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More recent posts about Democratic Republic of Congo
Articles from Democratic Republic of Congo
- Photos from Democratic Republic of Congo
- Stories from Democratic Republic of Congo
- Videos from Democratic Republic of Congo
Filling the pond compost bin with the boys.
Forest leaves make for good hats to protect yourself from the hot tropical sun while waiting for the pond to drain to harvest your fish.
Fish farmer Mukobo and family at his first harvest. The fish he raised was Tilapia nilotica.
Idudu, businessman/largest local bread producer and family had never had pizza. So we made a deal, if he provided the dough, I would bring the tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni and we would bake pizza in his bread oven.
I remember tuning in the shortwave radio to pull the celebration of the first nationally recognized holiday in Dr. King's memory. The battery was taken from the moto for this day. We sat under the little lemon tree in my parcel and I was awestruck - half a world away, in the land of my ancestors, on the day the United States finally honored him. Tears streamed down my face as I began to explain in Tshiluba what this meant to me and millions of other African Americans. My kids, who all cal...
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I’m not just focusing on my creative writing these days. As I’m beginning to do some editing and translation freelance work, I realize how much I love working with fiction, whether it’s mine or someone else’s. And I’m reminded of the mistakes I would make as a newbie writer–and still do from time to time, much more often than I’d like to admit, if I’m honest with myself. (That’s why editing is awesome.) Everyone knows that good editing involves a lot of moving things around and even more deletion. But why is that the case?
I can only speak for what I’ve learned from my own writing development and my own errors. And the things that I found myself deleting starting out were especially related to narrative segments. These sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, were: redundant/too detailed, or not interesting/not needed
REDUNDANCY/ TOO MUCH DETAIL
This is where adverbs are particularly large offenders. When I started writing, I was too preoccupied with making absolutely sure the point I was trying to make would come across to a reader. This led to lengthy, complex paragraphs describing emotional states of characters whose emotions should rather be made evident by their simple words and actions.
I would not only, for instance, have a character ask, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I would note he asked that angrily while storming into a room and feeling more livid than he could ever remember feeling in his life. All that’s needed there is the simple dialogue. It’s plain, it’s direct, and it most certainly clarifies that the person speaking is angry or at the least highly annoyed. There’s no need for more.
I had to learn as a writer to treat my readers with respect and to rely on their common sense to pick up on cues, to figure things out without directly stating everything…. Truly, it’s a respect thing, and my readers deserve that respect. The best writing is always subtle that way. It weaves a web to ensnare you, it doesn’t jump up out of nowhere with a baseball bat and club you over the head.
THINGS THAT AREN’T INTERESTING/AREN’T NEEDED
How many times have you ever read that a character, before going to bed, got undressed and put on her pajamas, brushed her teeth, flossed her teeth, cleaned her face, took out her contact lenses, filled a glass of water to put on the bedside table, used the toilet, washed her hands, and then turned out the lights before turning down the sheets? How often have you gotten a detailed step by step of someone’s morning routine, or two characters going through four different possible times to meet for dinner, none of which work, complete with excuses as to why, before they find a day that works?
It’s very tempting as a beginning writer to think that giving tons and tons of detail makes the story seem real, because a certain kind of detail is, indeed, critical to good fiction. I used to think I had to be much more specific in my descriptions and narration than I needed to for the story to make sense. I had to learn that good description involves knowing what to emphasize, not throwing everything but the kitchen sink (and sometimes that) at the reader. Too much nit-picky, uberprecise detail become an overload that is boring, frustrating, and completely unnecessary. Whether your narration is first or third person, there are some things no one needs or wants to know. They’re just omitted…. It’s standard in all literature. I know this kind of example is overused, but how many times does Harry Potter wake up in his dormitory at Hogwarts throughout his series? And how many times do we follow him to the bathroom before he goes down to the Great Hall to meet Ron and Hermione for breakfast, where something interesting does happen before their first class? If you think about, you know he stopped at the loo. We all do. Every morning. That doesn’t mean it’s something people need to read about.
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A "sneak peek" sounds like an innocuous thing - but not when it comes to the Maryland State Assessment:
Two fourth-grade teachers have been removed from their classrooms after Carroll County school officials found that the pair had given copies of questions from a state achievement test to other teachers and pupils before the exam.
A teacher at Linton Springs Elementary School in Sykesville acknowledged that she had taken notes from the fourth-grade Maryland State Assessment reading exam last year while working at another school, Carroll schools Superintendent Charles Ecker said Monday. The teacher used the notes to create worksheets for her pupils for this year's tests, Ecker said. The tests were administered from March 13-22.
Interesting that the names are being withheld from the press. And it's interesting, but not the least bit surprising, that the quoted experts rush to blame the current culture of testing for this mess, rather than a lack of ethics on the part of the teachers involved. And this despite the fact that the teachers would have not been penalized had their students not done well. I don't think our "culture of testing" forces teachers and students to cheat. I think our culture of cheating is aided by all the testing criticism in the media today. Everything said by the "experts" quoted by this article would absolve a teacher of personal responsibility if they succumbed to the urge to leak test items to students.
Oh, and why was copying last year's exam such a helpful cheating tool?
After they noticed similarities between the worksheets and this year's test, the Mount Airy teachers alerted the principal.
Emphasis mine. If we really think teachers are so helpless against the temptation to cheat, it might be better to, you know, not use the same test form twice in two years.
(via the Education Wonks)Posted by kswygert at March 30, 2006 12:03 PM
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1.Cherish your wife, respect your husband.
The core emotional need of a woman is to be cherished. This is the husband's number one responsibility. That means making her feel loved and appreciated, that she's your number one priority.
A man's core emotional need is to feel respected by his wife. When he comes home, he wants to feel that there is at least one person in the world who thinks he's got what it takes. That means getting off the phone when he walks in the door.
2.Treat each other like good friends.
Under the marriage canopy one of the seven blessings given to the bride and groom is that they should become "beloved friends."
The hallmark of friendship is that each person validates and respects the other person's feelings and needs. Validation means: What's important to you is important to me. It's a key way to make your spouse feel loved.
3. Remember the four golden words: Listen, Compromise, Repair, Gratitude.
Agree to keep one basic rule at the beginning of your marriage: No matter how upset you are, never launch a verbal attack. Fighting with insults only makes problems worse and erodes the relationship. Instead, implement the four golden words:
Listening: It's essential for working together and solving problems. Allow your spouse to speak without interruption and then repeat what has just been said. This reassures your spouse that he or she was heard.
Compromise: Strive to solve problems where both of you are happy with the solution. Neither one should feel coerced into accepting the other person's point of view.
Repair: When you hurt each other emotionally, repair the breakdown and remove the lingering feelings of anger and resentment. Aim for 100% reconciliation. A little resentment multiplied 50 times can create a wall of bitterness.
Gratitude: You can never say thank you enough to your spouse. Try to notice everything your spouse does for you and acknowledge it with sincere gratitude.
4. Establish strong boundaries.
Your spouse is your number one priority – not your parents, relatives, friends, children, work, or hobbies. Set strong boundaries that show you value your marriage and don't allow anyone or anything to weaken your relationship.
That means meeting your spouse's needs before your parents' needs, coming home with enough time left in the evening to have quality time together, and inviolate date nights.
5. Give each other pleasure daily.
Marriage is ultimately about making each other feel good and striving to give your spouse pleasure on a daily basis – on his or her terms. If she says she likes lilies, don't bring her roses because you think they're more romantic.
Learn how your spouse prefers to be given to – whether it's physical affection, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, acts of service (like helping out in the house, running errands) or spending quality time – and get in the daily habit of doing it.
You'll enjoy giving more than receiving.
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Where is it written that the cost for a product or service should be frozen in place and in time, never to rise again, or to rise at a pace commensurate with our incomes? People who think this way know little to nothing about supply and demand and less than nothing about the profit motive. That's because at least three generations have been raised on the notion of entitlement, and when one feels entitled to something, one believes someone else should pay.
Now, here, Thomas makes a good and interesting point. Gas prices are not supposed to stay low at all times just because that is the way people want them to. Furthermore, big oil has little if anything to do with the outrageously high price of oil. There are a plethora of competing factors that I will save for another time.
Frankly, my problem with big oil has never been about high gas prices. It has a lot more to do with this next statement.
Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, told me it's a myth that oil companies are not investing in new energy sources. He says last year alone, Chevron spent $20 billion exploring new sources of energy.
Now, I am skeptical that this is true, but let's say it is. That is an awful lot to spend considering that still more than 99% of cars are powered by gasoline made from oil. If Chevron spent 20 billion last year exploring alternative energy sources that was an awful lot of money wasted. If they really spent that much we would see all sorts of pilot alternative energy tanks all over the country. I know of no hydrogen tanks at any of big oil's gas stations Chevron included.
Nothing bothers me more than when for PR reasons big oil states that they are putting energy, pardon the pun, into alternative energy. That is a bunch of nonsense. If big oil wanted to, we would be totally energy independent tomorrow. If Chevron really spent $20 BILLION last year on alternative energy sources, we would have all sorts of new alternative energy sources available through Chevron. Yet, I don't see any tanks with anything but petroleum from oil.
It is nothing short of a PR ruse perpetrated by big oil to say that they are committed to alternative energy sources. Big oil has been around for over one hundred years and yet they make the exact same product today they made one hundred years ago. To me, that is not much of a commitment. The way I see it big oil likes getting fat on gasoline made from oil. They see absolutely no reason to try and discover any new sources because that might create a market that they don't control. Right now, the top seven players in gasoline control north of sixty percent of the market. That market they can control. A market that includes fuel from hydrogen, natural gas, and other sources they can't necessarily control. Whatever they are spending, that, to me at least, is for show only.
Then again, Thomas does make this intuitive point.
Senate Democrats last week sought to ingratiate themselves with voters, while doing nothing to produce more energy, with a familiar attack on "big oil." They want to repeal $17 billion in tax breaks for the oil companies over 10 years and on top of that impose a windfall profit tax on companies that don't invest in new energy sources. This is political expediency at its worst.
Now, Thomas is absolutely right. This windfall tax is nothing more than a political stunt. It accomplishes nothing. Furthermore, Thomas makes this correct point.
Responding to objections to offshore drilling by environmentalists and their allies in Congress, Robertson noted that some of the strongest pro-environment nations in Europe - he mentions Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom - lease offshore locations for oil exploration. The technology has become so good, he said, that during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, "one thousand offshore wells were destroyed (in the Gulf of Mexico), but not one leaked." Australia, he said, has allowed offshore drilling for 40 years without any environmental damage.He's right. If the Democrats wanted to, they could cut the price of gasoline in half just by announcing that we would start drilling everywhere we can but they continue to resist like ANWR. Instead, again for political expediency, the Democrats come up with this political stunt
The Senate on Tuesday voted with overwhelming support to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to reduce the cost of gasoline.
Rather than take tangible steps and begin drilling in areas full of oil, the Democrats want us to stop fill the strategic oil reserve. If we announced that we would begin drilling in ANWR, the price of oil would drop below 100 dollars a barrell. If we announced that we would drill off the coast of the Pacific as well, it would be below fifty. If we announced that we would drill everywhere we can but don't because of "enviromental protection", the price of oil would be below $20 a barrell. Instead, we will drop the price of a barrell of oil a couple bucks and the Democrats will pretend to care.
Here is what Thomas doesn't say though. He is right. The Democrats have sold the folks out in order to get into bed with environmentalists. As such, we don't drill in all sorts of places we could drill in. The Republicans, on the other hand (like Thomas himself), have gotten into bed with big oil. As such, this cartel continues to operate even though the Sherman Anti Trust Act was created to break up just such a situation. Somehow seven companies control north of 60% of the market and no one does anything about. Somehow big oil creates the exact same product now they did eighty years ago and no one questions whether or not they are a market. Of course, they aren't. No market has such a stagnant product line. If big oil were a market, they would have turned us energy independent years ago. Of course, they aren't. They are a cartel or an oligopoly. They continue to operate as such because the Republicans are protecting them.
Make no mistake. There are plenty of villains in this mess, but big oil doesn't deserve defending.
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University Centre recruiting Chairs to lead world-changing research
21 November 2012
The University of Sydney has launched an international recruitment campaign for 10 new chair and professorial positions to spearhead its unique cross disciplinary research into obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
These new positions will all be based in the Charles Perkins Centre, named after a visionary Australian and University of Sydney graduate, Dr Charles Perkins, the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander man to graduate from an Australian university in 1966.
The generosity of donors to the University of Sydney has made it possible to appoint this record number of chairs. Over the last three years, the Charles Perkins Centre has received a total of $27 million in gifts to develop innovative solutions to the complex issues arising from obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which account for half the deaths in this country.
Four of these chairs have been funded by the proceeds of the sale of the 1935 painting by Pablo Picasso, Jeune fille endormie, which fetched $19.8 million last year at Christie's in London. An anonymous donor gave the painting to the University on the understanding these new chair positions will be named in honour of the late Leonard Paul Ullmann who was an award-winning teacher, master clinician, advocate for evidence-based practices in social and behavioural sciences and lover of art.
Three Leonard P Ullmann Chairs are being advertised and a fourth is currently under negotiation. Another chair position has been funded by the Australian Diabetes Council and will be named the Australian Diabetes Council Chair in Diabetes.
The positions span a wide number of research disciplines, namely:
- Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Metabolic Systems Biology
- Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Obesity Science
- Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Psychology
- Janet Dora Hine Chair in Politics, Governance and Ethics
- Australian Diabetes Council Chair in Diabetes
- Professor of Nursing
- Professor of Medicines Use and Health Outcomes
- Professor of Health Economics
- Professor of Physiotherapy
- Professor of Health, Exercise and Physical Activity
Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre, Professor Steve Simpson said the centre is searching for outstanding, collaborative and visionary researchers to help drive its mission of easing the burden of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, not just in Australia, but worldwide.
"These metabolic diseases are among the leading causes of mortality, disability and reduced quality of life in Australia and are an increasing problem worldwide," he said.
"At the Charles Perkins Centre, we are building a new understanding of these metabolic conditions. Our work is linked to research themes which range from nutrition to physical activity, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and the politics, governance and ethics of health.
"We are not the first to attempt to solve these problems - by a long way - so why have others not succeeded, and why should we expect to do any better? The vast majority of other initiatives worldwide have focused on obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease as medical conditions, concentrating on their complex biology at the levels of genes, cells and organs. These remain important subjects for research - and there is still a great deal to be learned - but the causes and consequences of these diseases are much more complicated than can be explained by biology alone.
"We need to understand how our biology interacts with our environment - how our risks of disease are affected by our psychological makeup, social factors, education, cultural norms, economic pressures, the built environment, agricultural practices, the food industry, information technology, the media, history, and the prevailing political climate.
"How, then, can we succeed? The answer is by bringing together the best minds to work across disciplines - not just from the medical sciences, but also from the arts and social sciences, architecture, business studies, education and social work, engineering and information technology, the health professions, and the physical, life and environmental sciences.
"More than this, we will engage and work closely with communities, government agencies, the health and education systems, urban planners, legislators and policy makers, charities and non-governmental organisations, agriculture, and the private sector," Professor Simpson said.
At the heart of the centre will be a state-of-the-art $385 million building - its Village Green. The new building has been designed to encourage and support collaborations, support "wet", "dry" and clinical research and enable education to adapt and flourish through fostering new ways of thinking and challenging the way the University thinks about the provision of infrastructure and services.
"This will be the largest research building in New South Wales and one of the largest in Australia," Professor Simpson said.
The new building is scheduled for occupancy in early 2014 and will integrate researchers across the University with Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH). By virtue of its location at the boundary between the University and the RPAH, the new building is well placed to facilitate collaboration between groups from the Faculties of Medicine, Science, Pharmacy, Nursing, Health Sciences, Veterinary Science, Agriculture, and groups from Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) including RPAH.
