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VP - Be Humble!
- Saturday, March 20, 2004
During the eight years he served as Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon had many reminders of the esteem accorded to people in his position. Once, the Nixons were staying at a hotel in Chicago when a fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. Hundreds of guests, including Dick and Pat Nixon, were herded into the lobby. Once Nixon realized that it was a false alarm, he and his wife headed for the elevator.
"Just a minute," said the hotel's security chief. "Everyone stays in the lobby until we get the all clear."
"I'm the vice president," Nixon said.
"Oh," the security chief said. "Sorry. Go right ahead."
Nixon pressed the elevator button, and the security chief had second thoughts. "Vice president?" he said. "Of what?"
"Of the United States," Nixon answered.
"Get back out here," the security chief said. "I thought you were a vice president of the hotel."
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Listen to Your Favorite Pastors
Add Crosswalk.com content to your siteBrowse available content | <urn:uuid:a40fbfe0-0702-4614-9689-d2cbe2a2c558> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crosswalk.com/resources/humor/political/vp-be-humble-1252740.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981308 | 262 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The state’s business groups formed a coalition against the Democrat-led effort, which has taken two forms — a constitutional referendum led by Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, and an Assembly bill championed by Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver. Both measures passed the state Senate on Thursday, and the latter version advanced through the state Assembly today.
“A minimum-wage increase will not work for the simple fact that raising the minimum wage doesn’t provide businesses with more money to pay their workers. Instead, businesses will cut workers’ hours, hire fewer workers or simply lay people off,” said Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, in a statement. “The way to help low-wage workers is through job-training programs that increase employees’ value to employers, and through economic development that increases the demand for employees.”
Though the coalition of 11 state business associations vehemently opposes both minimum wage bills, it favors the traditional legislative process over Sweeney’s constitutional referendum because that “provides more opportunities for input from the business community, in terms of what this increase will mean to them,” Kathleen A. Davis, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey, previously told NJBIZ.
Though it remains uncertain what action Christie plans to take on the bill — which will raise the state minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, effective March 1, 2013, and link annual adjustments to increases in the consumer price index, effective Jan. 1, 2014 — he has to act within 45 days.
In a statement following the Senate approval of the Assembly bill, Oliver said the Democrats will “quickly take stock and weigh our next step, including asking the people of New Jersey to decide this important matter” if Christie takes his veto pen to the measure.
Before the Senate vote, Christie said he’s “willing to consider a responsible minimum-wage package … but let’s be clear now: We’ve got thousands of businesses wiped out, and is this really the moment to say to those folks, ‘We’re going to hit you with a $1.25 increase on March 1 and a CPI (indexing) beyond that’?”
Joining the proposed minimum wage hike on the Assembly-approved list were bills to transform foreclosed properties into affordable housing, bar employers from demanding social media passwords from employees and make affordable housing more accessible to New Jersey veterans | <urn:uuid:492b5027-0bab-48a6-bf45-7464ff2ce992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.njbiz.com/article/20121203/NJBIZ01/121209975/0/frontpage/Busy-day-in-Assembly-as-minimum-wage-increase-set-for-vote | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942061 | 516 | 1.625 | 2 |
The Committee discussed the need to increase the number of officers constituting the Bureau in view of the greater workload of the Bureau in the future. Committee members also felt that a larger number of officers would be advisable to allow for:
(i) better representation of geographical regions in the Bureau; and,
(ii) enhanced expertise for both natural and cultural properties.
Having also in mind that the membership of the Committee itself would be increased from 15 to 21 delegates at the second General Assembly, the Committee agreed to elect henceforth 7 officers for the Bureau which would then consist of the Chairman, five Vice-Chairmen and the Rapporteur. | <urn:uuid:0158a1b0-8145-427c-b981-11b296065945> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/2099/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959202 | 130 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Stencil patterns are used to transform ordinary concrete into a decorative patterned design. Tile, brick, cobblestone, rock, slate; Stencil designs can be made to look like the real thing at a fraction of the cost. Stencils are suitable for indoor and outdoor use and they have superior performance and durability. There are many field patterns, borders, circles and a diamonds. Stencil patterns are the best choice for concrete cast-in-place projects with ease of application. Custom-cut stencils are also available for logos and one-of-a-kind designs. | <urn:uuid:d32db3db-6e88-49d2-96d2-0a96335e4684> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concreteideas.com/concrete/exterior-concrete/stenciled-concrete-systems/stenciled-concrete-designs-and-patterns | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946596 | 123 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS) celebrates 15 years of representing and supporting high school psychology teachers this year. Since 1992, TOPSS has worked to provide a visible, national voice for teachers of psychology in APA and the education community. High school teachers have been affiliates of APA since the 1970s, but the 1992 formation of the TOPSS Committee also created a role for high school teachers in APA governance.
The group also has a new social psychology lesson plan in the pipeline. At the same time, TOPSS will continue its mission of promoting high school psychology as a science, providing course materials andrecognizing excellent high school psychology teachers and students, says TOPSS Chair Laura Brandt, a psychology teacher at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill.
"In the 15 years that TOPSS has been a part of the APA it has come to be the main source of professional development for high school teachers of psychology," says Brandt.
There are approximately 2,000 APA high school teacher affiliates, and through them, TOPSS reaches many of the 360,000-500,000 high school students who take high school psychology courses each year. In addition to lesson plans and teaching materials, TOPSS offers professional development opportunities, a speakers' bureau, a quarterly newsletter, National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula, and programs for high school psychology teachers and students. This summer TOPSS also will hold a weeklong teaching institute on biopsychology for high school psychology teachers at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Looking to the future, Brandt says TOPSS plans to continue reaching out to all high school psychology teachers. The group also aims to facilitate communication between two- and four-year colleges and universities. | <urn:uuid:8c5ee7af-00fa-415a-858f-3bf9acd08e31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apa.org/monitor/may07/topps.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952966 | 361 | 1.835938 | 2 |
China’s New Leaders—the Lineup
This is a guest contribution for CNBC.com.
China's leaders are noted for their secrecy. The world last major state ruled by a Communist Party does not go in for the kind of public political contest now playing itself out in the United States ahead of the presidential election. But two days after American voters choose between Obama and Romney, the People's Republic will go through a major transition as a Communist Party Congress names the "Fifth Generation" of leaders to the helm of the world's second largest economy.
In keeping with the opacity that surrounds politics in China, little official information has been published about these leaders or how they got to the top, joining the Standing Committee of the Politburo which stands atop the country's governing structure. But by digging into their past, one can find out a certain amount. Here is a run-down of the main figures after the fall of Bo Xilai, the Party Secretary of the mega-municipality of Chongqing who has been expelled from the Party and awaits trial after pushing his ambitions too far.
He has been positioned since the last Party Congress in 2007 to take on the position of Communist Party Secretary, the top job in China. After being elected to this post by the Central Committee at the Congress opening on November 8, he will become State President and, in due course, assume the third top job as Chair of the Military Commission, though the outgoing leader, Hu Jintao, may seek to retain that last post for a couple of years.
Xi is the leading "princeling" — the children of first generation Communist chiefs. His father was a Vice Premier under Mao Zedong, was purged in the Cultural Revolution when Xi was 'sent down' to the countryside as a boy, living in a cave and looking after pigs. His early attempts to join the Party were rejected. He says that period taught him a lot.
His father was then re-instated under Deng Xiaoping and put in charge of economic reform in Guangdong province which spearheaded China's transformation. Xi worked his way up through a series of provincial posts mainly in the coastal provinces that led the country's economic expansion. (A full account of his career and personality are contained in my new book, "Tiger Head, Snake Tails; China Today").
Sources who have spent time with him concur that he is a consensus figure who will avoid rocking the boat. The main reason why he has been promoted ahead of the other main Fifth Generation figure—Li Keqiang, who was Hu Jintao's preferred candidate—is that the Central Committee and other decision-makers feel comfortable with him.
He has amassed a strong set of jobs. He was in charge of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and is responsible for policy on Hong Kong. As Secretary of the Communist Party Secretariat, he holds a key administrative position from which he can track the flow of information and commands at the top of the power structure. As head of the Party School, he presides over the training of the cadres whose role is to run the country. He has travelled to the United States, Europe, Australia and Latin America, and received foreign visitors including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
He was groomed for the top by members of the Shanghai Faction, which ran China in the 1990s under former leader Jiang Zemin. He recently weighed in against corruption and stressed the need for "Marxist morality." He tells officials that they must "boost the resoluteness of their political beliefs, the principled nature of their political stance'. He has good contacts in the army and with leading business figures and knows the need to maintain growth. He is married to a famous singer who used to perform with the military entertainment troupe. Their daughter is at Harvard and some of his relatives have built up significant positions for themselves in business despite Xi's warning that the families of leaders should not profit from their connections.
Li has been groomed since the 2007 Congress to succeed Wen Jiabao as Prime Minister. This is considered a less powerful post than the Party Secretaryship but does give its holder overall responsibility for economic policy. Despite having Hu Jintao's backing, Li finished one place behind Xi in the Central Committee voting for the Standing Committee at the 2007 Congress. Li, who studied law and economics at Peking University, was then named Executive Vice Premier and will become head of the government when the National People's Congress, the legislature, holds its annual plenary session next March.
Li initially rose through the Communist Youth League (CYL), Hu Jintao's power base, before becoming Governor and then Party Chief of China's most heavily populated province, Henan, between 1998 and 2004. He went on to run Liaoning in the north-east and so has spent part of his career involved with the coastal export-oriented regions. During his time in charge there, Henan rose from 28th to 18th in the national GDP rankings. But his tenure was marred by a big scandal over HIV-contaminated blood, which was hushed up for years. After he left Liaoning, a big pyramid scam involving the breeding of ants, which had been tolerated by officials for eight years, collapsed and sparked angry demonstrations by investors who lost an estimated $390 million.
Li has made several speeches stressing the need for economic reform but he does not have the popular touch of "Grandpa Wen" and lacks the present Premier's extensive administrative and Party experience dating back to the 1980s. His decisiveness has been questioned by some sources.
A princeling by marriage, Wang's father-in-law served in government under Mao. He is a protégé of Zhu Rongji, the tough Prime Minister under Jiang. He has an impressive track record: he was Chairman of the China Construction Bank from 1994 to 1997, cleaned up after the collapse of the GITIC investment group at the end of the 1990s, and did a good job as Mayor of Beijing from 2004 to 2007 in helping to deal with the SARS epidemic. He has more international economic experience than any of China's other leaders dealing with the Unites States — former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson noted his 'wicked sense of humour'. He should take responsibility for economic policy under Li but the new Prime Minister may not feel comfortable with such a strong deputy.
He has praised small private businesses as the major source of job creation and complained that the big banks, by contrast, were simply after the business of big companies and jumped from city to city to enlarge their markets with no regard for their home bases. | <urn:uuid:12804881-d2ce-46dc-96ea-22a7d041f9c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnbc.com/id/49634437?__source=ft&par=ft | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980837 | 1,359 | 1.65625 | 2 |
A new Aviation Observation and Interpretation Area was opened at the Museum of Army Flying in Middle Wallop. The Chairman of the Trustees, Marion Paviour thanked the Rural Development Charity, Plain Action for its funding of the new balcony, which would enable people to observe movements of the nearby Army Aviation Centre, and also enjoy a cup of tea in the open air during the summer.
The formal opening was carried out by Geraldine Wimble, one of the members of the Programme Management Group at Plain Action.
Plain Action is a rural development programme running until December 2013. It operates across the Salisbury Plain area and into part of Hampshire, and has a budget of £2.5m. It is a ‘Local Action Group’ directed by the Programme Management Group which is made up of local people. It aims to make the area a better place for all people to live and work in. It seeks to address issues and opportunities associated with the area’s significant military presence and with those of climate change. Its funding will go to projects and activities which address issues within three main areas: skills development through learning and training, promotion and support of small businesses and employment, and strengthening communities.
Sir George said he was enormously impressed by this new facility. “Marion Paviour and her fellow trustees have done enormously well to fund the expansion of this very popular museum, and to do so when the economy has been in a recession. The museum gives enormous pleasure to a wide range of people, and I was interested to hear of their plans for somewhere to display the archives and, more ambitiously, a new hangar to house some of the aircraft used in more recent conflicts". | <urn:uuid:8e1dd475-08b2-4d00-ab93-d740e7cfc725> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sirgeorgeyoung.org.uk/News/anewsitem.cfm?newsid=3841 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975507 | 343 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Fire - About Us
Our History | Today | Automatic Aid | Services | Facilities & Stations
The Glendale Fire Department is a full-service, accredited department comprised of three branches, which are administered by the Fire Chief, two Assistant Fire Chiefs and an Administrator.
Our fire department began in 1912. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the city hired its first fulltime paid fire chief. During the next decade in the 1960s, Glendale was able to show the need to employ its first fulltime paid firefighters.
1950s… First fulltime paid fire chief
1960s… First fulltime paid firefighters
1970s… Firefighters become paramedics
1980s… Firefighters become experts in Hazardous Materials
1990s… Firefighters train and learn about Weapons of Mass Destruction
New millennium… the Glendale Fire Department is enthusiastically involved in the growth of the city with major residential and business developments and sporting venues.
The Glendale Firefighters of years ago may have never envisioned our city having the needs it does today and the department having 240 firefighters, nine fire stations and responding to approximately 40,000 calls a year--in addition to being a fully accredited department. But even with all the changes, our core mission remains the same:
“The Glendale Fire Department: Fast, Caring, Innovative and Professional.”
Remarks on Automatic Aid:
The citizens of Glendale are fortunate to be part of the Automatic Aid System. This agreement, created at the end of the 1970s among three Valley cities (Glendale, Tempe and Phoenix) has grown to now include 23 Valley cities. Automatic Aid ensures that the closest fire truck will respond to an emergency no matter which jurisdiction the emergency is located in. The following cities participate in this program:
Nationwide, there are thousands of fire departments that do not use Automatic Aid and they will not cross a city boundary to go to a fire or car accident just because the incident is not in their city. Can you imagine a frantic Glendale mother whose toddler was just found floating in the swimming pool having to wait for a fire truck from her city instead of the closest fire truck regardless of jurisdiction? Saying we are fortunate to have Automatic Aid is an understatement. This system is a worldwide model.
The Glendale Fire Department provides a variety of emergency services including fire suppression, emergency medical, hazardous materials and specialized rescue response.
Your fire department at a glance:
- Nine fire stations
- 10 Paramedic Engine Companies
- Two Ladder Trucks
- One Technical Rescue Unit
- One Brush Truck
- Three Medic Units
- One Alternative Response Van
- Three Command Responders
- Utility Truck
- Hazardous Materials Unit
- Life Safety Trailer
- Halo-151, Air Ambulance
Glendale Fire Department responded to 34,789 incidents in 2011 with a combined total of 44,807 total dispatches through Phoenix’s Computer Aided Dispatch system, an innovative intergovernmental agreement called Automatic Aid allowing us to provide a high level of service at one of the lowest cost-per-citizen ratios in the nation.
View our Performance Report (pdf)
Please note: All documents are Adobe PDF files. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the press releases. CLICK HERE to download it for FREE.
The fire department has three main branches:
- Office of the Fire Chief
- Life Safety Services
- Administrative Services
The Financial Resources Division is a direct report to the Administrative Service's branch and that division plans, develops, facilitates and monitors the department’s budget and provides budget management support to all other divisions.
The two main branches are designed below:
Life Safety Services includes the following:
- Operations Division is responsible for the daily delivery of emergency and non-emergency services to Glendale citizens. This division makes sure that everyday the fire trucks are staffed with personnel who respond to emergencies.
- Special Operations is responsible for areas of expertise such as hazardous material, technical rescue and special events.
- The Training and Safety Divisions develop and oversee all departmental training and continuing education programs for firefighters. This includes firefighter training, as well as certification and promotional examinations for engineer, captain, chief officers and incident safety officers, researching employee health/safety issues and performing accident/injury review and incident critiques.
- Personnel Division is responsible for the Human Resource programs and processes within the fire department.
Administrative Services includes the following:
- Information Technology is responsible for maintaining the department's incident records management system, managing and maintaining the department’s information technology as well.
- Planning and Assessment provides analysis for our incidents and response times; documentation to maintain accreditation with the Commission of Fire Accreditation International, map updates for emergency response map books; and prepares department business plans.
- The Support Services Division coordinates the acquisition and delivery of all materials and equipment used at the fire stations. The division is also responsible for overseeing the department’s vehicle fleet and maintenance of its fire stations.
- Emergency Medical Services provides advanced and basic life support services to the sick and injured through a variety of medical technologies and treatment specialties. This division also provides CPR/AED training within the organization.
- The Fire Marshal's Office ensures that new and existing structures are in compliance with the Glendale Fire Code through plans review and inspection services. Fire Investigations and the Juvenile Fire-Setter program referrals are also administered through this division.
- Community Services
provides a high level of community partnership through education, interaction, participation and awareness. This division includes the CCC Program; Fire PALS in the schools, the SAFETY Clowns, the Honor Guard, the Safety Educator Program and several other education type community based programs.
- The Public Information Division manages all information released to the media and the public, and develops and implements pro-active campaigns and projects that reach, inform, educate and involve citizen and target audiences.
Facilities and Stations:
Fire Administration: Glendale Fire Department’s administrative offices and Fire Prevention offices are located in the 66,000 square foot Bank of America Building, which is a city owned facility. The Fire department currently occupies 11,000 square feet of this building. Fire Prevention operates on the third floor where there is a reception area, library, record management room, conference room and offices for staff. Administrative offices are located on the third floor and additional office space is available for future growth. Administration has been located in this building since January 2008.
Support Services: Support Services is located at a former fire station located at 7501 N.55th Ave. that has been renovated to accommodate an SCBA, turnout, hose repair, and small tool repair shop. There is an office, locked storage rooms and four apparatus rooms for additional storage. Additional support service storage is utilized at a city owned building utilizing assigned cages to city departments.
Training Facility: In March of 2007 the fire department opened and currently operates a Westside Regional training facility located at 11550 W Glendale Ave. This training facility is utilized by several West valley fire departments as well as the Glendale Police Department. All Fire recruit and company trainings are conducted at this facility. The facility has a driver’s training track for fire apparatus driver training. An office and two classrooms are located at fire station 157. The department shares the use of the classrooms with Glendale Community College.
||Fire Station 151: 6851 N. 52nd Ave. (New location opened 2008)
Units: 2 Engines, 1 Battalion Chief
Fire Station 152: 6850 W. Bethany Home Rd.
Units: 1 Engine, 1 Ladder, 1 Ladder Tender
Fire Station 152: 6850 W. Bethany Home Rd.
Units: 1 Engine, 1 Ladder, 1 Ladder Tender
Fire Station 153: 14061 N. 59th Ave.
Units: 1 Engine, 1 Light/Air Utility
Fire Station 154: 4439 W. Peoria Ave.
Units: 1 Engine
Fire Station 155: 6255 W. Union Hills Drive
Units: 1 Ladder, 1 Ladder Tender, 1 Engine
Fire Station 156: 6801 W. Deer Valley Road
Units: 1 Engine, 1 Brush Truck, MMRS and wild land deployment equipment
Fire Station 157: 9658 N. 59th Ave.
Units: 1 Engine, 1 Ladder, 1 Ladder Tender, 1 Hazmat Unit
Fire Station 158: 6261 N. 83rd Ave. (Opened 2004)
Units: 1 Engine, MMRS equipment, 1 Shift Commander (added 2007 as a third responder)
Fire Station 159: 17159 N. 63rd Ave.
Units: 1 Engine, 1 Squad, 1 Battalion Chief (added in 2005)
Each station has a kitchen, living area, bathroom and locker room, separate bedrooms, exercise room, appropriate storage space, an OSHA required clean room and an apparatus room. In 2001, the city of Glendale was identified as a Metropolitan Medical Response System city. This title gave the fire department responsibility and funding to develop plans and gather resources to be used regionally in the event of a large-scale natural or man-made disaster. The department has accumulated a mass of resources, including trailers, forklifts, specialty vehicles and palletized EMS supplies. | <urn:uuid:195c565c-788b-449e-a3c6-436c44b86b0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glendaleaz.com/Fire/aboutus.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940449 | 1,929 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Social Networking sites are not just for teenagers; many business professionals are using social networking sites frequently on a daily basis. Increasingly, it is used as a business tool for B2C or C2C promotions. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is one of the most popular website in the UK, second only to Google UK, reaching up to 19 million users UK users in July 2009.
Social Networking sites allow you to build a direct relationship with your visitors in a modern and accessible way. If you have a blog, photo album or videos relating to your products and services, all these can be incorporated into social networks and profile pages to increase your international reach.
The web is constantly changing and sometimes it is hard to keep up with the latest new technologies and websites. Metafocus has a dedicated team of online marketing staff to ensure that we target the most relevant social networking sites for your business.
Blogs are becoming increasingly popular with an estimated 200 million blogs currently in use. What was once an optional extra for the biggest companies only has rapidly become a pre-requisite for anyone serious about search engine optimisation and online marketing.
The reasons for a company to have a blog on their website are growing all the time with more companies adding blogs, giving their visitors a reason to return to the site. By having a blog you can:
Blogs can be created using a variety of package with the most popular being Blogger and Wordpress. Both systems act as cut-down content management system and are very user-friendly and easy to use:
Above and beyond all these reasons, one of the main reasons for using blogs is for targeted and immediate search engine optimisation. Search engines, particularly Google, often index Blog posts very quickly and if social bookmarking and blog submission tools are also employed you can see your article appear in the search engine results pages literally within minutes.
To learn more about how we can help your website rank highly in all the relevant search engines, give us a call on 0115 947 0011 or email us at email@example.com. We'd be delighted to hear from you. | <urn:uuid:2f980850-0ff5-4111-9cc8-23a15adf53e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metafocus.co.uk/ourservices/internetmarketing/social-media-and-blogs.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949456 | 433 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Dr. Nguyen is Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine (DGIM) in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). A bilingual first-generation Vietnamese American, Dr. Nguyen is the Director of the UCSF Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project (VCHPP) and was previously the AANCART Deputy Principal Investigator. Dr. Nguyen completed his residency in primary care internal medicine at UCSF and received health services research training at Stanford University and UCSF. His research focuses on addressing health disparities among minority populations, particularly Asian American communities, through community involvement in research and training. He has published extensively on Asian American health disparities issues, including breast and cervical cancer screening, diabetes mellitus, tobacco control, cardiovascular health, and vaccinations. His prior work included an innovative multi-component intervention to increase breast and cervical cancer screening among Vietnamese American women using CBPR. He also has conducted methodological studies among Asian Americans on validation of self-reports of cancer screening and on barriers to participation in breast cancer chemoprevention and treatment clinical trials. Dr. Nguyen has published research on hepatitis B and liver cancer and is currently a Project Leader on an NCI-funded P01 to study methods to overcome liver cancer disparities among Asian Americans, in which Dr. Nguyen is leading a controlled trial of the effectiveness of a media campaign to promote hepatitis B screening among Vietnamese Americans. He has conducted studies on colorectal cancer screening among Asian Americans and is Principal Investigator of an NCI-funded R01 grant to study the effectiveness of lay health worker outreach in promoting colorectal cancer screening among Chinese Americans in a group randomized controlled trial using CBPR. He also serves as Co-Investigator for a 5-year projects targeting colorectal cancer screening in Vietnamese funded by NIH/Northern California Cancer Center. Through these projects, Dr. Nguyen has taught and mentored students, educators, clinicians, and researchers at different levels of training. | <urn:uuid:81cae8f6-03e3-4001-bef4-ae0ab0e85880> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aancart.org/about-us/our-team/steering-committee/Tung%20Nguyen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949954 | 397 | 1.578125 | 2 |
From Citizens for Tax Justice (http://www.ctj.org):
June 14, 2012 10:33 AM
NOTE: Pennsylvania has been doing this for a number of years. It’s called the “Educational Improvement Tax Credit.” A description of the program is at http://www.newpa.com/find-and-apply-for-funding/funding-and-program-finder/educational-improvement-tax-credit-program-eitc.
School vouchers are always controversial, but a front-page story in the New York Times describes how at least eight states have embarked on a quiet strategy of back-door vouchers which divert taxpayer money through tax rebates to private donors. While two states allow individuals to exploit this tax break, most are structured as corporate tax breaks. So they are like conventional vouchers, except minus the accountability, and offering a special tax shelter for corporate profits.
You’d think you can’t make this stuff up, but somebody did.
Sometimes called “ neo-vouchers,” (PDF) the system involves corporate tax credits being doled out to businesses that contribute money to private-school scholarship funds. At their worst, they allow profitable corporations to actually make money from these contributions (they also get a write-off for charitable contributions on top of the dollar-for-dollar tax break match), reducing their income taxes by more than they actually contributed to schools. And of course, this funnels needed public school funds (and those are taxpayer dollars) to private schools that often aren’t even subject to the same educational standards as a state’s public schools.
This trend is especially troubling now because elementary and secondary school funding already faces a perfect storm: the bursting of the home-value bubble is depressing property tax collections nationwide, and the end of stimulus-related federal aid to states has further constrained education funding. And as the Times documents, these tax credits cum vouchers are often poorly designed and subject to little oversight: some states don’t require the private schools receiving these scholarships to administer the same achievement tests as public schools, while others have no mechanism for directing scholarships to needy families. In fact, there is anecdotal evidence that some students benefitting from the scholarships would have attended these private schools anyway—which means their parents are being paid, by other taxpayers in their state, to do what they were planning to do anyway.
Why, at a time when adequately funding K-12 education has been so difficult for states, are lawmakers in these states so cheerful about directly siphoning tax revenue away from cash-starved public schools through these “neo-vouchers?” Maybe because they think that tax breaks aren’t the same thing as direct government spending? One source tells the Times, “there are private dollars coming from a private individual and going to a private foundation. It drives the N.E.A. completely off the wall because they can’t say this is government funding.” Another piece similarly argues that “[v]ouchers and tax-credits vary in important ways. Both programs enable students to attend public or private schools of their parents’ choice, but unlike tax-credit scholarships, vouchers are publicly funded, paid for with government appropriations.”
But these statements are both ludicrous. When a state government provides tax breaks for corporate contributions to private schools, the effect on state budgets is exactly the same as if the government had spent the money directly. It’s “government funding” either way. The critical difference is that tax breaks typically involve less oversight and public debate than direct spending, even as they divert public resources away from families still enrolled in underfunded public schools.
Some advocates of these tax giveaways have argued that this approach actually saves money, because the per-pupil cost of educating children in the private schools receiving the scholarships is lower than the per-pupil cost of public schools. Yet as a helpful new analysis from the National Education Policy Center shows, this claim assumes that the credit allows parents to move their children from public schools to private schools—and there is no evidence that it is having that effect.
And on top of all this, neo-vouchers are an actual money-maker for corporations. Remember, the system offers not only dollar-for-dollar state tax credits for contributions, but the ability of corporations to write off charitable contributions on their federal tax forms. Companies can actually make a profit from these tax giveaways, collecting more in federal and state tax breaks than they actually spent on the contribution! And Florida’s credit, which was expanded by lawmakers earlier this year, is now the single most expensive (PDF) corporate tax credit allowed by the state, at $72 million a year.
So far, despite growing scrutiny of these perverse tax breaks in Georgia (PDF) and other states, lawmakers in New Jersey and North Carolina ( details) appear undeterred and are poised to enact similar plans. | <urn:uuid:8cbb9ba4-59ce-41cb-8812-61229dd7c2a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pachurchesadvocacy.org/weblog/?p=11309 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9613 | 1,031 | 1.804688 | 2 |
A sustainable city uses resources in ways that meet the needs of today without jeopardizing its ability to meet the needs of the future. Energy efficiency is a cornerstone of sustainable development. The City of Salem wants to connect you with reliable energy efficiency information and incentives.
Population growth, the expanded use of air conditioning, and our love affair with consumer electronics, among other things, put ever-bigger burdens on our energy supply. We can take matters into our own hands and become more energy efficient.
The good news? Energy efficiency costs you less and won’t disrupt the environment. | <urn:uuid:e9c49c7d-36d4-45b7-8bcf-c9374d74c7a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cityofsalem.net/sustainability | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945108 | 118 | 1.695313 | 2 |
I was on the bima during the Rabbi's reading of the Megillat Esther this year and was holding one end of the scroll flat. As he advanced through the columns he moved the scroll along and at one stage I let go of my end by accident. The scroll immediately started to roll up but he caught it and we folded it properly again.
When this happened I said 'Sorry' without thinking and then realised I had made a hefsek during the reading.
Afterwards I asked if that counted as a hefsek and was told there is room to be lenient.
My question is how is a hefsek defined in this context? Please supply sources. | <urn:uuid:92e1f28b-ea81-46e4-8678-b7912637839c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/15142/interruption-while-listening-to-megillat-esther | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988148 | 142 | 1.679688 | 2 |
JUAREZ -- It is noon and a noisy crowd of more than 80 playful, hungry children gather around the tables of a soup kitchen in a neglected Juárez neighborhood.
The beans and potatoes accompanied by a flour tortilla will be the first -- and perhaps the only -- meal of the day for many of the children. Most will return to the El Refugio soup kitchen in the Carlos Chavira neighborhood at lunch time again the next day, and the next.
An average of 80 to 100 children like Jesús are fed daily at El Refugio, which was founded after a tragedy, a dream and without a plan by Maribel Chávez García in 1996. That was when the now 34-year-old almost lost her 3-year-old daughter, Dávida, when a pit bull attacked her and severely damaged her internal organs.
"I took my daughter to the hospital and the doctor told me she was going to die," Chávez García recalled. "He told me it was my fault that she was going to die because I didn't know how to
The pit bull attack happened when Chávez García and little Dávida were knocking on doors begging for money.
At the time, Chávez García, a mother of six, and her husband were addicted to marijuana, cocaine and agua celeste, a popular inhalant in Juárez. Chávez García and her husband would buy drugs with the money the children received by singing or
After three days in a coma, Dávida awoke and began recovering. Chávez García then had a dream that changed her life.
"There was a table in the room and many children eating there," Chávez García said. She believed the dream was a sign that she should do something to thank God for saving her daughter's life.
The idea to open a soup kitchen didn't come from her dream, Chávez García. It was, perhaps, a premonition.
"One day, the neighbor's children came and asked if I could give them hot water for an instant soup," Chávez García said. "I had cooked chicken soup that day and I shared some with them. The kids came back next day and the following day, and suddenly, other children started coming."
At first, Chávez García shared the food that Dávida's doctor had provided the family.
Then others pitched in, donating food and supplies to help out.
First came Milton Gibs, a co-pastor at the Christian Olivo Family Center, who said he was touched by the poverty and the need that he saw in the neighborhood.
"(Gibs) came and was surprised to see so many children eating on the floor," Chávez García said. "First he brought us doughnuts and plastic cups. The next day he brought us clothes, plates and other things."
Others soon started chipping in, donating food, money and supplies to the improvised soup kitchen.
Today, the soup kitchen is on the first floor of a two-story house that has been built with the help of the Olivo congregation. Chávez García and her family live on the second floor. The house is located on the side of the Juvenile Detention Center in Juárez.
Step by step, with the involvement of others from around Juárez and El Paso, the soup kitchen began to grow. Most recently, the kitchen started feeding elderly people in the community.
"When I went there and saw so many children eating outside of the room because the space was not enough, I decided to help," said Juárez businessman Jesús Olmos, who owns a print shop. The 60-year-old has helped the soup kitchen with a weekly stipend of 600 pesos, or $48, for the
"I hope more people can help them, because what she is doing is great," Olmos said.
Among those who help is Francisco "Pancho" Javier Sanchez, who voluntarily cooks for the children. His wife, Jesús Marquez, works in a Juárez hotel, where she collects aluminum cans for a little extra cash. The little extra, about $4 a day, helps pay for propane gas.
Help has come from across El Paso, too.
Angélica Kuehnen, a member of the Fort Bliss women's charity club called Helping Hands, first read about El Refugio in a Juárez newspaper and was moved to help. The group raised $500 for the soup kitchen.
"With that money, we bought rice, beans -- a lot of food -- and took it over there," Kuehnen said. She added the club is working to buy a coffee maker, an electric pot and other supplies for the soup kitchen. "There is so much need down there."
Despite the help, the need is still overwhelming, Chávez García said. Among their most pressing needs is a bigger propane tank, and volunteers to pick up and deliver daily supplies and donations.
The soup kitchen recently lost its daily supply of corn tortillas, which it used to receive from the Juvenile Detention Center nearby. Now the volunteers prepare flour tortillas, but would like to serve corn ones instead.
"Everyday I ask my Father God to provide us with enough food for the children," said Chávez García, who is convinced that God had a mission for her. "Every time that I see my daughter, I know that God left her for a purpose."
Lourdes Cárdenas may be reached at email@example.com; 546-6249.
Ale Giacomán is a journalism student at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Juárez and an intern at SomosFrontera, the Spanish-language website of the El Paso Times.
Photos by Jesus Alcazar / El Paso Times
Children and workers enjoy a recent day at El Refugio soup kitchen in the Carlos Chavira neighborhood of Juárez. The kitchen, which was created by Maribel Chávez García, feeds about 80-100 children daily. See more photos at photos.elpasotimes.com | <urn:uuid:bef95185-5268-4c8c-a508-eb89467fbff2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_21978314/nourishing-lives?source=most_viewed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979355 | 1,312 | 1.789063 | 2 |
How do you help brick-and-mortar stores sell books? Throw in an e-book.
That is the idea of one publisher, Algonquin, which began a promotion in 300
“We spend a lot of time lately trying to figure out how to sell books in this new world order,” said Elisabeth Scharlatt, the publisher of Algonquin, part of Workman Publishing. “And particularly to help booksellers to sell hardcover books, which seems increasingly difficult. So this seemed like one way of calling attention to a book by giving an incentive to the customer.”
Several publishers have experimented with bundling, whether by grouping several e-books together for one price or selling a print book paired with an e-book. “Consumers are starting to feel like, ‘If I’m buying the book, why do I have to buy it several times to have multiple formats?’ ” said
For months, publishers have become increasingly concerned about the health of physical bookstores, where traffic has declined as the book business continues to shift online. If physical bookstores continue to disappear, publishers worry, their books will not have an opportunity to be discovered by customers who wander into a store without knowing what they want to buy. Sales of print books have suffered in the last year, while e-book sales have soared. | <urn:uuid:32ea9ccc-49a2-4ba1-943b-180de278e924> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/using-e-books-to-sell-more-print-versions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962324 | 286 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Reason #1: Your resolutions aren't integrated with how you live now.
We are creatures of habit. No matter how reasonable and do-able your resolution is, it still means you're going to have to change something you're doing now. Changing things requires attention, so you don't fall back into the old habits. To make change easier, design your new habit to fit into your life as smoothly as possible.
Here's an example: you have a beautiful home office in your second bedroom upstairs, but you spend most of your time in the family room off the kitchen. That's where the action is. That's where the family hangs out. That's what you gravitate toward.
If you're mainly doing mail and bills, get yourself a lap desk and a letter sorter that you can stash on a bookshelf when not in use. Then you can do your sorting on a comfy couch watching American Idol!
Reason #2: You're emphasizing the negative.
Getting organized is a life enhancing activity that makes things easier and simpler so you have more time for fun! If you think of it in terms of what a slob you are, or how lazy you are, or how hopeless the whole notion is, you won't get far. No matter how unorganized you are now, you can get more organized. More organized is better, and more achievable, than perfectly organized.
Make it a more positive experience by making it more enjoyable. In recent years, office supplies have become much more fun! You can get bright colored or patterned file folders, lacy mesh trays and containers and magazine holders made out of everything from cardboard to bamboo to glass.
When you have fun decorating your desk the way you do the rest of your home, you're more inclined to keep it tidy and looking nice.
Reason #3: You lack of patience and confidence.
Change takes time and commitment and happens gradually. Remember to notice how much progress you make and commend yourself for it.
Organizing may seem to go on forever. It's true that maintaining an organizing system is a daily thing. The trick is to differentiate between getting organized and staying organized. Getting organized means developing systems and putting them into action. Staying organized is the stuff you do everyday to keep it going.
Say you have a goal to get control over the mail. The getting organized part is deciding on a place to keep your mail, setting aside time to go through it, creating a bill paying system that works for you, setting up places to file documents you need to keep, assigning a place for items you need to take action on and creating reminders to do that.
