of all, you need to make sure you have the correct type of weapon! Rogues are always dual-wield. Those invested heavily in Assassination Tree want daggers, while combat rogues usually use swords or fist weapons according to which weapon they are specialized at. Arms warriors usually use 2-hand weapons they specialized at and fury warriors dual wield. (Note: mace specialization of both rogue and warrior is for PvP in general, so PvE players normally do not spec it.) Ranged weapons for rogues and warriors are mainly chosen for their stats, so any ranged weapon with good damage stats will do. Enhancement shamans typically dual-wield because it gives much better damage output than using 2-hand weapons. Retribution paladins will be fine with any 2-hand weapons. For hunters, any bows, crossbows or guns will do. Their melee weapons are chosen for their stats. Generally, the overall stats of a 2-hand weapon are better than the sum of two 1-hand weapons. Death knights can use 2-hand weapon or dual-wield for damage dealing depending on their specs. Lastly, humans, dwarves, orcs and trolls have some small benefit from their racial trait for specific types of weapon.
Having chosen the right type of weapon, the next step is to look at the details of the weapons. Damage per second (dps) of the weapon is usually the most important factor. However, some specs benefit more from faster weapons, while others need slower weapons. Besides, for dual-wielders, it is preferable to use the one with higher dps with the preferred speed on mainhand. If both weapons have similar dps and speed, the one with proc should be mainhand and the one with only +stats offhand.
Concerning other stats of weapon as well as other gear, expertise rating, hit rating, armor penetration, haste rating, critical strike rating and attack power (and ranged attack power for hunters) are all important. Some classes/specs also need strength and/or agility. Their priority of important is different for different classes/specs, some of those still remain controversial. Therefore, please refer to the specific classes guides or forums for details.
There are at least five to six damaging skills for each DPS classes/specs. If one only uses those skills randomly or in a suboptimal order, he is probably doing lower overall damage than his full potential. Every class/spec have their own optimal attack/spell rotation. For example, a fire mage spell rotation against bosses is typically: Scorch x 5 > Fireball x 7-8 > Scorch x 1 > repeat Fireball and Scorch. For a beast mastery hunter with attack speed of 2.0 or less, simply spamming Steady Shot and refleshing Serpent Sting occasionally is enough. On the other hand, marksmanship hunters need to add Chimera Shot in their rotation to produce the maximum dps.
Positioning is very important for melee classes but unfortunately many new players do not know this. Melee DPS should attack from the back of the mobs whenever possible. It is because the mobs cannot parry or block attacks coming from their back. Besides, it also helps your tanks because if you attack from the front and the mobs parry, their next attack will be faster. During boss fights, if several melee DPS attack from the front, the combined increase in boss damage to the tanks can be significant! It should be noted that when fighting bosses with the ability tail sweep, typical those dragon bosses, people who stand directly behind the tail of the boss will be hit frequently by the ability. Fortunately, you are considered as "attacking from back" as long as you are within the 180 degree half circle behind the bosses, so when fighting those tail sweeping bosses, melee DPS can safely attack the bosses standing at left or right side of the tail.
For caster/ranged DPS, usually staying out of melee range is advised. This not only helps to reduce the chance of being affected by the mobs' AOE abilities, but also potentially improves damage output. The reason is a player in melee range will pull aggro from tank when his threat is greater than 110% of the tank, while one outside melee range will need more than 130% of the tank's threat to pull the boss. See next subsection for how threat can affect damage output.
The above few subsections only talk about the potential damage output possible in theory. In reality, this can be limited by another important factor: threat. All the damaging abilities generate threat. If the threat produced by a DPS is so high, the mob will turn to attack that DPS instead of the tank. Aggroing the mob from the tanks must be avoided as much as possible, as this frequently means death of that DPS. Even if the healers can spam healing to keep that DPS alive, they will need to spend a lot more mana doing so. Without any help to reduce threat generation, out-threating the tank will be common, which means the DPS will need to reduce their damage output or even hold back their attack in order to avoid this.
Fortunately, DPS classes have many passive talents as well as active abilities to reduce threat generation. Usually it is good to max the passive talents that reduce threat generation of your primary damaging abilities. For active abilities, some remove the players from mobs' aggro list temporarily (e.g. Divine Shield, Blessing of Protection), some reduce the players' threat temporarily (e.g. Fade) and some reduce threat permanently (e.g. Feign Death, Vanish, Invisibility, Soulshatter, Feint, Cower). Those temporary abilities should only be used when the DPS players have already aggroed.