Since July 2008, the University has seen an increase in philanthropic gifts, raising over $220 million from nearly 21,000 individual donations. In 2011 the University of Sydney raised $79.4 million in philanthropy, a new national record in higher education, with a 33 percent increase in the number of annual donors from the previous year.
For more information about philanthropy visit sydney.edu.au/supportsydney
For further information about the available positions and details on how to apply, visit sydney.edu.au/perkins-careers
|Follow University of Sydney Media on Twitter|
Media enquiries: Andrew Potter, 02 9351 4138, 0414 998 521, firstname.lastname@example.org
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1. There's More to Stopping Hamas Terrorists than Meets the Eye
Anthony L. Kimery, from
writes about his counterterror fact-finding trip to Israel in February 2008, and his experiences as tensions escalated between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel. Kimery discusses the difficulties Israeli intelligence and military forces face in identifying and dealing with Hamas' Qassam launching sites.
2. Urban Wars Fuel Demand for More Accurate Sensors
As long as militaries continue facing difficulties finding enemy combatants inside buildings, suppliers of high-tech military hardware will continue developing sensors that help troops "see" through walls,
magazine reports. ODF Optronics, a technology firm in Tel Aviv is one such company, best known for its eyeball R1 surveillance system, which can be thrown over walls or into tunnels to establish a 360-degree video image of the area. ODF Optronics has currently has contracts with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), United States (U.S.) law enforcement agencies and the Defense Department, among others and is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop new sensors.
3. Israeli Expert Helps Keep Terrorists Out of Your Backyard
Tal Hanan, CEO of Israeli security firm Demoman International, is a security professional teaching security officials in Germany, Italy, Turkey, as well as Washington D.C., Texas, Virginia, and other states effective terror prevention techniques, Israel21c reports. Hanan and the Demoman team have lent their experience and Israel's "lessons learned" to protect schools, oil fields, and other potential targets. "The only way to beat them [terrorists] is through vigilance," Hanan says.
4. Maintaining Security at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport
highlights two Israeli companies, Hi-Tech Solutions and Rontal, which are part of Ben Gurion's security apparatus, contributing to it's reputations as one of the world's most secure airports. Hi-Tech Solutions has installed its vision-based License Plate Recognition (LPR) system which identifies vehicles entering the airport and checks their license plate number against different databases. Rontal Applications helps Ben Gurion security managers assess threats and take the necessary measures to meet
them through its SimGuard 3000 simulation program.
5. Israeli Video Security Firms Announce Partnership
Israeli companies, ioimage, and EVT, recently announced integration of their video security solutions, sourcesecurity.com reports. "The joint offering will dramatically reduce the efforts required by security officers in event detection, analysis and video management processes," says Oren Feldmann, VP Marketing and Sales, EVT. EVT is best known for Vertex, a video and network recording solution, is widely installed in large enterprises and government facilities in the U.S. and worldwide.
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by Baradwaj Rangan
On the penultimate day, in mid-August, of the month-long annual festival of the Nallur Kandaswamy Temple, Alarmel Valli is sitting cross-legged in front of a makeup mirror, spine as upright as a skyscraper, in a modest room.
The morning has not begun well. She frets that she has made one eye bigger than the other.
“I don’t want to look like a monster,” she says, clearly alluding to a universe whose fearsome creatures come in lithe frames and with enormously expressive features, highlighted by thick streaks of kohl. “It’s not kohl,” she says, picking up a small bottle. “It’s matte-finish eyeliner.’ She realises something. “I’m telling you all my secrets.” Valli is preparing to go on stage for the first session of Svanubhava’s first edition in Jaffna — the arts festival’s first edition overseas, in fact — where she will conduct a workshop on Bharatanatyam. And this is the source of her great anguish. She has been informed, very recently, that the event will be attended by 500 students. “How can I interact personally with such a vast number?” But there’s a bigger problem: she is expected to present the entire programme in Tamil.
The irony of doubting one’s nimbleness in the language in the cultural capital of the Sri Lankan Tamils is not lost on Valli. “Maybe I was a bit blind,” she says. The day she left Chennai, she had just finished organising a student’s arangetram, a first performance before an audience, and that needed months of preparation. In the meantime, she prepared for the Svanubhava workshop the way she always does — in English.
It’s also that she believes, in dialogue as much as in dance, in being well-rehearsed and perfect. “I can talk in Tamil,” she says. “But how do you convey, without preparation, concepts and aesthetics? I am a great believer in the power and the beauty of language, but to communicate powerfully, you need to use metaphors.” And her metaphors are in English.
She reads out a line, from the presentation on her tablet computer, that talks of “lyricism in subtlety and interpretation, as differing from overt sensationalism.” Without research and preparation, it does appear a task translating this into Tamil. “When you have a vision in your mind and don’t have the means to do it justice, it’s so frustrating. A great element of ad-libbing is going to be there,” she says, having conscripted T.M. Krishna in her battle. “I’ve told him he has to be emcee. I’m banking on him to save me.”
The saviour is seated in the lobby downstairs, in a salmon pink kurta and silk dhoti, and he is sympathetic to Valli’s plight, if also slightly amused. “Since last night, she’s been talking to everyone in chaste Tamil,” he reveals. But he has known all along that they will be required to speak in Tamil. “I’ve been here earlier, and I’ve interacted with the Tamil diaspora all over the world. I know how religiously bonded to the language they are.” He doesn’t see himself as emcee, though — more as an interviewer, a trigger.
Neither does he see himself as the man who made all this possible. When he started Svanubhava in 2008, with Bombay Jayashree (who is no longer a part of the event), the intent was twofold: to create a platform for communication between senior practitioners of the arts and younger students and enthusiasts, and to facilitate dialogue between the various arts. (When he interviews Valli, he will be doing just that — facilitating a dialogue between Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam.) After Bombay Jayashree left, the work has been carried on by a big team. “I am just there to answer their doubts and questions,” says Krishna.
Svanubhava, whose initial editions were in Chennai, has travelled to Tiruchi and Delhi. This is its first trip overseas. “But,” says Krishna, “Jaffna did not happen by design.” He was in Sri Lanka last year — the first Carnatic musician in 28 years to visit the Northern Provinces for a series of well-publicised concerts. The last performer of note to tour the island was M.L. Vasanthakumari, who was invited by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation in 1983. But as rumblings of dissent began to be heard, she was advised to leave at once. It was not a country, anymore, in the mood for music.
After returning to India, she gave an account of her ordeal that essentially convinced artists to steer clear of Sri Lanka. Almost three decades later, Krishna says, “I was touched by the response to my concerts in Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya. I thought this should be more than just a flash in the pan.” That is how the idea of bringing Svanubhava to Jaffna came about, in collaboration with the Indian High Commission and with logistical support provided by the local government. The organising team felt that this was the best time to stage the event, as hordes of culturally inclined visitors descend upon the island for the Nallur temple festival. “Now we have to wait and see what happens.”
This is not the only hint of history about this event. Veerasingham Hall, where Svanubhava will be inaugurated, is laden with baggage of its own. The closing ceremony of the Fourth International Tamil Research Conference, in 1974, took place opposite this hall, in a makeshift arena where thousands gathered. After a while, the Sri Lankan police set upon them with tear gas and bullets, and in the ensuing chaos nine lives were lost. This incident is among the many that instigated the demand for a separate Tamil state and the civil war that resulted — today, a chalk-white memorial to the victims stands at this site. And beyond this memorial, hardly five minutes by walk, lies the Jaffna Fort, which was the Sri Lankan military base during the war.
The siege of this fort by the LTTE, in 1990, marked their ascendancy in the peninsula, and it cleared the way for their eventual control over Jaffna. Veerasingham Hall, mute witness to these upheavals, will now resound with music and dance (especially by artists from India, Tamils from Chennai) — the occasion carries the suggestion of salve on an open blister.
The hall, this day, is filled with people of varying ages and experience. There are students like T. Ketheeswaran from St. Xavier’s Boys College, Mannar, an 18-year-old with a shy smile and a rainbow-striped tie that falls over his uniform. He has been learning Bharatanatyam since he was 11. Beside him is his teacher, Narmatha Sujinthan. This is her first appointment, and she owes her employment to a school system that insists on compulsory art lessons, worked into the daily timetable. (There is even an attendance sheet being passed around this morning.) And closer to the stage, Dr. N.V.M. Navarathnam, Head of Department of Music, University of Jaffna, remarks about the change after the war, that so many people can gather so freely. At the height of the war, many established performing artists fled the peninsula. Students continued to learn dance and music, but gatherings were forbidden and the only performances allowed were those that instilled a sense of the Tamil cause. And even that was not always possible.
“Everything had to shut down by 5 or 6 p.m.,” Navarathnam says. “How can you ask anyone to perform in the afternoon?” Today, it’s getting better. “People have slowly started venturing outside, though there is still fear. No one wants be out after 9 p.m.”
This dichotomy of life being better and yet, in some ways, the same is manifest in the road that connects the airport to the town. To set forth down this road is to witness auguries of death as well as rebirth. At first, on either side, there are shells of former houses, their complexions darkened by soot, their extremities pocked with bullet holes.
Even the bathrooms, lying outside these homes, bear the stench of death — their location enables people returning from funerals to bathe before setting foot into the house. Outlying bathrooms aren’t unique to Jaffna — it’s just that, elsewhere, these outhouses probably haven’t been used as much for this singular purpose. But today, the Tamils who left their country during the war are returning and rebuilding their homes, which are no longer in the high-security zone. There are no army check posts visible along this road. (Earlier, there used to be one every 100 metres. Today, the only check posts are around the crowded Nallur temple, halting vehicles and insisting that the journey ahead be completed by foot.
The thwarting of militancy has been replaced by traffic management.) They can furnish these homes from the DAMRO outlet further down, whose strapping size indicates a confidence that much business is about to ensue, and when hungry, they can pop down to the restaurant that serves pizza. Six months from now, when construction is complete, they can take their children to the mall and watch a movie in the multiplex.
Dr. Navarathnam, like many others, hopes for the old days again, when Jaffna drew nagaswaram artists like T.N. Rajaratnam Pillai and Thiruvengadu Subramanya Pillai. In the season when all the temples in the vicinity celebrated the utsavam, one after another, and these artists would thrive on endless concert opportunities, which they would finish off at one shot and return to India. (In capitalising on the Nallur festival, Svanubhava is essentially following their footsteps.)
On stage, too, an orator expresses hope — in chaste and unbridled Tamil — that these programmes will awaken artistic sensibilities that were much blunted in the past. As if in affirmation, the audience response for all events is instant and clamorous, hungry souls diving for the buffet. They congregate in crowds, standing if seats are filled. They applaud lustily. They question the artists with abandon. P. Unnikrishnan is asked if Lord Rama has appeared before him, the way He appeared before Thyagaraja, and if his launching into the raga Amritavarshini has, as legend suggests, given rise to rain. He is then asked to render the alapana for the raga Simhanandanapriya, and when he says he’s only heard of the Simhanandana tala, an elder — who, so far, was content to tap his fingers on his lap, in accordance with the tala — rouses himself and belts out the raga’s ascending and descending notes.
But even that doesn’t flummox this immensely popular singer as much as the request to render, specifically, the second stanza from his hit song Ennavale, from the movie Kaadhalan. A film song on the Carnatic stage? Like a faithful wife in a morality tale ordered to step into the sleeping quarters of the bachelor next door, he looks imploringly at Krishna, in the audience, and whispers, “Paadalaama?” And when Krishna shrugs and says he should go ahead, Unnikrishnan slips into playback-vocals mode and earns rounds of deafening applause. Alarmel Valli, at her workshop, fields her share of discomfiting questions.
A woman in the audience observes that she’d seen the dancer perform 15 years ago at Krishna Gana Sabha. “You look the same. What is the secret of your figure?” The matte-finish eyeliner, mercifully, renders Valli’s expression indecipherable. These awkward and somewhat personal questions form a story of their own. With jaded audiences, to whom a performance by a celebrity artist is just a drive away, the concert experience is punctuated by concerns about the canteen and texts on the mobile phone. And the queries are often abstruse and technical. But here, after long decades of deprivation, the audience vaults over the barbed wire of accepted decorum, treating the artists not just with reverence but also the revelry that accompanies an unplanned union with Facebook friends. They are presented with workshops in addition to Valli’s. Unnikrishnan speaks about the various aspects of manodharma.
A band of percussionists — Nagai R. Sriram (violin), B. Ganapathyraman (mridangam), Chandrasekhara Sarma (ghatam), Papanasam Sethuraman (kanjeera) — improvises a demonstration on how to offer standout accompaniment without disturbing the rhythms of the vocalist. As if to underline their much-deserved moment under the sun, Rithvik Raja, the singer called upon to help them illustrate their theories, is banished to the corner usually accorded the mridangam player. In the concert that follows, however, the vocalist is restored to the centre of the universe. T.M. Krishna launches into a series of songs about the desire for the divine (Arul seyya vendum ayya, Sevikka vendum ayya, and Kaana kan kodi vendum, which was preceded by a rigorously inspired alapana), and he garners applause as soon as he delivers the opening words of the ever-popular Eppo varuvaaro, again a song about the desire for the divine.
His last item, though, is mandated by the desire of the audience, who request of him Subramanya Bharathi’s Paarukkulle nalla naadu. He transforms the nation from India to Sri Lanka – “Bharatha naadu,” in the lyric, becomes “Ilangai naadu.” The reception is rhapsodic.
The concert also functions as an impromptu workshop, with Krishna highlighting open-throated singing, with importance to akaras, and the need for constant practice. He speaks mostly in Tamil, slipping now and then into English. Unnikrishnan, too, says that his is going to be “‘just a casual talk about music,” proceeds to “a small anecdote,” and goes on to advise, “Don’t worry over spilt milk.” Alarmel Valli begins impressively, with “Ellorukkum vanakkam,” salutations to all. She narrates a personal incident — Unnikrishnan might call it “a small anecdote” — about her congenital connection to Jaffna, which was forged when her parents, childless for long, prayed to Lord Murugan here and received a daughter as a blessing. (Hence Valli.) And then, just to hedge her bets, she confesses that she will be speaking in Tanglish, “which is very normal in Chennai.”
The workshop is well-received. She’s an elfin fount of grace and beauty wrapped in yards of peacock blue. Later, when Krishna, her saviour, her interviewer, asks her questions, she manages very well, even if she still hasn’t found the Tamil equivalent for “overt sensationalism.” courtesy: The Hindu
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What is NoteMesh?
We know what college is like. The lectures, the tests, the late nights in the library. Believe us, we've been there. We also know a few things about a successful college career - good note taking, studying, and getting to know your fellow classmates. That is why we invented NoteMesh.
NoteMesh is a website that allows students in the same class to collaboratively build a definitive set of lecture notes for that class. Miss a lecture? Misunderstood the key concept? Need to fill out your notes? Why not work with others in your class to create a definitive set of lecture notes that everyone can use?
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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday the recent surge in oil prices is unlikely to have a big impact on the U.S. economy but could dampen growth and raise inflation if sustained.
Bernanke told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee he saw increasing evidence that the U.S. economic recovery was becoming self-supporting. But he warned job growth remains far too anemic, indicating he is not considering cutting short the Fed's $600 billion bond-buying stimulus program.
"We do see some grounds for optimism about the job market over the next few quarters," Bernanke said, citing a steep recent decline in the jobless rate among other factors.
Bernanke said downside risks to growth had diminished, and stated for the first time that the risk of deflation — a key justification for the Fed's bond buying — was now "negligible."
"It's encouraging to see that the risk of deflation is moderating according to the Fed," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington. "That's one of the keys that will be necessary for the Fed to wind down its quantitative easing program."