The staying organized part is using this system you've already created and don't have to keep reinventing and getting overwhelmed. You know where your bills are. You know how to file. You know what to take action on and when to do it.
For the best shot at success with your resolutions, make sure they fit into your life, they feel positive and that you treat yourself kindly during the transition to better habits. Make it happen this year! | <urn:uuid:5ee1f04f-85c7-45b2-9cf5-28d0f3e44632> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/three-reasons-why-you-break-new-year-s-resolutions-and-what-to-do-about-it?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963223 | 636 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Healthy Living is a monthly special section published in all 18 Anton Community Newspapers focusing on a wide range of health topics and highlighting the extensive health services available in our area. A sampling of current stories appears here.
Founded in 2005, the Firefighter Cancer Support Network (FCSN) is a group of cancer survivors, caregivers and volunteers that was formed with one goal in mind: to provide timely support to fire and EMS employees and family members diagnosed with any form of cancer.
During a moving ceremony that involved several former cancer survivors/firefighters, the FCSN donated a bell to the North Shore-LIJ Health System’s Monter Cancer Center in Lake Success. In a symbolic gesture of “ringing in the good news,” patients will ring the 60-pound bell when they complete their courses of treatment. The ringing of the bell symbolizes leaving cancer in the past and looking towards the future. The bell was donated by the Smithtown Fire Department.
If you are a parent, you should watch for the key signs of type 1 diabetes in your children, including frequent urination and excessive thirst, and seek medical attention right away if you notice these signs in your children or in yourself.
This life-threatening affliction can appear to be other simple ailments. Therefore, awareness is all the more crucial.
Thanks to the generosity of two local families – Diana and John Colgate of Mill Neck, and Robert McLane of Locust Valley – Glen Cove Hospital’s Don Monti Cancer Center has been updated and redesigned to provide patients with a tranquil and spacious atmosphere while undergoing treatment.
“We are passionate about Glen Cove Hospital,” said Mrs. Colgate, a member of the hospital’s Advisory Council and the North Shore-LIJ Health System’s Board of Trustees. “Once I saw the oncology unit I knew that patients could benefit from a calmer and healing environment.”
Page 8 of 27<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >> | <urn:uuid:126a2db5-0338-431c-8d8c-c6b5a8b9ac8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antonnews.com/healthy-living.html?start=21 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935337 | 424 | 1.53125 | 2 |
4.7.2011 - Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007)
1/5. Donald Macleod introduces the music of Gian Carlo Menotti.
2/5. Menotti's glamorous connections and the many commissions they brought.
3/5. Menotti's creation of an American Christmas tradition.
4/5. Menotti's move to Scotland.
5/5. Why attitudes to Menotti's music have recently mellowed.
To my shock, I noticed last night that Monday's COTW was the first Menotti that has been broadcast on R3 since I started my survey in January. Mind you there are other composers who haven't had a note played either, Atterberg for example.
My father once saw "The Consul" and described it as "terrifying", But, being hitherto unfamiliar to me, Menotti's music sounds mostly like some kind of cross between much of the music produced by French composers between the two world wars - Jacques Ibert being a good example - and Leonard Bernstein. Practically every phrase references another composer's music. I suppose one reason why opinion has "mellowed" towards this composer in recent years is that his music is easy on the ear.
I remember the first time I heard Menotti's Piano Concerto (Earl Wild on Vanguard) in my late-teens I found it utterly cringe-making in its triteness. Yet the extraordinary thing was, once I had overcome my antipathy towards the idiom and started listening to the music, I was struck by how melodically inventive and seductive it really was. This piece, along with his chamber opera The Medium, is one of my secret guilty pleasures. Over three decades later, I still adore every note, but I would still be far too embarrased to inflict it on anyone else!
(I had exactly the same experience with Leonard Bernstein's Mass)
Inventive and seductive sums up Menotti's music well. It is well written music but just seems to lack that certain extra something IMO, certainly not up to the standards of his long term partner Barber.
That sums up very well what I thought when I recently saw Menotti's The Last Savage at Santa Fe Opera, which evidently is the first full-scale production to be directed by anyone besides Menotti himself, in this case Ned Canty. TLS definitely got a fun, campy staging where half the audience was metaphorically rolling in the aisles at the humor of the production. Yet the music itself, for me, didn't have a lot going for it. It certainly sat well on the voices and none of the singers were strained beyond belief, as is often the case with modern opera (certainly the case for the lead tenor in Lewis Spratlan's Life Is A Dream last year). Menotti's music is accessible, pleasant, but ultimately forgettable for me in this opera. But the general director at Santa Fe Opera really wanted to honor Menotti in GCM's centenary year, and I'm certainly grateful for the chance to have seen the opera.
Originally Posted by Suffolkcoastal | <urn:uuid:17c4e7b3-51a5-45ae-b122-d462c980635a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?2556-4-7-2011-Gian-Carlo-Menotti | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973411 | 655 | 1.617188 | 2 |
2 posts tagged "Rose Byrne"
The Italians are noted for their national pride, but the opening night of Florence’s Pitti Immagine fairs this week—the menswear spectacle that is Pitti Uomo; the women’s complement, Pitti W; and the childrenswear fest, Pitti Bimbi—found Ferragamo celebrating an American: Marilyn Monroe. In fairness, Salvatore Ferragamo himself did pitch his tent in Hollywood, where he made shoes for the stars (including Marilyn, a size 6), and Monroe is an enduring icon. Why? “Marilyn is a quintessential actress,” opined Rose Byrne (above), who turned up to bring some celeb wattage (circa 2012) to the event. “Mystery, beauty, and tragedy—that will forever intrigue people.” So, it goes without saying, will clothes. A staggering variety of Marilyn’s were on display, including notable on-screen outfits, like the beaded black dress she wore as Sugar Kane in the immortal Some Like It Hot. Curator Stefania Ricci was at pains to pick just one favorite. Pressed to choose, she went for “photos of Marilyn when she was very young, blonde, with no makeup—photos that are [almost] an interpretation of death.” A more literal interpretation of Monroe’s death closed the exhibit: a tableau of a body in bed, as Marilyn was found. Spooky.
One star gave way to many as guests moved from the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo to Fiesole, in the hills outside Florence, for a dinner in plein air. Brunello Cucinelli threw his biannual Pitti opening celebration for a party of a hundred-plus, in a medieval castle dating back to somewhere between the tenth and thirteenth centuries (above). That’s the kind of history even Hollywood can’t cop to, though the site turned out to have had a few modern roles, too. During the second World War, it had been occupied by the Nazis, then was the site of a skirmish between them and combined U.S./Scottish forces. A bullet hole near the entrance hall serves as a permanent reminder. At his expansive booth at the Pitti Uomo fair today, Cucinelli glowed as he spoke of the beauty of the building and the beauty of Italy—one he aims to uphold in his collections. Seen his way, his trademark one-and-a-half breast jackets, down-filled gilets (with hand-picked down to avoid any sharp or rough segments), and ultra-light knits are practically a civic duty. “We believe in the state very much, so I have recalled all the great masters,” he said, via a translator, of his designs. “Italians need to raise our heads again. Our state is an incredible state, and I want to work for it.”
Always the actress, never the bridesmaid? Rose Byrne may play a preternaturally polished bridesmaid in the upcoming comedy Bridesmaids, hitting theaters this Friday, but the Aussie actress has yet to be in a real-life wedding party off the silver screen. “I actually had to ask one of my girlfriends, who coached me on the whole experience,” Byrne admitted last night at the Derek Lam for eBay block party. “I had no idea bridesmaids had to buy their own dresses,” she added. “They can be thousands of dollars!” With early comparisons to The Hangover, Bridesmaids has been drawing early buzz for its humor, something Byrne was apt to discuss. “Obviously you see the movie poster and it has its market,” the Damages actress said. “But it’s not a chick flick: It’s not about nail polish; it’s not about earrings; it’s about friendship and funny is funny. It’s not isolated to women at all.”
Even so, with spring in the air, there was a batch of beach weddings ahead. Because of her work schedule, Byrne was missing out on her friend’s nuptials in Thailand this Saturday, but did note the Derek Lam for eBay boho floral print maxi dress was perfect wedding-guest material. Among the five dresses crowd-sourced by online voters for the collaboration—there was also a sixth dress, a pink or black T-shirt dress, that was available specially for mobile orders—that floor-length number seemed to be the frontrunner. “I’ll fight Rose to the death for it,” Zoë Kravitz, Byrnes’ X-Men: First Class cast mate, joked before heading outside to wander the fête’s other attractions: food trucks offering everything Belgian waffles to dumplings.
Rachel Bilson, however, beat both girls to the punch. Wearing the seventies-inspired style with a classic black blazer, the actress was direct from an eight-hour flight from Nice, France, where the Chanel Resort 2012 show took over the Hotel du Cap. “It was really phenomenal,” Bilson said, wide-eyed, of the runway show, the after-party, and the dinner. “There was this Old Hollywood element to the looks. The colors were so beautiful.” Bilson has been seeing a lot of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld lately; the Kaiser recently directed her in a series of short films for Magnum ice cream. But after a month of traveling, she was looking forward to the comforts of home. “Tomorrow morning, I’m catching a flight to L.A.,” she said. “I’m excited to sleep in my own bed.”
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about this blog
- editor matthew schneier covers all the news in style, from high street to high fashion, with dispatches from new york, l.a., london, paris, milan, tokyo, beijing, and more | <urn:uuid:14788c05-91d0-42e9-8445-d34d5522ee96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.style.com/stylefile/tag/rose-byrne/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956968 | 1,410 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Review to be emailed:
Audience: 2nd Grade - 4th Grade
Last season, Rocky was the best catcher in the league, and he has a reputation for never giving up on a goal. Life throws him a curveball when a runner slides towards home and breaks Rocky's arm when Rocky tries to tag him. Rocky's arm finally heals, and he's excited to play ball again. Then, he discovers that though his arm is no longer broken, his reflexes are against him. For the life of him, he can't make his arm tag a player: it flinches away on its own whenever someone comes sliding towards home. He's afraid of injuring himself again, and the rival teams take advantage of it. Will Rocky be able to overcome his fear, or will his dream of being on the all-star team be the first goal he gives up for good?
Date read: 9/30/2010
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Copyright © 2004-2013 St. Charles Public Library. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:8480f358-7ee3-4f1f-ad0a-483dc4b5e3cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stcharleslibrary.org/ygtrt/email.asp?BookID=1403&returnURL=%2Fygtrt%2Fdefault.asp%3FCategory%3D24%26grs%3D0%26gre%3D9%26Page%3D194 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965414 | 248 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Before I get to the last phase of my stint here, I thought it would be helpful for me to address one recurring theme in the comments. John D’s comment this morning is representative: “how are opposite-sex married couples treated in conflict-of-laws situations? We’ll take that, then.”
The important thing to recognize is that there is no established answer for how opposite-sex married couples are treated! All of these posts about different approaches aren’t hypothetical, they’re all real doctrines already applied to the conflicts problem outside of the same-sex context.
I think this is non-intuitive for many people — lawyers and non-lawyers — because they have a sense that legal uncertainty is pretty commonplace, and people usually manage to just muddle through. Even if doctrine is uncertain on the margins or theoretically incoherent, most of the time it just doesn’t matter much. But choice-of-law doctrine is unusually uncertain, and unusually incoherent, even compared to other legal doctrines!
Also, there are two practical reasons that these uncertainties haven’t made much of a difference, most of the time, to straight couples.
First, the uncertainties really bubble to the surface only when some states so strongly oppose a type of marriage that they exercise their traditional prerogative to refuse to recognize that marriage when it is consummated out of state. That hasn’t happened very often.
Second, the times when it has happened have simply not featured the same numbers as same-sex marriages do. In the last census, more than 130,000 same-sex couples described themselves as married! (Interracial marriage might have featured sizable numbers, I’m not sure, and if so, I’m not sure why the problem didn’t come up as much as you would expect in that context. I wonder if it had to do with the smaller size and scope of federal regulation.)
Anyway, I agree that, without DOMA, the conflicts rules for opposite-sex marriage will be applicable to same-sex marriages. But the point is that there is no single conflicts rule for opposite-sex marriages, and the same-sex marriage controversy will probably force us to resolve the old conflicts problem at long last. | <urn:uuid:18470a0d-b94a-4778-80b6-e6871d5175b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.volokh.com/2011/12/16/what-happens-to-straight-people/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96611 | 471 | 1.640625 | 2 |
There is a good summary of goal setting on the Mind Tools web site http://www.mindtools.com/pages/Newsletters/27Mar07.htm. As I am looking toward the end of another (annual) election season, I anticipate going through the goal setting process again with the commission. For most of us, goal setting is what we look forward to every year as we try to improve the situations our communities find themselves in.
I wrote a short speech for the Mayor over the weekend that focused on the creation of goals. I found a quote from a fellow in Atlanta who said that it wasn't the failure to reach goals in our life that was wrong, it was not having goals in the first place. | <urn:uuid:d53866ab-1caf-4c24-af43-fc393e94eae7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kacm-education.blogspot.com/2007/03/setting-goals.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978969 | 148 | 1.625 | 2 |
Recently I posted on otherwise puzzling behavior that can be easily explained via seeking status via affiliations.
- Students prefer distracted profs who grade and recommend corruptibly.
- Macro and foreign advisors have fancy affiliations, not forecast track records.
- Patients prefer docs with prestigious affiliations over health success rates.
I see more examples:
- Voters far prefer representatives over direct democracy or random selection.
- Donors prefer to picking grantees, over giving prizes to whoever succeeds.
- Homeowners don't give good money incentives to real estate brokers.
- Investors prefer actively managed funds that lose on average.
- Decision markets lose overwhelmingly to heroic "decider" managers.
In all these cases standard economic accounts seem to seriously miss the mark by ignoring strong human desires to gain status via affiliation. As most of my institution design efforts suffer this problem, understanding this better is, to me, of the highest priority.
Added 3Mar: It is usually possible to make up many explanations for any puzzling behavior, and some of these may fit well with our own conscious explanations for our behavior. But the details in most of these cases seems hard to fit with most of the other proposed explanations, and we know that status is very important to people yet they do not like to admit they do things for status.
The key to taking this idea further is to better understand just what sort of relations most confer status via affiliation. It seems to me that arms-length formal relations where you each minimize your risk from the other's bad behavior do not show a mutually trusting relation, which as a closer connection confers more status via the relation. So people are eager to trust high status affiliates, without evidence and even against the evidence. | <urn:uuid:b421e665-d966-4d59-b256-de6ae1c7928a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/status-affiliations.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938504 | 351 | 1.523438 | 2 |
|In the beginning
was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers.
And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it
And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung, and we
cannot abide the smell."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying "It is a container of excrement,
and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer and
none may abide its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying to one another, "It contains that
which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes
growth, and it is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him, "This new plan
will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company with powerful effects"
And the President looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
And that,my friend, is how shit happens.
(Sent in by Angie Warren) | <urn:uuid:91bfe8ba-1bd1-40d6-b472-dcc0ada4ecd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rock103.com/pages/twisted/emailcrap/?crewAsHeardPage=inthebeginningwastheplan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97259 | 294 | 1.75 | 2 |
Prior to her speech, Rice cheerfully posed for photos with students who waited several minutes for that opportunity.
Before Rice began her speech, a student who was with a friend said curiosity brought her out to here the former secretary of state.
"I came to hear Condoleezza Rice's point of view on different topics," said freshman Elena Segarra.
Several protestors were kept behind a fence in the area outside the gymnasium.
Segarra preferred not to comment on the protestors' activities.
Rice was led
Rice mostly stayed away from political topics and instead focused on urging students to become well-rounded members of society who enrich their community.
The atmosphere outside among protestors and students was peaceful, but, in some cases, heated.
During the dialogue portion of the protest, one student referred to Rice as a war criminal for her part in the Iraq War.
"She is literally inside tooting her own horn," the woman said. "I think she needs to be in jail. Not only is she not in jail, but you are paying her."
Vincent Giannotti, a senior and student at Pitzer scollege, said it took about three weeks to organize the day's activities, which included teach-ins led by professors, protests and the dialogue session where students of differing views could debate the value of having Rice on campus.
Gianotti mentioned the fence and guards that separated the protestors from the gym.
"These fences were entirely unnecessary for a peaceful protest in my opinion," he said.
Reach Jannise via email or call her at 909-483-9318.
Get the latest crime and public safety news on Twitter @IECrime. | <urn:uuid:36ecadb2-a24d-4d57-8265-4d14af7f2d68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_19444997?source=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983817 | 355 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Yvonne Brown: Making an impact
“Hello. My name is Yvonne Brown. I do not see at myself as a victim of multiple sclerosis but rather an MS survivor. However, I do feel like a victim of the system and I’d like to share with you what my life has been like since being diagnosed with MS and my experiences applying for SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance).”
Thus began Yvonne’s testimony in Washington last year to the Social Security Administration (SSA), where she asked them to extend the Compassionate Allowances Program to people with advanced autoimmune diseases in order to allow their applications to be processed more quickly.
Her story included this: By the time Yvonne, now 49, was diagnosed in 2001, she had lost a high-paying job and ended up losing her house, as well. She currently lives in a shelter, out of her storage space and car, and at friends’ houses. “I’m surviving on the generosity of friends,” she says. “When I’m out of friends, I’m out of options.”
Yvonne has testified a dozen or more times on different issues. She’s been successful in seeing that additional money was dedicated to stem-cell research and in supporting a bill to cap the amount a person can be charged out of pocket for prescriptions.
“Every time I speak or advocate for MS issues, there’s a chance I can impact change,” she says. “That’s why I will always accept the invitation to share my story.”
Thanks to Yvonne’s presentation, as well as the hard work of many MS activists, an aggressive form of MS was added to the Compassionate Allowances List. “I remember the doctor I was sitting next to turned and looked at me, teary-eyed,” Yvonne says. “Another person said, ‘When you move someone to tears, you’ve had an impact, you’ve gotten your message across.’ My advocacy has helped put MS on the Social Security map. It was my opportunity to right the system.”
Learn more about legislative issues that affect people with MS.
Learn more about African Americans and MS. | <urn:uuid:29795728-b12e-4544-974c-8630d960e50d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalmssociety.org/online-community/personal-stories/yvonne-brown/index.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969196 | 487 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Jan Hojer has continued his rampage on the world’s hardest boulders by repeating The Big Island (V15) in Fontainebleau, France. Hojer had climbed The Island (V14/15) one month ago, and then set his sights on linking the two lower moves to complete The Big Island’s fifth ascent.
“I don’t think that the additional two moves make a big difference in difficulty,” Hojer told UKClimbing, “but it’s way cooler to start with a proper stand start.”
The Big Island was established by Font local Vincent Pochon in 2010. Pochon added two moves to the beginning of Dave Graham’s The Island, which was established in 2008. The problem is located in the Coquibus Rumont sector of Fontainebleau, and according to Chris Schulte, The Big Island is "likely the hardest ‘up’ problem in the forest.”
Two weeks ago, The Big Island received its fourth ascent by Guillaume Glairon Mondet. See the video and read about the ascent HERE.
And for Schulte's full-length feature about his ongoing battle with The Big Island, and the history of Fontainebleau, click HERE. | <urn:uuid:66c49306-4745-4214-af97-707840c6f635> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/hojer-sends-the-big-island?A=WebApp&CCID=14096&Page=6&Items=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947332 | 271 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Govt revises GDP forecast to 8.2%; announces 12th Five Year plan
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh Saturday announced the 12th Five Year plan here at a Planning Commission meeting where he revised the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth Rate to 8.2% from earlier forecast of 9% stating that their objective is not just growth of GDP, but the inclusive and sustainable growth of society including Dalits, tribals and backward classes.
Announcing the 12th Five Year Plan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, "The economy has gained many strengths. Our immediate priority must be to orchestrate a rebound in the second half of the current year. We should then try to accelerate growth to reach around 9 percent by the end of the Plan period."
"This will yield a target growth rate of around 8.2 percent over the Twelfth Plan. This is lower than the 9 percent originally projected, but some downward revision is realistic given the state of the world," he added.
"As the Plan document points out, our objective is not just growth of GDP, but growth that is inclusive and also sustainable. The SC/STs, OBCs, and the minorities must all participate fully in the growth process. The Plan has many elements designed to ensure this," PM said.
The Prime Minister said that poverty declined twice as fast between 2004-05 and 2009-10 than it did in the previous 10 years.
He emphasised the need of private investment and development of infrastructure to reach the desired growth.
Depicting the 12th Five year plan, Singh said, " Turning to the longer term policy agenda, the Plan can be seen as consisting of three broad components?..One is the set of Government programmes aimed at achieving specific sectoral objectives. The second component relates to macro-economic balance. The third key component of the Plan is the set of policies which can improve performance in individual sectors."
He targeted to achieve the growth rate of 4% in agricultural sector while stressed on to accelerate the growth rate in industrial sector so that more jobs can be created.
He also cited some economic problems like energy scarcity, water shortage and urbanisation problems.
The Prime Minister defended government's decision to hike diesel prices by Rs.5 per ltr saying the increase is a move in right direction.
PM outlined few achivements during 11th Plan.
"Poverty declined twice as fast between 2004-05 and 2009-10 than it did in the previous ten years. Agriculture grew at 3.3% per year in the Eleventh Plan, much faster than the 2.4% observed in the Tenth Plan", he said.
--With Agencies Inputs--
Congress slams BJP for stalling Food Security Bill
May 22, 2013 at 6:42 PM
Market Movers Evening of 22 May 2013
May 22, 2013 at 6:38 PM
CLASS 5 STUDENT BRUTALLY BEATEN UP BY HEADMASTER
May 22, 2013 at 6:37 PM | <urn:uuid:3166837d-d1c2-4845-9223-b60764409d0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/9/15/163-Govt-revises-GDP-forecast-to-8.2pc-announces-12th-Five-Year-plan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949658 | 618 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Halloween came early this year for Microsoft. And by extension, the entire industry and user community is also haunted by the very real specter of the hackers who invaded Microsoft's internal networks. If the industry needed yet another wake-up call to the perils of networking life in the 21st century, this is it.
A hack can happen to anyone at anytime. Traditionally, security is something that is practiced in hindsight. It's one of those "soft" items in the capital budget and is frequently hard to justify. That is, too many of us pay scant attention to the security of our collective networks, software, PCs and laptops until it is too late.
Giga has assembled a list of best security practices based on its own experience as well as extensive interviews with Microsoft security experts and corporate IS security professionals. These are intended as general guidelines to be used in conjunction with the appropriate security devices, mechanisms and practices that are specifically tailored for your environment.
Let's examine Windows NT Server networks first. The most important thing is to familiarize yourself with all of the security mechanisms within the server operating system and configure them properly. On a Windows NT 3.x or 4.0 server-based network, the Server Manager facility displays a list of users on a particular server. It will also let you temporarily disconnect a user from that server.
This will work in the case of a so-called "ankle biter" hacker that is, a rank amateur or inexperienced hacker. But Server Manager will be an ineffectual deterrent to any rogue user who is practiced at the art of hacking. This is because unless you actually disable the account or block the connection to the server that the hacker is accessing, he/she will automatically reconnect. Worst of all, the server will not even generate an error message that the intruder was forcibly ejected.
This Server Manager tactic will work in a pinch, though. And if you elect to use this method to thwart a hacker, you must also STOP the server service from running on the system that the hacker is attempting to access. This will stop the server from "servicing" any shared resources. You can restart the service after you are sure the user cannot reconnect. If going this route, pause the NETLOGON service on all your domain controllers so the user cannot log back on (none will be able to accept those with ADMIN privileges).
Windows 2000 Server contains much more granular and improved security capabilities including Kerberos and C-2 level support. But complexity is an issue as well. . As a general rule , Microsoft advises organizations to use security groups to define and delegate administrative roles associated with an application server and to identify the users and computers that are granted access to the service's objects in the directory. This will play a key role in helping your firm quickly identify the source and shut down any services or ports on the domain controller that are not needed. Whenever possible, deploy applications on member workstations or servers rather than on the domain controller. If you absolutely must run an application on the domain controller, run it as a service account.
In the Windows 2000 environment the "keys to the kingdom" are the password to the Administrator account. Guard this zealously! Any user in possession of this password can configure full privileges on the domain controller. Microsoft's Daniel Blum in his book "Understanding Active Directory Services" (published by Microsoft Press), advises that "to simplify configuration and close any loopholes, use the Microsoft Security Configuration Editor to set an entire domain controller to run in high secure mode."
Be warned however, that this option comes with high risks. Setting your domain controller to run in high secure mode will break some applications. Before embarking on this strategy, test it in a pilot network with your crucial network applications. And as always, good computer security in any environment begins with physically restricting access to the server.
In the wake of an attack, a thorough risk assessment of your network operating system and overall network infrastructure is in order. It's also a good policy to perform an in-depth risk analysis of your organization on an annual basis, or more frequently as your business needs demand.
Companies are well advised to disseminate a corporate security policy and associated penalties for infractions during a new employee's orientation process and to regularly disseminate the policies via hard copy and e-mail to the general user populace. Make sure your employees --including network administrators, high level executives and internal development staff -- know that the policy applies to everyone, no exceptions allowed. Too often, people believe that their titles exempt them from obeying the rules.
Consider the recent example of the former CIA chief who was censured (though not prosecuted) for downloading sensitive government files on his relatively unprotected home computer. He himself was not a hacker, but by virtue of his office, he should have known better than to use an insecure computer for classified information.
Also post warnings on your site serving notice to external intruders that violation of your private network is an offense punishable by law. Realistically, this will not stop anyone determined to invade your network, but it will help to negate any claims of ignorance should your organization successfully prosecute them.
Careful planning and preparation will not guarantee that your networks will be immune, but they will ensure that you can minimize the damage and possible theft of data. And it will help authorities successfully pursue, apprehend and prosecute the perpetrator. This in turn will send a strong signal to possible copycat hackers to stay away. For more information on the dynamics of hacking, check out the Computer Emergency Response Team at www.cert.org.
For specific steps to repel hackers, click here.
DiDio is a Giga Group analyst who covers Windows 2000 and third-party products and utilities. DiDio will be the speaker for an upcoming Live Expert Q&A on the SearchWin2000 site on Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. | <urn:uuid:da822f73-0393-43f4-89d4-3b3d495444db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/news/491312/Opinion-How-to-Repel-a-Hack-Attack | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938675 | 1,200 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Posted 12:00 PM 5/17/2013 by Mary Elizabeth Dallas
FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Although being openly gay appears to affect a male actor's masculinity ratings, it does not affect views on his performance, according to a new study.
Researchers from Clemson University in South Carolina found that an actor who is "out" can be (More)
Posted 2:00 PM 5/16/2013 by By Randy Dotinga
THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Students targeted because they're believed to be gay -- as many as one in seven young teens -- are much more likely than others to be suicidal and depressed, a new survey finds.
More than 10 percent of eighth-grade boys and girls reported that they're (More)
Posted 7:00 AM 5/15/2013 by By Serena Gordon
WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- If you're a man, the pain-killing medications known as opioids may do more than relieve pain -- they may also put a damper on your sex life.
A new study found that men who were prescribed medications for erectile dysfunction or low testosterone levels (More)
Posted 7:00 AM 5/9/2013 by Robert Preidt
THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Half of pregnant teens in substance-abuse treatment programs used alcohol or drugs in the month before they entered treatment. And nearly 20 percent used drugs or alcohol on a daily basis during that month, according to a U.S. government report.
Posted 2:00 PM 5/8/2013 by By Steven Reinberg
WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Women who come down with the flu during pregnancy may be at increased risk of having a child who develops bipolar disorder, a new study suggests.
The chance of a child eventually developing the mental health disorder was nearly four times higher when (More)
Posted 2:00 PM 5/7/2013 by Robert Preidt
TUESDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Vitamin C may help prevent lung problems in babies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy, according to a small new study.
Pregnant women are advised not to smoke because it can harm the baby's lungs and lead to problems such as wheezing and asthma. (More)...
Posted 2:00 PM 5/6/2013 by Robert Preidt
MONDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Pregnant women who struggle with migraine headaches should never use medicines containing the ingredient valproate because they can lower the IQ scores of their children, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Monday.
The new warning will be included (More)
Posted 10:00 AM 5/3/2013 by By Kathleen Doheny
FRIDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- Women taking birth control pills with lower amounts of estrogen -- a commonly prescribed contraceptive -- may be at higher risk for chronic pelvic pain and pain during orgasm, according to new research.
A study of nearly 1,000 women found that women on the (More) | <urn:uuid:3c6c5594-ed38-43a5-addf-9bb1e1a7790d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koaa.com/category/healthday-sexual-health/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944332 | 654 | 1.640625 | 2 |
"The Government have clearly sent the message to Shell, ‘you can do whatever you want’. Fortunately due to protest, the refinery remains unconnected to the gas field. If, as Shell planned, gas had been flowing by now, we would potentially all be dealing with a gas leak and explosion.”
by Joe Black - WSM (personal capacity) Wednesday, Sep 27 2006, 3:49pm ireland / britain / community struggles / link to audio Locals prevent shell resuming work on Corrib pipeline at Rossport
An interview with a member of the Workers Solidarity Movement who is at the Rossport Solidarity Camp and has been joining the pickets preventing Shells attempts to resume work on their planned refinery this week.
Picture from indymedia.ie
On Tuesday after a break of more than a year Shell attempted to resume work on the refinery near Rossport. Last year they jailed five local men for months for resisting this project and in particular the laying of the pipe carrying unprocessed gas at high pressure just 70m from houses in Rossport.
In this 5 minute MP3 a member of the WSM who has moved to the protest camp at Rossport talks a little about the background, the numbers involved and what has been happening. Mp3 file is on radio.indymedia at http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/shellrossport.mp3 | <urn:uuid:05ff7b97-e01b-43a1-822c-a9cd52e2bf6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shelltosea.com/node/1011?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947308 | 293 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The coffee shop girl signaled a greeting from her hospital bed, her face a pointillist palette of wounds, one eye forced shut, the other gazing off into a void. Nahrain Yonaan offered her one functioning hand; the other was swathed in gauze, a mangled claw.
She seemed cheered to think that I came to visit from the U.S. Army base in southern Baghdad where she served coffee and soft drinks to the troops, a place she had become fond of, where each day she stepped into a life comfortably apart from the deepening despair of Iraq outside the gates. She had encouraged her melancholic younger sister, Narmeen, to find work with the Americans as well. I allowed her to embrace the illusion, propagated by her mother, that a certain captain had made the trip to the squalor of Kindi Hospital in an act of solidarity.
Nahrain took my hand. She was blinded and maimed. And she did not yet know the worst: Narmeen and an aunt had been killed in the drive-by shooting and subsequent bombing that mutilated the body of this once-vivacious 25-year-old. Nahrain survived the fusillade and escaped from the targeted minivan after pretending she was dead. But in one of those acts of valor and imprudence so prevalent in wartime, she slipped back to the bullet-ridden vehicle and--in a bid to save her sister and aunt--tried to remove the bomb deposited there by attackers who were keen to finish off the victims. It exploded in her face. "Nahrain was the light of my family," her mother, shattered, confided to me.
The lamentable fact was that no one had come from the base, nor would the Army do anything to help this broken young woman. Masked gunmen had attacked the minivan she was traveling in because it ferried her and others to jobs at the U.S. camp. The assassins had stalked the vehicle from the base, a frequent scenario in the Iraqi killing grounds. She and her fellow commuters were the latest victims of a grisly but effective guerrilla strategy: eliminate any Iraqi who was "collaborating" with U.S. forces, even if their role was no more significant than serving beverages in a base cafe or cleaning the floors.
"We'll see what we can do," the major at the base, known as Camp Cuervo, told me later when I inquired whether Nahrain could be transferred to a military hospital, where perhaps her vision and limbs could be saved. "She was very popular. But we have a lot going on right now."
I made my way back to my Iraqi colleagues, who were waiting at the front gate from which Nahrain's vehicle had taken off a few nights earlier. We were apprehensive that we too would be shadowed on the way out. As I left, the major advised, "Hey, man, be careful driving out of here."
I left Iraq last summer after covering the conflict there for two years as a Los Angeles Times correspondent. There's a lot not to miss: the carnage, the ubiquitous sense of menace, the logistical barriers of reporting a story in a place where foreign journalists are shut out from much of Iraqi society. But there is also a deep sense of regret for having left behind so many Iraqi colleagues and friends, people who repeatedly risked their lives for me and others. Most have no chance to leave. It is hard to avoid feeling that I abandoned them, though none ever puts it that way.
I spent time before I left clearing out old files, revisiting past stories. I came across a photo of a battered Nahrain in her hospital bed in spring 2004. That was one story that took me a long time to get away from. But there were others too: some momentous, some lost in the daily stream of mostly bad news from Iraq.
The euphoria that followed the fall of Baghdad and the ouster of Saddam Hussein was already diminished by the time I first came to Iraq in June 2003, arriving overland in a Baghdad-or-bust Suburban that motored from Amman through the vast expanses of Al Anbar province, the sprawling swath of western Iraq, to the capital. That was the practice then, when travel was still relatively safe and no one had an inkling that Al Anbar would soon become ground zero of an insurgency that would stymie the cocky U.S. troops and claim the highest number of American casualties since the Vietnam War, with no end in sight.
AN INSURGENCY IS BORN
"The American jet fired a missile at the mosque," the young man insisted, as others nodded in agreement. "We could see an airplane and a flash of light."
This was in a place called Fallouja, the so-called city of mosques, an insular town west of Baghdad that before long would become infamous as the symbolic heart of the Iraqi insurgency. But at this point, in July 2003, it was still a place where Western journalists could venture and even be received with traditional Arab hospitality, though lines were being drawn. | <urn:uuid:59c5dd86-8212-4d27-8ad8-11698432694c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/04/magazine/tm-notebook49 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984693 | 1,059 | 1.554688 | 2 |
From local newspapers, I've learned a few interesting things about some family members:
During the early 1900s Mr. and Mrs. Brubaker are Royal Entertainers. I sorta knew that from my grandmother's writings, but thought it was neat that one of their parties made the local news.
In July 1902, Franklin H. Foust had eight or ten Sheep Drowned as a result of the floods.
On May 1st 1909, Curtis W. Jones remembered the worst May Day "ever perpetrated on the people in this vicinity." That was in 1851. . .
It was in May 1905 that my great-grandfather, Henry Phend, pulled a gun on poor Dr. Souder when he came to check on the family. Henry had been quarantined with his wife and 7 children for 11 days, The children ranged from 6 months to 12 years old.
We learned that in January 1911 about "Mrs. C.R. Brubaker, who went to Traverse City, Michigan, to look after the shipment of the household goods, was stormbound for three days and did not arrive here until Wednesday. A great snow storm was raging in northern Michigan. The C.R. Brubaker family will make their home with his father, Wm. Brubaker in Troy township." This was after the tragic death of C.R.'s brother Hale Brubaker.
In August 1914, within a week of each other, there were Fires at the Brubaker and Phend Homes. Thankfully, little damage was done to either house.
In August 1917, Henry Meier and his friend, a Miss Burnworth, spent the day with friends where he had an encounter with a Runaway Colt. Ten days later Mr. Meier and Miss Doris Burnworth eloped to Michigan to get married.
In December 1917 Two Fellows were Home From Camp Taylor, one of whom was my grandfather, Victor Phend.
In July 1918, we find that Roy Parkinson Has a Fine Store at Wolf Lake.
The next month, Mildred Jones Married an Illinois Man. She had to resign a very fine position as physical director at the Y. M. C. A. in Detroit, Michigan. And he was going to be entering an army training camp the first of September.
In January 1919, a letter that Vic Phend Writes From France to his sister in Columbia City was published in the local paper.
In 1921, the Brubaker-Phend Marriage joined together my grandparents, Vic Phend and Hazlette Brubaker.
Fast forward to May 1947 when a Larwill Girl was Married in a North Webster Church. That girl would become my mother and she was marrying the man who would become my father.
On September 4, 1952 Henry & Susie Yarian Phend celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary. A family celebration was held the previous Sunday. "Seventy-five people attended the dinner at noon which was served on the lawn. In the afternoon 150 guests called between 2 and 5 o'clock." I was there, but being only 4 years old at the time don't remember the events of the day.
In November 1957, Henry Phend Celebrated his 92nd Birthday at the home of his son Gerald.