On the other hand, classes with permanent threat reduction abilities can use them immediately when aggroed, but during boss fight, it is more preferable to use them before drawing aggro. In the old time, when to use them was mainly guess work. Now we have a few addons that give fairly accurate estimation of the threat generated by everyone: Omen or KLH Threat Meter. During boss fights, rogues, mages and warlocks should watch the threat meter closely and cast Vanish, Invisibility and Soulshatter respectively when their threat is high. With the best threat reduction talent in the game, hunters may want to use Feign Death earlier and whenever its cooldown ends, until it is certain that the threat will not catch up with that of the tanks for the rest of the fight. For the rest who do not have any of the above threat reduction abilities, temporarily lowering the damage output when the threat is high is the only choice.
Lastly, as mentioned in the last subsection, caster/ranged DPS should try to stay out of melee range whenever possible so that they will not pull aggro unless their threat is more than 130% of that of the tanks (compared with 110% if within melee range).
Mana management is important for mana-using DPS classes. Mana should not be a problem during trashing clearing if you ensure good amount of mana before every pull. However, during long boss fights, running out of mana (oom) can be a problem. The damage output of most of the mana-using DPS classes drops drastically when oom, so we should try to avoid this. Use abilities like Evocation or Aspect of the Viper when needed. Always bring some mana potions to boss fights. Having a reasonable amount of mp5 (or spirit for some classes) from the gear is important. How much is enough varies among classes and specs. You will probably need some trial and error before finding out the amount you need.
A dead DPS produces zero damage. To maximize your total damage output, the important of staying alive cannot be emphasized enough.
First of all, make sure you have reasonable health for the particular fight. This is especially important for fights that everyone is certain to receive some damage (e.g. Shade of Aran fight).
Second, walk out of danger ASAP. Many bosses have AOE abilities that do high damage (e.g. Keli'dan the Breaker) or cause instant death (e.g. Prince Malchezaar's Enfeeble and the AOE followed). Melee (and sometimes caster/ranged) DPS need to learn what emote/debuff to look for and run out immediately. There are also many fights that circles of damaging zone forms under the feet of random players regularly (e.g. Grand Warlock Nethekurse, Nightbane). Make sure you run out of it right away, even if this means canceling a spell you are casting.
Third, don't be cheap and drink a healing potion if your health goes too low. Sometimes your healers maybe busy enough at healing the tank, so use your bandage as well if you know you are not getting any healing soon. Hybrid DPS such as Enhancement/Elemental Shamans or Retribution Paladins should also heal themselves if possible, both for survivability as well as eliminating the risk that the healer draws aggro from casting a heal on you.
Although not much can be done for a 5-man instance group, synergy between different classes in raid can produce significant improvement in performance. For example, melee DPS love to have a enhancement shaman inside their group because of the Windfury Totem; Balance druids (moonkins) have an aura that gives 5% increase in spell critical chance to group members. Concerning the whole raid, if there are a lot of mana-using DPS, having a shadow priest help a lot with mana regeneration; if the group is melee heavy, warrior's Sunder Armor or rogue's Expose Armor debuff helps a lot.
Above is just a general overview of DPS classes. For details about specific classes/specs or specific fights, please refer to the respective articles or forums.
- Now it is so easy to collect a full epic set by grinding battlegrounds, it is not uncommon to see people raiding in PvP gear. Although PvP epics are usually better than their blue counterparts, they usually spent a lot of item points on stamina and resilience, so the damage stats may not be as good as the PvE epic counterparts. Furthermore, the PvP epics typically lack in mana regeneration stats, so mana users in full PvP gear may find themselves oom frequently, especially during prolonged boss fights.
- There are many fights that AOE damage is important, such as Shattered Halls gauntlet event, or Jan'alai. Mages and warlocks are the best AOE DPS. Several other classes also have AOE damage skills but the effectiveness is lower. Group/raid leaders should bear this in mind when picking DPS for a fight known to require heavy AOE. Hunters and Balance Druids also have pretty good AOE attacks.