At the same time, Bernanke did not appear concerned that a recent spike in the price of crude oil, driven in part by a wave of pro-democracy revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, would do much harm to the U.S. economic outlook.
Crude oil prices briefly surpassed $100 a barrel in late February but have since come down to around $98.
Bernanke, who will testify for a second day before a U.S. House of Representatives panel on Wednesday, said the Fed expects inflation to remain low and that long-term inflation expectations appear contained, both according to market indicators and surveys of consumers.
"The most likely outcome is that the recent rise in commodity prices will lead to, at most, a temporary and relatively modest increase in U.S. consumer price inflation," Bernanke said.
However, he warned that if expectations of future inflation were to build, the Fed may need to act.
"We will continue to monitor these developments closely and are prepared to respond as necessary to best support the ongoing recovery in a context of price stability," he said.
The economy expanded at just a 2.8 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter and the jobless rate stood at an elevated 9 percent in January. While hiring appears to be picking up, the pace is still too slow to make much of a dent in unemployment.
With official interest rates already near zero, the Fed in November embarked on a controversial program to buy government debt to keep down long-term rates. Bernanke said buoyant financial markets suggest the policy is working, but the labor market still has a long way to go.
"Until we see a sustained period of job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established," Bernanke said.
Much of the discussion at the hearing centered around Washington's heated budget debate. Bernanke refrained from offering detailed advice on fiscal matters, but urged lawmakers to get the deficit under control.
"The long-term imbalances are not just a long-term risk," Bernanke said. "They're a near and present danger."
MANDATE BATTLE BREWING
Financial markets had little reaction to Bernanke. U.S. stocks were little changed after the release of his testimony and a report showing growing strength in the U.S. factory sector. U.S. government bonds pared losses.
Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs, said the Fed will most likely complete its bond-buying program over the next few months and then call it a day. "The bar is pretty high" for either curtailing bond buys or expanding the program, he said.
The committee's chairman, Democrat Tim Johnson, kicked off the session with a strong defense of the Fed's dual mandate of price stability and maximum sustainable employment.
Some Republicans who have been critical of the Fed's ultra-easy monetary policy have vowed to introduce legislation forcing the U.S. central bank to focus solely on inflation.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker asked Bernanke whether a mandate focusing solely on inflation could buttress the Fed's credibility.
Bernanke sidestepped the debate, saying he sees the current mandate as adequate. "We think it's appropriate and we are right now not seeking any change," he said. "Congress, of course, can certainly discuss that issue and we'll do whatever Congress tells us to do."
Johnson indicated any effort to change the mandate would face a tough fight.
"As the economy continues to struggle to recover, we should be using every tool in the toolbox to create jobs and spur growth," he said. "Taking tools away from the Fed now is the wrong idea at the wrong time."
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
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Lost divers fight off dragon to survive
A BRITISH couple who went missing while scuba diving described yesterday howthey swam and and floated for 12 hours in shark-infested waters only toscramble ashore on a desert island inhabited by 10ft-long komodo dragons.
They had to fight off one of the giant lizards, which have shark-like serratedteeth and have been known to kill humans, by pelting it with rocks.
James Manning, 30, and his girlfriend Charlotte “Charlie” Allin, 25, wereamong a group of five divers feared dead after they went missing intreacherous waters off the beautiful islands of eastern Indonesia for morethan 40 hours.
Allin and three others were finally spotted waving frantically on the beach ofRinca island – 20 miles from where they vanished – by a policeman aboard oneof 30 boats that had been called in to search for them.
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Michigan Technological University views students as young adults who are in the process of becoming responsible, accountable, and capable. We respect their growing independence and hold them accountable for decisions they make. We also respect their privacy, but don't always promise confidentiality and, if needed, we will get others involved to ensure their well-being.
As such, Michigan Tech views parents and guardians as our partners and will collaborate with them to the best of our ability to assist their student. However, it is our preference to work directly with students in order to foster their growth and development. Parents and guardians are encouraged to continue to strengthen and build the relationship with their student by adding the role of mentor and coach.
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The effect of neighbourhood income and deprivation on pregnancy outcomes in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Background: Studies suggest that the neighbourhoods in which people live influence their health. The main objective of this study was to investigate the associations of neighbourhood-level income and unemployment/social security benefit on pregnancy outcomes: preterm delivery, small for gestational age (SGA), pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) and miscarriage/perinatal death in Amsterdam. Methods: A random sample of 7883 from 82 neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. Individual-level data from the Amsterdam Born Children and their Development (ABCD) study were linked to data on neighbourhood-level factors. Multilevel logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios and neighbourhood-level variance. Results: After adjustment for individual-level factors, women living in low-income neighbourhoods (third, second and first quartiles) were more likely than women living in high-income neighbourhoods (fourth quartile) to have SGA births: OR 1.32 (95% CI 1.04 to 1.68), 1.42 (1.11 to 1.82) and 1.62 (1.25 to 2.08) respectively. Women living in the quartile of neighbourhoods with the highest unemployment/social security benefit were more likely than those living in the quartile with the lowest unemployment/social security benefit to have SGA births 1.36 (1.08 to 1.72). The neighbourhood-level variance was significant only for SGA births. No significant associations were found between neighbourhood-level factors and other pregnancy outcomes. Conclusion: The findings suggest that neighbourhood income and deprivation are related to SGA births. More research is needed to explore possible mechanisms underlying poor neighbourhood environment and pregnancy outcomes, in particular through stress mechanisms. Such information might be necessary to help improve maternal and fetal health.
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Red-Tape Mandates Spark Innovation
Bringing it all together
One way some organizations are trying to limit their investments in compliance is by trying to make sense of the new regulations as a whole. In that way, perhaps it's ironically helpful that most of the deadlines are within a relatively short five-year time frame.
"Leaders are overwhelmed that all of these initiatives are really happening at the same time. It's very expensive for healthcare organizations and very labor intensive, and mandatory regulation compliance issues are exhausting their budgets," says Jacobs. "I've been in this industry for 30 years, and I don't remember so many things going on at the same time before."
Still, Fifer says finding a way to look at all of the work holistically is important so that duplication of efforts doesn't happen or that work by one group on ICD-10, for example, doesn't set back work on meaningful use.
"We're trying to find the common ground among all of these regulations so everyone is not duplicating efforts," he says. "That's hard to do because they are so specific and we have totally different work teams. But we're trying to raise that level of awareness."
How? By encouraging the groups to meet together formally and informally such that "you've got hundreds of people looking for that common ground instead of one or two," Fifer says.
For his part, Rowan says it is helpful to integrate the regulatory requirements and compliance into a plan that incorporates the strategic goals of the organization, so that compliance doesn't feel like mandates that force investments that will never pay off.
"First, we're trying to get paid for high performance by utilizing some of the metrics and indicators they have out there with HCAHPS and lowering readmission rates, and not reimbursing for mistakes that are made. They're trying to create a focus on preventive appropriate care, and move away from the idea that we get paid more for doing more volume," says Rowan. "Third, we'll all be better off if we digitize and automate all the data. Putting all that together has created a number of significant strategic initiatives for us."
For Baptist's Bradford, he sees the regulations as a framework that hospitals can use to create tools and processes to meet the goal of better care and cost control.
"Process is very important. We utilize Lean throughout our organization, and it works on all things we're talking about. It's part of the equation."
Hospitals: An endangered species?
All of this is fine for these organizations, which are multihospital systems with entrenched positions in their respective marketplaces. But what about smaller hospitals without the scale these organizations have?
Deloitte's Keckley argues that senior leaders of organizations without these advantages have good reason if they are among the pessimistic.
"It's going to be very Darwinian over the next six to eight years," he predicts. "The insurance market will shift dramatically, the economic recovery will be slow, and there will be a lot of pressure on folks to compete."
Keckley, as part of his research, recently completed interviews with 25 different hospital and health system CEOs about their coping mechanisms and strategies surrounding healthcare reform.
"And I'm hearing the same things," he says. "Many of them are just tired. It's almost a thankless job."
In these economic times, perhaps it's a little hyperbolic to call such a well-compensated job thankless, but the turmoil is causing even some of the bigger organizations to rethink their role in the care delivery process.
"We're recasting ourselves from a hospital company to being an integrated delivery system," says CHI's Rowan.
CHI now employs a vice president of hospitals, a VP of ambulatory care, and a VP of home health, for example.
"They're not subsets of the hospital; now they're on peer," he says. "To lead in the market, we're no longer looking for hospital administrators, but market leaders who have an understanding of the whole continuum."
Technically, says Keckley, many hospitals that are too small to compete won't completely go away, but a number will.
"There will be a shrinking of the market. A number [of hospitals] will be converted away from acute care and into something else. They cannot operate with high safety and quality, which require a certain volume level. That will force small hospitals to either be absorbed or relicensed to long-term care."
That also means scale is the key to sustainability.
"You can't assume acute care can be delivered safely and efficiently where you're operating fewer than a couple hundred beds. There will be exceptions to that in rural areas," he says. "But mapping to all of these incentives that change from volume to value or outcomes means these hospitals have had or will have to put 6%–8% of revenue in IT systems. You just can't survive. You're not big enough to do everything you have to do."
This article appears in the March 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.
Philip Betbeze is senior leadership editor with HealthLeaders Media.
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- Building a Better Healthcare Board
- Case Study: Advance Care Conversations
- Tavenner Confirmed as CMS Administrator
- CMS Releases Hospital Pricing Data
- Access to EHR Notes Lauded by Patients, Providers
- Leapfrog Hospital Safety Scores 'Depressing'
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|Home | Contact us | Links | Archives | Search|
Issue 442 -- July 17-23, 2010
Why Somalia Would Make Afghanistan Seem Like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood For US Troops
Sunday's Uganda bombings show that the threat of Somalia's Al Shabaab is very serious, so what should the US do about it? The status quo is not working, but if you think Afghanistan is a quagmire, you ain't seen nothing yet.
By Laura Seay, Guest blogger
In the light of Sunday's horrific bombings in Kampala, Uganda, it was only a matter of time before proposals for a US-backed invasion and/or bombing of Somalia started popping up, along with less specific calls to do "more." A few thoughts on this:
The Al Shabaab threat is real and it is very, very serious.
More than seventy people lost their lives on Sunday, and it's likely that more will lose their lives in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and/or Burundi before this is over.
Supporting the Somali government will not do much to mitigate the threat from Al Shabaab. Let's be clear: Somalia's current, internationally-recognized federal government is a joke. It does not control its own capital city. It operated out of a hotel in Nairobi for several years. It would not exist were it not for the presence of foreign troops and substantial US backing.
As G. Pascal Zachary notes, we are long past due for a reckoning on America's policy vis-a-vis Somalia. The insistence on the part of the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the White House that the best means for stabilizing the situation involves maintaining Somalia's fictional territorial integrity represents the same sort of thinking that got us into a mess there in 1993.
So what should happen with respect to US policy in Somalia? A lot will depend on the decisions taken by the African Union at its summit in Entebbe next week. Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda have gone along with US plans for the region in exchange for support, training, and materiel. Will they be willing to continue to do so in light of the fact that Al Shabaab now has the capacity to threaten civilian lives in their own countries?
Finally, there is the question of Somaliland, the autonomous entity in northern Somalia that has all the attributes of statehood save the most important one: international recognition. Somaliland just held successful elections that will apparently result in a turnover of power from one party to another.
It is a functioning state with a growing economy and a solid modicum of territorial control. It's long past time that the US stopped dithering around in Mogadishu and worked with those who are actually capable of governing in the Horn.
Zachary advocates for the recognition of three "autonomous provinces" in the region. Puntland is probably not strong enough to govern outside of a few strongholds, but Somaliland most certainly is. Recognition would allow the US to train Somaliland soldiers, and, more importantly, potentially provide a base for operations that is far more stable than the volatile border in Kenya.
Will doing so solve all the region's problems, particularly the threat from Al Shabaab? Of course not. But it's high time we stopped kidding ourselves that the current M.O. will ever work. It won't.
In the days to come, look for Ken Menkhaus' thoughts on the current situation. Menkhaus is the smartest American academic working on Somalia today; I'm sure he'll have much to say.
--- Laura Seay blogs at Texas in Africa.
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Second Thoughts on the Death Penalty
McVeigh Case Aside, Support for Executions Is Declining
| 450 hits
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana, MAY 26, 2001 (Zenit.org).- The blunders that led to the delay of Timothy McVeigh´s execution are rekindling the long-standing debate over the death penalty in America.
The discovery that the FBI had failed to turn over to defense lawyers thousands of pages of reports forced U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to put off the execution, scheduled for May 16.
Even though it appears that the missing documents were not vital to McVeigh´s defense, who openly admits his responsibility for the bombing of the federal government building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, his lawyers have demanded time to examine them and reserved the right to seek a retrial.
Time magazine, in its May 21 issue, noted that the latest evidence of errors in the judicial system comes shortly after the announcement of an investigation into mistakes made by a police chemist, Joyce Gilchrist, also from Oklahoma. Authorities are now investigating all cases in which she was involved, including 23 death sentences.
McVeigh was already at the center of attention before the foul-up over the documents. About 300 family members of the bombing victims asked to witness the execution; this led to the decision to transmit it over closed-circuit television. About 1,600 reporters were expected at the Indiana federal prison for the execution.
The McVeigh case stands out for several reasons: It will be the first federal execution in 38 years; it involved 168 victims; and the condemned man seems indifferent to the lives lost -- he referred to the deaths of the 19 children in the blast as "collateral damage."
Behind the numbers
Public opinion is in favor of executing McVeigh, polls indicate. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, May 6, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll indicates that of the 38% of Americans who say they generally oppose the death penalty, more than half think that McVeigh should be executed. Overall, more than 81% say McVeigh should be executed.
Yet, the overwhelming support for McVeigh´s execution masks the reality of declining public approval of capital punishment, the Washington Post reported May 3. About half of all respondents surveyed by the Post favored life in prison over the death penalty. A similar proportion also supported halting all executions until it can be determined that capital punishment is being applied fairly across the country.
The Post-ABC News poll found that support for the death penalty has declined in the wake of falling crime rates and the highly publicized releases of death row inmates who were convicted of murders they did not commit. Overall, 63% favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, but this is down from 77% five years ago.
Asked which punishment they would most prefer for convicted murderers -- the death penalty or life in prison without parole -- support for legal executions fell even further. Only 46% supported capital punishment, while 45% favored life in prison.
Around the world
Amnesty International says 75 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while another 13 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes. Counting those nations where capital punishment remains on the books but is no longer practiced, a total of 108 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. During the last decade, three countries a year, on average, have abolished the death penalty.
Last year at least 1,457 prisoners were executed in 27 countries, and 3,058 people were sentenced to death in 65 countries, reports Amnesty International. Of the executions, 88% took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. China alone posted 1,000 executions; Saudi Arabia, 123; the United States, 85; Iran, at least 75. In addition, Amnesty says hundreds of executions were reported in Iraq but many of them may have been extrajudicial.
The U.S. executions brought to 683 the total number executed since the resumption of the death penalty in 1977. More than 3,700 prisoners were under a death sentence as of Jan. 1.
The international campaign against the death penalty is directed against the United States, even though other countries are responsible for a greater number of executions. On May 20 Chinese authorities executed at least 29 people, the Associated Press reported the same day. During recent weeks hundreds of executions have occurred as part of a crackdown on crime.
The AP reported May 18 that the Strike Hard campaign had resulted in 801 executions, by one estimate. Human rights groups have spoken of more than 500 executions since April 11. The estimate of 801 comes from a Western diplomat who counted the deaths reported in the state media in final three weeks of April alone. China keeps nationwide execution figures a secret and has not said how many have been killed.
