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Delores Hanney has released her second book about Venice, "The Lure of a Land by the Sea: Venice Vignettes"
From the publisher:
“Venice, California sits here, at the far left side of the continent, the spot just before one falls off the edge.” With these words Delores Hanney launches into her brief, breezy histories about this town, famed chiefly for its high oddball factor that renders it a popular Southern California attraction second only to Disneyland at drawing visitors in vast swarms.
The face Venice turns to the dawning sunlight each day has been mutating since the beginning, when Abbot Kinney’s dream community of class and culture was reorganized into something less lofty. As diverse as a rhinoceros from a Ruben sandwich or a rainbow, the stars that flitted across its stage have included – in addition to Kinney – tiger-tamer Mabel Stark, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, writer Ray Bradbury, race car guy Carroll Shelby and Irwin M. Fletcher (better known as Fletch). There are stories about all of them, and many others too, in The Lure of a Land by the Sea.
Hanney brings to her historytellings the zeal of an old-time California gold miner; indeed, her narratives shine like little gold nuggets gathered up together in a swell sprightly style. The book also includes a golden foreword in the form of a jaunty Venice memory piece written by William Carroll.
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Translated by Ruth Fleishman
The relics from the Fridays of the Ramadan months were still detectable. Cement blocks were scattered on the roads, narrowing the lanes and along the separation wall was another ,paralle,l separation wall (shorter than the first) with an open gate at the center, "the revolving door" the soldiers called it, "the gate of the rejected" was how we call it (Ruti Barkay coined the phrase).
Through it they banished the women who did not comply with the age criterion. The pictures of Moatassem Adwan and Ali Khalifa, who were murdered at the refugee camp, were still hanging for the separation wall and fences.
Al Jib checkpoint:
"The DCO should check whether he isn't 'refused passage'- and I'll cross!", the checkpoint commander notified his supervisors on the radio link in regards to a dying man who was being transferred to Mukased hospital.
In addition the commander read out loud the man's medical chart. After all, people who have no rights don't have a medical confidentiality either. The Palestinians inside and around the checkpoint, the numerous soldiers and us, heard all the details. We heard that the man was unconscious, that he had cancer and that he had a wide range of additional illnesses.
Luckily for the Palestinian the DCO answered that the man was "clean". Otherwise, perhaps once again an unconscious person with only hours to live (the ambulance driver whispered to us), would rise from his death bed and endanger the country.
During that hour in the day the laborers make their way home after working in the surrounding settlement. Many stopped to tell us that the checkpoint commander, a BP officer who arrives there once in every two or three weeks, doesn't allow the residents of the nearby villages, who work in Jerusalem, to cross this checkpoint when heading back, he sends them to Qalandiya or Zaitim.
This trip not only takes them a long time but is also very costly.
Translation: Ruth Fleishman
Third Friday of the Ramadan
"Not yet fifty" was the key phrase.
On the morning of the third Friday of the Ramadan all the rule regulating the passage had changed: the criterions were more severe and all praying permits were cancelled. Fifty was the minimum age. Those younger by only a couple of days, men as well as women, with or without permits, were declined passage. Several hours later (at eight o'clock according to the officers), after the thousands that had wished to cross the checkpoint during the morning hours left in desperation, this "equality" between the genders was lifted and only the usual rules regarding women were implemented.
Two different groups were there, the group inside and the one outside.
Various military unites were inside, in the sterile zone, protected from grenades and rifles in the fortified site that was barricaded by metal fences, cement blockings and barbed wire.
While outside, surrounding the site, were thousands of men, women and children that had gathered from all around the West Bank, asking to realize the promise made by the sovereign who is obligated to protect the right for freedom of religion.
Order, discipline and hierarchy controlled the inside group, while the outside group was controlled by surprise, rage and chaos.
People who had just a couple of days earlier received signed permits from the authorities that were to be used on that day, witnessed how the same hands that gave them their permits, denied both it and them with a simple hand gesture and a rude voice.
Many men who up until the previous night were old enough to cross, had that morning become a threat, they ran helplessly between the gates, holding their documents out as evidence of their right, trying their luck for the second, the third and the fourth time.
But the gates and cracks were tighter than ever. The sterility was backed up with fishers' nets (in the military lingo) and almost no loopholes were to be found. The few, mostly teenage girls, that managed to slip passed the first row of soldiers, were caught soon enough and sent back through the "gate of the denied" which was a kind of "revolving door".
People from east Jerusalem found it hard to get back home: "not yet fifty" was the key phrase…
Among the people who were trying their luck was a person who two weeks earlier was framed by the soldiers, an event which we witnessed. The person told us that at the beginning he was taken to the police station at the checkpoint, from there he was transferred to Atarot and at the end of the day he found himself incarcerated in Ofer. In the mean time, while making their way from one place to the other, the people transferring him beat him. It was only on Sunday, two day after his arrest, that he was released on a 5,000 Shekel bail.
The link to the video documenting the event:
Two of the senior officers that commanded and supervised the event had a conversation: "Lots persons who are illegally staying in Israel cross here!..." said one to the other and they both nodded. Worried in face of the many people cramped up and the few that managed to pass, when the only criterion was the age specified on the person's ID, they didn't seem uncomfortable nor did they seem to dwell on the absurdity of the sight before them.
As the hours passed and the hour of the prayer in Jerusalem approached, the checkpoint was closed to elder men as well. It was the hour in which even the person's age didn't matter anymore. At the eastern side of the site, those who stood at the men's gate keeled on the ground and prayed in front of cement bricks, barricades, barbed wire and heavy machinery, before the eyes of the soldiers who saw and ignored this.
Usually, at that point the laws regulating the passage are once again as before. However, this wasn't the case on that Friday. Closure was the regulation that faced those who waited for it to be noon, so that they could cross with use of their permits to Jerusalem. They were denied and sent home in shame, with a sound of the fortified soldier behind the front window, screaming at them.
08:00 - Shaked-Tura checkpoint
Every vehicle which arrived, from either side, was inspected and drove away within five minutes .
People went into the inspection cabin and walked out after three minutes.
It appears that all is well, but before nine o'clock five went inside for inspection, three women and two men on their way from Daher-el-Malec into the West Bankhey went in and came out of the inspection cabin a few times and in the end didn't go through. One of them explained to me that one of the women, an attractiveyoung woman, wore earrings which beeped during the inspection. She was told to remove her Hijab which covered the earrings and she refused. The rest didn't want to go without her. When the soldiers watched me calling the DCO, she was called by the Sergeant who asked her what was whistling she answered that those were her earrings and that she wasn't going to take off her Hijab. The Sergeant reconsidered. consulted, made a phone call and allowed her to go through.
09:15- All had crossed over.
09:25 - Reihan-Barta'a checkpoint
Three huge trucks loaded with goods waited for inspection. There weren't too many cars at the car park, perhaps it has to do with the Palestinian clock that at this time stands on 08:25 only.
During my shift two more trucks had arrived as well as three commercial vans, all drove straight into the inspection area.
Pedestrians who arrived on site, went straight into the terminal.
10:30 Before I left, I saw soldiers, policemen and drivers at the upper car park in an argument. One of the Palestinian said that the soldier argued with a cab driver and following that policemen and more soldiers arrived on site.
On my way to East Barta'a I saw signs of fire next to the shooting range by the side of the road. Olive trees were burnt.
Translator: Charles K.
First Friday of Ramadan
The radio reported that 95,000 people came to pray at Al Aksa, adding that 60,000 passed through Qalandiya. In other words: Most of the worshippers came through Qalandiya. But what’s more important: How many came to Qalandiya and couldn’t go through?
We arrived at 10:00 – actually, 9:00 Palestine time; the morning and afternoon shifts should remember this. The same arrangements as last year, men cross on the eastern side, through the regular pedestrian crossing. Women go through on the west through the vehicle lane. The parking area is completely closed off. Women go through three inspection stations. Initial screening, everyone who doesn’t meet the “criteria” is sent back, then an additional inspection!
Sheets of blue fabric shade the area; later we learned that this was a Palestinian initiative. Many Red Cross personnel with wheelchairs. A Palestinian organization distributes baseball caps to the children. Very many soldiers of different ranks from various units – from a private to a brigadier general who stops by. Civilian security personnel, Border Police, DCO staff and additional forces, all “guarding punctiliously” - each other as well. Making sure everyone follows orders. Everything must be organized.
Snipers along the wall ready for action; there’s also a soldier with a rifle and telescopic sight in the pillbox. And everything is, in fact, organized. The women go through, not crowded together as in previous years, but it’s the first Friday, when there are fewer worshippers.
After the first screening, many women are sent to the “rejection gate,” where the true picture is visible to observers. Families arriving with children “the wrong age” face a problem: go on to pray anyway, after having risen early, travelled far and probably spent a considerable sum on transportation, or take the boy or girl home? And if they do go through, how will the child get home on their own (!?)
Moreover, the separate lines for men and women, which is certainly good for the women, divides family members who arrived together and are going to prayers together. Children must go through with a biological parent and a birth certificate. Sons are allowed to accompany a mother, but we saw a girl who came with her father and was allowed to cross only after a discussion, and he went through the men’s lane. Some give up; others continue nevertheless. Occasionally someone tried a second time (after having been turned back) and did manage to get through.
The soldiers don’t always know the rules either, and the Border Police soldiers must correct them so they’ll let holders of blue (Israeli) ID cards cross regardless of their age.
A 49 year old man in a wheelchair who’d suffered a stroke wanted to go pray. Maybe next year, when he’s old enough to cross, he’ll no longer be alive. Permission denied.
And, of course, the day wouldn’t be complete without the kind of trivial incident that exposes the violence of the ruler toward the ruled: a man, apparently suffering from a developmental disability, reached out to help someone from the DCO lower the awning. The soldier thought he was being attacked, fell upon the Palestinian, called for the Border Police force, there was a scuffle, the Palestinian ran wild, began yelling, “I just wanted to help him...,” wanting them to understand that he’s the victim. It’s clear what happens next: “Turn him over to the Israeli police!”, and they drag him in. Tamar and Tami G. documented the incident.
As the time to cross was drawing to an end – 12:30-13:00 Israel time – At the women’s crossing they’re not giving up!!! Young women with their young children face the soldiers stubbornly. They know they won’t be able to cross but don’t waive their right to protest. They don’t move, argue in Arabic. “It doesn’t matter that the soldier doesn’t understand – I say what I think!”
12:15 A special police force is deployed to disperse a violent demonstration of about 50 men, all nearing the age of 50 – and thus not yet permitted to cross – who nevertheless hoped to participate in the important services…
The officer gives an order and two horizontal lines of policemen with plastic shields and foam rubber guards on their shoes move the demonstrators a few dozen meters away from the crossing.
A final comment about “criteria” and permits: According to what’s written, women up to the age of 45 need a permit; children up to the age of 12 may cross with a parent; men over 50 don’t need a permit.
A woman from Jenin told us she arrived without having tried to obtain a permit – only two of 65 requests submitted by people she knew were approved.
There’s nothing to add regarding “criteria” for worship. For years I’ve been imagining an absurd scene: Near my home on Shivtei Yisrael Street in Jerusalem (along which people walk from Mea Shearim to the Western Wall), “criteria” are applied to determine whether or not men and women will be allowed to go pray.
Translation: Bracha B.A.
Shaked-Tura Checkpoint, 12:25-13:10
An Israeli car is parked inside the area of the checkpoint (parents visiting?). In the area of the tower a maintenance crew is digging and building something. The driver of a Palestinian car greets us while threading his belt into his pants after being checked. He gets into his car and drives up to the soldiers, who ask him how things are going, check him briefly, and he leaves.
There is light traffic in both directions. Two cars drive up and workers get out. Several 14-year olds get out and show the soldiers their bag. One of them says that he has a permit. The soldiers check the bag and they move on.
Cars arrive from the seamline zone. Two women get out. One is a young, carrying an infant wrapped in a blanket, and the other is older. Another girl is with them. It takes a long time until the mother is allowed to enter the inspection facility. We call to the soldiers and remind them that a mother with a baby is waiting. One of the soldiers goes to see what the problem is. "Perhaps something happened to the computer." Meanwhile the older woman sits down on the ground. We note how long the inspection process takes for the mother and baby. Evidently people also arrived from the West Bank with a baby together with a man with bags of zucchini. It seems that the woman with the baby has been waiting long, but when she comes out it appears that the entire process took 15 minutes.
More women and children cross in both directions.
Suddenly a woman soldier comes up to me. I thought she was about to tell us to move back but instead she handed me a cold drink. I was surprised and thanked her.
We left and gave the man with the bags of zucchini a ride.
Reihan-Barta'a Checkpoint, 13:20-4:00
On our way to the Bedouin village of Emricha to bring bags of used clothing we passed four military vehicles conducting an exercise. The lower parking lot is full.
We returned to the checkpoint. Here, too, there’s construction work in the area of the vehicle inspection facility. We listen to Y.M., a driver who is trying to make a living. He and his wife live in Barta'a. His wife has brain cancer and was operated on in Jordan and is now being treated in Jenin. Her condition is serious and they have three children. Her sister who has no children lives in Jenin and wants to help but has not received a permit to travel to Barta'a in the seamline zone. We want to help them, and if anyone knows how we can help we have their names and contact information.
There is no one crossing the checkpoint and we left.
The beurocratic system defeated the lonely eighty year old woman and the many volunteeres who tried to help her reach the other side of the checkpoint:
"She does not belong to this DCO zone…"
The father of a baby of fourteen days, who had been born with brain damage and was in need of intrusive treatment, had also been defeated by bureaucracy:
"Driver! – Only one person can be the escort and that's mommy. Take daddy back!"
Claimed the soldier/commander once the baby had been transferred from one ambulance to the other, while taking her out of the West Bank plastic box (emergency kit) and placing her in the Jerusalem box, a procedure during which they disconnected her head from the West Bank tubes and reattached it to the Jerusalem tubes.
"Security above All!"- The security man who stood by her quoted the entire doctrine.
14.50 A'anin CP
Four tractors and six people are already waiting. Five soldiers are also here. They do not open the CP. They are punctual. They open exactly at 15.00. Very carefully, they inspect the bags of used clothes that we have brought. They do not allow the last tractor driver to go through with the bags of clothes. In the meantime, a woman officer has gone through, in a Hummer, and she said that it is not allowed. That is what the (sergeant) commander of the CP tells us. We did not succeed in getting the order cancelled. The officer ordered it, says the sergeant. For the honor of the IDF and the State of Israel!
The father of the fellow whose ID and permit were taken from him last week (report of the 19 of May), tells us that the ID was returned, but his son has to request a new permit from the Palestinian DCO in Jenin. He is very grateful to Shula who took care of getting the ID returned to him.
15.20 We leave. The soldiers have to stay until 15.30. The sergeant says that another person may yet arrive to go through (according to the lists in the computer, all those who went out in the morning must return).
15.30 Shaked-Tura CP
There is a little traffic from the West Bank to the seamline zone. Only one small colorful truck goes through to the West Bank.
16.00 Reihan-Barta'a, seamline zone side
People, women and children who came out of the terminal are climbing up the sleeve. The children are especially festive. It turns out that the season of weddings has arrived. One man tells us that his wife is from East Barta'a (in the seamline zone) and he is from A'anin (on the West Bank). The woman got a permit to stay in Barta'a for half a year and he got a permit only for three days. Their children go to school in Barta'a. They went to a lawyer to help them get permanent residence permits for the seamline zone.
To our surprise at this time there is already a queue of 30 people at the entrance to the terminal, even though two windows are in operation. For reasons that are not clear to us, the people are told to enter in pairs or in fours and the turnstile is locked behind them. The passage in the opposite direction – to the seamline zone, slows the procedure even more. Three people are detained on the bench in the terminal. One man says that the passage in this CP is like an extra day's work.
16.40 The three detainees are released and sent on their way. A family goes through with little girls all dressed up. The adult women do not want us to talk to them. The tempo of the passage improves somewhat.
17.00 We go up the sleeve to the upper parking lot. In front of the vehicle CP four cars are waiting for passage to the West Bank. Two of them are 'wedding cars', decorated with ribbons and flowers. The groom in a shining shirt draws his magnetic card at the inspection window. Four of the women from his family stand beside him. Good luck to all of them!
Etzion DCL :
unbelievable! Everyone who was waiting got in, and by closing time they’d all come out. True, not many people were waiting today, perhaps because of the closure; and it’s true that things went very slowly today and people had to wait for hours, and it’s true that suddenly everything stopped and no one was allowed in or came out, and people were again let in only after we contacted the humanitarian office, but, despite it all, a success story – by the end of the day everyone had been taken care of.
when we arrived we saw two men who had come out holding magnetic cards. They told us six people were waiting inside. Seven waited at the revolving gate, and three more in the waiting room.
a man came out who said he’d been waiting since ten. After a long break, and a call to the humanitarian office, a woman came out at 14:25.
At 14:40a young man came out, followed by a teacher we’d met two weeks ago who had to return today. She looked tired but satisfied.
Not everyone came out satisfied. A man with an appointment for an eye operation in a Jerusalem hospital who didn’t receive a permit to enter the city because the Shin Bet objects came out disappointed and worried.
A woman from Beit Jala who had been refused a magnetic card because “today they’re only handling residents of Bethlehem, not Beit Jala,” also came out disappointed.
A man approached us. He said that his house, which is near the DCL, has no water or electricity. Despite his requests, he’s not being allowed to connect to the electrical and water grids that serve the settlers whose groves surround his house. He’s forced to buy water and have it delivered by tanker to his house, and it lasts only a few days.
A short while ago he began installing a bathroom in the courtyard of his house, but one of the settlers demand he stop and threatened to harm him if he continues.
At 15:00 five people were let in.
At 15:45 the rest were let in and the waiting room was empty.
By 16:45 they’d all come out, one after another.
A young man approached us, complaining that the Shin Bet is pressuring him to collaborate. They say, “Help us – and we’ll help you.” We’ve already heard this identical complaint – in the same words – a number of times. An older man told us he owns land and is being pressured to sell. He refuses. He’s being threatened.
Does this remind you of a story in the bible? Maybe it reminds us about Nabot the Jezre’elite?
Translator: Charles K.
Just before leaving for the checkpoint I noticed that day’s headline on Ma’ariv’s back page: “A creative checkpoint.” That’s the title they gave to the article by Ahikam Moshe David, who reported on the “key verses” written by the commander of the military police battalion to guide the behavior of soldiers at the checkpoint. The article quoted them liberally: “Even if I know you/I won’t let you go through,” “If there’s a mob/We’re doing our job,” “In a trunk that won’t open/There’s an illegal person,” etc. The article also says that the fact that “no complaints have been filed against the soldiers” is proof that “they are careful to treat the Palestinian population very well.”
I brought the newspaper along to my shift (unfortunately, it doesn’t appear on Ma’ariv’s web site). I wanted Tamar to be happy also; for eight years, week after week, she’s been observing the hardships of the Palestinians at the Qalandiyya checkpoint. Zerocomplaints – what fantastic proof!
We arrived at the checkpoint about 15:00, and after observing the vehicle crossing we went to say hello to the children: the children from the refugee camp selling bottled water or chewing gum for one shekel, doing the best they can to help their families who are living on the verge of starvation.
At about 15:30 we went over to the pedestrian crossing.
Only two of the five booths – number 2 and 4 – at the pedestrian crossing were manned, even though the lines at them were long and moved slowly. While I haven’t spent a great deal of time at the Qalandiyya checkpoint, I’ve been here more than a few times, and have never seen more than three booths open simultaneously. Regardless of the length of the line, the long waiting time, or the congestion outside – they don’t open additional booths. And the Palestinians wait.
Fifty minutes – fifty minutes by the clock to reach the head of the line. Fifty minutes of listening to the grating metallic voice on the loudspeaker, belonging to the soldier in the glass cage at the entrance to the checkpoint - who’s in charge of opening the first revolving gate - and who decided to check the loudspeaker was operating correctly by stridently calling out “one, two, three; one, two, three,” over and over again.
Fifty minutes during which we repeatedly saw people going to Gate 5 – the one to the DCO, which is supposed to be open to the public until 16:00 – but remained closed.
The intercom that had been installed at the gate had been pried off, and there was no one to turn to. No person, no soldier, no policeman or other functionary whom one could see or talk to at the Qalandiyya checkpoint. They’re all concealed behind sealed, dirty, soundproof windows. All that someone needing the DCO could do was to shove his face between the bars of the revolving gate, try to push through the bars, hoping someone might see, might come. But nobody came. People waiting at the checkpoint explained that this gate is never manned, but that soldiers manning booth 4 come from time to time to the window overlooking this gate. But after 15:00 they usually don’t come over…
We spoke with a young woman who showed an interest in our badge. She’s a Palestinian, born in Jenin, who left years ago and moved to Australia. Two months ago one of her brothers fell seriously ill – he’s 40. Since then he’s been in Al Makassed Hospital, in Jerusalem. None of the family members received a permit to be with, or visit him in the hospital. All of them are “denied” passage. Having no alternative, and since she has an Australian passport, she was called back to be with him. Every day, for the past two weeks, she’s endured the torments of the round-trip journey between Jenin and Jerusalem.
“Yesha is fun,” [a play on the Hebrew slogan, “Yesha – Judea and Samaria – hu kan” – here], declared a headline in Ma’ariv six months ago. “A new book on pampering beyond the Green Line,” was the sub-heading. The Second Channel TV news also was part of the book’s publicity campaign. The book, according to the report, “lists all the welcoming locations in Judea and Samaria. And it also includes ideology: normalcy, to convince readers there’s no difference between Samaria and the Golan, or between Judea and the Galilee.” Fun. Simply fun. How cynical do you have to be to think of such a title?
We left the Qalandiyya checkpoint at about 17:00 and continued toward Nablus, to observed the Atara-Bir Zeit checkpoint. We drove slowly along Route 60, looking around. What was particularly noticeable were the soldiers and military vehicles next to every outpost and settlement, the high fences and patrol roads surrounding the areas taken over by the settlers – in contrast to the Palestinian villages, that had been there long before and were trying to survive with no guards, no defenses, exposed and abandoned to every cruel outburst by adherents to the ideology of destruction and expulsion, the rioters mocking us all when they characterize their actions as “exacting a price.” It’s shocking to see how easy it is for a Jewish mob on the West Bank to harass, threaten, abuse destroy and injure their neighbors whenever they decide that it’s time to “exact the price.” Pogroms are part of human history. It’s shocking to see how easy it is to conduct them when you’re safe behind fences, armed and – especially – when the weak who you abuse and injure lack any way of defending themselves and no one cares about them. The world is silent. The Atara-Bir Zeit checkpoint is manned and operating, which we didn’t expect. As part of “lightening the burden” and “removal” of checkpoints about which Israel boasts to the international community, this checkpoint was also to have been removed. It turns out that the building is still there, and the soldiers in the adjoining pillbox are ordered to come down from time to time and man the checkpoint in order to “show their presence,” or to check vehicle registrations, or for who-know-what other reason, which the soldiers don’t know either.
The three soldiers manning the checkpoint hardly delay traffic. They tell us they’ve been instructed to stop “certain vehicles” containing people “smuggling explosives and drugs.” Apparently no such vehicles went by while we were there, because no one was stopped, nor were any explosives or drugs found.
But we did find, on one of the concrete barriers, a box labeled “Alpha,” (an acronym for “means of crowd dispersal”), with empty casings which had contained crowd dispersal grenades…
At about 18:00, when we were again on Route 60 on our way back to Qalandiyya, we saw a police car and a policeman on the other side of the road, three soldiers and two Palestinians. We turned around and stopped near them. It turned out that the three soldiers had set up a flying checkpoint on the secondary road between Ramallah and the village of Silwadto check driver’s licenses of Palestinians using that road. The driver of the car in which the youths were riding was 17 years old and had no license. The soldiers stopped and detained them, and called the police. The policeman gave them a ticket and explained that they’ll be tried.
We asked the soldiers why they’re doing the work of the traffic police. They replied, angrily, that it’s an order.
Translation: Bracha B.A.
· Children crossed the Shaked-Tura checkpoint after waiting for half an hour.
· An incident at the Reihan-Barta'a checkpoint
06:40 A'anin Checkpoint
The last of the farmers has crossed from their village in the West Bank to the seamline zone. About 80 people crossed this morning and we are told that 81 new permits have been issued about two weeks ago. One person tells us that his wife has not been issued a permit, even during the olive harvest, and another tells us that his 50-year-old uncle has not been issued a permit.
At 06:50 everyone has crossed. The Bedouin children who live at the village beneath the checkpoint are waiting for a ride to school at Um-A-Reihan.
07:00 Shaked-Tura Checkpoint
Young children are waiting with their fathers to cross on their way to school. Yesterday they did not attend school because they were told they had to be checked in the inspection facility. Today they are waiting again. (See report from March 16th, 2011). Today the soldiers are standing next to the shed outside the checkpoint, which is not their usual spot. They return to the checkpoint but don't open the gate. A., a representative from the Liaison and Coordination Administration, is also there and it appears they have not yet decided what to do.
At 07:15 there are about 25 people waiting next to the turnstile on the Tura side, but no one has crossed yet. The first car comes up to be checked on the seamline zone side. About 30 children are waiting and a commotion begins at 07:30 on the Tura side. The soldiers are still waiting. Finally the children enter the checkpoint, and as usual they line up to be checked and a soldier inspects their schoolbags. After a few minutes all the children have crossed. A few fathers are still standing on the other side talking about the problems that the checkpoint creates for them and for their children. At 07:40 people also cross from the West Bank to the seamline zone.
At 07:50 a few people are still waiting by the turnstile, and the checkpoint returns to its usual routine.
At 08:10 we drove past the Reihan Checkpoint. A few cars are parked, waiting to be checked. Tenders loaded with merchandise are waiting on the other side. The gates to road 596 are locked as usual. About a dozencars are parked on the southern side on the road leadingtoKafin and Tul Karem, and two are parked on the north side, leading to Zibda. .
08:20 Dotan checkpoint
There is a line of six carscoming from Jenin. One car is checked at random. Three buses with children are going towards Jenin. It is wonderful weather for a school trip. We also drove to Hermesh Checkpoint. The gate on the road leading to Tulkaremwas open and unmanned.
08:50 Reihan - Barta'a Checkpoint
On our way to the checkpoint, we received a phone call and were told that there were a lot of people waiting at the checkpoint and people were held up. The Palestinian parking lot was filled to capacity and there were about 200 angry people waiting. We learned that the terminal had been closed about 40 minutes agoand it was not clear when it would reopen. People thought that perhaps a closure had been declared. We were told that there was an incident in the terminal. There were also 10 pickup trucks with agricultural goods waiting to cross to the seamline zone.
At 09:15 a security officer announced that everyone was to go to the vehicle entrance gate. Immediately people congregated there and the people from the Liaison and Coordination Administration attempted to keep order. Everyone was angry and in a hurry. Some gave up and returned to the lower gate to the terminal where they thought they would get in faster. One woman was waiting with the men and was allowed to go in, and a dozen men were also allowed in with her.
At 09:40the gate to the terminal opened. The woman in the booth instructed people to enter five at a time.
By 10:00 everyonehad entered the terminal. We saw that people were already ascending the sleeve towards the seamline zone, but we didn't know when everyone went through.
We left the checkpoint and returned through Barta'a. Despite the fact that a lot of workers did not arrive, the marketplace was busy. In the evening a man phoned Ruthi and reported that there was still trouble at the terminal. He had to wait about 20 minutes to get into the terminal and it took about 40 minutes to get through.
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I’ve scrounged through my files and come up with five more quarries in Oakland that I’ve managed to photograph over the years. I’ll show them from north to south. First, of course, is the old Bilger quarry at 51st Street/Pleasant Valley Drive and Broadway, which I’ve featured before on this blog.
Next we have the quarry in Piedmont that now houses the town maintenance yard, by the ballfield along Moraga Avenue. The little spur street is named Red Rock Road, and the quarry appears to feature some usable shale from the Great Valley Group. But I haven’t dropped by since 2003, and my memory is vague.
Next we have the old Leona Heights sulfur mine, at the end of McDonell Avenue, which I featured in a discussion of Lion Creek.
Finally, we have a small quarry in Sheffield Village, right on the Hayward fault where the digging was surely easy. Afterward some of those lovely period homes were tucked in there, along Revere Avenue.
There are more quarries to be documented; I just need to consult the records and then visit the sites.
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Professional sports are as competitive as it gets, though sadly, not everyone gets to play. For every athlete who makes the cut and plays at the professional level, there are countless others who will never be so lucky. Sometimes a promising career is hobbled by an injury, or an athlete's performance just isn't up to snuff. The reasons behind the dashed dreams of aspiring athletes are many.
But just because a team only has nine spots doesn’t mean there isn’t a place near the action. Just as a rock concert needs roadies, and a political rally needs Secret Service agents, so, too, do athletes need people in various capacities to make the whole operation run smoothly. After all, without someone in the pit crew, a NASCAR driver would have to change tires while competitors race by.
Some of these jobs pay handsomely. Steve Williams, who until recently served as caddy to Tiger Woods, reportedly earned over $1 million in 2006 alone. Rick Fuhs, a legend in his native Chicago, has been operating the manual scoreboard at Wrigley Field for more than 20 years. He doesn’t see a fraction of the paycheck that Williams does, but the lifelong Cubs fan couldn’t care less. “I would do this for nothin’,” he said.
What are some of the careers in the field of sports that are performed outside of the spotlight? Click ahead to find out.
By Daniel Bukszpan
Posted 11 August 2011
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Today In NBA History 1954: First Overtime All-Star Game Ever
59 years ago today, the NBA All-Star game had the first overtime game in its history.
HoopsVibe Very Quick Call: Bob Cousy stepped up and delivered.
The legendary Boston Celtics guard poured in 10 points during the overtime period and gave the East a 98-93 victory, also garnering All-Star MVP honors in the process.
This game was so long ago that George Mikan, the original "big man", played in it, going just six of 18 from the field and nearly fouling out. Dolph Schayes is the only other name I could recognize besides the aforementioned Cousy and Mikan. But what's interesting about that is that even the average NBA fan knows those names, which shows you the kind of impact they made on the game and the league.
In hindsight though, it's pretty sad that in an All-Star game with an extra period, the teams combined for just 191 points. 26 years later, the second OT All-Star game occurred with the West pulling out an eight point victory and the two teams combined for 280 points. The game had changed.
Aside from those two OT games, there have been four others, occurring in 1984, 1987, 1993 and 2003.
In '84, Isiah Thomas took home MVP honors after a 21 point, 15 assist, five rebound game. In '87, Seattle's Tom Chambers won the award while he was playing for the Supersonics, accumulating 34 points as the games leading scorer.
In '93, with the game held in Utah, John Stockton and Karl Malone were named co-MVP's of the game, which was as absurd and partial as it sounds.
In '03, the first double OT game in history occurred. Kevin Garnett was named the MVP after scoring a game high 37, making three straight baskets in the second OT. Interestingly, this was Michael Jordan's last All-Star game.
As the years have gone on, the games have become more and more competitive, with the last three games being decided by a total of 10 points. But it all began back in 1954.
Image Credit: Creative Commons
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"Philip Smucker makes an impassioned argument for understanding and reconciliation. Traversing a broad swath of the world's great Islamic societies, from northern Africa to Indonesia, he mingles a multitude of personal experiences with insights and analysis. The ultimate goal is peaceful resolution of the great 'war on terror' that pits U.S.-led forces against a wide range of enemies. He avoids demonizing either or any side in a search for a better way of both waging war and making peace. As the title suggests, our enemies also are our brothers, and the war will end only when we recognize our common bond as people with similar yearnings, hopes, and fears.... The author himself sides only with a desire to resolve conflict. He suggests how in a final section devoted to sensitive and colorful first-person reporting from the battlegrounds of Afghanistan. Moving from there to the plain at West Point, he offers criticism and advice that those closest to the war zone may want to consider seriously."
—Donald Kirk, Asia expert, correspondent, Christian Science Monitor,
author of Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and the Struggle for Sunshine
In this kaleidoscopic tour behind the frontlines of the war of ideas, veteran investigative journalist Philip Smucker—the author of the acclaimed Al Qaeda’s Great Escape—assesses US efforts to persuade Muslims that Americans respect their rights and interests, while we fight wars and promote our interests. He draws on extensive travels in the Muslim world through interviews with a cross-section of the population including students, intellectuals, insurgents and politicians. For an American perspective, the author examines the threat of terrorism and the challenges of winning the peace through candid interviews with US military officers, diplomats, and regional experts.
Smucker describes turmoil within the Islamic realm and our efforts to project “soft power” into a world that remains misunderstood. He assesses both our failures and successes in Israel and Palestine, Egypt, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saharan Africa.
In contrast to Western fearmongers who use hyperbolic rhetoric about “a clash of civilizations” and our war with “Islamic fascism,” Smucker asserts that such language targeting a would-be “enemy” has only aided and abetted al Qaeda’s recruiting drive and hardened attitudes against America among average Muslims.
Several themes resonate through Smucker’s interviews. One is that the Muslim world is looking for consistent engagement from the United States, particularly in regard to Israeli-Palestinian peace. After decades of paying lip service to the ideal of peace in the Middle East, Smucker shows why it is crucial for the Obama Administration to push forcefully for a two-state solution. Another is that the US must discontinue its policy of backing authoritarian regimes that oppress their people. In the eyes of everyday Muslims, such tactics make a mockery of our claim to be the champion of individual liberty. Muslims, many of whom already support democratic change, will only be convinced of America’s good will, says Smucker, if our actions speak louder than our words. Finally, Smucker makes the case that as long as Americans and Muslims view one another with blanket suspicions and as potential "enemies," neither side can hope to persuade his "brother" to see the world in another light. Though there are no silver bullets, pacification, development, and democratic progress should be approached through shifts in American foreign policy, he argues.
This revealing, vividly told narrative by a daring and experienced journalist with firsthand knowledge of the events and people in conflict areas offers unforgettable insights into the Muslim world’s hopes and fears as well as our own crucial diplomatic overtures and military campaigns across the Islamic world.
Binding: Hardcover345 pages (photos)
Shipping Weight: 2lbs
Philip Smucker (Alexandria, VA) is the author of the highly acclaimed Al Qaeda’s Great Escape, which broke the story of Osama’s Bin Laden’s escape. A seasoned journalist with over twenty-five years of experience abroad, he has worked and written for numerous publications including the Atlantic Monthly, McClatchy Newspapers, the Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune, Asia Times, and the Daily Telegraph. His most recent reporting in the Muslim world has been for the McClatchy Newspaper chain, Atlantic Monthly, and USA Today, among others.
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US President Barack Obama returns to the White House from a trip to New York City to view storm damage from Hurricane Sandy,November 15, 2012. AFP PHOTO/TOBY JORRINTOBY JORRIN/AFP/Getty Images
On his first overseas trip since his re-election, President Obama heads Saturday for the Southeast Asian nations of Thailand, Burma and Cambodia.
He'll meet a much revered king, an army general turned president and a strongman who fought for the murderous Khmer Rouge.
But throughout his whirlwind, four-day tour, another Asian country will loom large. For the trip appears set to reinforce the U.S. "pivot" toward Asia, a strategic shift since 2011 that communist China views as being aimed squarely at countering its influence and containing its growth. ...
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In the wake of last Friday’s school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Fairfax County police are making their presence more visible at local schools.
“In response to Friday's tragedy in Connecticut, the Fairfax County Police Department will be increasing patrols and visibility this week around all FCPS schools, including elementary schools,” wrote Superintendent Jack D. Dale in a statement posted on FCPS’ website Sunday. “[The additional pratrol] is not in response to any specific threat but rather a police initiative to enhance safety and security around the schools and to help alleviate the understandably high levels of anxiety. Police patrols will be increased throughout the school day from the opening of schools to dismissal. As always, FCPS security personnel will also be patrolling our schools, focusing on elementary schools during the school day.”
Students arriving at a Fairfax County public school Monday morning were likely to see either a police officer posted in a car or out of car greeting them.
“I personally was at a school this morning greeting kids and parents,” Master Police Officer Eddy Azcarate said. “I got a lot of ‘thank yous’ [from parents and students].”
The goal of the extra patrols, Azcarate said, is to reassure the community of the safety of their children.
All FCPS middle and high schools are assigned school resource officers, or SROs, who are police officers stationed at the schools full-time. The extra presence was focused on elementary schools, which do not have SROs.
“We’re doing it to let parents know we are here,” Azcarate said.
Both Fairfax County Public Schools and the local police have safety protocols for active shooters and other disturbances, he said.
“Active shooter training is something we have done and continue to do,” he said, adding that both police and school officials hope it is a training that is never needed.
Parents around the country responded in shock to the news of the Sandy Hook shootings. The gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, who grew up in Newtown, invaded the elementary school Friday, killing 20 children and six adults before claiming his own life. The victims of the mass shooting ranged in age from 6 to 56. Among the children were 12 girls and eight boys, all first-graders at the school. All of the adults killed at the school were women. Lanza is also reported to have killed his mother Nancy Lancy, who was the shooter’s first victim that day.
Fairfax County Public Schools is responding to the Connecticut shootings with additional support for students and staff at its schools.
Principals and teachers were given guidelines as aids to help them talk to students and parents about the Sandy Hook tragedy, said the school system’s Director of Intervention and Prevention Services Mary Ann Panarelli.
“One of the things we have done system-wide is we have trained all psychologists, social workers and councilors for a crisis,” she said. “When it is a crisis like this where it is not in your community, we provide some information to principals to share with their teachers before the school day starts… We provide the teachers with some kinds of questions that might come up and how they might be able to answer them.”
The school system has also posted aids top help parents talk to their children about violence and safety at school. More information can be found at www.FCPS.edu/news/resources.shtml.
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Replacement programs and product recalls
HP participates in voluntary replacement programs for components or products that may cause functionality issues but are not related to a safety hazard.
In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, HP participates in voluntary recall programs when a defective part is shown to cause a potential safety hazard.
On February 13, 2009 HP announced a voluntary recall of a promotional USB flash drive molded in the form of an animated character in the DreamWorks Animation® film "Kung Fu Panda™." The flash drive cap (corresponding to the panda's pants) may pose a potential choking hazard to small children.
In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other safety regulatory authorities, HP announced voluntary safety recalls for certain HP single function Fax Machine models. HP Fax 1040 and 1050 were recalled on January 31, 2012 in Canada, Mexico and U.S.A, and HP Fax 1010 and 1010xi were recalled on June 28, 2008 for Canada, Mexico and U.S.A. Affected HP customers are eligible to receive a rebate for qualified products.
In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other safety regulatory authorities, HP announced worldwide safety recall and replacement programs for batteries used in certain HP notebooks on the following dates: May 14, 2009 (expanded on May 19, 2010 and May 26, 2011), October 30, 2008, April 20, 2006 and October 14, 2005. HP customers affected by these programs are eligible to receive a replacement battery for each verified, recalled battery, at no cost.
On some L2035 Flat Panel Monitors, a ground clip may have been incorrectly installed within the inside plastic panel of the monitor, posing a potential for an electric shock hazard.
The power adapter used with certain HP Vectra speakers is not grounded.
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NC House Republicans lay out voter ID bill process
Published: Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at 2:00 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at 10:56 p.m.
RALEIGH (AP) — North Carolina's House Republican leaders said public input would be gathered from all sides as they promised a fair and measured process of creating a bill that would require photo identification for citizens to vote.
Kicking off a debate certain to be dipped in partisanship and racial divisions, GOP legislators said they would hold public hearings and other committee meetings — the first scheduled for today — before actual legislation rolls out around the end of the month. The full House is likely to vote on the proposal by mid-April, they said, before it goes to the Senate.
The House leaders said they wanted to hear from people who both support and oppose a photo ID requirement in an attempt to make it better and ensure people that don't currently have an identification card to obtain one for free.
"We're going to go through a very deliberative, responsible and interactive approach ... so that we arrive at a policy that is fair, that takes into account legitimate reasons why voters may not have an ID and to place a solution — a way that those IDs can be issued," House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, said at a news conference.
House and Senate Republicans pushed through the General Assembly a photo ID requirement in 2011. But it was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue and GOP legislators lacked the votes to override the veto.
Current GOP Gov. Pat McCrory supports voter ID, reaffirming Tuesday at a news conference that he prefers one with a photo requirement but could listen to other options. The support in the legislative and executive branches leaves largely the question of how the details will look, and whether it can withstand legal challenges and gain approval from federal attorneys or the courts under the Voting Rights Act.
McCrory and other Republicans contend requiring IDs will discourage fraudulent voting. They likened it to showing licenses to enter government buildings, get on an airplane or purchase certain cold medicine. An Elon University Poll released Monday showed 72 percent of those surveyed support a law to require government-approved photo identification to vote.
"Requiring an ID to vote is a commonsense practice," McCrory said at the Executive Mansion during a news conference following a meeting with big-city mayors. "I'm going to let the legislature debate the details on that."
Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, chairman of the House Elections Committee, had few details about what voter ID legislation would look like except that it probably would include an aggressive effort to get photo identifications to people who don't have them free of charge.
It's unclear how many people don't have photo IDs or how much it would cost the state to provide them. An analysis earlier this year by the State Board of Elections matching voter rolls with Division of Motor Vehicles records shows the names of 613,000 registered voters may not match with driver's licenses or photo IDs issued by the DMV. The actual number of people without photo IDs is likely much less.
Lewis said some members and organizations are going to oppose voter ID on principle but he still wants recommendations from opponents to "make this the best bill it can be."
Most Democrats this week remains obstinately opposed to any voter ID measure they said would take back voting rights secured a half-century ago during the civil rights movement. State Democratic Party Chairman Randy Voller referred to voter ID on Monday as "the specter of Jim Crow."
Talk by Republicans of deliberateness is "a sales pitch that they're out there pushing right now that they think making it look fair, it will become fair," Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham, said at a news conference by the Legislative Black Caucus.
The ID requirement would discourage the poor, older adults and minorities from voting because they are more likely to not have an ID card, opponents say. Potential voters already must show identification papers of some kind when they register, and people can face a felony conviction if they vote illegally.
Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, said the requirement would hurt disproportionately people who aren't registered Republicans. The GOP goal, he added, is "to repress that vote by any means necessary."
Bob Hall, executive director of the election reform group Democracy North Carolina, continues to oppose a photo ID requirement but acknowledged in a prepared statement the political reality at the Legislative Building.
"We also recognize that the ID advocates have the votes to pass a bill," Hall said. "We accept their invitation to be at the table and offer positive suggestions."
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GRAVES: The problem with potBoth ends of the political continuum seem to support throwing in the towel on at least some of the fronts on the war against drugs.
By: Joe Graves, Mitchell superintendent
Of the various election returns that mystified me from the most recent November plebiscite, the most confounding was the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington. It’s not that I don’t have some libertarian leanings — I do — but the legalization of drugs isn’t one of them. To me, a simple historical example, the Opium Wars, settled the issue of decriminalizing drugs for all time given the relatively unchanging disposition of human nature. In those wars, set in the middle of the 19th century, the British Empire required China to allow the importation of opium and the Chinese emperor, already hobbled by English military and economic might, went to war rather than knuckle under because of the sheer number of his subjects whose lives were being destroyed by the drug. The Emperor could see that his people were better off fighting a hopeless war than accepting the social devastation that drugs brought to them.
Still, it didn’t surprise me that these two states voted to legalize marijuana. The societal trends in America just seem to be moving inexorably in that direction, the subterfuges in other states which allow medicinal use of marijuana (which even “South Park” couldn’t help but see through) are an obvious ruse, and an odd combination of both ends of the political continuum seem to support throwing in the towel on at least some of the fronts on the war against drugs.
Since then, however, probably prodded on by the realization that legalization is now no longer something that seems increasingly likely but is actually in place especially given the federal response — equivalent to a yawn — I’ve been progressively more bothered by what I suspect is coming. Allow me two examples and I won’t even go into the slippery slope argument of marijuana being the gateway legislative drug opening up legalization for every other form of chemical intoxicant, a pharmaceutical Pandora’s Box.
First, if marijuana is legal in some American states, it will be essentially impossible to stave off its legalization and thus increased and more pervasive use in our own state. I believe this to be true because I’ve watched so many other social trends begin at one level and move downward to all levels. Why do some student-athletes challenge officials, engage in on-court fisticuffs, display the most onerous lack of sportsmanship, and generally act like prima donnas? They do so because they have watched their heroes in the NFL and NBA do so for years. Emulation of sports heroes does not end with their good qualities; it extends to all qualities, and professional athletes who act like this is not the case or that it isn’t their concern are just wrong and at least slightly sociopathic. Why do increasing numbers of young people sprinkle their daily vocabulary with words that leave me wondering if they kiss their mother’s cheek with that same mouth?
They do because so many television shows and movies include a regular diet of profanities and use the “bleep” censoring tool as just another way to curse. Marijuana-using celebrities gave credibility to their drug of choice and aided in its legalization in these two states. These two states’ legalization is simply the next step to our entire society’s eventual acceptance of it, not for any well-argued rationales but simply because of its seeming inevitability.
That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be OK to legalize marijuana if it had no real ill effects on society or its users. But, of course, it does. In high school, I watched friends and fellow students change from people with a future to what we then described as “burn-outs.” If drunken driving isn’t enough of a threat and we think we even need to forbid texting while driving, do we really need a new method of mind-impairment while operating a motor vehicle?
Perhaps closest to home, though, is my second point. In the Mitchell School District, we have two employees — Karen Allen and Traci Moore — who lead our pretty darned successful efforts to prevent tobacco use among our students. We do so for a number of reasons but chief among them is the fact that people who begin smoking at a young age will, with all probability, face myriad health disasters as a result in the near, mid or far future. I was reminded of this recently when I read “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It is a fascinating account of the medical profession’s battle with this disease. When, halfway through the book, Mukherjee finally begins to discuss medicine’s late-coming focus on prevention and the search for carcinogens, tobacco takes center stage.
It’s not the only example, of course, and the first cancer-causing substance discovered is actually chimney soot, an enormously lethal problem for English children employed as chimney sweeps or “soot boys,” but among the legions of cancer-bringers tobacco is its own emperor. Thus, the state of South Dakota provides tobacco settlement money (the source of which is its own modern irony) in the form of grants for us to prevent tobacco use among students, because it is just the right thing to do and because every student prevented from starting will mean huge health care cost savings later for them and for government programs.
Mukherjee explains this in length in his book, noting the decline of tobacco use has resulted in reduced disease among men, though only decades later, but that, among women, since smoking rates among the fairer gender increased more recently, the rates of such disease is still on the up-tick. In other words, it takes decades for reduced tobacco use to translate into a healthier society.
So what does any of that have to do with legalizing marijuana? Everything. Legalizing it will mean more users. More users will mean more people suffering the longer-term health effects from its use, the full extent of which are not even fully known because, unlike tobacco, marijuana has not yet been sufficiently pervasive or used for adequate durations to allow the type of longitudinal studies that can lead to the necessary scientific conclusions. In other words, as people like Moore and Allen work their non-tobacco-stained fingers to the bone to push back the horrifying medical effects of tobacco use, we are as a society inviting a new threat to engulf current and future generations in pain, suffering, death and gargantuan medical bills. As we clean up one problem at the front door, we allow another through the back.
Sisyphus, it seems, didn’t have it so bad. At least he had only one rock to push.
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If we had to describe lambic beers in one word, we'd probably go with "funky." Yes, funky! This beer has a little something extra over those other beers, making every bottle unique and incredibly fun to drink...
Most commercial beers are made with carefully selected strains of yeast, but brewers of lambic beers leave things up to chance. Belgian lambic beers are left in open vats where wild yeast and bacterias are allowed to take up residence. Once the fermentation process begins, the beer is stored in barrels and left to age for up to three years.
The result is a distinctly sour beer with mild carbonation, a cloudy appearance, and a thick mouthfeel. In a word, funky. Think of the difference between bread made with commercial yeast verses bread made using a sourdough starter and you'll start to get the idea.
Although it's not a requirement, many lambics are also fermented with fruits like raspberries, apricots, and even muscat grapes. This adds another layer complexity to the beer, balancing the sour brew with tart and sweet fruit flavors.
We think lambics have gotten an unfair reputation in recent years for being overly sweet and syrupy. In fact, many producers have started adding fruit syrups directly into the beer instead of fermenting with whole fruits. Some beers made this way are decent, while others justify their cloyingly sweet reputation.
It's worth doing your homework and seeking out quality lambic beers. The Beer Advocate, based in Boston, has an exhaustive list of both fruit and unblended lambics rated by the community and Eric Asimov's 2006 article from the New York Times also makes some good recommendations (links below).
We've only had the chance to try a few lambics ourselves, and we're very eager to try more. They make an excellent after-dinner beverage, particularly if paired with fruits that have been poached in the same beer!
Are you a fan of lambic beers?
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It has been found in a recent report that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has given its approval for the drug Zaltrap (ziv-afilbercept) tested in a trial for advanced metastatic colorectal cancer to be given with another medicine.
The report says that the concerns were raised on noticing that colorectal cancer was acting as the fourth highest killer of people in the United States. While some 51,690 are being expected to die this year, almost 143,460 Americans are being hoped to be diagnosed with the same.
Zaltrap is drug used for restraining the growth of tumour as it inhibits their blood supply. The medication comes under angiogenesis inhibitors, which is a class of drugs.
Though, the drug was previously also allowed for being prescribed to those patients whose cancerous tumour becomes resistant to a received oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. Also, it was given to those who tend to develop the disease further even after getting the chemotherapy doses.
It is now being said that the drug would be prescribed in a combo. Thus, as per the findings, a FOLFIRI chemotherapy regimen has also been certified along with the drug, which is meant for adults. The regimen comprises of fluorouracil and folinic acid as well as irinotecan.
- Helen Flanagan at the launch of her PEATA ad; reveals more than she wanted
- Scientists may use Vitamin C in TB Treatment to Kill Tuberculosis Bacteria
- Jolie’s Revelation of Undergoing Double Mastectomy Creates Needless Panic among Women
- India and UK Sign MOU on Cooperation in the Field Of Health Sector
- Examining Exoplanets, their Surfaces and their Atmosphere
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How Technical Glitches Foiled the Russian Sleeper Spies
- 2:54 PM
Spying for Russia can be a hard life. The feds are on your trail, always trying to find out who you’re meeting with and talking to. That’s why it’s best to make sure your secret agent gear is top quality and working properly. Otherwise, the FBI’s IT department may end up “fixing” it for you.
That’s one of the many things you can see in a series of videos released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday. The FBI released a cache of cover surveillance videos, along with a handful of photos and heavily redacted documents from “Operation Ghost Stories,” the FBI’s years-long investigation of the infamous Russian sleeper spy ring. We’ve known for a while that the Russians were felled in part because of their technical goofs, but the videos show more clearly just how the network unraveled.
Tech problems loomed large for the sleeper network, leading the FBI to secretly record the Russian intelligence version of Geek Squad. Their laptops, modified at Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) headquarters in Moscow, created private wireless networks designed to only communicate with the computers of other spy ring members when in close proximity. They also used steganography software to hide messages in image files. Unfortunately for the spooks, their equipment wasn’t always up to snuff.
In one surveillance video from the spring of 2010 (above), FBI agents sidled up next to spy ring members Richard Murphy and Michael Zottoli at a Brooklyn coffee shop. Their camera catches Murphy handing a laptop recently brought back from SVR headquarters in Moscow over to Zottoli. According to the criminal complaint against the sleeper network, the new gear was intended for later delivery to spy ring members in Seattle. The spies had a “hanging/freezing” problem with their communications software, which the new computer was supposed to address.
The now infamous spy babe Anna Chapman often used the same Media Access Control address for her private wireless network, allowing the FBI to sniff out when she was communicating with her boss at Russia’s United Nations Mission. When her communications software eventually went on the fritz, the FBI moved in for the kill.
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so if you have/had it, I am very sorry. If you haven't yet experienced it, stay far away from those who do. It sucks.
Anyway, we're much better now, and suffering from major cabin-fever, so we will be trying to get out as much as possible in the near future.
This location was the last place we filmed before catching sick, and we were just now finally well-enough to have sit and edit our work.
Erected in 1896, Overbrook Asylum was Essex County's local answer to the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital for the housing and care
of mentally, and in some cases physically, handicapped residents. The facility had well over a dozen buildings on 90 acres,
most of them connected via miles of subterranean tunnels running under the grounds.
During its 110 years of service, Overbrook's patients endured many hardships. One of the most noteworthy events took place in the winter of 1917,
when the asylum's boiler broke down leaving the inhabitant's without heat for twenty days. During that time, 24 people lost their lives to the cold,
many freezing to death in their beds. During the great depression large numbers of homeless found refuge here, but over-crowding and heavily rationed
food made living conditions very poor. Following World War II, there was a large influx of patients suffering from 'shell shock' and post-traumatic
stress disorders. Because of this, the asylum became extremely overcrowded and staff was hard-pressed to manage the needs of so many patients.
Not surprisingly, numerous accounts of neglect, starvation, escapes and suicides were reported.
In the first half of the 20th Century, mental illness remained poorly understood. Thus, numerous forms of attempted treatment that took place at Overbrook
would, today, be widely conceived as forms of torture. A particular specialization was the relatively tame discipline of hydrotherapy, also known as hydropathy,
or water cures. However, electrotherapy and even prefrontal lobotomies were performed also performed here. Many patients
were never cured, and the official number of deaths inside the walls of Overbrook would eventually reach into the tens of thousands.
A growing interest in psychiatric medicine during the 1950's and 1960's saw tremendous strides in research and the development of new treatments.
As such, the number of patients began to drop dramatically, and would continue to do so. By the time the asylum closed in 2006,
the facility was operating only out of a small wing of one building, while the rest of the hospital was left to decay around it.
Its role was subsumed into the nearby, newly-erected Essex County Hospital Center.
Entering this place, it feels less a hospital than a winding labyrinth of red brick and dirty mortar. The sheer scale of the grounds is difficult to
communicate in text, photo, or film. The imagination suggests the sense of having left the familiar world behind for something altogether separate,
where every angle of the corridor reveals another bend, or stairwell, or row of doorways, and every room has a story to tell. Overbrook is more than
just a discarded husk or out-dated facility. It is a testament to the massive strides in healthcare and basic human rights made during recent decades,
and a crumbling monument to those who toiled, suffered and died before they became a reality.
Overbrook asylum was actually the first location Christina ever recorded video at.
It's been years since we first visited the place, and re-shooting it was a lot more nostalgic of an experience than I was expecting.
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What might have been best describes the state of the East Boston waterfront’s choicest buildable lots.
They were largely vacant and under-utilized in the past. They remain largely vacant and under-utilized in the present.
Only the future remains and frankly, it appears brighter than what has come before.
East Boston’s waterfront missed the boom of the 1990’s in the Clinton years.
It then missed the real estate boom that dominated much of the first decade of the new century.
Today, with the real estate marketplace being what it is, the waterfront doesn’t have much of a chance of happening.
Even if the waterfront parcels were given away, the marketplace for new construction is dormant on this side of the Mystic River and it isn’t exactly robust on the other side of the river.
What remains robust here is the changing nature of the neighborhood and the new housing that has come into place during the past decade with thousands of new residents and hundreds of artists and professionals who have come to call this place their home.
There have been countless rehabilitations of major and minor buildings and of three family houses throughout the East Boston neighborhood.
The final link to a big success is the under-built, under-utilized waterfront.
For a successful waterfront building boom to take place there must be a strong need for new housing. Concomitant with that is the availability of hundreds of millions of dollars of usable capital to fund such ventures.
What is needed most is an economic recovery so East Boston can develop the waterfront the right way, finally.
Having missed two economic booms, the third boom will likely be the charmer.
After all;, the time is going to come sooner rather than later when more and more housing is needed simply to house the nominal expansion of the population as well as satisfy those in the emerging housing market that always exists who are seeking waterfront property with views of the Boston skyline.
It is no one’s fault that the East Boston waterfront remains largely vacant at this late stage in the neighborhood’s long term development.
What was going to be on the waterfront failed because of the economy not because of the neighborhood.
Regrettably there is a very simple matrix about the ups and downs here.
When everything is great with the economy prices rise faster and higher in Boston than in East Boston.
When the economy goes the other way, prices fall faster and lower in East Boston than in Boston.
The same is true with interest in developing.
When things are great, Eastie gets a look.
When things are bad, developers look elsewhere.
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For The Workforce, Drowning
For an administration (Obama/Biden) so worried about outsourcing/offshoring, what have they done to halt it?
Nothing, and the scientific community is united in that fact, per this Los Angeles Times 2010 article --
U.S. jobs continue to flow overseas
In addition, Obama's Justice Department sued to halt AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile USA, even though AT&T announced that it would repatriate 5,000 call-center jobs to the United States that had been outsourced overseas if the takeover had gone through.
The 2009 Recovery Act, that CONgress passed at the urging of President Obama, made funds available for wind energy projects, the vast majority of which were used primarily to create jobs overseas.
Obama/Biden brag about saving the American Auto Industry (GM), but this is how the auto bailout will work. American taxpayers pump tens of billions into rescuing General Motors from bankruptcy. Then GM pays us back by shipping more jobs overseas--the equivalent of four assembly plants.
In his recent Iowa visit, Biden mentioned the GM plant that closed in his home state of Delaware.
Through an Air Force contract, the Obama regime has been trying its best to outsource important national security jobs to a foreign entity in Brazil that has ties to the Iranian government.
Also, Obama did outsource oil drilling jobs to Brazil too, at US taxpayer expense no less.
Obama's own campaign spent nearly $4,700 on telemarketing services from a Canadian telemarketing company and paid a call center in Manila, Philippines $78,314.10 for telemarketing services.
Obama is the real “outsourcer in chief”, especially with our money.
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“How else but through a broken heart may the Lord Christ enter in?”
- Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”
He who builds a barn knows that rats will come
[They] were free to go where they might… Free as flies, free as autumn leaves or as wind-borne ashes.
Richard Adams has written nearly twenty novels or short story collections; one of them, Watership Down, is the best-selling novel ever published by Penguin, and has been voted one of the fifty favourite books of the British public, as well as spawning endless adaptations, including a classic film that has received numerous accolades – one of the fifty greatest British films, one of the hundred greatest animations, one of the twenty greatest tearjerkers, and a Hugo Award, among others. The novel is one of the classics of fantasy – and when it was written it joined The Lord of the Rings and Jonathan Livingston Seagull as the only fantasy novels to make it to the mainstream bestseller lists, as the #2 best-selling fiction book of 1974.
Watership Down, however, was not the apex of the author’s career – indeed, it was only the first of those twenty-odd novels. Of the rest of them, little, if anything, is ever heard. An author arose out of nowhere, became an incredible publishing success, and since then has spent another thirty years writing his novels in almost complete obscurity.
If any other novel of his had an opportunity to gain its own fame, it was his second novel, Shardik, which surely must have gained some attention in its day – and yet, beyond a cameo in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, it seems to have faded entirely from public consciousness, even among fantasy devotees. It was thus with some sense of mystery that as a child I opened the two-decade-old and dusty tome, with its faded cover, found in a box of books and bric-a-brac gifted us by an old and eccentric family friend who seemed perpetually to use us as an escape valve for her unrelenting acquisition of useless and obscure items. One day, “would you like these ski boots? I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them.” (Well no, as you’ve never been skiing – why did you buy them?). Another – “would these be any use to you?” – three hundred of those little plastic clips for closing bags and a thousand post-it notes? Why, it’s what we’ve always wanted. And, one day, an old plastic suitcase stuffed with books on obscure diets, and Greek myths, and never-heard-of poets in English, French and German – and Shardik.
When I opened it, the smell of the paper grabbed me by the nostrils, and brought me into an entirely different sort of world from any I had known. At the time, I read Pratchett, and Eddings, and Feist, and Dragonlance, and Gemmell – Shardik isn’t really like any of those, at all. It quickly became one of my two favourite books, although, attempt after attempt, I failed to finish the book, dissuaded by confusion, depression, and on occasion sheer moralistic hatred of the characters. In the end, I had the marvellous idea of beginning in the middle, and finally I made it to the end. Yet none of that struggle made me dislike the book, or disparage it – on the contrary, it gave the book a sort of mystic power in my mind. It was, and still is, the only fiction book ever to have defeated me (barring books where I have read the first chapter or two but not really got into it – for me, if I once get into a book, I get through it all).
Shardik is not Watership Down, either. It isn’t set in England, or even Europe – instead, it’s set in a minor, tropical nation of savannah and jungle, long ago lost to history. Its main protagonist is not an animal, but an illiterate peasant. It has an animal in it, yes, but it does not think like a human, but rather goes about like an animal, killing and destroying. Its characters are not heroes and villains, but universally flawed, yet almost always well-intentioned, humans. It does not tell an adventure story, but a story of religion, conquest, and slavery. It’s easy to imagine the readers of Watership Down being somewhat confused.
Shardik tells the story of a simple hunter, Kelderek, who one day encounters in the forests of his island a gigantic bear, driven from its home by a forest fire, which, he comes to believe, is an incarnation of Shardik, the ursine avatar of the Power of God. Once upon a time, his people mutter, they ruled over a vast empire, the empire of Bekla to the south, and dwelled in comfort and refinement, until Shardik was lost to them, and they were exiled to a small and muddy island, where they are ruled now by the paranoid and deformed High Baron, Bel-ka-Trazet, while revering still the shattered remnants of Shardik’s priesthood, led by the nameless priestess, the Tuginda, on the mystical neighbouring island of Quiso, performing still the same tasks and rituals even though they have no longer any focus. In this environment, faith and politics, and fear and ambition, devotion of many kinds, and the savagery of nature clash unstoppably to change the course of the lives of all the characters, and turn their eyes to the long-awaited, long-foretold return in glory to Bekla – an empire itself feeling the scars of a bloody civil war fought on the issue of slavery.
Above all, Shardik is a novel about religion – or, more accurately, faith, as the apparatus and ritual of religion is only tangentially touched upon. Instead, the focus is on the faith (or non-faith) of Kelderek, Bel-ka-Trazet, the Tuginda, Ta-Kominion (a young nobleman), and Rantzey and Melathys (two subordinate priestesses) – how it interacts with emotion and pragmatism, and how it addresses, and interprets, both bounty and hardship.
And here I have my first problem with the novel. The subject matter is worthwhile and appreciated – faith, I think, is a subject that fantasy is uniquely well-placed to address – and there is no doubt that it is handled extremely well, but it is also handled narrowly. There is very little in the way of respectable dissent from the Approved View the book hands down – Kelderek struggles against it, and argues well both for and against it in his own mind and with others, but there is no doubt about how the reader is meant to conclude. The problem is particularly severe as a result of the absence of the two most charismatic dissenters, Bel-ka-Trazet and Ta-Kominion, from the majority of, and the key parts of, the book. It is worthwhile, I think, comparing this novel to A Canticle for Leibowitz, another explicitly religious fantasy – in Leibowitz, it is far less clear what the Approved View is, and there is far stronger dissent from in within the book.
This may not have been so much of a problem for me, where I not to disapprove of the Approved View. Ill-mannered as it may be to introduce personal beliefs into the matter, nonetheless it is impossible to read a book, particularly so opinionated a book as this, in isolation from our pre-existing views. Now, those of you who have been paying attention will know that I have no religion, and no faith, and no believe in God – but both by upbringing and by inclination, the specific believe that I do not have is generally Catholic in form. Consequently, Leibowitz struck a chord within me – though I disagreed with much of it, it was something familiar, recognisable, respectable to me. But Shardik is not a Catholic book – Shardik is Protestant in the most arrational, and often agonisingly passive, way. Again and again we are told, in essence, that salvation is through faith alone and not through deeds; again and again, we are told how wrong it is to seek to deduce God’s will or plan how best to serve him – God’s will, is to be shown, not found: the question “then what are we to do?” is answered by “Kelderek, how many more times? It will be shown us, shown us, shown us what we are to do!” We must, we are told, simply wait. Well, I don’t believe that – and I also don’t believe that a doctrine of waiting quietly and of relying on God aids greatly in writing an exciting tale. Personally, I would have greatly preferred even a hint of theological nuance at this point – and it could easily be given. By the end of the book, there are in essence three significant religions – the established hierarchy of Quiso, Kelderek and new interpretations of the religion of Shardik, and the religion of U-Deparioth, held by another major character, the urbane Ellaroth – yet there is singularly little theological conflict. Neither Kelderek nor any other non-Quiso religious figure has a coherent theology to oppose that of the Tuginda, and the religion of U-Deparioth is not only virtually absent from most of the novel but also, when seen, is presented as more-or-less interchangeable with the religion of Shardik. The sequel, I am told, makes mention of a great many more religions in Bekla, but these do not feature at all. This, I feel, is a serious flaw in the novel, and not only because it allows the Tuginda to reign unchallenged in the theological sphere. It also damages both the theme and the plot of the novel: the theme, because on the one hand we are told of the enormous significance of religion in life, while all throughout the Empire religion is neither salient nor distinct; the plot, because a key symbolic episode, the Streels of Urtah, gains much of its power from the mythology of Deparioth, which is distant and unaffective. While it is clearly intentional to keep the reader in the dark about the details of the significance of the Streels, the eventual revelation would have considerably more power if the mythology had been more familiar to us at this point; additionally, the sudden religiosity of the Sarkids when the Streels feature would be more believable if it were not the first mention of their religion that we saw.
The resulting religious picture is therefore disappointingly bland. Why could not we have been given a serious, fleshed-out, henotheism or polytheism in Bekla? As it is, the most appealing religious dissent is the atheism, or at least extreme pragmatism, of Bel-ka-Trazet, who is portrayed in a surprisingly sympathetic, even positive, manner, but who is sadly absent from the key sections of the novel. Indeed, I’m tempted to say that not only this novel, but all other novels, would benefit from having a good deal more Bel-ka-Trazet in them. Perhaps there is some sort of Boba Fett issue here, but to me he seemed the most charismatic character in the book.
The main religion, meanwhile, failed even to be convincing in its own right – not because of any shallowness on the part of the variety of religious experiences and attitudes displayed, but because the religion seem very much to be Protestant Christianity in a bear skin. This is most obviously seen in the fact that their supreme deity is called simply God, and Shardik is the ‘Power of God’ that has been incarnated to save and guide mankind, through its own sacrifice. And of course all the other religions also worship God, they just don’t worship Shardik or believe he has been sent by God. This is not animism, or shamanism, as we might imagine on hearing of ‘bear worship’ – this is a simple Abrahamic faith, albeit without codified scripture (and the concept of revelation is indeed central). This is not necessarily a problem – it seems natural that an Englishmen of the time would be most interested in Abrahamic religions, but it raises an important question: why has Adams disguised this as something other than it is? Why isn’t it written in a more explicit way – why no prophets, no messiahs, no scripture? Perhaps he sought simplicity – but religion is the core of the book, so ought to be least skimped on. Perhaps he was afraid of blasphemy, or accusations of it. Or perhaps it is accidental – maybe he lacked the knowledge or imagination to make a more truly un-Christian faith. Personally, I hope it is the latter reason – because there is no reason why this faith had to be Abrahamic at all. Indeed, with the focus on faith and interpretation, a less explicit religion, a more genuine animal-worship, would have thrown the fascinating duality of religious thought processes into starker and more penetrating light.
These omissions, however, are likely not made on religious grounds, but rather reflect a general deficiency in worldbuilding. The geography is often confused, both in physics (the vegetative zones, for instance, seem allocated by throwing darts at a map, from all I can see) and in description (I’m still not clear whether Sarkid is a city or a region, for instance, and whether it is adjacent to, or within, Lapan, nor where exactly Deelguy is, nor of the western border of the empire – and all this despite a map!). Culture and economics are vividly described, but seem hollow, and sometimes unbelievable – why, for instance, does Transvrako remain so underpopulated? Given that it is underpopulated, how can it remain in such abject poverty and lawlessness? As the greatest threat appears to be groups of no more than a handful of men, why are people unable to defend their villages, and why, as so much of the area is wild and empty, can people not simply scratch out a living in the wild places without fear of harassment? Let’s not even address the economics of the ending… and as I have said there is virtually no information about the practice of religion, while the magic that appears on Quiso in the early chapters is barely mentioned again.
Why does the worldbuilding matter? Imagine taking a long trip by car to a destination, following the instructions given by a friend. Even if you follow the instructions to the letter, doesn’t a small part of you like having the reassurance that if you wanted to you could take a sudden turn and trundle down the B-roads to cut across country? A poorly-constructed world is when you feel that if you were for even a moment to diverge from the allotted route, you would find that the roads all ended once you were out of sight of the motorway. Or again: we live in our books, if only for a little while, and in a book with thin worldbuilding we are constantly confronted with indescribable, individually insignificant but cumulatively disturbing, suggestions that we are living in the Truman Show. A fine enough effect where disturbance is what the author desires – but otherwise it’s a distracting inadequacy.
In society, likewise, all people are divisible into three categories – a handful of sensible people, a great many urbane, suave aristocrats, and an endless sea of vaguely-cockney working men. If it were a play, most of these characters would simply be replaced by a single faceless man who changes hats, like the servant in A Man for All Seasons.
This point itself raises two new issues. Firstly, the issue of dialect. People are often enjoined to write as people speak, not as philosophers write, and indeed there is great merit in this – but Shardik is a fine example of why it is not always a good idea. It was written in the seventies, but by a man then in his fifties, and sounds distinctly pre-war in its dialogue, with the lower-class characters speaking in the sort of My Fair Lady way that may have represented speech at the time but now seems painfully out of date and not a little patronising. Meanwhile, the aristocrats, and in particular Ellaroth, not only speak but act in the sort of unemotional, flippant, interchangeable stiff-upper-lip fashion that seems scarcely credible now – and Ellaroth suffers as a result, as the painfully-sketched contrast between mask and raw emotion beneath becomes less credible and understandable when the mask is so alien to us, and so clearly affected. Finally, the Deelguy we meet speak in a swap-the-vowels accent that is frankly too bizarre to be believed, and which is rather alienating.
The second and more interesting issue took a long time to occur to me, but now seems to explain a great deal. Shardik should not be understood as modern writing, nor as Victorian writing – it is Shakespearean. It is, in essence, a very long play in novel form. The key dialogue is theatrical, not realistic – full of high sentence, strangely well-considered and precise. Internal thoughts, likewise, are not rambling and disunified, but presented, more or less, as the sort of philosophical soliloquys we expect on the stage. Even the descriptions read as stage directions in their terser moments, and as Othellian anecdotes at their more expansive.
This should not be seen as a criticism. If we judge the writing of Shardik by how close it is to reality, we would judge it poorly – but we do not have to. Consider instead that these soliloquys are not a portrayal of actual psychology, but of a condensed, pureed thought process – how the character would say he thought if he had the time, and literacy, to find the ideal formulation. Once we leap across the barrier of this alien, and somewhat ponderous, style, we find much to admire. The prose is, at times, beautiful, and rarely if ever is it ugly or jarring. It adheres fanatically to the dictum to show and not tell – only, rather than the dichotomy of ‘showing’ as action and ‘telling’ as authorial description, its distinction is between ‘telling’ as literal description and ‘showing’ as imagery, allegory and metaphor. Where other authors use one verb to express an emotion, Adams uses a sentence. Where others use a sentence, Adams uses a paragraph. These similes are usually vivid, and are sometimes imaginative to the point of being bizarre. The most notable example I can recall occurs when Shardik is ill, and Kelderek is observing him. Rather than saying simply “Kelderek was horrified by the poor condition of the bear”, Adams tells us:
“After war has swept across some farm or estate and gone its way, the time comes when villagers or neighbours, their fears aroused by having seen nothing of the occupants, set out for the place. They make their way across the blackened fields or up the lane, looking about them in the unnatural quiet. Soon, seeing no smoke and receiving no reply to their calls, they begin to fear the worst, pointing in silence as they come to the barns with their exposed and thatchless rafters. They begin to search; and at a sudden cry from one of their number come running together before an open, creaking door, where a woman’s body lies sprawling face down across the threshold. There is a quick scurry of rats and a youth turns swiftly aside, white and sick. Some of the men, setting their teeth, go inside and return, carrying the dead bodies of two children and leading a third child who stares about him, crazed beyond weeping. As that farm then appears to those men, who knew it in former days, so Shardik appeared now to Kelderek: and as they look upon the ruin and misery about them, so Kelderek looked at Shardik drinking from the pool.”
A page later, a paragraph is devoted to the disillusionment that accompanies the sight of suffering: “To see strength failing, ferocity grown helpless, power and domination withered by pain as plants by drought – such sights give rise not only to pity but also – and as naturally – to aversion and contempt.” This theme is then illustrated through the image of a dying captain huddled by a fire in the cold, whom we must abandon to his fate before we too succumb to the conditions – we discard our past with him, and decide that it is right that he should be abandoned; and then, suddenly we see him differently: “How odd it is that until now no one, apparently, should have perceived that after all he was never particularly wise; never particularly brave; never particularly honest, particularly truthful, particularly clean.” Psychology in Shardik is displayed not literally but symbolically, in the juxtaposition of and transition between different images and analogies. It is strange to read, and can be alienating, but it can also be beautiful at times, and at times can cut to the heart of a feeling better than literal description could. It is also extremely appropriate to the themes of the novel, in which interpretation and myth are more important than the cold facts themselves.
It may seem slow and plodding, but this is more to do with the plot than the writing – in the passages where real tension and excitement are called for, the archaic style rallies around superbly, and passages such as the battle of the foothills and the end of the Genshed section are dealt with as excitingly as any more sensationalist modern author would be capable of. Adams can write excitingly, and doesn’t even have to change his style to do so – he just chooses, by and large, not to.
That is because the focus of the book is psychology – not, as I say, a mimetic stream-of-consciousness, but a philosophical, ruminative psychology of motivation and theology and self-justification. And here too the style may be unfamiliar, but the effects are powerful – although a large stretch of the third quarter of the book is, through a combination of uneventfulness and mental wrangling, a little slow and difficult for readers expecting more continuous action.
The difficulty I have with the psychology is not the style or the content, but the distribution – certain characters are explored, while others go almost unheeded. Most glaring of these omissions is Ellaroth himself – not only a key character in the plot but also the focus of several chapters. Never, however, do we really see under his mask, except what other viewers can see when he loses control in moments of extreme emotion. This could be effective, except that we see far too little even of the emotionally-masked Ellaroth – in the only chapters where he has considerable screen time, we see him through the dull and somewhat slow eyes of his friend, Mollo, and we are too busy digesting the exposition at this point to concentrate on nuance of character, even should there be any. The result is that by and large, with the exception of one speech (most of which is not translated for us), Ellaroth appears almost entirely free of emotion, motivation or background – dangerously close, at several points, to a deus ex machina. This problem is exacerbated by (or perhaps creates) Ellaroth’s alienation from the main, religious themes of the book – alone of the major characters, Ellaroth could not care less about Shardik either way. While this could present a valuable dash of perspective to the tale (as Siristrou does at the end of the book), the fact that we don’t see much of Ellaroth’s own religion, or anything else that he cares about, it instead makes the character seem somewhat superfluous and artificial. This, however, is in strong contrast to the structure of the book, which presents Ellaroth as one of the most central figures. In particular, his importance at the end of the novel is disappointing – particularly when compared to the near-vanishing of Radu, by then a far more interesting character, and one who could have served much of the narrative function of Ellaroth in the final section.
This should highlight the fact that Shardik is only Adams’ first novel, and its events and themes are on an altogether grander scale than his first – consequently, he does make mistakes in pacing, plot and structure. The opening section needs more Melathys and Bel-ka-Trazet; ideally, more Ta-Kominion as well. Either the first or second section needs more Ged-la-Dan, and ideally more Zelda. As it is, important characters go without definition, or only receive sufficient focus when it is too late. The penultimate section is extremely powerful, but the final section is essentially an epilogue, and far too long and uneventful – which would be more forgivable if it did not then eventually surrender to the necessity of an epilogue-within-an-epilogue (though as a chapter, the final epilogue is both well-written and a brilliant concept to frame the events of the novel). Moreover, though pains are taken to see the effects of past actions, too much of the final section is spent watching characters (most notably Ellaroth) who are relatively unscathed, while Radu, who has been set up as a major focus of the preceding section, is forgotten (along with a few others I wanted to see more of – a certain boy who paces on the shoreline with a stick swearing, for instance).
By far the biggest problem, however, is the lacuna between Book II and Book III. It is easy to see why this temporal void was allowed – the significant events of the gap would have been spread out over years, making them difficult to relate coherently, while most of the characters, both new and old, would have been doing very little. Nonetheless, I believe that finding a way of filling this gap could have greatly improved the novel, for several reasons:
- It would have given us time to know get to know Ellaroth, making the third book far more emotive. He’s not a character, as I’ve said above, who we can love on first sight.
- It would have allowed us to see the reaction to the death of a certain character in the preceding book – as it is, they seem to fade from the story too easily, not casting that shadow that in reality they would have cast.
- It would have allowed us to see Zelda and, in particular, Ged-la-Dan in the hour of their darkest deeds. Zelda is shown as somewhat sympathetic both before and after, and although we see the darker point in hindsight, this does not have the same power as watching him live through them. Indeed, I would suggest that Ellaroth and Zelda should have shared this section. Ged-la-Dan is an important shadow-antagonist throughout the novel who never gets enough screentime. Showing more clearly the complicated relationship between Ged-la-Dan and Crendrik would have put the latter’s decisions in a more nuanced background. As it is, I feel it is too easy to hate Crendrik, as indeed I did on first reading.
- It would have shown us Kelderek’s Third Big Decision, and possibly the biggest of the three. The decision he makes, while sensible and rationalised in hindsight, is probably the most important event in the novel, and the impetus to the whole of the second half, yet inexplicably we never see it. Accordingly, we’re not fully engaged as he deliberates whether or not he was right, which takes away much of the power of the novel.
- It would balance the overall structure of the novel, which leans to heavily toward the second half
This lack of balance is made worse by the uneven narrative technique of exploring different points of view. In my reaction to Legend, I denigrated Gemmell’s use of mini-POVs of various minor characters, which lacked sufficient depth and relevance; Adams shows how this ought to be done. Rather than a paragraph or two, Adams devotes pages, or even chapters, to different perspectives, and this shows us the events in question in an altogether different light. I only wish he had done it more. Unfortunately, only the early sections show this variety, with the book increasingly focusing on Kelderek solely. The book suffers as a result – partly because it accentuates the degree to which the book is unbalanced, and partly because overexposure makes Kelderek’s dilemmas less affective. It’s also unnecessary. While much of the middle section is doomed to be Kelderek-dominated, there is no reason why the latter sections could not have featured the perspectives of Ellaroth (or someone close to him), Radu, the Tuginda, or a certain woman. Indeed, best of all would have been the perspective of Lalloc, or even Genshed – although I can understand why Adams may have felt unable to do this (and thankfully, in the case of Lalloc, as the ridiculous accent-writing would have become unbearable).
This, however, touches on a further problem: it is clear the ending matters more to Adams than to me. I feel a little guilty about this, as it’s the sort of moral issue we can’t respectably ignore – and indeed it is affective (a certain moment with Genshed in the deserted village may well compete for ‘most gut-wrenchingly horrible paragraph’ among the novels I’ve read). It just get a feeling that it’s not as affective for me as it’s meant to be, and that’s alienating for me. I’ve never read Adams’ autobiography, but I hear it has dark moments in it – and he explicitly says in an introductory note that some of the child-torture is written from his own experience. This certainly makes it even darker (Adams, like Ellaroth, has a stiff-upper lip mentality that can neuter some of the darker moments, downgrading them from horrific to merely disturbingly callous, and a glimpse behind the mask can help bring back that colour), but it also makes me aware of a gulf between author and reader – as someone without those experiences, can I ever really understand what the novel is meant to mean? I find myself, rather off-puttingly, wishing that certain scenes had been more brutal, more explicit, more disgusting – not because that would have been enjoyable, but because I think I may need to hear a shout to hear what Adams can hear in a whisper; and yet I doubt Adams could have made himself write any more darkly, even had he so wished. Indeed, the reason he added that autobiographical hint at the beginning was to seek to avoid accusations from readers that he had the sort of mind that could have invented such things.
Nor need those concerns be unfounded: we must remember that this novel was written in the 1970s, when child abuse, sexual slavery and the other issues raised were not perhaps as openly discussed as today, and certainly not as openly the topic of popular entertainment. And perhaps that is a good thing in this case: not only in relation to Genshed, but also regarding the stories we hear from some women near the end of the novel (and indeed some of the war scenes and their consequences earlier on), Shardik is a novel that touches on the worst things a novel can deal with, and a less inhibited writer could have let it plunge to, frankly, limitless depths of pain and suffering quite easily. On the one hand, I would love to see what a writer of such quality could have done off the leash, and what an incredible book Shardik might have been – but on the other hand, I know that it’s not exactly comfortable reading at the moment, and there is a point where ‘artistically valuable’ is less salient than ‘too harrowing to read’.
I have, then, discussed many flaws in the book. I tend to do that – I assume perfection, and try to detail why it was not always attained. Nonetheless, if other people are to gain anything from this, perhaps I should say some words on why the book is actually worth reading. What’s it got?
- It’s dark. As I say, this isn’t portrayed in a sensationalist style – indeed, the very contrary. Nonetheless, rape and murder and mutilation are constant features, and are just as likely to happen to children as to adults. This is not some run-of-the-mill fluffy-dragon fantasy that tosses around war and slavery without any attention to what the words really mean. Bekla may not be a completely convincing world in terms of geography and sociology, but it is impressively real in terms of psychology and human suffering. The style is archaic, but the contents are decidedly modern.
