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January 25, 2013
LaVeist Seeking Solutions to Health Disparities
In the latest issue of The Lancet, Thomas LaVeist, PhD, the William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discusses the career path he's taken to become a recognized authority in the study of racial and health disparities in the U.S. LaVeist, who also directs the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, says his career has been fueled by what he calls a sense of mission “to understand the question of why do we have inequalities in health outcomes and what can we do about it." LaVeist’s research aims to pull back the curtain on the causes, challenges and solutions to health disparities.
You can read the full article at The Lancet website.
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home I index I latest I glossary I introductions I e-mail I about this site
St Andrew, Attlebridge
the captions by hovering over the images, and click on them to
see them enlarged.
This church was once a familiar sight to travellers on the Norwich to Fakenham road, but the village is now thankfully bypassed, and this little church sits proudly on its mound at the crossroads in the centre. As at nearby Alderford, the church is long and narrow, with a narrow 14th century tower, although this is not as pencil-like as Alderford's. Unlike its neighbour, St Andrew retains a north aisle. The church is so small that it would seem rather claustrophobic without it.
Inside, the church retains much of its rural character, the sense that this building could only be in East Anglia, and would seem quite foreign if you found it somewhere else. This sounds an obvious thing to say, but so many Victorian restorations of country churches turned them into anonymous, urban spaces that might as well be in Birmingham or Calcutta. That did not happen here, and it is still quite easy to imagine the ploughboy and the wheelwright sitting on the benches in their best clothes on a Sunday morning.
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home I index I latest I introductions I e-mail I about
this site I glossary
Norwich I ruined churches I desktop backgrounds I round tower churches
links I small print I www.simonknott.co.uk I www.suffolkchurches.co.uk
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To prepare the company for personal cloud services, IT departments need to classify data to ensure only non-sensitive information can be stored on external cloud storage or they would need to source public cloud storage services with enterprise-level protection, say security players.
According to Vic Mankotia, vice president of security for Asia-Pacific and Japan at CA Technologies, companies can use an automated data classification engine to classify data so that sensitive data cannot be stored to a third-party service.
He added that risk-based authentication should be use to access data from the public cloud storage environment so that the right information is stored and accessed by the right people.
"Unlike traditional security solutions which control information access with a simple 'Yes or No' privilege, there are now content-aware forms of identity and access management tools which can control how information is used," he said. Elaborating, he said with such a service, a user may be able to read data from the public cloud but may not be allowed to save it onto the company server or vice versa.
Similarly, Jon Andresen, Asia-Pacific region technology evangelist at Blue Coat Systems, noted that IT departments will need to focus on Web security by scanning all Web traffic, including encrypted and compressed files, that is coming and going to the public cloud services. He suggested that companies adopt a secure Web gateway service to complement its existing network security protection such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems (IPS).
On top of that, he noted that users need to have malware, spyware and phishing protection and a cloud Web security service to can scan all types of traffic. Cloud Web security services can help in cases where the device, such as an Apple iPad, does not have antivirus scanning capabilities, he added.
Blocking public cloud storage not advisable
Personal cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Apple's MobileMe, Evernote, Microsoft Skydrive and the recently launched Google Drive allow users to sync their files on different devices by uploading files onto the online storage system.
"Employees are likely to take advantage of the convenience of public cloud storage in the enterprise if they can. This will enable them to be more productive with various devices and allow them to work at home," said Mankotia. Companies should not ban such services as it might force employees to find "ever-more creative ways to circumvent the system", he added.
Instead, he recommended that companies allow an enterprise-approved public cloud storage service to provide the same conveniences but in a safe way or find ways to limit the type of corporate information that can be saved onto publicly available services.
Richard Edwards, principal analyst at Ovum, also supported the adoption of business-grade cloud drive and collaboration services. In a statement, he noted that services, such as Box and Huddle, include management and administration capabilities that are essential from compliance and audit perspective for an enterprise.
Mankotia added that educating users is also an important step. "Once they understand the repercussions of losing sensitive data through public cloud services, employees are typically quite happy to use company-approved ways of sharing and accessing data," he said.
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Knife Amnesty Yields Neat Knives
During England’s recent knife amnesty, a variety of homemade cutting and puncturing weapons were turned in. I wonder how many weren’t turned in.
We are pleased that the owners’ have been responsible and handed them in. We would urge anyone who has home-made weapons to take the same route and surrender them at one of the designated police stations.” Tackling knife culture is paramount to the safety of our communities. People who carry bladed weapons run the risk of that weapon being used on them, or inflicting serious injury on others. It also carries a jail sentence of up to four years. The total number of weapons surrendered in Staffordshire during the amnesty, which has now been running for four weeks, has reached 1,420.
Via Street Use, which has some nifty pictures.
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Most Active Stories
Wed December 28, 2011
Crime Keeps Falling Despite A Recession — But Why?
We've reported that crime continues to fall in the United States. The FBI said it was down for the first six months of the year and the Justice Department said violent crime was down 12 percent in 2010.
It's a 20-year trend. One that has continued, despite a recession when people expect crime to pick up.
All Things Considered's Robert Siegel spoke to Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs for the National Insurance Crime Bureau and a former FBI agent, to ask him why.
First Scafidi points out, "there isn't empirical evidence to make the case" that crime picks up during tough economic times. Scafidi says it didn't even happen during the Great Depression.
Now, Scafidi mostly deals with auto theft and he has convincing, simple explanations for why that kind of crime is down:
-- First, technology: A 2011 car is much harder to steal than a car from the '90s. They have all kinds of technology to help locate the car and simply make it harder to drive off with.
"For a lot of auto thieves, it's just not worth it," he told Robert.
-- Second, police now set up bait cars and have the help of license plate readers, which increase the risk for auto thieves.
-- Third, said Scafid,i it might be an issue of reporting. As police departments slash budgets, there are fewer officers to take crime reports. How many people, said Scafidi, will take the time to complete a police report online? How many will just give up and the crime goes unreported?
As for the broader drop in crime, Scafidi says he likes to take the optimistic view.
"I like to think people are pulling less and less of these crimes. Maybe they're finding that the upside of it isn't that all that high, that the risk is not greater than the reward and are just letting those sorts of behaviors alone," he said.
A few days ago, CBS News spoke to Bill Bratton, the former chief of police in New York City, Los Angeles and Boston.
He said the drop in crime had to do with better policing. CBS News reports:
"'In the 1990s, policing got it right," Bratton told "Early Show" anchor Chris Wragge. 'We began to focus once again on preventing crime; '60s, '70s, '80s, we focused on responding to crime. It's a lot different to try to prevent it, and we've become very successful at preventing it.'
"Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox disputes the popular myth that crime should be going up in a bad economy.
"'They're using technology; they're using data, crime patterns, maps to figure out where are the hot spots, what's the trend in terms of crime and trying to be proactive,' Fox said of law enforcement agencies. 'People are either criminals or not, independent of whether they have a job.'"
All Things Considered will have much more of Robert's conversation with Scafidi on tonight's edition. Tune in to your local NPR member station to listen. We'll also post the as-aired version of the interview at the top of this post, later today.
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Another symbol of France–wine–is being threatened with a 1,000% tax increase. Will riots break out across the country?
Who is the man with a set of grapes big enough to dare provoke the ire of the French winegrowers and wine consumers? It’s Yves Daudigny, a socialist senator from Aisne (“The Fightin’ Aisne”) in Picardie. I bet they don’t even make wine in Picardie! Wait, what’s that, Jimmy? Champagne is partially in Aisne, Senator Daudigny’s district? Okay, scratch that.
The Senator is clearly a tough nut to crack. Last year he proposed a 300% tax on palm oil in what was dubbed the “Nutella tax.” Mmm, taxes so high you can spread them on your bread in the morning.
Now he’s unleashing his tax machine on the wine industry, proposing to raise the tax from three euro cents to €0.30-€0.60 a bottle! This would bring it inline with beer and spirits. But we all know that beer and spirits deserve that tax. Was there ever a black and white photograph of a child toting a six-pack and a bottle of Johnny Walker under his arm? Non, monsieur!
Senator Daudigny, taxing wine in France is like taxing being French! It’s un-French to even consider it! Moreover, why would you want people to drink less wine? The wine industry is struggling because French people are not drinking enough of the stuff. If you really want a radical reform, try uncorking a take-your-wine-to-work day. Or Hug a Vigneron day. Or how about a subsidy for French wine? It’s already so expensive that people in Hong Kong are bidding bottles to stratospheric levels! Or subsidize hipster wines from the Jura or the Loire to jumpstart exports to Williamsburg and San Francisco.
Don’t make the winegrowers stage protests outside your office with pitchforks and corkscrews!
In a surprising setback for selling wine online, the New York State State Liquor Authority ruled yesterday that the sale of wine by third-party “advertisers” violates its code. Some online sales and marketing companies, such as wine clubs and Lot 18, sell or market wine online without a New York retail license, instead rely on a licensee to process or fulfill the orders. Read more…
In the comments of our recent discussion of the rosé drought that was gripping the Hamptons, a commenter said that the easy answer was to have the wine shipped in (via Gulfstream jet, natch). But, seriously, couldn’t they order wine from an out-of-state retailer and have it sent via UPS?
Well, they could but it wouldn’t be legal. According to a rather sobering map from the Specialty Wine Retailers’ Association, New York is one of 39 states where it is illegal to have wine sent from an out-of-state retailer. A 2005 decision from the Supreme Court rolled back many barriers to shipping wine from wineries to consumers, as states had to strike down laws that discriminated against out-of-state wineries while allowing in-state wineries to ship and about three dozen of them have now leveled the playing field. It’s a no-brainer to me that this should apply to wine shops as well; however, I am not Chief Justice and it’s still an open legal question whether the 2005 decision applies to retailers. Free shipping from wines stores is much more important to the average wine consumer since it would lead to consumers being able to find the best price or provenance anywhere for a range of wines, including those under $20; winery-direct shipping tends to focus on wines north of $20.
Some states, like New York, have porous borders–no eight-foot fence to keep those wine shipments out. Others, such as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, have found ways to keep wine shipments out or at least down by working with the main carriers, UPS and FedEx. (A New York retailer once told be that shipments to Massachusetts’ islands were often sent back because of the local shops tipped off UPS drivers to report any incoming packages about yay big weighing 40 lbs.) Whether there’s little enforcement or not, wine lovers across the country would be better served with free, legal trade. Sadly, with no consumer movement and the judicial efforts of the Specialty Wine Retailers stymied, there seems little to break the impasse.
Telmo Rodriguez was in full cry when I met him in New York City recently. Although the 50-year-old “driving winemaker” studied enology in Bordeaux, worked a vintage at J.L. Chave in the Rhone, and for 25 years has made his own wines across Spain, what was on his mind when we spoke was Rioja:
“What do we know about Rioja? Just a few brands? Nobody wants to talk about site, or villages. Rioja is the next thing to discover. We don’t know Rioja. If you think you know Champagne and you only drink Moet et Chandon or Veuve Clicquot, you don’t know Champagne! You need to know the specific vineyards.”
Andre Tamers, who imports Rodriguez’ Remelluri wine, agrees: “This is the way that Spain has to move forward: away from brands and toward the land.”
Starting with the 2010 vintage, Rodriguez Read more…
After appearing in two sessions of congress, a legislative proposal that would have threatened the legal, direct shipment of wine is dead according to Shanken News Daily. They cite Tom Cole, president of Republic National Distributing Co., who says “The CARE Act is officially off the table.”
Wine lovers can breathe a sigh of relief. And we are dialing the official HR 1161 threat level back to neck level! (See backgrounder here and here). We were concerned that in the “lame duck” session when oh-so-much wheeling and dealing is likely to be done, that it could have squeaked through in some form. It still might, but the wholesaler will appears to have slackened.
I wonder what led the wholesalers to pull in their legislative claws? The brief Shanken News piece had no insights in this regard. But in this Super PAC era, it would be delightful to think that possible voter outrage trumped campaign contributions. It is interesting to note that wholesalers recently did an about-face on a restrictive reform in New York State. Hit the comments with your take on the situation.
What if you could not buy a book at a bookstore in New York if it had come from a New Jersey warehouse? Or fill your car up with gas in New York if the truck that brought it to the gas station came from New Jersey? We can agree that would be silly. About as silly as trying to prevent wine wholesalers who sell wine to NY wine stores and restaurants from going about their business if they have a warehouse in New Jersey.
But that is exactly what is happening. A large wholesaler is trying to prevent smaller wholesalers from using their existing warehouses in New Jersey by inserting an “at rest” provision in the state senate’s 2012 budget. This would require all wines to come from warehouses in New York. While I do care about the provenance of my wine, I do not care one whit if it comes from a (climate-controlled) warehouse in NY or NJ. Some specialty shops and small wholesalers are uniting to try to stop this before Friday, March 9. An email that has been making the rounds today follows after the jump: Read more…
Jean-Marie Guffens, a winemaker in Macon who founded Maison Verget, endured a decade-long investigation by French authorities, including Customs and Fraud office. It started in 2001 after the grapes were harvested but before the winery staff had even filed the harvest paperwork. And it continued ebbing and flowing, with allegations that Guffens was blending wine from the south into his Burgundies. In the 27-minute video, Guffens declares that “we live in a banana republic” with “mafia-style” raids including a surprise winery inspection with 25 officers, and accusations of complicity against the staff. His wife and members of the staff were even held in custody for two days. Eventually, in 2010, the charges were dropped. Guffens sued to have his name exonerated and– SPOLIER ALERT!–a judge in Beaune ruled in his favor in November.
This action and the heavy-handed tactics over Olivier Cousin’s whimsical labeling, set against the backdrop of declining domestic wine consumption, illustrate the difficult days for many French vignerons. I’ll add it to my file for updating Wine Politics.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of New Jersey? Surely, the local wine, right?!
That’s what state legislators were hoping when they voted a reform to New Jersey wine law this week. With the governor’s signature, which he has said he will provide, the state will become the 39th to allow the direct shipping from wineries to consumers. After Granholm, the 2005 Supreme Court decision that found it unconstitutional to allow in-state wineries the right to ship to consumers while out-of-state wineries were prevented, New Jersey was one of the rare states that didn’t open up shipments, but instead closed down.
The new law is certainly worth celebrating but don’t think about popping Champagne unless it is purchased at a store in NJ. The most glaring shortcoming is that the bill only legalizes shipments from wineries, not wine stores, thus disallowing free trade in over a third of the wine consumed in the US. For reasons of parity, that’s too bad. But since there are many innovative wine stores and the state has become one of the most competitive in the country, New Jersey residents are still well-served.
Anyhoo, not all wineries can ship to New Jersey under the new law, just wineries under 250,000 gallons (about 85,000 cases). These “capacity caps” are controversial and were struck down in Massachusetts (at a threshold of 30,000 gallons) as a form of discriminating against out-of-state wineries, which was what Granholm said was the big no-no. Further, wineries must purchase a license to ship, which is among the highest such fees in the country. Cathy Corison, proprietor of Corison in Napa Valley, tweeted “NJ opens up to direct wine shipment. $938 annual fee. Gee… thanks. #smallwinerytax.”
For an additional fee, licensed wineries are allowed to open more than a dozen tasting rooms for direct sales throughout the state, which also seems to advantage in-state wineries. But if an out-of-state winery opened a store, it would be a new and fascinating challenge to the three-tier system. (In this vein, Chateau Montelena just opened a “tasting room” in the Westin hotel in San Francisco; New Jersey also has many BYOB restaurants.)
So for NJ consumers, it’s a half-a-loaf law. It’s better than the status quo ante. But not ideal since buying wine from, say, NY wine stores is still illegal (and thus, I’m sure, never happens). New Jersey wineries may be the biggest beneficiaries of all as they can expand in-state (and out-of-state!) sales. Time to bone up on the terroir de Jersey Shore (although this map is much funnier).
What do you think? If you are a winery or New Jersey resident, are you excited or non-plussed by the change?
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On July 8, 1998, at 2100 central daylight time, an Air Tractor AT-502, N9185C, operated by a commercial pilot sustained substantial damage when it overran the runway on takeoff from runway 17 (2,300' x 100' wet/turf), near Minto, North Dakota, and impacted a drainage ditch. The pilot said that the turf runway was soft and the airplane was slowed too much for liftoff in the last one-third of the runway takeoff length. The pilot reported minor injuries. The 14 CFR Part 137 flight was departing on an aerial application flight in visual meteorological conditions at the time of the accident. There was no flight plan on file. The flight was originating at the time of the accident. Use your browsers 'back' function to return to synopsisReturn to Query Page
The pilot gave a written statement concerning the events surrounding the accident. He said that the first 700 feet of the takeoff runway was concrete and the remaining 1,600 feet was wet turf. He said that during the takeoff roll on the wet turf the left main landing gear tire encountered a "soft rut" and the airplane yawed to the left. He said at that time his head hit the roll-bar. He said, by the time he recovered, the airplane had slowed to the point the airplane impacted a ditch at the end of the runway and nosed over. The pilot did not indicate any mechanical problems with the airplane and said that the engine power remained "full" throughout the takeoff roll.
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Bernard Gadd's quest for security
Yesterday I blogged about the Quest for Security crew and their apparent nostalgia for the 'old New Zealand' of the postwar 'golden years'. Nostalgia can prompt some fine poetry, but if it is translated into politics then it soon throws up all sorts of problems. I think that the last years of Bernard Gadd, the poet, educationalist, and longtime political activist who died recently - I've just been reading the obituary at Jack Ross' blog - show up this danger.
Gadd was in many ways a tragic figure. He came from a staunchly left-wing family, lived most of his life in working class South Auckland, and always tried to combine his commitment to writing with a commitment to political activism. Gadd was involved in many flagship left-wing campaigns, like the movements against the Vietnam War and apartheid, and in the '70s and '80s he wrote and published a series of pioneering books about Polynesian history for schoolchildren. He even wrote the first-ever novel about Moriori life. In the 1980s and '90s, Gadd was an energetic opponent of the neo-liberal 'reforms' that blighted his community and others like it around the country.
In the last twenty years of his life, though, Gadd became an increasingly bitter figure, notorious for his attacks on biculturalism, the Treaty of Waitangi, and the nebulous conspiracies of 'political correctness'. Often Gadd's polemics against these scourges would look back nostalgically to New Zealand 'as it used to be', before the wrong turn of the '80s.
It seemed, to me at least, that Gadd's hatred of the new 'identity politics' that had emerged in the '70s and '80s came from the same place as his hatred of neo-liberalism. Gadd thought that Maori and other 'politically correct minorities' were dividing the Kiwi working class with their talk of historic grievances and ongoing oppression. Why couldn't we go back to the '50s, when there was never any of this sort of strife? Gadd's views are not unique, of course: Chris Trotter has been broadcasting the same ideas to much larger audiences for years now.
I only realised the extent of Gadd's disaffection a couple of years ago, when I became editor of the literary journal brief. I suggested to Gadd, who was an inveterate submitter of manuscripts to the journal, that he send me an essay about contemporary Maori culture, and its relationship to the resurgence of Maori nationalism. A couple of days later, a manuscript arrived. I was expecting that Gadd would kickstart a lively but comradely debate, but the bitterness of his essay, and the fact that it was couched in pseudo-Marxist jargon, dismayed me. I was also amazed that Bernard, who had researched the history of the Chatham Islands for his 1987 children's novel Dare not Fail, would be shameless enough to deploy the myth of the Moriori as a pre-Maori people in his polemic.
I thought, and still think, that Gadd's vision of nineteenth century history, in which a super-efficient British capitalism overwhelmed a static, backward Maori society, was based on an ignorance of the achievements of the market gardening economy that was thriving in Maori-controlled parts of the North Island before the Waikato War began.
Gadd also seems blissfully unaware of the decades of economic stagnation that followed the dispossession of Maori in many areas, as the parasitic profiteers who had demanded the invasion of the Waikato failed utterly to use vast stretches of conquered land, and Pakeha soldiers-turned-yeomen were forced by debts and a lack of markets to walk off their plots. I grew up near the remains of Peach Hill, a postwar community of small farmers that completely collapsed a decade or so after being founded on land confiscated from Maori.
At a deeper level, I dislike Gadd's theory of history, which assumes that 'superior' societies must devour 'inferior' societies, until ruthless capitalist expansion mysteriously transmogrifies into beneficent socialism. Gadd's iron law of 'progress' can easily be used to justify the genocide of American Indians and Australian Aborigines, not to mention the conquest of 'backward' Iraq by 'advanced' America.
I decided that Gadd's essay would need to be accompanied with a reply, but I never got around to either writing or soliciting one. I'm going to post it here, so that readers can decide for themselves whether my comments about Gadd's politics are fair. Long-suffering readers of this blog will know that I've written repeatedly against the use of Marxist concepts to justify colonisation and the destruction of the cultures of indigenous peoples; if you need a rejoinder to Gadd's caricature of Marx as a cynical imperialist, then you can try this essay.
In his tribute to Gadd, Jack Ross talks of the man's feistiness, and his belief that 'Opposition is true friendship'. I'm sure, then, that Bernard wouldn't mind a bit of posthumous polemic!
A culture of history
New Zealand’s New Age of Post-Modernist culture in which slogans and assertions are intellectual currency brighter than logic, reason, fact, or debate has arrived. Discussion of the history of relations between Maori and the New Zealand state offers a striking paradigm of fashionable simple-mindedness. The assumption of control of these islands by the British is continually presented as a narrative of imperialistic culture clash in which brute power invaded a Rousseauean Eden. Indeed it’s become a slogan of Rightist politics that cultures will clash, a dogma ignoring several thousand years of cultural, language, religious coexistence with contests only when something arouses competition between sections of people. Not even imperialism in the sense of a take-over of territory and peoples necessarily arouses resistance.
If we take note of the suggestions of Marx and Engels (whose intellectually provocative ideas the New Age thrusts aside) to look at how a society makes its living in order to gain a clearer view of how that society functions and what its persistent features are, we are more likely to decide that 19th century New Zealand saw a contest of economic or productive systems. The more effective won out, installing its own institutions and society.
The early 19th century Maori economy was of miniscule social groups trying for self-sufficiency. The system was inefficient, constant conflict prevented anything as cohesive as a society being erected on the foundation of the production system, and famine was its familiar:
and today a rangatira
butchered a boy of six years
not a child a slave
starving in a general famine
who stole from his possessor’s kete
the woman’s father struck
with his hatchet the little head
but failed in killing
so tied a rock about the neck
and flung him in a pool …
it’s said the food perhaps
[The missionary attends a little dying]
Even when a few hapu later became something like peasant farmers, they had no way of creating sufficient capital to reshape productive capacity to feed the burgeoning total population of New Zealand, let alone to afford necessary infrastructure for distribution or export. The predilection of Maori leaders for holding onto land to allow old ways to linger helped no-one, and right up into the 1880s various hapu were trying to sustain or improve their productive capabilities at the direct expense of rivals, rather than through thorough-going innovation:
which rangatira to follow?
whose karakia to believe?
which greed grip to fear least?
which victories, retreats,
deaths shall light us
The Treaty of Waitangi has been completely recreated by lawyers ignorant of history and how to study it, and by politicians careless of those issues. Instead of an instrument intended to soften inevitable effects of British possession on indigenes in the war zone that was New Zealand, the Treaty has been transformed into a formal agreement for partnership in government between rangatira and the Crown, a notion inconceivable to either side in the 1840s and of no relevance in the democratic ethnically pluralistic 21st century. Of course a treaty of any sort suited well the purposes of Maori groups whose possession of lands was in 1840 comparatively recent:
the treaty tribes:
of land courts
and tribunal reliance
on the tales of people
whose ancestors came upon us
barely before the pakeha
[forerunners: Moriori and so many more]
The civil wars of the 1860s were our version of enclosures, carried out with the same zeal, ruthlessness, efficiency, and indifference to the suffering of those evicted from their homes and lands. And yet, as Engels and Marx insisted, we can never understand the past and its effects on us if we don’t attempt to see it as it actually was. The enclosures of Britain and the transfers of land in New Zealand enabled capitalism to develop. And without that nothing now would be worth lamenting losing, save for claims of cultural attachment to various parts of the landscape.
Following the wars some of the losers showed themselves attentive students of change:
& afterwards Titokowaru
of his cocksfoot seed
Of course the effects on those who lost primary resources and on those who gained them are plain yet:
this time the red’s not
only the people with maybe no
phone car job house
of their own
the places of the iwi …
and the roller-door-store
around them the paddocks
glow page upon page
with the emerald show
[the atlas of deprivation, 2001]
It’s literary cliché in many societies that the world’s best inducers of guilt are mothers. They have been supplanted by a host of indigenous leaders whose skills at inducing in millions of middle-class descendants of settlers a sense of shame at the successes of capitalism and a conviction that present and future generations ought to pay indigene-geld to whoever’s forebears lost the economic competition to provide fruitfully for the nation.
At the very same time, the compensation and guilt hucksters are fervent not only for capitalism but for its positively 19th century reincarnation as a financially imperialistic global free market. I dare say Marx and Engels would have approved, pointing out that such people have aligned themselves with the dominant trends of modern capitalism, have flowed with the economic and fiscal tides. And would have nodded to see the tenuous 19th century iwi become capitalistic corporate entities and creating an entire contemporary warrior class of lawyers, entrepreneurs, politicians, consultants, and public relations gurus.
What the pair might have queried was the whereabouts today of indigenous and other organisations expressing both the frustrations of those exploited by the capitalists and a determination to make a new, improved, fairer productive system for New Zealand which enhances our humanness. I doubt if they’d be impressed by what they’d see instead: a Romantic desire to meander again in the days before the pakeha or in some imagined pre-capitalist Avalon (but with steel, stoves, cell-phones). And they’d be asking where are the writers, artists, musicians enthusiastic for the fact that any economic system is always the author of its incipient replacement ... though they’d recognise plenty of well rewarded writers and the rest whose works show no interest in any such conception:
a literary icon I’ll be
and seekers of fame’ll emulate me
and spend quite a while
in business-like style
extolling their works for a fee
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Call to do good on Mandela Day
21 June 2011
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has called on South Africans to participate in the second Nelson Mandela Day, to be marked worldwide on the elderly statesman's 93rd birthday on 18 July.
"The world has taken a position, including the United Nations, to mark this important day," one of the foundation's trustees, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, said in Johannesburg on Monday.
"But what it also means [this year], we are beginning to say, every day people must dedicate time to show love for your fellow citizens – not just Mandela – and make every day a Mandela Day."
Sexwale was speaking at the media launch of this year's Mandela Day. The United Nations last year declared 18 July every year Mandela International Day in honour of South Africa's struggle icon and one of the world's most popular statesmen.
A host of activities are set to take place around the country, with individuals and organisations committing more than an hour of their time to doing community work.
The celebrations will be preceded by the launch of the new Mandela quotations book on 28 June.
The SABC, South African Airways, the UN and Primedia are some of the organisations that have said they will be embarking on various initiatives to mark Mandela Day.
"Reconciliation in the world is the most difficult thing," Sexwale said. "That is why we have to protect the legacy of this man whom we all know as the greatest reconciler of all time. His message still has to find root, so let's go out there and make Madiba proud."
The foundation's board chairperson, Professor Jakes Gerwel, said Mandela Day provided "a rare" opportunity for citizens to make Madiba proud.
"We all know what he sacrificed ... Nelson Mandela Day provides the opportunity for all of us to continue the work of Madiba and we call on everyone to take ownership of this initiative," Gerwel said. "Let us rise to that challenge and make every day of our lives a Mandela Day and change the lives of people around us."
The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) is also lending its support for the day with an initiative planned by both print and electronic media.
Sanef's Raymond Louw said: "Nelson Mandela, through his hard work, made the world a better place for journalists ... he made a great contribution to media freedom and continues to inspire many of us.
"Mandela had opened his office to us for structured interactions, and today we have meetings with the presidents ... and this is due to the examples he set, and for that, we honour him as a champion of the media."
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LOST IN SPACE-Flight into the Future, Space Destructors
FLIGHT INTO THE FUTURE
Writer: Peter Packer
Dir: Sobey Martin
Travel music (used for Chariot in past episodes) as we see the Jupiter II flying through outer space. Don recites a poem, "Silently one by one in the infinite meadows of Heaven blossomed the lovely stars, the forget me nots of the angels." Judy and Penny like it. Don tells John he never learned poetry in high school. John wonders if it was some kind of space rapture. Signals draw their attention to a giant green emerald smoking in space, hanging before the window. Don wants to give it a wide berth and hits the port side thrusters. It did leave him curious. John tells him they can't have any of that and to head back for it. He is kidding. A door in the back opens sideways, sliding. In the room there is a round window behind Smith but no wall. Dr. Smith comes out of it and goes to the Space Pod, the door of the Pod area opening upward. There is no window on the Space Pod Bay Door. Smith dismisses William since that one (the Robot) and he have business. Will and the Robot are almost finished checking out the airborne guidance system of the Pod, going through a checklist. Smith tells him not to worry--this Pod isn't going anywhere for a long, long time. Smith wants to get his rub down from the Robot who brags about his claws doing wonders for Smith's back. Smith tells him they are a disaster area on his back--only no one else is available. He calls the Robot an advocated amateur. Smith checks the airborne guidance system launcher by launching the Pod into space by mistake. Judy asks what happened as John calls Will. The Pod goes down out of the Jupiter II.
NOTE: On one syndicated version of this episode the LOST IN SPACE theme ends but the black out dot returns to full screen with the LOST IN SPACE logo and the narrator (Dick Tufeld) says, "LOST IN SPACE!"
We hear WILD ADVENTURE title music as the freeze frame of the control room of the Jupiter II is seen. Maureen arrives, "John, what is it?" He tells her. In the Pod, Smith says, "Oh dear, oh dear." Will says, "You could get us all killed." They see the green emerald and the Pod doesn't have enough power to pull away from it. John's calls can't get through to them. Don gets the Pod on the scope but then the marking goes right off the scope. They wonder if it was centrifical force but that should attract not repel. Don gives John tracking computations (001 point?) to find the Pod. The Pod heads at that emerald thing...which is either a planet or an asteroid. John tells the girls and Maureen to go below and strap in. Jupiter II flies but a force hits it. A correction puts them back on course but then the force has action and reaction, equal and opposite--the emerald seems to move against them. There are blasts and more shaking as they go into orbit. They are ten degrees off course. John tells Don to correct for 20. Don fires retros. They shake and hit some kind of atmospheric barrier that has stopped them cold, they are hovering, Don reports. John orders a full forward thrust for ten seconds. Don says, "I've got a feeling that someone down on that planet is letting us know that we're not welcome." The landing gear is out. John tells him to prepare for emergency landing. The Jupiter crashes. The control room is shadowy and Don says something about a belly landing. They look outside and see rocks and mountains with some low brush but not much. The Pod signal beeps. They see it in their radar net about one half a mile. Will answers a call from dad but when John tells him he and Don will be coming from the direction of a large anvil shaped rock, Will tells him there aren't any rocks, just trees and jungle growth like a rainforest. Maureen asks, "A rainforest, within half a mile of here?" They get interference on the radio and cannot raise Will again. They also cannot get a picture of the Pod's area on the large screen. John tells Maureen to keep radio channels open. He and Don leave.
The Pod radio is jammed. There is more jamming potential on this planet. Smith asks William to tell his father (John) that he (Smith) was in no way responsible for the Pod launching. Will hits the control to open the door but the door is jammed and won't open. The Robot asks Will's permission to use force. Will says, "Welllll....." He tells him to go ahead. The Robot uses some kind of blast or ionic sound to open the door. A strong wind gusts it open beyond reach and blows in at them. They move out, Smith worrying it is a tornado and that they will be blown sky high. They go out to a dark forest and hear jungle sounds (DOCTOR DOLITTLE sound effects also used in many earlier FOX movies). The wind could have been made when the pressure within and without the Pod equalized. Smith looks around, "What an enchanting garden. A veritable paradise." He wants the Robot to fetch a raincoat and galoshes from the Pod as they hear rain. Hear it but don't feel or see it. Smith hypothesizes that rain evaporates before it hits the ground. Will finds the leaves are not wet either. Robot detects it to be meteorological phenomena of alien origin. Smith begins to relate when he was in the Isle of the South Pacific...when they hear a large albatross shrieking but cannot see it flying. The Robot tells them it is non-existent. Smith tells Robot to fetch the Chariot when John and Don arrive. Fruit falls with a strange boing sound. Smith goes to eat one, seeing it to be a peach. One boings out of his hand and blows up. Will warned him. Smith wants to prove it was just one peach but as he moves to grab more, more fall off and blow up, then the whole tree seems to blow up each peach. Smith admits Will was right. Against the Robot's suggestions, Smith and Will lay down, both tired. Will asks Robot, "What could be harmful about falling asleep."
John and Don wonder about how the rocky terrain they are wandering in could lead to a rainforest. John hears something but Don scoffs in a kind way. A boulder falls at them off a higher ledge, John pulling Don back just in time. John thinks the boulder waited for
them to get just underneath it before it let go.
Daytime: Smith gets up and wakes William. Smith wonders where the Chariot is, it should have been here by now. Will wonders how it could have only been 15 minutes that they slept when it is daytime already. Smith tells him that daylight comes swiftly in tropical regions. They find the Robot in a state of near inertia with mildew on him and a form of mechanical rheumatism. He needs a rubdown with Dr. Smith's lotion. Smith protests, "Of all the impudence!" Smith says, "Indeed, a man of my quality reduced to performing menial tasks, really!" When Smith fetched the lotion, Will told the Robot that he thinks they were asleep longer than 15 minutes. Robot is squeaking as Smith rubs him down (and we hear QUESTING BEAST music).
Later, Will, Smith, and the Robot come out of the forest and enter a rocky area (that looks like the second season planet). Will stops him, "Dr. Smith." Smith wonders what. Will says, "Well, can't you see it? It looks like our spaceship." There is a shape that has moss, leaves, and dirt on it, like a mound, only in the shape of the Jupiter II front. Leaves blow around it. Smith tries to not to look worried and grabs Will's arm easily and the three move toward it.
Will moves up the ramp. Smith thinks this is just some unknown wreck, not the Jupiter II. Will is sure it is. Robot fears the worst and regretfully reports that this is the Jupiter 2. Will goes in with Smith. They find the astrogater off its stand, webs, leaves, controls off from their places, wires off, the window shutters closed, a door half open, and the elevator inactive. They go to the ladder to check out the lower half when the Robot calls them outside (BLAST OFF music). They find a golden statue of the Robot on a golden stand. Smith calls him a bumbling birdbrain. Will reads it, "In Memoriam...erected to the memory of Earth's first ambulatory computer to traverse deep space...to the cybernetic hero of the Robinson expedition, gratefully dedicated in the year 2270 AD." Will's eyes go wide as he realizes what he just read. He tells Smith they slept for 270 years. Smith asks Will if he has aged. He is the same as he always was. Smith calls the Robot a cybernetic simpleton. Will goes to the Jupiter II mass. Robot sings "I Am a Cybernetic Hero, famous all through space." As he sits on the hulk of the wrecked Jupiter II, Will looks up, hearing sounds of Native American Indians charging. He sees them riding at him on horse back! (We hear THIEF FROM OUTER SPACE music). Suddenly they and the mountain they are riding down, vanish (from stock footage to the planet set). Will hears Smith, "William! William! Save me!" Smith is running but turns to stop. Facing him is a giant one eyed cyclops monster with orange-brown hair and holding a boulder over Smith! Smith tries to talk him out of it but runs. He tells Will to run for his life, he means to destroy him. Will doesn't see anyone. Smith doesn't either now, "The end is near--I feel it. This planet is infested with terrible creatures." He calls Robot an insensitive idiot, perhaps thinking about the family and Will's feelings about them possibly being dead. Will wants to find out what happened to his family and who built the Robot statue. Lightning bolts start and one blasts a tree. Robot tells them this storm may not be for real. Will tells him the lightning that hit that tree was for real. They take cover behind a huge rock. Two men in DESTINATION: MOON spacesuits (also used in THE TIME TUNNEL-ONE WAY TO THE MOON and one of these suits was like the one Space Enforcer Claudius wore in WEST OF MARS) come over to them. One, a Sergeant is to check them out with a small box like device. He wears a yellow space suit with helmet. He looks at the Robot, "This type went out at the end of the MILLENNIUM." The commander, in red, is named Fletcher. He has a box that tells him who they are (with sound effects that were used in VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA-NO WAY BACK and LIS-KIDNAPPED IN SPACE). One of them has a hole in his space helmet for him to talk through (it won't work very well as a space safety helmet though once in a vacuum). Both astronauts wear a logo that will be used as part of the flight jackets in LAND OF THE GIANTS. This logo is also on the side of the Spindrift in that Irwin Allen show. One asks, "Storm, was there a storm?" The storm stopped the moment the astronauts arrived. The men have ultra sensitive perception equipment--while Smith hopes they are a rescue team to take them back to Earth, they are really an archeological team--space historians who find all evidence of early space voyages and voyagers for the benefit of future voyagers. The Commander gets a beep. Not answering any questions, the two men leave.
John and Don walk in the dark at night. They find no jungle. There are rocks and more rocks. They go on. Night as Smith eats at a table near a cave. There are candles. Robot comments on the dinner, "...if it is a dinner." Smith is also drinking. There is a roast. He is eating it more but enjoying it less. Will doesn't trust the Commander or the Sergeant. He wonders why the pair didn't them to Headquarters. Another question is why weren't the men surprised that Will and Smith haven't aged after all these years. Smith calls the Robot a preening popajay. Will and Robot leave to find the HQ. Smith toasts himself at the table and the meal and all vanish. Smith runs for William, "Wait for me!" Will and Robot go to a cave entrance where American flags are stuck outside. Will doubts himself now--perhaps they are for real. The Robot tells him, "Appearances can be deceptive, Will Robinson." Will and the Robot go inside. Smith runs in and grabs Will as they hear strange sounds. Rocks seem to move and doors close. The sounds continue, with growls added to the mix. Will thinks it sounds like someone is moving things around but there is nothing to be moved. Smith says, "The walls are closing in on us." They hear squawking. Will calls it spooky. Smith asks him where they are---and Will asks where who are. Smith looks around, "The spookies!" It is just an expression but Will says, for once, "But let's get outta here." As they talk, a figure, a familiar figure, walks down a rock step incline. It is a blond girl dressed in red and black outfit with leotards, tights, a short red cape, and strange hat piece. The girl, Judy in appearance, comes down holding a camera which she uses to snap a photograph of Will. Will rubs his eyes as Judy stands with her hands on her hips!!!
LOST IN SPACE logo with new theme.
Smith tells Judy she tormented her brother quite enough. "Will is not my brother, Dr. Smith, and I am not his sister!" Judy tells them she is not Will's sister, "I'm not joking, Will." Will's sister Judy was her great, great, great grandmother. Robot is skeptical but Smith dismisses it, calling him a cyber skeptic. Judy tells Will she is his niece five or six times removed. She takes him off to talk to him, feeling they have a lot in common. She will tell him lots of things. Robot tells Smith, "She may be Will's relative, on the other hand maybe she's not." Robot tells Smith, "We have reason to doubt everything!" Smith calls him a digital dunce. The Sergeant arrives and slaps Smith. Smith will have him summarily court martialed. This Sergeant is Hiratio Smith. Dr. Zachary Smith is his great, great, great, great grandfather! Smith mocks at first, "Am I in..." then he realizes this. He gets sentimental and holds the man, happy to see a relative. Hiratio says he has lived under a shadow of Zachary because, "You--YES YOU," were the 5th columnist (a fifth columnist is defined as IN WARTIME, A CIVILIAN OR CIVILIANS WITHIN THE DEFENSE LINES WHO SECRETLY ASSIST THE ENEMY) in the Jupiter expedition, a master saboteur, a sly Machiavellian menace. Smith says, "How dare you!" He asks the Robot if he heard these slanders. The Robot did but adds, "...and they are not slanders." Hiratio will beam a message to Earth from the mother ship. Smith must look the Supreme Court of the Space Judiciary in the face, face to face. In two hours, Will, Smith, and the Robot will rendezvous with the mother ship in the Space Pod--dawn and 0600. Hiratio slaps him again and leaves. The meeting with the mother ship and return to Earth will be the first step in Smith clearing himself.
It seems like day at the real Jupiter II. Maureen cannot reach John. Judy's hair is short now. She tries to get a picture on the screen but loud static hits her and makes her fall. Maureen and Penny bend over her. For a moment, Judy sees them as if from a dream. She looks at Penny, "Will. Will, don't you know me?" Penny says, "I'm Penny." Maureen asks, "Don't you know us?" Judy gets up and is all right but says, "It's funny but for a moment, I felt, as if, as if I were someone else." Maureen says, "Oh dear, I wish your father would get back so we can off this planet." Penny looks out the window with her, "So do I." Smith tells the Robot to beware.
