text stringlengths 211 577k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 371 | file_path stringclasses 644 values | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.93 1 | token_count int64 54 121k | score float64 1.5 1.84 | int_score int64 2 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
I was obsessed with politics in the '80s. I've recovered and I'm feeling much better now thank you.
By the time I realized, as interesting as it was, I'd better stop this stuff and try to earn a living, I had discovered many of our social problems and quality of life issues could be traced to the same political source: our corrupt-by-definition electoral system. The solution to the problem was as easy to discover as the cause: The elimination of all private finance in the electoral process.
I was working doing most of my research in the area of our foreign policy since WWll, whatever fell under the umbrella of international liberation politics, but I examined and analyzed a fair amount of local issues as well.
I wanted to know how things work? Where's the power? Who's pulling the strings?
The economy of the world came down to the unholy trinity of guns, drugs and gasoline -- military industry, drugs (legal and illegal), and energy -- and now I would add agribusiness as the fourth controlling commodity, and always with the enabling bankers never too far out of sight making their profits far too often from wars and slave labor.
While that readily explained the suffering of the Third World, it didn't immediately answer why in America it was possible for so many people to be unhappy with our government's decisions, both foreign and domestic, when we're supposedly living in a democracy.
A quick analysis of our electoral process revealed the obvious answer. The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything.
The corporation has but one obligation, which is to increase profits for its shareholders by any legal means necessary by the next fiscal quarter.
They have no moral, patriotic, social, environmental, generational or even sustainable responsibility. They have only a short-term economic mandate and their only responsibility to society is to stay within the law to accomplish it.
This doesn't mean corporations shouldn't exist or even that their directors are evil by their very DNA. It has been a legally acceptable basic flaw in the form of our capitalist system that allows corporations to operate without a moral compass or obligation to society -- but that's a discussion for another day.
The law is rarely a problem because the corporations' legal obligations are pretty much designed first and foremost for their maximum profit by the legislation created by the legislators belonging to our two national political parties, both of which are wholly bought, sold and controlled by Wall Street. The banks and the corporations. In other words the game is rigged. Feel like a sucker? We all do because we all are.
The manipulation, aided by a very willing media also owned by the corporations, has made things easier beginning with what has become the amazing Orwellian staple of every newscast, selling the public on the lie that the Dow has somehow become America's scoreboard!
We're all hypnotized, rooting for them like they're our home team at a football game, cheering for THEIR scoreboard mindlessly forgetting WE'RE THE AWAY TEAM!!
You think your congressman is working all day to get you a job? He may want to. He or she is probably not a bad person. They probably want to do the right thing. But they can't. Long-time Capitol Hill staff and campaign strategists tell me the average legislator spends one-third of their time (or more) every day raising money or on activities related to raising money.
Yes, they are "elected" which creates the mass delusion of democracy to keep the masses from rioting, but congressional races are costing millions of dollars and some Senate seats are going for tens of millions each, and they're predicting well over one billion dollars for the next presidency.
That's some democracy we've created there, isn't it?
Of the people?
By the people?
For the people?
Democracy in America is a sick joke and the masses aren't laughing anymore.
Yes, we can demonstrate. We can march. We can write and sign petitions to our Representatives. We can occupy.
And we should because it's healthy to vent, and we don't feel so all alone. But the truth is, other than the value of venting, we're wasting our time. It is naïve to expect political results from any of these activities.
Our representative can give us lip service. A lot of sympathy. Empathy even. But we don't pay their media bills, gabeesh?
We need to eliminate all private finance from the electoral process.
And let's not be distracted by "reforms." Let's spare ourselves the unnecessary discussions about transparent disclosure, or the conflict of interest of foreign countries buying favorable treatment, or protection after protection being gutted by dangerously diluted regulations, or trying to impose this limit or that limit, etc., etc., etc.
Campaign finance doesn't need reform. It needs elimination.
To accomplish this we must overturn Buckley v. Valeo, one of the two or three worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.
The ruling makes the extraordinary decision that money is protected by the First Amendment.
Presumably Chief Justice Gordon Gekko presiding!
These smartest guys in the room actually decided that spending money is the equivalent of free speech. You might wonder why no one in that smart room stood up and said wait a minute, if money is speech, isn't lack of money lack of speech?
You know, as in the rich get to talk, and the poor don't? How are the non-moneyed classes represented by this decision?
I guess nobody stood up then, but it's time to stand up now.
In fact, I am now introducing a new pledge to be signed by our legislators. Of both parties. Indies too. Everybody's welcome.
THE PLEDGE FOR A DEMOCRATIC AMERICA
(We'll need someone more educated than me to draw it up, or we can copy Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, but it would go something like this.)
I, The Undersigned, pledge to overturn Buckley v. Valeo and eliminate all private finance from the electoral process, thusly restoring America to its democratic principles. I may take corporate, PAC, SuperPAC, or Chinese money to get elected or reelected (martyrdom accomplishes nothing), but upon my election I will make campaign finance elimination one of my immediate top priorities.
Now somebody should be starting a new Third Party whose platform is dedicated to this one idea. Twenty-five years ago that's what I'd be doing right now.
But the need for a Third Party aside, this idea applies for everyone. Just as much for the Tea Party on the right as the 99 Percenters on the left (the corporate oligarchy actually has no Party affiliation, it just looks Republican).
Both groups should adopt this issue. The Occupiers need not agree on anything else, because frankly nothing else matters, and a bit more focus on the root of our problems for the Tea Party certainly wouldn't hurt them either.
Let's see who's serious about representing the "people."
And you know what?
We might be pleasantly surprised at how many congressmen and senators sign this thing who would rather be doing something more dignified with their lives than spending half their time begging for money. | <urn:uuid:e7b39d63-1d5d-47fa-8ff5-4042938001e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-van-zandt/democracy-in-america_b_1139463.html | 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 | 0.967138 | 1,532 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Different Frame of Reference
"Where you put your eyes, that's about the size of it...." -- Sesame Street Song, that teaches children that small things can look big if you put it closer to your eye.When it was revealed that Durai's pay was $600K per annnum, the 1st reaction from one of our elites was "$600K is peanuts". The 2nd reaction was from Ho Ching in a long open letter to the Straits Times explaining why Singaporeans should not begrudge Durai's pay which would have been higher had he chosen to be a career lawyer. She must have felt very strongly that she is correct about Durai's pay to take time off from her busy schedule to write this long letter. The reaction from the ground was nothing less than outrage - if you make $3000 a month, there is no way anyone in the world can't convince you that $600K is not an ridiculous paycheck for someone running a charity. It seems that salaries of hundreds of thousands $ per year is no big deal among our elites and it is common belief among them that such high salaries is acceptable even in jobs that require an extraordinary sense of duty towards the people of Singapore.
Other PAP beliefs were expressed in the past few weeks - "you have to pay people high salaries to prevent corruption", "you have to pay high salaries to people who are suppose to have a strong sense of duty not to job hop to better opportunities", "you have to pay high salaries otherwise Singapore will collapse" and "you have to pay high salaries or else you wife and mom will become maids". All sound and reasonable beliefs from our elites but to get Singaporeans to understand it is another matter. It seems the more the PAP tries to explain their beliefs, the stronger the fury of the ordinary people. It is just beyond their small limited minds to understand and appreciate the great value of their elite leaders.
Two Stories & a whole lot of morals
Story 1 : About Values
Several years ago a young lady joined my company as an engineer - the starting pay at that time was $2500. Her performance was exceptional, she was very hardworking and helpful. She ate at the same canteen as everyone else and took the public transport (bus/MRT) to work. I was on the same 'sardine packed' bus as her on numerous occasionals. ...I once asked her if she considered getting a car. she replied that she was used to the buses because she took the bus everyday when she studied in NUS (where she graduated top of her class).
One day after a company organised BBQ which ended at about 1 am, those who had cars volunteered to drive the others home as there was no more public transport and taxis were few and far between. An manager (Peter) gave her and a few others staying in the West a ride back.
The next day, Peter came to me and said, "Lucky, you know all those nice things you said about the PAP govt during lunch, I think you better stop". You know why? When Peter dropped off the girl that night, her father came to open the door. Peter recognised the old man who was his ex-MP!! The girl's father is an old guard MP who was in parliament for almost 2 decades. The ex-MP was a successful businessman and is probably worth millions.
For the next few months nobody wanted to ask her about her family background sensing that it might be a little awkward. One day one of the engineers casually asked her why she took the bus everyday? wasn't she thinking of getting a car? She replied that she had to work for a living just like everyone else and she would buy a car when she can afford it.
When Philip Yeo spoke about values he said, "If you have no value system, there will be no future". What were the values he was talking about? A deep sense of duty, no overdeveloped sense of entitlement and no exaggerated sense of importance. The ex-MP brought up his daughter with all the right values. Values that elitism would quickly destroy as resources are generously allocated to the elites to creating an exaggerated sense of importance. We are told without them Singapore will collapse, hence no price to too high to pay to prevent the collapse of Singapore. Go back to what Mrs Goh, Ho Ching and Wee Shu Min said and you will understand what kind of future lies ahead for the rest of us.
Story 2 : Nurses and Sacrifice
"....they should not be expected to make 'unreasonable financial sacrifices' to be in public service"-PM Lee
Before 2003, there was an acute shortage of nurses so the did the usual of increasing pay ...and when that didn't work they recruited from Philipines and China. After 2003, the problem of a shortage of nurses disappeared....you know why?
In 2003 Singapore was struck by the deadly SARS virus, I can still remember the strained look on Minister Lim's face as the virus proved more infectious than many had expected. In the frontline risking their lives to care for the sick were the nurses - both local and foreign. The fight against SARS was broadcasted everyday on TV and people could see the courage and dedication of the nurses. 2 nurses, Jonnel Pabuayon Pinera and Hamidah Ismail lost their lives while carrying out their duty. You think that fewer Singaporeans would be willing to become nurses after seeing the risk of infection but the reverse happened. The fight against SARS gave the whole country a glimpse of the nursing profession and we found out that it was not just a job in the health care industry but about saving lives and compassionate care of the sick.
When there is real sacrifice involved, good dedicated people will step forward. If it is about upholding the ideas set forth in our pledge, I'm sure people will step forward even if they have to risk everything and end up bankrupt. If it is about protecting the interest of Singaporeans, making sure the sick is taken care of, the poor have enough for 3 meals a day, I'm sure good men will step forward to serve. However, if a nation or govt is turned into a corporation it is just like any other corporation out to make money, you have to pay people to join it. Also, some able people simply don't like to join parties that use defamation lawsuit to silence critics, propaganda to fool the people it is suppose to serve and unfair tactics to win elections.
What is good govt?
"The cure to all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government" - MM Lee
"In democratic countries, incompetent leaders are simply removed, but in Singapore..?" - Lucky Tan
Many of you think that good govt is about electing honest sincere people who will work for the interest of the people and iimproving the democratic system by enhancing transparency, accountability and putting in the check and balance so that the citizens' interests are protected. Well that works for other countries, in Singapore it is different. Our system involves selecting people to office while elections are meant to show support for estate upgrading. Once selected to office, he is protected by secrecy laws like Official Secrets Act and 'check and balance' such as strong probing opposition and an objective media is absent. Power is concentrated in a handful of super elites, helped by agencies such as ISD etc. That is why we have to pay so much for good govt because we don't have anything in place to protect us against a rogue govt!!
So Singaporeans, PLEASE JUST PAY UP. If you don't, you risk your wife and mother turning into maids. You risk having incompetent leaders that CANNOT BE REMOVED. | <urn:uuid:0508391a-a39e-4040-ac5b-ae8910fc33d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://singaporemind.blogspot.jp/2007/04/minister-pay-hikes-getting-to-truth.html?showComment=1177730340000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98365 | 1,575 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Americans are over-tired, over-worked, over-weight, over-stimulated and over-committed. We are not simply taking care of ourselves. I regularly see clients not taking care of mind, body or spirit. The result is not reaching peak performance or worse making foolish career decisions. Job searching can be physically, mentally and spiritually exhausting. Without reserves in these three critical areas of wellness, clients struggle unnecessarily. My approach to career counseling is holistic. The wellness model of a healthy mind, body and spirit will only contribute to more energy, motivation and focus for the demands of a job search. Here are my tips:
Each job search day, let the first thing you say to yourself be your favorite positive affirmation. A series of negative self-defeating statements at the beginning of the day will not help you stay optimistic about your future. Our minds are racing so fast we can’t keep up. For the next 60 days, catch yourself in the act of saying these negative thoughts, then erase theses tapes of negativity and replace them with feelings of abundance and gratitude. Begin a process of de-cluttering your mind so you reverse the negative downward spiral; turn it to positive upward cycle. Clearing your mind will help you make the right career decision. A positive attitude can boost your self-confidence, increase your concentration levels and will show up during networking meetings and interviews. If you really want to be a success, it starts with thinking success. If you feel yourself going down hill, there is no shame in contacting a Therapist.
Exercise: It is essential to develop a program of at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week. Without it you will have less energy to combat the stress generated from your job search. Choose activities that you enjoy and then define your exercise time and stay disciplined about it! According to Dr. Nina Marinello, Chair of Nutrition Science at The Sage Colleges, there are four components of fitness:
1. Strength – the ability of muscles to work against resistance. She states that when we do resistance training with weights, pushup or squats we strengthen muscles tendons and ligaments.
2. Flexibility – the ability to move with ease and without injury. Dr. Marinello says that stretching exercises and yoga can help maintain our range of motion.
3. Muscle Endurance – the ability to keep a muscle working for long periods of time.
4. Cardiovascular Endurance – the measure of how long we can perform an activity at a certain heart rate. Dr. Marinello suggests aerobic activities such as fast walking, running, swimming or dancing. These will strengthen our heart muscle, elevate its rate and make it more efficient at pumping blood and delivering oxygen and nutrients throughout the body.
Someone told me, if you don’t take care of your body, where will you live? You can be an inspiration by setting an example of being physically fit. A disciplined fitness routine will burn calories, relieve stress and help fight anxiety and depression. Focus on how great it feels to be doing something good for yourself and avoid thinking about how far you have to go. Acknowledging your progress will boost your mood. Get a friend to be your “Accountability Buddy” or consult with a Personal Trainer!
Sleep: Don’t through life tired. Start a new routine: go to bed 30 minutes earlier and wake up 30 minutes earlier. The National Institutes of Health states that adults need between seven to nine hours of sleep every night for good health. Dr. Oz says that getting enough sleep may be the single most important thing you can do to extend your life. He states that the best sleep comes between the hours of 10pm and 2am which is when the highest level of melatonin are circulating in your brain. There is a growing body of research that suggest that adults that are sleep deprived are at increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, memory impairment, heart disease and a weakened immune system. When you get good sleep, you can attack the day confidently.
Diet: A poor diet will not give you more energy for your career development. Start a new day of job searching with a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and eggs. According to Dr. Oz, oatmeal’s low glycemic index raises your blood sugar levels more slowly, and the protein in eggs boosts your metabolism. If you want to boost your energy level, then fill half your dinner plate with fruits and vegetables. He recommends reducing your intake of sugar, processed meats (bacon, sausage, hot dogs) and processed foods. Don’t put a well balanced diet on hold. Consult with a Dietician, Nutritionist or Health Coach!
What you do to feed your soul can play a part in the career choices you make. Whatever your belief system, I encourage you to nurture your spirit. Some of my clients pray, meditate, attend services, celebrate holy days and read sacred scriptures or books. Whatever you practice, I recommend doing more of it when you are going through a career transition. It will help you stay centered.
How you take care of yourself personally directly impacts how you perform professionally. Be incremental and each day do just one thing to improve your mind, body and spirit. If you stay healthy, it’s more likely your career will be too.
Dr. Tom’s Career Tip: “The first wealth is health.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Need Help or Need a Speaker? (518) 366-8451
Please “Like” us on www.Facebook.com/CareersInTransitionLLC | <urn:uuid:a2a52751-14c0-4586-a576-8c6b96746069> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.timesunion.com/careers/the-career-connection-with-mind-body-and-spirit/1594/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930643 | 1,149 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The second half of Karl Rove’s memoir, “Courage and Consequences,” you’ve already read if you have followed the intricate and specific defenses the Bush administration put forth to parry Democratic attacks.
But … the first half you’ve never seen before. Here we meet a vulnerable, human, sensitive man struggling to rise above a plebian background and make his way in the world. The transition from the honesty and appealing openness of the first half and the institutionalized, politically correct defenses of the second perhaps illustrates the changes that power brings to us all.
Yet it is to Rove’s credit that he can reach back to the days when he was still a regular person and bring that young man back to life in the pages of his memoir.
You meet his troubled mother who ended her own life, his father’s pursuit of his dreams and the sense of abandonment of a young man facing college costs with no help … and then of a grown man in the full flush of his career success, meekly and humbly going back to school to get his B.A. We follow Karl’s rise through the ranks of professional young Republicans, his relationships with the likes of Lee Atwater (the universal mentor of young talent) and his early encounters with the Bush family.
The Rove account of the 2000 election and its aftermath is a page-turner that will rank with any Robert Ludlum novel — gripping, inside and compelling.
His rendition of the early Bush campaigns keeps the flavor of the innocent young operative feeling his way through rough-and-tumble politics.
Karl not only takes us inside his mind, he brings us into his body, as well. He is forever somatizing his political troubles. He gets sick to his stomach when bad news breaks. He feels dizzy when he learns of the machinations of the 2000 recount. He gets a sickening feeling when he reads a bad column.
Beautifully written throughout and easily readable, Karl’s memoir is an important contribution to the literature of the Bush presidency and, more importantly, a riveting account of a young man on the way up the ladder of America’s political consulting industry.
You won’t know Karl Rove until you read this book. And he is well worth getting to know. | <urn:uuid:b3fb08fd-44e1-4c67-b9d6-962acf883180> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/the-importance-of-being-karl/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965978 | 481 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Shot in Lafontaine Park.
Parc Lafontaine (in English, Lafontaine Park) is a 36-hectare urban park located in Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal district. Named in honour of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, features include two linked ponds with a fountain and waterfalls; the Théâtre de Verdure open-air venue; the Calixa-Lavallée cultural centre, as well as playing fields and tennis courts.
Outdoor swimming pools are a popular attraction during Montreal's hot summer, followed by outdoor ice skating in winter. A children’s zoo ceased operations in 1989.
Bike paths run along the park’s western and northern edges, under hundreds of gigantic centennial trees.
Leave a Comment
Return to Recent Comments | <urn:uuid:239d2ea4-15a3-469f-854d-5778d9bc49b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://autofocused.ca/photoblog/index.php?showimage=40 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933724 | 169 | 1.59375 | 2 |
I don't know anyone who has had kids afterwords, and frankly, although I admittedly don't know a whole lot about UA embos, I would likely not do it if I wanted more babies. Unless the fibroid was compromising my fertility.
The idea behind it is to find the feeder artery to a fibroid, using xray dye and xray. Once you plug that artery (embolize it), the blood flow to the growing fibroid cuts out, so the fibroid should shrink.
The whole uterus does not have its blood flow cut, just the artery leading off to the fibroid. It works in most cases, with regression of the fibroid taking place slowly over a year.
Most women complain of severe cramping and some pain after the embo, as the fibroid has had its oxygen supply cut--so it is...dying? for lack of a better word. After that initial pain, most people seem to do ok.
HTH! I know that they have a great program at the hospitals in your town. | <urn:uuid:f1a5e520-488c-459b-8d53-c962607a4296> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.in-gender.com/cs/forums/p/178989/1735972.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980663 | 217 | 1.625 | 2 |
Plus Ellie Simmonds, Bill Bailey, Sir Patrick Stewart and One Direction
- The actor Amanda Redman has become a patron of the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, which carries out research into the treatment of burns patients. Redman suffered third-degree burns to 75 per cent of her body at the age of 15 months when she was accidentally scalded in the kitchen by a pan of boiling soup. "I am thrilled to be able to help this charity, which means so much to me," she said. "Having experienced a burns accident myself, I have some insight into the needs of burns patients and a desire to see treatments improved so patients can be healed more quickly and effectively."- The Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds visited the headquarters of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People to meet a cocker spaniel puppy that has been named after her. The charity named a litter of 10 puppies after people who have "inspired a generation" in 2012, including Simmonds and the athletes Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Usain Bolt.
- The comedian Bill Bailey (right) is appearing in a series of TV, digital and print advertisements to raise awareness of Prostate Cancer UK's Sledgehammer Fund, which will raise money for research into prostate cancer. Bailey, whose father-in-law has survived prostate cancer, said: "I campaign only for the things I believe in, and I feel very strongly about this."
- The actor Sir Patrick Stewart features in a new promotional film for Macmillan Cancer Support designed to tackle ageism in the NHS. The film, which tells the stories of three older people who are defying stereotypes associated with their age, is part of Macmillan's Age Old Excuse campaign. This calls for older people to be offered cancer treatment based on their fitness rather than their age.
- The boy band One Direction showed their support for the Alzheimer's Society by donating a signed T-shirt to be auctioned to raise funds. The item sold for £1,220 in an online auction. | <urn:uuid:32122f64-c920-4c98-9527-30e12ef5bd0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Communications/article/1165500/amanda-redman-becomes-patron-blond-mcindoe-research-foundation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97094 | 416 | 1.5 | 2 |
Recently I wrote a post, Mathematicians are people too, about the image problem of mathematicians and called for examples of mathematicians who do not fit the traditional stereotype.
On Google+, Christian Perfect said:
ok, so, as an autistic white male mathematician, I’m going to steer clear.
I said that as a glasses-wearing, bearded white man, I didn’t feel much use either. Christian replied:
so: stereotype-abiding mathematicians band together to reassure public that mathematicians don’t necessarily conform to the stereotype.
That’s the kind of logic only mathematicians would appreciate.
I also received this comment from Twitter user @sebmr2:
Didn’t Galois do enough to break stereotypes for me to fit them?
I don’t think all mathematicians should personally break the stereotype. I remember some years ago I was working in a university mathematics department and someone had pinned up a newspaper comment piece in the staff room about how lecturers should dress in sharp suits like businessmen if they want to give the right impression to their students. I don’t agree with this.
However, my call for examples was written from another viewpoint. Not: can I, as someone who studied mathematics at university, adapt myself to avoid the stereotype. Instead: what if I was faced with a class of students, many of whom would never fit the stereotype (by virtue of their ethnicity or gender, for example)? I would want my class to believe that they too could be mathematicians, yet if they think all mathematicians conform to a certain ‘type’ then this is a barrier to them seeing themselves in this way. Particularly as it is obviously an incorrect stereotype.
So I am interested in breaking stereotypes not to change you, dear reader, but to better inspire others.
There’s a mathematician six floors above me where I work. I’d never had much to do with her, but I’d heard she’d had an unusual childhood in Burma, and grew up to become the first female professor of mathematics at the university where we both work. One day on Twitter she wrote, “Maths is in my heart,” a sentiment both alien and amusing to me, being someone who’s terrible with numbers. It stayed with me though, and later that afternoon I knocked on her door and asked if she’d tell me her story. | <urn:uuid:b85b96a4-e8f0-4a4d-98ef-bea3ce649eef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aperiodical.com/2012/02/stereotype-abiding-mathematicians-of-the-world-unite-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975447 | 509 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Weeping with those who weep
Ministry Despite the number of people affected by suicide, few churches have counseling or grief ministries specifically for survivors | Whitney Davis
Two weeks ago, Cynthia Wachenheim jumped out a window in her Manhattan apartment, plunging eight floors to her death. Wachenheim leaves behind a husband and an eight-month-old son who miraculously survived the fall in his mother’s arms. As Wachenheim’s husband tries to process his pain and understand what happened, he will grapple with questions and doubts unique to suicide survivors.
Every year more than 30,000 people in the United States commit suicide. It is the nation's eighth leading cause of death, and for those 15 to 24 years old, suicide is the third leading cause of death. For every suicide, at least six other people's lives are affected, according to a Harvard Medical School study. Those left behind not only have to grieve the death of a loved one, but face feelings unique to the grief caused by suicide. Despite the vast number of suicide survivors, few churches address the issue specifically.
But suicide survivors are in desperate need of support. Candy Arrington, co-author of Aftershock: Help, Hope and Healing in the Wake of Suicide, described a suicide survivor’s emotional turmoil as something similar to an earthquake registering off the Richter scale. Life changes in an instant with an event that opens the earth in a yawning chasm. And as with the survivors of an actual earthquake, suicide survivors are in shock, simply existing in the wake of destruction.
Brian Keay, a former counselor with Freedom in Christ Ministries who holds a master’s in family counseling, thinks the church needs to be more involved in the grieving process and offer better support for suicide survivors.
“I think it can be a little scary for churches to get involved with this kind of issue,” he said. “They’re told it’s a counseling issue, and not to get into that. But the body of Christ is the ultimate family and it’s something the body should get involved with.”
Church members often try too hard to offer solutions to the grieving, when what they really need to do is offer a physical, listening presence in a suicide survivor’s life, Keay said.
Many larger churches have counseling programs, but few are specifically geared toward suicide prevention or aiding suicide survivors. Ministries like Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) provide resources for churches to use in dealing with grief, and they do have counselors who work with all kinds of issues, including suicide.
Robert Cheong, the lead counseling pastor of Sojourn Church in Lousville, Ky., said his ministry looks to care for suicide survivors with the gospel much in the same way it cares for anyone who loses a loved one. With a suicide survivor, he tries to address any shame or stigma associated with suicide and answer concerns regarding salvation for the one who committed suicide. He also tries to ensure ongoing support from family and friends, who often struggle with anger and a sense of betrayal. He even watches for any expressions of a desire to follow suit and equips the survivors to minister to one another in the days and months to follow.
Despite his own church’s efforts, Cheong agrees with Keay that the church as a whole could do a better job dealing with issues related to suicide: “As with any struggle that results in human suffering, we, as the church, need to learn as much as we can to help the body of Christ navigate through the difficulties of life. The church should not shy away from understanding and caring for those with any form of human struggle, to include suicide.”
Joe Roswech lost his brother Dan, who suffered from manic depression, to suicide ten years ago. Roswech had the opportunity to lead his brother to Christ a few months before he killed himself, and he was confident in his brother’s salvation. But Roswech struggled with feelings of guilt, wishing he had spent more time with his brother. He wondered what he could have done differently in their relationship.
He explained that while he leaned on scripture for comfort, fellow believers were not always helpful as he dealt with his profound grief.
“A lot of believers don’t know what to do with something like that,” he said. “When there is severe brokenness, they don't know what to do so they back off. That leaves more room for the enemy to isolate us. When he goes to attack, he will try to pick off on the edge.”
The middle of the flock is a safer place for believers, and anyone struggling with brokenness should strive to be there, Roswech said. Members of the church should strive to surround survivors, so they don’t feel isolated.
Both Keay and Cheong encourage Christians to act in that important support role, no matter how difficult the situation might be.
“As with any forms of suffering, every member of the church can love those grieving suicide well by journeying with them over the long haul, weeping, rejoicing, encouraging and fighting the good fight of faith with one another.” said Cheong, referencing 1 Timothy 6:12.
Keay also said that on an individual level, being with someone grieving that intensely is scary, but necessary: “When you stand with someone you are bearing their pain with them, are willing to go be part of and feel pain—that’s hard. Don’t be afraid to sit and hear people cry deeply. Don't be afraid of that deep moaning grief. Do what God has enabled you to do.”
Copyright © 2013 God’s World Publications | <urn:uuid:2bae8b0d-aa0f-4a03-a035-55bfcbf58570> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldmag.com/mobile/article.php?id=25607 | 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 | 0.970054 | 1,193 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Actor Clu Gulager started out as the latest in a long line of Brando/Dean "method" types in the late 1950s. Gulager's searing interpretation of Mad Dog Coll on a 1959 episode of The Untouchables, coupled with his multi-faceted portrayal of Billy the Kid on the TV western series The Tall Man (1960-62) gained him a brief fan following. He was also quite impressive as Lee Marvin's fellow hit man in The Killers (1964), which would have been the very first made-for-TV movie had not its excessive violence necessitated a theatrical release. Turning prematurely gray in the late 1960s, Gulager went on to play flinty authority figures on such weekly series as The Survivors (1969), San Francisco International Airport (1971) and The MacKenzies of Paradise Cove (1979). He was also seen in numerous miniseries, most prominently as Lt. Merrick in Once an Eagle (1976) and General Sheridan in North and South II (1986). One of his better big-screen roles was Abilene in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971). Briefly entertaining notions of becoming a film director, Clu Gulager helmed the obscure 1969 short subject A Day with the Boys. | <urn:uuid:a6c82971-acaa-4cc7-ba47-f1edc18e0e14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moviefone.com/celebrity/clu-gulager/1794885/biography | 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 | 0.966115 | 261 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Hiding a bad guy named Triple X
How the military treated some inmates at Abu Ghraib like 'ghosts'
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, issued a classified order last November directing military guards to hide a prisoner, later dubbed "Triple X" by soldiers, from Red Cross inspectors and keep his name off official rosters. The disclosure, by military sources, is the first indication that Sanchez was directly involved in efforts to hide prisoners from the Red Cross, a practice that was sharply criticized by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in a report describing abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Taguba blamed the 800th Military Police Brigade, which guarded the prison, for allowing "other government agencies"--a euphemism that includes the CIA--to hide "ghost" detainees at Abu Ghraib. The practice, he wrote, "was deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law." Taguba's report did not cite the November 18 directive issued by Sanchez to hide Triple X, identified as a high-ranking terrorist. It is not known if Taguba saw the directive. He declined to comment. The Army said it could not discuss a classified order.
The disclosure of Sanchez's involvement may focus more attention on him. There have been reports that his top Army lawyers sought to curb Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib, only weeks after the humanitarian agency uncovered abuses and sexual humiliation at the prison late last year. Some Army officers, including Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800th MP Brigade, have blamed Sanchez's staff for refusing to release security detainees from Abu Ghraib even when they were believed to pose no threat to coalition forces.
Karpinski says Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who is Sanchez's top intelligence officer, was a major obstacle to releasing detainees. Fast, she says, served with her and a third officer on a detainee release board and vetoed recommendations to release inmates from the overcrowded facility, even after determining that they were of no intelligence value. "She did not want to release the next Osama bin Laden," Karpinski says. "She had a certain kind of paranoia." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top military spokesman in Iraq, denies that Fast had veto authority and says most board decisions were unanimous.
Overcrowding, lack of force protection in a hot combat zone, and unsanitary conditions may have contributed to the problems at Abu Ghraib. Internal Army records obtained by U.S. News show that the military moved at a snail's pace in releasing security detainees from Abu Ghraib and three other facilities. In early December, there were 1,604 detainees kept for more than 91 days. By late January, that figure had grown to 3,016. An additional 1,500 were kept for more than two months, the January report shows.
Karpinski didn't see eye to eye with either Sanchez or Fast. She says that security detainees were held because they were thought to pose a threat to, or had committed crimes against, coalition forces. But many, she says, should not have been held for so long. Some weren't guilty of anything, she says, pointing out that in the wake of the scandal, the military has been releasing large groups of prisoners from Abu Ghraib. According to various news reports, 1,680 prisoners have been released since May 14.
Some detainees, says Karpinski, "were in the wrong place at the wrong time." She explains: "MI [military intelligence] would do an initial interrogation, find out they were passing by, borrowing a cup of sugar, and they get policed up. They try to explain to somebody that they were only going there to borrow a cup of sugar, but nobody believed them."
No one is arguing that decisions on releasing detainees were easy. Army officers point to an embarrassing incident that took place in May 2003: An Iraqi man was released from Camp Bucca in southern Iraq after convincing an interrogator that he was a "tomato farmer," but he turned out to be Mohammed Jawad An Neifus, Saddam Hussein's most loyal tribal leader. Neifus was believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Shiites, an Army officer says.
Triple X certainly fit the category of a potential threat. Sanchez, in his directive to the 800th MP Brigade--Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) No. 1099--identified the man by name, said he was a terrorist, and told the brigade not to put his name in any electronic roster of detainees. He instructed the brigade not to disclose his whereabouts to the Red Cross pending further notice, military sources say.
When the brigade objected, Sanchez's staff lawyers directed the MP s to implement the order, according to a 25-page report sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Capt. Lisa Weidenbush, operations officer for the 800th MP Brigade (box). She included only bare-bones information about the FRAGO in arguing that the brigade was not involved in a scheme to hide detainees. She declined comment when reached last week.
Beginning last November, the military sources say, Triple X was kept alone, under guard in his own room, at the High Value Detention facility near the Baghdad airport. When Red Cross inspectors visited the facility, the military sources recall, they had no reason to know Triple X was there, and they were not shown him. Even today, not much is known about the man--he is said to be Middle Eastern, short, slightly built, and in his 40s.
It is not clear why there was so much secrecy surrounding Triple X. One senior officer says there were "all these wild rumors" last fall that Triple X might know the location of Saddam, who had not yet been captured. In the end, however, only a handful of people knew why he was so valuable, Sanchez included, and they're not talking.
This story appears in the June 21, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report. | <urn:uuid:30e40c94-6716-4a56-a4b6-592b1ad8bb10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040621/21abughraib_print.htm | 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 | 0.983176 | 1,251 | 1.539063 | 2 |
"I don't have to prove that it causes cancer," an attorney told the Associated Press. "I only have to prove that DuPont lied in a massive attempt to continue selling their product."
So reports Michael Fumento in this excellent report on the latest example of rich lawyers trawling for big corporate pockets to plunder. Fumento notes that two law firms have filed a class action lawsuit against Dupont, Inc., makers of Teflon, for $5 billion. Their claim: that a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid, which is used in the production of Teflon, is dangerous to humans because it causes cancer in rats when administered in dosages just short of instantaneously poisonous levels.
The purpose of the tort system, of course, is to provide redress to individuals harmed by other persons within the society. And if anyone has truly been harmed by Teflon, they have a right to sue the persons responsible.
As the lawyer's comment above demonstrates, however, the nation's tort system has been perverted into a proxy for the criminal justice system: a means of punishing supposed wrongdoers through the use of a weaker standard of proof—preponderance of the evidence instead of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Frankly, abusing the tort system in this way is a crappy, cowardly thing to do.
Any decent judge in a reasonable system would throw such a suit out immediately. Unfortunately, that probably won't happen. Read Mike's account here. | <urn:uuid:0426b55c-dc2c-4cf4-8ef1-f93caee11530> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reformclub.blogspot.com/2005/07/false-claim-we-hope-wont-stick.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963189 | 306 | 1.625 | 2 |
Value Line is regarded as the best independent research available. More than just recommendations, Value Line provides the rationale behind its picks for greater understanding.
- Don D., California
Drilling for Fuel
The integrated oil and natural gas industry had a tough year in 2009. Many companies struggled over the past few months due to higher operating expenses and fluctuating energy prices. Some members of this group ramped up production in 2007 and 2008 in order to take advantage of soaring energy valuations at the time. The glut of supply and lower demand (due to recessionary pressures) over the past year, however, depressed energy prices. These factors caused many members of the industry to take a closer look at their operations and redefine their business plans for long-term growth.
Many integrated energy companies have been shifting their focus from crude oil or coal production when developing their long-term growth strategy. Some have turned to various hydro- or wind-energy sources, while others have concentrated on natural gas production. Recent innovations in natural gas drilling include hydraulic fracturing, the process through which drillers release hydrocarbons trapped in compressed rock formations. And this has led to an upswing in production from shale basins, the most common form of tight-gas deposits. Too, shale-gas drilling may be a key method to tapping domestic energy sources, making it more attractive to legislators mulling cap-and-trade and other energy industry initiatives.
Indeed, natural gas operations took center stage last month when international energy conglomerate Exxon Mobil (XOM) announced plans to acquire XTO Energy. This all stock-deal, roughly valued at $41 billion, is set to be completed by the end of the June quarter. In all, Exxon would be tripling its current domestic natural gas business. XTO has focused on unconventional gas assets in the past few years. It specifically developed shale deposits in the Haynesville, Barnett, Fayetteville, and Woodford basins. We believe that Exxon will continue to expand this segment. Indeed, on its own, Exxon gave the nod to a $15 billion natural gas undertaking in New Guinea last month.
We think that this merger may prompt other big-oil businesses like Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), BP p.l.c. (BP), or Chevron Corp (CVX) to make similar moves. Natural gas producers, such as Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Devon Energy (DVN), or Andarko (APC) are all potential targets. We think that merger and acquisition activity will pick up in the coming months, thanks to improved credit markets and the industry trend to diversify energy portfolios. Still, many of these integrated energy producers may rely on organic growth initiatives rather than sweeping other businesses into their conglomerates.
Acquisition speculation has shined a light on the evolving integrated energy industry landscape. Valuations have gotten richer and there is risk of excessive enthusiasm. After all, access to the remaining large oil deposits may be limited. Current legislation bans much activity in Alaska, and the expense of drilling the deep deposits of the Gulf of Mexico may steer companies away from that region. Further, many of these businesses tend to avoid areas that pose a political risk, and have, therefore, limited ventures in places such as Iraq, Brazil, and Nigeria, among others. In addition, many overseas deposits are aggressively managed by their governments. The present shale-gas boom is more promising, but it should be noted that the oldest wells of this kind are no more than ten years old and so the full-life well production characteristics and cost profiles are not well understood. There is some evidence that shale-gas require frequent refactoring to maintain estimated production rates, thus driving up the per-unit cost of operation. Further, the ecological impact of this method of extraction is also unclear and, therefore, these businesses may soon be subject to legislation from environmental protection agencies. | <urn:uuid:3c7ad791-9cf9-47f0-b2e0-720611dfc413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Commentary.aspx?id=8159 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957608 | 789 | 1.65625 | 2 |
World of Warcraft - What is Gold:
Gold is some amount of copper, silver, or a combination of any those types of coins. Your current total is shown at the bottom right of your open backpack window.
You can get gold by looting dead mobs, completing quests, selling items to vendor NPCs, via trade or mail from other player characters, or by selling an item at the Auction House. If you use money to put a deposit down for auctioning an item, you lose the deposit if it doesn't sell or if you cancel the auction, but any failed bids are returned via mail.
The WoW economy will always fluctuate, and large events such as the Burning Crusade launch will have a knock-on effect. The best advice to any player worried about an economic decline on their realm is not to buy any gold from gold sellers, as this will have a worse effect on the economy. Also, make sure you price your auctions based on market-value and not just stab-in-the-dark wishwork.
Although it is technically against the ToS to affect other's gameplay in a negative way (including the economy), it's generally accepted that under-pricing doesn't count as it doesn't affect the average wealth of players on your realm. It's also generally accepted that underpricing is very annoying, since other players will find it difficult to sell items at the correct price, and it may even lower the value of the item you're selling. Slight underpricing (up to around 10% of market value off) is acceptable, however. Although little is known about the actual average WoW player's wealth, there is much speculation about it and wherever you look you'll find a different figure. Blizzard has yet to publish anything regarding the economic status of any of the servers in any country.