The international press has made remarkably little attention to this latest wave of executions in China. Governments have also been very silent about this as well. Last year, according to Time, the presidency of the European Union, sent the then governor of Texas, George W. Bush, no fewer than eight letters asking for pardons of death-row prisoners. However, the European Union has not said anything about the recent events in China, at least publicly.
Another country that has escaped the attention of the anti-death penalty campaigners is Japan. In a rare report on the situation, the Washington Post on May 2 recounted the suffering of Sakae Menda, who after 34 years on death row was freed when the courts admitted he had been condemned for a crime he did not commit.
Fifty men and four women now await execution in Japan. The only warning they will receive of their death will be the appearance at their cell one morning of guards who will take them to the execution chamber.
The Justice Ministry keeps secret the names of those selected for execution and gives no explanation for the choice. Even when all legal processes are finished, inmates spend years or decades not knowing if they are living their last day. Human rights groups condemn this uncertainty. "It´s inhumane. They go through torture every day," said Sayoko Kikuchi, head of an abolitionist group in Tokyo called Rescue!
The Post reported that the Justice Ministry has repeatedly passed over certain prisoners until they are old and frail, in tacit admission that their sentence may have been wrong. Nearly 20 inmates have been on death row for more than a decade. At least 16 are over age 60; the eldest, 83, has been under a death sentence since 1966.
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CBNNews.com - New York's governor says his proposed obesity tax on sugary drinks won't pass the state legislature.
Gov. David Patterson said he wants to raise awareness of childhood obesity. His proposal would place an 18 percent tax on soda and other sugary drinks containing less than 70 percent fruit juice.
According to a study, the tax would raise an estimated $1 billion in revenue over the next two years, while reducing the use of sugary drinks by 5 percent.
Patterson says one out of every four children nationwide is obese.
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Personnel Management-Classification System Policy Number and Last Update (01.03.04/01-2011)
Positions are determined by the grant application completed by Migrant & Seasonal Head Start Project staff at the time requested by HHS Migrant Programs Branch and are based on the total funds available to the Project. Position descriptions are distributed to staff at the time of training and include the title, responsibilities, qualifications required and major duties. Delegate agency programs are required to use Project position descriptions in all aspects of their personnel management system for the current grant period and all subsequent grant periods for which the descriptions were designed.
IMSHSP's aim is to provide each employee with the instruction, resources, experience, coaching, and encouragement that will enable him to perform his work proficiently, for his own benefit, and that of the program. It is the job of grantee personnel to keep abreast of research and developments in their respective fields, and to incorporate new information into training and resources for delegate staff.
Delegate employees' responsibility is to learn, and to apply knowledge to their work. To the greatest extent possible, the program supports employees' efforts to enhance their abilities by providing books, periodicals, workshops, and individual technical assistance on the job. Head Start funds are spent to subsidize staff training, that will best serve the program's interests.
Grantee and delegate staff jointly identifies promising teachers or assistant teachers, and help them prepare for obtaining their degrees in early childhood education.
In as much as consideration of the children's and families' well-being must outweigh all other interests, this policy includes the replacement of staff who do not demonstrate the potential for reaching IMSHS's intent of distinction in every facet of its program.
- Delegate staff attends the annual centralized training presented by the grantee.
- Delegate programs conduct one week or two of pre-service training, covering all items required in procedures.
- Education coordinator present or coordinate monthly in-service workshops for teachers, based on their expressed or observed needs.
- Each staff member follows his own development plan.
- Each employee (unless it is known that he will not return to work the following season) fills out a Staff Training Needs Assessment.
- The supervisor evaluates the performance of the employee, assesses training needs based on SOLAR and together they fill out the individual Staff Training Plan.
- The director and coordinators complete the T/TA Plan (for the entire program), setting priorities according to the availability of funds. Some training may be provided by delegate or grantee staff, at no extra cost, and there may be local resources available in the community. Some training needs may be met by the purchase of books or videos.
- The director transcribes the data from the Staff Training Plan to the T&TA plan for the proposal.
- Records of employees' training activities are kept in personnel files, and continuously up-dated.
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Your question has already been answered repeatedly throughout this thread
it was? where?
and it was also responded to in the Dr. Price quote.
nothing in that quote said anything about why historical experts of all stripes acknlowledge the existence of Jesus.
Your position on Caesar has already been exposed for the utter nonsense that it is.
you didn't even respond to it so how could it have been "exposed"? here is the info you haven't addressed:
You state that Caesar has personal written documents and Jesus doesn’t. Do you know anything about caesar’s commentaries?
1. His authorship is a claim by Suetonius. That’s the only proof we have that he actually wrote them. and he didn’t even write all of them. how can we be sure he wrote any of them? we can’t.
2. They are basically journal entries during the gallic and civil wars. They do not tell us much, if anything about Caesar himself. Therefore, they really make no difference in determining if Caesar himself existed. They could have been chronicled by anyone referring to some other Caesar like person such as in the case of the Arthur legend.
3. There are clear signs of embellishment which further smears the credibility of the documents.
These are facts maintained by the academic community, not opinions. Therefore, the commentaries are completely unconvincing admissions into the record.
You state that caesar’s friends wrote about him during his lifetime but Jesus’ didn’t. there are only a handful of copies of the writings of Cicero and Sallust, they are from the middle ages, have lacunae and shows signs of editions by copyists. In comparison, there are at least 5000 greek manuscripts of the nt dating back to 150ad at the latest for the rylands fragment, even more in latin and Coptic and show a miniscule percentage of variants compared to the writings of Cicero and Sallust. By any historical standard, the accounts of Jesus are astronomically more conclusive for historicity. The difference between the size of an atom and the size of Jupiter.
As far as caesar’s enemies, they’re no more trustworthy or conclusive than the writings of Cicero and Sallust and extra biblical accounts of Jesus have been listed by the authors I’ve already mentioned.
First century Christians would be horrified if a sculpture or statue of Jesus were created so a bust of Caesar proves nothing in comparison to Jesus. The followers of Jesus were opposed to such things whereas roman culture celebrated such things. Jesus’ followers preserved His existence in other, no less palpable ways.
I’m sure you’re aware that catholics have for centuries claimed to have artifacts from Jesus’ life and crucifixion so the same for Caesar proves nothing.
Birthdate, date of death and last name come from historical sources. The historical sources are clearly in Jesus’ favor.
No matter how you slice it, the evidence is heavily, heavily in Jesus’ favor. It’s a monumental difference. Your use of the oversimplified chart is very subversive from a historiographical standpoint. It’s really more posturing than actual history.
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Home security cameras have improved in the last decade. You can choose to monitor your home with modern night vision security cameras. Some of these cameras create images even when there is no light. Protecting your family and home is a top priority. Home security systems cost less than they did in previous years. Night vision technology is delivered using one of three methods, low-light, thermal imaging and infrared illumination.
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Rick Santorum made a bid for a nomination on a platform focused largely on faith.
Football player Tim Tebow earned the adoration of millions for his Christian piety and public display of faith. Even Penn State, a public university embroiled in a scandal that threatens its reputation, sealed a moment of spiritual solidarity when its football players — along with those from the University of Nebraska — bowed their heads in prayer before a game last fall shortly after the firing of legendary coach Joe Paterno.
And Pennsylvania has joined the ranks of states with conservative statehouse majorities that have challenged the litmus test of faith in government. While lawmakers declared this the Year of the Bible, their peers in Florida recently approved a law that will permit students to offer “inspirational messages,” including prayer, at school events.
“For a long time the gospel of our society was bigger, better, faster. Governments fell for it, too,” said Tony Blair, president of the Evangelical Seminary in Myerstown. “It’s not working anymore. The reality is we are smaller, simpler and slower.”
Americans, grappling with threats and fears since 9/11, Blair said, have turned inward — and upward. But Americans have yet to have a dialogue on faith that is free from mundane distractions, he said.
“I’m not so sure our society is positioned to have a mature conversation on matters of faith,” Blair said. “We’d like to have one but much of it becomes symbolic. We end up obsessing over symbols. Whether it’s a candidate’s religious association or a football player kneeling in the end zone, we will obsess over symbols because we can’t have a mature conversation.”
Still, in the public arena, faith leverages considerable sway.
The National Day of Prayer itself has long engendered vigorous debate, prompting detractors to challenge its constitutionality even as advocates launched efforts to save it.
The backlash to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act, largely fueled by the faith-based community, came 50 years after two landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1962 and 1963 that banned state-sponsored prayer, Bible readings and school-sponsored religious activities.
Faith-based groups — in large part the Catholic Church — assailed the health care bill as an assault on religious liberties. Those voices were bolstered by Republicans, including Sen. Pat Toomey and U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Hazleton, but also Democrats like Sen. Bob Casey Jr., who broke party rank to oppose the bill.
“I think all of those are an attempt — a pretty blatant one — to appeal to religious voters,” said Brian Fields, president of Pennsylvania Non-Believers. “What I find interesting is that there are plenty of religious voters that not only see this for what it is, they are concerned as we are, that government entities shouldn’t be marketing a particular flavor of religion or any religion at all.”
Political maneuvering behind a veil of faith is nothing new. Religious groups — and more recently conservatives — have long accused the country from getting away from the premise that it was founded as a Christian nation.
That argument has been applied liberally to, for example, add “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and block attempts to take down Ten Commandments plaques from statehouses. Obama, a Christian, is not Christian enough in the eyes of some conservative Christian groups; and Romney, a Mormon, is in some circles considered a member of a cult.
“I think more outspoken folks are really unhappy because we are a tolerant-of-religions nation,” said Colleen E. Kelley, associate professor of speech communication, humanities and social sciences at Penn State Erie. “If you read the subtext of the criticism, it’s not that we’re moving into a more secular religious nation is that we are not moving into the direction of the proper religion. There’s a Grand Canyon of difference in that.”
Faith will likely fade into the woodwork as the presidential race continues.
Values might matter to voters, but it doesn’t drive them to the polls. Obama and Romney will likely debate the economy — not faith.
“People are worried and they are not worried about saving their souls,” said Kelley, whose academic work includes an examination of faith in politics. “They are worried about saving their mortgages.”
Bishop A.E. Sullivan Jr., president of the Inter-Denominational Ministers Conference of Greater Harrisburg, bemoans what he sees is the political opportunistic use of faith — and the Bible.
Sullivan, an outspoken supporter of Pennsylvania’s Year of the Bible declaration, said the same interests that voted for that measure support proposals that he says counter Christian and Biblical principles. Sullivan points to budget cuts in education and social services.
“Matthew: 25,” he said. “The only thing God mentions for the Day of Judgment is not did you go to church or support abortion. The only thing He said is did you feed the poor, did you clothe the naked, did you visit those imprisoned.”
No amount of religious posturing, Sullivan said, can reconcile political rhetoric that violates those faith-based principles. He said too many conservatives rally around the cry of “we don’t need food stamps, we don’t need to help the poor, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
“We can’t use faith or the Bible to intentionally disenfranchise others or push them aside,” Sullivan said. “Faith shouldn’t be used for that. Faith should be used for the common good, to lift, to help.”
The National Day of Prayer, which was instituted in 1952 amid fears of the spread of a Godless communism, remains for now as a symbol that this is a nation that prays and prays together.
“There is of course, nothing that stops us from praying on the other 364 days,” Blair said.
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Estate Management including Green Inspectors
Green Inspectors help improve the appearance of your local neighbourhood.
Through a designated telephone number or email address Green Inspectors alert us to any issues affecting the appearance of neighbourhoods allowing us to deal promptly and efficiently with these reports.
Examples of such issues are
Green Inspectors are not expected to inspect the whole of their neighbourhood. The area that can be surveyed from their own home is where responsibility will lie.
We are always on the look out for new inspectors. You will be provided with an information pack and given any training you need to do the job. If you are interested in becoming a Green Inspector please phone 01606 813300 and ask to speak to the Neighbourhood Team.
We aim to ensure that all Neighbourhoods are safe and clean places to live and the role of the Green Inspectors is vital to achieving this and key to our vision.
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MILITARY SCIENCE (ROTC)
- ARMY RESERVE OFFICER'S TRAINING CORPS (ROTC) SCHOLARSHIPS: Army ROTC scholarships are merit-based and awarded on competitive basis. These scholarships cover all tuition and fees. In addition, each winner receives a flat rate of $450 annually for books. A student will also receive a subsistence allowance of up to $2000 each school year the scholarship is in effect. The period for requesting an application form for a four-year Army ROTC scholarship is from March 1 of a high school student's junior year through November 1 of a student's senior year. If the completed application is post-marked by July 15, the applicant will be considered for an early scholarship. Winners are announced about November 1.
SCHUDER'S RANGER COMPANY SCHOLARSHIP: This $20,300 scholarship was created by Raymond Schuder and his wife, Vernon, for needy and deserving students participating in the Ranger Company while attending Sam Houston State University. To be considered as a recipient applicants must satisfy the following criteria: APPLICATION DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 15 & MARCH 30.
THE COLONEL JOHN W. THOMASON JR., USMC, MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP: This $10,000 endowed scholarship was created by the sisters of Colonel Thomason: Mrs. Sue T. Noordberg, Mrs. Emily T. Petersen, and Mrs. Margaret T. Cole. The scholarship includes a saber awarded to the future Bearkat Battalion Commander for the Fall semester. To be considered as a recipient applicants must satisfy the following criteria: 1) Enrolled as a contracted Military Science III Cadet in the necessary to assume command of the BearKat Battalion, and 3) Maintain good scholarship and excellence while representing SHSU through the Army ROTC Program.
TWO OR THREE YEAR RESERVE FORCES DUTY SCHOLARSHIP: Eligibility requirements are the same as the four year scholarship except that applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.5 (at application time and time of receivership). Three year applicants must have a qualifying SAT/ACT score, two year applicants do not require a SAT/ACT score. APPLICATION DEADLINE: CONTACT U.S. ARMY RECRUITER.
JAMES DENNIS BAZAN MEMORIAL ENDOWMENT: A Military Science student must be enrolled in the Bearkat Battalion the following fall and spring and in good standing at SHSU. Student must maintain an overall 2.25 GPA and demonstrate financial need.
COPELAND MILITARY SCIENCE SCHOLARSHIP: Well provide two $250 annual awards each year. Recipient must be minoring in Military Science. 2.5 GPA required. APPLICATION DEADLINE: APRIL 15.
COLONEL WILLIAM JACKSON BYTHE, SR ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP: Recipient must be a full-time incoming freshman student in good standing enrolled at Sam Houston State University and a member of the ROTC program, demonstrate financial need, have achieved an overall high school GPA of 3.0 and maintain an overall GPA of 3.0 at SHSU. APPLICATION DEADLINE: JULY 31ST.
COLONEL JOHN A. AND GEANIE L. MCMANNERS ROTC SCHOLARSHIP; recipient must be a full-time sophomore, junior, or senior student, majoring in any discipline, and a member of the ROTC program. Financial need is a consideration, but not a determining factor; $1,000/year and must maintain a grade point average or 2.50 or better; deadline is 1 February.
MARCUS LUTTRELL MILITARY SCIENCE SCHOLARSHIP: $1,000 per year. Recipient must be a full-time sophomore, junior or senior student in good standing and majoring in any discipline; be a member of the ROTC program at SHSU; be contracted to become a commissioned officer; and, demonstrate leadership. Financial need will be a consideration, but not a determining factor. Applicants must read the book, "Lone Survivor; The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heros of SEAL Team 10" by Marcus Luttrell, and write a one-page essay on how this book influenced their lives and write the essay after receiving notification of the award. GPA of 2.80 is required the first year; 2.90 the 2nd year; 3.00 the 3rd year. Application deadline is March 1st.