Night where the future Judy and Will are. She wants to take photos for the archeological team. She wonders how a world nearly 3 centuries in advance of Will's former world will effect him. Will tells her he is not going back. Judy or the future Judy says, "Don't be a little fool." Will is asked by her to tell her about his sister Judy. Will tells her that it would be like telling her about herself. Sergeant checked out the old Jupiter II galley; the Commander the systems. He tells Will they know that his parents must have erected the Robot statue before they left. The team is ready to go back to Earth. The Sergeant calls the Robot an antique for the Space Museum. Will sees Judy and the Sergeant vanish. He looks at the Jupiter II mess. Later, he calls for Dr. Smith in the forest.
Don and John are still searching in a rocky barren area. Don thinks Will must have imagined the rainforest. John tells him, "No, he only imagines once he's home, not in an emergency." So they keep looking for a rain forest.
In the rainforest, Will finds Dr. Smith and the Robot and they cannot find the Pod, Smith knows they left it in the spot they are now. Smith tells Will they must "gird" their loins finding it. He has his reputation to protect. Will insists that there be no rendezvous. Smith follows Will into the forest. Smith asks him, "Have you taken leave of your senses, William?" Smith must set the record straight. Robot mentions whoppers but Smith calls him an obsolete oaf. Smith falls in a bush. Will thinks they are seeing optical illusions and is not even sure the jungle is real, maybe they are not in a jungle at all. Robot agrees with Will. Smith calls him a deplorable dunderhead and tells him that his silly statue must then be an illusion. Will helps Smith find the Space Pod.
Don and John wander around past more and more rocks. Don comments that this is the longest half mile he's ever walked and that they have been in four different directions. John finds his radio still jammed. They walk some more. Don is frustrated, "We're going around in circles!" A high pitched sound hits them and lights that burn green. They are driven away but cover their ears. A boulder on a low ledge bursts into pieces. Don and John go to another area. They turn around and see the Space Pod...covered in vines, branches, and brush...looking hundreds of years old!
Start out with some new music which is a variation on the old. John checks the Pod inside and out. There are webs on it and the door is creaky, covered in many webs. The controls have not been used in years. The radio is still being jammed. John figures if Smith and Will were on their way to the spaceship, they would have seen them. John asks Don about the Pod, he answers that it looks like it's been left here a long time ago and rotted. John tells him that that is not true...they know it can't be true. He mentions it as a trick, an illusion. Don scoffs, "An illusion, that?" John says, "No, I'm serious, I mean it." He calls out that it is an illusion. A green light hits and the vines and old-ness of the Pod vanish, leaving the Pod by itself, fresh and new. John says, "Yeah, this planet's for real allright but everything on it, everything you hear, see, and touch is imaginary and it's only real if you allow yourself to be fooled." Don asks, "Do you think that Will and Dr. Smith were fooled?" John answers, "Yes or they'd be here, now we've got to find them before the illusions become so real for them--they won't know the difference." They move out and this whole scene is played out among THE DERELICT comet music.
Will, Robot, and Smith find the Pod in the forest. Robot tells Smith that there probably is no mother ship. Will doubts there was any team either. Smith asks if he doubts the evidence of his own senses. Will doubts the evidence of something other than his senses. Will stands firm...he will not launch the Space Pod. Smith will go alone but Will tells him its a trick. Smith says, "To thy known self be true." He will deny everything and send back a rescue ship, "Adue, little friend," he says, sadly. To the Robot he yells, "You take care of him or you'll answer to me for it!" Will and Robot will not help Smith fly the Pod up. If he goes up into space he will never get anywhere. Will puts his hand on Smith's shoulder, trying to convince once again, "Don't you see they got you on their side by telling you that silly story about your reputation and then they tried to win the Robot over by letting him see his statue, and they tried to get me by showing me someone who looked like Judy except I don't believe it, Dr. Smith, we gotto find out who's doing this to us and why!" The team calls down, "We are waiting." Will tells Smith, "Well, let em wait." Smith sits on the Pod door as Will and Robot move out into the woods.
Will tells Robot now he is not so sure this jungle is imaginary. Robot tells him, "Be sure, Will Robinson, be sure." A high frequency beam attack by an alien force hits the Robot, who tells Will, who wanted to turn back, "Offense is the best defense, Will Robinson." They go on and Will sees a roaring cougar on a mountainside. Robot gets hit again by the force and as he is jolted, his claw seems to absently swing and hit Will's face or nearly does. Robot is disoriented, "I...I don't know who I am. Who are you?" Will tells him to wait here and goes on. He keeps saying, "I don't believe it," when faced with a new challenge. The cougar vanishes.
In the rocky area, Don comments that it seems less and less like a rain forest and more like good old Death Valley. John tells him there are some illusions there, too. A windstorm hits them hard. They are held back. John is asked by Don if it is an illusion. John says, "Maybe. Even though it seems to be holding us back, keep going!" Don can't find him but John grabs his arm. As soon as they keep moving, the wind stops. Don says, "You were right, something's dead set on getting us to turn back." John says, "Which I have no intention of doing."
Will is startled by a giant lizard dino (stock footage). He says, "I don't believe it," and the monster giant vanishes. Rock monsters, one purple, one red, appear from thin air, growling (the original Cyclops sound effect not used in THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE EARTH or this episode for the cyclops but used for these rock men monsters). He comes to bushes which open at the middle revealing a large machine with an eye stalk and large mechanical eye. Will talks to it, telling it that he would be a fool not to be afraid but only when there are things real enough to be afraid of. To it, all intruders are harmful. They must be so deluded by their own fear that they will depart quickly. The machine tells Will it has not been programmed to destroy, adding the word, "...unfortunately." Over the centuries since it has been abandoned here, it has acquired the power to create illusions. Even though Will tries to tell it that they are not harmful and will leave soon, it does not listen. Will tells it that the illusions only fooled him at first but not any more. The thing emits a sound and a light comes over it. A blue spiked man-thing monster appears, spikes all over it's entire body, head to toe. Will turns to run but a fire springs up on the other side of him! We hear BLAST OFF quake music, used effectively here. The machine tells Will he is afraid and will be destroyed by his own fears. Will yells, "You're not real, you're not!" Robot comes, "He IS real, Will Robinson!" The machine orders, "Seize them!" Robot blasts the spiked man and the machine into sparking bits and both vanish as if blasting off or being blasted away. Robot tells Will the machine used up the last of its power making reality but its reality was no match for their's. John and Don arrive and find the two. They will all go and pick up Dr. Smith.
"Dr. Smith achieves strange Samson-like strength when future hippies terrorize the Space Family Robinson!"
A hippy alien says, "This whole planet is gonna go phew." A hippy girl touches Don's face, "Why don't you try to be nice?" Don pushes her hand, "Cut it out!" The hippy male comes up to him, "You be nice when she talks to you, little master cause you can be hurt very bad." A muscled, curly haired Dr. Smith says in a deep masculine voice, "Stand aside." He picks up the Robot by his bubble stalk and moves him with one hand. "Forward march!" The hippy tells John, "This planet must be destroyed quickly and efficiently!" John says, "Why that's murder. I won't let you get away with it!" They fight. There are blasts. Will and the Robot run out of a cave as Smith urges them to run. Smith runs. Poles fall as the cave caves in!
"COLLISION OF PLANETS on LOST IN SPACE on this channel!"
REVIEW: Even John Peel liked this episode but he made a big mistake by telling us that the rock monsters were from THE ASTRAL TRAVELLER---hey, John, they weren't! They might have been from CAVE OF THE WIZARDS or even VOYAGE's THE FOSSIL MEN. This episode is good. It must be the contender for the Most Insults From Smith to the Robot episode as he insults him in almost every scene, almost every other line! That aside, the strangeness of this episode, more often attributed to SPACE:1999 and the more weird STAR TREKs, makes this one a mystery. It is too bad the show couldn't keep this kind of actioner-mystery going. The third season was fairly good to start out with. Production order-wise, they don't bottom out until COLLISION OF PLANETS and then not until CASTLES IN SPACE, A DAY AT THE ZOO, and TWO WEEKS IN SPACE, all right in a terrible row. Along the way, we had the so-so somewhat silly THE HAUNTED LIGHTHOUSE, the great SPACE CREATURE and THE ANTI MATTER MAN, and a few more adventurous episodes--TARGET: EARTH, THE FLAMING PLANET, and TIME MERCHANT. More schlock with PRINCESS OF SPACE. Then the last few. The worst of this season though is A DAY AT THE ZOO and TWO WEEKS IN SPACE, not THE GREAT VEGETABLE REBELLION.
Writer: Robert Hamner
Dir: Don Richardson
The Robinsons have already landed on another planet. Smith, Will, and the Robot move to a cave. Dad told them not to go too far. Smith says, "We shall never discover the wonders of the universe sitting at camp beside the Jupiter II. We must strike out boldly in all directions." He must rest and falls. Will helps him out, finding a cave dug into the cliff. Will mentions to Smith about his "brave and fearless space explorer" speech when Smith wants to return to camp. He makes Will go into the cave to explore, Will telling him, "Okay." He calls Smith in but Smith stays at the entrance. Will runs out and runs off to go get Dad and Don and bring them back. Smith goes in. He and Robot see body plates on a machine which is run like a conveyor belt. There are lights and computers. They go down to more computers which are bright and shiny. Robot warns Smith of this machine but Smith says, "Never fear Smith is here." He presses buttons on the metal wall of the device, calling Robot a cautious clump. There are giant cans, smoke, metal rods which move, pistons, clay dropping out which is turned over to the belt. It turns on a round turntable to go under two nozzles which spray it. One sprays white dust and another red dust. Then green and purple. A larger conveyor belt makes it go under a presser where it is pressed. It goes under a light and heated, steaming up it is passed into a large device and out the other side---on the other side it takes on a human torso form.
END OF THEME: NARRATOR: LOST IN SPACE...
The body is passed onto through a giant vein-tunnel-funnel with a large mouth (FANTASTIC VOYAGE vein tunnel and we hear FANTASTIC VOYAGE sound effects). It comes out with a white face, non-descript features in a white shirt and pants. Smith thinks it marvelous. It moans through what looks like a stocking face. Smith says, "I am your master." It lunges at him and throws the Robot aside. Smith runs up the steps and it follows him. He avoids it. It smashes a rock at his head, outside. He ducks, "Nooo!" He runs and hides but it soon finds him and follows him.
At camp, Maureen tells John that lunch is nearly ready and she wouldn't want it to go to waste while he is, uhmm, tinkering with that thing. John laughs, "Darling, I never tinker." They have a table set up with blue chairs. John has a net. Don is at a stall section and when John throws the net over a large rock, Don hits the switches and the rock vanishes in an electric blast. Will comes running and explains what he found. We hear DERELICT MUSIC from the Don and John run and find Will in the alien ship action. Smith avoids the monster and comes running and sits on a rock near a tree. They ask about the Robot but he doesn't care, calling Robot a mechanical meddler, "We're all going to be destroyed." The cyborg thing appears, moaning. Smith explains quickly. Don asks, "You made it?" John tells Maureen to get everyone back to the ship smoothly and slowly, not to run. She does. John distracts it away from Don and the stall device so he can toss the net over it. It almost hits the switches, which would kill John as John is holding the net and if the switches are thrown, he would get electrified. Don yells at it to get away from the switch device. Finally, John is able to attack it and toss the net over it. Don hits the switches and it vanishes under the net. In the Control Room, later, Smith won't tell what happened to the Robot. "I'm not his KEEPER," he says and calls him a pucilanimous pinhead, wanting this to cease and desist. Smith is confined to his quarters. When the others go, Smith says, "We shall see."
Later, outside, John and Don work on papers set on the table. They mutter something about 887 million miles point 2 and 7-1 as well as sector 484 million miles, cutting time in one half at 3.1. What does all this mean? Who knows? Smith sneaks out of the ship and slips past them. He goes right back to the cave and sees Robot on his back, calling him "dear old friend," seemingly worried. Then he calls him a bubble headed booby. He pulls on Robot, trying to get him up but falls back---into the machine buttons. It starts up and begins making another man-thing monster. Smith says, "Oh the pain, the pain." We hear the build up music from MY FRIEND, MR. NOBODY. The mouth of the vein seems to have braces that were used on the shape of THE TIME TUNNEL. The cyborg goes after Smith who yells, "I'm innocent I tell you!" It corners Smith and begins to menace him as if it will choke him.
By mistake, Smith hits another button. A conditioned reflex system goes on and is obedient to Smith--it says. The voice from the machine tells him to command, "All your orders will be obeyed." Smith orders the cyborg to put its hands on hip and to do deep knee bends. It marches into a metal device. Smith orders it to pick up that mess of metal--the Robot. Night--Will has his hands on his belt buckle as John and Don return from looking for Smith. John asks, "Well, where could he have gone now?" Will knows Smith has gone back to the cave but it is too dark now but Will knows Dr. Smith is in trouble--he just feels it. Don says, "...he caused the trouble and he's not on the receiving end." They will sleep and get an early start in the morning, John says. John and Don go up the ramp. John comes back and pulls Will by the ear, "Aye, bed time!" Will says, "N...oohhh." Smith is at a table served by a cyborg in a chef's hat. Robot is unnerved by a cyborg guard. Smith says, "So you lugubrious lump, your friends think that they can have me incarcerated. Confine Dr. Smith to his quarters. I'll confine them to their own quarters before they know what they're about." Robot remains quiet. He can see with his scanners. Smith calls him dear old friends and calls him obsolete scrap metal. Robot counters that his cyborgs are mindless. Smith says fiddlety fie. Smith has cochef jonjoc or something. A cyborg tells a bad joke about an intergalactic salesman, retro rocket warp, a solar farm and the farmer's pretty daughter. Robot remarks, sarcastically, that this is sophistication. The cyborg dances to music--STROLLING THROUGH THE PARK ONE DAY. We also hear some space music. Chef stumbles in his dance. Smith tells him to toss himself onto the reject pile in with two others. Smith tells the Robot, "One more word and off goes your bubble." There is a light torch in the back of the cave and too much furniture. Smith wants to use the controls to make a better quality product. Will opens the Jupiter II door and sneaks out, closes the door, and moves off (DEADLY GAME music). He hears lots of running feet. Four white pants run by--cyborgs. Will hides but goes to the cave eventually, "Dr. Smith, where are you?" Dr. Smith comes out from behind a rock. Will starts to talk to him but another Smith comes out and stands along side that one and another and another! They are Cyborg Smiths! Four in all!
Smith's face smiles at a rock where the rest of his body is hidden. He laughs from behind it. Smith tells Will he should back in his bed at the Jupiter II. It is a good thing he got to Will before one of his subjects did--"the first of a hardy band of conquerors who will soon control the universe--for me---their leader." They go down steps. Smith goes on about "invincible soldiers who will conquer the universe for me." He will create an army for action. He begins to create another. Will says, "It's like baking a cake." DERELICT spaceship web interior designs are used in the machine cave set. There is a Roman Smith. Smith will make perfection with his best features. The Roman Smith jumps with his sword...at Will but Dr. Smith stops it. Smith says, "The thing's a leader has to endure, William, you wouldn't believe." Smith tells the Roman Smith to guard over the prisoner who is in the stockade. Will rolls his eyes, "Dr. Smith, what did you do to the Robot?" He has put the Robot into protective custody. Will tells him the Robot is a friend. Smith says, "Aback and alas," a leader can have no friends, which includes William. Smith calls Captain Smith--a Civil War Smith to take Will prisoner, "Don't harm him." Smith makes the Cyborg Smith Civil War captain (who has a sabre) take Will off. "Lovely, lovely, lovely, it's all going splendidly I think."
In the stockade, Will repairs the Robot's dented diode and twisted transistor. It hurts only when he laughs. His arms squeak and are stiff. Will says, "These repairs should hold until we get back to the Jupiter. If we get back."
Day---John and Don look for Will. John and he are finished looking. John says, "First the Robot, then Smith and now Will...all missing. That cave that Will spoke about...now don't ask me how I know this but I think that cave has the key to this whole thing." DUH!?! HOW DID HE FIGURE THAT OUT? Don wants to go get some weapons. Smith comes and says, "One moment please." He tells them they are in his protective custody. When John protests, Smith says, "So sorry, Professor, but you are no longer in control here." Smith calls and Captain Smith appears with a sabre, rushing at John, who directs Don to get the destructor capsules from the ship. They fight, a fight which ends up on the ground. John falls on his back and has to move as the sabre is stuck down at his stomach. He gets out of the way. Smith hides under an outcropping of a large rock. Don runs out of the Jupiter, which has small rocks on either side of the ramp. John falls over a larger rock and is on his back again. Just as he is about to be killed, Don arrives and tosses a capsule at Captain Smith, who gets blown away. Don helps John up. Smith clicks his fingers and a red suited Martian Smith appears with odd space helmet on and holding a ray gun on them. Don had dropped the bag of destructor capsules and tried to reach for them. Smith tells the Major to be thankful--he could have ordered it to kill him just then. Smith talks of ruling the universe at the head of a whole cyborg army. As an Emperor. John says, "Smith---knock it off." Smith leaves. Don says, "He's really flipped out this time." John says, "Maybe but if he can make enough of those things he might be able to pull it off."
In the cave, Smith begins to make a General Smith.
In the stockade, Will waves in a phoney way to a Roman soldier guard, "Hi!" Robot and Will are near a red cushion couch. Robot says, "Dr. Smith must be stopped. The universe is in enough of a mess as it is without him being in charge." Robot has a plan--let the guard destroy him so Will can get away. Will says, "Boy, is that a dumb idea. What would I do without you." Robot asks, "Who would miss a stupid servo mechanism, one whose computers are constantly tricked and mislead by Dr. Smith." Will says, "I don't think this is all Dr. Smith's fault. I think that machine is somehow taking him over." Robot says, "Even so, enough is enough. If we survive this, I have finally had it with that man!" Robot acts sick.
Smith puts in the physical characteristics and mental ability of new cyborg he is making: for instincts he puts in the cunning and ingenuity of Napoleon, the bravery of Alexander the Great, the leadership of Julius Caesar, and the ferocity of Genghis Khan.
Robot is laying on a couch as Will stops the Roman Cyborg Smith from hitting the Robot with a sword to put him out of his misery. As they try to get the Cyborg to move closer to the Robot, the Robot's arm moves up at it--and is seen. Will tells the Cyborg that it was just a nervous twitch. Robot grabs the Cyborg, who drops his sword, "Run Will Robinson, run!"
Smith is finishing putting on the strength of Hercules and almost forgets one important ingredient--his brainpower and personality (and we hear a fart sound as he turns this on). Smith watches this being made. The clay is steamed up in a machine and goes onto a belt. Will comes and tells Smith, "I just can't let you do this. I'm going back to the Jupiter and I'm bringing Dad and Don back here to stop you. You've changed, Dr. Smith, you used to do some strange things in the past but you were always my friend. Well, your different now. This machine is taking you over." Smith put him in his protective custody to protect him, he is still his friend. Will can be Chief Advisor over his domain when he becomes ruler of the universe. Will doesn't want to be. When the boy tries to leave, Smith pulls his arm and Will ends up on the conveyor belt on his back as it moves into the machine...with Will on it! Smith tried to pull Will off but couldn't. Smith tries to reverse the machine and the process, pleading for Will to come out, "We'll be friends just the way we always were!" Will comes out the other side and has a Smith face! Smith pleads, "Let's be chums again?" He is upset. The Will-Smith says, "There is no further need for you--you will be destroyed!" He reaches up to choke Smith who backs away, yelling, "No! No! No!"
Smith has never been in command here--he only did the Master Machine's bidding. It makes Smith's hand webbed and alien. Will sounds almost merciful when he fixes it by waving his own hand over it, fixing it back. He puts his hand to his head, calling himself a superior intellect, "I will conquer the universe!" At the Jupiter, Maureen asks John if he is going to fiddle around with that forcefield while Will is out there, "..are you?" John tells her, "Look, I don't think Smith'd hurt Will but I do know he's coming back here with an army of cyborgs..." Maureen asks if he really believes Smith would try to conquer them, "...do you?" John says, "In his condition, he'd try anything." Don comes out with the guns. Maureen is told to get in the ship and keep the doors locked. Smith comes running and sits on a rock, telling them about Will, "I think he's turned into a cyborg!" Don wants to kill Smith, "Why I oughta...!" John stops Don and asks where Will is. Smith tells him the bottom of the gully on the other side of this hill. Don and John go, leaving Smith to declare that all he wanted to do was rule the universe. John blasts a white garbed Smith cyborg. Don blasts a whooping American Native Indian Smith. A Samurai Smith and a Roman Smith jump off a large ridge at Don and John. Don is hit down and falls over. John fights both cyborgs, knocking them down but gets a sharp stick as the cyborgs regather themselves and attack again. He runs the stick into the Roman's stomach and pushes it away. The Samurai lifts his sword over the fallen and hurt Don but John grabs up the bag of bombs and blasts it before it can strike. Don tells John not to worry about him---to go find Will. John goes to the cave. He is out of bombs he realizes as a Musketeer Smith attacks with rapier. He throws the bag and takes off the belt and fights it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The music during this fight scene is the EARTHQUAKE MUSIC used in the beginning of THE HUNGRY SEA before the main theme song is played. THIS VERSION IN SPACE DESTRUCTORS is a much longer version, sounding the same but with added music.
John hops up on a rock and kicks the Musketeer which rolls but gets up. John jumps down from the rock and the cyborg bashes his back into the machine. More cyborgs start being made and more and more Musketeers come running out to fight John. He punches one and a second one arrives, jumping down from above. John gets the first one's sword and stabs this one in the chest. A third, a fourth, and more come. John sword fights them, stabbing each in its turn, moving them at the wall. Another comes, jumping off the rock and more come from around the bend. He runs one right through and it falls, holding its chest. Two more jump down. He fights two at one time. He jumps up on a rock and swipes at more and more from across the rock. Another after another comes. About six more come. John stabs one in the heart area. Another comes and gets stabbed in the stomach. The last one falls. John goes down the steps and sees Robot who is calling for Will Robinson. We can see that many of the devices here come from THE TIME TUNNEL sets. Will comes and tells John, "There is no longer a Will Robinson. He is just a useful cog in the all powerful vast mechanism." John tells him not to talk like that--they will get him help. Will tells him it is they who will need the help. John grabs Will by the hand and orders Robot to destroy this place. Robot fires blasts at the machines. Will yells, "No! No! He mustn't!" He fights and kicks so John picks him up over his shoulder and takes him out sa Robot fires at machines. Smoke and fire destroy the devices in the cave. John carries Will out of the smoking cave mouth and it is Will again, coughing in his normal voice and with his normal face. Will hugs John (gentle WELCOME STRANGER music).
Later, Smith waits for John, sitting on a rock. John comes with Smith's bags, telling him he packed all this things and he can check them if he'd like. Smith trusts the Professor. Will comes to a rock and hides, watching and listening to their exchange. Smith fears the wilderness, all alone out there. John says, "Then I suggest you find yourself a nice, warm cave somewhere." HEY DOPE, WASN'T IT A CAVE THAT STARTED THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!?!! Smith says, "But I'm the weakest person here, I'll never survive." John says, "You'd be surprised at what a man could do when he has to."
Smith: But I can change, really I can.
John: When could you ever change? Look Smith, I don't like this any more than you do but this time you've gone too far--alright, you nearly had us all killed but you almost sentenced my son to live endlessly as a cyborg, enslaved him to a life of mindless eternity, yes, I saw.
John tells Smith that he is greedy and too much of a liability for the safety of this organization for John to allow him to remain. Smith pleads that he can change but then says, "No, I'll never change. It's time to face up to the cold, hard facts about greedy, raptus Zachary Smith. If ever there are riches or power or enormous glory to be had--I know I'll endanger the lot of you to get my hands on them. You're a good man Professor, you're doing what you think is right to insure the safety of all the others--I shall always be a menace." He knows it and tells him to say goodbye to the others for him. He asks of them to think kindly of him in the future, "I know I do bad things from time to time but I don't mean it and it's just that, well, I can't control myself." John says, "All right, I'll tell them but I think they know that." Smith tells him he is kinder, "...than I deserve considering all the trouble I've caused." He tells John he can be most resourceful and self sufficient when he has to be. He moves off and drops the water jug he has and a can of what seems to be fuel or something. John picks it up---and yells at Smith to come back here. "Allright, let's give it one more try." Smith tells him he will be a new man and will turn over a new leaf, "You won't be sorry, Professor." John says, "I better not be sorry." With a mad face, he walks Smith off back toward camp, Smith a silly face on. Will, who had been crying, stops and wipes his forehead and breathes out. NOTE: Throughout most of this scene we hear the sad music from WELCOME STRANGER, making us feel sorry for Smith.
Jupiter II flies in space toward a space station. Robot calls, "Warning! Warning! Collision, collision!" The ship hits: Penny, Will, J-5-an alien, and Smith shake! Penny falls with a gasp. At the window of the Jupiter II is a blast of mist with sound to boot (the sound is not in the actual next week episode as it is not really a blast), seen from outside the window are Judy, Don, John, and Maureen, shaking.
NARRATOR: Next week, the sole survivor of a space colony puts the Robinson family in jeopardy!"
J-5 grabs Penny at the mouth of a cave. She screams wildly. A lion runs out of a cave at Penny and J-5; John is sitting in a dark room with the family at dinner with a Colonel, "This light ship contains a store of emergency fuel." The Colonel adds, "And when it's piped aboard your ship...I'm quite sure there'll be sufficient power to take you straight back home to Earth!" The light ship shakes with everyone in a giant control area. In the Jupiter II control room, J-5 smiles and laughs, "By the time we get to my planet, we'll be flying upsidedown and around in circles." Penny gasps and points, "Your planet?!" She turns to run out the open hatch to the light ship gangway, "Dad!" Smith is there and opens his arms to stop her. In dark room near an open cabinet, a girl in a silky purple-ish gown waves a giant diamond or jewel at Smith, "But you will come and see me won't you...on my planet...on our planet." Don, Judy, and John watch in the Jupiter II as the boy, J-5 touches a circuit behind the circuitry panel and it blasts. In Will's cabin, J-5 says, "Will Robinson, just wait till you come back in here." In a dark room with the dinner table to fall all over, Will runs from a lion which jumps out of the cabinet. Will falls over the table and runs, cornered, "Dad! Dad help!"
"THE HAUNTED LIGHT HOUSE next week on LOST IN SPACE!"
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With the economy still struggling, unemployment still lofty, and retirement savings lacking, more Americans than ever are terrified of the idea of dying penniless.
Financial adviser and author Stephen Pollan wants to remind you: That’s the whole idea. Not the prospect of outliving your cash; no one wants that. But the idea of using up all of your savings while you’re still here to enjoy it? That’s the mark of a well-lived life. Says Pollan, always outspoken: “You’re a jerk if you leave a single penny.”
First published almost 15 years ago, Pollan’s book Die Broke seemed like pure heresy at the time, overturning just about every accepted tenet of personal finance. The old model of success: Work yourself to the bone, and scrimp and save every nickel in order to leave a vast estate to your heirs.
Poppycock, says Pollan. The new model: Use your money to build a great life while you’re still around. Whether you’re Paul Allen collecting sports teams and Jimi Hendrix memorabilia, or Bill Gates trying to cure malaria — put your money to work while you’re still above ground.
“You’re stupid to die with any money left over, because the amount of your estate is not the measure of your worth,” says Pollan. “People have realized that there’s nothing shameful about not having anything when you leave the Earth. The message of Die Broke used to be counter cultural – but now it’s become mainstream.”
That message appeals to people like Bonnie Russell. The Del Mar, California-based owner of Personal Public Relations grew up in tony Marin County, and she developed her own die-broke philosophy after seeing the corrosive effects of inherited wealth. “I met so many trust-fund babies who were so screwed up because they never had to earn a living,” says Russell. “That’s why if I plan it right, the last check I ever write will bounce. And I’ll leave behind nothing but a great tan.”
But that doesn’t mean Russell is selfish--far from it. In fact she donates much of her time and money to her favorite charitable causes, so she can enjoy that fulfillment while she’s still around, instead of just bequeathing a dollar amount in a will. Russell doesn’t plan to pass on a bundle to her children and has no designs on her parents’ wealth, either.
“I don’t expect any largesse, and I’m so cool with that,” she says. “It’s their money and they can do whatever they want with it.”
Of course, for many Americans these days, using up all your savings might not be a choice; it’s become sheer necessity. Average life expectancy has continued to spike, now at almost 78 years and rising. Meanwhile retirement savings are still anemic, with half of Americans having put aside less than $25,000 for their golden years. As such, the idea of leaving a sizable estate is likely not in the cards for most.
But how do you arrange it so that — as Pollan himself is planning — your last check is to the undertaker, and it bounces? Timing is the tricky issue, of course, since no one knows when the Reaper will arrive at the door.
One solution: Annuities. When Pollan wrote about their appeal at the height of the ‘90s boom, they were stodgy and much-derided products, when compared to the surging Dow and Nasdaq. But these days, with the stock market wildly unpredictable and Social Security increasingly rickety, annuities — which throw off checks until you find yourself inside a pine box — are a key tool for those not wanting to outlive their cash.
Other planks of Pollan’s Die Broke philosophy look remarkable prescient, as well. “Quit Today” and be a free agent, since corporations don’t care about you and never will. “Don’t Retire,” in order to stay active and keep doing what you love (not to mention keep building assets). And “Use Cash,” to avoid getting trapped in crippling debt.
Bingo, bingo and bingo. Quips Pollan: “Die Broke turned out to be a pretty good reading of the tea leaves.”
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Abdus Samad Azad
Samad Azad studied Dhaka after 1948 jurisprudence and history at the university. Its political career had already begun 1940 with its entrance into the Muslim Students Federation. Since 1954 was it regularly in parliaments represent, several times it was also arrested.
During the war of independence 1971 Samad Azad worked as an envoy of fearing for load sports club and tried the world public for its independence to win. He became a first minister of foreign affairs of the independent Bangladesh, later also Secretary of Agriculture. It was for long time one of the prominent politicians of the Awami League, one of the large parties of fearing for load sports club.
|NAME||Azad, Abdus Samad|
|SHORT DESCRIPTION||of bengalischer politicians|
|DATE OF BIRTH||15. January 1926|
|PLACE OF BIRTH||Burakhali, east Pakistan|
|DYING DATE||27. April 2005|
|DYING PLACE||Chennai, India|
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EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) — Playing to a younger audience, Vice President Joe Biden stressed differences Thursday between the presidential campaigns on education, college debt and entitlement programs more in doubt for future generations.
The education emphasis during a stop at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire figures into the campaign's newfound urgency to protect a state the Democratic ticket of Biden and Barack Obama won with ease in 2008. Younger voters were a key part of their victory.
Speaking to a crowd estimated by local fire officials at 3,000 people, Biden highlighted tax credits, grant programs and other moves by the Obama administration to defray college costs and increase spending that schools could use to hire more teachers. He portrayed Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan as hostile to those programs.
"They hardly mention education at all except in a negative context," Biden said.
He frequently pointed to budget proposals by Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, that would cut spending on items like college Pell Grants.
Exit polling in Wisconsin showed Obama beating his 2008 Republican opponent among 18-to-24 year olds by a wide margin, 61 percent to 38 percent.
A Romney campaign bus circled the campus where Biden appeared. Afterward, Romney spokesman Ben Sparks said he expects Republicans to make inroads among younger voters.
"All they have done is come of age in the middle of a recession," Sparks said. "More students are living at home after graduation and unemployed."
The stop was Biden's second this month, a sign of the state's new importance as an established presidential battleground.
Obama won the state by 14 percentage points in 2008 but Republicans have been on the march ever since. Both sides launched aggressive new ad campaigns in the state this week, hoping to tip Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes their way.
The vice president opened his appearance by paying tribute to U.S. diplomats overseas, particularly the four Americans killed this week at the U.S. Consulate in Libya. But he spent the bulk of his 40-minute speech criticizing the Republican ticket's domestic proposals.
He said Romney's tax plan would disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Drawing a contrast, Biden said the Democratic approach is to "promote the private sector, not the privileged sector."
Democrats at the event didn't hide their urgency. Western Wisconsin, which has vacillated between the parties in recent elections, could prove critical this time.
"As Wisconsin's west coast goes, so goes Wisconsin," said Kathleen Vinehout, a Democratic state senator. "This fall, as Wisconsin goes, so goes our country."
Sparks said Democrats were "running scared."
"Ever since Obama was elected the state has been trending away from him," he said.
President Barack Obama was last in Wisconsin in February. Romney last visited in August.
Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman named last month to Romney's ticket, campaigned near Green Bay on Wednesday. It was his third large-scale rally in his home state in about a month.
Associated Press Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta in Washington and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Did you like this article? Vote it up or down! And don't forget to add your comments below!
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A coup in South Vietnam two days earlier encouraged criticism of Johnson's foreign policy. Irritated by reports in the press that he had not spent enough time on foreign affairs, Johnson gave a long defense of his action to Scripps Howard editor in chief and old acquaintance Walker Stone. The President provided a spirited summary of the situations in Panama, Cyprus, Indonesia, and Vietnam. He also spoke intensely about his relations with the State Department and the press. Johnson emphasized his toughness and tried to rebut the idea that he was neglecting foreign policy, and he explained some of the rationale for his emphasis on frugality in the federal budget. "I don't claim to be a great liberal," he demurred, "but I do claim that you can do a little something for people if you stop enough of this goddamned military waste and other waste." In response, Stone agreed to "set up a backfire" in the press "anytime" Johnson needed it.
This was the third recorded call of the month between Johnson and Stone, with each of them following a similar pattern: Johnson unleashing a torrent of words to defend his actions and to promote his own vision of his presidency. The earlier calls, on January 6 and January 10, had covered Johnson's thinking about the budget, the Panama crisis, and press relations. In the segment below, the President summarized the dilemmas of sending peace-keeping troops to Cyprus, of reacting strongly to the shooting down of a U.S. jet in East German airspace, and in taking a tough stand in Vietnam.
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All this while people are hungry and homeless! They have also been sitting on their thumbs since these events began, doing little more than sending a handful of people to have a 'look-see' up there ... much of that at how their temples are doing! Yes, there are individual priests and groups of priests doing what they can, working morning to night, but nothing on the scale we are seeing from other religious groups. When I wrote them to see if they would open their temples nationwide to refugees, they responded that they would think about it.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/2 ... -response/
Read a little more about what the Soka Gakkai is doing here ...
Taiwanese Buddhist group, Buddha's Light International ...
Church World Service ...
Taiwanese Catholic and Protestant Churches ...
"Happy Science" (Science of Happiness), another Japanese "New Religion" ...
Tzu Chi Foundation ...
Tenrikyo, another "New Religion", has been sending water. Catholic groups have sent doctors and dentists (we have several medical/dental schools affiliated with Soto-shu).
In contrast to all that ... with the exception of individuals and small groups of priests here and there ... Soto-shu has been doing next to nothing. Shame on us.
I am sure that there are individual priests, or groups of priests, giving their --all-- this day, out in the trenches.
However, I am also sure that the Soto-shu in Japan, with its 14,000 affiliated temples nationwide, universities with medical and dental schools, thousands of priests and lay followers, substantial financial and material resources, could be doing --just as much, if not more-- than other religious bodies do, even smaller and less organized. We need only look so far as the actions of tiny churches in North America to see what religious organizations can do, and what Buddhist organizations did during times such as Hurricane Katrina.
http://lab2.us.tzuchi.org/global/katrin ... enDocument
There are refugees now from this Tsunami, so I might ask why cannot Soto-shu do exactly what Tzu Chi and others did for Katrina refugees?
Oh, and a simple phone call to the coordinating governmental authorities ... and Soto-shu certainly has the political connections to get the right people on the phone ... will provide them information and what is needed where, all to avoid oversupply and needless effort.
But, instead, they are worried about getting the gold decorations repainted on their temples? Now? You think that getting the temple buildings cleaned up is what these homeless, cold, jobless people need for their spiritual and material comfort now? That is where we should be sending our, and directing others', money as the best use for it now?
Shame on us. I believe it shows how hollow this religion is sometimes at its heart with its "Compassion" talk.
Gassho, Jundo Cohen
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Facebook backtracks over user addresses
Over the weekend, it announced on its developers’ blog that where users gave permission, this information would be shared with developers to speed up applications like e-commerce and ticketing.
But security experts warned that many users would give permission for the data to be shared without noticing or realizing the implications. It’s also caused concern that sharing this data with a large number of developers would increase the chances of fraud.
Now, Facebook – already wounded by countless privacy scandals over the last couple of years – has decided to backtrack. “We’re taking the opportunity to listen to feedback and get this right and we wanted to be proactive about it,” a spokesperson told.
The company’s still planning to add the feature, but has temporarily disabled it while it works out a better way to handle the permissions.
“Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so,” says Douglas Purdy on the company’s developer blog.
“We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks.”
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In this great article (h/t: Tim Blair) by Foreign Policy's Stefan Theil one can start to fully understand the peril that Europe faces with a generation or two of workers entering the market with an entitlement attitude rather than a responsibility attitude.
Fast forward 10-20 years to a Germany, for example, with a massive entitlement culture and 'progressive' cultural relativist immigration policies in which millions of rent-seekers have descended on the nation, as they have in France. In an environment with a shattered economy and falling living standards, which is going to be blamed for the problems - the entitlement economy or the immigrants? There is a reason why there's a rising nationalist sentiment in Europe. In my view, people are not reacting to the impact on their culture but the impact on their social programs and how it will affect them personally.
Last time I checked, socialism plus nationalism is what gave Germany the National Socialists - aka the Nazi Party.
I have had arguments on left wing websites before about the power of the free market and how command and control economies must, inevitably, fail. The example I use is this - in a socialist, command and control economy how does a Playstation come about?
The fact is that a Playstation - or, indeed, any item in our culture - represents the current result of an evolutionary investment process in which millions upon millions of dollars have been risked by non-government individuals in order to develop a product that people will buy. Each processor in a Playstation follows this law. Each hard disk, network adapter, graphics chip and display device are the result of entrepreneurs putting their money on the line. In a non-capitalist economy who decides where risk will be taken? Is it even moral to spend the nation's money on high-risk projects?
I wonder whether it ever dawns on the children of Europe that the terribly immoral, divisive, culturally destructive sin of free market capitalism is what brought them their mobile phone, their laptop computer, their games console or any other of a myriad of items that they would consider vital to their lives?
Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.
What a country teaches its young people reflects its bedrock national beliefs. Schools hand down a society’s historical narrative to the next generation. There has been a great deal of debate over the ways in which this historical ideology is passed on—over Japanese textbooks that downplay the Nanjing Massacre, Palestinian textbooks that feature maps without Israel, and new Russian guidelines that require teachers to portray Stalinism more favorably. Yet there has been almost no analysis of how countries teach economics, even though the subject is equally crucial in shaping the collective identity that drives foreign and domestic policies.
Just as schools teach a historical narrative, they also pass on “truths” about capitalism, the welfare state, and other economic principles that a society considers self-evident. In both France and Germany, for instance, schools have helped ingrain a serious aversion to capitalism. In one 2005 poll, just 36 percent of French citizens said they supported the free-enterprise system, the only one of 22 countries polled that showed minority support for this cornerstone of global commerce. In Germany, meanwhile, support for socialist ideals is running at all-time highs—47 percent in 2007 versus 36 percent in 1991.
It’s tempting to dismiss these attitudes as being little more than punch lines to cocktail party jokes. But their impact is sadly and seriously self-destructive. In Germany, unemployment is finally falling after years at Depression-era levels, thanks in no small part to welfare reforms that in 2005 pressured Germans on the public dole to take up jobs. Yet there is near consensus among Germans that, despite this happy outcome, tinkering with the welfare state went far beyond what is permissible. Chancellor Angela Merkel, once heralded as Germany’s own Margaret Thatcher, has all but abandoned her plans to continue free-market reforms. She has instead imposed a new “rich people tax,” has tightened labor-market rules, and has promised renewed efforts to “regulate” globalization. Meanwhile, two in three Germans say they support at least some of the voodoo-economic, roll-back-the-reforms platform of a noisy new antiglobalization political party called Die Linke (The Left), founded by former East German communists and Western left-wing populists.
Many of these popular attitudes can be traced to state-mandated curricula in schools. It is there that economic lessons are taught that diverge substantially from the market-based principles on which the Western model is based. The phenomenon may hardly be unique to Europe, but in few places is it more obvious than in France and Germany. A biased view of economics feeds into many of the world’s most vexing problems, from the growth of populism to the global rise of anti-American, anti-capitalist attitudes.
Economics à la carte
“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities. The past 20 years have “doubled wealth, doubled unemployment, poverty, and exclusion, whose ill effects constitute the background for a profound social malaise,” the text continues. Because the 21st century begins with “an awareness of the limits to growth and the risks posed to humanity [by economic growth],” any future prosperity “depends on the regulation of capitalism on a planetary scale.” Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neoliberal,” and “American.” This agitprop was published in 2005, not in 1972.