Making Gold With Dailies:
There are more and more people joining the ranks of World of Warcraft every day. Nobody can get enough of this game and there are plenty of reasons why. In WoW, you can escape the realities of everyday life. Just relax, do a few dailies to make a little gold, and just have fun with friends - not a bad way to spend an evening. And as you do this, you'll naturally make gold over time.
However, there may come a time when you want to get a little more out of the time you spend in the game. There are items that cost 20,000 gold, and surely you want those items. This means that in order to get the most out of your WoW experience, you'll have to make gold as quickly as possible.
But how do you do this? There are several things to keep in mind when trying to make gold quickly in WoW by doing dailies. You probably already know that daily quests award you with gold for completing them. And initially, in WoW, items do not cost that much gold to purchase. But eventually, the items become very expensive, especially the best of the best items you'll want to get when you hit level cap. So, you need a game plan to be able to afford all the items you want, if you want them before the end of time.
Focus on Gold
When you want to build up a stockpile of gold quickly in WoW, you have to supplement your regular activites with activities designed specifically to make you a lot of gold. Doing dailies is a great way to make a lot of gold quickly. All daily quests pay out gold when you complete them. The key is to pay attention to the amount of gold each daily rewards you with when you complete them. You should also take time into consideration when trying to make gold fast in WoW using dailies. If you can make 200 gold, but it takes you 5 hours to do it, that's not very much gold per hour. There are good ways to make a lot of gold per hour, such as optimized speed gold dailies runs.
There are guides available that will lead you step-by-step through completing speed gold dailies runs, among other cool things. Zygor's Dailies & Events Guide is one of those guides. Save up your gold from completing speed gold dailies runs every day and you'll be well on your way to making gold fast in WoW and buying those expensive items you want. | <urn:uuid:f12ba05f-6b26-4a16-b968-d4b65fa768ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wowdata.org/world-of-warcraft-gold-guide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967673 | 895 | 1.796875 | 2 |
This is gross and not for a weak stomach. Everyone already knows about the Fin Whale that washed up at the Heceta Head Lighthouse but can you believe what they did with it? They cut it up and buried it. How long do you think it will be before water and animals bring it back to the surface?
Whale of a day at theHeceta Lighthouse
This story is inappropriate and should be flagged for moderation. Please choose from one of the following options: | <urn:uuid:62226c0b-d7bf-40f5-8b3f-75e4b434f3ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kval.com/younews/41065842.html?tos=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963554 | 99 | 1.726563 | 2 |
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Dec. 18, 2008) - Imperial Metals Corporation (TSX:III) reports the Supreme Court of Canada issued a decision today granting the application of MiningWatch Canada for leave to appeal from the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal issued June 13, 2008. The Federal Court of Appeal decision confirmed the Federal Environmental Assessment of the Red Chris project was valid and in full compliance with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The granting of leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada does not overturn the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal. It is a procedural step only which authorizes MiningWatch to bring an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. MiningWatch has 30 days within which to file its notice of appeal. The appeal process, including the filing of written submissions by all parties, scheduling of a hearing and a decision, is expected to take up to one year.
The Red Chris project was subject to both Provincial and Federal environmental review. Based on the initial project description, Red Chris was first scoped for comprehensive study level review by the responsible Federal authorities. Following receipt by the responsible Federal authorities of additional project information, including the fact the project was undergoing a full Provincial environmental assessment, it was determined the Federal environmental assessment would proceed by way of a screening report. Accordingly, comprehensive environmental review of the Red Chris project was carried out by the Province under the B.C. Environmental Assessment Act, in full co-operation with the responsible Federal authorities. This was in keeping with efforts by Provincial and Federal environmental agencies and legislation aimed at harmonizing Federal and Provincial environmental review.
The Provincial review process covered the technical, environmental and socio-economic elements of the Red Chris project, and included consultation with the Tahltan First Nation and other local communities. Environmental assessment application documents were made available for public review at local libraries in Smithers, Terrace and Stewart, the government agent's office in Dease Lake, and band offices in Iskut and Telegraph Creek. Notices of the availability of these documents with the public comment period were advertised in the B.C. Gazette and local newspapers. The documents were also made available through the Provincial and Federal environmental assessment office websites. Open houses were conducted in Stewart, Iskut, Dease Lake and Telegraph Creek, the four communities closest to the Red Chris project.
In July 2005 the Provincial environmental assessment report concluded the Red Chris project was not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects. The Red Chris project subsequently received a Provincial Environmental Certificate. In April 2006 the responsible Federal authorities issued their screening report, which also concluded the project was not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.
In its decision of June 13, 2008, the Federal Court of Appeal concluded the responsible Federal authorities have discretion to define and redefine the scope of a project for the purposes of tracking an environmental assessment as a screening under section 18 of CEAA or as a comprehensive review under section 21 of CEAA. The Federal Court of Appeal noted in its decision that the conclusions of the scoping decision by the responsible Federal authorities were not challenged and that the appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal involved matters of statutory interpretation.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Imperial Metals Corporation
(604) 687-4030 (FAX)
Imperial Metals Corporation | <urn:uuid:8e192d8a-55ef-450e-8b79-673389f58e15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web.tmxmoney.com/article.php?newsid=14720190&qm_symbol=III | 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 | 0.956444 | 680 | 1.539063 | 2 |
A naturally occurring soluble isoform of murine Fas generated by alternative splicing.
We report a soluble isoform of mouse Fas, which is generated by alternative splicing of Fas mRNA to a newly identified exon located between exons 2 and 3 of the previously published Fas sequence. This splicing event creates a novel Fas transcript, Fas beta, with the potential to encode a truncated form of the extracellular domain, termed Fas B. In vitro, P815 mastocytoma cells transfected with Fas B become resistant to Fas ligand-induced apoptosis, and the resistance is mediated by a secreted product of the transfected cells. In vivo, Fas beta mRNA expression is correlated inversely with apoptosis among subsets of intrahepatic T lymphocytes, a cell population in which activation-induced T cell apoptosis occurs. We propose that Fas B is a new cytokine that acts physiologically to limit apoptosis induced by Fas ligand. | <urn:uuid:ee688510-abeb-46d1-8350-2f2b257b87b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uniprot.org/citations/7595210 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948587 | 198 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Collectors' Roundtable with Robert Lehrman
Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 7 - 8pm
This annual series provides insight and invaluable advice on collecting art from museum directors, curators, collectors, art dealers, and consultants.
This evening, collector Robert Lehrman (Washington, D.C.) presents "Secrets of the Art World."
Robert Lehrman, since 1979, has been collecting works by contemporary American and European artists, including William Christenberry, Damien Hirst, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol. He also has one of the most comprehensive private collections of works by Joseph Cornell. Lehrman is founder and president of the not-for-profit Voyager Foundation and has lectured on contemporary art appreciation at museums, universities, and art schools across America. He believes that in addition to being personally rewarding, collecting art and supporting art organizations and their related activities is an important civic responsibility. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, where he served as chairman from 1998 to 2003. | <urn:uuid:8679bea6-655a-4b1d-bc0f-7d1e2f830820> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanart.si.edu/multimedia/webcasts/archive/2011/lehrman/ | 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 | 0.941751 | 225 | 1.546875 | 2 |
NEW YORK — It is, says Susan Rice, "a good time to be American ambassador to the United Nations."
Rice, a foreign policy veteran at the age of 44, is positioned to be one of the administration's key national security voices. She has access to the president, a restored Cabinet seat and a place on the National Security Council's Principal's Committee. She's also broadened her Washington presence, with an expanded office at the State Department.
Rice is, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, "playing a central role in the team that's been assembled."
Perhaps more than any other American official, Rice also is negotiating day to day the meaning of President Barack Obama's promise of a new era in American foreign policy, one in which openness doesn't mean weakness and engagement can be combative.
Some of the earliest moves have been symbolic, like making the controversial decision to rejoin the troubled U.N. Human Rights Council — where, Rice said, the United States will battle "the anti-Israel crap." She also said the administration is still considering attending the controversial anti-racism conference this month, where U.S. pressure has won a "substantially improved" draft text.
On a larger scale, Rice has been part of a renewed push to end the killing in Darfur and an administration drive to prevent a North Korean missile test.
"There's just enormous goodwill and optimism," Rice told POLITICO. "I'd say even excessive expectations about President Obama and what his administration can bring."
Rice also forcefully rejected what has emerged as an early knock on Obama's foreign policy: that his team, notably Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has appeared to downplay human rights concerns, from China to Turkey to Egypt, in favor of more practical issues.
"The whole point is we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We don't have the luxury of viewing every issue, every country, every challenge in black-and-white terms. That was, in my opinion, part of the fallacy of the Bush administration," she said. "But there are ways and means of accomplishing that. It's not always in every instance most productive to do it on a huge stage beating a drum — sometimes it is."
"Whether it's Russia or Egypt or China or Zimbabwe, strong advocacy for human rights and democracy will be part of our approach."
Rice is, in the meantime, settling into what one of her predecessors, Madeleine Albright, described to POLITICO as "one of the all-time great jobs — especially if you are working for a president who believes in having an approach that recognizes the importance of other countries." An assistant secretary of state for African Affairs under President Bill Clinton, Rice was an early foreign policy adviser to Obama.
Albright has known her since Rice was a child, when she served on a school board with Rice's mother. She praised in particular one of the ambassador's early moves — re-establishing her Mission's Washington presence with a nine-person staff at the State Department — and dismissed suggestions that the move riled Secretary Clinton as "made up."
Back in New York, Rice already has hosted a round of receptions for nearly every other U.N. ambassador (the old "axis of evil" is still out) at the ambassador's traditional residence at the Waldorf, and she has installed herself in the substantially less glamorous, faded office at the mission's temporary East Side headquarters.
Rice admitted to enjoying the grand Waldorf quarters, though they can be "pretty big and hollow if you're rattling around there by yourself." Her husband, an ABC News producer, and her children remain in Washington. Her 11-year-old son "wants to know what the Libyans are doing this week," while her daughter, 6, is a bit less of a wonk.
"When she's trying to jack me up, she calls me 'Ambassador Momma,'" Rice said.
Rice said she's setting into the Ambassador's traditional routine of high-gloss — but also very practical -— dinners at the residences of other Security Council members and dignitaries. The ambassador is sometimes a bit of a New York society figure, and Rice places herself somewhere between former Ambassadors Richard Holbrooke, a prince of the dinner party circuit, and John Bolton, a U.N. critic who turned in early and spent as little time as possible in New York.
"On the glitz glam spectrum, I'm not at the Holbrooke end," she said, "and I don't put myself on anything with John Bolton."
Rice's predilection for straight talk and the occasional sharp elbow, though, has just a touch of Bolton — though Bolton made himself particularly unwelcome at the international body by joking that it would make no difference if the U.N. headquarters "lost 10 stories."
Bolton sneered at the decision to rejoin the Human Rights Council as "genuflecting" to the fantasy that mere American presence would make a difference.
Rice dismissed that criticism.
"We have a record of abject failure from having stayed out. We've been out for the duration and it has not gotten better. It's arguably gotten worse," she said. "We are much better placed to be fighting for the principles we believe in — protection of human rights universally, fighting against the anti-Israel crap and for meaningful action on issues that we care about and ought to be the top of the agenda, things like Zimbabwe, Sudan [and] Burma — by leading and lending our voice from within."
A similar logic is at play with the anti-racism conference, scheduled for April 20 in Geneva, the successor to a 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, that featured sharp condemnations of Israel. The U.S. delegation pulled out of preparatory talks for the conference after negotiators produced a 63-page draft text that featured more condemnation of Israel and demands for reparations for the slave trade.
That withdrawal seemed to prove the Bush administration's point. "While we got a lot of love, we didn't get any progress on the document," Rice said of the early talks, calling the draft "rife with anti-Israeli and other problematic substance" and "not a credible basis for a responsible outcome."
Since then, however, an American willingness to return to the table has been met with deep concessions and a new, 17-page draft has that dropped all reference to Israel, though there is still tension over a line reaffirming the outcome of the previous meeting in Durban. "We haven't taken a decision about our participation or actual involvement in the negotiations at this stage, [but] we're pleased that this document has substantially improved and is already much better. But [it] has a remaining significant problem," Rice said.
If the Durban outcome is an early signal that Obama-style diplomacy can bear results, the ongoing violence in Darfur is grimmer, with no resolution in sight. Rice declined to talk about the situation in detail because a presidential envoy, Scott Gration, is currently in the region. But she said the U.S. is currently working to bolster confidence in a north-south peace agreement, which she described as essential to confidence in a separate agreement between the government and Darfurian rebels.
She also said the notion of a no-fly zone, which some human rights advocates support, remains "under consideration," though the immediate effort focuses on reversing the expulsion of aid groups, which exacerbates "what was already a massive amount of killing and genocide."
"As the [Sudanese] government has demonstrated, there's a lot it can do quickly unilaterally, and the international community has to decide what's the best leverage to change its behavior," she said.
Rice also said she would continue to work on a favored Bush administration cause, improving the function of the United Nations, though perhaps in a different spirit.
"They didn't invent U.N. reform — they gave it a bad name, but they didn't invent it," Rice said of her predecessors. "This is an institution that, despite its evident flaws, we are much better off having function effectively." | <urn:uuid:bf20c007-8937-471e-880d-ec7ca269fcf7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=6DF8DF5E-18FE-70B2-A8863D1B386274AA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97303 | 1,696 | 1.75 | 2 |
by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) June 22, 2012
A UN panel has found Chinese involvement in more than half of the suspected violations of the North Korean arms and luxury goods embargoes, a Japanese media report said Friday.
The panel identified 38 instances in which banned goods have gone to or from North Korea. Of these, 21 have involved China, the Asahi Shimbun reported, citing unnamed sources.
"The findings reflect in the end China has helped North Korea expand its weaponry and military threats," the Asahi said.
The panel, created in 2009 after the North's second nuclear test, reviewed the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions banning trade with North Korea in certain goods, the paper said.
In the majority of cases examined, Chinese ports served as transit points or Chinese firms were involved as intermediaries, it said, adding the panel's report could be released as early as next week.
Of the 21 cases linked with China, two involved the export or import of items related to weapons of mass destruction or ballistic missiles, the Asahi said.
One of them was a 2007 attempted shipment from North Korea to Syria -- via the Chinese port of Dalian -- of electronic parts and metal plates to be used for ballistic missiles, the Asahi said.
The other was a 2010 shipment from Taiwan, via China, to North Korea of machine tools that could have military applications.
Six other cases involved the export or import of weapons. The remaining 13 cases were about imports of luxury goods to North Korea, the Asahi said.
Friday's report followed earlier claims that a Chinese firm had exported four giant trucks capable of transporting and launching ballistic missiles in August.
The vehicles were likely those on display at the huge military display in April marking the centennial of the birth of the state's founder Kim Il-Sung, the Asahi said.
However, the UN panel did not include this in the tally as an investigation into the claims is still ongoing, the paper said.
China is North Korea's sole major ally and has long shielded Pyongyang from the worst of the international community's wrath over its nuclear and missile programmes.
The panel issued an earlier report in November 2010, and said North Korea has established elaborate schemes to evade sanctions, including false labelling, illicit financial transactions and use of shell and front companies.
The 2010 report called on UN members to stay vigilant, but acknowledged implementation of the sanctions might be difficult.
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com
All about missiles at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com
Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.
S.Korea, US conduct largest joint live-fire drill
Pocheon, South Korea (AFP) June 22, 2012
South Korean and US troops Friday held their biggest single-day joint live-fire exercise to test responses to any North Korean attack, amid high tensions on the peninsula. The drill at Pocheon near the North Korean border involved some 2,000 troops along with jet fighters, tanks, Apache attack helicopters, A-10 "tank-killer" aircraft, missiles and multiple rocket launchers, the defence minis ... read more
|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement| | <urn:uuid:97a59c84-e97a-46cb-9988-bd80b03b2a12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/UN_sees_China_behind_NKorea_embargo_breach_report_999.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937803 | 798 | 1.65625 | 2 |
You are hereCNA Blog / david's blog
Becoming a part of a medical team is possible when you take CNA classes in Maryland. No one wants to be left out on the career ladder. What you do for a living will affect not only your income, but you sense of self-worth. If you have been considering a career in the medical field, but have neither the time nor money to take training to become a doctor, nurses, or physician’s assistant, consider becoming a CNA. Not only will this provide you with a decent income, but it is also a field open to advancement.
Speaking of CNA Jobs in Colorado, there are plenty of jobs available now for the qualified persons. In hospitals and nursing centers there is a huge demand of certified nursing assistants. As a result, there are so many organizations that are offering free nursing courses to meet up the felt demand. However, you must meet the general requirements to apply for a certified nursing assistant and the requirements are:
If you are a ‘people-oriented’ person who cares about others, you will find that CNA classes in Kansas City will provide you with the perfect career. And, the nice thing about become a nursing assistant is that you will have a career that pays you to use your natural sympathies. It doesn’t matter what age you are when you decide to become a CNA, you can be:
Whether you’re making a break with the past or just entering into the present, CNA classes in Denver can prepare you for your new career. Becoming a CNA is probably one of the easiest ways to enter the health care field. The training period is relatively short, and generally the tuition is quite reasonable. It may be that you will be able to simply begin attending daytime classes and get your certification in no time. However, if you are already working a full time job or have heavy family responsibilities, you may want to look into evening classes which will allow you much more flexibility.
Whether you view becoming a nurse’s aide an end in itself or a stepping stone to further education, CNA classes in Memphis, TN, will provide you with all the training you need. It’s no secret that there is already a crying need for qualified CNAs in Memphis, and this need is only going to accelerate in the future. If you are looking for a professional career, one that offers steady employment, and you like helping people, becoming a nurse’s aide will be perfect for you. | <urn:uuid:d61aa017-aa7f-43d6-9af3-e25991fe12d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xcnaclasses.com/blog/1?page=21 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964782 | 518 | 1.742188 | 2 |
(INDIANAPOLIS) -- When people worry about getting salmonella from eggs, they usually aren’t talking about the chocolate ones. Still, one Indiana candymaker has announced a recall of its chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs as a precaution.
Zachary Confections announced the voluntary recall of the Easter treat Wednesday after a sample taken during routine testing revealed “the potential for salmonella contamination,” according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Salmonella is a foodborne bacterium that can cause serious and sometimes deadly infections in the very young and old, as well as in people who have weakened immune systems, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It kills roughly 400 Americans each year.
The recall covers 5-ounce packages of the sweets that are sold in white egg crates with purple, green and yellow lettering, carry the product number 31-797 and the best buy date of Feb. 14, 2014. The packages were shipped from the Frankfort, Ind., factory Feb. 21 and 22, and have been distributed to stores in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to the FDA.
Zachary Confections has not received reports of illness linked to its products, according to the FDA but have suspended production while it investigates the potential contamination.
“We are dedicated to manufacturing wholesome products for our customers,” George Anichini, vice president of operations for Zachary Confections, said in a statement. “Consistent with that dedication, we are taking this voluntary action.”
The FDA recommends that consumers who purchased the recalled products destroy them or return them to the store.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio | <urn:uuid:92d92eca-9292-4d8d-8fe7-6f00292f8313> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.b987.com/common/more.php?m=58&ts=1369259565&article=39CBE54482A311E286DEFEFDADE6840A&mode=2 | 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 | 0.957991 | 362 | 1.820313 | 2 |
November 6, 2012
Page 1 Page 2
Today’s overall mood of the global economy and our domestic economy is challenging for any business.
Many industries have fundamentally changed. For example, home entertainment distribution virtually imploded with on-demand, Redbox, and iTunes.
“The automotive industry no longer exists as an industry solely based on manufacturing,” said Pop-Up City editor Koen Knitel. “Of course, without factories there will be no cars, but this part of industry has left [us and] … The old manufacturing industry has made place for the automobile experience economy.”
“This consumer experience can be found in more and more types of industry, with experience stores popping up in inner cities to lure new customers,” said Knitel.
The far-reaching implications of economic changes are felt on the other side of the globe as well. To survive economic changes in industry, “A private shoemaking company in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, [adopts] new technologies to help its manufacturers maintain their competitive edge.”
Technology has increased their market leadership as “laser machines [help the company] improve its productivity… Before, it took a skilled worker an hour to make hollow patterns on a shoe’s leather upper wrap. But with the laser machine, everything is done in two seconds. ‘Few shoemakers worldwide have the technology. It boosts our efficiency exponentially,’” a company spokesman said.
A changing economic tide brings about one very important thing: opportunity.
Every organization needs to find its place in the rapidly evolving world order, and every business within its industry must maintain its standing in that order. Here’s how I believe forward-thinking executives can lead the way:
1. Commit to quality over quantity, both in company size and product development.
With hugely profitable websites being run by 1-2 people, thousands of employees don’t make you powerful. They make you expensive, necessitating an ambitious output schedule. Keep only those truly dedicated experts and ask them to be accountable and resourceful; put out only quality products which the group can confidently, passionately promote.
2. Become less organized.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but less organization when it comes to staffing is essential. Organizational charts and major divisions were designed for the railway system. Each individual should bring expertise to a team, and teams should be flexible enough to allow everyone involved in a project to discuss it from conception to development. Nothing new should be executed in assembly-line fashion.
Page 1 Page 2 | <urn:uuid:520b6b26-81fd-4256-84cd-6c5d6d6b3cfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yfsentrepreneur.com/2012/11/06/5-ways-forward-thinking-ceos-can-maintain-industry-leadership-in-an-evolving-economy/ | 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 | 0.945836 | 539 | 1.523438 | 2 |
...The Archeological Survey of India (ASI), which is facing heat for its role in the felling of 81 trees at Naya Qila in Golconda Fort, tried to wash its hands of the issue by claiming ignorance of the rule pertaining to cutting down of trees. In response to...
...(AIHC) and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) have been selected for the post of assistant archeologists at Archeological Survey of India. NCC: National Cadet Corps (NCC) cadets of 89 UP Batallion, NCC, BHU visited Ganga ghats on Tuesday as a part...
...the importance of this site. "There are six archaeological sites in and around North Guwahati being maintained by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI). Kanai Barashi is one of them. Though the ASI is constructing a wall around it, we want concrete steps...
...Survey of India (ASI) has agreed to the proposal of ONGC for adopting six monuments under Clean India Campaign. The six monuments and tourist destinations are Taj Mahal at Agra, Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, Elephanta Caves in Maharashtra, Red Fort in Delhi,...
...Union Culture Minister Chandresh Kumari so that all the excavation work would soon be carried out in consultation with Archeological Survey of India. Mr Hooda said that there would be no shortage of funds for this project and the State government would develop...
Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation(PCMC) will be conducting a fresh survey of all the constructions in the municipal limits to increase the income through property tax.
The aerial photography was launched by CM Nitish Kumar at Suryagarha in Lakhisarai district on May 22
Three private agencies have been engaged in the aerial survey work by using helicopters, which will cover 93,358.8 sq km of revenue land in the state by the year-end.
Bihar government has launched an aerial survey of revenue land in the state. The survey, estimated to cost Rs 579 crore, would be completed by 2015 and thereafter, the state would have updated, computerized record of land holdings.
After a quick survey before monsoon officials of Surat Civic body has issued notices to the owners of 15 old and dangerous buildings in old city area either to immediately carry out major repairs or bring the structure down to avoid disaster and loss of life.
An internal survey by police top brass has pointed that Dakshina Kannada district from the law and order point of view has the worst police to population ratio in the state.
The Minorities Welfare Department has extended the tenure of survey commissioner of wakfs Mirza Hasan Ali Baig till February next year. Baig has been given charge of conducting the second wakf survey which has listed around 1.7 lakh wakf properties so far across Andhra Pradesh.
A door-to-door survey for Pune&rsquos first transportation status report (TSR) kick started on Thursday.
Civil supplies minister Anil Deshmukh has ordered a fresh survey of below poverty line (BPL) persons. The computerisation of ration cards had started one and a half years ago and hence facts are being verified.
In the notice issued by the director of mines and geology Prasanna Acharya, the lease holders are directed to carry out the surveys through one of the seven agencies empanelled by the government. Indian Bureau of mines and later Shah Commission which went into the illegal mining issue in Goa, had spoken of DGPS survey of the mining areas.
Goa's directorate of mines and geology has asked all mining lease holders to carry out DGPS (differential global positioning sytem) survey of mines by June 15.
The district collector vikas deshmukh has initiated a survey to identify dangerous structures in the fringe areas and tural parts of city.
Goa's food production has declined due to deficiency of micro-nutrients especially zinc, heavy rainfall and some other factors, an earlier study has indicated.
The project called 'the soil nutrient status of goa: major and micronutrients'' has been taken up under central government's rashtriya krishi vikas yojana. The soil analysis will enable the department to issue soil health card to farmers all over the state.
The agriculture department has invited expressions of interest from recognized NGOs, cooperative societies, self help groups and farmers clubs to carry out a soil survey in the state.
They cannot claim to work for the government and walk away violating rules. Even private individuals who have to clear one or two trees on their house premises first seek our permission under WALTA Act. If ASI does not comply we intend to take up the matter with the director general
Despite sending photographs that clearly showed axed trees that were far from the fort walls or any monuments, they refuse to acknowledge it and in reply send in irrelevant photos | <urn:uuid:03c5622d-81dd-4b40-8f12-4076197a4860> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Archeological-Survey-of-India | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9563 | 1,030 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Elite business schools in the US are facing a backlash. What did you teach those stuffed shirts, anyway... Russian roulette??
Bloomberg's Oliver Staley reports: Harvard Business School, stung by criticism that it hasn’t prepared alumni to cope with the economic meltdown, will dissect its performance using a practice it employs to examine corporations in crisis.
A task force, created in November at the direction of the dean, is writing a case study to scrutinize whether the school is failing to teach students to understand and manage risk in the current environment, according to Paul Healy, co-chair of the panel. The case study method is the technique Harvard uses to analyze decision making by executives during times of duress.
The idea is to put professors in the students' seats and ultimately use the discussion to promote curriculum changes.
Harvard's less than illustrious alumni at the moment include the likes of Stanley O’Neal and John Thain (ex Merrill Lynch), Rick Wagoner, (ex General Motors Corp) and Christopher Cox, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The article goes on to add that "many of the graduates involved in failures attended the school 20 or 30 years ago, before classes on risk management, macroeconomics and leadership were required". But another Bloomberg columnist, Kevin Hassett, points out it's not so much what they studied but their attitude which resulted in the downfall.
And he makes such a good case that this is one of those rare instances where I am compelled to reproduce a large chunk of the article.
For two centuries, Wall Street survived wars, depressions, bank panics and terrorist attacks. Now Wall Street as we know it is dead. Gone.
When a healthy and thriving person dies suddenly, a medical examiner may talk to family and friends to see if the deceased had recently changed behavior in some way.
Wall Street did change radically in recent years in one notable way. Twenty or 30 years ago, it was common for the best and the brightest to be doctors or engineers. By the 2000s, they wanted to be investment bankers.
When Wall Street was run by people randomly selected from the population, it was able to survive everything. After the best and brightest took over, it died the first time real-estate prices dropped 20 percent.
Are the two facts related? In other words, did Harvard kill Wall Street?
Hassett goes on to argue that Wall Street is gone because its firms did a terrible job assessing the risks of the positions they took.
The models these firms used to evaluate risks failed. But having a failed model brings a firm down only if the firm collectively buys into the model. To do that, the firm must be run by people who have a great deal of faith in their models, and a great deal of faith in themselves.
So basically, MBAs believe they know everything, that they can do no wrong. This narcissism has a real career impact...
The consequences of Wall Street’s reckless brilliance in many ways parallel modern-day engineering disasters. If you travel through Italy, you can’t help but notice the many Roman bridges that still stretch across that nation’s waterways. How is it that the Romans could build bridges that would last thousands of years, while the ones we build today collapse after a few decades?
The answer is simple. Back then, they did not have the fancy computers required to calculate exactly how strong a bridge must be. So an architect made a bridge very, very strong. Today, engineers can calculate exactly how much steel they need to incorporate into a bridge to bear the expected load. The result is, they are free to make them weaker...
The same is true of the financial sector. Back when Wall Street was run by individuals without fancy degrees, they had a proper skepticism toward fancy models and managed their risks with a great deal more humility and caution. Only when failed models became canon did catastrophe strike.
He concludes: Wall Street didn’t die in spite of being run by our best and brightest. It died because of that fact.
Ahem. I don't agree with this entirely - the regulators who turned a blind eye and allowed the is good' brigade to take over are also to blame. But yes, there is much in what he says that rings true.
Every catastrophe has its lessons (one hopes!). Here is some more food for thought for bschools and their students from columnist Matthew Lynn (also from Bloomberg!)
A sum up: Business schools legitimized a pseudo-scientific approach, promoted a mechanistic management style and formed a managerial elite more interested in rewards than producing lasting wealth for the economies they operate in.
(An attitude which manifests right from the time of placement, I would add!)
But the details are more interesting, so here goes:
If a flight-training school produced this number of crashes, we would be asking some questions. There is no reason that business studies should be exempt from the same kind of scrutiny.The schools should be called to account for several things.
First, they encouraged a quasi-scientific approach to business, sermonizing that everything could be nailed down in a textbook. By preaching a set series of formulas they encouraged students to believe that running a company could be mastered by anyone. The entire private-equity industry is founded on that principle. So are mergers and acquisitions.
In reality, management is a skill that is acquired through experience, judgment and flair. Billions are about to be wasted relearning a simple fact that should never have been forgotten.
Second, the intellectual tools that led us into the financial meltdown were largely invented within academia. Complex models for pricing risk created the market for the options and derivatives contracts that have caused so much trouble in the past year.
The business schools took something that was mysterious and unknowable -- risk -- and tried to make it as easy to count as peas in a pod. By doing so, they encouraged a whole generation of young men and women to go into investment banking armed with the belief that they had mastered risk, that it had been tamed and brought under control.
The truth, of course, turned out to be different. Bankers can no more tame risk than sailors can tame the oceans. All they can hope to do is steer a safe course through it.
Third, the schools created a managerial elite that acted like a caste apart. One reason the bonus culture ran out of control was that many of the people involved were trapped in a bubble. They thought “guaranteed” bonuses, private jets and multimillion-dollar payoffs were normal. That process started in business schools.
Citing examples from history such as Henry VIII and Fidel Castro, Lynn makes a rather drastic proposal: Shut down business schools. They are beyond redemption.
Not that yeh honewala hai. Just arbit emotional CP. But for a moment, if we were to say that an ordinance was passed to shut down bschools across the world. What would happen?
Nothing. They would just spring up in another form. They might teach anything, anywhere, but ultimately we would find a new way to create elites, who believe they are the brighest and best, and can do no wrong.
We will bring down other walls on other streets. But keep building more... to separate Purebloods and Mudbloods, Brahmins and non-Brahmins, Thinkers and Followers, ... 'Us' and 'Them'. | <urn:uuid:2e227cb0-c140-49bc-9648-461d40b8aefa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2009/04/friends-romans-greedy-mbas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973558 | 1,541 | 1.84375 | 2 |
21 abril, 2011 in news
Radio doesn’t always begin and end with a broadcast over the airwaves. Sometimes radio transmissions are used by artists as another tool for creative expression.
This year the arts organization 23five is curating the Activating the Medium XIV festival in San Francisco and will present several performances and radio broadcasts focused on the theme of radio as source material. The festival began on April 7th with performancesby Richard Garet, Jim Haynes and Allison Holt at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and will continue with events at The Lab on April 22 and 23. In addition to these live events, the series will also feature a number of radio broadcasts on KALX (on Information Overload April 7 and 21), KPFA (April 12 and 19) and on my home station KFJC (April 16) . The next radio special will air tonight starting at 11:59pm on the KPFA program No Other Radio.
To learn more about this year‚Äôs festival, I spoke with Jim Haynes of 23five. Jim is not only an artist, but he is also the principle curator and organizer for the 2011 event. According to Jim, the annual Activating the Medium festival is always designed around a particular theme and is meant to be a showcase for works by ‚Äúsound artists, avant-garde composers, and experimental musicians.‚ÄĚ Past themes have included¬† ‚Äúthe field recording, sound & architecture, the simulacrum, and ice.‚ÄĚ When I asked Jim about how radio came to be the theme for 2011, he explained that, ‚ÄúRadio has long been a tool within the history of avant-garde composition, tracking back to Stockhausen, Cage, and Tenney; but within the history of 23five, the first Activating The Medium festival evolved out of Randy Yau‚Äôs radio show at Cal Poly called ‚ÄėDark Market Broadcast‚Äô ‚ÄĒ this being a reference to an incredible album by sonic provocateur John Duncan, who heavily uses radio within composition. It seemed a logical theme to employ given my own preferences for shortwave radio within composition and performance and Randy‚Äôs background with the medium.‚ÄĚ
In addition to artists using radio as source material for their work, during the festival many of these pieces will also be broadcast over radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Jim explained that,
‚ÄúIt seemed self-evident to us that if we were going to be curating works sourced from radio, then we should try to broadcast such work over the radio. So, we sent out a call to a number of artists to contribute to a radio series. The response was incredible, and we have well over three hours of material from an impressive array of artists, including such acclaimed artists as Leif Elggren, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Dave Phillips, and Giancarlo Toniutti. There‚Äôs also a considerable amount of material from emerging artists, who will hopefully receive some exposure from this series. Within the series, there‚Äôs quite a wide variety of works such as those by Vertonen and irr. app. (ext.) who use static, noise, distortion, and sonic detritus; then one will find the culture jamming media collage from Lisa Seitz and Adam Sonderberg; and this would be coupled with the sublime contributions of slippery surfaces and hazy impressionism from Richard Garet and Colin Andrew Sheffield.‚ÄĚ
Jim said that in terms of his own art, he’s particularly drawn to exploring the concept of decay and radio has been a useful tool for his work. He explained this, as well as his interest in shortwave radio and numbers stations, saying,
‚ÄúMy own visual and sound constructions work with systems of decay, and radio had proven to be a rich tool within composition to speak of corrosion. While there is the very concrete actualization of decay by means of radio by tuning into weak and/or interfered transmissions which breakdown in static and grey noise, I find that shortwave radio, in particular, is loaded with metaphors of instability and the unknown. An obvious example of shortwave‚Äôs mystery would be numbers stations, whose mechanical recitations of coded messages are downright spooky in their delivery, doubled by the likelihood that these transmissions originate from intelligence organizations around the world (i.e. CIA, M16, MOSSAD, etc.). While I have used numbers stations in very early works, I typically use sine waves from the upper & lower side bands of the spectrum, shepard tones of noise, and streams from utility signals.‚ÄĚ
Although Jim told me that there aren‚Äôt many radio stations willing to play sound art, he did find willing participants at several college and community radio stations, including KFJC. KFJC DJ Nozmo King (former host of ‚ÄúPsychoacoustic Soundclash‚ÄĚ) will be presenting his¬†Activating the Medium special this Saturday, April 16 from 3 to 6pm (Pacific Time) on the Foothill College station (89.7 FM) in his old timeslot. I spoke with Nozmo King (aka Dan Kletter) about what he has in store for the radio special. Dan said that he‚Äôs been attending the Activating the Medium festival for many years and has always enjoyed helping to promote it over the airwaves. In terms of Saturday‚Äôs radio show, he told me, ‚ÄúOver 30 artists were asked to contribute a piece that was 10 minutes or less. We‚Äôve got about 28 or 29 tracks right now. Since the Psychoacoustic Soundclash was all about looking at things sideways, I have been thinking about how I can present all the material as a performance. Sort of an homage to Negativland.‚ÄĚ
Dan said that he likes the idea of composers using radio as source material and explained that there is a rich history of artists doing just that. He said,
‚ÄúThere are so many ways to use any sound source. This reminds me of a quote that often gets attributed to Picasso: ‚ÄėGood artists copy. Great artists steal.‚Äô As long as whatever is taken is used to make something entirely else ‚ÄĒ and this is key ‚ÄĒ as a reflection of themselves.
I’ve heard some great things done with radio. I’m thinking specifically of Negativland who produced radio performances and sampled radio for use in their performances. I rely on field recordings quite a bit. Sampling radio, whether it’s static in between stations, interference, shortwave or just sampling directly from other programs is fun to work with. There was a DJ who tried using radio as a live instrument of decaying feedback on KFJC a few years ago. I owe a lot to J.C. Clone and crew with their Pumpkinhead performances.
Historically, radio has been put to good use by Stockhausen, Tenny, Cage, Maxfield, AMM, John Duncan, Stereolab, Kraftwerk, The Silver Apples, etc. etc.‚ÄĚ
When I asked Dan if he knew the origins of the radio sources being used in the festival and if there were samples from radio broadcasts from KFJC, he said, ‚ÄúThat would be pretty cool!‚ÄĚ, but admitted that he didn‚Äôt know if there were. He added, ‚ÄúCamilla Hannan sampled an interview from Australian radio. The person speaking is complaining about the failures of his government in Paupa New Guinea and there‚Äôs a thunderstorm brewing in the background. I love it when intention is interrupted by the unanticipated. I try to nurture happy accidents whenever I do radio.‚ÄĚ
More details on the Activating the Medium festival, including a schedule of performances and radio broadcasts can be found on the 23five website. | <urn:uuid:35512162-bbd8-4589-91cb-50ff99a75f88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://radioartnet.net/11/tag/san-francisco-museum-of-modern-art/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955078 | 1,810 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Looking back on it now, I guess what I really learned in graduate school was that you can’t trust research. You really can’t. There’s so much variation in methods and methodology — and so little true objectivity — that essentially we can and do interpret data to mean anything we’d like it to mean.
This has lots to do with relying on correlations, i.e. the patients who had the most X factor also developed the most Y condition. But this does not prove that X causes Y. No way, baby. Remember that historical study showing that the regions of the world with the most storks also had the most births? Yeah, right.
Being an inquisitive person with diabetes following the latest research, I try not to get too disillusioned. I know the scientists are making progress. They are. With all the efforts, and all that funding, they have to be!! But for every study stating milk products cause diabetes, there’s another illustrating the health benefits of dairy consumption for diabetics. Wha?!
And now this. Researchers at UCLA recently discovered that tight BG control isn’t necessarily beneficial! Diabetics they studied with poor glucose control actually had a 35 percent lower mortality rate than patients with A1C levels no greater than 7. Wha?!
OK, maybe it’s a fluke, but awfully disconcerting following the latest DCCT results showing that tight glucose control supposedly makes a huge difference in long-term health.
I guess you just can’t trust research. Geez. And as if it weren’t dicey enough, some people have to go and just outright cheat. They’re saying Dr. Hwang’s indiscretions in faking stem cell research will “set the already embattled field back indefinitely.” I’ll say. | <urn:uuid:5208c9c9-4abd-4dfe-a313-ef07b5aaf362> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetesmine.com/2006/01/the_clay_feet_o.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958668 | 391 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The Associate of Science in Accounting degree program is designed to equip students with a variety of basic accounting skills that are useful in entry-level accounting positions. Students can develop a base of practical, real-world skills from instructors who are accounting professionals.Building on a foundation of communication, interpersonal and math skills, they can learn all aspects of the accounting cycle, including analyzing and interpreting various financial statements. Courses in business and managerial accounting are designed to give students the tools for making basic decisions in organizations.