These are just a few of the "special" items I've found buried in the pages of local newspapers. When I first started my research I didn't always take the time to read the other stories, even those on the same page. I was fixated on finding a specific article. One day I came home from the Nappanne Library so excited. I had found the obituary of my 2nd great grandfather, Eli Yarian. I won't go into detail here as he will be the subject of a future post, but Eli died on January 28, 1895 in a "frightful and very sad accident" whereby he "met instant death by being struck on the head with a limb of a falling tree." The story of his demise took nearly an entire column of the first page; it was full of the rather gruesome details surrounding his death.
I showed the copy of the article to my mother. As she finished reading it, she started laughing. I didn't understand why it would be so funny to her. When I asked her, she handed the copy back to me and pointed to a little article in the next column.
"Last Saturday, Frank Smith paid a fine and costs amounting to $8.30 imposed in Justice Corns' court for using profane language. The affidavit was filed by Jonathan Yarian. Young Smith, with others, were hauling logs, and some difficulty arose about loading, which caused the young man to so far forget himself as to heap some abuse on Mr. Yarian, among other things, language calculated to reflect discredit on the name of the latter's mother, and supplementing it with a threat to chop off his leg, or some things to that effect. As he might have carried out his threat without bodily harm to Mr. Yarian, he was simply caused to plead guilty to using profanity. Frank will probably be a little more discreet in the future, in the choice of language."After reading it, I too began laughing. You see, we knew that no "bodily harm" would have come to Mr. Jonathan Yarian even if Mr. Smith had followed through on his threat. Why? Because Jonathan Yarian had a wooden leg, which was the result of injury and amputation during the Civil War.
After that little incident I was more conscientious in my reading. Doing so, however, comes with a price - more time spent looking at that microfilm! But what fun it is, especially when you find those hidden gems of family history!
Contributed to the 57th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy :: I read it in the news! | <urn:uuid:81acd1d6-6cf7-4358-bc7b-b49ee8dc4fc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kinexxions.blogspot.com/2008/09/hidden-gems-of-family-history-found-em.html?showComment=1223231340000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987145 | 1,210 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Street photography is the art of exploring life as it happens in the everyday moment, capturing the lives of others with an instant while observing your own, its not about creating photo memories, its about dissolving one's self in the experience of coincidences. It is straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society.
Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment.
On the other hand, much street photography takes the opposite approach and provides a very literal and extremely personal rendering of the subject matter, giving the audience a more visceral experience of walks of life they might only be passingly familiar with.
Since the 20th century, street photographers have provided an exemplary and detailed record of street culture throughout Europe and North America.
We'll explore areas in and around LA for photography based upon various themes or subjects- Social realms, Urban life, Festivals, Holidays, night shooting, etc. Occassionally, also go to see films/ documentaries of some famous photographers to remain inspired, visit galleries, attend presentations, and more. We can exchange information about photography, gear, post-processing, printing, developing, etc. Basic guidance will be given to those who are new to this art but are curious to explore. | <urn:uuid:5873b946-a441-4710-a0dd-44a3cfc5b5b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meetup.com/LAStreetPhotography/photos/13050082/203122152/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951998 | 281 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Audubon Medal 2013 Awardee - Louis Bacon
Louis Bacon has been advocating for more than twenty years for conservation and protection of natural resources in the United States and abroad. Raised as an avid outdoor sportsman, Louis developed a reverence for the natural world, which spurred his lifelong passion for land and water conservation. In 1992, he created the Moore Charitable Foundation to support organizations that preserve and protect wildlife habitat. Since its inception, the foundation has provided significant funding to more than 200 local, national and international conservation organizations. He was the primary sponsor of the Peconic Baykeeper and founding sponsor of Waterkeeper Alliance.
Mr. Bacon’s conservation achievements include his campaign to preserve Clifton Point, Bahamas and create the Bahamas Clifton Heritage Park; his donation of a conservation easement and development of a habitat restoration and management plan on Robins Island, Long Island, that will preserve the island as a haven for endangered shorebirds including Least terns and Piping plover; the restoration of an extensive habitat of rice fields, marshes and long leaf pine forest at Orton Plantation in North Carolina, which at the turn of the century was the home to the only known colony of great egrets, to increase the populations of egrets, herons and the endangered Red-cockaded woodpecker to the area; his support of The Nature Conservancy’s creation of a 50-acre safe haven for three protected bird species on Tern Island, New York; and support of efforts to protect the Everglades, key to wading birds like the Roseate spoonbill. He is a leading supporter of the National Audubon Society, its state field operations and numerous chapters.
In 2012, conservation easements were donated to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) protecting in perpetuity approximately 167,000 acres of the Blanca Trinchera Ranch in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains bordering the San Luis Valley in Colorado, making these the largest conservation easement donations received by FWS. They represent the first step in the formal establishment of the Sangre de Cristo Conservation Area as the nation’s 558th unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System and set a precedent for others to follow in the future. Mr. Bacon is the founder and CEO of Moore Capital Management, LP and received his B.A. in American Literature from Middlebury College and his M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School. | <urn:uuid:0df1ed9f-8672-401d-830b-b43800d96164> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audubon.org/audubon-medal-2013-awardee-louis-bacon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946814 | 507 | 1.796875 | 2 |
If you knew Mr. Salmon, would you take his suspicions of Harvey seriously, or not?
Is The Lovely Bones destined to be a classic? Why or why not? Should it be taught in school?
Could this novel be helpful to victims of rape, their loved ones, or the families of people with a murdered member? Why, or why not.
Why don't the police suspect Mr. Harvey?
If you were a psychiatrist, how would you analyze Mr. Harvey? Is there a cure for his problem? What might it look like?
How does Mr. Harvey compare to other serial killers you've seen in movies or read about in other books? How is The Lovely Bones different from or similar to other fictional stories about serial killers?
Does Susie have any sympathy for her killer? Do you?
Why don't critics like the film adaptation of the book? Do you like it? Why, or why not? | <urn:uuid:57455cc8-6ad7-4a0e-90ac-f4457f5bedea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shmoop.com/lovely-bones/questions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97364 | 191 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Osama bin Laden's death was cheered, I suspect, by 99.99% of Americans. But there was that 0.01% — and a slightly higher number abroad — who doubted the legality of simply pumping two bullets into the Al Qaeda leader rather than trying to arrest and Mirandize him.
Likewise, amid the general rejoicing over the death of Anwar Awlaki, one of the leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a few civil libertarians are raising questions about whether the U.S. government had the right to kill an American citizen without a trial. And it wasn't just the New Mexico-born Awlaki, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen, who died in a CIA drone strike in Yemen on Friday. Also killed was Samir Khan, a propagandist for the group who was born in Saudi Arabia but grew up in New York and North Carolina and retained American citizenship. How could President Obama order their assassinations?
That's like asking if it was lawful to kill Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg. Like the rebels during the Civil War, Awlaki and Khan gave up the benefits of American citizenship by taking up arms against their country. They, and other Al Qaeda members, claim to be "soldiers" in the army of Allah; it is only fitting that their avowed enemy, the Great Satan, would take their protestations seriously and treat them just like enemy soldiers. If it's lawful to drop a missile on a Saudi or Egyptian member of Al Qaeda, it's hard to see why an American citizen should be exempt.
The pressing question is not whether killing Awlaki was the right thing to do — it was — but what impact his killing will have. That's a tougher call. Other terrorist organizations have been able to survive, even thrive, after the deaths of important leaders.
Hezbollah's secretary general, Abbas Mussawi, was killed by an Israeli helicopter strike in 1992, but his successor, Hassan Nasrallah, turned out to be an organizational genius. Today, under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah has become the dominant force within Lebanon. Likewise Hamas has consolidated its control of the Gaza Strip despite the loss of numerous senior leaders to Israeli missiles, bombs and hit teams. And Al Qaeda in Iraq only became more deadly after its founder, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was killed in an American airstrike in June 2006.
It remains to be seen whether Al Qaeda's central organization will survive the loss of Bin Laden — it might not — but if so, Al Qaeda would be the exception to the rule. Most terrorist groups have shown enough resiliency to go on killing even after the loss of top leaders.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula surely will fall into the resilient category, unless the U.S. can bring a lot more pressure on the group than is currently the case. U.S. drone strikes in Yemen are not unprecedented, but they are rare; they are nowhere near as common as strikes in Pakistan, which have managed to kill one senior Al Qaeda leader after another. (Being Al Qaeda's operational chief is said to be the most dangerous job in the world.)
The U.S. may be ramping up to carry out a similar campaign against AQAP; there are published reports about the CIA building a new airfield in the Persian Gulf region for such a purpose. If the CIA is able to put more Predators and other drones over the skies of Yemen 24/7, it can do considerable damage to AQAP and slow its ability to make up for leadership losses. Even then, however, it is unlikely that AQAP can be defeated from the air.
Both the American and Israeli experiences in their respective wars on terror have clearly taught one lesson: The only way to stamp out a determined insurgency is to put boots on the ground. When the Israeli army reentered the West Bank en masse in 2002 in response to the second intifada, it was able to stamp out Palestinian terrorist cells. Because the Israelis are unwilling to reoccupy Gaza, they cannot defeat Hamas. Likewise, Al Qaeda in Iraq was only defeated (if not eliminated) by multiple "surges" of ground troops — not only of U.S. forces but also of Iraqi security forces and the Sunni militia known as the Sons of Iraq.
But, barring another 9/11, there is scant chance of U.S. troops invading Yemen. And the ramshackle Yemeni government, which is facing its own internal rebellion, is in no position to police its territory. As a result, AQAP has accomplished something that Al Qaeda central never achieved: It has been able to control ground. Its growing dominance in southern Yemen is unlikely to be shaken by Awlaki's demise.
The challenge for American policymakers is to figure out how to fill the security vacuum in Yemen. That's much tougher than using a Predator to fire a Hellfire missile, but unless we come up with some way to bring a modicum of stability to this turbulent land, the death of Awlaki is likely to be a fleeting victory.
Max Boot is a contributing editor to Opinion and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
This article appears in full on CFR.org by permission of its original publisher. It was originally available here. | <urn:uuid:c44de635-6984-46b6-bac0-24004d8318ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cfr.org/yemen/yemen-after-awlaki/p26101 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973851 | 1,079 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Giving donations to charities set up to help wounded veterans is a really, really good thing, except when the charities are designed to enrich themselves and their friends and don’t give a crap about really helping veterans. And, naturally, there are plenty of those.
No less than eight major veterans charities have been caught giving less than one-third of their donations to actual charitable services. Fully 12 charities failed the American Institute of Philanthropy‘s standards (give 65% of donations to the cause, assholes) for being a good charity. One charity, in fact, gave less than 1 cent to wounded veterans for every dollar they collected. Their excuses? Fundraising is expensive.
The 12 failing charities, by the way, collected $266 million from Americans last year. One charity, Help Hospitalized Veterans, made $72 million in donations, but spent $4 million of that on direct mail alone and paid its exec and his wife $530,000 in salary and benefits. It gave less than $25 million to actual wounded veterans.
Basically, most of these guys got screwed at least once by our government, and then screwed again by these “charities” who were supposed to be spending your money to help them. But I’m sure they appreciate how that $540,000 household income of the executive of HHV helped him maintain the lifestyle to which they were able to become accustomed by pretending to help wounded veterans. That’s the American Way, after all, that they were wounded trying to protect.
Study Faults Charities for Veterans [Washington Post] | <urn:uuid:dc04591e-2dac-4fec-8ed3-9346d40ef6e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wonkette.com/333623/charities-work-to-screw-over-vets-too | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98177 | 326 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Leslie Lamport’s pioneering work in distributed and concurrent algorithms has improved numerous consumer and industrial computing systems. The result of his work can be found in multi-processor technology such as very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) semiconductors and multi-computer networks used in aircraft control systems. Since 2001 he has been at the Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Center, where he is a principal researcher. Prior to that, Dr. Lamport spent 16 years as a researcher at Digital Equipment Corporation (later Compaq Corporation). There he developed the Temporal Logic of Actions (TLA) system, a toolset for mechanical verification that is used to describe the behaviors of concurrent systems. Dr. Lamport developed several well-known concurrent and distributed algorithms, including solutions for Byzantine Fault Tolerance. The algorithm is a method of prevention against Byzantine Failure, in which a component of a system behaves erroneously while failing to behave consistently when interacting with multiple other components in the system. During his career, he has authored or co-authored nearly 150 publications on concurrent and distributed computing and their applications. One of his most notable papers, “Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System,” still ranks as one of the most important and influential papers in computer science. He is a past recipient of the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award, the Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing and the influential paper award at the Principles of Distributed Computing Conference. Dr. Lamport holds a bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, as well as a masters and doctorate from Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. | <urn:uuid:959f878c-bb42-4373-a046-380497209b36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Leslie_Lamport | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949537 | 348 | 1.796875 | 2 |
LST-740 was laid down on 12 February 1944 at Pittsburgh, Pa., by the Dravo Corp., Neville Island; launched on 8 April 1944; sponsored by Miss A. Jean Blocker; and commissioned on 15 May 1944.
During World War II, LST-740 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the following operations:
Morotai landings—September 1944
Leyte landings—October and November 1944
Lingayen Gulf landing—January 1945
Mindanao Island landings—April 1945
Balikpapan operation—June and July 1945
Following the war, LST-740 performed occupation duty in the Far East until late October 1945. She returned to the United States and was decommissioned on 8 March 1946 and struck from the Navy list on 12 April that same year. On 14 June 1948, the ship was sold to the Oil Transport Co., of New Orleans, La., for non-self-propelled operation.
LST-740 earned five battle stars for World War II service. | <urn:uuid:ed500939-bfd0-44fc-bf82-40e10e2aee3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/l23/lst-740.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967703 | 220 | 1.59375 | 2 |
|<< Ezekiel 26 >>|
Darby Bible Translation
A Prophecy against Tyre
1And it came to pass in the eleventh year, on the first of the month, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,
2Son of man, because Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken, the gate of the peoples! she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished now she is laid waste;
3therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth its waves to come up.
4And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers. And I will scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare rock.
5She shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord Jehovah; and she shall become a spoil for the nations.
6And her daughters that are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.
7For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will bring from the north, against Tyre, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, the king of kings, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and an assemblage, and much people.
8He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field, and he shall make forts against thee, and cast up a mound against thee, and lift up the target against thee;
9and he shall set his engines of attack against thy walls, and with his spikes he shall break down thy towers.
10By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee; thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter through thy gates, as a city is entered into, wherein is made a breach.
11With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets; he shall slay thy people by the sword, and the pillars of thy strength shall go down to the ground.
12And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy wares; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the waters.
13And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.
14And I will make thee a bare rock; thou shalt be a place for the spreading of nets; thou shalt be built no more: for I Jehovah have spoken it, saith the Lord Jehovah.
15Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to Tyre: Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee?
16And all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling, they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble every moment, and be astonied because of thee.
17And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How hast thou perished, that wast inhabited from the seas, O renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all them that dwell therein!
18Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; and the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure.
19For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up the deep upon thee, and the great waters cover thee:
20then will I bring thee down, with them that go down to the pit, to the people of old time, and will cause thee to dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living.
21And I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more; and thou shalt be sought for, and shalt never be found again, for ever, saith the Lord Jehovah. | <urn:uuid:fa0cccff-ab9f-43f2-ae49-b4cc80733dc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://darbybible.com/ezekiel/26.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948689 | 936 | 1.546875 | 2 |
It probably seemed so simple at the time. Take some very old buildings with no place to go and put them back into the center of East Hampton at a site visited by thousands of people a year, so visitors and full-time residents could be reminded of the area’s rich history and how the town has been able to incorporate it into modern life.
This is not the article to rehash all of the complications that ensued when historic buildings from Adelaide de Menil and Edmund Carpenter’s Further Lane estate were moved to the East Hampton Town Hall property. Anyone who has lived in the town over the past few years has witnessed the buildings’ move and the much-documented saga of the financial and political issues involved in finally setting them in place and renovating them for municipal use.
Instead, this is the story of the idea, and how it was chronicled from start to finish by a gifted, insightful, and even whimsical photographer, Zak Powers.
Mr. Powers’s book, “Further Lane,” with a foreword by Paul Goldberger and an essay by the architect Robert A.M. Stern, who was the consultant on the placement and modifications of the buildings, will be published this summer. In it, he documents the original 18 buildings at the oceanfront property once owned by Ms. de Menil and Mr. Carpenter and their 18-month journey out of the ground and onto trucks, some to be transported to the East Hampton Town headquarters on Pantigo Road. In addition to his photography skills, Mr. Powers brought a background and experience that made him uniquely qualified to participate.
Although he was born in Washington State, he spent most of his young life in Canada in a place with no roads. It was there his stepfather homesteaded by building his own house and putting it on cedar logs lashed together and moored to the shore while he waited for the land he chose to be granted to him. Once he was allowed to build, the house was rolled on the logs into a clearing and placed.
Zak Powers, on lift, captured the journey of the new Town Hall buildings
The subsistence living extended to fishing for dinner and a barter system for wood, which was milled by hand into planks. As a young adult, Mr. Powers moved back to the United States and took a series of odd jobs including dishwasher, line cook, carpenter, ditch digger, and fish buyer in Alaska.
For most people, the Further Lane buildings’ antique hardware and hand-hewn beams would seem extraordinary, but where he grew up, builders were still using mortise-and-tenon joinery. There was much that was familiar to him in the building style, even as he admired it anew in comparison to the concrete canyons he presently found himself living in in New York City.
“When watching this process, I spent the entire day in silence watching other people work. It was then I realized I wasn’t working anymore,” he said.
He had always envisioned an artistic life and wasn’t too popular on work sites when he walked around barefoot and singing. “I really wanted to stop doing 12 hours a day in the hot sun and making enough money just to fill my car. I felt so fortunate to have made it to the other side of physical labor.”
While some people watching the buildings’ move and renovation unfold might have grown bored with the slow, seemingly unvaried process, Mr. Powers said he was happy to sit and watch the branches move back and forth in the wind. At some point, “the light would flash on the side of the houses and I’d get really excited and take pictures for two to three hours and when that passed, I felt spent. But I didn’t have to discuss it with anybody.”
He would stay in East Hampton for a number of days and then return to the city to be with his family. His existence out east “was like going to a monastery, doing things in silence, but not alone.” When he was not photographing he would stare at the trees or the breaking waves. “It was like a meditative respite.”
It wasn’t just the buildings that were uprooted, but a large foundation that was also destroyed. “Adelaide had a theater underground with seating for 100 people.” Occasionally, guests would be escorted down a hall to a coded special door and then another coded door, leading to a room full of Picasso and Monet paintings.
Upstairs, the couple’s Shaker furniture collection and antiquities gave the classic lines of the buildings a further timeless elegance. “A priceless Egyptian artifact would be used to hold a cupboard door shut.” If someone touched or moved an object, Ms. de Menil “wouldn’t care, but a guest, most likely an expert, would say ‘be careful, that’s some fourth-century thing.’ ” All of her possessions were special, “but she liked to use her stuff. She bought the houses to save them, and she put them on the beach and used them.”
The houses and barns were collected from properties all over the South Fork and “placed on the landscape with the precision and care of sculptures in a park,” Mr. Goldberger said in his book introduction. “They turned these small, exquisitely gentle houses into discreet pavilions, furnished with a minimalist sensibility, each connecting in its own way to the magnificent landscape beside the dunes. The houses bespoke simplicity, and precision, with a quiet strength that managed to make a vast oceanfront estate seem like a place of understatement.” The couple lived there for some 40 years.
Initially, Ms. de Menil hired Mr. Powers to chronicle the process for her own use. They became acquainted when Mr. Powers and his wife were brought to dinner as guests of a guest. “We were invited back subsequently and stayed a few times at one of their 18 houses. They liked us and liked to have artists as guests.” He recalled hearing stories of Alan Lomax, the ethnomusicologist, singing at the fireplace and of visits by I.M. Pei and Chuck Close. “If you have a billion dollars, an artistic bent, and 18 houses, you can’t help having a busy social calendar,” he said.
Gradually, he began to see the project as something more. He was concerned, however, that his change from black-and-white film to color digital photography would not work in a book. He consulted with Stuart Smith, a book designer whose work he respected, who said it could be done. With 500 images placed on the floor, “we came up with a flow . . . and when we found the flow, I wanted the book.” The concept still seemed like a long shot: “There were some houses and they moved at a quarter-mile an hour — not exciting.”
Plus, he felt it was a dying form. “I love reading books, fiction, photography books, but I think it’s over.” This assumption, however, made him more determined, in that it was likely his last chance to do a photography book. “Something I could tell my grandchildren about or something I could pass to them.”
Mr. Goldberger also found the change in mediums to be appropriate. The black-and-white photos signal that “the past life of the houses is now to be seen only in the softer, grayer tones of memory, and that it is the new, public life of the houses that is the real thing. Color in these photographs represents reality, and the future.” | <urn:uuid:3f4c239a-24dd-4040-b216-c44670903687> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://easthamptonstar.com/?q=Arts/2011426/Chronicling-Historic-Move-Dunes-Town | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985517 | 1,635 | 1.695313 | 2 |
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission
The EU's approach to Iran
Strasbourg. 9 March
This is an important opportunity to debate the European Union's approach to Iran. This has been the subject of an own-initiative report with Mr Belder as rapporteur.
Mr Belder's report, touches on a broad range of issues and reflects the views of many different interests but will concentrate on two issues: the nuclear programme and the human rights situation in Iran, both of which the Belder report deals with extensively.
As this House knows, Iran's nuclear programme remains a serious concern for the EU and the international community as a whole.
Both the UN Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have adopted a series of Resolutions requiring Iran to take the steps necessary to build confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.
Regrettably, the latest IAEA report, issued on 25 February, confirmed Iran's failure to comply with its international obligations.
On the EU side, we remain determined to work towards a diplomatic solution on the basis of our double-track approach, which combines pressure with dialogue. The objective remains to engage Iran in a phased approach of confidence building, leading to meaningful negotiations on the nuclear programme.
At the second meeting I led on behalf of the E3 plus 3 - China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States, in Istanbul, I presented to Iran our proposals for concrete confidence building measures, including an updated fuel supply arrangement for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), as well as, other transparency measures.
These proposals would bring immediate benefit for both sides and could pave the way for a process to address the existing concerns and gradually build mutual confidence. And building confidence is what our efforts are all about.
Iran's response in Istanbul was disappointing. It was not ready to discuss our proposals unless we first recognised Iran's "right to enrich uranium". It also spoke about the removal of sanctions.
I understand Iran's wish to see sanctions removed. We would also like to see our talks come to a successful conclusion in which - in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolutions - all sanctions would disappear. The removal of sanctions is something which would accompany the gradual re-establishment of confidence. And that was the path we were trying to go down.
As for the "right to enrich", the non-proliferation Treaty is careful balance of rights and of obligations and I don't see any virtue in re-writing or interpreting it in a selective way. The first step is for Iran to put itself into full compliance with its obligations.
We will continue our efforts engaging Iran but, at the same time, also our efforts to increase the pressure, first of all through a strengthening of the implementation of existing sanctions.
I have since met with the new Foreign Minister of Iran, Dr Salehi, in Geneva – a meeting which gave me the opportunity to explain to him the efforts we had put into the Istanbul talks and our strong desire for Iran to respond – for the greater security of all of us.
I have also written to Dr Jalili – who led the talks on behalf of Iran - to restate our offer and to invite him to respond. Dr Salehi said they are considering their response. I urge them to be positive.
I share the views of this Parliament on the issue of Human Rights in Iran The continued and systematic oppression, arrests and harassment of lawyers, journalists and others who are exercising their rights is totally unacceptable.
We have seen very long prison sentences and restrictions on the right to work and travel for up to 20 years for some of the people convicted. When Iranian people wished to demonstrate peacefully on 14 February in support of the situation in Egypt and Tunisia, the demonstrations were forbidden. Moreover, Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karoubi, the two opposition leaders who had expressed their support for such demonstrations, were held in house arrest and apparently later detained.
I have seen the statement by Socialists and Democrats of the Parliament that was made on 1 March, and I fully support that. I remain very concerned about the treatment of Mr Karroubi and Mr Moussavi and I issued a statement on 4 March to this effect. Despite our efforts to secure verifiable information it remains unclear whether they are under house arrest or otherwise imprisoned. I urge the authorities of Iran simply to grant them the freedom of movement to which they are entitled.
The report also underlines the seriousness of the increase in executions in Iran. The information we have suggest there have been around 100 executions since the beginning of this year.
In line with the EU's long-standing and firm position on abolition of the death penalty, I have called for a halt to all pending death penalty cases, I want the death penalty abolished – whatever the method: stoning and public hangings are barbaric.
It is important to note that international efforts can and do make a difference. I was glad to see that in the case of Ms Ashtiani her execution has - at least temporarily - been stayed.
But as the report points out Zahra Bahrami- a dutch /Iranian national was executed in Iran on 29 January without prior notice. Both the execution and the process leading up to it were shocking. I have made this clear publicly, expressing my dismay over the lack of transparency in the case and that Dutch authorities were refused consular access.
Let me finish my intervention by mentioning that my services, together with EU Member States, are discussing how we can be more effective on human rights issues in Iran.. - Using public and private messages. Working bilaterally and through multilateral organisations. Working with our Member States and with international parties. All with a single purpose: to ensure the Iranian people, like others, have their basic rights respected. | <urn:uuid:f64a8a06-9853-49c3-86e6-4757cc321a2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-11-160_en.htm?locale=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968229 | 1,199 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Following on the heels of “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast,” Pixar’s 2003 undersea classic “Finding Nemo” is the most recent Disney feature to get the 3-D treatment.
If the buzz is accurate, this could be one 3-D experience that justifies spending a little extra for the chance to see it in theaters.
So, what’s so special about “Finding Nemo 3-D”? Well, particulate matter, for one.
As “Finding Nemo” co-director Lee Unkrich explains in this Disney-produced featurette. “When we were making ‘Finding Nemo,’ we worked really, really hard to dial in the ingredients visually of the water to give a sense of depth.”
This included details like bits of oceanic detritus on the screen, drawing the audience into the watery environment.
"The floating particulate matter, which we put in the original movie to give it a sense of murkiness, like the real ocean, plays so amazingly well on 3-D," said stereo supervisor Bob Whitehill who, together with his team, spent the last year and a half converting “Nemo” to 3-D — a process that included manually tweaking each bit of particulate matter.
“Finding Nemo” was chosen as Disney’s next 3-D feature largely because of how uniquely suited the film is to the 3-D experience.
As Whitehill told MTV News, “Having characters that float and hover makes it, on a shot-by-shot basis, great in 3-D."
It isn’t just the creative minds at Pixar that have been excited about the prospect of seeing the vibrant underwater environments with an extra dimension. Filmmaker James Cameron, whose 2010 sci-fi epic “Avatar” launched the 3-D craze, expressed his excitement, telling USA Today that “No film in history ever cried out more for 3-D.”
Of course, the trend of converting 2-D movies into 3-D has its share of critics, many of whom see it as, at best, an expensive gimmick — if not a major distraction that can ruin a movie.
Pixar’s philosophy for 3-D filmmaking, however, emphasizes audiences' emotional responses over cheap gimmicks. “When we approach 3-D, we often think of what we call the three Cs,” Whitehill said. “First off, we want to make it comfortable, so it’s easy to watch. Secondly, we want to make it consistent with the original vision of the film — so if Nemo is meant to feel trapped in a small space in the tank in the dentist’s office, we need to make it feel small in 3D, too. Thirdly, we want to make it captivating. We want to bring a new world to the audience. If they’ve gone out of their way to see ‘Finding Nemo’ in 3-D, we want to make it more immersive than ever and pull them into this world in a new and different way.”
In other words, don’t expect to see swordfish noses popping out of the screen at the audience.
So far, the critical reception has been overwhelmingly positive. A New Zealand entertainment site said the film’s thoughtful 3-D conversion “turns the screen into an aquarium, emphasizing Pixar’s beautiful sense of depth, framing and cinematography.”
Likewise, Film School Rejects’ Neil Miller writes, “Pixar did something spectacular with their 3-D conversion: they used restraint.”
Still, Nemo's digital upgrade is not without its detractors. Nick Schager of the Houston Press calls it “a re-release whose cash-grab intentions are as transparent as the crystal-clear Sydney ocean,” adding that it “exists only to relieve parents of money for a movie they undoubtedly already own.”
For a lot of audiences, though, the snazzy 3-D retrofit may just be an excuse to experience Marlin and Dory’s underwater adventure on the big screen.
Co-director Andrew Stanton said, “To me, the biggest thrill of ‘Nemo’ going 3-D is it’s an opportunity to get a whole new generation of kids to see it like it was originally seen.”
A native of Utah Valley and a devoted cinephile, Jeff is currently studying humanities and history at Brigham Young University.
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Profiles in Courage, the Jimmy Carter Edition
I’m fairly sure that Jimmy Carter is the bravest man I know. I’m absolutely sure that he’s the bravest politician.
When it comes to courage, Carter’s polar opposite is Mitt Romney. Scour Romney’s record for a single example of real political courage -- a single, solitary instance, however small, where Romney placed principle or substance above his own short- term political interests. Let me know if you find one.
Would have given? No, Mr. Romney. Gave. Jimmy Carter gave that order -- 32 years ago.
Everything you can say in praise of Obama’s courage in ordering Operation Neptune Spear, as the Navy Seal raid on bin Laden was code-named -- and Obama deserves plenty of praise -- goes double for Carter’s courage in ordering Operation Eagle Claw, the Delta Force mission to rescue the American hostages in Iran on April 24, 1980.
Both were highly secret, elite commando operations deep inside less-than-friendly territory at a time of tension between the U.S. and Islamist extremism. Both were painstakingly designed and rehearsed to achieve a difficult and long-sought goal in a surgical manner, with as little “collateral damage” to innocent civilians as possible. In both cases, the commander-in- chief gave the green light despite dissent within his inner circle of advisers. In neither case was there any guarantee of success -- or even a better-than-even chance.
Operation Eagle Claw
The Iran mission was actually riskier. Snatching 52 imprisoned Americans alive from a guarded building in the middle of a hostile nation’s teeming capital city is a taller order than killing one man in a residential suburban compound in a country controlled by a nominally allied, if untrustworthy, government.
But the biggest difference, of course, is that while Neptune Spear was a resounding success, Eagle Claw was a failure. When a sandstorm disabled three of the eight helicopters, the Delta Force commander asked for permission to abort, evacuate and try again another day. Carter agreed. Then, as the evacuation proceeded, a helicopter and a transport plane collided, leaving eight servicemen dead in the wreckage, blowing our cover and preventing a second attempt.
You can say Carter and the Delta Force were unlucky. You can’t say they weren’t brave and daring, any more than you can say that about Obama and the Seals.
But Eagle Claw wasn’t the only example of Carter’s courage as president. Here are three others, among many:
Camp David. The 1978 summit and subsequent shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Egypt culminated in the only Middle East peace treaty to stand the test of time. When Carter was considering the summit and even after he announced it, just about every foreign-policy guru, Henry Kissinger included, counseled against it. The “wise men” warned that a head of state should never go into a negotiation without knowing the outcome in advance. Carter rejected that advice -- and did more to further the security of Israel than any U.S. president before or since.
The Panama Canal. Although it had long been known that the Canal Zone would have to be transferred to Panama once the original lease expired, presidents from John F. Kennedy to Gerald Ford had seen this as a politically toxic problem to be tackled in a second term -- or left to a successor. Carter knew that failing to resolve it promptly could precipitate chaos and armed conflict in Central America. He put his prestige on the line, recruited bipartisan support for a new treaty and, with the help of Senator Howard Baker, the Republican Minority Leader, mustered the necessary two-thirds vote for Senate ratification.
(Ronald Reagan charged that “giving away” the canal would threaten U.S. national security, but once he was president, he did nothing about it. Apparently the threat was not so serious, after all.)
Hitting the Kremlin
Soviet aggression. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Carter imposed a grain embargo, alienating corn growers on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. He also boycotted the Moscow Olympics, upsetting millions of sports fans and angering a major television network. These steps were politically costly. But they hit the Kremlin where it hurt and, in tandem with Carter’s human-rights drive and his aid to the Afghan resistance, they pushed Soviet communism toward eventual collapse.
The list goes on. Carter blocked many unnecessary armaments boondoggles, including a superfluous, wildly costly nuclear aircraft-carrier program. He appointed Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve chairmanship, knowing full well that while Volcker’s fiscal policies would conquer inflation, the short- term economic pain they entailed would damage Carter’s chances for re-election. He defied the oil lobby to push through a comprehensive energy program that -- had it not been gutted by his successor -- would have cut oil imports from the Middle East almost to zero by the start of the new century.
Like all presidents, Carter sometimes compromised, sometimes made tactical retreats, sometimes horse-traded. But when the chips were down, he did what was right for the country’s future, regardless of the consequences for himself.
Romney has shown no such conviction, no such courage and no such strength. His campaign has been an exercise in feeble appeasement. The only thing he appears to be dedicated to is abasing himself to the hard-right wing of the Republican Party. Consider the way he allowed a foreign-policy spokesman to be drummed out of the campaign simply for being gay.
Carter recently said that although he supports Obama for re-election, he would be “comfortable” with Romney in the White House.
Sorry, Mr. President, I disagree with you. (It has happened before.) Romney flunks the character test. He seems incapable of making the hard, sometimes unpopular, choices that are part of the job.
(Gerald Rafshoon, a film and television producer, was White House communications director for President Jimmy Carter. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.
Today’s highlights: the View editors on solving Europe’s employment woes and the futures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Stephen L. Carter on the overuse of the word “emergency”; Jonathan Weil on Chinese banks; Virginia Postrel on Amazon’s move into high fashion; Jonathan Alter on human capital and venture capital; Tom Valasek on Ukrainian politics and soccer.
To contact the writer of this article: Gerald Rafshoon at firstname.lastname@example.org
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Mary Duenwald at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:35d58fec-f817-4d5a-9b97-372069b8e5db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-10/profiles-in-courage-the-jimmy-carter-edition?category= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956918 | 1,414 | 1.75 | 2 |
It is always valuable to remember the women behind the famous men, the women whose revolutionary work and ideas preceded those whose names made it to the history books. It's also helpful to be reminded of controversy in context. And so it is with Fanny and Walt, a new play by Jewel Seehaus-Fisher (running through July 1 at Blue Heron Arts Center), which portrays a unique friendship between a pre-Civil War feminist and a groundbreaking poet.
The Fanny of the title is to Fanny Fern (Dee Pelletier), America's first female newspaper columnist, a novelist, and an early feminist, and the Walt is Whitman (Charles Geyer), whose controversial Leaves of Grass Fern daringly championed in her column. At times the actors, particularly those in the title roles, play their characters rather too 21st century for their own mid-19th, at times clouding the startling iconoclasm of Fanny and Walt as historical figures. The play is also laced with a few amateurish turns, such as characters conveniently overhearing each other. Over all, though, Fanny and Walt moves swiftly and with suspense, thanks to upbeat direction by Julia Murphy, engagingly chronicling a fascinating and turbulent liaison from inception to termination.
The play opens with Fanny in bed with a man; we wonder if it may be Walt, but in fact it is her newlywed (and third) husband, Gemmy. Gemmy has good reason to recall the wedding night as one of the least happy of their marriage, for the relationship dynamic is established here for perpetuity, and it does not favor the man. In a quickly unfolding chain of events, Fanny challenges Gemmy to another round of love-making; he demurs. She, ravenously hungry, announces she will brave the snowy night, alone if necessary, in search of food. Lacking suitable clothing (all she has is her wedding dress), she puts on his tux; seeing that she is serious in her quest to go out, he helps her dress. Fanny then heads out into the night where she meets, dining with her literary friend Samuel Wells (played by Alan Semok), the young Walt Whitman.
As Fanny and Walt talk, a simpatico connection is swiftly forged. Though the two know each other by reputation, and do seem to be of one mind, something about the bond seems a bit forced--perhaps because it is punctuated by Whitman's sitting with his leg up on the table. This scene gives Whitman a chance to strut his stuff, and to remind the audience that--in his time as in our own--his celebration of homoeroticism, among other themes, makes his life and work the subject of scandal.