When French students are not getting this kind of wildly biased commentary on the destruction wreaked by capitalism, they are learning that economic progress is also the root cause of social ills. For example, a one-year high school course on the inner workings of an economy developed by the French Education Ministry called Sciences Economiques et Sociales, spends two thirds of its time discussing the sociopolitical fallout of economic activity. Chapter and section headings include “Social Cleavages and Inequality,” “Social Mobilization and Conflict,” “Poverty and Exclusion,” and “Globalization and Regulation.” The ministry mandates that students learn “worldwide regulation as a response” to globalization. Only one third of the course is about companies and markets, and even those bits include extensive sections on unions, government economic policy, the limits of markets, and the dangers of growth. The overall message is that economic activity has countless undesirable effects from which citizens must be protected.
No wonder, then, that the French default attitude is to be suspicious of market forces and private entrepreneurship, not to mention any policies that would strengthen them. Start-ups, Histoire du XXe siècle tells its students, are “audacious enterprises” with “ill-defined prospects.” Then it links entrepreneurs with the tech bubble, the Nasdaq crash, and mass layoffs across the economy. (Think “creative destruction” without the “creative.”) In one widely used text, a section on technology and innovation does not mention a single entrepreneur or company. Instead, students read a lengthy treatise on whether technological progress destroys jobs. In another textbook, students actually meet a French entrepreneur who invented a new tool to open oysters. But the quirky anecdote is followed by a long-winded debate over the degree to which the modern workplace is organized along the lines imagined by Frederick Taylor, the father of modern scientific management theory. And just in case they missed it in history class, students are reminded that “cultural globalization” leads to violence and armed resistance, ultimately necessitating a new system of global governance.
This is a world apart from what American high school students learn. In the United States, where fewer than half of high school students take an economics course, most classes are based on straightforward, classical economics. In Texas, the state-prescribed curriculum requires that the positive contribution of entrepreneurs to the local economy be taught. The state of New York, meanwhile, has coordinated its curriculum with entrepreneurship-promoting youth groups such as Junior Achievement, as well as with economists at the Federal Reserve. Do American schools encourage students to follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates or become ardent fans of globalization? Not really. But they certainly aren’t filling students with negative preconceptions and suspicions about businesses and the people who run them. Nor do they obsess about the negative side effects and dangers of economic activity the way French textbooks do.
French students, on the other hand, do not learn economics so much as a very specific, highly biased discourse about economics. When they graduate, they may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of “la McDonaldisation du monde” and the benefits of a “Tobin tax” on the movement of global capital. This kind of anticapitalist, antiglobalization discourse isn’t just the product of a few aging 1968ers writing for Le Monde Diplomatique; it is required learning in today’s French schools.
Learning to love the dole
Germans teach their young people a similar economic narrative, with a slightly different emphasis. The focus is on instilling the corporatist and collectivist traditions of the German system. Although each of Germany’s 16 states sets its own education requirements, nearly all teach through the lens of workplace conflict between employer and employee, the central battle being over wages and work rules. If there’s one unifying characteristic of German textbooks, it’s the tremendous emphasis on group interests, the traditional social-democratic division of the universe into capital and labor, employer and employee, boss and worker. Textbooks teach the minutiae of employer-employee relations, workplace conflict, collective bargaining, unions, strikes, and worker protection. Even a cursory look at the country’s textbooks shows that many are written from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract. Bosses and company owners show up in caricatures and illustrations as idle, cigar-smoking plutocrats, sometimes linked to child labor, Internet fraud, cell-phone addiction, alcoholism, and, of course, undeserved layoffs. The successful, modern entrepreneur is virtually nowhere to be found.
German students will be well-versed in many subjects upon graduation; one topic they will know particularly well is their rights as welfare recipients. One 10th-grade social studies text titled FAKT has a chapter on “What to do against unemployment.” Instead of describing how companies might create jobs, the section explains how those without jobs can organize into self-help groups and join weekly anti-reform protests “in the tradition of the East German Monday demonstrations” (which in 1989 helped topple the communist dictatorship). The not-so-subtle subtext? Jobs are a right to be demanded from the government. The same chapter also details various welfare programs, explains how employers use the threat of layoffs as a tactic to cut pay, and concludes with a long excerpt from the platform of the German Union Federation, including the 30-hour work week, retirement at age 60, and redistribution of the work pie by splitting full-time into part-time jobs. No market alternative is taught. When fakt presents the reasons for unemployment, it blames computers and robots. In fact, this is a recurring theme in German textbooks—the Internet will turn workers into “anonymous code” and kill off interpersonal communication.
Equally popular in Germany today are student workbooks on globalization. One such workbook includes sections headed “The Revival of Manchester Capitalism,” “The Brazilianization of Europe,” and “The Return of the Dark Ages.” India and China are successful, the book explains, because they have large, state-owned sectors and practice protectionism, while the societies with the freest markets lie in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Like many French and German books, this text suggests students learn more by contacting the antiglobalization group Attac, best known for organizing messy protests at the annual G-8 summits.
One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe’s schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems. Some enterprising teachers and parents may try to teach an alternative view, and some books are less ideological than others. But given the biases inherent in the curricula, this background is unavoidable. It is the context within which most students develop intellectually. And it’s a belief system that must eventually appear to be the truth.
Can old Europe do new tricks?
This bias has tremendous implications that reach far beyond the domestic political debate in these two countries. These beliefs inform students’ choices in life. Taught that the free market is a dangerous wilderness, twice as many Germans as Americans tell pollsters that you should not start a business if you think it might fail. According to the European Union’s internal polling, just two in five Germans and French would like to be their own boss, compared to three in five Americans. Whereas 8 percent of Americans say they are currently involved in starting a business, that’s true of only 2 percent of Germans and 1 percent of the French. Another 28 percent of Americans are considering starting a business, compared to just 11 percent of the French and 18 percent of Germans. The loss to Europe’s two largest economies in terms of jobs, innovation, and economic dynamism is severe.
Attitudes and mind-sets, it is increasingly being shown, are closely related to a country’s economic performance. Edmund Phelps, a Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate, contends that attitudes toward markets, work, and risk-taking are significantly more powerful in explaining the variation in countries’ actual economic performance than the traditional factors upon which economists focus, including social spending, tax rates, and labor-market regulation. The connection between capitalism and culture, once famously described by Max Weber, also helps explain continental Europe’s poor record in entrepreneurship and innovation. A study by the Massachusetts-based Monitor Group, the Entrepreneurship Benchmarking Index, looks at nine countries and finds a powerful correlation between attitudes about economics and actual corporate performance. The researchers find that attitudes explain 40 percent of the variation in start-up and company growth rates—by far the strongest correlation of any of the 31 indicators they tested. If countries such as France and Germany hope to boost entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic dynamism—as their leaders claim they do—the most effective way to make that happen may be to use education to boost the cultural legitimacy of going into business.
The deep anti-market bias that French and Germans continue to teach challenges the conventional wisdom that it’s just a matter of time, thanks to the pressures of globalization, before much of the world agrees upon a supposedly “Western” model of free-market capitalism. Politicians in democracies cannot long fight the preferences of the majority of their constituents. So this bias will likely continue to circumscribe both European elections and policy outcomes. A likely alternative scenario may be that the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.
Minimal reforms to the welfare state cost former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder his job in 2005. They have also paralyzed modern German politics. Former communists and disaffected Social Democrats, together with left-wing Greens, have flocked to Germany’s new leftist party, whose politics is a distasteful mix of anticapitalist demagoguery and right-wing xenophobia. Its platform, polls show, is finding support even among mainstream Germans. A left-leaning majority, within both the parliament and the public at large, makes the world’s third-largest economy vulnerable to destructive policies driven by anticapitalist resentment and fear of globalization. Similar situations are easily conceivable elsewhere and have already helped bring populists to power in Latin America. Then there is France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to “rupture” with the failed economic policies of the past. He has taken on the country’s public servants and their famously lavish benefits, but many of his policies appear to be driven by what he calls “economic patriotism,” which smacks of old-fashioned industrial protectionism. That’s exactly what French schoolchildren have long learned is the way the world should work.
Both the French and German cases show the limits of trying to run against the grain of deeply held economic ideology. Yet, training the next generation of citizens to be prejudiced against being enterprising and productive is equally foolhardy. Fortunately, such widespread attitudes and the political outcomes they foster aren’t only determined by tradition and history. They are, to a great extent, the product of education. If countries like France and Germany hope to get their nations on a new economic track, they might start paying more attention to what their kids are learning in the classroom.
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Turn of the 20th century in NYC; a simmering caldron of ethnic groups fighting for their economic survival, their ability to assimilate into a rapidly changing society and the essential need and cause célèbre to maintain their integrity.
America was governed by an entrenched white - and to a large extent, bigoted - political structure; uneasy with minorities demanding their rights and unbowing in their prerogatives for power and position.
Having seen the show a few times, I still cannot fathom why it needs the characters of Henry Ford, Harry Houdini and JP Morgan, real life titans of this late Victorian Age. The central characters sufficiently speak to this Coming of Age of America.
The quintessential American experience represented by 3 quite diverse characters: the black Coalhouse Walker, Jr (Darryl Thompson; the waspish Mother (Barbara Hartzell) and the Jewish immigrant (Patrick Ruegsegger).
Ruegsegger had a consistent Central European accent and brought a strong voice and humility to his character ( while sporting a particularly askew and unshapely beard circa Ellis Island.)
Hartzell is blessed with a beautiful voice and an emphatic demeanor. Her "What Kind of Woman" questions a mother who would abandon her own child, provoking more than a few tears in the opening night audience. The wonder and spirit of the show is that we are soon to find out just what led to this decision.
Thompson has a strong, warm and embracing baritone...and is provided every opportunity to show it off. He exhibits great stage presence and there is palpable chemistry between he and Sarah (Genevieve Van-Catledge), who herself sings a plaintive "Your Daddy's Son", the most well known tune from the show.
The chorus was spirited, energetic if a bit raw. For actors still in school, this is a provocative educational experience; resonating on the bigotry in our land not so very long ago. The most spirited production number was the Act 1 closer, "Till We Reach The Day". In many of the production numbers the harmonies were gorgeous.
The entire production was under rehearsed, showing most evident in the production numbers. Dancers were out of synch as were the arm movements of the singers. Aisle Say was sitting on the right side aisle. Through the entire show, the traveler curtain separating the actors from the back stage live orchestra was open 3 feet. Periodically there would be individuals walking back and forth. I was looking at the keyboardist while Sarah is singing my favorite, "Your Daddy's Son".
This is a first in my theatre experience. This is unacceptable in any theatre and any level.
Through February 10 WilmingtonDramaLeague.org 764.1172
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The cold-blooded and ruthless mass murder
of innocent civilian in Kashmir seems to have returned. Like in the past, not much is expected of Indian goverment to proactively counter the Mujaheedin's.
The victims were once again those described as the 'soft-targets': the minority Hindus in Jammu & Kashmir. At least 19 killed, including a nine-year old girl in Kulhan area of Doda, and 13 in Udhampur
There has been a sustained attempt by Indian communists to play down terrorism in Kashmir as mere communal violence. Thus belittling and equating it to other riots and violence.
Interestingly, but expected, AID, influenced by its communist mentors, has also joined the business of extra-developmental efforts. This time quite openly on many politically charged issue. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada) has lately been discredited as being a stubburn and a "anti" movement rather than something that aspires for a just rehabilitation.
NBA defines itself mainly through negative agendas – anti-dam, anti-liberalisation, anti-globalisation, anti-WTO, anti this, anti that. The alternative development paradigm Medha Patkar claims to represent has not yet offered any practical and positive worldview or agenda for action.
Incidently, Outlook India seems to have taken out the story by Madhu Purnima Kishwar. She pointed out so many facts including how NBA activist themselves threaten the locals not move out of dam area and how other covert, cunning tactics have kept the movement alive for so long, is just spectacular and elegantly zooms in to the "universal cosmos theories" of communists. She comes down heavily on Modi and Congress too.
It would have been a classic to observe communists reacting humanely on this - it would have been an open challenge!
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Merkel Should Bury Euro During Greece Visit: Economist
German Chancellor Angela Merkel should use Tuesday’s official trip to Athens to “recognize the euro is dead, and bury it,” veteran economist Roger Nightingale told CNBC.
Merkel’s first public trip to Greece since the eruption of the European debt crisis is viewed by some as a sign she wants the country to remain in the euro zone, despite its severe economic difficulties. (Read More: IMF, EU Clash Over Greece's Bailout Prospects.)
However, Nightingale, who is known for his ultra-bearish views, said monetary union had been a “terrible, disastrous mistake” and Merkel should use her visit as an opportunity to publicly say so.
Greece is braced for further strikes and potentially violent protests during Merkel’s visits, with labor unions and politicians eager to show their opposition to hefty austerity measures, which some Greeks view as imposed by Germany. (Read More: Snipers, Commandos to Welcome Merkel in Greece.)
“What I would recommend she do — and of course she won’t — is to recognize the euro is dead, and bury it. If you leave a body around after it dies, it smells and causes infection,” he said. “Start again, recognize you have made a terrible, disastrous mistake and actually start again.”
Nightingale added that the euro’s current strength should not be mistaken for a sign the single currency is thriving. He was responding to Silvia Wadhwa, CNBC’s veteran reporter at the European Central Bank, who said that as long as financial markets continue to back the euro, it is unlikely to be scrapped, irrespective of public opinion.
“The markets don’t often ask the people, or care about the people. … So far, the euro has been a damn good investment,” Wadhwa said. “The ECB’s OMT [Outright Monetary Transactions] program is a free lunch waiting for the markets, so I don’t see the euro going that fast I’m sorry to say.” (Read More: Is the ECB's New Program Too Late to Save Greece?)
“You can’t judge the viability of a currencyby its recent market rate. What you judge it by is whether the economy is stable,” Nightingale said. “In the weeks before the Argentine peso fell 60 percent, it was fairly stable.”
—By CNBC.com’s Katy Barnato
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- Giving Opportunities
- Future Gifts
- Areas of Need
- Facts About Giving
- Donor Recognition
- More Information
- Career Opportunities
- Giving Home
Renowned medicinal chemist Gunda Georg came to the U of M from Kansas in 2007 to found the 40-member-strong Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development in the College of Pharmacy. Part of her reason for heading north to discover new drugs was, "It's so ready-made here for collaborations," pointing to the world-class medical and research centers just steps from her lab. Legacy puts the holder of the Robert Vince Endowed Chair and the McKnight Presidential Chair in Medicinal Chemistry under the microscope.
Where do you start when creating new drugs?
The process always starts with discovery. In diseases you have biochemical processes that are not properly conducted. We mimic the biochemical process of a disease state, and then we test a quarter of a million compounds in an assay. We want to find out if chemical compounds can be used to interfere with pathological processes: in cancer, for example, to perturb the process that sends growth signals that creates tumors. What we do is unique in the academic environment.
Why is it unique?
The business model of drug discovery is changing. In the past, big pharmaceutical companies have done all of the drug discovery, the development, and the overseeing of clinical trials within their walls. But that process has become so expensive that they can no longer sustain it. The big companies are relying more and more on in-licensing from smaller biotech companies and also from the academic world. We at the University of Minnesota want to be part of that opportunity, to be part of the future of drug therapeutics.
Why do this work in an academic setting?
Now that our institute is here we are out talking to colleagues and its opening up collaborative opportunities within the University. When we work together it may lead to new drugs, but it could also lead to basic scientific discoveries. Our colleagues get our compounds and experiment with them. It's a biochemical tool. We can do projects that cannot be done as easily in companies. We take a different approach. We have the luxury to really understand a system and conduct a lot of research around it. Our work does not have to be a product in the end. It's great if we can achieve that, but if we gain knowledge, that's a value in itself. We can also take on 'orphan projects' that target diseases only a small number of people have, which are projects industry might be less likely to tackle. Finally, we are able to educate our students a lot better. We can prepare graduates in an environment that uses all the excellent tools that are usually used in the pharmaceutical industry.
Any examples of recent collaborations?
With Dr. Ashok Saluja and Dr. Selwyn Vickers in the Department of Surgery, we have created a compound that we've nicknamed 'Minnelide.' It's a modification of a natural product called triptolide, isolated from a plant used in Chinese traditional medicine. Dr. Saluja was looking for compounds that could reduce the expression of a particular protein in pancreatic cancer. I recommended we take a closer look at triptolide because I'm interested in natural products and we knew of its excellent anti-cancer activity. But I also knew that it had problems with water solubility, which is a big issue with drugs because they need to dissolve and be absorbed in the body. So I decided to make what's called a pro-drug. This is a drug with a temporary chemical modification to improve its pharmaceutical properties. My former graduate student Dr. Satish Patil then modified triptolide so that, when it's injected into the body, a highly active compound is released. That modification made it qualify for a patent, which we have applied for. Many U of M colleagues are now involved in helping to bring Minnelide to clinical trial in patients.
How did your interest in natural products develop?
I'm originally from Germany and my first degree is in pharmacy, where I learned how many of our drugs come from nature–morphine and aspirin, for instance. It's intriguing to think that plants played a role in how pharmacy started. We've now gone a lot further, but natural products are still important to drug discovery.
What brought you to this country?
I first came to the U.S. in the 1980s because of the opportunities to do things that would have been more difficult in my native Germany. At the time—and still maybe today—it was not so easy for women in science. There was more openness here. I think the scientific community in the United States is just so exciting. It may be partly due to the fact that science is well supported here. Private support for universities is almost unheard of in Germany. They envy us. They would love to have more philanthropic support but it's not really part of the culture there.
Is there a story behind that mug on your desk?
One of our staff members recently relocated to New York. The story is that after my initial job interview with her four years ago she went home and found an article about me on the Internet. In it, I said, "Molecular science is the last frontier." She remembered that and when she left she gave me this coffee mug with those words inscribed on it. I still believe it, too.
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I am one of the Twitterati. I use it every day to interact with my professional colleagues, longtime acquaintances, analysts, and many others. If I were made to choose between email and Twitter, I'd drop the former like a hot potato. And I talk a lot about the value of Twitter for individuals and organizations. Almost every time I do, questions come up about managing Twitter in the context of the records program. So here's my take on it - and the first of a series of posts in this vein.
On the one hand, Twitter has been likened to a cocktail party. You don't try to follow every conversation at the party; rather, you catch a snippet of interesting converation and drift closer to catch the rest. If it remains interesting, you remain; if it doesn't, you drift off to the next conversation. Or it's like a water cooler or break room where people gather to exchange gossip, talk about the day or the weekend, and gripe about a particular problem. And of course sometimes that leads to creative solutions, but that's beyond the scope of this post.
On the other hand, Twitter does produce a record of what is posted. While this may not be a record in the ERM sense, it is nevertheless recorded information that could have business value to the organization. And the courts have long held that the "recordness" of a piece of information is not as important as a) its existence and b) its responsiveness to a particular matter. This leads then to the question I noted earlier - or, rather, two questions: what to capture, and how to capture it. I will address the second part in another post.
There are a number of considerations as to whether something should be retained as a record. As always, individual organizations' mileage will vary considerably depending on your regulatory and legal environment.
1. Does it contain evidence of your organization's policies, decisions, or activities? For example, many municipalities have begun using Twitter as another channel for reverse 911.
2. Does it offer or provide evidence of a transaction or contract? A number of vendors including Dell Computers, many airlines, and lots of restaurants and fast food joints have published deals, discounts, and links to coupons using Twitter. In at least one instance, a UK court issued an injunction via Twitter
2. Is it original information that is not documented elsewhere? On the other hand, the reverse 911 system also uses text, telephone, and other communications channels as well. Maybe it's not the content of a given Tweet that is the record, but rather the fact that that content was transmitted through reverse 911 at such a time through all these given channels. Similarly, a significant number of Tweets are used to share links to other resources. Most of those Tweets would not be records - rather, the resource linked to would be.
3. Is there an expectation that the account is monitored? In the reverse 911 example, what if someone responds to the Tweet, via Twitter, indicating some type of an emergency? Many of those same municipalities have put a policy in place to address this. The short version is something along the lines of "This account is not actively monitored. If you have an actual emergency please dial 911". It may then link to a longer policy that also addresses usage, archiving, and the like. In the absence of such a policy, users may be more likely to be confused and the organization is more likely to be at risk. Here's an example
from the Seattle Police Department (see bio in top right corner)
4. Is the account public or private? If the account is public, I tend to think it reduces the need to actively archive, declare Tweets as records, and so forth because in the event of an audit, public records request, or discovery, providing the content is as easy as posting the public URL. But if the account is private, it is not part of the public Twitter stream, it is not archived by the Library of Congress, and is not accessible through Twitter Search. In that case there is a much better argument to be made for a more formal process that involves capturing the Tweets outside of Twitter and managing them appropriately.
This is probably a bit more controversial because it's not directly related to the type of content being posted or transmitted. But it has defensible roots in discovery. One of the key considerations for producing information is whether it is privileged for any of a number of reasons including attorney-client communications. That privilege can be breached - for example by the client forwarding the message thread to someone else or posting it to a public website or forum. But privilege goes to the expectation of privacy - and in 2010 it is inconceivable that there would be any expectation of privacy for a public Twitter account or any other public social media site.
Did I mention I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice?
Note also that even public accounts can send private communications using direct messages, or DMs. These are directly analogous to email messages or private streams and should probably be treated in similar fashion - that is, they should be captured outside of Twitter and managed appropriately.
The bottom line is that just like any other type of format or media, whether a Tweet is a record or not will depend on what it is and its context. Organizations should put a policy in place that outlines how Twitter and other social media will be used and then follow that policy.
In my next post I'll delve into the ways organizations can save Tweets as records.
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This post and comment(s) reflect the personal perspectives of community members, and not necessarily those of their employers or of AIIM International
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After receiving a hero’s welcome on his return from decades in exile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has vowed never to recognise Israel.
The trip comes just two weeks after an eight-day
conflict between Israel and Hamas that ended with a ceasefire.
He made his declaration at a rally attended by thousands of people to mark the militant group’s 25th anniversary.
The stage for speeches was also dominated by
a giant model of the Gaza made M75 missile that was fired on both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“We will never recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take,” he said.
“Abu Mazen took a small but important step at the United Nations. All we want is for this step and the Gaza victory to be used in support for Palestinian reconciliation and independence, and the right to go back to our land, and we won’t give them an inch of our original territory,” added Meshaal.
To the delight of the gathered crowd, Meshaal also promised to free Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, indicating Islamist militants would try to kidnap Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips.
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Let me explain how I intend my book to be used. It is called A Practitioner’s Handbook because it is meant for use in daily meditation. Study “Entering Braj” and get an understanding of how the process works. Meditate on this and see what natural impulses arise in you. What are your inclinations?
Slowly go through “Blazing Saffire” and picture yourself in the various scenes. Where do you stand? What are you doing? How do you feel?
Daily meditate on the “Braj Meditation (Short)” and picture yourself in those scenes. As you have time during the day, meditate on what Radha-Krishna are doing at that time. Involve yourself as an active participant. How do you relate to the other characters? What is your role? By just providing the essentials, this short mediation allows free imagination.
When ready, move on to “Braj Meditation (Long)” and do the same thing. Be open to your inklings, intuitions, and desires. Picture how you would like to spend eternity interacting with these people. What is your role?
These things take time and should not be rushed. It’s best if you develope your spiritual identity from within based on natural impulses for relating to Radha-Krishna. Love cannot be bound. Here’s a quote from my autobiography that explains more about the process:
In his spiritual body, Lalita Prasad Thakur considered himself a girlfriend of Radha. He said the only way to attain this position is by the grace of someone already in that position. Traditionally, it’s a confidential circle entered by invitation only. He entered it by the good will of his father and teacher, Bhaktivinode Thakur, who entered it by the good will of his teacher, Bipin Bihari Goswami.
I pass this most confidential information on through my books. Although I don’t accept formal disciples, anyone who reads my books may accept me as their spiritual teacher and guide, receive my blessings, and my warm open invitation to all to become Radha-Krishna’s girlfriends. This entails an ever new bestowal of love and hope in our lives without becoming a slave to a guru. Thus I welcome everyone to participate in this greatest human good.
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Public Art at Williams
The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is pleased to announce the launch of its Public Art Module. Visitors to WCMA’s website can virtually tour the public art on campus and then download a map and see the works in person. Formally established in 2011 as a fiftieth reunion gift from the Class of ’61, the Williams Public Art Program seeks to incorporate unexpected and informal encounters with art into the daily lives of students. It also hopes to inspire faculty to integrate works of art into their teaching. We believe that placing art in public places, in addition to fostering innovative arts programs within the walls of the Williams College Museum of Art, further underscores Williams’ commitment to human creativity and to the significance of the arts within a liberal arts education. The Public Art Program also contributes to creating a welcoming environment for members of our community and for visitors to Williamstown where beauty and intellectual engagement are accessible to all.
One of the twenty five works on the Public Art Module is the inaugural gift of the Class of 1961 Public Art Fund, the sculpture, Double L Excentric Gyratory II, 1981 by George Warren Rickey (American, 1907-2002). Maxwell Davidson, Class of 1961, President and founder of The Maxwell Davidson Gallery in New York wrote, “This impressive 29-foot-high sculpture was created by George Rickey when he was 74 years of age and is among his largest works. The innovative excentric motion, which he pioneered, is based on his experimentation with conical sections that he developed when he was well into his 60s. Rickey figured out that if the conical sections are placed in such a way that they do not intersect, and the sculpture’s motion is transcribed within those sections, the large “L’s”will never hit each other.” Davidson goes on to say, “This sculpture, standing prominently next to the Class of ’62 Center of Theatre and Dance, is a testament to how much alumni can accomplish working in concert with the college.”
The Public Art Module accessed through the WCMA website enables visitors to engage with the art on the William’s campus and permits all audiences to come into contact with these public works of art.
Above photo: Double L Excentric Gyratory II, 1981; George Warren Rickey (American, 1907-2002); stainless steel; Museum purchase, Inaugural gift of the Class of 1961 Public Art Fund on the occasion of their 50th Reunion, dedicated in the belief that public art enhances the beauty of the Williams campus, accentuates learning, and stimulates creativity; M.2011.8; Photo by Megan Cross
4 Responses to Public Art at Williams
Pingback: Philip Rickey lecture « Glinting Phantom
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Real Change for Your Dollar—How Investing in PETA Is Fail-Safe!
Posted by Scott VanValkenburg at 5:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
There's a lot of investment advice out there for folks looking for a return that will improve their lives. When we donate to a charity, we're making an investment in their ability to meet a mission we support as reflected in current and future programs. Do you think about your own charitable giving in that manner?
PETA's 2009 Annual Review clearly beats any "market average" for making change for animals! There's plenty of evidence that PETA is the internationally recognized leader and trailblazer in the fight against cruel animal tests, but every single page of the review shows outstanding gains.
Investors are warned to look at portfolio management fees and other administrative costs. Again, PETA provides a great return on every single dollar "invested" in lifesaving work for animals. The financial statement notes that almost 81 cents out of every dollar went to programs that benefit animals. PETA's administrative and fundraising costs are well below the maximum amount set by charity rating analysts.
As you probably know, PETA victories often require a combination of tactics, including undercover investigations, unique protests, shareholder activism, and more. Talk about "face-to-face" advice about your investment (in protecting animals)-just check out the review's new "map of accomplishments" feature!
What victory from the review are you most proud of as a smart investor in change for animals?
Posted to Money | Posted to Tags: animal testing, Annual Review, donating, PETA map of accomplishments, Scott VanValkenburg
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By Christopher Waters, QMI Agency
Charles Back's farm in South Africa is a hotbed of wine, cheese and tourism that presents the best of the country's emerging culinary scene to tourists visiting nearby Cape Town.
Nearly 250,000 guests descend on Fairview, the estate his grandfather purchased in 1937, to enjoy the goat cheese, wine and hospitality of the setting.
Outside of his native land, Back travels the world to promote his wines, notably the Goats do Roam label, which is the best-selling South African wine in the United States and Sweden.
"That's not a big deal," Back says light-heartedly. "There's not a lot of South African wine sold in the United States."
It is, however, a big enough deal to have landed the unassuming entrepreneur with a suitably grand nickname.
"They refer to me as the Goatfather," he says.
Back's business savvy was developed during the years of apartheid, when global trade embargoes against South Africa saw its industries stall. He toured other wine regions, looking to see how they were doing things.
"I travelled to New Zealand, Australia and California to see what was going on," he says. "I considered starting somewhere else, but I wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem for my country."
Back returned with a plan. He knew he wanted to control his production by farming all of the grapes he used. He also set about acquiring vineyards in various regions of South Africa to cultivate different grapes in the places where they will grow the best.
Not surprisingly, his biggest production wines are blends. The Goats do Roam red, which represents one-third of Back's company's 3-million-litre annual production, knits together six different varieties including Shiraz, Mourvedre and Grenache.
Its white counterpart is a blend of three white grapes that were made famous by France's Rhône Valley: Viognier, Roussanne and Grenache Blanc.
The Rhône influence also helped Back settle on the wine's quirky name. Goats do Roam is a play on the Rhône's Côtes du Rhône wines, red and white blends that are popular bistro staples in France and elsewhere.
Legend has it, Back came up with the name when one of his sons left a gate open and the goats wandered around the vineyard eating the grapes. The animals were surprisingly selective, so the winemaking team was inspired to make a wine based on the varieties the goats ate and in which proportion.
The label works because it puts a friendly face on a wine that otherwise could be a tough sell. The controversy it stirred up with French wine authorities didn't hurt matters either.
News agencies around the world carried the story about French vintners complaining the name was infringing on their appellation.
As the Goatfather says, "It was the best promotional tool I ever had."
Wine of the Week:
The Goats do Roam Wine Company; 2011 Goats do Roam Red,
Western Cape, South Africa
BC $14.99 (633206) | AB $12.99 (633206) | ON $12.95 (718940)
The new vintage of Goats do Roam Red carries on its crowd-pleasing tradition. It's a smooth and inviting red with a healthy mix of spice, ripe fruit and meaty aromas and flavours. It's a good-value, flavourful red that makes friends easily.
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Chance to right wrongs; but Cowards and Liars still stalling
The bid for Palestinian statehood, due to be presented this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, seems to have taken some world leaders by surprise. It is difficult to see how.
For more than a decade, successive United States presidents have voiced their keenness on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Bill Clinton, then George W. Bush, then finally Barack Obama have taken turns delaying a formal application for statehood under the guise of wanting to gain more favorable conditions through a continuation of peace talks.
Twelve months ago, Obama went seemingly further than his predecessors, saying he wanted to see a Palestinian state within a year. The diplomatic flurry from “Quartet” powers at the eleventh hour now clearly exposes this claim to what many at the time saw as yet another empty promise. It is often said that as the leader of the world’s richest nation Obama is the most powerful person on the planet. That is to ignore those inordinately potent members of the U.S. Zionist lobby who, with an election looming next year and historically low popularity ratings, have yet again twisted the arm of a U.S. leader and forced an about turn.
There is little doubt that the bid for Palestinian statehood would fail in the Security Council. The U.S., once again doing Israel’s bidding, has already said it will veto the application. In the General Assembly, however, where any motion passes after achieving a two-thirds majority, the bid is likely to be successful, given that more than 120 countries have already expressed their support for an independent Palestine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with characteristic chutzpah, has pre-empted this, stating flatly that his country will ignore the will of the General Assembly. This is the leader of a state that is supposed to conform to international law openly stating that the majority of world nations can go hang. Even more stultifying than the Israeli leader’s brashness is the fact that he can get away with it.
For a delay in Palestinian statehood suits Israel rather nicely. As long as its illegal policy of settlement building continues at the current pace, within a few years Palestinian authorities will have little land left to even claim for official ownership. The politics of delay, while the Western world is largely on his side, is something Netanyahu and his aides must be licking their lips over.
Statehood would do nothing more than grant Palestine the same official recognition afforded to Israel. It would invest its leaders with a greater legitimacy in future peace talks and even up the keel at the negotiating table.
Any world leader that claims to support aborted Israeli-Palestinian negotiations while opposing the latter’s bid for statehood is either a liar or a coward. Those seeking a way out of Palestine’s application are rapidly losing the benefit of the doubt.
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Q Visionaries Series: Every Mother Counts
Model and activist Christy Turlington Burns is on a mission to save one of the world's most valuable treasures: Mothers.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012 | Q Editors
How Every Mother Counts betters the world:
Every Mother Counts is essentially an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction globally. Every Mother Counts seeks to engage new audiences to better understand the challenges and the solutions while encouraging them to take action to improve the lives of girls and women worldwide. We believe that making pregnancy and childbirth safe for all moms will make the world a better place.
How she was driven to start an organization that enacts change:
I founded Every Mother Counts in 2010 after completing my first documentary film, No Woman, No Cry. After the birth of my first child, I experienced childbirth related complication that often leads to death for women who do not have access to competent health workers and supplies.
I learned that hundreds of thousands of girls and women die every year due to pregnancy and childbirth related complications, but even more shocking is that as many as 90 percent of these deaths are preventable. We know how to save these women and yet too many continue to die while bringing new life into the world.
Once I knew the facts I had to do all I could to expose the barriers women must overcome to access critical maternal care around the world. I knew that others would feel the same way. The response to No Woman, No Cry went well beyond just interest, people wanted to get involved, so I founded Every Mother Counts as a resource to further educate and engage those who wanted to be a part of putting an end to these senseless deaths. The accomplishment of which she's proudest in her work for Every Mother Counts:
Interacting with women around the world and working with others committed to empowering girls and women everyday is pretty exciting, as is earning the right to sit at the table amongst so many organizations who have been working on these issues for decades. I am proud of the presence we now have in the global maternal health community and of each action we have inspired by inviting more people to join this conversation. We have evolved from an advocacy campaign to an organization that is able to identify gaps and fill them with funds raised in partnership with the public. Just this fall we signed two grants — one for Midwives for Haiti, which will help to train students to become skilled birth attendants, and one for the Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation Uganda, which will help to provide transportation vouchers so women can access health services when they deliver.
What she wishes more people knew about implementing change:
That Every Action Counts. No matter how small or how large, anything you do for a cause that you feel passionate about is enough. Each action brings us one step closer to change.
One story of someone impacted by Every Mother Counts:
There are countless stories that come to mind when asked this question. I just returned from Uganda a few days ago and met several more women who touched me. Especially those who have been utilizing the voucher system we are supporting. We met Florence, who while holding her beautiful 5-month-old son, explained how the voucher she was given had been her ticket to a functional referral and a healthy delivery. Her VHT member, Sarah, met with Florence regularly and discussed the importance of antenatal care and delivering with a skilled professional. She sold Florence a voucher and encouraged her to call either herself or her Boda driver when she went into labor.
Even though Florence’s ride was a mere 7km, traveling on a boda, in labor, over bumps and bends and around people and bicycles, it was quite a feat. When she finally arrived at the Health Center it was determined that because of her baby’s size and position, she needed more advanced care at a higher-level facility. She was loaded onto a three-wheeled ambulance called an E-ranger for another 60km ride to the referral hospital. Her healthy son, "Promise," is testament to what a difference transport makes.
The most significant thing she's learned through her work:
That women really need the support of other women. We call it the Sisterhood of Motherhood. There is a powerful universal connection between us moms and when we come together on something there is no limit to what can be achieved.
How her life has been changed by her work:
I continue to surprise myself with how much this issue and becoming a mother has impacted my life. Making the documentary and going back to school only led me to do more through EMC. It’s been so great because we keep finding new, creative ways to engage people with this issue. One of which is running marathons to highlight one of the biggest barriers women face in accessing quality care during pregnancy and childbirth — distance. That’s not something I was doing before.
Her vision for the world:
I am an optimist. I believe we have the potential to make the world a place where girls and women can choose when and if they want to become mothers and then receive the support they need to do so safely.
The message she'd send the world with one request (in 140 characters or less):
Use your voice. Together, we can make pregnancy and childbirth safe for all moms.
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Both superintendents in Carroll County, as well as other superintendents and education associations across the state, are staunchly opposed to the amendment. The Carroll County Tea Party Association is in favor of the amendment, with one of its members becoming an unofficial spokeswoman for the amendment in Carroll County.
Villa Rica resident Leslie McPherson, a former teacher's aide from Florida, has been going door-to-door in recent weeks, asking voters to decide in favor of the amendment.
"We are over the promises that our system will be fixed with enough time and money," she said. "We have a system that has a monopoly and that is resistant to having competition."
Carroll County Schools Superintendent Scott Cowart said the amendment is about neither school choice nor charter schools — it's about who approves them and the money that funds them, he said.
"Why create a new state bureaucracy when we already have a process in place, and we already have charter schools that have resulted from that process?" Cowart said. "Why add another layer to that system?"
If the amendment passes, the state will create a commission that can approve charter schools in local communities, even if local school boards have previously denied the application. Supporters of the amendment believe this is a necessary to bypass school boards who resist competition; opponents fear a loss of local control and a shift of money and resources from traditional public schools.
If the amendment fails, local school boards will still be able to approve new charter schools, but the state will not have independent authority to do so.
Currently, an application denied by the local school board can be taken to the State Board of Education for another chance at approval.
The controversial ballot preamble says that Amendment I "[p]rovides for improving student achievement and parental involvement through more public charter school options." The yes-or-no question voters will answer is, "Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities."
Carrollton City Schools Superintendent Dr. Kent Edwards said local stakeholders who have enough confidence in their school leaders with whom they leave their children should also trust the leaders when they say that the amendment is a "bad idea."
"They trust us with all the kids in Carroll County every day, so I hope they give us the same amount and level of trust when we're telling them that this amendment is a bad idea," he said.
Edwards said the amendment's passing would have drastic effects on all aspects of life in Georgia.
"This is the one issue I've investigated more than any other since I've been superintendent," Edwards said, "and I think passing this would put our children's education and our quality of life in Carrollton, Ga., in jeopardy."
McPherson thinks the amendment's passing would improve the quality of life, not only in Carroll County or Georgia, but nationwide.
"This is an issue of national security, if you look at it one way," McPherson said. "We need a well-educated workforce, one that can find jobs and stay out of our jails. That's how we become globally competitive, and retooling our system is the way to do that. We need an independent appeal or review process, and Georgia school boards have proven that."
Cowart said he is "disappointed" in the state leaders who pushed the amendment onto today's ballot.
"At a time when we need unity to fix our schools, this vote has become divisive," the superintendent said. "Improving the education of our children should be unifying, not dividing."
A charter school is a publicly funded school that's exempted from some state and local rules so it can try more creative ways of educating children. Some charter schools operate within local school board governance (such as the College and Career Academy in Carroll County Schools), and some operate outside it.
An analysis of campaign finance records by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows that pro-amendment groups have raised more than $2 million. Those groups include national school-choice advocates and for-profit charter school operators.
The newspaper's analysis shows that opponents of the amendment have collected $123,243, mostly from public officials.
"Wading through all of the differing points of view and countering pieces of information has been frustrating," Edwards said, "but I think voters have found the facts they need, and I hope they make the right choice."
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It is no secret middle class Americans are struggling. They are making tough day to day decisions about where to spend money. And on top of that, health insurance costs continue to rise.
Brittany Morales is a stay at home mom, taking care of 17-month old Gracie. Her husband, Mark, is self-employed. Recently the couple received a letter from their insurance company.
"They raised their premiums pretty significantly" says Brittany. "We were really shocked to say the least."
She says the company wanted an additional $60-$70 a month, creating a financial dilemma for the young family.
"It's even gotten to the point where my husband may feel like he needs to not cover himself because of the fact that its so high per month" she says.
"We have been seeing an increase in a number of persons who are making that transition of not being able to go to their traditional healthcare provider because they don't have the ability to pay for it" says Willie White, the CEO of David Raines Community Health Centers.
He says the center has seen double digit increases in its employee's premiums. But the healthcare reform bill puts stipulations on those increases.
"I think it will hopefully provide more affordable access through what would be the health insurance exchanges that we believe will foster more competetion between insurance companies and drive down some of the rates" says White.
Helping those like the Morales family. They are currently shopping around, hoping to keep all three covered.
In Texas, the most recent numbers show 6,084,093 people without health insurance. That is about a quarter of the state's population.
In Louisiana, more than 822,700 are without health insurance, about 19.3-percent.
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- Story Ideas
- Send Corrections
During the last 20 plus years, I have had the privilege of being an instructor at the Montgomery County Police Academy in the areas of criminal law, constitutional law and authority and jurisdiction. This included Class 603 which was attended by Officer Bradley Fox.
On the Sunday morning following Officer Fox’s death, Sept. 16, 2012, I was riding my bicycle on the Schuylkill Trail, and as I entered Plymouth Township, I noticed that a memorial had been erected at the site of Officer Fox’s death. Many of the bicyclists, if not all, stopped to look at the memorial. When I went to the Police Academy the next night to teach Class 1203, the present Academy class, I remarked to one of the administrators that the memorial had been erected. I was then informed that Class 1203 was responsible for creating the memorial.