- Although not strictly necessary for DPS, it is better for you to have read something about the fight before you attempt it. This gives you some idea of what to expect as well as tips to handle them. | <urn:uuid:564ecc16-c45e-4234-b1ff-93d414d02231> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wowwiki.com/Damage_dealer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945285 | 4,506 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Transfats in South Africa
As you yesterday, South Africa has legislated against Transfats. A maximum of 2% of oil content may now be from transfats and a maximum of 1% of oils in foods claiming to be transfat free.
The Daily Maverick reports on it here: Link
In the article they quote a Pretoria University Nutritionist who notes that while Europe has had such legislation for some time, they have continued to send foods to us that would not be legal there.
The Daily Maverick points to a series of challenges likely to face any operationalising of the legislation.
“That is, if anyone ever challenges those products. The department of health, which could not be reached for comment, doesn’t have the resources to test for such things, and has previously said it will rely on food companies to act honestly. It is perhaps more realistic to expect competitors to police one another, but that leaves consumers without a champion, or even much information. Disclosing the level of trans-fats in food is not yet mandatory, it’s just illegal to have too much.
And that is ignoring one of the primary sources of trans-fats: frying oil that is reused too often. We wouldn’t recommend relying on the local fish ‘n chips shop to do regular testing.”
I think this is key, particularly at the lower end of the market - the non-supermarket sector - where regulation is less effective, where the consumers are more price pressed and so purchasing more heavily processed foods, and where consumers have less information on nutrition and legislation.
University of Cape Town | <urn:uuid:5e40694a-3b64-4f2e-918e-831dadd7f6d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://foodramblings.tumblr.com/tagged/department-of-health | 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 | 0.957262 | 338 | 1.5 | 2 |
Should poets describe this silly-looking thing. . . or not?
"Traditional (i.e. fully-determined, fully-resolved, fully-bordered) narratives have been regarded [...] as being inherently more emotional (let us even say weighty, given Jason [Guriel]'s adjectival stylings, [in his Poetry essay]) than non-traditional narrative. The irony in this--in the continued near-religious belief, in short, in the adjective--is that, whatever Jason may personally feel, many poetry readers are not particularly invested in hearing the sound a rooster makes described in the thousandth way it has ever been described (never the same description twice, mind you). I just can't attach any great emotion to a general movement I've seen over and over again in poetry, whether or not I've been specifically told in the past that a rooster's "dark, corroded croak" is like "a grudging nail tugged out of stubborn wood" (Eric Ormsby). That's beautiful--but is it truly powerful enough to overwrite all those intimate, hard-won, highly-personalized, highly-experiential associations I already have with the words "rooster" and "nail" and "wood"?
-- Seth Abramson
For more on this, click here for a similarly named but very different thread on Harriet!
Speaking of so-littleness... I don't get how the "20 poetry books" meme, or the "First 100 days' poems" project, constitute a useful conversation-in-the-aggregate about poetry, great or small. Lists and poems-made-to-order may be just what the doctor (not W.C.W.) ordered in an age of diminishing greatness (if that's what this is), but enlighten me as to why these should fill one with hopefulness. Oh, and speaking of hope... anyone notice those Pepsi hope-slogans designed to look like something left over from the Obama campaign? It can't be a good thing when hope and poetry are trotted out to sell you something. Hope isn't the thing with feathers anymore: nope, it's fizzy and noble! | <urn:uuid:edf943f3-2fef-4fad-bfdc-2e11dc264ef9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://donshare.blogspot.com/2009/02/so-little-depends-upon-little-red.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949095 | 457 | 1.734375 | 2 |
This started out as a question, but the more I played with it, the more I began to find/understand. So, I'll just explain what was happening and what I found, fwiw.
Scenario: One of our drafters has a drawing that informs me "1704 selected. Do you really want to do this?". This is happening on the Trim, Extend, Fillet, and Grip-Stretch commands. I've seen this prompt with Hatch when using the "pick points" to find a boundary, but never on these commands before.
What's also interesting is that drawing has only 234 entites (when I try an "ERASE All"). One of the objects is an attached raster image. When I detach it, (resulting in 233 entities), the warning still says "1704 selected."
With the Hatch, you can eliminate this warning by picking objects or limiting what AutoCAD has to "think about" (frz layers, zoom in,etc.). Zooming did nothing, but freezing layers helped.