As the action progresses, proprietary anachronisms move into the background as an uneasy friendship triangle unfolds. Fanny and Walt mutually admire, she agrees to pay for the second edition of his book, and discord follows, most immediately in the form of Gemmy's jealousy. To worsen matters, it becomes clear that Whitman cannot return his debts, and that at times he can be a charlatan and a bore. Fanny and Walt's relationship reaches a climax, literally and figuratively, with subsequent typical Victorian doubts about paternity of an unborn child. Not to anyone's surprise, the play ends on a note of estrangement. | <urn:uuid:53ea0878-1605-42de-8f2d-54aee585db73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/reviews/06-2000/fanny-and-walt_833.html?cid=news-ticker | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966595 | 687 | 1.773438 | 2 |
ARTICLE I - Name, Purpose & History
This Council was established by the vice chancellor for financial affairs on Sept. 13, 1978, and is named the Staff Advisory Council of the University of Denver. It is sometimes hereinafter referred to as the Council.
The purpose of the Staff Advisory Council is:
- To be aware of the concerns of the staff (defined as appointed personnel other than faculty and union employees) (hereinafter "Staff") relating to the management and administration of the University and to make recommendations to the University administration on matters of concern to the Staff;
- To provide a means for the exchange and dissemination of information among and for University of Denver staff relative to problems, procedures and policies;
- To promote unity, cooperation, loyalty among all staff of the University of Denver; and
- To work with any and all similar councils, groups, or bodies of the University to fulfill the aforementioned purposes.
When the Staff Advisory Council was established in 1978, membership was voluntary. When bylaws were adopted in 1995, the then-current membership was grandfathered into the appropriate representative positions in order to facilitate the change from a volunteer system to an elected system. When there was not an easily identifiable position for the representative, the president determined an area for that person to represent. By May 1995, the SAC chair presented a list of vacancies and their areas of representation to the vice chancellor of financial and business affairs. The vice chancellor requested nominations from department heads of areas having vacancies and appointed members into those positions.
ARTICLE II - Membership
All Staff of the University of Denver who have completed at least 6 (six) months of employment with the University are eligible for membership on the Staff Advisory Council.
The Staff Advisory Council membership shall consist of 25 representative positions, each with a 2-year term. Fifteen of these positions shall be elected by the staff of the represented departments, and the 10 remaining positions shall be appointed from specific areas. Position terms will be staggered so that half of the position terms will expire in any given year. Elections shall be held in August in areas having a vacancy, with the new members officially beginning their duties each September.
A. Elected Positions (15)
- The fifteen largest areas of the University each shall have one elected position on the Council. The executive committee will be responsible for reviewing the allocation of representatives each year and if necessary, making adjustments to representative allocation based on changes in department size.
B. Appointed Positions (10)
- The Chancellor shall be entitled to designate a person to fill one appointed position.
- The Vice Chancellor of Enrollment shall be entitled to designate a person to fill one appointed position.
- The Provost shall be entitled to designate separate persons to fill each of three appointed positions.
- The Vice Chancellor of Communications shall be entitled to designate a person to fill one appointed position.
- The Vice Chancellor of University Advancement shall be entitled to designate a person to fill one appointed position.
- The Vice Chancellor of Financial and Business Affairs shall be entitled to designate separate persons to fill each of three appointed positions.
C. Vacancies occurring mid-term.
- Elected positions: Vacancies in elected positions will be filled for the remainder of the term through appointment by the department head of the area represented by the vacating member or nominations to fill the vacancy from the vacating member.
- When an Appointed position becomes vacant during a term, the Appointing individual (as identified in subsection II B) will appoint a replacement for the remainder of the term. An appointing individual may consider nominations to fill the vacancy made by the vacating member or others in the area.
ARTICLE III - Officers & Executive Committee
Officers of the Council shall be a President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and Webmaster. This group also constitutes the Executive Committee.
The officers of the Council shall be elected for one year terms by majority vote of the Council annually or as vacancies occur. Officers may succeed themselves, if reelected by a two-thirds vote. Voting will be by written ballot. The Vice President/President-elect shall have served at least six months on the Council before being eligible to serve as Vice President/President-elect.
A. The PRESIDENT shall:
Prepare an agenda for each meeting.
Preside at all meetings and enforce all policies established by the Council.
Appoint subcommittees subject to approval by the executive committee.
Call special meetings for the Council and the executive committee and notify the full Council in advance.
Approve all communications regarding the Council or its activities.
Speak for the Council, or designate another member of the Council to speak for the Council.
Be responsible for all fiscal matters of the Council.
Prepare an annual budget request for the Council's approval and submission to the vice chancellor for financial affairs.
Remain on the Staff Advisory Council in an advisory capacity for the period of one year after his/her term ends.
Delegate duties to Council members as appropriate.
- In the absence of the president, preside at Council meetings and have the powers and prerogatives of the president.
- Be elected to a 2-year term. During the first year, the vice president shall hold the office and duties of vice president/president-elect. During the second year, the vice president will assume the title and duties of president, as listed in III.A.1-10.
C. The SECRETARY shall:
- Record the minutes of all regular and special Council meetings.
- Record the minutes of all regular and special executive committee meetings.
- Maintain minutes in a permanent book to be passed on to the succeeding secretary.
- Distribute copies of the minutes one week following the meeting; distribute agendas one week prior to meetings.
- Keep a record of attendance of members, excused and unexcused absences, and keep the president informed of these absences.
- Notify members of all meetings.
D. The TREASURER shall:
- Keep accurate records of all expenditures.
- Prepare all Student Advisory Council expenses for the chair's signature.
- Present quarterly expense reports to the executive committee, subcommittee chairs and the Council.
E. The WEBMASTER shall:
- Design and maintain a SAC website in keeping with the format established by the University of Denver webmaster.
- Keep all information current by performing updates in a timely manner.
F. The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE shall:
- Hold special meetings to handle affairs for the Council when, in the unanimous determination of the majority of the executive committee, time does not permit a full meeting of the Council.
- Approve the appointments to subcommittees made by the president.
ARTICLE IV - TERMS OF OFFICE OF COUNCIL MEMBERS
The Council will have 25 members, each of whom shall serve a 2-year term. Members are expected to attend the monthly meetings unless their official duties interfere. If a council member decides to resign, the person should inform the president by a written notice of intent.
ARTICLE V - MEETINGS
Meetings shall be held on the second Wednesday of each month of the calendar year unless otherwise changed by the Executive Committee.
Special meetings may be called by the President, upon request of Council members, or at the request of the Vice Chancellor for Financial Affairs.
All employees of the University are welcome to attend regular or special Council meetings and are encouraged to do so. Council meetings shall proceed from an agenda, and non-Council members wishing to address items on the agenda must inform the President in advance of the meeting. Only members of the Council may have voting privileges.
A minimum of thirteen of the total membership of the Council, or a majority of the total membership if there are vacant positions on the Council, shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at any meeting of the Council.
ARTICLE VI - COMMITTEES
The formation of a committee shall be approved by a majority vote of the Staff Advisory Council. Committees shall act as forums for study and consideration of issues and activities and shall make recommendations to the Council. All proposals and recommendations of subcommittees must be made to the Council at the monthly meeting and approved by a majority Council vote.
Members of a committee may consist of both members and non-members of the Council who are Staff. Membership on a committee will be on a volunteer basis. All committee members must indicate their willingness to serve by notice to the Chair of the committee. Each member is responsible to attend meetings as scheduled by the Chair. If a member does not attend three or more consecutive meetings, the committee shall assume the member has relinquished his position on the committee. Each committee shall have a Chair who will be responsible for the budgetary, administrative and project coordination of all committee functions. The Chair will also preside over all committee meetings and be responsible for the general report-out of committee activities to the Council at the monthly Council meeting. The Chair shall be elected by the committee members or appointed by the Executive Committee. The Chair may also be required to attend Executive Committee meetings as necessary.
All committees shall submit a yearly budget of planned expenses to the Council for approval. Once approved, they are to then consider themselves bound by that budget unless granted approval by a majority Council vote to change focus or expansion of the approved budget. Expenditures under a $100.00 that are included in a committee's Council-approved budget may be made following approval by a majority vote of the Committee and approval by the Council President. Expenditures of over $100.00 shall require a majority vote of the Council before being made.
The Staff Advisory Council shall have the following standing committees:
Staff Issues and Actions that will focus on concerns of the Staff.
- Employee Recognition that will center on acknowledging the contributions of the Staff.
- Community and Events that will concentrate on building unity of the Staff.
- Staff Benevolent Fund that will administer the distribution of funds to provide assistance or send special acknowledgement to staff members.
- The request will be referred to other Committee members for consideration.
- Action will be determined based on recommendations received from all members of the Committee.
- One or more of the following methods of
assistance/acknowledgement may be used:
- Financial/Food Donations
- Personal Contributions
- Special Acknowledgments
- Additionally, the Staff Advisory Council shall form the Election Committee each June.
The Election Committee will be composed of members who are not up for reelection. The election committee will elect one of its members to serve as the chair of the committee. The election committee chair will preside over the meetings of the election committee and report back to the Council and the Executive committee as needed or requested. The duties and timelines of the election committee will be described in the election code. The election code may not be modified without a majority vote of the Council.
- The election code can only be changed or amended by a majority vote of the Staff Advisory Council members responding. The election committee will follow the election code for conduction regular elections for SAC membership. No member of the SAC can be on the election committee if their position is up for re-election.
- If special elections are to be held, the election code will be a guide for holding those elections.
- Other Subcommittees may be formed as deemed necessary or desired by the Council.
ARTICLE VII - Amendments to Bylaws
An amendment to the Bylaws may be proposed by the Council members in writing to the President two weeks prior to a regularly scheduled meeting. After review by the Council, the proposed amendment must receive an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Council members responding and shall not thereafter become effective until approval by University Counsel as being consistent with established University policies and procedures.
SAC approval on April 19, 1995.
SAC approved Amendments on April 18, 2001.
SAC approved an amendment to Article III on February 19, 2003.
SAC approved an amendment to Article II, Section B, Item 5, on April 9, 2003. | <urn:uuid:0c3be4ca-d3be-4242-b2da-d61dce289558> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.du.edu/staff/about/bylaws.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948617 | 2,493 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The vast majority of firms in the UK have seen no evidence of an IT skills shortage, according to a report released today.
Just one in seven businesses surveyed by the National Skills Academy for IT had difficulties filling IT and telecoms roles last year.
The level of training available to IT staff in the UK also doesn’t suggest that businesses view workers’ tech skills as lacking. The proportion of IT workers who received employer training last year was lower than that for other UK professions, and only about three per cent of firms had a dedicated budget for training IT staff.
The figures were revealed in the Technology Insights 2012 report by the IT industry skills body e-skills UK.
The fact that most firms don’t appear to be struggling to secure IT skills seemingly undermines warnings from bodies like e-skills and the European Commission that a lack of expertise will hamper the growth of the tech sector.
Dr Jonathan Liebenau, reader in Technology Management at the London School of Economics, said the report demonstrates that an IT skills shortage is not a concern for most employers.
“People don’t think that it’s worth spending a lot of money to train people in-house,” he said.
”If they’re not going to put their money where their mouth is, they can’t go on complaining about how the skills shortage is caused by a poor labour market, but that’s not how they’re behaving.”
Demand for IT staff remains substantially below what it was before the economic crash in 2008.
There were about 116,000 advertised IT and telecoms vacancies during each quarter of 2011, according to the e-skills report, far fewer than the close to 200,000 IT and telecoms posts advertised in the first quarter of 2008 and more than 350,000 posts vacant in the second quarter of 2001.
There are signs of what the report calls a “partial recovery” since the economic crash, which caused the number of IT and telecoms vacancies to slump to 82,000 in 2009.
But e-skills has downgraded its forecast for the rate at which new jobs will be created in the IT industry from predictions made in its Technology Insights report last year. The 2012 report predicts the number of jobs in the industry will increase by 0.54 per cent each year between now and 2020, down from the forecast of 2.19 per cent it made in its 2011 report.
The 2012 report says this reduction is largely down to expected cuts to non-IT staff in the industry and that the number of IT jobs will still grow at nearly twice the rate of the national workforce.
There will also continue to be high demand for new people to enter IT and telecoms roles, due largely to the need to replace people leaving the profession. The 2012 report predicts there will be 129,000 new entrants to the professions each year through to 2015.
e-skills CEO Karen Price said that with the forecast increase in IT jobs: “it is vital that we continue to invest in the skills of those working in technology, and create new routes for young people to enter exciting and challenging careers in the industry.”
The majority of vacancies for IT and telecoms staff in 2011 were for permanent posts, 79 per cent, and in the areas of development, design or support, with systems developers accounting for more than one quarter of all positions advertised.
The technical skills most often called for in 2011 were: SQL, C, C#, .NET and Java. | <urn:uuid:cc0c4725-f8a8-4919-b0b2-bb1d84abd394> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/it-skills-crisis-is-it-over-for-good/829 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963377 | 732 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Time & Tracking is an app that keeps track of how you spend time. It is meant to be used to increase efficiency when at work. It can help you figure out where you spend more of your time and where you waste time. The app can be used by teams of people or even large organizations. It is also used to keep track of how long freelancers spend working on individual projects. With the information from Time & Tracking, freelancers and other professionals can bill clients. It makes it easy to show just how many hours you spent on a billable job. Accountants, lawyers and consultants can find it useful.
Time & Tracking is an app owned by Time Solutions of Poland. Investment in the company has come from Asseco Poland Ltd. and Venture Incubator Ltd. Time & Tracking participated in the Mini Seedcamp Warsaw contest in 2009 and placed as a finalist. It was also presented to a group of Polish investors in the Invest in Innovations contest. The app is mot popular in Poland, where it is used by a number of companies. Software companies, media analysis companies and others use Time & Tracking.
Time & Tracking is simpler than a lot of similar apps. The app is meant to keep track of the time you spend. It doesn't do much more than that. Its simplicity can make it easier to learn and use. At the same time, this might make the app less useful for people or companies who want to analyze their time more. Some competing apps including tools that make it easier to divide projects by type.
The app looks very simple. It allows you to add different projects and start tracking how much time you spend on each. The design is simple to learn. A simple menu allows you to see the current time sheet, see past time sheets, and manage your team. The graphics of the app are very basic. It lacks the pie chart, line graphs and other features of some similar apps.
The registration process starts when you click the Download button from the www.timeandtracking.com site. A confirmation message is sent to your e-mail and your free trial starts when you sign in to your new account. Like the app, the registration process is simple. Only your e-mail is required. You choose your own password. Signing in for the free trial requires no password.
The application costs $5 a month to use for companies or teams with two or more people. It is free for individuals, such as freelancers. The cost includes tracking for unlimited projects. It also includes other features, such as add-ons. Time & Tracking also offers to modify the app for each company, at the cost of $30 an hour for development.
The application is better suited to companies with a staff of several people. The simplicity makes it easy to use for staff without much training. It is also simple for management to see how staff is using their time. It is less recommended for individuals. Individuals interested in tracking their time have options with other apps that are more detailed. If you are interested in tracking your personal time, such as your sleeping patterns and work habits, another app would be a better fit. | <urn:uuid:b7a685db-2b17-4520-bb1d-6ce1bcdf11af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timeandtracking.appappeal.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966166 | 641 | 1.554688 | 2 |
These new golf rules will be in effect beginning January 1, 2012.
Please share with fellow
President BHO has recently appointed a Golf Czar and
major rule changes in the game of golf will become effective in December 2011.
This is only a preview as the complete rule book (expect 2000 pages) is being
rewritten as we speak. Here are a few of the changes.
- below 10 will have their green fees increased by 35%.
between 11 and 18 will see no increase in green fees.
- above 18 will get a
$20 check each time they play.
The term "gimmie" will be changed to
"entitlement" and will be used as follows:
- handicaps below 10, no
- handicaps from 11 to 18, entitlements for putter length
- handicaps above 18, if your ball is on green, no need to putt, just
pick it up.
These entitlements are intended to bring about fairness and,
most importantly, equality in scoring. In addition, a Player will be limited to
a maximum of one birdie or six pars in any given 18-hole round. Any excess must
be given to those fellow players who have not yet scored a birdie or par. Only
after all players have received a birdie or par from the player actually making
the birdie or par, can that player begin to count his pars and birdies again.
The current USGA handicap system will be used for the above purposes, but the
term "net score" will be available only for scoring those players with handicaps
of 18 and above.
This is intended to "re-distribute" the success of
winning by making sure that in every competition, the above 18 handicap players
will post only "net score" against every other player's "gross score". These new
Rules are intended to CHANGE the game of golf.
Golf must be about
Fairness. It should have nothing to do with ability, hard work, practice, and
responsibility. This is the "Right thing to do." | <urn:uuid:abd0aeb2-be34-44f1-b4af-20dc01803a0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://912member.blogspot.jp/2012/01/new-federal-golf-rules-by-newly-minted.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94722 | 442 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The D-Major mazurka is listed as No. 54 and the revision as 55. This second one does look much different and is also longer than the first one by two lines.
I think this is correct and for your information, I have sheets on all mazurkas from no.1 to no.59. The 59:th, also named as Dabrowski Mazurka, has a text "with the refrain elaborated by Fryderyk Chopin"...whatever that means.
One thing that can be done about legality is to create your own sheets from scratch but that is a very time consuming work. I did that for the waltzes 18-20 and it took and least 20 hour for each waltz. | <urn:uuid:dfd7d5bb-7248-491d-84af-1a3ea1c331b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pianosociety.com/new/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=7464 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984559 | 153 | 1.53125 | 2 |
WATCH. LISTEN. LEARN. EXPLORE.
Launched by The Chicago Community Trust in 1990 to spark discussion and understanding on matters of vital interest to Chicago-area communities, Chicago Matters is the nation's longest-running multimedia public affairs series. Learn More
Global Visionaries: Dr. Funmi Olopade
Tuesday, December 8, at 7 pm
Dr. Funmi Olopade is a geneticist at the University of Chicago and an expert in assessing who is most likely to develop cancer and why. Find out why Olopade believes that the place we call home is a big factor in our risk for the disease- whether we hail from the South Side of Chicago or from Nigeria.
Global Visionaries: Ali Emadi
Tuesday, November 24, at 7 pm
Professor Ali Emadi heads one of the most trailblazing research programs in the United States focusing on electric hybrid vehicles. Among the lab's creations is a plug-in Hybrid Ford F-150 conversion pickup truck. Take a look at the work of Dr. Emadi and his students, as they help pioneer the next generation of sustainable vehicles.
Global Visionaries: Adrian Holovaty
Tuesday, September 15, at 7 pm
Weĺre introduced to Adrian Holovaty, a Naperville native and Founder of everyblock.com, a local neighborhood web site that presents information, news, and data at the neighborhood level. The site was recently sold to MSNBC.
The U.S. now gets more crude oil from Canada than any other country. The majority of that oil is processed here in Midwest refineries. Elizabeth Brackett tells us why some critics say the environmental costs of the heavier, dirtier Canadian crude are much too high.
Global Visionaries: Jeanne Gang
Tuesday, June 23, at 7 pm
Have you noticed the Aqua Tower, the latest 82-story addition to the Chicago skyline? Its chief designer Jeanne Gang discusses that building and her other structures that are reshaping not only the skyline, but the way many think about architecture.
Chicago Tonight examines a new city ordinance that allows the reuse of construction soil and rubble. The Chicago Department of Environment believes the ordinance will save the taxpayers money and reduce carbon emissions, but some environmentalists believe that the debris could be contaminated with chemicals that could be harmful to the environment, as well as residents. The ordinance has created an alliance between those environmental groups and waste haulers.
What role will wind energy plan in the region’s future? Right now, the industry is enjoying remarkable growth—but not without growing pains. Rich Samuels will have that story.
Correspondent: Rich Samuels
Global Visionaries: Dr. Carla Pugh
Tuesday, April 28, at 7 pm
Dr. Carla Pugh was frustrated with the lack of hands-on training in medical school so decided to do something about it. She created simulators so medical students could hone their skills without fear of injuring patients. Now she is the director of the Center for Advanced Surgical Education at Northwestern University where she uses innovative methods to train residents. Dr. Pugh holds a patent on the sensor and data acquisition technologies used to measure and characterize the sense of touch. Currently, more than 100 medical and nursing schools use her sensor enabled training tools.
Housing Deconstruction, Tuesday, April 14, at 7 pm
In this week's Chicago Matters, we‘ll look at how to preserve the environment by deconstructing homes piece-by-piece. We will speak with a contractor who takes apart old homes, so that the materials can be re-used. Correspondent Christian Farr will also visit a newly established warehouse that stores used housing materials. And we’ll take a closer look at a program that is teaching a new workforce how to properly deconstruct old homes.
WTTW's first Chicago Matters: Beyond Burnham episode spans a full hour on Chicago Tonight. Christian Farr will introduce us to the Starlight project—the "internet of the future"—and explain why its hub is located here. And Rich Samuels will look at calls to modernize the infrastructure of the Illinois Waterways system. Watch all of the segments of this special Chicago Matters: Beyond Burnham episode below:
Everyblock.com provides block-by-block 'hyper-local' coverage of Chicago's neighborhoods through rounding up previously-difficult-to-access information on zoning and development changes, crime stats and public health issues.
Selected as a Visionary for: Creating an innovative, game-changing approach to local news coverage in Chicago and other American cities.
Dr. Olufunmilayo (Funmi) Olopade, Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics, Director of the Cancer Risk Clinic, University of Chicago Medical Center
An expert in cancer risk assessment and treatment, particularly in breast cancer research and treatment.
Selected as a Visionary for: Bringing a unique inter-disciplinary and international approach to the prevention and treatment of cancer and extending high-end care to typically underserved populations at home and aboard.
Maxine Brown, Associate Director, Electronic Visualization Laboratory, Co-Developer of the Starlight Project, University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago's Starlight Project is the largest North American hub of an international fiber optic network that allows scientists to store, see and communicate visual and other cutting-edge research data in real-time.
Selected as a Visionary for: Taking our city's reputation as a communications hub into the twenty-first century by helping to build North America's largest digital hub in downtown Chicago.
You Matter…and we want to know what you have to say.Join the Public Forum Chicago Matters: Beyond Burnham's Public Forum is where you can engage in discussions and information sessions around this year's topic of environmental sustainability: | <urn:uuid:6290d774-07e5-401f-9539-8369508cc494> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931265 | 1,197 | 1.679688 | 2 |
KEVIN WILSON: Pitfalls of a lottery winner mentality
Did you buy a Powerball ticket before the big drawing on Wednesday? Isn’t it funny that some people won’t buy a ticket when the jackpot is only a few million but man oh man, if it gets into the hundreds of millions then it’s worth the investment.
Neosho Daily News - Neosho, MO
Updated Nov. 30, 2012 @ 12:20 am
Updated Nov. 30, 2012 @ 12:20 am
» Social News
Did you buy a Powerball ticket before the big drawing on Wednesday? Isn’t it funny that some people won’t buy a ticket when the jackpot is only a few million but man oh man, if it gets into the hundreds of millions then it’s worth the investment. Does that mean they wouldn’t be happy with a couple of million versus 500 million? Of course not.
But, for many people they just don’t think about it until the media hypes the fact that the fund has entered into another stratosphere of possibilities. Then they jump on the bandwagon and buy that one ticket that will take care of all their problems (if it’s a winner).
The sad part is that many of those that win huge jackpots end up in bankruptcy in a very short period of time and end up worse off than if they had never won. Why? They never had to deal with that much money before and they go wild spending without any thought of what happens when the money runs out. And the money can always run out if you spend more than you make.
Kind of reminds me of what is happening in Washington at this very moment. Only in this case the lottery is called taxes and many spend our money with no thought of what happens when they run out. And, no matter how much money you print there is always a day of reckoning when the IOU’s come due.
For Greece that day is now. For the United States we may not be far behind if we continue spending money we don’t have on things we can’t afford. I’ve heard people in Jefferson City say that if you add a million dollars here and a million there then eventually you would be talking about real money. The sad part is that a lot of politicians think that very way.
They think that you really shouldn’t worry about the small budget items because it really doesn’t mean that much.
And, are they really that much different than the average American? I know that a lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and count every penny but how many others waste their money on little things because they just don’t think it matters. Well, to take the analogy of the politicians and downsize it, a dollar here and a dollar there and eventually you are talking about some real money.
But, that doesn’t seem to be the American way anymore. Many in our society just live in the present without any real thought to the future and many of our elected leaders follow that same philosophy. And, those that don’t are ostracized by the left-leaning liberal media as being cruel and heartless – just because they don’t want to spend money we don’t have on more government spending.
Just as is the case with the lottery winners, eventually the money has to run out and then what do we do? A lot of people are now starting to worry about the fiscal cliff that we are about to charge off of. Folks, if our leaders don’t come up with some quick solutions, then taxes will increase, programs will be slashed and all of us will suffer from the economic fallout. Our fiscal day of reckoning is coming quicker than most people realize.
So, what’s the answer? Most people say that we need a combination of additional revenue and cuts in spending. My very real fear is that we will end up with a compromise that increases taxes without any true cuts in spending. I remember John McCormack asking me one time on his radio show if we were actually cutting spending in Jefferson City or were we merely cutting the amount of the increases in spending. At the time we were actually reducing government spending but most of the time in government it is the latter.
I know that I didn’t win the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday (and yes I was one of those that bought a ticket) so I don’t have to worry about what to do with a windfall of cash. I just hope and pray that our national leaders will somehow come to understand that they haven’t won the lottery either. That the money they are spending belongs to the American people and we expect them to spend it wisely.
But, unfortunately, many of our leaders follow the example of Popeye’s friend Wimpy when he said “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” My friends, Tuesday is here for our federal government and we don’t have enough to pay for that $14 trillion hamburger. But that won’t stop them from ordering another one and worry about paying for it the next Tuesday. How many more hamburgers are they going to buy on credit? My guess is a whole bag full and more and that’s what truly scares me.
Kevin Wilson writes a weekly column for the Daily News. | <urn:uuid:487ef1a6-89ae-4eb0-b069-35baa86b042f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neoshodailynews.com/article/20121130/OPINION/121139991/1004/NEWS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966354 | 1,126 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Visiting Lyon in December is like taking part in a big Hollywood production. There are lights, cameras and a lot of action. Filled with thousands, if not millions, of light bulbs, the small city lights up and simply buzzes with life for four unforgettable days whilst celebrating its biggest and most popular creation, the Festival of Lights.
A major annual event in the city, the festival attracted over four million tourists in 2011 alone. This year, projection equipment was set up in 66 different locations, using new technology and processes to give the city's historic buildings, streets and even hills a new dimension.
CLICK ON PHOTO FOR FULL GALLERY
This year’s main attractions included The King of Dragons, made from recycled materials and LED screens, Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada's romantic heart, and a spectacular symphony played on the three facades of Lyon's main square, Place des Terreaux.
The festival dates all the way back to 1643, a difficult period in Lyon when the plague was decimating the population. According to legend, the Virgin Mary saved the city from the plague and, to thank her, a statue was built. On that day, the whole city was lit by candles that the locals had put on their windows.
It is in this French city that you can walk through 2000 years of history, stroll through the different districts chosen by UNESCO as part of World Heritage, and see everything from Roman architecture to today’s finest creations.
Discover the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, the roman-era theatres and museums such as the Fine Arts Museum, one of the largest art galleries in France.
Getting around is both easy and pleasurable by bicycle, and at just one euro per person and per kilometre, it's an extremely affordable option. Or you can opt for Lyon's city card; it's cheap and provides free access to all museums, the public transport and even a free guided tour around the city. A one day pass for an adult is 21.00€. The best way to plan your trip is to visit www.onlylyon.org, the city's official tourism office site where you can plan the your whole trip, including a look at the best restaurants.
Where to eat and what to try
Lyon is known as the French capital of gastronomy, due in part to the presence of many of the country's finest chefs in the city. Also, two of France's best known wine-growing regions are located nearby: Beaujolais and Côtes du Rhône.
Traditional local dishes include rosette lyonnaise and saucisson de Lyon (sausage); andouillette (a sausage of coarsely cut tripe); and coq au vin (chicken in wine).
The food market, Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, is the perfect place to buy the ingredients for you to rustle up these famous dishes yourself.
Inside you will find meat from renowned butcher Maurice Trolliet and the best Bresse poultry from Les Volailles Clugnet, along with the most delicious of French cheese in the hands of La Mere Richard (now her daughter), the "Queen of Lyonnaise Artisan Cheese" – whose Saint Marcellin cheese is savoured throughout the country and beyond.
Where to stay
The new four-star Novotel hotel located in the heart of the new Confluence district between the Rhône and Saône rivers is full of luxury and near the leisure and shopping districts. The price per night starts at around 165€.
If what you are looking for is a hotel in the heart of Lyon, then choose the Elysee Hotel Lyon situated very close the the Town Hall. A double room is available for 75€ per night.
For a more economic option, turn to www.hostelbookers.com incredible hostels in the heart of Lyon from just 30€.
Report: Andrea Caamano, Picture Editor | <urn:uuid:31f25a16-5ee4-455c-b54b-38384f9b3200> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hellomagazine.com/travel/2012121210414/lyon-festival-of-lights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945361 | 831 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Nipping Orange Roses In The Bud -- Post-Soviet Elites Against Revolution
Central Asia has already witnessed a number of official actions apparently inspired by events in Ukraine. In Kazakhstan, for example, where the 19 September parliamentary elections took place amid opposition allegations of unfair practices, the authorities have dissolved a prominent opposition party, filed tax charges against the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan, and initiated a defamation lawsuit against Zamanbek Nurkadilov, a former high-ranking official turned harsh critic of President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
The court ruling to dissolve Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK), a prominent opposition party, is one of the clearest examples of a link between events in Ukraine and seemingly preemptive government action elsewhere. Top figures from DVK traveled to Kyiv in late November and party leader Asylbek Qojakhmetov even addressed demonstrators supporting presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, as Qojakhmetov recounted to "Navigator" in a 29 November interview.
Perhaps emboldened by this experience, the DVK adopted a strongly worded statement at a party conference on 11 December. It read, in part: "Not recognizing this president [Nursultan Nazarbaev] and this parliament as lawful, we thus deny the legitimacy of the entire power structure. In our actions, we will base ourselves not on the decisions of thieving governors and kangaroo courts, but on how human rights and freedoms are understood in free countries.... We call on all healthy forces in society to take decisive actions, including actions of civil disobedience. Only by uniting forces will it be possible to free ourselves from the family clan that has usurped power."
On 6 January, an Almaty court cited this passage when it ruled that the DVK must be dissolved for incitement to unlawful action. Though Kazakhstan's opposition and international rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have called on President Nazarbaev's government to review the decision, DVK has already lost one appeal, and future appeals appear likely to meet the same fate.
In Kyrgyzstan, which many observers have named as a possible candidate for the next revolution and where parliamentary elections on 27 February are fast approaching, a prominent opposition figure has found herself barred from participation in the upcoming election. On 6 January, a district election commission refused to allow former Foreign Minister Roza Otunbaeva, co-chairperson of the opposition bloc Ata-Jurt, to run in Bishkek's University District, arguing that Otunbaeva has resided abroad during the last five years. Otunbaeva, who was working abroad as a diplomat, has argued that the extraterritoriality principle should allow her to run. The in-country residency requirement has also prevented three former ambassadors from running for parliament.
Ata-Jurt and other opposition groups have organized protests in Bishkek, gathering as many as 500 people on 19 January, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reported. In a nod to Ukraine's Orange Revolution, the protestors decked themselves out in yellow to symbolize coming change. Demonstrators' demands have gone beyond participation for Otunbaeva and the ex-envoys, extending to calls for an end to the rule of President Askar Akaev and his family (two of Akaev's children are running for parliament, one of them in the same district where Otunbaeva's candidacy was blocked).
President Akaev has already said that he will not run for another term in the October presidential elections. While he has not anointed a successor, he has emerged as a staunch foe of all "rose" and "orange" revolutions. In an article in Russia's official "Rossiiskaya gazeta" on 8 June, months before demonstrations convulsed Kyiv, Akaev pointedly compared Western efforts to export democracy with the Bolshevik export of revolution. In early January, the Kyrgyz president decried Ukraine's Orange Revolution for splitting the country in two and nearly igniting a civil war. And when Kyrgyzstan's opposition demonstrated in Bishkek to protest Otunbaeva's exclusion from elections, Akaev was scornful, saying, "Our homegrown provocateurs now have skilled coaches."
In his statements condemning the Georgian and Ukrainian models of revolutionary change, Akaev has provided a guide to sentiments that are common among uneasy defenders of the post-Soviet status quo. His mention of the Bolsheviks is particularly apt, with its implication of blind faith, conspiratorial politics, and a drive for control. In this view, events in Georgia and Ukraine represent the cunning manipulation of domestic dissatisfaction by outside forces -- usually seen as the United States -- that disregard local traditions as they attempt to impose their vision on other societies (blind faith), work by funding democracy-promotion organizations to support local intermediaries (conspiratorial politics), and aim to extend their influence through the installation of more pliant and pro-Western -- usually understood as pro-American -- regimes (drive for control).
The importance of this view lies not in its arguable analytical insights, but rather in its power to determine the future actions of post-Soviet ruling elites with a vested interest in preventing what they see as dangerous political change. Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovskii, for example, has stressed that this particular understanding of events in Georgia and Ukraine has a firm hold on the Kremlin's political imagination. In an interview with RosBalt on 6 January, Belkovskii noted that the Kremlin is now miffed at the United States because it feels that "Washington didn't let them install Viktor Yanukovych as president of Ukraine (although the outbreak of revolution in Kyiv was not Washington's doing, but you can't convince the Kremlin of this, so what can you do)." Later, in an interview with "Novye izvestiya" on 14 January, Belkovskii was asked whom the Kremlin would blame for its "defeat" in Ukraine. He replied: "The Kremlin doesn't recognize its defeat. They feel that they did everything right.... It's just that America interfered, and an 800-pound gorilla does what it wants."
How, then, to prevent further outbreaks of revolutionary fervor? Russian political strategist Gleb Pavlovskii, one of the architects of the Russian effort to support Ukrainian presidential candidate Yanukovych, gave perhaps the clearest indication in a widely quoted 7 December interview with "Nezavisimaya gazeta." Asked whether the involvement of Russian strategists harmed the Yanukovych campaign, Pavlovskii replied, "The harm to [Yanukovych's] election campaign was done by a revolution that didn't get punched in the face in time."
Taken together, the conspiratorial understanding of revolutionary political change and the need to "punch the revolution in the face" before it gets off the ground imply a strategy of preemptive strikes against opposition politicians and perceived conduits of malign outside influence. Pavlovskii's colorful phrase should not be taken too literally; overly aggressive moves could provoke international censure and domestic disgruntlement. Decisions by courts and election commissions to trim opposition prospects in elections, along with efforts to bring to heel Western-funded democracy-promotion organizations and NGOs are more likely to prove the weapon of choice.
Moreover, worried elites will surely look to not only to the negative -- from their perspective -- experience of Tbilisi and Kyiv, but also to the positive -- once again, from their perspective -- experiences of such places as Uzbekistan, where December parliamentary elections went off quietly without the participation of any opposition parties.
A strategy of preemptive punches involves at least one significant risk, however. It presumes that nothing really revolutionary is afoot, that politics is first and foremost about manipulation, and that the best way to maintain political stability is to seek out conspiracies and head them off at the pass. This runs the risk of reducing politics to a game of cat and mouse that leaves real concerns to fester unattended, which could eventually prove a far greater threat to stability than any "rose" or "orange" revolution.
Latest from Kyrgyzstan
We would like to hear your opinion about the new site. Tell us what you like, and what you don't like in an email and send it to: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:6142633b-2c01-40ea-a54d-1d66a65e11bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav012105.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962567 | 1,714 | 1.5 | 2 |
St Teilo’s Church
St Fagans under snow: Tomorrow's guided tours of St Teilo's Church going ahead - if the snow holds back!
The St Fagans site isn’t usually this quiet: even on blustery November afternoons, determined (but soggy) visitors can be found walking the site, exploring the galleries and the historic buildings. This week, however, the only surge in visitors has been the amazing array of birds we’ve seen reclaiming the hedgerows and, out of necessity, brazenly venturing near the offices and mess rooms in search of food. Only last Friday I was kept company by a pair of Lapwings, who were enjoying the last of the afternoon sun outside the museum's main entrance.