Stonecliffe College Online is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association.
Cost : $20,650.00
Credits : 90 | <urn:uuid:c283d967-8c3a-4b0f-ba78-2bd7636f5817> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onlinecollegeguru.com/online-colleges/stonecliffe-college-online/associate-of-science-in-accounting/ | 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 | 0.935479 | 134 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Two can play
ENVIRONMENTAL activists had reasons to feel aggrieved after last week's fuel protests. The environmental argument for high fuel taxes was lost in the melee, and the public seemed by and large to support the aggrieved truckers and farmers. Green types also complained that the pickets were enjoying special police treatment. Think of all those road protesters who have been plucked roughly from trees and whisked to prison, they huffed; yet the fuel blockaders were left to disrupt traffic and public services in relative peace.
The finding of a jury in Norwich this week offered some much-needed succour to the environmental cause, not to mention the cause of anarchy. On September 20th, at Norwich Crown Court, 28 environmental activists were found not guilty of criminal damage. Like the fuel protesters, the defendants were a rag-tag and unlikely bunch of peace-breakers: they included Lord Melchett, the executive director of Greenpeace and former member of a Labour government, and a Baptist minister.
The case was a curious one because the defendants had admitted the substance of the charge against them: last year they destroyed part of a test-field of genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant maize, during a dawn raid on a farm in Norfolk. Far from attempting to evade responsibility for their assault, they filmed it for posterity. The protesters had intended to deliver the uprooted crop to the office of the biotechnology company which had developed it, but were surprised by an irate farmer.
Yet Lord Melchett and his cohorts pleaded not guilty, arguing that they had acted to prevent the contamination of neighbouring (non-GM) crops, and thus that their vandalism was lawful. In a previous trial for the same offence, the jury was unable to reach a verdict; this one took five hours to acquit the defendants.
One unremarkable conclusion to be drawn from the case is that much of the public remains antagonistic to genetically modified crops. Like fuel taxes, the issue is a peripheral one that has achieved a sudden and surprising prominence, exciting strong emotions in normally placid people. Although allegations that GM crops will wreak damage on the environment and harm the health of human beings are essentially unproven, large swathes of the population remain convinced that genetic modification is “unnatural”. These environmentalist instincts may not always extend to a willingness to pay more for petrol, but they are clearly powerful when aroused.
Also like fuel taxes, genetic modification is a subject which has ambushed and mortified the government. It is committed to staging farm-scale trials of GM crops over the next three years, and stoically insisted after this week's verdict that the trials would go ahead. But the trials may be scuppered by the understandable reluctance of farmers to put their property at risk. Some farmers who signed up to take part in the experiments had withdrawn even before this emotive trial began; any who persevere will need to look out for marauding and confident activists. If too many farmers are deterred, important scientific evidence will not be gathered. As a consequence, Britain's biotechnology industry could fall behind its competitors.
Most important, the acquittal has arguably even more serious implications for the rule of law, and the democratic process, than the paralysis brought about by the fuel blockade. Lord Melchett triumphantly declared that his acquittal had totally vindicated his action. Like the fuel protesters, he says he does not rule out launching similar guerrilla raids in the future, if outdoor GM trials are not curtailed. His victory suggests that, if a cause seems just, or at least sympathetic to jurors, its proponents can feel confident not only in bullying the government, as the fuel protesters have attempted to do, but in bypassing the law altogether. “Single-issue politics” has been superseded by single-issue law-making. Perhaps the disgruntled truckers will take note. | <urn:uuid:8c8de2db-6278-4916-931b-7c6b82e72031> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/node/374555 | 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 | 0.975907 | 797 | 1.742188 | 2 |
While I agree that the government has been wrong with the recent domain seizures, are there any laws that justify this or are they just assuming they have the right based on a broad interpretation of other laws?
The one thing I find interesting is that some people claim this is a 1st Amendment issue, but it's really not. the 1st Amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
If there are no specific laws that justify this but instead are using a broad interpretation of other laws, then it's really not a 1st Amendment issue.
Disturbing and wrong? Yes. Violating the Constitution? Technically, no. Either way, it's very sad.
I've been to the Art Institute of Chicago and if I remember correctly, the only post this for special exhibits. For example, when I last went there, they had a special exhibit of Soviet propaganda posters from the 1940's. Photographs were banned in that exhibit. My assumption is that this was due to the book they were selling that contained pictures of all of the art in that exhibit.
I also think the comments about tripods, flash photography, etc. being a nuisance are probably accurate. For example, someone using a tripod to take pictures would be extremely annoying, especially considering how crowded some parts of the museum were. | <urn:uuid:ec8d8873-b6a2-421d-ae93-9ae35ad37201> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techdirt.com/user/safletcher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977449 | 314 | 1.523438 | 2 |
When the Fitness Stack Exchange site had just begun we got a question about What are the downsides of minimalist running shoes? My answer was that there’s nothing inherently bad about them, but as the saying goes: “if the shoe fits, wear it”. The shoes aren’t for everyone, so while it may be great for some, they can be harmful to others.
Now when I wrote that answer I didn’t have any first hand experience with actually wearing minimalist running shoes like Vibrams, so I decided to go to my favorite running shop and picked up a pair.
I’ve been running on and off for nearly 6 years now, but every year I would get shin problems. While wearing the most stable running shoes, having several pairs of orthotics and regularly checking my own biomechanics, nothing seemed to help. So if there’s anyone who stands to gain something from wearing Vibrams it would be me!
Why wear minimal shoes?
One might wonder, why would anyone want to wear these shoes anyway? Doesn’t it hurt to walk on shoes with barely a sole? Well the answer is no, it does not hurt. Because when we walk, the impact forces are only about 1.2 times our body weight (see graph, ~800N fits nicely with a body mass of 75 kg). Standing barefooted doesn’t hurt either, so simply walking isn’t painful.
Furthermore, because the sole is so thin, you get a lot more proprioceptive feedback, which allows you to alter your gait if it doesn’t feel good. Whenever you’re in a swimming pool or at the beach, as soon as you would try pick up a faster pace, you would automatically start running on your toes as to avoid absorbing the (much) higher impact forces with your heel.
This is also where most of the perceived benefit of the minimal shoes comes in. Because the improved feedback you get from the ground, you can alter your running pattern in ways that aren’t possible when running with regular shoes. It might sound cheesy, but when trying out the Vibrams in the woods running over pine cones, you could definitely feel them. When I ran there wearing my Saucony Mirages I would barely notice them, so there’s definitely a difference in the sensory feedback.
Another reason people wear Vibrams is because of Born to Run and the 4 Hour Work Week, which both advocate barefoot running as a means to go back to our roots. Our ancestors back on the plains in Africa didn’t need shoes while they hunted down their pray and literally ran them to death. To me this only explains why those Kenyans can run so fast while being barefooted and shows that its possible, not that its necessarily better.
The University of Cologne did a study a couple years back where they let athletes run with Nike Free shoes and found that this significantly improved the strength of some of the intrinsic muscles. Because the Nike Free lacks the support traditional shoes have, it required the muscles to stabilize the joint. Basically minimal shoes are like body weight training for your ankle and lower leg. This argument was most enticing to me, because even with the best shoes I never had ‘enough’ support. Focusing on training the weak muscles that would get injured every year seems like a good plan.
How to get started?
However my because of my previous injuries and a healthy dose of skepticism as to whether they would help, I asked a question on How to get started with minimal shoes?
Chrisopher Ickes suggested the following four tips:
- Strengthen the most effected areas using these Barefoot Running Exercises. Barefoot / Minimalist Running increases torque to knee flexion, knee varus and internal hip rotation.
- Wear them for walking as often as possible.
- Work them into a workout 1 day a week. In my experience there are 2 great places to introduce them: a) in a short cool down after a workout b) during form drills (if you do any) and right before a short tempo run. That helps to reinforce the muscle memory.
- Slowly increase their usage in your workouts. I believe a 1 year patient plan is the best for maximum adaptation.
Since I’m a homeworker, wearing them (or no shoes at all) all day long was easy, I didn’t have any bosses or clients to offend. I started using my Mirage’s first, one exercise per week to get used to them and then added a workout with the Vibrams as well. While I was stiff as hell the day after (and you all know how I feel about stretching), when the stiffness and muscle soreness was gone I felt great. After about a month I started wearing Mirage’s during my 2+hr workouts and I even accidentally ran a race on my Vibrams (forgot my shoes…).
Another thing I did before I started wearing my Vibrams was shortening my stride length. While I was researching answers for the site, I stumbled over this blog post about Loading rates and landing patterns, which suggested several benefits to shortening your strides. Chief among them was that it lowered the loading rate (rate at which a force is applied), which in turn reduced the risk of injuries. So when I started running again back in February, I also focused on taking more shorter strides.
Is it the solution to all my problems?
Well to return to my first answer: while it may be great for some, they can be harmful to others. Peak Performance reports about a study that compared a group of runners with and without shoes and didn’t find a difference in the injury rate. The barefoot running group found an apparent high incidence of metatarsal stress fractures, even Nathan Wheeler has had issues with a painful forefoot while running with his Vibrams.
In my case sadly, I ended up straining my medial quadriceps near the end of one of my very long runs, so there’s no happy ending. However, I blame it on my enthusiastic shot at doing a marathon training program. Rather than sticking to my early mantra of keeping the bare minimum pace required by my program, my competitiveness made me run faster than I should have. Something I’ll remember for next time!
I do feel that I slacked on stability training, like Christopher suggested. The past few weeks I’ve been doing circuit training as a replacement, which involves a great deal of squats, lunges and single legged stances. I can already feel a large improvement in the stability when doing a Flamingo-test, which has been shown to correlate with injury rates in soccer players. When I can get back to running I intend to incorporate these strength exercises into my program.
How to maintain them?
Everyone with a bit smelly feet knows that if they wouldn’t wear socks, their shoes would stink like hell. Well the Vibrams are no different as one of Fitness.SE first Vibram questions was: How do I avoid stench with my Vibram Five Fingers? Luckily there are some things you can do about them, though not all are accessible to everyone.
- Use anti-bacterial or anti-fungal powder or cream while wearing them, this should kill or at least reduce the amount of odor-causers.
- (White) Vinegar, which is sour enough to kill a lot of bacteria and also helps with cleaning the stench.
- UV light, there exist microwave like machines that basically blast away anything bacterial or fungal with a high dose of UV.
- Air them in sunlight, which is basically the same as the previous answer though depending on where you live, you might have to leave them hanging a bit longer.
The jury is still out whether minimal shoes reduce injuries. Basically if you haven’t had success with regular running shoes, you have the most to gain from giving them a shot. Whereas when you never had any injuries, there’s no real need to risk getting injured by trying them out. Because I did quite some preparation before starting the use them, I didn’t have that much trouble during the transition period. However, I wouldn’t advise others to extrapolate from my opinions and rather experience it for themselves. Just be careful of blisters!
Filed under running | <urn:uuid:9cbc248b-d477-4478-8604-d81fbb66d9f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fitness.blogoverflow.com/2011/08/vibrams-for-dummies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967943 | 1,744 | 1.773438 | 2 |
How much would you pay to watch TV programs you can already get for free?
This month, WMTW (the Hearst-owned ABC affiliate on Channel 8) and WGME (the Sinclair-owned CBS affiliate on Channel 13) are asking you, their viewers, to call your pay-TV provider and declare your willingness to do just that.
Both stations pay big bucks to the federal government for permission to broadcast over the public airwaves, using the new digital-TV signals that can be detected by up-to-date televisions and antennas. The stations are also carried on several pay-TV networks, including TimeWarner Cable and DirecTV. Most TVs these days can handle doing both — it's really easy to switch between your cable box, your DVD player, and your video-game console.
But the bulk carriers don't want you to do that — they want to keep you locked in to their systems. So they pay the local stations (or their corporate parents, at least) for the privilege of providing local shows to viewers in the station's geographic coverage area. The bulk carriers, naturally, pass on those costs to their audiences — charging viewers for the privilege of watching TV they could have at no cost, if only they were willing to press a button on their remotes.
WMTW's deal with DirecTV and WGME's with TimeWarner both expire December 31, and both stations have issued notices to viewers saying their bulk-carrier channels may go dark if the behemoths don't pony up, often to the tune of millions of dollars.
For example, executives at WGME parent Sinclair minimize their rate increase by describing it as "less than a penny a day per subscriber." But do the math: both WGME and TimeWarner estimate that 250,000 to 300,000 TimeWarner subscribers could be affected in Maine alone — that's right around a million dollars of increase (neither party will disclose the present payment amount). Of course, this is really one behemoth pushing another to get money from you: the Sinclair deal covers 32 other TV stations around the country, and whatever TimeWarner ends up paying will ultimately be covered by TimeWarner customers in their monthly cable bills.
And let's put that extra "penny a day per subscriber" into individual terms. Sinclair is asking TimeWarner to approve charging you an extra $3.65 a year to get access to TV signals Sinclair already distributes at no charge over the airwaves.
Is that a big boost to Sinclair? Yep. Does TimeWarner skim off a percentage for its own coffers? Bet on it. And what do you get? Nothing more or less than what is already being broadcast to your home. (Satellite, cable, and over-the-air providers bicker about relative "reliability" during thunderstorms and the like, but you're generally more likely to lose TV access because of a power outage than anything specifically related to how video gets to your home.)
Of course the other thing it gets for the local TV station is a whole pile of additional prospective viewers, which boosts advertising prices. WMTW president and general manager David Abel says 20 percent of his station's audience watch using DirecTV. Losing access to those viewers would require him to slash his advertising rates, which are higher for stations reaching more people.
Throwing that into the mix makes this financial equation even more fascinating: WMTW and WGME want you to pay DirecTV and TimeWarner more, to allow those carriers to pay the stations more, to give the stations more viewers, for which they can then charge advertisers more, a cost covered by the advertisers raising their own prices. You're paying for the privilege of watching television ads that make everything in your life more expensive. How does that feel?
Jeff Inglis can be reached firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:462ad746-a4e4-45eb-9623-fde838984890> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/112876-pay-what/?rel=inf | 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 | 0.962973 | 807 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Connect to share and comment
A United Nations official on Wednesday expressed concern about the wellbeing of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons and in particular about the condition of hunger striker Samer Issawi.
A UN statement said that Humanitarian Coordinator James W. Rawley met in the West bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Issa Qaraqe, where Rawley "expressed the United Nations' continued concern about Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody."
"They discussed the situation of four Palestinian detainees currently on hunger strike and, in particular, the critical health condition of one Palestinian detainee, Samer Issawi, who has been on hunger strike for more than 200 days," it said.
Palestinian prisoner support group Adameer says six prisoners held by Israel are currently on hunger strike.
The longest serving are Issawi and Ayman Sharawneh who have been fasting for months to demand their release from imprisonment without trial.
Under what Israel calls "administrative detention," suspects can be imprisoned without trial by order of a military court.
The order can be renewed indefinitely for six months at a time.
Rawley called for an end to the practise.
"The Humanitarian Coordinator reiterated the position of the United Nations Secretary-General, namely that those detained should be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees in accordance with international standards, or released without delay," the statement said.
Last year, between 1,600 and 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel took part in a collective hunger strike which ended with an agreement with prison administrators on May 14.
One of their main demands was the release of administrative detainees. | <urn:uuid:4b70c3f0-19ec-423e-ad63-2a9c65a379fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130213/un-concerned-about-palestinian-detainees-hunger-strikers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932219 | 328 | 1.703125 | 2 |
I have a Garmin Edge 500 with hear rate monitor, which I use while riding. Now I have all this hear rate data which I don't know how to apply. Can anyone point out how I should use this data for training, with the intention of racing?
I would also recommend Friel's book.
Basically, to train with a HRM, you need to set up your zones. There are three ways of doing this:
1) Based on an estimated maximum heart rate. This is better than nothing, but not by a lot, as it is an average. If you have a big heart, this may result in zones that are too high, while if you have a small heart, it may result in zones that are too low.
2) Based on a measured maximum. This is better than an estimated maximum, but isn't great because zones are better set using your anaerobic threshold, which changes based on your fitness level. As you get better trained, you want your zones to move up.
3) Based on a test, generally a field test that you perform on your bike. IIRC, Carmichael uses two 3-mile time trial efforts, while Friel uses one 20-minute effort. Both give decent numbers.
I would recommend the field test approach since you are just getting started. If you get serious, you may want to switch to using a power meter, which is better than using a HRM.
As others have pointed, heart-rate alone is not enough to organize a comprehensive training program, and some preliminary steps (fitness tests, mostly) are necessary so that you can properly train guided by heart rate zones.
The main idea is the following: heart rate is one of the best measures of your physical effort. Each person have an individual maximum heart rate, depending on a lot of factors, mostly age. When you know your maximum rate, then it is possible to calculate the HEART RATE ZONES, as percent ranges of that maximum, which are directly related to training levels. Below a given zone there is no training, inside a given zone you keep the conditioning you already have, above a given zone you are improving your aerobic level, and so on. This can also be used to actively rest during an interval training, when you apply the next effort cycle only after some time below some threshold.
Of course, this talk applies specifically for TRAINING. If you ride only for fun, then you can use the heart rate just to compare efforts, more "informally" speaking. For example, if you ride the same route at the same speed many times, you can look for the higher heart rates and know during which rides you were more tired. Also, there are some ways to measure POWER with GPS devices (STRAVA does so if you provide your weight and the bike's weight). When you relate power and heart rate, you can obtain a measure of your fitness and/or efficiency at a given stretch.
With this flood of data nowadays, the possibilities are almost endless!
Hope this helps!
In addition to Google/books ("Total Heart Rate Training" by Joel Friel is a worthwhile read, IMO) have an Active Metabolic Rate test, VO2Max test, or something similar performed at a sports lab to measure exactly where your zones are. Don't waste time with "214-(age*0.8)" or other faith-based calculations. | <urn:uuid:b3d5c331-e8cb-4b6f-9645-8dbff9a1a4ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/13203/effective-use-of-heart-rate-monitor | 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 | 0.954049 | 703 | 1.828125 | 2 |
VATICAN CITY — Over the next four weeks, the Vatican’s synod hall will be the setting for close to 300 speeches about the Bible as the 253 “synod fathers” (cardinals, patriarchs, bishops and a dozen priests who head religious orders), a dozen “fraternal delegates” representing other Christian communities and some of the three dozen “observers” invited by Pope Benedict XVI address the world Synod of Bishops.
Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary-general of the synod, told Vatican Radio Tuesday that Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew would be one of the “fraternal delegates.” Usually, the patriarchs of Orthodox churches send a representative to the synod rather than attending themselves.
But before any of them have a chance to speak, viewers of Italy’s government-owned RAI 1 television station and its satellite sister RAI Educational will hear dozens of people reading the Bible and famed tenor Andrea Boccelli singing J.S. Bach’s “Lodate Dio” (“Praise God”).
The tenor will sing Oct. 5 after Pope Benedict XVI, Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria and the Rev. Maria Bonafede, moderator of Italy’s Waldensian Church, have read the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. After Bocelli sings, the next section of Genesis will be read by the actor Roberto Benigni.
The recitations are part of RAI’s “The Bible Day and Night” project we wrote about earlier.
Another event connected to the synod was last night’s presentation of the Italian edition of “The Essential Guide to the Sacred Bible,” a 64-page book by Msgr. Pietro Principe, published by the Vatican publishing house. USCCB Publishing plans to release the English translation in early 2009.
The book is a brief introduction to the Bible. Among other things, it contains: a map of the Holy Land at the time of Christ, an explanation of what the Catholic Church means when it says the Bible is “inspired,” a brief introduction to the various books of the Bible, and short profiles of 45 men and 13 women who figure prominently in the Bible.
Msgr. Principe said he wrote the book for Catholics who do not want a scholarly tome, but want “to begin to approach this treasure” so that they would learn to love the Bible and to love God who continues to speak through it. | <urn:uuid:80caf780-7ef6-4cc1-90a0-0de4d4ffeeae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943467 | 541 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Every LGBT vote countsEditorial, Top Highlights Thursday, May 31st, 2012
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
One thing that definitely matters is this year’s mayoral primary. For starters, whether we have an advocate for LGBT equality in the mayor’s office is a key question.
Carl DeMaio has promised anti-LGBT advocates that LGBT issues are not the purview of the mayor, and will not be a priority should he be elected in November.
Meanwhile, Bonnie Dumanis lives her life authentically and is married to her same-sex partner and would be the personification of LGBT equality.
Nathan Fletcher took a principled stand against his party to support the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as well as SB 48, which requires that LGBT history be taught in public schools.
Bob Filner has been a staunch supporter of the community for years and has taken many principled votes in favor of LGBT civil rights. But regrettably, both Fletcher and Filner have, as part of their pasts, anti-LGBT votes.
While this primary will likely produce two candidates who will face off in November, which two remains an open question. That’s why voting next Tuesday is of critical importance; even more important is how you vote. While DeMaio is expected to be one of the candidates in the runoff, anything can happen. So every LGBT vote counts.
I have had several conversations about “strategic” voting: in this case, realizing your candidate has no chance of winning so instead voting for your second choice. Unfortunately, “strategic” voting will hurt Bonnie Dumanis who is the best choice among our two LGBT candidates. Polls indicate that the Dumanis campaign has not caught fire. Those with whom I have spoken about the consideration of “strategic” voting in this mayoral election are all Dumanis supporters.
Fletcher and Filner are tied for second in the most recent polling. If Dumanis supporters “strategically” vote, the outcome of the primary race could produce a Fletcher/Filner runoff. Both Fletcher and Filner are within striking distance of DeMaio in the polls.
Of course, you should vote for who most reflects your values; I simply think that what should drive your vote is picking someone who will advocate for LGBT equality as part of their mayoral agenda. There is only one candidate who has said that LGBT issues are not a priority: Carl DeMaio.
I think you should also measure candidates by the company they keep. If the two Republican candidates, DeMaio and Dumanis, support Mitt Romney for president in November, it will be clear that being a Republican is more important to both than the freedom and equality of the LGBT community.
It is difficult to call out the LGBT candidates in the mayoral race because I want us to have an LGBT mayor. However, our first LGBT mayor should reflect the values of most LGBT citizens not those of the Tea Party or a Republican party that is against LGBT equality. It’s that simple.
We are almost at the day of reckoning, June 5, when the voters will decide the city’s future. The LGBT vote can make a difference in the mayoral race. That’s why, this election, it is critical that we all make our way to the voting booth or mail in our ballots.
Of course, San Diego primaries are notorious for producing front runners who are then rejected in November; otherwise we would have had Mayor Ron Roberts, Mayor Peter Navarro and Mayor Donna Frye. Next week’s vote is the beginning, not the end. On to November.
San Diego LGBT Weekly
Short URL: http://lgbtweekly.com/?p=25011 | <urn:uuid:b6d9243d-a2ae-4417-bb3f-e8a12d136488> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lgbtweekly.com/2012/05/31/every-lgbt-vote-counts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96497 | 801 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The Philadelphia Museum of Art will present Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic, an exhibition that surveys seven decades of the artist’s achievement, from March 29 through July 16, 2006. The retrospective will include more than 100 works, among them tempera paintings and watercolors from the 1930s to the present. It will explore in depth Wyeth’s frequently unadorned and often haunting images—ranging from natural forms like rocks and trees and humble containers such as buckets, to stark rooms, windows with curtains lifted in the breeze, bare hills, and people lost in deep introspection. The works, many of which draw upon his boyhood experiences in and lifelong affection for the Brandywine Valley near Philadelphia and on the coast of Maine, are lent from public and private collections across the country and from the private collection of Andrew and Betsy Wyeth.
“Andrew Wyeth’s highly personal art has been etched in the American public consciousness as an expression of rural life for at least half a century. It is also important to realize that Wyeth is very much part of a larger picture: his work has been deeply informed by the early tempera paintings of the Italian Renaissance, the charged realism of Thomas Eakins, or the broad brushwork of Franz Kline, among other artists whom he admires,” said Anne d’Harnoncourt, Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “His extraordinary skills with any medium he chooses are deployed to express his complex and restless vision, and we hope this exhibition will provide a deeper understanding of the range of his contribution as an artist.”
"Ford Motor Company is honored to participate in this exciting celebration of the art of Andrew Wyeth, a true American icon. Ford is committed to supporting the spirit of America and preserving our heritage," said Sandra E. Ulsh, President, Ford Motor Company Fund. "We are proud to partner with the High Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art to salute the vision of Andrew Wyeth and to bring his work to a wide national audience."
Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic will explore the major themes that have occupied Wyeth’s art over the past 70 years, including nature studies that frequently evoke the transience of life, images of vessels and thresholds that metaphorically signal various kinds of transitions, and still lifes and portraits that may suggest or record the people who have appeared in his life. Kathleen Foster, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will oversee the exhibition in Philadelphia. She notes that throughout his career, Wyeth’s vision has been built in part upon the tension between observation and imagination: “Studying his subjects closely, he adds power by simplifying and distilling his image. It’s often the elimination, not only of figures but of extraneous detail, that allows the artist to back away from realism and press forward the emotional and artistic message of painting.”
The exhibition reflects Wyeth’s intense engagement with his various media over time. Among the works on view are 58 paintings in egg tempera, a technique so time-consuming and intense that Wyeth completes only about two paintings a year. It also includes 27 watercolors, among them early ones that convey an exuberance reminiscent of Winslow Homer, preparatory studies that inform Wyeth’s more finished temperas, and other mature, independent works in which closely observed subjects are often anchored into complex compositions with earth-toned washes. There are 16 works in drybrush, an exceptionally meticulous watercolor technique that in Wyeth’s hands may often resemble tempera. Five pencil drawings that are studies for larger works and two rare early oil paintings that reflect both the young Wyeth’s dexterity and his father’s teaching, are also on view.
While the exhibition opens with a number of Wyeth’s early works and closes with some of his most recent, little known ones, it is organized largely into thematic sections in which early, middle, and recent work is juxtaposed. The exhibition reflects what guest curator Anne Knutson, in her catalogue essay, calls “the complex intersections between objects, the body, and memory, delving into the common experience of things triggering reminiscences.”
Highlights of the exhibition include many familiar images drawn from a lifetime divided between Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Maine where Wyeth, now in his 89th year, spends his summers. Winter 1946, completed just a few months after a train in Chadds Ford struck Wyeth’s father, the famed illustrator N.C. Wyeth, reflects the artist’s response to his death. It shows a young neighbor chased by his shadow down a sunlit hill, perhaps a metaphor for the artist himself, alone and adrift in a world without his father. Michael Taylor, the Museum’s Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, notes in his essay, the boy careens across “the bulging landscape that has become the living embodiment of N.C. Wyeth’s massive, heaving chest.”
The exhibition contains several works from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, including Groundhog Day of 1959, one of Wyeth’s best-known paintings. It will be exhibited in context with preparatory drawings and watercolors that chart Wyeth’s working process leading to the finished painting. The tempera conveys the sense of pale sunlight raking across a windowsill and striking the flowered wallpaper of a kitchen in the Kuerner farm, Chadds Ford, where a table is set for one. According to Foster, Wyeth himself regards it as a portrait of his neighbor Karl Kuerner, and she quotes Wyeth saying it was his attempt to “get down to the essence of the man who wasn’t there.”
Wyeth’s often elliptical approach to his subjects is also reflected in some of his recent work, including an ambitious, large-scale tempera of a river scene completed in 2003. Horizontal in format, The Carry depicts a surge of water roaring over rocks, turning through a narrow passage and flowing into a calm expanse. It conveys the strong motion of water toward the softly lit bank and woods in the distance. Wyeth recently described this painting in highly personal terms, identifying aspects of himself with the contrasting lights and darks and alternating moods of turbulence and peacefulness that coexist in the picture, and suggesting the continuity that extends through the artist’s career.
Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta with the collaboration of the Wyeth family and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Before opening in Philadelphia, it is on view at the High through February 26, 2006.
The curatorial team for Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic includes guest curator Ann Classen Knutson for the High Museum of Art, and, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kathleen A. Foster, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of American Art, and Michael Taylor, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art.
CatalogueIn the fully illustrated catalogue, published by the High Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., Knutson explores the central role of objects in Wyeth’s art and situates these works in the larger context of American art. Foster discusses the artist’s tempera painting Groundhog Day (1959) in terms of its meaning and technique and related works in tempera, watercolor, and drawing; and Taylor writes about Wyeth’s relationship to currents in Realism and Surrealism in the 1930s and 1940s. Christopher Crosman, the Director of the Farnsworth Art Museum, examines the role of Betsy Wyeth in the artist’s life and art. The book also contains an introduction by John Wilmerding, the Christopher B. Sarofim 1986 Professor of American Art at Princeton University. Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic (cloth, $49.95; paper, $35.) is now available in the Museum Store or by calling (800) 329-4856 or by visiting the website at www.philamuseum.org.
The exhibition is made possible by Ford Motor Company.
In Philadelphia, the exhibition is also generously supported by the Lincoln Mercury Division of Ford Motor Company; GlaxoSmithKline; and PECO, An Exelon Company.
Additional support has been provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the City of Philadelphia, and an endowment from The Annenberg Foundation for major exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Promotional support is provided by NBC 10 WCAU, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, Philly.com, and Amtrak.
The exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The catalogue is supported by a generous grant from the Davenport Family Foundation.
Andrew Wyeth in ContextCoinciding with Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic, the Museum will also present in gallery 119 a related installation drawn from its extensive holdings of landscape painting from May 27 through July 16, 2006.. Highlighting works dated from 1900 until today, it will include contemporary artists as Chester County’s George "Frolic" Weymouth and the celebrated Pennsylvania Impressionists of an earlier generation in Bucks County – Daniel Garber, Edward Redfield, and Walter Elmer Schofield, among others. The exhibition will also explore the various ways in which American artists have approached landscape, from the modernist paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and Philadelphia’s Arthur B. Carles, to images by such contemporary artists as the noted photographer Clifford Ross. The installation is organized by Michael Taylor, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art.
Ticket information for Andrew Wyeth: Memory and MagicTickets for Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic will go on sale to the public on February 15, 2006. Tickets include a complimentary audiotour. For information, including special discounts and other promotions, please call 215-235 SHOW (7469) or visit the website at www.philamuseum.org. Service charges apply for tickets purchased via the web.
General Ticket prices
|Children 4 and under||Free| | <urn:uuid:8f067d2c-88bf-4257-a58e-de3b6d0e3af2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.philamuseum.org/press/releases/2006/488.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953916 | 2,168 | 1.523438 | 2 |
News & Articles
All in the Family
2009-2010, Volume 3
by Polly Carl, Alanas Arenas, K. Todd Freeman and Ora Jones
Polly Carl: What was your first impression when you read these plays?
Alana Arenas: I loved the people—the familiarity of knowing that experience. There were many characters who were way older than me, and I just wanted to say their lines because I know those women. I come from humble beginnings, and so does Tarell, and what I love is that he actually uses the word “projects” in one of the plays. Three-dimensional people from the projects do not often walk up on American stages.
K. Todd Freeman: For me it was a familiarity. I read these [plays] and, like Alana, I knew these people. I knew these people all day, and I knew it was a Southern thing. I have never seen these people on the stage in America before, and that’s what I thought was so phenomenal. That, and the poetry of it. You know, sometimes these women do say things exactly as he has put it out. It’s so honest and so real that we think it’s poetry.
Ora Jones: Honestly, I was a little concerned with In The Red And Brown Water. As an African-American woman, I’ve become very frustrated with our succeeding generations of women who destroy themselves. I think it’s very important to me these days to know that young people have a way to express themselves that does not involve weapons. That they have a way to talk about anger, and fear, and loneliness, and sadness, and in this young woman’s case, unrequited love. There is a way to express those things without destroying yourself. So I have to say that it took me a minute to find something hopeful in that story. But in the end, that’s the whole point of doing theater—just because I have a particular reaction to something doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything else to consider.
Polly Carl: There’s so much weight in how we represent any community that we feel has been underrepresented for any reason. How do you as an actor of color feel about how black characters are represented on the stage?
KTF: I think it’s about underrepresentation. There are so few [representations of black characters] that aren’t the drug dealer, or the rapper, or else like the Huxtables [from The Cosby Show.] It’s either one or the other—if there were more in the middle then it would not be an issue. For me, Tarell’s work covers a spectrum of types of people.
AA: As long as a play is about a person and not a caricature, I think that it’s necessary.
OJ: Sometimes there is some frustration that every story that gets told, if it is specifically about African-Americans, is heavy: it’s weighed, everybody’s in pain, everybody is moaning about the ancestors, and nobody is creating their history and ancestry here. I’m not saying that it’s not important—our history as Africans in America is in many ways a very painful one, a humiliating one, a frustrating one—but we’re here now. Not everything I do in this life has something to do with me being an African-American. That does not mean that I’m trying to dismiss race; it just means it’s not everything I am.
PC: Tarell mentions in an interview about trying to find a delicate happiness that could exist next to the pressing tragedy of kith and kin. I love that notion of a delicate happiness through all these family tragedies—the difficulties which are universal. Could you talk about family in these plays?
AA: I grew up in a culture of understanding that, as a dysfunctional as it can be, sometimes family is all you have. Coming from a community populated by people who are lower class with middle class aspirations, you see things like, so and so’s parent is addicted to something, and so their aunt is raising them. Coming from a community where stuff like that is normal, where the family might not be the traditional family, I feel like I intuitively understand Oya’s decision that, “I will put my track career on hold” [to care for her mother].
OJ: People sacrifice for their loved ones. I think it is enormous of that young woman to give up her track career for her mother. People give up one kind of career for another. They stay home and, especially these days—Good Lord, you know the economy being what it is—children are moving back in with their parents. Grandparents are raising their grand-children. Parents are moving in with their own children. People who want to go work in offices are working from home so they can be near people who are sick. There’s so much sacrifice that’s happening now, that I think this story goes a long ways toward that. No matter what your family is doing, no matter how bad you think a family member is behaving, they’re still your family.
PC: One of the ways I think Tarell creates intimacy for me as an audience member is by having the actors read their own stage directions. Can you just reflect on that a little? What impact does that have on you finding your character?
AA: What I love is that it’s a connection between the actor and the audience. And the actor’s sending a headnod to the person that, “You’re feeling my experience.” What makes it fuller is that when you see a character, and you know what they’re thinking, and they have to do something against that; it’s almost like the audience is in on an inside joke.
OJ: It is unique to these plays. If you can get it, then the impact is wonderful because the anticipation has been set. It gives the audience an opportunity to be in on something right before it happens. The character may not know what’s going to happen, but the audience knows. I think it piques their interest.
PC: The other thing about these plays is that time feels particularly elusive. Can you give me any insight into time and where you feel you are locating yourself as actors?
KTF: I know these plays span some years, although that’s not defined specifically in what [Tarell’s] written, so I’m still dealing with that question. So I agree with you, they do seem timeless—especially In the Red and Brown Water, sometimes I feel like it could be the forties or the fifties—it could just be anywhere, at any time. And then the modern things come out, and then I think, “Ok, then, it’s now, or yesterday.”
AA: I think that when [In the Red and Brown Water] starts out, it feels older to me. And then the more you get into the play, it feels more and more modern.
KTF: Within the plays, it is clear that time is passing, and the next year comes and she doesn’t get the scholarship, and the chance is done, but in the way he writes and with the music he involves there seems to be no time passing. It’s just an experience, and it’s done. And oh, time passed as an after thought.
PC: Like all of a sudden you’re in a different place, and you’re not sure how you got there.
KTF: Exactly, and it doesn’t matter. It’s a Pollack painting—it’s a bunch of things thrown up there, and you get the experience, and the story has been told in the meantime. It’s always, and it’s now. It was always existing, it always is, this moment has been here forever.
OJ: Time for all of us is where we are in that moment—how many times in a day do you find yourself thinking about something that you believe is going to happen, and what you think is good or bad about your future? Or being lost in thought over something that may have happened 20 years ago, but it feels like it’s happening right now? That is the nature of time in our lives in general, and, in a piece like this, it has a lot to do with all kinds of aspects of the African-American experience—the notion of ancestry, and time, and how far back you go in your history to be able to move forward.
PC: This is Steppenwolf’s season that centers around the theme of belief, and how we authenticate our lives. How does this play resonate with your core beliefs?
AA: I can say that the center of my core beliefs is the importance of love. In all of these plays, I just feel like everybody is desperately, delicately trying to hold on to some aspect of love. What becomes very tender are the things that people do to negotiate their portion of love—like the idea of Oya knowing that she can’t have a child, but still has a desire to give something, of Ogun reaching out to Oya, of Ogun doing everything he can for his brother. The beautiful thing [about these plays] is that often times I feel like there is a real lack of people really talking about the way that black people love and showing the fact that we love one another.
KTF: I do believe that we’re all the same—and it’s so clichéd and so trite that phrase, but I think it’s what you can call a core belief of mine. I never thought that humanity was so different; I’ve never thought that we are all such disparate people, and I guess that’s one thing that gets me cranky—and I get really cranky—is that everyone is working so hard to plant their feet into the earth to claim, “This is me. Don’t fuck with me.” Stop trying to draw attention to how different we are, let’s draw attention to how similar we are, and then it can work better. That is something that I really believe in. | <urn:uuid:9562dc79-b76b-4707-9cfe-eed9ce1b8a37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/program-articles/detail.aspx?id=221 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97548 | 2,195 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Raising a Daughter With Hearing Loss
My daughter, Lindsey, has hearing loss. She is 7 years old. Lindsey passed her newborn hearing screening and developed speech. She is 7 years old. Lindsey passed her newborn hearing screening and developed speech. We are not sure when she began to lose her hearing. We started to notice something was wrong when she was 2. She was always loud, if she was happy, sad or upset. Lindsey never had a quiet voice. If we would ask her something and her back was turned she would not respond. There were so many signs that I didn't recognize. For example, I would pick her up from preschool and as we are walking out I would ask about her day. She wouldn't respond to me or she would start talking about something completely unrelated. She would respond more to my husband since his voice is much deeper than mine. | <urn:uuid:abb63421-bc68-4196-9584-8759aa481764> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hearinghealthfoundation.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.997238 | 176 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Thousands of children raped by gangs with ‘menus’ of victims
Shocking report on UK sex abuse
THOUSANDS of children a year are raped by organised gangs — who give fellow perverts sick “menus” to pick their victims, an official report said yesterday.
It reveals 2,409 youngsters were abused in the space of just 14 months. But astonishingly, Government sources branded the report “hysterical” and “highly emotional” last night.
The devastating document details how paedophiles can browse at leisure for children to attack with the aid of photos and details including ages on the menus.
In addition to recorded attacks, another 16,500 children were seen as being at “high risk”, according to the report by Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz.
In one abuse case, a six-month series of sickening attacks left a 12-year-old girl looking like “a ravaged, haggard old woman”.