After snooping around in the drawing, I found some blocks. If I erased them, and tried fillet/stretch/trim/extend, there was no warning. Also, if I exploded the blocks, it resulted in 1817 entities in the drawing! Go figure!
Oh, well. At least I was able to fillet the lines. | <urn:uuid:3230a38a-e9a9-437f-bf17-09df2d7b75c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?42636-Trim-Extend-Fillet-and-Grip-Stretch-commands-Do-I-really-want-to-do-this | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964754 | 292 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Interviewee: Marc Miller
In this interview, we spoke with Marc Miller about his views on the current state of open source software. Marc works for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and in January, Marc took on a role as the open source software evangelist in the AMD Developer Outreach organization enabling Linux kernel and application developers to develop optimized code using both AMD and 3rd party tools and resources. In his role as a software Alliance Manager for AMD 2001-2006, Mr. Miller played a significant role in developing a Linux marketing strategy with a focus on integration of AMD technology with software tools developed by the open source community and industry partners. Throughout his career at AMD, Marc has been a key contact for open source developers wishing to work with AMD, and has been an open source ambassador for AMD, helping to coordinate outbound and inbound communication between AMD and Linux developers.
In this interview Marc talks about:
- Challenges that open source companies have when competing with proprietary software
- Advantages of open source
- Choice also has disadvantages
- Is open-source anti-capitalism?
- The PR value of being open-source
- Open-source is less idealistic and more pragmatic today
- The future is blending open-source and proprietary software | <urn:uuid:7f0926f2-0009-4e37-b4dd-a85d21659bcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://howsoftwareisbuilt.com/tag/marc-miller/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949989 | 256 | 1.734375 | 2 |
TIPS & ADVICE
Pick the perfect apple for your pie: the best baking apples have a good sweet-tart balance and their flesh won't break down as they cook. Combine tart apples with firm baking apples for a dessert that's complex in flavor and pleasing in texture.
New to baking yeast breads? Learn how to work with yeast, knead dough, proof it, shape it, judge when the dough is ready to go in the oven, and other tricks of the trade.
Learn how to cook, from scrambling eggs to dicing onions, to cooking rice and pasta, to decorating cupcakes in our How To section. | <urn:uuid:0bfcb597-8cdd-43ff-ac51-34e621f641d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allrecipes.com/recipes/main.aspx | 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 | 0.959728 | 132 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg, 65, has made plenty of unforgettable films. Now his highly anticipated biopic "Lincoln" opens in theaters.
Focusing on Lincoln
"People just accept Lincoln as a part of our national landscape, and they move on to whatever is contemporary and interesting. But I wanted to know more about him -- I know what he did, but why did he do it?"
Who will see it
"I don't know what kind of movie audience will wind up getting to see 'Lincoln.' ... I wanted this shared experience between strangers who can understand why we are who we are today, in some measure because of the work that Lincoln did."
About the film's style
"I was getting into a performance art form of literature and language, without any of my super-strengths that I could turn to to make something magically stand out to audiences. It's an experience I've always desired to have and never allowed myself to have it until 'Lincoln' came into my life."
-- Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times | <urn:uuid:252d3060-1ab1-417d-8f91-223904b59ffd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goerie.com/article/20121115/ENTERTAINMENT0702/311159974/Behind--the-scenes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975811 | 219 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Insurance Definitions for Common Business & Personal Insurance Coverages
This list is not intended to represent all available coverages. Policies and coverages vary from company to company. Requirements and coverages may vary from state to state. It is important to understand what the different policies cover. One should research and understand the coverage they need or require before purchasing any product. It is important to remember that insurance agents sell policies and may not understand what coverage is best suited for your needs. When in doubt it may be necessary to seek legal guidance to understand the differences between policies. This is provided for information only. NASH does not recommend any type of policy, agent, or company.
General Liability: Protects business owners (the insureds) from risks of liabilities imposed by lawsuits and similar claims. Liability insurance is designed to offer insured specific protection against third party insurance claims, i.e., payment is not typically made to the insured, but rather to someone suffering loss who is not a party to the insurance contract. It can protect against loss of income in the event there is damage to the office where normal business takes place as well as compensation for loss of records, etc. In general damage caused by intentional acts are not covered under general liability insurance policies. When a claim is made, the insurance carrier has the duty to defend the insured.