B. D. AND B. W. SLAYTON MEMORIAL ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP: $1,000 per year. Recipient must be a full-time sophomore (in the fall semester of receiving the award) in good standing and majoring in any discipline; be highly motivated and exhibit an ability to become a commissioned officer in the United States Army. GPA of 2.50 is required. Application deadline is February. For additional information, contact Jamilyn White, email@example.com, 936-294-1306.
Eligibility requirements are:
A. U.S. citizen
B. Age 17 before the scholarship is effective.
C. Taken the SAT or ACT no later than November of the year of application, have a minimum 850 SAT or composite 19 ACT.
D. Good high school grades.
E. Participate in leadership, extracurricular, and athletic activities (part-time jobs earn substitute credit).
F. Under age 27 on June 30 of the expected graduation year (*Qualifying veterans may be granted an extension of up to four years).
G. High school graduate or have equivalent credit.
H. Agree to accept a commission in the U.S. Army.
I. Agree to pursue Army approved academic major.
J. Meet required physical standards.
A. Demonstrate financial need.
B. Demonstrate good character.
C. Maintain good scholarship and excellence, while representing SHSU through participation in the Ranger Company.
Remember, there is no obligation to the U.S. Army to apply for a scholarship, only to accept one.
Request applications from: Enrollment Officer, Department of Military Science, Box 2298, SHSU, Huntsville, TX 77341-2298, (936)294-1302/1298, firstname.lastname@example.org
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Power outages and extreme heat will make for a long holiday week for many in Eastern Kentucky.
A series of storms rolled through Eastern Kentucky beginning Friday and continuing through late Sunday night. In Floyd County, high wind downed trees and power lines, leaving many with out power.
Kentucky Power officials say that, late Sunday evening, winds in excess of 60 miles per hour combined with heavy rain to cause outages to more than 63,800 Kentucky Power customers. The storm caused extensive damage to power company lines, poles, cross arms and other electrical equipment.
According to officials with Kentucky Power, restoration crews have been working since the storm hit to assess damage and make repairs.
At this time, based on damage and outage estimates, company officials say it could be as late as Friday, July 6, before all customers in its service area affected by the storm are returned to service, although most customers will have power restored well before then. The company has brought in 380 professionals from outside utilities and electrical contractors to aid in the restoration effort.
In an update sent out on Twitter early Monday morning, Kentucky Power advised that, following Sunday night’s storms, the total number of people in their service without power was now over 41,000. There were nearly 4,000 customers without power in Floyd County at 10 a.m., Monday morning.
Making matters worse for storm victims is a forecast from the National Weather Service NWS of more extreme heat this week, as temperatures are expected to climb into the mid and upper 90s today, with dew points in the upper 60s, resulting in heat index values peaking around 100 degrees. The NWS is also warning people not to leave children or pets in a car, even with the windows left cracked open.They report that a vehicle can heat up to over 120 degrees in less than a half an hour. Leaving a child or pet in an enclosed vehicle, even for a few minutes, can be deadly.
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Puri situated on the eastern sea-bed
of India, is the only most popular sea-side resort where the beauty of the sky
in radiant colours, the roaring waves and the golden beach can be
experienced. The long sandy beach draws large numbers of western travellers and
Indians. According to Hindu belief, there are five great holy spots(Pancha Tirthas) at
Puri out of which sea is the greatest and holiest for tourists and travellers.
Puri sea beach is the best in India. In Mumbai, Goa, Cochin and Chennai as well as
other sea beaches, taking bath in sea is a risk due to tides, under current and
deepness. But in Puri to take sea bath is a pleasure and enjoyable experience.
The beach is very wide and exposed and there's not a scrap of shade to be
Puri offers the tourist the rare opportunity of witnessing the colourful
Sun rise and Sun set. Puri sea beach is the right place to spend and enjoy
morning and evening. Thousands of people from different part of India and world
spend their morning and evening at Puri sea beach each and everyday. Sea shells are
collected here in large quantity. These are the main wealth of Puri sea beach.
It is highlight witnessing the dawn over the sea and fishing boats.The crude construction of the boats is
unusual. They are made of solid tree trunks and are enormously heavy. Buoyancy is
achieved purely from the buck of wood. They are made in two or three
pieces, split longitudinally and bound together, when not in use they are untied
and the pieces laid out on the beach to dry.
|Other Sea Beaches Around Puri|
A light signal was used at Puri in
1877 for the ships passing along the coast at night. The lamp was changed
subsequently in 1882 and 1887. A drum optic electric lamp was put into service
from the 1st December, 1956 on the centre of the terrace of the Circuit house
with cast-iron pedestal placed on wooden treastle. The light is visible in clear
weather upto a distance of fourteen nautical miles or approximately 27 kms.
over the sea.
There is a separate class of Guide
comprising Telgu speaking Fishermen section. They are called as 'Nolias'. The
Nolias, wearing conical straw hats and holding rubber tubes, guide bathers out through the surf. Non should
take bath without the help of those Nolias otherwise non-acquintance may lead
in to danger.
About the Nolias
Puri was a minor port with customs
office, flagstaff and meteorological observatory. The ships used to anchor at a
considerable distance and the cargoes and passengers were brought to the shore
by the surf-boats of the Nolias(fishermen). The Nolias are Telgu fishermen by
caste and were originally inhabitants of the Madras presidency.On the outbreak
of the great Orissa famine of 1886 A.D. the ancestors of these Nolias were
induced by the then Collector of Puri, Wilson, to come and settle in Puri in
order to help the Government in famine relief work and as a recognition of
their services they were allowed to hold lands in the Balukhand area at nominal
rent. These people are the only class of seafaring men who could brave the sea
at all weather and were extremely useful in rowing out cargoes of rice to the
steamers which from time to time used to call at the Port.
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While GPS can’t show a parole officer what an offender is doing, it can prove what he hasn’t done.
It’s generally true, Baker says, that when a violent or sexual crime occurs, sex offenders living in the surrounding neighborhoods are often the first suspects. GPS provides strong alibis.
In a recent murder case in which a Nambé woman was accused of stabbing her mother to death, the defense attempted to pin the crime on her ex-boyfriend, Joseph Herrera, a registered sex offender convicted in 1999 of third-degree criminal sexual conduct of a minor.
Herrera’s GPS logs exonerated him.
“When it happened, we got a call advising us what was going on, so we just ran the tracking,” Baker says. “He was at his house at the time it happened and that was pretty much black and white.”
The GPS also can protect sex offenders from accusations made by vengeful ex-relations.
“I have had clients whose disgruntled girlfriends have accused them of crimes, battery, violating parole and Terry Baker can look it up see that [the client] wasn’t even there,” Santistevan says. “That doesn’t make my guys appreciate their GPS much, though.”
Advocates for sex offender rights concede the monitoring system has its benefits. Alice Benson, a co-director of Citizens for Change New Mexico, which acts as an advocacy and support group for sex offenders, recalls an incident with an offender she hires to chop wood in her backyard.
Due to his GPS device, his parole officer caught him drinking at a party. He went back to prison for a few months and hasn’t violated his parole since.
“I think he learned his lesson,” Benson says. “So, that was one advantage.”
Eighteen years after 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in northern California, parole officers discovered she was with Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender. El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies arrested Garrido and soon information emerged that despite twice-monthly home visits, parole officers failed to discover the backyard shed where Dugard was kept.
Would modern technology have helped free Dugard earlier?
The quick answer is: probably. Parole officers could have looked up every sex offender’s whereabouts that summer day in 1991 to identify which one had passed by Dugard’s school bus stop where she was snatched. Failing that, they could have hauled in every offender whose GPS monitor was out of service.
At New Mexico’s parole response center, Tennant dreams about real-time satellite imaging, which would allow him to zoom in and see not only where the offender is, but who he’s with and what he’s doing—yet another way of stopping a Dugard scenario.
Tennant also looks forward to the day that the state Corrections Department can implant offenders with sub-dermal GPS devices. The devices would monitor whether an offender has drugs or alcohol in his blood stream and would cut down on tampering.
“Offenders would have to dig it out with a knife,” he says.
It sounds very Big Brother.
Tennant leans forward in his desk chair and says, “And that’s the way we like it.” SFR
Web Extra: Accountability and the Sex Offender
Like it or not, more than 90 sex offenders convicted of a range of offenses live and work in Santa Fe County under heavy supervision. C., who served seven years in prison for criminal sexual contact of a minor, says that the community is justified in its fear of offenders. Yet, as he writes in this essay for SFR, he says he hopes sex offenders can earn the community’s trust through taking responsibility for their actions.
The transition from being a prisoner to re-entering society is, in itself, an exercise in a combination of fear, anxiety, hope and courage. Most men leave prison with only a bus ticket and a few dollars.
You’ve served your time and now you’re thrust once again into the real world, desperately in need of food, clothing and shelter. Employment becomes paramount—without a job, survival becomes much more difficult for anybody.
Some states have taken a closer look at the numerous problems facing newly released ex-offenders. In most cases, however, there are very few resources and/or agencies available to offer assistance. Without such assistance and support, many men wind up returning to prison.
I am a registered sex offender. Although I did not have to wear the GPS-monitored ankle bracelet (due to the serving of all my sentence plus parole time while incarcerated) I still have to register with the sheriff’s department, inform any employer in writing that I am a registered sex offender, disclose to my landlord the same thing and duly notify, within 10 days, the authorities if I change jobs or residences, under penalty of law.
Those regulations are understandably stringent and failure to abide does, indeed, result in a fourth-degree felony automatically. Accountability is a necessary quality for those who must abide by such regulations.
Although I ran the risk of not getting hired or obtaining a place to stay, I was counseled and encouraged to disclose immediately to any potential employer or landlord my status as a registered sex offender. The old adage, “Honesty is the best policy,” is as true in this respect today as any factor.
Generally, and again, understandably, public reaction to sex offenders is nearly unanimously negative. Fear, concern and disgust usually prevent any possible dialogue or interaction. I have learned, however, that accountability and honest disclosure can soften the most skeptical heart. I have a decent job and housing, I am law-abiding, I try to be an asset to my community and continue to be accountable by accepting responsibility for my actions, past and present.
Here in Santa Fe, only a few groups and people have the courage and understanding necessary to assist and work with registered sex offenders. Some, as for example, HOPE HOWSE International and its founder, Jane Davis, have worked for years to assist those who’ve paid their dues to society.
Sex offenders deserve a chance to prove themselves. As with any set of people it is difficult to know with certainty that someone may re-offend. Acceptance of responsibility for my mistakes and daily accountability for my actions along with tolerance from other members of my community make that likelihood remote and unthinkable.
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National Briefing | South: Kentucky: Storms Kill At Least Two
Published: November 17, 2005
Nearly three dozen tornadoes ripped through the South and Midwest, part of a huge line of thunderstorms that destroyed homes and killed at least two people. The thunderstorms stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, spawning funnel clouds and tornadoes in parts of Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee. The National Weather Service had preliminary reports of at least 35 tornadoes, said Peggy Stogsdill, a spokeswoman. . One person was killed at Benton, Ky., when the storms destroyed a mobile home, said Lori King, public information officer for Marshall County Emergency Management Services. A teenager was killed when her car went out of control on a flooded road and overturned east of Indianapolis, said Sgt. Bridget D. Foy of the Hancock County Sheriff's Department.
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TWIN 22-YEAR-OLDS Albade and Obadiah Taylor were working on their stalled car on a busy Oakland street when they were fatally shot in February 2000. Their mother, Lorrain Taylor ’86, MHR ’88, first heard the news from her youngest son, Greg, who called her at home.
“He told me to stop what I was doing and pray for strength,” says Taylor. A newscast, he said, was reporting the murder of two young men with the same birthday; one had a small tattoo on his left shoulder: “Obadiah.”
“I never let my boys wear baggy pants or piercings,” says Taylor, who grew up in a Pentecostal church where everything from nail polish to make-up was a sin. “But Obadiah did have that tattoo, so there was no doubt that the victims on the news were my boys.”
Almost a decade later, their murders remain unsolved, yet Taylor has turned the tragedy into an opportunity to reach out to the families of homicide victims. She uses her experience not only to help others get their lives back on track after such a devastating loss but also to campaign against violence.
From her cramped Hayward living room, Taylor runs 1000 Mothers to Prevent Violence, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that offers understanding and a glimmer of hope to families directly affected by violence. Taylor has reached out to hundreds of families in crisis, sometimes bringing them donated groceries, other times letting them know about resources she wishes she’d known about after her sons’ deaths. Above all, what she provides is emotional support—with a hug, a smile, and sometimes a prayer.
“I saw this gap in the community where I knew I could make a difference,” says Taylor, a high-spirited gospel singer and community activist. “Mothers (affected by violence) are a faceless issue.”
Taylor’s organization also sponsors COPE (circle of prayer and empowerment) support groups and connects families with legal aid, professional counseling, financial advice, and moral support. Taylor also visits Bay Area prisons to encourage inmates to change their ways, speaks at public rallies against violence, and has taken an anti-violence stand through song on her gospel CD, Gumbo For My Soul.
For many survivors of violence, however, the grief is so debilitating that it becomes difficult to even get out of bed. They often have to be reminded to do the simple life-sustaining things such as sleeping and drinking water, says Cristina Barron, victim advocate at the Carole Sund/Carrington Foundation, which awarded Taylor with its namesake award. “The event eclipses everything else that goes on in their world,” she says.
Pamela Green, a minister in Oakland, understands that all too well—her son Antoine LaVelle Nelson was murdered several years ago. “When you lose a son or daughter you are in limbo,” she says. “It has a residual effect…It can make you, break you or take you—literally it can take your life. Surviving depends on the support you have.”
Green found that support in Taylor, who visited Green several times, often bringing her food and understanding.
“Lorrain is a beautiful person inside and out,” says Green. “Her heart really goes out to her work and to the people with whom she has contact to be sure we get the things we need in terms of support, emotional and financial.”
Green is now studying criminal justice so she can help families in her situation navigate the potentially intimidating legal process. She still attends the monthly COPE meetings.
“It helps me tremendously to hear other family members’ ordeals and to make me realize that I’m not alone,” says Green.
It took Taylor awhile to understand that after her sons’ murders.
“After the funeral for Obadiah and Albade, the phone calls ceased, I was left alone…and when I say alone, I mean alone,” Taylor says. Friends and family had always looked to her as the strong one, but “I didn’t have that kind of strength,” she says.
Immediately following the murders, she did have enough strength to get Greg, her youngest son, out of the Bay Area and away from the violence she saw around her. Through a college networking group, she found Southern Texas University, which accepted him and 10 of his friends. Yet instead of thinking about the tragedy and coming to terms with it, Taylor opted to double her caseload as a social worker, often working late into the night. She also cancelled her cable access program, The Lorrain Taylor Show, which had dealt with social issues, including gun violence.
Taylor had been silenced by her tragedy.
Just a few months after her sons’ deaths, however, Taylor was asked to participate in Oakland’s version of the Million Mom March Rally. She was reluctant to get on stage so soon after the murders, yet a prophetic dream involving Albade persuaded her to take that step. It was on this stage that she began turning her personal tragedy into a public crusade against violence.
Yet despite public appearances, a full-time work schedule, and constant contact with Greg in Texas, Taylor’s grieving process hit rock bottom when an emotional breakdown forced her into the hospital Sept. 11, 2001. Her road to recovery began when she realized she couldn’t escape her fears and that she needed help. A grief therapist helped her deal with the pain and a weekly Bible study taught her that the key to her recovery was being around others, especially those who are dealing with the murders of their children: “I began to find true healing through reaching out to other mothers.”
“I’ve told my story so many times, and every time I tell it, I feel pain,” says Taylor, her eyes filling with tears. “Sharing my experience allows others who have been affected by violence to trust me. They know I’ve been there.”