Ms Berelowitz also referred to a “conspiracy of silence” which allowed BBC DJ Jimmy Savile to “rape with impunity for decades.”
She said: “Each year, thousands of children are raped and abused by people seeking to humiliate, violate and control them. The impact on lives is devastating.
“These children have been abducted, trafficked, beaten and threatened after being drawn into a web of sexual violence. Abuse and violence can be relentless and can take place anywhere.”
In nearly half of cases, online footage of abuse was a factor. Attackers bragged of acting out vile scenes they had watched. Abusers ranged in age from 12 to more than 70.
Most targets were girls. Many, but not all, came from broken families and children’s homes.
And social media was used to organise gangs and groom victims.
The report also reveals how street gangs systematically carry out abuse. Girls from rival gangs can be raped during turf wars.
The true figure for abuse could be twice as high because agencies in half of the 38 police forces failed to provide statistics.
Ms Berelowitz’s chilling findings are in an interim report for the period August 2010 to October 2011, published half-way through a two-year investigation.
It follows outrage after nine Asian men were jailed this year for raping and abusing young white girls in Rochdale.
The report also identified warning signs of a child being abused. These include running away from home, truancy and self-harm.
Professor Jenny Pearce, who did research for the report, said victims were scared to tell police, who should be more “pro-active”.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “We need an action plan from the Government to protect and support these children. Police, health services and other organisations must do more.”
A Government insider commented: “We treat the issue seriously and want to do all we can to help victims. But this report is highly emotional. We have concern about some of the figures.”
Teegan, abused from 12
TEEGAN is a white British woman who has been sexually exploited from the age of 12.
Her Turkish boyfriend took her to “parties” where groups of men from a variety of ethnic backgrounds would rape her. She revealed men were given a book with photos and ages of girls available to rape.
Her abusers paid up to £500 an hour and would even film the attacks. When Teegan complained she was beaten and threatened.
A BRITISH Pakistani aged 17, Sahida was sexually abused by a family member.
When her family found out, they threatened her with a forced marriage.
As a result, she started to spend time with groups of older Asian men who sexually exploited her.
The attacks led to her becoming pregnant and when family members found out, they physically assaulted her as a “punishment”.
A WHITE British girl aged 13, Becky was sexually exploited and raped by a group of boys who went to the same school.
When her parents were not at home, the perverted gang forced Becky to become involved in “sex parties” that were advertised on Facebook.
She was consistently raped by groups of boys and is now being helped by social workers.
REBECCA, a 15-year-old black British girl, was forced by a group of girls to have sex with a boy in the toilets at her school.
The cruel gang of teenage girls threatened to beat her up if she refused to go through with it.
The savage rape by the boy was filmed on a mobile phone.
Terrified Rebecca had never had sex before the brutal assault.
Race link is ‘buried’
FIGURES showing one in four child abusers is Asian are played down in yesterday’s report, ministers fear.
Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz revealed 415 of the 1,514 abusers identified were Asian. That is 27 per cent.
Yet only six per cent of British people are from Asian backgrounds.
But Ms Berelowitz insisted abuse of white girls by Pakistani gangs was “only one pattern”.
She said: “When people focus on that one model they are not identifying all victims because they think all victims are white girls.”
A Whitehall source said: “We are not going to allow political correctness to stand in the way of helping children who need it most.” | <urn:uuid:d5678b38-0372-4ffa-840e-077730a4433e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/4656207/Children-raped-by-organised-gangs-who-offer-fellow-pervs-menu-of-victims.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977813 | 1,150 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Readers of this little blog may know I’ve spent some time to have a munin setup that was tweaked to be optimized. But I’ve reached a point where my knowledge did not suffice to balance the design problems of munin. This is not a rant, I just say that when your infrastructure reaches a certain size munin reaches its limits. The pull based model, the graph generation (don’t tell me about the CGI graph, this thing never worked as expected) overloaded my management box. Talking with other peoples brought collectd to my attention so I gave it a try.
Collectd has many nice features : 10 seconds precision (versus 5 minutes), written in C for performance, multicast support (even if I don’t use it), and you can even create collectd relays. There are some packages for many different targets, even for my OpenWRT based access points ! Configuration can easily be automated (flat files, superior), a mandatory point to me.
Of course collectd comes without an UI but that’s no big deal : there are many around. As I said in the previous post, I use visage.
For the load generated a picture says a thousand words (click to enlarge) :
Next step is working on the IO congestion caused by so many RRD updates, collectd wiki has many tips about this, this will probably be fixed in a couple of hours. | <urn:uuid:706079f3-3e91-4e44-be1f-035127dbb807> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rottenbytes.info/tag/collectd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942397 | 296 | 1.523438 | 2 |
For more than 20 years I’ve played characters able to solve problems through physical strength, crushing and swinging right through to that Hollywood happy ending. And as a rule, all that plays out much better on screen.
Back in the day, in the ‘70s when I was growing up, national problems tended to stay in national headlines. The violence on TV mostly stayed on TV, and I hate how that’s changed. Now no kid can avoid the effects of gangs, gun violence, drugs, pornography, bullying...And that’s the short list—give me five minutes to fill a page.
But I have something to say about a solution.
Recently, I played a role fairly unusual for me. No love interest, no superpower...in fact, in "Abel’s Field," my character is flawed and sobered. In the movie, I’m Abel, a man whose past decisions and costly actions have left him sadder and wiser. Through a cinematic twist of fate, Abel is in Texas working with Seth, a young man facing troubles of his own and leaning toward answers Abel knows won’t work.
We humans are made for each other, not to exploit strength but to pass it on.
Slowly a bond forges, and laying a football field sprinkler system, Abel begins to mentor Seth. Even in his brokenness, maybe because of it, an older man helps a young man facing a tough decision.
My question is: Where are the Abels? In grade school our kids have cell phones, laptops, electronic games, name-brand clothes...And in high school most of them still have no sense of what matters. Or the basics of good judgment—which so many of us adults learned through bad judgment, which means it came with a price.
Boys Clubs and Big Brothers and Big Sisters do it “formally.” Where are the informal guides? The sideline mentors?
Be one. The boy with the tongue ring? Speak with him.
Kids too distracted by home problems to handle homework? Sit down and show some patience.
Kids at loose ends for hours after school? See them for what they need. Help structure those hours to begin to repair their worlds and add to your own.
Last July, the New York Times reported on a study of income and happiness. Researchers said that at a certain point, happiness comes not from more income but from sharing. Giving. Helping. Reaching. Lifting.
My character, Abel, never signed up to help a lost kid. He had his own problems. But here’s the secret. (You sitting down?) In life, in what may appear as sacrifice—in sharing yourself—you are enriched. That’s no cliche.
Formal research from Dr. Jean Rhodes shows that mentors enjoy a better self-image, improved sense of well being, more insight into their own youth experience and spiritual fulfillment. For starters.
I was “Abel” before Abel’s Field cast me, and I’m proud of both roles.
Big Brothers and Big Sisters will tell you that nine of 10 young people matched with a mentor will hold their ground in school performance, avoid risky behavior and gain social competence.
We humans are made for each other, not to exploit strength but to pass it on. Since 1997, I’ve been a spokesperson for A World Fit For Kids, a nonprofit that offers after-school programs—such as mentoring and sports and games—to keep children from gangs, drugs and dropping out. My parents were teachers, and I’m a parent. For me the need rings out.
On TV I played on my strength. Off the screen, I’ve learned to lift entire communities, lives and destinies, by being entirely human.
Be an Abel.
Award-winning actor Kevin Sorbo starred in "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," among the most-watched TV shows in history. He earned the Grace Award—Most Inspiring Movie Acting for his role in "What If...," and was featured in the hit film "Soul Surfer." Most recently, Kevin played the title role in "Abel’s Field" which launched in-store and online DVD sales Jan. 22. For more information, visit AbelsField.com. | <urn:uuid:4423d52e-fb42-4c55-a9d2-23b957c9ff1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/28/how-to-be-real-life-action-hero/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966492 | 907 | 1.5625 | 2 |
‘The Rocket Man’ greets the ‘Rocket Men’
Continuing the celebration of André Kuipers’ music in space, British rock legend Sir Elton John sent a special message to ESA, André and the crew of the ISS on the 40th anniversary of his classic song ‘Rocket Man’.
The accompanying video was recorded during Sir Elton’s Million Dollar Piano Show in Las Vegas, on 17 April, 40 years to the day after his single Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long Long Time) was released around the world.
Sir Elton said, “When I was a boy Dan Dare was a comic book hero, and space travel just a romantic idea, not a reality. I was 14 years old when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space; my songwriting partner Bernie Taupin was just 11. Bernie and I did not meet until 1967, and two years after we met, Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on to the moon.
“Our generation was smitten with the glory and excitement of space travel. ‘Rocket Man’ - and indeed ‘Dan Dare’ on the Rock of the Westies album - came from those boyhood dreams of travelling beyond the stars and looking back on Earth.
“Not long after the Rocket Man single was released, my band and I were invited to the NASA headquarters in Texas and shown around by Al Worden, Apollo 15 command module pilot. It was thrilling to find that real astronauts liked our song, Rocket Man, which was about an imaginary astronaut.
“Now, 40 years later, it’s amazing to hear from the astronauts at the European Space Agency that they like the song and that it has been on the playlist on the International Space Station. I send my best wishes to ESA and all the crew, and my thanks for keeping those boyhood dreams alive.”
During long stays on the ISS, many astronauts take music with them for listening in off-duty hours. For his six-month mission, ESA’s André Kuipers included Rocket Man in his playlist.
“This song has been an inspiration to many people who are interested in space, and especially those who wanted to become astronauts, including myself. It is certainly one of the most played songs here on the ISS, and we know it will accompany more astronauts into space in the future,” said André.
Composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Rocket Man has had a special connection with generations of astronauts and many others in the space industry ever since, as well as inspiring and entertaining millions of people around the world.
ESA astronaut Jean-François Clervoy, with three Space Shuttle missions under his belt, said, “I took CDs from Elton John into space three times, and for sure Rocket Man was one of the songs I've listened to each time with great feeling.”
The first European commander of the ISS, Frank De Winne, said: “There is nothing more beautiful than to see our planet from space. There are no boundaries, no skin colours, no political sides, just one planet with one common future. As Rocket Men and Women, it is our duty to testify about it and to strive for a better world for all. I AM a rocket man! Thank you, Elton John, for your great music.”
Rocket Man appeared on Elton John’s album Honky Château, released also 40 years ago next week, on 19 May 1972. | <urn:uuid:3e65932f-fc03-4639-b53f-c44ba41adcde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/PromISSe/The_Rocket_Man_greets_the_Rocket_Men | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968709 | 743 | 1.648438 | 2 |
President Obama’s speech tonight on the debt ceiling debate was not an attempt to bridge the gap between his position and that of his congressional opponents. By repeating the rhetoric he has been using all through this debate by attempting to demonize Republicans, it was clear his goal was not to make a deal but to exacerbate a situation he has already described as a crisis.
Rather than continue to negotiate and accept–as Senate Democrats already have–that there will be no debt deal that includes higher taxes, Obama has doubled down on his position. That he has done so even though he is now the only one left in Washington who says a deal must include tax increases speaks volumes about his own intransigence. If he really wanted a solution, he wouldn’t have spent the weekend trying to torpedo talks between the two parties in Congress in order to assert his power. Nor would he have gone on TV tonight to play the class warfare card again in order to intimidate Republicans into giving in on their core issue.
In a decision that has shocked some Holocaust survivors and their descendants, the Israel Chamber Orchestra has announced it will play music by the anti-Semitic composer Richard Wagner during an upcoming performance. The orchestra will play Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” at a concert at Bayreuth during the annual music festival devoted to his work in the theater that he designed.
Israeli orchestras have long eschewed the playing of any of Wagner’s work in deference to the sensibilities of survivors who associate his music with the crimes of his most famous fan–Adolf Hitler. But despite the fact Wagner was an undoubted Jew-hater, the decision to play his music in Bayreuth, of all places, is the right thing to do.
There’s plenty of evidence that President Obama’s effort to portray himself as serious about cutting federal spending is a transparent political game. The Wall Street Journal cites one data point in its fine editorial today:
The president insists his party is offering serious spending cuts and entitlement reform. He also likes to talk about “balance,” which to him means real tax increases immediately and speculative spending cuts some time in the distant future. Behind the scenes the White House has only ever agreed to token reform and cuts. Here’s a number for the debt history books: Mr. Obama’s final offer in the Biden talks was a $2 billion cut in 2012 nondefense discretionary spending. The federal government spends more than $10 billion a day.
According to a declassified 2005 report released last week, China had been testing the effects of an electromagnetic pulse attack–the detonation of a nuclear device at high altitude to maximize the area affected by the EMP–possibly meant for Taiwan. According to the report, China was actually testing two kinds of nuclear blasts and the effects the resulting radiation would have on humans. (China was testing them on animals, which experienced “high mortality rates.”)
The point of an EMP attack (all nuclear explosions result in an EMP), however, is to disrupt the electronics devices within range of the blast. The range of the electronics damage would depend on the altitude of the blast.
For far too long, Israeli diplomats have spent much of their time trying to avoid the basic arguments about the Middle East conflict. Rather than take every possible opportunity to hammer home the facts about why Israel is in the West Bank and the right of Jews to live there, the country’s foreign ministry has instead often concentrated its energies on smoothing over differences. It has also sought to avoid the arguments entirely with well-intentioned but largely pointless efforts to “brand” Israel in such a way as to make people think about pretty girls, beaches and scientific innovations.
But Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has ignored this convention and created a clever and informative six-minute YouTube video answering the question of “The Truth About the West Bank.” This is driving the Palestinian Authority up the wall.
According to the Pew Research Center, Republicans now have the advantage over Democrats across virtually all groups of white voters.
A two-point Republican edge among whites in 2008 (46 percent to 44 percent) has widened to a 13-point lead today (52 percent to 39 percent). Among whites 18-to-29 years old, a seven point lead for Democrats in 2008 (49 v. 42) has now turned to a nine point lead for Republicans (52 v. 41). And the drop in support for Democrats among working class whites (a 15-point Democratic advantage among whites earning less than $30,000 annually has swung to a four-point Republican edge today) has been startling as well. This is particularly crucial to the president’s re-election efforts, because working class white voters are extremely influential in the Midwest.
Forget the fact that President Obama hasn’t attempted to put forward any meaningful immigration reform plan, and barely pushed for the DREAM Act. At La Raza today, the president placed the blame for his lack of progress solely on Republicans in Congress:
President Obama on Monday lamented the bitterly partisan nature of contemporary Congress, stating that when it comes to working with Republicans on immigration issues, “I need a dance partner… and the floor is empty.” …
“Right now dealing with Congress… Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting – not just on immigration reform,” Mr. Obama said, laughing, as cries of “Yes you can!” came from the audience.
The Obama administration has invited a senior North Korean diplomat to New York this week for negotiations. But the meeting lacks a strong objective and rewards Pyongyang’s past aggression, leaving little for the U.S. to gain and much to lose. The diplomatic objectives are naïve at best. According to a State Department news release, this will be an “exploratory meeting” to see if North Korea is ready to abide by its previous commitments. The U.S. will also be checking in to see if North Korea is ready to take “concrete and irreversible steps” toward dismantling its nuclear program.
But the United States doesn’t need a meeting to explore Pyongyang’s attitude.
Alana Goodman pens an excellent post regarding how little jail time the confessed Norwegian terrorist and killer can expect for killing scores of civilians, both in his initial truck bomb blast and then in his shooting spree on Utoya island. According to some Norwegian analysts, he might expect a maximum of 21 years, or approximately 83 days per murder and, as Alana points out, will serve his time in relative luxury.
This certainly is outrageous, but unfortunately it’s the rule rather than the exception in many European states as postmodern theories of compassion and rehabilitation trump the importance of justice. Just take a look at that other mass murderer on the other side of the North Sea: On August 20, 2009, a Scottish court released Libyan agent and Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi after serving just 11.5 days per murder for downing Pan Am Flight 103 and killing 270 people. Scottish authorities defended Megrahi’s release on the grounds of compassion: He had, after all, only weeks to live. Never mind that today he appears to be doing quite fine in Tripoli.
It’s well past time for Europe to put justice first and reserve compassion for the victims of crime and terror, not the perpetrators.
The negotiations about raising the debt ceiling remain extremely fluid, and it’s still too early to draw any definitive conclusions at this stage. But just a week away from the August 2 deadline, a few things do seem clear.
The first is the president’s angry and narcissistic press conference on Friday badly damaged the president, even with those, like David Brooks, who have been sympathetic to Obama’s substantive position.
New Jersey legend Bruce Springsteen may have tied Governor Chris Christie in a hypothetical poll, but the Republican reformer achieved something that would make The Boss green with envy: his name is more closely associated with his beloved home state than Springsteen’s.
Fairleigh Dickinson periodically polls respondents on the question: “what comes to mind when you think about New Jersey?” This time around, the top answer was “New York” or “next to New York,” with “ocean,” “beach,” or the “shore” coming in at No. 2. But here’s the kicker:
I’ve long argued that wars in the Middle East are caused not by oil or water, but by overconfidence. In 1948, 1967, and 1973, Israel’s neighbors convinced themselves they were poised to strike a decisive blow to the Jewish state; the region is still picking up the pieces.
Likewise, after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah commented that if he had known how Israel would have reacted when he sought to kidnap Israeli soldiers on the Israeli side of the border, he never would have given the go-ahead for the operation.
The Palestinian plan to go to the United Nations in September to ask it to recognize a Palestinian state inside the 1967 lines has been seen as a potential diplomatic catastrophe for Israel. However, the dim prospects for the success of this ploy due to a certain U.S. veto have resulted in signals from the Palestinians they would like to back out of the corner into which they have painted themselves. This has somewhat ratcheted down the alarm felt by Israelis about being further isolated in the aftermath of the collapse of the initiative.
But it is becoming increasingly apparent the real danger here isn’t a matter of what happens in the corridors of the UN but what may happen on the Palestinian street.
As I wrote last week, although the Iowa caucuses are not particularly accurate assessments of either party’s primary field, they can serve as a platform for the occasional insurgent-turned-serious candidate. It did so for Barack Obama in 2008, for example.
And Michele Bachmann, seeking an early win for the same reason, is hoping to win the caucuses this time around for the GOP. But there’s a bit of awkwardness there: Iowan officials are openly rooting against her. From Iowa’s Globe Gazette:
What worries Iowa politicos this time around is the emergence of shooting-star candidates like Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, whose stock has skyrocketed since announcing her candidacy in June. Depending on which poll you’re reading, Bachmann is either in a dead heat or leading early frontrunner Mitt Romney in Iowa.
If Bachmann wins the caucuses then falters down the stretch, like 2008 Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee, the concern is it will give caucus critics the ammunition they need to make the case for diminishing the Hawkeye State’s influence.
My vantage point on the terrible massacre in Norway comes from research I have been conducting on the history of guerrilla warfare and terrorism.
Many guerrilla groups are essentially armies without the infrastructure of a state to support them but with a similar ethos and a similar type of recruit. Most of those who make up guerrilla organizations (ranging from the Spanish rebels who helped expel Napoleon from their country to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement which has just created the new state of South Sudan) are similar to the soldiers of conventional militaries: that is, they may commit atrocities sometimes, but most are not psychopaths. Nor are they intellectuals who have given much deep thought to their cause. They are simply men doing a job, fighting for a movement in which most people in their community believe.
There are abundant reasons to oppose MSNBC’s reported decision to hire Al Sharpton for its 6 p.m. slot. His vile anti-Semitism, well-documented race-baiting, and shady financial practices come to mind. But his new position as a news anchor is also being criticized because of his reputation as an advocate, and some see this as a snub against black journalists who have spent years working their way up the ladder:
When rumors surfaced this week that Sharpton was under consideration for the MSNBC job, one [National Association of Black Journalists] member told colleagues without challenge, “This would still be just another non-journalist media ‘celebrity’ receiving a TV show based upon their name recognition, not their years of experience, training, ability and talent.”
Those in the mood for some good primary season political theater over the weekend got what they were looking for. Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann spent most of Sunday trading verbal punches, in what was the first real skirmish between Republican candidates.
The conventional wisdom is that Pawlenty, trailing far behind Bachmann in the polls and in need of a good dustup to put some life back in his campaign, took a shot at the leader in order to send the subtle message to voters that he and Bachmann are on the same tier as candidates. Bachmann, in turn, sought to squash the underdog nipping at her heels. But this analysis is really cut-and-paste campaign reporting, suiting up the players in the media’s choice of costume. In truth, this is only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga in which the roles of Pawlenty and Bachmann are the reverse of what they seem to be.
At last count, the death toll from the Oslo terror attack was at 93. That number includes dozens of children shot indiscriminately at a summer camp. If there is justice, the terrorist responsible will spend the rest of his (hopefully numbered) days locked away from the rest of society, with nothing to distract him from the memory of his monstrous crimes.
But as the Oslo police chief told the San Francisco Chronicle, the maximum prison sentence suspect Anders Behring Breivik could face in Norway is just 21 years – and he could be released years earlier for “good behavior,” an Oslo University law professor told the Daily Caller.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is upping the ante in the spat he precipitated with Israel about the Mavi Marmara last year. On Saturday, Erdoğan issued an ultimatum that should the Israeli government not apologize by Wednesday for stopping the Turkish ship which had announced its intention to violate the blockade of Gaza, Turkey will implement its “Plan B” that might include an Erdoğan state visit to Hamas-controlled Gaza, and a further reduction of Turkey’s diplomatic representation in Israel to that of a second secretary.
Let’s hope Jerusalem does not buckle to Ankara’s threats. First, Erdoğan’s demand that Israel apologize to Turkey is analogous to a burglar demanding compensation for being cut by broken glass during a break-in. Second, Israel’s willingness to consider concessions simply encourages the State Department and the European Union to demand further concessions. After all, when it comes to Middle Eastern obstinacy, Israel is a weak third to Turkey and most Arab states. Diplomats seeking “progress” will always pursue the path of least resistance in order to show movement.
Those wondering whether Rudy Giuliani will run for president again may find the answer on television. But the puzzle won’t be solved on any of the cable news networks. Instead, it might be found on American Movie Classics. AMC is running a series of classic gangster flicks next week, and the former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor will introduce them on air.
While Giuliani would be right to dismiss any criticisms of his setting up a showing of The Godfather, Goodfellas or Donnie Brasco as silly, it is also not exactly what we expect from a presidential candidate. | <urn:uuid:8b4defc0-c624-4a4a-be93-8505ac1b658e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/07/25/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96424 | 3,246 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Bob Dylan has been photographed using various typewriters, but most notably a Royal Safari.
Apparently this most familiar photograph was taken by Douglas R.Gilbert as Dylan was typing the liner notes for his fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, in his writing studio above the Café Espresso on Tinker Street, Woodstock, New York, in August 1964.
He is also believed to have used an Olivetti Lexikon 80 and, while on tour in Britain in 1965, he borrowed an Olympia SG1 to type as Joan Baez sings. The footage of him doing this can be seen in Dont Look Back, the brilliant 1967 documentary film made of the tour made by D.A.Pennebaker.
A number of photos of Dylan typing were used in the December 2010 edition of the British music magazine Mojo, including this one, which appears to show Dylan using an Olivetti Lettera 32:
Some more Dylan typing images (the second one appears to be with a different typewriter - can anyone help identify, please?):
In 1969 Dylan recorded poet Charles Badger Clark's Spanish is the Loving Tongue. Here is Clark typing on a Remington Noiseless:
Anyway, happy 70th birthday, young Bob:
Finally, I have to confess I have not always been unstintingly devoted to Dylan. Here is what an online critic once wrote about a review of mine of a Dylan concert:
" ... there was a review in our local daily bugle, The Canberra Times, by a sometimes decent and usually musically knowledgeable journalist, Robert Messenger, that I reckon worth commenting on. Mr Messenger's byline appears on page 2; a Dylan show is big around here ... the sound: it was electric, fat, full of hissing valves and amplification. No 'Judas' comments were uttered, though Mr Messenger of The Canberra Times apparently spoke for some in his review, whingeing about 'more rock than folk' ... Wherever you be now Mr Dylan, please accept our gratitude. Do you read newspaper reviews? If so, you will see that Mr Messenger reported the walkout of some people last night, incensed at your electric noise. Even worse, we failed to recognise It Ain't Me Babe! I can only assume that Messenger, a self-proclaimed historian of pop music, perceived more than me ... I kinda warm to the idea of a Mr Messenger reviving the Scandal of Dylan's Electricity." | <urn:uuid:c45429a3-561f-4ac4-a5a9-70bf81f35493> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-many-typewriters-will-it-take-till.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96269 | 500 | 1.617188 | 2 |
If you're only interested in how Aikido is evolving martially, then you cannot speak of how it evolves as an art. What you speak of is expanding the art laterally and not vertically. Adding more waza, swordwork, competition, etc, expands the Aikido to encompass more, but it does little to bring it to new heights. Sometimes, I think when you go to far laterally, then you create a new art. I think of Yoseikan being one example, in my opinion. Is Aikido an evolution of Daito-ryu, or a new art created from it? Furthermore, the founders of Aikido and Judo seemed to want to "trim the fat"; that is they cut out techniques, leaving what they thought was the only the most efficient. I think what people like Roy Dean seem to be doing, is the opposite; going backwards. In Aikido, for many, seems to be going backward. Instead of going after what Ueshiba was going after, many focus instead on trying to do what he and his students did, or adding what they the was a mistake for him to leave out (kicks, punches, grappling, swordwork, etc.).
I view Aikido as an evolution of Budo, not the opposite. Aikido does what the original concepts of Budo meant to do - stop the spears, stop the conflict with as little violence as possible. So, in that sense, it is obvious that in order to look at the evolution of Aikido, one must look where it has come from, consider all the aspects; the spiritual, moral, intellectual, and physical, and most importantly, where it is going. | <urn:uuid:ac5482c5-9a73-4985-b6b7-05ea9967d228> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showpost.php?p=213894&postcount=38 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978668 | 350 | 1.59375 | 2 |
OK I am a little conflicted. Have you read the book The Help or will you see the movie? If you don't know what it is about, the book basically is told from the point of view of "the help" during the civil rights movement in Alabama. The black women who took care of the white families and the way in which they were treated. The book is well written and extremely entertaining and it teaches a lesson without being preachy. With that said, here is my issue...
I grew up in North Carolina. We had help. Not like my mother did. She had full-time, every day but Sunday help in her house. Our "help" came 3 days a week. I never thought of Alberta as "help". She was part of the family. Now I know that in the 80's it was completely different than it was in the 60's (when the book was based) but I am not sure that I can stomach so many people speaking so badly about something that is not their history. For better or for worse, this was our history.
I may not agree with the way that people were treated and it disgusted me, when reading the book, how so many southern white people treated black people as beneath them. But and this is a controversial but, they did not know any better. This does not make them ignorant or stupid, it makes them cocooned and small town. When you never leave your home and you stay in your small southern town, things do not change. Ever! Of course there was prejudice and of course there was mistreatment, and I do not condone that, but not every situation was an awful one.
My mother was practically raised by Willie Mae and loved her with all her heart. Willie Mae sat in the front seat of the car and ate in the kitchen (at the table with the children). She received bonuses, days off and was able to bring her children to work as needed. Yes, she was treated differently but my grandparents loved her and depended on her. They were a product of their history and their environment.
I watched Regis and Kelly the other day and Kelly had some derogatory statement about the South when talking about the book and the movie. It just rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, there are stupid, mean ignorant people in the South but there are those people everywhere. It does not mean that we are all like that. Plus, not every situation was like what was depicted in the book. That's why it is called fiction people.
As I step down off of my soapbox (and I will) just note. Some of the best people I know (including my parents) were raised by these wonderful women. Obviously they did something right as did the ones that hired them. The South is the South. We cannot go back and change what was in the past but at some point you have to accept that they happened and that not every person who lived during this time was a mean white bitch who hated all black people.
Side note...I cried like a baby when Alberta died. She was the most motherly, warm, gracious, beautiful person I knew and she had a hand in helping me become who I am. I would not change that for anything. | <urn:uuid:637611af-85ee-4d25-8ffa-eb18b0db1007> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tivomom.blogspot.com/2011/08/help-ashamed-or-not.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.994731 | 661 | 1.585938 | 2 |
[Rossum's] still coming up with great ways to use his microtouch hardware. This time, he’s taken his inspiration from Amazon’s announcement that a full-color eBook reader (and movie player) is on the way. Judging from the video after the break, his fully functional reader is a big win for the device.
You’re probably familiar with the hardware, an ATmega644-based board connected to a touch sensitive LCD screen. You can make your own or buy one pre-assembled (but currently out-of-stock). The board has a microSD card slot making it quite easy to add books to the device. At the start of the project [Rossum] thought he might be able to read ePub files directly, but the embedded images, and unzip function needed to open the package file is a bit too much for the 8-bit processor’s restrictions. One simple step does the trick. A helper script can be used to format the files before transferring them to the device. This does the unzipping, scales the images, and repaginates the text into a format friendly for the display size.
Now if we only had a nice little case to house the hardware we’d be in business. | <urn:uuid:55f34cdf-2158-47e5-b618-6e21716ed836> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2011/10/10/full-color-ebook-reader-needs-only-8-bits-of-muscle/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=2c354f29b9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93554 | 261 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3
East Lothian Council offers social work services through three main social work teams: Children’s Services, Community Care and Criminal Justice. This section gives brief information about these teams and how social work services can support you if you and your children are living with domestic abuse. Social workers will treat you sensitively and with respect. They will treat what you say in confidence, unless a child is at risk of serious harm.
This team provides services to children and young people, parents and carers. They have a statutory duty to protect children who may be at risk of harm. You might be in touch with this team if, for example, you are worried about the effect of domestic abuse on your child such as their behaviour or their education. It can be very helpful for a child or young person to confide in a social worker.
The Children’s Services team is based at Randall House in Macmerry. Staff can meet you at any council office or convenient place near where you live. Phone 01875 824 090 and ask to speak to the Duty Children's Services Social Worker to make a first appointment. Opening hours are Monday to Thursday from 9am to 5pm and Friday from 9am to 4pm.
In an emergency out of office hours phone the Emergency Social Work Service on 0800 731 6969.
Next Page | Previous Page | <urn:uuid:8d5ef81a-d11a-46be-93cd-257253aeecd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://endabuseineastlothian.com/help%20social.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9479 | 286 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Furry, Cuddly, Lifesaving
BY Bob Adams
July 01 2009 12:00 AM ET
Greg Louganis found he could do little more than lie on the couch in front of the TV. Although as an Olympic gold medalist he was both physically and mentally tenacious, the weeklong interleukin-2 treatments he was taking to boost his CD4-cell count routinely sidelined him with extreme fatigue and a battery of flu-like symptoms.
'It was brutal,' Louganis recalls of his time on the treatment about a decade ago. 'I was exhausted. I couldn't regulate my body temperature. I'd just lie there shaking uncontrollably. It was all I could do just to stay comfortable.'
So how did Louganis make it through these challenges and find the strength to continue with the grueling treatment month after daunting month?
'It was my dogs,' he states simply. 'I had two Great Danes at the time-Freeway and Ryan-and they'd just snuggle up next to me, keep me warm, and keep me company. They really gave me the support I needed to get through those treatments. I couldn't have done it without them.'
WATCH OUR VIDEO INTERVIEW AND FOOTAGE FROM
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE ISSUE PHOTO SHOOT
Louganis isn't alone in his ability to draw strength and support from his companion animals. A growing body of scientific data has shown that living with pets conveys a host of measurable health benefits, including lowering blood pressure, cutting cholesterol and triglyceride levels, reducing cardiovascular stress, diminishing symptoms of depression, and lowering perceived pain, among others. The data are so compelling that the National Institutes of Health has held seminars and offers fact sheets on the health benefits of pet ownership.
But for HIVers, perhaps even more significant than the clinical benefits are the less tangible psychological and social blessings that come from the bond between humans and their animal companions, says veterinarian Douglas Cohn, who is director of the animal resources center at Albany Medical Center in New York.
'Many HIV-positive people are ostracized from their families, and many feel very much turned away by the rest of the world,' he explains. 'Companion animals provide unrelenting love and affection, no matter who you are. They don't care if you're infected or you're not infected. And for people who are dealing with a serious illness, having that sort of constant in one's life provides a mental stability they couldn't necessarily otherwise count on.'
Perry Junjulas, executive director of Albany Damien Center, an organization that offers support to HIVers through its Pets Are Wonderful Support program, says companion animals provide another form of stability many people who are tackling HIV too often lack: a routine.
'Having pets forces you to get up out of bed every day to feed them, to take them for walks, to play with them,' he explains. 'Studies have even shown that people bounce back from illnesses more quickly when they know they've got to get back to their pets and back to their routines of taking care of them.'
Those daily pet-care tasks also can help lessen isolation and loneliness, both troubling and health-damaging conditions far too many HIVers face, says Susan Hunt, MD, a palliative care specialist who founded a pet therapy program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
'There are whole communities of pet lovers out there that you can quickly become a part of just by getting out and walking your pets,' she says. 'People will stop you on the street and ask about your dog; you can socialize with folks at a dog park. It's really quite amazing the friendships you can develop with other people through your animals.'
Building on the successes of pet therapy programs like the one established by Hunt, Donna Dishman, executive director of PAWS in Houston, says her agency now works to take dogs or cats into hospitals for brief sojourns with their owners. The program, begun in 2002 at Houston's Methodist Hospital, has grown so popular that PAWS has facilitated more than 600 patient-pet visits and expanded the service to include other local hospitals.
'We have seen companion animals provide miracles that medicine can't provide,' Dishman says enthusiastically. 'For example, there was a world-renowned lecturer who had been in the [intensive care unit] for three months after a massive heart attack and stroke. We took his dog in and had him lie at the end of the bed. His wife asked him who that was, and he said, 'Buddy.' It was his first word in three months!'
While not all bonds between animals and humans produce such dramatic clinical results, the clear benefits of pet ownership has led supporters to create PAWS groups in 28 cities to help keep HIV-positive people-and in some cases other groups, like seniors and cancer patients-together with their pets for as long as possible.
'Animals are not just nice, warm, and fuzzy. For many of our clients, they're the only things that are keeping them going,' says John Lipp, president of PAWS in San Francisco, which has helped launch many other similar organizations over the past 23 years. 'I can't tell you how many times clients have said to me, 'That dog saved my life.' And I know they mean that.'
Linda Williams of Albany, N.Y., is one such PAWS client who insists she wouldn't be here today if it weren't for her dog. Diagnosed with HIV in 1993, Williams has been through several health crises, some of which have required hospitalization. And through it all, she says, her biggest source of support and encouragement has been her adopted shih tzu and Lhasa apso mix dog, Jasper.
'The first time I was in the hospital, all I could think about was my dog and how I needed to get better so that I could go home to him,' Williams says, getting choked up as she speaks. 'I live alone. I don't have any other family here. He's my family, and I've given my heart to him.'
Louganis also considers his four dogs (Jack Russell terriers Nipper and Dobby, border collie Godric 'Griffy' Griffindor, and Hungarian Pumi Hedwig) to be family. He's penned the book For the Life of Your Dog : A Complete Guide to Having a Dog in Your Life From Adoption and Birth Through Sickness and Health, and he and partner Daniel have made a second career out of training and showing dogs at competitions around the country. And while he's in great health today, Louganis says he continues to be inspired by and to learn from his pets.
'For me,' Louganis says, 'the most important thing I've learned from my dogs is to be quick to forgive, which is not always easy. And I've learned not to judge. Just think of how nonjudgmental your pets are: You can spill your guts to them, share your frustrations, share everything, and there's no judgment at all, just love. We have so much we can learn from our animals.' | <urn:uuid:9a614afa-3888-4575-82a4-704d9308d0f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hivplusmag.com/issue-features/2009/07/01/furry-cuddly-lifesaving | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979286 | 1,482 | 1.523438 | 2 |
We believe that the pre-school experience prepares children academically, emotionally, and socially for elementary school. Additionally, we believe play is a vital element in a child's learning experience. It is a medium for self-expression and an excellent time to develop their individual thinking processes. The giant fish tanks, portholes and a nautical themed décor, provide a dynamic setting for children to learn how to build their interpersonal skills.
A child takes in more information between the ages of one to six than they do the remainder of their life. We know these formative years are critical to the development of your child's creative talents, positive self-esteem, and enthusiasm for learning. Little People's Landing provides a safe, nurturing environment for your child to grow and develop character.
LPL was established in 1982 as a Colorado Corporation headquartered in Littleton, Colorado. We are in business to serve children (as all child care providers are) however, we developed LPL to serve all of the family members as well as the individual child. We believe that families deserve programs that allow them to spend quality time with their children when they have the opportunity. Our programs and company structure are designed to maximize that concept. Family events like Christmas Programs, Family Luau and BBQ, Halloween Carnivals, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day, Ice Cream Social, Thanksgiving Feast, and more help to celebrate the importance of family. Services, like in school haircutting, portraits, Stretch-N-Grow exercise program, and swimming/dance/sports lessons, are offered so parents can spend more quality time with family. Services, like our Saturday night babysitting (Parent's Night Out) and All Day Shop (at Christmas time), give parent's the opportunity for adult time while leaving their child in the care of professional caregivers.
Special events, such as skiing, camping, rodeo, circus, fishing, Disney on Ice, rocket day, New Years Eve party, and a Rockies baseball game, allow the child to experience these activities if their parents are not inclined to take them to these types of events. | <urn:uuid:a3bfa8d1-6921-42d1-af54-b70a0f264450> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidslovelpl.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961823 | 429 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Doing so costs more for Eyal Waldman than outsourcing to Eastern Europe. But the CEO of Israel's Mellanox Technologies says the investment in peace is worth it.
Ramallah, West Bank
The last time chief executive officer Eyal Waldman had been to the Israeli-occupied West Bank was as a soldier. But when he needed to outsource some work for his fast-growing Israeli technology company, he chose an unconventional solution: hiring Palestinian programmers from Ramallah.
The year-old experiment has worked so well that the firm, Mellanox Technologies, expects to establish a research and development center in Ramallah. Even if it costs more than a similar operation in Eastern Europe, Mr. Waldman says there's an intangible upside: boosting political stability by employing Israel's neighbors.
"We think that it makes our whole economy and whole geopolitical situation better," he says.
The CEO's vision of business and politics harks back to the 1990s, when excitement about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process prompted talk of a new Middle East – including burgeoning economic ties between Israel and Arab countries.
But in the ensuing decade Israel erected a security barrier to prevent Palestinian attacks, making any cooperation with Palestinians at least seem like a pipe dream.
In recent years, however, the Palestinian uprising has subsided and Israel has relaxed some of its movement restrictions, giving the West Bank economy a chance to grow. It's also provided an opportunity for cross-border joint ventures.