- It deals in Real Human Themes that may be raised in a fantasy world, but that have application in real life – faith, courage, belief, reason, pragmatism, which ends justify which means, honour, power, the nature and effect of cruelty… it may occasionally seem to have made up its mind on some of these (particularly religion), but it’s never hectoring in tone, and usually at least tries to be nuanced, and show different points of view.
- The writing style, both in prose and in descriptive technique, are highly distinctive, and effective, if you can get used to them.
- It’s original in execution. The fact that Watership Down is more approachable suggests that much of the theatrical prose style is an experimental affectation, and throughout the book there are further experiments – from the first chapter (through the perspective of a non-sentient animal with no thinking creature appearing at all) through to the last (a brilliant conceit that, unlike most epilogues, manages to put the entire novel that has come before into a new light).
Overall, I think the best way to sum up the novel is to say that it’s somewhat odd literary fantasy, which might not satisfy those seeking the very best the genre has to offer, but should absolutely be considered by anyone who genuinely desires to read a fantasy novel that is nothing like conventional fantasy – and of course anybody interested in religion in fantasy. And anybody who loved Watership Down but didn’t know he wrote anything else – if nothing else, they’ll come away with a greater appreciation of the breadth of the man’s skill.
As for myself… no, Shardik wasn’t as good as I remember it being, but it will always have a place in my affections, and I’ve no doubt I’ll reread it again in the future [and the phrase "all the way, underground" will probably feature prominently in future nightmares, along with the myth of Leg-by-Lee]. As for Adams’ third novel, Maia, I admit to mixed anticipations – on the one hand, the thought of a novel focusing less on the elevated part of Shardik and more on the darker parts is appealing; on the other hand, the time period is uninteresting to me, perhaps because I feel it would be too familiar. Also, I didn’t exactly find Shardik gripping, even if it was ultimately fairly satisfying. I think that I’ll keep an eye out for Maia in second-hand bookshops, but not actually go out and buy it online. There’s so many other books I’ve to read first…
So, finally, to tidy things up (and apologies for the long length of the review, by the way – I guess the book just struck some chords with me), some numbers:
Adrenaline: 3/5. It’s slow and pensive, not exciting, and could easily have been a 2 – it even touches 1 at times. However, when the story calls for it, Adams can whip up the adrenaline, and there’s a couple of really good chapters in this respect, so I’m bumping it up to a 3.
Emotion: 4/5. Yes, part of the emotion provoked is anger, and part disgust, as well as the occasional happy moment. But I felt that it was all intended by the book, not directed at the book per se. Some of the book is a little cold, but I was very close to, and perhaps actually in, tears at one point. I cry fairly easily at books, I’ll admit, but it’s still a good sign.
Thought: 4/5. It doesn’t really manage to be as fascinating and nuanced as it could be, but nonetheless it’s an intelligent and thought-provoking book.
Beauty: 4/5. A little too… measured and marble for me to love it, but it’s distinctly above average aesthetically, both in prose and in imagery. In particular, I love Adams’ flair for remote analogies.
Craft: 3/5. Mostly… not noticeable. By that I mean that by and large I wasn’t thinking about craft as I read the book. I think that’s above average and deserves a 4. However, the big structural problem I mentioned above counts against it, and so does the most mishandled fall-in-love subplot I think I’ve ever read. However, the structural problems only became clear to me after some reflection, and the romance issue isn’t big or important enough to really spoil it. So 3.
Endearingness: 3/5. Well, it has a place in my affections. I’m sure I’ll recommend it to anybody who asks. I will reread it, I know. When I think of it, positive emotions occur. I like it, I can’t say why – and I mean like, not ‘think it good’, nor ‘enjoy reading it’, but actually like. But against that, overall… it’s just a bit too stony and unapproachable for me to say it’s above average here.
Originality: 4/5. There’s nothing here that’s stunningly wow-that’s-a-brilliant-idea original. However, I certainly couldn’t have written it, and there’s almost nothing that feels reused or over-familiar. Partly that’s because this book predates all those fantasy novels that have set the nature of cliché in the genre – which only makes it more admirably pioneering. This shows what fantasy ought to be: a genre filled with books that you’ll never find a twin of.
Overall: 5/7: Good.
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Subscribe now to and start applying to auditions!
On Approaching a Role -- Acting Pros Define Their Technique
- William Esper, William Esper Studios
- Glenn Alterman, Glen Alterman Studios
- Terry Schreiber, T. Schreiber Studios
- Mary McCann, Atlantic Theater Studios
- Ron Burrus, Stella Adler Studios
William Esper has been teaching acting for over 45 years. He's a graduate of Western Reserve University and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of The Theater where he studied with Sanford Meisner, Martha Graham, Louis Horst and Robert Neff Williams.
In 1962 he undertook teacher training with Sanford Meisner and began a 15-year close association with him as a teacher and director; first at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and starting in 1965 at the Neighborhood Playhouse. From 1975 to 1977 he was associate director of the Playhouse Acting Department. In 1977 he founded the MFA and BFA Professional Actor Training Programs at Rutger's University's Mason Gross School of the Arts. He remained head of these programs until his retirement in 2003.
In 1965 Bill founded the William Esper Studio in New York, where he continues to teach today. He has been a guest artist teacher at the Banff Festival, the National Theater School of Canada, St. Nicholas Theater Co in Chicago IL, Shauspiel Munchen in Germany and the National Film School of Denmark. He is profiled in The New Generation of Acting Teachers published by Viking Press in 1987 and is the author of The Actor's Art and Craft — William Esper Teaches the Meisner Technique, published in March 2008 by Anchor Books/Random House.
Glenn Alterman was recently chosen "The Best Monologue-Audition Coach in the Tri-State Area" by Theater Resource Magazine. He was also chosen first runner as "Best Private Acting Coach" by the readers of Back Stage. His 16 bestselling theater-related and original monologue books include The Perfect Audition Monologue, Creating Your Own Monologue, An Actor's Guide: Making It in New York City, Promoting Your Acting Career, and Glenn Alterman's Secrets to Successful Cold Readings.
Glenn has coached thousands of actors and lectured or taught at such diverse places as The Edward Albee Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska; Southampton College; Governors School for the Arts at Old Dominion University; The School for Film and Television; Western Connecticut State College; Broadway Artists Alliance; The School For Professional Actors; the Dramatists Guild; The Learning Annex; The Screen Actors Guild; The Seminar Center, as well as at many acting schools and colleges all over the country.
Featured in Eva Mekler's The New Generation of Acting Teachers, Terry Schreiber has been teaching and directing for over 40 years. The T. Schreiber Studio, established in 1969, has been a home and training ground for many artists who have gone on to successful careers in theatre, film, and television and is recognized as one of the foremost professional theatre studios in New York.
Terry has directed On Broadway the Tony-nominated play K2, The Trip Back Down, and Devour the Snow. Off-Broadway credits include Desire Under the Elms at The Roundabout Theatre and Feedlot at Circle Repertory. Regional credits include The Guthrie Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Hartman Theatre Company, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Studio Arena Stage and the George Street Playhouse. Internationally, Terry has directed in Japan and has taught workshops in Paris and Istanbul.
Productions at the T. Schreiber Studio include: Night of the Iguana, Sweet Bird of Youth, How I Learned to Drive, Hedda Gabler, Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, Orpheus Descending, The Iceman Cometh, Suddenly Last Summer, Summer and Smoke, Miss Julie, Joe Egg, Hamlet, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Birthday Party, The Homecoming, The Woman from the Sea, and Landscape of the Body. Terry is the author of Acting, Advanced Techniques for the Actor, Director and Teacher.
Mary McCann is a founding member of the award-winning Atlantic Theater Company and the Executive Director of the Atlantic Acting School. She has performed in many plays at the Atlantic, including the critically acclaimed Almost an Evening by Ethan Coen and the hit rock musical Spring Awakening. Mary has appeared on Broadway in The Old Neighborhood, Our Town with the late Spaulding Grey, and Search and Destroy.
Other off-Broadway and Atlantic productions include: Body Awareness, The Cherry Orchard, The Night Heron, The Hiding Place, This Thing of Darkness, The Beginning of August, Wolf Lullaby, The Water Engine, Edmond, Dangerous Corner, Missing Persons, and Shaker Heights (Atlantic); Oleanna (Orpheum Theater); Uncommon Women and Others (Second Stage); Boys' Life (Lincoln Center); and Hot Keys (Naked Angels) At ART, she performed in Oleanna and Boston Marriage, in which she starred with Felicity Huffman and Rebecca Pigeon.
Film and TV credits include Sordid Things, Choke, Todd Field's Little Children (starring Kate Winslet), It Must Be Love, Door to Door, The Con, The Spanish Prisoner, The Night We Never Met, Sleepers, Things Change, The Unit, Cashmere Mafia, The Naked Brothers Band, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Sex and the City, Sports Night, ER, and Spin City. Mary can also currently be seeing in commercials for Sudafed and Walgreens Health Care. Producing credits include the feature film Edmond starring William H. Macy and Colin Fitz. Mary lives in New York City with her husband Neil Pepe (artistic director of Atlantic Theater Company) and their daughter Lena.
Ron Burrus is the greatest living exponent of the Stella Adler Technique. Ron spent many years studying and teaching alongside Ms. Adler in New York City. He has extensive theatre directing credits including The Three Sisters and You Can't Take it With You at the Circle in the Square Director's Unit, The Brick and the Rose at New York University, and The White Whore and The Bit Player for the Cubiculo Theatre.
Los Angeles theatre credits include: award-winning Guest of the Nation at the Court Theatre, Seed of Darkness at the Tamarind Theatre, and Opus One at the Los Feliz Playhouse. Film coaching credits include John Mellencamp's Falling from Grace. Ron also directed the feature film Getting Personal (European release) also known as The Mysterious Death of Kelly Lawman (HBO, Cinemax).
His acting seminars are done internationally and nationally: Sydney, Australia; Lausanne, Switzerland; Grand Valley, MI; and Portland, OR. Ron teaches full time in Manhattan during the fall season, and the remainder of the year he works with actors at the Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles. He heads the Advanced Business of Acting seminars that introduce the NY-trained actor to the LA industry of film and television.
Penny Templeton (Moderator)
Penny Templeton 's artistry is the culmination of four generations of theatre actresses. Although Penny was warned by her family not to go on the Stage she embraced her legacy and began performing and studying under such masters as Paul Sorvino and Wynn Handman. Highlights of her career include starring in Joyce Carol Oates' I Stand Before You Naked at the American Place Theatre, and as Paul Sorvino's wife in All The King's Men.
Her unique coaching methods and techniques have garnered attention and recognition from industry peers. She has been called upon to offer her expertise for articles in national magazines and is currently writing her book, Acting Under Fire: Creating Acting Lions. Penny has been a finalist Judge for the NY Film Festival, Daytime Emmys and Cable Ace Awards. She taught Acting for the Camera to the MFA students at Columbia University .
She is featured in Glenn Alterman's book Promoting Your Acting Career, and Ronald Rand's Acting Teachers of America. Penny works with actors on Broadway, Off-Broadway, as well as in regional theatre, feature films, primetime and daytime television.
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January 23 2007 by Douglas W. Burke
Many entrepreneurs who start up a new venture may not secure, or even seek, private investment to back its launch, opting instead to self-fund it – more commonly known as “bootstrapping.” While that certainly keeps more control and percentage of equity within the organization, doing so brings about its own challenges. Among them, include the need to quickly and effectively scale product development, profitable revenue and human resources without outside financial assistance.
Venture capitalists provide entrepreneurs experience, direction and a rolodex of strategic contacts in addition to funding. In their absence, the onus falls even more on the CEO – sometimes to the point of distraction. The key to success for a bootstrapped start-up will rest on the management team’s ability to stay focused; specifically in areas of the business itself, the corporate culture and the sales pipeline.
Focus on the Business Itself
Those of us who pride ourselves in our ability and experience in launching new businesses see the world as an endless series of targeted opportunities. In many cases, entrepreneurs only see the upside of new markets for their current product or service. This may play well in an investor presentation, but for a bootstrapped entity, targeting too many opportunities at once could dilute scarce resources and cost the company far more than the potential returns can pay.
Therefore, CEOs of self-funded ventures will require strong discipline when evaluating opportunities and must focus on how long a new target industry will take to pay dividends. A management team must also agree to what the definition of success or failure is with each market, using quantitative and “gut-feel” answers to the following questions:
- How long will it take to validate the opportunity
- What are the key pain points in the targeted industry
- What are the risk factors involved
- How many resources will it take to serve this market
- When will the company start realizing revenue and, even more important, profit.
Case in point – when I became CEO at DefenseWeb Technologies, we considered expanding into private sector industries to capture what we knew to be sizable opportunities for our products and services. Our concern at the time was that our focus in the U.S. Department of Defense industry was too narrow, and our company was missing out on other lucrative revenue sources.
With that, I gave myself six months to explore the private sector option, with the intent on taking my findings to our board and collectively determining the strategic course of action. While the early response among potential customers was positive, I began to see significant obstacles in serving Corporate America. First, our Web services platform catered to tech-savvy clients, like those found in our own professional services engineers, and would have to be significantly modified for the commercial OEM market. Second, expanding into corporate markets would require staffing a separate sales and marketing team focused in this area, which would be expensive. Lastly, custom software development in the private sector is a much more competitive arena than in the Defense industry, and posed greater risks to us in generating sustainable revenue with acceptable margins. At the end of my six-month exploration, I and the board opted to remain focused in our current DoD market and realize its full potential – to the tune of doubling our revenues each year for the past three years.
This scenario is a classic example of why entrepreneurs should carefully evaluate any new opportunity before executing. While I and others at DefenseWeb remain obsessed with sales, today we focus that obsession solely on the Defense industry.
Focus on the Corporate Culture
For any new business, but especially self-funded ones, focusing on the corporate culture is both a necessity and a non-trivial issue. Employee and work environment dynamics evolve as start-ups do, with the natural breakpoints occurring as companies hire the first five, 20, 50 and 80 team members. Human nature being what it is, entrepreneurs must anticipate the changes and develop ways to ensure that the structural integrity of its corporate values is not compromised.
At DefenseWeb, I and my management team maintained an open and self-starting environment with our employees from day one. People could operate fairly independently in performing tasks, while, at the same time, have the freedom to walk into my office to collaborate on concerns, ideas and initiatives. In turn, I ensured that the executive team operated transparently and kept everyone regularly informed of the company’s progress. These practices worked well without requiring the creation of many processes when we were between five and 20 employees. As we grew, however, my COO and I needed to develop layers of management to support our expanding staff and create a scalable operational structure as well as comprehensive HR programs and policies for our organization. Political and social cliques become normal, unavoidable by-products of these events.
The type of employee we began to seek out and hire also changed as DefenseWeb expanded. With the overriding business concern at the beginning being our very survival, we focused on retaining what I call “special ops” talent; folks that are ideal for early-stage companies because of their high degree of independence, productivity and aggressiveness. We did not have the time or manpower to sit in many consensus-building meetings to make customer or business decisions – we just had to do it. As we expanded, we realized that DefenseWeb needed more “infantry grunts” – those that can take assigned tasks and execute them in more team-oriented environments. These two different types of employee personalities could create tension and misunderstanding in the workplace if not managed correctly.
Changing our corporate culture was not an option at DefenseWeb, nor should it be for any company. Instead, we as managers continually look to create challenges and opportunities that fit each of our employees well; more autonomous rolls for the “special ops” folks and more team-oriented situations for our “infantry grunts,” all under the guise of maintaining a productive, self-satisfying, fun environment.
We also regularly ensure that our HR programs and practices continue to keep all communications lines as open as when we were small to avoid misunderstandings and prevent the company “Rumor Mill” from becoming a credible news outlet. Our weekly, all-hands meeting remains intact, but now we hold one for our
Any executive, but especially those in newly formed bootstrapped ventures, must keep a keen focus on corporate culture and values. The talent base within an organization is its greatest asset and competitive advantage. Compromising it will be costly – too costly for most cash-strapped start-ups.
Focus on Sales
Certainly both bootstrapped and venture-backed companies want to realize revenues as quickly as possible. This becomes paramount for self-funded firms looking at current sales to fuel their business and product roadmap initiatives. However, in developing a sales strategy, many bootstrapped entities fall victim to two myths: (a) Don’t build a sales engine until the product is finished, and (b) The early adopters are good indicators to how others in the market will respond.
By nature, bootstrapped ventures must be sales-focused organizations, and that means management must make vetting the market for its full opportunity and adapting quickly to market dynamics core components of its business plan from day one. Executing this strategy can happen even before a product is fully developed, because the information gathered will help in the final build, and could even stave off competition if conducted correctly. At DefenseWeb, we believe that we sell the vision of the company and the trust of its management as much as our solutions, because the old adage is true; helping people buy from people they trust is the cornerstone of selling.
The bootstrapped company also should not wait to build out its sales engine until it finds a good Vice President of Sales, for this could be a long – and at times frustrating – process. At DefenseWeb, I and others on the management team called on clients and prospects, wrote proposals and crafted contracts as much as anything else we did in the course of the business day. As entrepreneurs, we were very much used to that role, but in our self-funded environment, we had little choice. I still do sales calls at DefenseWeb for our larger prospects and clients, not only because those folks expect it, but also to keep us focused on why the company exists – to make money.
Keep it Simple
Bear in mind, the key drivers for any corporation are its understanding of its business, its ability to stay true to its values and its ability to sell. Oftentimes the key reason for a start-up’s success or failure has to do with its capacity to focus on the tasks at hand. Entrepreneurs who can do this well stand a good chance of succeeding. Those who can’t keep their eyes on their business, their corporate culture and their sales pipeline find themselves looking for the next great venture sooner than they expected.
Douglas W. Burke firstname.lastname@example.org is a serial entrepreneur and currently the CEO of DefenseWeb Technologies, a San Diego-based Web-services company focused in the Defense industry. The company was recently named one of the fastest growing firms in
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Posted: Jan 26, 2013 9:56 AM by Associated Press
WINFIELD, W.Va. - A judge in Putnam County has given final approval to a settlement between chemical manufacturer Monsanto Co. and thousands of West Virginia residents over pollution claims.
Circuit Judge Derek Swope approved the settlement Friday.
A $93 million settlement was reached last February with residents who said Monsanto polluted their community by burning waste from production of the defoliant Agent Orange.
St. Louis-based Monsanto had agreed to pay up to $84 million for medical monitoring and $9 million to clean up 4,500 homes. Monsanto also agreed to pay legal fees.
The litigation began with a class-action case by plant workers in the 1980s.
The Monsanto plant in Nitro produced herbicides, rubber products and other chemicals. The plant's production of the defoliant Agent Orange created dioxin as a toxic chemical byproduct.
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The 80 page Verizon 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report [PDF] - decorated with pretty graphs and impressive-looking statistics - emotes about "the dramatic rise of hacktivism - cyberhacking to advance political and social objectives" before reporting that the "majority of breaches are avoidable with sound security measures". Verizon offers security solutions along with connectivity.
The report indicates that
In 2011, 58% of data stolen was attributed to hacktivism, according to the annual report released today from Verizon. The new trend contrasts sharply with the data-breach pattern of past several years, during which the majority of attacks were carried out by cybercriminals, whose primary motivation was financial gain.Modest to a fault, those Verizon people, who announce that "Our goal is to increase the awareness of global cybercrime in an effort to improve the security industry's ability to fight it while helping government agencies and private sector organizations develop their own tailored security plans".
Seventy-nine percent of attacks represented in the report were opportunistic. Of all attacks, 96% were not highly difficult, meaning they did not require advanced skills or extensive resources. Additionally, 97% of the attacks were avoidable, without the need for organizations to resort to difficult or expensive countermeasures. The report also contains recommendations that large and small organizations can implement to protect themselves.
Now in its fifth year of publication, the report spans 855 data breaches across 174 million stolen records - the second-highest data loss that the Verizon RISK (Research Investigations Solutions Knowledge) team has seen since it began collecting data in 2004. Verizon was joined by five partners that contributed data to this year's report: the United States Secret Service, the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit, the Australian Federal Police, the Irish Reporting & Information Security Service and the Police Central e-Crime Unit of the London Metropolitan Police.
"With the participation of our law enforcement partners around the globe, the '2012 Data Breach Investigations Report' offers what we believe is the most comprehensive look ever into the state of cybersecurity," said Wade Baker, Verizon's director of risk intelligence.
Breaches originated from 36 countries around the globe, an increase from 22 countries the year prior. Nearly 70% of breaches originated in Eastern Europe, with less than 25% originating in North America.Data in the 2012 report is claimed to demonstrate that:
External attacks remain largely responsible for data breaches, with 98% of them attributable to outsiders. This group includes organized crime, activist groups, former employees, lone hackers and even organizations sponsored by foreign governments. With a rise in external attacks, the proportion of insider incidents declined again in this year's report, to 4%. Business partners were responsible for less than 1 percent of data breaches.
In terms of attack methods, hacking and malware have continued to increase. In fact, hacking was a factor in 81% of data breaches and in 99% of data lost. Malware also played a large part in data breaches; it appeared in 69% of breaches and 95% of compromised records. Hacking and malware are favored by external attackers, as these attack methods allow them to attack multiple victims at the same time from remote locations. Many hacking and malware tools are designed to be easy and simple for criminals to use.
Additionally, the compromise-to-discovery timeline continues to be measured in months and even years, as opposed to hours and days. Finally, third parties continue to detect the majority of breaches (92%).
Industrial espionage revealed criminal interest in stealing trade secrets and gaining access to intellectual property. This trend, while less frequent, has serious implications for the security of corporate data, especially if it accelerates.Only 1% in 2010 and 95% in 2011? Looking beyond the triteness of "being PCI compliant does not make an organization immune from attacks" - a first year undergrad conclusion - it's difficult to embrace a report with problematical figures that aren't sourced or readily verified.
External attacks increased. Since hacktivism is a factor in more than half of the breaches, attacks are predominantly led by outsiders. Only 4% of attacks implicate internal employees.
Hacking and malware dominate. The use of hacking and malware increased in conjunction with the rise in external attacks in 2011. Hacking appeared in 81% of breaches (compared with 50% in 2010), and malware appeared in 69% (compared with 49% in 2010). Hacking and malware offer outsiders an easy way to exploit security flaws and gain access to confidential data.
Personally identifiable information (PII) has become a jackpot for criminals. PII, which can include a person's name, contact information and social security number, is increasingly becoming a choice target. In 2011, 95% of records lost included personal information, compared with only 1% in 2010.
Compliance does not equal security. While compliance programs, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, provide sound steps to increasing security, being PCI compliant does not make an organization immune from attacks.
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Every meal with 18-month-old Estelle starts the same way. I lift the fork to her lips, just as she clamps them shut. "No." There's twisting, frowning and eyebrows furrowing and it would be maddening if this lasted for more than five seconds, but we're on to her. At this stage, and there will be many more, the trick is to take a bite yourself first. After that, she's open for business and eats like a hearty little field hand -- one with a head full of ringlets in a highchair.
And that's the key right there. Figuring out what works at whatever stage you're in. Since they're changing all the time and we've got three rascals under the age of 4, I've got tons of tricks up my sleeve for dinners between now and those 18th birthdays, which seem far, far away right now.
In the meantime, I'm on a mission to teach our kids about eating a variety of good food. Wholesome and fresh, nourishing and above all, delicious food. It's not okay with me if they eat fast food (which isn't really available in Rome) or pasta most nights (which is certainly available in Rome) because we can't get them to try anything else. There's so much to enjoy about wonderful meals -- from eating well to learning the art of telling a great story -- that I consider it another important part of parenting. But it's complicated. Part discipline, part health lesson, part social science, this task is not easy. So with all this in mind, I've put together a list of what that works for us. These are our house rules and habits, some home grown and others picked up from authors, experts and friends but every one of them is tried and true. Good luck.
•Be calm. Even if you're frustrated or worried about a picky eater, try to at least fake a carefree front. It matters because if you are casual about it, they'll be casual. You don't want to turn the dinner table into a war zone. The larger goal, even beyond begging the kids to just take a bite of Brussels sprouts, is to make the dinner table one of your family's happiest places.
•Make it the first or second bite, when the kids are hungry. This comes from Karen Le Billon, author of French Kids Eat Everything. And to that end, don't allow snacks closer than two hours before dinner. A hungrier kid is more willing to try something new.
•Don't insist that they eat an entire serving. Since the lesson is about introducing variety, cultivating curiosity and encouraging healthy eating, it's not important whether or not the kids eat a full plate. At our house the rule is this: you have to try one bite of everything. If you don't, you're not eligible for dessert. And it's not a big deal either way.
•Make it a habit. I love cooking and write about our greatest hits (and misses) on Foodlets.com so our kids are very used to new foods. You don't have to blog about it but the sooner your kids get used to trying new things, the sooner they'll accept the experience as part of your dinner routine.
•Let them help... in the garden. From her home in the Seattle suburbs, Jennifer says her two girls eat tons of fresh vegetables in the summer because they've invested their own time and effort to help the garden grow since spring. (The same thing can work in shorter time by just enlisting the little guys in the kitchen. Anyone who's prepared even part of dinner will be so proud that you'll have another food evangelist at the table urging everyone to try it.)
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Staff Picks: Books
Staff-recommended reading from the
And One Giant Metal Grasshopper ...
I have to admit that it was the title that drew me to this book. The author, Linda Godfrey, writes, “Is it weird that the Wolverine State may never have had any wolverines in it? We think so, and that suits us fine. The weirder the better, we say, and Michigan falls perfectly into that category.” In this volume of things unusual one finds such attractions as the giant snow gauge on the Keweenaw Peninsula, the huge tire in Allen Park, the eagle made from trash bags in Iron River, the village of Christmas which has a St. Nicholas Ave., the largest weather vane which is in downtown Montague, and the metal sculpture of the giant grasshopper in Kaleva. Kalamazoo rates entries on pages 196, 206, and 239. Not limited to roadside items, this work also contains chapters on unexplained phenomena, cemeteries, and fabled people and places. For those who prefer to branch out, the library owns and is ordering many other volumes in this series by Sterling Publishing Company, such as Weird Las Vegas and Nevada, Weird Massachusetts, and Weird Pennsylvania.
Weird Michigan : Your Travel Guide to Michigan's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
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I'm already maintaining a low BMI/BF% and from reading Stephan's latest posts on carbohydrates, I've decided a low-fat diet might not be so bad, and to try it. I have no issues with carbohydrates e.g. wheat and not diabetic.
I want to cut down on protein costs, so it seems that if I buy a low-fat protein powder in bulk, e.g. Isopure, then I could save on the cost per gram protein. I'm not allergic to dairy, and whey protein seems to have some beneficial qualities.
What might be the long-term consequences of replacing the usual protein with whey/casein protein powder instead? How would you know if you're deficient in something, what health markers or lab results would you look at? Do you think a protein powder-based diet is unsustainable?
I've maintained my diet and marginally reduced my weight since I asked this. It was a nice experiment. Works for me but not everyone. Interesting nobody could answer my second question.
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**This review of Les Miserables contains spoilers**
I’ve seen Les Mis in the theater at least 4 times. I know the music. I know the characters. And I always thought that I knew the story. But over the past few weeks, as I’ve been listening to the Broadway production while I work, I realized that I didn’t actually know the story. Not really. When you see a Broadway show like Les Miserables, you see the set, you see the dancing, you hear and live the music and you see the show. But following the story… it’s hard to follow a story when there is so much to watch–so much not to miss.
My sister was eight when she first saw the show–oh, how she loved it. But I wonder, did she understand the life that Fantine suffered? Did she recognize that there was so much love, so much war, so many people being slain and dying? Did she recognize the love, the brutality? The loneliness? The desire?
Last night, I attended the preview of Les Miserables in Philadelphia. The music was moving, the story line so much more clear than on Broadway. I realized so much more than I ever had before. (I’m writing this under the assumption that you, too, know parts of the story and, therefore, will not go into details. For those who don’t know the story, no need to read the Cliff Notes, it’s very clear in the film. But do know before you read on that this review includes spoilers.)
It’s a classic story of good versus evil, but twisted. This story explores the questions could an evil become good? At what point do we forgive?
I recall, years ago when I saw the show on Broadway, asking my dad how Javert (played by Russell Crowe) could have not forgiven Valjean (Hugh Jackman) after all those years of being a good man. He explained then that Javert was an officer of the law–there was no gray in his world, no changing. There are rules that must not be broken. Crowe’s theatrical performance excelled in emphasizing just this, and reminded me of the conversation. He walked a line, he struggled, but to his character, the law is the law. And when it is broken, one must pay.
In light of recent events, and the questions so many of us have right now, I am struck by how this theme sticks out to me. We are all questioning life, good, bad, life decisions. The law… is the law. And there are those who only see that.
This is also a story of love. Of a mother’s love, a father’s love, and love of friendship and desire. This is a story that will hold a place in your heart.
The musical performances were, in many cases, astounding. I’d like to see more credit given to Samantha Barks who plays Eponine in the film (as well as the 25th anniversary concert.) The depth of her voice, it’s powerful. Her love, her acting… amazing. She was born to play this part. Anne Hathaway (Fantine) gave so much of herself to this film and it’s evident. She embodied Fantine and portrayed her with beauty. Hugh Jackman (Valjean) was enjoyable. His performance believable; his transformation, striking. Eddie Redmayne’s performance as Marius was beautiful and believable. Amanda Seyfried who stole hearts in Mama Mia, played the lovable Cosette — I’m amazed a voice can hit notes so high. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, playing the comical Thenardiers, were able to not only lighten the deepest moments, but enveloped their parts playfully. I fell in love with the young revoluntionary cast–their Drink with Me was stronger than any performance I remember from Broadway.
We have a little crush on Russell Crowe around our home. My husband and I have probably seen every one of his films. You can always tell just how much he becomes his part and he truly became the good, but somehow, evil, Javert. It’s a reach to say his singing voice matched the performances I’ve seen and listened to for years. I’ve always imagined Javert to be powerful and, while this portrayal was that, his musical performance was lacking. (You have to know how hard this is to write. But as my husband said so well last night “really? he sings? hm. really?”)
I have the CD on order. I’m not certain whether I want it. I LOVE the power of of the males on Broadway and in the 25th annivesary edition. That power was missing from both Valjean and Javert in the music (but not at all missing in the performances. Perhaps I should hold off on the CD and, eventually, buy the DVD.)
I remind myself, that when you see a film, you don’t see it as much for the musical performance as you do for the story. And, as I said above, the story was beautiful. So well portrayed, so well told. From the closeups to the scenes of France, they did a phenomenal job of bringing the stage onto the screen–of bringing the story to focus and of helping you to live the story yourself.
Should children see Les Miserables?
In a word, no. The film is rated PG-13, but is so very graphic I’m not sure young teens are even ready to see it, especially in light of recent events. Songs (like Empty Chairs at Empty Tables) and scenes (like young Gavroche being shot twice and all of the young revolutionaries being lined up after their deaths) — it all is just too real. Eddie Redmayne’s Empty Chairs at Empty Tables told two very hard to hear stories in my mind last night. I had trouble separating them. 12 hours later, I’m still having trouble. (And I’m crying every time I read this paragraph.) And as much as you want to turn off the thoughts of the recent shooting while you’re enjoying a movie, it’s just too hard right now.
So, no. I do not recommend taking your children. I always knew that Javert killed himself in the show, but I never saw it happen like I did last night. I always knew that nearly, as my dear friend Alex said when we saw it years ago, “everyone dies in the end.” But that death was different last night. It was far more real than actors who fall and then run off stage at scene change.
Should you see Les Miserables?
Absolutely. Get a sitter and see the movie. See it in the theater where you’re truly brought into their world. Where the close-ups are reachable, where you can feel the passion. See it where the voices of Samantha Barks, Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne make audiences applaud as if it were live. But recognize, before you go, that you are not seeing something light. That you are seeing something that will become a part of you for years.
© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.
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By Conan Businge
A SPECIAL unit to monitor drugs and health services has started work in various districts.The unit, which was created recently by State House, will evaluate the performance of all health centres in the country.
The probe team, headed by Dr. Diana Atwine, has already visited several health centres in Mityana, Nakaseke, and Luwero districts.
The team will look into the way drugs are ordered, received and distributed in the health centres. It will also assess the availability of drugs and service delivery.
Initial focus will be on checking if the drugs reach the patients. “We shall begin with the drug distribution chain. But we are not neglecting service delivery,†said Dr. Atwine.
“The Government spends a lot of money procuring drugs and funding health care services, but there are so many complaints of poor health services and lack of drugs.â€
Some of the drugs are stolen by medical workers, the team leader said. “We cannot continue allowing drugs to be stolen from health centres.â€
The unit is going to open up offices in the country’s five regions. Each office will be headed by a regional director.
Already, Dr. Atwine found several batches of drugs missing from the stores of Luwero health centre in the past week.
Most patients were asked to buy basic hospital equipment like delivery kits, drip water, syringes and plasters.
Though some of the equipment had run out of stock, there was no proof that it had been requisitioned from the store.
Dr. Atwine’s team consists of a pharmacist, Jjumba Pontiano, and other health experts, as well as lawyers and security agencies.
President Yoweri Museveni in his State-of-the-Nation address earlier this year declared the fight against corruption as the only war remaining after the defeat of the LRA.
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Unnoticed in the flush of great speeches that opened the Democratic convention was that the delegates passed the party's platform. It is a safe bet that the delegates probably could not have passed a true-or-false test on its contents. Similarly with the Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois was interviewed about the contents of the document. He noted that people seemed to have forgotten that he was twice chairman of the party's platform committee and that "we produced the most unread document in the history of American politics."
Little has changed, which is why both parties passed their platforms early and without notice. The blunt fact is that candidates will run on the issues they think will get them elected; in that sense, a platform can only be an inconvenience.
But there are groups to whom platform minutiae matter greatly.
A Christian website complained that, in the Democrats' 2004 platform, there were seven references to God; in 2008 only one, and this year no reference at all. In reaction to the criticism, the Democrats Wednesday amended their platform to put God in, though vocal delegates against the move challenged the outcome of the voice vote to do so.
The 2012 Democratic platform similarly does not specifically identify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. While the Republicans last week affirmed that, they broke from past platforms by not calling for moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv.
The new Republican platform is absolutist on abortion, with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother. Awkwardly, that is not the position of the party's presidential nominee.
Scripps Howard News Service
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GOSPEL: Saint Mark 6:1-6.
He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith. He went around to the villages in the vicinity teaching.
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|Just wanted to make sure you didnt think I was joking :)
Oct 23, 2009
My post was below, I wanted to make sure you didn't think I was joking :). I am a little confused though. It says blood exposure to the mouth can be a risk. Why would it not be if it was in the coffee. I hope I don't sound to uneducated. My wife also thinks I am crazy but that a whole other story :). You are 100% sure i can put this behind me. Thanks so much for the clarification.
Hi Sir, I have had quite a bit of worry today after an event that happened and I am not sure if it is a risk or not. I was in a bathroom at a downtown shelter where i volunteer and a fight broke out between two guys.The one guy was bleeding pretty bad near the sink. I had left my coffee siting on the counter and grabbed it and ran out. Had a sip and noticed there was blood in the coffee. I only had one sip but was wondering if I may have put myself at risk with this. I know blood is a risk but diluted is it still please answer I am a little batty over this freak incident. Will donate $100 on its way.
| Response from Dr. Frascino
There are several reasons you should indeed put this behind you. First of all, HIV doesn't survive very long outside the body. Second, there would be a significant dilutional effect to flying blood landing in your cappuccino. Finally, coffee is not a hospitable environment for HIV. Consequently, I remain absolutely confident that you did not contract HIV from your Starbucks half-caf, half-decaf, soy mocha latte with one Splenda and a few drops of O negative blood. If my reassurance is not enough for you, get a single HIV-antibody test at the three-month mark. The result will undoubtedly be negative, but if it helps put your residual (unwarranted) fears permanently to rest, it may be worth the effort psychologically.
Be well. See you at the espresso bar!
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Difference between revisions of "Semarang"
Revision as of 10:37, 3 October 2006
Semarang is the capital of Central Java in Indonesia. The city's name derives from the Javanese words "asem" and "arang" which literary translate to "scarce tamarind." It was founded by Ki Pandan Arang who is said have also named Salatiga and Boyolali. The city is a wonderful example of the "melting pot" concept, with representatives from Javanese, Chinese, Indian and Arabian cultures.
Semarang lies in the northern part of Central Java. The city weather is hot and humid. Wear cotton clothes. You do not need long sleeves shirt, instead a T-shirt and knee-long trousers are comfortable. Some places like mosques (masjid) and temples require polite dress such as long trousers/skirts. Hot pants/mini skirts will attract people attention and might considered in-polite.
Currency used is Rupiah (Rp). You can find money changer in the downtown area, or simply get into banks and you will get fair exchange rate. Please note that in practice, money changer and banks are not accepting US$ bank notes with issuance year 1999 backwards because of the experience in Indonesia mostly found US$ with issuance year 1999 backward had been forged.
Banks are open between 8.30 a.m to 3.00 p.m. Post offices are easy to find. DHL, TNT, Fedex and other international courier also available. Local courier company (also serving international courier) is TIKI. Ask your hotel staff to help you dealing with these courier companies.
Indonesia does not have tap water (ready to drink water)in the house or in hotels. So do not drink your hotel tap water unless you boil it first. Bottled water is very popular and not expensive, popular brand is AQUA, ADES, 2 Tang etc. You can find them in department stores and mini mart such as Indomart, Alfa Mart and even in small street stalls (usually in the corner of street intersection).
Fuel for your car (if you rent a car) are "Premium", "Pertamax" and "Pertamax Plus" for gasoline fueled car and "Solar" for diesel engined car. It is not self service, you cannot fill in the gasoline yourself. The gas station has their employees who will help you and you have to pay to them for the fuel according to the fuel meter reading.
Semarang's Airport is Ahmad Yani International Airport, quite nearby from the city centre. Daily flight are available to many major cities in Indonesia. Garuda Indonesia, Merpati Nusantara, Mandala Air, Adam Air, Batavia Air, Sriwijaya Air, Jatayu Air flies to Jakarta daily. Merpati also has daily flight to Surabaya. Deraya flies to Pangkalanbun and Bandung. There is also flight service to Yogyakarta by Kalstar. The airport's only international flight is to Singapore four times a week by Garuda Indonesia
Semarang is connected to Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya by trains. Interestingly, there is no comparable railway service to Yogyakarta, although a railway line exists. The Argo Muria express connects Semarang to Jakarta, and with its relatively new equipment (2002), is very comfortable. The downside is the very early departure (5.00 AM!) to Jakarta. Overnight trains are also available. The fastest train between Semarang and Jakarta takes around 6 hours.
Bandung and Surabaya are also connected to Semarang with air-conditioned eksekutif class trains.
On the northern main line, between Semarang and Pekalongan, the railway line follows the coast line, providing passengers with beautiful views of the Java Sea.
Semarang can be reached by car from Jakarta. It takes around 10 to 12 hours depending on the road traffic. You can choose to leave early in the morning from Jakarta and can expect to arrive in Semarang the next 12 hours. Over night drive is faster yet more challenging and even dangerous for "Pantura" non familiar driver. Pantura derives from "Pantai" means Beach "Utara" means North.
From Jakarta you can take the route eastward via Cikampek toll road. Go along the toll road until your reach Cikampek toll gate, take left and you are in "Pantura Road". In Pantura road you have to follow the direction sign "Cirebon", "Pekalongan", "Kendal", "Semarang" or "Surabaya" as those cities are eastward from Jakarta.
You will pass small towns like Patrol, Jatibarang, a bigger city like Cirebon. Before entering Cirebon, you can take the toll road instead of taking into Cirebon traffic if you do not want to drop by in Cirebon. After exit from the Cirebon toll road, you will drive eastward along Losari and then you will pass Tegal, Pemalang, Pekalongan and Kendal before you arrive in Semarang.
Gas station are abundant, you can see them almost every 5 or 10 kilometers along the road. They have toilet facilities. Pay Rp1,000 (US$ 10 cents). Beware of small or old gas station, they have poor lighting and terrible toilet. Choose a newer and bigger gas station with good lighting parking space and clean toilets. Please make sure that you have locked your car and do not leave your valuable unattended.
Many bus services from Jakarta to Semarang. You can choose to go in the day time with air conditioned (A/C) from Pasar Rebo Bus Terminal in East Jakarta, Kalideres Bus Terminal in West Jakarta or from Lebak Bulus Bus Terminal in South Jakarta. The overnight bus with A/C are also available with good services. You can choose bus names such as: "Rosalia Indah", "Raya", "Kramat Jati" as the good reputed bus serving Jakarta to Semarang. Sometimes the bus route is Jakarta to Solo via Semarang, you can choose them too, but please remind the bus driver's assistant (usually male, a person who check your ticket onboard the bus) to wake you up in Semarang.