Other Liability: Liability insurance coverage protects against legal liability resulting from negligence, carelessness or failure to act causing property damage or personal injury to others. Examples of coverage include Errors and Omissions, personal injury and liquor liability.
Professional Liability: Errors and omissions policy is available for some types of unlicensed professionals against lawsuits alleging negligence or errors. It does not cover acts resulting in personal tort (Damage, injury, or a wrongful act done willfully, negligently, or in circumstances involving strict liability, but not involving breach of contract, for which a civil suit can be brought.).
Medical Professional Liability: Provides professional liability coverage for physicians and other licensed medical professionals against lawsuits alleging negligence or errors and omissions during the care of patients. This is also known as “Medical Malpractice.”
Product Liability: Coverage of the liability that parties along the supply chain of a product – from the manufacturer or the storeowner – have to assume if some defect in the product sold or manufactured injures a third party or damages his or her property.
Commercial Umbrella Liability: Provides excess limits over scheduled primary Businessowner’s Liability, General Liability, Business Auto Liability, and Employment Liability policies. In addition commercial umbrella liability steps in to replace primary coverage once the primary aggregate limits of liability have been exhausted by claims paid; and affords broader coverage for some risks and under some circumstances, than primary policies under some circumstances (subject to self-insured retention). It does not take the place of general liability for business but adds as a supplement to general liability.
Surety: Surety bonds guarantee that a principal will perform a specific obligation. They are three-party contracts: the principal- the primary party who will be performing the obligation, that the oblige – the party who is the recipient of the obligation, and the surety- ensures that the obligation will be performed.
Workers Compensation: Is a system under which employers provide insurance – and the payment of lost wages – for employees in the case of injury, disability or death resulting from workplace hazards. This insurance is not intended for independent contractors. Independent contractors must carry their own insurance.
Homeowners Insurance: Some examples of the protections homeowners insurance provides to homeowners include protections against damages from fire or lightning, windstorm or hail, freezing of plumbing system, and theft. It also covers the homeowner if they are found at fault in a law suit or any testament held against them. Homeowners Insurance generally does not cover intentional acts of malice or property damage. Homeowners may or may not have limits coverage for business pursuits, professional services.
Personal Liability Umbrella: Judgments amounting to thousands or even millions are being awarded by juries across the country in ever-increasing numbers. If you accidentally injure someone or damage their property, you could be the one being sued. Even though your underlying personal policies may provide substantial liability limits, it is not uncommon today for juries to award damages that exceed those limits. Personal liability umbrella does not cover business pursuits, professional services provided or not provided. | <urn:uuid:2b1064f1-dc18-4250-99f6-44743b9c2dc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homeopathy.org/about/us-topics/insurance-definitions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95907 | 896 | 1.835938 | 2 |
I've been to quite a few countries and learned some interesting things about different cultures with UK-based author Kate Furnivall.
In her novels, she has taken me to Malaya and the South China Sea aboard The White Pearl, to Russia with The Jewel of St Petersburg and in her latest novel, Shadows of the Nile, I've been transported to Egypt.
Shadows of the Nile is set in 1932 and tells the tale of Jessica Kenton and the search for her brother, who has vanished. In her quest to find him, she meets ruthless men who would think nothing of killing. Luckily, she has someone watching her back.
The story goes back and forth in time and is totally absorbing. There is a character named Georgie in this story who is truly captivating. There's romance, danger, wealth, poverty and unconditional love.
I asked Kate some questions.
How did you research Georgie's character?
I struck lucky. Around the time that I was developing my ideas on Georgie's character, autism became the flavour of the month in the British media. So I watched a series of in-depth documentaries on young people with the condition, and their comments and behaviour patterns were immensely revealing, invaluable to me. I had read books about it, learned about their need for order, their logical minds, their aversion to being touched or to certain colours. But to see the daily struggle they and their families face was deeply touching.
For first-hand experience I visited a special school and spoke to carers, teachers and parents, as well as to the pupils themselves.
It was enormously important to me that Georgie, like these children, should not be defined by his autism. I wanted him to be a lively and interesting character in his own right who just happened to have autistic tendencies, in the same way he happened to have blond hair and blue eyes. He became very real to me and I grew to love him dearly.
What comes first when planning a novel - the characters, the plot or the setting?