It’s that experience that allows her to help others grieve in their own ways. One mother Taylor works with wears the ashes of her son in a charm around her neck; another keeps her son’s ashes in an urn and takes him out for walks. Many drink or take drugs to numb the pain; some turn to suicide.
In all instances, Taylor connects them with the resources and people who can help.
She has also taken her anti-violence anthem to high-profile appearances alongside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lower-profile get-togethers, including church meetings, community gatherings, and groups of prisoners getting ready for parole.
Seeing the impact on mothers like Green, along with her faith in God, is what keeps Taylor going even as her living room becomes too cramped for day-to-day operations of her organization. Her staff is comprised of a handful of volunteers, all of whom have firsthand experience with surviving violence. Taylor has taught herself how to put up her own Web site and recently earned a certificate in nonprofit management, all with one goal in mind—to help those suffering after the tragic loss of a loved one.
“We don’t have money,” says Taylor, “but we have hands and abilities.”
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Dr Louis Luyt in front of a Luyt Lager Billboard
(Image : Sport24/BidorBuy)
...AND NOW THE CHAIRMAN.
We couldn't resist the alliteration. "Chairman" was not the post occupied by Dr. Louis Luyt at the time of South Africa's first Rugby World Cup victory in 1995; it was "President", but the fact is, all three have had Hartford House on their list of "must do's" during their lifetimes. In the wake of that epic victory over the All Blacks at Ellis Park, coach Kitch Christie used this haven as his "get-out clause," as he used to call it when he and wife Judy wanted an alternative to their game farm in Limpopo. "Captain Courageous", Francois Pienaar, the man who famously donated his No.6 jersey to Nelson Mandela for the trophy ceremony, and his smart lady, Nerine, have been regulars, and between the two Springboks, we raced a filly called Amabokoboko. At the time the Springboks were on a 17 win streak, and this filly taught them emphatically that there was another side to life which brings you back to earth with a bump: she ran five 2nds in a row!
And now, Dr. Luyt, founder of Triomf Fertilizers, Luyt Breweries and The Citizen newspaper (one of racing's best reads) made the pilgrimage earlier this week in the company of his wife Adri and Ricky Smit, who has championed the causes of the charities supported by the Nicholas Rey Foundation.
There's a reason why people come here. The charm of Hartford disarms you; you want to take your shoes off and slip into freewheel. The best description of the place came from a piece penned for Britain's Tattler magazine:
"Peering through one teakwood door at Hartford House, you face a Colonial world. Opening another, the distant sounds of an ancient people at work lilt across the silent landscape, a country of great space, spectacular mountains and big skies. This place commands a headland between the world of traditional cultures and the splendid style of our settler forebears."
"It is the resolution of all South African safaris. The journey's exclamation point, a retreat from the hubbub where you make sense of a fast life and its senseless details. This is where we learn to redress ourselves on a first name basis. There are too many luxury hotels in the world offering the same: a chocolate on the pillow, canned romance, and cuisine called "haut" because it's spelled in French. Hartford stands apart for its integrity, its architecture, views, dining, sounds, smells, its racehorses and its people are all exhilarating surprises, unique to this Zululand, this culture, to Africa. Yes, you come here to be pampered, but at Hartford luxury is the journey, not the destination."
"The truth is, Hartford just happened. A home, and a grand one at that, which grew into a hotel. The Zulus call it "Khululekha". Loosely translated, it means "a place which quietly but firmly kidnaps you." In so many ways, it's gained and regained inspiration from the cultures it celebrates. It is life's exception, a place at the same time comfortable beyond dreams, yet innocent of pretence."
These sporting celebrities are not the only ones who appreciate Hartford's treasures. Anyone who picks up the phone within a month of a chosen weekend will know its tough to find a reservation, and that's why the big names at East Coast Radio and Suncoast Casino have chosen Monday and Tuesday as their time to come out to the country. More on that next week, when these "celebs" turn up.
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- Programs & Events
- Professional Development
- Advocacy and Media
This award is a $1,000 scholarship awarded annually to an undergraduate health education major at an accredited college/university in the United States or a U.S. territory. Application materials must be received by November 15. The recipient will be notified in December.
The award is open to any student officially recognized as an undergraduate health education major at an accredited college/university in the United States or a U.S. territory. To be eligible, the applicant must be currently enrolled full-time at a college or university for both the fall and spring semesters of the academic year during which the student is applying. The student must have sophomore, junior, or senior status at the time of application.
Applicants must have a minimum, current overall grade point average of 3.25 on a 4.0 scale at the AAHE application deadline, which is November 15.
Prior AAHE undergraduate award recipients may not apply
The completed application form must be received by November 15 of each year. All application materials must be submitted simultaneously. Incomplete submissions will not be reviewed.
Application must include the student's essay (see application form) that addresses what the student hopes to accomplish as a health educator in training and in the future. The essay should include the attributes and aspirations brought to the field of health education. This essay must be typed, double-spaced, and approximately 400–450 words in length.
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Contracting idea brings out workers
The Baker School Board’s Tuesday night work session took on a holiday air accented by the red sweaters, blouses and shirts of about 20 members of the district’s classified staff.
Bus drivers, cooks and maintenance workers and paraprofessionals turned out for a presentation by Victor Musial, the Oregon School Employees Association’s director of field operations. Musial traveled to Baker City to give the association’s perspective of contracting services currently provided by district employees.
“We were there in support of what Victor was presenting to the board,” said Ruth Woodworth, a Baker Middle School librarian and president of the Baker Chapter of the Oregon School Employees Association. “We wanted to show the faces of the people affected by contracting out.”
Musial told the board that the association had developed a PowerPoint presentation to address the issue after losing hundreds of jobs across the state to contracting.
“InSource Oregon was designed to educate people up front,” he said. “Everybody’s a stakeholder.”
The district’s classified employees are concerned about a recommendation presented to the board earlier this month by a committee of community residents who are in favor of contracting food services, janitorial services, the district print shop and care and upkeep of school and Baker Sports Complex grounds.
Musial said contractors might save the district money initially, but they do so “on the backs of employees,” who could see their wages and benefits cut by as much as 40 percent.
Those reductions then are felt by local businesses where workers shop, he said.
Many of the companies who contract with Oregon school districts are multinational firms, which means that not only do wages drop, but some of the money the district pays goes overseas, Musial said.
Another economic impact is seen in communities when school employees search for work paying wages and benefits comparable to what they earned in the district.
“These people live locally and have their children in schools,” Musial said.
In addition to the financial losses to their communities, other districts that have moved to contracting have seen a decline in the quality of services provided.
Districts have experienced insufficient or poor cleaning efforts by contracted custodians. Cafeterias see a high turnover rate, reduced choice and poor-quality nutritional value for students, he said.
Some districts that have contracted bus services have seen delayed maintenance and repairs on the buses and an increase in the number of accidents. The turnover rate also is higher, with seniority for school district drivers averaging 14 years compared to a three-year average for contracted drivers.
And because districts usually sell their buses to the contractors, the contractor decides when and how the buses are used. First Bus, a company that contracts with Western Oregon schools, typically runs its buses all summer long providing charter service, Musial said. And the cost of replacing those buses is built into the contracts.
“You’re still paying for them but they’re not yours,” he said. “No matter how you slice it, we think it’s a bad idea.”
By working collaboratively with districts, OSEA employees have helped districts save money without contracting out, Musial said.
The Astoria School District had considered contracting its bus service, but after conferring with the association to resolve some problems, not all of which were financial, the district has continued to staff its own transportation service.
The Harney County School District, which serves Burns and Hines, had considered contracting its food services program, but instead sought help from the Oregon Department of Education. The state sent a person to inspect the program and a system was devised to help increase revenue and cut costs, Musial said.
The Baker School District is in the process of contacting the ODE for help in streamlining its food services program as well, Superintendent Don Ulrey said during Tuesday’s work session.
Musial encouraged the board to work with the association to help preserve district jobs and benefits for its members.
“We are always ready to help any way we can to address issues and fix problems,” he said.
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The Dark Side Of Feminism - Why Women Don't Like Powerful Women
It would have been better if she had dark circles under her eyes. Maybe a little bit of flab around the middle. At the very least a stain on her blouse – anything. Instead, in her first public appearance since the birth of her son, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was as slim and blonde as ever, beaming at the cameras.
"The baby's been easy," she said – no problem at all. How shocking!
...Mayer’s first post-natal interview sent storm waves crashing through the Internet. Couldn’t she just have kept her mouth shut, feminists, mothers, even childless-by-choice women, asked. Little seems to polarize other women so much as successful women. Or women who have lives very different from the ones they have more or less chosen for themselves.
Men and women behave very differently when it comes to recognizing status and hierarchy. Gender researchers say that men have no problem with pecking orders, whether it’s on the soccer field on in the boardroom. They recognize the top dog, who occupies second and third place, without envy (mostly) and everything about their seating and speaking order at meetings, body language, status symbols, bear witness to this. That doesn’t mean of course that they won’t compete for better positions. And they usually do this by emulating the top man and copying his strategies. And when they make it to the top, they see no reason to play that down.Whenever gender differences in behavior is discussed, I like to consider how humans likely evolved as hunter gatherers. For the most part, men were interface between the family and the larger world. In the hunting part of the hunter gatherer, co-operation was at a premium; cat fights while trying to spear a mammoth are non-productive or even fatal to both participants. However, back relative protection of home base or camp, among the generally less physically powerful women, jockeying for social position was more productive and less dangerous.
Research has revealed that females react very differently. They do tend to play themselves down to bring everybody together: their goal is integration, not competition. Among little girls, any girl who stands out because she is smarter, funnier or prettier is anything but admired by the others. Grown women in professional life have learned that hiding their qualities just so other women will like them damages them, but the net result is: they are not liked. Solidarity ends there.Someone is going to come along an argue that it is all nurture; girls learn this behavior from their mothers and older sisters, and men learn their behavior from their fathers and older brothers. And then they'll go on to argue that we would all be better off if men learned to be more like women. I don't buy it. We are who we are because evolution has shaped our behavior, and our society exists the way it is because that behavior is a pattern that we fall into instinctively.
Wombat-Socho came through with the giant Rule 5 post "Les Chants Magnetique" right on time at The Other McCain.
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skip to navigation
||Open 7 days/week
|Grounds & Trails
||7 a.m. to dusk – Gates close at 8 p.m.
All visitors must be off premises by dusk, no exceptions.
Building and grounds closed Friday, October 26, 2012.
Saturday, October 27, 2012: Arboretum will only be open for annual ArBOOretum event (special hours), which requires paid admission or Arboretum membership.
||9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
||10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
||10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Mondays*
* Please note: Groups wishing to visit the Discovery Room must make reservations. Tuesdays — Fridays, the Discovery Room may be closed during the day for scheduled school programs. Please call 713-681-8433 to check availability.
|2012 Building Closures
||Wednesday, July 4 – Building closed
Monday, September 3 – Building closed
Friday, October 26 – Building and trails closed.
Thursday, November 22 – Building closed
Friday, November 23 – Building closed
Tuesday, December 25 – Building closed
The mission of the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center is to provide education about the natural environment to Houstonians of all ages while acting as an urban wildlife sanctuary for native plants and animals.
Because it is a wildlife sanctuary, we ask you to observe the following rules which are in place for the protection and safety of all:
Thank you for abiding by these guidelines for the safety and enjoyment of all.
- All plants (their leaves, flowers, cones) and all animals (including turtles and snakes) found at the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center are protected. Collection and removal are not allowed.
- Trails are designed for hiking only. Jogging, biking, skateboarding, horseback riding and other sport recreation activities are not allowed.
- There is no picnicking on Houston Arboretum & Nature Center grounds. However, Memorial Park next door is equipped for such activity.
- The health of wildlife as well as your safety are jeopardized by feeding native animals. Please do not feed the animals.
- For your safety and to reduce environmental impact, stay on designated trails.
- Dogs are permitted only if they are controlled by a leash and restrained to trails during their visit. This is as much for the safety of the pet as for the protection of the wildlife. Potential hazards to dogs not controlled by a short leash include snake bites and contact with poison ivy. All City of Houston Ordinances regarding dogs, including clean up of waste, must be followed. Pets should not be left in unattended vehicles.
- Increase your chances of seeing wildlife by refraining from making loud noises.
- For safety and greater enjoyment, we require that adult sponsors supervise visiting youth groups. At least one adult chaperone per 10 children is required.
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PIG Bonds Looking Like Dogs to Investors
by Paul Springer
The debt crisis in Europe is like a high stakes game of musical chairs – which nation will be the next to default when the music stops?
It’s hard to tell which country is in the worst shape, but bond trading reveals increasing concerns with debt issued by Portugal, Ireland and Greece. Financial Times reports that trading volume has dived as market players gird themselves for blowback from a possible bailout of Greece. Today, Reuters reported that Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s rating, making it the lowest-rated country in the world by its standards.
While opportunity exists to buy distressed sovereign debt at a discount, many big traders are fleeing the venue.
Large banks have backed away almost entirely, according to The Guardian:
Figures from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) show French, German and UK banks have embarked on a mass exodus from Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, in what analysts see as an effort to bolster their balance sheets and conform to new rules designed to protect financial institutions from going bust.
It’s one big mess where any one party’s actions can have drastic effects on another’s situation. Now France and Germany are jockeying to maintain their own interests in the face of a Greek restructuring according to The Guardian’s analysis of players, including France’s finance minister Christine Lagarde:
[Lagarde] and her German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, have been blamed for blocking a restructuring of Greek debt to maintain the solvency of their own banks.
Last week Schäuble reversed Berlin’s previous opposition and put forward a restructuring plan that involved Greece’s major private sector lenders, including banks. But he is understood to have met stiff opposition from Paris.
In this maelstrom of competing interests, Bloomberg reports that credit default prices are rising fast, partly driven by fears that no solution can be found for Greece’s problems:
Swaps on Ireland soared 32 basis points to 745, Portugal climbed 28 to 770 and Greece jumped 47 to an all-time high 1,610, according to CMA. The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index of swaps on 15 governments jumped 8.5 basis points to 219, approaching the record 221.75 basis points set Jan. 10.
Bloomberg added that the cost of insuring European corporate bonds also increased:
Contracts on the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index of 40 companies with mostly high-yield credit ratings increased 8 basis points to 408, the highest since March 17, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The index is a benchmark for the cost of protecting bonds against default and an increase signals deteriorating perceptions of credit quality.
Dow Jones reported last week that Moody’s analysis suggests that a Greek default could bring about a domino effect including defaults for Ireland and Portugal.
Ominously, Dow Jones notes, a restructuring of Greek debt could backfire unless it avoids a downgrade of the debt:
Key to any voluntary swap of Greek debt would be avoiding a so-called credit event or downgrade of Greek debt by ratings companies, which could force the ECB to end its liquidity provision to Greek lenders. That in turn, could spark a local banking crisis by cutting off Greek banks from much-needed funding.
And Reuters finds that Cyprus could get sucked into the vortex with Greece, thanks to exposure to Greek debt.
The whole thing may blow over, but there’s a good chance it could just blow up instead. For a view from the dark side, read economist Megan Greene’s guest blog post at The Guardian. Greene says it’s shake-up or break-up for both the EU and the Euro, both of which she says could implode amidst political infighting:
If fiscal union is not on the cards, the only other option is eurozone breakup. Imbalances in the euro area will pull the monetary union apart. This could either take place all at once, or it could involve peripheral or core countries peeling off from the eurozone individually.
A eurozone breakup would result in a widespread series of defaults, bank runs, capital controls and periods during which countries (and their banks) would be frozen out of the markets. It would be extremely messy.
While the average investor in the U.S. can do nothing to alter the course of these developments, now is a good time to take a hard look at any global or international investments involving foreign debt – or equity for that matter.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated from an earlier version today.