Jakarta - Semarang (vice versa) tradisionally travelled via railway, north beach (pantura) road or by plane. A trip by a sea vessel is seldom due to its rare schedule and lenght of journey that is considered too long compared with train (approx 6 hours) and over night bus (9 hours).
Make sure you understand the route or ask your friend. Make sure the driver use the meter ("argo"). If he refused to use the meter, use other taxis. List of taxi companies:
The beautiful Sampokong temple (Gedung Batu) was built to respect the Muslim Chinese commander named Cheng Ho of Ming Dinasty who visited Semarang in the early 15th century.
Tanjung Mas in North Semarang was a busy, important port during Dutch occupation (from 17th century to 1945). You can see the old Dutch Indie's buildings in the northern Semarang.There are old railway station, beautiful Mblenduk Churh, offices and many others with architecture back to early years of 20th century and even late 19th century. On certain months, the northern parts of Semarang are flooded by rising tide (rob).
Simpang Lima (means "five intersection") is a vast field at the heart of Semarang. At night, you can eat, drink or just bring yourself wandering around Simpang Lima. There are plenty of food stalls offering variety of Indonesian and Javanese food. The price is cheap, sometimes very cheap, you can eat 1 piece of leg or thigh of fried chicken plus 1 plate of steamed rice for as little as Rp 10,000 (equivalent to US$ 1).
The famous food stall is "Ayam Goreng Kalasan" or "Kalasan Fried Chicken"). The food is good, the place is clean and the services from the owner (two Semarang Chinese ladies) is friendly. Do not forget to ask for "sambal terasi" or "Balacan Relish" to for those who loves hot meals.
You can also get into other tents to try other meals, some of them offering "lesehan" or "sit down on a carpet" during your meal time. Beef or chicken satay (grilled beef of chicken) is mouth watering with peanut sauce and hot chilli while "fried rice" or nasi goreng babat situated in "Air Mancur" or fountain southward off Simpang Lima and in front of Diponegoro University campus is delicious.
Semarang has a very good landscape, some says best landscape thanks to its coastal area in the northern part of the city with Tanjung Mas as its international harbour and hilly area in the southern part streching from Candi area to Bukit Sari with picturesque Mount Ungaran at the background.
Before you get into hilly area named Bukit Sari, you will see on your left Taman Tabanas Gombel where you can stop by, drink tea and see Semarang's view from the hill. It's view is really beautiful and romantic during the night time.
Gunung Ungaran with its tea and jasmine plantation, Gua Kreo/Kreo Cave with its interesting stalagtit and stalagmit and of course Marina at Tanjung Mas are the alternatives for those who has more than 2 free days in Semarang.
Tugu Muda is one of Semarang's landmark. It is situated westward off Simpang Lima, one of the 5 streets crossing Simpang Lima named Jalan Pandanaran. This monument commemorated the 5 days fierce battle (October 14, 1945) between Indonesian freedom fighters and Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender their weapon.
The buildings around Tugu Muda are some from the old Ducth buildings, the famous one is Lawang Sewu or "Thousand Windows" derives from its many windows. During the World War II, the building was the Japanese army's headquarter.
Semarang is the major hub city in Central Java. From Semarang you can go to "Dieng Plateau" situated north off small town namd "Wonosobo" for one day tour seeing ancient hindus temple/candi in a former ancient city lies in the misty plateau; Alternatively, within one and a half hours you can go to Borobudur temple in Muntilan and then to Prambanan temple in Klaten and buy some antiques and batik in Yogyakarta. It take less than 2 hours drive from Semarang to Yogyakarta. Solo is also only one and half hour drive from Semarang. Many places to see in Solo and Yogyakarta from old Kraton/Sultanate Palace, old Sultanate mosques, old Dutch fort, batik stores, handycraft/antiques shops etc. for you to see.
Semarang is the hosts of some universities/colleges. Diponegoro University is the state university. It is the biggest and the oldest university with good reputed faculty of law, economics, medicine, architecture, engineering, fisheries etc. It hosts more than 10 thousand students in its two campus, Pleburan (in the downtown) and Tembalang in the southern hilly part of Semarang. Islamic University of Sultan Agung and Catholic University of Soegijapranata are major private universities in Semarang.
For business travellers, Semarang is a transit city where you only have a chance to see Semarang's bustling activities from the taxi or hotel's window.
Semarang is also an industrial city. Many companies open their manufacture sites in eastern, western and southern part of Semarang. For foreigner who wants to work in Semarang, this place is a good place because of its landscape. You can live in the hilly and considerably cooler housing area in Candi or Bukit Sari while you work in the downtown area. Traffic jam is considered fewer than Bandung or Surabaya. For visitor from Jakarta, driving car in Semarang is "heaven" for its much fewer traffic jam compared with Jakarta.
Semarang is the home of the biggest "Jamu" (means "javanese traditional herbal") industry such as Jamu Jago, Nyonya Meneer and others.
Most of Jakarta's major banks and companies open their branches in Semarang. For its relatively close vicinity with Jakarta (only 40 minutes by plane) and 6 hours by train, Semarang receives many branches of companies and enjoys its status as the major hub in Java island.
You can visit some malls available in Semarang such as Sri Ratu (the first mall in Semarang from the 80's), Matahari Plaza, Ciputra Mall and the Java Mall.
No special souvenirs can be bought in Semarang. Most travellers will buy Bandeng Presto ('Bandeng' fish with soft thorn), Lumpia Semarang (a kind of spring rolls with bamboo shoots filling), Roti Sanitas (famous bakery)
You can buy batik (Javanese handwritten cloth), antiques and the traditional items in "Johar Market" or in Bahasa Indonesia called "Pasar Johar" (spell "Pa Saar Jouw Har). They have plenty of choices. Ask if you can get assistance from hotel staff or a travel agent staff to take you around Pasar Johar.
(Note: Unless stated otherwise), these foodstalls only open after sunset everyday). "Kalasan Fried Chicken" in Simpang Lima offers good food with cheap price; Fried Tofu and Tempe of Prasodjo is also famous for their hot and fried tofu and tempe (soybean cake), eat them while it's hot with green chilli named "rawit"; Lumpia Gang Lombok at Lombok Street (open from the morning); "Juwana" in Jalan Pandanaran is the place for your to buy and bring home tradisional Semarang's traditional food (open from the morning). It ranges from "Juwana Bandeng Presto" or "Cooked, well packed & Soft Thorn Fish" to wet or dried "lumpia. "Soto Bangkong" (or Chicken Soup Bangkong) is well known for its delicious soto, Satay "Pak Kempleng" in Banyumanik area is delicious and known for years for its big cut satay portion (open for lunch). Along Jalan Pahlawan, south off Simpang Lima, you will face many food stalls under tents, they sell variety of foods from "Gudeg" (Javanese steam sweet sour vegetables), Bubur ayam (Chicken porridge), Jagung bakar (grilled corn) and many others. Pamper yourself with plenty of good foods yet very cheap.
There are few bars and cafe around 'Simpang Lima' location (right in the downtown).After sunset, please avoid small tents selling homemade tea (teh poci) as lots of hookers looking for targets, especially rich looking travellers.
Ask for STMJ or Wedhang Jahe for a hot soothing drink. You can get them in Simpang Lima, hotels or restaurant in Semarang.
Budget Hotels are "Gajah Mada Hotel" in Jalan Gajah Mada. (Note: Jalan means Street); Grasia Hotel in Jalan Gajahmungkur, Candi area; Santika Hotel in Jalan Ahmad Yani
Mid range hotels are Graha Santika in Jalan Pandanaran, Ciputra Hotel in Simpang Lima (it has the view off to southern part of Semarang with Ungaran Mountain as the background); Novotel in Jalan Pemuda. If you stay in Graha Santika or Ciputra Hotel, you are right in the heart of Semarang and can save money for taxi if you wanna see or eat at Simpang Lima.
Grand Candi Hotel in Candi Area is expensive, not for backpackers or for those who only need to sleep during night time and does not have time (and money) to waste in the hotel. Patra Jasa is also considered expensive but the view of these two hotels is really beautiful. Choose the view off the north for coastal view or to the south for Ungaran Mountain view.
Semarang is neither a small city nor huge like Jakarta. Everyone is urged to take account universal rules such as "only walk in the light-bright area"; do not attempt to deal with hookers or trans-sexual hookers which usually done under secluded and dark area; lady traveller is urged not to travel alone after 11 p.m especially in the unknown dark neighborhood. Only take moderate amount of money in an open air ATM.
Semarang's safety is considered moderate. The people are nice, especially to stranger (western tourist especially); People are helpful and friendly. Try to speak some basic Bahasa Indonesia and you will be praised by people. Older men is politely called "Pak" or "Bapak" means "Sir" and older women is called "Bu" or "Ibu". Try to always say "Ma'af" (spell: "maa - aaf") means sorry anytime you ask any help and you will get friendly and smiling face ready to assist you. English is understood, especially by younger people, older people used to speak Ducth and Bahasa Indonesia only.
Never touch anyone's head (especially teenagers and older men) as it is considered as "insult" and might invite troubles. In the crowded bus/train/small car used as public transportation, "un-intended touch" is tolerated. Never look at someone (especially young men) straight to the eyes more than 3 times as it might be considered as "challenging them to fight" (this is apply especially in bigger town/city - as the villagers are more friendly to strangers).
You can also go further southward to some small towns like Ungaran, Salatiga, Ambarawa, Kopeng and Bandungan. It will take at least one day tour but really worth it. You will see beautiful scenery on the way between Semarang, Salatiga and the adjacent cities like Solo and Yogyakarta. You can reach Solo (sometimes called Surakarta) or Yogyakarta only less than 2 hours drive from Semarang.
Tourism Information Centre TIC:
List of hospitals with 24 hours emergency room (ER):
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I've had enough of the sensationalist, exoticised, demeaning portrayals of Muslim women seen all throughout the media, and this is my way of countering all the nonsense.
This is not an attempt at 'breaking stereotypes' or trying to enlighten people, if you're ignorant enough to believe that Muslim women are oppressed and subjugated by Islam then that's your own problem.
This is my way of giving recognition to all the women who inspire me, and hopefully sending out some positive vibes.
Education should inspire you; it should expand your knowledge base and open you up to the possibility of new experiences and for me an Arts degree did exactly that. The world is brimming with successful Arts graduates. Take Kevin Rudd who graduated with a major in Asian Studies, knowledge evidently useful in his stint as PM and later as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Consider JK Rowling who studied the classics before writing the Harry Potter series that sold over 375 million copies worldwide and translated into 64 different languages. Or Steve Jobs who credits his study of calligraphy as inspiring the typography for the first ever Mac, before he hit Silicon Valley with a force few of us will forget, even Stephen Colbert studied philosophy before moving into comedy. An Arts degree doesn’t reduce you to nothingness before your peers (unless you let it); it provides you with a springboard from which to dive into a sea of rewarding possibility. The expectations of polite society, our parents and the lady at the bus stop might unconsciously steer us toward a stable job in a noble profession, but remember this; rarely does a degree guarantee you a job no matter how specialised it is. So I’ll tell you what I tell all my students and that is, for the love of any deity in which you believe, if any at all, follow your passion and the rest will come. And as for the title, well it doesn’t really matter how swanky it is here, it won’t appear on your tombstone.
Mehal Krayem, Stop apologising for your Arts degree
Muslimah Arts students represent!
It is no coincidence that so many in the West are affronted by Muslim women’s veils: they symbolise the last refusal of Islamic cultures to be stripped and consumed by the Western narcissistic gaze.
An interesting piece by Rachel Woodlock
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The American public has not been informed by the US news media about highly newsworthy statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday February 12.
He said the era of nuclear weapons is over, suggesting Iran has no plans to build “inhumane” A-bombs. Ahmadinejad called for a world free of nuclear arms in an interview with Russia’s NTV channel.
“We believe that not only the Middle East but also the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons because we see such weapons as inhumane,” he said.
“Today, no one can use a nuclear weapon and we believe that the US is taking a wrong move by stockpiling nuclear weapons,” he added. “Those who claim that they are against nuclear weapons should dismantle their nuclear weapons first to prove that they are honest.”
So far, the libertarian-leaning Antiwar.com has been the only American media outlet to cover his statements.
Considering Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s calls for sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position that new sanctions should be “crippling,” one might think the US media would pay attention to Ahmadinejad’s statements.
Instead, the media’s Sarah Palin obsession means that more Americans heard repeated calls to start a new war with Iran in the past week.
Iran has continually denied it plans to build nuclear weapons. The country’s high-profile stance is that enriched uranium will be used for Tehran’s medical reactor.
The interview Friday was given to Russian channel NTV, once critical of all-powerful Vladimir Putin, but now controlled by the state-owned Gazprom conglomerate. CNN published a timeline of the changes to the station nine years ago.
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Writer and game designer Andrea Phillips, who I interviewed in this space a few years back, recently wrote a blog post about the evolution of her writing process, describing “the way that my creation of stories and my creation of games have come to use the same general process.” The gist of the post is something like this: developing stories amounts to something very similar to developing games in terms of the way that both forms demand striking a kind of systemic balance. An unbalanced game will be exploited by its players, or, as in the example Phillips uses of a game which over-incentivizes certain play actions through its point system, will bring about undesired behaviors that detract from the core experience. Similarly, narrative figures fail to generate their intended effects unless they are finely “balanced” toward specific ends. This could be illustrated by the canonical example of how showing a ticking time bomb hidden beneath a table at the beginning of a sequence will generate suspense, but if it is shown only right before it explodes, the result will be mere shock. In both cases — games and narratives — simple changes in sequence, tone, and fact can have enormous impact on the system as a whole.
Maybe that discovery was part of why I became interested in participatory and environmental media broadly and game design more specifically. The thrill of watching those possibilities open and close and those changes ripple through the system was something I wanted to design for. Why should authors have all the fun playing with the pieces and seeing how things shake out differently as the constituent elements of a story environment are changed? As Phillips puts it, it’s a wonderful game to imagine “how else we might have assembled the same cogs and gears to make [the clockwork machine of a story] run faster or quieter or keep time better.”
This pleasure, I think, is at the heart of game play, not just game design. It’s a unique kind of pleasure that comes from a feeling of real agency, of having one’s actions effect tangible consequences upon a system, and of discovering the new and unforeseen challenges associated with those consequences — and it’s what keeps me passionate about writing, designing, and playing alike.
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Probably the best way to protect an eBook is by using a secure DRM system like Adobe Content Server 4 or a much more affordable option like EditionGuard. These systems can make it more difficult for pirates to take advantage if eBooks and the additional security may just cause them to turn their attention to other eBooks that do not have the same level of protection. DRM systems aren’t impossible to defeat but sometimes simply making it harder for “pirates” is enough deterrent.
This infographic from the folks at Symantec gives a rundown of some of the main cyber security threats that occurred throughout 2012.
Most people who have ever had to deal with a hacker know that it is not a fun scenario. The experts at Symantec reveal just how people and even businesses leave their computers open to compromise from hackers in the following infographic entitled, “Top 5 Mistakes – Ways People Leave Themselves Open To Compromise From Hackers.”
Do you live in a big city with lots of neighbors or perhaps in a tent among bears? Maybe you’re living in your mom’s basement? (Or being held there against your will?) No matter where you live, you can find the perfect type of protection – a gun, a guard dog, a security system, or even a bodyguard – with this fun flowchart/infographic from Home Security Systems.
With years of experience and valuable insights of iViZ Security’s cloud based application security testing, the prevailing website vulnerability trends are discovered. The study is based on original research on more than 5000 tests covering 300+ customers distributed globally.
Why do so many transitioning veterans look for a career in private security? First, many military transitioning veterans desire a career where they can grow professionally within a dynamic and international organization. In the security industry, this means a private security firm where they can travel the world protecting at-risk clients, not remain in the same city at the same police department for the next twenty years.
Since a lot more people seem to be aware of cyber threats to identity theft, Shoeboxed decided to focus this infographic on how certain paper – even paper you keep in your wallet, which is very easy to lose – can be an even larger threat.
Many people around the world from different countries are now making use of vaults and safes for their valuables safety. These item keepers are made from durable metals that are hardly destroyed by weather and other unexpected calamities that could happen. Considering these factors, there has been a forecast about the increase of demand for vaults this year. The increase of supply needed that was predicted by many businessmen is really big.
As technology advances, hackers are finding new and more inventive ways of stealing your private information. It’s important that we continue to up security measures to help prevent this. The problem is that technology is increasing at such a rapid rate, it’s hard to keep up. This infographic from Veracode Application Security explores the current state of application security, or APPSEC.
Securing Home Office Under $100 is a campaign launched by Gio Insurance Company. This infographic provides alarming statistics related to burglary and house break-ins amongst which laptops are the 2nd most stolen items. If you are working from home, make sure to pay attention to these tips.
With the 2012 Presidential election now a thing of the past, Home Security Deals looked into the security measures taken at one of the safest spots in the world. The following infographic looks at the measures taken to make sure the Commander-In-Chief is safe at all times. Additionally, facts and myths about White House Security since its creation are examined.
Maintaining your internet security is imperative in today’s digital era. Over 8 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2011. In this infographic, Lifelock looks at passwords and how hack-friendly (or not) your particular password might be.
We all want to feel as though our information is safe and secure, especially on our computers. And it’s even more important for businesses to have good cyber security because not only is it their information but their customers as well. Small business owners tend to think that hackers are not much of a threat to them, and unfortunately this is not the case.
Choosing the right safe for your home can be a difficult task. Should you install a wall safe or will a floor safe suffice? Should it be fireproof and for how long? This helpful infographic from Safe Options aims to resolve all those questions regarding home safes.
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The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams, directed by David Leveaux
At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, March 22–July 17, 2005
“When you look at a piece of delicately spun glass,” Tennessee Williams wrote in the stage directions for The Glass Menagerie, the 1944 play that made his name, “you think of two things: how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.” The observation has obvious relevance to that particular drama, which famously features, as one of its symbols, a collection of delicate spun-glass animals owned by one of its soon-to-be emotionally broken characters. (As it happens, the reference to spun glass isn’t a bit of pontificating about the themes of the play: Williams is trying to suggest, with typically ample, even novelistic, descriptiveness, the quality of the musical leitmotif he has in mind for his play.) But it’s hard not to read that stage direction without thinking of Williams’s entire theatrical output: in one way or another, nearly everything he wrote is about beauty and brokenness.
Or, perhaps, about the beauty of brokenness. For Williams, those “two things”—the beautiful and the broken—were always connected. Even if you discount the by now well-known biographical details that seem to overdetermine this recurring theme—the once-distinguished family fallen into decline; the stunted career of the father; the slightly mad, overbearing mother; the institutionalized and then lobotomized sister—his place, time, and culture seem to have chosen his great theme for him: a recognition that the beautiful (love, romance, “art,” the glories of the past) will always remain out of reach or, if briefly achieved, will always be smashed.
He was, after all, a product of the deep South, where many families, like his, struggled to balance memories of a romanticized past with the realities of a less-than-exalted present; and he was, too, a homosexual living at a time when society still insisted on a certain furtiveness—a time when you couldn’t openly acknowledge what it was you found to be beautiful. (Not, as an even cursory perusal of his memoirs suggests, that Williams bothered about secrecy.) In The Rose Tattoo, there’s a stage direction that calls for two dressmaker’s dummies, “a widow and a bride who face each other in violent attitudes, as though having a shrill argument, in the parlor.” Although the argument persists throughout Williams’s work, you never really doubt that it’s the widow who’s likely to win. Williams was the great dramatist of the beautiful failure, the poet of the noble defeat.
The sense of inevitability that haunts Williams’s most powerful plays is the reason they are not tragedies in the classical sense but rather dra-mas of pathos. What makes classical tragedy irresistible is the spectacle of a great figure, powerful and competent, brought unexpectedly low by some flaw in himself, some bad decision rooted in his character that leads, with awful irony, to inexorable destruction. In Williams’s plays, the bad decisions have already been made by the time the curtain rises; the emotional core of his drama lies not in a critical moment of choice but in the spectacle of abjection, of an already doomed, ruined person struggling to hang on to something beautiful. Greek tragedians tend to be interested in character, which is why the suffering comes at the end of their plays (it’s the result of bad choices). Williams is interested in personality, which is why he begins with the suffering, with the poverty or the madness.
This is why his characters, while complex, rarely develop. He prefers, instead, to counterpose characters who represent monolithic and unchanging concepts or values—the raw energies of capitalism or of libido, say (to take the most famous examples, from Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire), and the delicate, even delusional, ideology of beauty and romance, an ideology that is, you could say, characteristically Southern and homosexual of a certain period—and then watch the hand play itself out as we all know it must. When you watch Antigone or Bacchae, you are always haunted by the possibility that things just might have turned out differently, because the characters seem to be independent subjects—seem, however briefly, to be in control of their own choices. When you watch The Glass Menagerie, you know from the start that the narcissistic Amanda Wingfield’s desperate attempts to find a suitor for her crippled daughter will end up crushing the girl forever; when you watch Streetcar, you know, from the minute Blanche DuBois appears outside her sister’s tawdry New Orleans apartment dressed in her dainty white garden party outfit, that she will end up in a loony bin.
And yet that same sense of inevitable doom, the spectacle of abjection rather than the drama of choice, is what generates the considerable emotional interest in Williams’s best work. This lies in the pathetic tension between the characters’ illusions about themselves (the dainty white outfit) and the crushing disappointments that, we know, await them (poverty, the sordid reality of lust). We respond to his heroines not because they are particularly good—they are, if anything, often unattractive; nobody in his right mind would want Blanche DuBois as a houseguest any more than Stanley Kowalski does—but because, since we all have secret fantasies and illusions, we are bound to be moved by the spectacle of characters who can’t, or won’t, give in to the sordid realities of life.
In his expansive stage directions for Menagerie, Williams amplifies his description of the music he wanted. This melody, he said, must be
like circus music, not when you are on the grounds or in the immediate vicinity of the parade, but when you are at some distance and very likely thinking of something else…. It expresses the surface vivacity of life with the underlying strain of immutable and inexpressible sorrow.
Surface vivacity competing with inexpressible sorrow: it would be hard to find a better characterization of Williams’s greatest characters. The question is not whether, but rather how long, the vivacity, the beauty, can hold out against the sorrow.
A crucial feature of Williams’s dramas of beauty crushed and heroic failure—a feature that does, after all, suggest a certain resemblance between his theater and Greek tragedy—is the playwright’s use of female characters to represent both the aspiration toward beauty and the inevitability of defeat. In the time and place and culture that produced him, women could still serve, without irony, as useful vehicles for exploring those qualities. Few dramatists in the Western tradition apart from Euripides have made such memorable and distinctive use of women and even girls—striving, pathetic, relentless, deluded, murderous—as mouthpieces for certain kinds of repressed emotional currents.
Like Euripides, Williams was, in his own lifetime, instantly marked, in the eyes of both critics and the public, by a rare imaginative sympathy for his female creations. Like Euripides, he exploited personal and cultural notions of the feminine (soft, poetic, silly, emotional, prone to madness and vengefulness, cunning) to create female characters who transcended them; like Medea and Phaedra and Iphigenia, Williams’s women and girls manage to be both memorably, even frighteningly, extreme and sympathetic at the same time. Even when they do repellent things, these characters successfully gain our sympathy by their ability to articulate, or in some way to represent, everything that has been left out of the worldview of the men with whom they come into conflict on stage: delicacy of feeling, spirituality, nostalgia, fantasy, art.
It is for this reason, I suspect, that Williams’s plays are themselves rather “fragile” just now. His dramatic preoccupation with suffering, with madness and desperation, can strike us, in the Prozac era, as excessive; even more, his vision of the feminine as pathetic—which is to say, as liable to pathos, as vulnerable, pitiable, as well as hopelessly striving—is likely to strike us, in the post-feminist era, as dated and perhaps embarrassing. This is why the line between his theater and camp can now seem a blurry one. A young comparative literature professor I know, when he found out I was writing about Williams, wrote an e-mail which he intended to be encouraging: “He pulls off the extraordinary feat,” he wrote, “of showing how the camp is—genuinely—tragic: how camp, in fact, is genuine.”
But of course Williams didn’t write his plays as camp. They only seem campy if wrenched out of the quite specific social and cultural contexts in which they organically developed. However much it can strike us as outmoded or the product of highly idiosyncratic circumstances—his family history, his homosexuality, the South, postwar sensibilities—Williams’s vision of the feminine is as much a part of his distinctive style as his idiosyncratic poetic language is. In his introduction to Williams’s collected short stories, Gore Vidal recalls the result of his attempts to edit Williams’s prose. “So I reversed backward-running sentences, removed repetitions, simplified the often ponderous images. I was rather proud of the result. He was deeply irritated. ‘What you have done is remove my style, which is all that I have.’” If you try to ignore Williams’s intellectual and cultural “style,” or to update it—to modernize or find feminist issues in it—the plays can’t mean what they’re supposed to mean, and won’t produce the emotions they’re supposed to produce.
This, at any rate, is the conclusion you’re likely to reach after sitting through the star-studded new productions of The Glass Menagerie and Streetcar currently enjoying limited runs on Broadway. (I will write about Streetcar in a second article.) In each, a failure in sensitivity to the cultural mise-en-scène, to the importance of the feminine pathetic, and above all to Williams’s specific requirements for its female and indeed male roles—each production features highly unconventional casting of a major male lead—demonstrates how fragile his work has become.
The Glass Menagerie is, in many ways, Williams’s most emotionally delicate work, perhaps because it is his most obviously autobiographical; the characters have not yet hardened into the types, almost the stereotypes (frail belles, abusive men), who inhabit some of the later works. If the play’s characters have the unresolved complexity of real life rather than the symbolic power of dramatic and psychological archetype, it’s because the relationship between the domineering and manipulative Amanda Wingfield and her two wounded children—the crippled Laura, for whom the once-much-courted Amanda strives to find a “gentleman caller,” and the sensitive, rebellious would-be poet, Tom—bears more than a passing resemblance to that between Williams’s mother, Edwina, and the playwright and his unstable sister, Rose.
Williams famously refers to Menagerie as a “memory play,” and he wrote at great length about the “unusual freedom of convention” with which it ought to be presented in order to bring out its dominant qualities of delicacy and fragility. He suggests the use of an onstage screen on which thematically significant “magic-lantern slides bearing images or titles” might be projected (“SCREEN LEGEND: ‘OÙ SONT LES NEIGES’”) and insists that the lighting not be realistic, either. (“A certain correspondence to light in religious paintings, such as El Greco’s… could be effectively used,” he goes on to say.) Music, as we know, also plays an important if impressionistic role, with that single, recurring, circus-like tune used “to give emotional emphasis to suitable passages.”
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BALTIMORE (AP) — Perdue Farms is seeking up to $2.5 million in attorney fees following its victory in a poultry pollution case that had been closely watched by environmentalist and agriculture interests for its potential impact on the industry, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The poultry giant is seeking to recoup attorney fees from the New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance, which sued the company and an Eastern Shore contract grower, Perdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said.
The poultry giant said in its filing U.S. District Court in Baltimore that the environmental group continued to litigate what it called a groundless case after learning that an uncovered pile of what was claimed to be chicken manure turned out to be harmless. The company also said the court had noted that while defendants are "not normally entitled to recover their legal fees, such an award would not be unprecedented."
A telephone call and email by The Associated Press seeking comment from the alliance was not immediately returned. Jane Barrett, director of the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic, said the motions were not unusual or unexpected. The clinic, which is representing the alliance in the case, would respond, Barrett said.
A federal judge ruled last month that farmer Alan Hudson, who raises chickens on his Berlin farm for Perdue, did not pollute a nearby river as the environmental group claimed. U.S. District Judge William Nickerson ruled the alliance failed to prove its case.
The alliance argued that Perdue, which owns the chickens and monitors their growth, should also be held responsible.
The case was filed after the alliance flew over the farm in 2009 and photographed what it believed was an uncovered pile of chicken manure and later found water samples in the area containing high bacteria levels. The pile turned out not to be chicken manure. The group later blamed nearby water pollution on fans that ventilate the two chicken houses and traffic in and out of the houses, which can hold about 80,000 birds.
The poultry industry has more than 1,600 family farms on the Eastern Shore. Agriculture interests said a ruling against Perdue and the farm could have been catastrophic to farmers and the industry.
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“Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you’ve been passed by.”
- Clayton Christensen
What do Dell, The New Yorker and the music industry have in common? All three are currently grappling fundamentally with their business models in the face of creative destruction at the hands of digital disruption. The CEO of Dell is struggling to take it private at the moment – in a proposed $24.4bn buyout – in an effort to ensure its strategy looks away from the short-term needs of investors while it restructures with a new, long-term strategy that will shift focus away from its core PC business. An issue of The New Yorker hardly makes for a quick read, but has been one of the more innovative companies among its peers to embrace and experiment with digital. We wrote about their initiatives last summer. Recently, for their anniversary issue, the publisher offered digital issues for 99c, an offer that Zeitgeist took them up on, and it was pleasing to see how well the digital edition mirrored with print one, while at the same time adding some features that took advantage of being on a digital product. Last week, The Economist published an article on the music industry, which is beginning to see glimmers of hope in its revenues from digital sales. “Sales of recorded music grew in 2012 for the first time since 1999“, although only by an anemic 0.3%. This is still better than Hollywood, which had to settle for celebrating a flattening of home entertainment revenues, after years of decline. After almost being destroyed by it, a third of the music industry’s revenues now come from digital, but they are barely keeping up with the decline in physical sales, which makes up the bulk of other revenues. Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group, spoke to the Financial Times at the weekend,
“The industry needs transforming. It’s for others to decide whether they want to get stuck in the past or whether they want to come on the journey… We’ve learnt an awful lot, but it’s like being in a commercial earthquake and the reality is it takes time to get out from beneath the desk where you’re protecting yourself and move forward.”
Indeed, one of the biggest issues industries must address is when is the right moment to risk their current business model in order to address change and adapt. Grainge talks about the industry need for a “constructive collision” between musicians, content owners, distributors, entrepreneurs and investors. To what extent this is happening is unclear, but it is certainly thinking outside the box, and could well be applied to other areas similarly suffering at the hands of such change. As goes the music and film industries, so goes the print industry too? How do print titles develop profitable models for generating profits in the face of such volatility in changing consumption habits and digital disruption?
In December 2012, consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published a report entitled ‘Transforming Print Media’. The report begins on a sour note, admitting that the conventional wisdom is that newspaper and magazine publishing is “a dying business”. This is a hard assertion to counter though, and the consultancy’s own graphics show a rather alarming lack of growth in developed countries. Emerging markets, conversely, are seeing growth in both print advertising and circulation, for both newspapers and magazines. For instance, while between 2006 and 2011, the US has seen a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) decline of 12% in print advertising, China has seen an 8.5% uptick, and India a 13.9% growth. One of the immediate problems the report addresses, and one which Michael Dell is looking to neutralise is that of concentrating on short-term gain at the expense of long-term restructuring with a rigorous focus on which adjacencies work well and which do not. This can be immensely hard to justify in an environment of quarterly earnings reports and instant CNBC updates. BCG suggests implementing a strategy that will instill long-term change while also providing medium-term gains to keep investors happy. The report proposes a 3-5 year plan, and, interestingly, notes that success will rely “more on execution than insight”. Zeitgeist would counter that without both being optimal, the strategy is bound to fail. Moreover, knowing exactly who you want to target and how their methods of media consumption and interaction have altered / are altering is a critical tool for success. It also points out that new business models should not be about “trading print dollars for digital pennies”, something that the music and to some extent the film industry are both grappling with currently.
David Carey, head of Hearst Magazines, commented last year that, in publishing, “you need five or six revenue streams to make the business really successful”. One of the key points that recurs throughout the BCG report, which Zeitgeist, while working on developing strategic recommendations for the Financial Times last year, was also in favour of, was in extending the reach of the business in new directions. These directions leverage the brand equity of the company and extend into areas adjacent to the company’s expertise. For the FT, opportunities exist to extend the brand name into complementary areas of luxury with which the paper is already associated. Monocle has made in-roads into diversification by starting a radio station, which it says is very attractive to advertisers because they have a clear idea of their audience; the type of high-earning consumers who never normally listen to radio. As well as new revenue streams, Zeitgeist also focused on customer retention. One important consideration was that of both vertical and horizontal cohesion. The business as a brand must speak in a relevant, cohesive way across channels, and, in the case of the FT, speak in the appropriate way to its many different readers around the world. BCG advocates “reassessing vendor relationships; stream- lining editorial, content sharing, ad pricing, and production processes; and pooling advertising sales across titles or clusters… the right changes to financial policies— particularly to debt levels and ratios, dividends, and buybacks —can create a clear and compelling case for long-term health, can lift stock prices, and can attract more patient investors.”
Price is a fundamental consideration too. For the FT, Zeitgeist extemporised on the importance of price. Referencing behavioural economics, price for the FT acted as an anchor. It framed the paper more by juxtaposing it with its cheaper peers than by giving it any inherent value. In reports from the last few years taken both in Europe and the US, several major broadsheet newspapers were studied. They had all raised their prices. Some of them had seen their circulation decrease. But all of them had seen increases in revenue, even the ones that had lost circulation. Zeitgeist presented the FT with an analogy; the champagne label Krug, some years ago, hiked up its price, with little notice and for no perceived reason. Production, pricing and taste had not changed. The company lost some suppliers because of this change. But overall, their revenues increased. Krug was now in the upper echelons of the luxurious world of champagne, done to coincide with a global rebrand that appeared in all the right places. BCG alludes to the price increases in its report, saying consumers will “perceive greater value in the product than the amount it is costing them… there is the ability to increase these prices by as much as 70 to 100 percent…”. The report addresses paywalls, which Zeitgeist have written about several times in the past. The key it seems is in making these paywalls permeable, not inflexible. This is one issue the FT will need to address, one its peers, like the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), The New York Times and The New Yorker, have taken steps in the direction of already. The WSJ has frequently taken down its paywall during times of emergency (such as Hurricane Sandy), or for sponsored promotions. Advertisers still play a significant role in US print advertising – a $34bn role – but it is diminishing. The New York Times reported last year that advertising revenue had dropped below subscription revenue. As worrying as this is, it should provide an opportunity for companies to focus more on producing content that the actual readers want, rather than what the advertisers want to see. Broadly, the difficulty lies in getting consumers to see the worth of a digital product versus a hard copy. Obviously this issue is not restricted to the publishing industry.
The importance of the transition to digital is hard to overstate. As well as issues of pricing and paywall strategy, there is also social media to consider. Here, the FT is a good example of a brand that is playing it safe, operating for the most part with a very top-down messaging strategy that leaves little room for collaborative communication. But digital production and the expectation of instant news also means that companies are having to change the way they produce content. Speaking at the Future of Media summit at the Broadcast and Video Expo recently, Editor in Chief of Time Out London Tim Arthur said their changes were “led partly by necessity and partly by desire”. BCG outlines three models that are emerging: “dedicated print and digital editorial teams, integrated teams that operate throughout the print and digital platforms, and full editorial integration”. There are several advantages to be leveraged through digital as well. Research is a big one. Time Out’s Tim Arthur admitted they never used to carry out research until their recent transformation, which included an overhaul of their digital strategy, as well as making their hard copy paper free. It was great then to hear how the company was now using multiple channels to collate data and engage audiences at the same time. Unlike the FT, Time Out was no longer engaging in a one-way conversation, and they were operating with “less arrogance”. The company changed from a content-stacked, “trickle down” approach to one that recognised different audience needs over different platforms, which is a key insight. Furthermore, the opportunities to make advertising more engaging are also quite evident. iAds for example, allow more interaction. A recent ad in The New Yorker promoted a new book with a ‘tap to read a chapter’ function.
“These considerations inevitably lead to a series of hard choices about the degree of diversification that publishers can realistically undertake”, so summarises the BCG report, which suggests controlled experimentation to work out the best model. On an internal level, the company must convince employees that this change will be for the better and for the long-term. It must also convince shareholders of the benefits, while showing real value as early as possible. Such a transformation provides opportunities for streamlining technologies and future-proofing ways of working. It should make the brand think about what its equity is, and where else it can push out to in order to drive new revenue streams. Digital is not something to be feared, it should be embraced. The opportunities for more targeted, engaging advertising, not least through the use of consumer data, which also can help provide more tailored and attractive content – content that is “useful to others” as Arthur says – will be fundamental steps to take. The music industry, which was ravaged by Napster and its myrmidons at the end of the 20th century, took an age to wake up to realisation that money could be made from the millions of people who were already downloading songs online. The film and television industries have reacted slightly faster, and initiatives like Hulu, Ultraviolet and Tesco’s Clubcard TV will help stem the tide. Print on the whole is more on top of the game. Companies like the Financial Times and Time Out are driving innovation in the sector, but must still more readily embrace change if they are to really connect with future readers. Time will tell.
“Everything has become more experiential”
- Dante D’Angelo, brand and consumer development director at Valentino
It is an odd state of affairs indeed for the retail sector at the moment. On the one hand, consumers are flocking to digital devices like never before, particularly for their shopping. Conversely, this means that the physical experience of shopping becomes rarer, creating more opportunities for specialism. An article in the Financial Times a few weeks ago read as if a commercial plague had swept through the UK high street over the past few years. With 4,000 stores affected, 2012 was, according to data from the Centre for Retail Research, the “worst year since the start of the credit crisis in 2008″. Names of erstwhile stalwarts like Woolworth’s, Jessop’s, Peacocks and Clinton Cards have all fallen under the knife. As we wrote at the beginning of last month, what little salvation there is lies in embracing digital technologies.
The luxury sector however has its own special, gilt-edged cards to play. In St. Tropez, the Christian Dior boutique’s ample courtyard has recently been made use of with an all-day restaurant. Louis Vuitton have a cinema screening classic Italian films in their Rome boutique. It’s no wonder such brands have also branched into the hospitality sector, the former working with the St. Regis to develop branded rooms, the latter into full-scale hotel management. Ferragamo have been involved in the hotel sector for years. Two recent examples show how companies can extend the experience for visitors, and help drive revenue at the same time.
The auction house Sotheby’s will tomorrow auction a rather large collection of surrealist art. One of the few things that definitively puts it ahead of Christie’s is that it has its own cafe, which, last week and this week, is pushing the surrealism theme into its catering (see above menu). It’s a simple, creative idea that creates a cohesive brand, celebrates a big event, and ultimately hopes to drive revenue from peripheral streams around the auction. The RA’s current Manet exhibition is taking a leaf from this tactic, opening later but charging double the usual rates for a special experience, including a drink and a guide. The other interesting news of note was a new tactic being employed by the fashion company Valentino. Not content merely with having a major exhibition at London’s Somerset House, the label is also tinkering in an innovative way with its event structure. As detailed last week in Bloomberg Businessweek, Valentino is opening a new boutique in New York later this year, during which the typical glitterati will be in attendance. However, the new idea comes in the form of the company inviting prized customers to the opening for the chance to rub shoulders with said VIPs, for a steep price. Similarly, Gucci is offering its non-VIP customers tours of its Florence workshops for the first time.
Something that Zeitgeist has been noticing for a couple of years now, recently echoed by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) senior partner Jean-Marc Bellaiche, is the importance, particularly for those in their 20s – like Zeitgeist – that people place in defining themselves by what they’ve done rather than what they own: “In an era of over-consumption, people are realizing that there is more than just buying products… Buying experiences provides more pleasure and satisfaction”. On a macro level there is significant bifurcation in the retail market; not everyone will be able to afford in creating extraordinary experiences for their customers. A recent BCG report helps illustrate this, noting that while the apparel sector as a whole saw shareholder returns fall by 1.3% for the period 2007-2011, the top ten players produced a weighted average annual total shareholder return of 19%. Expect then for retailers – those that can – to increasingly provide exclusive experiences to their customers, beyond the celebrity, whether it be early product releases, tours, or events. Just don’t expect it to come without a pricetag.
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Up in the North East, a mini revolution is underway. Frustrated by three previous owners leaving their club on the precipice of oblivion, the fans of Darlington FC are trying to take over the club themselves.
In reality, the troubled North East club doesn’t have much alternative. They were placed into administration at the start of the year and with only matchdays as a source of income, the prospect of liquidation loomed menacingly above Darlington FC.
Indeed, on January 18, 2012, the club was declared dead on the operating table, only for fans to resuscitate it with a £50,000 injection to buy time to look for a buyer.
All attempts to buy the club have ended in failure, either through investors losing interest or being unable to agree a deal with the club’s biggest creditor, former chairman and most recent owner, Raj Singh.
That meant the fans, lead by an enthusiastic rescue group, are taking the unprecedented step of trying to buy the club themselves and run it as a sustainable community venture.
The club needs £750,000 to pay off its creditors, come out of administration and start up for next season, although £600,000 would make the Quakers viable.
At the time of writing, £130,000 had been raised inside two days, with a backlog of payments still to be processed.