Place comes first for me. Closely followed by my main character, and then the plot. Place is dominant in my books, a living, breathing presence.
How important do you think characters' names are?
Very important. The name has to conjure up the person. Some names are soft, some hard and spiky, some playful. Georgie's name came to me instantly, as did Jessie's, but Tim's and Monty's eluded me for some time.
How do you choose their names?
Trial and error. I try a name for size on a character and see if it fits. If not, I trawl for more, particularly through the credits of television programmes.
Sometimes characters arrive fully formed with their names already tattooed on their forehead. But that is rare. Names have to be easy on the eye on the page as well as on the ear. I tend to choose ones that have no connection with real people for me. I like them to be fresh inside my head.
Describe a typical day when you are in the middle of writing a book.
I hate to admit it, but I do much of my best writing in bed. I know that makes me sound bone idle, but it's all the unconscious stuff that has been churning away in my head overnight I need to transfer to the page while still in bed, without being distracted by dishwashers or mice entrails that the cat has sicked up. I leave domestic details to the afternoon.
I start between 6am and 7am, working intensively. At 8am, my husband brings me herbal tea in my special Siamese cat bone china mug - no other cup will suffice if I am to write. But once I've got the words flowing, I shower and move to writing at my desk.
My study has a huge window that catches the morning sun and looks out on my magnolia tree and the village church. So I often work to the sound of church bells. I have a light lunch with my husband, play with the cat and then in the afternoon I continue work for a couple of hours, but the intensity has gone. Sometimes I just fiddle, revising what I've written that morning and jotting down ideas for future scenes. Or I just stare out of the window. Worse, I waste time messing about with emails. About 4pm I take myself off for a walk along the beach, even in the rain. Inspiration often strikes on those solitary walks on the sand.
Evenings are meant to be for relaxing, good food, friends, wine, a book, or maybe the cinema, but often I end up wading through yet more research books. When I'm in the middle of writing a book, it's hard to let go.
You are obviously well travelled. Tell us where you have been.
I love to travel, to immerse myself in new places and in ideas and lifestyles that are poles apart from my own. It is part of a writer's insatiable curiosity about people and the world around them. Before I took to writing, I'd knocked around most of Europe and had driven coast to coast across America. I particularly love to travel by road or rail. It's the best way to really see a country, stopping off at unexpected places. My 2000-mile [3200km] trek by road through eastern Europe and Russia provided me with a wealth of material for my Russian books. It is truly a different world, even now. My trip to Egypt was also breathtaking when I was doing research for Shadows on the Nile, especially as I landed in Cairo slap-bang in the middle of the 2011 revolution, which added a whole new dimension.
But the area of the globe that I have yet to visit is New Zealand and Australia. I would adore to explore their abundant delights and I hope to do so on a book tour one day soon.
What is the first book you remember reading?
Proper grown-up book? No pictures? It's Heidi by Johanna Spyri, closely followed by What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. Strong feisty girls, tomboys at heart, who learned from adversity. I spot them popping up in my own heroines.
How do you celebrate when you finish a book?
I celebrate by doing nothing. Literally. My brain goes on strike and I laze around blissfully in my dressing gown for days on end, watch any rubbish on TV and grovel to my friends for having neglected them. Oh yes, I also discover that I have a husband in the house, too.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
I walk beaches. Paddle miles. Collect debris from the sand. The incessant sound of the sea both soothes and excites me. The salt air cleanses the clogged passages of my mind and makes me want to own a dog again.
But I also like to get out there and meet my readers. Book-signings I love. Readers' comments focus my mind.
What's next on the agenda?
I am very excited about the next book. It is set in the Bahamas in 1943, when the Duke of Windsor was Governor and the brutal murder of one of the world's richest men occurred in Nassau under very strange circumstances. My heroine, Dodie, fights to clear the name of the man she loves, and is dragged into a dark and frightening world.
A research trip to the Bahamas?
A hardship, I know, but someone has to do it!
Shadows of the Nile
by Kate Furnivall,
We have one copy of Shadows of the Nile to give away. Send your name and contact details to email@example.com by February 14. | <urn:uuid:4fba162d-4288-4af6-bbd9-7536ba652934> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/interview-with-author-kate-furnivall/1743385/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977403 | 1,609 | 1.648438 | 2 |
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