A viable Israeli-Palestinian business model | <urn:uuid:5aac156e-5b12-4d06-be77-b99f978ce9f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0422/Tech-diplomacy-Israeli-CEO-hires-Palestinian-programmers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956651 | 307 | 1.71875 | 2 |
May I wish you a warm welcome to the CameraLabs forums.
I think the term you need to use is "optical center", sometimes referred to as "nodal point", rather than "optical axis". As I'm sure you know, positioning the camera so that the panorama head's rotation axis passes through the optical center requires a bracket such as
If you are lucky then Tamron's technical support guys might be able to provide you with the exact distance along the barrel of your lens' optical center. Alternatively, there is a tutorial here
at the Really Right Stuff site and they also provide a link to another site
from which you can download this PDF document
with a much more detailed guide.
Discovering the optical center will take some time but once it's done and the camera bracket is marked appropriately it should never need repeating so I guess it's worth some effort to get it right. | <urn:uuid:c0f9df99-08f7-4834-8c1f-f71a1f76460c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61337 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941448 | 187 | 1.640625 | 2 |
By NIGEL DUARA, Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A war contractor knew a critical southern Iraq oilfield plant was riddled with a well-known toxin but ignored the risk to soldiers while hurrying the project along, firing a whistleblower and covering up the presence of the chemical when faced with exposure, the soldiers' attorney said in opening arguments Wednesday in a federal civil suit.
An attorney for the contractor, Kellogg, Brown and Root, fired back in his opening salvo of a trial expected to last weeks that the soldiers' injuries weren't a result of their exposure to the toxin, called sodium dichromate. Geoffrey L. Harrison argued that the company had no knowledge of the chemical's presence at the plant and when they found it, they promptly and repeatedly warned the military of the danger.
A jury of six men and six women will decide whether the company is culpable for 12 Oregon National Guardsmen's exposure to the toxin, a known carcinogen, and whether that exposure led to their ongoing respiratory illnesses. The soldiers will also try to show that the fear of future illnesses is causing them to suffer emotional distress.
The irony, said the soldiers' attorney, Mike Doyle, "is that every single one of these men had a chemical hazard suit they would have put on instantly if they had known."
KBR tried to warn the U.S. Army about the dangers of sodium dichromate, Harrison said, but didn't go to the soldiers themselves because that wasn't the proper channel of communication.
"That was appropriate," Harrison said. "That was not concealment."
The suit dates to prewar Iraq, when the U.S. Army feared then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein would react to an invasion by setting his own oil fields ablaze, as he had done in Kuwait after the Gulf War.
Seeking to head off Hussein, in late 2002 the army contracted KBR and tasked them with assessing and repairing Iraqi oilfield installations. One of the most central — and critical to a continued supply of oil from the Gulf — was called Qarmat Ali.
Qarmat Ali operated as a water treatment plant, injecting heavier, treated water into the ground to force oil to rise through wells to the surface. One of the chemicals Iraqi workers had been using was sodium dichromate, a substance long restricted in the U.S. over environmental and health concerns.
What the Guardsmen found in late March or early April 2003 was a run-down plant, Harrison said, looted and stripped of copper wire. The ground, the soldiers allege, was contaminated with sodium dichromate. When they asked about the risks, the soldiers contend they were rebuffed or placated, and safety equipment wasn't ordered until they had been on site for months.
The soldiers returned to the U.S. suffering from myriad respiratory problems, migraines and lung issues. They sued KBR in June 2009. The Oregon soldiers were joined by Guardsmen from Indiana and West Virginia, some of whom are also involved in suits against KBR.
Harrison pointed to a U.S. Army medical evaluation of the soldiers from October 2003 that found that the soldiers' medical issues were likely a result of the conditions — dry desert air, other chemicals — or preexisting conditions, along with consumption of protein-heavy supplements and the presence of sodium dichromate.
"At best, there's some possibility that some of their on-site symptoms could be related (to sodium dichromate exposure), but most likely, were not," Harrison said.
Doyle said an attempt by a KBR employee in August or September 2003 to blow the whistle on the company's role in the alleged deception of the soldiers was met with the man's dismissal from the plant. Doyle said the company was seeking an incentive from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to finish the work quickly and would brook no complaint from employees about safety concerns.
Harrison dismissed the whistleblower as a "disruptive force" at meetings who didn't know that KBR and the U.S. Army were already in talks about the toxin.
In depositions taken of senior KBR officials, Doyle points to memory "black holes" that the officials say they suffer when trying to remember events from post-invasion Iraq.
"Photographs also went into a black hole," Doyle said. "E-mails went into a black hole."
Harrison told the jury that Doyle's assertions about the memories of KBR executives were "little sound bites that he hopes stick with you." | <urn:uuid:01baae94-e66d-46c5-8bc0-19e122a1dc5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/10/10/soldiers-claim-illness-after-guarding-kbr-in-iraq?s_cid=related-links:TOP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981643 | 938 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau has never been to Iraq or Afghanistan. But for years, his strip has chronicled the wars in those countries, with the stories of characters like Ray Hightower and B.D. — the football coach and Vietnam vet who went to Iraq with the National Guard.
Trudeau's latest project involves real-life soldiers. Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox is a compilation of writings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan that were posted on a blog at Doonesbury.com.
Trudeau tells Michele Norris that his goal was to provide a general audience the "flavor" of what life is like for troops overseas.
He asked soldiers to provide writing that "spoke to the texture of quotidian, day-to-day activities of [their lives]" and that were not rants about the war or the politics of the war.
Dark humor characterizes many of the blog posts.
"That black, M*A*S*H-like humor has traditionally been the thin membrane between these guys and insanity," Trudeau says during a recent book signing at the Pentagon, located just outside Washington.
"They have to look at horrible things and somehow detoxify them, and often they'll do that with humor."
Trudeau says his views on Iraq and Afghanistan didn't evolve so much as deepen as a result of the project.
"I just hope these guys get the credit that's due them," Trudeau says. "If it also helps people understand what these guys are going through, on a day-to-day basis, I think that [will be] a contribution." | <urn:uuid:fd6ac53f-3417-40b7-9925-678246d3dae1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/15404358/trudeau-compiles-dispatches-from-the-sandbox | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982719 | 338 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Christmas time is a wonderful time to give others something that shows your love for them as illustrated throughout our Savior’s life. Books are such a perfect gift that demonstrates all you wish to show to your loved ones. And books can be read over and over so the gift keeps giving! I’ve assembled a [...]
Archive for the 2012 Category
This truly is a most wonderful time of year to give to others. But a most memorable gift would be a book to cherish throughout the year, or possibly a lifetime, as we reflect on the life of the Savior and the selflessness and perfect example He continually provides for us in our lives.
I am reviewing one of the most beautiful and reverent picture books you’ll find for Christmas! The Nativity, by J. Kirk Richards, has a sacred feel from cover to cover. Upon opening the book, you find the end-pages filled with a glow of gold. When turning the pages, a pallet of brown and gold hues [...]
LDS books about doctrine, history and inspiration are perfect gifts to give to loved ones. Here are some outstanding new LDS books that will surely become favorites to those special family members or friends you desire to receive something truly meaningful.
For Times of Trouble: Spiritual Solace From the Psalms, by Jeffrey R. Holland, is [...]
It’s time to get those special presents for loved ones and what better type of present than BOOKS! For the next several weeks leading up to Christmas I will have some of the best gift-giving books that have been recently published. This week’s review centers on non-fiction books which can apply perfectly to families [...]
The next few reviews will be dedicated to outstanding new books that will surely encourage kids, ages nine and up, to capture the love and joy of reading. The last book is best suited for teens and adults.
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, should be a definite candidate for the next Newbery award [...]
It’s a continual problem to find books for kids that are so good that it keeps them reading clear to the end. Here are more outstanding books for ages nine and older that will likely keep them reading deep into the night! Only the last book is better suited for ages seven to ten. This [...]
If you are looking for fiction books to excite and instill a life long love of reading, here is a nice variety of genre that are all page-turners and that even reluctant readers will enjoy. All are geared for ages nine and older, unless otherwise stated. This is the second of three planned reviews in [...]
I’ve been saving some great picture books for this annual occasion, so get ready for fun, funny and entertaining Halloween books good for all ages. Also, the last four books are geared primarily for ages seven to ten.
The Monsters’ Monster, by Patrick McDonnell, is a sweet story that centers around a giant of a [...]
Halloween is quickly approaching and what better way to get in the mood of the holiday than with some books of thrills and chills. The first 2 books are geared for older children and the rest are picture books good for all ages.
The Girl Behind the Glass, by Jane Kelley, is a story that [...] | <urn:uuid:6388d18d-8132-4072-9ddc-0697b6db764e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newtonsbook.com/category/2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948595 | 674 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A lot of hard work went in to making this happen, and as always it’s such a pleasure to watch my co-workers make magic happen. I invite you to see this blogs 2011 annual report:
“HTML5 will kill Flash”, is a sentence that’s thrown around a lot, these days, but the fact of the matter is very few people know what HTML5 is. This website is a presentation of HTML5 (and CSS3) which clearly demonstrates what you can do in HTML5, so it’s a great bookmark to send to people who ask you about HTML5.
That said, for layman, HTML5 is really about the browser finally getting some much needed features such as built-in video support and advanced CSS compliance. Which means HTML5 will not kill Flash until you switch from Internet Explorer to any other browser.
WebGL is running inside the sandbox under the –enable-webgl flag (i.e. this no longer requires the –no-sandbox flag to run). Browsing with the –no-sandbox is dangerous and we strongly recommend that you not do it.
Google has been working hard to get WebGL 3D hardware acceleration working properly — you may have seen a Quake 2 demo in HTML5 one of these days — no doubt to have it ready for the impending release of Chrome OS.
Interesting turn of phrase, also: “browsing with the –no-sandbox is dangerous”. To my knowledge, browsing without sandboxed processes means browsing with any other browser than Google Chrome.
Windows just announced Windows Phone 7 (previously known as Windows Mobile 7). Here’s a video, and after that, some thoughts on the offering.
I like how the lock screen is not a slider, but a “cover” you slide upwards.
I’m noticing the Internet Explorer icon, and thinking to myself: Why not rebrand Internet Explorer Mobile as simply “Internet” and replace the icon with a globe? After strangle-holding the web for half a decade, IE must surely be a tainted brand. Then I remember that to most people, the E means internet. And then I’m sad.
I wonder which version of IE it’s running… 8? No rounded corners or drop shadows then.
The Xbox Live integration will appeal to a number of people. Not a bad move.
The interface looks kinda nice, and — dare I say it — clean and original compared to both iPhone OS and Android. I’m told this is the Zune look. Which is ironic, because Zune was originally advertised as bidding you “welcome to the social”. Which of course becomes somewhat easier when you can now finally call someone.
The fact that there’s a smiley on the default SMS texting keyboard… I don’t know… should we read anything in to that? For one thing, I’ll bet you it means WinPhone7 doesn’t leverage the power of HTML5 forms.
I wonder if WinPhone7 will be Mac compatible. Catering to the 4% (arguably the important percent) is just not the Microsoft way. One decent alternative would be to not need a computer at all to sync… so that all you had to do to grab music, files, calendar notes, email and everything was to sync to the cloud, or your computer via bluetooth using standardized protocols. The video claims you can “skip the wires and sync over Wi-Fi”. Which, if it works on any computer with a shared network drive, gives this phone a fighting chance, demonstrating how iTunes as sync middle-ware is a last-gen concept.
One status update in the demo video from “Anne” reads “Having fun playing at the beach with the twins”. Which we’ll let hang there for a moment. European beach?
I’m told version 7 has been underway for quite a while, and has involved a complete rewrite of the code base as opposed to continuing work on WinMo 6.5. Starting from scratch is quite often a really good idea, even if risky.
It’s got Bing. Of course it does. Will it allow you to switch that search to Google? Or do they simply ask you go through the browser to do that?
The “people” section stresses me out. It’s like walking through the halls at iStockPhoto, constantly wincing to avoid the glare from just-bleached teeth.
Let me know if you spot a single instance of the WinMo font set in bold. I haven’t spotted it yet — stylish. The whole “looking through a cutout at a canvas” thing also looks really nice. Actually. | <urn:uuid:4127bd9e-8cc5-4160-8252-1f44dfdc1879> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://noscope.com/tag/html5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943635 | 1,004 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The Bracken Environmental Fund was created in September of 1997. Before her death, Rosemary Bracken endowed the fund with a $500,000 gift to enhance Ball State's academic environmental programs. The money is to be used to bring visiting scholars to campus, provide faculty research grants and help students work on environmental projects with faculty members.
Rosemary Bracken was the daughter of Frank C. Ball, one of the five brothers who founded Ball Corp. in Muncie and donated the land and buildings for Ball State University in 1918.
Her husband, the late Alexander M. Bracken, was president of Ball State's Board of Trustees for 22 years and was a chairman of Ball Corp. Their son Frank Bracken, currently serves on the Board of Trustees and was U.S. Undersecretary of the Interior under President George H. Bush.
The fund is managed by the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Bracken Lectures have included:
J. Carl Ganter
Renowned multimedia journalist J. Carl Ganter whose expertise on the economy and natural resources has put him at the forefront of international solutions to the global freshwater crisis, will deliver this year's Bracken Environmental Lecture at Ball State University. Ganter, co-founder and director of Circle of Blue, will describe the environmental dimensions and economic consequences of a global water crisis that is simultaneously producing record levels of flooding and drought-influenced scarcity. Ganter's lecture on March 22, "Our Water Future: Meeting the Challenge of the Century," starts at 7:30 p.m. in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center, Cardinal Hall. It is free, and the public is invited to attend.
Click here for full press release.
New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman will share his outlook on the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy from his new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America (September 2008), a number one New York Times bestseller.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Speaker. Bracken Environmental Lecture Series. 'Our Environmental Destiny'. One of Time magazine's 'Heroes for the Planet,' Mr. Kennedy will discuss the role that natural resources play in our work, our health, and our identity as Americans. A passionate environmental speaker, he reminds us that we have a responsibility to protect and preserve our planet for future generations. Mr. Kennedy is chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeepers, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the former president and now chair of the Waterkeeper Alliance. He is considered the first among a new breed of environmentalists. Mr. Kennedy has worked on environmental issues across the Americas, and has assisted several indigenous tribes in Latin America and Canada in successfully negotiating treaties protecting traditional homelands. The New York City watershed agreement, which he negotiated on behalf of environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers, is regarded as an international model in stakeholder consensus negotiations and sustainable development. He also helped lead the fight to turn back the anti-environmental legislation during the 104th Congress.
In the Inaugural Bracken Environmental Series Lecture, Paul Hawken discusses ""Natural Capitalism: The Coming Efficiency Revolution" a book co-authored with Amory and Hunter Lovins. Hawken is a respected businessman, environmentalist and author whose books include the best sellers "Growing a Business" and "The Ecology of Commerce," plus "Seven Tomorrows" and "The Next Economy." His books have been published in more than 50 countries and 27 languages. Hawken chairs The Natural Step, U.S., and co-chairs The Natural Step, International. He has served on the boards of the Point Foundation, which publishes the "Whole Earth Catalog"; Center for Plant Conservation; Friends of the Earth; Trust for Public Land; Ecology Action; and National Audubon Society. He also co-founded Smith & Hawken, a mail-order gardening supply company known for its environmental initiatives. Hawken has received the Environmental Stewardship Award from the Council on Economic Priorities, the Creative Visionary Award from the International Society of Industrial Design, and the Design in Business Award for environmental responsibility from the American Center for Design. He also was the Small Business Administration's Entrepreneur of the Year in 1990. Other honors include the Utne Reader 100 ("100 Visionaries Who Could Change Our Lives"), Esquire Magazine's "Best of a Generation," Inc. Magazine's Dream Team ("12 Best Entrepreneurs of the 1980s") and the Metropolitan Home 100 (100 best people, products and ideas that shape our lives).
Copyright © 2013 Ball State University 2000 W. University Ave. Muncie, IN 47306
800-382-8540 and 765-289-1241 | <urn:uuid:7008473f-699b-44dd-8f78-0c61c209569d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cms.bsu.edu/academics/centersandinstitutes/cote/sustainability/bracken | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938743 | 1,003 | 1.820313 | 2 |
‘The Royal Institution is obviously in a muddle at the moment..’ opined Royal Society chief Paul Nurse recently to People & Science (p8 of this issue). No sooner did he say it, but I discovered that the Science Media Centre is moving. Literally. It’s packing up its office in boxes as I write. After more than a decade in fashionable Mayfair, the SMC has ‘de-merged’ from the RI and is moving north - to Euston Road, to be precise, and into the swanky offices of the Wellcome Trust. Muddle, money, or a mixture of both?
The British Science Association’s weekly news roundups, the Science News Digest, have been deemed to be getting a little racy of late, or so some institution’s overzealous profane content and spam blockers would have you believe. The Digest has been rejected on the grounds of including words and phrases ranging from ‘free energy’, ‘casinos’ and ‘overweight and reduce’ appearing in the same sentence. Other words causing inbox uproar have included ‘sperm’ when discussing the breeding practices of nematodes, ‘homo’ in homo sapiens and ‘bang’ in the Big Bang….
It’s not only spam filters. The Association’s use of words doesn’t please some people, either. The current Royal Society chief, Paul Nurse, told People & Science in no uncertain terms recently that he wouldn’t have changed the name of the British Science Association two years ago. ‘I wouldn’t have thrown the BA’s name away, frankly. I think it was daft,’ he said. ‘The whole thing is utterly muddled. I’d have left the brand BA. For scientists and those who are particularly interested in science, they all knew what the BA was. BSA hardly helps. British Science Association might, but British Science Association doesn’t communicate what it does. So I would have BA and something underneath it to say what it is.’
Someone who has, if not shaken, certainly rattled a few cages recently is the Astronomer Royal and former Royal Society chief Martin Rees. Lord Rees, who professed to having ‘no religious beliefs at all’ in an interview with the Guardian’s Ian Sample, won the 2011 Templeton Prize for 'career achievements which affirm life's spiritual dimension.' The Templeton Prize is the largest monetary prize in the world and was set up in 1973 by Wall Street billionaire and Christian, the late John Templeton.
Rees’ acceptance of the prize has sparked controversy amongst certain scientists and contemporaries who do not agree that he should have accepted the prize from a body which promotes religion. My favourite headline generated by the story was the Independent’s Steve Connor who wrote ‘For the love of God… scientists in uproar at £1m religion prize.’
The wrong science
March 2011 saw the 17th National Science & Engineering Week. Much news coverage of NSEW was eclipsed by a surfeit of coverage – all science – following the catastrophic earthquake in Japan. As the disaster evolved, the media was full of science, from seismology to tsunamis to nuclear reactors.
Following the explosion at Fukushima’s nuclear plant murmurings have been heard amongst the UK’s public engagement community about whether nuclear is about to become the next MMR.
Extracurricular to nonexistent?
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Department of Education are in discussions with several organisations about continuing to fund national schemes that support extracurricular science activities in schools. However, local and regional support has been decimated by the ‘austerity measures’ and several providers of high quality science activities in schools are facing extreme challenges. The curriculum review in England looks likely to result in a slimmed-down curriculum in the sciences, though whether this will free up teachers to do less ‘teaching to the test’ is debatable.
In the last issue, I reported incorrectly that Simon Festing was to become the next CEO of Society of Applied Microbiology. He is actually going to become CEO of the Society for General Microbiology, later this year. Sorry Simon! | <urn:uuid:e94e117f-71e6-48b0-8f46-bcf59efde12d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/print/11374?qt-popular_pages_in_this_section=0 | 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 | 0.953098 | 903 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Both the river and the cycle route meander through the Paderborner Land and Gütersloher Land, the first of five holiday regions covered by this route. The landscape around the upper reaches of the river is dominated by sandy dunes, pine forests and wetlands, as well as small medieval towns. Next, the route continues through the Ems riverbank meadows through the Münsterland region with its fairytale moated castles. After the sweeping stretches of moor and heathland in the southern Emsland region, things get decidedly maritime with harbours, locks and weirs. Your journey ends near Emden, where the river Ems flows into the North Sea – the final highlight on this tour along the Ems to the coast. Terrain: essentially level countryside. The paths are on asphalt most of the way and traverse two federal states, largely away from busy roads, but not always free of traffic. Scenery: the route hugs the banks of the Ems river all the way from the headwaters on the edge of the Teutoburg Forest to its North Sea estuary near Emden. Along the way it crosses five holiday regions with their heaths, moors, riverside meadows, fenland and areas of reclaimed land. | <urn:uuid:f2e32b55-5e73-4aca-a3eb-56975c460e56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.germany.travel/il/leisure-and-recreation/cycling/ems-cycle-route.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 | 0.942696 | 261 | 1.820313 | 2 |
This should be a feel good story. Kymberly Wimberly, a young, teenage mother, overcomes adversity (and a horrendously spelled name) to become valedictorian of her high school near Little Rock, Arkansas. She is congratulated and set out as an example to other students, before continuing on her successful journey.
And if Kymberly Wimberly were white, maybe that would be the story coming to a Lifetime special near you. But Wimberly is black, and this is the internet. According to a lawsuit filed by Wimberly’s mother, Molly Bratton, the principal of McGehee Secondary School wanted to avoid the “big mess” that would have ensued if Wimberly had been named sole valedictorian, to be applauded at graduation by McGehee’s majority-white parents. Bratton claims that this is just the latest in a pattern of discrimination against black students at the majority-white school.
Thanks to the internet, I think Principal Darrell Thompson is about to learn a whole new definition for “big mess”…. | <urn:uuid:787bad70-152d-4a9d-bacc-c98719682a79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abovethelaw.com/tag/molly-bratton/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968989 | 228 | 1.5625 | 2 |
"Ab Aeterno" S6 / E9
- A- Community Grade
One of my favorite poker terms is “pot-committed,” which refers to that point in a hand where you’ve got so many chips at stake that you pretty much have to call any raise by your opponent, no matter how big. When you’re pot-committed, the lone advantage to folding is the ability to control information; you’ll lose a ton of money, but at least your opponent won’t know whether you were clinging to weak cards. But what if your opponent is bluffing? If you’re risking a game-changing stack of chips, logic dictates that you stay in the hand, so at least you’ve got a chance to win.
Like a lot of pokerspeak, “pot-committed” has applications even when you step away from the card table. Consider Richard Alpert. For 140 years, he’s been working as Jacob’s intermediary in the world, guiding people to The Island (and guiding them once they’re on The Island) to an end that Jacob has only vaguely explained. Richard has trusted that Jacob knows what he’s doing, and that the other guy—The Man In Black, the first one to touch Richard and offer him help on The Island—is a malevolent force that Jacob’s keeping in check. Not much more seems to have been clarified for Mr. Alpert. He’s primarily been acting on faith, and with Jacob dead, that faith is as shattered as the giant statue that used to guard this Island. What was it all for, ultimately? Is it time for Richard to fold, or does he need to stand behind his bet, now more than ever?
“Ab Aeterno” was the episode that a lot of us have been waiting for all season—the big Richard Alpert origin story, with promises of major reveals about The Island mythology—and I’m anxious to see whether everyone thought it was worth the wait. Myself, I was entranced, even though I don’t know that “Ab Aeterno” was quite what I was expecting. I figured we’d get more sweep, from Richard’s arrival on The Island to his time with The Others and then to now. Instead, we largely stayed in 1867, with an extended explanation of how Richard found himself in Jacob’s service in the first place.
But there was a different kind of mood about the episode that drew me in early, and held me all the way to the end. The editing was different at times, with people talking while the screen showed flashes of action from different times and places. Michael Giacchino’s score was different, particularly at the start of Richard’s story, which introduced (I think) a new musical theme. And the framing of shots was different, catching parts of The Island—an overgrown tree, the beach with The Statue—that we haven’t seen much during the run of the series. One of my favorite aspects of Lost is the way that any given week, the show can whisk us to other places and tell stories in any genre the writers choose. Last week, they dropped us off in a cop show. This week, it was a tragic Victorian romance with Biblical overtones.
We start on the Canary Islands, where poor Richard needs a doctor to save his feverish, consumptive wife Isabella. She gives him her heavily symbolic gold cross to pay for medicine, but the doctor refuses it—“This is worthless,” the doc says, layering meaning upon meaning—and an agitated Richard accidentally kills him. Isabella dies and Richard’s imprisoned, where he’s given a choice between death-by-hanging or joining a man named Mr. Whitfield on an expedition to The New World on The Black Rock. Only after Richard makes the choice to live does he learn that Whitfield means him to be a slave, “property of Magnus Hanso.”
The Black Rock soon gets caught up in a storm and heads towards The Island, where Richard sees The Statue looming through the flashes of lightning. The ship eventualy catches a big wave, crashes into The Statue and demolishes it, before washing up way inland. (I’d dispute the physics of all this, but you know what I always say: It’s a magic island. Sometimes stuff just… happens.) Mr. Whitfield begins slaughtering all the slaves so that they won’t be a drain on Hanso’s resources, but Richard is spared when The Smoke Monster comes whooshing in, killing everybody.
A few days later, Richard sees the ghost of his wife, and hears her scream when the Monster returns. Then the Monster comes back yet again, in human form this time, and tells Richard that “the devil” has Isabella down on the beach by the shattered Statue, and that Richard can get her back if he slays the devil with a special dagger. He’s not to listen to a word the devil—Jacob—says, because if he does, it’ll be too late.
But alas, Richard does listen. Jacob repels Richard’s attack easily, then quickly convinces Richard that The Man In Black is the bad guy, and that Richard, no matter what he believes, is not dead and not in Hell. He proves this by dunking Richard in the ocean three times—ritual baptism, in other words—after which Richard is born again, and ready to do as Jacob asks. At first, Jacob’s not sure what he wants, beyond keeping The Man In Black in check. He explains to Richard that Blackie is a dark stain that will spread throughout the world unless he’s contained in his bottle by “the cork” that is The Island. He explains that Blackie has a gift for manipulating people, and bringing out their worst tendencies. Richard asks why Jacob doesn’t use his own powers of persuasion on the opposite side, and Jacob explains that it’s not right if people are led to the proper path rather than finding it themselves. But then he seems to take Richard’s idea under consideration, and asks if Richard would mind going out into the world as his representative.
So how does all this fit into Lost as we know it?
Well, so many questions were raised by the 1867 action that I’m probably going to fill the CC&CAT section of this review with more verbiage than the recap section. So head down there if you want to contemplate the mysteries straight away. One quick note before you go, though: for those of you worried that Lost is heading down the same “God did it” path that marred Battlestar Galactica for so many fans of that show, I’d advise you to tamp down your fears until the whole story gets told. Note that Jacob says he can’t bring Richard’s wife back and can’t absolve Richard of his sins, though he can grant eternal life. Those sound like the promises of a supernatural being, yes, but not necessarily a Christ figure. (Baptism and gold crosses aside.) Note also that when Jacob makes his offer to Richard, he’s essentially repeating the offer made by Whitfield. Richard is as good as dead, then Jacob offers him life—but only in service. I don’t think that parallel is coincidental.
As for what makes “Ab Aeterno” a Lost story, I have to point to a narrative structure that has the protagonist in shackles and in the dark for a good chunk of the episode. That’s Lost in a nutshell, yes? There’s so much we want to see, and so much we want to know, yet again and again, the writers lock us into one place, and leave us there in ignorance until our spirits are broken. And then just when we're about to give up they take us someplace new and unexpected, and we’re so grateful that we’ll believe anything they tell us. It’s quite canny, how often Lost becomes a metaphor for itself.
I had my doubts at times this week. I thought the opening scenes in 2007 were rushed and shaky, and when Richard flipped out and told Jack that everyone there was dead and in Hell, my heart sunk a little. (“You mean that figuratively, right?” I asked hopefully, echoing Hurley.)
But then, like I said, I got caught up in Richard’s story, as it played out against the backdrop of the old rivalry between Jacob and The Man In Black. So while I loved the final scene of “Ab Aeterno,” back in 1867, with Jacob explaining that there’ll always be a cork to contain the malevolence, and The Man In Black responding by smashing a bottle (thus illustrating that there may be more than one way to escape), I was even more impressed by the final scenes with Richard in 2007. He digs up Isabella’s old cross, buried on The Island 140 years ago, and calls for The Man In Black to take him onto the dark team as he promised to do way back when. Richard’s ready to fold his hand.
Then Hugo shows up, carrying a message from The Ghost Of Isabella to stay in the game. It’s a beautifully conceived, staged and acted scene—rivaling the more emotional Desmond/Penny scenes, in my opinion—with Richard and Isabella standing right next to each other and communicating through Hurley. I keep saying over and over that Lost is not Jacob’s story or The Man In Black’s story, despite the complaints of some frustrated fans. It’s the story of how these characters we’ve lived with for six years deal with the choices and opportunities being offered by these two entities. Whether following Jacob is the right thing to do or not still remains to be seen, but at the moment, doing so does give Richard a sense of purpose and hope that he didn’t have when the episode began. For now, that’s the story.
-Did you, like me, say “good to see you out of those chains” in unison with The Man In Black?
-Felt good to hear the familiar “flashback” sound for the first time in a while.
-This was also the first heavily subtitled episode since “Ji-Yeon,” if I recall correctly.
-Ben notes that he’s known Richard for a long time, and that Richard doesn’t know anything. If anyone’s an expert on Island ignorance, it’s Ben.
-Do “the rules” require that Jacob and Smokey wear white and black? To make them easier to identify?
-We’ve been rightly praising the work of Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson this season, but let’s give it up for Nestor Carbonell, who’s finally gotten to play a few notes other than “quiet confidence” this season. His performance in the dynamite scene two weeks ago was so wonderfully raw; I’ve watched it about four times now, and it still gives me a jolt. And I loved his first appearance in this episode, giving a rueful giggle when Ilana asks him what to do next.
-“If it makes you feel any better, it’s not exactly Locke.”
-“She says your English is awesome.”
-What would’ve happened if Cane had become a big hit?
-Are Archie comics ripping off Lost? Mr. Andrews seems to be spending a lot of time in Mirror Universes lately. Payback for "Jughead," I guess.
Clues, coincidences and crazy-ass theories:
-How did The Black Rock’s ledger end up at auction? Was it planted there by Jacob/Richard, as part of a scheme to get Desmond to The Island, via Charles Widmore/Libby?
-The episode opens with Jacob visiting Ilana and filling her in on her duties as a protector. Do I detect a tone of despair in Ilana that she’s not a candidate herself?
-Add Richard to the list of people on The Island who’ve killed. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether you kill someone intentionally or accidentally. Take a life and, “I’m afraid the devil awaits you in hell.”
-Just as Not-Locke did last week, The Man In Black confesses to Richard that he’s The Smoke Monster. He lies about other stuff, but he doesn’t seem to mind sharing that one embarrassing secret about himself.
-Is it significant that only after The Black Rock destroys The Statue, Jacob decides that he needs to take a more active role in human affairs?
-Richard gives The Man In Black a white rock from Jacob, symbolizing something. Another soul claimed, perhaps?
-If Richard became Jacob’s intermediary in 1867, what happened in the interim to get Widmore involved? And Hawking? And Linus? How did we end up with tribes and “leaders?” And how did our Oceanic 815ers become “candidates?” There’s a lot more story to be told, but if Lost really is about the elemental clash of good and evil, I get the feeling that it may also be about how religion intercedes and confuses things.
-The Man In Black tells Richard not to listen to Jacob because, “He can be very… convincing.” I get the feeling that Jacob may have talked his nemesis onto The Island in the first place. Thinking back to “The Incident” last season, I can’t help but dwell on The Man In Black saying to Jacob “still trying to prove me wrong” and Jacob reminding his nemesis that “it only ends once… anything that happens before that is progress.” But progress for whom? Perhaps not for mankind; perhaps for The Man In Black, who’s being kept on The Island until he learns the lesson that Jacob’s been trying to teach him for centuries.
-Speaking of which, I’ve been sitting on a theory for a few weeks. There have been rumors for a while that we’d hear The Island summed up in a single word in this episode, and that the word would be “cork.” Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about bottles and genies and granting wishes, though I don’t know whether “Ab Aeterno” supports The Genie Theory or not. I’m thinking probably not, but here’s a proposition: What if The Man In Black is a genie, and what if he once tempted Jacob with promises, and Jacob turned the tables? Again, I’m betting against this theory given what we learned tonight, but I’ve been saving it in my back pocket and didn’t want to waste it.
-And by the way, how much different would the world be if The Man In Black were allowed to escape? It’s not like there’s not evil out there already. Or is it just that a freed Blackie would tip the scale?
-At one point in the episode, the camera moved slowly in on The Black Rock, and I saw what looked to be a computer-generated butterfly flapping into the boat. I assumed for a moment that it would turn out to be Jacob, taking a different form—as fauna, like Kate’s horse—much like The Man In Black’s smokey self. It didn’t turn out to be so, but it did make me wonder whether Jacob can change the way his nemesis can.
-Thinking about animals also makes me think of Walt, which reminds me of one of the major lingering questions still far, far from answered by Lost: What’s up with all the magic powers?
-I defined “pot-committed” up top, but that’s really only half the definition. The term can also describe a situation where you have a clear advantage, and your odds are just too strong to fold. Because there are times, in poker as in life, where there’s really only one reasonable play: All-in.
I posted this in the comments late last week (and on Twitter/Facebook), but for those who missed it, I participated in the Zap2It “Orientation: Ryan Station” podcast, co-hosted by Zap2It’s Ryan McGee and The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan. We re-watched “Recon” and talked about it in pretty close to real time. (We often talked past the commercials; hence the periodic breaks to re-set.) I had a great time and hope to get invited back before the season's over. Anyway, I think I acquitted myself well, mainly by sharing the kind of theories about the “flash-sideways” and the ultimate meaning of the show that we all kick around here every week. So I credit y’all with the assist. | <urn:uuid:9663bf31-524a-4160-93d4-1e9c81cf5c3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.avclub.com/articles/ab-aeterno,39490/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959353 | 3,682 | 1.5625 | 2 |
What does it mean to be a 'world model'?
An interesting thing about the modeling industry is the fact that it allows many model-hopefuls, be it in almost any part of world, to become models. Modeling as a profession is highly desired and more and more young aspiring models are dreaming of becoming the next world models.
With the growth of modeling as a profession as any other, modeling has become much more accessible than ever before. Now models from all over the world are competing on the same level. The once almost unattainable profession is now at the very fingertips of anyone who wants it badly enough.
World models, the successful models who have made it big, are those who keep showing their staying power year after year. A great example of a world model is one who has made a name for herself/himself aside from just being a pretty face walking down the runway. World models are models who do their very best to stand out from other models. I can think of a list of top models worthy of being called 'world models' and it's exactly these models that new model-hopefuls look up to and who they see as their role models. These include the likes of Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, and the list goes on.
World models show and set an example to new models who are starting their careers. The world is becoming more united and more accessible, no doubt due to continuous developments in technology. And in turn, more and more young men and women are given the opportunity to become part of the exciting world of modeling. | <urn:uuid:946babb4-e7e9-4661-8cfc-9a13383c9252> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.modelmanagement.com/modeling-advice/world-models/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974575 | 326 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Venezuela's price control leaves no room for profits
Controls may bring regulated commodities supply down
The model the Venezuelan Executive Office used to regulate the price of basic commodities leaves behind the negotiations held with actors of the production and commercialization chain. It also seeks to set a ceiling to profits arising from the sales of those products in each of the links of the chain.
According to Food Minister Carlos Osorio, most essential basic commodities will be imposed a 3-5% profit margin.
Analysts from the food sector reckon that the aforesaid model –adopted by the National Superintendence of Fair Costs and Prices (Sundecop) a year ago- does not include the products' commercial dynamism. Such products are suffering a wide accumulated price gap.
"This is an attack against the market's competition and against economic freedom in general. Today producer prices are negative in products such as precooked flour and rice despite the recent adjustment. The methodology they have been implementing is confusing. Many producers trade their own products," an analyst said.
By keeping control throughout the commercialization chain, the industries and stores will further depend on the Government to set prices and profit margins.
It is also believed that time will tell what the impact of regulations on supply will be. This will depend on the steps taken on those commodities, "yet the control is on profits, which leads to distortions. If profits are below production costs, it will bring about distortion in businesses; only those products yielding more profits will be sold."
Translated by Jhean Cabrera
About 210,000 Cubans have been to Venezuela until 2012, as part of an alliance established by Hugo Chávez. A number of agreements have enabled Cubans to take part in a wide range of government plans and social welfare, from health to national intelligence to security. | <urn:uuid:24b01286-09ba-4ff8-8b70-5d67e7367c76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/121205/venezuelas-price-control-leaves-no-room-for-profits | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953371 | 371 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Gentrification. Revitalization. Stabilization. All words that come to mind when you’re thinking about what to do, exactly, with declining urban neighborhoods. But at the core of ‘what to do’ with declining urban neighborhoods is a mindset that urban planners (myself included) are often guilty of – at the end of the day, we can’t ‘do’ anything with property we don’t own, at least not easily or without great cost (financial and otherwise) to the community. This is often why the best examples of neighborhood revitalization and stabilization are usually organic ones – perhaps steered by community development corporations, neighborhood plans, or local planning departments – but at their core driven forward by people on the ground willing to take risks, pour their money (and those of their investors) into a place, develop a business plan, make connections, and hope it sticks.
Here in Pittsburgh, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for the East Liberty neighborhood for years. Once the third largest shopping district in Pennsylvania, this neighborhood has great history, fantastic architectural gems, a decades-long period of decline, and some fantastically awful centralized planning decisions. Due to hard work and boots on the ground (and decidedly NOT due to anything our backwards local government planning department has done or not done, since they’re only now writing a comprehensive plan for the city) by the neighborhood CDC and countless other stakeholders, this area is hopping once again. Bookended by big box retail in the large spaces surrounding the urban core, the smaller spaces have for the most part been slowly rehabbed and are a mix of established and relatively new businesses.
And here’s the sticky part – who’s the most important stakeholder in this process? The neighborhood resident who’s seen the decline and rebirth? The chamber of commerce, who doesn’t necessarily have the best track record with supporting the small businesses? The CDC, who’s busted its butt trying to get vacant buildings filled with a sustainable mix of tenants only to get flack because they’re the ‘wrong kind’? The mix is critical to success, but everyone is always critical of the mix.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I frequent businesses in East Liberty. So many are food-based (yes, I am finally talking about food) – two Ethiopian restaurants, a Jamaican place, the cupcake bakery, the pizza shops, the Parisian bistro, the hip local dive bar, the waffle-centered performance art space, the conflict kitchen, the barbeque place, the hot dog shop, the burger bar, the modern American restaurant. As I write this list off the top of my head, I’m struck by the fact that most of these places are relatively new. One of the pizza shops is a long-time business (though frought with its own issues); the rest have been operating a decade or less. And although most business owners are happy with any patrons, for the most part the clientele seems to be young, non-minority, hip, with disposable income. I think it’s safe to say that the immediate neighborhood residents would not fit that description. So East Liberty is back to being a destination – which, to be fair, is its historical role. And what’s the alternative – predatory businesses (there is a check cashing place in the area, I believe), or no businesses at all?