The plan revolves around a share issue. Fans and businesses can buy shares for £100 each, which entitles them to one vote in matters such as electing a board of directors.
Fan ownership is nothing new. The example of AFC Wimbledon, set up by fans outraged at the seizing of Wimbledon and it being transported a few dozen miles north to become MK Dons, shows fan ownership can be a success. After an existence of less than 10 years, AFC Wimbledon are now a football league club. League One sides Exeter City and Brentford are also owned by their fans.
But the difference with Darlington is that it’s a rejection of a previous model for running a football club. Before this attempt at fan ownership, Darlington FC had been owned by an individual. One man calling the shots, one man making the mistakes and one man running away when everything goes wrong.
While having one benefactor is logistically the simplest way of owning a club, it is also the most volatile. If the sole benefactor has problems themselves, they can turn off the flow of money into the club, leading to a financial catastrophe.
But there are also democratic problems. If the owner wants to do something, there isn’t anyone who can forcibly dissuade them from doing so.
Taking the example of Darlington, when the egotistical buffoon George Reynolds decided he wanted a ridiculously oversized stadium for the club to play in, some people had their doubts. But because Reynolds was in complete control of the club, and wasn’t the sort of man who changed his mind, the stadium was built. One person with sole control can easily cut everyone else, including the fans, out of the decision making process.
That’s not to say fan ownership doesn’t have its limitations. For a start, it can be financially restrictive. It’s unlikely the fans of the club are going to be able to raise millions of pounds to fund an all-conquering side that will storm the league.
This means a manager needs to be shrewder in the transfer market; successful bargains are blessings for a fan owned club.
In turn, this raises doubts as to the viability of fan ownership for the bigger clubs, certainly towards Premiership level. Fans of Manchester City are unlikely to have been able to raise the hundreds of millions of pounds needed to fund the side’s frankly absurd spending spree. Not in the same way one wealthy Arab sheikh could.
But the biggest positive to fan ownership is that it is the fans who have the strongest affinity to the club. They care about it more, know its strengths and limitations, and will work harder to make it a success.
Before taking over at Manchester City, it’s highly doubtful Sheikh Mansour had any real connection to the club.
A lack of connection to the club makes it easier to just walk away when financial problems occur. Fans of a club would not just walk away in the way someone with no connection to the club could.
The world of football will be watching events in the North East with a keen eye. If Darlington fans raise the funds to buy their club, and can then run it sustainably and successfully, fan ownership may be a model other clubs explore.
At a time when more clubs than ever seem to be engulfed in economic strife, fan ownership could seem like a more viable and a more attractive alternative to the single benefactor model.
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Dobbs Ferry UFSD Gets Good Grades in DiNapoli Audit
Dobbs Ferry Union Free School District’s controls over purchasing are effectively safeguarding district assets, according to an audit released by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
“The Dobbs Ferry audit proves that school districts can get it right the first time with the right tools and policies in place,” said DiNapoli. “School officials should be commended for their work, and taxpayers can rest assured the district is making the best use of their tax dollars when making purchases.”
An effective procurement process obtains the best quality of goods and services at the lowest possible price in compliance with district policy and the law. This helps to ensure that officials are making the best use of taxpayer dollars. General Municipal Law (GML) and the district policy require that purchases and public work contracts, when exceeding aggregate amounts of $10,000 and $20,000 respectively, during a fiscal year, be publicly advertised for bids and awarded to the lowest responsible bidder.
Exceptions to the competitive bidding requirements include purchases of materials, equipment or supplies that are made under state, county, and local Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) contracts, professional services, emergency purchases, or when the particular goods or services are available from only one source.
Auditors selected a sample of 19 of the vendors the district used. During the period July 2006 to July 2007, the district made payments totaling $1.1 million to these vendors. Auditors examined $312,355 of these payments to determine whether the district followed GML and its own policies when procuring goods and services. Auditors found no material deficiencies in the district’s compliance with state law or district policy.
Click here for a copy of the audit.
School District Accountability
To improve accountability of the state’s schools, DiNapoli’s office will audit all of New York’s 834 school districts, Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) and charter schools by 2010. The State Comptroller’s office has completed 490 school audits, with approximately 200 school audits currently underway.
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Analysis: Dairy Supply Management Would Have Triggered In May
University of Wisconsin analysis says milk check deductions could have increased to 4% by July 2012
Published: Aug 3, 2012
A new analysis has found that the dairy supply management provision in the proposed Farm Bill passed by the Senate and House Agriculture Committee would have gone into effect in May 2012 and would still be in effect now using the most recent month for which data is available.
Dr. Brian Gould of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics has calculated that the dairy margin was below $6.00 beginning in February 2012 through the most recent month for which data is available, June 2012, based on the dairy provisions in the proposed Farm Bill.
ONGOING DEBATE: Is supply management the way to go? Some groups say no, others yes.According to Dr. Gould, since the Dairy Market Stabilization Program must be implemented by USDA any time the margin falls below $6.00 for two consecutive months, which it did in February and March, the USDA would have announced the program in April requiring dairy producers to either reduce their milk marketings by a minimum of 2% from their base production history or have money deducted from their milk check and sent to the government beginning in May 2012.
Dr. Gould found that the average margin was below $5.00 for the months of March and April, which would increase the required DMSP deductions beginning June 1st to a minimum of 3% of a dairy producer's base production history. The DMSP production penalties would have continued to increase as the average margin was below $4.00 for the months of April and May, which would have led to another reduction beginning July 1st to a minimum of 4% of a dairy producer's base production history.
The "Supply Management" program has received both praise and criticism from the dairy industry. International Dairy Foods Association supports the amendment, while the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and the National Milk Producers Federation stand against it.
The House Agriculture Committee defeated the Goodlatte-Scott amendment July 11, but it is expected to be considered again on the House floor, if the FARRM bill reaches consideration.
The Wisconsin Dairy Business Association reports that both the House and Senate versions of the Dairy Market Stabilization Program require a $250 annual fee per 100 cow farm. The Goodlatte-Scott amendment eliminates those fees and changes producers' base and calculation method every calendar year. DBA also says the cost to the producer for margin insurance is lower under the Goodlatte-Scott amendment for nearly all levels of coverage compared to the Senate and House proposals with supply management.
Laurie Fischer, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association, said her organization opposes the supply management program.
"We find it unacceptable that dairy farmers are being forced to participate in a supply management program in order to receive margin insurance," she said.
She urged dairy producers to join in supporting the "bipartisan, common sense solution in the Goodlatte-Scott proposal."
For more information on Dr. Gould's work, click here.
Other groups have also said the drought would have an effect on the supply management program. Click here to read the story.
Permalink: Click here
Tagged: Drought, usda, farm bill, farmprogress, farmprogress.com
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Born:March the 10th 1940
We all Know of Chuck Norris a world class Martial artist who came to fame in the Bruce Lee film ''Way of the Dragon''but before this he was a competition fighter who won numerous fights in competition and was the world Karate champion a astonishing 7 times.
But first lets take a look back.Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, the son of Wilma and Ray Norris, who was a mechanic, bus driver, and truck driver. Norris' paternal grandfather (an immigrant) and maternal grandmother were of Irish descent, while his paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were Cherokee Native Americans .His parents divorced when he was sixteen and moved away to Kansas and later on California.
As a child Norris was shy and uninterested in studies ''he day dreamed a lot''Often bullied he dreamed of beating his adversaries.Home life was hard on Norris as his father was a drinker and this affected him.
In 1958 he signed up to the Air force and became a Air Policeman (AP). It was from this that he was sent to Osan air base in South Korea and this led him to undertaking the art of Tang Soo Do.He attained Black Belts in Tang Soo Do and from this came Chun Kuk Do a art he devised himself from his trainings.
He later went on to set up federations such as Kickstart ,a organization to stop drugs in schools.Norris left the air force in 1962 while based at a base in the USA.He set up Karate schools in his local area's ,these schools had students that were famous or where about to be,like Steve Mc'Queen and Chad Mc'Queen .
In his first two tournaments Norris was beaten by the Legendary Joe Lewis and Allen Steen.But with perseverance he continued to compete and began winning against top fighters like Skipper Mullins, Arnold Urquidez, Victor Moore, and Ron Marchini.
In 1968 Norris felt his last defeat Louis Delgado.He avenged his defeat to Delgado and in turn won the Professional Middleweight Karate champion title, which he held for six consecutive years.In 1969, he won Karate's triple crown for the most tournament wins of the year, and the Fighter of the Year award by Black Belt Magazine.
Now Chuck Norris's own Chun Kuk Do has many schools and students must abide by the Tenants set out by Chuck.In a similar way to Taekwondo's or Tang Soo Do's own Tenants.Below they are listed for you .
Chuck's first film acting role came when he was offered a part in the Dean Martin film ''The Wrecking Crew'' in 1969, but it was after attending a martial arts demonstration in Long Beach California in 1972 that changed it all for ever ,because it was here that he met Bruce Lee and the two hit it off and Chuck was offered a part in ''Way of the Dragon''.
From this he was cast by Golden Harvest in a Tan Tao Liang action-er titled Slaughter in San-Francisco (1974) ,again he played the villain,but Western releases site Norris as the main star ,in some territories the film is labeled as ''Karate Cop''.
Above the poster for Slaughter in San Francisco ,below the Karate cop version
But in 1977 Chuck Norris was given his first starring role in Breaker Breaker which led on to the 1978 film 'Good Guys Wear Black'' which was the film that kick started his film career in my opinion.
After this many films followed from the mighty ''An Eye for an Eye'' which also starred Mako and Lee Van Cleef.Other films that did the rounds and set him on the road to box office hit where ''The Octagon'' Force of One''Forced Vengeance''Silent Rage .
But some of his biggest films came from the deal with Cannon films and it's producers Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus .
In 1984 Chuck starred in ''Missing in Action '' a film that dealt with the Vietnam war and it's unsung hero's .( Chuck's younger brother Weiland died in Vietnam in 1970).The film was a huge success and spawned two sequels both dealing with ''POWS'' missing in action.
Many of Chuck's films are produced by his brother Aaron Norris who is a film Producer.
Many of Chuck's films are not all out martial arts films and as this site deals with the Fight flicks mainly not all of his films will be reviewed on site or featured in depth like the earlier films he done .
So when it comes to films like the Delta force films ''Missing in Action''Hitman''Invasion USA '' i will leave those films for our sister site to cover who are also doing a expose on Chuck and have agreed to compromise their feature in the same way.So for reviews of Chuck's more Gun toting action flicks head over to ''Shoot'em in the Head''
In 2005 a absurd thing happened when on the internet started a list of facts about Chuck Norris that hails him as the greatest Hero of mankind and that he is so tough that no one dares confront him.It all started as a Vin Diesel gag but various people converted it to Chuck and it is this that has taken the world by storm.There are over 400 known facts with others appearing all the time.In the face of it Chuck has expressed a liking for them and make him laugh (though some are a bit near the mark,though those are rare).
A true story about a bakers in Croatia Where they put up a poster of Chuck and all their troubles ceased,read below.
*This article was taken from Tonyrogers.com who reported the story in the West.Store bosses have seen off burglars by placing a life-sized photo of Hollywood action star Chuck Norris in the window.
The posh bakery shop in Split, Croatia, had been broken into almost every week until they put up the poster of the karate champ with a sign saying: "This shop is under the protection of Chuck Norris."
Now the bakery hasn't had a single burglary for more than a month.
Sales assistant Mirna Kovac said: "To be honest we just started it as a joke but it really has worked. Thieves haven't been anywhere near us for ages. People seem to respect him.
"Everyone around here has seen his films and he's quite a popular character, perhaps even among criminals, so they've decided to leave us alone."
She added though: "We have had a few customers come in and ask us whether they can get Chuck's autograph. They really believe he is sitting in our storeroom out the back ready to pounce on any burglars."
Now that's crazy ,it seems that the facts have adverse affects on people ,maybe Chuck should run for President.
Here are some other Facts about Chuck ''You know there True!
1. A ducks quack does not echo. Chuck Norris is solely responsible for this phenomenon. When asked why he will simply stare at you grimly.
2. A high tide means Chuck Norris is flying over your coast. The tide is caused by God pissing his pants.
3. A study showed the leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart disease, 2. Chuck Norris, 3. Cancer
4. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, Chuck Norris can actually roundhouse kick you yesterday.
5. After taking a steroids test doctors informed Chuck Norris that he had tested positive. He laughed upon receiving this information, and said "of course my urine tested positive, what do you think they make steroids from?"
6. Aliens do exist. They're just waiting for Chuck Norris to die before they attack. – They will never attack
7. Aspirin doesn’t work within a 50-mile radius of Chuck Norris.
8. Bullets dodge Chuck Norris
9. Chuck Norris built a better mousetrap, but the world was too frightened to beat a path to his door.
10. Chuck Norris can do a roundhouse kick faster than the speed of light. This means that if you turn on a light switch, you will be dead before the lightbulb turns on.
In 1997 Chuck was awarded a 8th degree Black Belt in Taekwondo and believed to be the first westerner to achieve this Goal,but Norris was misled as some years before there where two other Westerners that achieved this and one of them received his 9th degree in the same year as Chuck.I know i have checked!
In 2000, Norris was presented the Golden Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Karate Union Hall of Fame.And in 2005 he set up the World Combat League (WCL), a full-contact, team-based martial arts competition. Each team (consisting of 5 men and 1 woman) is from a different city or region, and the league intends to grow to more cities in the United States and have both European and Asian leagues.
On top of that he also has his own range of Gym equipment called ''TOTAL GYM'' . Below is a video of Chuck and his wife( former model Gena O'Kelley) demonstrating the system.
After a ending his film career due to the demise of Canon ,the last film he starred in was The Cutter in 1995,though he has produced one with his son starring only in 2009.
In 1993 Chuck began shooting Walker Texas Ranger ( which to me looks inspired from his character in Lone Wolf Mc'Quade) It lasted 8 years being aired on CBS and the Hallmark channel.And Chucks Walker character also turned up in Sammo Hung's ''Martial Law'' series then part two of that story continued on Walker where Sammo appeared.
The final fight from Walker Texas Ranger
August 2012 sees the release of ''The Expendables 2 ''' the sequel to 2010's ensemble cast action film by Sylvester Stallone. Joining the Cast is Legendary Karate Master Chuck Norris who shows he can still frighten the living daylights out of you when you've been bad ,Not bad for a man in his 70's well here below is the Expendables 2 Character poster for Chuck and a couple of stills. Review on site as soon as it's released.
Looking cool , Joining Chuck in the film are of course Sylvester Stallone, Jean Claude Van Damme,Jet Li,Scott Adkins,Bruce Willis,Arnold Schwarzenegger,Jason Statham,Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews ,and to think there's talk of a third in the series.
Chuck and Arnie join forces in the Expendables 2
Chuck sneaks up on his enemies - Expendables 2
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Allison Janse and Dr. Charles Gerba Present THE GERM FREAK'S GUIDE TO OUTWITTING COLDS AND FLU
Back to the Article
by BWW News Desk
Most Americans, whether they admit it or not, have a little Howard Hughes in them: 50% of women won't sit on a toilet seat without a paper guard. And while we make fun of the lead character in the TV sitcom, Monk, these freaks are the ones who are laughing as the rest of the population sniffles away in bed during germ season (which is actually all year).
In The Germ Freak's Guide To Outwitting Colds And Flu: Guerilla Tactics to Keep Yourself Healthy at Home, at Work and in the World (HCI Books -- $11.95), Allison Janse-a committed Germ Freak-and Dr. Charles Gerba (Dr. Germ) give us the lowdown on how to avoid The Common cold and survive flu season with your health and sanity intact. Dr. Gerba has appeared regularly on Good Morning America, Dateline, CNN News and 60 Minutes as well as in national magazines and newspapers.
The book is the perfect mix of science meets suburbia: the microbiologist and the mom. While he's swabbing surfaces around the globe to detect dangerous germs, she's trying to discern whether the crust on her couch is Play-Doh or poop. This is the practical information your doctor won't give you (they always say not to worry and may be giving you the latest bug by not washing their hands when they examine you!) but which you're dying to know, such as:
How clean is my office desk? (It's better to eat off a toilet seat)
Do I have to shake that snotty person's hand?
• Are my hygiene products killing me?
• Janse is the mother of twins, a boy and a girl, and Dr. Germ is a frequent guest on national television worldwide (recently on The Today Show).
Allison Janse is a trade book editor and freelance writer. She feels lucky to call South Florida home because she can justify frequent bulk purchases of sanitizing products as early hurricane preparation. She lives with her husband who, incidentally, is showing slight Germ Freak tendencies but their young twins, who they absolutely adore, are proof that being a Germ Freak is not likely a genetic trait.
Charles Gerba, Ph.D., is an internationally-renowned environmental microbiologist who made his reputation a quarter of a century ago by opening scientists' eyes to the dangerous things lurking in our groundwater. His lab created the first test to detect parasite cryptosporidium in water, changing the way municipalities treat tap water. He is a professor at the University of Arizona where he oversees cutting-edge experiments in the department of Soil, Water & Environmental Science. He has performed thousands of studies on everything from water quality in our homes to urine levels in community pools, from the germs present in airline bathrooms to pathogens in home hot tubs. His quick wit has endeared him to American audiences as Dr. Germ, and he appears regularly on Good Morning America, Dateline, CNN News and 60 Minutes as well as national magazines and newspapers. He lives with his wife in Tucson, Arizona.
Available at bookstores or to order directly from the publisher, contact: (800) 441-5569 or www.hcibooks.com
The Germ Freak's Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu: Guerilla Tactics to Keep Yourself Healthy at Home, at Work and in the World
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By Caroline Van Hasselt
Isabelle Courville looks set to make history in March when she becomes the first chairwoman at a big Canadian chartered bank.
Montreal-based Laurentian Bank of Canada, the country’s eighth-largest lender by assets, said its board intends to name Ms. Courville as chairwoman after next month’s annual meeting, replacing Denis Desautels, who’s stepping down after a decade in the job.
Few women have broken the glass ceiling in corporate Canada’s boardrooms. According to Catalyst Inc., a group that promotes women in the workplace, women held just 3.6% of board chair positions at Canadian public companies in 2011. It’s even rarer in the clubby financial-services industry, with the notable exception of Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp., where Gail Cook-Bennett has been chairwoman since 2008. Ms. Cook-Bennett, 71, will be retiring in May due to the mandatory board retirement age of 72.
Laurentian Bank’s bigger Canadian rivals all have men leading their boards.
See the latest Canada news and features from The Wall Street Journal.
Canada Real Time provides insight and analysis into what’s making news in Canada, a country punching above its weight on the world stage thanks to its vast resources and strong banking sector. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, we take a look at developments in fields ranging from business to politics to culture. You can contact the editors at email@example.com
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I don't have any information before 1930. Eli was my grandfather. LA census is confusing. on the 1930 census it had him listed as Ely Denmon. It seems Eli and William or common names. My name is Eli and my dad's name is Willie. On the 1880 census did it say where William was born. Was he from La or Ga.
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Worcestershire Record No. 22 April 2007 p. 11
The area surrounding my garden in Little Comberton (SO93) provides a range of feeding sites for Woodpigeons, and their garden nesting efforts are tolerated. It could even be argued that the Woodpigeon is a subtly attractive bird, and its adaptation to the garden environment has become more obvious in recent years.
Competition for nesting sites forces less successful females to select some where success may be relatively marginal. During May 2007 a nest was constructed in a Persian Ironwood Parrotia persica (DC.) C.A. Mey. This tree has an enveloping canopy but is poorly structured in terms of its ability to support a nest, which in this case was constructed dominantly from dead twigs of ivy Hedera helix L. Gales during the first week of May blew the nest out just prior to oviposition.
A new nesting site in a Smoke Tree Cotinus coggygria Scopoli was immediately selected. This tree is also somewhat open-structured. Needing to build the replacement nest quickly, the female ignored the readily available material from the previous nest, and built the second nest to a revised template, initially seeking thorny material which had the potential to create an interlocking base. In doing so it worked at speed, putting itself at some risk by searching under and inside old hawthorn enclosure hedges.
The completed base included fragments of dead hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.), gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa L.) and False Acacia (Robinia pseudoacacia L. var. tortuosa), over and above which a layer of increasingly smaller twigs of Greengage and plum (Prunus domestica L.), Crack Willow (Salix fragilis L.), Smoke Tree, and Holly (Ilex aquifolium L.) were added. Some of these have also now been lost and the female presently (12 May 2007) sits on a decidedly flimsy structure.
|WBRC Home||Worcs Record Listing by Issue||Worcs Record Listing by Subject|
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For the third year in a row, mobile open source software projects have more than doubled in number, with the current count at around 18,000, up from around 8,000 in 2010. The rise of mobile computing in the enterprise, coupled with the Android's rapid adoption worldwide, contributes to the trend as developers race to be the first to market with mobile innovations.
Those findings come from Black Duck Software, which maintains the Black Duck Knowledge Base, a database of more than 600,000 open source projects from 5,000-plus sites. Of the new mobile open source projects in 2011, 70 were developed for Android, whereas 20 percent were built for iOS.
Almost 10 percent of new projects in 2011 were aimed at the enterprise, according to Black Duck, with offerings for security, such as OATH.net, which implements HOTP and TOTP algorithms for two-factor authentication; for encryption, seen in OpenMEAP, a platform for secure transfer of data over mobile; for cloud computing, including Cumulus, a CloudStack Android client; for mobile payments, such as Zimbrew, a secure end-to-end mobile payment platform; and for database management, including TouchDB, a lightweight Apache CouchDB-compatible engine.
Apple's share of new mobile OSS projects for 2011 represented a 19 percent drop from 2010, but the number of overall new iOS projects grew year over year, according to Peter Vescuso, executive VP of marketing and business development. "I don't see this so much as developers moving away from iOS as shifting their focus as Android shipments and installed bases accelerate," Vescuso told InfoWorld.
Android's worldwide adoption skyrocketed from 30 percent to 51 percent in 2011, while iOS's market share increased by 5 percent to around 25 percent.
One of the drivers behind the trend is the abundance of high-quality open source code that's readily available for developers to harvest and use for their own projects, according to Vescuso. "We see over 18,000 [open source] projects targeted specifically to mobile platforms, plus around 600,000 open source projects to choose from which offer other useful components. Why reinvent the wheel?" he said.
Vescuso also credit the open source movement itself as a driver of innovation -- one of the oft-repeated mantras in support of open source. "The OSS developer community is embracing mobile, which we see as part of a larger trend whereby open source is driving innovation," he said. "The OSS development model puts developers in the position of leading as innovators, rather than following."
Jay Lyman, a senior analyst at 451 Research, said Black Duck's numbers reflects momentum behind open source. "Just as we see in cloud computing, open source software is prominent in the mobile space where vibrant mobile operating systems, applications, and communities require sufficient knowledge of codebases and proactive approach with policy for efficiency and innovation," he said.
This article, "Android boosts open source development for mobile," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
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Editor's note:The author or authors are responsible for this blog, which is not edited by the Chronicle.
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Tag Archives: aurora
For those who recognize the right to own firearms it would be wise to start thinking hard about a set of proposals that could address our glaring public safety problem without ending the era of American gun ownership. The principles of an ownership society could guide us to an approach that could work, both in practical and political terms.
Personally, I like guns a lot. I learned to shoot as a kid in my back yard. I’ve had a lot of fun with friends firing weapons that were barely this side of legal. Guns were everywhere growing up in Texas, so I’m not persuaded that guns are the reason that psycho killers do what they do. Mass killings still happen in places with much tougher gun laws than ours.
That said, guns are the reason that a deranged loser incapable of performing life’s most basic tasks is able to kill so effectively, so efficiently, and in such mass numbers. A lunatic armed with a baseball bat can hurt some people, but his arms would get tired long before he could pull off something as serious as we saw in Aurora or Connecticut. There is no question that the broad availability of heavy firepower is a factor in the frequency and severity of mass killings in America.
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. However, people kill a lot more people, a lot faster, with a Bushmaster.
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Is there a way to tell if my attic can be used as livable space?
We're buying our first home, and at 1394sq ft it has a pretty massive attic area with a pull down ladder in the garage. I had considered building stairs in the garage, making a room over it into a man cave area, and making the rest of the attic more useable space than just rafters and insulation.
Is there a requirement for adding joists up there to support flooring, walls, and added weight of people? Or can I just put down a subfloor on the current joists and treat it like a normal floor?
Doubtful that you can use the existing "joists" as your floor joists. They are originally designed to hold a ceiling load and nothing else. Things to consider in converting your attic to living space.
1. Height - the obvious thing to look at first. At the very minimum you need 7' clear headroom with 7-1/2' in half the attic space for it to be considered living space. In taking a quick measurement for height you'll need to measure from what will be new 2x10 joists as well as 2x12 rafters. If you don't have enough height then either give up on the attic project or realize that it will be a larger project requiring the addition of dormers or raising the roof.
2. Framing (trusses) - If you attic framing is all engineered trusses (made from 2x4 or 2x6)then you have a lot of work to do to reframe. Not only will you need to add at least 2x10 alongside each bottom cord of each truss but you will also need to sister 2x12 along the top cord. Plus, since trusses are usually set 24" OC, you'll need to add extra framing between each existing truss. You will also need collar ties in place before you can cut out the center portions of each truss. A big word of caution here: THIS IS NOT A DIY JOB. While it can be done it's a structural modification that needs to be done by a pro.
3. Framing (stick built)- Depending on what you have there will determine how much framing you need to add. As a minimum, you will need 2x10 16" OC for your floor load and 2x12 16" OC for roof load and space for insulation. If your place already has 2x10 and 2x12 framing in the attic area, then you are well on your way. If not, then you have a lot of work to do.
4. Heating and cooling - You will need a separate unit or you'll need to modify your existing unit as a zone system. So there needs to be enough space for the unit, access for maintenance and ductwork. And of course, the several thousand dollars needed for H/A.
5. Access - You'll need stairs that fit into rise and run requirements as well as headroom.
All the above are things that can be determined before you start and before you commit to any money. If you are not versed in these areas than call in a contractor who does attic conversions. He could likely give you a go or no go answer after just a few minutes.
Thanks Jaybee for a great reply.
I've yet to even go up and look in the attic, but I have a picture from the home inspection of some uninsulated pipes running above the garage and the distance between them did look pretty wide for putting anything on them to support the weight of a person.
I had figured since I was going to be up there running CAT6 and probably cutting space for those pipes in the joists and installing a guard so I could lay down plywood for additional storage space I would see what could be do about making it useable space.
It's hard to tell from just the picture, but it doesn't look like normal 2x4' or 2x6's were used. They look bigger, but I'll take better measurements tomorrow.
I'm not so much worried about heating and cooling, I live in South Carolina, it doesn't get all that cold all that often here. Ventilation would be more what I would look for.
Access would be stairs in the garage going up essentially where the pull down is now.
I'm not committing to anything until I get a well thought out plan in my head on how it will proceed and what will be done, if it's even possible. I just wanted to find out what I should look for to know if it would be possible.
Well, like I mentioned, the first thing to check is just to see how much room you have there. Shallow pitched roofs (below 6/12) are poor candidates for attic conversions.
You can't discount the H/A needs. Attics are easy to heat as hot air from below rises. On the flip side, they are difficult to keep cool. That's the reason you need at least 12" rafters - to give you enough room for R-30 insulation. I forgot to mention in the other post: Take a look around to see if you have any existing ductwork already in the attic. Not a deal breaker but does ad an extra complication.
Whatever you do, be very cautious about adding a floor - even just for storage. In most cases the framing is designed to hold the ceiling load and not much else.
Well, this project is a total bust. The attic space is completely filled with the framing aside from a small space at the access point above the garage about the same size as a full mattress.
I'm pretty disappointed that we won't have the storage we thought we would and I know I'm gonna have to recruit a smaller friend to help me run my data cables because there's no way I'm fitting my 6' self through all that lumber up there.
Oh well, thanks again Jaybee. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you as we go along.
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While the following pages of ‘Curriculum Vitae’ of Dr. K.Puttaswamaiah contain his personal details, academic attainments, Projects for economic development formulated, evaluation studies carried out with the aid of surveys and on-the-spot studies, besides a number of in-depth studies and socio-economic surveys and the resultant published reports, it may be said that he is specialized in the following areas of economic science.
His reports on Project Appraisals, studies and books born out of experience on Project Appraisal, Cost-Benefit Analysis and other Appraisals and Evaluation of all the three types – Ex-ante, Concurrent and Ex-post are a few examples supporting his specialisation in Project Formulation, Evaluation and Cost-Benefit Analysis. He has been a known evaluator in India through his books and studies which are described later.He may be called a “Planner Economist”, as he has worked in that area for over four decades.
Secondly, he is specialized in Theoretical Economics – Macro & Micro and other areas of fundamentals of Economics and the application of those theories to practical situations based on Empirical evidences. He is well-known in Regional Economics – His magna-opus : “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF KARNATAKA – A Treatise in Continuity and Change” published in a set of two volumes has been wellreceived and some reviewer’s have described this work as “one which is on the lines of
Gunnar Myrdall’s ‘Asian Drama’ ”.
Thirdly, he has done lot of research work on the contributions of Nobel Laureates in Economics. His book in three volumes on the “Nobel Economists - Lives and Contributions” with ‘Foreword’ by Prof. Jan. Tinbergen, the First Nobel Laureate in Economics covers Lives and Contributions of thirty seven Laureates who have received the Nobel Prizes from 1969 to 1994 is a hard work on which he has spent years to complete the task. TINBERGEN has vividly described this work in his ‘Foreword’. There are also a few independent books on Laureates like Tinbergen, John Hicks, Samuelson, Franco Modigliani and Wassily Leontief.
Fourthly, he has done a lot of work relating to Theory and practice of Economic Surveys. He has authored a number of programmes for poverty alleviation and about thirty blocks have been covered by Socio-Economic house-hold surveys in Karnataka with a view to identify ‘the poorest among the poor’ and give them packages of programmes to bring them above the poverty line. His book “MICRO-PLAN FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT” published provides methods of poverty estimation. This study has been conducted at the request of the Government of India. Further, based on the block level house-hold other surveys, a book entitled “Socio-Economic Analytics of Poverty in India” is almost getting ready.
Lastly, he has developed parameters for demarketing backward and forward areas in a book called “INDICATORS OF DEVELOPMENT”. In an another study : “Customer Service in Canara Bank – Indicators for Measurement”, he has developed a set of Indicators to review and rate the branches of the bank in their service to
customers. Probably, none of the studies or official reports have so far identified indicators/parameters to measure customer service satisfaction. This study is an attempt
to fill that gap.More details follow in the coming pages.
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The brown-robed monk leads the way down into the crypt. "In 1791 the Mission of Santo Tomás de Aquino was founded by Dominican friars, south of Ensenada. Along with the mission, they brought grape vines...."
It's just another of the five daily tours through the wine cellars of Bodegas Santo Tomás, at its wine-processing plant in downtown Ensenada. The underground arched-brick cellars are stacked with bottles of sparkling wines. The "monk" is an employee dressed up to provide atmosphere and recount the history of the oldest active vineyard in the state, some say in all of Mexico. But when the group reaches the far end, where giant 100-year-old barrels still mature ports and sherries, someone asks to see the "Sala de Tintos." There's a silence. The guide looks nervous.
"Uh, no. We can't go in there," he says. "We have a little problem with this place. There are many policemen there. We can't enter. Please come back. In two months, I'm sure everything will be fine."
But an Ensenada citizens' group is not so sure everything will be fine. In two months, they say, the Sala de Tintos could be razed and turned into a parking lot for a supermarket. And one of the great landmarks of Ensenada could be destroyed. In what could prove to be a milestone "coming-of-age" case for Baja preservationists, the battle lines have been drawn between an owner who claims his right to do as he sees fit with his property and citizens who claim that property as a part of their cultural heritage.
It has been a dramatic couple of months since Ensenada citizens got a whiff of a rumor that Santo Tomás's absentee owner, Antonio Cossío Ariño, intended to allow supermarket titan José Fimbres to build one of his Calimax supermarkets on the historic site. Fimbres wants to compete with a nearby -- and successful -- Gigante supermarket. Both locations are near bus stations that take people to outlying areas of Ensenada. So far, Mexico City-based Cossío couldn't see any reason to refuse.
Since his winery has essentially moved 70 percent of its operation back to where the Dominican monks began it all -- 25 miles south, in the fields and mountainside caves of Santo Tomás -- this place has been turned into a tourist draw and cultural center. In the last ten years it has become most famous for its verbena popular -- its popular wine-harvest-inspired street festival of concerts, impromptu performances, and dancing.
But the beautiful Sala de Tintos -- red wine hall -- has always been the star turn. "Oh, it's wonderful!" gushes Jane Zwerneman, who has often appeared there as a French-horn player with the Orchestra of Baja California. "It's a big bodega -- warehouse. There's a large enough space that you can probably seat 300 people on the floor, they have great beams, rows of kegs and half-kegs along the walls. Five of the half-kegs are used as dressing rooms -- that's how large they are: probably 12 feet in diameter and 15 feet high. There's also a balcony at the back. We have done concerts so crowded they have seated eight or ten people on chairs on top of some of these kegs. Plus, the room has a wonderful acoustic. It's very 'live,' a wonderful ambience. You can smell the wine in these old kegs. It permeates them. You'll never lose that smell. It is very Ensenada. You feel like you're in a wine cellar. Everything is shadowy. So evocative to make music in. It just kills me what they're doing, because it's unique."
What's also unique is the preservationists may finally have a chance in their battle against developers. Five years ago Baja state governor Ernesto Ruffo Appel approved a state law, La Ley del Patrimonio Cultural, which, among other protections, made it possible for the state government to order a three-month delay to any changes affecting "eligible" buildings, not just buildings already designated as historic. It marked a sea change in the way Baja California approached its patrimonio. Time after time developers had gone in and wrecked buildings and asked questions later. "Developers know how [the government] works," says Maria Castillo Curry, a researcher at Colegio de la Frontera Norte's Department of Urban Studies and the Environment. "The saying is 'It's better to ask perdón than permission.' "
Castillo, who has 15 years' experience in preservation in Mexico, 5 in Europe, and is currently completing a Ph.D. at Cornell, says Baja has been slow at taking its own history seriously, partly because, in Mexico City, cultural guardians don't consider brash, "violent," Americanized Baja California to be worth saving. The national law protecting historically significant sites was conceived in central Mexico, which bristles with millennia-old pyramids and 500-year-old colonial cities. The law states that only buildings at least 100 years old can be protected. "All 20th-century buildings are left to the state and local authorities," says Castillo.
Which means that besides the missions, just about everything in Baja doesn't qualify. That includes the Bodegas Santo Tomás, which didn't open in downtown Ensenada until 1934, though parts of the building had been up since 1913. "And yet we lack people qualified to assess such buildings," Castillo adds. "The governor [Alejandro González Alcocer] must sign any ordinance ordering special status for the bodegas, yet he doesn't have a single preservationist in his office."
* * *
A group of Ensenada's citizens, mainly artists and academics, started getting worried about the Sala de Tintos around the beginning of the year. Rumors circulated that after a "final concert" on March 31, much of the winery was going to be demolished and a supermarket built in its place. And its most beautiful room, the Sala de Tintos, was going to be leveled to become a parking lot.
"We started a letter campaign," says Marianne de Ramírez, an ex-French teacher who's been trying to stop the demolition. "We started calling everybody we could think of. We wrote to the mayor, the governor, even the president of the republic. We had never done this before. We collected signatures. One letter had more than 1500. Organizations signed on. A thousand schoolchildren wrote to the governor. Alfredo Alvarez, the director of Tijuana's Cultural Center, came out publicly in support of us. It was wonderful."
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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Prolonged Care and Bipolar Disorder
I oversee the care of a 30 year old male who had a traumatic brain injury (car jacking) about 3 1/2 years ago. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a result of this event but in the last year has become allergic or had adverse reactions to most of the medications used to treat bipolar disorder. There is the question of whether or not he, indeed, is bipolar since he does not seem to exhibit signs of both of the poles associated with the disorder. His psychiatrist has decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and has taken him off of all of his bipolar meds and placed him on anti anxiety meds (Lexapro and Clonazepam). For several months he has exhibited signs of panic attacks and phobia refusing to go out of the house or to work (can`t seem to hold a job). He says that he feels "antzy" and just doesn`t feel well. He has called his psychiatrist and advised him of the situation but he either doesn`t return his call or just doesn`t seem to think that there is a problem. At this point I am not sure if the anti-anxiety drugs are worth taking. Counseling has also been suggested but, due to insurance constraints, this treatment is not always possible and he does not share much. It has been difficult watching this situation and I am just wondering where I go from here. I cannot take care of him indefinitely. Is there hope for a "normal" way of life or should I look into filing for a permanent disability since this individual cannot seem to cope with the activities of daily life? Thank You!!
You deserve credit for your dedication and care of this patient. Your message has a confluence of several issues
First, I would recommend attempting to recontact the psychiatrist's office and mention your concerns directly. There could be some structural changes that may benefit this patient and you. For example, is there a mechanism in place for the timely delivery of messages? What is the office policy on returning phone calls? Would it be possible for this patient to have more frequent appointments or set aside a predetermined time to discuss matters less formally over the phone?
Once in contact, it would be reasonable to ask the treating psychiatrist what features led to the diagnosis of bipolar illness, especially given the evidently sharp distinction between the patient's life before and after the trauma. Typically, more brittle forms of bipolar illness should present themselves when the patient is not taking medications long-term.
You can also ask about the psychiatrist's experience in treating patients with a similar history. Are there people in the area who could provide a consultation? You can also mention how exactly the patient's behavior concerns you, what changes you have seen on and off meds, and areas in which the patient could improve.
Lastly, I recommend consultation with a social worker in your area to assist in the process of filing for disability and related matters. Once initiated, the treating psychiatrist can provide additional information on the paperwork.
Thank you for your question.
Ram Chandran Kalyanam, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
College of Medicine
The Ohio State University
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1. A man is driving alone on a highway in the middle of the
night. As he is driving he begins having chest pains. Thinking this is the big one he
takes the next available exit and drives a ways looking for help. He gets desperate. He
drives into a residential neighborhood looses control of his car and hits a parked car.
Desperate he remembers he has his cell phone and he calls 911. The dispatcher asks him
where he is. He doesn't know. She asks what exit he used to get off the highway. He can't
remember. She asks him if he can drive his car to an intersection and read the road signs.
He says he can't. She asks him to begin blowing his horn until someone comes outside. No
one comes out. She then asks him one more question. He answers her and within minutes an
ambulance is there and saves him. What question did the dispatcher ask him?
Answer: The dispatcher asked him to read the license plate of the car he
hit. It's not 100% foolproof but the chances are good that since it's the middle of
the night the cars owner lives in the house where the car is parked.
2. A boy buys a 5 foot long fishing pole in town. After buying it
he goes to the bus stop to catch a ride home. When the bus arrives he begins to get on the
bus. The bus driver stops him and says "You can't bring that thing on the bus."
The boy asks "Why not?" The bus driver tells him "There is an ordinance
that says you can't bring anything on the bus longer the 4 feet. The fishing pole you have
looks to be 5 feet. Sorry kid." With that the bus driver boots the kid off the bus.
He goes back to the store where he bought the fishing rod thinking he'll just return it
and buy it the next time he's in town. When he returns to the store he finds they have a
"No Returns" policy. The boy then gets an idea and 10 minutes later he is on the
bus heading home WITH the fishing pole. He didn't break it, bend it or take it apart. It
was still in it's original condition. How did he get it on the bus and remain legal
under the ordinance?
Answer: The boy bought a box that was 4 feet long and 3 feet wide.
The diagonal of the box then would be 5 feet long. Just perfect for his fishing
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I write this post from Delhi, India, where eight Osgoode faculty joined counterparts at the Jindal Global Law School (“JGLS”) for a symposium on “Global North and Global South Perspectives on Transnational Governance: An Indo-Canadian Perspective.” The symposium explored issues ranging from access to justice, legal regulation of sexuality and the tax treatment of foreign investment. It was a lively and engaging event, and deepened the links between Osgoode and Jindal – capped off with a memorable outdoor dinner at the home of Naveen Jindal, the Indian politician and business leader, whose extraordinary philanthropy gave rise to the creation of JGLS in 2009.
During this trip, Osgoode has also renewed our longstanding student exchange with the National Law School of India University at Bangalore, and strengthened relationships with the National Law University Delhi and the Delhi University Faculty of Law. Additionally, Osgoode is exploring new partnerships and initiatives in India, including those relating to judicial and professional education, as well as law students’ internship and research opportunities. Osgoode’s faculty members have been overwhelmed with the hospitality and genuine warmth which we were shown by our hosts.