I would recommend to those that are interested in learning more about Officer Fox should visit the memorial because it clearly portrays the man, husband, father, marine, police officer and true American hero.
I would also like to commend Police Academy Class 1203 for taking the initiative so that we can pay tribute to Officer Fox in a public way.
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Five U.S. soldiers were directly involved in the burning of Qurans last week at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, defense and military officials told NBC News.
The officials were speaking about the conclusion of a U.S. military investigation. They told NBC News that the investigation is not complete, but it appears that the five soldiers involved will not face criminal charges. Instead, it is "likely" they would face non-judicial punishment, which could be as simple as a reprimand.
The rank and identities of the five accused have not been made public, NBC News said.
The investigation's results will not be released until a similar joint investigation by the Afghan government and the U.S. is made public, which could come in a "matter of days," officials told NBC News said.
Despite an apology from President Barack Obama, the incident at Bagram airbase, which is being used by both U.S. and foreign forces under the NATO banner, ignited a wave of anti-Western fury across the country. Muslims consider the Quran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.
At least 30 people were killed in the protests.
The Quran burnings hurt U.S. efforts to win more trust from Afghans, an essential part of efforts to weaken the Taliban and force the militant group to negotiate an end to the war, now in its 11th year.
The Washington Post first reported that investigators appointed by Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, found that the soldiers removed the Qurans from a prison located at Bagram air base after they were found to contain extremist messages.
According to the article, the books were then placed in an office for safekeeping. But they were mistaken for garbage and taken to a landfill on the base.
Afghan employees identified the books as Qurans just as their pages caught fire, the Post says.
Officials told the paper it's unlikely the names of the five soldiers will be released or that their punishment will include a public trial in Afghanistan, as clerics demanded.
“What they did was careless, but there was no ill will,” a military official told the Post.
This article includes reporting by NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Rival hard-liners face off as Iranians vote
- Anti-Putin activists pay high price but refuse to back down
- A global icon is reborn: Londoners meet $36,000 per seat red bus
- Red Cross aid convoy prevented from entering former Syrian rebel stronghold
- How a horse links Britain's prime minister to hacking scandal
Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
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This piece was co-written by Ryan Koronowski, Alliance for Climate Protection Research Director and Josh Nelson, Alliance for Climate Protection Director of Online Communications and New Media.
Former oil and energy trader Eric Bolling, a financial news personality on Fox News, often gets on television to talk about climate change. On Tuesday, Media Matters published research on Bolling's program and uncovered a history of claims that are demonstrably false:
Bolling Hosted Skeptic To Claim "There Is No Global Warming." Bolling hosted Brian Sussman, radio host and author of Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes The Global Warming Scam, who asserted that "there is no global warming." Sussman claimed that the "hottest decade in history was the 1930s."
Bolling: "I think We Warm And We Cool. It's The Globe." Discussing a Rasmussen poll asking respondents "how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data," Bolling stated: "Listen, you know where I stand on this. I'm not -- I think we warm and we cool. It's the globe." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/4/09 ]
Bolling Falsely Suggested Snow Disproves Global Warming. On Fox & Friends, referring to the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Bolling stated: "I think, a couple of years ago, they were in Washington. It was snowed out. The global warming issue wasn't, I guess, a factor there. But they solved that problem going to Cancun." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/9/09 ]
In fact, the decade from 2001-2010 was the hottest on record , and as Alliance for Climate Protection Chairman Al Gore explained in a recent blog post , extreme weather events -- including heavy snow -- are entirely consistent with climate science.
So why would Bolling repeatedly push these discredited ideas? One possibility is the fact that the managing editor of Fox News specifically instructed the network's on-air personalities to do just that. This unfortunate myopia extends beyond Fox's news and opinion programming -- it affects the advertisements that Fox viewers are permitted to see.
Last May , VoteVets.org ran an ad on cable that made "the familiar case that climate legislation would have national security benefits by reducing the oil profits of hostile Middle Eastern states." CNN and MSNBC aired the ad. But Fox viewers weren't allowed to see the ad because it was "too confusing."
Unfortunately, Fox's deliberate attempts to mislead their viewers about climate change appear to be working. A pair of recent studies found that Fox viewers are far more likely to be confused about climate change than the general public. A December 2010 University of Maryland study found: "Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring." Incredibly, regular Fox News viewers were 30% more likely (PDF) to believe that most scientists don't agree about climate change, when compared to Americans who don't watch Fox News.
A December 2010 Woods Institute for the Environment poll (PDF) had similar findings with regard to Americans' understanding of basic climate science:
Among Americans who watched no Fox News, 82% believed that the Earth's temperature has been rising, and 85% of them believed that any temperature increase is caused mostly by things people do, or about equally by things people do and natural causes.
Among the most frequent viewers of Fox News, 63% believed that the Earth's temperature has been rising, and 60% of the most frequent Fox News viewers believed that the temperature increase is caused mostly by things people do or about equally by things people do and natural causes.
While these findings are unfortunate, a more important point is this: Climate science is bigger than politics. Despite the best efforts of conservative-leaning news outlets such as Fox News, Americans from across the political spectrum are concerned about climate change and understand the need to take immediate action to address it.
Consider former Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who recently said , "As a Republican, I believe we should be talking about conservation," he explained. "Because that's our heritage. If you go back to Teddy Roosevelt, that's who we are." Or take Senator Lugar of Indiana, who once said , "Changes in climate will bring more droughts, floods and extreme weather events. Pests and disease will spread into new regions of the world threatening public health and economic growth. More conflicts will arise."
Fox News viewers, we hope you'll join us, and we'll gladly welcome you to the cause. Climate change is too big of a problem to solve without your help.
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Extended Greek drama may yet end with a twist
Greek Letter:An Irishman with business interests in Greece reminds me that when the Roman emperor visited his provinces, the local organisers crucified a few Christians so as to make him feel at home. And when German chancellor Angela Merkel visited Athens recently, the government decided to proceed with the trial of 36 former ministers and civil servants on bribery charges – one of whom has hanged himself.
Athens-based journalist Nick Malkoutzis reminded us in a blog that, almost two centuries ago another German, Bavarian King Otto, tried to subdue some unruly elements in the Peloponnese by military means. When that failed, he resorted to diplomacy, resulting in a win-win situation for all concerned.
What do these two history snippets tell us? First, that the Greek government is determined to expose at least the top of the bribery iceberg; and second, that ozed diplomacy, was a sucMerkel’s recent visit, which ocess story for her and, more importantly, for beleaguered Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras.
Apart from some objectors dressing in Nazi costumes during the visit, and the burning of a swastika flag, there was little of the violence anticipated by the thought police. The frustration felt by almost all Greeks at uncertainty caused by the delay in publishing the EU-IMF-ECB troika report on the state of the Greek economy is now so widespread that, in a sense, the outcome is meaningless.
Either the report will be negative (in which case the Athens coffers will be empty by the end of November) or it will be positive and Greece will receive the next tranche of the bailout. In either case, severe austerity will continue along with Greece’s massive international debts.
But two factors seem to have raised the stakes and point towards a possibly better outcome (in the long term) for Greece and the Greeks. One was Samaras’s statement, shortly before Merkel’s visit (and ironically in a German newspaper, Handelsblatt), that if the tranche was not paid, the till would be empty and Greece would effectively be bankrupt. It’s something we have heard several times before, but it was generally realised that this time he wasn’t crying wolf! The second factor was that, in scarcely coded messages, Merkel in Athens seemed to be telling the IMF to move from the expected negative report to a positive one.
Up to now, apart from comparatively minor hassles between the troika and Athens about the amount and duration of the latest austerity package (would it be €11.5 billionn or €13.5 billion) the main problem has arisen over Greece’s capacity to instigate the changes on which the troika insists: principally, slimming down the civil service, structural changes in administration, opening up self-regulating professions which range from hairdressers and truck drivers to pharmacists and lawyers and selling state assets such as small islands and the old Athens airport.
Up to now, the troika has insisted on concrete evidence of progress on all these fronts before the next tranche can be disbursed. One of the reasons for the delay in publishing the report, initially expected in early October, is thought to be to give Greece further time to produce that evidence. But there is every reason to suspect that hardliners in the IMF, led in Greece by the unfriendly Poul Thomsen, will not give way despite hints from Merkel and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde.
Meanwhile, the accusing finger points at more than the 36 men going up for trial. An Athens joke is: why is Evangelos Venizelos (leader of the socialist party, Pasok) so fat? Because he was once minister of defence (2009-11).
The post is widely bruited to be the best cabinet position as far as opportunity for bribes is concerned. No one would of course suggest that Venizelos took bribes, but one of his predecessors, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, is in custody while his trial for money laundering proceeds.
No politician or senior civil servant is above suspicion. Nor are the very rich. A report leaked by Lagarde while she was French finance minister indicates that about 2,000 Greek citizens hold assets in HSBC’s Geneva branch of €1.5 billion and that, when he was finance minister himself, Venizelos suppressed the report.
Financial analysts, watching the withdrawal of €70 billion in cash from Greek banks since 2009, describe it as the tip of the iceberg.
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Under consumer legislation in Ireland, a package holiday is a pre-arranged holiday that consists of at least two of the following:
Your package holiday must be pre-arranged and is sold at an inclusive price, must last for a period of at least 24 hours or includes an overnight stay. It does not matter if you are asked to pay separately for different components of the package (i.e., the flight or travel), you holiday still remains a "package holiday".
However, arrangements made by a tour operator or travel agent specifically for an individual consumer's requirements (i.e., separate accommodation or alternative arrangements to those covered and included in the brochure) are not regarded as package holidays. Similarly, a holiday which you put together yourself is not regarded as a package holiday. Where you are booking a package holiday over the internet, you should check whether Irish consumer legislation covering package holidays applies to it.
The information provided in your holiday brochure must not be false or misleading. If you enter into a contract, (and it is important to remember that this is a contract) on the basis of what is in the brochure, you may claim damages if the information is incorrect.
Your package holiday is organised primarily by a tour operator, organiser or retailer. A tour operator is the person who acts as the principal person in relation to overseas travel, which it arranges for the purpose of selling (or offering for sale) to the general public.
A retailer in the context of a package holiday, is usually a travel agent. Travel agents sell packages to consumers, which are generally put together beforehand by a tour operator. A travel agent is the person who acts as agent by selling or offering to sell to, or purchase overseas travel on behalf of, the public on a commission basis.
The Package Holidays and Travel Trade Act 1995 requires tour operators and travel agents to protect you in the event of their becoming insolvent (bankrupt).
The Commission for Aviation Regulation licenses travel agents and tour operators in Ireland. All tour operators and travel agents are required by law to enter into a bond before they are licensed. This bond protects the interests of the customer and means that if the travel agent or tour operator becomes bankrupt, the Commission then administers the bond. This usually involves the Commission assessing individual claims from customers of the failed tour operator or travel agent, making refunds to customers who have purchased holidays and where necessary, arranging for customers who have been unable to begin or complete their holiday to be brought home.
Every customer must receive a copy of the contract and every contract must contain:
In addition, before the contract is concluded, your must be given some other important information:
It is important to read through the terms and conditions of your package holiday contract. Your contract will outline the procedures in place for dealing with complaints, it will confirm to whom you should make your complaint and it will outline the way in which complaints should be made (i.e., in writing, etc.).
If you have a complaint while on holiday, you should report the problem at once to your local holiday representative or organiser in the vicinity.
The tour operator must compensate you for any shortfalls in the service that it provides - between what was originally due and what was actually provided.
The tour operator should be given the opportunity to remedy the situation, at no extra cost to you.
If you are not satisfied that the matter has been resolved, you should gather as much evidence as possible to support your case while on holidays, including taking photographs or video footage (if possible).
If you are not satisfied that the complaint has been dealt with properly when you return from the holiday, you must lodge a complaint in writing to the tour operator - within 28 days from the date of completion of the package holiday contract.
If it does not respond within a reasonable time, a second letter of complaint should be sent.
If you are still not satisfied with the operator's response, you can take the complaint to the Small Claims Court for a small non-returnable fee if your claim does not exceed €2,000. Queries in relation to your Small Claims Court application should be addressed to your local District Court.
Most package holiday contracts state that claims above this Small Claims Court limit may be pursued through arbitration.
The National Consumer Agency (NCA) is empowered to oversee the enforcement of Irish legislation governing package holidays and to identify breaches of this legislation (i.e., misleading advertising, inaccurate brochures, etc.). The NCA cannot bring proceedings on behalf of a citizen.
An organiser or operator found guilty of an offence under Section 21, Section 22(3) or Section 26 of the Package and Holidays and Travel Trade Act 1995, (which relate to bonding and obstruction of authorised officers) could be liable to a fine of €1,900 or, if convicted, to a fine of up to €63,500 or imprisonment for up to two years (or both).
If the organiser or operator cancels the holiday or alters a term of the contract, including the price or type of accommodation, the consumer must be given the option of one of the following:
No price changes are allowed within 20 days of the departure date.
The organiser has the right to cancel the package due to factors out of its control, such as an act of God, or where it has failed to get the number of people that was required for the package.
To transfer a package holiday to another person, the consumer must give reasonable notice to the organiser. Both the original purchaser of the holiday and the party to whom it is being transferred are jointly liable for payment or the balance of payment of the holiday or for any other costs involved.
You can check that your tour operator or travel agent is licensed and bonded here or contact:
Further consumer information about package holidays and your rights is available from:
4 Harcourt Road
Opening Hours:- Lines open Monday - Friday 9am - 6pm
Tel:(01) 402 5555
Locall:1890 432 432
Fax:(01) 402 5501
If you have a question relating to this topic you can contact the Citizens Information Phone Service on 0761 07 4000 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 8pm) or you can visit your local Citizens Information Centre.
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"Vermont Everyday Jobs"
Lt. Governor Phil Scott started his "Vermont Everyday Jobs" initiative to promote Vermont businesses and highlight the hard work that Vermonters do every day in all areas of our economy. Lt. Governor Scott plans to take a few times each month, as his schedule permits, to work a few hours in different facilities, offices, factories and farms around the state.
By finding out firsthand, and in a hands-on manner, what it takes to make Vermont businesses work, the Lt. Governor will gain a better understanding of what state government can do to help those businesses work better. The tour will also help to facilitate relationships and ongoing dialogue between the Vermont business community -- to include everyone from company owners to custodial crews -- and their representatives in state government.
If you would like to invite the Lt. Governor to work in your "Everyday Job," please contact us!
The Lieutenant Governor's "Everyday Jobs" Resume
Casella Waste Management Recycling Center (Rutland) / April 9, 2013
Sorted recyclable materials by hand and machine, and baled them to prepare them for market.
CVCAC Home Weatherization Team (Williamstown) / January 4, 2013
Worked with a team of contractors to make a home more energy-efficient.
Boys and Girls Club of Burlington / August 14, 2012
Helped lead an outdoor field trip, kayaking on Waterbury Reservoir, for a group of elementary-school-age students enrolled in the Club's summer day camp.
Green Mountain Club's "Long Trail Patrol" (Shrewsbury) / July 25, 2012
Worked with staff and volunteers performing restoration work on hiking trails.
IBM (Essex) / July 10, 2012
Worked in the "clean room" production facility for 200mm microchips found in cell phones, tablets, high-definition TVs and more.
Dr. Alison Cornwall, Large-Animal Veterinarian (Central VT) / March 28, 2012
Performed horse dental exam, de-horned baby goats, castrated a male alpaca.
Smugglers' Notch Distillery (Jeffersonville) / February 14, 2012
Measured ingredients, operated the still, labeled and bottled their award-winning vodka.
Burlington Fire Department (Burlington) / November 7, 2011
Completed a training exercise, checked life-safety equipment, and responded to a medical call.
Vermont Rail Systems (Rutland) / October 13, 2011
Installed rail ties along the Clarendon-Pittsford Railroad Line.
Vermont Foodbank (Rutland) / October 5, 2011
Distributed commodity food boxes to seniors and low-income families.
The Addison Eagle (Middlebury) / August 16, 2011
Made advertising sales calls on local businesses in Middlebury and Vergennes.
GE Aviation (Rutland) / July 26, 2011
Worked the manufacturing line for aircraft engine parts.
Orange County Sheriff's Department (Chelsea) / July 13, 2011
Took target practice at the range, ran traffic patrols and assisted motorists.
Lake Champlain Ferry (Burlington) / June 30, 2011
Directed traffic and parked cars on the ferry to New York.
Breakwaters Café (Burlington) / June 30, 2011
Did touch-up painting on the deck and waited tables during the lunch rush.
Windjammer/Best Western Inn (South Burlington) / June 24, 2011
Made beds and installed appliances in guest suites; peeled potatoes and expedited lunch orders in the restaurant.
Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice (Berlin) / June 8, 2011
Made house calls to Central Vermonters with chronic health conditions.
Beekeeper Michael Palmer of French Hill Apiary (St. Albans) / June 1, 2011
Separated queen bees from worker bees to start new hives.
Doug Cox Violins (Brattleboro) / May 18, 2011
Carved, planed and varnished pieces for hand-crafted violins.
Union Memorial Elementary School (Colchester) / April 11, 2011
Taught spelling and reading comprehension to second graders.
AllEarth Renewables (Williston) / March 17, 2011
Assembled a solar tracker that became part of the South Burlington Solar Farm (went live July 27, 2011).
Stowe Mountain Resort (Stowe) / March 13, 2011
Checked tickets and loaded ski lifts.
Porter Hospital (Middlebury) / February 10, 2011
Made rounds with doctors in the Emergency Department, and served lunch to nursing home residents.
Green Mountain Power (South Burlington) / January 31, 2011
Worked with a line team installing new utility lines at a senior housing development.
Vermont Quicklube (Barre) / January 20, 2011
Changed oil and topped off fluids under tight time constraints.
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anti-nuclear protest, Eco, environment, Food for Thought, Fukushima Prefecture, Hiroshima, Idintakarai village, Kalpakkam, KKNPP, Koodankulam, Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, Kudankulam, Madras High Court, News, Nuclear Hazards, Nuclear power, Nuclear power plant, state terrorism, Tamil Nadu, terrorism, This is life, Tirunelveli district, tvaraj
As I sit here in my home village of Idinthikara watching the hot sun light up the waves rolling onto the shores, I think of the news that has hit the world today about the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant. All of you must have seen the news that the Madras High Court has given the go-ahead for the KKNPP.
When we carried the dead body of democracy and burnt it in the outskirts of our village on Aug15th, 2012, little did we realize that so soon we would witness the real death of democracy. As this last nail is being tightened on our lives, we realize how insignificant has been our voice. But this has only strengthened our vow to be together.
As I think aloud with my friends gathered here rolling beedis and contemplating our future, I wonder who can give clearance without getting the consent of all of us who live so close to the plant. For over 2 decades, we have waited for some form of consultation with us about issues and doubts that have troubled our minds. Apart from generalized assurances with statements like It is Safe and There will be no problems, we have not been given any answers. Are we not still living here and are we not expected to live here? Or do we not exist or have become transparent like the people of Hiroshima who just vanished as they walked along the streets?
As we talk this afternoon with the wind blowing over the Neem trees and bending the branches of the drumstick tree, it is our minds that are getting loaded-
We realize while cleaning the sardines and mackerels that came into our houses this morning that the Environmental Clearance given for the KKNPP is not appropriate or legal. What study can vouch for the safety of the KKNPP? Has the scientific team who did the study ever asked us about the fishes and other animals that have provided us with life for generations? Do they know the seasonality of the species, the variations in currents and tides, the changes in the seas as seasons change? Do they mention the rich wedge bank offshore that is home to many species that sustain our lives? What have they said about the abundant catch of prawns and lobsters? Who can decide that 45 degree centigrade or 35 degree centigrade is the permissible heat in which life forms will be safe? Will the water not contain substances with radiation? Is there a limit called permissible for radiation? Even children know that in the case of radiation, any dose is an overdose.
We look at our homes and the sea avidly- because we are afraid this will all become an Exclusion zone as we have seen in Fukushima and Chernobyl. We might have to go away from here gathering all our belongings. Where will we go and how will we survive? We know of no life away from the sea. Our men are so dependant on the waters of the sea. Away from her, our health will wither, we will become wasters and gamblers not to speak of searching for the wrong kind of jobs. We need to be together to live in peace and harmony. Has any impact study ever mentioned this? Will a bit of money be able to buy us all that living in the community brings ?
Yes, please answer all these questions and we will reconsider our vow to struggle till KKNPP is closed. We suggest that all the decision makers and technical support personnel connected to KKNPP stay with us in the village for a few days and explain and answer all our questions. Only then can our vow be broken…
[From conversations with Leema Navaras, Chellamma, Fransisca, Mary, Sundari, Annammal, Chinna Thankam, Tamilarasu, Ponnasakkiammal, Paramasithi, Melrit and Xavieramma and the innumerable women gathered in the Samara pandal at Idintakarai village.
11.08.2012, 15-16.08.2012, 22.08.2012, 31st Aug 2012.]
Anitha.S ( anithasharma2007@gmailcom).
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UnityPoint Health - Des Moines
1200 Pleasant Street
Des Moines, Iowa 50309
Back on Track
Kim Piper, RN, was in pain. Kim oversees the genetics program for the Iowa Department of Health, but as a former labor and delivery nurse, she spent years on her feet in a hospital setting, which had taken a toll on her knees.
When knee pain put her plans to walk a marathon on hold, Kim sought the help of her family physician. She was diagnosed with arthritis in both knees, which significantly reduced her ability to function without pain.
After a year of treatment, Kim's knee pain required the intervention of an orthopaedist. Kim was referred to Des Moines Orthopaedic Surgeons' David A. Vittetoe, MD, practicing at Methodist West Hospital.
"We started with steroid injections in both knees," says Kim. "When that no longer worked, we tried injections of synthetic viscosity medications that I called 'joint lube.' When the pain still kept me up at night, we discussed the option of total knee replacement."
Kim and Dr. Vittetoe decided to replace her left knee joint because it was causing more pain than her right knee. She was educated about the procedure in the Total Joint Class at Methodist West.
In the past, knee replacement surgeries were delayed until patients were older to reduce the likelihood of needing more than one joint replacement surgery on the same joint. With time, man-made joints can loosen and deteriorate, but new data shows today's prostheses are lasting longer.
"Contemporary hip and knee replacements are more durable than they have been historically, making them viable options for patients Kim's age," says Dr. Vittetoe. "We felt her functional status had declined to an unacceptable level, and joint replacement surgery was warranted. Our goal for each patient is to reconstruct the joint to be as close to 'normal' as possible."
In Good Hands
Kim was prepped for surgery and given a spinal block, which numbed her lower extremities. The joint replacement surgery took about 45 minutes, and Kim was walking later that evening with the aid of a walker.
Requiring only oral pain medication, Kim was able to move around her room, walk down the hall and practice climbing stairs the first day after surgery. On the second day after surgery, she could walk with crutches.
"My care after the surgery was excellent," says Kim. "The nursing staff was very attentive, the support staff on the orthopaedic floor was knowledgeable and the physical therapy staff was very encouraging."
A Healing Environment
Joint replacement surgery is becoming a more common procedure. Outcomes for the vast majority of patients are good in terms of pain relief and return to former levels of functioning.
Total Joint and Spine Services at Methodist West include a 34-bed orthopaedic unit that specializes in total joint replacement. Each room is designed with patients recovering from joint replacement surgeries in mind.
Kim was able to walk into the shower and sit on the second day of her hospital stay. Each private room also features hotel-like accommodations for family members.
"It was a unique experience to be a part of the planning for a new hospital," says Dr. Vittetoe. "Working together with referring physicians, anesthesiologists, nurses and therapists, we have taken a team approach to the care of joint replacement patients."
Because of the ice and snow in mid-December, Kim was thankful she had been prescribed in-home physical therapy for the first two weeks. She knew an injury in the first six months after surgery might result in revision surgery to repair the joint.
Later, better able to navigate icy sidewalks, Kim attended three weeks of outpatient therapy. She returned to work four weeks after her knee replacement surgery, feeling it had been well worth it.
"I'd like to thank all the staff at Methodist West and my orthopaedic surgeon for giving me the opportunity to walk without pain," says Kim. "I feel fortunate to have been referred to Dr. Vittetoe. I credit his expertise and the excellent care I received at Methodist West and at physical therapy for my quick recovery."
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Brains or a blast to the face? These are merely two options in this new tabletop dice game by Steve Jackson Games – Zombie Dice. Two or more players play AS ZOMBIES to race to collect the most brains. The game contains thirteen black six-sided dice with three accent colors: green, yellow, and red. These colors correspond to the three symbols on the dice: feet, brains, and a shotgun blast. Obviously, you’re trying to roll as many brains as possible, while feet represent your victim running away, and a shotgun blast is the bane of the zombie’s existence!
The six green dice are easy pickings, representing as the elderly, the young, or the sick. These nice dice contain three brains, two feet, and one blast. The four yellow dice are your “average Joe” and contain two brains, two feet, and two blasts. The three red are the LMOE (last man on earth) or survivalist nuts; they contain three blasts, two feet, and one brain.
The active player shakes the can full of dice and dumps out three at random (no peeking!). They then roll those specific dice and see where fate takes them. Brains are kept to the side; blasts remain up, with feet being rerolled with new dice to total three. The player rolls three dice at a time and their turn is up when they either get three blasts to the head or choose to “bank” their dice. One can choose to either use a ten sided die or anything higher (I use a D20) to keep count or anything at hand such as pennies or nickels to save on coins if you have a brain streak.
The game is very simple to learn, very quick to play, and travel friendly. The players can decide how many brains to play up to as the winner; ten for a short game or as high as you feel like going in a single game. There is no proper number of brains to collect.
Also available is an expansion containing three new dice: the sports jock from high school, the ditzy cheerleader girlfriend, and Santa Claus. The jock is black with white symbols, the cheerleader pink with white symbols, and Santa Claus with red and white. To play with the expansion, remove two yellow dice and a green to make room for the new dice.
The jock comes with two feet, two shotguns, one double shotgun, and one double brain. His girlfriend comes with three feet, two shotguns, and one brain. These two are not only dangerous with their blasts, but also have the ability to save each other. If the guy or girl is a brain and the other shows up with a shotgun, the other is rescued and goes back into the cup and is rerolled. Dangerous duo!
Santa Claus is a lot of fun, but watch out – he’s got some treats for the good little zombies and some coal for the naughty ones. He comes with a standard footprint, shotgun, and brain. However, he brings you two brains on one side as well. On the other two sides are a helmet and a energy drink on the other: the helmet allows you to take a fourth blast to your life in one turn while the energy drink makes you faster, turning any green feet rolled that turn into automatic brains.
If you like zombies, table top games, or any combination thereof – then grab yourself some Zombie Dice. This game gets five brains out of five for its ease of play, portability, and number of people able to play. So, grab a friend – or five – and get ready to eat some brains! Zombie Dice retails for $12.99 at ThinkGeek.com.
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BERLIN (AP) — Nobel literature laureate Gunter Grass is expected to return home within days after being admitted to hospital for what his secretary called a routine examination.
Grass was admitted to a Hamburg hospital Monday, less than two weeks after his poem criticizing Israel triggered a storm of criticism.
Grass’ secretary Hilke Ohsoling told German news agency DAPD Tuesday that the 84-year-old’s admission was previously planned.
“We expect that he will be back at home at the end of the week,” she said.
In “What Must Be Said,” published April 4, Grass criticized what he called Western hypocrisy over Israel’s nuclear program and labeled the country a threat to “already fragile world peace” over its stance regarding Iran.
Israel’s interior minister has since announced Grass barred from Israel.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
|Like us on Facebook||Get our newsletter||Follow us on Twitter|
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Hundreds of volunteers in Central Oregon are honoring Dr. King today by giving back to their local communities. Tia Sherry, with "Volunteer Connect" says last year about 350 people in Central Oregon came out to do service projects. It’s a national movement that is also popular in Central Oregon. There are 28 volunteer projects planned for this morning. KBND: “How about some examples of local projects you'll be working on?” Tia: “We have right now, 28 projects and we're really excited, because they are spread out over seven communities: from Sunriver, to Culver, Prineville, Redmond, Bend, La Pine and Sisters.” In Bend they are working on a Habitat for Humanity home. In Culver, Girl Scouts are making placemats and cards for seniors. And in La Pine, volunteers are painting the Community Kitchen.
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The first thing I want to tell people about taking photographs is “Get Out of The House” I don’t care if you have a Kodak Easy Share, a cell phone camera or a $5,000 camera, light in homes just plain Sucks for the most part and you will get frustrated.
The sun is a great, FREE light source to take photos. Now, the first thing some people want to do is have their family and friends turn toward the sun so it lights their faces. The problem? Everyone is SQUINTY. Try this next time you are outside. Have your subject stand with the sun at their back, Yes the sun will be pointing at you. Notice that it makes a nice glow around their hair.
Ok, good. BUT their face is in shadow!. That is where your flash comes in. Yes it is sunny but that is no reason not to use the flash. Let that flash fill in all those nasty shadows. Now you have a nice sunny background and nice bright faces.
But OH NO, Sun Spots! Those annoying green dots in your pictures. This is lens flare and it happens to everyone from time to time. If you are using a DSLR you can minimize this with a lens hood. For people with a point and shoot, you can use your hand or even your hat. All you need to do is shade your lens.
When it’s cloudy, grab the camera! Overcast days are PERFECT for pictures of your family. It is like the sun has a giant softbox on it. With an overcast day you can shoot morning, noon and night without harsh shadows. Here is a shot on a lawn at noon on an overcast day.
Ah, which brings me to the time of day. There is what we call “The Golden Hour” Actually it should be Hours because there is 2 times during the day it is the best time to take photos. One hour after sunrise and One hour before sunset. The sun is in the perfect position these times of the day. Avoid those harsh rays at Noon. The sun is really high in the sky and the light is just so harsh and unflattering.
On that note, if you are interviewing a professional for, lets say a family reunion photo, and the Photographer says, “Hey we can shoot anytime you want!” BEWARE. There is only so much equipment can do for outdoor group shots to manipulate the light. A true professional will warn you about harsh light and the best times to shoot. Just a little test you can do when you interview someone. Oh, interviewing professional photographers!
Maybe that will be my next blog!
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* Do not use your wheelchair to harass people with canes. They are not "faking," nor are you higher up on some sort of disability hierarchy.
(this happened to me a few times -- the person doing it made no small bones about the fact that their disability was more "authentic," since they'd been born with it, and those who had accidents or illness later on in life didn't count as truly disabled.)
* Do not passively aggressively refuse to acknowledge a person who asks you kindly to move your scooter so that they can pass through a narrow hallway.
(one young woman made a regular production of this, using her chair to park diagonally in a hallway that provided the only access to a set of classrooms -- when she finally did acknowledge the request, she'd throw a nasty little tantrum)
* Do not drive down the yellow lane, or in any car or bicycle traffic lanes. You do not get to hold up traffic for mile after mile. Nor should you pop through the crossing when you have a red light or a stop sign to negotiate. Nor do you get to pop in between parked cars on the street and fly out into traffic.
(a lot of people do this pretty regularly around here, and some poor woman hit one of the men when he flew out between parked cars, directly into the driving lane -- she had no time to stop, and continues to blame herself for his death)
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If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it
To the Editor:
I would like to rebut some of the recent letters that have appeared in this forum regarding abolishing the police commission as an antiquated method of doing business in a strong city manager form of government. Those who would have you believe the Commission should be abolished are using the same old argument year after year. I have to ask, what can be bad about being transparent; the elected voice for the community and a direct conduit to the police department?
These letter-writers and some members of the Council would have you believe that the Police Commission has no control over the budget and therefore have been fiscally irresponsible with the tax payer’s money. The elected Police Commissioners have been transparent for years and thus I say that argument is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
One letter-writer compared the police department budget to other budgets in the city. This letter writer said that the Police Commission has no authority over budgetary matters. We would disagree with that statement and in fact have helped to manage the appropriation provided to the police department. Every year since I have been on the Police Commission through good fiscal oversight, unexpended funds have been returned to the general fund and tax payer.
The Commission provides a valuable oversight of police operations and has supported innovative programming that has kept your police department on the cutting edge. They have helped to curb the high turnover that has been seen in the past through sound hiring decisions and the negotiation process.
I’d like to touch briefly on statements made by Mayor Jean in his recent community commentary about policy. The citizens elected a person to the Commission that has maintenance contracts with the City involving the Police Department. In our continued mode of transparency, we needed to remove any notion of impropriety. That policy was introduced, it was vetted and it was adjusted. This was months ago. The Police Commission has certainly moved on from it and functioned well as an elected board on behalf of the citizens.
The authority given to the Commission under the Charter in layman’s terms says the Police Commission hires and dismisses police officers, sets compensation and rules for the agency. It is true the Police Commission has approved merit increases for staff. The Council as a whole (as none have spoken to the contrary) disagreed with us doing so. In response they said this made them look bad when talking with other city employees. Quite frankly, that is their burden to carry, not the Police Commission’s.
The raises awarded by the Police Commission to staff this past fiscal year were based on merit and in accordance with the guidelines and policy created by the Council as part of the merit plan. The Police Commission reviewed performance evaluations, debated and recommended increases that averaged at 3.25%. These raises were deserved based on documented performance. Conversely other non union staff in the City received “merit” increases without any performance evaluation contrary to the City’s own policy. In all honesty, I’d say that’s the pot calling the kettle black.
Set aside the power struggle for a moment if you will. I firmly believe what is most important here are our citizens. This ‘us vs. them’ mentality is ineffective and inefficient. Let us operate with open dialogue. Time and again we’ve submitted requests to the Council to jointly meet. Such requests have been placated or outright ignored only to the point of when Council feels the Commission needs to “answer” for our actions. We don’t operate in a vacuum and all of what we have done has been openly recorded at our monthly meetings as well as in the financial reports submitted monthly to the Council.
I’d like to thank those citizens who have written in, in support of keeping the Police Commission. The Police Commission is the voice of our citizens in the Police Department. I urge the citizens to really think about what you may lose if the Police Commission is abolished. It’s been working for at least 56 years — the last 22 under this “strong City Manager” form of government. In my opinion the Police Commission is still working for you, our citizens the way it was intended when it was created so many years ago. If it isn’t broken, and I don’t think it is, then don’t fix it.
Alan B. Bemis
Police Commissioner Ward 5 / 6
Why the Police Commission must go
To the Editor:
The voters of Rochester are once again being asked to consider the abolishment of the police commission. Supporters of the police commission view this as yet another attempt by the City Council to gain more authority and power. Conversely, those in favor of abolishment continue to add to the litany of examples as to why this antiquated three-member board must be eliminated for good. I want to take this opportunity to provide my sincere opinion as to why the police commission is no longer needed in the Lilac City.
Over the last two and a half years, I have witnessed time and time again the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the commission. There have been many missteps by the commission in the realm of policy making and budgetary considerations. Most notably, they attempted to grant raises to the police command staff over and above the appropriation by the City Council. When challenged, the commissioners always turn to the powers provided to them by the city charter for cover. That’s why I’d like to explain this in more detail for consideration by the voters
The City Council has worked very hard over the last several years to keep the municipal budget as stable as possible. Personnel costs have always topped the list as the highest expenditure in the operating budget. To the extent possible, the City Council has tightened collective bargaining agreements and opted not to fund the merit plan in the past four fiscal years. In most instances, municipal employees have gone several consecutive years without any pay increases. However, the police commission has always found ways to provide raises to the police command staff. As mayor, it is difficult speaking with other municipal employees when the commission awards raises to a select few above and beyond the percentages approved by the City Council. This year, the City Council funded the merit plan at 2.5 percent. The commission attempted to spend above and beyond this appropriation, creating a climate that is not equitable to the remaining municipal employees who do not have the benefit of a generous commission overseeing their salaries.
Regarding policy making, I have to take exception with the recent focus of the police commission. Last year following the 2011 municipal election, the primary objective of the police commission was to establish a “conflict of interest policy.” The purpose of that policy was an attempt to place newly elected commissioner David Winship Jr. in a difficult position and possibly force him to relinquish his police cruiser maintenance contract with the city or resign his position as commissioner. I found this to be extremely distasteful, but more importantly, it demonstrated the commission’s lack of understanding as to their own authority. Under no circumstance would the police commission ever need to consider and vote to award bids relative to any purchasing contract for goods or services. Those bids are governed by our municipal purchasing policy. Yet, the commission forged ahead to isolate one of their own members and institute such a futile policy.
I want to assure our community that if the commission is abolished, constituents will have all thirteen City Councilors at their disposal to handle positive and negative feedback regarding our police department. Working collaboratively with the City Manager and Police Chief, it is my hope the police department will have the full benefit of representative oversight and professional management without the unnecessary complexity and bureaucracy of the police commission. The fact that most cities in New Hampshire no longer have police commissions (including surrounding Dover and Somersworth), is a reassuring indicator that the Rochester Police Department will perform well without the commission.
In closing, I sincerely hope the voters of Rochester truly understand why this question is being posed to them once again. The police department should fall under the purview of the City Manager, the non-political chief executive of the city. This works well for the fire department, the public works department, and all other municipal departments that serve our community each and every day. In my professional opinion, the time has come to finally abolish the police commission and allow the police department to thrive in today’s City Manager form of government. Please vote “Yes” on question one on Nov. 6.
Mayor T. J. Jean
Retain the Police Commission
To the Editor:
I would like to take a moment to correct misinformation put out in letters from Ernst Ketel and Rose Marie Rogers. Both Ernst and Rose Marie were 100 percent false!. I didn’t vote the way Mr. Ketel said I did and while I share similar principles of the Tea Party and 9-12 movements, I am not a member of any group. I’ve been trying to lead the way to lower taxes and lower spending long before these groups were around.
Now to switch gears to what I was hoping to write about. As someone who has supported abolishing Rochester’s Police Commission in the past, I’ve come to realize when voters speak (seven times!) it’s time to move on. The constant attempts to get rid of the commission are about power and control and nothing else. Comparing the fire and police departments is really apples and oranges. Just looking at the number of calls each department gets on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis, there is no comparison. The fire department sees around 200 calls per month where the police department gets in excess of 4,000 calls a month. That’s a significant difference and suggests we get tremendous value for our tax dollars. But in any event, both the police and fire departments are vital public safety organizations we want our tax dollars spent on.
What I find most laughable about reasons for abolishing the Police Commission is the merit plan issue. Councilor Keans, Walker, Varney and other councilors pushing for a police department takeover voted for wage increases in the recent past of between 6.6 percent to 12.9 percent per year for management staff and 16 percent per year for the city manager. And even more recently handed out a $10,000 raise to the city’s newest deputy city manager. How they can criticize the Police Commission on that point when their own track record on this issue is very similar is mystifying to me. And when we look at budgets prior to the Tax Cap, we see budget increases supported by these councilors at two to four times the rate of inflation.
I urge you to reject this latest attempt to abolish the Police Commission and see it for what it is — a power grab!
Please vote to keep the Police Commission!
Rep Fred Leonard
Wards 1 & 6
Support the City Charter Amendments
To the Editor:
The Rochester City Council has proposed five City Charter amendments; (1.) increasing citizen representation on the Board of Assessors (2.) improving the scheduling of meetings for newly elected School Boards, (3) requiring that the City Council vote to approve proposed changes to the City employees’ merit plan, (4) eliminating the secret ballot votes by the City Council when filling vacancies in elected City positions; and (5) abolishing the Police Commission. All were proposed by various Councilors without involvement by the City Manager and to my knowledge he has not taken a position on any.
None of the proposed amendments is more critical to shrinking City Government and improving municipal operations than abolishing the Police Commission. Contrary to the desperate writings of the Commission and their few supporters, the Commission serves no useful purpose in our current form of government. By City Charter the Commission has no authority over budgets, cannot award bids or contracts and cannot appropriate funds. Those functions are already the responsibility of the City Manager or the City Council.
The Commission does have the authority to hire and fire sworn police personnel and to set compensation. But is it in the best interest of the City to have politicians involved in personnel matters? That is a function best left to the City Manager.
In terms of setting compensation for officers, the Commission recently promoted a Sergeant to Lieutenant at a higher salary than that being paid to two more experienced Lieutenants. They then appeared before the City Council requesting funds to raise the salaries of the two more experienced officers to “make things equal”. This was a prime example of the Commission’s fiscal irresponsibility.
The Police Department has established numerous outreach programs including the Rochester United Neighborhood meetings held monthly in most wards. I don’t recall ever seeing a Police Commissioner at Ward 1 meetings. Where is the effort for citizen outreach by the Commission? City Councilors and Police Officers attend every meeting.
The most egregious act occurred in 2010 when two commissioners (not Commissioner Bemis) attended a Police Chiefs’ convention at the Balsams Grand Resort, brought their wives and attempted to charge the City for the spouses’ accommodations. It was only after the City Council demanded payments that an outside company compensated the City almost $500 in non-City related expenses. Even that compensation from the outside company is troubling as it looks like an inappropriate gift.