The only human traffic on our pathways has been a small army of Museum Assistants, Craftspeople and Agriculturers, busy clearing snow and gritting. The textures, colours and smells of our Christmas Nights event* are now long-gone; tipp-exed out and muted. The site is eerily empty - though it is incredibly beautiful, it has not been safe enough to let visitors in on several occasions during the last week or so.
In the snow, St Teilo's Church does not look as dazzling as last year: as is the custom with traditional buildings, the bright limewash covering the outer wall has taken the brunt of the season's weather, and will be re-applied next spring when it is milder. The interior, as ever, is still as vibrant as it was when the reconstruction was officially opened in 2007, and, we hope, as it would have looked in 1500-1530.
The wall painting scheme is now finished, bar a few Latin inscriptions, which are proving harder to decipher than previously thought. The north chapel design, including figures of Saints Dewi and Teilo, as well as what is thought to be male and female portraits of local patrons, were composed by copying fragments plaster from the church in its original location. Where the plaster had deteriorated, or the pigment faded, we looked at better preserved mural sequences in Wales in order to come up with appropriate evidence for the missing parts.
While the north chapel is not directly accessible to the visiting public (partly because the east end of the church houses some of the oldest furniture in our collection), these murals are visible through the carved screens in the church. These, too, have had a new lease of life, through the work of Fleur Kelly, who has worked with our own in-house painters on several aspects of the church’s painted carvings.
If the snow holds back, the advertised guided tours of the Church will go ahead tomorrow and Friday (14-15 Jan); starting at 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00. Those interested in attending are encouraged to telephone us before starting their journey, to ensure that the museum is open and accessible, on (029) 2057 3500. The church is a ten-minute walk from the main entrance on a clear day, so please bear this in mind when choosing your footwear!
Wrap up warm, and hope to see you there!
*That's treacle; fairy lights; brass bands; bay leaves; woodsmoke and wet boots, in case you were wondering...
St Teilo’s Church | <urn:uuid:ba158516-db30-4754-ab80-69528772759d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/blog/?month=2010-01&cat=410 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973596 | 699 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Coles fined for worker’s fallPUBLISHED: 27 Apr 2012 11:37:00 | UPDATED: 28 Apr 2012 11:31:01PRINT EDITION: 27 Apr 2012
The Industrial Court of NSW fined Coles and ordered it to pay WorkCover's legal costs. Photo: Josh Robenstone
Supermarket giant Coles has been fined $170,000 and ordered to pay legal costs after a worker fell through a ceiling at a store in Sydney five years ago.
The worker, then 42, climbed over a handrail to access promotional material stored on a suspended plasterboard ceiling at the company's Manly store in August 2007.
The plasterboard collapsed and she fell more than two metres, suffering lacerations to the head, whiplash and bruising.
A WorkCover investigation found Coles knew it was dangerous to use the roof cavity for storage and had built a railing and posted a warning sign.
But management had not undertaken a risk assessment to determine how much weight the plasterboard could bear, and had failed to adequately instruct staff not to access the area or use it for storage, WorkCover said in a statement on Friday.
The Industrial Court of NSW fined the company and ordered it to pay WorkCover's legal costs.
"This business employs more 23,000 people in 238 stores across NSW, so the safety procedures of this company are relevant to a lot of people," WorkCover's Work Health and Safety general manager John Watson said.
"This particular area should never have been allowed to be used to store merchandise and Coles management should have been more vigilant.
"While store management knew the area was not safe, the area was still used for storage and there was no proper information or training given to staff to warn of the risk." | <urn:uuid:96cc62a2-da65-4ee8-af0a-e7ba27ab1ccd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/coles_fined_for_worker_fall_P9a5VzyQiRBlhfXwKDD2HL | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961984 | 366 | 1.5625 | 2 |
IRC in Silver Spring Cultural Orientation Program – Up and Running!
Since offering its first training in August 2011, 84 refugees resettling in the Silver Spring region have received intensive training through the IRC’s Cultural Orientation Program. The refugees participating in this program are not just those resettled by IRC, but rather include individuals from Lutheran Social Services (LSS) and Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) as well. Sessions have been held in Tigrinya, Amharic, Arabic, Swahili, Nepali, Burmese, French, and Farsi, and have been facilitated with the use of trained, in-person interpreters. Each CO session covers topics including: transportation, resettlement assistance, public benefits, US laws, emergencies and safety, budgeting, housing, and health.
Cultural Orientation Coordinator, Katherine Rehberg, teaching a student Financial Literacy
At the beginning of each session, participants are asked, “What do you want to know about life in America?” During a November session offered in Nepali, Narayan Gurung and his wife Maya* shared many questions and concerns. “How do I find a job?” “What do I do if I get lost on the bus?” “How do I ask someone for help if I’m lost on the street?” “How much can I buy with a dollar?” Having spent the last decade living in a refugee camp in Nepal, the couple was eager to begin rebuilding their life in America, together with extended family and friends also resettled in the Washington, DC area. The adjustment process was harder than they had first expected, though, as the couple struggled with unfamiliar aspects of US life and culture. In spite of their family’s assistance, they faced challenges accessing the healthcare system, managing their money, using their Food Stamp benefits to purchase groceries, and figuring out how to use household appliances. Their limited English proficiency, lack of transferrable employment skills, and illiteracy exacerbated these difficulties, and the couple voiced their frustration and sadness at their significant challenges.
Narayan and Maya were active CO participants, sharing their experiences and problem solving with other newly-arrived families. They practiced saying their address aloud and counting American coins. They slowly came to understand the differences between the different organizations working together to provide their resettlement services, and by the end of the session had gained confidence navigating the complexities of American life.
Families like Narayan and Maya, and the many other refugees and asylees being served by the IRC in Silver Spring, are gaining these important skills and learning valuable information through the Cultural Orientation sessions. Though the many questions they bring can be complex and challenging, CO participants bring extensive experience and an unparalleled desire to succeed to class. Their willingness to learn, share, teach and grow together enables them to accelerate and deepen their understanding of their new life in America.
*Clients names have been changed for confidentiality | <urn:uuid:fe305bb6-c309-4ce2-b498-35f29bb6ad2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rescue.org/us-program/us-silver-spring-md/irc-silver-spring-cultural-orientation-program-%e2%80%93-and-running | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960563 | 616 | 1.609375 | 2 |
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Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009
Japan's gifted children
By AMY CHAVEZ
There are many gifted children in the world, but Japan would have to have the highest number. I'd estimate that nearly 100 percent of Japanese children are gifted. It's not hard to be a gifted child in Japan though.
I mean, think about it, since you've been in Japan, how many gifts have you received? A few hundred? A few thousand? Imagine how many a Japanese child receives by the time he is 5. This is because in Japan, where generosity is extreme, people are emphatic gift-givers.
I've received, at last count, 1 million gifts from friends, colleagues and unknown drunks on the street.
Japan must be the world's top country in gift giving. In April this year Japan earmarked $14 billion in aid to developing countries.
So it's no surprise that inside Japan people are tossing around gifts like volleyballs. You give me a gift, I give you one back. I give you a gift, you give two back.
Even the two words, "give" and "gift," sound similar. If someone pointed a gun at you and said, "Gift me all your money!" you'd do just that. It's quite possible that the word gift was formulated from the past tense of "give," which is, of course, "gived."
I express concern for Japan's gifted children because they are at risk of becoming over-gifted. It's no wonder gomi yashiki (trash houses) are a problem here.
Did you ever consider that YOU might be the person gifting someone to the point they must use the great outdoors to store all their stuff? And why should authorities fine those people for having too much junk if they're victims of over-gifting? They should fine the gift-givers instead, or at least put a restraining order on them.
I even wonder if some older people's deaths aren't due to over-gifting. It is said that anything in excess is bad for you, so theoretically, if you've lived long enough, "over-gifted" could be a cause of death.
Which prompts the next question: Do the Japanese people still give gifts to people after they're dead? Are our graves going to become gomi yashiki as gifts pile up around us? And will our relatives be fined for this?
One way to protect ourselves from becoming victims of over-gifting is to enforce some kind of quality control. We've all received gifts that elicit a reaction such as, "Huh?" or "What the . . . ?!" Bauble-headed dolls, knick-knacks and other "thingies" like this should be banned as they are a waste of resources.
Most people will just throw them out after a week — the unofficial statue of limitations on the amount of time you must keep, and display, a gift (or until the next time the gift-giver visits your house, whichever comes first).
My policy is to only give gifts that people can easily get rid of: food. Food produces only one type of waste.
Gifting is closely related to another custom in Japan which I call "favoring." On the principle of "One good turn deserves another," people are constantly returning favors, often in the form of gifts. These simple exchanges do not necessarily end there. The person returning the favor has, in effect, performed another favor, and soon they are engaged in a bout of favoring with no tangible end.
This ensures that both gifting and favoring operate daily at a frenzied pace as both parties attempt to return the other's favor, resulting in a ping-pong effect.
I am currently in one of these bouts with some neighbors, which originated with an invitation to their house for dinner at the beginning of the summer. We've been inviting each other for dinner once or twice a week ever since.
Since there are so many of these bouts, where we exchange gifts frequently with friends and neighbors, another way to avoid becoming over-gifted is to agree on a common gift and exchange the same gift back and forth on all occasions.
For example, my neighbor Kazu-chan and I, who are constantly exchanging gifts, could settle on something nice, like a car. When Kazu-chan wants to return a favor, rather than giving me a gift, she gives me this car. When I want to return her favor, I give her the car back. Along with a full tank and a box of fruit on the front seat. | <urn:uuid:82831dd9-2924-4e9d-9aff-6563c83c2161> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://info.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20091017cz.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969601 | 1,020 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Stuart Hole Fire Burning Northwest of Fort Collins, Some Evacuations Ordered
The Stuart Hole Fire is burning approximately 40 miles northwest of Fort Collins on private land in a sparsely populated area. The size of the fire is currently estimated at about 200 acres. Approximately 100 firefighters are expected to be working the fire by this evening. Some evacuations have been ordered and at least one structure has been burned, while others are threatened as the fire grows.
A Single Engine Air Tanker and Type 3 helicopter are on scene. An Air Attack control plane has been ordered. 13 homes have been evacuated in the Boxer Ranch Subdivision on Boxer Ranch Road. The evacuation center is the Livermore Community Hall located at 1985 West CR74E, approximately one and half miles west of the Forks. Large animals can be taken to The Ranch at the Larimer County Fairgrounds.
Pre-evacuation notices remain in place for residents north and south of CR82E from CR80C and CR67J including Cherokee Meadows Road.
Emphasis at this time is structure protection. The fire is burning in grass and ponderosa pine. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.
We will continue to share information as it becomes available on the Stuart Hole Fire. | <urn:uuid:6db40825-72e2-447d-b145-90dc3890425b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tri1025.com/grass-fire-ignited-northwest-of-fort-collins-near-livermore-monday-afternoon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952865 | 258 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Starcraft Brood War: Shuttles in Protoss Versus Terran
A short discussion on their uses. Tactics and strategies associated with them will also be highlighted.
As a side benefit, the reaver requires only a single additional building (the robotics support bay) to make. It’s a very streamlined tech choice. Even the robotics support bay itself can help the tactic by offering the speed upgrade for the shuttle as well as improvements to the reaver. Unless the opponent commit to lots of turrets, goliaths or some wraiths, the shuttle reaver will continue to plague the terran. For the moment though, we’ll delay looking at specific games and talk about shuttles as…
SHUTTLES AS TRANSPORTS??
It may seem silly at first sight, but consider the previous cargo of the shuttle. They tend to be rather lone rangers that aim for a quick hit and run. Sometimes they’ll be used in a battle to abuse spider mines or the splash damage of a siege tank.
Think about how Zerg players sometimes use overlords early in the game for a surprise drop into the Terran base. Done correctly, it can catch the Terran player completely by surprise. Yet the shuttle can generally be acquired earlier than the overlord drop upgrade. While not necessarily useful in all games, it can prove deadly when used to capitalize on an advantage at times. The game below shows how Movie kept the pressure up by sneaking a small strike force while Fantasy is still reeling from his earlier attack.
As Movie’s fans may say, it’s just like a Movie!
Defensively, shuttles can be useful when facing a Terran opponent where there are a lot of cliffs. Terran players love to abuse this aspect of certain maps and place annoying siege tanks and other units on the high ground. The shuttle comes in handy at countering such tactics.
SHUTTLE’S FULL POTENTIAL?
We’ll end this short article by highlighting a famous Ever 2008 OSL game between Nada and Best. Here, Best uses the shuttles almost as a mass transport. Instead of priotizing on gas and getting very quick arbiters, Best placed a lot of faith in his shuttles and made very extensive use of them.
Best showing an uncommon style. His play is an argument that perhaps the potential of the shuttle may not yet be fully realized by Protoss players in PvT. Best’s opponent Nada finds the argument a difficult one to resist. | <urn:uuid:6e39ca4f-ad31-49ec-a57e-f95ac325dc52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gameolosophy.com/games/starcraft-brood-war-shuttles-in-protoss-versus-terran/3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934493 | 520 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Public Art Commission, Where is Heidenheim? Tina O'Connell and Neal White
O'Connell, T., White, N. and Vermuri, V. (2010) Public Art Commission, Where is Heidenheim? Tina O'Connell and Neal White. [Artefact]
Full text not archived in this repository.
Official URL: http://www.bildhauersymposion.heidenheim.com/fs_10...
Research undertaken through significant public art commission. The researchers were both artists were selected separately by Dr Penelope Curtis of Tate and then the shortlist was awarded through competition (peer reviewed by Critics and Artist in Germany) part of the Heidenheim Sculpture Biennial, Germany (€18K). The work was realised by two companies in Heidenheim. Where is Heidenheim? was based within the Heidenheim Zietung newspaper[HZ] and drew together a site of a local paper in a small town in Germany with other local International papers; Wendover Times – Utah, USA;, Limerick Leader, Ireland; Free Imphal Press, Manipur, India; Hibr, Lebanon; Namibia Times, Namibia and The Countryman, Tasmania, Australia. Each of these papers ran a story showing a sign erected onto HZ in Heidenheim, which was subsequently printed inside HZ itself – linking together sites and local voices. Project research identifying global partners was conducted through the management of a PhD research student from the BU Media School - Venkata Vermuri. The work for both artists expands the context of their research into the impact of global networks on public art, and the traditions and norms of public art being confined to single ‘geographical’ sites. This research indicates the potential for media as a common public space that can also be used.
Repository Staff Only: item control page | <urn:uuid:1bb5dfa4-04eb-4749-b100-03c54b661fc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/28957/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935684 | 388 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Anniversaries serve not only as occasions for community celebration, but as a good excuse to show or commission artists. Take the America 1976 exhibition tour organized by the Department of Interior for the U.S. bicentennial. As SFMOMA was the seventh venue for this predominantly landscape painting show, I imagine it threatened to be a rather boring curatorial prospect. Curators Suzanne Foley and Rolando Castellón each smartly used it, though, as an occasion to produce offsite installations and outdoor events by a handful of Bay Area artists who were working in the environment and largely hadn’t been shown by the museum before. Suzanne Hellmuth and Jock Reynolds’s nonfunctional extensions to the existing exercise parcourse directly related to framing the view of the Bridge and inserting one’s body within it. The SFMOMA series remains an important precedent for our offsite commissions.
In the images below of various performance interventions and sponsored installations, the bridge plays more of a supporting than a starring role, to current and former Bay Area artists: Suzanne Hellmuth and Jock Reynolds, Vince Grippi and Peter Richards, Richard Kamler, Peter d’Agostino, Jill Scott, and Bonnie Ora Sherk.
“The work was sited along the Golden Gate Promenade located in the Golden Gate Recreation Area near the Coast Guard Station at the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s popular with strollers, joggers, and photographers. Already built into this landscape was a fitness parcourse with structures labeled for particular exercises (vaulting, chin-ups, etc.) with intervals for jogging between exercise stations. We built three more stations extending west from the furthest official station. These Three Over Par structures were built of the same redwood beam materials as the fitness stations; however, offered no instructions for use.”
– Suzanne Hellmuth and Jock Reynolds: Photographs and Documents, 1975–1985
“We completed a series of experimental light sculptures in the late ’70s that engaged the intersection between water and air. Our interest lay in the relationship between the dynamics of these two liquid forms. Tides, currents, and waves on one side and the movement of the winds and their invisible turbulence on the other. Using chemi-luminescent lights, floating on the surface of the water and/or held aloft by helium balloons, these beacons acted as movement tracers whose personalities reflected the conditions of the night.
The work at Fort Point was designed to respond to an eddy formed by the flow of the incoming tide. We had discovered that at this site, the water actually flowed out through the Golden Gate when the tide was rising and water was coming into the Bay. We used this phenomenon to create a work that was flowing with the water and wind at the beginning of the cycle and then spun around 180 degrees when the eddy formed.”
– email from Peter Richards
“The pyramid seems appropriate for a number of reasons: 1) the communal aspect involved with their construction (I have long felt that it is within the context of a shared task that a community is formed); 2) it is a symbol of solidity and aspiration that crosses cultural boundaries; 3) the clarity and simplicity of its shape allows all people to relate to it equally; 4) it is a welcoming image for the King Tut exhibit currently touring the U.S. and scheduled for San Francisco next year.”
– Richard Kamler, excerpt from The Moving Pyramid project (1979) proposal statement, SFMOMA Research Library
“The PASSAGES video performance/installations at Fort Point (Dec 1974 and Nov 1975) were composed of live and recorded images and sounds juxtaposing my walks with those of the participants walking through the fort. Video monitors located throughout the corridors temporarily lit the darkened spaces with images of the surrounding landscape and sounds of the ocean hitting the breakers under the Golden Gate Bridge.”
– email from Peter d’Agostino
“I climbed up the steel pylons of the Golden Gate Bridge with a male assistant. As climbing the bridge is illegal we had to be careful we were not seen. The assistant then tied me to one of the girders and descended. At sunset, four security guards from the headquarters arrived on top of the bridge as someone had reported seeing a figure tied there. With a megaphone they yelled: “Come down or you will be arrested for attempted suicide.” The assistant them climbed up and cut me out of the string with a knife. It took us two hours to convince the officials that this action was ‘only’ an artwork.”
– Jill Scott, Coded Characters: Media Art by Jill Scott
“After Sitting Still I in the water I took the idea of the seated human figure to different city environments. I brought a chair with me to street corners in different neighborhoods, including the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bank of America Plaza, and also to different cages at the zoo. At that time I was feeling very much like an object on view, and the pieces were about female isolation and loneliness and were very personal expressions, although they didn’t necessarily appear to be that way. On an obvious level I was exploring how a seated human figure can transform an environment.”
– Bonnie Sherk, interview in High Performance, Fall 1981 | <urn:uuid:3513a30a-62ba-4da6-897d-9f769dd7e501> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.sfmoma.org/2012/05/seventies-action-bridge-cameos-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963412 | 1,114 | 1.742188 | 2 |
While food stores are pushing for the expansion of the maximum number of liquor licenses they can hold against resistance from liquor stores, other retailers have their own take on the issue.
The New Jersey Retail Merchants Association opposes the current proposal, which would restrict expanded licenses to stores that focus on selling food. Association President John Holub wants to see all retailers able to sell beer and wine.
The current proposal is “an expansion, but it limits the expansion,” Holub said. “If you’re making the case that this is an anticompetitive, archaic law, the only true reform is to open it up to all of the businesses, not to a select few.”
National discount chains and pharmacies are among the businesses that sell wine and beer in other states.
Holub said no one is calling for an expansion in the number of licenses, but the proposal would allow those with only two licenses to buy up to 10. He said he understands the desire to limit the expansion in the number of licenses a business can hold.
“The fact that it’s limiting the number is all the more reason why it should be open to everybody,” Holub said.
Lobbying over the issue has been occurring this summer, in anticipation of a fierce battle in the fall. While liquor stores have fought off an expansion for decades, the rise to Assembly majority leader of expansion advocate Louis D. Greenwald (D-Voorhees) has liquor stores concerned.
“For a state that touts itself to be a pro-business state, to have a law like this I think really conflicts with that,” Holub said.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority board authorized the issuance of up to $425 million in school construction bonds and notes on July 30.
Issuing the bonds will be a key step for the schools, following Gov. Chris Christie’s mid-February announcement that 20 school projects would be advancing this year.
The move drew interest from Assemblyman Albert Coutinho, who said it would lead to a wave of school construction in 2013.
“It will be interesting that next year, you’ll probably have 10 to 15 schools under construction in this state,” said Coutinho (D-Newark). “Now I (could) be cynical and say, ‘Wow, what a coincidence, it’s an election year,’ but I’m not going to go there.”
It’s an issue of keen interest to the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee chairman, who first ran for the Assembly in 2007 with a focus on problems in school development.
Coutinho noted that his home neighborhood, Newark’s Ironbound, originally was scheduled to receive six new schools, since all of its six current schools are more than 100 years old. The neighborhood’s South Street Elementary School was among those whose replacement was announced by Christie in February.
The state Schools Development Authority, headed by Marc Larkins, is the successor to the embattled Schools Construction Corp., which completed a fraction of the schools approved in a multibillion dollar construction program.
While Christie has received nearly unanimous backing from his fellow Republicans in Trenton, a Washington Republican activist issued a reminder last week that the party isn’t always on the same page regarding Christie’s handling of business issues.
Phil Kerpen is the president of American Commitment, an organization funding advertisements criticizing several Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate. He also is apparently not a fan of Christie, writing in a post on Politico’s website that Mitt Romney couldn’t pick Christie as his running mate “because Romney needs a VP to his right to keep enthusiasm up among core activists.”
Kerpen then focused on Christie’s business record: “Christie — who refused to join the health care lawsuits, but has supported $100 million for offshore windmills, a ban on coal plants, a ban on fracking, increased solar subsidies, a shopping center bailout, a casino bailout, seizing the value of unused gift cards, and a hospital bed tax hike — is clearly to Romney’s left.”
Kerpen is a former employee of Americans for Prosperity, whose state head, Steve Lonegan, was Christie’s former rival for the 2009 Republican gubernatorial nomination. Kerpen said Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey would be a “much better pick” for Romney.
Christie’s office declined to comment on the post. | <urn:uuid:b67f09d6-7362-4cb1-997a-3d2b09b62fc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.njbiz.com/article/20120813/NJBIZ01/120819980/0/nationalNews/State-Street:-Allow-beer-wine-sales-at-all-retailers-advocate-says | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961242 | 942 | 1.578125 | 2 |
More National Treasure Pictures
Historian and code-breaker Ben Gates has been searching his whole life for a rumored treasure dating back to the creation of the United States. Joining an expedition led by fellow treasure hunter Ian Howe, Gates finds an ice-locked Colonial ship in the Arctic Circle that contains a clue linking the treasure to the Declaration of Independence. But when Howe betrays him, Gates has to race to get to the document ahead of his so-called colleague.
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Trailer for: 'National Treasure' | <urn:uuid:38ec20ba-c262-4cb3-be36-34481c5d81fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://movies.zap2it.com/movies/national-treasure/35100 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933228 | 118 | 1.507813 | 2 |
ARE YOU A LEPER?
July 3, 2011
In today’s edition of the Chicago Tribune, Bruce Japsen has an excellent article entitled “A change in doctor’s orders.” Mr. Japsen’s article addresses Accountable Care Organizations, quality of care issues, and the change in how physicians will be paid in the future.
Clearly, the government and insurers have decided that physicians will not be paid for services rendered. Physicians will be paid based on patient outcomes and will share in any losses insurers sustain due to poor patient outcomes. There are going to be “quality” indicators and physicians with high “quality” scores will be paid more than those with low scores.
Are you a “Leper”? Are you overweight, out of shape, or arthritic? Do you smoke, drink alcohol, or do drugs? Do you have any chronic medical problems? Are you old, have poor eyesight, losing your hearing or memory? Are you at risk of falling?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you are the 2011 definition of a leper! Face it, if I am accountable for how well you handle an illness, and for what your outcome is, I cannot afford to treat you unless you are highly compliant, have no other risk factors, and stand a 99% chance of getting well.
Francis is 69 years old, has smoked for 30 years, has COPD, and early dementia. She is admitted for her third heart attack and I am responsible for the outcome of her hospital care. On the third day of heart hospital admission, Francis gets out of bed to get a cigarette her son snuck in (because he loves her), she falls, hits her head and chokes. The nurses get her back in bed and assess her injuries. Her wrist is broken and needs to be set. During her stay she develops pneumonia. She is treated and discharged one week later.
Rather than being paid for Francis’s care, her physician is held responsible for her poor hospital outcome. According to today’s Tribune, the broken wrist and pneumonia will be blamed on poor care. The doctor should have anticipated Francis’s fall and restrained her (restraining a patient is actually illegal). Francis has no culpability!
As a matter of fact, Francis persists in smoking; it’s her G-d given right. She is readmitted eight days later as her COPD has worsened, challenging her heart. Re-admissions are also the doctor’s fault and another black mark goes on her doctor’s report card.
Francis is a leper! ACO’s are not new. They are HMOs on steroids. In the heyday of HMOs, doctors treated patients like Francis as if they were playing “Hot Potato”. They pushed them out of their practices. Scott Sarran, M.D., a V.P. with Blue Cross, is quoted as saying, “We are strong believers in aligning incentives and paying for value. We pay them for outcomes rather than paying for procedures and visits.”
Your doctors are smart. They have spent many years in classrooms. If their incentives are realigned from the current day “caring for the patient” to the future, “caring about quality outcomes”, you had better believe that they will achieve those outcomes. If their patients’ individual foibles and bad habits get in their way, those patients will have to go somewhere else for care.
The modern day leper will be you or your neighbor. Who will care for you? If ACOs take hold, there will be very few private docs, there won’t be enough cash-paying patients to sustain their practices. I have consistently called on my patients to take personal responsibility for their health. Stop smoking, stop drinking and start exercising. Live Wellthy. Those who are healthy will love the new system. Of course, they will rarely access the ACO as they won’t need to.
Those who are not healthy and have not taken care of themselves will hate the new system. They will find it devoid of care. They will be a liability, a leper of sorts. While I have never met a leper, my understanding is that their care was inhumane. Think about Dr. Sarran’s comment, “strong believers in aligning incentives…” No place in that statement was the word “care”! Your doctors’ incentives are being realigned. You better realign your own health goals now! You don’t want to be a leper! | <urn:uuid:dd07fc66-ddec-45fe-9ed5-6d7ed110b0c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livewellthy.org/2011/07/03/are-you-a-leper.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969243 | 973 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Treatment of Artists
Mr. John J. Mahlmann
The National Association for Music Education
1806 Robert Fulton Drive
Reston, VA 20191
Dear Mr. Mahlmann:
This is in response to your letter seeking guidance on the paraprofessional education provisions of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, as they relate to artists who deliver instruction in public schools. Specifically, you requested guidance as to whether artists who deliver instruction in public schools need to meet paraprofessional qualification requirements and whether the treatment of artists as paraprofessionals applies to all artists who have instructional duties in programs supported by Federal funds, regardless of the source of those artists' salaries.
The question of whether an artist working in a school is a teacher or a paraprofessional and, if so, whether the artist must meet qualification requirements can only be answered based on the specific circumstances of each artist's individual situation. A local school district would need to make this determination consistent with the statute, regulations, and guidance.
For example, factors that determine whether an artist working in a school needs to meet teacher qualification requirements include (1) whether the artist is hired as the classroom teacher for a specific art course or is only to provide enrichment activities, (2) whether the artist is an employee of the district, and (3) whether the specific subject being taught is included in the State's definition of "the arts" as a core academic subject. (States have the flexibility to define "the arts" for the purposes of determining if a particular art is considered a "core academic subject" under the statute in the State). Factors that determine whether such an artist might be a "paraprofessional" include (1) whether the individual is performing duties as described in Section 200.59 of the Title I regulations (www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/paraguidance.doc) [link updated 03/04], (2) whether the individual works in a program supported with Title I funds as defined in Section 200.58 of the regulations, and (3) whether the individual is an employee of the school district.
Certainly, an artist hired by a school district to be the "music" or "visual arts" teacher in a State which has defined music or the visual arts as core academic subjects must meet
Page 2 - John J. Mahlmann
teacher qualification requirements. However, I suspect that in most cases where an artist is in a school solely to provide enrichment activities, he or she will be neither a teacher nor a paraprofessional.
I appreciate knowing of your organization's support for requiring performing artists who deal directly with students to work under the "direct supervision" of a highly qualified teacher. As you know, school districts already have the authority to determine the conditions under which performing artists work without defining such individuals as paraprofessionals. Please be aware, however, that if a determination is made that a performing artist is a paraprofessional for Title I purposes, there are additional qualification standards that the individual must meet. He or she must have a secondary school diploma or its equivalent, and must (1) have completed at least two years of study at an institution of higher education, or (2) have obtained an associate's or higher degree, or (3) have demonstratedthrough a formal state or local assessmentknowledge of, and the ability to assist in instructing, as appropriate, reading/language arts, writing or mathematics or reading readiness, writing readiness or mathematics readiness.
We appreciate your interest in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Ronald J. Tomalis
Acting Assistant Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education | <urn:uuid:97b12a91-c158-445a-8eb2-b27a2ece1b69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/stateletters/pava.html?exp=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949915 | 775 | 1.507813 | 2 |
This poem is a set of three limericks composed by Asimov collaborating with his wife. The basic conceit is that primeval cells got bored with reproducing asexually, so “Together they clung; grew complex./Fully half went concave, half convex;…And announced the invention of sex.”
I'm not an enormous fan of Asimov’s limericks at best (see Lecherous Limericks, Asimov’s Sherlockian Limericks, and Isaac Asimov’s Limericks for Children), and although these three are relatively clean, they are also only moderately clever. The last one is the only one to bring even the slightest smile to my lips. On the whole, this is a rather disappointing addition to a generally disappointing book, Laughing Space. | <urn:uuid:89b9278e-4fc1-4fa7-a711-9142a9e3acfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asimovreviews.net/Stories/Story423.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955728 | 173 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The PNU Online Education aims to achieve the following:
1. expand access to baccalaureate, post-baccalaureate Teacher Education certificate and degree programs through distance education.
2. broaden access to quality education by providing quality certificate, undergraduate and graduate degree programs to learners who cannot avail of residential instruction.
3. train PNU faculty and administrators in program development and implementation of distance education.
4. upgrade teacher competencies at all school levels i.e., pre-school, elementary, secondary and higher education through a system of continuing education.
5. conduct research on the components of Distance Education for policy studies. | <urn:uuid:9c6752b0-5d94-439d-92ed-4e1d639460b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pnu-online.net/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936692 | 134 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Bryan County Health Department held a Back to School Immunization Clinic all day on Wednesday March 20 but few showed up.
All vaccines were free for birth to 18 years of age from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., that day. As of 3 p.m. only eight children had received vaccinations during the clinic.
The event was planned for the Wednesday of Spring Break so that students would not have to miss class to get immunizations.
Schools would also not have to be missed if a child felt ill after getting the immunization. Schools were notified of the event so that parents would know to bring children in.
“We thought people would really take advantage of it, but that hasn’t been the case today,” said Jenny Tuttle with the health department.
Another clinic is scheduled for April 4. The Kindergarten Roundup will be held on this day to provide immunizations to children starting Kindergarten however all children are invited to be immunized. | <urn:uuid:d51e7279-9aaf-43f6-bb02-fa18c3f019d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.durantdemocrat.com/view/full_story/22044954/article-Immunization-Clinic-receives-low-turnout | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990191 | 205 | 1.71875 | 2 |
James: I make 10000 USD a month.
Alice: Wow, you have a highly paid job.
Is the phrase “highly paid job” correct?
I think yes, but also wish to ask the native speakers here.
I assume that “high paid job” is an incorrect alternative.
Basically yes, that phrase sounds fine, though I might hyphenate highly and paid:
I might also paraphrase it to sounds slightly more natural (though this is subjective):
"High paid job" is grammatically incorrect because "highly" needs to be an adverb to modify the verb "paid".
|show 2 more comments|
High can be an adverb (with comparative and superlative forms) as well as an adjective:
adv. higher, highest
In that it has the same form as the adjective, it is known as a flat adverb
Obviously, the related -ly form exists:
He was rated highly by the judges.
That being said, I really want to see the splitting off of degree-modifiers (such as the prototypical very as in very quickly, very bright) and other secondary modifiers (such as mystifyingly silent, obviously troubled, off-puttingly tedious, oppressively close, overweeningly devoted, painfully obvious / shy, perilously close - to name but a few) into a separate word-class. Admittedly, they are almost always isoformal with related adverbs, but their function is very different - in fact, very can't even modify a verb, except whimsically (How very dare you!)
Returning to the possibility of using 'high paid' rather than 'highly paid', it depends on whether high may be used as a degree modifier as well as an adverb. Apart from very, most secondary modifiers are of the -ly form. Well isn't of the -ly form, and is only used very informally as a degree modifier (He's well cheeky!) However, in a high-flying aeroplane, we see that it can, though it does require the hyphen here. On the other hand, a highly paid job or a highly-paid job would seem to sound more natural.
It's not incorrect. Here's an example:
Reference: Collins Cobuild Dictionary
However, here are some alternatives: | <urn:uuid:dc7674bb-d738-47a5-babc-da9a88033fe3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/81598/alternative-phrase-to-highly-paid-job?answertab=votes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97786 | 483 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The NFL wises up and does away with what Joe Starkey accurately labels "one of the silliest rules in sports":
The NFL finally broke with tradition--tradition being, "Let's torture the defensive players again"--by making a rule change that could actually prevent some touchdowns.
They did it by rescinding one of the more ludicrous and aggravating rules in the history of professional sports--the dreaded force-out.
Until now, a referee could declare a pass complete if he determined that an airborne receiver would have landed with both feet in-bounds if only he hadn't been knocked out of bounds before he landed.
I've always hated the force-out rule. Besides limiting the defense's ability to take advantage of the limits of the playing field, it was an incredibly subjective call for an official to make. To make the judgment accurately would require an advanced degree in physics:
"Upon further review, we have postulated that the force, kinetic energy, and angle attack of the defensive player when applied to the mass of the offensive player resulted in the offensive player contacting the earth in a slightly different position then would have had the offensive player's descent only been impacted by his weight, velocity of takeoff, and the force of gravity. First down!"
Leave the wouldas behind and let them play ball. | <urn:uuid:5ca7c7a4-7d0d-4e32-a4f6-c91981c6c53d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fraterslibertas.com/2008/04/force-is-with-us.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978088 | 271 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Twin Creeks Schools
The San Ramon Valley Unified School District consistently ranks among the top 10 percent of California school districts and covers the area from San Ramon to Alamo. Schools in the District have received Distinguished School honors 46 times since the program’s inception; more than any other school district in Northern California. No wonder that quality of education is the single most frequently cited reason for people moving to San Ramon.
Twin Creeks is served by two excellent elementary schools, Twin Creeks Elementary and Bollinger Canyon Elementary. Which one your son or daughter attends can be determined by a look at the SRVUSD web site. The middle school that serves Twin Creeks is the acclaimed Iron Horse Middle School, one of the top middle schools in the state of California.
California High School, established in 1973, serves all of the 94583 post code in San Ramon. In 1995, California High School was granted a full six-year accreditation by Western Association of Schools and Colleges (W.A.S.C.), and was recently named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.
Bollinger Canyon Elementary and Twin Creeks Elementary are both proud recipients of the California Distinguished School award and Bollinger Canyon Elementary is effectively a new school having been completely rebuilt in 2006/2007.
For more information on these schools, log on to the district web site, www.srvusd.k12.ca.us.
Contact Details for the individual schools mentioned above are as follows: | <urn:uuid:4d484b2f-caba-4c25-99fc-1840044d1403> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livingintwincreeks.com/Twin-Creeks-Schools.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952794 | 317 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Discussion about math, puzzles, games and fun. Useful symbols: ÷ × ½ √ ∞ ≠ ≤ ≥ ≈ ⇒ ± ∈ Δ θ ∴ ∑ ∫ • π ƒ -¹ ² ³ °
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YES, and although it wants to make sense, its is bouncing between my ears unclear when I try to apply. Ive been trying to short cut the process to come close to an answer.
Whew, I don't know. This is the upper limit of my ability and understanding. This is my final unit in my semester and this was a very bad unit for me. Thankfully my grades were high enough up to this point, but Im really hitting the wall on understanding the log, ln, all of that.