It is trite to observe the contradictions that define India – soaring economic development and embrace of modernity alongside visceral poverty, and deep links to diverse cultural traditions and rich histories. Law is embedded in and reflects these contradictions as well. We met with leading litigators who work in chambers with a senior counsel and a number of juniors, where fees are still expressed in “guineas” rather than rupees, as if it were still the English legal system of the “Raj.” We also spoke with an Indian Supreme Court Judge about the progressive force of law in India to transform a culture where caste and class still limit life opportunities for millions. We were also keen to learn of the major debates in India around the legal profession, including a new national bar council examination, the establishment of new national law schools and the erosion of barriers to foreign law firms and law schools in India.
On March 4, 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially kicked off the “Year of India in Canada.” The timing is clearly right for major bilateral projects. The significance of India for Osgoode relates not only to our global research and academic activities, but also to the growing proportion of Osgoode alumni who are of South Asian descent.
What impact can a large, vibrant and diverse law school like Osgoode have in a large, vibrant and diverse country like India? This is a question worth pondering. At a minimum, we can join in and serve as a catalyst for vitally important conversations about the role of law in economic development, transnational governance, environmental and social sustainability and the protection of democratic institutions and minority rights. Osgoode faculty, staff and students have expressed both interest and excitement to develop more exchanges, internships, joint conferences, research projects and collaborative pro bono projects, just to scratch the surface. As this Osgoode trip to India vividly demonstrated to those who participated, we have much of value to learn from India, and much to share as well.
Indian and Canadian values build on a variety of common foundations – as culturally and linguistically diverse societies whose legal cultures are built on democratic institutions, federalism, common law and constitutional traditions, and politics that reflect a delicate blend of principle and pragmatism. Canada and India also share the confidence and optimism of countries focused on the future, whose best days lie ahead.
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One photograph, no retakes, no retouching, just a pure honest photograph and a giant camera that will travel 20,000 miles across the US to photograph American Cultures. Vanishing Cultures is an astounding and completely unique concept; Dennis Manarchy the creator of this ambitious and simply brilliant project, has already embarked on a 10-year journey to bring this incredible project, together. Through endless trial and error, 3 prototype cameras, over 30 test subjects and a whole lot of agony and frustration, it is finally nearly completed. This one of a kind monumental camera will be transported by a huge truck trailer, due to it’s extremely large size. His aim is to capture cultures that are rapidly fading from society and to feature their portraits on 2-story sized prints displayed in stadium-sized traveling outdoor exhibitions along with the amazing negatives and the stories behind the people and cultures.
The type of quality that these gigantic negatives produce is unmatchable. The negatives are 6-feet by 4.5-feet. No digital camera in years to come will be able to compete with this clear crisp quality and tremendous detail. This project is taking it back to the fundamentals of photography and making sure that people realise the beauty of film photography. To understand more about how this project is going to work, take a look below, as I had the great pleasure in having a video conference with Dennis Manarchy and Chad Tepley (Dennis’ Project Manager on Vanishing Cultures ) the other day, where I was able to see the third prototype camera as well as going virtually inside it! This is what they had to tell me about this mind-blowing project:
Film’s not Dead: Why such a big camera and where did this idea evolve from?
Dennis Manarchy: You really want to know the answer? Can you handle the truth! As I grew up in photography I was an apprentice in New York to Irving Penn, and in living in New York you make a sort of pilgrimage to the Museum of Modern Art, every time there is a new exhibition. One day I was going up excited to see the new exhibition, as I came up to the second floor, which was the painting floor, I saw this amazing photograph that was 10 feet tall. It was clearer and more brilliant than anything I had ever seen in photography. I thought it was a photograph, but it was actually a photo realist painting done by Chuck Close. As I sort of thought about that and compared it to other photographs I started realising that the reason why this thing was so powerful was because at the 10 foot size, it was literally 1:1.
There was no break, there was no enlargement or deterioration. Even though we think photography is clear, it just looks relatively clear to compared say a painting, but it is not really clear. I have always wondered why couldn’t I get that power from a picture, why didn’t that picture become the icon like the painting was? It’s just that the photograph is lost during the enlargement. I have always been fascinated by large sizes. I didn’t know how to answer the question I had of how to produce a photograph like that…. I kept thinking about it and then one day I met some guy who had made a 20×24 camera, which was the largest thing I could have ever imagined, but you couldn’t do a portrait with it because you couldn’t get bellows long enough for it. They used these cameras for landscapes but the problem is going to portraiture with these large cameras is the unusual bellows of blowing something up three or four times life size. The bellows on our camera are, 25/30 feet. Just imagine trying to make something like that. It is very complicated.
Someone explained to me that the word ‘camera’ is the Italian word for ‘room’, I said ‘wow that is interesting’. I had a room that was about 15 feet square, so I decided to put a lens on the door and that kind of worked, and this became the first prototype. A few years later I realised I couldn’t do a portrait with that as I didn’t have the right lens. It took me literally three years looking at 100′s of lenses to find one that worked, I finally found one. Then I took and made a prefab collapsible studio camera and went down to the swamp in Louisiana to photograph Cajuns. There was an old fish house that I changed into a camera. We stayed for a few weeks photographing these native people, and the results were just fabulous, but that’s where it stopped. I thought that this was so kukoo, it is great for me as I was able to achieve something personally, but I didn’t think it would go anywhere and I hadn’t thought about taking it to the next level. Then a couple of years ago someone was over and they freaked out when they saw these shots. Film’s vanishing and so many cultures in the US are vanishing. I realised that if film is dieing and if it is going to be buried then somehow I want to leave the greatest tribute to the medium by doing this. I want to pay a tribute to photography, as I have been in photography in the years before Polaroids, that’s when you really had to look at someone to photograph them. But when Polaroids came in it was about looking at the Polaroids rather than the subject, then digital came in then it was about looking at the screen. Photographers had lost their tails.
I have a friend who is a brilliant photo realist painter but his paintings suck! He doesn’t look at the people, he looks at the pictures. If I am photographing you then I want to know something about you. I have to make an impression. It is not just a snap. I need to bring to life the stories, the joys and frustrations of your life in one shot. When I am taking these pictures I only have one exposure per subject, so I really have to get everything right. This is what is so cool for me is that my adrenaline is so pumped. Altogether it takes about 2 hours to set the subject right for the one exposure.
When I am photographing I try and get you away from the intimidation of this huge machine. I say to you ‘hey lets go back in time and think about a little secret or something that was really interesting to you, and put that in your thoughts’, so when I finally make my exposure there will be something about you. Whether it is obvious or not, the point is that it is real, and it is not just an architectural copy of your face.
Film’s not Dead: What is your background in photography?
Dennis Manarchy: I’ve been a photographer for the past 30 years, and I have done everything from commercial ad campaigns to private exhibitions, but I’ve always had a love for portraiture. I grew up in Rockford, Illinois and then graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology. I apprenticed with Irving Penn and served as Lieutenant in the Vietnam War. I was a little messed up when I returned from the war. After I got back to the US I met a Lumbee Indian Chief in a North Carolina bookstore. He invited me to stay with his tribe and it was an amazing experience. It allowed me to adjust back into society while I refocused on my photography.
Chad Tepley: Also over the past 30 years Dennis has consistently been ranked among the world’s top photographers. His work is part of permanent collections within the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. I’ve known him for about 4 years and I’m amazed not only by his talent but also his ability to relate to people and their situations. I think this is what is obvious when you look at his photos…. he’s definitely the kind of photographer who can pull off a monumental project like this.
Film’s not Dead: Is Dennis the only one who will be operating the camera?
Chad Tepley: No, Dennis will be on the outside of the camera working with the subject and setting the lighting. There will be another person inside the camera working with the film, adjusting the focus and operating the controls. The two of them will work together via radio headsets until Dennis has achieved the perfect moment with the subject and he will click the button to expose the film.
Film’s not Dead: Where will the tour of the camera start off?
Chad Tepley: We will be visiting at least 30 various locations/cultures. Our itinerary will be refined once we fund construction of the new camera. We will work with historians, anthropologists and cultural organisations e.c.t in order to collect a wide variety of destinations. We hope to begin the trip in Chicago since this is the place where it all began and our hope is to conclude the trip prior to the 200th anniversary of the camera in 2014 so that we can donate the camera to the Smithsonian as a tribute to film photography.
Chad Tepley: Tell her how many exposures you have taken with the big camera?
Dennis Manarchy: 30.
Chad Tepley: Yet the thing that really blows my mind is that none of them have been screwed up!
Dennis Manarchy : Somehow amazingly enough they all come out perfectly. I take a lot of time to get everything perfect. On this new camera, to get enough lighting set up and having enough power in the lights has taken me at least 4-5 months. The ISO is 3 for this camera, so you can imagine how much power and light it takes to make an exposure. The lens starts at F11 and I need to be at about F32 to get enough depth of focus so it needs a ton of light. Even developing the negative is a lengthy process. The darkroom itself is about 80 feet long in order to get the trays set up big enough to develop a negative. But the whole objective for this project – apart from the technical aspect – is having a vehicle for the art and I never want to lose that point because a big picture of something boring is something boring. A little picture of something fabulous is something fabulous. But if you have the aesthetic right then it all comes together. The sharpness is unbelievable and this quality cannot be achieved with our tiny cameras.
When you bring these pictures up and you feel the weight of them you see the hair follicles the pores on the skin and the weight of an eyelash. I was worried that it would be too gross, but it is pretty, it is real and that’s the idea of this project. With photoshop and with digital there is nothing real. I understand why they are banning photoshop in England because people don’t believe anything any more, it is all phony. How many pictures have you seen of anybody that haven’t been heavily retouched? With everyone’s pictures on places like Facebook they can all give themselves a new face-lift. This camera is absolute reality and the closest we can get to reality through the abstraction of the camera. There is just nothing there that is not completely honest about the person, there is no retouching and the imperfections become beautiful as they are so magnified. Due to the sharpness they become more iconic and all those things put together make this thing really rock. It’s like nothing I have ever seen before. I look at my own negatives and I can’t even recognise them. I look at these pictures and I can’t be objective about them because I am really moved by them, which never happens with my work. Nothing is ever good enough for me, but this is different. This isn’t about being good, it’s about being so clear, so honest. The search, of course, is finding such great faces, and that’s why it is has to be on the road because you have to go to where the people are. Our Native American tribes, for example, are very isolated and a lot of them don’t travel. Their beauty is there, unlike the city where everyone blends in. There is none of that there.
Film’s not Dead: How long are your exposures?
Dennis Manarchy: The exposures are done electronically, but it is 1/1000th of a second, and the subject sits in the chair for a good couple of hours. But the bigger camera that I am going to build will be shorter, maybe a hour. But there are a million little things that I will analyse to make a good portrait of this person. Many of the pictures people do now are un-lit with natural light, but because this has to be more focused the light has to be so intense. So I have to be very precise where I place the light. While I am doing all off this, I really try to engage the subjects by asking them to share stories with me. One of these was when I photographed an 80-year old Cajun man and I asked him, ‘What is the craziest thing you have ever done?’ He said, ‘When I was 65 and I was out in the fishing camp I saw a deer I was so excited, he was 10 feet away from me and I ran after him, but I didn’t know what I was going to do because I had no weapons or anything and I actually caught the deer and wrestled it to the ground.’ At 65 years old! Where would you hear a story like that?
The other part to this whole project is that we will be shooting documentaries of this process, sharing these people’s stories as well as displaying their stories in a book. Even in the exhibitions you don’t want to just find faces without depth. I always go for the eyes first, if I can’t find anything in the eyes first then I don’t find someone a good subject.
Film’s not Dead: How or where do you get the film made?
Dennis Manarchy: It is specially made for this camera.
Film’s not Dead: How is the project exactly going to be funded?
Dennis Manarchy: We are currently looking for funding through individuals and corporate and foundation sponsorship and we will be launching our Kickstarter.com funding campaign on February 1st. Please keep an eye out for it because we will have some great rewards (t-shirts, posters, prints, e.t.c) in return for donations of various levels. We have also aligned with PBS as our Fiscal Sponsor and we will be working closely with them on the documentary aspect of the project.
Film’s not Dead: How did you and Chad meet and come together on this project?
Chad Tepley: I am a commercial real estate broker here in Chicago, and I was working with Dennis on his property and we started talking about his vision for Vanishing Cultures. I told him that I had done a lot of traveling and volunteer work internationally and that I have a real interest in cultures and history. When he started talking and telling me about what he wanted to do I was immediately drawn to it. Then when I saw the negatives from his prototype I was totally blown away. I love art, I love photography, but this is something special. Not only does it shed light on our diversity as a nation, but it presents the faces of our people on a totally different level.
Film’s not Dead: How many people are actually involved with this project such as processing the negatives, building the camera, printing the pictures?
Dennis Manarchy: Right now we have about 12-15 people but we will have 30-40+ once the project really launches. We want to fund the production of making the new camera, which will cost about half a million dollars. That’s our first priority. Then we will focus on the trip and production of the images/documentaries.
Film’s not Dead: Where do you see this project going in the future?
Dennis Manarchy: There really is no limit to where this project could go. Once we make it happen here we would love to take it abroad. It’s the type of exhibit and project where every single person will have some unique tie to the people or the cultures, so it’s of interest to everyone at some level.
Film’s not Dead: Will you hold talks inside the camera and workshops within it?
Chad Tepley: Yes the camera’s construction will allow it to literally open up with hydraulics, so that people can walk through and view the inside while we are not shooting. We will engage the local communities while we travel and will hold regular workshops to display how the camera works.
Film’s not Dead: Where are you going to develop the negatives when you are on the road or where will they be stored?
Chad Tepley: No we will be storing them in large tubes until they can be transported back to the studio for processing within our darkroom.
Film’s not Dead: How do you select and find these people?
Dennis Manarchy: We want to pick a wide variety of cultures. For example there are hundreds of American Indians, Native American’s but there are a few that are traditional, with traditional clothing and that have their ceremonies with their dances. They are the more interesting cultures, they have preserved they culture. Another example are the Cajun’s in Louisiana; their dialect is so interesting and they are from a French and Native American background, they’re interesting looking, they have wonderful speech patterns, and they have a unique culture in the swamps. How they live hand and mouth, it is not going to be there very long. We want to bring attention to these cultures and many more.
We want to concentrate on cultures that are vanishing hence the name. We want to bring attention to them, such as photographing World War II Veterans are another unique group. There are a lot of cultures vanishing due to their age, but there are also cultures vanishing because they are not compatible with todays society. It is not a downer, it’s about celebrating their customs. It is about the beauty of these people. This work is pure film and the closest we can get to reality. For this project you have to go back to the basics of what a photograph is literally and pre-visualise what these pictures are going to look like. Unfortunately with new technology that we have people just look straight at the screen because it is instant gratification. If you weren’t able to look at the screen and you just had to work with your own talents, then it becomes an internally different process, and that’s what’s so beautiful about film.
Film’s not Dead: How long will it take you to build the new camera?
Dennis Manarchy: 4 months – with about 50 people working on it.
Chad Tepley: The end result will be a 24 by 16 foot prints (that’s over two stores tall), that will be displayed in stadium sized traveling outdoor exhibits along with the cultural celebrations, ethnic foods, music performances and the stories behind these amazing cultures. Examples of venues would include The National Portrait Gallery and National Mall in Washington D.C, Millennium Park in Chicago, Central Park in New York City, e.c.t.
To find out more about this astonishing project or to get in contact with Dennis or Chad, then please click HERE. If you would like to see more of Dennis’s compelling work please click HERE. To show your support for this amazing project please click HERE to make a pledge on Kickstarter.
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"She felt nothing, and was found in the water. She heard people talking around her but saw nobody during the night. She was ejected. She was found beside the plane. I never thought she would get out like that. It’s the Good Lord who wanted it."...She'd broken her collar bone, but she is doing well, the doctors say.
She had climbed on to a portion of wreckage – believed to be part of the plane’s cabin – but kept slipping back into the sea while clinging on to part of it with her hands.
By the time a boat’s torch picked her out in the depths, she could hardly move.
"We tried to throw her a life buoy to hang on to, but she wouldn’t take the buoy," said one of the rescuers.
I had to jump in to rescue her. She was trembling, trembling. We put four sheets around her, and gave her hot water and sugar.
July 1, 2009
Bakari Bahia, a 14-year-old girl, survived 12 hours in the Indian Ocean after a plane crash that killed 152 others.
She tells of being "ejected" from the Yemenia Airways Airbus as it broke up:
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- Admissions & Aid
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Peeking over to the Other Side
In Review | Film Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, with Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and Claire-Hope Ashitey.
An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim, with Al Gore.
This is one scenario of the end of the world: It's 2027 and our planet has become a toxic wasteland so polluted that women have become infertile—not one child has been born in 18 years. Human beings have less than a century left on Earth. All-out war blankets the globe. Life is so unbearable that the most successful corporation is a drug company that produces a suicide pill called Quietus. This is the backdrop to director Alfonso Cuarón's latest film, Children of Men, from a novel by P. D. James.
This movie is not your typical science fiction thriller portraying a future swelled in the successes of advancement. This is the story of the failure of technology and science, the death of faith, the loss of innocence, and the slow, hopeless demise of humankind without struggle. Or is it?
Out of the madding crowd, an erstwhile political activist named Theo (Clive Owen) stumbles into the role of foolhardy hero when he comes face-to-face with the only known pregnant woman on the planet. He manages to transport child and mother to safety by delivering both to something called the Human Project, where, presumably, dark clouds will part and the future of the civilized world will be restored. The planet is saved, Hollywood-style. Again.
Here is another scenario of the end of the world: It's 2027 and consecutive years of record-high temperatures have melted Greenland's ice sheet and most of Antarctica's ice shelves. Global sea levels have risen over 20 feet. Southern Florida, most United States coastal cities (including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, and a good portion of Manhattan); the coasts of Europe, South America, Africa; and major cities in southeast Asia are all completely under water, devastated. Inland areas are suffering from droughts, bug infestations, wildfires, plagues. Hundreds of species are becoming extinct daily. Beyond this point, ecosystems start to break down quickly, until, finally, things stop happening. Life stops happening. And the planet sleeps.
This is not science fiction, and there is no happy ending. This is the condensed version of Al Gore's recent documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and his message is powerfully clear: human behavior is destroying the planet, global warming is a serious threat to biodiversity, and in 10 years, if we continue to live without a collective sense of moral responsibility, we will reach a point of no return. In other words, the damage will be irreversible.
I haven't met too many people who have actually seen this second movie. Statistically speaking, a great many moviegoers haven't. An Inconvenient Truth has grossed $42 million worldwide since its release in May 2006—and this includes DVD and VHS rentals—but Children of Men, for example, grossed $56 million in just its first four weeks in theaters. To be fair, global warming is not a new topic, and the idea of watching a soft-ripened Gore analyze data in limpid prose is not the height of entertainment (although this movie is riveting, I assure you). The sad fact is, most Americans aren't particularly worried about global warming. In a survey done by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in June 2006, a month after An Inconvenient Truth came out in theaters, only 19 percent of Americans said they worry a lot about global warming. Nearly half of Americans (47 percent) expressed little if any concern at all. In contrast, roughly two-thirds of Japanese (66 percent) and Indians (65 percent) said they worry a great deal about global warming.
The majority of U.S. newspapers and magazines still question the existence of global warming, even while "100 percent" of scientists say it's real. The dispersal of misinformation by the media, Gore explains, is a hangover from the 1990s, when energy industries successfully repositioned global warming as a "debate"—similar to the way tobacco companies presented the hazards of smoking. This is the simple fact: in the last 15 years, we've witnessed the 10 hottest years in history (history meaning billions of years). This is not fiction and it's not some cyclical weather pattern where temperatures will return to normal. This is our planet in the process of transforming into a malignant tumor. And we should be worried. Very worried.
In his new book, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Harvard University Press), philosopher Jonathan Lear examines how a society might equip itself for a cultural collapse. Working from his study on the devastation the Crow Nation Indians experienced after life as they knew it was replaced with reservation life, Lear writes: "If a people genuinely are at the historical limit of their way of life, there is precious little they can do to 'peek over to the other side.' Precisely because they are about to endure a historical rupture, the detailed texture of life on the other side has to be beyond their ken." He explains that when we are successfully able to conceptualize our anxiety, we're at our creative peak—this is what Lear calls imaginative excellence: "At a time of radical historical change, the concept of courage will itself require new forms. This is the reality that needs to be faced—the call for concepts—and it would seem that if one were to face up to such a challenge well it would have to be done imaginatively."
In regard to sustainable living, we are starting to see new concepts take shape in the form of large-scale movements. The United Nations, for example, has declared 2008 the International Year of Planet Earth, led by UNESCO and its division of Ecological and Earth Sciences. This means that throughout the next three years, international industry and governments will raise millions of dollars and spend it solely on environmental research and outreach programs. It will mark the largest transcontinental effort to promote the wellbeing of our planet. With money flowing into the marketplace, other surprising shifts have followed. Ten major U.S. companies, along with four environmental groups, just announced the creation of a U.S. Climate Action Partnership (the group includes major corporations like Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, DuPont, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, Duke Energy, etc.) that would limit carbon dioxide emissions leading to the reduction of emissions by up to 30 percent over the next two decades.
Probably the most encouraging form of radical thinking came on January 17, 2007, when 28 prominent evangelical leaders and secular scientists set aside their differences to write and sign "An Urgent Call to Action," a statement that promises that two of the most powerful forces, science and religion, will make a serious and unified commitment to work together to fight global warming and other environmental ills. The two groups spearheading this effort, the National Association of Evangelicals and scientists at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, quickly discovered during their three-day retreat in Georgia that when they moved past rhetoric, they shared a sense of purpose and passion in the protection of creation. "We agree that our home, the Earth, which comes to us as that inexpressibly beautiful and mysterious gift that sustains our very lives, is seriously imperiled by human behavior. . . . It requires a new moral awakening to a compelling demand, clearly articulated in Scripture and supported by science, that we must steward the natural world in order to preserve for ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment. For many of us, this is a religious obligation, rooted in our sense of gratitude for Creation and reverence for its Creator." (I urge you to read the entire statement at http://chge.med.harvard.edu.)
While An Inconvenient Truth tackles the big issues head on, there is intrinsic value to successful apocalyptic movies like Children of Men. Any form of mass culture that will allow large audiences to encounter and experience an alternative future, one of immense emptiness, ultimately helps us to decide between living in abstract systems of morality where we continue to behave badly, or living courageously and deciding to embrace a Promethean approach to saving the planet from extinction, whereby we will find our happy ending—or, if we're lucky, no ending at all.
Brin Stevens is managing editor of the Bulletin.
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One of the best ways to gauge the success of a toy is its ability to appeal to generations of children without changing the formula. There are a few that come instantly to mind — Playdoh, Slinky, Lincoln Logs and of course, LEGOs.
My first memories of LEGOs involve dumping them from a large bucket onto the floor and trying to figure out something to build with the colorful, plastic interlocking bricks. Usually, my limited abilities could only muster a house with a very square roof or a poor replica of The Great Wall.
I was never incredibly adept at making masterpieces on my own, but enjoyed playing with the blocks once in a while. Fast forward a couple of decades to our first trip to Comic-Con when we encountered oversized LEGO creations featuring characters from Toy Story and Harry Potter.
So, while shopping that Christmas season, we decided to try our hand at the modern LEGO playsets and chose a set based on The Weasley’s home from the Harry Potter series, The Burrows. We put it together on Christmas Eve night last year in a few hours while watching Christmas cartoons and have decided to make it a Maddy tradition.
Unlike the buckets containing a mix of various sizes, these new sets have ridicuously detailed instruction panels, allowing you to build miniature worlds, one piece at a time.
Since we had such a wonderful experience with The Burrows, we requested my in-laws buy us a larger LEGO set this Christmas. It’s been an incredible way to connect, a great family activity, and a nice escape from the internet/iPhone/other electronic devices.
So, on Christmas morning, we open our gift to discover a LEGO Millennium Falcon, complete with a slew of miniature Star Wars characters to go with it. A week later, we set out on the mission to tackle the monochromatic blocks that promised to look like Han Solo’s prized ship.
We dumped out the various bags, containing the more than 1,200 miniscule blocks, hooks, caps and rods that would bring the Falcon to life. And we were greeted with not one, but three instruction manuals on how to build this massive replica of Star Wars’ famed ship. After wondering how an 8-year-old could put this together alone, we began separating the parts by color and shape and continued our mission.
Piece by piece, layer by layer, the Falcon started taking shape. First, the floor gave way to the control room and area where Luke honed his Jedi skills, I could almost hear him say, “With the blast shield down, I can’t even see. How am I supposed to fight?” (Coincidentally, the set also comes with a LEGO Luke complete with reversible head and blast shield.)
We spent hours in our toy room upstairs, fighting off the leg-fall-asleep syndrome and the carpet imprints onto our skin to configure our miniature ship. The almost-hexagonal frame became a second nature to us as we replicated designs that would make up the exterior panels of the ship. One of my favorite features in the removable chamber that slides Luke in and out for the dog fight with Tie Fighters.
When we finally snapped the cockpit on and placed Han inside, there was much celebration, although our chihuahua was presumably unimpressed. We placed the Falcon next to its slightly larger twin in our collection (which we did not have to assemble.)
After conquering the Falcon, Duane decided to surprise me with the complete Hogwarts set for my birthday. Our nieces and nephew had gotten us an addition to the school which we put together in a few hours on Christmas Eve, so we were eager to attach it to the larger set.
Again, we were met with three instruction booklets laying down the challenge for the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry.
This time, we tried a new strategy in which we each took a book and started putting together the bags corresponding to our chosen book. We then interlocked them when completed.
The detail of the set is remarkable, from the Gryffindor and Slytherin common rooms to the Great Dining Hall to the Owlery to the image of Sirius Black in the fire place. Many of the most intricate details of these sets are never seen by the naked eye, yet it was not overlooked.
While building these sets, I couldn’t help but wonder who designs them? Do they have LEGO engineers sitting in a room, jotting down every minute detail — every sticker placed, every joint locked?
With theme parks now in California and Florida and building sets based on multiple movie franchises and beyond, LEGO is challenging the imaginations and budding architectural skills of generations of children to come, and all of us adults who remain children at heart.
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Most Active Stories
KRWG.ORG-The Region's Home Page
Fri February 3, 2012
Jobs Numbers May Boost Obama Re-election Effort
Originally published on Fri February 3, 2012 4:54 pm
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
I'm Melissa Block. And we begin this hour with fresh evidence that the U.S. economy is on the mend. The unemployment rate fell unexpectedly last month to 8.3 percent. And according to the Labor Department, U.S. employers added nearly a quarter million workers to their payrolls. As NPR's Scott Horsley reports, it's not only good news for the economy and the nation, it's also good news for President Obama and his re-election campaign.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Unemployment hasn't been this low since the first few weeks that President Obama was in office. Mr. Obama notes private employers have added 3.7 million workers to their payrolls over the last two years and January's hiring was the strongest in nine months.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The recovery is speeding up and we've got to do everything in our power to keep it going.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama urged lawmakers to quickly extend the payroll tax cut, as well as long-term unemployment insurance. The president has been highlighting the importance of U.S. manufacturing, which added 50,000 jobs last month. Eric Hague runs an ArcelorMittal facility in Cleveland that makes steel for the auto and appliance industries. He's in the process of restarting that company's Westside plant, which was shut down when demand dried up in 2008.
Customers are now clamoring for steel and Hague is hiring about 150 new workers.
ERIC HAGUE: Both hourly and salary jobs that pay in excess of probably $60,000 a year right now. So, all positive for the community and certainly a lot of excitement.
HORSLEY: Political forecaster Stuart Rothenberg says the better than expected jobs report is also a positive for President Obama.
STUART ROTHENBERG: Right now, the administration and its supporters are going to be able to talk about a positive change that's not just one month, that's now a series of months. And so, they're going to be able to build this argument which, of course, if it carries all the way to November, would be a huge boost for the president.
HORSLEY: Rothenberg points out, though, both the economy and the political picture remain volatile. At this time last year, many people thought we were on the cusp of a strong recovery only to see it derailed.
ROTHENBERG: We're still a long way from knowing exactly how the president is going to be standing when we hit that crucial period as September, October. That's when people will decide whether Barack Obama deserves another four years.
HORSLEY: Republicans, for their part, are arguing the recovery would be even stronger if Mr. Obama were not president. Scott Horsley NPR News, the White House. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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The Office of Global and Lifelong Learning (OGLL) plays an integral role of the Silver School of Social Work. Lifelong Learning programs reach practice communities both in and beyond the New York region. We provide advanced learning opportunities encompassing theoretical and practice models for social work and related health professionals. Participants look to advance their careers, explore new professional avenues, gain increased skills to better meet the needs of their agencies and clients, and interact with their peers and faculty. Programming is based on a careful analysis of current priorities in practice and research, new policies that impact treatment, and faculty scholarship.
Through Global Learning, we support current and former students who seek to reframe, broaden, and deepen their understanding of social work practice with a period of study abroad. Students are exposed to micro and macro social issues within different cultures. Study abroad courses last from two to four weeks.
Given the compelling rise in the demand for social services, we recognize the need to continually prepare leaders for the future. We are dedicated to constant improvement as we learn from participants and reach out to our professional community. Our philosophy is to provide programs that are relevant, current, challenging, accessible, and outcome-oriented in regard to advancing skill and knowledge.
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Tips to Manage Your Food Portions video
Video DescriptionLosing weight is not so easy. We all love to eat good food. But unfortunately, weight loss require us to eat less and need to work out a lot. As per the recent studies, the basic element in losing weight is the proper serving portions of foods. Take a look at the video and get to know what and how much portion of food is required by your body.
Tips to Manage Your Food Portions
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The closing costs of getting a mortgage have dropped.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Federal regulations are helping to significantly reduce the amount new homebuyers are paying come closing time.
The average cost of closing on a mortgage has fallen by 7.4% over the past year, according to a recent survey by Bankrate.com. At the end of June, a homebuyer looking to close on a $200,000 mortgage with 20% down paid an average of $3,754, $300 less than 12 months earlier.
Included in those costs are origination expenses, such as application fees and the cost of doing credit checks, and third-party fees, such as those paid for title searches and insurance.
The decline can be attributed to new regulations that require lenders to be more accurate when estimating closing costs for borrowers, said Greg McBride, Bankrate's senior financial analyst.
The regulation, which was put in place two years ago as part of the Real Estate Settlement Practices Act requires lenders to provide a "good faith estimate" of third-party fees that is within 10% of the actual amount the buyer will pay.
"The big drop in third-party fees indicates the lenders are doing a better job at estimating what the costs will be," said McBride.
The most expensive state for closing on a home was New York, where total origination fees and closing costs averaged more than $5,400 for a $200,000 mortgage, according to Bankrate. Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida also cost far more than the national average.
Missouri was the cheapest, with total borrowing costs averaging just over $3,000. Other states where closing costs remain low include Kansas, Colorado and Iowa, Bankrate said.
Even on a neighborhood level closing costs can vary significantly, said McBride. Borrowers can save money by getting at least three estimates and paying close attention to the total costs of obtaining a loan rather than getting seduced by low advertised interest rates.
"Borrowers don't want to get tunnel vision shopping for the best mortgage deal by only looking at the interest rate," he said. "Closing costs are a big line item and savings there can be quite significant."
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|Overnight Avg Rate||Latest||Change||Last Week|
|30 yr fixed||3.75%||3.66%|
|15 yr fixed||2.89%||2.79%|
|30 yr refi||3.74%||3.64%|
|15 yr refi||2.89%||2.79%|
Today's featured rates:
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CCA legislation would accelerate rebuilding in Lower Manhattan
Have you ever seen a street torn up one week by Con Ed to replace underground cables, only to be repaved and torn up again a week later by the city replacing sewage pipes? Jason Howard, a photographer who lives at the corner of Wall Street and Exchange Place, sees it more often than he'd like. "There is always some type of work, some road closed," he says. "I've stopped paying attention to who it is doing the work or what kind of work is being done."
The frequency of disruptions is frustrating, Howard says, especially when it makes it hard for his friends to reach his apartment door or find parking nearby. "But there's nothing you can do about it really," he concedes. "I just take it as a part of where I live."
In fact, there is something that can be done. There's a reason the streets outside Howard's apartment are torn up as often as they are. It's because currently, the city and the utility and telecommunications companies are NOT allowed to work together on infrastructure projects. They would need a new state law to permit them to do this, and that state law has never been passed. So streets are ripped up once for city needs and then might well be ripped up again for the telephone company. This inability to work together creates great disruption and inconvenience for local residents and businesses. Meanwhile up in Albany -- and, in fact, throughout the state -- this type of joint bidding is allowed.
One could argue that Lower Manhattan, still recovering from the events of 9/11, deserves to have its streets torn up only as often as Rhinebeck or Sarasota Springs. Or that the federal government and federal taxpayers, who have committed $6 billion to downtown's redevelopment, deserve to have that money spent efficiently. To this end, the city is seeking passage of state legislation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed to Albany almost a year ago.
Called the Coordinated Construction Act for Lower Manhattan (CCA), the legislation proposes to speed the rebuilding of the entire area south of Houston Street and promote safety and fairness. One of its provisions would allow the city to conduct joint bidding on street work with the utility and telecommunications companies under strict guidelines that protect the city's interests. Gone would be the days of needless, repeated disruptions for Howard and his neighbors as streets are ripped open time and time again.
Safer Neighborhoods, Safer Construction Sites
Another important gain from the passage of the legislation would be safety -- for people who live, work, and visit downtown and for the workers on the construction sites. The CCA includes several safety provisions that cover the multiple construction sites that will be set up in Lower Manhattan, including construction to connect downtown to the airports, develop the East River Waterfront, and create neighborhood public squares and parks.
|Planned Projects That Will Be Affected by the CCA*
|Hudson River Park (HRPT)
|East River Waterfront
|Libraries, museums, cultural space
|*The projects and estimated costs are based on "New York City's Vision for Lower Manhattan," issued by Mayor Bloomberg in December 2002. All of the projects will be funded in whole or in part with federal dollars but totals are subject to change.
Construction brings concerns about air quality for residents and workers in the area, and rightly so. In an effort to reduce harmful emissions from construction equipment, the CCA includes a provision that would require contractors to use only ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. Another provision in the legislation would make it easier and cheaper for the city to purchase this fuel.
"The CCA will reduce the impact on the environment, in particular the noise and pollution," says Robert Yaro, who chairs the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a coalition of civic, business, community, environmental, labor, and academic organizations formed in the aftermath of 9/11. "For those of us who live and work here, that's very important," he says. "Especially since Lower Manhattan will be the site of so much construction over the next 10 years."
And just as protecting the quality of the air is important, other construction-related safety concerns deserve attention as well. Newspapers regularly report accidents on and around construction sites and the injuries and deaths that result from them. If passed, the CCA would require the city to hire only contractors with excellent safety records and well-established, successful programs to train their apprentices and workers. By placing a premium on safety and training, the legislation will help ensure that construction sites are safe for the people who work there, and also for the people who pass by.
|Cranes and other construction equipment would be required to use ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel
Ensuring Fairness in How Rebuilding Work is Distributed
Another important goal of the legislation is fairness, ensuring that all New Yorkers share in the work that will be generated. The cleanup of the World Trade Center site, despite its tremendous successes, has been criticized for the lack of participation by minority- and women-owned construction contractors (MWBEs). As redevelopment work continues, this criticism must be addressed.
|CCA would demand that the city hire only contractors with excellent safety records
The CCA would require the city and its contractors to establish up-front goals for the employment of MWBEs, document their efforts to reach out to them, and report publicly on their success. It would also require the city to hire only contractors that have a history of working with MWBEs.
These provisions have won the praise of the National Hispanic Business Group. Gilbert Rivera, the group's chair, writes: "Since minority- and women-owned businesses did not have a real chance to participate in the cleanup of the World Trade Center, I am pleased to see that the city and state are determined to promote fairness as well as speed and safety in the redevelopment of the entire downtown area."
In fact, the CCA is supported by a wide range of business, labor, environmental, minority, and civic groups. Many have written and spoken to Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Speaker Sheldon Silver urging the bill's passage.
Association for a Better New York (ABNY)
Association of the Bar of the City of New York
Alliance for Downtown New York
American Planning Association, Metro Chapter
Asian-American Business Development Center
Building Construction Trades Council (BCTC)
Building Trades Employers' Association (BTEA)
Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc.
Community Board One
Community Board Two
Jamaica Business Resource Center
Minority Business Leadership Council
National Association of Minority Contractors, NYS Chapter
National Hispanic Business Group
New York Building Congress
New York League of Conservation Voters
Non-Traditional Employment for Women
100 Black Men of New York
Partnership for New York City
Professional Women in Construction
Real Estate Board of New York
Regional Association of Small Contractors
Wall Street Rising
Women's City Club of New York
With construction for the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan scheduled to begin later this year, the city needs the legislation passed in this Albany session. Letters in support of the proposed legislation can help make this happen.
To lend your voice in favor of passage of the CCA, contact your senator or assemblyman today.
Letters of support can be sent to the following addresses:
|Senator Joseph Bruno
43rd Senate District
Room 909 Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
New York State Assembly
Room 932 Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12248
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Artisan Breads Every Day, challah bread, Easter, egg dying, Egypt, Exodus, Israelites, Manna, Peter Reinhart, poppy seed bread, poppy seed challah, sabbath dinner, sesame seed bread, sesame seed challah, twelve tribes of Israel
Just after getting back from our trip to the States, Easter had arrived!
The husband unit and Mei spent the morning dying Easter eggs with a neat little Sesame Street kit that would allow you to transform the eggs into the main Sesame Street characters – and while it is a kind of cheap kit with cardboard cut-outs that require basically no skill, they still turned out really cute! Last year, we were in the States for Easter and Mei didn’t color any eggs, being all of four months old, but dressed up in a cute little denim dress and watched her cousins run from the sofa to the planters to the door frames, “finding” plastic eggs of varying size filled with anything from change to bits of candy and giggling.
So this year, it was fun for her to watch Daddy dip the eggs into the dyes and once they were dry, help to peel and stick on stickers and set them on their little cardboard platforms and “become” Cookie Monster, Elmo, Oscar, Abby Cadabby and Big Bird! She giggled with delight and enjoyed every step of the process. We had even bought her Elmo shaped Easter eggs to fill and hide but she was more interested in carrying them around and putting them in and out of her toy box then finding them – so we will save that part of Easter for next year.
While they were busy with the Easter eggs, I was busy braiding loaves of challah bread. Challah is a bread made with a large number of eggs and presented in two loaves at the beginning of the three Sabbath meals (Friday night, Saturday lunch, and late Saturday afternoon). The two loaves symbolize when the Manna fell from the heavens when the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. THe manna would fall the day before the Sabbath and each loaf was woven with six strands so that each of the loaves would have twelve bumps that represent each of the twelve tribes of Israel. The loaves are braided to symbolize love, and typically contain three, four or six strands while the loaves braided with three and five strands symbolize truth, peace and justice.
Often, if you are buying challah bread you will see the braided six strand loaves sprinkled with either sesame seeds or poppy seeds. Challah bread can be sweet with extra added honey if you like, or with just a touch of honey, it is just a very nice, somewhat dense loaf that is great for toasting, making into sandwiches or using for french toast. I absolutely love a good loaf of challah bread with almost anything. Today, I took what was left of the loaf and served it as a side to the tortelloni soup we made for lunch – and either which way, it was tasty! It would even make for a great bread for bread pudding!
This recipe requires between 8-10 eggs by weight and more for the two egg washes it endures before being baked. Just for decorative fancy, I chose to sprinkle my loaves with a combination of poppy and sesame seeds and it looked just festive enough to bring a smile each morning when we cut a slice. Even Mei would see us eating a slice of the challah bread and demand a piece for each hand after her morning banana! On any other day, she wouldn’t even bother with whatever we have chosen to have for breakfast, sticking with her banana and Special K cereal.
This is a great everyday loaf, but also great for adorning any holiday table! I chose to make one four braided loaf and a five braided loaf just for kicks and the loaves braid easily and rise quite a bit more than I expected! There is just something exciting about watching your loaves proof, then bake up golden, delicious and filling your house with a very house-warming scent with the first crack of the oven door. Enjoy this loaf, it takes a bit more work to shape, but it is a very impressive looking loaf in the end!
Ingredients: from Peter Reinhart’s “Artisan Breads Every Day”
- 2-1/4 C (18oz /510g) lukewarm water (about 95F or 35C)
- 1-1/2 TBS (0.5oz / 14g) instant yeast
- 8-10 egg yolks (6 oz / 170g), depending on weight
- 5 TBS (2.5oz / 71g) vegetable oil
- 6 TBS (3oz / 85g) sugar or 4-1/2 TBS honey or agave nectar
- 1 TBS (0.75oz / 21g) vanilla extract (optional)
- 7-1/2 C (34 oz/ 964g) unbleached bread flour
- 2-1/2 tsp (0.66oz / 19g) salt, or 4 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 1 egg white or whole egg, for egg wash
- 2 TBS water, for egg wash
- 2 TBS poppy seeds, sesame seeds or combination for garnish (optional)
Combine the water and yeast in a mixing bowl and stir with a whisk to dissolve. Add the egg yolks, oil, sugar, and vanilla and whisk lightly to break up the egg yolks, then add the flour and salt. If using a mixer, use the paddle attachment and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes. If mixing by hand, use a large spoon and stir for about 2 minutes. The dough should be coarse and shaggy. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium-low speed, or continue to mix by hand, using a large, wet spoon, for 4 minutes.