The policies of the Police Commission do nothing to enhance the image of the City. The Commission has continued to require the department to release detailed information to the press above and beyond what is required by statute. An inordinate amount of time is required to prepare this information for release. This provides the local press with material to editorialize criminal activity in our community and create the perception of above average crime, which according to the department, is not accurate. Rochester is the only community in the seacoast releasing information with this level of detail.
The Rochester Police Department is ably managed by Chief Mike Allen and the command staff and should continue to be managed as all City departments are, through the City Manager. Approving the Charter Amendments will remove unnecessary political influence.
Please vote “Yes” on all five Charter Amendments
A. Raymond Varney, Jr.,
No incentive here
To the Editor:
Certain members of the Rochester City Council are lining up to tell citizens that Rochester has a “strong City Manager” form of government and as such the Police Commission should be cast off.
Some council members are saying the goal of abolishing the commission is to take politics out of the equation. Is it possible to take politics out of an elected body?
Furthermore, does anyone believe the city manager won’t be monetarily compensated by quite possibly “tens of thousands of dollars” for assuming new duties?
Does anyone believe the manager won’t try to augment his empire?
There seems to be a pattern of the city manager to get assistants and then get an assistant for that assistant!
Who believes there won’t be an increase of at least a hundred thousand dollars to the city budget in very short order?
Whether voters choose to abolish the Police Commission or not, don’t believe for one moment there won’t be a strong incentive to secure more political and monetary control over the Police Department and our wallets.
Vote for Ovide
To the Editor:
As someone who has worked very hard (two jobs for many years now) for what I have and felt the impact of these rough economic times, I do not underestimate the impact of our next governor’s position on taxes. The two candidates for governor have vastly different stances on taxes; Ovide has taken a pledge not to raise taxes while Maggie has a history, as a state senator, of increasing taxes whenever given a chance. Ovide understands the value of money and the fact that raising taxes will not solve the current issues with New Hampshire’s budget. Maggie, on the other hand has said that she will not have a problem voting for “the right income tax.” I want someone representing me in the corner office that will not raise my taxes, but instead, will protect New Hampshire individuals from increasing taxes. This is one of many reasons I will be voting for Ovide as Governor this Nov. 6.
Vachon for Registrar of Deeds
To the Editor:
I’m writing to share my reasons for supporting Dennis Vachon for Strafford County Register of Deeds and to encourage everyone to vote for him as well.
In the first place, Dennis is uniquely qualified for the job of Register of Deeds. He has his experience as a lawyer and as a real estate broker which suit him very well for the position. In addition, his time in the New Hampshire Legislature has given him an understanding of New Hampshire law especially as it pertains to real estate deeds and transactions.
Secondly, and very importantly to me as a long time conservation volunteer, Dennis was very passionate in his support of establishing a revenue stream for the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) when he was serving in the Legislature. He was there when was this created through surcharges on various real estate transactions, and has since had grave concerns as these valuable funds dedicated to conservation of the lands and historic places that give New Hampshire its character have been raided for other uses. He will continue to advocate for preservation of these funds for conservation.
And thirdly, throughout his life, Dennis has had a long record of public service. As a young man he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. He also worked as a volunteer for food programs for the poor run by the USDA, and recently served in the New Hampshire Legislature. I admire that willingness to work for the public good, and very much hope he will be working for us as Strafford County Register of Deeds.
Join me in voting for Dennis Vachon.
DeLemus is right for Rochester
To the Editor:
In 2010, Rochester wisely voted to elect Susan DeLemus to representative them in Concord. From the first day, Representative DeLemus was always serious about her oath of office and respect for the Constitution while looking out for the best interests of her constituents. She has been a strong advocate of making our government efficient and effective without unduly burdening its citizens with additional taxes and fees.
As Chairman of the House Election Law Committee, I took note of the way Representative DeLemus distinguished herself as a dedicated, hard working legislator and recruited her to be the clerk of our committee. The duties of that position required her to work late even after all other committee members went home. She always fulfilled that, and many other responsibilities, admirably.
The new commonsense requirement that voters show a photo ID at the polls was one of the important changes we enacted to insure the integrity of our elections. Representative DeLemus played an indispensable role in getting that law passed. She served on two different subcommittees which worked on that legislation and also sat on the Committee of Conference which negotiated with the Senate about the final language of the new law. Important systemic changes like that are only possible with the hard work and determination of legislators like Representative DeLemus.
It has been a pleasure and honor to serve with Representative DeLemus. I hope the citizens of Rochester in District 11 recognize what an effective legislator Sue is and how devoted she will continue to be as she represents her constituents in Concord. She has truly been an asset to me on the Election Law Committee and to the whole House of Representatives. We need her back in Concord, and Rochester is fortunate to have the opportunity to send her back. Please vote to re-elect Susan DeLemus as State Representative.
Representative David Bates
Rockingham District 4
Insanity and war
To the Editor:
In some of my letters I have offered myself as a write-in candidate for president (a low cost method of running) because I believe that neither plutocracy nor war are the answer. This has taken me courage because I’ve opened myself to public criticism from pro-war voters, be they republicans or democrats.
In some of my letters I have also been public about having a mental illness because the stigma, which encourages silence, needs to be overcome. This, too, has taken me courage because I’ve opened myself to being misunderstood, feared, or even publicly ridiculed.
It’s fair game to strongly disagree with my political views, and even to question my competence to serve as president due to my medical diagnosis. But it’s not fair game, I believe, for a newspaper to publish stigmatizing letters which refer to my mental illness and portray me as insane simply because I, as a liberal Christian and presidential candidate, question the need for war.
What comes to mind is a quote from Thomas Merton’s book, Raids On The Unspeakable, “It is the sane ones, the well-adjusted ones, who can, without qualms and without nausea, aim the missiles and press the buttons that will ignite the great festival of destruction that they, the sane ones, have prepared.”
What makes us so sure, after all, that the danger comes from a psychotic getting into a position to fire the first shot in a nuclear war? Psychotics will be suspect. The sane ones will keep them far from the button. No one suspects the sane, and the sane will have perfectly good reasons, logical, well-adjusted reasons, for firing the shot. They will be obeying sane orders that have come sanely down the chain of command. And, because of their sanity, they will have no qualms at all. When the missiles take off, it will be no mistake.
Alex J. Boros
Republican candidates are not extreme
To the Editor:
It’s truly amazing the rhetoric you hear when we’re less than two weeks away from an election.
We have people that are hell bent on making every one of the Republican candidates look extreme. They use fear mongering in a last-ditch effort regardless of the facts and claim they are the moderate Democrats, when in reality they are progressives.
These progressives would rewrite our constitution if given the chance. They are against capitalism, which has made this country stand out amongst all others. They want to fund all causes which will increase spending beyond our revenues. They have proven time and again they can’t be responsible with taxpayers’ money. In the 2009-2010 session, they added 80 additional taxes and fees on the citizens of NH and hurt small businesses. These progressives, along with Senator Maggie Hassan and Representatives Grassie and Keans, left our state with an $800 million deficit, yet still claim in their ads that they are “moderates” and that they balanced the budget.
In 2010, the people “cleaned house” and gave Republicans control of the House and Senate. These representatives got NH back on track--reversing many of the taxes and fees and balancing the budget.
Do you own research on the candidates; the Democrats are hoping you won’t. Mr. Ketel referenced http://granitestateprogress.org/ as his source for information — clearly a progressive Democrat website. If you would like to do a comparison: http://nhhra.org/index.htm Read what both of these sites stand for.
We have great conservative candidates, all unique individuals, but have one thing in common — their principles and values. These Republican candidates believe in our state, our country, and our constitution. They want a limited government with liberty and freedom for all people. Is this extreme?
Remember “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” Gerald Ford, 1974
To try to portray Republican candidates as extreme would be laughable if this election weren’t so critical to the future of this state and our country. Please get out the vote.
Stop crazy spending
To the Editor:
I take issue with the Ernst Ketel letter published in the Rochester Times on 10/25. I have followed our legislators and their records. It is easy to take pot shots, use the adjectives “extreme,” “draconian,” and “backward” when one really has no grasp of the process and the issues.
Being self-employed, I spend only what I earn. I am tired of politicians thinking the taxpayer is an endless pool of money for every program they can dream up, always going back to the taxpayer for more. It has to stop! Our current senators and representatives realized that and brought spending in line with growth. Twenty-five percent growth in the state government in the previous four democratically controlled years only hurt us working people. I want representatives who balance the state budget the way I balance my personal budget and are frugal with my money. I’m proud of our Republican legislators for thinking of us, the taxpayer first, instead of special interest groups.
I can’t support politicians who vote for income taxes, camping taxes, more business taxes, and more fees. I will not support those who will return us to crazy spending. I will be supporting my current Republican representatives in the house who understand what it takes to balance a budget.
Reelect DeLemus, Jones
To the Editor:
Representatives Sue DeLemus and Laura Jones have worked hard over the past two years as our legislature has worked diligently and responsibly to dig us out of the fiscal mess that drove them to run in 2010. Both are honorable people, and both want what is best for New Hampshire.
Between 2006-2010, state spending increased nearly 24 percent under the Democrat controlled House and Senate. This meteoric rise in spending was reckless and unsustainable, leaving the incoming 2011 Republican controlled Legislature with an unprecedented $800 million budget deficit.
Upon entering office in 2011, Representatives DeLemus and Jones did not let us down. Their commitment was to balance the budget without gimmicks, and without increasing any taxes or fees. They achieved that goal by rolling back spending to 2006-2007 levels, and started the process of making NH a more business friendly state. There is still work that needs to be done.
Representatives DeLemus and Jones have been responsible stewards of our tax dollars. They have committed to not raise our taxes. They have proven to be compassionate while remaining liberty minded with a keen eye on spending. As the economy continues to falter, we should not risk a return of our state spending policies to be driven by the same ideologies that led to a budget increase of 24 percent from 2006-2010.
It is getting very difficult to make ends meet for many New Hampshire residents across the state. Many have lost their homes, and any additional increases in taxes could be devastating to many family structures.
We believe that Representatives DeLemus and Jones have done an excellent job and deserve another term to continue their work as public servants. Not only do we know where they stand on the important issues, they have proven they have the courage to be fiscally responsible while making the right decisions.
Robert and Doris Gates
Much is at stake
To the Editor:
Growing up in New Hampshire we were all Republicans. The current crop, however, is meaner and more self-serving than any in my 75 years. They are driven by Republican strategist, Karl Rove, who masterminded Bush’s 8-year Iraq war.
Since Obama’s election in 2008, Republicans’ only goal has been to defeat him in 2012. We see the depressing image of House Speaker John Boehner on TV. Job proposals, even when offered by Republicans, are dead on arrival.
Our state’s senator in training, Kelly Ayotte, throws up her hands and says we can’t add to the national debt. Where were you Ms. Ayotte when Bush reduced taxes on the rich and added $5 trillion to the debt with two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Were you too young in 1988 to see Ronald Reagan increase the debt from $900 billion to $3.5 trillion? He also reduced taxes on the rich with his disproved theory of “trickle down” economics. Our debt stands at $16 trillion. During the last 24 years $11 trillion of the debt has been the work of Republican presidents.
Since Ronald Reagan, every Republican president has led us into war. For George W. Bush it was two wars. Romney is sounding the same drum roll. He plans to reduce taxes for the wealthy and increase our defense budget by trillions. The military-industrial complex is a forceful Washington lobby.
No Republican ever cared that 50 million people in the United States live on the brink of financial ruin with no health care insurance. When “Obamacare” passed, instead of rejoicing, state senator Bradley pronounced it “unconstitutional”. Senator, what about the little girl who won’t have a vital heart transplant without insurance? And what about a person I love who was rejected by 11 private insurers because she has a pre-existing condition? As to “mean”, the Republican platform makes abortion illegal, even in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s health is at risk.
Romney says he will create millions of jobs. What kind of jobs? As a venture capitalist he built Staples, and receives large profits. Added profits come from manufacturing products for low pay in “third world” countries. Romney doesn’t work, his money does! Now his backers want Romney to deregulate air standards on coal emissions. More acid rain for NH? He plans oil drilling in the Alaskan Refuge. My grandchild begs, “please don’t kill the polar bears.”
Much is at stake in this election. Despite obstacles, Obama saved our economy from falling off a cliff, got us out of war, saved the auto industry and turned the economy around. For America’s future he has my vote, and hopefully yours too.
Voting for Grassie
To the Editor:
Anne Grassie is a veteran state legislator who deserves reelection for the following reasons:
She has worked tirelessly to maintain a strong, viable public education system and has opposed vouchers which divert funds to private, religious and homeschoolers. She believes in adequately funding our public schools. Anne opposed the constitutional amendment that would overturn the “Claremont” decision. Remember Claremont guaranteed NH children a constitutional right to an adequate education. Anne voted against the bill that would have eliminated the requirement that all NH school districts offer public kindergarten.
Anne has shown the commitment to work for the interests and needs of the middle class. Please vote for her on Nov. 6!
AFT NH President
To the Editor:
Election Day is right around the corner. The issues facing New Hampshire are serious ones! We must rally behind candidates for the Legislature who can protect the middle class. Pamela Hubbard is such a candidate. Pamela is a retired teacher from Spaulding High School where she taught English for many years. Because of this, she understands the importance of providing adequate funding for public schools and restoring the cuts to higher education in New Hampshire.
Pamela understands that we need to make sure that teachers, support staff, and public employees should have a voice in the work place; and this is done through the collective bargaining process. Because of this, she opposes efforts to weaken or repeal collective bargaining rights in New Hampshire.
Pamela supports efforts to maintain a defined benefit pension for retired public employees provided by the New Hampshire Retirement System. The present system ensures the security for current and future public employees. Public employee benefits are essential tools for recruiting and retaining a skilled and qualified workforce — educators, police, fire fighters, and other essential public servants — to provide vital services to the citizens of New Hampshire.
Pamela Hubbard is a dedicated public servant who is committed to working for our interests and needs. She deserves your vote on Nov. 6!
To the Editor:
President Obama knows that when women make less than men for the same work, it threatens the economic security of entire families.
Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it. He has consistently failed to stand up for women’s economic security. He recently admitted that he needed binders of resumes to find qualified women for his cabinet in Massachusetts.
President Obama has always fought for issues important to women and families because he believes women’s issues are America’s issues.
President Obama has always been a strong advocate for women’s economic and health security, and doesn’t believe women’s bosses should make women’s health decisions instead of women.
These are only some of the reasons why I am voting for President Obama again in November.
Delemus for Rochester
To the Editor:
Sue Delemus has effectively represented Rochester, as a freshman, but governed like a veteran. She is a strong advocate for the liberties and freedoms we cherish.
She is very personable, optimistic, and greatly admired by her peers for her no-nonsense approaches.
She has advocated for lower regulations, to stimulate jobs growth, and to help citizens. Sue is a huge defender of our laws.
Delemus leads by example. Rochester needs Sue in Concord again.
Vote Sue Delemus for Rochester House District 11 (Ward 4)!
David K. Martin
Welcome to the 47 percent
To the Editor:
I am happy that Dover City Councilor/State Representative Michael Weeden wasn’t as seriously injured as he could have been, given the dangerous situation he recently confronted on the streets of South Boston. As a parent, I can imagine the nightmare scenario and empathize with Rep. Weeden’s parents. I wish him a full speedy recovery from his injuries so he can resume his important duties of representing his Dover and NH constituents.
In the June 8, 2012 edition of Foster’s, the politically ambitious Rep. Weeden, who is no stranger to controversy in his elected positions, stated, “I hope to continue my work in the State Legislature in order to maintain low taxes, ensure limited government, restore personal freedom, and promote individual responsibility. I ask for your support. “
While a part of the extremist Tea-Party-led NH Legislature, Weeden has “responsibly” voted in the affirmative for reducing the rates on tobacco tax and permitting children to drop out of school at age 16. He has also said “yea” for you to “Stand Your Ground.” Councilor Weeden was recently chastised by fellow Dover City Council members for introducing the idea of fireworks on the public streets of Dover. His motives regarding questioning of the City Manager’s authority were called into question by Foster’s, who suggested it was a power grab. Now, with three conflicting accounts and an apparent cover-up about events on Oct. 8, 2012, possibly involving ill-advised (not illegal) behavior beneath the dignity of his public positions, Rep. Weeden may find himself embroiled in his own personal “Weeden-Gate Scandal.”
I would bet that when the highly influential Rep. Weeden officially endorsed fellow “Severe Conservatives” Gov. Mitt Romney for President and Congressman Frank Guinta for re-election, he never dreamed that he would have been considered part of the 47 percent of Americans that Romney talked about: A person dependent on government who considers himself a victim. As a bottom-feeder myself who is extremely dependent on the government for my monthly military retirement check to pay the mortgage and my current state position salary to pay the bills and, yes, taxes (Federal Income, Payroll and Property), I welcome him to the 47 percent club.
Hassan for governor
To the Editor:
As the Nov. 6 voting date rapidly approaches, New Hampshire residents find themselves at a critical political juncture. We have a stark and distinct difference in our gubernatorial candidates.
Remember when the Tea Party candidates were swept into legislative office in 2010? The politicians who promised to get government out of our lives, of course unless you were a teacher, fireman, policeman, retiree, union worker, student, a woman, gay or a senior citizen? Now they have an ally running for Governor. The self-proclaimed “darling of the Tea Party”, Ovide Lamontange.
The Tea Party marches in unison to an ideological drum that does not allow any compromise of their limited beliefs regardless of public opinion or consequence. Ovide Lamontange in the corner office, with a Bill O’Brien Tea Party legislature would be disastrous for New Hampshire and its residents. Fortunately, we have a superior Democratic candidate for Governor in Maggie Hassan. Hassan has demonstrated her leadership in the State Senate working hand-in-hand with Governor Lynch dealing with the states most difficult issues. Her experience in government coupled with her compassion for people and understanding of the issues facing New Hampshire make her the clear choice for Governor.
Focus on environment
To the Editor:
In the Fall issue of “Defenders of Wildlife” magazine there is an article about the fact that both Romney and Obama are focusing on energy, and ignoring our environment and conservation. There has been no mention of the need to address climate change. Many of the Congressmen who have always tried to protect our environment and wildlife are retiring; without this protection, our country will suffer. Clean energy (such as wind and solar powers) is available if we can and will use it! If our leaders in Washington do not address Global Warming and all it portends, our country may not exist as we know it! Mr. Romney stated during the latest debate that he is in favor of drilling in the Arctic! That would be the most disastrous happening for our environment — along with approving the XL Pipeline down through our country to Texas! Both of these proposals would be totally disastrous for our country and its citizens if they were to be allowed!
Romney lacks real economic plan
To the Editor:
Jobs and the economy are important election issues this November. Each presidential candidate must try to convince the American people that he can do a better job getting the economy back on track.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman maintains that our economy is slowly recovering, that President Obama indeed rescued us from the brink of a disaster brought on by the failed Bush policies, and that he has done so despite Republicans trying to block him at every turn. Yet is this enough to satisfy the American people? Romney promises to create jobs — 12 million to be exact. That sounds good, doesn’t it? But Krugman says not so fast. In his Oct. 19, 2012 New York Times opinion piece, Krugman dismantles Romney’s promises. He tells us that Romney has no plan to fix the economy. To use his exact words: “He’s just faking it.” The five-point plan that Romney refers to over and over again contains no specifics. As noted by President Obama, Romney’s plan offers a return to Bushonomics — tax cuts for the wealthy and weaker environmental protections. Krugman states that Romney’s numbers just do not add up. As for the studies Romney’s campaign claims support his jobs plan, Krugman states, “… it is, to use the technical term, lying - just as it is when it says that six independent studies support its claims about taxes (they don’t).”
Krugman, an internationally respected economist, concludes that Romney is placing his faith in “the confidence fairy.” Romney as much stated this during his now-infamous 47 percent statement that called almost half of the American people moochers. Romney publicly pronounced that he would give a big boost to the economy simply by being elected, “without actually doing anything.” (We did hear him say exactly that on tape.)
The Nobel Prize-winning economist notes that fixing the economy is just not that easy, that Romney’s sheer “awesomeness” won’t do the trick. Krugman is very clear: Romney does not have a jobs plan. “Just a plan for a snow job on the American people.” Don’t let Mitt Romney lie his way to the oval office.
What is extreme?
To the Editor:
Obviously, Mr. Ketel doesn’t know what he is talking about. The group ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) that he referenced is a bipartisan organization of legislators throughout the country that works to protect our liberties and our wallets. It’s not much different in terms of who can join from NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures), a group which the former Democrat speaker of NH House, Terie “I love to tax you” Norelli is now president.
Does Mr. Ketel refer to NCSL as an extreme group too? I believe growing spending far above the rate of inflation and population growth meets the definition of “extreme” — and that is exactly what occurred under her leadership.
I’m voting for people who genuinely care about me, the taxpayer, and my family. I’m voting Republican.
It’s time to support Mitt
To the Editor:
We have only a few days left, and it’s interesting to see what is going on. Obama has recently made his fourth visit to our state, this is an indication that our state is extremely important and this is a rare occurrence since we have only four electoral votes. In The Rochester Times of Oct. 18th, I see articles from people who do not even live in Rochester, from Dover, Durham, in fact there were two comments from Durham people, now; why Durham people would care whom we vote for is a mystery, unless in my opinion, these people are Democratic activists.
In 2008 Rochester voted 55 percent Democratic, 45 percent Republican. I am not connected with any political party, don’t know any activists for either party, I am just a plain citizen looking for what is best for our country right now. Sometimes I vote a split ticket. Right now after seeing three debates, I feel that we need to make a change, and Romney appears to be the thoughtful, steady hand that we need to guide our country.
Most people believe these scare tactics being used by the Democrats, but the Bush tax cuts and benefits were equally favorable to the lower and middle classes as they were to the rich. This year your vote is very important in New Hampshire, the election will be extremely close, possibly a tie, so let us not be scared by negative propaganda, but instead let us look at the big picture. What is important are the deficit, jobs, national security. The next President needs to have the wisdom of Solomon to take on these problems, and we need to think hard and long as to who can fill that bill. Ryan and Romney can.
Sydney A. Rose
Time to let Obama go
To the Editor:
Independent New Hampshire voters are 39 percent of those registered. Our next president may well be chosen by them. The presidency may be decided by New Hampshire’s four electoral votes.
When I ask my wife whether we are better off now than four years ago, her answer is our income is down and our expenses are up. Our personal expenses for gasoline and heating oil are $3,000 higher; and our food bill $1,500 higher. Our health care insurance is about to increase by some unknown number. We are much worse off than four years ago. We can all see Mr. Obama’s policies did not improve things at all. In four years he has increased the national debt by a number only an astronomer can understand.
Each of our four grandchildren will have to shoulder an estimated $100,000 of it.
The question many Independent voters are asking is, “what added debt will our grandchildren have if we reelect Barack Obama?”
Ask yourselves: Has Mr. Obama improved our economic situation or has he made it worse? Has his energy policy led to lower or higher gasoline prices? Gasoline was $1.80 a gallon when he took office. It is now twice that amount.
The cost of energy has a substantial impact on the cost of food and our food bill which is now much more than four years ago. These increases can be directly traced to Mr. Obama’s energy policy. He blocked the Keystone pipeline and reduced the number of oil leases on government owned lands by 30 percent. He has reduced the number of ocean drilling permits by 40 percent. What is more disturbing to me is that he is not aware of these statistics compiled by a government agency that reports to him. If he doesn’t have these important figures in broad strokes at his fingertips how can he be an effective CEO of the largest government enterprise in the world?
New Hampshire Independent voters recognize that Mr. Obama does not understand how our private sector economy works. They recognize that Mr. Obama does not understand what policies are needed to stop the increase of government red ink. And New Hampshire Independent voters recognize that Mr. Obama does not understand what policies are needed to stimulate private investment to create new jobs in the private sector. Governor Romney understands all of this.
Independents know that being a skilled orator is not enough. Mr. Obama is over his head in the job of President and it’s time to let him go.
Independent voters can help ensure a victory for Republican Romney. It will be the independent voters’ gift to their grandchildren.
Obama is caring and compassionate
To the Editor:
The United States barely survived eight years of greed, war-caused loss of lies and financial corruption — all which led to a failed economy. President Obama,while facing many challenges,made tough decisions without compromising the welfare of those entrusted to him. He is successfully salvaging and improving the economy. His calm but firm manner is reassuring and dignified and he has gained the respect and admiration of other world leaders. His caring and compassion for people from all walks of life is genuine.
Now we have Mitt Romney, an elitist candidate,who continually changes his position on health care, Medicare, Social Security, unfair tax breaks for the wealthy and 47 percent of Americans he admittedly cares nothing about. Included in this 47 percent are military men and women, senior citizens and many young bread winners who are unemployed because their jobs were shipped overseas to companies that Mitt Romney is investing in.
Mitt Romney’s disregard for women is demeaning and dangerous. He has often stated that his first priority is to abolish Planned Parenthood. Without Planned Parenthood, many women will not have access to life-saving mammograms, pap smears and birth control. Without available birth control, termination of unwanted pregnancies will return to dark alley atrocities. This is the real world and Mr. Romney, you need to hop down off your pedestal.
Mitt Romney’s fanatical need to muddy ObamaCare is frightening because Americans with pre-existing conditions will be denied insurance coverage. Although Mitt and the insurance companies will be delighted,this will be a death sentence for some.
Mitt Romney is either incapable of making a solid decision or he is a blatant liar. Which ever his problem, he is not qualified to serve as president of the United States.
Constance Taylor Stevenson
To the Editor:
You know an opponent is losing when they start to call you names.
Thus is the case of the letter from Ernst Ketel, in the Oct. 25 Rochester Times, personally attacking our representatives.
The only extreme I see in all of his letter is his extreme inability to understand what it takes to balance a budget. He may not know what it takes to earn a living in today’s economy. I do, and I want to keep as much money as I can, not give it to people who choose not to work. The last legislature passed a responsible budget, and did it without coming to the taxpayers once again, to ask for more money.
I’d say that’s extremely great on their part! Finally, our elected leaders are listening to us and not their cronies. Let’s keep our school board in control of our kids’ education, not Concord! That is protecting my rights as a citizen, not giving away control of our schools to the feds!
I’ll be sure to vote them back in now! Thank you, Republican representatives!
To the Editor:
Paul Ryan’s voucher plans are big news now and Ayn Rand’s free market fiction is back. I read her stuff in High School. “Atlas Shrugged” is that kind of book. John Galt was a perfect teenage hero, a cardboard Rambo in a three-piece suit. He swore never to live his life for the sake of any other man – to stop the engine of the world. “Holy junk bonds, Batman!” What could go wrong?
Sept. 15, 2008 went wrong. Captain Bush steered into the free-market iceberg with Lieutenant Ryan at his side. Lehman Brothers sank. The stock market plunged 500 points. Four million people lost their jobs. Dreams died on every Main Street in America. I’m no free-market hero. One iceberg was enough for me.
Free-market theory did nothing to predict the disaster. Free-market theory fought against the auto industry recovery and fought against the federal stimulus program that rebuilt New Hampshire’s roads. Free-market theory is fighting against Social Security and Medicare today.
Paul Ryan’s voucher plan is dead simple. Give the iceberg a second shot. Just sell the vouchers off to the Wall Street bankers who failed in 2008. “Holy junk bonds, Batman!” What could go wrong?
If you vote for Ryan’s vouchers, stay healthy, young, and rich. You’ll need all three when Ryan’s iceberg hits.
Candidate, NH House, Strafford 1
Vote for Delemus
To the Editor:
Members of the opposing party have tried to mischaracterize me. Let me set the record straight.
First, I love America and the state of New Hampshire where I grew up and my family comes from, starting in 1675. I honor and deeply respect the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions, and the founding Fathers who gave us the most beautiful documents of freedom and limited government. I have worked hard to keep this state in the black instead of in the RED.
Fulfilling the responsibility given to me and the other wonderful Republican Representatives from Rochester to ensure that the New Hampshire way of life is protected and preserved for the citizens of Rochester and State of NH is our main goal. We have kept the promises we made when we last ran in 2010 and we will continue to do so. We gratefully serve all the people.
After having knocked on thousands of doors in Ward 4, and talking to so many of you, I have found an even deeper love and respect for the wonderful people who live in Ward 4. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to meet you and to hear your stories. I am proud to live in Ward 4 and wouldn’t have it any other way. I will keep fighting hard for our rights and freedoms. Thank you so much for your time; I truly appreciate it and look forward to serving you all in the future.
State Rep. Susan DeLemus
Rochester Ward 4
Why I serve
To the Editor:
This past term, Republicans in Concord eliminated an $800 million structural budget deficit that we were left with by the previous legislature as controlled by Democrats. We did so without accounting gimmicks, without increasing state debt, and without raising taxes or fees. We restored financial sanity to NH.
Did we make NH more business friendly in the process by reducing 80 regulations and cutting 20 taxes or fees? Yes. The reason why we worked so hard to attract and retain businesses is because we want our constituents to be able to obtain jobs, put food on the table and take care of their families.
Some have questioned my motives for running for state representative. My family and I made the decision to move to NH long before we heard of the free state project. We moved to NH because we value NH’s low taxes, business friendly environment, and its superior laws protecting privacy and freedom. I serve to make NH a better place for all of us.
State Rep. Laura Jones
Vote for Cole McCrea
To the Editor:
Many of you do not know me, so I would like to introduce myself. I use a wheelchair due to childhood trauma, not disease. I moved to Milton in 1994. I am a widow. I have spent my life helping people heal from trauma and suffering. I chose to live in Milton community to raise terminally and chronically ill foster children.
I learned the principles I live by — On how to live a social life: Jesus; On how to live a political life: Gandhi; On how to live an earthly life: Native American ancestors.
I want to thank the people, especially the Republicans and Tea Party voters who wrote me in on the primary. I was and am honored to be trusted across party lines.
As those who wrote me in and those who voted for me know, I am not held captive by political platforms or ideologies, but always seek the best for the persons to whom I am responsible.
My approach to life is not to blame the other guy but to seek solutions. I seek ideas and strategies and have no ego stake in being right or claiming credit. I like to work with others, especially those who differ from me.
I come from a very poor family who worked hard. Despite my severe disability, I worked through school and held a career. Democratic Federal policies helped make it possible for me to work and live. Without them, I would not have found open doors.
Even today, I work hard. I serve on a number of state councils, representing our communities and county. I teach at our county jail. I am an adoptive parent and a licensed foster parent.
I am extremely frugal to the point of canning food, grinding grain, making yogurt, gardening and sewing clothes. I must be frugal as I live low income.
In my work and public life, I am seen as extremely ethical, though I do not push my ways on others. When I was an administrator, paid by the state, I always considered the costs of decisions and time to the citizens. Every year, in every department, I found ways to return a significant portion of the state allotted budget. I never spent what was allocated… always returned monies… and yet we won awards for our work.
When decision making, I try to consider possible collateral damage that could occur. I am able to lay my personal opinions aside and learn from and respect people and perspectives very different than my own.
If elected, you will see me ask for your opinion, in letters to the editor, in local papers. Please reply.
I hear people talk of wanting no state or federal government, and I can’t see how we could completely eliminate either state or federal government, or if that would truly be in our best interest, but I do believe that small communities are the historical cornerstone upon which our country has been built and that our larger governments were built afterwards, and designed to protect and support our communities and towns. In each situation, I will ask if we are doing that.
I am seeking to represent two small towns. So my question before each vote/action needs to reflect this responsibility. I will tire people out by repeatedly asking: How will this affect Milton/ Middleton? For this I am responsible… one small piece of the pie, but our piece… our communities that we love and want to preserve. This is my bottom line.
I may change my mind sometimes. I may make mistakes. I will need your input. But I will do my best and your well being will be foremost in my mind and on my agenda. Nothing will supercede that.
My hope is that when I leave this position, our communities are stronger and safer than they are today.
Again, I thank all who voted for me, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, and ask all of you, including Independents to consider me as you vote in this election. If you have any questions of me before you cast your vote, please call me. I will be glad to talk and listen to you.
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Local Voices, an organization founded by Lee Hirsch, award-winning creator of the documentary "Bully," aims to bypass the spin of traditional negative campaign ads and prompt a real conversation among voters in swing states about how they benefited under the Obama administration. This week they launched micro-targeted campaign ads in Lynchburg and Hampton Roads, featuring powerful 60-second testimonials from local residents about why they're voting for Barack Obama.
In addition to the Virginia ads, Local Voices is running ads in swing counties in Ohio, Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina. The combined national campaign will spend more than $300,000 on cable television and radio ad buys, all targeted to adults 35+.
Keep reading for more Virginia videos, and all the ads can be viewed at www.localvoices.org.
All of the Local Voices ads feature local people in their homes, place of businesses or out in the community engaging in activities that are important to them. In each ad, the featured voter identifies him or herself and explains his or her reasons for voting for the President.
"The filmmakers who volunteer with Local Voices' grassroots campaign care about the election," Hirsch said. "We traveled to swing states and talk to local people - nurses, teachers, firefighters - anyone willing to share their story and explain why they are voting for the president, then we share their stories for their neighbors to see. By doing this, we do our part to get honest information to undecided voters in important states."
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has put at the top of its front page a photograph of Gov. Cuomo with pro-homosexual “marriage” legislators in their moment of triumph Friday night after the state Senate passed the bill and Cuomo signed it.
But look at the photo. Do these look like admirable men celebrating a genuine accomplishment, or like a vile clique of worms sharing something shameful?
They think history will honor them. I think the opposite is the case. I think history will see them as wreckers of our country.
In 1982, when New York City mayor Edward I. Koch battled Mario Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for governor, there was a rude slogan, “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo.” And now, 29 years later, the son and successor of the “non-homo,” an Italian and nominal Catholic, has pushed through the atrocity of homosexual “marriage” in New York State.
Let’s also remember that Cuomo was strongly supported for governor last fall by the “conservative” New York Post.
June 25, 2011
Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces
By MICHAEL BARBARO
In the 35th-floor conference room of a Manhattan high-rise, two of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s most trusted advisers held a secret meeting a few weeks ago with a group of super-rich Republican donors.
Over tuna and turkey sandwiches, the advisers explained that New York’s Democratic governor was determined to legalize same-sex marriage and would deliver every possible Senate vote from his own party.
Would the donors win over the deciding Senate Republicans? It sounded improbable: top Republican moneymen helping a Democratic rival with one of his biggest legislative goals.
But the donors in the room—the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb—had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views.
Within days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board. Each of them cut six-figure checks to the lobbying campaign that eventually totaled more than $1 million.
Steve Cohen, the No. 2 in Mr. Cuomo’s office and a participant in the meeting, began to see a path to victory, telling a colleague, “This might actually happen.”
The story of how same-sex marriage became legal in New York is about shifting public sentiment and individual lawmakers moved by emotional appeals from gay couples who wish to be wed.
But, behind the scenes, it was really about a Republican Party reckoning with a profoundly changing power dynamic, where Wall Street donors and gay-rights advocates demonstrated more might and muscle than a Roman Catholic hierarchy and an ineffective opposition.
And it was about a Democratic governor, himself a Catholic, who used the force of his personality and relentlessly strategic mind to persuade conflicted lawmakers to take a historic leap.
“I can help you,” Mr. Cuomo assured them in dozens of telephone calls and meetings, at times pledging to deploy his record-high popularity across the state to protect them in their districts. “I am more of an asset than the vote will be a liability.”
Over the last several weeks, dozens of lawmakers, strategists and advocates described the closed-door meetings and tactical decisions that led to approval of same-sex marriage in New York, about two years after it was rejected by the Legislature. This account is based on those interviews, most of which were granted on the condition of anonymity to describe conversations that were intended to be confidential.
‘I Have to Do This’
Mr. Cuomo was diplomatic but candid with gay-rights advocates in early March when he summoned them to the Capitol’s Red Room, a ceremonial chamber with stained-glass windows and wood-paneled walls.
The advocates had contributed to the defeat of same-sex marriage in 2009, he told them, with their rampant infighting and disorganization. He had seen it firsthand, as attorney general, when organizers had given him wildly divergent advice about which senators to lobby and when, sometimes in bewildering back-to-back telephone calls. “You can either focus on the goal, or we can spend a lot of time competing and destroying ourselves,” the governor said.
This time around, the lobbying had to be done the Cuomo way: with meticulous, top-down coordination. “I will be personally involved,” he said.
The gay-rights advocates agreed, or at least acquiesced. Five groups pushing for same-sex marriage merged into a single coalition, hired a prominent consultant with ties to Mr. Cuomo’s office, Jennifer Cunningham, and gave themselves a new name: New Yorkers United for Marriage.
Those who veered from the script faced swift reprimand. When Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, an openly gay Democrat from Manhattan, introduced a same-sex marriage bill in May without first alerting the governor’s office, he was upbraided by Mr. Cohen. “What do you think you’re doing?” the governor’s aide barked over the phone.
Mr. Cuomo’s hands-on management was a turning point not just for the marriage movement, but also for his long and fraught relationship with the gay community. Advocates groused that he had waited until 2006 to endorse same-sex marriage, years after many leading New York political leaders did so. And many of them still remembered his work on his father’s unsuccessful 1977 bid for mayor of New York, which had featured homophobic posters aimed at Edward I. Koch.
Over time, however, championing same-sex marriage had become personal for Mr. Cuomo. He campaigned on the issue in the race for governor last year, and after his election, he was staggered by the number of gay couples who sought him out at restaurants and on the street, prodding him, sometimes tearfully, to deliver on his word.
The pressure did not let up at home. Mr. Cuomo’s girlfriend, Sandra Lee, has an openly gay brother, and she frequently reminded the governor how much she wanted the law to change.
Something else weighed on him, too: the long shadow of his father, Mario, who rose to national prominence as the conscience of the Democratic Party, passionately defending the poor and assailing the death penalty. During his first few months in office, the younger Mr. Cuomo had achieved what seemed like modern-day miracles by the standards of Albany—an austere on-time budget and a deal to cap property taxes. But, as Mr. Cuomo explained by phone to his father a few weeks ago, he did not want those accomplishments to define his first year in office.
“They are operational,” he told his father. Passing same-sex marriage, by contrast, “is at the heart of leadership and progressive government.”
“I have to do this.”
A Democratic Surprise
Nobody ever expected Carl Kruger to vote yes.
A Democrat from Brooklyn, known for his gruff style and shifting alliances, Senator Kruger voted against same-sex marriage two years ago, was seen as a pariah in his party and was accused in March of taking $1 million in bribes in return for political favors.
Some gay activists, assuming he was a lost cause, had taken to picketing outside of his house and screaming that he was gay—an approach that seemed only to harden his opposition to their agenda. (Mr. Kruger has said he is not gay.) But unbeknown to all but a few people, Mr. Kruger desperately wanted to change his vote. The issue, it turned out, was tearing apart his household.
The gay nephew of the woman he lives with, Dorothy Turano, was so furious at Mr. Kruger for opposing same-sex marriage two years ago that he had cut off contact with both of them, devastating Ms. Turano. “I don’t need this,” Mr. Kruger told Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, the Democratic majority leader. “It has gotten personal now.”
Mr. Sampson, a longtime supporter of same-sex marriage, advised Mr. Kruger to focus on the nephew, not the political repercussions. “When everything else is gone,” Mr. Sampson told him, “all you have left is family.”
With Mr. Kruger suddenly a possible yes vote, the same-sex marriage organizers zeroed in on the two remaining Democrats who had previously voted no but appeared open to switching sides: Shirley L. Huntley and Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., both of Queens.
Senator Huntley, a close friend of Mr. Sampson, had privately assured him that she would support the marriage bill, largely out of personal loyalty to him and fellow Democrats.
Persuading Senator Addabbo proved trickier. Same-sex marriage advocates had nicknamed him the Counter, after he told them his vote would hinge entirely on a tally of his constituents who appealed to him for or against the measure. By mid-May, Mr. Addabbo sent word to Mr. Cuomo that the numbers were not there for same-sex marriage.
Until then, members of the same-sex marriage coalition had deliberately refrained from inundating Mr. Addabbo’s office with feedback from supporters of the bill, fearing it might alienate and offend him. But now, the advocates received a message from the governor’s office: Open the floodgates. Brian Ellner, who oversees the marriage push for the Human Rights Campaign, called the head of his field team, who had compiled an exhaustive list of supporters of gay rights in Mr. Addabbo’s district.
“Bury him in paper,” Mr. Ellner said.
Over the next week, the field team collected postcards signed by 2,000 of Mr. Addabbo’s constituents who favor same-sex marriage, twice as many as he had received in the previous few months combined.
When his final tally was completed in early June, he had heard from 6,015 people—80 percent of whom asked him to vote yes. “In the end, that is my vote,” Mr. Addabbo said.
In a private room at the Fort Orange Club, a stately brick manor in Albany where the waitresses still wear French maid uniforms, a pollster laid out the results of his research on gay marriage for Senate Republicans in early June.