Try using this formula, first:
Tell me what you get after applying the formula.
Condense the logorithmic expression as much as possible: | <urn:uuid:54ce8426-4743-4c80-b86d-86221cc8181e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mathisfunforum.com/post.php?tid=18543&qid=242693 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960079 | 214 | 1.703125 | 2 |
(See Update below).
Mark Perry, writing in Foreign Policy, reports that American anger at Israel’s position on settlements is driven at least in part by military concerns. By Perry’s account — a version that Pentagon and administration sources seem to be confirming rather than challenging — the change dates back to a January briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a team from CENTCOM, or Central Command, the command responsible for a region from the Middle East east to Pakistan and Kazahkstan.
“The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned (Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael) Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that (U.S. special envoy George) Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow … and too late.”
The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.”
As Perry tells it, that briefing set the stage for Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Jerusalem; the announcement on the day of Biden’s arrival that 1,600 new apartments would be built in East Jerusalem was not the major cause of the breach, but rather the straw that broke the back of an already overstrained camel.
“But no one was more outraged than Biden who, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister. Not surprisingly, what Biden told Netanyahu reflected the importance the administration attached to Petraeus’s Mullen briefing: “This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.” Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: “The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.” The message couldn’t be plainer: Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.
That’s fascinating in a number of ways:
1.) As Perry notes, the stance that Petraeus took is not merely strategic but political in nature, stretching the bounds of his role. Furthermore, the general is not an impetuous sort. He thinks things through very carefully, so he no doubt understood fully the gravity of the message he was sending. That’s also why the White House in turn has taken it so seriously.
2.) “The message couldn’t be plainer: Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.” That’s the core of the issue. Cast in those terms, the debate becomes much more difficult for the current Israeli government and for those in this country who defend Israel’s pro-settlement policies. And the fact that this message is coming from the U.S. military only compounds its impact.
3.) Reading between the lines of Perry’s piece and its later clarifications, there was a clear decision at high levels, apparently from within the Pentagon, to make this story public. If so, the leak was itself a policy decision, an effort by the military to throw itself publicly behind both the Petraeus warning and the sterner line taken in response by the Obama administration.
UPDATE: In prepared testimony before Congress today, Petraeus essentially confirmed the Foreign Policy report. Addressing what he called the “major drivers of instability, inter-state tensions, and conflict … (that) can serve as root causes of instability or as obstacles to security,” the very first one he listed was:
“Insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace. The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.”
Petraeus also pointed out that progress in Middle East peace talks could seriously weaken the power of Iran:
“A credible U.S. effort on Arab-Israeli issues that provides regional governments and populations a way to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the disputes would undercut Iran’s policy of militant “resistance,” which the Iranian regime and insurgent groups have been free to exploit. Additionally, progress on the Israel-Syria peace track could disrupt Iran’s lines of support to Hamas and Hizballah…. As such, progress toward resolving the political disputes in the Levant, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, is a major concern for CENTCOM.” | <urn:uuid:70401102-54bb-42c5-87fe-11cbf789b568> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2010/03/16/did-petraeus-briefing-set-stage-for-u-s-israel-spat/?cxntfid=blogs_jay_bookman_blog | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96085 | 1,286 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Posted by: BKraemer
Application development, Data center disaster recovery planning, Data storage management, Direct reseller channel conflict, Enterprise applications, Open-source, Reseller channel business development, Servers and desktop hardware, Software as a service (SaaS)
Storage continues to be a hot topic among VARs, customers and the tech world in general. One area that’s had the magnifying glass help up to it is continuous data protection (CDP). The debate among experts is: which is better — true CDP or near CDP? True CDP offers a granular level of information management that allows for the storage “tape” to be rolled back to any point in time. This way, if any data is lost, true CDP has already captured it and can restore it. You may know a consumer product with similar capabilities: TiVO. Near CDP is basically taking a snapshot of a database on a predefined schedule — say, every ten minutes.
Still not clear on CDP? Get the low down on everything VARs need to know about CDP with our guide, Delivering continuous data protection services.
If you already use the technology, you should look at this article on the CDP debate by Jo Maitland on SearchStorage.com. That debate may be moot if Mendocino can carry through with the promises that it is making.
One other piece of storage news of note: Open-source storage? This is one story that all storage VARs should be following. The opportunity to provide a storage service in an inexpensive, affective manner is astounding — not to mention that in addition to providing a valuable service, the opportunities for reoccurring revenue make the head spin. | <urn:uuid:7c5bc3a6-e6f2-476f-a006-faaeca112be1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/channel-marker/cdp-and-open-source-storage-future-of-the-var/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930271 | 360 | 1.601563 | 2 |
A new outer London rail line is to be created, mayor Ken Livingstone has announced.
Companies are bidding to run the new service
London Overground services will operate on the North London Railway when the mayor and Transport for London (TfL) take over control in November 2007.
They will also run on the East London Railway after the completion of the East London Line extension in 2010.
The mayor said this would "start the much needed revitalisation of London rail services".
"For decades, national rail services in London have been neglected and in many cases under-utilised," Mr Livingstone said.
The mayor said the transfer of responsibilities would raise the standards of service up to the levels of the Tube and the buses.
He also promised to deliver a rail link at Dalston Junction, in east London, connecting the two lines, allowing passengers to travel between Richmond in south-west London and West Croydon, south London.
The mayor said: "By joining together the North and East London Railways ahead of the London 2012 Olympics, we will create a new rail artery around the city, serving 20 London boroughs."
The service, which will run trains every eight minutes, will begin a radical upgrade of derelict stations, will be a "step change in British rail", Mr Livingstone claimed.
More help points, better lighting, information systems, a fleet of new trains and staffing at stations during opening hours would also be part of the upgrade
Govia, National Express, Netherland Rail and Laing are bidding for the contract to run London Overground services. | <urn:uuid:3b0c9442-c13b-481f-8ef3-e4b87dc701af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/5316358.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950983 | 325 | 1.679688 | 2 |
CENTERVILLE -- High school sophomores, mostly in groups of three and four, moved among 65 businesses at a career fair last week with the intent of filling out their BINGO cards.
These werent ordinary BINGO cards, though. The nearly 1,000 students from Houston, Peach and Dooly counties were tasked to fill in each of the 25 squares by visiting various businesses at the fair, held Feb. 13 at the Galleria Conference Center.
Most had their hands full of paperwork, pens and free food from booths such as Cox Communications and the National Guard Recruiters.
Monica Montes, a sophomore at Northside High School, already knew she wanted to go to cosmetology school.
I like to do my hair and nails, she said showing off her fingers.
Monica Kearse, work-based learning instructor at Veterans High School, said the purpose of the career fair is to allow students to see what kind of businesses and careers are available as well as teach them about soft skills.
Soft skills include handshakes, posture and introductions. They give an employer an impression of the person.
James Weeks, a safety and risk manager at Cox, said his employer attends career fairs to educate students about what type of positions are available and what kind of education is required.
We get to impress upon students early the kind of education they need, he said.
Keyana Cosby, a Warner Robins High School student, knows her career choice is going to take a lot of schooling.
It is going to be at least eight years of school, the aspiring medical doctor said.
Her classmate Alexis Cruthirds wants to be an orthopedic assistant.
I want to deal with casts and work with bones, she said, though she admitted the only bone she has broken was in her finger.
The two girls stopped to hear Lt. James Buck of Perry police talk about how to become a police officer. There are three phases in the police academy, including firearms, driving and academics.
Buck said it was important to reach students early to tell them what is needed for their desired future job.
We need to interact with our youth at a time where they can still focus their education towards their career field, he said. | <urn:uuid:c62805f4-404e-477a-87a1-67e19a62af7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macon.com/2013/02/20/2361567/career-fair-helps-sophomores-plan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984381 | 467 | 1.765625 | 2 |
A hip-hop coming out
reports on hip-hop artist Frank Ocean's decision to come out as bisexual--and why it will take more than that to end homophobia in the music industry.
FIRST THINGS first: It takes an immense amount of bravery to come out of the closet.
That's true whether you're a student, a file clerk or a hip-hop artist. Though the circumstances are all very different, the one certain common denominator for coming out is courage. This is, of course, the main motivation for the amount of support being rightfully offered up to Frank Ocean.
Like all other music in today's world, Ocean's is a contradiction. He is an excellent rapper and lyricist who's made a name for himself in the indie hip-hop and R&B scenes, while at the same time writing lyrics for Justin Bieber, Brandy and Beyonce, and collaborating with Jay-Z and Kanye West. He's part of the collective of young uber-misanthropes Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFGKTA). His relationship with Nas, an MC whose own political and lyrical evolution place him heads above the Odd Future crew, seems to have Ocean straddling a wide spectrum.
Now, he is the first hip-hop artist to come out of the closet while in the midst of his career. On July 4, Ocean wrote on his Tumblr page that he is bisexual, stating that four years ago he had had a relationship with another man his age. Though he didn't mention the man's name, he did thank him for his influence. Ocean also said: "I don't know what happens now, and that's alrite [sic]. I don't have any secrets I need kept anymore...I feel like a free man."
Some might say that the news of Frank Ocean's coming out as bisexual might be made "simpler" if he weren't such a musical contradiction--in particular, if he weren't affiliated with a group who have become infamous for front-loading lyrics that feature gruesome violence against gays and lesbians. But then, the politics of sexual liberation have never been simple. Neither is popular music--or, for that matter, hip-hop.
Timing is everything, and there's without a doubt some telling timing in Ocean's decision to come out--namely, that it comes barely two months after President Obama himself has announced his support for same-sex marriage. Some have gone so far as to thank Obama for Ocean's coming out in the first place!
In a certain sense, it's not so far-fetched. Especially if one accepts the logic that has been promoted for years in the mainstream debate over the rights of LGBTQ people--and the logic of how civil rights are won.
In broad strokes, that logic can be summed up like this: that the leaders know best, that they always have a reason for supporting or opposing something. Those who want just treatment immediately are being reckless and, ironically, jeopardizing their rights by standing up for them.
If a president changes his position, it is due to his wisdom--a wisdom designed to protect us from ourselves. The state, no matter its laws, can't be hateful one way or the other because it's the state, an entity hovering above us all, and it's our own ideas that are really the problem. The notion of bottom-up movements and cultures providing spaces of enlightenment is right out.
So it's little wonder that few have asked, why despite his own support, Obama continues to drag his feet on pushing for actual initiatives on same-sex marriage. The street-level activism that has put years of pressure on the prez has been, at best, glossed over.
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OCEAN'S REVELATIONS have provoked some thoughtful and interesting debate. AllHipHop.com's editorial section carried a piece entitled "Five Things That Will Come Out From Frank Ocean's Coming Out."
The article points out that there have been countless rumor mills about this or that rapper's sexuality for a long time, then goes on to say that:
Hip-hop will be forced to cool off on the homophobia. The fact is, hip-hop has had gay people in it for a very, very long time. That is a fact and far truer than people care to admit. But somehow, unlike the rest of the world, the Urban Music world has been slow to accept homosexuality. Sure, there have been folks like Little Richard and Sylvester back in the day, but recently, gays in R&B and Rap stay tucked away in the closet. Frank Ocean is at the beginning of his career, but you better believe with Jay-Z and Kanye West as homies, along with Odd Future, maf*ckas are going to have to recognize.
Russell Simmons, in a very brief article of his own, extended his congratulations to Ocean on Global Grind:
I am profoundly moved by the courage and honesty of Frank Ocean. Your decision to go public about your sexual orientation gives hope and light to so many young people still living in fear. These types of secrets should not matter anymore, but we know they do, and because of that I decided to write this short statement of support for one of the greatest new artists we have.
While both of these tributes are certainly appreciated, they also present a very skewed picture. For one thing, Kanye is already on record declaring that homophobia in hip-hop needs to go. For another, as society's own ideas have shifted on sexuality, so has the rejection of homophobic ideas within hip-hop--though once again, as in society as a whole, those ideas have not completely disappeared.
Even when it comes to the debate around Odd Future, the tendency has way too often been to place the reactionary ideas squarely on hip-hop's doorstep with nary a mention of the deep homophobia that prevails in the world at large. Too many commentators, including within hip-hop itself, are willing to present the art form as a monolithic entity.
A similar dynamic took hold two months ago when Tom Gabel of agit-punkers Against Me! announced her intention to begin hormone therapy and to live as a woman named Laura Jane Grace.
There was plenty of thought-provoking and incisive commentary on the matter, including many in the scene asking themselves about the nature of machismo in punk rock. There was little acknowledgement that, along with this machismo, punk also provided a space to question dominant sexual mores (Tom Robinson, Jayne County, Genesis P-Orridge and others).
Looking from the outside, punk must have looked like little else than a bunch of dumb white kids looking to beat up anyone not manly enough. Now, this same one-sidedness has been amplified and sharpened around Ocean and hip-hop.
While Ocean's announcement is surely significant, it's not as singular as one might be led to believe. Note the wording in the third paragraph of this article: "[Ocean] is the first hip-hop artist to come out of the closet while in the midst of his career."
In other words, the hip-hop world is filled with queer and trans MC's, but most of them have been out before they started recording and touring. The Lost Bois from D.C., New Orleans' Big Freedia, and countless others from various underground scenes, many of whom can rhyme with the best of them. This is befitting a sub-culture that's grown from a cry against invisibility in the South Bronx to a global language encompassing a diverse array of experiences--racially, economically and sexually.
The difference, though, is that the major labels have no idea what to do with artists that push sexual taboos--no matter what we're told about hyper-sexualized teen pop stars. Record companies have spent years molding all popular music into something that is easily consumed and tossed aside; ideas of sexual liberation don't square with this.
The onus for all this falls squarely on the shoulders of the execs and moguls, who have a fundamentally opposing interest in music to that of the artists. And so while Russell Simmons may have rushed to be one of the first to congratulate Ocean, nobody seems to be asking why Simmons, when he was head of Def Jam, never signed any openly queer MCs himself.
Nobody appears to be pointing out that homophobia isn't specific or unique to hip-hop, that it's woven into society's fabric and has to be torn out by the root. And, of course, it's not pointed out that there is a ruling clique of politicians and industry moguls who materially benefit from bigoted ideas running through society, whatever their own race or sexuality.
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THIS SKEWED picture, at its most extreme, portrays on the one side a mostly tolerant and accepting musical mainstream ready to join hands and sing kumbaya across all lines of sexuality, while on the other side of "urban" music is an endless array of MC's searching for the word that best rhymes with "faggot." The underlying message isn't very thinly veiled; we heard the same script with different actors when African Americans in California were blamed for passing the antigay Prop 8.
It's a dangerous assumption to make. Not only does the "hip-hop equals homophobia" equation paint with far too broad a brush--forgetting, for example, that historically Blacks have been the most enthusiastic supporters of civil rights legislation. But that same equation lets off the hook a broad structure that remains profoundly unequal and discriminatory toward anyone who deviates from the norm of straightness.
Harvey Milk was murdered by a white former cop. It was a duo of young white men who beat Matthew Shepard and left him to die on a fence in Wyoming. It was a group of older white people who called CeCe McDonald and her friends "niggers" and "faggots" before attacking them and forcing her to defend herself. And it was a white prosecutor who refused to drop the charges of manslaughter against CeCe.
None of these cases are to say that queer-bashing or transphobia, wherever they may rear their ugly heads, should be given a pass from anyone of any race. It will certainly be interesting to see if Ocean's newfound public sexual identity will have any bearing on OFWGKTA's future material (I won't hold my breath, though).
We live in a "post-civil rights" era, however; one in which politicians will gladly use hip-hop culture as a proxy for African Americans in their push to divide and conquer. Readers only have to think back to the fallout from Don Imus' "nappy-headed hos" comment in 2007 for an example of this.
The shock-jock's excuse was that rappers use the same language. Within a few weeks, Imus was out of the spotlight and there were hearings being held on the Hill about hip-hop's "depravity." What could have been a national dialogue about structural sexism was now twisted into a conversation about the misogyny of Black men. Obama, right at the start of his presidential campaign, was perhaps more eager than anyone to join that chorus.
A far more effective tactic could be seen last summer, when none other than Odd Future were announced as headliners at Chicago's Pitchfork Music and Arts Festival. Though the awful misogyny and gay-bashing of the group's lyrics were rightfully highlighted by activists, they were careful to not let their arguments turn into ones about hip-hop in particular.
Rather, the organizers of the Pitchfork Festival themselves were targeted and called out for denying domestic violence and queer community organizations table space in the fest. It was this way that these same groups were able to turn attention toward the sexual violence that is endemic in society as a whole.
And now, as it turns out, such an argument has proven prescient. If a bisexual man like Frank Ocean can find himself affiliated with a group who so casually use anti-gay violence in their lyrics, then it goes to show just how deeply rooted homophobia is in our world. It also speaks toward the urgent need for an alternative that points to the common interests of ordinary LGBTQ people and working people of color.
That's the reality of the system we live in, and the conversation can't stop at any one style or culture. Homophobia, bigotry and the struggle against them are, after all, bigger than hip-hop.
First published at Dissident Voice. | <urn:uuid:70324246-3f15-4f56-9fdd-ca1d0383f8da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialistworker.org/2012/07/19/hip-hop-coming-out | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971233 | 2,600 | 1.648438 | 2 |
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The increased global interest in minor metals will shape the Commodities Review and Outlook ferroalloys and minor metals’ presentation at the 2012 Investing in African Mining Indaba, says commodity research and consultancy company Core Consultants.
Feature speaker, Core Consultants MD Lara Smith, tells Mining Weekly the company will particularly highlight minor metals cobalt and tantalum, as well as rare earths, as these metals are increasingly used in everyday technology and are experiencing an increase in demand.
“Cobalt, for instance, is used in lithium batteries and, with the manufacturing of electronic devices booming, we are seeing greater demand for cobalt as most electronic devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops, rely on this type of battery for power,” she explains.
Further, she notes that 50% of global cobalt reserves are along the Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, with only 5% of copper refined in the DRC and the rest refined in China.
However, Smith highlights that, although cobalt represents an opportunity for Central Africa through global demand, supply will be a challenge.
“Mining licences have been granted in the DRC but logistics are still a major concern,” she says.
Nevertheless, Smith predicts the price of cobalt will increase if supply is disrupted.
Meanwhile, tantalum, which is used in the production of capacitors for automotive and electronic equipment, is also experiencing increased demand.
“Supply of tantalum was traditionally supplemented by secondary sources, including DLA inventory sales and recycling. However, in 2007, the DLA ceased selling tantalum.
“Recycling has become increasingly costly as, in many instances, the recovery costs outweigh the extraction of tantalum owing to the miniaturisation of electronic devices.”
Also experiencing high demand are rare earths, the bulk of which are concentrated and produced in China.
Smith says substantial funds have been raised by Japan and invested in the research and development of rare earths recycling methods, as more countries attempt to diversify away from reliance on Chinese rare- earth material.
She notes that the introduction of new rare earths producers in other countries will be costly, compared with China, where the orebodies are more favourable and amenable to extraction and capital, and labour and environment costs are lower.
Smith will also provide Core Consultants’ price projections for these metals to attendees of this year’s Mining Indaba.
By: Reggie Sikhakhane
Faith leaders and business groups are colliding over a coming SEC ruling on little-known provisions of Dodd-Frank which require companies to track the use of “conflict minerals” in their production of certain consumer products.
One section of Dodd-Frank requires businesses to track – but not halt – the use of so-called conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including a private sector audit of tracking methods. Another requires those involved in the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals to disclose payments made to governments.
“It’s terrible what we’ve allowed to go on over the last few years without the world paying more attention to it,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), on a conference call Wednesday with faith leaders. “As many as 7 million people have been killed… this is a mechanism by which we could cut off the flow of money to the rebels [in the Democratic Republic of the Congo]. The rebels are controlling the mines, and selling minerals on the black market.”
The SEC will soon make a decision on how to interpret the law, and certain business groups are suggesting that the sections would needlessly increase compliance costs.
“We’re concerned that industry pressure on the SEC will be so intense that they’ll water down the law and it’ll become ineffective,”said Corinna Gilfillan, the head of Global Witness, a human rights group.
Conflict minerals are found in all sorts of consumer products, and are widely used in electronics. The four main minerals mined in the Congo are tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. Tin is used in circuit boards, tantalum in electronic capacitors, tungsten to allow mobile phones to vibrate, and gold as a coating for wires.
Heavyweights like the Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers have expressed concerns about the provisions.
On the other end, religious figures have stepped up to join human rights groups in urging for a full enactment of the conflict mineral provisions.
“There is broad consensus in the religious community that transparency of minerals coming from conflict regions is a vital responsibility… we’re all concerned with trying to get conflict minerals out of the system,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, on the conference call.
The faith leaders emphasized that their religions called them to treat other human beings with respect, which compelled them to support the Dodd-Frank provisions.
“What would it mean for us to be a neighbor to everybody in the supply chain used to make the clothes we wear, the computers we type on, and the cars that we drive? Our call to love is not defined by geographical proximity,” said Lisa Sharon Harper, director of mobilizing for the Christian group Sojourners. “We are all responsible for being good neighbors. It doesn’t matter if we have a good excuse… the people in the Congo are made in the image of God.”
“In the Jewish tradition, according to the Talmud, it was absolutely clear that there has to be transparency in the way that businesses went about selling their products. There were explicit prohibitions against deception, against watering down wine, against claiming something was something that it was not,” added Saperstein, also an appointee to the White House Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
By: Tim Mak
Copper indium gallium diselenide solar (CIGS) will double in installed capacity by 2015, according to a recently released research report from Lux Research. The market for CIGS is expected to be worth more than $2.3 billion by then.
“The big driver for us to look at this was all of the oversupply in the industry creating downward pressure,” said Lux analyst Pallavi Madakasiri. “For a new company to try to get in now is almost impossible.”
Traditional mono- and poly-crystalline solar photovoltaic modules have flooded the market causing dramatic price drops and lower profit margins for the companies building them.
In traditional thin-film technologies, First Solar completely dominates the market.
But CIGS have shown tremendous increases in conversion efficiency, reaching over 20 percent at the cell level, Madakasiri said.
Manufacturing and productions costs have also fallen off as processes have grown more efficient.
And most of the companies working in that market are still getting started.
“There has been a lot of interest and investment in CIGS,” Madakasiri said.
The technology is emerging with a lot of opportunity for growth, Madakasiri said, though it will face challenges, including a sharp fall in venture capital dollars.
Among those companies actively working in the market, some stand out.
“We used 12 different metrics to identify winners and losers,” Madakisiri said.
The criteria graded companies on their technical value, business execution, business maturity and capacity.
“Solar Frontier clearly leads the pack,” Madakasiri said.
That company has a solid position in the “dominant” quadrant of the Lux Research grid. Solar Frontier has already worked its way into emerging markets like India, where it is selling about 30 megawatts of CIGS cells a year.
“We also believe others have a very good chance of succeeding,” Madakasiri said.
Other contenders in the CIGS market are Global Solar, Avancis and Solibro. Madakasiri said she expects they could be very successful if they make good business decisions moving forward.
By: Amanda H. Miller
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen have succeeded in using the heating action of lasers to actively cool a semiconductor. The phenomenon is achieved using a special gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor membrane paired with mirrors to create an optical resonance chamber. When laser light is shot at the membrane, most of it bounces off, is reflected back by the mirror, and then resonates between the mirror and the GaAs surface.
Then the magic happens. Sometimes an atom in the membrane will absorb a photon of light, creating heat and a tiny bit of expansion. The movement of the membrane, the properties of the semiconductor, and the resonant frequencies then interact in a bizarre and wonderful way that cancels the molecular motion generated by heat, ultimately cooling the material to minus 269 degrees C. Although still in the experimental phase, this technique could be useful for cooling electrical components in super-sensitive sensors where thermal energy (as small as it is) creates more noise than the signal being detected. The results of the experiment are published in the January 2012 issue of Nature Physics.
By Joseph Parish
The Democratic Republic of the Congo: a region marked by violent conflict since 1996 in which torture, mass rape, forced displacement, and mass murder have been going on for years without much relief. It is a region in which armed groups are able to propagate the violence through the sale of the Congo’s mineral resources.
According to the Enough Project’s Raise Hope for Congo Campaign,
“Armed groups earn hundreds of millions of dollars per year by trading four main minerals: the ores that produce tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold. This money enables the militias to purchase large numbers of weapons and continue their campaign of brutal violence against civilians, with some of the worst abuses occurring in mining areas.”
Most of these “conflict minerals” are used in the production of electronic devices in a process involving supply chains marked by a disturbing lack of transparency, so that by the time products such as cell phones or laptops end up in the hands of consumers, there is no way to know whether the purchase of those products contributed to the income of armed groups in the Congo.
The goals of many concerned activists are to find a way to ensure transparency in companies’ supply chains and to pressure companies found to be using conflict minerals to discontinue purchasing those minerals. The market for conflict minerals then, ideally, would be limited in terms of profit, reducing resources available to the armed groups, and thus pushing the armed groups toward peaceful resolution of the conflict which could open the region to other reforms.
There have been arguments that the initial attempts toward conflict-free policies have actually been detrimental to the Congo, by driving companies to search for minerals elsewhere, therefore crippling the economy and reducing the income of the general population. However, the UN Group of Experts recently issued a report stating that a conflict-free resolution proves to be an “important catalyst for traceability and certification initiatives and due diligence implementation in the minerals sector regionally and internationally,” and serves to reduce “the level of conflict financing provided by these minerals” in regions that have begun to comply to the due diligence guidelines. So, it seems that passing and implementing conflict-free resolutions are the first steps toward true reform and peace in the Congo.
Why not focus the fight for conflict-free reform on college campuses, which house a “particularly coveted demographic of electronics companies,” namely, students?
The Enough Project’s Raise Hope for Congo Campaign and STAND, a Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, have created the Conflict-Free Campus Initiative, a “nation-wide campaign to build the consumer voice for conflict-free electronics, such as cell phones, laptops, and other devices that will not finance war in eastern Congo.” By focusing on college campuses, the initiative “draws on the power of student leadership and activism to encourage university officials and stakeholders, both of whom are large purchasers of electronics and powerful spokespersons, to commit to measures that pressure electronics companies to take responsibility for the minerals in their supply chains.”
Organizing the student voice at the university level not only expresses the collective desire of individuals to ensure that they and their university do not participate in the perpetuation of the conflict in the Congo, but it also sends a powerful message to both political and corporate entities that consumers care about policies of those entities that may support the conflict. The Conflict-Free Campus Initiative explains:
“Universities are also a large client for most electronics companies and represent a large section of the buyers’ market for consumer electronics. By raising our collective voice as consumers, we can actually bring about a shift in corporate and government policy and help bring peace to Congo.”
Eight universities have issued conflict-free resolutions, including Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Duke University; more than sixty other colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada have begun campaigns to do the same (including Yale University, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, UC Davis, UCLA, UCSB, UCSC, Notre Dame, and Georgetown University).
The activism geared toward passing these conflict-free initiatives on college campuses has been successful in inspiring activity at the government level. California passed a bill prohibiting “state agencies from signing contracts with companies that fail to comply with federal regulations aimed at deterring business with armed groups in eastern Congo,” the first state bill to be passed regarding conflict minerals. Massachusetts is now also considering a conflict-free bill. Two cities, Pittsburgh, PA and St. Petersburg, FL, have also passed conflict-free resolutions.
If enough colleges, universities, towns, cities and states take the initiative in decisively acting to prevent the perpetuation of the conflict in the Congo by taking steps toward becoming conflict-free, perhaps the income of the armed groups committing mass rape and murder will be decreased sufficiently to prompt the beginnings of an end to the conflict.
Once the fighting ends, addressing the root causes of the conflict – including ethnic tensions – can be addressed through effective institutional reforms. But the fighting has to end before that can happen, and the fighting cannot end unless the actors in the conflict cannot afford to fight.
By: Cara Palmer
Commercial applications revenues will grow from less than one million dollars to reach nearly $58 million till 2015, says Strategy Analytics
Besides military applications, another area which is witnessing widespread deployment of gallium nitride (GaN) technology is commercial applications, according to a report entitled GaN Microelectronics Market Update 2010-2015, released by Strategy Analytics.
Targeted at GaAs and compound semiconductor technologies service (GaAs) and its Advanced Defense Systems Service (ADS) subscribers, the report forecasts that the overall GaN device market to grow at a CAAGR of nearly 29% to reach $178m in 2015.
Revenues from commercial applications, led by CATV and high power electronics, will grow from less than one million dollars to reach nearly $58 million till 2015, it adds.
However, according to Strategy Analytics report, military applications will be the major deployers of GaN technology.
But percentage of revenues from military applications will fall to 67% by 2015 from the present 98%.
Revenue growth rates for GaN devices in wireless infrastructure, high power electronics and CATV/VSAT (very small aperture terminals) will all exceed 100%, it is forecasted.
Strategy Analytics Director of GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service Eric Higham said driven by performance advantages like efficiency, power dissipation and operating temperature, GaN is finally starting to generate interest in commercial market applications.
“GaN developments by device manufacturers like RFMD and Nitronex (for CATV applications) and International Rectifier and EPC (for power converter applications) are displacing other technologies. Operators and equipment manufacturers are recognizing the operating cost advantage that GaN can provide,” Hingham added.
ISTANBUL, May 4 (AFP) – Finance ministers from China, Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed Wednesday to expand their system of bilateral currency swaps under the Chiang Mai Initiative to a more multilateral system. The ministers, meeting as the “ASEAN-plus-3″ on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Istanbul, said this would make the Chiang Mai Initiative a “more effective and disciplined framework.” Under the currency swaps, an Asian country hit by a foreign exchange crisis like the one in 1997 could borrow borrow foreign currency — usually US dollars — from another country to bolster its reserves until the crisis had passed. An ADB analyst remarked that Wednesday’s accord was a step towards setting up an “Asian Monetary Fund,” although such an institution might never actually be created.
In a joint press conference, the 1O ASEAN and three East Asian financial ministers also called for a review of the quota of Asian countries in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “to properly reflect the current realities and their relative positions in the world economy.” The 13 ministers said an economic surveillance system would be put into place along with the Chiang Mai Initiative framework, to detect irregularities early and apply swift remedies. They also said a collective decision-making mechanism would oversee the current system of bilateral swap arrangements “as a first step towards multilateralization.”
This would make it easier to activate the bilateral swap arrangements in case of an emergency, the ministers said in a joint statement read after their three-hour meeting. Crisis-hit countries would also be able to draw down as much as 20 percent of the money under the bilateral swap arrangements without having to go through the IMF. Under the current arrangements, countries that draw more than 10 percent under their swap arrangements must have an IMF-supported program in place. The decisions of the ASEAN-plus-3 group apparently followed recommendations made during a meeting of the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean ministers a day earlier. Previously, the initiative launched in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in May 2000 involved only bilateral swaps but the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean ministers said they would look towards expanding this into multilateral swaps involving three or four countries. Asian countries had earlier proposed the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund after the 1997 fiscal crisis but the United States and the IMF had strongly opposed this. Chinese minister Renqing Jin said his country had already agreed to “double the scale of its currency swap,” from its current level.
However, when asked if they were setting up an Asian Monetary Fund, Japanese minister Sadakazu Tanigaki replied, “only the Chiang Mai Initiative was discussed”. The ministers said the initiative had been very helpful in maintaining the financial stability of Asian countries even if there had been no repeat of the 1997 crisis. Masahiro Kawai, special adviser to the ADB president, who monitored the ASEAN-plus-3 meeting, said the ministers wanted to increase the effectiveness of the Chiang Mai Initiative which now covers 16 bilateral swap arrangements. He called it a “step towards multilateralization,” adding that a “de facto Asian Monetary Fund,” may eventually be created. He said the United States and the IMF had opposed such a fund in the past partly due to fears it would increase the risk of moral hazard. But Kawai said this was why the ministers wanted to increase the surveillance function of the Chiang Mai Initiative. He remarked that in the past, China had not joined the move to create an Asian Monetary Fund and that if it joined with the other Asian countries, they might be more successful. mm/wai | <urn:uuid:0e6426ae-c15b-48e3-95c1-b2fa8d233bf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swissmetalassets.com/2012/01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943399 | 4,142 | 1.71875 | 2 |
ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwire - Feb 4, 2013) - North American battery collections increased 16 percent from 2011 to a record 10 million pounds (4.7 million kilograms) in 2012, reported by Call2Recycle, a product stewardship organization managing the only no-cost battery and cellphone collection program in North America.
The organization attributes its success to closing a banner year in California and Canada, both which collected over one million pounds. California became the first state in program history to achieve this milestone. The 11 percent statewide growth came from the municipal and manufacturing sectors, which increased by 23 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
In Canada, Call2Recycle also had a positive year where battery collections grew by 56 percent. The increase can be accredited in part to its program expansion in Quebec, where Call2Recycle was selected by RECYC-QUÉBEC to serve as the official battery recycling program for the province. As of July 2012, Call2Recycle began accepting single-use household batteries for recycling in support of the provincial extended producer responsibility regulation. As a result, 2012 collections in Quebec rose by 357 percent over 2011.
"Our 2012 performance is vitally linked to the support of our program participants, consumers, and key constituents," said Carl Smith, CEO and president of Call2Recycle. "Without their environmental commitment, we would not be able to continue successfully collecting, transporting and recycling the millions of pounds of batteries across the U.S. and Canada."
Call2Recycle offers convenient battery collection sites through a network of over 30,000 retailers, municipalities, businesses and public agencies throughout the U.S. and Canada. To learn more about Call2Recycle or to find a drop-off location near you, visit call2recycle.org, call2recycle.ca or call toll-free 877-2-RECYCLE.
Call2Recycle is the only no-cost battery and cellphone collection program in North America. Since 1996, Call2Recycle has diverted more than 75 million pounds (34 million kilograms) of batteries from the solid waste stream through its established network of 30,000 collection sites. Advancing green business practices and environmental sustainability, Call2Recycle is the most active voice promoting eco-safe reclamation and recycling of batteries and cell phones. It is the first program of its kind to receive the Responsible Recycling Practices Standard (R2) certification. Learn more at call2recycle.org, call2recycle.ca or 877.723.1297. Become a follower or fan at twitter.com/call2recycle or facebook.com/call2recycle. | <urn:uuid:9462acc4-7d3f-4440-b6a9-78f5d97b1971> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/battery-recycling-program-reports-double-digit-collections-in-2012-1752902.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931111 | 549 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Chartwell Collection is a large collection of radical art assembled over many years by Rob Gardiner, gifted in a trust to the Auckland Art Gallery. Unusually for a collection begun by a private individual, it reflects the extremes of avant-garde artistic expression and, therefore, contains much work that would probably only be shown in a public gallery. A selection of the Chartwell holdings being shown at the gallery is an excellent foil to the popular Degas to Dali exhibition.
Whereas Van Gogh, probably the most famous 19th century painter in the historic show, at one time pictured the interior of his room in Arles in vivid colour, the Chartwell show exhibits a work by New Zealand artist Daniel Malone recreating the reality of a student flat as a vast installation.
Yet, like Van Gogh, he intensifies the reality. What Van Gogh does with intense colour, Malone does with a huge amount of things. In each room of the installation you see the typical objects you might find in student accommodation but to an exaggerated degree. Not a couple of wine bottle corks but hundreds. Not a few LPs but box after box of them. The detail is overwhelming, from the bedroom with its mattress on the floor and clothes hung on a rack near the ceiling, to the studio with an old painting awry on the easel, neglected in favour of masses of spray cans.
This abundance of detail exemplifies and typifies not one but all such flats. The room is ironically presided over by a reproduction of an elegant painting by Gainsborough. The whole installation is truly a marvellous thing, lively and curiously touching.
Almost a whole room is given over to the work of Allan Maddox, the most extreme abstract expressionist painter in New Zealand from last century. He devoted his art entirely to making Xs in paint. There was no objective imagery in these crosses; they were his own blunt way of cancelling out the world with a series of bright gestures.
Maddox began by making black and white negative paintings on fabric such as sheeting but his fight against the world became colourful and the paintings a defence against the raw light of reality.
Some other works in the show are small lively gestures using found objects. The most intriguing is a still life by Paul Cullen which is not still at all but a green plastic bucket that mysteriously shifts around endlessly on a little Formica table.