Use a bowl scraper to transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface, then dust the top of the dough with flour. Lightly knead for 1-2 minutes, adding more flour as needed to prevent sticking. The dough should be soft, supple, and tacky but not sticky. Form the dough into a ball, place it in a clean, lightly oiled bowl, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Immediately refrigerate the dough overnight or for up to 4 days. It will double in size as it cools. (If you plan to bake the dough in batches over different days, you can portion the dough and place it into two or more oiled bowls at this stage.)
On Baking Day
Remove the dough from the refrigerator about 2 hours and 10 minutes before you plan to bake. Transfer it to a lightly floured work surface and cut it into the desired number of pieces to make strands for braiding, making sure all of the pieces are the same weight. Flatten each piece with your hand, then roll the pieces into a cigar or torpedo shape. Afer doing this with each piece, return to the first one and roll it out into a rope, 10-14 inches long (the bigger the piece of dough, the longer the rope) Make sure each rope is the same length.
You can make braided breads with 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 strands – or more. The most important principle in braiding loaves is to be sure each strand is the same weight and length. If you don’t have a scale, estimate the size as closely as possible. Also, keep in mind that the position numbers refer to the actual position of the strands on the counter, starting from your left, rather than to the particular strands; in other words the number of a given strand changes as it is moved during the braiding process. To form the strands, use the same gentle rocking motion as for shaping baguettes. For all braids, place the prettiest side up when you transfer to the baking sheet, then cover and proof.
2-Braid Loaf: lay two strands of equal weight and length on the work surface, perpendicular to one another and crossed in the center. Take both ends of the strand that’s underneath and cross them over to the opposite sides. Cross the ends of the other strand in the same way. Continue crossing and alternating until you get to the end of the strands, then pinch the tips together at each end to seal off the ends. Lay the braid on its side.
3-Braid Loaf: lay 3 strands of equal weight and length on the work surface, side by side, parallel to one another. Beginning int he middle of the loaf, overlap one of the outside strands over the middle strand, then take the opposite outside strand and cross it over the new middle strand. Continue this pattern until you get to the ends of the strands, then pinch the tips together to seal. Rotate the loaf so the unbraided side is facing you, then repeat the pattern on that end.
4-Braid Loaf: connect 4 strands of equal weight and length at one end, spreading the other ends out with the tips facing you. From the left, number the strands 1, 2, 3, and 4. Follow this pattern: 4 over 2, 1 over 3, and 2 over 3. Repeat until you get to the ends of the strands, then pinch the tips together to seal.
5-Braid Loaf: connect 5 strands of equal weight and length at one end, spreading th other ends out with the tips facing you. From the left, number the strands 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Follow this pattern: 1 over 3, 2 over 3, and 5 over 2. Repeat until you get to the ends of the strands, then pinch the tips together to seal.
6-Braid Loaf: connect 6 strands of equal weight and length at one end, spreading th other ends out with the tips facing you. From the left, number the strands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 and bring strand 6 over strand 1 to build up the end of the loaf. Strand 5 has now become the new strand 5, and the old strand 6 is now strand 1. Now follow this pattern: 2 over 6, 1 over 3, 5 over 1 and 6 over 4. Repeat this pattern until you get to the ends of the strands, then pinch the tips together to seal.
Once the loaves are braided, transfer them to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Make an egg wash by combining the egg white (or a whole egg) and the 2 TBS of water and whisking briskly until thoroughly combined. Brush the entire visible surface of the loaves with the egg wash, then refrigerate any remaining egg wash and let the loaves rise, uncovered, at room temperature for about 1 hour; they won’t rise very much during this time.
Brush with the egg wash again, then sprinkle on the optional seeds. Let the loaves rise at room temperature for about 1 hour, or until increased to about 1-1/2 times their original size.
About 15 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 350F (177C) or 300F (149C) for a convection oven.
Bake for about 20 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for another 15-30 minutes, until the loaves sound hollow when thumped on the bottom and the internal temperature is about 190F/ 88C in the center. If you used a whole egg in the egg wash, the crust will get darker than with an egg white wash; don’t be fooled into thinking the bread is done until it passes the thump and temperature test. THe crust of the loaf will seem hard when it comes out of the oven, but it will soften as it cools. Cool on a wire rack for at least 45 minutes before slicing or serving.
** If you want to use whole eggs instead of yolks in the dough, reduce the water by 2 TBS per egg. The yolks are the key to the attractive color and also make a major contribution to the soft texture because they add fat and lecithin, which tenderize the bread. THe whites add protein; while that’s a good thing, they also dry out the bread. Also, feel free to add another TBS or so of honey or sugar if you prefer a sweeter bread.
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Okay. So I am thinking on listening audio books on a smartphone (or maybe it can be a dumbphone too!) but I am not committed to any of them yet. Remote control is crucial so I can seek rewind and forward in tracks.
I only want to shed some light on the formats of data the various devices use, namely:
- Apple (iPhone and iPod Touch)
- Android devices such as:
- Sony Ericsson
The question is if there is a common format for the remote controls all these use or are they different? Especially if I want to buy a third party In-Line Microphone set which is of course better.
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The Model 272 is designed to make the most efficient use of water. Smaller droplet sizes in the discharge pattern mean that the water will absorb more BTU’s (British Thermal Units) than a solid stream, cooling the fire faster.
For years, people have been instructed to put their finger over the nozzle of our Model 240 2 1/2 gallon pressurized water to create a more effective stream. The Model 272 nozzle and application wand makes this unnecessary and creates a far more efficient spray than your finger ever could.
The application wand allows the operator to keep his hands away from the heat so they can move the spray into the fire and around obstacles. This enables him to get into places that are still glowing. This makes it an ideal choice for wood processing where scrap lumber, chips, pallets and so on may be involved with an incipient fire.
In various testing that has been performed by Amerex, the Model 272 was capable of putting out UL 2A crib fires easily in the hands of completely inexperienced people. Several tests proved that less than 2 1/2 gallons were required by novice operators.
Compared side by side with a standard Model 240 extinguisher, the Model 272 proved to be easier to use and more effective.
The Model 240 still has its place, particularly when range is a factor. The Model 272 has a more constant range throughout the discharge but will only reach effectively to a distance of 10 to 12 feet as compared to the Model 240 with an initial range of 40 feet.
It all comes down to options for your customers based upon their hazards, training and experience. If you have customers in the wood processing industry, talk to them, show them the Model 272 and find out what they think. You might be surprised at their reaction.
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Through blogs and comments, patients and experts explore what it takes to find good health care and make the most of it.
Trudy Lieberman | January 21, 2011
Someone I know who is just over 65 received an unlikely solicitation'from The Scooter Store located in New Braunfels, Texas, on Independence Drive no less. The outside of the envelope promised a free personal mobility assessment. This person is totally mobile and hardly needs a scooter.
The solicitation had the flavor of those letters enticing seniors to buy Medicare supplement policies and Medicare Advantage plans. The business reply envelope said in big, bold, black letters that an immediate response was requested. That's the same kind of language that works so well for sellers of Medicare plans. Inside was the pitch: People are reluctant to use mobility assistance because they think they will become dependent on it. But a power chair or a scooter can make them more independent than they ever dreamed.
To help them reach a decision, The Scooter Store enclosed a free personal mobility assessment so the recipient of the pitch could judge for him or herself whether a scooter would be right for them. The questions probed whether the person has trouble getting to the kitchen or dining facility for a meal, has fallen in the past year, has trouble dressing, feels like they are a bother to others or feels left out because they can't get together with family and friends.
Presumably if you answer yes to any of these questions, you need a scooter that The Scooter Store is happy to sell. An expert mobility consultant, aka a salesperson, will discuss your needs, answer questions and send a free puzzles-and-games booklet, which the letter says is 'filled with hours of fun.'' Along with the booklet you get information about how The Scooter Store can help you regain your freedom and independence. Sending for the booklet sets someone up for a sales pitch.
What's really amazing, said the letter, is that you may be able to get a power chair or scooter at little to no cost to you with Medicare and private insurance.'' Uh-oh, I thought another seller trying to create a need and demand for a product and sticking Medicare with the bill. Power scooters can cost upwards of $700 and not many seniors have that kind of money lying around even if they do need help.
The solicitation raises a large question: Do pitches like these saddle Medicare with costs for services that may not be needed? Clearly, some people do need durable medical equipment, the Medicare term for things oxygen, hospital beds and scooters. Others don't. But if people manage to get payment for these things when they don't really have to have them, that adds more costs to Medicare. Health care providers, including those selling medical equipment, have often found all sorts of creative ways to elude whatever cost controls Medicare has attempted to put in place.
Selling medical equipment and creating demand is not much different from TV ads drumming up business for drug companies by suggesting to consumers they consult their doctors about this drug or that for illnesses they may or may not have. Studies show that those commercials work. When consumers ask for the drugs, their doctors usually comply. The marketing strategies of the world's biggest drug companies target the healthy and the well, is how authors Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels put it in their illuminating book Selling Sickness published a few years ago.
They argue that the ups and downs of daily life have been transformed into frightening conditions and ordinary people are turned into patients.
The Medicare program is fragile. Its finances are weak. The day may come when politicians have to cut benefits or make them available only to a few. So a word to the wise: Think carefully before falling for some sales pitch for scooters, medicines, or anything else you may not need. Think about what the seller is trying to do. If you get some marginal benefit now, it may mean that a benefit you really do need later won't be there.
More Blog Posts by Trudy Lieberman
Trudy Lieberman, a journalist for more than 40 years, is an adjunct associate professor of public health at Hunter College in New York City. She had a long career at Consumer Reports specializing in insurance, health care, health care financing and long-term care. She is a longtime contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review and blogs for its website, CJR.org, about media coverage of health care, Social Security and retirement. As a William Ziff Fellow at the Center for Advancing Health, she contributes regularly to the Prepared Patient Blog. Follow her on twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.
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Ethio-Paragliding Tours Reestablished in 2009 and registered under the Ethiopian
Ministry of Trade & Industry, and additionally licensed to operate by the Ethiopian
Ministry of Culture & Tourism, Ethio-Paragliding Tours
team of highly ethical and skilled staff with long list of satisfied customers specializing
in the tourism industry.
Earlier known as Abyssinia, Ethiopia is to this day referred to as The Land of 13 Months of Sunshine. Same signifying the 365 days in a year divided into 12 months of 30 days each and a thirteenth month of 4/5 days, it is also indicative of the fact that within the territory of Ethiopia at any given time, there is always one region with a warm sunshine while it could be raining everywhere else.
Altitude ranging from 110 meters below sea level at Dalol in the Danakil Depression to 4620 meters above sea level at Dashen Peak in Simen Mountains of North Ethiopia, ethnically so diverse (80 ethnic groups with approx. 200 dialects), Ethiopia is the only country to have been briefly occupied but never colonized.
Amharic being the official language, Oromigna and Tigrigna are also widely spoken.
English is primarily widely spoken from foreign-languages category.
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Wool coats for men are sold in many different styles that are for casual wear or for dress. The styles that are made can be as varied as those for women. There are single-breasted and double-breasted styles that are typically charcoal grey or black, but other colors of outerwear can be found. If the outerwear is made of only wool, it is considered all-wool, but sometimes nylon, polyester, and other fibers are added to it. Styles for men, boys, and tall men can be found in department stores before and during the winter months, or they are available year round at websites. Boys’ coats are more difficult to find in this material, mainly because boys tend to get their coats dirty and they need to be washed. Boys may have a dress coat made of this material and a washable one of another fabric for play. Outerwear for tall men may be sold with regular sizes, or it can also be found at specialty stores who carry clothing specifically for big and tall men.
Dress coats for men are often three-quarter length that are large enough to fit over a suit jacket, and they are often in black or charcoal grey. They can be dressed down to wear with a heavy sweater, but they may be too big to wear with just a shirt, depending on the style. Most dress styles are simple single-breasted ones with button closures. Some men’s coats can have a lot of style, especially designer ones that may have leather trim or other design along with the wool fabric of the outerwear.
There are numerous casual styles of outerwear for men, such as the traditional pea coat. The material is typically black or navy, and it is double-breasted. Some styles have shoulder epaulets and adjustable button cuffs, and even those without the epaulets have side hand pockets. This style is often shorter than many other men’s coats except for the bomber jacket that is waist-length and extends to just below the waist. The bomber jacket usually has a woolen woven band at the bottom of it that keeps the wind and cold out. Most closures are by zipper, and they often have large zippered front pockets as well. Both of these types of outerwear may have quilted linings for added warmth.
Other casual styles include the wool parka which is known for its superior warmth. Coats of this style often have a zipper closure with a heat-capturing flap over the zipper. A hood is part of this coat, and many have button attachments that can be removed when weather is warmer. This outerwear depends on the warmth of the wool, so it may or may not have a thick inner lining of quilted material. Many men wear wool c for sporting, such as hunting or fishing because of its warmth. They are the most casual styles of any men’s outerwear, and they may be made in red plaid or other bright colors. Others are olive green, brown, and darker colors that blend in with the winter environment. The Mackinaw Cruiser coat was originally designed for timber cruisers who worked in the woods and is made of Mackinaw wool. It will absorb up to 30 percent of its weight in water before it becomes damp. This style has numerous pockets with snaps, utility slots on the upper pocket, and six buttons on the front. For added warmth, it has button closures at the wrists. It is available in charcoal grey. A cape coat is made of this same wool, but it is specifically made to be worn between Fall and Winter, so it is not as warm as a coat that would be worn in frigid areas. There are hundreds of styles of coats for regular sized men and tall men in addition to these.
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How harmful are baby vaccines?
Less harmful than the diseases they catch without the,
Statistics are very easily used one way or the other, however in the debate on vaccines you need to look at the facts over time. The rates in death and autism have traumatically increased since the introduction of vaccinations. Japan for example until recently did not vaccinate babies or children at all, they infant mortality rate was zero. One example. Also if you look at what the vaccines are made up of, ie. live animal blood in which the virus is inoculated, aluminium which serves as a preservative agent. These two alone are not recognized by the body, let alone the infantile body of which before the age of 12 months is unable to fight these foreign bodies. So why vaccinate a perfectly healthy baby, especially a breast fed baby that is being given all that is required for good health. And for the non-breast fed baby, well we all know that a little love goes a long way in the development of a strong and healthy infant. The links from vaccinations to autism are too strong, too often and too great to ignore. Do your research. Look into the pharmaceutical side of things, how much money is inadvertently side lined to governments, who sits on the boards of which companies gaining shares, who puts out and pays for the mis-information that goes into schools. Finally tell me, why and how, can a democratic government system say to parents that 'you must vaccinate your child'. Who wins there, what about choice? What about some clear information. Once you dear reader find out exactly what they put into those vaccines you will be horrified! And just like the food industry it ain't pretty.
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SAN DIEGO (KGTV/CNN) - A group of American sailors is suing Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company, saying it lied to them about radiation dangers after the 2011 tsunami.
The eight sailors say they've been sickened by radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster. They were delivering aid from the USS Ronald Reagan, off the coast of Japan.
The sailors say the Japanese government knew how dangerous the situation was, and never warned them about the risks.
"I just want to get it out. I'm not after this for any financial compensation. I just want the truth to be told, because they were lied to. And that's something you shouldn't lie about. This is peoples' lives. We're not robots on a ship," said former sailor Lindsay Cooper.
An attorney for the eight says Japan should pay for the illnesses the sailors are dealing with. but experts say it can be difficult to make a direct connection between this kind of radiation exposure and illness.
The complaint seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages for each of the plaintiffs from TEP-CO, which is owned by the Japanese government.
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Monday, Third Week in Advent
Isaiah 29:17-24 (NRSV)
Shall not Lebanon in a very little while
become a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field be regarded as a forest?
On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a scroll,
and out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
For the tyrant shall be no more,
and the scoffer shall cease to be;
all those alert to do evil shall be cut off
those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate,
and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right.
Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
No longer shall Jacob be ashamed,
no longer shall his face grow pale.
For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
And those who err in spirit will come to understanding,
and those who grumble will accept instruction.
Ah! I am so excited about the promise that it is God who supplies "fresh JOY in the Lord!"
Yesterday, in our church, we lit the Candle of joy on our advent wreath.
The more I think about it, the more I realize what a precious gift joy truly is...
See, I have heard it said that happiness depends upon our circumstances, but joy is a gift from God that can never be taken away!
Joy endures in difficult circumstances. Joy perseveres even in hardship. Joy smiles when it wants to frown. Joy is a present that can be re-gifted time and time again during this CHRISTmas season! And joy never runs out! It is always renewed every morning!
Hallelujah! Isn't joy grand!
On this day, if you are suffering under the dark clouds of a negative and despairing spirit during this holy day season, I speak God's JOY into your life in the Name of Jesus!
You don't have to wait for your troubles to cease or your circumstance to change, you can CHOOSE JOY. You can smile in spite of it all. You can turn your face and heart to God who loves you, has made provision for your salvation, and has a good plan for your life to help and not harm you. You can sanctify God's Name, by putting Him first and foremost in your life!
As you look to God, who is the start and finish of our faith, God will renew your joy! Hallelujah!
Let us pray: Oh God, it's getting on towards CHRISTmas! I want to be joyful at your birthday party! Please renew my joy in you. Please help me to choose joy despite my circumstances. Please help me to put a smile on my face and my trust in you. Since you gave Jesus to live, die, and rise again to forgive my sin and gift me with eternal life, I know that I have a reason to choose joy. Please, help me to walk in joy today and always, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
If you have questions about how to become a friend and follower of Jesus, please see the devotion entitled, “Come to Jesus” @ http://bit.ly/JVhaLta
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British police have decided not to press any charges against the elderly couple who had been unknowingly cultivating a huge cannabis plant in their garden.
The plant was seized Monday. The police later posted a picture on Twitter with comments: "Elderly couple bought shrub at car boot sale," adding that it was the "biggest cannabis plant we had seen!!"
The police picture posted on Twitter shows a fully grown shrub with thick foliage in the front garden.
A police spokeswoman told CNN: "The plant was mistakenly bought by the elderly couple. We will not be pressing any charges. We have seized it and will dispose it." She also said that unlike what has been reported in some newspapers there was no "raid."' "The property was not raided," she said.
The police tweet, however, led to many comical reactions including on newspapers sites that carried the story. A Mail Online reader commented: "Don't buy 'pot' plants at car boot sales! Simples."
Cannabis is classified as a Class B drug in Britain under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The maximum penalty for supplying or producing cannabis is 14 years imprisonment and/or unlimited fine.
The cannabis plant has psychoactive compounds with mood and behavior-altering properties. The plant is used both for making recreational drugs and medicine. Organized crime gangs have often used in-house cannabis farms to produce the high-strength "skunk" version of the drug.
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In an environment where just keeping the violence and negativity at bay would be an accomplishment, Major Robert James “Jim” Beach offers guidance and a chance for self-reliance to the inmates in his kitchen.
A combination of character traits — toughness, fairness, tenacity — have served Beach well in his career as Director of Food Services at the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office. His tell-it-like-it-is demeanor and sense of humor don't hurt, either.
He started working in law enforcement years ago, when Beach's future father-in-law told him, “If you're going to date my daughter, you need a real job.” At the time, 1983, in Slidell, LA, Beach was perfectly content working as a tennis instructor, but took a job as a deputy if it meant he could keep seeing his now-wife, Angie.
This step, along with a background in food (his father, a young widower, used to take Beach and his siblings to work with him at the A & P, where he was a manager), would change Beach's life — and the lives of many others — forever.
“One day, I was just getting off work, and the sheriff said, ‘You know something about food, don't you?’” Beach recalls. Eventually, he was in charge of foodservice for 7,000 inmates in 9 jails making up the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Department.
His first priority in the kitchen, “after making sure the inmates didn't kill each other,” he says, was cleanliness.
What’s on Beach’s Plate?
Annual Budget: $9,000,000
Annual Budget: $9,000,000
Meals Served Per Day: 22,000 (also
Inmates: 2,500 (7,000 before Katrina;
currently adding more)
Sites: 5 jails (12 jails before Katrina;
Staff: 800 (1,500 before Katrina)
“It was about one step away from being closed by the health department,” Beach says, describing a kitchen that wasn't cleaned properly, to the point where it was overrun with roaches and vermin. He looked at the daunting surroundings and just started where he was.
Flash forward almost 30 years to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and all of its devastation — coupled with a harrowing evacuation of prisoners and staff. Beach took the same approach of “just starting, just getting to work” in the overwhelming mess:
“When we came back, the 52,000 square-foot building was under a foot and half of debris and trash,” Beach says. “In the kitchen, it was overwhelming. Someone looked at me and said, ‘Where do we start?’ I pointed to my feet and said, ‘We start right here.’”
Back when he began at the department, “starting right here” in terms of the kitchen meant putting into place a back-to-basics training system. Along the way he fostered an atmosphere of respect and pride.
“I work firm but fair. I show what I expect and then demand that they do it. Most of these guys yearn for leadership. They never had a father figure,” Beach says (Beach has two sons of his own, Max and Sam). “They've never had anybody say, ‘Son, it's time to get up and go to work.’ They need this.”
Beach starts with the basics for training in the kitchen: how to wash your hands; how to keep yourself presentable; how to keep your uniform clean. Then, inmates learn such skills as hot and cold food safety, how to calibrate a thermometer and how to store food properly in a freezer.
“I give them a booklet, and if they can't read it, then I will read it to them or another inmate will,” Beach says. “Then, they take a test. When they get the diploma, they can say that they actually did something. They send that diploma home sometimes.”
Beach teaches the inmates how to get a job in foodservice when they get out. “I teach them how to sit at an interview, how to look someone in the eye. The food industry is huge in New Orleans,” he says.
Over the years, working with Dietitian Mary Goodwin, MPH, RD, LDN, CPPB, Beach has also worked toward improving the quality of food to the point where the vast majority of complaints are that the inmates want more food. Goodwin and Beach have also worked to cut sodium and have created a heart-healthy menu.
When Beach first took over, institutional-grade meats — the true worst of the worst — were being bought and served. “A lot of people think inmates are just supposed to have bread and water,” Beach says. The gristly meat was bad, but Beach wasn't aiming to go to premium meats, either. He just wanted something better.
Beach worked with Goodwin to change the bid specifications, eventually getting better meats and very good fruits and vegetables, working in his “start right here” style — by starting on the first page of the bids and getting to work.
First Person Singular...
“I have two kids. If you have kids, picture the way they fight when they don’t get a piece of pie exactly the same size. Now multiply that times a hundred million.
“Most of these guys have never held a job, they’ve just been running drugs, out hustling on the street, so they don’t have the work ethic that you or me have. You can’t just tell them to get to work. You have to get down there and work with them; show them how.
“Most inmates didn’t graduate from high school. They have never felt like they’re a ‘big deal.’
“We keep the knives strapped onto the tables. In a restaurant or another setting, if you lose a knife, say it accidentally gets thrown away, it’s not that big a deal. But here, if a knife is missing, nobody leaves until we find it.
First Person Singular...
“We used to have recipes on blue index cards in a box. Mary Goodwin and I developed our own recipes and we took out a lot of salt, ending up with a heart healthy menu. A lot of our clientele is African-American, and they are predisposed to hypertension. We want to teach good eating habits that maybe they’ll keep when they get out, maybe not.
Major Beach On Katrina:
“Being sheriff’s deputies, we don’t evacuate. I called Mary to make sure we had enough supplies and sent my family to a relative’s house in Mississippi. The water was rising in the streets, but it still wasn’t a big deal. We never panicked throughout the entire thing. We went to generator power and started slicing every piece of meat for sandwiches. We had plenty of bread.
“Then the power went out completely. Water was coming up to the edge of the loading dock. Then the roof started peeling off like a can of sardines. We put the food higher and higher up on the shelves (not realizing that it would ultimately all be lost).
“The water in the kitchen came up to right above my knees and I’m 6’1”. By then, probably 1,200 people had waded in from the street to take refuge. We slept out on the veranda.
“The inmates were very upset. They rioted in five of the jails. I lost 30 lbs. in five days. I call it ‘the Katrina Diet.’ It was very stressful times. I’m very proud of the kitchen staff and what they did in the days after the storm. They were heroic.
“The Department of Corrections came down en masse with buses and boats and bulldozers, and we had to move 7,000 inmates, ten or 12 at a time, to the Broad Street Overpass to be evacuated.
“We came back a week later and my home was destroyed. We went from the Jetsons to the Flintstones overnight. There was no way of contacting anybody and we stayed in a shelter for three weeks. We got tired of that, so we went home and my two sons, Sam and Max, started gutting the house. The Marines helped. All of our stuff was piled in the backyard. There were no doors or floors.
“I always thought the Beaches were a tenacious bunch. I never thought I could’ve lived through something like that and not come out crazy. You rely on your friends and family.”
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Bill Would Extend Unemployment Benefits for Sandy Victims
The newly introduced bull would extend benefits and help cover the cost of unemployment for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
U.S. Senator Frank Launtenberg, D-NJ, introduced a bill Tuesday that would extend unemployment benefits to workers who lost their jobs due to Hurricane Sandy, and also help relieve the burden on businesses for disaster-related claims, his office announced.
The Superstorm Sandy Unemployment Relief Act is being co-sponsored by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. The bill is designed to mirror aid provided by Congress to those who lose their jobs following Hurricane Katrina, Lautenberg said in a release.
According to a release, the “Superstorm Sandy Unemployment Relief Act” would:
- provide an additional 13 weeks of Disaster Unemployment Assistance, or DUA, benefits to eligible individuals
- provide federal funds to states to cover the cost of paying unemployment benefits to individuals who lost their jobs because of the disaster.
“Superstorm Sandy continues to exact a heavy toll on families and businesses in New Jersey and neighboring states. We're seeing businesses forced to shutter or scale back operations, and many workers have lost their jobs,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “While the state fights back from this devastating storm, this legislation would help workers and business owners get back on their feet.”
DUA benefits are entirely federally funded and are available to those who have become unemployed as a direct result of a major disaster but do not qualify for state benefits. Federal law currently provides for up to 26 weeks of DUA benefits, and Lautenberg's bill would extend the benefits for up to 39 weeks for victims of Sandy.
In addition, Lautenberg's legislation would address the strain placed on state unemployment trust funds in the wake of Sandy. While disaster unemployment benefits are covered by the federal government, regular unemployment compensation is funded by businesses through payroll taxes. Businesses in disaster-affected states may face increased payroll taxes to cover the additional workers receiving unemployment benefits as a result of Sandy, Lautenberg said.
This bill would help to prevent that additional burden on businesses by transferring federal funds to unemployment trust funds in disaster-affected states.
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The Top 10 Forensic Colleges offer Certificate Programs, Associates Degrees, Bachelor’s Degrees and Master’s Degrees. Any of these colleges would be a great investment in anyone’s forensic education.
5. Saint Leo University Online
St. Leo is our #5 choice on our top ten list! St. Leo University offers a masters degree in criminal justice. If your looking for forensic science schools and would like to merge it with another subject or just further your degree, then this school is for you!
6. Walden University
Walden University is our #6 choice on our top ten list! Walden offers an array of programs highly accredited by online learning organizations. They offer masters programs in general and specialized degree programs. If you are looking for a masters in forensic science, you should check into this school!
7. DeVry University
Coming up in seventh place is National University in La Jolla California. This university is dedicated to creating life long learning opportunities available and to challenging a diverse student population. The aim is to facilitate educational access and academic excellence through management.
8. Florida Tech University Online
George Washington University in Washington DC has an undergraduate population of 9,700 students. This is one of the few private schools to have this many students enrolled at one time. Theoretical foundation is combined with practical research and experiential learning activities are incorporated into each academic program.
9. Loyola University
At number nine, Baylor University in Waco Texas is founded on the belief that God’s nature is made known through revealed and discovered truth. The understanding of God, humanity and nature is derived from multiple sources. This is the largest private, Baptist-affiliated research university in the world, by enrollment. The community of Baylor is expected to support their mission of the pursuit of knowledge being strengthened by the conviction that the truth has its ultimate source in God.
10. Ashworth College
Rounding off the list at number ten is Tiffin University in Tiffin Ohio. This is a place where the American heartland work ethic is evident and where there is value added for the students. Many of the students are among their families first generation to attend college.
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Master of Professional Studies in Supply Chain Management
Growing Complexities in Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Supply chain managers oversee some of the most essential business processes affecting the profitability of corporations today. These managers are responsible for synchronizing the flow of products, information, and funds between their organizations and both their suppliers and customers in a way that adds value for the end consumers of their products. In today’s turbocharged competitive environment, supply chain managers are increasingly part of their organization’s strategic management teams that work to competitively position their organization and their supply chain in a global marketplace.
As logistics and supply chain networks become increasingly complex, with tighter deadlines and greater financial risks from disruptions, supply chain professionals can benefit from additional education and credentials to assist them in their current position or to advance their careers in logistics or supply chain management. A master’s degree in supply chain management can give you the higher-order skills and abilities to think in tandem about the people, processes, and technologies required for world-class integrated supply chain management.
Why Supply Chain Management at Penn State
Penn State World Campus has partnered with Penn State’s Smeal College of Business — ranked #1 in supply chain education — to offer this 2-year, 30-credit online master’s degree in supply chain management. As a student in the Master of Professional Studies in Supply Chain Management degree program, you will study proven theory, industry best practices, and new technologies in supply chain management. Upon graduation, you can be prepared to:
- design and manage an effective supply chain
- improve the operational efficiencies of a supply chain
- understand and apply supply chain analytics
- conduct demand forecasting, aggregate planning, and sales and operations planning for a supply chain
- apply project management techniques in a logistics context
- understand the implications of supply chain initiatives in terms of key financial performance metrics
- recognize and evaluate supply chain vulnerabilities and formulate approaches to mitigate supply chain risk
- assess fundamental dimensions of logistics strategy, innovation, transformation, and organizational leadership
A comprehensive industry report released by Gartner ranked Penn State’s Smeal College of Business as the leading supply chain program in the United States for 2011 based on industry value, program depth, and program scope. In 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranked the Penn State supply chain/ogistics graduate faculty as the fourth best supply chain faculty in the nation. Penn State’s Smeal College of Business is AACSB accredited and along with the College’s reputation for supply chain education, employers recognize the very high quality of this master’s degree program.
Because the 12-credit Graduate Certificate in Supply Chain Management consists of the first three courses of the master's program, you may also apply for the certificate if you would like to add this quality credential to your transcript even before you complete the full master’s.
Who Should Apply?
The Master of Professional Studies in Supply Chain Management degree program is designed for professionals who want to attain an advanced degree while continuing to work for their respective organizations. Although many individuals in the program have supply chain experience, the program is also appropriate if your education and/or experience may be in disciplines such as the sciences, engineering, or the liberal arts.
Career Opportunities for Graduates
Organizations in virtually every industry, including nonprofit and government sectors, use supply chains in their daily operations. As a graduate of this degree program you can be prepared for a variety of upper-level supply chain management positions such as:
- director of supply chain operations
- senior supply chain management analyst
- performance improvement senior manager
- supply chain technical analyst
- director of purchasing
- logistics management analyst
- commodity manager
Online Education at Penn State
Penn State has a history of 100+ years of distance education and more than a decade of experience in online learning. We strive to create an online learning environment that brings you as close to the face-to-face experience as possible. Learn more about Penn State World Campus.
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The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new-home sales dipped 0.3 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 368,000. That's down marginally from the 369,000 pace in September, which was revised lower from an initially reported 389,000.
Sales fell a sharp 32.3 percent in the Northeast and nearly 12 percent in the South. The government said Sandy had a minimal effect on the housing data because it made landfall in the final days of the month. Still, the storm disrupted business activity from North Carolina to Maine.
States outside the area affected by the storm fared better. Sales surged 62.2 percent in the Midwest and were up 8.8 percent in the West.
"Sales probably would have been slightly stronger without the hurricane," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. "Still, the report was disappointing."
Sales were still 17 percent higher in October than the same month in 2011. Even with the gain, new-home sales are well below the annual rate of 700,000 that economists consider healthy.
"Over the past 18 months, new home sales have been on the gentle rising trend although they remain at a very depressed level," said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics.
The modest improvement in the new-home market this year follows other reports that show the housing market starting to recover more than five years after the bubble burst. Home prices are rising, sales are up, and builders are starting work on more new homes and apartments.
The median price of a new home sold in October was $237,700. That's down 4.2 percent from September but 5.7 percent higher than October 2011.
The supply of homes for sale inched up to 147,000, slightly above the lowest level on records dating back to 1967.
The thin supply of homes for sale has helped drive this year's housing rebound. The market has finally started to shed the excess number of homes built during the housing boom.
At the same time, more people are looking to buy or rent a home after living with relatives or friends during and immediately after the Great Recession. And mortgage rates have been near record lows all year, making homes more affordable.
Though new homes represent only a small portion of the housing market, they have a disproportionate impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to statistics from the National Association of Home Builders.
Sales of previously occupied homes are near five-year highs, excluding temporary spikes in 2009 and 2010 when a homebuyer tax credit boosted purchases. Builders, meanwhile, are increasingly confident that the recovery has legs. A measure of their confidence rose to the highest level in six and a half years this month. And builders broke ground on new homes and apartments last month at the fastest pace in more than four years.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, released Tuesday, found that prices rose in most major cities in September compared to August. They rose 3.6 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.
There are still factors dragging on a housing recovery. Many Americans, particularly first-time homebuyers, are unable to qualify for a mortgage or can't afford larger down payments.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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New phone app for 'sweet dreams'
Scots are among the least likely in the UK to have the proverbial sweet dreams, with just 25% telling researchers they enjoy a pleasant sleep.
Prof Richard Wiseman is leading a project using mobile phone technology to try to find the reason why.
The 'DreamON' phone app monitors a person 20 minutes before they want to wake up, with a "soundscape" designed to invoke pleasant scenarios such as lying by the sea or walking in the countryside.
They will then be asked to record their final dream.
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TaraWatch has launched a new petition drive, to appeal to the United Nations to intervene in the Tara situation. Our goal is to reach 1,000,000 signatures, and to submit the petition to the UN Headquarters in New York City. If you are interested in joining this effort, please join TaraWatch USA and email us at email@example.com
TO: THE UNITED NATIONS
The Hill of Tara, Ireland's premier national monument and internationally renowned cultural icon, is being desecrated by construction of the M3 motorway. The works are in breach of international law, which protects this site for humanity, and the United Nations must intervene now. Lying 30 miles north of Dublin, it was Ireland's capital for millennia; where over 142 kings were crowned, dating back to 3,000 BC. Since then, hundreds of monuments were built on the slopes and in the surrounding landscape. Today, the cultural landscape is defined by the remains of a number of defensive Iron Age hillforts which surround the Hill, lying approximately 2-3 miles away.
THE M3 MOTORWAYThe M3 motorway is being built by the Irish Government, in public private partnership with Siac and Ferrovial construction companies, through the centre of this landscape, and a 50 acre interchange is being built 1,000 metres from the summit. Already, dozens of archaeological sites within the landscape have been excavated and demolished, and construction is due to be completed in 2010.
CELEBRITY SUPPORT FOR THE TARAWATCH CAMPAIGN
The campaign to save Tara, and re-route the M3 motorway has reached a critical point. Celebrities such as Bono, Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Gabriel Byrne, Colm Toibin , Louis le Brocquy and Jim Fitzpatrick, supported by hundreds of international experts in Irish history, archaeology and mythology have spoken out against the M3 route. National surveys show that the vast majority of Irish people want Tara protected, and made into a UNESCO site.
Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney said:
If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from pre-historic times up to historic times up to completely recently - it was Tara. I think it literally desecrates an area - I mean the word means to de-sacralise and for centuries the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred ground.
TARA ON ENDANGERED LISTS
The World Monuments Fund, Smithsonian Institution and Sacred Sites International have placed Tara on endangered sites list, and others such as the International Celtic Congress, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Landmarks Foundation, the City of Chicago and the Massachusetts Archaeological Society have issued statements condemning the M3 route.
EUROPEAN COMMISSION v. IRELAND, LAWSUIT
The European Commission is currently taking a lawsuit against Ireland in the European Court of Justice against Ireland, for illegally demolishing the Lismullin national monument, which was discovered in the pathway of the M3 in 2007, after being voted on of the Top Ten Most Important Discoveries in the world in 2007 by Archaeology magazine. The Irish authorities refused to heed the Commission's demand that demolition be halted, and construction is proceeding despite the EU legal action.
DELAY OF UNESCO NOMINATION FOR TARA
The Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, has delayed nomination of the Hill of Tara to become a UNESCO site, until the M3 motorway is complete. UNESCO has stated that it cannot intervene, until Ireland completes the nomination, which was due to take place at the World Heritage Committee Meeting in Seville, in June 2009.
BREACHES OF UN LAW
It is clear that the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage protects all sites of outstanding universal value, even if they are not on the World Heritage List. Other UN agreements, such as the UN Global Compact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both human rights Covenants, and the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples also require that Tara receive the highest level of protection possible.
APPEAL TO UN TO INTERVENE
The only body that can now intervene and save the Hill of Tara is the United Nations. This petition is directed to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, and asks that you intervene in the Tara crisis, and begin a problem-solving initiative, which will protect Tara and allow the M3 to be completed.
The UN must intervene now and enforce UN law, on behalf of the people of Ireland, the Irish Diaspora, and both the global community.
[Please click here to sign]
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP SAVE TARA
Please forward this petition to:
- all of your friends
- local and national Irish cultural groups
- historical and archaeological organisations
- political representatives
WE MUST REACH OUR GOAL OF 1,000,000 signatures by Dec 31, 2009
The Capel Building
Republic of Ireland
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12 Jun 2012
Italian Government Websites Defaced by "GhostShell” Hacker Group
A hacker group calling itself “GhostShell” began a protest against extreme-right nationalism and racism in politics by hacking government websites. And Italy is amongst the first to have public-sector websites attacked as part of a larger campaign called ProjectWestWind.
Hackers defaced the Italian government websites and made them display the group’s credo. They also made usernames, e-mail addresses, names and passwords hashes available to the public.
“As some of you may know (although not nearly as many as it should be), Europe has these past few years been hit by waves of extreme-right nationalism and racism in its political sphere. This includes nationalist political parties like Hungary's ‘Jobbik’, Italy's ‘Lega Nord’ and Finland’s ‘True Finns’,” Echelon, who is thought to be the leader of the group, states in an attempt to explain recent GhostShell actions. “The parties thrive on ignorance and disappointment, and have risen towards power on the wave that was the 2008 economic crisis - just as the NSDAP did during the 30s.”
To date, the group has targeted websites of Comune di San Marzano (sanmarzano-ta.gov.it), IV Circolo C.N.Cesaro (cncesaro.gov.it), primocircolovico.gov.it, donmilaninapoli.gov.it, istitutodenicola.gov.it, cavaprimocircolo.gov.it and itimarconi.gov.it. Hackers have either taken these sites offline, stolen login credentials or put out parts of their database entries.
According to Softpedia, Italy was not the first ProjectWestWind attack, as GhostShell has already put out login credentials connected to a Swedish political party website and to the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (ccbe.eu).
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In this photo taken Dec 19, 2002 and released by press service of Far Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO) the Captain Khlebnikov icebreaker seen somewhere in undisclosed location. The icebreaker carrying over 100 tourists, scientists and journalists on an Antarctic cruise has been successfully moving through ice and is just about 100 meters (yards) away from clear water, its owners said Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/FESCO/HO) ** Editorial use only **
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A Russian tanker carrying fuel for an iced-in Alaska city that without a delivery could run out of crucial supplies before winter's end encountered ice early Friday in the eastern Bering Sea.
The ice was not a surprise. The 370-foot tanker Renda will have to go through more than 300 miles of sea ice to get to Nome, a city of about 3,500 people on the western Alaska coastline that did not get its last pre-winter fuel delivery because of a massive storm.
If the delivery of diesel fuel and unleaded gasoline is not made, the city likely will run short of fuel supplies before another barge delivery can be made in spring.
If the mission is successful, it will be the first time petroleum products have been delivered by sea to a Western Alaska community in winter.
The Coast Guard said the Russian tanker came upon ice about a foot thick very early Friday near Nunivak Island, a large island in the eastern Bering Sea. The tanker is following the Healy, the Coast Guard's only functioning icebreaker - a ship of special design with a reinforced hull made to move through ice.
The icebreaker should have no problem getting through the ice even if it becomes several feet thick, said Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class David Mosley.
"In the worst-case scenario, it might stop and back up and ram their way through the pressure ridges, where it gets really thick," he said.