A conversation with a fellow local food blogger started this whole thought process (and that conversation devolved from a lovely brisket recommendation). What level of investment in a neighborhood is appropriate for someone to come in with? Does that level change if they’re from the neighborhood, the city, the region, or a complete outsider? What about if they bring with them a certain caché, a cult of personality, a track record for excellence in the culinary world? Local foodies know by now that I’m talking about Kevin Sousa and his East End restaurant trimvirate (two of which are in East Liberty, and one in the urban core of the neighborhood). His first restaurant, Salt of the Earth in nearby Garfield, earned major accolades from the broader culinary community (Food and Wine and the James Beard Foundation, among others) and has been lauded locally. Rehabbing the building was seen as a Good Thing too, turning a historic Harley Davidson dealership from the 1920s that most recently was a vacant home decor place into a hot spot on a stretch of Penn Avenue that sorely needed some eyes on the street at night.
He’s followed that up with two restaurants opening almost simultaneously: Station Street Hot Dog Shop, and Union Pig & Chicken, and the grumbling has grown along with his foodie empire. I just don’t get it. The hot dog shop had been vacant for over a year, and is carrying on the tradition of a hot dog shop in that general vicinity (with that name) since 1915. The barbeque place bore the brunt of the complaints, both because people are very opinionated about their barbeque expectations and because a white dude from McKees Rocks is cooking barbeque in the ‘hood (haven’t heard it in quite those terms, but that seems to be the general sentiment).
Food questions aside (though I admit to being an avid fan of Kevin’s cooking), I ask these naysayers these questions: what would you have put in their place? Both of those storefronts were vacant. Both places are continuing the traditions of their locations (a rib joint failed a few years ago in the spot where Union is now). While neither place is the cheapest place I can get a hot dog or some fried chicken, it’s not massively overpriced. When a quarter pounder at Mickey D’s now costs $3.84 for processed crap that’s only recently become pink-slime free, and I can get a hot dog with standard fixings, all made by hand and really good quality product for $4 plus tax, how is that pretentious? If $22 is too much to pay for a really good rack of ribs, why would you willingly pay $20.99 at Damon’s for a mediocre rack?
And if you don’t want a Local Boy Done Good to bring restaurants to your vacant storefronts, where should he go? He’s a successful businessman with a solid following who chose to try new things in a neighborhood that needed it, and said they wanted it (one of the goals in the neighborhood plan is to become a dining destination, after all). He could have rested on his laurels and replicated his brand in the suburbs, and he didn’t. Why all the crap for someone who’s willing to take a chance? Isn’t *that* the American way?
Me, I’m happy to support a local businessman who serves food that I feel comfortable feeding to my kids in an area of the city that I love. Obviously, a lot of other people feel that way too. This debate isn’t unique to East Liberty, or Pittsburgh. I lived in another city neighborhood a decade ago whose parochial blue hairs tried to run the Hispanic businesses off the main street – apparently they liked vacant storefronts more. But if you alienate the small business owner, who is supposedly the lifeblood of the American economy, sooner or later you’ll end up in a chain store (or vacant window) wasteland. That’s not what I’m interested in, at all.
*an odd title, I know, but it combines the names of the three Kevin Sousa restaurants: Salt of the Earth, Station Street Hot Dog Shop, and Union Pig & Chicken | <urn:uuid:5fac030b-8e6a-434f-a09b-b6e8573dfd9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://foodmeonce.com/2012/04/22/salt-of-the-station-street-pig-chicken/ | 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 | 0.964149 | 1,621 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Buckminster Fuller was not a San Francisco native; the fellow affectionately referred to as Bucky never even lived in the vicinity. The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area on now at SFMoMA, however, explores the ongoing relationship between Fuller and his creative successors from northern California, while offering new insights into the man himself.
The show began with a gift. Graphic designer Chuck Byrne, a longtime Fuller collaborator, gave a pristine portfolio of 13 projects to the museum, each featuring a series of three prints: an illustration on mylar taken from the patent drawings, a blueprint, and an image of the work realized or in model form. From these, which had never-before been presented as a complete set, curator Jennifer Fletcher began to piece together themes that “resonated” in the Bay Area. “He made this call for a revolution in design informed by technology, nature, efficiency, and the greater good for all,” Fletcher tells Co.Design. “None of these particular projects succeeded in the kind of commercial, mass way that he imagined, but we looked at it holistically as one project then teased out the larger theories behind it.”
The exhibition is divided into four parts. The first introduces visitors to Fuller’s language and speaking style--both of which were exhaustive and idiosyncratic. “He made up words, like tensegrity,” she says, which were typed into the Synergistics Dictionary consisting of a staggering 22,000 index cards--one term per. “These peppered his speeches, some of which were notorious for being eight, even 24-hours long. We show an excerpt from Everything I Know, which is a 42-hour lecture he taped over two weeks." The next section focuses on his “big ideas,” including those in Byrne’s portfolio, like the Dymaxion Car, as well as many drawn from the nearby Stanford archives. The third gallery displays 12 Bay Area projects “inspired by Fuller’s thinking,” Fletcher says, like Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog and the Oval Intention Tent by the North Face. “I looked for things that didn’t try to mimic, or continue, his work, but instead really looked at the concepts.”
In the final area, a commission between documentary filmmaker Sam Green and Obscura Digital delves deep into one of Fuller’s most enduring, and expansive, personal legacies: the Dymaxion Chronofile. “This was Fuller’s self-made archive,” Fletcher explains. “Every single day he would clean off his desk and put the ephemera--a mixture ranging from hand-written manuscripts, airline ticket receipts, correspondences--into a folder.” The sheer volume, not to mention incredible breadth, of important documents to complete minutiae, is almost incomprehensible, representing about 52 years worth of continuous collecting. “Sam looked at 13 times where Fuller interacted with the Bay Area,” she says, and transformed them into three minute segments which play simultaneously, in-and-out of sync, from three separate projectors on a 3-D sculpture designed by Obscura Digital. It’s interesting to imagine whether Fuller would have embraced the current state of cloud computing and a paperless existence rife with information overload and oversharing.
Many words can be used to describe Fuller: inventor, designer, futurist, theorist, architect, comprehensivist, anticipatory design scientist (those last two he coined). For Fletcher, however, there’s one that truly hits the mark. “I’d definitely have to go with visionary,” she says. | <urn:uuid:3d400bcf-14c6-456d-b5ac-c828cab8265f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670157/how-bucky-fuller-presaged-the-bay-areas-design-boom | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965728 | 774 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The greatest gift that God has given us is NOT the gift of eternal life (if by “eternal life” we mean either ceaseless existence or even a happy here-after in heaven). The greatest gift that He has given us is the gift of Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son.
First, there is His condescension in becoming a man and then living among us. Consider what Jesus gave up in donning human flesh: the glory of heaven, the unveiled fellowship with His Father, and the awesome authority that was His. There is also His laying down of His sinless life at the hands of those for whom He came to love. He knowingly and willingly gave Himself to those who meant to kill Him and silence His invitation for love to all people, no matter their background.
But there is even more to it than this. The giving of Himself to us is literal and ongoing, meant not only for those who happened to live in the days of His earthly incarnation, but for all who have lived since and for those who live today.
In other words, Almighty God offers HIMSELF to us and desires that we come to Him and experience Him. Even the “perks” of eternal life (John 17:2-3) are tied to our coming to Him: no one can enter heaven or be accepted by the Father except those who come through Jesus Christ (John 10:1, 28; 14:6). Nor can we have any assurance of God’s blessings apart from coming to Him through God the Son.
“My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3 NIV).
In Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that illuminate dark moments of life’s doubts, empower us when we have run out of encouragement, and refine our character so that we reflect the Person of Jesus into a world that has rejected Him thereby depriving humanity of the hope and healing that only He can give.
As a Christian, do not underestimate the value of spending time alone with God. The urgent and vital work of daily seeking Jesus in prayer and in meditating on His Word is the only source of nourishment that can keep your spiritual life healthy and functioning as it ought. Too much of the time, a person’s “Christian life” is relegated to his experience in worship services (stirring music, moving messages, etc.) or service activity (e.g., helping out on a church work day or volunteering on a church committee). While not denying that such functions are necessary, the value of such external expressions of faith are directly related to whether or not we have personally come to God as well, seeking His love, correction, and empowerment for our own individual lives.
The world needs the presence of Jesus to counter the degrading effects of self and sin. The Church needs the power of Jesus to maintain a voice with enough credibility and authority to make a difference. The individual child of God needs the person of Jesus to unlock the provisions of God in practical experience.
This is why, of course, we come in the name of Jesus Himself as we approach God the Father through prayer, having cast off the rags of our old identities as sinners and are wrapped in the white robes of righteousness that Jesus’ sacrifice affords us. It is through Jesus that we can expect God to hear our petitions and it is through Him that we can have any degree of confidence that He will answer them.
Some may scoff at our trust in the Lord to hear us, and some may ridicule our belief that God will answer, but we know that for us individually, as well as our families, churches, schools and communities, the victory in life that we crave is secured only through devoted occasions of personal prayer. Such prayer produces in us the character and faith necessary for our worship to be meaningful and our service to be fruitful. But it pleases our God also to move the mountains in our lives, provide for our needs miraculously, and at times calm either the surging storms that beat upon us or the surging storms that beat within our hearts.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 NIV). | <urn:uuid:07847123-f4ea-4ca2-b22d-b97a5c8b3090> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=105282 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957542 | 941 | 1.570313 | 2 |
"Pathways" is our Higher School Certificate program. It provides a sustainable alternative to the typical HSC program, in which all subjects are examined together in one high-stress period at the end of year 12.
Pathways is a compressed model in which year 11 and 12 students study together, and each subject is taught intensively for one year, with students sitting exams at the end of each year. This pattern of study and assessment is similar to that used at universities.
Each year's course begins at the start of term 4, thus allowing a full year before the examinations in October.
It is also possible to study part time over longer that two years, and to enrol in single subjects.
The academic and social environment at Korowal is conducive to supportive, serious study in a senior college atmosphere. Each student has a mentor relationship with one staff member. Our teachers are inspiring, experienced, and committed to maximising the potential of every HSC student. Student-teacher relationships are mature and mutually respectful.
Our HSC outcomes are excellent. Korowal is consistently ranked highly in league tables. However, these rankings are a very limited measure of success. We are far more proud of students’ achievements in establishing and surpassing their own goals. Our primary aim is for students to complete their schooling with a positive, resilient, creative, compassionate approach to life and learning.
For a snapshot of the post-school careers of our ex-students, go to Community - Alumni - Alumni News.
The Pathways program: details and subjects
“Pathways” is the name given to our Higher School Certificate program.
H.S.C. subjects are usually taught over two years, involving 120 hours of instruction in each of two years. At Korowal, however, we teach an H.S.C. course compressed into a single year. This means that students experience 240 hours of instruction in a subject in a single year. For a full time student, half of the H.S.C. subjects are studied in year 11, and exams in those subjects are undertaken at the end of year 11. The other half is studied in Year 12. It is also possible to study part time over a longer period.
The advantages of the Pathways approach are that:
- The H.S.C. is completed in two manageable sections, avoiding the stress of sitting for all exams at the end of year 12.
- Assessment is more continuous, as it is for university students.
- Serious H.S.C. study commences at the start of year 11.
- The approach is in keeping with Korowal's curriculum principles throughout the school, which focus on intensive study.
- In a small school, it allows us to offer an increased range of subjects.
- It allows for part time study. It is possible to study a single subject.
Subjects offered at Korowal for the H.S.C. are:
- Mathematics: General, 2 unit, and Extension 1
- English: standard, ESL, Advanced, and Extensions 1 and 2
- Society and culture
- Studies of religion
- Visual arts
- History: 2 unit and Extension 1
- Ancient History
- Information processes and technology
Also available to students are Distance Education Courses, eg. Legal studies, and Open High School Courses, e.g. Japanese, French, Spanish, as well as VET courses at TAFE.
Senior students at Korowal have unlimited access to the Library and Learning Resources Centre and have their own study space. Korowal students refer to teachers by their first names, and do not wear uniform. In all of these ways, Korowal provides an environment which is appropriate for senior study.
Each Pathways student has a mentor relationship with one particular member of staff, who oversees and helps with their H.S.C. study, as well as their social development. | <urn:uuid:7f5533ae-e0ea-4db3-a192-e6d733bbb6ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.korowal.nsw.edu.au/Principlespractice/PathwaysHSC/tabid/484/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961363 | 816 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Tri States Public Radio Staff
Stef Gray vs Sallie Mae
Wed February 15, 2012
Bill Knight - February 16
More than 100,000 people in all 50 states already have signed an online petition as part of a grassroots campaign on Change.org that demands Sallie Mae stop charging unemployed college graduates or other student borrowers a $50 fee for forbearance on their student loans.
Borrowers who can’t pay the extra $50 fee are put into default.
First, you may ask, what’s “forbearance”? Then, you may wonder, who’s Sallie Mae?
Forbearance, simplified, is sort of a timeout that permits borrowers and lenders to try to change terms of a loan to let borrowers pay at a rate and schedule they can without going into default or, in the case of homebuyers, see their past-due mortgage push them into foreclosure.
Forbearance should also let lenders get the money due them without the added expense of foreclosure proceedings and likely loss of capital. Loan terms can be modified; borrowers can make up missing payments; lenders can realize their profit. But student loans, which cannot be “foreclosed” nor discharged in bankruptcy proceedings, can be a cash cow. Milking that cow has gone beyond collecting payments and now includes adding fees to people already financially strapped.
Sallie Mae is another name for the Student Loan Marketing Association, a publicly traded corporation that makes student loans and collects loan payments. It’s the nation’s largest originator of federally insured student loans. Sallie Mae started 40 years ago as a government-sponsored effort mainly offering federally guaranteed student loans, but it started privatizing in the 1990s. Now, it manages more than $180 billion in loans for more than 10 million people, but it loans private funds, too.
The new controversy stems from a woman named Stef Gray, a recent graduate of a public college who took out private student loans through Sallie Mae. After getting hit with the $50 fee when she asked for a forbearance, she launched the campaign on Change.org, a web site that enables regular people to pressure powerful interests with the influence of thousands of consumers.
Change.org helped recent successful grassroots efforts to get Bank of America to drop its unexpected $5/month banking fee, and to lobby Verizon to drop its plan for a $2 online-payment fee.
Gray said, “What Sallie Mae is doing is wrong. My loan already grows by more than $1,000 in interest every three months when it’s in forbearance, and I pay almost 10 percent in interest because my parents weren’t alive to cosign my loans. For Sallie Mae to tack on these extra fees just to pad their profits is to kick people like me when we’re already down. Charging a forbearance fee is wrong, and [thousands of] people who agree are standing with me.”
News of the online petition campaign’s success is likely to increase pressure on Sallie Mae, which is actively trying to build its private student loan business. Gray plans to organize more actions against Sallie Mae, including a social media campaign.
However, Sallie Mae and its 16 subsidiaries have weathered other controversies. It’s been sued for granting forbearance in a way that increases debt in a case that’s now on hold while legal counsel is changing.
Law professor and U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren criticized Sallie Mae for acting as both lender and collector. New York Attorney General and current Gov. Andrew Cuomo investigated the company’s “deceptive lending practices” and got the corporation to change its lending standards and to donate $2 million to a program better informing students about loan options. And a former federal researcher sued it, accusing the company of overcharging the U.S. government.
But Sallie Mae keeps loaning money to needy students, keeps aggressively collecting, and keeps making substantial profits.
However, Gray’s campaign adds a significant wrinkle - a popular front. The campaign is gaining momentum with many student borrowers realizing that they could see the interest rates on their loans go up significantly unless Congress extends a rate reduction first passed in 2007 - a reduction scheduled to expire this summer. Currently, the typical interest rate, under the 2007 reduction, is 3.4 percent, but the rate could double to 6.8 percent in July.
Change.org senior organizer William Winters said, “What Stef has accomplished in just a few weeks is remarkable. She’s obviously tapped into an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about, especially with student debt rising steadily amid high unemployment among college grads. It’s been incredible watching Stef’s campaign take off.”
Bill Knight is a freelance writer who teaches at Western Illinois University. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of WIU or Tri States Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:c6a8b8a5-b98d-49e5-9d10-cc8a63fe0534> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tristatesradio.com/post/bill-knight-february-16 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959913 | 1,038 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Yup! I am not sure I would want all the personal data in the dbase public, but the non private stuff, such as the images that do not identify the persons and the associated metadata describing the tattoos would be a really interesting research too for those doing body studies.
The database is part of the New York Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center. Wholly tomoli it also includes
a database for body marks, like birthmarks and scars. It keeps track of teeth, noting missing ones and gold ones. It keeps track of the way people walk: if there is a limp, it notes its severity. And it has a so-called blotchy database, of skin conditions…The databases are fed, in part, by arrest reports; officers are instructed to take detailed notes and enter them into a computer program that moves the information to a large server…The databases pull from 911 calls, arrests, complaints filed by victims, reports on accidents and moving violations.
It seems that some tattoos lack a bit of originality. A keyword search on ‘I love you’ yields 596 hits!
To use the tattoo database, detectives can enter either words or images they believe may be in the tattoo. A search request can also include the part of the body that bears the tattoo…“Jailhouse tattoos, tribal tattoos, those are sometimes hard to write down descriptions for because either we don’t know what they are or what they mean,” Sergeant Lonergan said. “Asian symbols are easier.”
When is information too much information? In this case it is a fine line. In my naive optimist days, we would only want this information for cultural research. My realist side tells me that there are many ways to find the bad guys. Crime is down in New York, even if there is debate about juking the stats. As stated earlier socio-anthropological research potential of this dbase if accessible in a way where the private information is kept out, would just be sublime though! | <urn:uuid:d3815835-7622-4082-ad4f-32e53cf54bda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://datalibre.ca/2010/02/18/tattoo-database/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944669 | 420 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has dispatched a senior aide to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following reports of mass rapes during a four-day rebel siege of an eastern township.
Aid groups were reported saying that nearly 200 women were sexually assaulted in recent weeks by rebels within miles of a UN peacekeepers' base in North Kivu province.
One aid group said many of the women were gang-raped by between two and six armed men.
According to UN figures at least 154 civilians were raped and assaulted by rebels from the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu FDLR who occupied the town of Luvungi from July 30 to August 3.
Outraged over the incident and due to its seriousness, Ban quickly moved to send Atul Khare, his assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, to Congo.
A statement issued by his office said Ban had instructed Margot Wallstrom, his special representative for sexual violence in conflict, to take charge of the UN's "response and follow-up".
In a separate statement, Wallstrom said "this terrible incident confirms my general findings during my recent visit to [Congo] of the widespread and systematic nature of rape and other human rights violations".
"This terrible incident confirms my general findings ... of the widespread and systematic nature of rape and other human rights violations"
Margot Wallstrom, UN special representative for sexual violence in conflict
Ban has made protecting civilians and combating sexual violence, especially in Congo, central themes of his stewardship of the world body.
Will Cragin of the International Medical Corps (IMC) had told the Associated Press that aid and UN workers knew the FDLR and Mai-Mai rebels had occupied Luvungi and surrounding villages the day after the attack began on July 30.
Three weeks later, the UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo issued no statement about the attacks and said on Monday that it was still investigating.
Cragin told the Associated Press that his organisation was only able to get into the town, which he said is about 16km from a UN military camp, after rebels withdrew on their own on August 4.
"There was no fighting and no deaths, Cragin said, just "lots of pillaging and the systematic raping of women".
Luvungi is a farming centre on the main road between Goma, the eastern
provincial capital, and the major mining town of Walikale.
Four young boys were also raped, according to Kasimbo Charles Kacha, the district medical chief.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the peacekeeping mission has a military operating base in Kibua, about 30km east of the village, but villagers were prevented from reaching the nearest communication point as FDLR fighters blocked the road.
Civil society leader Charles Masudi Kisa said there were only about 25 peacekeepers and that they did what they could against some 200 to 400 rebels who occupied the town of about 2,200 people and five nearby villages.
"When the peacekeepers approached a village, the rebels would run into the forest, but then the Blue Helmets had to move on to another area, and the rebels would just return," Masudi said.
"During the attack [the rebels] looted [the] population's houses and raped several women in Luvungi and surrounding areas," Stefania Trassari, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said
"International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that FDLR systematically raped the population during its four-day stay in Luvungi and surrounding areas. A total of 179 cases of sexual violence were reported," Trassari said, adding all of the cases
were of rape against women.
The IMC said it was treating the victims.
|MONUC was based in the DRC since 1999 to help the government gain control of the east [AFP]
"Nearly all reported rapes were described as having been perpetrated by two-to-six armed men, often taking place in front of the women's children and husbands," it said in a statement.
The United Nations has withdrawn 1,700 peacekeepers in recent months in response to demands from the DR Congo government to end the mission next year, but still supports operations against several armed groups in the country's east.
Roger Meece, the new head of the UN mission called MONUSCO - which replaced predecessor MONUC - said last week that the rebels were still a huge threat to the population and the UN would keep trying to wipe them out.
Special representative Wallstrom said in April the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the country would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult".
Accurate figures for sexual violence are hard to come by as many rapes are unreported but according to the UN, at least 5,400 women reported being raped in neighbouring South Kivu province in the first nine months of 2009 alone.
MONUC had been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of the DRC as it struggles to re-establish state control over the vast central African nation.
A war from 1998-2003 and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country. | <urn:uuid:aabca839-1b6e-40b9-a4de-5126400a8d1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2010/08/20108252253185894.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979813 | 1,089 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A violent clash between a motorist and a cyclist in a glamorous Toronto shopping district this week, which left a bicycle courier dead and Ontario’s former attorney general facing criminal charges, has shocked many people in that city.
But it isn’t the first time that the province’s former top justice official, Michael Bryant, has been in the news because of traffic deaths. Earlier this decade, he promoted several controversial measures after a number of bystanders in the Toronto area were killed by street racers.
Among them was a law in 2007 declaring that any motorist clocked more than 50 kilometers an hour (31 miles an hour) over any speed limit would be accused of street racing. The police were given the ability to immediately seize cars breaking the limit by that amount for seven days and to suspend the licenses of their drivers for the same period of time. The maximum speeding fine was raised to 10,000 Canadian dollars, and jail was introduced as a possible penalty. | <urn:uuid:737eb550-b19e-4794-9cf9-328218c26728> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/road-rage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980991 | 198 | 1.703125 | 2 |
January 23, 2012
Workers at the One World Factory, Haiti. Photo: Inter Press Service
Shortly after a new union was formed last September in Haiti's growing apparel manufacturing sector, six of the seven workers who serve on the union's executive committee were fired or forced to resign by the factories where they worked (see "Haiti's showdown on union rights"). But we're pleased to report that thanks to concerted efforts by Haitian and international labour rights groups, all but one of the workers have now been reinstated and are back at work.
The firings took place at factories producing for Canadian-owned Gildan Activewear and for the American underwear maker Hanesbrands. Appeals by international supporters and intervention by both brands were critical to ensuring that the local manufacturers reinstated the workers.
There are still some outstanding issues. The sixth worker, Mitial Rubin (Secretary of SOTA), has not been reinstated by his employer, a factory called One World Apparel, owned by Charles Henri Baker, a former candidate for President of Haiti. Efforts continue to persuade Mr. Baker to change course. Also, while SOTA and Genesis were able to negotiate a solid reinstatement agreement, the issue of back pay is not fully resolved.
MSN and international allies are continuing to monitor the situation and urge the reinstatement of all SOTA leaders with full back pay.
Worker Rights Consortium | <urn:uuid:9e173ffd-7eeb-4a0a-9cf4-747e71fe5b7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/node/1040?SESS89c5db41a82abcd7da7c9ac60e04ca5f=okm6n1temdohsndtc3b42q38v4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978233 | 281 | 1.710938 | 2 |
It's no secret that Japan is one of the world's great bicycle cultures. The bicycle is a main feature on the urban, suburban and rural landscape. They've reached their 'tipping point' ages ago. Outside train stations all over the nation there is a sea of bicycles in various forms of parking.
These photos are from Nagoya, a couple hundred kilometres south of Tokyo, outside the central train station. A simple dual solution to the question of bicycle parking. An orderly way to keep the bicycles in rows and a locking system that is user-friendly. At the stand on the left you select your numbered spot - the little green light indicates that it is in good working order - and pay a whopping 100 yen for 18 hours. That's a bit over $1.00. :-)
Most things are cheap in Japan, but this parking price takes the cake. Brilliant.
Two tongs click out to prevent your bike from being removed. Most bikes have wheel locks, too, or a simple wire lock.
This may only be a solution that works in countries that have already reached their tipping point, since I'm sure that someone could nick the bicycle if they wanted to. I wouldn't mind seeing something like this back home in Copenhagen near the train stations. | <urn:uuid:14903c3c-29b4-4ac2-af42-ecffb92afb92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/05/nagoya-bike-racks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961405 | 257 | 1.59375 | 2 |
News Corp. to Shut Down News of the World Amid Phone-Hacking Scandal
James Murdoch, who also issued a mea culpa, announced Thursday that News Corp. will shut down the 168-year-old paper.
LONDON -- James Murdoch has stunned U.K. media industry Thursday by announcing that News Corporation will shut down The News of the World after this Sunday’s edition, ending a history going back 168 years.
In a dramatic mea culpa, Rupert Murdoch’s youngest son also used the statement about the paper’s closure to admit that he had authorized out of court payments and said that he had not been fully informed of what he was doing at the time.
“The company paid out-of-court settlements approved by me. I now know that I did not have a complete picture when I did so. This was wrong and is a matter of serious regret,” he said, adding that News Corporation would co-operate fully with police inquiries.
The move is an extraordinary twist in the crisis engulfing British media as revelations that staff on the paper approved hacking into as many as 4,000 mobile phone accounts.
It has left staff on the paper in shock, according to one person who works on the paper. “It is such an iconic brand. No-one ever thought that it could come to this.”
James Murdoch, deputy CEO of News Corporation, told staff that the paper had “failed” to maintain standards.
“The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself. In 2006, the police focused their investigations on two men. Both went to jail. But the News of the World and News International failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose.
Murdoch went on to say that "the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter. We now have voluntarily given evidence to the police that I believe will prove that this was untrue and those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences."
“This is an amazing decision – it’s the right decision – its an astonishing decision but it shows just how important Rupert Murdoch is taking this situation," said Roy Greenslade, the Guardian journalist who has lead much of the coverage of the hacking story.
- MOST SHARED
- MOST POPULAR | <urn:uuid:e3fe6716-becc-4af2-b302-9046e61bb330> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/news-corp-shut-down-news-208771 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974053 | 507 | 1.625 | 2 |
Dancehall music and culture is no doubt very influential and to the undeveloped mind that cannot truly differentiate what is real and what is fiction, what are good values to posses and what is only appropriate for only a certain space. In this theatre of the Dancehall culture in which more is never enough. Everyone is over sexed, over-high and overly violent. If this is the mother’s milk that feeds the coming generations in an unchecked manner then the present social problems of a exponentially high crime rate, teen pregnancy and a mass of unsupervised, uncared for, unwanted children will only continue.
It is easy to lay the blame and point fingers. All one has to do is point and say “its your fault”. That solves the problem and the pointer is satisfied that there is no longer a problem. As a society we have been doing this for much too long. Unfortunately our problems fester and manifest in eventually more ugly forms. As a society we have failed preceding generations of children, each more than the other. We always seem to find superficial things to blame such as Dancehall or the Media. We say the music is slack, homophobic, ignorant, and violent, never questioning how much of the content is a reflection of the society. We are very quick to dismiss the people who inhabit this space as the dregs of society, base humans and we see no harm when the police exterminate a few.
There is no place for innocence in the dancehall. There is no place for children nor is it a space for anyone to use as a means of primary socialization. This is a scared space to those who maturely occupy it. To be honest children are unable to comprehend actions and innuendos that inhabit the space, obviously they will misunderstand and it is in this misunderstanding where they become scared for life. It’s not hard to miss really little girls acting overly sexual some not caring about STD/STI’s. It is even sadder when you see how many young men get lost along the way, all wanting to fit the dominant male archetype in the dance, the ‘Don’ or the ‘Entertainer’. Usually typified by how many females he possess and where: “Move yu draws and sidung.” Is considered both romance and foreplay. Personally I am jus tired of seeing children force ripe or other wise in the dance hall and other adult events. I am also tired of the adults who encourage their presence, especially the women who allow themselves to be mounted by young boys as a novelty act. Wonder why no one else see them as paedophiles?
It would be stupid to think that systems were perfect in the past. However they ALL weren’t dysfunctional. So for example, if a child came from a bad home, then there was the school, various clubs, the wider community and even the church acted as surrogates. In essence acceptable socialization agents worked. They didn’t need to go above and beyond their respective roles, some did, and all they had to do was what they were supposed to do. One gets the feeling that everyone else is supposed to be a parent but the actual parents.
Now it feels like nothing works. And as a result the last thing that seems to have some sort of order, some relevance, some function. Is the Dancehall culture! Go fig?
1 American Heritage Dictionary. Fourth Edition. 2000.
© Copyright 2006 Education for Peace International. All rights reserved. 10:53 29/04/08 | <urn:uuid:7d695e47-4cb2-4b53-83a1-2a259f12263d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zephyrbaby.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969394 | 734 | 1.5625 | 2 |
In Our View
Since the federal court decision in March 2003, the Washington Apple Commission has gone through some dramatic changes. The decision of District Court Judge Edward Shea ruled that the commission’s assessments of 25 cents per carton of packed fruit violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment regarding free speech. In response, the commission immediately terminated all domestic and most of its international promotional programs.
After negotiating a settlement agreement with an assessment of 3.5 cents per carton, the commission resumed promotional operations in international markets, which are funded by USDA Market Access Program funds available only to industrywide promotional entities such as the commission. As part of its restructuring, the commission also became a Washington State agency in June 2004.
Due to the decreased assessments, the Washington Apple Commission’s annual budget has dropped from over $29 million to about $7.4 million. Of the grower funds, 42 percent are used for the export program, 15 percent are used for administrative costs, and 43 percent are passed on to the Northwest Horticultural Council, U.S. Apple Association, and Northwest Fruit Exporters.
The apple commission’s restructuring has included becoming a landlord. In an effort to defray some of the expenses of maintaining the Wenatchee-based headquarters, the commission is now leasing unused office space to some industry-related organizations and several private companies. The conference building is being used for industry functions and is rented on an event basis to other organizations.
Market Access Program
With the elimination of a domestic marketing program, as noted above, the commission’s primary role is centered on the export promotion program. Each year, the commission writes marketing plans to apply for funding from the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service Market Access Program. These plans cover individual countries as well as larger marketing regions, like Central America and the Middle Eastern countries. For the 2005-2006 marketing year, the commission was awarded $3.8 million to conduct promotional programs in 16 export marketing regions. Grower funds of $1.6 million supplement the MAP funds for a total of $5.4 million used on export activities.
The commission’s export staff, together with members of the Foreign Trade Committee (which includes board members and participants from the export shipping community), held an extensive strategic planning session in late 2004. At that time, the decision was made to focus the export program on emerging markets and rebuilding existing markets that had potential to regain ground previously lost to competition from Chinese and Southern Hemisphere apples. Staff identified India, Russia, and Vietnam as emerging markets, while Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia are examples of rebuilding markets, mainly due to their rapidly developing retail sectors.
To jump start the 2005-2006 season, the commission made an effort to build early momentum in the export markets. With that goal in mind, the export staff and representatives were implementing action plans by July 16. As of December 31, 2005, export shipments for the 2005-2006 crop year were 10.5 million cartons, compared with 9.4 million cartons last year, when Washington produced its largest crop ever. Prices this year are better than last year.
Visiting foreign markets to assess promotional efforts and provide support to in-country representatives and trade is an important role that the Washington Apple Commission continues to play. Staff members visited Dubai, United Kingdom, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, and Canada this season. Additionally, participation in trade shows in Atlanta (Produce Marketing Association), Berlin (Fruit Logistica), Dubai (Mid-East Fruit Congress), Beijing (Asia Fruit Congress), Guadalajara (Associación Nacional de Tiendas de Autoservicio y Departamentales or ANTAD), and Vancouver, B.C. (Canadian Produce Marketing Association), is an integral part of the program to assure the importer, wholesaler, and retail trade that the Washington Apple Commission is still active and promoting Washington apples in their markets.
The commission will continue its focus on export marketing and working closely with private industry partnerships in the future. Complementing those efforts will be a strong working relationship with Northwest Horticultural Council, USApple, and Northwest Fruit Exporters. Collectively, these organizations work on market access, phytosanitary issues, overcoming trade barriers, and on educating and promoting on behalf of the apple industry.
The top priorities of the Washington Apple Commission continue to be protecting the valuable logo and promoting Washington apples on behalf of our growers, now exclusively in international markets. The symbol represents the quality that has made Washington apples the “Best Apples on Earth.” | <urn:uuid:d3bdff99-70d1-4b4d-b3a3-92f8172b5f93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goodfruit.com/Good-Fruit-Grower/March-1st-2006/In-Our-View/ | 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 | 0.943671 | 945 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Oh, how many times have I opened a garden catalog and swooned over a plant, only to see that it’s only hardy to Zone 5? One year I got brave and decided to try out a hardy hibiscus. This beautiful plant came back for 3 years, rewarding me with flowers as big as dinner plates, then succumbed to an especially cold year.
Well, as many of us have suspected, we are just on the cusp of zone 5 here in Minneapolis… and the new USDA gardening zone maps show a little area around the airport as Zone 5a!
The USDA has a fantastic interactive map, where you can zoom around and explore.
So, do you live in the new Zone 5? LUCKY YOU! What are you going to plant first? I would go for this stunning Harlequin Hydrangea. And maybe give that hardy hibiscus another shot. | <urn:uuid:4ecba687-0df9-425b-b8b5-e70c9e7c4475> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://compostcowgirls.com/2012/05/zone-5-in-minnesota/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960582 | 190 | 1.65625 | 2 |
If your kids are in elementary school the odds are good they will participate in a PTA fundraising campaign at least one time every year. That’s just part of school life these days. In fact when people are asked the main reason their PTA exists they will say to raise money more often than any other answer.
What are the Best PTA Fundraisers?
While we would love to have a definitive answer to that question there simply is not a one size fit all option. What works for one group of parents might fail miserably for another.
We’d like to suggest you get our Free PTA Fundraising Catalog. It’s a great starting point for choosing the right path. The catalog gives you the basics on the major product fundraising categories. In other words it gives you a great starting point.
How Many Fundraisers Should We Hold a Year?
We are advocates for the theory that a couple of well run fundraisers is much better for a school than continual requests for money. There is little more annoying than having your child come home from school with a new plea for money every week. We hear more and more parents telling us they are sick and tired of the book sales, pizza nights, donation requests and catalogs then ever before.
Our suggest for teacher-parent groups is to plan a fall and a spring fundraiser. Limit it to two but put all of your effort in to those two. You can not limit the number of fundraisers without increasing the effort and planning that goes into those 2.
How Do We Make Our Fundraisers Successful?
What we’ve found time and time again is that organized, motivated PTA’s are successful where other’s fail. So we’ve come to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter what product you sell or event you plan. If you don’t spend time planning, promoting and implementing your fundraiser it won’t matter.
We believe three things will insure your success:
1. Do everything possible to get maximum participation. Don’t worry as much about rewarding your top sellers. Make it imperative that everyone help. Create an environment where they want to help.
2. Create a communications center and assign someone specific responsibility for it. You want to be in constant contact with all of your students and parents before, during and after your fundraiser.
3. There are 2 parts to this. Set specific goals for everyone to reach. Families will live up or down to your expectations so give them reasonable goals to attain. But make sure they understand why you are raising money. Make sure the use of benefit of helping is clear to each student and family.
How Much Can I Make?
All conversations about PTA fundraising lead to this question. And unfortunately it’s a difficult question to answer. We’ve helped groups of students raise tens of thousands of dollars and they’ve done it with various products.
Instead of asking how much you can make the better starting point is identifying exactly what your needs are. We suggest you take your need number and pad it by 20% and set that as your fundraising goal. Once you know how much you are now trying to raise you can choose the best path to attain your goal.
Choosing the Best PTA Fundraising Ideas
There are lots of ways to raise money. We believe strongly in product fundraisers. In fact we offer a Free PTA Fundraising Catalog. It’s an easy reference if you are in research mode and looking for the best way to raise money. We would love to send you one. It’s free and it covers the top fundraising products available. | <urn:uuid:4752adf9-2fe7-4b69-9d84-de13ea618b6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stepbystepfundraising.com/choosing-the-best-pta-fundraising-ideas/ | 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 | 0.953902 | 759 | 1.5 | 2 |
A Republican state representative in Michigan proposed an amendment to exempt her husband's job from the so-called "right to work" law which limits the ability of unions to collect dues.
State Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons (R) on Monday offered an amendment that would have added corrections officers like her husband, Brad, to the list of types of jobs not covered by the anti-union law. Police and firefighters had already been exempted from the legislation.
"When we talk about the brave women in police and fire we need to remember people in corrections," Lyon explained earlier this week, according to MLive.com. "These guys work in conditions that we can’t even begin to imagine."
"It's not financial. It's philosophy. I am saying we need to treat our corrections officers that way we treat our police men and women and firefighter men and women.”
Democrats, however, claimed that the proposal was an example of Republican hypocrisy.
"Why would she want to exempt her husband if this is such a great bill?" state House Democratic Caucus spokesperson Katie Carey asked. "“We were kind of disgusted with it... We were just kind of disappointed that she would offer this amendment at the same time lauding this legislation."
In the end, Republicans chose to gavel down the amendment without giving it a vote.
"I'm convinced of the value of our union and I'm here to tell you we will continue to pay union dues, the union that has represented Brad with such unequaled advocacy," Lyons declared in a Dec. 6 speech, adding that the "right to work" measure was about "the unions' freedom to make its case to members."
"Today, we are a proud union. Tomorrow, we will be a proud union family by choice," she said.
Following passage of the bill, Lyons asserted: "This is the day when Michigan freed its workers." | <urn:uuid:d4ab4977-c4e3-4376-99fe-b21b1463f3cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/39906 | 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 | 0.981366 | 391 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Recently, the well-known and widely inspiring Lance Armstrong admitted to using performance enhancing drugs during his seemingly astonishing career as a cyclist. While being accused many times of doping along his path to greatness, Armstrong consistently denied such speculations, giving his fans faith in him as an athlete and a human being. Once he revealed that the doping allegations were true in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, his world of accomplishments he had built over the years came crashing down. Opinions were voiced all over the world labeling Armstrong a fraud, a liar, and a cheat. Armstrong was stripped of his titles and banned from cycling for the remainder of his life.
Before this controversy arose, Armstrong was best known for his incredible accomplishments whilst battling cancer. He won seven consecutive Tour de France titles from the years 1999 to 2005. The young cyclist from Plano, Texas began his athletic career early in swimming and running at the age of 10. He then began competing in triathlons at the age of 13, and became a professional at 16. In 1989 and 1990, he was the national sprint-course triathlon champion. Soon after, he directed his talents toward cycling.