Another small jeu d'esprit is Alicia Frankovich's recent work that balances eggs in a crate on top of an aluminum doorway. A group of videos by Campbell Patterson called Lifting My Mother For As Long As I Can records a ritual performed by the artist each year on his mother's birthday. The implications of life and death and change are very touching.
The videos are a mixed bunch. Richard Maloy has a video that shows him endlessly finding forms by moulding butter. It is both silly and rather revolting but it does fit in with the extreme radicalism of a collection that is evidence of how art has diverged from conventional expectations.
Artspace, also a public gallery, shows work that is not from the conventional commercial world as well as work by international artists. Its latest show, Rambler's Association, is by Adam Avikainen from the United States and Maria Taniguchi from the Philippines. The work of both would fit easily into the Chartwell Collection. One desire common to many artists is to freeze moments into permanence. Taniguchi etches passages from her diary on to wooden panels, puts black cement in cardboard boxes and makes a video of storyboards with image and script that fix strong visual images and the connotations they invoke. This is a work that really repays the time spent watching.
Avikainen also combines script and visual images. His paintings, which scroll down the walls of the main room, take their colour from natural sources: ginger, oil of oregano and turmeric. The result is like a record of a ramble over a clouded landscape with dashes of black thrown in. It is palely impressive but totally impermanent in reality and memory.
George Baloghy has had a consistent career but one completely at odds with radical thinking. His style of painting with skilfully rendered detail has always been far from fashionable trends. Yet his style and subjects are instantly recognisable.
His subjects have usually been locations around Auckland, sometimes with a surreal twist like when he put Picasso's acrobats in Ponsonby Rd.
This new show at Artis features the history of inner city localities such as Kingsland and Ponsonby, and a panorama of the harbour. The paintings are often in two parts, one part black and white and the other in colour. The black and white looks ghostly, the colour is alive. No one else catches the character of the city in quite the same way.
At the galleries
What: Made Active: The Chartwell Show
Where and when: Auckland Art Gallery, to July 15
What: Rambler's Association, with Adam Avikainen and Maria Taniguchi
Where and when: Artspace, 300 K Rd, to May 19
What: Reviving, with George Baloghy
Where and when: Artis, 280 Parnell Rd, to May 20 | <urn:uuid:372be9aa-370d-4d1c-85b6-48bab51c6dd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/arts-literature/news/article.cfm?c_id=18&objectid=10803550 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962787 | 1,092 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Long Term Care
As a generation, we are living longer and healthier lives. But we are also experiencing many illnesses, injuries and disabilities we have never had to deal with during shorter life spans. Long Term Care is defined as: The assistance or supervision given to a person who has a physical or mental disorder that will last for more than 90 days and which causes the person to no longer function independently. This can be due to injury, illness or the normal aging process.
The statistics on the risk of needing long-term care are sobering.
- According to the 2000 US Census, currently 6.4 million people 65 or older need Long Term Care.
- One in two over 85 requires care and assistance with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs).
- Nationally the average daily rate for nursing home care is $181 for a private room and $158 for a semi-private room.
- Locally here in FL, nursing home care is $153 for a private room and $142 for a semi private.*
- The average stay in a Nursing Home is 2.4 years.
Long-term care insurance coverage deserves a greater priority for helping keep you independent in the years to come. Typical Long Term Care services include assisted living services, respite care, home health care, adult day care and care in a nursing home. Nobody can predict the future, but we can always prepare for it. In many cases long-term care insurance is affordable and can be purchased without affecting your lifestyle or depleting your savings. Rates for insurance depend on age, health, and the amount of insurance you wish to purchase. Think of this—we have insurance that covers our home, automobile, and general medical expenses. The biggest risk not covered is major catastrophic, long-term medical problems.
Do you have a plan? The Financial Representatives at Suncoast Trust & Investment Services are ready to help you. Contact us online for a complimentary consultation, contact a specific Financial Representative, or call 1-866-300-9382. | <urn:uuid:b5e11a02-1d15-484b-958b-e0743135c192> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.suncoastfcu.org/SuncoastResources/InsuranceProducts/LongTermCareInsurance/tabid/241/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946148 | 414 | 1.6875 | 2 |
9:45 PM EDT, July 18, 2012
Chuck Bennett and his wife have lived in their Greenfield house for just a small amount of time, but they have a pretty big problem.
"It was a slow gradual thing, but with the drought it has been speeding up considerably," said homeowner Chuck Bennett.
The Bennetts' dining room was breaking away from the rest of the house and sinking as the parched ground is settling.
"It was a disappointment to say the least, that the dining room was starting to fall off," said Chuck Bennett.
Crews dug six holes around the dining room, and installed piers deep into the ground. They also used brackets to hopefully put the house back together again.
"And start raising it up to where it should be," said Chuck Bennett.
John Clark with Indiana Foundation Service said the Bennett family was not alone in their foundation frustration.
"We have seen almost double the calls," said Indiana Foundation Service General Manager John Clark.
Clark said the calls were not just for foundation trouble either.
"We have seen sewer lines break from the foundation settling, water lines under slabs," said Clark.
Clark said the bad news is, there is really no way to prevent the shift. The good news is that Chuck Bennett got his problem fixed, before it was too late.
"We will be very happy then," said Chuck Bennett. | <urn:uuid:b20294b6-e570-4a77-900f-fb334969b40f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsbt.com/business/wxin-drought-causing-foundation-problems-for-area-homeowners-20120718,0,4664915,print.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979628 | 287 | 1.554688 | 2 |
How Rose Shows are Judged
Rose shows operating under standards established by the American Rose Society are judged by ARS Accredited Judges often with the assistance of ARS Apprentice Judges. Judging is normally done by judging teams consisting of three Accredited Judges or two Accredited Judges and one Apprentice Judge. Judges are usually selected from throughout the local area and typically receive no compensation for their services other than a free luncheon. They are thus motivated only by the love of roses and the fellowship of rosarians.
The process of judging anything necessitates the existence of standards. Novices seeking to lose their status as such should therefore learn those standards in order to present candidates (exhibition specimens) that the judges will admire and to which they will award a trophy.
The currently agreed set of rose judging standards is set forth in the ARS publication Guidelines for Judging Roses. For serious exhibitors this book is essential; for novices it is desirable. In fact even a rose show visitor will find the book useful, just as a descriptive catalogue or brochure is helpful in understanding a museum or art gallery. The book is a good buy at $10, plus postage; order it from the American Rose Society web site www.ars.org. Read it carefully because the judges have done so and herein you will find much of use in preparing your roses for the show.
For the novice exhibitor a thorough knowledge of the Guidelines is not critical. Typically there is but one novice class, few of the competitors in that class are familiar with the Guidelines, and the judges are more forgiving in their assessments. But therein lies the opportunity to exit the novice ranks early. An entry in the novice class fitting the Guidelines will have a much higher likelihood of receiving the trophy. Accordingly let us here examine the Guidelines as they apply to the novice classes.
The first subject to address is that of disqualification. When a rose is "disqualified" it is removed from consideration altogether. By contrast a rose that is "penalized" for various faults simply loses points and can still be a winner. It is therefore fundamental that you must avoid disqualification
Lest you head immediately for the exit be assured that disqualification rarely occurs (particularly in a novice class) and can be avoided with simply a little care. On the other hand it remains a real possibility should you get sloppy, much as an error in baseball. I have had entries disqualified on several occasions, almost always through carelessness or oversight. I have also seen entries from the very best exhibitors disqualified. It is embarrassing, but less so for the novice, and it can be avoided. Here then is a summary of reasons for disqualification most often encountered by the novice.
Misnamed. You have to write the correct name of the variety on the entry card and use the ARS show name. Judges can even get picky about the spelling. Take along your ARS Guidelines for Selecting Roses and check the name and its spelling even if you think you are sure.
Misclassed. You have to write the correct class in which you are entering on the tag. This is not a big deal. Look at the show schedule. If in doubt ask the person doing placement.
Unlabeled/Mislabeled. You must have an entry tag and must write your name on it. Many shows do not require you to fill out the whole thing -- check the show schedule to see or ask someone. Use waterproof pen with blue or black ink so that it doesn't become unreadable when a little water slops on it.
Stem-on-stem. With the exception of shrubs and old garden roses generally, entries are required to be exhibited on one stem. If the stem is exhibited with a portion of another stem attached to it the rose is disqualified. To avoid this cut off any piece of the prior stem when you are cleaning the rose so you don't forget to do this later.
Foreign Substance. You may not apply a "foreign substance" to the foliage, stem or bloom to improve its appearance. This doesn't mean that you can't wash the leaves with a little water; in fact you should do so as I will explain in a later column. The idea is to leave no residue. So forget about oil, green ink, floral clay, pins and wires.
Not Disbudded. Single stem blooms must be exhibited without sidebuds. Failure to remove sidebuds is grounds for disqualification. Sloppy removal requires penalization. Remove any sidebuds or sidebud residue when cleaning the rose.
A single stem hybrid tea/grandiflora or miniature rose is judged by reference to six factors. These factors are discussed separately below; their relative values are discussed in the next section.
Form. "Form" is, and has been historically, the most important factor in the judging of roses. The determination of the existence of form is initially made by looking straight down into the bloom. The petals of a rose with exhibition form will be seen to unfurl in a perfect spiral from a point in the center. Roses showing more than one point in the center are said to have split centers. Roses with no clearly defined center point are often referred to as having muddled centers. References will also be heard to roses with a "hole" in the center, a "snubbed" center (one where a portion of a petal hides the center, or "blown" roses (the center has opened up to show the stamens). Note all these references are to the "center" of the rose and this is the key to understanding form.
The Guidelines will tell you that form is also evaluated from the side. An exhibition form rose is supposed to be one-half to three-fourths open and form a triangle with a high center. For novices however this is not as important as long as the rose is no longer a bud and is open enough to display a well formed center.
Color. "Color" is said to be made up of three elements: hue, chroma and brightness. This factor has nothing to do with the actual color class of the rose. This is supposed to be a neutral factor and the judge is supposed to judge mauve roses equally with white roses, even if he or she detests the color mauve. I suspect that many judges cannot tell you the difference between a hue and chroma and neither for that matter can I. The real question is whether the color looks fresh so this factor depends in large part on the factor called "substance."
Substance. Substance is the amount of moisture or starch in the petals. Novices generally know this by the term "freshness." A rose with good substance looks and feels fresh. A judge is not allowed to feel the bloom; in fact the judge is not permitted to touch it at all. If it looks real fresh to you on close examination it will probably look fresh to the judge as well.
Stem and Foliage. The factor that usually separates the trophy from the blue ribbons in the novice section is "stem and foliage." Roses cut by novices for the home and office usually have short scraggly stems and dirty tattered foliage. A good exhibition rose is shown on a long straight stem with clean intact foliage. Select roses with straight stems and clean the foliage. After all, you would probably shower before going out on a date; the foliage of your roses will need one as well.
Balance and Proportion. The relationship between the bloom on the one hand and the stem and foliage on the other is known as "balance and proportion." This is one of these "you know it when you see it" kind of tests which requires experience so it is hard to describe to a novice. As a simple rule of thumb a stem on a hybrid tea should be about 18-21" long plus, depending on the size of the bloom. (Here I am speaking of the stem without regard to the height of the bloom head - since the height of a bloom head of a typical HT is 3-4" this means that the entry will be about 21-25" in height). The stem on a miniature should be around 6-7" long, again depending on the size of the bloom head.
Size. The last factor is the size of the bloom head. Bigger hybrid teas are supposed to be better. A miniature is supposed to be petite unless the variety is not usually petite. (I recognize that this latter statement makes little sense but it is a fair paraphrase of what is said in the Guidelines). Size is the one factor where there seems to be little uniformity of response among judges except in the fact that many judges seem to ignore it. It is not, however, a big deal in relationship to other factors and even less of one in the novice class so it can be easily ignored at this point.
The Point Scoring System
The point scoring system is the method by which the relevant values of the six factors are expressed. It is therefore important to know those relative values but do not imagine for a moment that the judges actually try to point score every rose. In fact they rarely do so at all. (If they did it would take all day and the winner would be the last rose to fade). It is nevertheless a valuable point of reference for communication and decision making and is worth committing to memory.
The point scoring system assigns the following relative values to the six factors.
Factor: Points: Form 25 Color 20 Substance 15 Stem and Foliage 20
Balance and Proportion 10
The most important factor is form, which is notable by its presence. Most judges will not award a blue ribbon to a rose lacking form. "No form = no blue" is a useful slogan to remember. Don't waste time on roses which lack form, unless you have an abnormal interest in red, yellow and white ribbons. Color and substance count for a lot of points but are usually noted only in their absence. Faded roses and those on their way stand out even to the non-experienced. So if your rose doesn't look faded don't worry too much about these two factors.
Stem and foliage together with balance and proportion outnumber form in the point category. However roses cannot overcome a lack of form by having great stems, foliage, balance and proportion. On the other hand, as I have noted, it is by these latter factors that the trophy winning blue ribbon winner is usually selected from the other blues, particularly in the novice class.
The bottom line for the novice is this: select a fresh rose with good form and you will have a blue ribbon winner. If it has a straight long stem with clean foliage you won't be a novice long.
Novice classes normally call for single stem specimens of hybrid teas / grandifloras and/or miniatures. Some shows have a novice class for a floribunda spray and a miniature spray.
In novice terms a "spray" is a bunch of blooms on a single stem. A spray is judged on its "inflorescence." This is a fancy term which is useful in conversation; it has to do with the shape of the spray head.
For novice purposes the blooms in a spray don't have to be at the same stage of opening. Instead the importance is the existence of a pleasing visual effect in the inflorescence. A nice inflorescence presents a regular outline of the spray when viewed from above and the side. This could take the shape of a circle, an oval or anything else consistent and symmetrical. It is permissible and indeed desirable to clip off blooms which stick out like sore thumbs and mar the appearance, as long as you do it neatly. Although a spray can technically have as few as three blooms the winner usually looks like a small to medium bouquet of a half-dozen or more blooms.
As Easy as 1-2-3
The foregoing may seem like a lot of stuff to assimilate but it is not that tough. Most of it can be boiled down to three simple rules as easy to remember as 1-2-3:
.Fill out your entry tag carefully and accurately. .Select only roses showing exhibition form. .Cut the stem about as long as possible (avoiding stem-on-stem) and prefer straight stems with clean foliage.
As you might guess there are techniques to get your roses to meet this model. But do not forget that just as you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you cannot make a winning entry out of a losing rose!
© Copyright 2013 Robert B. Martin, Jr. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published in "Rose Ecstasy," bulletin of Santa Clarita Valley Rose Society, Kitty Belendez, Editor.
Photos © Copyright by Kitty Belendez
For questions about Santa Clarita Valley Rose Society, contact: | <urn:uuid:76a988ec-7739-4a4d-a6a3-0f72ca08f83b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scvrs.homestead.com/HowRosesJudged.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9593 | 2,650 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Reviewing Jennifer Van Bergen's "The Twilight of Democracy"
Jennifer Van Bergen is an author, activist and educator who currently teaches English and writing at Sante Fe Community College in
Jennifer Van Bergen is an author, activist and educator who currently teaches English and writing at Sante Fe Community College in
Her other vitally important recent book and subject of this review is called "The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for
The book is in two parts. In Book I, Van Bergen discusses constitutional law, the types of courts and standards of review established to administer it, and the dangerous path we're now on toward a fascist state under George Bush. Book II then reviews "The Bush Plan" for
Book I - Deciphering the Democratic Code
Van Bergen starts off by explaining the clear and present danger of a president who disdains the law and ignores it in pursuit of whatever he wishes. The result is "Freedom and democracy in
Down the Road to Fascism
Van Bergen cites the following signs of a nation "already more than three-quarters of the way down the road to fascism:" the stolen 2000 presidential election, Patriot Acts I and II, illegal mass surveillance, torture-prison gulag, culture of extreme secrecy and fear, contempt for the rule of law, a permanent state of war and more. We may already be past the tipping point of its classical definition:
-- a state combining corporatism with strong elements of patriotism and nationalism;
-- a claimed messianic Almighty-directed mission; and
-- characterized by authoritarian rule backed by iron-fisted militarism and homeland security enforcers, mass illegal spying, and intolerance of dissent under a president who disdains the law.
Van Bergen calls these components "The Bush Plan to subvert and overthrow democratic systems" and values. It's not just the work of one man or a group of loyalist supporters. It's become part of our corporate culture that thrives on achieving imperial global dominance. It's being pursued by waging war on the world under a national security Patriot Act-governed police state tolerating no dissent. Van Bergen discusses the Act briefly before getting into a more in-depth treatment in Book II. She shows how the law dilutes constitutional standards by amending and combining three separate but parallel legal systems listed below. They use different courts, are now merged and are exploited under Patriot Act justice:
(1) criminal laws and procedures,
(2) foreign intelligence law, and
(3) immigration law.
Post 9/11, Van Bergen notes people are out of the loop believing "constitutional law is hard to understand" and strictly the realm of theoreticians. How does the Constitution relate to "getting ahead in life, with making money," she asks. It's central to it if people begin realizing it's what guarantees their rights in a free society without which nothing is guaranteed but government repression against anyone considered a threat, true or not. The basic laws of the land aren't hard to understand. What's hard is getting people to know their rights under them, realize they're now at risk and be willing to take a stand for what they can't afford to ignore.
The Law is King - If We Can Keep It
We like believing we're a country of laws, not men. It's far from true, won't ever be unless demanded from the grassroots, and under the Bush administration it's pure fantasy. Its officials scorn the law at home and abroad. Van Bergen counts the ways:
-- refusing to adhere to the four Geneva Convention treaties that are the supreme law of the land;
-- opting out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) 104 other nations belong to, including virtually all Western democracies; in addition 42 others signed the Rome Statute but haven't yet ratified it;
-- condoning torture and allowing or ignoring other human rights abuses; the Nazis called torture "Verscharfte Vernehmung," or "enhanced interrogation" leaving few telltale signs of abuses committed; George Bush secretly authorized his own version of harsh "enhanced interrogation" in a July, 2006 executive order; it was unmentioned on October 5 when he confronted a public uproar and contemptuously stated: "This government does not torture people;" he also ignored secret Department of Justice (DOJ) legal opinions confirming his administration condones "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA;"
-- scorning Bill of Rights laws that guarantee free expression, religion, assembly, representation by competent counsel in a criminal proceeding, fair and speedy trials by a jury of peers, protection from illegal searches and seizures and much more.
These and other rights are constitutionally guaranteed that in a nation of laws "is considered the bottom line" and inviolate. Not so in the age of George Bush with the DOJ and courts taking great "balancing test" liberties when the administration raises issues of national security, justified or not. Van Bergen asks "Do we want a country of laws and not of power-mongering men?" Getting it means earning it and that begins with understanding our rights and how legal systems work.
They're all underpinned by the supreme law of the land in the benchmark Constitution most people know about but not what's in it, what it means, and how, in fact, it works for good or ill. In spite of it, governments always side with privilege and especially capital interests. Ordinary private citizens are hard-pressed to get justice without competent and generally expensive legal counsel few can afford.
Our Individual Rights
Here Van Bergen focuses on due process, free speech and association, legal representation, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. She notes these rights aren't absolute because democratic governments try to balance the "good of the one" against "the good of the many" when it comes to issues of peace and security. The result is individuals often lose out for the supposed greater good that may only be the workings of a repressive state. That's what's happening today in
Also called "procedural due process," this term only applies when a person's "life, liberty, or property" is at stake, and the government is constitutionally required to provide due process legal procedures so a person gets a proper defense. Often in the past, this right wasn't afforded. Today it's being willfully swept away under police state justice.
First Amendment Freedoms - Speech, the Press, Religion, Assembly and Association
No rights are more vital than these as without them no others are possible, but today, under George Bush, they're being lost. As Van Bergen puts it: "democracy cannot exist without these freedoms." Indeed not, and it's why earlier crumbs of them are now threatened more than ever under Patriot Act justice and other harsh laws like the Military Commissions Act enacted after Van Bergen's book was published. She points out free expression, the press and right to assemble are most threatened today even though they're constitutionally guaranteed.
That doesn't deter George Bush who on July 17, 2007 issued another of his "one-man" Executive Order (EO) decrees "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in
Fourth Amendment Rights
This law protects people from illegal searches and seizures, it's not absolute under the best of conditions, and it's practically null and void today. Later in her book, Van Bergen shows how the Patriot Act allows the government "to mix standards from different, incompatible areas of law" (such as criminal investigations, foreign intelligence and immigration) that amounts to a "witch's brew....of ingredients poisonous to a democratic government or way of life."
The Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel
This law provides that defendants shall "have the assistance of counsel" in all criminal prosecutions during and prior to trial and to free assistance if unable to pay for it. In addition, attorney-client confidentiality and privilege are protected under law. Patriot Act justice threatens these rights for immigrants, so-called "unlawful enemy combatants," cases in which the government feels national security trumps confidentiality, and in situations where lawyers (like Lynne Stewart) are targeted for defending "unpopular" clients.
Van Bergen concludes this section saying 9/11 changed everything, the gloves came off, and constitutionally protected rights no longer apply at the government's discretion. Real democracies don't work that way,
The Constitutional Code
Van Bergen calls the constitutional doctrines of separation of powers, judicial review and probable cause "code words invest(ing) the Constitution with meaning." How they're abused, however, explains a lot about today's frightening situation under a president who thinks and acts (in his words) like the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper."
1. Separation of Powers
The framers crafted a government in three parts so no one of them got too much power although it never worked out that way from the start. Nonetheless, their idea was for the legislative branch to make laws, the executive to execute them, and the judiciary to interpret them. The doctrine is called the "separation of powers" that's the "core protection against tyranny" if enforced and utterly meaningless if not like today under George Bush.
Since 9/11, Democrats and Republicans abdicated their responsibility and have marched ever since in lockstep on virtually everything the administration wants. Rhetoric aside, almost nothing's changed to this day in spite of six and a half years of disastrous and reckless governance outside the law. Van Bergen sums it up saying, in the absence of checks and balances, "government power (has) run amok" under the Bush Plan.
2. Judicial Review
According to law professor Jethro Lieberman, judicial review is "the power of courts to declare laws and acts of government unconstitutional" although nothing in the Constitution allows this practice. Van Bergen adds, without this check on the other two branches, there's "no remedy for bad laws (and in fact) no democracy." It differs from the notion of "judicial supremacy" meaning the High Court is the final arbiter on all constitutional issues.
3. Court Stripping
Examples of this practice are found in extremist laws like the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Law (AEDPA), Patriot Acts I and II and other recent legislation as they restrict the ability of courts to review executive actions, and that's not how democratic states function.
4. Probable Cause
Under the Fourth Amendment, neither arrest or search warrants are allowed without evidence of "probable cause" of criminal activity. The Bush administration, however, views all legal constraints as quaint and fanciful. It simply sweeps them away to do as it pleases to target anyone for any reason, real or concocted, in its sham "war on terrorism." Weak as they always were, post-9/11, constitutional protections are now an illusion. They simply no longer exist despite all the pretense they do.
Types of Courts and Standards of Review
Van Bergen lists four types today, each functioning under very different legal standards:
-- regular federal civil and criminal courts called an "Article III court;" here, in theory, convictions depend on there being proof beyond a reasonable doubt; in practice, justice depends on how much of it defendants can buy in the form of competent legal counsel, and too few people can buy enough or any;
-- immigration (or Executive branch) courts that rule on asylum and deportation issues; they're also called the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR); these courts administer immigration law and handle cases under it involving asylum, deportation, immigration crimes and detentions pending review;
-- military courts and tribunals don't come under the federal civil justice system; they're for trying members of the armed services under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and are used under the oppressive Military Commissions Act for anyone the president calls an "unlawful enemy combatant," real or imagined; the greatest danger these courts pose is that under a real or concocted state of emergency, the president can declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and consign any targeted individual to justice under these courts with no trial by jury, no habeas rights, no assigned competent defense counsel, and no right of appeal;
-- FISA courts (or FISC made up of 11 district court justices) rule on obtaining foreign intelligence warrants under which no Fourth Amendment protections apply; The Patriot Act amended FISA to allow surveillance of US citizens whenever the administration claims it relates to a foreign intelligence investigation with obvious implications what this means; the Democrat-led Congress went even further in early August as discussed below.
The above-listed courts operate under hugely differing standards, and Van Bergen notes a stark one in the case of military tribunals where civilians may now be tried on the whim of the president. In these courts, due process is a fantasy as they're run by, untrained in civil law, military officers, yet they're empowered to render final judgments, beyond appeal, up to and including death sentences. Serious abuses are common enough in civil and criminal courts. In immigration, FISA and military ones, the notion of due process and fair and equal justice under the law is a non-starter.
All the above examples today, in fact, add up to a shredding of notions of "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," due process under the law, and "probable cause of criminal activity" to justify arrests and searches in the age of George Bush. Van Bergen notes under the Patriot Act alone, criminal constitutional procedural standards are severely undermined so that the rule of law no longer applies any time the government says so. That's pretty scary if you're the target.
Book II - "The Bush Plan"
Here Van Bergen gets into the meat of her book under "The Bush Plan" that contains "the elements of fascism."
The Demise of Democracy - Part One
Intentional or not, the Bush administration charted a post-9/11 course straight toward a full-blown national security fascist police state. It already has all its oppressive trappings dressed up in modern-day garb, including high-sounding, fear-engendering, doublespeak language disguising it. Strip off the mask and here's a look:
-- Patriot Acts I and II,
-- the Military Commissions Act (aka the "torture authorization act" and much more),
-- a permanent state of preventive wars under the concocted doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" using first strike nuclear weapons;
-- a climate of fear and extreme secrecy;
-- universal illegal surveillance for any purpose all the time;
-- disdain for domestic and international law with George Bush unconstitutionally usurping "unitary executive" powers Chalmers Johnson calls a "bald-faced assertion of presidential supremacy....dressed up in legalistic mumbo jumbo;"
-- criminalizing dissent (
-- stealing elections;
-- shredding civil liberties and rendering human rights a non-starter;
-- controlling information through the dominant mass media functioning as collective national thought police gatekeepers "filtering" in all acceptable state propaganda and suppressing all vital and relevant information and analysis;
-- rampant corruption in a corporatocracy;
-- a culture of out-of-control militarism, and much more under the phony "war on terrorism" making democracy in
Van Bergen reviews all of the above in detail and other elements Laurence W. Britt listed in his article titled "Fascism Anyone?" Her conclusion: "Using Britt's list, it is no stretch to call the Bush government fascist....if Britt is believed, we're already there."
The Patriot Act - Part Two
Van Bergen states this act gives "tremendous powers to central authorities, undermine(s) civil liberties, and enable(s) suppression of opposition." It's the "mainstay of government oppressive power (as it) authorizes and codifies a near-absolute and permanent invasion of (our) private lives, sets vast precedents in immigration law....dissolving....human rights (and erecting) a massive law enforcement apparatus (targeting) immigrant(s) and citizen(s) (worldwide)."
Van Bergen discusses the issues below before getting into the meat of the Act that opens the way for a vast menu of other abuses.
The Bush Administration usurped the unconstitutional right to detain any foreign national or
Van Bergen states "The invasion of Iraq established the doctrine of preemptive (or preventive) war" with the US usurping an illegal right to attack another nation it claims is a current or future threat with no justifiable evidence to prove it. The 1945 Nuremberg Charter said doing that is the "supreme international crime against peace" that constitutes the worst of all crimes of war and against humanity. Van Bergen asserts attacking
The Coup in
US administrations have deposed many foreign leaders, and the Bush administration violates international laws "left and right," so what's the significance of
Withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC)
The ICC was created by the 1998 Rome Statute and established in 2002 to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war. As of mid-2007, 146 countries signed the Statute and 104 ratified it to become members except for a big absentee -
Prosecutions and Proceedings
Activists are prime Bush administration targets in its effort to crush all dissent and opposition. It's using the Patriot Act to do it along with bending other current and obscure older laws to bring criminal indictments. Then on July 17, George Bush issued another Executive Order criminalizing dissent by targeting anyone opposing the administration's
Van Bergen notes these type actions by individuals or groups signal the notion that "activists = terrorists" and linking them together is the administration's way to control, suppress and remove all opposition it finds threatening. Activists are being targeted by grand jury subpoenas. Before them they're required to testify about unspecified federal law violations and then later allow that testimony to be used against them to charge perjury for some slightly incorrect or inaccurate statements.
Data Mining under MATRIX
MATRIX is a data mining effort standing for the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Exchange Program that police and federal authorities are using in some states. It's a form of mass scrutiny over the lives and activities of innocent people to learn if targets exhibit signs of being a terrorist or other type criminal.
MATRIX creates a "terrorism quotient" or High Terrorist Factor (HTF) that measures the likelihood individuals in the database are terrorists. Van Bergen noted the ACLU believes the program is "an effort to recreate the discredited Total Information Awareness (TIA) data mining program at the state level." It shows the federal authorities are deep into efforts at all levels to spy on US citizens. MATRIX is an unprecedented effort to do it within or outside the law. It constitutes a massive invasion of privacy and violates our rights in a free society and is one of many repressive post-9/11 unconstitutional tools the nation's 16 spy agencies are using against us.
The Constitution doesn't specifically mention a right to privacy, but Supreme Court decisions affirmed it over the years as a fundamental human right. As such, it's protected under the Ninth Amendment as well as the Third prohibiting the quartering of troops in homes, the Fourth affording protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth protecting against self-incrimination. MATRIX and other intrusions enhance Patriot Act powers allowing them to persist outside of congressional oversight and judicial review. It's another part of the overall scheme to subvert the rule of law under George Bush police state justice.
The Bush administration built a culture of extreme secrecy from the start. Van Bergen call this trait the "watchword of the Bush adminstration" by quoting Judge Keith of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals saying "Democracy dies behind closed doors" where under this administration they're locked shut and bolted. Policy for the last six and a half years has been a "blatant power grab....an American coup, an American military dictatorship (and) an American fascist empire" that's highlighted by what's going on at
Van Bergen sums up saying the Bush administration exhibits the "common threads found in all fascist states," and that should scare everyone. This government, she says, is run "by a ruling elite of (extremist Christian) religious fanatics" wielding "unrestrained oppressive power" violating constitutional law, including the most precious of our rights under the First Amendment. It's flouted the rule of law and smashed civil liberties after "sull(ying) the name and reputation of the United States Supreme Court" by using the Court's authority to seize power lawlessly and keep it. Ever since, it's been on the march for total world dominance and now threatens all humanity by its out-of-control actions.
The Patriot Act - Mainstay of Oppressive Power
Van Bergen calls this act "the most vivid component of the Bush Plan." Its danger lies in placing too much unchecked power in executive branch hands that creates an "enabling structure for fascism and oligarchy" that endangers democracy. Specifically, the act creates three main threats to civil liberties: the erosion of due process, freedom of association, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and as a consequence, the loss of privacy.
(1) The Threat to Due Process
The Patriot Act threatens due process in two ways:
-- by permitting indefinite detentions of undocumented immigrants, it represents a slippery slope as law professor David Cole explains: "(W)hat we do to foreign nationals today often paves the way for what will be done to American citizens tomorrow," and it's already happening under the concocted notion of "unlawful enemy combatants" anyone for any reason can be called and face prosecution.
-- by the act's "designation provision" that authorizes the Attorney General or Secretary of State to call a foreign organization a terrorist group even if it isn't. Further, the administrative designation is sealed to effectively render it beyond review or challenge.
(2) The Threat to Freedom of Association
"Designation" also threatens freedom of association as aliens and US citizens may be charged and prosecuted because of their claimed association with an "undesirable group." Van Bergen notes that post-9/11, many thousands of Muslims and Arabs were illegally rounded up, detained, imprisoned, abused, tortured and/or deported solely because of their faith. By Bush administration reasoning, Muslims = "terrorists" and "Islamofascists," especially those not white enough.
(3) The Fourth Amendment Threat: Surveillance and Privacy
Patriot Act privacy issues fall under FISA that just got worse as prior to its August recess Congress cravenly caved to the politics of fear and hastily passed the White House crafted Protect America Act 2007 that amends FISA with doublespeak language Orwell would love.
The new law supposedly closes so-called "communication gaps" but will allow virtual unrestricted mass data-mining, monitoring, and intercept of domestic and foreign internet, cell phones and other new technology as well as transit international phone call traffic and emails. The Act claims to restrict surveillance to foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the
In point of fact, the new law allows near-unrestricted warrantless spying of anyone at the discretion of the AG or DNI. It thus renders any notion of illegal searches and privacy rights null and void. The Act effectively legalizes illegality by Fourth Amendment standards that Patriot Act provisions pretty much swept away earlier. This is how things work in a police state where laws render privacy issues (and all other freedoms) null and void, and everyone is under constant surveillance and stripped of their rights.
When FISA was enacted, it was done to collect "foreign intelligence information" between or among "foreign powers" with FISC warrants only targeting foreigners. The Patriot Act then amended the law to effectively target anyone the government so designates as long as it relates "to an ongoing investigation (for a) significant foreign intelligence purpose." Van Bergen highlights the threat (now even greater) with this example: "if you speak to a friend or relative in the
Van Bergen concludes saying the Patriot Act (even without the new Protect America Act) is so sweeping in scope, it's impossible relating everything about it in a short book, let alone this review. Instead, she highlighted areas in it relating to civil rights protections affecting due process and under the First and Fourth Amendments. This oppressive act severely weakened them and with prosecutorial finesse effectively renders them null and void that threatens everyone with police state justice in the age of George Bush.
Ashcroft's Way - A Closer Look at the Patriot Act
In the hands of a man like former Attorney General John Ashcroft (as well as Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey), laws like the Patriot Act become repressive police state tools that sweep aside the rule of law. Van Bergen shows how easily this Act can be twisted and misused by citing assertions about it Ashcroft made to justify its use and under what circumstances.
Preserving Life and
Ashcroft gave four reasons to justify using the Patriot Act to, in his judgment, preserve life and liberty.
(1) It provides tools for investigating terrorism and other crime while ignoring that laws were already available to do it pre-Patriot. DOJ claims the new law provides enhanced enforcement by strengthening its use of surveillance that was never prohibited in the past but wasn't as unrestricted as now under Patriot. Unlike before, this Act denies constitutional protections nominally in place for all type criminal investigations pre-Patriot, and therein lies its danger.
(2) The Act allows "roving (telephone) wiretaps" that apply to the person, not the place. Thus, if someone uses different phones, all of them may be tapped. DOJ claims this provision allows federal agents to "follow sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection." Van Bergen explains these taps don't require probable cause of criminal behavior and thus evade constitutional protections. Under Patriot, federal agents are immune from Fourth Amendment restrictions against unreasonable searches and seizures that renders this protection null and void for everyone.
(3) The Act allows what's called "sneak and peak" searches through issuance of "delayed notice" warrants. Under it, targets aren't notified until a later time and at the government's discretion so investigators won't tip off suspects in advance. Again, this type warrant has been available for decades provided law enforcers could show a judge it was justified under special conditions. That's all changed now, and anything goes for any criminal investigation involving a physical or electronic search.
(4) Patriot gives federal agents court-ordered access to "third party records" of all kinds - financial, medical, educational, virtually anything requested. For any national security claimed purpose, it allows the government to pry into any aspect of our lives, justified or not.
Ashcroft claimed the "Patriot Act facilitated information sharing and cooperation among government agencies so they can better 'connect the dots.' " Van Bergen notes separate government agencies never were impeded from working together, but Patriot tore down built-in safeguards against abuses that are now a thing of the past. Today under the Act, our constitutionally-protected civil liberties are severely compromised and effectively off the table because of the latitude law enforcement is now allowed under this law.
In a word, the Patriot Act poses real dangers to democratic freedoms that are now on very shaky footing. In fact, they're practically non-existent at the whim of law enforcers who can operate ad libitum in the name of national security that's freely interpreted to mean virtually anything. Van Bergen asks: "(Is it) ever wise to leave our liberty and our country in the unaccountable hands of those who by their positions must always be 'cast in the role of adversary' against those whose liberties they seek to invade." Answer: never, especially if the "adversaries" are in the Bush administration.