The icebreaker is creating a path through the ice for the tanker.
The Renda left Russia in mid-December after the barge delivery of 1.6 million gallons of fuel failed and Nome became iced-in for the winter.
The tanker is carrying more than 1 million gallons of diesel fuel loaded in South Korea and 300,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline picked up in Dutch Harbor in southwestern Alaska.
Sitnasuak Native Corp., the company that eventually signed a contract with Vitus Marine LLC to have a tanker delivery, considered flying supplies to Nome but decided against that plan because of the cost and the possibility fuel prices could jump to $9 a gallon. The tanker delivery is expected to be more costly than by barge but not as expensive as air delivery.
The Native corporation is a major fuel supplier to the city, with between 800 and 1,000 customers including the hospital and schools.
"I think everything is going smoothly," Jason Evans, Sitnasuak's board chairman, said Friday afternoon.
The tanker is expected to arrive in Nome early Monday.
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On Fridays, Evan Peterson offers five stories from across the Web that scribes of all stripes should check out. It’s the Week in Writing:
Writers with no power:
With lots of writers being based on the East Coast, this week, a number of columns, blogs, and assignments were put on hold as everyone in the storm’s vicinity attempts to recover from Sandy. Among them:
Sandy inspires a reflection on words:
- Government workers: Washington, D.C. very likely employs more speechwriters than any other city on earth. Most of them work in the government. Not much speaking will be happening as the storm recovery continues.
- TV Writers: David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon hosted their shows without a live audience. Letterman claimed that he was without some of his writers, too. Even telecommuting is only as good as a strong Internet connection.
Robin Hardman, a communications professional in Queens, contemplates how she came to view the word 'disaster' quite differently this week, and how we might better understand the power of a word if it's something we live through.
What to do when the power goes out:
On the other hand, more writing of a different kind may be happening. Number five on BuzzFeed
's list of entertaining things to do when the power goes out is to write a hand-written letter to someone special. Writing down ideas or stories on paper would probably work well, too.
A Sandy-inspired guide to working from home:
An editor at The Atlantic
writes about his 48 hours as a nomad in the wake of the storm, and things you need when working from home—or from a friend's home. Not surprisingly, the first one is strong coffee. Some great ideas are also offered in the comments section.
Advice for National Novel Writing Month:
I covered this event here last year, as well. It's a contest and large-scale participatory event where people try to finish a novel in one month—sort of like a marathon. The challenge is to write a 50,000-word piece of fiction in November. GalleyCat
has a lot of tips here
Evan Peterson is a writer based in Chicago, and the editor of OpenMarkets magazine at CME Group. He's on Twitter at @evanmpeterson.
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When news happens, text BAZ and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email and phone.
No horse meat in Hampshire school meals
PARENTS of schoolchildren in Hampshire are being reassured that there is no horse meat in their meals.
Following concerns that horse has been found in some supermarket meat products, Hampshire County Council has announced that the beef used by its catering service, for school meals and in its care homes, is 100 per cent beef.
The council provides 8.5 million meals each year to people in its care, which contain locally sourced ingredients such as Hampshire beef and pork. Meatballs and beef burgers on the school lunchtime menu are produced by Laverstoke Park Farm near Overton, containing 100 per cent beef.
Councillor Ken Thornber, leader of Hampshire County Council, said: “As we are serving around 45,000 meals each day to Hampshire pupils we have to be very sure about food safety. We take the food chain back to source by looking at where the food comes from.”
He added: “Our Hampshire Scientific Service check at source all the suppliers of food provided by the County Council, and carry out stringent checks throughout the year, from supply to kitchen and all the stages in between, which also include verifying the authenticity of ingredients. We are unique in that few other local authorities do this.”
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SATISFACTION, PRIDE OR DELIRIUM?
In light of the current economic climate the question regarding African American support for President Obama is bound to come up. It’s the anniversary of his first full year in office, we prognosticators expecting it. But, it’s an even more poignant question amid the very racialized national conversation taking place – from gawks at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “gaffes” to nauseating outrage at bigotry on tap from the likes of commentator Rush Limbaugh and evangelical zealot Pat Robertson.
In light of the current economic climate – while chewing on recent Republican, populist-tinged victories in New Jersey, Virginia and, most recently, Massachusetts – the question regarding African American support for President Obama is bound to come up. It’s the anniversary of his first full year in office, we prognosticators expecting it. But, it’s an even more poignant question amid the very racialized national conversation taking place – from gawks at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “gaffes” to nauseating outrage at bigotry on tap from the likes of commentator Rush Limbaugh and evangelical zealot Pat Robertson. We should see this coming at the turn of every Black History Month.
To consider that question, context is needed. We need to carefully examine writings on the socio-economic construct wall. In the case of Black folks, the recession has pretty much decimated over a full quarter of our middle class, setting Black economic progress back dramatically despite clear electoral gains on the political landscape. A depressing Center for American Progress Report on "The State of Minorities in the Economy" offers some dismal figures on African American unemployment rates, including how "... minorities have been disproportionately affected" by the recession. CAP states: "[M]inorities were not receiving the benefits of the economic growth prior to 2007." Further:
At the start of the recession, the unemployment rate for African Americans on a quarterly basis was 8.6 percent. In the two years that followed, the unemployment rate rose 7.2 percentage points to 15.8 percent.
Yet, for some reason, you’d be strangely oblivious to the harsh reality of Black unemployment should you stumble upon a recently touted Pew Center Social Trends Survey which indicates "the perceptions of blacks have changed for the better over the past two years, despite a deep recession and jobless recovery that have hit blacks especially hard." Pew finds:
“Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president appears to be the spur for this sharp rise in optimism among African Americans. It may also be reflected in an upbeat set of black views on a range of other matters, including race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress.”
The Pew survey was by telephone and included a sampling of 2,884 adults, including 812 African Americans. Something missing here? Perceptions seem misaligned with the reality of the current situation. One has to ask who, exactly, did they sample? And, where were the sampled Black respondents residing at the time of the survey? There is a blatant incongruity between these two reports that can’t be ignored.
Obviously, African American support for the President - based on anecdotal observation and data-driven evidence - remains high. If the election for his second term were to take place tomorrow, Obama would enjoy, at the very least, a high margin of grassroots, base support from the African American community (unless there other strong, viable and credible candidates or elected officials with equal or greater gravitas, background and magnetism to split that vote during either the primary or general). In this sense, the recent Pew Social Trends survey is accurate - signs of Black euphoria, despite a recession that's battered us, can be directly linked to the feel good nature of a "brotha running things." One can argue that the President takes this built in support for granted. Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report calls it “delirium” in a recent piece
Barack Obama’s presence in the White House is bad for Black people’s mental health. Even as the African American economic condition deteriorates by the day, Blacks perceive a world in which their prospects are improving. Something did change for the better for Black people in 2009. The problem is, it only happened in their minds.
Dixon makes an intriguing point that’s hard to ignore. It brings to mind an earlier conversation with colleagues who craved for meaning: was the election of Barack Obama a Great Okie Doke? As the economy spun out of control, falling off its global axis, did we get duped into a false sense of symbolic power and security while sliding into the financial abyss of unemployment, foreclosures and poverty? And, are surveys from sources like Pew simply pulling our collective leg, a mainstream media attempt to mute Black criticism of the President while encouraging distraction from issues of critical import?
It's important to note that the extent of current Black support for the President may be more organic than policy-driven, something intrinsically spiritual and based on bonds of cultural affinity and obligation. Nothing wrong with that – contrary to Dixon’s argument, there is much self-esteem boost in that. Obama in the White House solidifies a certain aspect or vision of Black Power as normal rather than irregular – particularly when it’s combined with images of other African Americans in positions of political and economic power. Simply put: it’s encouraging. Who wouldn’t want their children growing up in an era where a President who looks like them is calling the proverbial shots?
And, by no means are we implying here that Black folks are less politically savvy or less informed - to the contrary. But, the level of pride is much thicker than the level of tangible satisfaction with what's he done thus far this year. It’s time to recognize. Serious analysis of the Obama Administration is more crucial now than figurative feelings of racial ownership.
A common, defensive retort amongst many upset by media, partisan or ideological criticism of the President is that "it's only been a year." True – it’s only been a year. But, the President as “Master and Commander” has an impressive array of weapons at his disposal to respond much more rapidly to the tragic economic situation than he has. This doesn’t include a simple maintenance of Wall Street status quo, satisfied with upward ticks in the markets while there is no fundamental change in regulation or system. Recent, devastating electoral blowbacks had more to do with frustration over lack of aggressive action on jobs and foreclosures than it did with disagreements over health care reform. Clearly, there were missed opportunities for a more direct approach. Let’s hope we don’t find ourselves saying, by the end of 2010, that “it’s only been two years.”
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AP Science WriterWASHINGTON (AP) -- One anthrax victim was released from a New Jersey hospital Monday, another mourned in the Bronx as the nation struggled to overcome an attack of bioterrorism.
With 17 cases of the disease confirmed nationwide, officials at the Mayo Clinic unveiled a more rapid test for anthrax exposure and said it should help in the event of further threats.
"We're talking about less than an hour instead of days," said Franklin Cockerill, a microbiologist who described the advance. "This should deter some of the anxiety" among individuals fearing exposure, he added.
There was one fresh disclosure of contamination -- at a private post office inside the Pentagon. But officials were cheered when Food and Drug Administration mailrooms in Rockville, Md., which yielded positive results for the bacteria in initial tests, were cleared in subsequent testing.
A few miles away, scores of lawmakers were allowed back into their quarters in the Longworth House Office Building. The building, closed at the height of the anthrax scare on Capitol Hill 10 days ago, reopened to all but Reps. John Baldacci, D-Maine, Rush Holt, D-N.J., and Mike Pence, R-Ind., whose offices were found to be contaminated. Pence told reporters in Indianapolis that no symptoms of anthrax infection had been found among members of his family of staff or anyone known to have visited his office.
The building's reopening left only one of six major facilities still shut down, the Senate Hart Building, where anthrax-tainted mail was opened in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office. Officials had been planning to begin a decontamination by chlorine dioxide gas in the next few days, but Tina Kreisher, a spokeswoman at the Environmental Protection Agency, said government and private scientists had raised concerns over the weekend about its effectiveness.
In New Jersey, postal worker Norma Wallace was released from Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly. One of 10 people nationwide with a confirmed case of inhalation anthrax, she worked at a regional mail facility known to have processed tainted letters mailed to Daschle, the New York Post and NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw.
In New York, Kathy L. Nguyen was remembered as a pious and well-liked neighbor at a funeral Monday in the South Bronx neighborhood where she lived for two decades.
"She was just a well-loved individual," the Rev. Carlos Rodriguez said of Nguyen, an employee of the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital who died Wednesday of the inhalation form of the disease anthrax.
Nguyen's diagnosis has particularly troubled investigators, since it is the only case with no known link to the mail service, and raises questions of another form of spread of the disease, as yet undiscovered.
Following discovery Friday of a link between the mail and the skin anthrax of a woman who works at an accounting firm, officials said that all cases of the disease in New Jersey could be traced to the Hamilton mail processing facility near Trenton.
"I think a lot of people are starting to think cross-contamination is a real possibility," said Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, the state's epidemiologist. "It is just a pure hypothesis, but it makes sense."
At the Defense Department, officials said two mail boxes in a private post office on a commercial concourse inside the Pentagon tested positive for anthrax, Pentagon officials said Monday. One of the boxes was rented by an unidentified member of the Navy; the other was unassigned.
The facility, which is served by the big Brentwood postal plant in Washington that was closed after anthrax spores were found Oct. 15, does not process official Defense Department mail. That task is handled by other facilities, which have tested negative for anthrax.
At the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, several dozen health care workers have been vaccinated against smallpox. That precaution will protect medical personnel who would be the first to respond to any outbreak of the highly contagious disease.
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Airing concernsU.S. Air Force officials say expanding their flight practice area should have minimal impact on residents, but some question how minimal the impact will be.
U.S. Air Force officials say expanding their flight practice area should have minimal impact on residents, but some question how minimal the impact will be.
Military aircraft from South Dakota and Minot will be flying over parts of Southwest North Dakota, if approved.
“This isn’t about flying more flights up in that area, it’s about using more space to get more realistic training,” said Col. Jeff Taliaferro, the Senior Officer at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. “The impact of our not having it is that our airman would be less prepared for combat.”
Public hearings regarding a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed expansion of the Powder River Training Complex are being held to gather local input.
If passed, the proposal would grow the Air Force’s training space from about 9,000 square miles to 35,000 square miles, covering several counties in southwest North Dakota, Taliaferro said.
Matthew Remynse, Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport manager, has concerns over how the proposal could affect the airport.
“What is that going to do for our traffic?” he said. “Are we going to see a decrease in traffic?”
He also worries about impact on emergency service flights. Lyn James, Bowman mayor, has similar concerns.
“In general, folks that are currently using the airspace will be allowed to continue to use it, but we will all have to follow the Federal Aviation regulations to share it,” Taliaferro said.
He added it shouldn’t change anyone’s lifestyle, but James is not convinced.
“They say that’s not an issue, but do we really know that?” she said. “It’s the fear of the unknown, I guess.”
Six to 10 flights will take place a day over the area and aircraft will be flying from 500 to 60,000 feet off the ground, Taliaferro said. James wonders how disruptive the noise from those flights will be.
“You could get some vibration and some noise,” Talliaferro said.
Major Matthew Reese, 28th Bomb Wing chief of public affairs, said sonic booms could be expected occasionally.
Safety of civilians shouldn’t be a concern, Talliaferro added.
“We’ve just got a perfect safety record over the last 25 years,” he said.
James would like a trial period to be implemented so those who will be impacted could experience it before any decisions are made.
“I think that we as the general public don’t really understand the impact that it could have,” she said. “I understand that they need training space, but it’s one of those things where you wonder if there’s a better place for it.”
If the proposal is approved, military craft could be utilizing the space in 2012, Talliaferro said.
The next public hearing will be held in Bismarck at Wachter Middle School from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
The comment period for the draft environmental impact study ends Nov. 13, Reese said.
Written comments can be sent to Ms. Linda DeVine HQ ACC/A7PS 129 Andrews St., Room 337, Langley AFB, Va. 23665-2769.
For more information on the proposed expansion, visit http://www.ellsworth.af.mil/prtc.asp.
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Map of wine regions in Spain and Portugal from De Long
It’s no secret that De Long’s Wine Info produces great resources for wine education. A recent post of Neil’s talks about his efforts to become a member of the wine century club, which promotes tasting of at least 100 grape varietals. In the past, I’ve been impressed by their wine tasting notebook and wine periodic table of grapes.
But their newest product may be the best yet — it’s a highly detailed map of the Iberian wine regions of Spain and Portugal. It has up-to-date information on traditional and new wine regions in Spain and Portugal, maps the roadways for travel, and even shows what other wine regions in the world are on the same latitude. And it’s attractive to boot.
Check out these related posts:
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G3n.X Gaming Competition The profession of gaming is rapidly gaining ground in Pakistan. No longer is the activity relegated to the fringes of the I.T. industry; it is now recognised as a lucrative career choice in its own right.
Speed Programming The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) provides college students with opportunities to interact with students from other universities and to sharpen and demonstrate their problem-solving, programming, and teamwork skills. The contest provides a platform for ACM, industry, and academia to encourage and focus public attention on the next generation of computing professionals as they pursue excellence. SOFTEC Presents "2013 ACM ICPC Pakistan Invitational Programming Contest" first time ever in Pakistan.
Software CompetitionThe Software Competition was the very first event included in the roster of SOFTEC, in its advent in 1995. It has become the core around which the entire SOFTEC event is now arranged.
Robo Rumble Witness the rise of the machines and be enthralled by the steel against steel as SOFTEC introduces the cyber matchups which will see robots take on robots in RoboRumble!
Software Exhibition In order to commemorate the fine tradition of the founding event of SOFTEC, SOFTEC 2013 will include an exhibition of all winning entries to the Software Competition for the fifteen years since the inception of the event. This is a unique exhibition, which will allow people to trace the profound influence SOFTEC has had on the I.T. industry, and consequently, our lives, for the past decade and more.
Engineering Project For too long the hardware engineering aspects of I.T. work in Pakistan had been merely an afterthought in professional competitions. With the intentions of changing this attitude, the Engineering Project Competition, a highly anticipated event was launched for the first time during SOFTEC 2007.
Software House Enclosure SOFTEC is a unique opportunity for software houses to display their products to an enormous number of interested visitors, as well as look for recruits among the promising students of universities across Asia. This enclosure houses displays from a variety of software houses.
Micro-controller Interface Competition As part of the initiative to bring hardware concerns to the fore, the microcontroller interfacing competition followed the pattern of programming competition in that it required participants to program and interface microcontrollers with provided hardware components as the solutions to given problems in a limited amount of time.
IdeasXtreme Unfettered by the trappings of a tertiary-level education, children often see possibilities inconceivable to those of us with the more mundane obstacles of reality weighing heavily on our minds. So, who better to envision a future of infinite possibility, the future SOFTEC envisions bringing about, than children? IdeasXtreme creates a forum for school-going children to bring to the public purview their ideas of the uses of I.T. in the future.
Kidz Corner Kidz Corner, a special area dedicated just to the kids who visit SOFTEC, was inaugurated in 2004. The event was an immediate hit with youngsters as well as their parents, as parents could leave their kids there while they visited the other exhibitions of SOFTEC, sure that their children, too, would have a good time.
Rock Fest '13 To balance out the intensity of the competition, SOFTEC team has decided to organize a concert for the participants. The exact details of the event will be announced through our website, as soon as we finalize the schedule.
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Eight Olympic stories you knew before they happened
In a major Olympic shock, it was revealed overnight that many of the 11,000 athletes descending upon London this week will exchange bodily fluids, and not just with drug testers.
The reports that people with hot, fit young bodies will be sexually attracted to others of their ilk were an astonishing revelation.
Except that they weren’t. Every Olympiad, as the Games near, the same old stories get trotted out with the predictability of London drizzle. And it’s not just boom boom in the athletes’ rooms. It’s also…
Athletes eat a lot
Who’d a thunk that people who train hard eat a lot? Or that fat athletes in sports like weightlifting and hammer-throwing sit in the corner of the athletes’ dining room with a bucket and a funnel? Not us.
Saudi Arabia is sexist
They’ve never sent a woman to the Games until the IOC threatened to kick them out. This year, the Saudis are sending a female 800m runner and a lady judoka (practitioner of judo). There remains the sniff of tokenism but it’s better than the stench of sexism.
This poor person has no shoes
It’s been going on since Abebe Bikila, the Ethiopian who won the 1960 marathon in no shoes. This year, two unsubsidised members of India’s walking team can’t afford footwear. A nice person sent running shoes. Nice try at philanthropy, but way to get them disqualified.
They’re giving WHO the flag???
This year’s flag flack centres around Caster Semenya, the South African woman who was forced to undergo gender tests after showing high levels of testosterone. Some thought double amputee Oscar Pistorious would be chosen. SA’s Olympic chief said he ducked that choice to avoid controversy. He has quite the sense of humour.
Predictable outfit outcry
The American team has been under fire for wearing outfits made in China. Hang on, isn’t everything made in China these days? The bigger issue is why the US outfits are so preppy they make the athletes look like extras in The OC.
The clueless bus driver
Right on cue last week, a bus driver who was not a native Londoner took a group of Australian sailors on an impromptu magical mystery tour of London. You’d think he would’ve been well-schooled on the trip from Heathrow to the Athletes’ Village, but no.
Gee, those American basketballers are awesome
Every year, the US basketball team is compared by to the Original 1992 “Dream Team”. Someone asked 1992 veteran Larry Bird this week how his lot would have fared against the current mob. “Well, I haven’t played in 20 years” he drily responded. That was his way of saying he’d have kicked Kobe Bryant’s ass.
As mentioned above, there are always pre-Games stories about the impending rootfest. Then in the second week of the Games, you always read about the poor athlete competing on the final weekend who can’t sleep for all the swimmers screaming and groaning all night. And you thought you had problems with the barking dog over the back fence.
Let the games begin. Please. We can’t stand these countdown stories much longer…
Read all about it
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
RT @adambspencer: announcing this morning that Dec 6 2013 will be my last show on 702 breakfast - it's been a blast but it feels time to mo…
The latest and greatest
Good morning Punchers. After four years of excellent fun and great conversation, this is the final post…
I have had some close calls, one that involved what looked to me like an AK47 pointed my way, followed…
In a world in which there are still people who subscribe to the vile notion that certain victims of sexual…
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8th May 2012
Shell Celebrates John Muir Birthday Earth Day
Shell employee volunteers are busy all year long helping make Martinez a better place to live and work. It is this time of the year that more of them are seen outdoors. What better way to welcome spring than at the John Muir Birthday Earth Day Celebration! This year, on April 21, the annual event was again held at the John Muir National Historic Site. A record crowd of over 2500 attended the event, which celebrated Earth Day and the 174th birthday of John Muir, known as the Father of the National Park System.
As in the past, members of the Shell Martinez family (like Val Martin, pictured here) were there to help kids plant flower seeds in recycled bottles and answer any questions attendees had about refinery operations. When event organizers learned that none of the actors who usually play John Muir were available this year, they tapped another member of Shell’s extended family, retired chemist Igor Skaredoff. Word at the Park was that he was a perfect choice!
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September 09, 2009
The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, “Why financial pay shouldn’t be left to the market,” is the most recent of his monthly columns in the international newspaper association entitled “Project Syndicate.”
Although some financial firms are reforming how they pay their employees, governments around the world are seriously considering regulating such firms’ compensation structures. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has recently come out in favor of such regulations, and the United States House of Representatives has voted to require regulators to set compensation rules.
Perhaps not surprisingly, many financial bosses are up in arms over such moves. They claim that they need the freedom to set compensation packages in order to keep their most talented people – the ones who will revive the world’s financial system. So, should governments step back and let financial firms reform themselves?
The answer is clearly no. In the post-crisis financial order, governments must take on the role of monitoring and regulating pay in financial firms; otherwise, the perverse incentives that contributed to the current crisis could easily recur.
It is important to distinguish between two sources of concern about pay in financial firms. One set of concerns arises from the perspective of shareholders. Figures recently released by New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, indicate that nine large financial firms paid their employees aggregate compensation exceeding $600 billion in 2003-2008 – a period in which their aggregate market capitalization substantially declined. Such patterns may raise concerns among shareholders that pay structures are not well designed to serve their interests.
Even if financial firms have governance problems that produce pay decisions deviating from shareholder interests, however, such problems do not necessarily warrant government regulation of those decisions. Such problems are best addressed by rules that focus on improving internal governance processes and strengthening investors’ rights, leaving the choices that determine compensation structures to corporate boards and the shareholders who elect them.
But pay in financial firms also raises a second important source of concern: even if compensation structures are designed in the interests of shareholders, they may produce incentives for excessive risk-taking that are socially undesirable. As a result, even if corporate governance problems in financial firms are fully addressed, a government role in regulating their compensation structures may still be warranted.
Suppose that most financial firms could be relied upon by regulators to be run in the interest of their shareholders. Would this justify exempting these firms from existing regulations that constrain their decisions with respect to lending, investment, or capital reserves? Clearly not, because shareholders do not bear the full costs of a firm’s collapse, and, as the recent crisis demonstrates, the bill for such a downfall must be picked up, at least in part, by taxpayers and the economy. So shareholders’ interests might sometimes be served by business decisions that are too “risky,” and regulating such decisions is justified – indeed, necessary.
Regulation of pay in financial firms is called for by the same reasons that justify the traditional regulations of the firms’ business decisions. The incentives generated by compensation structures determine how firms’ managers behave within the boundaries permitted by such traditional, direct regulations. And as traditional regulation of business decisions is bound to be imperfect, regulating compensation structures can be a useful additional tool to control the risks posed by financial firms’ behavior. If choices of compensation structures can be expected to affect financial firms’ stability, regulating these choices can also be useful for protecting this stability.
Financial firms opposed to pay regulation will likely warn against “micro-managing” compensation, and argue that compensation choices must take into account information about each individual manager that regulators are almost certain to lack. But pay regulation can improve matters without micro-management by setting general standards from which firms may not deviate but that still leave them with significant freedom to account for the individual circumstances of managers.
For example, regulatory standards could require equity-based plans to preclude managers from cashing out awarded shares and options during a certain minimum period after vesting. In such a case, firms could still remain free to choose the number of shares and options awarded to any given manager, as well as to adjust somewhat the length of the post-vesting period during which cashing out would be precluded.
Finally, those opposing pay regulation are certain to warn us about “unintended consequences.” But this warning should not carry the day. We have experienced over the last several years the real and costly consequences of a compensation regime that left financial firms free to set their own pay structures. Are we to believe that those consequences are preferable to the unintended consequences of pay regulation?
The effort to avoid the harm of flawed compensation decisions in the future should not be deterred by speculative arguments about unintended consequences. Financial firms should not retain the freedom to create perverse incentives that put all of us at risk.
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Last year, I use eclipse an IDE for the longest time. I installed MinGW correctly, and I was able to compile my codes. I was roughly learning on how to use functions and if statements.
This christmas, my uncle bought be a book of headfirst into cpp. I was happy since I hadn't coded since. I launched eclipse, but nothing compiled. I typed in CMD gcc, and it outputed:
gcc: Fatal error: no input files
Prior to cpp "breaking", it would would just say no input files.
I've tried re-installing MinGw time after time, and still no luck.
I tried even running the default hello world!, but it won't compile.
Instructions tell me goto all programs/mingw and run it, but the only option is to uninstall. MinGW is added to the path directory. In eclipse when I attempt to compile any code it says program make not found in path.
used to use eclipse and MingW, worked fine, doesnt wory any more. In cmd I get a fatal error when typing gcc. No code will compile, and it prints "Program make was not found in path". Reinstalled correctly over times.
A picture of the error
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Every parent wants the best names for their children. For me, it is always best to have your children's name that you really like them to have, not just imitating other's name for a not so important reason. This is because as your children grow, they will be thankful to you for giving them such names.
There are popular personalities you can choose from. Just be sure that this personality has a good reputation, or else your child might have problems with it when he grows older. However, you must also consider your nationality. If you are Asian, it would not be best to give your child’s name that is too western and vice versa. Another thing, think of a name that your child would easily be pronounced or spelled. If you don’t, chances are your child will try to change it someday.
Lastly, avoid giving your children the most common ones, especially if your surname is very common, too. This is because if your child’s namesake will have problems with the law or immigration, your child might be on-hold for traveling outside your country.
By the way, my daughter's name is Angelene which came from my name Angelo, and my wife's name, Mylene. My son's name is Aldrin which sounds like her sister's name. And of course, who would not know Aldrin, who were among the first men on the moon. Interesting, isn't it?
If you want to receive my future posts regularly, please feel free to subscribe in a reader or by e-mail. If you have concerns, pleaseContact Me anytime.
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My Daily Visitor Home
It is mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.--Hosea 6:6
Mass readings: Hosea 6:1-6 / Luke 18:9-14
As I go around the prisons, I rub shoulders with people who have committed murder, rape, child abuse -- crimes I would never even consider committing. It's easy for me to think, ''There, but for the grace of God, go I,'' without fully realizing that this is the truth. I have in me the same passions, urges and desires as those behind bars. It's often just that I have not had the opportunity or the temptation to do these things.
I like to compare myself to the tax collector in the parable, but in reality I am more like the Pharisee. I see myself as somehow above others and take pride in my ''virtue.'' Jesus sees things differently, though. He says to me, ''The sinner, not his judge, went home justified.''
Prayer: Lord, teach me humility in Your sight.
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THE WAR IN CHECHNYA AND MOSCOW
HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH
OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Speaker, next week following the NATO conference in Prague, President Bush is scheduled to meet with President Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is expected that the two leaders will discuss such vital issues as the war against terrorism, the policies in Iraq, safeguards against weapons of mass destruction, and expanded energy cooperation between the United States and Russia. I would urge Mr. Bush to include on the agenda the continuing conflict in Chechnya.
At this time, the Russian Government and its people are still recovering from the horrific events of last month, when a group of armed Chechen terrorists seized approximately 700 hostages in a Moscow theater and threatened them with execution if the Putin Administration did not withdraw its forces from Chechnya. After three days of terror, Russian special forces captured the theater, apparently killing all the terrorists. In the preliminary gas attack to neutralize the terrorists, over one hundred hostages lost their lives. This terrorist attack was appropriately condemned by the Bush Administration, and we all sympathize with the innocent victims of this attack.
But Mr. Speaker, this does not mean that we should not step back and seriously examine the circumstances that have driven some elements of the Chechen resistance to such suicidal extremes.
Perhaps it is because the Russian military, in its drive to suppress Chechen separatism, has employed means which virtually guaranteed to drive a despairing civilian population into the arms of a radicalized resistance. In the three and a half years since the war reignited when Chechen militants invaded neighboring Dagestan, the Russian military has embarked on a campaign of carnage, destruction, and looting against the civilian population. There are credible and ongoing reports of atrocities committed by members of the Russian military – indiscriminate shelling and bombing, murder, assault, rape, torture, arrests and “disappearances,” kidnaping and holding civilians for ransom. It is imperative that military personnel who commit such egregious human rights violations face criminal charges but the Russian military and judicial system has yet to demonstrate its commitment to bring such criminal actions to account.
Nor should we have any illusions about some elements among the Chechen fighters, who have murdered hostages, kidnapped civilians for ransom and used them as shields during combat operations, and embarked on a campaign of assassination against fellow Chechens who work for the Russian civil government in Chechnya. And, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steve Pifer testified before the Helsinki Commission, “We have seen evidence of individuals or certain factions in Chechnya who are linked to international terrorist elements, including Al Qaeda.” Without a doubt, war criminals and terrorists should be brought to justice, wherever they are and whomever they serve.
In the wake of the attack on the theater in Moscow, President Putin has hardened an already uncompromising position against the Chechen fighters. But, it should be clear that the Russian scorched-earth policy against Chechnya and the Chechen people is not bringing peace to the region. Rather, such policies are sowing the dragon’s teeth of hatred and conflict for generations to come.
The distinguished Newsweek commentator Fareed Zakaria recently wrote:
Terrorism is bad, but those fighting terror can be very nasty, too. And the manner in which they fight can make things much, much worse. It is a lesson we had better learn fast because from Egypt to Pakistan to Indonesia, governments around the world are heightening their repression and then selling it to Washington as part of the war on terror. Russian officials called the Chechen fighters “rebels” or “bandits” until recently. Now they are all “international Islamic terrorists.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell continues to call for the observation of human rights and a political settlement in Chechnya, while consistently and properly supporting Russia’s territorial integrity. But as the Danish Foreign Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, recently summed up the issue, “We, of course, support Russia in the fight against terrorism ... but it is not a long-term solution to the Chechnya problem to launch a military action and bomb the country to pieces."
In addition, the war in Chechnya has affected thousands of refugees, who have fled the constant carnage. In September of this year, I and 10 other colleagues from both the House and Senate wrote President Putin regarding the plight of the internally displaced persons escaping Chechnya to the neighboring province of Ingushetia. We urged the president to resist the forcible return of internally displaced persons seeking refuge in Ingushetia, elsewhere in the Russian Federation, or to any location where the security situation is unstable and proper housing unavailable. However, I have recently learned of 300 Chechen families who are currently facing expulsion from Ingushetia and are seeking refugee status in Kazakhstan. I hope the Russian Government will not expel these individuals, but instead will take all possible actions to alleviate the situation for the many innocent victims of the brutal violence.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge President Bush to include these important issues in his talks with President Putin when they meet in St. Petersburg.
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By David Hylton,
Public Relations Specialist
Our new Web site, ChildFund.org, has many new features, including stories from formerly sponsored children, who we call alumni. Here is one of those stories:
Nearly half of Mexico’s population lives in poverty. But for almost 125,000 children and their family members, there is hope for improved living conditions. Jorge is one example of ChildFund International’s sponsorship success in Mexico.
Jorge’s family had a difficult financial situation. His father worked as a mason. To supplement the family income, his mother washed and ironed clothes for others. She learned about one of ChildFund’s local community organizations while looking for work and she quickly enrolled Jorge to become a sponsored child.
“I was 6 years old and I received support from very generous people living very far away,” Jorge remembers. “I only knew them from letters and photos but I could tell that they were concerned about my well-being. These people provided the support I needed for my education and health, as well as hope for a decent life, which is priceless.”
He was active in a variety of ChildFund programs and helped implement community activities, which developed his life skills. Today, he holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and he is supporting his community and his own family.
“I would like to thank the person who – with no other interest than to help – reached out and supported me while I was going through a rough time in my childhood,” Jorge says.
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I Am Woman,
Hear Me Scare!
That could have been Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's personal motto since she was the little lady who wrote "Frankenstein" on a challenge by Lord Byron.
She was all of 19 when she and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, were among a group visiting the poet at his home in Switzerland when he decided they needed something stronger than "pretty little love stories."
The book is fascinating reading on its own, not only for its literary merits but because you won't recognize it after you've seen the Hollywood version with Boris Karloff.
Even Thomas Edison got in on the act in 1910!
Philip J. Riley recounts Boris Karloff's make-up travails in "Frankenstein: The Original Shooting Script" (MagicImage Filmbooks, New York, 1989) pages 34 - 35:
From the beginning, Karloff's approach to his "dear old Monster" was one of love and compassion. It was an outstanding insight - considering that rarely has an actor suffered so hideously in bringing life to a character.
"It took from four to six hours a day to make me up," said Karloff. "I felt like an Egyptian mummy as Jack [P. Pierce] ladled the layers of makeup on me."
The company call was 9 o'clock in the morning, so Karloff piloted his old Ford onto the lot at 4 AM to begin the makeup.
To fill out the Monster costume I had to wear a double quilted suit beneath it. We shot in mid-summer. After an hour's work I'd be sopping wet. I'd have to change into a spare undersuit often still damp from the previous round. So I felt, most of the time, as if I were wearing a clammy shroud. No doubt it added to the realism!
As the September heat soared, Karloff's makeup proved a torture. The mortician's wax eyelids he believed so necessary would melt and crumble on the sweltering set, falling into his eyes and causing terrible pain. Pierce stood by the actor's side constantly, emergency makeup box in tow, ready to fix a bolt if it loosened or adjust the wig if it slipped or share a joke when humor was a necessity.
Yet Karloff never complained. Mae Clarke recalls:
Observing Boris in makeup, taking director instructions: Towering over the tall Mr. [James] Whale, listening meekly as an obedient child, both so softly spoken I couldn't hear a word - then he'd nod his head and Whale would give him an affectionate push at his enormous, hanging arms and call out, "Ready for camera." Boris was unbelievably patient and, as the world now sees, he gave an incredible performance. He made that Monster understandable and painfully pitiable.
You might want to visit Sara Karloff's tribute to her father at www.karloff.com. It's the only official website for Karloff and has lots of goodies for you to check out.
Nobody could fill the Frankensein Monster's makeup like Boris Karloff.
To be honest, of course, Miss Maven wouldn't WANT to . . . except at Halloween and then only the people who need to be scared out of their . . . .
Where is Miss Maven's Halloween candy . . . ?
It was right here-----Aunt Battie, have you been in my candy again?!
Have you tried
Miss Maven can be reached at
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Janitor … yes but that’s not ALL he is.
You step into a lift (airport, hotel, office complex) and there’s only one person in it, but they recoil into a corner of the lift, instinctively making themselves smaller as if wishing themselves to become invisible or that of the walls of the lift could open up and swallow them. The typical body language is drooped shoulders, eyes cast down and unable to make and keep eye contact.
I have seen some variation of this in more than 30 different countries, they are those who our society’s materialistic value system puts into the caste of the “untouchables” – those people whom the court of public opinion has judged as unsuccessful because they typically are not making enough money that they can’t afford not to work menial jobs like cleaning toilets, public places or wait on tables. Quite often, we act as mindless agents of the public mirror by not acknowledging these people, giving them the same attention we’d give an ordinary piece of furniture in a very familiar room.
The tragedy is that too many of them (there are always exceptions and interacting with these exceptional ones is always a lesson in enlightenment) have bought the judgement and so live desperately tiny lives, resenting that which they do and instinctively making themselves invisible in the presence of those they judge more ‘successful’. Don’t be fooled, sometimes the racist arrogance of a white cleaner or waiter comes from exactly the same place as that which makes the black janitor recoil (or becomes irritatingly ebullient) when you enter the lift – a sense of inferiority beaten into them by a society whose major metric of success is financial/material wealth.
While we may not be able to do anything to make them ‘rich’ overnight, we can start by giving them the gift of DIGNITY! How? here are some of the practices I engage in when I encounter such people:
(a) GREET them with RESPECT: It means you look them in the eyes when you say “good morning” and smile! I am usually an unsmiling person but because this is important to me, I make the effort to smile. While not something I prescribe to everyone, I also bow because its a sign of respect in my tradition. While vacationing at a resort recently, one of the waitresses asked me “Why is someone like you bowing to the lowly people like us?” (tells you a lot about how she she is usually treated and has come to expect to be treated by guests at such places). We had a short, genuine, light-hearted chat which essentially came to “it’s something I was raised to do. You can imagine how my already great stay at the establishment became (but that’s NOT the point).
(b) TIP them APPROPRIATELY: It is not so much how much you give, it is the attitude with which you do so. Again, when tipping, look them in the eye, and without using words, thank them for the service they just rendered. There’s this norm that you always tip 10% — I totally abhor it it and refuse to live by it. If the service is bad, I absolutely will not tip. If the service is great, I will tip and 10% is not the limit.
Appropriate tipping is important because it usually involves the exchange of money – the very thing that is used to define ‘them’ as inferior to you. So if your attitude as you give re-enforces that dynamic that “I am better than you because I can afford to tip you” or that “this money is a big deal to you but nothing to me” – it is akin to insulting them. Giving your customary 10% tip or even a 100% tip dismissively or with a frown is just as useless when it comes to raising the spiritual energy of the encounter.
(c) TREAT them with DIGNITY: It is the simple things that all well-brought up, enlightened and dignified people do. Thinks like saying “Please”, “Thank you”, “Excuse me”, calling people by their names, turning to face and look at them when they come to your table to take your order, smiling, apologizing when you realize you’ve been rude to them and so on. There are a thousand small behaviours that show you are treating someone with dignity. If in doubt, treat them somehow like you would when your mother/wife/girlfriend or father/husband/boyfriend serves you. (I am Cameroonian and when am home, my mother serves me – and of course I adore her). Of course they are not your mother/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend but that should give you an indication of appropriateness – when your mum brings you food, you don’t continue chatting on the phone and not say “Thank you mum” now do you? (ok, if you there’s a special place in hell, run by nazis just for you.)
(d) SHOW GRATITUDE in your SPEECH: aka say “Thank You” and mean it. Your attitude (smile) and your behavior (turn and face them when addressing them, hold the door for the ladies – yes even the cleaning lady, buy some good chocolate for no one in particular and give it as a surprise to that cleaning lady that is looking gloomy) should be consistent with your words for your gratitude to be genuine.
Just remember that “janitor”, “waiter” , “cleaner” etc or whatever lowly title they may bear at that point is NOT their entire story. They are also a father’s daughter, a mother’s son, somebody’s mother, father, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, and even mentor but more importantly at that moment, they are offering a service that makes your life more comfortable.
So you thank them, in word and deed for the clean sheets and fresh towels you use thanks to their hard work. Thank them for the clean rooms and bathrooms, the clean toilets at airports and the assistance with heavy bags at checkin. If you want to get an idea of just how much thanks you should give them, take good notice when you go to a hotel with poor service, dirty toilets and bathrooms etc.
Bear this in mind …these are also “Ladies and gentlemen SERVING ladies and gentlemen. So will you please act like a LADY or GENTLEMAN by acknowledging that?
That’s how people of perfexcellence, that’s how warriors of light behave and these light up am ember in their hearts and spirit and also builds humility in us. Humility is never a bad thing! and only the truly enlightened are capable of showing and living it instinctively.
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Each year, thousands of families benefit from food baskets distributed especially for the Holidays. The distribution of Christmas baskets is held between December 18th and 24th, while Chanukah varies depending on the Hebrew calendar. Registrations for Christmas and Chanukah hampers begin in late August and are intended for low-income individuals and families. Some data is sent to a central database, the Christmas Index, to verify if people registered with Sun Youth are also receiving from an another organization. People wishing to register for a Christmas Basket need to come to Sun Youth with a proof of address, a proof of income and identification cards of all family members. Registrations are done Monday through Friday from 9 am to 4 pm.
We distribute food hampers to approximately 18,000 people each year. Children under 13 can also receive a brand new toy.
We could not achieve our objectives without the participation of all the volunteers and donors involved in our Holiday season campaign every year and the now traditional Big Media Food Drive whose friends were in 2011, over 300 Jean Coutu pharmacies, 160 Laurentienne Bank, 228 Loblaws, Maxi, Maxi & Cie and Provigo.
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