In just his senior year in high school, Armstrong received an invitation from the U.S. Olympic development team to train with them in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The following summer, he placed 11th in the World Championship Road Race with the best time of any American cyclist since 1976. After numerous accomplishments in cycling, he received the devastating news that he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer in October of 1996. The tumors eventually spread to his abdomen, lungs, and lymph nodes. After many aggressive chemotherapy sessions, and having a testicle removed, Armstrong was given a 75 percent chance of survival. Once further examinations revealed that the cancer had spread to his brain however, his chances dropped to a 50-50 chance. Despite such an exhausting battle, Armstrong underwent enough surgeries to declare him cancer-free in February of 1997, thus leading to the most extraordinary period in his career.
After his plans to retire had fallen through, Armstrong attempted to secure his name as the best cyclist in history by competing in the Tour de France yet again in 2009, placing third behind his teammate Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck. Throughout his career, Armstrong received large amounts of ridicule about his state of athleticism, with claims of performance enhancing drugs playing a large role in his success. Denying all of the accusations, Armstrong went on to be known as the best athlete worldwide to many people. After his admitting of doping, his reputation crumbled, and his legacy was demeaned to a mere career. He was cast among the various athletes convicted of using illegal substances used to enhance their abilities. People may still see him as one of the greatest athletes of all time, but there is no doubt that his actions have forced people to question whether or not his success was due to performance enhancing drugs, or pure athletic ability. | <urn:uuid:52cd710c-da6d-43f8-a118-498eed4132aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thesnapper.com/2013/02/06/lance-armstrongs-legacy-now-a-dismal-career-of-lies-and-infamy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991494 | 594 | 1.8125 | 2 |
He says he?s had more than one customer call him and tell him a contractor had said he would sweep their parking lot for $12 when Barton knew it should be more like $30. ?So in many cases I?ll walk the customer through our costs, and share some of our costs with them, and I?ll point out that our costs are similar to what all sweepers? costs are.
?So I asked the customer, ?If our costs are $65 an hour, let?s say, and it should be a half-hour sweep, what is it that you?re not getting from the contractor charging only $12 for the job? What isn?t he doing that we?re doing? Or how long is he really on that lot for $12?? I ask the customer, ?What aren?t you getting???
Competing with price
Educating and staying in constant communication with the customer is one way to compete against low-priced contractors.
?We work hard informing our customers what they should be getting from their sweeping contractor and we work hard giving it to them,? Barton says. ?We talk about insurance, legal dumping, and all the things every contract sweeper should be doing for them, and we educate them that all those things are included in our pricing structure.
?To me sweeping is a financial decision as far as protecting the assets of a property,? Barton says. ?We save them money and keep the property looking good, and saving them money is not necessarily doing the sweeping for less money.?
Other factors contractors use to convince property managers not to buy on price include:
More than one of the contractors said they stay in constant contact with each customer. ?We?re their eyes and ears out there and that can be very important,? Ben-Yashar says.
?We check our jobs, we use GPS, we talk about our length of time in the business, a while host of things. Plus, our work is guaranteed. If they?re not happy we?ll make it right, it?s as simple as that,? Jacketta says.
But no matter how hard they try, if price is the issue the other factors don?t have much impact.
?It doesn?t work a lot, maybe 25% of the time,? she says. ?The only way it will work is if they?re unhappy with the last contractor who swept for them and they?re willing to pay a little more to be happy, but even then they?re usually only willing to pay a little more. They?re not willing to go up a lot,? Jacketta says.
Vitale has come to the same conclusion. ?If the numbers are really far apart it?s not going to make a difference, but if they?re close we can usually squeeze the few extra dollars out of them,? Vitale says.
And for long-standing clients or even some large clients there are other ways to work with them to try to meet their price without giving in on your own price structure.
?Relationships, relationships, relationships. They?re so important, and it often comes down to that,? Vitale says. ?We provide good old-fashioned service, we work to meet their needs, and we respond immediately to any concerns a customer might have. In the end it all comes down to establishing trust, because if you can do that then in many cases price becomes less of a factor.? | <urn:uuid:38a53928-1f21-4a5f-a4fc-da24da2de43b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forconstructionpros.com/article/10117520/sell-price-or-sell-service?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971112 | 719 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Adobe team has worked hard to improve patch adoption by delivering background updaters for Flash Player and Adobe Reader. In addition, we have worked with partners, such as Microsoft and Google, to reduce update fatigue by delivering patches through existing update mechanisms. However, one of the hardest challenges in protecting end users is reaching what is sometimes referred to as the “long tail” in an update graph. These are the users who, for various reasons, have not updated their systems in several months or even years. Reaching these last few end users can be difficult if they have disabled their update mechanisms. Unfortunately, they are also the users who are most likely to be successfully attacked.
Yesterday, Mozilla announced an update to the Firefox click-to-play feature that will warn users when they try to play plugin content with an out-of-date browser plugin. Since Mozilla will now be assisting plugin vendors in reminding these users to update, we will hopefully be able to convert more of them to patched versions. At the same time, Mozilla is helping to protect these users from those who would use older vulnerabilities to infect their systems. We support Mozilla in their efforts to protect and inform our mutual customers. | <urn:uuid:4c866bcb-a968-4608-82bd-ea2f77866f18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/tag/google | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957178 | 240 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Obama in Oklahoma: Rhetoric vs. Reality
March 21, 2012
Posted by Katie Brown Katie_Brown@epw.senate.gov
Obama in Oklahoma: Rhetoric vs. Reality
In preparation for President Obama's speech in Cushing, Oklahoma tomorrow, it's worth taking a look at his reelection rhetoric vs. the reality of his destructive energy policies. Remember, when President Obama first took office, he told us that the world was headed for unspeakable global warming catastrophe so we had to put a price on carbon to get us off oil, gas, and coal; he said that under his plan of a cap-and-trade system, energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket." He told us that companies like Solyndra were leading the way to a "brighter and more prosperous future" and that we had to subsidize them to the tune of billions of dollars so we could save the world.
How does a President who truly believes that fossil fuels are destroying the planet end up standing in the middle an oil field in Oklahoma touting oil and gas development? There's only one feasible answer: both the global warming movement and his Solyndra fantasy have completely collapsed - and his policies of putting a price on carbon have hit the pocketbooks of hard working American families in the form of higher gas and electricity costs. He is crisis mode, trying desperately to save his job amid the skyrocketing gas prices that he wanted so badly.
Pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf
One of the reasons for President Obama's visit to Oklahoma is undoubtedly to take credit for the portion of the Keystone pipeline that is to run from Cushing to the Gulf - but this part of the pipeline does not require presidential permission at all. The only hurdles left to surmount are a Section 404 Clean Water Act permit from the Army Corps of Engineers and a Section 7 Consultation by the Fish and Wildlife Service. In fact, these permits could have been approved long ago, as this portion of the pipeline has already undergone extensive environmental reviews, but the Obama administration shut down work on them.
The White House already announced on February 27 that they will "take every step possible to expedite the necessary federal permits" so tomorrow's announcement is redundant. To hold the President to his word, Senator Inhofe asked Chairman Boxer to hold an Environment and Public Works Committee field hearing in Cushing, Oklahoma to provide oversight over the permitting process - he has not received a definitive answer. Expediting the permits is the least the President can do - what he should do is approve the entire Keystone project.
Tomorrow, Oklahomans will no doubt want to ask the President: if you say you support this smaller pipeline, why not approve the larger Keystone pipeline project? If you believe opening resources from Cushing and transporting them to the Gulf will help give us affordable energy and increase our energy security, wouldn't increasing access to resources from North Dakota and Canada do even more to achieve those goals?
Domestic Oil Production
The President will no doubt claim again that U.S. oil production has increased under his Administration, but he is grossly misrepresenting the facts. Increases in domestic oil production have taken place on state and private lands because the President can't stop it, such as North Dakota where production has gone up by over 250 percent - but the opposite is happening on federal lands, where President Obama has control: production is rapidly falling.
- Natural gas sales of production from federal lands are down 17 percent since 2008 and 32 percent on federal lands since 2003.
- Total fossil fuel sales of production from federal lands are down since 2008.
- Domestic oil production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico have both decreased by 15 percent since President Obama took office.
- The Bureau of Land Management admitted that oil production was down 15 percent on federal lands.
- Production from federal offshore leases is down 17 percent.
President Obama will inevitably take credit for reducing consumption of foreign oil; but he probably won't mention that his administration is actively supporting increasing imports from Saudi Arabia and considering tapping into our emergency reserves, all while they are turning down increased domestic supply from North Dakota and Montana along with imports from our good friend Canada by rejecting the Keystone pipeline. As Energy Secretary Steven Chu said yesterday, "We're very grateful that Saudi Arabia has extra capacity and it feels confident that it can fulfill any potential deficits, at least the way the current markets are now, the current demand I should say, are now." Grateful to Saudi Arabia? Did Secretary Chu miss the Presidential memo?
It's also unlikely that President Obama will mention that one of the main reasons American families are using less oil is because they can no longer afford the skyrocketing energy costs President Obama's policies have imposed on them. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) our lessened reliance on foreign oil "results from a variety of factors. Chief among those is a significant contraction in consumption...This decline partly reflects the downturn in the underlying economy."
- Gas prices have almost doubled since President Obama took office. The average price hit a record of $3.50 in 2011, is up to $3.86 today, and the cost is expected by some to hit close to $5 a gallon by Memorial Day. But this is all part of the plan. Remember the President's Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."
- The Obama EPA is poised to propose a significant gas price increase through its discretionary Tier 3 Gas Standards rulemaking.
- In 2011, consumers spent on average $4,155 or, 8.4 percent of the median family income on gasoline, more than any year since Jimmy Carter's final year in office.
The 2% Talking Point
President Obama wishes that America only had 2% of the world's oil reserves so that he can force us into his policies of energy austerity. But he is wrong: according to a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, America possesses the largest combined oil, natural gas, and coal resources on Earth - more than Saudi Arabia, China, and Canada combined. In other words, we can drill our way to lower gas prices. That's because America has much more than just "proven" oil reserves. The only way to calculate "proven" reserves is to drill. But President Obama and his allies have done everything they can to stop drilling, including putting 83 percent of America's federal lands off limits. Of course, this is no surprise: as the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger said, "The administration believes that it is no longer sufficient to address our nation's energy needs by finding more fossil fuels." If the first report isn't enough, another CRS report has revealed that in 1973, the world's proven reserves were around 600 billion barrels of oil, but by 2008 they increased to over 1.2 trillion during times of greater production and demand - so the numbers only continue to grow.
- Oil - America, the world's third-largest oil producer, is endowed with 161.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. That's enough oil to maintain America's current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years.
- Natural Gas - America's future supply of natural gas is 2,047 trillion cubic feet (TCF). At today's rate of use, this is enough natural gas to meet American demand for 90 years.
- Coal - The report also shows that America is number one in coal resources, accounting for more than 27% of the world's coal.
Taxing Oil and Gas
It would be a bold move for President Obama to repeat his intention to tax oil and gas in Oklahoma. But whether he says it or not, President Obama remains determined to put a price on carbon, and this proposed tax is very much a part of that plan. The President's budget proposal for this year amounts to a $38.6 billion tax increase on oil and gas companies; it will hit hard in Oklahoma, where 70,000 people are employed in oil and gas development and those jobs contribute $26 billion a year to the state's economy. Of course, oil and gas companies don't receive checks, grants, or direct payments from the federal Treasury, as companies like Solyndra did. This is simply an effort to make the development of oil and gas more expensive - and will only have the effect of increasing prices at the pump as companies will pass these extra expenses on to American consumers. It will also result in less domestic oil production, putting our energy security even more at risk.
Rhetoric vs. Reality
The reelection rhetoric we will hear from President Obama as he stands in an oilfield in Oklahoma tomorrow is designed to put a positive spin on the failed energy policies he has no intention of giving up on. The truth is that he is doing everything he can to stop oil, gas and coal development, and if he is successful, the reality will hit hard. | <urn:uuid:a95a7de4-1aa2-4a4a-a9aa-1157494d054d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=377408f3-802a-23ad-4d6c-821a1eebb732&Region_id=&Issue_id=87c0f70e-7e9c-9af9-742c-e26bf9b76447 | 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 | 0.968359 | 1,840 | 1.671875 | 2 |
He and his staff are giving prisoners wives the fertility treatment for free, calling it an act of humanity.
Israeli prison officials say they doubt the validity of the women's story. A spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Authority told us officials very much doubt the technical ability for sperm donation because of the strict controls and security inside the prisons. They said it was hard to fathom, but "who knows?"
Fertility specialists in the U.S. told us it is actually possible for sperm to survive anywhere from a few hours to up to 48 hours in clean unconventional containers if kept at room temperature.
The women say what is most important to them is that they and their families and communities know the truth.
They still hope, one day, sperm smuggling from prison won't be necessary either because their husbands will be allowed to come home or the prison system will allow conjugal visits. | <urn:uuid:a37a2d60-c412-4f21-a59f-39cffce60cbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news4jax.com/news/Sperm-smuggling-alleged-at-terror-prison/-/475880/18467010/-/item/1/-/q51jfu/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971082 | 178 | 1.664063 | 2 |
It is made of cream-coloured duchess silk satin, with short sleeves and a turned-out collar, which follows the rounded neckline. The dress has a v-shaped back with covered buttons. The sash at the waist is buttoned up at the back.
The train is edged with a border, fastened at the waist, and has the same shape as the veil. The train is almost five metres long.
The Crown Princess's shoes were made up in the same fabric as her dress.
The seven cameos were not originally carved for the tiara, as can be seen in their different shapes and colours.
The cameo tiara was also worn by Queen Silvia at the royal wedding on 19 June 1976.
The Crown Princess therefore continued a tradition started by Princess Birgitta. She was the first Haga Princes to marry, and chose the cameo tiara for her wedding in 1961 to Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern.
Princess Désirée also chose the same tiara as her bridal crown when she married Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld in 1964.
The empress bequeathed the tiara to her granddaughter Josefina who, on 19 June 1823, became the Crown Princess of Sweden when she married Crown Prince Oscar (the future King Oscar I).
With the next generation of the Bernadotte dynasty, the tiara was owned by Queen Josefina's daughter Princess Eugénie, who in turn left the tiara to her nephew Prince Eugen.
The prince gave the tiara to Princess Sibylla on her marriage to Prince Gustaf Adolf in 1932. The King was left the tiara by his mother.
This veil was given by Queen Sofia to her youngest son, Prince Eugen. Prince Eugen then passed the veil on to Princess Sibylla, who wore it under a garland of myrtle at her marriage to Prince Gustaf Adolf in Koburg in 1932.
Queen Sofia's veil was also worn by the Princesses Désirée in 1964, Margaretha in 1964 and Christina in 1974.
Behind the Crown Princess hair and make up was Peter Andersson and Linda Öhrnström. | <urn:uuid:b27b8724-1b12-4538-aaa0-8d9ba68ce289> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kungahuset.se/royalcourt/specialevents/wedding/theweddingday/thebride.4.40e05eec12926f2630480002260.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973415 | 466 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Meadowlands Brush Fire Under Control [VIDEO]
A brush fire that burned nearly 100 acres in the Meadowlands along the western spur of the New Jersey Turnpike was brought under control Wednesday night.
Firefighters say the fire, which took over 100 firefighters from 20 communities to bring under control, was one of the most stubborn they’ve seen according to WABC.
- PREVIOUS: Forest Fires In New Jersey
The threat of forest fires continues today as conditions remain dry with low humidity and no rain in sight. Experts say that the first three months of 2012 are among the driest on record – and we could be facing a drought.
The Meadowlands fire caused traffic to be diverted onto the Turnpike’s eastern spur during the afternoon commute creating slow traffic throughout the area. Large black plumes of smoke could be seen for miles as the fire burned into the evening.
Adding to the difficulty in fighting the fire was the fact that firefighters could not go into the marsh. Instead, they had to light controlled fires, or back burns to destroy any vegetation that could fuel the fire.
Investigators believe the dry brush, coupled with warmer weather, may have sparked the fire and they do not believe it was suspicious. | <urn:uuid:04cb88a3-e8e9-4b72-b390-1f4c94d99550> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wobmam.com/meadowlands-brush-fire-under-control-video/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971567 | 254 | 1.804688 | 2 |
PALATKA - The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Ravine Gardens State Park today celebrates the 14th Annual Azalea Days which will continue through tomorrow, Sunday, March 14. Visitors are encouraged to attend a special Florida State Parks 75th Anniversary cake cutting ceremony and presentation on Sunday at 12:00 p.m.
“Azalea Days is a great event for families to get outdoors and celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Florida State Parks,” said Florida Park Service Director Mike Bullock. “Visitors can enjoy the blooming azaleas and experience the history of Ravine Gardens State Park.”
One of the 25 signature events highlighting the 75th Anniversary of Florida State Parks, visitors can begin today to enjoy a weekend of old-fashioned family fun. A ranger-led wagon ride around the 1.8-mile loop of thousands of blooming azaleas tells the history of Ravine Gardens State Park and the important role the park has played in the economic recovery of the city of Palatka. While walking along the extensive hiking trail system at the bottom of the ravine, visitor can enjoy a spectacular view of color and beauty, including azaleas, dogwoods, magnolias and camellias.
Miss Azalea and her Court are on hand to visit with guests and talk about the history of the Miss Azalea Pageant. Vendors, crafters and CREATE will be located around the Court of States within the park all weekend. The sounds of music provided by live entertainers will echo throughout the ravines, and kid’s activities, food and refreshments will be available through 4:00 p.m. Sunday.
Throughout 2010, DEP’s Florida State Parks will celebrate 75 years of recreation and preservation. Florida State Parks will host special activities and interpretive events from coast to coast, including 25 signature events which highlight individual parks’ histories, as well as the history of the state park system as a whole.
Created in 1935 by the Florida Legislature, Florida State Parks has grown from eight to 160 parks over the last 75 years. Today, the Florida Park Service manages more than 700,000 acres of Florida’s natural environment, including 100 miles of beaches, eight National Historic Landmarks and 39 sites on the National Register of Historic Places. Florida State Parks has been recognized by the National Recreation and Park Association as the nation’s first and only two-time Gold Medal winner for the nation’s best park service.
To learn more about 75th Anniversary events, and the history of Florida State Parks, visit www.floridastateparks.org/history. To follow Florida State Parks on Twitter, visit www.Twitter.com/FLStateParks.
"Azalea Days is a great event for families to get outdoors and celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Florida State Parks."
Last updated: March 16, 2010 | <urn:uuid:1c0208e3-7e00-4efb-bafa-959da6db312e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/news/2010/03/0313_01.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933185 | 604 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Dr. Katherine Loflin joined Ann Possis May 17 to talk about her work in "placemaking". She advises elected officials, planners, businesspeople, and community leaders who are trying to imporve their cities and towns. Learn about the three main qualities that attach people to a place, why they're important, and how they relate to business, tourism, and more.
Ann Possis spoke May 3 with Erin Stojan Ruccolo of Fresh Energy, and Amanda Bilek of the Great Plains Institute, about the outlook for renewable energy in Minnesota. Thirteen percent of the state's electricity currently comes from renewables. Erin and Amanda talk about ideas and initiatives for making renewables a larger part of our energy base. They were in Grand Marais for the Northern Sustainability Symposium May 3-5.
Buck spoke May 3 with Dmitry Orlov, author of the award-winning book Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects, and of the forthcoming The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors' Toolkit. Born in Russia, he moved to the U.S. while a teenager, and traveled back repeatedly to observe the Soviet collapse during the late '80s and mid-'90s. He talked about why the thinks the U.S. is headed for collapse, and how people must change their lives to survive.
World Book Night is April 23--learn how one organization is spreading the love of reading, person to person-
Carl Lennertz, executive director of World Book Night U.S., spoke with Buck Mar. 29 about World Book Night, held April 23 each year. The night is a celebration of books and reading, when 25,000 passionate volunteers across America give a total of half a million books within their communities to those who don’t regularly read.
Ann Possis spoke Mar. 29 with Prof. Dale Carpenter of the U of MN Law School, an expert in the areas of constitutional law and sexual orientation and the law. He was in Washington for last week's Supreme Court arguments on two landmark cases regarding the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, and shared his impressions and analysis.
Filmmaker Emily Haddad on her documentary about the first woman MN Supreme Court justice, "Girl from Birch Creek"-
Filmmaker Emily Haddad joined Ann Possis recently to talk about her latest documentary, "Girl from Birch Creek," the inspiring story of Rosalie Wahl, the first woman to be appointed to the MN Supreme Court. Emily talks about why she came to filmmaking, how she chose to tell Rosalie's story, and why it's important.
Ann Possis spoke with Prof. Elaine Tyler May of the U of Minn. on International Women's Day, Mar. 8. Prof. May is a historian whose work focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, domestic culture and politics. She reflected on what has been accomplished by and on behalf of women, as well as what still needs to be done to bring women into full equality with men.
Spoiler alert! Lake Superor State banished words are trending! Don't kick the can down the road...listen now.-
Lake Superior State University recently released their 38th annual Banished Words list. Buck chatted Feb. 15 with John Shibley of the university's PR department about what overused words are on this year's list. Spoiler alert! You can read the list here.
Will the world end Dec. 21 in the 'Mayan Apocalypse'? Psychology expert addresses the science of fear-
Bob spoke with Prof. Shmuel Lissek of the U of MN department of psychology Dec. 14. Lissek's specialty is the science of fear. They talked about how and why humans react to imagined fearful situations the same as to real ones, and what happens in our bodies and minds when we're afraid.
Mark Dimunation, chief of the Library of Congress' rare book & special collection division, joined Bob recently to discuss "Books That Shaped America." Learn how and why the list of 88 books were chosen, and how they affected our history. You can view the entire list here. | <urn:uuid:6b9e65b2-594f-4ec1-ab35-2dfac948223a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtip.org/drupal/taxonomy/type/343 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962451 | 856 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Guest blogger – Karine Aviv
A couple of Sundays ago, I took my two older girls (ages 8 and 11) to a community volunteering event (J-Serve), at our local Jewish Centre. As a mother of 3, I believe that getting my kids involved in community events is important for a number of reasons. As they grow and develop, being involved in a larger community teaches them about social responsibility. As a parent, I want them to learn not to focus only on themselves but rather to learn that there is a whole world around them. I want my daughters to learn to be giving, considerate and compassionate towards others. Volunteering is important for character building in children. They learn to care for other people and learn that selfless actions feel good.
Installation celebrating childhood around the world to tell the same story and confirm a universal truth: We are all connected. This connection is where true and believable healing begins.
“Mom, we’ve got to have a family meeting. We need to vote. We have to give our charity money to the children. We have to send it right away.”
Those excited words were uttered by eight-year-old Madison Willow, who was moved to action by viewing the tragic outcomes resulting from the recent Asian tsunami. Madison, like millions of people from around the world, had been touched by the suffering, loss, and grief of the survivors she saw on TV. But unlike many of the people who extended heartfelt charity during this special time of extreme need, Madison has experienced a regular pattern of charity in her young life that has helped her view the process of giving as more than a crisis-oriented activity.
A family meeting was indeed called by Madison’s parents following her emotional outburst. It was convened to discuss the family charity jar that sits tucked away in the kitchen, hidden at the rear of the canned vegetable shelf.
“I know it’s not time to decide who gets our charity money, but this is an emergency,” Madison explained to her parents and two younger brothers. No one in the Willow family needed convincing. They had all seen the dramatic television images of leveled homes, overturned cars, and the search for missing persons. They had watched as mothers cried for their dead children, fathers sat in stunned silence, and children wandered aimlessly, looking for evidence of anything familiar. It took less than ten minutes for the Willows to vote to send the forty-seven dollars and fifty-eight cents they had accumulated to the Red Cross to help the survivors of the tsunami.
Robert and Tammy Willow believe that giving is important. They also believe that teaching their children about giving is equally important. That’s why they began the charity jar in the first place. That’s why it occupies an important place in their Sunday night ritual.
Each Sunday night during their family meeting, the Willows distribute allowances to their children. The youngsters are invited to contribute some of their allowance to the charity jar. If or how much they contribute is up to each individual. Robert and Tammy model the importance of giving by adding a portion of their own money each week.
When the contents of the jar exceed one hundred dollars, the family decides together on a charity to receive the money. One winter the Willow family bought gloves and donated them to the Salvation Army. On another occasion, they adopted a whale. In the past three years, they’ve purchased a winter coat as part of the “coats for kids” program, obtained and wore Lance Armstrong cancer bracelets, and made a donation to a local retirement ranch for abused horses.
At this hastily called family summit, the Willows easily reached consensus on what to do with the charity money. But the unanimous decision to send the contents of the charity jar to the Red Cross did not end the learning experience for Madison and her brothers. They helped count the money. They watched as their mother wrote the check. Madison addressed the envelope. One of the boys added the stamp. The other licked the envelope. All went to the post office to place their contribution in the drop box. All prayed together as Mr. Willow asked that the money be used for the greater good of all concerned.
This time the Willows’ charity would be sent halfway around the world to people they would never see. It would be used in places they would never visit. It would affect lives in ways they would never know.
Yet giving has many dimensions, some obvious, some not. The Willow family gave the money for the benefit of others, but in the process they gave themselves a deep sense of satisfaction. They gave other people’s children hope while simultaneously giving their own children lessons in the importance of generosity and charity. They gave others an invitation to open their hearts while giving their children lessons on how to open their own. They helped their children experience first-hand the important concept that giving and receiving are one.
Charity, as demonstrated by the Willows, clearly begins at home.
Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman are the authors of The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose. They also publish a FREE e-mail newsletter for parents and another for educators. Subscribe to them when you visit http://www.thomashaller.com or http://www.chickmoorman.com
Thomas Haller and Chick Moorman are two of the world’s foremost authorities on raising responsible, caring, confident children. For more information about how they can help you or your group meet your parenting needs, visit their websites today.
How do you discuss philanthropy and charity in your family? Growing up in mine the act of charity was never really discussed. It was done, but I think there were some opportunities lost in having an open dialogue with my parents around how they donate their money. Don't get me wrong, my family is very generous with their time and their financial resources, it was just never discussed.
One of my earliest childhood memories was putting loose change in what we call a pushke (Yiddish for coin box). Once the box was full we would take it to the community centre where the money would go to one of many Jewish charities.
As I got older, my own personal contributions to community broadened. Supporting organizations' internal capacity is just as important to me as supporting a specific project. As well, recognizing that my cultural community is only one part of a larger picture, my philanthropy is a representation of all the communities that I am actively engaged with. For a complete list of the charities and organizations that I support please click here.
As I have said in pervious posts, it is important to ask questions. Questions of the charity in which you are about to make a financial investment AND questions of you and your family as to how you want to make those donations. In the very first post of this blog I laid out a series of questions you should be asking yourself. Those questions were to get the ball rolling. Below are some more that you might want to ask yourself and your family as you delve deeper in to philanthropic investing.
What was your fist charitable donation? What was your first major donation (a dollar amount that you had to really think about)?
How did your family discuss charity in your house? Was it action based?
What has been your most important charitable investment? When did you make it? What made it important? Was it your most important charitable gift your largest?
How did you make your financial wealth? Has that influenced you in how you contribute back to your community?
As someone who has financial resources, do you think it is your responsibility to support community initiatives?
How do you leverage your charitable dollars with your family, friends and colleagues? Do you?
Is it important to you that your contribution (whether time, money or professional expertise) be recognized publicly?
If money were not an object, is there a project or organization you would invest in?
How do you think your charitable contributions are going to change over time? Are you speaking with your children about how you give and learning from them how they are contributing back to society?
For more in-depth questions I suggest you refer to Scott Fithian's book, Values-Based Estate Planning. Or stay tuned - I am sure that future blog postings will add another layer of questions!
Photo Credit: Limowreck666 (flickr)
Did you know that in 2006 North American spent over $2,000 per person on entertainment and just over $1,000 per person on charitable activities?
I found this stat staggering. I recently returned from a trip to Ethiopia, where some of the world's poorest of the poor live. People are living on less than $1/day in hovels that we even our homeless would turn their noses up at.
Since returning something that I have been struggling with is the excess waste that we generate just from every day living. I don't mean pollution waste (though that is shocking and can easily be applied to this piece). I mean waste from leftover food that gets thrown out because we don't want to eat day-olds, to clothes that are from last season, to technology that has been outdated before it even leaves the store.
I think there is a need in our communities and society to strike a balance between our needs and our wants. I am not saying don't go to the summer blockbusters. I am just thinking that when our social safety net is being compromised because we are making choices to spend our money on the latest and greatest instead on what makes our communities strong and vibrant. | <urn:uuid:72ac48c0-c72b-468b-8ca8-0cdc7d05a5b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dexterityconsulting.ca/taxonomy/term/35 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977234 | 1,962 | 1.742188 | 2 |
JUNE, 2005 e.v.
On the opening day of director Steven Spielberg's remake of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, I attended a 6:30 screening at the Arclight with Adam, Camella, Heather and Kevin Willis. Having seen the original many times in my youth, I was curious to see how Spielberg would modernize the film utilizing CGI among other things, but I was even more curious to see if he was going to include what filmmaker/ufologist Paul Davids (see Flying Saucers over Hollywood) considers to be a coded reference in the original to the alleged Roswell crash/retrieval of 1947.
In the 1953 version, produced by sci-fi filmmaker George Pal, one of the Martian 'meteor'/war machines crashes into a farmhouse where the film's hero, Dr. Clayton Forrester (played by Gene Barry, but based on Dr. Lincoln LaPaz of New Mexico green fireballs fame), and his love interest, Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson), are hiding from the heartless aliens. According to Davids, on two occasions, the location of this crash is given as "southwest of Corona." After their Piper Cub is downed, Sylvia asks Forrester where they are. "Southwest of Corona" is his reply, but he then adds (rather cryptically for students of Roswell) that "There must have been another cylinder down here. They've been through this whole area and cleaned everybody out." In the reality of the film, the Corona referred to is Corona California (Pal chose to set H.G. Wells' story out west), but it is southwest of Corona, New Mexico, where the foreman of the Foster sheep ranch, Mac Brazel, discovered the debris field with anomalous metallic material [and a body?] that many people believe to be of extraterrestrial origin.
When the original War of the Worlds was made back in 1953, whatever had happened near Roswell 6 years earlier had been effectively covered up and all but forgotten (save for those involved in some way). With its association with a crashed alien spaceship, Roswell wasn't the household word that it is today, and, in fact, until the publication The Roswell Incident by Berlitz and Moore in 1980, there was little or nothing published* about the event. Besides the "southwest of Corona" reference, Davids also draws our attention to the shape of machines in the original War of the Worlds. The manta ray-like appearance matches very well with the more recent testimony about the shape of the crashed 'Roswell' craft (although it should be noted that the tripod Martian machines in the H.G. Wells story were considered too difficult to re-create for the 1953 film).
So, if these are in fact coded references to Roswell, then where did producer Pal get such highly-classified information? According to Davids, the most likely answer was through his connection with German (ex-Nazi) rocket scientists Willy Ley and Werner von Braun, a couple of individuals (who served as consultants for the film?) who might just have certain inside information with regards to the Roswell incident. The one thing that Davids missed, however, especially in light of a controversial new book about Roswell by Nick Redfern (Body snatchers in the Desert: the Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story), is the cameo appearance in the original War of the Worlds of a Northrup Flying Wing! And he also didn't make the intriguing connection of George Pal being a native of Hungary † (ala Edward Teller).
"There is no need to believe we are being invaded from outer space. Anyone living outside this troubled globe would be displaying absolute nonsense to come here."
- Dr. Lincoln Lapaz
* I do, however, know of one 'novel' published in the late 1940s that contains numerous veiled references to the Roswell incident, so many in fact, that it virtually gives the game away –and offers a solution that few have ever considered.
† It has been claimed by insiders that most people connected with the reverse engineering of alien technologies at AREA 51 speak Hungarian.
Quickly realizing that the remake was set in New Jersey (the location of the Martian invasion in Orson Wells' famous radio broadcast in 1938), I doubted there would be any mention of a crash "southwest of Corona." Okay, but what about the scene with priest? Both Adam and I had wondered if Spielberg would include one of our favorite scenes from the original, that in which a Xian priest approaches one of Martian war machines, believing that even they wouldn't harm a man of God, only to be incinerated seconds later. As it turned out, Spielberg substituted the Xian priest with a church itself, showing it crumbling as a result of one of the alien tripods, with the steeple crashing onto street. But, as I watched the film, to me, the most interesting thing about the remake of War of the Worlds was the lengths that Spielberg went to correct a 'mistake' from his past, that concerning the plot of his 1977 epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
In Mad magazine's parody of CE3K (see MAD MAGAZINE, JULY 1978 "Clod Encounters of the Absurd Kind"), at one point during the 'Devil's Tower' scene, the Roy Neary character says to the Jillian character "I must go with them (meaning the aliens), the trip will give me a mystical and religious experience." To which the Jillian character responds: "But you're leaving your wife and kids behind. Don't they give you anything?" Neary's reply is "Yeah... a pain in the ass!" Although this was meant to be humorous in MAD's sophomoric fashion*, in reality, the idea of the film's main character leaving his wife and kids to climb aboard glowing, pulsating nirvana did, in later years, come to 'haunt' Spielberg, and he has been quoted over the years saying that today he would have made a different film – one that allowed Neary to fulfill his destiny without abandoning his family. Although some people see what even the film's writer, himself, (Spielberg) still doesn't see, that Roy Neary "wasn't chasing his dreams when he left his family, but was responding to an implanted, uncontrollable obsession by the aliens", it seems to me, at least, that the idea of Neary abandoning his wife and kids haunted Spielberg (after getting married and having children, himself) to such an extent that it was, itself, a major factor in his wanting to direct the remake of War of the Worlds. Seen in this light, War of the Worlds is the antithesis of CE4K.
In CE4K, the main character, Roy Neary, is married with children, but after encountering an alien presence he begins behaving in an irrational, some would say irresponsible manner, and soon abandons his family to take a journey on the mothership. In the remake of War of the Worlds, we have the complete opposite. The film's main character, Ray Ferrier, is already divorced when the film begins, and from what we are shown (the back story), he acts rather immature (at the very least, irresponsible) and has alienated both his wife and children. However, once the aliens invade the planet, he instantly matures, becoming a responsible parent who wants to protect his family at all costs. The difference between the Roy Neary and Ray Ferrier characters is never more evident than in one of the more dramatic battle scenes when Ray's son pleads with his father to let him go because he needs to see that which lies just out of sight. To this, the father begs for his son to stay with him, saying something along the lines of "I know you think you need to see this... but you don't!" Compare this to the 'Devil's Tower' scene in CE4K when Roy Neary tells Jillian that he can't stay with her – that he needs to see (what is just out of sight). I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but if you watch CE4K and then War of the Worlds, you should see how the latter is more about a filmmaker's personal redemption than anything else, even if it is, at times, faithful to the original H.G. Wells story. And as for the stereotypical Hollywood happy ending, in true Spielberg fashion, the kid's grandparents are played by Gene Barry and Ann Robinson of the 1953 original.
* Another example of the writers at MAD having a little inside fun while chiding Close Encounters of the Third Kind is the scene where they give the global coordinates (i.e. converting the film's now familiar musical tones into numbers) as G-47 N-33 O-72 B-12, no doubt indicating a device that many movie-goers back in 1978 used to enhance the film's dazzling special effects.
A couple of days prior to watching the remake of War of the Worlds in Hollywood, I drove to Las Vegas with a girl whose initials are also BMB (the twenty-something girl with the Tool 'Angel-Baby Doll' tattoo near her ass if you must know). It had been about three years since, together, we tried our luck at Mandalay Bay, and we were both looking forward to beating the odds. Little did I know when I pulled into the hotel/casino parking garage with screaming tires and a half-empty traveler margarita that I would be checking into a room on the 23rd floor of the Luxor with something most people could hardly imagine – something I'm now warning you about. My first clue should have been all that goddamned luggage that she brought. With the silver Coleman occupying the trunk of my car, the back seat was piled high with huge duffle bags bursting at the seams from all the clothes stuffed in them. And then there were the assorted plastic bags filled with golden sandals, makeup kits, curling irons, slightly different golden sandals, etc.,ad infinitum. Seven different purses and twelve pairs of shoes for TWO DAYS, a shoe-box (at least I know where she got that) containing hundreds of shiny toes-rings, all of which we had to haul through Mandalay Bay, Mandalay Place and the finally the brightly-carpeted Luxor, itself, just because I wanted access to the contents in the silver Coleman, namely a better margarita mix than their bartenders seem capable of making.
We didn't go to bed until about 5:30 the first night, having spent most of the time in the casino where even a straight flush couldn't save us, or back in the room, sipping Coronas while gazing at the variegated brilliance of the Los Vegas strip. Upon waking up a few hours later, I heard the water running... running for at least twenty-five minutes when my friend finally opened the door and asked if I needed to get in there before she took her shower. Shower? What hell had she been doing for the last twenty-five minutes! After about another hour or so in there, she finally emerged, looking great, except that, strangely enough, her newly-applied green fingernail polish already seemed a bit chipped up. Once she finished ironing something for another twenty-minutes (which turned out to be a slinky chartreuse blouse about the size of an average wash rag), she told me that we could do whatever I wanted this day, but the only thing that she was insistent on was that she could buy me her favorite tropical drink (a green Python, it was called) and lunch at the Rainforest Café. This was something that she "HAD" to do, and then we could do whatever.
A couple of hours later, with a 'what god did I offend?' head-ache (hangover if it makes you feel better), we walked into the jungle-themed restaurant in the MGM, being escorted to our table by a khaki-clad, grizzled old safari guide past animatronic gorillas and dripping Spanish moss as jungle noises and strobe-light thunderstorms brought out the dour one in me. At the relative safety of our table (or so we were told by the guide), the female BMB wasted no time ordering the green-colored, sugary tropical whatever it was (with girly Midori, no doubt) and a crab dip that was sure to excite any heathen near-vegan (not). It was while WAITING for our drinks that I first noticed those that I'm about to warn you about. There were a few at one table across from us... and a couple of more at another table... and a few more at the next table... and DOZENS of more entering the Rainforest café from the MGM casino. Glancing around, there must have been at least fifty of them already in the restaurant with more on the way. What the hell was with those ENSEMBLES? What I saw were elderly (and middle-aged) women, all of them wearing different types of thrift shop-vintage RED HATS. There were red fedoras, and cowboy hats, red bowlers and sombreros. I swear one was even wearing a red Balaklava helmet! And not only that, all were wearing purple outfits!