There was little political rationale for legalizing it, the numbers suggested: statewide support did not extend deeply into the rural, upstate districts that are crucial to the state’s Republican Party. And with unemployment at 9 percent, the issue was far down the list of priorities for voters.
Many of the Republicans wanted to avoid ever taking a vote on the issue—a simple strategy to carry out. As the majority party in the Senate, they could block any bill from reaching the floor.
But the caucus—a group of 32 senators who had seized control of the Senate in the elections last year but held just a single-seat majority—was far from unified. And, crucially for same-sex marriage advocates, the Republicans’ relatively untested leader showed no interest in forcing them to reach a consensus. “My management style,” the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, had told lawmakers, “is that I let my members lead.”
Mr. Cuomo was determined to exploit the leadership vacuum by peeling off a few senators from moderate districts.
A major target was James S. Alesi, a Republican from suburban Rochester, who seemed tormented by his 2009 vote. Cameras in the Senate chamber captured him holding his head in his hands as the word “no” left his mouth.
The coalition approached him from every angle. The Republican donors invited him to a meeting on Park Avenue, telling him they would eagerly support him if he backed same-sex marriage. “That’s not the kind of lily pad I normally hop on,” Mr. Alesi recalled.
The advocates collected 5,000 signed postcards from his constituents and nudged a major employer in his district, Xerox, to endorse the bill.
And Mr. Cuomo called him, over and over, to address his objections and allay his fears. He told Senator Alesi that as the first Republican to endorse same-sex marriage, he “would show real courage to the gay community.”
On June 13, aides to the governor left urgent messages with same-sex marriage advocates, who had just left a meeting in Mr. Cuomo’s office, to return there immediately, offering no explanation.
As the group assembled around a conference table, the governor opened the door to his private office and peeked in. “I want to introduce the first Republican to support marriage equality,” he announced.
Mr. Alesi walked into the room, which erupted into applause. In emotional remarks, he apologized to them for what he called his “political vote” against same-sex marriage in 2009.
The next day, Bill Smith, a lobbyist for Gill Action, a gay-rights group, turned to the governor and asked, “How many rabbits are you going to pull out of the hat?”
It was befuddling to gay-rights advocates: The Catholic Church, arguably the only institution with the authority and reach to derail same-sex marriage, seemed to shrink from the fight.
As the marriage bill hurtled toward a vote, the head of the church in New York, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, left town to lead a meeting of bishops in Seattle. He did not travel to Albany or deliver a major speech in the final days of the session. And when he did issue a strongly worded critique of the legislation—he called it “immoral” and an “ominous threat”—it was over the phone to an Albany-area radio show.
Inside the Capitol, where a photograph of Mr. Cuomo shaking hands with Archbishop Dolan hangs in the governor’s private office, the low-key approach did not seem accidental. Mr. Cuomo had taken pains to blunt the church’s opposition.
When he learned that church leaders had objected to the language of the marriage legislation, he invited its lawyers to the Capitol to vent their frustration.
Mr. Cuomo even spoke to Archbishop Dolan about the push for same-sex marriage, emphasizing his respect and affection for the religious leader. An adviser described the governor’s message to Archbishop Dolan this way: “I have to do what I have to do. But your support over all is very important to me.”
By the time a Catholic bishop from Brooklyn traveled to Albany last week to tell undecided senators that passing same-sex marriage “is not in keeping with the will of their people,” it was clear the church had been outmaneuvered by the highly organized same-sex marriage coalition, with its sprawling field team and, especially, its Wall Street donors.
“In many ways,” acknowledged Dennis Poust, of the New York State Catholic Conference, “we were outgunned. That is a lot to overcome.”
With the church largely out of the picture, the governor’s real worry was the simmering tension in the Senate Republican delegation. Its members met, for hours at a time, to debate the political and moral implications of allowing a vote. But each time new arguments arose. Some questioned whether homosexuality was genetic or chosen. Others suggested that the same-sex marriage legislation be scrapped in favor of a statewide referendum.
Mr. Cuomo invited the Republicans to visit him at the governor’s residence, a 40-room Victorian mansion overlooking the Hudson River, just a few blocks from the Capitol.
There, in a speech the public would never hear, he offered his most direct and impassioned case for allowing gays to wed. Gay couples, he said, wanted recognition from the state that they were no different from the lawmakers in the room. “Their love is worth the same as your love,” Mr. Cuomo said, according to someone who heard him. “Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership. And they are equal in your eyes to you. That is the driving issue.”
In the late hours of Friday night, 33 members of the State Senate agreed with him.
Sophia A. writes:
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how can one be homosexual and not having homosexual sex?? the Lord say man was made to cleave to his WIFE. sounds like he is saying HETEROSEXUAL to me.Paul
Eliane B (16 Aug 2011)
"Sexual preference and holiness"
In response to http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2011/ksrajan815-1.htm
All true believers in their/our lives fight against some kind of fleshly temptation and deal with a tendency to sin in one way or another. None of us gets to be completely holy before our final redemption (transformation of our body to incorruptibleness and immortality).
Some of us might have adulterous desires (or even actual adulterous practices), others might live in fornication (moving from partner to partner before or outside marriage), others might have a lust for teenagers or even have pedophile inclination, and other have a sexual desire for people of the same gender. Others might have the blessing of a relatively happy marriage but be addicted to pornography, for example. Others might not have any of those tendencies but struggle with other challenges that might not be of sexual nature, like greediness, covetousness, idolatry, gossip or telling lies, for example.
All of us have been called to holiness and we all must turn from sin and ask Jesus to forgive us and to help us overcome our flesh. All types of sexual immorality are seen as grievous sins in the sight of God. The position of the human law has absolutely no interference in how our Creator views sin and its effects. So it doesn't matter if some country's law allows or even stimulates actions that the Bible considers inappropriate and not pleasing to God.
Here is a link about what the Word of God says about same sex marriage: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-f018.html
It's in prayer and love that I write these lines. Some readers here might struggle against some sin that they have a lot of difficulty fleeing from and have become enslaved to. But one thing is to struggle and acknowledge what is wrong. Another thing is to consider a sin something normal and harmless. We should not celebrate sin or deny that something is a sin when the Bible plainly says that it is, like many other sins that people prefer to ignore (like adultery, fornication and pornography, realities that unfortunately have infiltrated the Church). No wonders that many prayers don't get any higher than the ceiling.
I pray that all here in this forum that have difficulties overcoming any kind of sin and that acknowledge that sin is not right in the sight of God, that we all repent and are given power to fight against carnality, so that we become true overcomers, regardless of our sexual inclinations.
Notice Paul's testimony concerning the very real possibility of deliverance of any immoral behavior:
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
—I Corinthians 6:9-11 (KJV)
When there is true repentance and sin is forsaken, then such a person should be lovingly received into the fellowship of believers, like any other repentant and believing sinner. This is the example given in the case of the incestuous Corinthian:
Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him.
—II Corinthians 2:6-8 (KJV)
Do homosexuals need to become heterosexuals? No! Scripture never states nor implies all people must be heterosexual; it does say explicitly, however, that we are to avoid all forms of sexual immorality, which includes (but isn't limited to) homosexual practices. True believers should not persist in sin.
I pray that this forum continues to be a place that we all seek for repentance, forgiveness and holiness.
When we really know Jesus, we have a life-changing experience. Jesus said in Luke:
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord' and do not do what I say?â€
Someone once put it this way: “No Jesus, no change. Know Jesus, know change.â€
If we try to overcome our sinful tendencies, that's a good sign that Christ is working in our life.
God is the only one who truly knows our hearts. But if Christ has become our Lord, then the Holy Spirit will begin to deal with the sin of immorality (or any other sin) in our lives.
If you don't agree with me, I really don't want to start a thread or do anything else to convince anyone that sexual immorality is a sin. I just wanted to remind what Word of God says, for our own benefit. The Lord is coming, friends. Let's pray according to Luke 21:34-36:
"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."
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*What would you do if you were forced to stare down the barrel of a handgun while someone threatened to pull the trigger? Would you reason with the gunman, beg for your life or go out fighting?
Members of the Panama City, Florida school board know what they would do. And so does everyone else who saw the video of the entire event that was recorded and televised on local and national news.
Some people say the security guard who shot the gunman (forcing him to commit suicide) is the hero. But if anybody has plans to hand out awards for bravery don’t forget about Ginger Littleton. She’s the woman who stood up to the gunman with nothing but her purse to defend herself.
Littleton, also a member of the school board, had left the room minutes earlier after the gunman ordered the women to go and all the men to stay behind. But Littleton sneaked back in and hit the gunman with her purse in an attempt to knock the gun out of his hand. She missed. He scolded her then ordered her out of the room again. Let’s just say it wasn’t her day to die. While I commend Littleton for putting her life on the line for her colleagues, evidently her colleagues would not have done the same had they been in her position. It’s a sad testiment to the fact that chilvalry is dying and – when it counts – some women have the guts to do what men won’t.
Yes. I said it! And while I realize the actions or inaction of one individual or group of people is not always indicative of the group they represent, the Panama City shooting is the latest example that leads me to my aforementioned conclusion.
You see, Littleton already was out of harm’s way after the gunman told her and the other women to leave the room. She could have gone outside and waited for police to arrive like everybody else. Instead, Littleton had the guts to come up with a plan and she took action. Yes, she could have come up with a better plan or had a better aim at least. But it was enough to distract the gunman. And that distraction was ample opportunity for one, some or all of her six male colleagues to bumrush the guy. That’s probably what Littleton was thinking as the gunman stood over her after her botched attempt. The fact that he didn’t shoot Littleton and allowed her to walk away unharmed again was further indication that the men in the room could have taken their fate into their own hands and come out victorious. Or not. But do something for goodness sake! Don’t just sit there motionless like deer caught in headlights.
Even when the gunman, Clay Duke, turned his attention to the Superintendent and blamed him for firing Duke’s wife from her teaching job, the Superintendent half-heartedly spoke up for himself, pleading for Duke not to shoot him. As someone who regularly comes to the defense of others I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never had to rescue someone being held hostage by a person brandishing a weapon, let alone save myself.
But I’ve had my own encounters with people who needed to be rescued. Here’s just one example: A woman was being verbally abused by her (I assume) husband at a restaurant. Lots of people, including other men, witnessed the husband berate his wife in front of everyone, and it went on for at least fifteen minutes. He cursed her, even told her she was stupid in front of us and their daughter. None of the men spoke up. Just in case they were thinking about speaking up I gave it five more minutes. Then I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I told him I wasn’t going to listen to him demean his wife a minute more. If he insisted on speaking to her that way, I told him, I was going to have the restaurant manager call the police. I did it for his wife and to show their daugther that was no way to let someone treat her.
And what did the husband do? He sat down and shut up! Too bad none of the men in the restaurant had the guts to do what I did. And when I told some of my male friends about the incident they told me I was crazy for getting involved. They questioned me about the husband’s stature. They focused on “what if’s:” What if the man had hit me? Had a gun and shot me?
The possibilities are endless as to what could have happened. I spoke up when I should have and that’s all I can concern myself with. Littleton did the same. She took action when she should have. If more people would do what’s right instead of worrying about “what if” people would be less inclined to misbehave, chilvalry might have a better chance at survival and the world might be a better place to live.
Steffanie is a freelance journalist living in the Dallas, Texas metroplex. Send questions, comments or requests for speaking engagements to Steffanie at firstname.lastname@example.org. And see the video version of her journal at youtube.com/steffanierivers.
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Thursday, June 30, 2005
There are two “efficiency curves” that are relevant to playing time and role. One of them is how a player’s performance varies based on how much he’s put in. The other is how his performance varies based on how much he’s asked to do.
At the one extreme, it’s hard to be effective playing every 10th point. At the other, too much play leads to fatigue or pacing and a similar decrease in effectiveness. You want your team to be at a sweet spot where your stars play as much as they can without losing effectiveness while getting your role players enough time to be effective, while maintaining the flexibility to ride one or the other a little more due to a hot or cold hand or an injury.
The first graph shows what I’m guessing a typical curve is for a stud and a role player, and a replacement player. (You can think of the x axis as either “readiness” or “points played”.) I think the shape of the curve is about the same for everyone, with the exception that well-conditioned athletes won’t drop off as quickly with lots of play.
So, the question for subbers is, can you incorporate this model into your subbing scheme? How much does a player have to play in order to be near his peak effectiveness? How much is too much before you start to see fatigue-related errors? Have you experimented with designating some role players to “on” one game (maybe they’ll play 8 points) and “off” the next (0-2 points) instead of being half-on (5 points) for both? Do players rebel against this?
The other curve shows how a player can bear a load when he’s in. On offense, if a player’s full job was to cut for goals, he’d be more effective than if he also had to work the disc. On defense, a player might be able to prevent the third handler from doing a lot, but would be toasted by the star cutter.
A good role player will actually be better than the stud at the subordinate tasks like filling or clearing or reacting to the poach, but the reason that the stud is the stud is that he will be effective when it’s his job to be the first cutter or to break the mark or to cover the top cutter.
Anyway, I’m not really sure what you’re supposed to do with this, but I’ve been thinking about it and wanted to write it up, so there.
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Please be aware that this discussion guide may contain spoilers!
What is the picture of Venice that emerges in the book? How is the story
driven by the history and geography of the city? Did you feel catapulted into
the life of the canals, even into the map of the frontispiece? How does Brunetti's
own appreciation of his city seduce the reader? See page 77: "Palazzi
swept by on both sides, the drunken promiscuity of their styles competing for
" 'Who'd want to kill a vu cumpra?' Rizzardi asked" (p. 11). What are
the attitudes of the citizens of Venice toward these street people? Are they
tolerated by official insouciance, a general shrug about illegal immigrants? Brunetti had assumed they functioned under the arm of organized crime. Is there
evidence of that?
Even though we never know the name or even the proven nationality of the
murder victim, how are we led along with Brunetti to a gradual sympathy with him
and other vu cumprà trying to survive in Venice? Does the description of
the bag sellers as beautiful, tall, straight, even happy people set up the
victim as sacrificial? Do these Africans represent some simpler, golden age as
compared to the sophisticated corruption of the Italians?
How does Brunetti's personality help him in his unorthodox investigations?
Does he ever have second thoughts about using his past and present network of
friends? When? Does his character also limit his career, especially considering
his "refusal to curry favour with the men in power" (p. 51)?
"Was this the historian's plight, Brunetti wondered, never to know what was
true but only what made sense? Or the policeman's?" (p. 59). What is he worried
Are there times Brunetti crosses lines of ethics, even legality? When? Does
this behavior compromise him? Or is he just a functioning pragmatist? Does there
seem to be any real way to work within the system without sabotaging it at
times? Blackmail? Evidence tampering? Give examples. Are there times, aside from
his interactions with Sandrini and the Albanian prostitute, when Brunetti is
"strangely cheered by the consideration of his own perfidy" (p. 62)?
How does Paola serve as a bridge between the old Venice and the new one?
Would her moral distinctions, such as her outrage at Chiara, be taken as
seriously by her family and the reader if she had no aristocratic cushion? Is
she a limousine liberal or truly a person of conscience? What does she provide
for Brunetti besides access to academia? Devil's advocacy?
How does Don Alvise's character serve as a moral touchstone (see p. 6975)?
Are there other such touchstones for Brunetti? Does he have dependable allies
within his department?
Brunetti, a remarkably intelligent, well-read man, is technologically inept.
What does his resistance to modernity suggest about his other talents and
values? He harkens back to the Iliad and to Roman historians. His son
gives him Pliny for Christmas. What does Brunetti glean from his readings? And
how does he recognize his need for technology?
What is the significance of the carved (truncated) head? How does Brunetti's
academic research lead him further into the mystery? How do art, mythology, and
fetishism converge in this artifact? What happens to it?
Black Africans are not the only group subjected to prejudice and stereotype
in the course of the novel. Who else comes under fire? How are Americans
portrayed? Who weighs in on the subject and why? What are Brunetti's own
susceptibilities to prejudice? He can assume that his daughter did not learn
dismissal of Africans at home, that it must have been "something, like head
lice, that Chiara picked up in school" (p. 30). But to what biases are he and
many other Venetians vulnerable (see pp. 30, 33, and 48)?
At times does the police story assume a fun-house atmosphere? Sometimes katzenjammer funny (the rescue in a shallow canal) and other times insane (the
confiscation of thousands of counterfeit bags that just mushroom again the next
day)? What other examples of mayhem do you see in the police? " 'It's all crazy,
the whole thing,' said Rubini" (p. 52). Is it this particular department, made
up of 80 percent pro-government and anti-immigrant officers, that causes havoc
and engages in collusion? Donna Leon has addressed the inefficiency of the
police and emergency services in Venice in her other books. Do you think she is
commenting on a failing of the Venetian government or the impossibility of
imposing a principled order anywhere?
What do you think the title implies? How do stones recur as a motif in the
book? Look again at Don Alvise's renunciation of his vocation on page 70.
What is Brunetti left with as a philosophy at the end? In this world of
venality and official complicity, is he to take arms against a sea of troubles
in the only ways he knowshard work, family, friends, and a certain generosity
of spirit? His father-in-law the Count holds him in high regard for his
dedication to work. In the face of Vianello's bleak vision of global warming,
Brunetti asks if there is really nothing they could do. Vianello replies, "Live
life and try to do our jobs, I think" (p. 81). Would you agree that good food,
wine, and love are also essential to "living life and doing our jobs"?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Penguin.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
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Slain ambassador was passionate about Libya
Clinton: The world needs more Chris Stevenses
Chris Stevens knew what he was getting into.
He knew, longtime friend Daniel Seidemann said, that Libya was a place of great promise, but also one of great peril.
"When he went to Libya, he had no illusions about where he was going," Seidemann said. "He has probably done more than anybody on the planet to help the Libyan people, and he know going in that this was not going to protect him."
U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens died Tuesday in an assault on the American Consulate in Benghazi, the very city where he had arrived aboard a cargo ship in the spring of 2011 to help build ties between the upstart rebellion and the rebels.
"He risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.
"The world needs more Chris Stevenses," Clinton said.
Stevens graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982, then took a pause in his studies to join the Peace Corps, according to his State Department biography.
"Growing up in California, I didn't know much about the Arab world," he said in a State Department video prepared to introduce him to the Libyan people after his appointment as ambassador in May.
"I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world," he said.
After returning to the United States, he attended the University of California's Hastings College of Law, graduating in 1989, according to his biography.
He worked as an international trade lawyer in Washington before joining the Foreign Service, the career diplomatic corps, in 1991, according to the State Department biography.
He spent most of his career in the Middle East and North Africa, including postings to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, in addition to serving as the deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Libya from 2007 to 2009, during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi, according to the State Department.
"He joined the Foreign Service, learned languages, won friends for America in distant places and made other people's hopes his own," Clinton said.
It was during Stevens' time as the political section chief in Jerusalem that Seidemann got to know the man dubbed "the senator" for his unflappable character and unrelenting empathy.
"He was the best of the best," Seidemann said. "If there's American nobility, he's it."
Stevens' stepfather, Robert Commanday, remembered the diplomat as a "beautifully even-tempered person."
"In the 36 years that I was privileged to be his stepfather, I never saw him lose his temper once," Commanday told CNN's "The Situation Room."
"And he was calm and easy and people loved him not only for that but because he didn't impose his ideas on them and he was interested in the persons he was talking to."
Commanday said his family was "shattered" by the news of his death.
Seidemann, who focuses on Israel-Palestinian relations, got to know Stevens through work, but they quickly grew to be friends.
"He was extremely warm, friendly, open," Seidemann said.
After returning to Washington to work for a time, Stevens went back to Libya to help try to rebuild U.S. relations with Moammar Gadhafi's regime. Then, in 2011, as Libyans began to take up arms against the dictator, Clinton tapped him for another role.
"In the early days of the Libyan revolution, I asked Chris to be our envoy to the rebel opposition," Clinton said. "He arrived on a cargo ship in the port of Benghazi and began building our relationships with Libya's revolutionaries."
"He was seen as a popular, personable and hands-on diplomat among State Department staffers who knew him," said Elise Labott, a CNN foreign affairs reporter who knew Stevens.
"He wasn't a pinstripe diplomat. He wanted to get his hands dirty, dig in," she said.
Commanday conveyed a similar impression, saying Stevens was "very happy" to get the post.
"He wasn't looking for a ... cushy ambassador's spot," he said. "He loved the Libyan people and was passionate about helping."
Stevens was well-regarded among Libyans, said Fouad Ajami, an expert on Islamic politics.
"The sadness of it is that Ambassador Stevens worked long and hard for the liberation of the Libyan people from the tyranny of Moammar Gadhafi," he said.
Stevens frequently spoke of an infectious enthusiasm for the country that made him "the only person, in the eyes of the State Department," for the Libya post, Labott said.
The ambassador understood Libya and its dangers, but also saw great promise, said CNN's Zain Verjee, who also knew Stevens well.
"Chris was passionate about Libya," she said. "He cared about the people and saw hope in its future. He told me he knew the dangers but was committed to democracy and diplomacy above all."
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The canal has turned into an unlikely catchphrase for an oft-ignored port industry.
Opinion: Trade deals will open markets in Asia and Latin America, supporting tens of thousands of jobs.
Opinion: Expanding global exports will generate jobs and revenue without costing taxpayers a dime.
The agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea had been stalled for years.
The three long-stalled free-trade deals mark a scarce moment of unity over job creation.
Republicans to let deals come to floor.
But broad support for a major free-trade package isn't necessarily a harbinger of bipartisanship.
Opinion: Deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama could add $12 billion to the GDP.
Booming trade ties between China and Latin America are raising concerns in Washington.
Opinion: The agreements could generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
Opinion: Developing basic labor rights in Latin America is critical to increasing U.S. exports.
Opinion: The American people will be better served by investing our resources in infrastructure.
Opinion: Trade agreements will bring down barriers to products made by manufacturers in the U.S.
Opinion: The president is holding opportunity hostage to a demand backed by his union base.
"Our urgent mission has to be getting this economy growing faster and creating jobs,” he says.
Votes on deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama will be held after the August recess.
The Senate Finance Committee surrenders to polarization with the postponement of three pacts.
Labor and business groups are set for a clash over deals with Panama, South Korea and Colombia.
Opinion: Better coordination is needed, especially in metropolitan areas and border communities.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vows to stall nominees until trade agreements are reached.
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It's my turn to choose a book for the Slaves of Golconda readng group. As I was thinking about what to put on the list of choices, I remembered reading about a course called "Transatlantic Women Modernists" that Fernham is teaching and finding myself jotting down a bunch of books to add to my TBR list. So I thought perhaps others would find the list interesting too. My choices are drawn from that syllabus or this list.
So please vote on which book you would like to read by Friday, November 20th, and I'll tally the results. I thought it might make sense to delay our discussion until the end of January, instead of the end of December, so the discussion will begin on Sunday, January 31st.
- Nella Larson's Passing. From Amazon: "The tale is simple on the surface--a few adventures in Chicago and New York's high life, with lots of real people and race-mixing events described ... But underneath, it seethes with rage, guilt, sex, and complex deceptions. Irene fears losing her black husband to Clare, who seems increasingly predatory. Or is this all in Irene's mind? And is everyone wearing a mask? Larsen's book is a scary hall of mirrors, a murder mystery that can't resolve itself. It sticks with you."
- Stevie Smith's Novel on Yellow Paper. From Wikipedia: "Stevie Smith's first novel is structured as the random typings of a bored secretary, Pompey. She plays word games, retells stories from classical and popular culture, remembers events from her childhood, gossips about her friends and describes her family, particularly her beloved Aunt."
- Jessie Fauset's There is Confusion. From Amazon: "Jessie Redmon Fauset's first novel shows a prescient awareness of the black middle class's quest for social equality in the early twentieth century and of the limited vocational choices confronting both black and white American women in that era. Set in Philadelphia some 60 years ago, There Is Confusion traces the lives of Joanna Mitchell and Peter Bye, whose families must come to terms with an inheritance of prejudice and discrimination as they struggle for legitimacy and respect."
- Sylvia Townsend Warner's Summer Will Show. Here's the beginning of Amazon's description: "Sophia Willoughby, a young Englishwoman from an aristocratic family and a person of strong opinions and even stronger will, has packed her cheating husband off to Paris. He can have his tawdry mistress. She intends to devote herself to the serious business of raising her two children in proper Tory fashion. Then tragedy strikes: the children die, and Sophia, in despair, finds her way to Paris, arriving just in time for the revolution of 1848."
I hope something here strikes your interest! Everyone is welcome to join us. Leave your email in the comments if you would like to join the group.
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Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.
Compete | FAQ | Contact Us
A Passion for Fashion
In this site, our goal is to teach children about fashion and how much it evolved since the beginning of Western clothing. All of the drawings on the site were created by students who took a fashion design class at our school. We hope there are other students who visit our site who are interested in fashion and will send us their drawings.
19 & under
Arts & Entertainment > Fashion, Costume, and Textiles
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Small question, when and why data size can became a problem ?
And here come a small answer (simply little thoughts as i said).
Data size might be a problem for the following reasons:
- Storage, not enough space to store your date but tend to disappear nowadays
- Performance, when required to process all the data, and especially when required to deliver result in real time.
- Privacy, not that much of a technical issue, but you can quickly be out of law or being creating a valuable data set for attackers
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It's springtime! The flowers are blooming and the allergies are abound!!
For our small group rotations, we painted with flowers. We used fake flowers this year, although we've used fresh flowers in the past. Fresh flowers are really neat to use because we occasionally got some petals into our paintings.
We gathered our materials
The students requested their paper (I want paper) and then requested their paint (I want red, I want orange, etc).
We gave them the idea to just paint a couple of times with each flower, going up then down--that way, they could see the outline of their flower better. But, really, they could do it any way the wanted!
The kids had lots of fun painting with flowers!
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Bill Graham postcards were produced with several different back types: Place Stamp Here (PSH), Advertising backs, Blank backs and Bulk Rate Permit backs (as well as combinations of these types in the case of double sized cards). Many cards were produced in more than one back style. The Ad backs and Bulk Rate backs were used to advertise the shows. They are generally harder to find and more valuable than the PSH backs which which were produced for retail marketing. However, please note that Ad back cards were not produced prior to #119.
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Biography All Music GuideWikipedia
All Music Guide:
By blending contemporary power pop with elements of the post-grunge era, Gin Blossoms briefly emerged as torchbearers of the lighter side of alternative rock. Bassist Bill Leen and guitarist Doug Hopkins formed the band in 1987 in Tempe, AZ, rounding out the initial lineup with vocalist Jesse Valenzuela, guitarist Richard Taylor, and drummer Chris McCann. The following year saw several personnel shifts as the band struggled to solidify -- McCann was replaced by Dan Henzerling (and, shortly thereafter, Phillip Rhodes), while Taylor was fired and replaced by guitarist Robin Wilson. Wilson and Valenzuela subsequently switched roles, and the band recorded a self-released album, Dusted, in 1989. A&M signed them the following year.
After an impressive debut EP, 1991's Up & Crumbling, the Gin Blossoms rocketed out of the college pop charts and into the mainstream with their 1993 hit single "Hey Jealousy." Combining the ringing guitar hooks of the Byrds and R.E.M. with a solid, rootsy drive, the band's breakthrough full-length album, New Miserable Experience (which had actually been released the previous year), was filled with songs equally as strong as "Hey Jealousy," including the second hit single, "Found Out About You." New Miserable Experience and its assorted singles dominated radio and MTV for the following year -- "Hey Jealousy" and "Found Out About You," both penned by Hopkins, remained in heavy radio rotation nearly a year after their initial release -- and such success pushed the sales of their debut album to over one million copies.
All was not well within the group's ranks, however. Hopkins' battle with alcoholism and depression had taken its toll on the band during the sessions for New Miserable Experience, and he was fired shortly after the record's release, with guitarist Scott Johnson taking his place. Speculation abounded as to whether the band would be able to maintain its success without Hopkins' melancholy songwriting voice. Tragically, on December 5, 1993, Hopkins shot and killed himself, even as the songs he had written were blanketing the airwaves.
In the summer of 1995, the Gin Blossoms contributed "'Till I Hear It from You," a song they co-wrote with Marshall Crenshaw, to the soundtrack of the film Empire Records. "'Till I Hear It from You" became a major radio hit, but was never released as an official single until it was featured as the B-side of "Follow You Down," the first single from the group's second album, Congratulations...I'm Sorry. Upon its release in February of 1996, Congratulations...I'm Sorry charted well, but within six months, it had disappeared from the charts. Following the supporting tour, the Gin Blossoms disbanded in 1997.
Strangely enough, the group reunited (sans Rhodes) for a 2001 New Year's Eve concert. The Gin Blossoms hit the road several months later for a summer tour, drumming up renewed interest with the release of Dusted -- originally issued in 1989 as the band's debut cassette tape -- as well as a live DVD, Just South of Nowhere. Four years later, the band unveiled its first batch of new material since the mid-'90s. Major Lodge Victory proved to be sonically similar to the band's earlier efforts, and the album earned warm critical reviews. Signing with 429 Records, the Blossoms released another collection of new material, No Chocolate Cake, in 2010.
Gin Blossoms are an American pop rock band formed in 1987 in Tempe, Arizona. They broke out with the song "Hey Jealousy" from their successful major label debut, New Miserable Experience (1992), but this achievement was coupled with the firing and eventual suicide of the song's author and band co-founder Doug Hopkins, prompting the title of their follow-up album, Congratulations I'm Sorry (1996). After a series of charting singles, the band broke up in 1997. After they reunited in 2002 they released a fourth album, Major Lodge Victory, in 2006, and their fifth, No Chocolate Cake, in 2010.
Members of the band's early years include guitarist and songwriter Doug Hopkins, bassist Bill Leen, vocalist Robin Wilson, guitarist Richard Taylor, Taylor's original replacement Steven Severson, drummer Chris McCann, McCann's replacement Dan Henzerling, and Taylor's later replacement Jesse Valenzuela. The band's name comes from a photo of W.C. Fields in Kenneth Anger's infamously erroneous book, Hollywood Babylon, which bore the caption "W.C. Fields with gin blossoms", referring to the actor's telangiectasia-ravaged face and rhinophymic nose by the slang term for the skin condition known as rosacea.
In their early years, the Gin Blossoms became well-known locally around their hometown of Tempe, Arizona. The band's frequent touring resulted in an increase in popularity; the Blossoms also independently recorded their first full-length album, Dusted, which was released in 1989. The group is known for its "Southwestern Sound," or "Mill Avenue Sound", similar to other bands hailing from Arizona such as The Sidewinders, The Refreshments, The Meat Puppets and Dead Hot Workshop.
By the early 1990s, the lineup had changed to Leen on bass, Hopkins on guitar, Valenzuela on guitar and vocals, Wilson on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Phillip Rhodes on drums. After being signed with A&M Records, the band began to work on their major-label debut. Initial attempts to create a major-label record faltered and the band released an EP, Up and Crumbling, instead.
Gin Blossoms named their first full-length studio album New Miserable Experience. In February 1992, while still working to complete it, founding member and lead guitarist/songwriter Doug Hopkins drank heavily and grew increasingly stubborn and disillusioned with the process, especially after getting popped with a water balloon during their 1992 performance at The Boat House in Norfolk, VA. Faced with the prospect of being dropped by A&M, the band terminated Hopkins and replaced him with Scott Johnson. The album was completed and the first single released from it was Hopkins' song "Hey Jealousy". It would reach No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks, largely fueling the success of New Miserable Experience. However, the achievement would be overshadowed by Hopkins' suicide on December 4, 1993. The following year, another song penned by Hopkins, "Found Out About You", would also reach No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and climb to No. 1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks.
Between their debut and second albums, the Gin Blossoms provided the single "Til I Hear It from You" for the Empire Records soundtrack. It reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their second major album, Congratulations I'm Sorry, was released in 1996. Yielding one top ten hit, "Follow You Down" - No. 9 Billboard Hot 100, the album met with mixed reviews.
"Without Doug and his songwriting, we never could have signed a record deal."Robin Wilson (People magazine, 1994)
The Blossoms broke up in the spring of 1997, and each band member moved on to his own project. Vocalist Wilson and drummer Rhodes launched the Gas Giants. Bassist Leen formed local band called Rai and then retired from music to operate a rare-book store. Guitarist Valenzuela fronted a short-lived outfit called the Low Watts, released a solo album, and kept busy writing and producing. Wilson ventured into producing as well, at his Mayberry Studios in Tempe, Arizona (the studio is now called Uranus Studios).
The Gas Giants announced an "indefinite hiatus" in June 2001. On December 4, 2001, it was announced that Scott would leave his current band, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, to rejoin the Gin Blossoms. The band regrouped and began playing together again in earnest (having done a couple of one-off shows in the interim) in 2002. In the words of frontman Robin Wilson at the time, "We always said our breakup wasn't forever and right now we're all feeling like we want to be Gin Blossoms again. We make a noise together that we can't make otherwise. We respect and appreciate that we need each other to create that sound. This time we hope to avoid being swallowed by the chaos."
In preparation to the band's official reunion show, Rhodes suffered a meltdown due to his ongoing battle with alcohol. Shortly after entering rehab, he was formally dismissed from the band. Phil Leavitt of Dada originally took Rhodes' place in the lineup, and then Gary Smith (of The Pistoleros, another Tempe band) stepped in. Scott Kusmirek took over drumming for the band from 2002 to 2004. In January 2005, it was announced that Rhodes, who had been sober for over two years, would rejoin the band. The re-entry of Rhodes was short-lived, however. Kusmirek returned to the band, taking Rhodes' place. "The Kooze", as he is affectionately known, served as drummer for the Gin Blossoms until September 30, 2008, when a press release issued by the band explained he and the group parted ways. The current drummer is John Richardson.
The band's fourth album, Major Lodge Victory, was originally recorded at Robin Wilson's Mayberry Studios in Tempe. However, the album was then re-recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis, the same studio at which the band had recorded all of their previous albums, along with other notable groups such as Big Star and The Replacements. Major Lodge Victory was released by Hybrid Recordings on August 8, 2006, and "Learning the Hard Way" was the first single. Major Lodge Victory debuted at number 159 on the Billboard 200 album chart. This was the first time the Gin Blossoms had appeared on the Billboard 200 chart in 10 years, one month, and two weeks. Gin Blossoms had last appeared on the chart during the week of July 13, 1996, with their previous album, Congratulations… I'm Sorry. Since reuniting, the band has toured at numerous locations across the country, occasionally joined by Kirk "The Judge" Karman on harmonica.
Gin Blossoms released a live album, Live In Concert, on May 15, 2009. This album contains live recordings of the band's hits such as "Hey Jealousy" and "Follow You Down", as well as recent singles such as "Learning the Hard Way" and "Long Time Gone," and also a live cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man"
The band's fifth studio album, No Chocolate Cake, was released September 28, 2010. The first single, "Miss Disarray" was released to stations on August 2, 2010.
Over the 2010 Thanksgiving holiday the band traveled to Iraq and played a series of shows for American troops stationed there.
The band announced on its website on March 4, 2012, that John Richardson had left the band to pursue other recording and performing projects. The band stated in its news release, "John is a great drummer and all of us support his passion for recording. We all wish him the very best and thank him for all his hard work and dedication." The band also announced that Scott Hessel will be its road drummer. Hessel has been a member of the Tempe, Arizona, band called Let Go.
The Gin Blossoms joined Everclear, Sugar Ray, Lit, and Marcy Playground on the Summerland Tour 2012, a 31-date nationwide tour that began on June 28, 2012 in Saratoga, CA, and ended on August 11, 2012 in Laughlin, NV.
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Pixar, the movie studio that produced Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo, among other movies, have a new film that centers on a female heroine for the first time. Neil Rosen filed the following review.
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Pixar has given us some incredible films over the last 17 years, like Toy Story, Wall-E and Monsters Inc., just to name a few. Their latest is called Brave.
It's the first Pixar movie to center around a female heroine. Her name is Merida. She lives in medieval Scotland and is being groomed, by her mom, whom she constantly argues with, to be a prim and proper princess. When suitors from the kingdom compete for her hand in marriage, Merida wants no part of adhering to her royal family's traditions.
Merida is an independent young woman who likes to ride her horse, alone, deep into the wilderness and she's an expert archer.
So, during one of her travels, she runs across a witch who casts an evil spell, which I won't reveal the details of, that just may change Merida's fate.
The movie, for all practical purposes, is a conventional fairy tale. If you're familiar with countless fables, there are no surprises here and that's what is truly surprising considering this is a Pixar movie. This studio has set the bar so high, with its many past masterpieces, that when the movie is not that amazing and simply just functional, you're bound to disappointed when it doesn't live up to expectations.
It plays out more like a traditional Disney film. Think Snow White or Beauty and The Beast and countless others as opposed to a revelatory Pixar movie.
The Merida character does have spunk. Billy Connelly and Emma Thompson, who provide two of the voices do an adequate job. The 3D animation is nothing special.
Young girls will greatly enjoy Brave. But unlike most of the other Pixar stable of films, where adults revel in the story as much as kids do and everyone gets caught up in it emotionally, that's not what's going on here. Most grown ups won't be marveling at this as it doesn't have that typical Pixar cleverness, This one's strictly for youngsters. It's not brilliant like Ratatouille or Finding Nemo but it's not a total dud either, like Cars 2.
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03/22/13 The U.S. House of Representatives today voted for passage of the House Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2014, H. Con. Res. 25. As a member of the House Budget Committee, Congresswoman Jackie Walorski applauded the passage of a budget that will balance in 10 years, spur economic growth, and enable job creation.
“American families deserve a serious budget that balances without taking more money out of their pockets,” said Walorski. “I am proud to support this commonsense plan to reduce wasteful spending, jumpstart the economy, and put more Hoosiers back to work—without raising taxes.”
The House budget plan reduces federal spending by $4.6 trillion over the next decade and calls for revenue neutral tax reform. According to Stanford University economists, this budget could result in $1500 in additional household income for taxpayers by next year, and $4000 more by 2024.
“If Senate Democrats pass their budget, the American people will have a clear choice between our budget that creates more opportunities for hardworking families, or a budget that increases taxes and wasteful spending—jeopardizing the American dream for future generations,” said Walorski.
The House Budget Resolution passed Committee last week and will now be sent to the Senate for consideration. Senate Democrats are currently working on a separate budget that imposes approximately $1 trillion in new taxes, increases federal spending, and never balances. President Obama has still not presented a budget to Congress.
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A new classification system for computing education papers is presented and applied to every computing education paper published between January 2004 and January 2007 at the two premier computing education conferences in Australia and New Zealand. We find that while simple reports outnumber other types of paper, a healthy proportion of papers address and answer a research question. We find that more papers deal with programming courses than with other courses, and that more than half of all publications are situated in single subjects. To the extent that differing circumstances permit, we compare our results with those of an earlier study of the SIGCSE conference, and find that the Australasian publications include fewer simple reports and more papers describing analysis and experiment. We note a reasonable number of publications on multi-institutional work, which we interpret as evidence of a sense of computing education community within Australia and New Zealand.
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The Zionist Approach to Business
by Eli Morano
If you associate the involvement of Jewish business leaders from the Diaspora in Israel with planting groves and dedicating buildings in Israel, your worldview is not up to date. Jewish business people from across the world are helping to develop the connection between Jewish communities in the Diaspora and the new generation of visionary, creative Israeli entrepreneurs, and they are changing the social and economic face of Israel with assured strides, as well as the face of philanthropy from how it has been recognized until now.
If your image of Jewish philanthropists resembles that of popular philanthropic figures who give without business considerations, such as those depicted in the movie “Salah Shabati,” it is worth becoming updated. It could well be that the opportunity to develop your business can be found here: the Jewish Agency, via Partnership 2000, operates the Business to Business (B2B) project, now in its third year, and is responsible for developing business connections aimed at creating and promoting economic and social change in Israeli society and among Jewish communities in the Diaspora.
The Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 program connects 550 Jewish communities across the world with 45 regions in Israel. Andrea Arbel, Director of the Partnerships Division at the Jewish Agency, says that the winning formula of Partnership 2000 in the eyes of business leaders with a Zionist vision across the world is their involvement with decision-making processes in Israeli society.
“For the first time,” she says, “they have the opportunity to share their extensive experience with key business figures in Israel, or with people who have the potential to become key figures. These business people, who all have a proven business record, can open every business door in the world. The program’s uniqueness is that it offers them a real opportunity to create social change and build a reciprocal business relationship for the benefit of the communities abroad and those in Israel. The aim of the project is to create meaningful connections between these key figures: from there it is a short road to business deals and identifying business potential.
A real change in outlook
Arbel notes that “the B2B project represents another channel for dialogue between Jews in Israel and Jews in the Diaspora. Even though on the surface the raison d’etre of the project is economic, in reality, the dialogue between businessmen has created another facet of unity between the Jewish people. This is the essence of Partnership 2000 – the forging of connections between Jews in Israel and Jews in the Diaspora, and the business terrain is a very interesting and effective terrain for this type of connection.”