- Europe’s Debt Woes Highlight Missing ETFsAt various points over the past 12 to16 months, ETF's focused on specific European countries would have made...
- Bonds Brush Off S&P Outlook DowngradeRatings firm Standard & Poor's made some waves on Monday by downgrading its outlook for U.S. Treasury debt....
- Moody’s Mood Globally Grim for Bonds, PoliticsMoody’s Investors Service put several large U.S. banks on notice Thursday that their debt ratings are being reviewed...
- The Irish Bailout: Germany Blinks on BondholdersThe news that European governments have banded together again in an attempt to plug the expanding hole in...
- Italy: A Country in Crisis or Merely Oversold?Yes, the world's tenth-largest economy, according to Euromonitor International, has been lumped in with the likes of Portugal,...
Short URL: http://www.traderdaily.com/?p=13729
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Saturday, May 30, 2009
Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle
I was fortunate to receive a copy of Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle And Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me by Nan Marino from Roaring Brook Press. This is a sweet, funny story set in upstate New York just before the moon landing, focusing on a group of neighborhood children who have their own hierarchy and rules. Tammy, the narrator, can't stand the newcomer to the neighborhood, a scrawny boy she mockingly dubs "Muscle Man." He tells outrageous lies, the most recent of which is that Neil Armstrong is his uncle. The other children let his lies slide, which infuriates Tammy, who continues to pick on Muscle Man. It gradually dawned on me that Tammy is a bully, and the reason I didn't notice immediately is that Marino draws her so sympathetically. She's grieving for her best friend who moved without a forwarding address, and she resents Muscle Man as the newcomer. Muscle Man responds to Tammy's mean comments with kindness that only angers Tammy further. The impending moon landing, Woodstock, and the Vietnam War hover mostly in the background (with the exception of a touching subplot involving a neighbor whose son is serving). I found myself utterly swept up in the naive world of these children in the summer of 1969, and hoping that Tammy and Muscle Man would find solace in friendship with each other. This is the perfect book for teaching children how to understand another person's point of view and that everyone has his own problems, and I recommend it to adults and children alike.
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By CYNTHIA ROBERTS
As a mother of a 17 year old recovering addict, I continue to read with
great interest the articles relating to the drug abuse problem in
Chesterton. I have come to a point in my own journey where I feel strong
enough to share my story and hopefully contribute in some small way to
keeping the discussion alive about this growing crisis.
My son Mike is an alcoholic whose drug list includes almost everything BUT
heroin. Not that it personally matters much, because the problem in our
community is WAY bigger than just heroin. Just ask any of our kids. I am
grateful that he is recovering and alive – my heart goes out to those who
may not have been as fortunate to have found the right intervention in time.
The whole topic of drug abuse is certainly quite complex and encompasses
physiological, psychological, and sociological factors. But in my opinion,
the two great causes of this crisis are “blame and denial.”
It is so easy to blame somebody or something. Parents immediately come to
mind. Certainly today’s music, video games, TV, movies, society in general,
community apathy, “the drug-dealing element,” and the schools have all
received their portion of blame.
I will admit to my fair share of assigning responsibility as well. Until my
world came crashing down last year, I also sat back in my comfortable home,
thinking those very same thoughts and feeling pretty smug about it.
It is easy to place blame on the parents, particularly working mothers who
were not “there enough” for their children during their formative years.
Yes, I will feel guilty the rest of my life because in society’s eyes I
obviously was not there for my son “enough.” But what is enough? Would an
extra two hours a day have mattered? Four? Eight? And what exactly is
quality time? That answer seems a little too simple to me.
Blame and denial – Yes, because of the negative stigma attached to “addicts”
I could not believe for the longest time that my son was one of them -
pretty heavy denial. I felt embarrassed, ashamed and certainly would not
openly admit to our problem. Surely this meant that I had failed as a
parent. I must not have been there enough for him, not vigilant enough of
the signs, didn’t keep him from the “wrong people.” Therefore, I doubled my
efforts to help Mike recover.
My fallacy was that I believed I could. My mantras became “if only I did
…fill in the blank here….then Mike would get better” and “this time would be
the last time.” It couldn’t possibly be THAT bad.
We did everything in our power to restrict his freedom and access. By the
time Mike was admitted to Pathway Family Center, an adolescent drug
treatment center in Indianapolis, he was literally a prisoner in our house,
leaving only to go to school and therapy. Yet, he still managed to use.
When we removed all of our alcohol and medications, he still managed to use.
He did not go to Gary or some other place to get his drugs of choice, he
stayed right here at home and went to school.
After seeing numerous psychiatrists, counselors and undergoing intensive
outpatient “therapy” Mike continued to use.
We thought we were doing all of the right things. So what went wrong?
Recent medical literature has shown that individuals are programmed to be
addicts before they take their first drink, hit, huff, snort, or shot. When
they come into contact with a particular substance for the first time,
certain areas of their brains will become activated more intensely than
those same areas in non-addicts. From that point forward, the impulse to
re-experience that feeling becomes paramount and the downward spiral begins,
taking anywhere from one to thirty years to progress.
Unfortunately, the earlier that first experience happens, the more likely
the addiction. Yes, the addict is still responsible for taking that first
step and my son fully admits to his willingness to try alcohol and drugs and
enjoying them for a time.
But no one uses with the intent to become hooked. Typically the path
descending to hell is insidious. It does not become treacherous until it is
too late turn around without help.
In Mike’s case, he needed to be “unplugged” from everyone before he could
even attempt to get clean. It was just too easy to supply his habit here. In
fact, both of my sons have said on numerous occasions that they could get
whatever they wanted whenever they wanted right here in our community.
In our case, the typical “suppliers” were friends and family, sometimes
unwittingly, sometimes not.
The Pathway program offered a way for Mike to “check out” of his current
situation, get clean, and learn strategies for staying strong and continuing
his recovery work when he returns home.
He is currently 168 “days clean” and has recently been promoted to the third
of five levels of treatment. He is slowly being brought back into the
mainstream. He will struggle with his addiction his entire life, but from
this point forward, he will have the tools and support network in place to
help him stay sober.
But we all have work to do. Addiction destroys families and friendships and
real work must be done to rebuild bridges. It’s certainly not easy but the
benefits are truly worth it. Before Mike’s admission to Pathway, I was not
sure we would celebrate his eighteenth birthday. Now I have great hope that
I hope that I have caused you to pause and consider my story. The drug abuse
crisis is complex and indeed I truly believe that its resolution lies within
the “village.” But as any recovering addict will tell you, the first step of
twelve steps to recovery is admitting that we are powerless over drugs and
True recovery work cannot begin until we admit that there is a problem in
the first place. Stepping out of the shadows and getting past the shame,
blame, and denial will facilitate some real conversation about the depth and
nature of our problem.
It may take the establishment of a local rehabilitation center to change the
course of where this community is heading. If we don’t place our efforts
towards rehabilitation and treatment, we will spend more on funerals and
larger prisons. We pay either way.
It’s not just about treating an addict, it’s about preventing crime, saving
lives and making the hope of recovery a real possibility for others,
ultimately stopping a vicious cycle. “Just Say No” sounds good but doesn’t
quite cut it.
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No title. C/U of woman holding a branch, she pulls a leaf from the branch. "Just soak the leaves in water for five or six weeks." C/U of leaves being put into a bowl of water. C/U of woman taking a leaf out of water (presumably one which has been immersed for some time). She rubs the leaf then puts...more
Good footage of designer making a face mask.
A little girl makes a picture of a cowboy by a transfer process.
Processes involved in making a cute tea cosy from a broken doll and fabric.
Nice footage of men thatching the roof of a country house.
False flowers made of thin wood fibre sheets imported from Australia.
Anthony Alexander makes candlesticks out of cotton reels.
American infantry troops getting on board landing craft.
Various shots of the ships at sea.
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One of the big challenge of building robots is to come up with good electromechanical designs. Google Sketchup (now at version 8 ) is free and, as far as 3D software go, very easy-to-use with many features permitting coming up with useful plans for your next robot. Most useful for the 3D-challenged however is the 3D Warehouse with user-contributed models. You can, for example, find a model of the Arduino Dueminalove and a range of sensors (such as the Parallax Ping or the Sharp IR sensor) in addition to parts such as servomotor and RC chassis. These can be directly inserted into your design by simply going to File > 3D Warehouse > Get Models.
The downside is that you’ll need to buy the pricey pro version (500$USD) to get the export features – which will be handy when you when to get your mechanical parts produced. But if you’re a Xinchejian member and working on a fun project, feel free to ask me to export your model to one of the many formats available.
(Disclosure: I work for the company that makes Sketchup, however I don’t currently have any relationship with the team.)
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Cash boost for renewable energy solutions
Monday, Dec 03, 2012
KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES, England, November 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --The team at renewable energy company Enviko are among a number of specialists delighted by the news that the UK is set to dramatically increase investment in renewable power.
It has recently been reported that the government has agreed terms on a deal to boost support for renewable energy in a bid to improve the UK's reputation as a supporter of low-carbon technology and to lower the country's carbon footprint in line with previous targets.
Enviko is a leading provider of renewable energy solutions on an industrial, commercial and domestic level and those behind the company are thrilled that the government is keen to encourage a greener approach to energy in the future. Enviko specialises in solar panels, hydro power, wind power, solar photovoltaic power, solar thermal power, air and ground source heat pumps and biomass heating systems - all of which represent greener solutions when it comes to generating energy.
It has been reported that spending on renewable power generation will rise from the current level of £2.35bn a year to £7.6bn a year by 2020 with the chief aim of the cash injection being to diminish the UK's present dependence on gas - one of the energy sources experts suggest is at risk.
Currently, renewable energy accounts for just 11 per cent of the UK's overall combination, but it is hoped that by 2020 that figure will to closer to 30 per cent. The extra investment is intended to help energy bosses achieve this level of renewable energy generation.
Divisions between MPs in the energy and finance departments have caused considerable strain en route to forming a cohesive plan for the future of greener energy in Britain. However, the wholesale reduction of carbon footprints has long been on the agenda of this government and previous governments, and the latest boost in investment represents a huge step forward in the fight to reform the UK's attitude to energy.
The team at Enviko is keen to point out that renewable energy represents a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option when it is delivered and managed in the right manner. Those interested in learning more about the renewable options that may be available to them can visit http://www.enviko.com for more information.
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How to fix a bicycle tube… when a glued patch isn’t appropriate:
“To fix such a problem, we designed a new way of fixing. You can simply tie the place, no need of glue, no need of nothing.”
The reasoning for this unusual fix may be a bit strange (as a correctly applied patch will also work under the influence of heat), but the solution is smart and obviously works.
AfriGadget is graduating from the small screens of laptops and smart phones to the larger screens of broadcast television. The production company Made in Africa TV is taking AfriGadget to the East African airwaves to inspire millions of viewers to become active creators of new and ingenious products, themselves. Each episode of AfriGadget TV will consist of five thoughtful stories from around the region, highlighting remarkable and unexpected hardware innovations by East Africans. These stories are inspiring mini-documentaries, portraying young and old, men and women, as well as high and low-tech innovators and their products.
Made in Africa TV plans to produce AfriGadget as separate programs in each of the Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan television markets. A local presenter will host the program and introduce the correspondents and their stories. Combined, these stories offer a unique opportunity to discover a wide range of innovations, new products and different approaches to the same goal. The program will be broadcast on a weekly basis.
Made in Africa TV is an East African social enterprise producing mass media with a social impact. We are in the process of setting up a network of video journalists from across Africa to produce the stories, which will be made available on the website as well. As an AfriGadget TV-correspondent you explore your local surroundings to find and capture the innovators and their AfriGadgets. If you are a videographer willing to become a correspondent for this program, or if you know of great AfriGadgets that should be considered for inclusion, please send an email to email@example.com.
Sulaiman Famro is a cheerful, 65 year old engineer, and a master of branding. He built the prototype “Farmking” three years ago and claims he can save the country $1 billion a year, just in savings on starch importation.
The Farmking is a one-stop processing plant for cluster and farm-site processing of root crops and grains. It has a diesel powered engine that allows for remote processing, with power out connections for lighting so that it can work all night, if needed.
On one end you have 3 devices, for chipping, grating and milling. In the middle is the power plant, and in the rear is a large steel drum that can hold 50kgs of milled cassava, that uses a spin filter to process up to 2.5 tons of milled cassava into starch.
It’s used for processing of cassava, soya beans, maize, sweet potatoes, yam and many other roots and grains. One of the more interesting uses for it is the capture of starch. Apparently there is a huge amount of waste when the processing of cassava happens in the country right now, instead of being captured it is left to seep into the ground. An incredibly wasteful, manual process currently, Sulaiman is lobbying governors of different Nigerian states to get the Farmking into their areas.
Sulaiman went to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for his undergrad, then on to the Polytechnic Institute of NYU for his masters, finishing in 1976. The Farmking is a project of his that he built on his nights and weekends, claiming that he likes best to work by himself when no one else is around to bother him. It cost approximately 2.5m Naira ($16,000) to buy one, and the prototype (seen here) was built using his own money.
With the first prototype being built 3 years ago, the Farmking has yet to sell one to any other customers. Herein lies the problem for not just Sulaiman, but for many engineering-based founders of organizations. They can be incredibly good at building systems and tools, but aren’t interested, nor do they have the know-how to sell and market their product. It’d be good to see Sulaiman partner with a business person, or company, to streamline the sales and marketing side of the business so that he can make this invention work.
Note: I’ve been blogging most of this on the Maker Faire Africa blog, so go there to find more posts on the stories from Lagos, Nigeria and the innovative and fun products made there.
As one of the founding organizers for Maker Faire Africa, I’ve had the privilege to be a part of this unfolding maker movement in Africa. To be honest, it’s been going on for a while, so I guess what we’re really doing is just aggregating it in a country, and shining a spotlight on some of the great practical innovation on the continent.
Just to get a feel for the projects and people at Maker Faire Africa in Lagos this year, I put together this video with pictures from my phone. I have some more images up on Flickr.
I’ve been blogging most of this on the Maker Faire Africa blog, so go there to find more posts on the stories from Lagos, Nigeria and the innovative and fun products made there.
[Note: I originally wrote this post for Maker Faire Africa in Lagos this week, cross-posting it here]
Possibly one of the more unexpected products at Maker Faire Africa this year in Lagos is a urine powered generator, created by four girls. The girls are Duro-Aina Adebola (14), Akindele Abiola (14), Faleke Oluwatoyin (14) and Bello Eniola (15).
1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.
The system works like this:
- Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.
- The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder.
- The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas.
- This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.
Along the whole way there are one-way valves for security, but let’s be honest that this is something of an explosive device…
Note: This is an experiment more than a real new tool for electricity generation. The net power output is negative due to the energy needed to get the hydrogen from the urine through electrolysis.
I’ve been blogging most of this on the Maker Faire Africa blog, so go there to find more posts on the stories from Lagos, Nigeria and the innovative and fun products made there.
A guest post by Kahenya, Founder of Simple Community
The name William Kamkwamba might not sound familiar to many, but he is one of the most significant technology game changers in Africa. He did not design the most glamorous device on the planet, and neither was his creation unique. However, it was extremely significant.
Using just a book, Kamkwamba, now 25, designed and built a windmill that generated electricity and pumped water in his home village in Malawi. This was significant because he proved that it was possible to build things with instant grassroots impact that did not require a business plan, a website, a marketing strategy, a funding strategy or even a glamorous launch. He gained instant fame.
Kamkwamba managed to ensure that he could meet his immediate power needs using tree branches and scrap material. He was able to generate electricity and pump water using pure green energy. That was a decade ago.
Enter the future and a decade later, we have the Saphonian Blade-less wind turbines – another African design, this time from Tunisia. It focuses on clean energy.