After picking at our lunch and waving off the ubiquitous volcano dessert, we went back to our room at the Luxor where I claimed to be tired and suggested that she go shopping (even though for this walking wardrobe closet, the idea seemed crazy as Vacation Bible School). As soon as she was gone, I got on the lap-top and googled certain key-words such as elderly (and middle-aged) ladies, red hats, purple outfits. Within seconds I had my answer: THE RED HAT SOCIETY... started by Sue Ellen Cooper of Fullerton, California... who now calls herself the Exalted Queen Mother of the Society. There are now numerous chapters of ladies who meet for tea... and lunch (and most surely brunch)... and at conventions all over the world, always dressed in full regalia... "Sue Ellen's fondest hope is that these societies will proliferate far and wide..." WORLD DOMINATION!.. "Fun and Friendship", my ass! World domination... so that's the plan. The invasion wasn't coming from bases under sparkling glaciers in Iceland or by tripod war machines buried beneath New Jersey. No, the Draco-reptoid shape-shifting aliens were disguised as elderly (and middle-aged) ladies outlandishly attired and wearing red hats, the kind of women you'd see in the audience of Oprah, or Marie Callenders, or the MGM Grand. I felt a chill run down my spine, and felt like I needed a drink... Yes, I sure wished I had big swig of a Green Python right now.
As I continued to gather intelligence on the Red Hat Society's various queens, their recruiting methods, membership "dooze" for purple perks and the society's curious by-laws, suddenly my friend returned from shopping, her only purchase being a purple shot glass she got for me from one of the Luxor's gift shops (she didn't even buy a bigger shopping bag like I suggested, one to stuff the smaller shopping bags full of clothes into). Fortunately (because of what I soon found out), she didn't ask what I was looking at on the computer, but, instead, began searching through the piles of clothes strewn about on the bed and floor. Returning to the computer screen, I next discovered that although a woman had to be 50 years or older to join the Red Hat Society, a woman under the age of 50 who wanted to join could do so, but she would be what was called "A Lady in Waiting." When I glanced over to see what the female BMB was doing, I noticed that she had changed into a lavender skirt and was now searing a pink baseball cap. What's up with that, I wondered? Being from the Bay Area, she was a die-hard San Francisco Giants fan, and normally displayed their black and orange livery. It was at that moment that I read the following: "Ladies in Waiting" were called Pink-Hatters, and they were required to wear pink hats and... lavender outfits! My God... She knew all along that they'd be there, and had led me right into their nest (called by some a convention)!
People, don't be fooled. If you're ever at the "Early Bird", look for flaking green nail polish. It's NOT paint! Listen to their Friday broadcasts... to time-sensitive information. Decipher their message... and be warned... about the real invasion.*
* It is now rather obvious to me that the late Hunter S. Thompson had somehow 'perceived' this threat years ago (see "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.") | <urn:uuid:e3a1d048-82f4-4c18-8668-4341a4c2712d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toolband.com/news/letter/2005_06.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975072 | 3,520 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Amy Waldman doesn’t consider her debut novel, The Submission, to be “about” September 11, or so she says over lunch in Brooklyn. “To me it felt like a novel about America,” she explains. At first, this seems odd. In the book, Waldman imagines the public debate that might erupt if an American Muslim architect won an anonymous contest to design a memorial for the victims of a terrorist attack on Manhattan; her publisher, meanwhile, has timed its release to coincide with unveiling of the real memorial at Ground Zero.
But given the expectations that tend to accompany a “9/11 novel,” and the disappointment that typically follows, Waldman’s trepidation makes sense. In recent years, John Updike, Martin Amis, and Don DeLillo, among others, have all tried to hew fiction from the horrors of that day. Even their efforts were dwarfed by the subject. As critic Dwight Garner once put it, no one has written the “wide-screen, many-angled novel that will leave a larger, more definitive intellectual and moral footprint” on our era.
Is The Submission the 9/11 novel Garner & Co. have been waiting for? It is certainly many-angled, pivoting from perspective to perspective every few pages: the well-meaning widow who doubts the design she fought for; the proud Muslim architect who refuses to clarify his intentions; the black sheep who grieves for his firefighter brother by raging against Islam; the poor Bangladeshi woman whose janitor husband died in the towers. As these figures intersect, the private tensions between tolerance and fear that bedevil post-9/11 America begin to simmer to the surface. “I’m very attuned to how these issues mutate through society,” says Waldman, who covered 9/11 for The New York Times. “Being a reporter took me outside of my own life and circle.”
Helpful as it was, Waldman’s reportorial rigor also prevents The Submission from totally taking flight as fiction. She is so skilled at capturing the nuances behind the news—the iniquities of our immigration system, the cruel machinery of our media—that her insights sometimes threaten to overwhelm her characters, who embody important ideas but never quite come to life. And the public outrage and political grand-standing over Waldman’s memorial are so credible that the novel reads like a recapitulation of last year’s rumpus over the “Ground Zero mosque,” which postdates her first draft.
But despite its shortcomings, or perhaps because of them, Waldman’s debut does something that no other 9/11 novel has done with such clarity or force: it encourages us to turn inward and to ask ourselves the questions we’ve avoided ever since the towers fell. Where is the line between ideology and morality? Bigotry and patriotism? As a waiter clears her lamb sandwich, Waldman mentions a Facebook message she received from an early reader. “He told me,” she says, “that the book itself was like a memorial.” The Submission doesn’t transport its readers to another world—it plunges them deeper into this one. The result is that, for a few hundred pages of fiction, at least, reality is again impossible to ignore. Someday 9/11 will get its great novel. Right now, on its 10th anniversary, a memorial may be enough. | <urn:uuid:f79409c9-0645-4325-87d3-4b9de2013509> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/07/the-submission-by-amy-waldman-the-hunt-for-the-great-9-11-novel.print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971284 | 728 | 1.601563 | 2 |
How Do I Invite You to Grow Food?
In this Peak Moment Television interview, sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society, Peak Moment host Janaia Donaldson interviews Jenny Pell, founder and president of Permaculture Now! based in Port Townsend, Washington.
Permaculture isn't just about food. Pell discusses the new generation of permaculture practitioners and what it means for not agriculture, but also water systems, waste streams, natural building and community.
"Sustainable is not enough," says Pell. "I don't want to keep the status quo. Staying right here is not good enough; we have to be additive at this point.
Pell discusses some of the workshops she leads, on topics ranging from fungi to grafting; a new project she is working on to support gleaning, where people can access fields after harvest; and why sustainable doesn't mean giving things up, but gaining abundance instead.
That means, we rely on support from our readers.
Independent. Nonprofit. Subscriber-supported. | <urn:uuid:dd268809-6afd-4d1b-8cb7-ecb157e61029> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/how-do-i-invite-you-to-grow-food?icl=email_wkly20100212&ica=descr_tnVideo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95082 | 214 | 1.648438 | 2 |
What a reprehensible and barbaric day for our nation. Two people were put to death today, Troy Davis, a man in Georgia who may have been innocent, and a man in Texas, Lawrence Brewer, who was guilty of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, dragging a man to his death with his pickup. It makes me sick at heart that these events follow so closely after the shameful behaviour of the audience members at the Republican presidential debate where they cheered for Perry and his 235 or so executions. I blogged about this subject only two weeks ago, but I feel compelled to repeat part of my argument. Why? Because two weeks ago the question was hypothetical. Today it became all too real. The death penalty is wrong in so many ways, and it's easier to argue from the point of view of a person who was probably innocent, but the arguments need to apply for the monsters in our society whose acts defy all humanity.
Modified slightly from my post of 9/9/11:
"Blood lust is an ugly, ugly emotion that is all too powerful. Revenge requires an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and human history is replete with stories of families, villages, and societies that have destroyed themselves and others over...whatever set them off in the first place. Civilization exists in large part because we have assigned the chaos of revenge to the state through various forms of a judicial system, and through the use of science in the assignment of guilt in criminal trials.
What bothers me is that most of the people who...[support the death penalty, even if some doubt remains,]... probably describe themselves as Christians, and given their conservative leanings, probably fundamentalist Christians. If you...[agree]... you need to consider what you really believe.
I don't want to make an argument about "thou shall not kill". There have been centuries of theological justification for killing in self-defense or defense of others, whether in an individual case, or a national situation of war. But the problem is that capital punishment is not self-defense. By the time a person is strapped to the gurney, he or she is defenseless before the power of the state. If you really want to visit revenge upon someone, what could be worse than being locked up in a concrete cell for the rest of one's life, with no chance ever of release? Why isn't that enough revenge? Such people are no longer a danger to society.
A person who is guilty of murder is under condemnation, whether from God or from the state. One can fairly say that such a person deserves death. But if you know anything of New Testament theology, you know that "everyone has fallen short of the glory of God", and that all deserve death unless they seek forgiveness, and God loves everyone so much that he seeks that redemption for all people. All they have to do is ask. I don't want to sound like I'm preaching here; I am paraphrasing the arguments and entreaties I see over and over in tracts and hear from televangelists in the media. By killing those who have transgressed, the society removes the chance that such people would ever find forgiveness and redemption. And by the words of Jesus, "...they that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance". And there is no one sicker than a murderer.
So what are we to make of those who call themselves religious and yet cheer for executions, and who vociferously support capital punishment? They want revenge. And revenge is antithetical to the Christian religion. Again, the words of the Jesus: "You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." If one claims to be Christian, these words seem as clear as can be about the attitude one should project.
Politicians continue to call for the continuation and expansion of the death penalty, and consider this some sort of principled stand. They are not principled. They are pandering to the basest of human emotions, and as such are guilty of moral cowardice." | <urn:uuid:16620c66-9d7a-4636-94b4-21b899dd994c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geotripper.blogspot.com/2011/09/night-lights-went-out-in-georgiaand.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968963 | 880 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The government has passed a new contempt of court law to circumvent the political implications of a number of contempt of court cases involving many senior government functionaries. On July 21, Saturday, the Herald invited Asma Jahangir and Feisal Naqvi to a live online discussion about the political theory behind contempt of court.
July 21, 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm (PST)
Feisal Naqvi is a Supreme Court lawyer based in Lahore. His firm, Bhandari, Naqvi & Riaz, specialises in Constitutional litigation. Naqvi has also taught Constitutional Law at a private college. On July 21, 2012 the Herald invited him to a live discussion about the evolution and practice of contempt of court laws in Pakistan.
July 23, 4 pm to 5 pm (PST)
Asma Jahangir is a senior Supreme Court lawyer, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and an internationally renowned human rights activist. On July 21, 2012 the Herald invited her to a live discussion about how the contempt of court has come to occupy a central place in Pakistan’s judicial and political affairs. | <urn:uuid:4668adf9-6ca4-461f-972f-947f63dcb6b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://herald.dawn.com/tag/bhandari | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964975 | 234 | 1.65625 | 2 |
‘It’s a Small World’ is a ride at Disneyland. But because the world isn’t really that small, it’s really four identical rides in California, Florida, Disneyland Paris and Tokyo. And they are all a copy of a ride developed by Disney in 1964 as a Pepsi sponsored exhibit at the World Fair in New York.
I’m in Disneyland Paris, an outpost of America in the flat grey fields full of beetroot and the bones of old soldiers. Quietly, like vapour from ether, the theme tune of Its a Small World theme tune rises. Hypnotic and intoxicating, as though sung by munchkin sirens it draws me in until I’m standing in the queue. The facade is a be-bop billboard in pastel blues pinks and yellows. Composed as though it were pieces of card overlaid on an animators copy stand. A jazzy eiffel tower jives with the kremlin.
A row of fibreglass boats wait under a canopy. We board, and the boat lurches off, then slides though a hole snipped in the facade. Everything goes dark. The boat swings into a miniaturised anamatronic world. We drift past Ireland, where robot Leprechauns play harps drunkenly, past a place that is Africa-ish where natives in grass skirts thump drums wearing bones through their noses. Past more cheerfully gross stereotypes and happy insults. I feel like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now – warily watching the shores as we head into the heart of the dark ride.
The ride climaxes as the boat drifts under an arch into a open plan glimmering scene where races and religions join together in a chorus of the Small World song. Swathed in white, spinning and dancing, bathed in a glittering pink light. This final scene of Its a Small World is dreamlike. Maybe its meant as ‘It’s a Small Small Afterlife’. Its a place that’s the opposite of geography, anthropology and sociology. National Dress cast aside in favour of cult-esque robes. Disneys message seems to say: only in death do we escape the confines of circumstance. It says there is something beyond the earthly world where identity dissolves into unity.
Making a story about life, geography and death starring rubbish robot dolls is ambitious – a kind of cosmic scale made in miniature. Its the kind of ambition that recalls the hysterical storytelling of the baroque and rococo. The Asamkirche in Munich for example, tells the whole history of the world in its 15 meters height. From the base rock of the earths beginning up through caves, into buildings then into the sky, onto the ceiling and into the kingdom of heaven.
Certain kinds of modern building projects have to deal with this bigger-than-architecture programme.
The opposite of the story telling architecture of the Assam Kirch and the ethnic stereotyping of ‘It’s a Small World’ is The United Nations HQ in New York. Built in 1956, and designed amongst others by Le Corbusier, its an International Style building. Which means it’s purged of local or national identity. It’s whitewashed, flat and abstract. National identities are displayed by the row of flags in front and distinctly separate from the building itself. Identity is applied as 2D graphic design.
As part of the Dutch presidency of the European Union, OMA were commissioned to build a tent. Erected in Brussels, it houses an exhibition exploring the European Unions past and its possible futures. The tents fabric is printed with the extruded European flag that was developed by OMA a few years ago. Here, the flag becomes the architecture.
The design of the flag was made by placing all the individual flags of the member states in a horizontal line, then extruding them vertically. Its a flag for an entity that is not quite a nation and not exactly a place. Its a political and economic organisation not a country. If you tried to visit it you would only find something else – like Italy, or Austria or Poland. One federal superstate under a gigantic duvet with everyone tucked up cosily underneath. The EU is a thing that can expand as other countries join – or conceivably shrink. The flag too can grow along its x and y axis. Which makes flat graphic design into something spatial – and architectural. It functions in a different way to a traditional flag. Rather than identifying geography, its more like the jolly roger – a statement of intent. Like mayonnaise, its something of equal consistency that can be spread over the top regardless of what’s underneath. The pattern has a weird optical effect. Like looking at a broken escalator, your eyes make it move. It makes you think of machines which extrude endless lengths of material, or the perverse gloopy mindless pleasure of squeezing out your Aquafresh all in one go. That kind of mind numbing sensation seems entirely appropriate for a body legendary for its beaurocresy.
To get an angle on what its like on the inside of an architecture project , I emailed Tony Fretton. He’s currently designing the British Embassy in Warsaw. Best known for the Lisson Gallery, and more recently the Camden Arts Centre, I suggested that he’s about as far from the Indian Restaurant ethnic-vernacular-counjouring-up-an-image-of-a-place as one can be.
He describes his design as being urbane subtle and sophisticated. Its accessible and visible rather than defensive and protective. Its about being European rather than American in this sense – though Poland is part Donald Rumsfelds New Europe. Fretton suspects that its enough to be a British designer for the design to be British. The brief from the Foreign Office suggested that the building was really about the culture of diplomacy. Frettons design is interested in its local context – the effect is has on the neighbouring buildings and in the way that its acts rather than what it looks like.
As for the Indian restaurant bit – Tony said that he didn’t get it. And maybe I don’t either now. What I meant to say to him was something like this: Isn’t there something about globalism that has changed the concept of vernacular. That its no longer anything to do with local materials and techniques. Are Half Timbered houses the same in Beaconsfield, or Bel Air, or Beijing? When you bite into a Stuffed Crust Pizza Hut Pizza do you feel your teeth sinking into 3000 years of history, migration, war, and technology? Isn’t identity complicated? Isn’t even ‘being’ hard work?
Back in Disneyland, I’m lolling in the back of a boat that keeps orbiting ‘Its a Small World’. Small world days pass every 7 minutes, every one the same. The song repeating like a mantra. Dummies arms banging bongos repeatedly – fixed by their endless smiles.
Architects will often tell you architecture is about function – because function is easy to define, and you can tell if you have done it. But actually, all architecture is about identity – not just when its corporate entertainment, or superstate roadshow or an embassy. Addressing identity means thinking about all kinds of awkward things – like who you are and what you think you are doing. Things that are nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with the rest of the universe.
Architecture remakes a small piece of the world in the image of its creators. It’s the closest you can get to the raw unedited unconscious sentiment of culture. Which is why no architect should be allowed near a copy of Autocad without a rite of passage through the watery caverns of Its a Small World.
First published in Contemporary | <urn:uuid:3b518deb-f9e3-47b6-8fc8-6c5ad44a2d55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://strangeharvest.com/its-a-small-world | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945053 | 1,644 | 1.625 | 2 |
The strange turn of events, or the non-event, that transpired had a catalyst also, in the form of Ravi Batra, a prominent Manhattan-based attorney, who circulated an email, including to this reporter, addressed to the organizer of the press conference, Jasbir 'Jay' Singh, the 'CEO/Chief Editor, Media Resources Inc, d/b/a Hum Hindustani News Weekly.'
Batra, started off his email with: 'Jay, Urgent. Let's talk. This Rally is ill-advised and ought be cancelled."
In his email, Batra, while denouncing the fact that even one rape is too many, defends India's number of rape cases compared to some other nations, which he - citing UN figures - terms as 'per UN statistics India enjoys the near-lowest rapes per capita amongst nations.' He cites also the Abner Louima case - the Haitian male raped with the handle of a bathroom plunger by New York City policemen in 1997.
"Rape can be made even more horrendous by evil outlaw rapists, yet In addition, the Indian judiciary has acted by fast-tracking the prosecution with due process and the Indian government has introduced legislation to strengthen the protection of women and to have greater and certain punishment for rapists convicted of this horrible crime as a general deterrent. In the Louima case, the bad cops were prosecuted for federal civil rights violations and convicted, and good cops vindicated and society protected," wrote Batra.
According to Batra, the rally organized by Singh, "even if well intentioned and not a publicity seeking device, will aid in continuing to create a false impression about a friendly nation that observes the rule of law and has a documented political history of being in the forefront of nations advancing women to power and cherishing women's rights. That religiously, Hinduism enshrines the concept of strong women in power capable to exacting justice (Durga) by just punishment of those who do wrong is beyond dispute."
Batra continues: "This Rally will subvert the facts and end up defaming a friendly nation and a people who have shown that they are freedom and democracy-loving, love the rule of law and who have petitioned their government and their government is acting with all deliberate speed to deter-by-very tough laws this soul disturbing Delhi Rape from ever happening again. Finally, I must observe, that like Israel, India has been on the forefront of effectuating the principle that was announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rep. Carolyn Maloney in 1995 during the Beijing Conference: Women's Rights are Human Rights. Israel gave us Golda Meir and India gave us Indira Gandhi long before there was Maggie Thatcher from England. Hillary is the closest we came to a lady president."
Citing the UN statistics on the high number of rape cases in other countries, Batra says in the email: "India doesn't deserve the unfair and unjust bashing that this rally will cause. I'm circulating this email to prevent a mis-direction and mis-education of the People's right to know and prevent a bilateral injustice within the comity of nations. I request the Rally be called off, or the mis-use of the First Amendment to mis-inform the public discourse cease and desist."
Batra signs off his name as Chair, National Advisory Council on South Asian Affairs.
A few hours later, after the press conference was called off abruptly, Batra circulated another email addressed to the organizer: "I greatly appreciate your call just now informing me that you got my email request to cancel the press conference/rally, and that you have decided to cancel it. I applaud your wise judgment in that regard, as well as that of your co-hosts."
In an interview to The American Bazaar, Singh, when asked as to why was a press conference being called more than a month after the incident happened in India, on December 16th, said "it was going to be a candle light vigil."
"We were not going to condemn the Indian government," said Singh. "We were instead going to talk about measures taken by the Indian government like fast track courts for rape cases."
Singh said he didn't cancel the press conference because of Batra's email. Asked if he plans to hold the press conference next week, when the weather is expected to come back to normal temperatures for this time of the year, Singh said the press conference was now canceled.
"We were given space by Bill de Blasio in his office, but it could accommodate only 20-25 people, so we decided against it," he said. "We would have gotten a space on the steps of New York City hall next week, but only next Tuesday or Thursday, so we decided that it would be too late for us to hold a vigil."
According to Singh, a dozen Indian American and elected officials were confirmed to speak at the press conference, but he wouldn't name them. In his email yesterday, announcing the press conference, apart from the names of Gillibrand and de Blasio as confirmed attendees, he had also named Reshma Saujani, who was previously the Deputy Public Advocate of New York City, and who lost the 2010 Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York's 14th congressional district against incumbent Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney.
Speaking to The American Bazaar, Batra says the rape case of the unnamed girl in India who later died of the injuries she sustained during the assault, has now become "an indictment of India and Indians."
Referring to the Louima case, Batra retorts: "We all have evil cops everywhere. Does that make New York City bad?"
Batra, apart from running his own practice in Manhattan, and an entrepreneur, was a former member of the New York ethics board, which he resigned from last year, and is also a de facto ambassador for India, having been appointed by the Indian government as Member of the Governing Council of OIFC (Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre), a public private partnership between the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to help overseas Indians to expand their economic engagement with India.
As the ghastly rape and murder case plays out in the courts in New Delhi, and the discontent of the masses continue to simmer over the measures taken by the government so far to combat the rising number of rape cases in the country, the politics of it continues to unspool around the world, with the expatriate Indian community caught in the cross-hairs of condemning it whole heartedly, but cringing also at the widespread condemnation it has brought to the country and the image of the community itself.
Even as Batra was defending India, writing from his office in Manhattan, to ward off further bad publicity for India, a few blocks away, the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, was speaking up for the country, and like Batra, invoked the image of 'Durga,' the Indian goddess of creation, in his speech.
At a session of the UN Women Executive Board, Michelle Bachelet, Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women, began her statement by referring to the Delhi rape incident, as well as the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, and the shooting in Pakistan of girls' education activist, Malala Yousufzai.
"This senseless violence, wherever it takes place, must be condemned and perpetrators must be brought to justice. There is greater awareness than ever before that violence against women and girls cannot and will not be tolerated," she said. "Violence against women is rampant everywhere, in all countries. And everywhere, women and men are rising up and saying: enough is enough."
She said that UN Women is calling on governments everywhere to commit to end violence against women and girls.
In his address, Puri said that in India which is home to 500 million women, "...even one incident of violence against any woman or any girl, is an incident too many, and simply unacceptable."
"The edifice of the Indian society is premised on the all-embracing power of the Indian woman - which in our ancient thought and religious belief, bestows her the power to create, nurture and transform. She is not only worshipped as 'Durga' the goddess of creation, but also as 'Saraswati' - the inspiration for all music, poetry, science and learning," said Puri.
"It is, therefore, absolutely reprehensible that such an horrific tragedy happened on Indian soil. While it would remain a blot on the strong feminist credentials of the Indian societal fabric, the incident indeed shook the whole conscience of our nation at its very roots," said Puri.
Puri said the India government will ensure that "the culprits are brought to speedy justice, and the sternest possible message sent out by giving them the punishment they deserve. The Government of India shares the collective anguish of all Indians, on this most horrific incident..."
Puri's words have only been a reiteration amongst most Indian diplomats around the world, as they have strived to save the country's image as much as possible from the incessant negative battering by the media, emanating from the case.
The rape case even found its voice at Davos, the hallowed shrine of the global business community, which is what the Indian government is most wary of, that the negative impact of the rape case might actually end up in erosion of Foreign Direct Investment.
The chief of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, speaking of the rape case in India and the Yousafzai incident, made a passionate appeal for gender equality.
"I dedicate the moment to Malala, daughter of Pakistan, and another daughter in India (the 23-year-old gangrape victim)," Lagarde said, and then posed a question, "But you will ask what it has to do with economy. It is indeed about economy and equality and bringing in prosperity. No policymakers have paid enough (attention) to the fact that more equal distribution of income would help in supporting women better. Gender inequality is also very important and the policymakers have not paid enough attention to either of the two. The fact is when women do better the country does better and policymakers need to understand this." (GIN - AmericanBazaarOnline.com) | <urn:uuid:a1221749-7563-4408-b396-49f2c790085f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/427809/20130125/americanbazaaronline-delhi-gang-rape-nyc-press-conference.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971236 | 2,154 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Several leading companies shared the lessons they've learned for controlling costs while improving employee health, at the 6th Annual World Health Care Congress held April 14-16 in Washington, D.C.
Safeway's Better Way
Between 2005 and 2009, supermarket giant Safeway Inc. has kept its health care cost trend "essentially flat," according to firm President and CEO Steven A. Burd. He noted that "70 percent of health care costs are driven by behavior." Moreover, just a handful of chronic conditions are responsible for 74 percent of all health care costs, "and obesity is a driving factor in all of them," Burd said, alluding to conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes. Yet "insurance policies generally lack incentives to change behavior."
At Safeway, which self insures, health coverage has been designed to encourage prevention and wellness by linking health behaviors to financial incentives. Safeway employees and their spouses earn reimbursement for part of their health care premiums by passing a nonsmoking screening (using a cotton swab inside the mouth, which Burd and other executives also undergo), meeting body-mass index goals, and keeping their cholesterol under control—with medication if necessary. If they do so, "at the end of the year we will write you a check" reimbursing premium expenses tied to the estimated savings for avoidable health conditions, to the extent allowed under federal regulations.
Nonsmokers, for example, receive a check for $300. Those who fail their screenings or choose not to participate go without the rebate -- and can end up, in effect, with health care premiums that are 50 percent higher.
Nonsmokers receive a $300 premium rebate check.
Burd compared this with "two neighbors with the same cars but very different driving records. Bill has no tickets or accidents; John has a reckless driving citation and an accident. John's car insurance premium is twice as high as Bill's -- and we all accept this as fair."
Safeway also offers fitness center discounts, care management counseling, a 24-hour nurseline, and health food discounts at company cafeterias. Their prescription plan provides incentives for generic medications.
"Don't wait for government," Burd advised. "You can do what we did to lower costs and improve health outcomes."
(To learn more, see How Safeway Is Cutting Helath Care Costs, by Steven A. Burd, Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2009.)
Dow Chemical's Formula for Health
Cathy Baase, M.D., The Dow Chemical Co’s global director of health services and a board-certified family practice physician, explained that Dow provides comprehensive health education programs to its employees (as well as retirees and dependents). Policies and initiatives include consultations and screenings, health and disease risk-focused campaigns, on-site wellness centers, and an electronic personal health record. Site and community prevention programs worldwide focus on nutrition, fitness, lifestyle improvements, smoking cessation and stress reduction.
"Since the inception of its health strategy in 1999, Dow has saved a cumulative $93 million on health care costs for U.S. employees, as compared to the average performing Fortune 1000 employer," Baase explained. That's a significant cost savings, given that Dow spends nearly $300 million per year on direct health care costs in the U.S. alone.
Specifically, Baase noted that:
• In 2008, the company’s health advocacy case management saved the company more than 7,000 absenteeism days.
• Since 1999, Dow has also been able to reduce personal safety and health incidents by 84 percent, which equates to nearly 13,000 Dow employees and contractors avoiding injury.
• About 75 percent of global Dow employees and 90 percent of U.S. employees participate in one or more Dow health services programs each year.
Black & Decker Drills Down Costs
"Far too many benefit managers make decisions and try to evaluate outcomes of their initiatives without all of the data necessary to prove whether their programs succeeded or not," said Raymond J. Brusca, vice president of benefits at The Black & Decker Corp.
A decade ago, the company examined two full years of data to determine what was driving its health care costs and identified that "Adult Type-2 diabetes, diagnosed and potentially undiagnosed, was behind the majority of our chronic costs," Brusca said.
The company's health plan provided coverage for insulin syringes and test strips, "but data showed most diabetics were not utilizing these benefits," he recounted. "We concluded that it was hard for diabetics to get these items filled, and that the multiple co-pays for each item created a significant financial barrier."
In response, Black & Decker conceived a program that would customize a "60-day kit" for each diabetic based on their own insulin and testing regimen. The kit would be sent to them cost free. A vendor would monitor refills and "if not reordered 45 days into the current 60-day kit, they would outreach to the diabetic to ensure compliance and reorder."
The company found a vendor whose sole business was providing mail insulin and supplies via mail to diabetics. "Under our health plan, the only source for these supplies would be the new vendor—we excluded coverage from all other components of the medical plan" to better ensure compliance and control costs.
Using a data warehouse, the company completed an initial two-year study and a subsequent study using four years of data. The results: "In both studies the [health care cost] trend rate for the diabetic population was lowered to match the trend rate for the nondiabetic population." The company has seen flat to low single digit cost increases over the past nine years, with only minor plan design cost shifts.
Brusca stressed that, along with plan design, communication is a key component of effecting change. "Our message is clear," he noted, conveying to each employee that "they have the power to impact their own health profile, their own finances, and the finances of Black & Decker."
Stephen Miller is an online editor/manager for SHRM.
How Safeway Is Cutting Helath Care Costs, Wall Street Journal, June 2009
Wellness: Financial Incentives--Tips for an Effective Program, SHRM Online Benefits Discipline, May 2007
The ROI of Wellness Programs: From Perk to Priority Investment, SHRM Online Benefits Discipline, January 2007
Designing an Effective Wellness Program, Step by Step, SHRM Online Benefits Discipline, January 2007
Containing Health Care Costs through Wellness Incentives, SHRM Multimedia, September 2007
Quick Link:SHRM Online Benefits Discipline | <urn:uuid:56a89d97-2509-40ff-b569-d99c54a50f9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/benefits/Articles/Pages/BestPracticesShared.aspx | 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 | 0.952991 | 1,380 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Here's a tiny question. What do you think most people really want? What do you think the average Jane — or even the less-than-average Joe — is capable of?
One view is: most people don't want much, and are capable of even less. People — usually (pardon me for saying so) old, rich, white, privileged males — have been advancing this notion for centuries. The funny thing is, the world has made explosive jumps forward to increased prosperity. History has revealed that the less-than-average Joes and Janes of the world weren't just capable of working all day long hammering wood into railroads, and they didn't merely want not to be trapped in grinding poverty forever — it turned out the people that were the world's poor just a few decades ago were, by the 21st century, eminently capable of, for example, designing microchips and mapping genomes, and doing so because they wanted lives materially, emotionally, and spiritually rich. Hence, I'd say: sure, you can argue that the vast majority of humanity is and has always been dumb, loutish, brutish, and stupid — but if it's the future you want to be a part of, then a better bet goes something like this: each and every one of us has human potential that while not unbounded, is infinite, in the sense that we haven't begun to explore its outer limits yet.
So here's another question. What happens when limitless potential crashes headlong into boundaries, prison bars, and maybe even self-imposed limitations? What happens when it's not just stuffy, sneering (mostly) old (mostly) rich (mostly) white dudes who believe you, I, and everyone else not named "J. Thurston Stubbleforth, IV" aren't capable of better — but when we sell ourselves short?
If you accept the proposition that societies and economies are heading off the rails, then here's my hypothesis: we're about to careen into a Great Collision — people bumping up against the self-imposed perimeter of their own carefully constructed lives; human potential crashing headlong against choices that make the least of it. It's a collision of values against value. It's a collision of preferences against expectations; the lives we want versus the choices we're willing to make; what we give versus why we take; what we find in each other versus what we seek from each other. It's a collision that's going to happen inside each of us — and then, maybe, result in a collision that happens outside each of us. It's a collision first of people versus the consequences of their own decisions — but then, perhaps, of people against broken, entrenched, savagely dysfunctional institutions.
Here's what that looks like.
We want work that fulfills — but we're not often willing to spend an extra penny, let alone a dollar, euro, or yen, to ensure others can take on fulfilling work. In the sagging, tube-lit aisles, it's the everyday low price that we chase with a vengeance.
We cry out for better leaders — but it's rare that we take the dangerous, decisive step to lead ourselves, choosing instead to remain obedient, pliable followers.
We want education, healthcare, and transportation that works — but we're reluctant to pay the costs of these public goods. When it comes to the bare-minimum building blocks of a functioning society, they're someone else's responsibility.
We hunger for inspiration, purpose, exhilaration — but mostly, we settle for lives of annihilating boredom, alternating with sheer panic. Perhaps we get our fix of "life" through the finely honed narratives of the hundreds of channels of reality TV and "news" we're smilingly offered night after pixelated night.
We want contracts that don't steal our future — but we're often unwilling to walk away from those that already have. Perhaps we feel a sense of moral responsibility to pay our debts — but I'd suggest the greater, perhaps greatest moral responsibility is choosing to live.
We want thriving, diverse cities — but we self-select into neighborhoods of like-for-like. Witness, of course, the rise of the gated community.
We don't want narcissistic Machiavellian sociopaths to helm our institutions — but at the mall, on the high street, at the gas pump, we seem to barely, if at all, consider whether those we're choosing to patronize have interests solidly opposed to any rational person's.
We want basic human rights to be respected — but mostly, we yawn when habeas corpus, the fundamental political building block of a minimally enlightened social contract (remember that 13th century document called the Magna Carta?) is rolled back.
We want communities that cohere, full of relationships that blossom, and in turn, nurture the social soil. But we spend more time and energy on Facebook than on making a lasting, tangible human difference — unless it helps us gain that corner office, promotion, or bonus.
We want a culture that doesn't dumbify us — but at the end of the day, we're willing to settle for poking fun at one that does, instead of building one that doesn't. But the former is not the latter.
We don't want the future we're getting — but most of us shrug our shoulders at the end of the day; only to wake up panicked, the next — and begin the cycle all over again.
Welcome to the Great Collision. In the aggregate, our preferences are savagely at odds with our expectations; the future we want is at odds with the present we choose.
It's easy to construct a narrative of victimhood; and a narrative of victimhood is as easily palatable as a Big Mac. Sure, you can argue that the modern condition is a finely jawed trap: bound by the chains of debt peonage, our horizons have been ineluctably delimited. But I'd say we're equal parts victims and victimizers — preying not merely on one another, but our own better selves. When it comes to real human prosperity, in the crudest terms of political economy, "demand" is about what people have the impertinence to, well, demand — and perhaps the simple fact is that we've become a society that's simply not demanding enough.
What I'd say "we" want is to escape the toxic tradeoffs of the industrial age — now savage dilemmas, choices between bad alternatives, that drive more and more of us into a sense of crisis, leave us feeling lost and unmoored in the human world. But what we choose, over and over again, is the vicious cycles that make up the grinding gears of the blind machine that's remorselessly devouring not just a prosperous future, but maybe even, bit by bit, our better, higher, truer, worthier selves. Local, personal choices are colliding with their global, social consequences — and the result is futility, frustration, and fury.
So what's the way out? In the great tradition of self-help gurus, I could offer you ten quick, easy bullet points, or a seven-step program. But I believe our quest for neat, easy answers is exactly how we got into this mess. Consider one tiny example. Sure, anyone and everyone worth less than $40 million and/or under the age of 35 should protest, if for nothing other than the experience. But protest alone has been subsumed by the system; not just carefully controlled by hovering choppers and rubber bullets, but I'd say almost designed to let people evade the uncomfortable truth that institutional choices matter; to offer a kind of spectacular experience that commoditizes the art of rebellion into a neat, disposable, transaction, offering a cheap, quick, affordable catharsis for crisis — instead of a hinge for transformative change.
Here, I make no utopian call for a glorious revolution. If there is something like a brotherhood of man, too much blood has been spilled for one to believe that it doesn't often resemble Cain versus Abel.
But I do call for a revolt. A rebellion against the emptiness of the lives we choose, over and over again. I believe you and I are capable of better; I believe each of us deserves better — from ourselves. As the great historian and parliamentarian Edward Gibbon once wrote: "when the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then the Athenians ceased to be free."
If the above falls prey to the glittering sin of idealism, then think again before you pronounce me guilty. The great collision isn't (just) tides of protestors crashing into barricades manned by helmeted riot police: nor is it billions of tiny choices to defect from yesterday's broken institutions; to no longer play by a viciously exploitative set of rules that, if obeyed to the letter, will probably leave one broke, miserable, and broken. It's not a global Arab Spring, nor simply the millions of human awakenings that must precede it — but a collision against the self that's the result of an inability to rebel; the collision of the conformist with the need to create the future.
Yet, I will confess. I have a longing to see these awakenings come to fruition. As Albert Camus once noted: "the opposite of an idealist is too often a man without love." If you and I have become something like the opposite of idealists — weary cynics, dejected fatalists, lost — then perhaps it's because the love of a searingly well lived life has been defeated in us. But no one can half-live and feel fully alive. That's what I really mean by "Great Collision." And perhaps it's there those who wish to create the future must begin.
NB: If you want some simple life or biz advice, here's a tiny attempt. Tomorrow's great institutions will be built — as they always have been — not merely by answering today's preferences with the lowest common denominator, but by seeking radical, transformative paths to resolve the contradictions between preference and expectation, past and future, value and values. Want to build one? Take a hard look at the Great Collision — and blaze a trail that doesn't end in social, personal, economic wreckage. Don't just make a difference. | <urn:uuid:b15fabbd-ad02-45b0-a27e-175ab54b7489> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2012/04/the_great_collision.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959281 | 2,141 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Gardening: Wet summer brings bumper redcurrantsBy Linda Fort
July 20, 2012
Hanging out the washing in the garden this morning, my heels sank deep into the lawn.
Although it is not raining now, the ground is horribly waterlogged and the grass is unacceptably long.
Whenever I speak to gardeners about the weather at the moment they slap their foreheads, roll their eyes and mutter gloomily about the grass.
Some things seem to love this teeming rain while others are less enthusiastic.
Trees and shrubs are flourishing.
Bedding plants are flagging a bit – their flowers seem to need the warmth of sunshine to do well.
Having said that, the begonias in my mother’s back garden – which I don’t like particularly but plant there because of the shade – are really flourishing.
She has geraniums in pots in front of her house which are usually happy with a thorough baking in the sun – but they are looking a bit soggy and sorry for themselves.
My fruit garden, which has not been the great success I imagined, has produced one fabulous triumph this year.
I have more redcurrants than I know what to do with. I may even have to freeze some of them.
The courgette plants – after an early attack by slugs followed by a resowing – are now growing away, similarly the runner and dwarf beans.
I visited an allotment site on Friday and noticed that all the runner bean poles looked like mine – with beans just beginning to climb. All except on one allotment.
That allotment holder's bean canes had plants and greenery right to the top and runner beans hanging from them – though not that many flowers.
Either he has exceptionally green fingers – or has sold his soul to the devil in return for horticultural success – I know I would if I believed in the devil and he offered.
My tomato plants – after not growing an inch for about a month – have suddenly started to shoot up, but there is not a sign of a flower or fruit. But at last some rows of vegetables – beetroot, carrots and salad leaves – are starting to appear.
If I fail to mow the grass today then I will be wading through it waist high next weekend.
All I can do is hope for a bit of dry weather and a sunny evening to restore some order in the jungle. | <urn:uuid:6b61b2c8-0b66-40a0-b1c1-008ab4a981c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/lifestyle/home_and_garden/s/2117482_gardening_wet_summer_brings_bumper_redcurrants | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965973 | 507 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.