According to Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Jewish Agency, “the main challenges facing the Jewish Agency in the future will be to develop, build, and safeguard the relationship between Jews in Israel and Jews in the Diaspora. This is one of the best ways to expose each side to the importance of the endeavors of the other side. Partnerships develop the ability on both sides to build together Jewish lives and the connection to the Jewish state. This can take many forms, one of which is the creation of business partnerships.”
Do you mean that the basis for mutual activity is business as well as involvement in business projects, such as the Israel Business Conference?
Sharansky: “I believe that what characterizes businessmen is that they share a common language as businessmen, just as Jews share a common language, and here they discover that these two languages become one. It is an interesting phenomenon and it is hard to say what contributes most to the project’s success. Is it the business potential which lies in investing in Israel? Or is it the feelings, dreams and hopes of these businessmen vis- -vis Israel? The fact is that the businessmen discover in themselves a strong social, Zionist side which they did not think existed. Whichever it is, Partnership 2000 and the B2B project appear to have a strong drawing power.”
The success of Partnership 2000 can also be attributed to a real change in the outlook of leading business figures in Israel who, in recent years, have sought to find a new way of contributing their talents and capital, such as helping to bring about social processes that effect real change in Israeli society. Assuming “social responsibility” is “the name of the game.” Partnership 2000 and now the Business-to-Business initiative provide a perfect platform for changing peoples’ lives in a significant way.
Zionism is not an ugly word
While, on the surface, the declared goal of B2B is to forge a connection between key Jewish business figures in Israel and around the world, the added value of these exchanges, in addition to the business connection, is the emotional connection between individuals who have a genuine desire to have an impact. The project’s goal is to assist businessmen in their first encounter, when social relations are formed and a joint declaration of intentions is presented. And do not be surprised, Zionism is not an ugly word. The declared desire of these business figures to use their power of influence in order to contribute to Israel is the underlying basis behind the collaboration of all those involved in the project.
The connection forged, through Partnership 2000, between a Jewish community in the Diaspora and a geographic region in Israel has the added value of developing a section of the country which has goals, difficulties and, at the same time, a unique business potential which it seeks to develop.
Important figures on the Israeli side who are involved in the Conference include Raya Strauss Ben-Dror, Co-Chair of the Partnerships Committee of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency and a leading business figure, who has been highly successful in bringing about social change through the promotion of unconventional business initiatives; Sophie Blum, CEO of Proctor & Gamble Israel, B2B Co-Chair; and Stanley Gold, businessman and President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, and B2B Co-Chair. These are just a few from the list of business leaders which any country would be happy to host and see involved in their country’s business life.
Business successes on the ground
Following the B2B conference last year and as a result of the partnership between the Montreal Jewish community and the Beersheba – Bnei Shimon region, business leaders of the Montreal community invested a million dollars in a business start-up based in Beer Sheva. An additional, similar investment is expected to be announced this year. Other impressive business successes have been registered as a direct outcome of the project.
Sophie Blum, Israeli Chairwoman of the B2B initiative, who also serves in a voluntary capacity as Chairwoman of TZEVA (Hebrew acronym for “Young People Building a Future”, defines how she perceives the added value of B2B: “We are very involved in this program because it offers an excellent platform for developing projects and partnership through a business foundation between Israel and the world. I see this as a wonderful opportunity which, in our case, connects people who have a common desire to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.
While, on the one hand, Proctor & Gamble World is a company whose pioneering innovation and creativity has brought it longstanding success around the world, the Israeli market has similar characteristics: Israel also has a record for excellence and pioneering innovation in areas such as medicine, computers, security, clean-tech and information technology, and it is renowned for its high level of personal entrepreneurship, all of which make Israel a world leader. At Proctor-Israel, I created the Israel House of Innovation, a body that connects Israeli innovation with world corporations. This is an example of the collaboration that can be established between Israeli companies and companies abroad.
On a personal level, I believe that Israel possesses the best minds and talents. What is more natural for a CEO than to identify Israel’s best talents and harness them to the company that I represent? The wonderful human resource which Israel possesses is of great business value. Via a business connection such as ours, Israeli innovation, in every field, can reach out to many more people in the world. The whole project is based on a pure business approach which aims to impact on both sides, but there is also an extra factor over and above this.
We do not have enough awareness
What is this extra factor which you see in this project as a Jew?
“I believe that what I see most of all, above everything, is the challenge: how to propel forward the talents and abilities of Israelis, make them known, and make them successful so they will leave an imprint on the world. This is the most important contribution a business person can make to the community in which he or she lives and to the Jewish people.”
Another leading businesswoman who is playing an important part in the project is Raya Strauss Ben-Dror, President and co-owner of the Strauss Company, and former co-owner of the Strauss-Elite group, the international food corporation. Strauss Ben-Dror’s involvement in Partnership 2000 began more than five years ago when she served as Co-Chair of Partnership 2000 in Nahariya, where she lives. Nahariya is the twin region of the Jewish community of Northern New Jersey in the Partnership 2000 program of the Jewish Agency. Two years ago, Strauss Ben-Dror increased her involvement when she agreed to serve as the international Co-Chair of all 45 Partnerships 2000.
Strauss Ben-Dror acknowledges that her love affair with Partnership 2000 did not begin easily. The first time she was asked to host businessmen in Nahariya, it was almost unwillingly that she agreed to the request to take part in the project.
Nonetheless, what made you take part in the project?
Strauss: “At first, nothing really drew me. As a secular person who traveled extensively around the world, it did not interest me. I had never made a special point of visiting Jewish communities or synagogues abroad. But things changed. At a certain point, my heart got bigger. I began to understand that these are our people and without them we would not have been able to do this. It is important to remember that many things were built in Israel thanks to the funds and contributions of Jews around the world. We, in Israel, do not have enough awareness of this.”
“We left as Israelis and returned as Jews”
Strauss: “My heart opened with a great love for them and I understood the great power we can have when we are united. Today, the gap between Israelis and the young generation of Jews abroad is getting greater. 70% of the young generation of Jews abroad does not care about Israel and the phenomenon of assimilation is immense. The Israeli expatriate community abroad also has little connection with Jewish communities. I understood that I was losing my people. And it is because of this that I woke up.” Strengthening the connection of Jewish communities in the Diaspora and expatriate Israelis with Israel holds an important place in Strauss Ben-Dror’s involvement in the program.
Strauss recounts: “To see what happens in secular high schools when youth delegations travel abroad is very moving. The travelers benefit. ‘We left as Israelis, we returned as Jews’. They suddenly realize that they are part of the Jewish people. ‘We returned also as Zionists’, they tell me. They understand that this is special and it is not for nothing that we have our own state. They are happy to come back and serve in the army. Through Partnership 2000, we can also help Israel.”
Identifying business opportunities
In what way is the B2B project attractive to foreign investors?
Strauss Ben-Dror understands what is attractive for Jewish businessmen abroad: “Even those who, in the past, did not take an interest in philanthropic investments in Israel can identify business opportunities. There are people who take no interest in anything. But they are business people. There is a very interesting, relative advantage for the Israeli side of the relationship, if I give them something that interests them. Partnerships offer a win-win situation to both sides. The business people may not be interested in Israel or Judaism, but they are very interested in expanding their business potential.
“We tell them, ‘come, perhaps you will establish a connection with people whom we believe are special people, and this way we will generate other business contacts for you’. We are able to attract people who, till now, were not necessarily interested in philanthropy. If through the Jewish connection a business opportunity arises, the businessman will come because he may be able to promote his business.”
In the view of Strauss Ben-Dror, this is a legitimate beginning for a relationship which will connect these people in the future, in addition to the business aspect, to the State as well, and that will strengthen their sense of belonging to it.
Business Zionism – is there such a thing?
“No,” answers Strauss to the question as to whether there is such a thing as business Zionism. “We are number two in the world of high-tech. If businessmen from abroad find a business opportunity here, I do not need to call it Zionism. I call it Business-to-Business. I have been involved in this for five years. One should understand that people today are focused on themselves: patriotism and Zionism come later. First of all, businessmen cater to their personal interests. We want to create the first contact.”
Strauss Ben-Dror compliments the business community in Israel and the many leading figures in Israel who are contributing to the project, each in his own field under the leadership of Partnership 2000 : Yossi Ackerman, Shelly Gutman, Dan Harkabi, and many other excellent people. “These people are the “salt of the earth”, they care and are passionate about the Jewish connection.”
The extra factor which Strauss Ben-Dror talked about involves ameliorating the status of Jewish communities abroad, also with regard to their local populations. The Northern New Jersey community, she notes, has improved its standing, including within the country, as a result of the courageous contact forged between hospitals in the area of Northern New Jersey and hospitals in Nahariya. “We send the best things from our country, not just to Jews. We help to improve the status of a Jewish community, and we help to change the image of Israel in the world media, particularly at such a difficult time in terms of public relations.”
What is the winning formula of the partnerships, what is enticing more and more people to want to participate in these projects?
“The big advantage of the partnerships is the inter-personal connection and the Jewish connection. You see people face to face,” says Strauss decisively.
This article was originally published [in Hebrew] in the Globes Israel Business conference special issue Magazine, December 2009.
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The Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership emphasizes the indispensable connection between ethics and good leadership in business, government, social services and the classic professions. Much of the center’s work is at this vital nexus of ethics and leadership.
In the United States and around the world, there is growing recognition that good leadership is more crucial than ever, especially as our global future depends increasingly on the actions and priorities of influential institutions in all sectors. But we also know that good leadership requires more than just effectiveness in getting things done. It is as much about who leaders are as what they do. And it is about the ends they value and the means they choose to pursue them.
The Mann Center is a catalyst for Samford’s Christian mission, cultivating the competencies, knowledge, perspectives and values that enable leaders to navigate the often-daunting ethical challenges of today’s society. We believe Samford graduates should be distinguished as leaders who, in the leading of their own lives, provide examples worth following.
John C. Knapp, Ph.D.Director
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With rock-bottom sale prices and the lowest mortgage rates the country has seen in decades, many experts say this could be one of the best times to buy a home. Indeed, according to a recent Trulia survey, buying a home is now less expensive than renting in almost 80 percent of America's major cities.
To be sure, many obstacles confront prospective home buyers, including stricter credit standards and more extensive documentation requirements, but it's the hefty chunk of change consumers need to secure financing that's standing in the way for many would-be home buyers. These days, many banks require a down payment of 15 percent or more for mortgages, a staggering amount for many first-time home buyers.
[In Pictures: 10 Cities Where Rents Are Rising the Most.]
But house hunters struggling to come up with the cash for a down payment may have more options than they realize. While the government intends to dial down its role in the housing market in the coming years, state and federal programs to help out home buyers still exist. Consumers can also leverage existing assets and personal finance techniques to accumulate the capital needed.
Here are seven ways would-be home buyers can get their hands on the down payment cash they need to close the deal on a home:
Check out state programs. Although offerings vary by state, local housing finance agencies can help consumers come up with their down payments. Such agencies assist first-time buyers by providing grants, subsidized home loans, and other programs. Buyers must meet requirements on credit, income, and home sales price, but the Virginia Housing Development Authority, for example, can provide eligible first-time buyers with federally-insured home loans that include second mortgages to cover the down payment and closing costs. To find out if you qualify for similar assistance, contact your local state housing finance agency.
Check out FHA programs. It's a common misconception, but the Federal Housing Administration is not a lender. A federal agency, the FHA insures private lenders against default, which makes obtaining a loan much easier for consumers. Qualified borrowers can access FHA-backed mortgages for as little as 3.5 percent down. The agency backs about a quarter of new home-purchase loans today, up from just 3 percent in 2006. FHA-backed loans are subject to credit and mortgage-size requirements. To see if you qualify, contact an FHA-approved lender near you.
Start a savings plan. It might take some time and patience, but the wonders of old-fashioned compound interest can help consumers cobble together enough cash for a down payment. For assistance in creating a savings plan, consider contacting a certified credit counselor.
Get a second job. Additional income, of course, can also help would-be home buyers save enough cash for a down payment. But with the national unemployment rate at 9.2 percent, jobs are scarce. Still, it's worth investigating any freelance work you might be able to take on, or checking to see about any part-time openings in retail.
Cash gifts. If you don't have enough down-payment cash on hand, see if anyone close to you does. Gifts from parents or other family members have long been a source of down-payment cash for young couples or first-time buyers. Keep in mind that financial gifts must be documented in writing with an express statement by donors saying there is no obligation to repay the money. Also, cash gifts from a single source that exceed $13,000 per individual—or $26,000 per couple—are subject to federal taxes.
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UNC Hospital is where the nation's first ICU was developed. The Surgical Intensive Care Unit is the place where the efforts of multidisciplinary medical specialists and support staff bring their knowledge to bear on acute illness. The critical care specialist coordinates these efforts carefully balancing the available technology and the needs of the patient to provide the highest quality of patient care. The ICU is also home to the teaching of medical students, residents, and fellows; and is a 'laboratory of the highest order' where invention and innovation occur continuously and is often the focal point for the future of medicine.
The mission of the Critical Care Division is threefold: to provide the highest quality of patient care, to provide academic excellence, and to further knowledge in the field through scholarly research.
The Critical Care Services Division manages the sixteen-bed Surgical Intensive Care Unit to which critically-ill general surgery, trauma, and transplant patients are admitted, and the eighteen-bed Multidisciplinary Critical Care Stepdown Unit.
For more information on patient visiting hours please click here
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Bengal tigers living in the forests of India are rarely seen, but we succeeded in filming a female tiger called Machali raising her cubs. Although known for their fierce nature, we witnessed an incredible affection of the mother tiger for her cubs. We also found a strict hierarchy exists among the little ones as their strategy to survive. It is said that male tigers take no part in the rearing of the cubs and will even occasionally kill them. However, for the first time, the camera has captured an endearing scene of a father tiger interacting with his offspring.
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ALBANY, Ga. -- Georgia Association of Educators' President Calvine Rollins said Thursday passage of the controversial Amendment 1 in November would take money away from public schools and let out-of- state for profit corporations gain a foothold in the state.
Amendment 1 would allow the state to create charter schools without the approval of local school boards.
"The Georgia Association of Educators is not opposed to charter schools, but we are opposed to Amendment 1," Rollins said. "More than 170 school systems in the state are operating with deficits and this is an attempt by our legislators to spend taxpayers' money on schools that are not under local control but under the control of out-of-state for profit corporations."
The proposed amendment to the state Constitution reads:
"Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?"
Joining the GAE on the anti-amendment side are a group of heavyweights such as the Georgia Superintendent of Education John Barge, the Georgia School Board Association, the Georgia School Superintendents Association, the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, the League of Women Voters, the Legislative Black Caucus, and the NAACP, among others.
"This is all about money, power and control," said Rollins, who is from Bainbridge but works in the metro Atlanta area. "If people are unhappy with their local schools, there is already a mechanism in place for the voters to change those dynamics. We don't need to rewrite the state constitution for it."
Getting to the money aspect, Rollins said the state has already set aside more than $440 million to distribute to charter schools if the amendment passes.
"Why doesn't the state take that money and give it to our existing schools which are already severely underfunded?" Rollins asked. "The state is constantly taking money out of our communities. What kind of results can we expect when they are constantly cutting funding?
"What we really need is to get back to a 180-day school calendar and fully funded public schools."
With more than 300 charter schools in Georgia, Rollins added that passage could have other unforeseen consequences.
"What we would see is a resegregation of our schools based on resources." she said. "As I said before there is no need to rewrite the state constitution."
Rollins then urged voters to educate themselves on the Amendment before voting.
"We are asking that the voters do their due diligence," she said. "Read the amendment and vote no. All we want is for all of our schools to be properly funded and allow local school boards to have control over local schools.
"Research has shown that charter schools perform no better than our pubic schools which educate everybody who walks through their doors."
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Thursday, January 13, 2011
Regret and Repentance
Sadly Christians have jumped upon the regret bandwagon along with the world around us. We feel better about the terrible things people do if we sense in them a genuine sense of regret. The senseless violence of a Timothy McVeigh or, more recently, Jared Lee Loughner, would be easier to deal with if we heard them express regret over their murderous ways. In courtrooms, a sentence is often contingent upon regret shown by the perpetrator. Indeed the ability to show regret or remorse is often tied to a conclusion that the individual was "sane" when he or she is charged with some crime (heinous or ordinary). So often we look for this regret or remorse before we are willing to forgive people their hurtful words or actions against us. It has become for Christians an essential ingredient to repentance.
After being turned on to a discussion and, in particular, Tomáš Halík’s book Patience with God is an extended meditation on Luke’s account of the conversion of Zacchaeus, I find this preoccupation with regret to be most unhelpful in understanding repentance or dealing with the call of Jesus to forgive others as He has forgiven us. The author spends some time dealing extensively with the Biblical text and possible scenarios surrounding it and comes to the unmistakable conclusion that regret or remorse seems completely absent from Zacchaeus's repentance. Indeed, it seems he was never "convicted of [his] sins at an evangelistic meeting and cry out for forgiveness, or experience protracted anguish of soul that was then relieved by finally hearing and accepting the gospel..." He did not pray the sinner's prayer or languish on the anxious bench or even cry out for mercy in the torment of his guilty conscience. He did not tell the story of his terrible past or point to a moment when it all came crumbling down upon him until he turned his life over to Jesus for redemption.
This got me thinking. Page back to the prodigal and you find a similar absence of the kind of regret and remorse with which we are preoccupied today. The condition of the prodigal had caused him to reflect upon his situation and when he stared at the food of the pigs he was slopping, it led him to a remarkably self-serving conclusion. How many of my father's hired hands are well fed and here I am starving. Why, I will go back to my father and tell him the words he has longed to hear -- "I was wrong; I am sorry; I am a jerk. Let me be like one of your hired hands, okay?" A certainly accurate assessment of his circumstance but hardly the kind of thoughtful and heartfelt remorse and regret we would hope to find.
So he headed off "home" and his father embraced him long before he had a chance to perform his well-rehearsed speech. There is no record of a response from the waiting father in this parable -- except the directions to the servant to wash him up, clothe him, and feed him as the son he was born to be. Again, the focus is less on the marks of his repentance than on the generous heart of the father whose welcome was more than the son deserved and, apparently, more than he expected.
Halik observes: In Luke’s account of Zacchaeus’ conversion there is no mention of contrition in the sense of “feelings of penitence” that so many homilies and pious writings have tried so fervently to foster. Zacchaeus does not agonize: when he talks about giving half of his property to the poor and compensating those he cheated fourfold, it is due to the euphoria he feels at the presence of Jesus in his home. He acts more like the man in Jesus’ parable who found a treasure hidden in a field and in his elation sold everything in order to buy the field and thus acquire his rare find. (p.183)
Again, the central emotion of the stories of repentance from Jesus is the sense of joy -- even celebration. We do not hear so much of a tortured soul, the anguish over past failings, the angst over what will happen to the guilty, the fear of punishment, or fateful promises of never again, never again. Could it be that we have so shifted the focus of repentance from the one forgiving to the one who needs forgiveness that we have distanced ourselves completely from the stories and parables Luke records? Could it be that we have confused the ordinary human emotion of regret or remorse with the repentance only the Spirit can work in the heart of the sinner? Could it be that sin only becomes clear in our eyes when it stands in stark contrast to mercy? Ahhhh, something to think about here...
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The Porirua Foundation
This page outlines the purpose of the Porirua Foundation and its two main forms of revenue generation.
The Porirua Foundation is a registered charity which supports community initiatives and projects. It has been the community funding vehicle for Pataka, The Aquatic Centre, and the Te Rauparaha Arena.
Fundraising is a key focus for the Porirua Foundation.
For significant projects the Porirua Foundation (representing Community interests), the Council and the Porirua City Partners Programme work together to raise funds. A new fund was established for Porirua Youth Grants and in October 2010 and 2011 a total of $20,000 has so far been distributed to local youth at Awards Ceremonies held in Pataka.
Bequests and Endowments
Another method of supporting community projects is through bequests and endowments.
One private bequest was received in 2010 and the longer term focus remains that of bequest generation as a key method of building community generosity.
If you wish to make a financial contribution to benefit the Porirua Community then Porirua Foundation is able to manage your fund, bring Charitable status to it and ensure that your project benefits cost effectively without you having to go through the task of setting up a separate organization.
Link to more information
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To me, digging through receipts and tax papers is a form of reflection. The receipts and papers are key indicators as to how I’ve focused my time, energy, and money.
Each year, I gather receipts and papers to prepare of my parents’ tax return. In prior years, this process was a no-brainer for me. For years, my parents had pretty much been living each day like they did yesterday. Last year’s receipts and papers presented a much different picture.
There were receipts for prescriptions to calm my mom, so my dad could care for her in their home for as long as possible.
There were receipts for home daycare for my mom, who suffers from dementia, so my dad could run errands, visit with his buddy, and not have to worry about leaving my mom alone or being gone too long.
There were no receipts for lawn care, home maintenance, and repairs. There was paperwork for the sale of their home of 40 years and their move to the senior community so they could focus their time and energy on what matters.
There were receipts for ambulance and hospital stays for my dad who suffered his third stroke because he did not make caring for himself a priority.
There were receipts to move my mom to a new home she shares with other folks who also suffer from dementia and the move of my dad to a 1 bedroom apartment in independent living — all on the same campus. There were receipts for blood sugar test kits, Depends, and natural foods because my dad stopped thinking that he didn’t want to die and started thinking he wanted to live — be happy and healthy, taking care of himself, doing things he loved to do, so he could take care of mom and enjoy their time together.
There were less receipts for medications for my mom who is thriving in her new home where she feels safe and loved.
There were receipts for donations to their church and many other charities because they have always given to those less fortunate.
There were receipts from the bulk food store — for almond bark which my mom loves and my dad buys as a special treat for her.
There were receipts from the Henry Ford and Bob Evans restaurant — where my dad took his grandson who came to visit from Arizona.
There were receipts for a road trip my dad and I took to visit his grandchildren who were vacationing on the west side of the state.
There were receipts for guitar strings and art supplies — because my dad started playing his guitar and painting again.
There were receipts for the sale of my dad’s car — because my dad decided to practice “safety first!” and utilize a transportation service.
There were receipts for the cable company — because he can watch the war channel and the western channel with his buddy and record movies to watch with me on movie night — our weekend tradition.
These receipts and papers — if I just looked at them as numbers — then I’d be focusing on the “doing.” When I look at the essence, I am focused on the “being.”
I can see and celebrate the intentions we set and fulfilled; the values my dad, mom, and I embody; the obstacles we faced and overcame; the sense of purpose we restored, and how we accomplished so much more than we gave ourselves credit for. I could appreciate each moment, and the flow and process of life.
It’s my intention to make every receipt count, to make every moment count.
Do your receipts reflect your intentions for your life and work? Are you focused on what you want? Are you focused on what matters?
For more on handling life transitions, click here.
© 2013 Mary J. Lore and Managing Thought LLC All rights reserved.
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Inspection of bridges and roads has been wrapping up around York County after Hurricane Sandy brought wind and rain to the area earlier in the week.
"So far, it hasn't been too bad," said Steve Malesker, senior project manager with C.S. Davidson Inc. "It hasn't been nearly as bad as Tropical Storm Lee."
Crews have been checking 35 municipal- and county-owned bridges since the storm. They are probing the waterways for removal of the stream bed that could undermine the footing of the spans, he said.
Water flowed over a few bridges, such as Log Road over the East Branch of the Codorus Creek between York and Springfield townships.
"We will need to remove the debris as it can now catch more debris and cause additional flooding by blocking the opening to the bridge," Malesker wrote in an email.
Some work remains from Tropical Storm Lee last year. The Seitzville Road bridge remains closed, and about two dozen bridges need to have riprap -- stones intended to prevent erosion -- replaced or debris removed.
Bids for those repairs were due on Halloween, but the deadline was pushed back two weeks so bidders could take another look to see if conditions had changed, Malesker said.
All state roads had reopened by Friday, said Mike Crochunis, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
Crews look for washouts of roads, pipes that have collapsed, and guide rail that has separated
PennDOT needed to bring on private contractors last year to make repairs after Tropical Storm Lee. That's not the case with Sandy, he said.
PennDOT also does not anticipate finding any damage to the construction already completed at the Route 116 bridge in Spring Grove, he said. The contractor will have to fix its causeway to return to work.
Meanwhile, officials are monitoring another storm predicted to arrive next week, Crochunis said.
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- 2 Samuel 7:1-14a
- Psalm 89:20-37
- Ephesians 2:11-22
- Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Jesus knows that a tough schedule leads to burnout, so he seeks a time and place where the disciples, after their training mission, can relax and rest (6:30-32). However, when they arrive at their retreat site, they find more work to do. Without rankle or resentment, Jesus teaches and ministers to the people’s needs, spiritual and physical.
The portion of scripture that we don’t hear in today’s gospel reading (6:35-52) is Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000. (We hear John’s account of this next Sunday.) Even though Jesus is in need of a period of withdrawal, he realized the need of those who followed him was greater than his own. They were hungry for the truth he could impart, and were as confused as a sheep that have no shepherd (v. 34a). In his compassion, Jesus again began to teach them.
In the second part of the passage, Jesus and the apostles continue across the lake, and finally land at Gennasaret. Once again as they disembark from the boat, they are surrounded by throngs of people who recognize Jesus and bring their sick to him for healing. Wherever he goes, the response is the same. People beg to touch the fringe of his garment, and all who touch it are healed (v. 56).
This reading gives us a picture of Jesus in which he responds to the ever-changing needs of those around him with compassion and love. When the Apostle return, he recognizes that they need time to reflect on what has happened to them just as he himself needs time in solitude for renewal. However, when he saw the crowds that early awaited him “he had compassion for them” (v. 34) and changed his intended course of action to be with them to teach and heal.
All of today’s readings reflect the steadfast love of God, whether through the promises made to David and Israel, through the breaking down of barriers in Ephesians, or through the compassionate ministry of Jesus. Thus we are assured of God’s enduring presence as we strive to follow the example of Jesus by serving others with love and compassion.
- As you read the opening verses of today’s Gospel (Mark 6:30-33), ho would you characterize the mood of the Apostles as they return from their mission? What was Jesus’ concern for them and why?
- In verse 34, we read that Jesus had compassion for the crowd because they were like “sheep without a shepherd.” What does this image tell us about the people and their condition? What do we learn here about Jesus and his ministry?
- How does Jesus cope with the conflict between his desire for retreat and his compassion? Why do you experience the same tension? What principle can you gleam from Jesus’ example? How realistic is this principle for your life?
- What does this story tell you about the tension between needs and resources? Consider your community’s area of greatest need and the available resources. What principle can you apply from this story?
- Jesus was continually surround by people with great needs. Yet he was willing to forgo his personal comfort in the midst of these demands. What do we learn here about what it means to follow Jesus?
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McNair started out at the Alpha Boys School under the tutelage of Victor Tulloch, whilst playing with Joe Harriott (a lifelong friend who considered McNair his de facto younger brother), Wilton 'Bogey' Gaynair, and Baba Motta's band. He spent the first decade of his musical career in The Bahamas, where he used the name Little G for recordings and live performances. His early Bahamian recordings were mostly in Caribbean musical styles rather than jazz, in which he sang and played both alto and tenor saxophone. He also played a calypso singer in the 1958 film Island Women. In 1960, he went to Miami to record his first album, a mixture of jazz and calypso numbers entitled Bahama Bash. It was around this time that he began playing the flute, which would eventually become his signature instrument. Initially he had some lessons in New York, but he was largely self taught. He departed for Europe later in 1960.
Like many other West Indian jazz musicians of the 1950s and 1960s (eg Harriott, Dizzy Reece and Harry Beckett), McNair moved to Britain. However, before arriving in London, he toured Europe with Quincy Jones and worked on film and TV scores in Paris. Once in London, he quickly gained a reputation as a formidable player on flute, alto and tenor saxophone, leading to a regular gig at Ronnie Scott's nightclub.
His playing drew the admiration of bass player Charles Mingus, who was in London to shoot the 1961 motion picture All Night Long. McNair was part of a quartet Mingus formed to rehearse with during his stay in Britain. Unfortunately, the band never played live in front of a paying audience, due to a ban imposed by the UK Musicians' Union on US musicians in British nightclubs. A recording of the band exists, playing the earliest recorded version of the now famous Mingus composition Peggy's Blue Skylight, but it has never been released, despite featuring in the movie itself. The Musician's Union ban was lifted later in 1961, leading to a residency by US tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims at Ronnie Scott's club. Ironically, McNair's own quartet were also on the bill, resulting in two of his performances appearing on the album made to commemorate the gigs, Zoot Live at Ronnie Scott's. Around the same time, he also recorded with the drummer Tony Crombie and the percussionist Jack Costanzo.
McNair briefly returned to The Bahamas, where he cut his first all jazz LP Up In The Air With Harold McNair, before settling back in London permanently. His first UK album as a leader, 'Affectionate Fink', was made for the fledgling Island Records in 1965. The session saw him team up with Ornette Coleman's then current rhythm section of David Izenzon (bass) and Charles Moffett (drums), for a set of standards played with hard swinging intensity. McNair equally featured his tenor sax and flute on this session, delivering virtuoso performances on both. His next (self titled) album, cut for RCA in 1968, was another classic and featured probably his most famous composition, 'The Hipster', which has become a perennial fixture on the playlists at jazz clubs and was included on Gilles Peterson's Impressed Vol.2 compilation of 1960s British jazz.
His next album was 1970's Flute and Nut (RCA), which featured big band and string arrangements by John Cameron. This was quickly followed up in the same year by The Fence, which moved in the direction of jazz fusion. Another self-titled album was issued posthumously by the B&C label in 1972, which mixed tracks from the 1968 RCA album with later, unreleased recordings. Notable recorded works as a jazz sideman included sessions with the jazz-rock/big band ensemble Ginger Baker's Air Force and John Cameron's Off Centre. He also recorded with visiting Americans including vocalists Jon Hendricks and Blossom Dearie, drummer Philly Joe Jones and saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis.
1) The Umbrella Man
2) The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
3) You Are Too Beautiful
4) Barnes Bridge
5) Nomadic Joe
6) Herb Green
7) My Romance
8) Burnt Amber
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[NOTE: All quotations below are by Timothy Leary.]
"The first very dangerous side effect of psychedelic drugs is long term memory gain. And the second is short term memory loss. And I forget the third."
"The time has come for us as a species, and for you all as individuals, to move into the post industrial society."
"We all create our own reality."
[Paraphrasing John Paul Sartre] "You can make up all the abstract gods or leaders that you want, and theories and so forth, but you’re just whistling in the dark. The existential facts of the matter are that you are in the nose cone of your own time ship, hurtling at the speed of light into a dark future, and you don’t have a clue or navigational map. And if you’re scared, well, grow up."
"The sillier a religion is the more passionately fanatic people will defend it, if you know what I mean. So you’d better be careful when you buy a god, because it can get you in a lot of shit."
"Quantum physics is all about loosening up your tight structure."
"Now think about jazz. What’s jazz about? Jazz is about singularity, about creating your own rhythm, improvising, doing your own riffs, innovating. Hey, that’s exactly what quantum physics is all about."
"The fact that you become an individual, and think singular thoughts, doesn’t mean you can’t be understood."
"The function of the government is simply to protect us, not from ourselves, but protect us from bad [impure] products."
"No matter how crazy, fucked-up an individual can be, he can’t be as fucked up as the Catholic Church."
"You know that collectivity lowers intelligence. No matter how dumb the individual is, there’s no dumb individual that could have caused World War II."
"Colleges, universities, are tax supported, state supported, or financed by wealthy individuals and trusts to prepare you to find your niche, your spot, your cog in the great industrial machine. This is a factory."
"Don’t decide to major until after you graduate. When you get 50 years old, select your major."
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Christina Applegate is seen on location for the movie "Going the Distance" in Manhattan on August 3.
A new government task force has released new guidelines for mammograms, claiming that most women should start getting the test every two years starting at age 50 – instead of the previously recommended age of 40.
And while breast cancer survivors in Hollywood are being very vocal on the topic, so is Sarah Palin, who spoke with Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Wednesday, where Palin was promoting her book "Going Rogue."
"I think that's a dangerous recommendation," Palin told Maria. "You can talk to any cancer survivor who was diagnosed early thanks to an early mammogram and I would think that they would tell you much differently than what you're hearing today that they shouldn't receive [the tests until age 50]."
It's a sentiment echoed by celebrities who have fought and survived the disease, as well.
"I'm shocked that they want to abandon proven therapies based on cost analysis. This is wrong," Jaclyn Smith told Access Hollywood.
Jaclyn, the former "Charlie's Angels" star, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 at the age of 56.
"We're going to be put back in the dark ages again. Women are just starting to not be afraid to self-examine and have regular check ups and now they're saying to push it another 10 years," she continued.
In addition to her concern over pushing back the recommended age to begin testing, Jaclyn also took exception to the government no longer suggesting annual check ups.
"The year before I was diagnosed, my mammogram was fine," she revealed. "If I hadn't done that next year's mammogram, I would've had a different outcome."
Olivia Newton-John was diagnosed younger than Jaclyn. Her cancer was discovered 17 years ago at the age of 43 – seven years younger than the age now being recommended for mammograms.
"We are not data, we are human beings," Olivia told Access. "You can't judge it by data. I was in that 40 – 50 range."
Since her diagnosis in 1992, Olivia has become a vocal advocate for breast cancer research and other health issues. The star, who will be performing on FOX's TV skating and musical special "Kaleidoscope" on November 26 to raise awareness for women's cancer, also believes strongly in self exams, which the new guidelines say are of no value.
"At least for me, breast self-examination is the key," she said. "That's how I found my lump and then I went to the doctor and he sent me for my mammogram."
Like Jaclyn and Olivia, other Hollywood stars have also battled breast cancer – Cynthia Nixon, Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge were just a few of the celebrities who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in their early 40s.
There's also Christina Applegate, who was 36.
"I think that most women in America think that because we always hear from doctors, that you don't have to get a mammogram until you're 40, but is that sill correct?" Christina told AccessHollywood.com's Laura Saltman during an interview in September. "That's a misconception."
Because she had a strong family history of the disease – her mother is a survivor of breast and ovarian cancer – Christina began getting mammograms at 30. At 36, her doctor recommended she take her testing a step further.
"They were finding that the MRIs were really great for discovering it at an early stage, so I had my first MRI and they found cancer," she revealed. "For me personally, it saved my life."
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
PLAY IT NOW: Hollywood Breast Cancer Survivors Respond To New Mammogram Guidelines
PLAY IT NOW: Christina Applegate Opens Up On Breast Cancer Awareness
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Chivas USA team with schools to save socce
Soccer saved Gerson Mayén’s life. Literally.
The young Chivas USA
midfielder grew up in a tough part of Los
Angeles and admits that his life would have been a lot
different if he hadn’t had soccer during his formative years.
Now a proud member of the Red-and-White, the 21 year-old Manual
Arts High School alumnus gets to serve as part of the effort to offer the same
opportunities to other LA-area high school soccer players.
has teamed up with the Los
Angeles Unified School District and the LA 84 Foundation
to help preserve boys’ and girls’ high school soccer at 68 local schools. The
partnership was announced at a press conference on Thursday morning, where
Mayén was on hand to represent Chivas USA.
“LA is a tough place,” said Mayén. “There are a lot of gangs
and drugs. I grew up right across the street from gangsters, but playing soccer
helped save me from that.”
Mayén’s story is not an unusual one in Los Angeles. Thursday’s press conference saw
a number of student-athletes describe the ways in which sports have helped them
to succeed in life and avoid getting into trouble.
“Our coaches are people who truly push us to do our best,
and be the best that we can be in our lives,” said Daniel Ruvalcaba, a junior fullback
at Banning High School. “They put us in the right
direction. Without our coaches, we would be stripped of the people that inspire
With a $640 million deficit projected for the 2010-2011
school year, the LAUSD had been in danger of making budget cuts that would
endanger competitive sports in Los Angeles.
But thanks to organizations like Chivas USA, the LA84
Foundation, and other area civic and philanthropic leaders, enough money has
been raised to support athletics for the more than 35,000 student athletes in
“I play soccer at El Camino Real High School and would like
to thank Chivas for contributing to keep all the coaches in our schools,” said
student-athlete Brittany Charles. “Soccer means everything to me.”
Chivas USA President and CEO Shawn Hunter was also on hand
to celebrate the partnership, which he feels will be a major part of the
Red-and-White’s charitable efforts in years to come.
“We’re proud to be part of the LAUSD family,” Hunter said. “For
Chivas, this commitment to Los Angeles
goes way beyond today. We’re looking at this as a long-term partnership.
Working with the district to make these programs something that the students,
families, and teachers can all be proud of.”
“I ran track in high school and I played soccer, and I can’t
imagine not having that opportunity,” he continued. “It made me a better
person, a better student, got me to college, and I’ve been very fortunate to
have a wonderful career in sports. This is a great day and we’re proud to be
part of it.”
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is a reservoir
in the City of Edinburgh Council
. It is situated to the south of Edinburgh
in the Pentland Hills
, two miles south of Balerno
, near Harlaw Reservoir
Threipmuir reservoir was built by James Jardine between 1843 and 1848 as a water supply for Edinburgh.
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He was so frustrated with what he saw during recess that he’d lost his appetite for dinner. Shah Amanat could not dispel the face of an orphan boy who had not eaten in two days begging him for food. At that moment, sitting with his family in their middle-class home in Bangladesh, Shah committed to “being the change I want to see in the world.”And he has worked ardently towards fulfilling his promise since he entered LaGuardia Community College as a Business major in 2011. “In the first class I took at LaGuardia– English 101– my professor taught me that whatever I did, I should do with all my heart,” he says about what set the premise for his future successes, “She assured me that for the best results, I have to be comfortable in my own skin.”So, having won a visa lottery and leaving his country as a junior in college, when election time came in LaGuardia’s Student Government, he knew there was no one better than he to be Governor of International Students and Foreign Affairs. He ranfor the position and won, and later ascended to Student Government president for 2012-2013.His work in SGA includes organizing a town hall meeting on Deferred Action where City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the DREAM Act’s fiercest advocate Congressman Luis Gutierrez responded to students’ concerns. “It’s a big satisfactionfor me as a student leader,” says Shah of his deeds, “Students who we helped to apply have received their document.”Shah also co-organized students in support of the referendum that formalized a varsity sports teams at LaGuardia as of Fall 2013. He was also a key coordinator of SGA’s annual Student Giving Day where compassionate students make donations towards the scholarships of their financially struggling peers.Shah is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and an Honors Program student maintaining a 3.7 GPA. He is currently an investment-banking intern on Wall Street and aspires to own his own information technology business. He dreams of reaching a position in the world economy where he can keep children, like the boy he met in his childhood, from starving and instead offer them equal opportunity.After graduation, Shah will apply for transfer to Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business,Harvard Business School and NYU Stern.
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|
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|
Your glasses are almost certainly Vasart or Pirelli - its a long and fascinating story. Feel around in the bottom of your glasses. Do you feel a rough patch? If so that was done with a diamond drill during the late 1950s or 1960s and both Vasart and Pirelli did this as well as attaching and firing the decoration and the gold rims. The purpose of the rough patch was to encourage the bubbles to start from the bottom. I have some great first hand accounts of this which will be in my book on London Lampworkers which I hope to have finished soon.
The glass itself wasn't made at Vasart nor Pirelli. They bought in the glasses mostly Pilkington's Ravenhead but also from elsewhere probably including Nazeing.
Take care of that set - pity about the box.
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| 1.515625
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November 29, 2012
BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's most populous state is toughening a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, closing loopholes in its five-year-old restrictions.
North Rhine-Westphalia, a western region of about 18 million people that includes Cologne, Bonn, Duesseldorf and the Ruhr industrial area, introduced its smoking ban in 2008 -- around the same time other German states put similar restrictions into effect.
The state legislature on Thursday approved a toughened version to take effect next May. It shuts loopholes that allowed customers to light up in establishments that designated themselves smoking bars, in special rooms set aside for smokers or in beer tents, among other things. The center-left state government said the original ban had so many loopholes it didn't effectively protect nonsmokers.
In future, exceptions will be allowed only for private parties.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Cost basis is an often unloved but certainly important piece of information in managing investment decisions in non-retirement accounts. With the upcoming tax changes scheduled for 2013, however, cost basis and capital gains or losses could play a more important role than usual in your decisions before the end of the year.
Your cost basis is the total amount you have invested in any particular position or asset. In the case of a stock, bond or mutual fund, the cost basis is comprised of not only your initial investment but any additional purchase of new shares – whether they come via reinvested dividends or income or are simply new money invested.
Cost basis shouldn’t be overlooked because the basis can be an important variable in your after-tax returns. Being tax efficient can help you protect more of your gains.