The Cheney Plan for Global Dominance
Van Bergen lays out the threat straightaway saying if there's any doubt about the Bush administration's "fascist and imperial objectives," the "Cheney Plan for global dominance must quell it." Under GHW Bush, Defense Secretary Cheney and his undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz were tasked to shape
NSS is an "imperial grand strategy" declaration of preemptive or preventive war against any country or force the administration claims threatens our national security, true or false. Along with the 2001 Nuclear Policy Review, it gives the government the unilateral right to declare and wage future wars using first strike nuclear weapons under the doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" that has no basis in international law or anywhere else outside
Global Dominance in Action - Military Necessity or War Crimes? - Violating the
As a signatory to the
She also brings up the "Doctrine of Military Necessity" that involves lawful measures indispensable in the conduct of war. It's important to note this notion doesn't justify violating international humanitarian law or our own Constitution. "A real necessity," like launching D-Day, is "obvious," Van Bergen explains. But mass-slaughtering innocent civilians in Fallujah can't be justified for any reason nor is waging aggressive wars against non-threatening nations, and saying it's for national security meets no acceptable international law standard.
Epilogue - Detainees and Torture
The final part of Van Bergen's book provides still more proof of the Bush administration's "broad assault" against long-standing, rock-solid rule of law principles. Its scorn for the law opened the door for more extreme violations that are nonchalantly accepted as standard practice under "war on terrorism" rules that changed everything. They don't and won't ever under any conditions. Yet, the Pentagon and DOJ "developed the breathtaking legal argument that the President, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, was not bound by US or international laws prohibiting torture when acting to protect national security."
Van Bergen cites Bush's frequent use of the death penalty and indifference to human suffering when he was
On July 19, 2007, well after the publication of Van Bergen's book, George Bush displayed his contempt for the law in another sweeping executive order (EO). According to AP, he "breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program (aka no holds barred torture) that would allow harsh questioning of suspects limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban (signifying none whatever) on cruel and inhuman treatment." The order pretends to prohibit some practices, "to quell international criticism," describes them only vaguely, and doesn't say what practices are still allowed. The Bush administration insists its interrogation operation is one of its most important tools in the "war on terrorism." Bottom line - ugly business as usual will continue unchanged and unchecked, except for doublespeak language that signifies only deception from a president exposed as a serial liar.
The Detainee Decisions - by the
Van Bergen notes recent detainee decisions of great "importance to the future of this country." In Rasul v. Bush in June, 2004, the Court settled the jurisdictional question regarding
On the same day, the Court ruled on Hamdi (a
Van Bergen calls habeas the "Great Writ of Liberty" that dates back to 12th century
National Security Courts and Torture Warrants
The notion that (undefined) "terrorists" are military enemies who justify war, and not criminals, is offensive and illegal. Van Bergen points out doing it "creates another parallel legal system (and it ignores) a primary condition of battle, visible combat." The very idea of a "war on terrorism" is doublespeak fraud. It's nothing more than a devious scheme for a broader agenda that needs fictitious "outside enemy" threats as justification. That's what made Osama bin Laden "Enemy Number One" along with Al Queda even though the CIA created them both to fight the Soviets in
Making them fearsome enough and on the loose opens the door to all sorts of abuses that are passed off as justifiable self-defense under the Bush regime. In the name of national security, it's gotten away with aggressive wars, torture, indefinite detentions, repressive laws and an end to democracy in
Van Bergen ends her book saying these actions recruit more enemies and make the world less safe. Another way is needed, and it ought to start with "learn(ing) about the lessons of our own sometimes violent history and recall and reclaim the fundamental, lost ideals that we have forgotten" and sadly only paid lip service to for more than two centuries.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Mondays at noon US central time. | <urn:uuid:d1459724-64f3-4455-b3cd-9c342c62c800> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/reviewing-jennifer-van-bergens-the-twilight-of-democracy-by-stephen-lendman | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941277 | 6,768 | 1.554688 | 2 |
One of my greatest memories of this job is how slow we moved and how fast the public seemed to be driving.
While painting the road, our mobile operations top speed was normally ten miles per hour and sometimes slower. Combine that with highway traffic passing between 55 and 70 miles per hour and you have a recipe for disaster.
When performing these mobile operations we always had a mobile work zone present behind the paint truck. This normally consisted of two large trucks (aka crash trucks) that had crash attenuators attached to their rear ends. In the event of a rear end collision, these attenuator would absorb the impact. (The above pictures shows a crash truck with the crash attenuator attached)
During those two years, there were many close calls, but thankfully I was never involved in an accident where the crash attenuators had to be utilized.
The video below shows a crash attenuator being hit.
You can see by the videos and picture above that this work is done very close to and on the roadway. A moment never went by where in the back of my mind, I thought of how I could be hit by a car. | <urn:uuid:3e4183db-0f51-48cd-8123-e5ea55a17095> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://traffichappens.tumblr.com/tagged/Pavement-Markings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979495 | 235 | 1.515625 | 2 |
- (Photo: Family Values, LLC)
The original creator of the billion dollar G.I. Joe toy has moved onto a new line of action figures.
This time, instead of a series of military-themed action figures, toy mogul Don Levine has begun selling a series of Bible-based action figures depicting champions from the Old Testament.
The action figure creator hopes that the unique series of Almighty Heroes will inspire children to take a deeper look into scripture.
"It is my desire that these inspirational action figures and fashion dolls create excitement for kids, explained Levine, in a statement, and develop their interest in the characters and messages of the Bible."
The new series of toys was launched this month and include biblical figures such as Samson, David, Noah and Moses. For girls, there are fashion dolls based off women such as Queen Esther and Deborah the Warrior.
Besides the figures themselves, the toys also come with their own Bible storybook. Levine, who is Jewish, hopes that children can learn about the same heroes that he did as he grew up.
"The battle of Good versus Evil is what makes these characters stand out," added the toy tycoon known to some as the father of G.I. Joe.
The first G.I. Joe action figure was released in 1963 after toy creator and licensing agent Stan Weston brought the idea of a soldier action figure to Levine at toy company Hasbro after seeing the market success of the Barbie doll,. Since it first began, the company started by Levine made over five billion dollars.
G.I. Joe also remains one of the most recognizable toy brands within American history and has often represented the boy toy industry.
Levines new company is now slated to release 35 new toys for the fall based on the Almighty Heroes action figures and Bible stories. Levine has also started up the process for creating a television and DVD series for the characters in the future.
Information and purchasing of the items can be found at Levines website, www.familyvaluescenter.com. As a goal, the products from the site are meant to nurture the special spirit that exists within the family by making it very real, fun and meaningful to share. | <urn:uuid:2457f9f8-a3fd-4cf9-877a-64aacec9141e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianpost.com/news/g-i-joe-creator-launches-biblical-action-figures-line-27380/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963587 | 444 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A report released earlier this month reveals that the earnings gap between lawyers working in-house in US corporations and private firms has continued to narrow.
The findings are contained in US consultants Altman Weil Pensa's Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey, which has been conducted annually since 1974.
According to the report, almost one in 10 chief legal officers (CLOs) now earns over $500,000 a year. And it reveals that in the manufacturing and financial industries "the CLO's average cash compensation increased by approximately 13 per cent".
Charles Huxsaw, who was in charge of the survey, said there was a growing similarity in salaries between corporate law departments and law firms in the US.
"At the higher end there has been a lot of migration from law firms to corporate law departments, which has narrowed the gap in earnings," he said.
Huxsaw added that specialist attorneys in areas like intellectual property, taxation, mergers and acquisitions and environmental law were in particular demand.
Huxsaw said that the report showed that at entry-level corporate law department jobs were "shunned by recent law graduates. Now there is a buyers' market with entry level staying flat at around $50,000 for the last few years."
Dan DiLucchio, principal of Altman Weil Pensa, said the convergence between in-house and law firms' lawyers was especially apparent at the top end where CLOs have seen a disproportionate increase in the bonus element of their salary. | <urn:uuid:b3697e6b-2dd3-461d-904f-fb39b9bcc056> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelawyer.com/salary-gap-narrows-for-in-house-lawyers/92679.article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983015 | 306 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Alright, dear readers, okay. the author has a soapbox to stand on and a bone to pick today: it has to do with fishing ethics and sustainability, and is remarkably un-funny (as opposed to the rest of BV’s posts which are , of course, hi-LAR-ious. ahem) . What does this have to do with the picture above you might ask? well, this photograph was published by the Guardian UK online on Saturday; it depicts a Somali fisherman hauling his catch to market in Mogadishu.
Quite aside from the sheer visual impact of this photo, with the ruins in the background and the somewhat blank expression on fisherman’s face, the photo is a visual reminder of the difference between fishing for sustenance–for survival– and for vanity, masking itself as tradition.
Let me backtrack a bit… ah… okay, yes. Here we go: shark fishing is an important aspect of both commercial and artisanal fishing in Somalia, and studies have not yet shown how dramatically this practice may effect the population of hammerhead, grey, and mako sharks in the area. Some would like to see even traditional shark fishing banned, in the interest of preservation. Truth be told, the author of BV has not done enough research to say whether she falls into this camp or not.
But she will say this; in comparison to the horrific commercial massacre of sharks that occurred in Somalia in 2008, in which thousands of sharks washed up on shore after having had their fins brutally lopped off by commercial fishermen, the artisanal practice of going to sea in small outboard-motorized vessels, and hand-carrying one’s catch to market, at least seems to even the playing field a bit. Would you want to trade places with this man? No. I she a damned sight more respectable than the consumers who like to consume shark fins because.. oh, why was that again? oh, yes, because it helps float their peckers and demonstrates their wealth?
The answer, dear readers, is YES.
Further reading: A grassroots organization in Hong-Kong Boycotts the traditional banquet dish of shark fin soup. HUZZAH for grassroots advocacy. | <urn:uuid:92606331-bfbf-4b1e-a6e6-a8653a2ebca5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bestiarumvocabulum.wordpress.com/tag/somalia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960607 | 459 | 1.734375 | 2 |
A few potentially useful thoughts about work and working life.
- When you’ve reached enlightenment, your boss will still be a jerk. The good news is that it won’t bother you any more. The secret of maintaining a calm mind is letting go of emotions and refusing to waste energy on fretting about whatever you can’t change. The world is an unsatisfactory place; your boss is an unsatisfactory person. Life is good.
- There are no acceptable excuses for your bad behavior. Not your dreadful childhood (most people were dreadful sometimes as children, even if their childhood was idyllic), your miserable relationships (miserable people give themselves more of them), the fact you have no money (maybe you did nothing to earn more, or wasted what you had), your frustrating job (you’re presumably too frustrated to do anything about changing it) or the pains in your neck (and the ones you give to others). Life sometimes sucks. Get over it. Don’t add to the mess.
- Reality keeps coming at you. There’s no “off” switch. All you can do is cope with it as best you can. Since you’re human, you’re fallible. There will be many times you mess up totally and many more you mess up a little. If you beat yourself up over each one of them, you’re going to be a continual hospital case. If you feel guilty whenever you screw up, you’ll end up a basket case too.
- No one can insult you without your permission. Whatever he or she says about you, it’s your emotions that make you feel bad. That, and going over and over the insult in your mind, imagining what you should have said (but didn’t think of until it was too late). Ignore them and insults will have no power over you.
- You can always be yourself. You don’t need to prove it. It’s impossible for you to be anyone else, however hard you try. Doing something just to prove your ability, courage, or anything else is merely showing off. Only doing something because it needs doing is the real thing.
- Whatever changes you have in mind, begin with yourself. Many people work diligently to change others, while leaving themselves untouched. If you succeed in making the other person better, it will only show up your own deficiencies in a harsher light.
- You won’t find meaning in your life by sitting and thinking about it. To create meaning, you have to take action with some purpose in mind. Locking a new car in the garage and thinking about driving it won’t put any miles on the clock. Thinking about what your life means is the same. You need to get a little mud on the wheels and a few dints in the bodywork. Later, when you look at them, you’ll recall what happened and what each one meant.
- If you aren’t satisfied with your life, change it. If you won’t change it, put up with it. There’s no middle way. Whatever you do, don’t keep telling us about it. We don’t want to know.
- Keep living until you die. Some people give up on life while they’re still alive. You can see they’ve done so, because they no longer do any of the things that show life is present. They don’t learn, they don’t change, they don’t develop, they don’t adapt. They may be alive physically, but they’re already dead in any sense that matters.
- There’s no such creature as a self-made person—unless she conceived and gave birth to herself, fed herself as a baby and a child, made her own clothes from cotton and wool she produced herself, taught herself, built her own house and car, and never needed to go to a doctor, a dentist, a pharmacy or a store. We’re all utterly dependent on one another. Gratitude seems more appropriate than egotistical fantasies.
- Organized Abuse
- Workplace Karma
- The Critical Importance of NOT Doing Things
- The Untold Power of Concentrated Weakness
- Speed, Simplicity, and Bad Choices
- Starting out
- Improv Lives
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Executive Platitudes
Adrian Savage is a writer, an Englishman, and a retired business executive, in that order. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. You can read his other articles at Slow Leadership, the site for everyone who wants to build a civilized place to work and bring back the taste, zest and satisfaction to leadership and life, and Working Potential, where you’ll learn about great ideas for self-development. His latest book, Slow Leadership: Civilizing The Organization, is now available at all good bookstores. | <urn:uuid:d18db26e-49c2-4059-a4ce-7007089d97bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/postcards-from-over-the-edge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949292 | 1,039 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Well, this is the controversial post of the day, mainly because I disagree with some of the typical Waldorf School Kindy activities for home for these ages. I wrote about the one-and two-year old here: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/06/waldorf-in-the-home-with-the-one-and-two-year-old/ and today we are going to move on to the three-and four-year old.
If you need a refresher as to where the three-year-old is developmentally, please see here:http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/19/peaceful-life-with-a-three-year-old/ and here: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/18/three-year-old-behavior-challenges/. For the four-year-old .please see here: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/12/08/discipline-for-the-four-year-old/
I am going to depart from so many of the hallowed and sacred texts of Waldorf, and tell you that Waldorf “homeschooling” (I really dislike that term! How about just living?) for a three-and four-year-old looks a bit different at home than in the classroom. This is especially true for those three and four-year olds who are the OLDEST in their families.
I think this much is true in both the environments of Waldorf at Homea nd Waldorf at school though: the work of the three- and four-year-old is play. Play, fantasy and being outside. These are the true things one needs to be working with on a child of this age. Mothers often write me and feel they should be worried about handwork projects, wet on wet painting and other things. I say worry about the quality of your child’s play ( if you feel like worrying!), and think of ways to stimulate that if you feel the need to be “doing something” outside of the rhythms and things we talked about for the one and two year old.
For the one and two year old here are the things I mentioned as being important, with some added notes to build on for the three-and four- year old.
Bodily care, toileting or diaper changes, is HUGE. I cannot stress this enough. Times for bodily care should involve love, their involvement, singing and joy. This is still big for a three and four year old. Your four year old is not at school and being expected to wipe themselves independently after a bowel movement, this is home, and these bodily care situations still deserve time, attention and dignity.
Meal times. Again, unhurried, unrushed, singing, having your child help with preparation and clean-up. Use your meal time now to start working in things to develop their movement – kneading bread, using a rolling pin, sweeping the kitchen floor, scrubbing a countertop, etc.
Nap times/Rest Times. Sing lullabies, have a blanket that is special for sleeping, have a routine involving physical touch of gentle massage or foot rub.
It can be very hard with a three or four year old who has stopped napping, but shooting for some time that is quiet is a great goal. They may not be able to do it on their own (although some will happily play with a play scenario you have set up), but that may be a time to read a story, a time to tell a story, a time to sing soft songs whilst massaging their hands or feet, and just dim the lights and be together and rock in the rocking chair for a bit. You may also catch some down time for yourself at this time or during outside time if your child gets engaged.
Bath times. Singing, finger plays and toe plays, gentle rub downs with the towel (those textures again)
Outside time. This is the time to think of some creative things for outside.
Being outside is of extreme importance and to provide opportunities for physical movement outside. No going outside to just sit there! If your child is a reluctant woodsperson, try some of the following suggestions:
- Make a “carpet” by laying down sticks in squares and then filling in the squares with things the child can find.
- Find the natural objects to make plates, forks, spoons, for a fairy feast
- Make pinecone people by getting a pinecone and decorating with leaves, small twigs by pushing the objects into the pinecone.
- Show your child how to rub their chins with flowers and see if they like butter, how to make flower chains, how to take the caps off acorns, how to grate dry leaves into dust and powder, how to roll a snowball and look for tracks of fairies and giants in the snow.
- Get them things to lug, tug, push, pull, dig.
- Play in the sand and in the mud, make mud pies, hunt for worms and bugs.
- For other suggestions, please see these posts: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/09/25/nature-day-number-8-of-20-days-toward-being-a-more-mindful-mother/ and this one: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/24/connecting-your-children-to-nature/
Participation in household life. Your very gesture is so important, it should not be you rushing around trying to get the whole house clean in one day. It is taking each article of laundry and smoothing it out, folding it tenderly, putting it in the pile to be put away with love for your family. What is important is not only that the child sees the work being done, but imitates that gesture of love and care. That extends into caring for plants and animals, this is the very first “environmental education” that a child gets with you, right at home.
To this we add the thought that physical work is very important, not only outside, but inside as well. Can your wee one help you wash lettuce? Peel carrots? Peel an apple? Grind wheat? Knead bread? These experiences are the first form of handwork for the young child.
Music – as mentioned many times, music and rhymes and verses should take precedence at this point over any written word.
Inner Work/Personal Parenting Development: The most spiritually mature people should be the ones coming into contact with the youngest children. This is a very important time for your own work and development. If you are anxious, practice being calm. If you are impatient, practice being patient. If you talk in a stream of conscious way, practice being silent. This is a time to develop your spiritual and religious beliefs. It is a time to become more aware of the things unseen.
And to this list we now add a few things:
1. We work on building up the first four of the twelve senses:
The Sense of Touch: Holding, cuddling, taking baths together, swimming, piggy back rides, games that involve holding hands and singing, wrestling and roughhousing, tickling games if your child likes that, rolling around on the floor together, being outside in nature, natural materials to touch and play with and wear
The Sense of Life: RHYTHM, humor and joy!
The Sense of Movement: crawling, any sustained movement over time such as learning to ride a bike or swim,
The Sense of Balance: RHYTHM again, swinging, rolling,
2. PLAY. This is the time to encourage play. A reader brought up in another post’s comments that her three year old liked to play “fireman” and she wondered how much detail to go into about why fireman wear what they wear, etc. I would say it is our job to “unstick” our children’s play if they are stuck. So, in this example, if all this little boy could do is sit on the sofa and make the noise of a siren, I would set up something where “Fireman Bob” now got a call to go and rescue a cat up in a tree (a stuffed cat on a bookshelf) and now we must check the kitty and oh, the kitty is fine, but whoa, now the firetruck needs gas and let’s check that tire out and then you slowly back out of the play until your child is playing by himself or herself for a few minutes.
It is our job to help advance their play through setting up play scenarios and helping the child become “unstuck.” You can see the back posts on fostering creative play and the progression of play by age and suggested toys.
3. Preparation for Festivals. This is a great time to help children participate by DOING, not explaining in words. There are lots of posts on this blog about individual festivals. Our next one is Candlemas, there is one you can start with!
4. Art – okay, here is where I differ a bit.
- Painting - I still think three and four is young for wet on wet watercolor painting. Wet on wet watercolor painting should, to me at least, have a very quiet, contemplative and meditative quality. It can be done, but I think it is more successful when there are older children about to help carry this meditative mood of experiencing with color. I know many will disagree, but thought I would throw it out there. I know it is not especially “Waldorf school style”, but I am all for fingerpainting at these ages. So politically incorrect, I know.:)
- Coloring with crayons – I know many three and four year olds who would just make a scribble and run off. Again, I think three and four year olds are still really interested in developing gross motor skills and I know every child is different and some will love this, but many do not, especially without that group to carry it.
- Carding wool – can be a hit as it is repetitive sensory movement. You can buy fleece to wash and dry and card it with little dog brushes. This is great.
- Sanding wood might be good as well. Any thoughts?
- Modeling – I like the idea of modeling with sand, salt dough, snow, kneading bread. I think beeswax modeling is for older children myself. Again, this differs from Waldorf school.
- Sewing – I know Marsha Johnson talks about having the three year old who can sew little felt shapes or whathave you for festivals, but I also know handwork teachers who would disagree with having a three or four year old hand sewing. I think this one is up to you!
- Finger knitting – again, I think better for the five and six year old.
- Other Arts and Crafts – some can be successful, especially in preparation for a festival, but I think for the most part recommendations in books such as “Earthways” the age range is always put lower than what I would put it. Why be in such a rush to do all this?
5. Storytelling and Puppetry – If you have not had a time where you light a candle and tell a story, now is the time to begin. Pick a story, memorize it, and tell it at least three days a week for two weeks to a month. Simple nature tales, stories you make up, repetitive fairy tales such as The Mitten, The Gingerbread Man, stories from Suzanne Down’s books, can all be used. I especially like the stories with music in them if you can read music and sing.
Circle Time is the heart of the Waldorf Kindergarten, but can be a complete flop at home. I love the book “Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures” (use the search engine box to find the review), but at home it can really flop. Still, I think it is worth a try if you can convince your four-year-old to “teach” your younger child, LOL. Still stick to the verses and songs you have in daily life, and add seasonal fingerplays and seasonal songs.
Other questions parents have? What to do about the four year old who is writing? Wanting to write their name or copy words is still different than formal academics, so just being very ho-hum and not worrying about it is the way to go. Colors are on the nature table and you can point out an orange pumpkin that is round and not feel bad your child is “being exposed.” Again, a bit different than formal academics. Many of the verses and rhymes for childhood have numbers in them, or letters, and that is okay. Again, different than formal academics.
Social experiences outside the home can still be limited. I wrote about social experiences with the four-year-old here:http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/09/09/more-about-social-experiences-for-the-four-year-old and took some grief about this post, but I still feel about things the same way as when I wrote it. You can agree or disagree, and take what resonates with you.
I am sure I am forgetting things about these ages and Waldorf in the Home, but hopefully it is a good start for you as you think about these ages. Again, take what resonates with you.
Many blessings and peace, | <urn:uuid:49ca1907-70b0-4849-93de-8e7ed915b763> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/13/waldorf-in-the-home-with-the-three-and-four-year-old/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967229 | 2,871 | 1.757813 | 2 |
New Jersey bear hunt may have netted record-breaker
on December 16, 2011 at 3:51 PM, updated December 16, 2011 at 3:52 PM
New Jersey’s six-day bear hunt yielded an 829-pound bruin, which is believed to be the heaviest ever killed in the state.
Bruce Headley, of Jefferson Township, bagged the boar on Dec. 9 while he was hunting deer near his home.
It took the hunter, his son and two neighbors three hours to haul the bruin out of the woods.
He donated the bear to the Division of Fish and Wildlife, which hopes to have it mounted and displayed at the Pequest Natural Resource Education Center.
Headley tells The Daily Record of Parsippany he would have "traded getting two bucks instead of the bear." | <urn:uuid:12c8d70f-fd44-4269-a9f2-7936133c7ac8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2011/12/this_years_new_jersey_bear_hun.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969992 | 170 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Natural Anti-inflammatory supplements have been gaining mass amounts of popularity. Many pet owners have been looking for a natural alternative to pharmaceutically manufactured drugs to help with dog arthritis for a long time. There are a variety of different types of Natural Anti-inflammatory supplements including Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), Cetyl Myristoleate (CM), and Omega Fatty Acids. Methylsulfonylmethane is a naturally occurring sulfur compound that has been proven to be the bond between glycosaminoglycans like glucosamine and chondroitin. It is believed that MSM also may have some anti-inflammatory activities as well.
Cetyl Myristoleate is an esterfied form of fatty acid called myristoleic acid. It is usually found in both plant and animal sources like the African kombo nut (which is wild nutmeg), whale and animal fat, and beef tallow. CM has been said to reduce pain and stiffness, stimulate joint lubrication, and reduce inflammation caused by arthritis.
Most people are familiar with omega fatty acids. There are a plethora of health benefits that come from taking omega fatty acid and fish oil supplements. However, you need to be mindful and remember that not all supplements are created equal. The resulting purity of the oil varies greatly between all the different products on the market based on the extraction process. It is extremely important that you use a trusted source when it comes to administering omega fatty acid supplements to your dog for arthritis. The best supplements to use when it comes to naturally anti-inflammatory relief are ones that have the oil extracted from the green lipped mussel of New Zealand. Research has determined that this oil is extremely rich in both EPA and DHA, along with ETA, which are all very potent anti-inflammatory agents.
Glucosamine for dogs
The above varieties of dog arthritis supplements and glucosamine for dogs are all extremely effective and useful in treating your dog’s painful arthritis problems. It is important to regularly administer these supplements to your dog in order to achieve the most effective treatment. Make sure to never administer any supplements or medication to your dog without first consulting a veterinarian. They are very knowledgeable when it comes to dog arthritis due to the vast amount of dogs that develop this disease over time. Giving your dog arthritis supplements can be one of the best things you can do as an owner. These supplements can truly help regenerate lost cartilage in joints, ease the pains that come with this health issue, and reverse the symptoms associated with dog arthritis. With proper care and regular supplement administering, your canine will be back to its playful and fun-loving self in no time. | <urn:uuid:7934d778-4196-4e65-8599-28d2f4362615> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.k9jointstrength.com/blog/2011/11/drugs-to-help-with-dog-arthritis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953467 | 551 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Latest PR stunt aims at fueling fear and anger – will inevitably lead to more deaths on both sides.
Tony Cartalucci, Contributor
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has been leading the charge online advocating a “moment of silence” (Twitter hash tag #JustOneMinute ) at the London 2012 Summer Olympics for 11 Israeli athletes tragically slain in Munich, Germany during the 1972 Olympic Games.
The athletes themselves had nothing to do with the ongoing conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, but were drawn into the conflict when they were targeted and taken hostage, used as political bargaining chips by their captors, and ultimately killed in the process. Now, some 40 years later, it is the Israeli government attempting to use their memory for political leverage, demanding that a moment of silence be observed for the athletes in London, fully cognitive of the controversy, emotions, and backlash it is sure to stir.
This is especially the case in England where Islamophobia and Islamic-extremists have been purposefully and carefully cultivated by the same corporate-financier elite who have been feeding off of the lucrative 10 year, fraudulent “War on Terror.” The City of London in particular has made unprecedented security preparations, including anti-aircraft missiles positioned atop buildings. The Israeli government’s exploitation of their own national tragedy seems to be an almost intentional provocation amidst a potentially explosive combination.
The ramifications of Israel’s latest PR stunt will surely reach beyond London, and all the way back home, where Palestinians are predictably wondering where their “moment of silence” is after years of what they perceive to be an ongoing national tragedy. And of course, invoking the memory of the “Munich 11″ as they are known, plays into the manufactured anger and fear perpetuated by the corporate media all across the West, as Israel contemplates initiating a US-British backed assault on Iran, and also being implicated in fueling instability in neighboring Lebanon and Syria.
What possible good could the Israeli government believe will come of this latest PR stunt? How does once again provoking confrontation benefit the people of Israel? Perhaps the government realizes that they will only provoke tension, anger, and fear amongst not only their enemies but throughout their own population, serving only to perpetuate conflict they seem ever eager to send their sons and daughters off to face.
They must then want the inevitable bloodshed that will result, that always does result as both sides purposefully incite their own people into violence to justify another leg of murderous exchanges. So while Danny Ayalon pretends he is honoring the “Munich 11,” he is actually, purposefully, knowingly setting the stage for future memorials for future dead on both sides, to then be used to fuel yet more violence amidst this engineered strategy of tension.
The people of the world must demand that the Munich 11 be allowed to rest in peace, that their tragedy serve as a constant reminder of where politically-motivated violence always ends – not exploited to trigger yet another round of tit-for-tat violence – the very tit-for-tat violence that cost the Munich 11 their lives in the first place.
Filed Under: HISTORY LESSONS
About the Author: | <urn:uuid:6b161300-7102-45ed-8c8e-87086d60ea02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://truthfrequencynews.com/let-the-munich-11-rest-in-peace/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95247 | 657 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Just 54 teachers in Louisiana achieved certification in 2012 from a well-regarded national teaching organization. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards announced the results Monday. The totals are down from 102 in 2011 and 148 in 2010. Louisiana's peak for nationally certified teachers was 250 teachers in 2005. The downward trend is likely to continue, at least in Louisiana. Michelle Accardi, director of state policy and outreach, said the number of new Louisiana applicants for certification for 2013 is down 60 percent from where it was a year ago. Accardi said the poor economy has probably made it harder for teachers to afford the $2,500 fee associated with national board certification. | <urn:uuid:1990979b-9c1f-4819-ac60-d80209f394a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.klfy.com/story/20530021/louisiana-teacher-certification-declines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962545 | 131 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Beyond Boundaries is
a production of WNYMuslims
it is our weekly internet newscast
it was relaunched to explore what is happening overseas in regards to human rights.
Yousef and Shaan comment on these news stories that are often overlooked by major news sources.
Previously Beyond Boundaries covered 8-10 international news stories.
Connect with us to learn more about human rights violations and achievements.
Connect with us!
Burmese citizens living in Thailand held portraits of Burma's President Thein Sein as they gather outside the Burmese embassy in Bangkok on 24 July 2012. (Reuters)
Yousef Taha is our senior news reporter for Beyond Boundaries. He is currently a second year law student at the University at Buffalo School of Law. Yousef graduated with his Bachelor’s degree in History from St. John’s University in 2010. Yousef’s main interests include the social and legal implications of the Palestinian diaspora, the education and advancement of Muslims living in Western New York, and supporting the rights of ethnic minority communities in America.
Shaan is a new edition to Beyond Boundaries, he will be an alternate hose with Yousef Taha. He is currently a senior at Williamsville North High School, where he is President and Founder of the Muslim Students Association. Shaan has a passion for International Politics, reading and playing soccer. He hopes to go on to law school and dispel the current rise of Islamophobia. | <urn:uuid:8d9fe5ad-3bdc-457d-bd71-45ac7e03e25c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wnymuslims.org/index.php?page=beyond_boundaries | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950132 | 309 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In the photo below you'll see the interior of my 1998 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight. I inherited it from my late mother-in-law with only 20k miles. I use it to commute, and today it still only has 85k. But as with all things, it's not always the mileage that counts, but the age. One day, as I climbed into the car to head to the office, I noticed some green fluid on the passenger side floor mat and assumed there was a problem with the heater core.
Most vehicles I've worked on have the core accessible from the firewall or under the dash. Usually it's not too hard to get to. But not on this car. I first started with the under-dash covers, then the glove box, and next some of the dash components. I could not get to it. Everything was connected to something else and a lot of it was one large assembly.
In order to repair the heater in his 1998 Oldsmobile, Bradley Miller had to take the entire interior apart.
I turned to the Internet for help and read some real horror stories. As you can see from the photo, I had to remove all kinds of parts and assemblies to get to the darn thing. Even the steering wheel had to come out. You name it: instrument cluster, air bags, dash, air vents and ducts, HVAC controls, radio, and so on. What should have been an hour job took a full day. And, thanks to considerable effort, I did get it all back together.
Who designed this? They certainly had no plans for how the car would be serviced. And now, I have little pieces of sticky deteriorated foam from the duct-work dampers/diverters blowing out the vents. Why don't things get built to last anymore? In all my years of engineering, I have always done a life-expectancy analysis on every job. The objective was to get the most bang for the buck (return on investment).
This entry was submitted by Bradley Miller and edited by Rob Spiegel.
Tell us your experiences with Monkey-designed products. Send stories to Rob Spiegel for Made by Monkeys. | <urn:uuid:75e02c2b-1caa-49bf-bc9d-2a205b086320> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1367&doc_id=249934 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981313 | 448 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Published: February 26th 2012February 25th 2012
Weds Feb 22nd: We leave by bus at 8am and first pass through Chinatown. Bangkok was originally a Chinese settlement and now Chinese represent the largest foreign portion of the Bangkok population. The Chinese influence can be seen everywhere and the dark skinned Thais and light skinned Chinese have intermarried to the point where it is very hard to distinguish who is who. Chinatown here has the second largest market in gold in the world. Chinese buy and sell 24 carat gold not as jewelry but as a commodity. We then pass through Indiatown. Indians represent the next largest foreign portion of Bangkok citizens. We pass an enormous wholesale flower market. Thailand is a huge exporter of flowers and has close to 300 varieties of orchids. Street after street receive and sell flowers 24 hours a day.
Bangkok is a city of temples with 99% of the population being Buddist. We learn from Mae that Buddism teaches a way of life that is based on giving and living the kind of generous life that will ensure happiness and luck. Studying as a novice monk is extremely important to a young man's success and monks are consulted on all life decisions. The first temple we visit is Wat Trimitr. This temple was recently completed by the king to house a Buddha found years ago. When the cement Buddha was moved it was dropped and they discovered it is solid Gold. It is huge and weighs five tons. We remove our shoes and walk into the beautiful marble building. All decoration is hand painted and trim is gold leaf.
Our next stop is the Grand Palace. Built in 1782 by the first of Thailand nine kings. It is a huge complex of buildings and gardens. We stop at water color wall paintings which tell the stories of Thailand. These stories include demons and protector monkeys which surround the king. Thai children learn these stories and along with us this helps to explain the many statues we will see in the area. The architecture of the buildings is Thai, Ceylonese and Chinese. Thai temples are stacked levels reaching up to create the towers, Ceylonese is more domed and the Chinese towers are covered with beautiful pieces of Chinese porcelain. The effect is truly breath taking. There are hundreds of people and it is 37 degrees so we move slowly keeping an eye out for Mae. We pass a sandstone model of Angkor Wat which took longer to make than the original! It gives us a wonderful perspective of what the temple looked like hundreds of years ago. We see the temple of the Emerald Buddha which sits high above us in the temple on a stunning Dias of gold. The Buddha is a sold piece of jade and is dresssed is winter robes. Spring and summer will be marked by the change in his apparel. There are child school children in the grounds who are working on English projects and they stop us to ask our names in English. We see the classroom used by Anna of the "King and I" fame. We learn from Mae that the Hollywood version is not accurate as Anna would never have been allowed close to the king. The Thais also do not like the movie as they love their kingvery much and would never have portrayed him to be weak or made fun of. We pass the modern palace built by the fifth king in western style but topped with Thai domes. The current king is in his mid eighties and poor health has him living in 3floors of the massive hospital.
Our last stop is Wat Do, founded in the 17th century and the oldest temple in Bangkok. It houses the massive reclining Buddha. We hear the constant clink of coins being dropped into brass buckets which line one side of the temple. All Buddists give generously to the temples on a regular basis.
All the temples are painstakingly maintained by monks and artists who reprint, clean and replace everyday. Billions of one inch glass tiles are changed every three years, gold leaf is polished or repainting miles of water color paintings are freshened up and everything has a new and beautiful appearance.
We board yet another type of transportation and go by tuk tuk back to our hotel. We end our day with a far greater understanding of Buddhism and the huge role it plays in the everyday life of the Thai people. | <urn:uuid:e73e8e6c-80f9-4363-b39f-cb815923bfd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/blog-690689.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972778 | 877 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The Valley should see temperatures drop into the 50s this weekend with a slight chance of light rain showers, according to the National Weather Service.
A high temperature of 72 degrees is expected on Thursday, which should be the highest temperature in Phoenix until midway through next week at the earliest, the Weather Service said.
A cold front will move across the state Friday, bringing with it slight chances of rain and a temperature drop into the 60s in Phoenix as early as Friday evening, said Austin Jamison, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
The chances for rain are expected to stay between 20 and 25 percent through Saturday before trailing off to 10 percent Sunday and Monday, Jamison said.
Phoenix will see very light and spotty showers if at all, Jamison said.
The high temperature will drop from 68 degrees on Friday to 58 degrees on Saturday until Monday, Jamison said.
Temperatures are expected to increase back into the 60s starting Tuesday, according to the Weather Service.
Northern Arizona will see more precipitation and high gusts of wind this weekend as Flagstaff can expect a couple inches of snowfall Friday evening, Jamison said.
Between three and four inches of snow is expected Saturday, dropping to between one and two inches that night, Jamison said.
A wind advisory is in effect Friday afternoon for northern parts of Arizona where winds gusts could be as fast as 44 mph, Jamison said. | <urn:uuid:9ecc533e-b455-4b28-9aa0-f291a4512141> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azcentral.com/weather/articles/20130207phoenix-area-weather-cold-rain-abrk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947463 | 292 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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