In 2013 the long-term capital gains tax is scheduled to rise from 15% to 20% of the gain for most taxpayers and as high as 23.8% of the gain for high income earners. The current rate has been in place since May 2003. Although this tax will rise by a third, even the 20% rate is historically low. The average long-term capital gains tax since 1942 is 27.55%.
Considering the following scenarios may help you make tax-wise decisions about your investments before year end.
GO AHEAD AND SELL A WINNER
Generally, deferring taxable events as long as possible is preferable. But this year, realizing gains and paying the capital gains tax at the 15% rate, rather than a higher tax later, could effectively increase your after-tax return on your investment. Where gains are concerned, there is no rule that disallows you from repurchasing the same asset that was sold. Or, perhaps more appropriate, you can realize the gain by selling the asset and use the proceeds to further diversify your portfolio, managing risk.
CONSIDER HOLDING ON TO LOSERS (if the asset still fits your investment objective)
Realizing losses by selling positions that have declined below the cost basis is a common year-end task. But you may want to think twice about this strategy. One reason is that losses will be more valuable when used to offset capital gains in the future at higher tax rates.
Another less obvious reason is that while you may receive tax benefit by selling at a loss now, it’s possible that the benefit could be more than offset by future capital gains taxes that are higher. Here’s an example. Consider an investment with a $20,000 cost basis that declines to $15,000. You sell the position and realize a loss of $5,000 before December 31, 2012. You reinvest the proceeds for a new cost basis of $15,000, not the original $20,000. The reinvested money rises to $30,000, doubling your money, and you sell. Because of this tax increase, you would owe more in capital gains tax than if you had just held the initial position with a $20,000 basis and waited for it to grow to $30,000. The initial tax deduction of the $5,000 loss would be worth $750 assuming the 2012 15% capital gains rate. But the reinvested assets, growing from the lower cost basis would generate a higher future tax bill. Essentially, there would be an extra $5,000 of capital gain. With the future capital gains tax at 20%, the tax cost would be $1,000, a bigger drag on your after-tax return than the $750 tax deduction that was received upon selling the initial investment for a $5,000 loss.
NO TAXES ON CAPITAL GAINS FOR LOW INCOME EARNERS
If your taxable income happens to be under $70,700 (married filing jointly) or $35,350 (single taxpayer in 2012), you can sell investments with a long-term capital gain in 2012 and pay no tax. Next year, a 10% capital gains tax returns for individuals in the 15% tax bracket or lower. This may be most useful for people who have business losses or other causes for unusually low taxable income but they still have assets in a taxable investment account with gains.
TURN THE UNKNOWN INTO A GIFT
Many people have investments for which they do not know the cost basis. If it is not easy to compile an accurate historical basis for the holding, there is a simple solution with many benefits – gift it. If you donate the investment to a non-profit organization, you will receive a tax deduction for the date-of-gift market value and there is no need to determine what the basis is. You can receive a tax deduction for securities gifts up to 30% of your adjusted gross income. The charity receives the gift and does not have to pay a capital gains tax whenever it sells the position. If the position is of a size larger than you would comfortably gift normally, discuss funding a charitable gift annuity or other account that returns an income stream to you to supplement your retirement income.
DON’T DOUBLE PAY TAXES
Regardless of your situation, keeping track of cost basis is important so that you don’t unintentionally pay more tax than necessary. The most frequent problem investors face when determining their costs basis is not adding reinvested dividends or income to your initial purchase cost. This creates a form of double taxation. The reinvested income is taxed annually whether you reinvest it or not. If it is not included in growing the cost basis over time it is essentially taxed again as capital gain at the sale of the asset.
For many people who have held investments with reinvestment features over the years – or who have transferred a holding from a fund company to a brokerage or from one brokerage to another, keeping track of the cost basis can require a tedious search of old statements or trade confirmations.
All taxable mutual fund and brokerage account statements are now required to include cost basis. If your statement is missing information, the custodian of the account does not have complete records. You will need to go on a bit of a treasure hunt for the missing details. You should be sure to understand the basis before selling the position to make sure that it is accurately reported to the IRS by the custodian of the account.
Two other points are worth noting that may impact your decisions to sell investments and realize gains or losses. If you have a capital loss carryforward (losses beyond what you could deduct on your tax return in previous years) it may be more valuable to you to wait to next year to sell your winning investments to offset higher capital gains rates than this year.
And there is another way to gain tax efficiency and better after-tax returns that may be worth waiting for, if unpleasant to think about – your death. If you like a holding and it is a good fit for your investment objective long term, there is no need to get strategic about the capital gain. Assets held until death in taxable accounts receive a basis step-up to the value on the date of death. It’s a nice benefit to your heirs and serves as one instance where death and taxes are not actually linked as certainties in life.
Have you reviewed the cost basis of your holdings for accuracy?
Are there steps you can take to improve after-tax returns on your investments?
By Gary Brooks, CFP® – Brooks, Hughes & Jones – Partners in Wealth Management – Tacoma, WA
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North Texan at Least 55th Texas West Nile Death 9/20/12
September 20, 2012
El Paso, Tx. - A suburban Dallas county has reported its fourth West Nile-related death and at least the 55th reported in Texas.
A Plano health department statement says a Plano resident is the Dallas suburb's second West Nile death. Collin County officials say the death is the fourth in the county, all of whom have been older than 80 years old and with other medical problems.
The death brings to at least 29 the number of West Nile deaths reported from the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.
Federal health officials say this is the nation's worst year for the mosquito-borne virus since it was discovered in New York 13 years ago. Texas has about half of the U.S. deaths from the illness.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://cbs7kosa.com/news/details.asp?ID=37531
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|
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Q: Is it safe for me to blow insulation into the hollow brick wall cavities of my 1908 house? The walls are completely hollow and unobstructed from top to bottom. The gap between layers of brick measures about 21/2 inches wide.
One home inspector advised me not to insulate the walls because it could lead to deterioration of the brick. What should I do?
A: You're wise to add more insulation. That's what I'd do. The large, unobstructed wall cavity you've got offers a wonderful opportunity, but you need to be careful what kind of insulation you use. Brick is porous, especially older brick, and any kind of fibre-based insulation will certainly get wet, mouldy and ineffective in time.
A better option is spray foam. Ask for contractor references and follow them up with phone calls to homeowners. Insulating brick structures like yours is specialized work, and not every foam contractor can succeed.
Ideally you'd like to find a contractor who is diligent enough to provide before and after images of previous projects taken with an infrared camera. This visually shows heat loss from the building and the skill the contractor has in creating complete internal coverage. A layer of properly applied foam will make a huge difference in the energy efficiency of your place.
Q: What's the best way to fix a patch of worn finish on my light-coloured hardwood floor? I accidentally rubbed through the finish while removing a spot of tar with an abrasive pad.
A: Most wood floors are sealed with some kind of oil-based urethane, and this is easily repaired with a product called Wipe-On Poly. It's a unique, thin viscosity urethane sealer made by Minwax and you'll find it at most hardware stores. Although it's not specifically formulated for floors, it works well for small repairs like yours.
Ultimately, you'll need to apply four or five coats in the area of damage, but before you try, test some Wipe-On Poly in an inconspicuous place. It should flow over the existing floor finish evenly and it should resist peeling after it's fully dry.
Give the sample area at least a few weeks to prove itself. If all looks good, apply a coat of stain to re-establish the original colour if needed, then apply one coat of Wipe-On Poly each evening before going to sleep. Rub the area with fine steel wool after it has dried for 24 hours before applying the next coat.
Q: How can I fix the mouldy ceiling in my uninsulated garage? The mould is growing between the drywall of the ceiling and the vapour barrier and it extends over the entire ceiling. My plan is to strip everything, add insulation, vapour barrier and new drywall.
Will this work?
A: Stripping is a good place to start, but you'll need to eliminate the source of moisture before rebuilding.
It's probably coming from winter condensation. This is especially true if you attempt to heat the space with no insulation above the ceiling. When warm, indoor air hits the cold, uninsulated vapour barrier, moisture will condense out, causing the effect you describe.
If you really don't need insulation in the garage, consider leaving the ceiling frame bare and open.
If you do need insulation, apply two-inch-thick sheets of rigid, extruded polystyrene foam to the underside of the ceiling joists before drywall goes up. Seal all joints in the foam sheets with expanding polyurethane spray foam along edges as sheets are installed, then apply a well-sealed vapour barrier below the foam before new drywall.
You'll want to make sure the attic space has plenty of ventilation, too. Building codes require a minimum vent area of 1/300 of total attic floor area, but I prefer to double that.
Steve Maxwell, syndicated home improvement and woodworking columnist, has shared his DIY tips, how-to videos and product reviews since 1988. Send questions to stevemaxwell.ca/ask-steve.
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Though many differences remain, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have never been closer to a deal, numerous congressional and White House sources confirm to CBS News.
Sources familiar with the Friday call from Boehner to Mr. Obama, placed after the president's emotional statement on the Connecticut elementary school massacre, was the most productive of the fiscal cliff process.
In that call, Boehner offered to raise marginal income tax rates on households earning more than $1 million in adjusted gross income. The tax rate Boehner offered was 39.6 percent, the top rate under the Clinton-era tax code Mr. Obama favors.
This was the first time Boehner put higher income tax rates on the table and numerous sources said that broke the logjam in the talks. In theory, a deal could be struck by midweek.
Neither side is predicting this outcome, merely acknowledging, in ways they never would have before, that it is theoretically possible to pull everything together that fast. But significant obstacles remain.
Here are the broad outlines of Boehner's proposal:
Since the revenue component is the most important, here is a summary of the Boehner offer, as confirmed by numerous sources familiar with the talks.
Within the this tax revenue proposal, there are some snags. The White House doesn't want to credit the $60 billion in CPI changes as revenue increases, thus argues Boehner's under the $1 trillion revenue threshold Obama considers crucial to a deal. More broadly, the White House has not agreed to any CPI adjustment.
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Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Education, Freedom, Politics, Taxes, The United States | Tags: New York Times Biggots, Rep.Tim Scott (R-SC), SC Governor Nikki Haley
No sooner had South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced that she would name Representative Tim Scott to the Senate seat being vacated by Jim DeMint, who is leaving the Senate to become President of the Heritage Foundation, than the insults started. Mr. Scott was first elected to Congress in 2010, and not only has a history in South Carolina politics, but has been a successful small businessman, a real plus in a Congress where that quality is all too rare. He is a staunch advocate for low taxes and the free market, something that does not endear him to Democrats. He has been a favorite of Tea Party activists.
Democrats, always ready to demonize anyone who does not fall in line, have attempted to portray Tea Party members as bigots, racists, and gone to great lengths to attempt to infiltrate Tea Party rallies with racist signs so they can be photographed with the Tea Party in the background, proving that they are indeed racist. Doesn’t work. The NAACP passed a resolution two years ago that condemned ” racist elements and activities” in the Tea Party. The many black members of the Tea Party were not particularly amused. The popularity of Tea Party heroes like Herman Cain and Congressman Allen West should put an end to that nonsense.
Republicans are delighted to have this young black man who won the district in 2010 with 65 % of the vote. Democrats are furious when any black American dares to be a Republican and defy “the narrative.” Trouble is their narrative doesn’t have a very long history. The Republican party was founded as the party of abolition, was responsible for the Emancipation Proclamation, many a station on the Underground Railroad, voting rights laws, the civil rights laws of the Johnson Administration only passed with more Republican votes than Democrats. I know Democrats can’t let go of the race issue, but there are a lot more interesting things about Tim Scott than the color of his skin.
The New York Times printed a disgustingly racist op-ed Tuesday which I will not reprint here, but link to, in case you want to see what a knot they twist themselves into to prove how tolerant they are. “There is little that connects these men to mainstream black politics” — you simply cannot be black and Republican. He even says “All four black Republicans who have served in the House since the Reagan era — Gary A. Franks in Connecticut, J.C. Watts Jr. in Oklahoma, Allen B. West in Florida and Mr. Scott —were elected from majority-white districts. “
Goodness, I thought that was the goal: where these men were elected for the content of their character, not the color of their skin, instead of having to have a district gerrymandered to be majority minority so Black Americans would be sure of being elected. The Democrat Party has a long dismal history of racism, and they can’t seem to get over it, nor imagine a world where skin color is a matter of indifference.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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|Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York|
ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL, JACKSON, WYOMING, 6-7 JUNE
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew to Jackson, Wyoming, in the afternoon of Friday, 6 June, to open the first ever Global Insight Summit. The Summit was convened by the United Nations and the Jackson Hole Film Institute and held during the fifth annual Jackson Hole Film Festival.
Its purpose was to bring together entertainment leaders and United Nations officials to explore how film and television could be better used to raise public awareness of critical global issues and the United Nations role in addressing them.
In his keynote address to the Summit at the Jackson Hole Community Center for the Arts, the Secretary-General said the United Nations has always worked with Governments to achieve its goals. And it always would. But the United Nations also needed new strategic partners and fresh creative thinking, he added. “Governments can’t succeed alone -- you in civil society have a powerful role as a force for change,” the Secretary-General said. (See Press Release SG/SM/11622.)
He also noted that the world of entertainment and new media had a unique power to connect the United Nations and people in every corner of the world. In that regard, he appealed for Summit participants’ support in amplifying the United Nations message.
The following day, on Saturday, 7 June, the Secretary-General attended four small private group meetings with filmmakers, television producers, actors and other members of the entertainment community. The Secretary-General described the work of the United Nations, and the meetings explored how best to strengthen the partnership between the United Nations and popular media. The themes of the meetings were Darfur, children and armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and the United Nations work with children in general.
The Secretary-General left Jackson, Wyoming, and arrived back in New York on the evening of Saturday, 7 June.
* *** *For information media • not an official record
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Adam Lanza went into the Sandy Hook Elementary School wearing a utility vest, not a bullet proof vest, state police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said Thursday.
"It was a fishing type vest, a jacket with a lot of pockets; it was not a bullet-proof vest," Vance said.
On Dec. 14, Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, then went to the Newtown school, where he opened fire, killing 20 children and six adults, police say.
Vance previously has said Adam Lanza primarily used a rifle — a Bushmaster AR-15 assault-style rifle — during the school shooting, though he also had Glock 10 mm and Sig Sauer 9-mm handguns, along with additional ammunition and multiple magazines for each gun that could hold "hundreds" of bullets.
A utility vest is readily available in any sporting goods store and while it would have provided Lanza with plenty of storage for ammunition, it wouldn’t have protected him from gunfire. Police never fired on Lanza, who shot himself when police closed in on him, they say.
Some media outlets have reported that Lanza wore a bulletproof vest, which Vance refuted Thursday.
Connecticut has some restrictions in place for body armor, defined as material designed to provide bullet penetration resistance. Convicted felons can’t buy or possess body armor. Sales must be made in person. Violations can result in a misdemeanor charge.
Michael Lawlor, the governor’s undersecretary for the State Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division, said police had asked lawmakers to adopt this 1998 legislation, "because they were encountering criminals who were wearing body armor."
Dwayne Harrison, a Bridgeport police officer and president of the National Association of Government Employees, R1-200, International Brotherhood of Police Officers in Bridgeport, noted the utility style vest that Lanza wore is readily available, and not something that would have aroused suspicion.
"Some kids just get those for fun," Harrison said. "In this case, maybe he had that for magazines and bullet rounds."
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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|Received:||7/2/2006 8:53:43 PM|
|Subject:||Business Opportunity Rule|
|Title:||Notice of Proposed Rulemaking|
|CFR Citation:||16 CFR Part 437|
Comments:MLM is good for the country. MLM has provided a good means to make extra income for anyone who wants to. regardless of class status. Single parents, elderly, families that want to stay home more often, college students, part time workers, and much more. The industrial world had no fillings to employees. Example: Look at Steelcase and what they did to thousands of people, that were loyal to them for many years. How about companies closing to go over seas. Check Delphi out and closing of their plants. Shut down the bad guys, and let the good ones enjoy a lucrative lifestyle. MLM is good business...
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WVAS Local News
The latest U.S. drought map shows conditions continue to worsen in the Plains states that are key producers of corn and soybean crops.
More than 78 percent of the U.S. is in drought and it's considered extreme or exceptional in nearly a quarter of the country. The U.N. food agency says the U.S. drought caused global food prices to rise six percent last month.
The average price of gasoline is now higher than it was a year ago for the first time since late April. The national average for retail gasoline is $3.66. per gallon today, a penny higher than it was on this date in 2011. Triple A- Alabama reports the statewide average for regular fuel is almost $ 3.46 per gallon, 31 cents higher than a month ago. Analysts expect gas prices to continue to rise through Labor Day because of refinery and pipeline issues that have affected supplies.
The State Board of Education has picked eight people, including some with Alabama ties, to interview for chancellor of Alabama's two-year college system. The list includes John Schmidt, senior vice chancellor of advancement at Troy University; Bruce Murphy, vice president for academic affairs at Air University at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base; Mark Heinrich, president of Shelton State Community College; and Kandis Steele, director of academic programs for Alabama's postsecondary program.
An Alabama-based grocery chain is renaming its stores. The new owner of Southern Family Markets plans to convert all its locations to the Belle Foods banner. Belle Foods purchased the Birmingham-based company earlier this year, acquiring stores that operate under banners including Bruno's, Food World and Piggly Wiggly.
Alabama's Attorney General fielded questions on various issues Wednesday in a question and answer session with reporters. Luther Strange said last month's raid at Center Stage near Dothan should served as a warning others about illegal gambling machines. Strange also said a federal appeals court in Atlanta has not yet ruled on Alabama's Immigration law.
U.S. Forecasters are raising their estimate of potential storms in the remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says wind patterns and warmer-than-normal sea temperatures mean chances for storms are higher and as many as 17 tropical storms and five to eight hurricanes could form before the season ends.
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Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest particle accelerator.
- Asked by ETpro | 15 responses
I was doing some private experiments with the Large Hadron Collider in my spare time and accidentally created a singularity. Now it's getting bigger. What are the specific dangers of an enlarging singularity?Asked by GeorgeGee | 15 responses
- Asked by dpworkin | 76 responses
- Asked by mattbrowne | 38 responses
- Asked by gciochina | 3 responses
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Most Active Stories
Tue September 27, 2011
Saudi Woman Sentenced To Lashes After Defying Driving Ban
A court in Jeddah on the west coast of Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to ten lashes for defying the country's ban on women driving, activists told the AP.
This comes less than 48-hours after King Abdullah's announcement that Saudi women would be able to participate in municipal elections and be appointed to the Shoura Council. Two other women from the driving campaign have also been summoned for questioning and will stand trial.
Madeha Alajroush, who was part of the group of women who drove in 1990, was arrested this afternoon in Riyadh for driving her car. We talked with Alajroush after she was released.
"Police did not see me driving, but one of my neighbors reported me," she told us.
Alajroush said she was being interviewed at her house by a French journalist about the recent King decisions, and she said she wanted to "make a statement" by driving. She said she used the journalist's car and drove for a few minutes without incident then returned home.
Police came knocking at her door, and she was taken to the police station where she was detained for four hours. "They treated me well," she said. She was released after signing a pledge not to drive again.
We talked to Alajroush last month about her experience participating in the first driving protest in 1990, but she expressed hope for the future saying it's time for women to demand the right to drive again.
Yesterday, we talked to Mohammed al-Qahtani, who heads a human rights group in Saudi Arabia. He said the voting rights announcement was simply "symbolic" and was not a signal of greater reforms.
Activists said the latest rash of arrests and news of the lashings put a damper on the voting rights announcement.
"The King's announcement did not change anything," said lawyer and activist Waleed Abu Alkhair over the phone from Jeddah. He said the situation for women's rights in the country remains "disastrous," and added that some people might have forgotten the reality in the excitement over the royal decisions.
"The King's speech is not a big deal," he said. "It is just an attempt to improve Saudi Arabia's image abroad."
Ahmed Al Omran is an intern with NPR's social media desk. He's blogged from Saudi Arabia since 2004, until he came stateside to attend Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
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Brian Asher – The Wall Street Journal, 07/05/2012
SAO PAULO–Brazil’s informal economy has lost ground as a share of gross domestic product in recent years, but that trend may be slowing, according to Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation.
Businesses that evade taxes and regulations now account for only 17% of Brazil’s gross domestic product, down from 21% in 2003, according to the foundation’s annual Underground Economy Index, published this week.
Economist Fernando Barbosa, the author of the study, said a tight labor market and growing credit availability have prompted many businesses and workers to move into the formal economy, but these factors are losing momentum.
“Despite the weak growth of the economy, the formal employment market has grown significantly,” said Mr. Barbosa. “Our prediction is that employment is at its limit and will see minimal gains from 2012 onwards.”
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I am going to tell you something that will chill your blood if you are a hunter and outdoorsman.
Fact: The future of hunting and outdoorsmanship is in the process of dying.
That is true and I can prove it. Go to any hunting camp in Texas and look at the people you see there. The vast majority of them will be middle age or older and the most of them will be beyond 50 years of age. The average age of the persons buying hunting licenses in the state of Texas, according to statistics from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, is mid-forties. Seeing a youngster in a Texas hunting camp is about as rare as seeing a whooping crane in your front yard.
The reason is simple; hunting in Texas has gotten so expensive that the average person cannot afford the money to take the kids hunting. When an average buck whitetail costs from $1000 to more than $3000, it is extremely difficult for Dad to take Joey hunting. Even cull bucks — pardon me, make that management bucks – which used to be free are now being sold for $1000 and up, sometimes very up. The fact is that hunting in Texas is on the verge of pricing itself completely out of the range of the average hunter. The result is that we are not teaching our children to love the outdoors, because it is just too bloody expensive.
I just did an Internet search using cheap Texas deer hunts for the search parameter. The first one that came up gives the price of a cheap hunt as $2000 for an 8-point buck that would score under 140 B&C points. That is precisely the kind of buck that Junior would probably shoot for his first buck. But he won’t be able to because Dad cannot afford to pay $2000 for the boy to shoot a cull buck. That is simple math. According to the Census Bureau, the average income for a family in Texas is right at $50,000. That means that for Dad to let Junior shoot a buck, it would cost, if my math is correct, 4% of the annual family income. That is, if Dad doesn’t care to hunt. If Dad hunts then the cost rises to at least 8%, or nearly a tenth, of annual family income. I don’t know too many families that would sacrifice that much income to go shoot a cull buck or two.
Another outfitter on the Web advertises management deer hunts for $3750. What a deal — NOT! Still another offers trophy whitetail hunts for $1800.00, but if you shoot one with 10 points or more you get hit for another thousand bucks.
The consequences here are too dire to contemplate. With a dollar driven market for hunting in Texas, there is no new blood being introduced to the wonders of the outdoors. On top of that we have changed in the last 50 years from being a mostly agrarian society to a mostly urban society. This means that the majority of us are not in touch with the realities of making a living, such as the truth that for something to live, something else much die. That is an unshakeable fact. I suppose with the modern technology we could fabricate some type of chemical that would keep us alive, but that point in time has not yet arrived and we must kill to live. That even goes for vegetarians. Vegetables are alive, although they may not be alive in the sense that a deer or turkey is alive.
As hard as it is to believe anyone could be so ignorant and naive, many people today truly do not understand that the beef they buy wrapped in plastic in the supermarket was once a living, breathing, mooing, eating, slobbering, defecating cow that someone had to kill and someone else had to butcher. They don’t even think about where it comes from; they just assume that it is made in some factory, I guess. This has caused a backlash against those of us who hunt, even though we are more humane and probably more sterile than the slaughter houses and butcher shops. Because we kill our own food, and do it with one of those evil guns, we are somehow throwbacks, cruel, mean and heartless. And you will not be able to explain to these people that they are just as guilty, if there really is guilt to be assigned, as we are. Just because someone else does their killing for them does not relieve them of the moral responsibility for that death. Ask any judge as he sentences the person who paid another person to kill someone for him. He is just as guilty as the guy who pulled the trigger.
Sorry, I have digressed.
The point here is that we are losing something so precious that it should be protected like life itself. We are the last nation in the world, that I am aware of, in which Joe Average can buy a hunting license and go hunting. In many states this can take place on publicly owned land, although in Texas it is mostly done on privately owned land. In most of the other nations it is the game of the rich and powerful. In some places they have their own private shooting reserves, like the Shah of Iran and his family used to have. If you aren’t a king you have to be rich. If you aren’t rich, you just don’t hunt. Remember Robin Hood, who was outlawed for killing one of the King’s deer?
We were, in the past, a nation of outdoorsmen who understood the balance of nature, what my Native American ancestors called the Circle of Life. This Circle of Life begins with our own young. When that link is broken the circle flies apart. And it is breaking down, rapidly. I prophesy that within the next 20 years (probably sooner) the “deer boom” in Texas is going to bust. All these deer ranches that were purchased by city dwellers as places to play during the fall will be for sale, if they aren’t already. The sad part is that the big working ranches that these smaller parcels were once a part of no longer exist, and no one can make a living on a 500 acre ranch. In most places at least 5000 acres is required if a working ranch is to succeed, and even then the owner has to do all the work himself. It would take decades to put all the broken up ranches back together to where they would be useful for agriculture, assuming that there is anyone left who wants the backbreaking, dawn-to-dark life of a rancher. In the meantime we will be buying all our produce, including that plastic-wrapped beef, from overseas. This means that with each step the outlook gets worse and the U.S. becomes less self-sufficient. I can follow this train of thought out to the logical end and it scares the pants off me.
I really miss the days of the 1950s and even into the 1960s, when I could ask my friend the rancher if I could go hunting and he would smile and say, “Well, as long as you promise not to shoot the windmills or the cattle, go ahead. If you happen to see a coyote, be sure and shoot it. And if you do get a buck, I sure would like to have one of the backstraps.” No money, no avarice, just friendship and trust. I do miss it so.
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When most business owners hear the term "risk management," they think of property and casualty insurance. And while an adequate level of insurance is part of a good risk management plan, there are many aspects of a business in which daily risk decisions must be made. For instance, decisions involving computer system purchases, hiring of employees and even where and what to advertise all involve various levels of risk management.
A good risk management system for your business involves a three step process. First, you must recognize the risks that you face. Second, you must devise a plan to mitigate these risks. And third, you must execute on this plan. The recent catastrophes caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita provided horrific case studies of the importance of a good risk management system.
Most of the businesses that had prepared with this three step process survived in some form. However, the businesses that had not properly considered risk management issues generally suffered fatal damage.
For equipment rental business owners, nearly all risk management decisions can be narrowed down to six key areas: operational, reputation, regulatory, legal, liquidity and disaster.
Operational risk is concentrated in three areas: 1) equipment; 2) information risk; and 3) human risk. If your equipment is older and prone to high maintenance expense, then your operational risk is high. Frequent equipment problems can lead to high levels of downtime and waste, both of which can be very expensive for a small equipment rental business. If you have had significant problems with your equipment, you should consider replacing it. While the initial cost might seem prohibitive, you might actually find in putting a pencil to it that the improved productivity and efficiency would more than cover the cost of the new equipment.
Information risk pertains primarily to your computer system. If your system is antiquated and slow, then you are taking undue risk in the quality and availability of your information. For instance, your system should be able to provide up-to-date inventory records. Without this information, you might underestimate the availability of certain items. Your system also should provide you with frequent profit-and-loss information, so you know how your business is performing.
Information risk also involves frequent backups of your data to ensure that it isn't lost in the event of a fire or power outage. To mitigate this aspect of information risk, you should backup your data on a regular basis (a state-of-the-art computer system should be able to backup the information daily) and store the backed up data at a different site or in a fireproof safe or vault. The third area of operational risk is human risk, which can manifest itself in the form or human error, fraud or in excessive reliance on the impact of one or two key employees. Human error risk can be mitigated by well defined policies and procedures, good training and targeted hiring practices. Employee fraud can be prevented by thorough and targeted hiring practices and good checks and balances in your cash control system. And you can avoid excessive reliance on one or two employees by cross-training and well documented policies and procedures.
Reputation risk is one that is often over-looked, but one that can have a significant impact on the viability of a business. A good reputation is hard to obtain, but easy to lose. The best way to keep up a good reputation is by striving to under-promise and over-deliver.For instance, if you are out of a certain inventory item and must order if for a customer, don't promise it will be in within three days when it normally takes five.
You also can significantly impact your reputation in the type and content of advertising you do. Since your advertising dollars are limited, use them to emphasize a trait or traits which differentiate you from the competition. For instance, if you are the only store in town with a certain line of inventory, advertise that. Or if your location is superior to those of your competitors, make this an advertising focal point.
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- Special Sections
- Dawgs Deals
By GWEN SISSON
Her favorite cookbooks are lined with handwritten recipes, saying "Pa's favorite," "Linda's favorite," and "Aunt Lena's Chocolate Pie."
Opal Austin swears by the Forest Cook Book from 1953. Splatters and fingerprints line the pages of the well-used book, as well as scraps of paper with handwritten recipes from friends and family.
Austin grew up with a house full of sisters and each of them loved to be in the kitchen. She and her four sisters would experiment with new recipes and get creative with old favorites.
Even today, Austin and her one remaining sister from Birmingham, Ala., share family news and recipes, almost daily.
And when Austin's grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, come to visit, one of their favorite activities is cooking together.
"It is how I entertain the grandkids," Austin said. "We will cook something together and have a tea party."
For those who know and love her, "Momma O" is an "amazing cook" who makes every guest feel at home. For many children in the neighborhood, she is their "Mississippi grandmother" and hot biscuits or a slice of pound cake are always ready to be served.
And when the family gets together, "Momma O" makes sure no one leaves her table hungry.
Sunday dinner usually consists of hot cornbread, made in muffin tins or a black skillet, baked chicken or roast, a potato soup thick enough to be eaten as soup or as a side dish, baked sweet potatoes, a variety of vegetables such as peas, butterbeans and creamed corn and a green salad. Pound cake is a family favorite with a cup of coffee, as well as coconut pie and egg custard.
"This is 'old timey' cooking," Austin said.
Austin said it is important to her that her family get together and stay connected. And if they are going to get together, they have to eat.
"If I'm cookin' they are here," Austin said. "You have to keep your family together. Who else will make the time and what else do I have to do but to try to make them feel special. If you don't watch out, your family gets too busy and they lose touch with one another. Families need time to sit and talk and laugh together."
And her family agrees. Austin has two daughters and two sons, and a host of friends who enjoy dinner with "Mamma O."
"Everything Mamma O cooks is delicious," said Austin's daughter, Judy Webb of Starkville. "I could not say that one dish is best."
Webb said one of the best things about eating at her mother's house is her genuine, warm hospitality.
"As children my brothers and sister and I never had to ask if we could have friends or even strangers come to eat," Webb said. "There is always enough for everyone, whoever you are. And always lots of leftovers. Her pound cakes are divine also. I am very fortunate to have such a fabulous mother."
Austin's daughter, Sue Thigpen of West Point, loves "Momma O's" soft chicken, with sour cream, celery and bacon. Sue's husband loves "Momma O's" Strawberry Jell-O Salad.
"And we all love her pound cake," Thigpen said. "Eating at Momma's is always a good time for family and friends. There is always a lot of great food and room for one more at the table."
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Educating Men & Women to Become Exceptional and Socially Responsible Pharmacists Regis University’s School of Pharmacy is committed to being the foremost school of pharmacy in the United States where students are encouraged and educated to become leaders in pharmacy practice, research, education and public service. Students graduate as professionals who are able to make a positive impact on the dramatically changing role of pharmacists in our transforming society by being knowledgeable, skillful and principled. They are educated for excellence in healthcare, evidenced not only by their understanding and abilities, but also by their quality of care, integrity, compassion, advocacy, service and leadership. To achieve these goals, faculty members implement a rigorous foundation in the pharmaceutical sciences, while offering innovative practice models and opportunities to explore novel applications of basic and clinical research. An emphasis on lifelong learning is exemplified throughout. MissionVision, Values & StrategiesCurriculum & Teaching Method To support the university’s mission, the mission of Regis University School of Pharmacy (SOP) is to educate men and women to become exceptional and socially responsible pharmacists. We commit to the Jesuit tradition of values-centered education focusing on personal development and leadership in the service of others, including the underserved. Through our commitment to team-based education, we develop knowledgeable, skillful, and principled practitioners. Our learners excel in critical thinking and communication skills and are prepared to improve and transform health care in a global community. We are committed to community engagement, professional leadership, and scholarly activities that contribute to the advancement of pharmacy education, pharmaceutical sciences, and pharmacy practice. Vision The School of Pharmacy’s vision is to educate graduates who will become leaders in the pharmacy profession, and who will excel in public service and interprofessional health care. We support this vision with faculty who excel in teaching, scholarship, and service, and by being the premier innovator in integrated team-based education. Values We hold the following core values: Integrity – Honesty, fairness, respect for individual worth Quality – Excellence, ability, reputation Initiative – Purpose, innovation, life-long learning Commitment – Justice, engagement, community Service – Spirituality, compassion, caring Leadership – Inspiration, collaboration, accomplishment Over-arching Strategies We commit ourselves to: Prepare professionals able to practice effectively in the changing health care environment. Encourage exploration of ethical issues, spiritual dimensions, and cultural differences. Provide educational opportunities that facilitate learning, critical thinking and effective communication. Promote a student-centered learning environment that respects the unique needs of the individual. Cultivate the development of leadership skills in service of others. Collaborate with the broader community to meet current and anticipated health care needs. Foster respect for human diversity. The pharmacy program is a four-year course of study from which students graduate with a doctoral Pharm.D. degree, the entry level degree into the pharmacy profession. Our Pharm.D. curriculum has been recognized for being both innovative and groundbreaking. It imparts a comprehensive foundation in the biomedical, pharmaceutical, social administrative, and clinical sciences by combining integrated content with Team-Based Learning. Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a relatively new teaching method in the field of pharmacy education that has a widespread history of proven success in medical and business schools. Unlike traditional teaching methods in which information is learned through a lecture format, in TBL students learn the discipline of pharmacy through a working group approach. They are divided into teams of five or six members who work together for an extended period of time to learn subject matter. Prior to class, study material is assigned to students for independent review. During class, they apply their gained knowledge to relevant activities with their teammates. The aspect of integrating course content throughout our pharmacy curriculum reinforces topic areas, giving our students a comprehensive and dynamic fund of knowledge by the time they graduate. Regis University School of Pharmacy is one of two pharmacy schools in the country currently using TBL as the primary teaching method, and it is the only pharmacy school combining integrated content with the TBL method. Experiential Program In addition to classroom instruction, the Pharm.D. program has an experiential component that provides students with a variety of learning situations where they receive hands-on experience under the guidance of professional preceptors in hospital and clinic settings. These settings often afford the opportunity to interact with diverse and multicultural patients, enhancing an appreciation for different cultures and perspectives. Students begin their Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPEs) in the second semester of their first year. Regis University School of Pharmacy enjoys enthusiastic and far-reaching support from the clinical community in the Denver metro area and beyond. Our students have been welcomed by the pharmacy community, and through their knowledge and professionalism have affirmed the confidence community leaders have placed in our program. In addition to practice experiences, service learning activities are integral components of our experiential program, allowing students community outreach both locally and abroad. Please see the Service Learning link at the top of the page for an in-depth look at this unique and valuable program.
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Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Administrator Paulison sat down yesterday with HLSwatch.com, Rich Cooper of SecurityDebrief, and John Solomon of In Case of Emergency Blog to discuss the Department’s preparedness efforts as hurricane season approaches. The dominant theme was devolution: states and individuals can and should do a lot more to prepare themselves for emergencies and to manage for the first 72 hours without federal support if necessary.
A lot was learned from Hurricane Katrina in which local and state response capabilities were overwhelmed and the federal government was caught flat footed. Paulison explained yesterday that the previous framework wherein the state would respond after the local authorities failed, and then the federal government would engage only after the states failed was proven to be flawed.
The new paradigm gets the Feds involved from the outset, but within limits. Moreover, DHS now expects states and individuals to do a lot more for themselves than was previously expected of them. For example, individuals are expected to self-select out of the government support efforts if they can help themselves. We heard the Secretary recap situations when people in Louisiana and Florida lined up for emergency food and water supplies from FEMA when they had the money and means to go to the open grocery stores and buy it for themselves.
Chertoff probably didn’t mean to imply that these hurricane victims were exploiting the government selfishly. This phenomenon may actually reflect a type of information vacuum. We did not discuss in detail the sort of communications efforts that may inform victims that other options exist than FEMA’s free supplies.
We did discuss another information/communications program that Chertoff and Paulison believe should be shouldered by the states. The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) was piloted by DHS last year as a means of delivering warning and emergency response information to blind and deaf people in areas endangered by hurricanes. The program was praised, but when the pilot ended the Department did not re-up the contract. This is the responsibility of the states, according to DHS. At a cost of roughly $1 million per year per state, Chertoff suggested this was minimal for states to pay given the obvious benefits of the program. I think he’s right.
Of course, the feds have a significant responsibility in helping to minimize the impact of natural disasters. There are some things DHS just can’t devolve to states and demand of individuals. Paulison described the “prescripted mission assignments” that DHS, Defense, and other agencies drafted to preload authorities and responsibilities for more timely federal engagement in emergency response. The Department also lined up pre-signed contracts with private sector entities to provide supplies where needed. For example, Home Depot could deliver water from one of its nearly 2000 locations, likely to be closely positioned to a crisis zone.
There is no question that emergency response and preparedness are the responsibilities of the federal government, states, and individuals. Clearly a lesson this DHS leadership learned from Katrina was that states and individuals can do a lot more the next time around. Its also clear that the Administration that presided over the Katrina response is going to have a difficult time communicating a “do-it-yourself” strategy. Fortunately, the kinds of proposals we heard yesterday are not a stretch. Encouraging the capable to get out of line for a handout so that FEMA can focus on the truly needy is an American value that just about anybody will embrace. Let’s hope the message isn’t overshadowed by the messenger.
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We were in France when the news came of the terrorist acts of Sept. 11. We received condolences from strangers and participated in peace demonstrations in Italy and observed other such events around the continent. I brought Sojourners along so I would have a connection to home and had been reading it cover to cover as usual.
Take Action on This Issue
When I came to "The Hungry Spirit" column ("A Devout Meditation in Memory of Timothy McVeigh," by Rose Marie Berger, September-October 2001) I initially passed it over; not another overdose of Timothy McVeigh! But I returned to it and read the article and found it to be very powerful. It really makes one think about the way we look at events and deal with them. As I reflected on Timothy McVeigh, I couldn't help but relate it to the other events going on in the world. How much different is Timothy McVeigh from Osama bin Laden? They both seem to be sane people with distorted views on reality.
I could read the article and replace names as well as Judeo-Christian with Muslim where relevant. The situations are not completely comparable, but we have to ask the same questions about whether what we are doing in Afghanistan is justified. So thank you, Rose Marie. I pray that we can keep love and compassion in our perspective in the months ahead and have the wisdom and the sanity to do the just thing.
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Stroudsburg, Monroe County - While traffic zooms across the Veterans Memorial Bridge, nine homeless people struggle to survive underneath it.
They live among piles of dirty clothes, old food containers, and ripped mattresses. It's far from comfortable. But campers say shelters are full and they don't know what to do. John Studeny lives there with his dog Lexi. He said, "I don't like the situation I'm in but there is no place for anybody to go."
But he and the others will have to find somewhere to go. Police say the camp is unsanitary and unsafe.
Police have known for a while that homeless people sleep under the bridge between Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg. But over the weekend they learned occasional overnights had turned into a full blown camp. An officer responded to a call that someone was throwing things over the bridge. When the officer arrived to investigate the litter complaint, he discovered the homeless community.
Stroud Area Regional Police Captain Brian Kimmins said, "They noticed that it was in quite a state of disarray. There was human fecal matter that was there. Nine people were living under the bridge; there was garbage all over the place. Very unhealthy, very unsanitary."
There is some concern that the mess could impact the Brodhead Creek. Kimmins explained, "We do have to worry about the types of pollution that could be generated. They cook there. They eat there. They defecate there. They urinate there."
Plus the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has complained camp fires could harm the bridge and make it dangerous for drivers.
So police plan to disband the camp. Kimmins said, "This condition didn't happen overnight. We're not gonna throw everybody out overnight." He added, "There is a humanitarian aspect here. We can't walk in there and say just everybody go. Could we do it? Sure. Is it the right thing to do? No."
Police have not set a specific date for when the campers must move. Kimmins said they will work with area agencies to try to find people places to stay. Studeny said, "I'll go peaceably. I'm not going to chain myself to the bridge."
The Stroudsburg Wesleyan Church wants to help. People from the camp already stay at that church when the weather gets extremely cold. Pastor Lynda Keefer said, "That's the calling that Christ gives us to, when we see someone in need to meet that need if we have the ability to do so, which we do."
She hopes to work with other churches to start programs that will help people find temporary shelter and permanent housing.
Police say they will work together with homeless advocates, the Stroudsburg Borough, road crews, maintenance workers, and the campers to make sure the transition goes smoothly.
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