The inventing company, Saphon Energy, led by Mr Anis Aouini, understood that older generation turbines, built in Europe, had some fundamental flaws that no-one had resolved.
For one, they generated a lot of noise and vibration. There is the unmistakable whirring, and if you live next to one, unless it is not in motion, you could have sleepless nights before getting used to the sound. They also unwittingly kill a lot of birds. Unaware birds collide with the blades and get killed.
Not the Saphonian. It has a sail shaped body, similar in concept to sails on a boat or dhow, which makes it bladeless. The unit does not have the famous rotating blades common with older generation turbines and windmills. Even better, the advantages are not limited to aesthetics or providing environment friendly energy. The Saphonian eliminates inefficiencies usually created by moving parts in a windmill.
The lack of blades and other rotating gears means that there is very little aerodynamic energy, and this results in improved power generation. It also reduces mechanical losses. Thus, the Saphonian has been found to be about 2.3 times more significantly efficient than conventional turbines and windmills. It also means that due to the hydraulic system, the Saphonian is able to store energy, which enables it to supply a steady flow of power, provided there is wind flowing or there is energy stored in the system.
In ordinary systems, whatever is generated has to be consumed instantly. National power grids usually supply the exact amount required. This means that when demand exceeds supply, there will be some places without power. On the other hand, excess energy, not being stored, would go to waste.
The storage capability of the Saphonian is therefore significant. Further, the equipment is cheaper to produce than conventional systems. It costs 45 per cent less to develop and deploy a Saphonian Blade-less turbine. With customisations, that cost could be further reduced.
Saphon Energy has tested a 300–500 Watt system as a prototype. It has performed better than was anticipated. The company is now focused on developing a second generation prototype that in many instances, will improve on the hydro-mechanical performance of the first generation unit.
What will matter for this development and its growth is how many national electricity providers deploying wind infrastructure decide to use this more cost effective technology. The Saphonian has proved that Africa can actually improve on previously available technologies that were not as efficient as they could have been.
For William Kamkwamba, this would be a climax to his dream, that affordable energy solutions developed in Africa could actually compete with foreign platforms and even outperform them.
As Africa struggles to meet electricity needs for a growing population, it is necessary for the continent to develop its own home solutions suited for the environment and the pocket. Convenient and relevant innovations such as the Saphonian stand a good chance.
It is no wonder therefore that the Saphonian has won its parent company the KPMG innovation Grant for 2012.
For the price of Kshs. 30 /= (EUR 0.27 or USD 0.35) you’ll manage to pick up this kerosine lamp from a kiosk in Kibera, Kenya:
Certainly a great visual update to the famous tin can paraffin lamp which sells for a slightly higher price and requires additional soldering. Kerosine (or paraffin) lamps are the alternative to modern solar LED lights, and also to the (otherwise great) daylight indoor illumination via filled water bottles (invented by Alfredo Mozer in Brazil in 2002).
In other news: Maker Faire Africa is coming up again. Yay!
Maker Faire Africa on November 5th and 6th 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria. If you are a maker, please consider registering with their website. Further info will be available soon.
Oh, and if you’re on Facebook, please check out our recently relaunched page. All are welcome!
Here’s a call to all AfriGadget innovators to submit their “appropriate technical solutions” (= products and service ideas) to an international competition which was recently initiated by Siemens Stiftung (Foundation):
“We are looking for relatively simple, appropriate technical products and solutions in the categories Water & Waste Water, Energy, Food & Agriculture, Waste Management & Recycling, Healthcare, Housing & Construction and Information & Communication Technology in order to fulfil basic needs of people in developing and emerging countries. Each product or solution to be submitted has to be either already implemented in a project or needs at least a prototype with a proof of concept.”
“The project also aims to build up a database of inventions that is accessible to actors in developmental cooperation.”, the FAQ go on explaining. This actually really is the sweetest part next to the 50k EUR prize for the 1st winner, because such a database on inventions is often asked for. Here’s a good example of such a database, initiated by Engineering for Change (E4C). Let’s hope they’ll also open it up to the public and not only keep it accessible to dev aid coops only.
They also address the issue of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and state that “all intellectual properties will remain with the developer/ developing team”. This is an important step because many innovators actually don’t want submit their ideas to such competitions which are often only for pooling smart ideas – and then cashing in on the potential. For those of you who are looking for some historical explanations of IPR in many African countries, here’s an interesting paper on the topic by Kenyan economist James Shikwati (ex 2004, though).
Utamu wa kazi ni…
Talking about empowering innovations that turn into businesses, here’s a smart approach ex Tanzania: Global Cycle Solutions, a “social enterprise working to disseminate affordable, quality technology for villagers around the world”.
“Uhm, a social enterprise?”, you may ask. Social enterprises may not be on everyone’s agenda when it comes to traditional business, but their products, man, the products are sweet – and hence qualify to be mentioned as AfriGadget solutions (with such a delay, considering that the following product was launched in 2009 – apologies!):
GCS Maize Sheller Kit
A detachable maize sheller kit that fills a 90kg sack of maize in 40 minutes and which may be removed for transport. The machine is said to pay for itself within a month and costs 60 US-$. The project also reminds us of the many other “bicycle-related” blog posts on AfriGadget. Bicycles certainly are the multi-machines in many African countries.
Or how about the GCS Bicycle-powered Kiwia Phone Charger?
The GCS Bicycle-powered Kiwia Phone Charger is just another one of those mobile phone chargers that certainly sell better than the Nokia alternative – just because it’s locally available and probably also cheaper.
So there you have it – local products that also sell. How? On their blog, GCS write: “…GCS has finally figured out a sales model that works for us. With a car and PA system, and a nice spacious tent, we are having profitable road shows at the time…”.
Have a smart business idea that you’d like to cash in and which would qualify for the “empowering people. Award”? Then hurry up and submit your entry up to December 31, 2012! All winners of the competition will be announced in summer 2013. Good luck!
I.T. specialist Gabriel Nderitu from Kenya just won’t give up on his dream and did it again: after some previous experiements with a homemade aircraft, he returns with an unmanned, remote-controlled version of a microlight aircraft.
In the following video, which is unfortunately only available in Kiswahili, he takes it out for a test ride on an empty field:
Going by the info provided in the video, the “microlight” approach looks like the right way to go as it also strips the aircraft of unnecessary components. His aircraft may still be a bit too heavy though due to the lack of available and affordable light-weight materials in Kenya. Would bamboo be an alternative?
Avid readers will also notice that once again the landing gear is the weak spot and that this “natural” runway may not be the best testing ground.
The spirit though is all that matters and we salute him for his continuous efforts!
p.s.: Gabriel, if you are reading this, please register for the upcoming Maker Faire Africa which will take place in Lagos, Nigeria, later on this year. Good luck!
Update (as of June 29, 2012):
Richard Turere, the 13 year old inventor I posted about here, was selected to audition for TED. For his presentation Stefano Cassini and I made him a video.
Many people have been asking how to reach Richard. I am his guardian, please contact me Paula Kahumbu on firstname.lastname@example.org
“‘Here is where I come every morning to collect plastics from the garbage.’ Lucy Wambui is 50 and with a stick she grubs through the garbage in the Gioto Dumping Site in Nakuru in central Kenya. It is early morning and the stench of the waste already abhors. Lucy stays here with 30 other women forming the Minyore Women’s Group that sustains itself by selling art works made from garbage. ‘It’s not healthy living here, but we have nowhere else to go.’“
‘Gioto’ in the local Kikuyu language means garbage, and the dumping site is situated one mile outside the industrial town of Nakuru, the number four city in Kenya. Echoes of morning mist and smoke from fires mix above the garbage that lingers on the foot of the Menengai Hills. The women of Minyore are wading through the waste, looking for polythene bags and plastic soda bottles. Their name is derived from the Kikuyu word for plastic bag. Most of the women ended up here after their husbands left them behind because of drug abuse, alcoholism or having died from Aids.
The ladies collect plastic bags to make baskets and other art works for sale. Lucy Wambui is among the women and she holds a dozen of plastic bags. Some blue, black or printed in the affordable colors of a local supermarket. ‘We don’t like working here,’ she says. ‘But we are not educated and don’t have jobs. That’s the reason why we came here.’
‘When I came here I started thinking what work I could do,’ she says. ‘So I joined the women weaving baskets and making jewelry from plastic.’
Just outside the house a group of women is seated on a hill top weaving. Lucy picks some strands of plastic and joins them. ‘These baskets are very popular,’ she says while weaving. ‘They are used by mothers to go to the market, or on Sunday to carry a Bible to church. There is nowhere you can’t go with them.’ The products the women make vary from baskets, wallets, ladies bags and bracelets. They offer them on the dumping site on certain days in the week. ‘The best is to sell to tourists because then you can get a better price,’ admits Lucy. She is showing an improvised shop next to her house. A group of tourists with white legs shamelessly protruding from their shorts are admiring the products. Most of them are sent by tourist agencies and churches. ‘They come every Wednesday and that’s good for us,’ says Lucy. If she is lucky she can make 20 Euro per day. ‘When there are no tourists it can be much less.’
This self-help women’s group may just be one out of the many out there who are struggling to survive and trying to have an income based on urban waste. And while the various waste fractions suggest the introduction of a pyrolysis system or any other concept for urban waste handling, it is just remarkable how these women have managed to create a business where others just see waste. “Waste = Food”? Yes.
Richard Turere lives in Empakasi,on the edge of the Nairobi National Park, just south of the City of Nairobi. He is responsible for herding his family the livestock and keeping them safe from predators, especially lions. Being so close the park puts this family’s cattle right in the path of lions and every month they lost cows, sheep and goats. Nairobi Park has the worlds highest density of lions, and they often predate on livestock which are easier to catch.
At the age of 11 Richard decided to do something about his family’s losses. He observed that the lions never struck the homesteads when someone was awake and walking around with a flashlight. Lions are naturally afraid of people. He concluded that lions equate torches with people so he took the led bulbs from broken flashlights and rigged up an automated lighting system of four or five torch bulbs around the cattle stockade. The bulbs are wired to a box with switches, and to an old car battery charged with a solar panel that operates the family Television set. The lights don’t point towards the cattle, or on any property, but outwards into the darkness. They flash in sequence giving the impression that someone is walking around the stockade.
In the two years that his lion light system has been operating, the Turere family has had no predation at night by lions. To Richard he was just doing his job – protecting the herds. His father is beaming, stock thieves will also think twice about visiting a homestead where it appears as if someone is awake. Five of the neighbours noticed that they were getting hit by lions but not the Turere homestead. Richard has already installed the lion lights system in their bomas too.
For conservation and human wildlife Conflict management, this simple innovation is a breakthrough. The Kenya Wildlife Service report that human wildlife Conflict has cost the government Ksh71 million in compensation in 2011 alone. In Kitengela consolation of several million has been paid to the community for the loss of livestock to lions alone. This figure will rise dramatically as new legislation comes into play. Richards little device of four or five lamps, some wires and a few batteries costs less than ten dollars and has saved his father tens of cattle and therefore it has saved donors several thousand dollars in consolation. The alternative being applied elsewhere is the construction of lion proof fences but at the cost of 1,000 dollars just for materials, then there’s the cost of transport and labour it is way out of the price range fore the average pastoralist. Richards invention is cheap, local, cost effective and easy and quick to install and to maintain.
What is extraordinary about this story is that Richard has had no books or access to technical information. He says he does not know where he gets the ideas or the knowledge, and yes, he has given him self plenty of electric shocks. His father James is proud of his son, and has given him space to tinker and collect bits of gadgetry. Like so many boys, Richards dream has something to do with aircraft – he wants to be an engineer. When I first asked him about lions he said he hates them, but his invention has saved many as lions are often killed in retaliation for killing livestock. Now we need help on scaling up this idea.
Richard has just been awarded a scholarship at Brookhouse School where he intends to excel. This was all possible through support from Friends of Nairobi Park (FoNNaP) members, Michael Mbithi, Nickson Parmisa, Neovitis and Elvis, Winnie Khasakhala, Brookhouse School, AAR who have provided full medical cover.
“Safety First!”, you may think while watching the following video, but if the cheap (Chinese) polyethylene (?) extension cables just break too often due to rough handling and their low quality, chances are that someone will come up with an alternative. Like this young man in Kenya:
(no subtitles available on this one, sorry)
A young man from Kiandutu slums in Thika had always wanted to be an electrical engineer, but lack of fees denied him a chance to further his studies. And yet this has not dampen his resolve to put his mark on the world of electrical engineering.For starters, he has devised a way of making wooden extension cables, which as NTV’s Jane Ngoiri reports, is causing quite a stir in his neighbourhood. (src)
A max current set by the fuse and wooden frames that may easily burn or conduct electricity while wet probably aren’t the best conditions for this hardware hack, but hey: there’s obviously a demand for such an extension cable.
In Nyeri, Kenya a young man named Peterson Mwangi has created a way to start and switch off a car engine, via an SMS command from his cell phone. This is a lot like Morris Mbetsa’s anti-theft vehicle system using SMS of a couple years ago.
Imagineering is what it’s all about – wouldn’t you have wanted to build your own helicopter from scratch when you were 17 years old?
Joseph Omwoyo, a young Kenyan form-four student in Western Kenya, did just that and built his own version, using locally available materials. It doesn’t fly, nor does it look like it will ever take off – but what really matters is that a young boy with limited resources still had the energy to fulfill his dream:
“…Omwoyo says he got the idea while in Form One when he, together with his colleagues, toured the Kisumu Airport, and – during the short time there – the idea of making a chopper stuck to his mind”.
We’re sure that Kenya isn’t the only place where people are trying to build their own aircrafts, BUT! this certainly reminds us of the Kahawa West Aircraft story back in October 2010.
For Joseph, the helicopter may be his own escape from reality, or in his words: “Emargence Door Exit”. Touché!
Update: the original video has been removed by NTVKenya, so we can only hope it will be uploaded again in the next few days.
We’re currently fighting a bug that has affected our server [Update: Fixed! ], hence the long delay in updating this wonderful blog. Also, we recommend subscribing to this blog (because the bug doesn’t show up on our feed), so if you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to the AfriGadget RSS feed. Thank you!
“Apply Nairobi ingenuity and waterproof your house!”
Talking about reusable materials, here’s another popular reuse: a football / soccer ball made using old plastic bags, newspapers and sisal string. Demonstrated by the kids at The Nest Home, a children’s home in Limuru, Kenya:
It’s cheap, it works, it wins!
We actually prefer these creative toys as the kids learn how to MAKE things – instead of just buying cheap Chinese toys.
Anyone remembers David Mayer de Rothschild’s Plastiki, “a 60 feet (18 m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products” that successfully conquered the Pacific Ocean last year?
Well, it seems this young man from Lamu (Kenya) had a similar idea and is in the process of building his own plastic bottle boat. Our reader Arthur Buliva from Kenya just sent us these pictures with the following explanation:
I was in Lamu recently and came across this man who was making a boat out of plastic bottles and old slippers. He was not yet finished with it yet but I took the few photos of the product that I could.
He says that he collects plastic water bottles that the tourists throw on the beach. He also wakes up early in the morning to collect bottles washed ashore from the sea. With these he has constructed the (in his own words, “first in its kind”) boat.
He water-proofs it by sealing the gaps with used slippers collected in the very same way. Then boils tar in order to glue the components all together.
Kenya believe it?
(all images kindly shared by Arthur Buliva under a CC-SA licence – thx!)
Miniature versions of vehicles are as popular with kids in Cameroon as anywhere else. Adult craftsmen across the continent use materials such as wire, beads and recycled cans to create toy bicycles, trucks and airplanes—many of which transcend the level of children’s toys and are nothing short of art objects. Indeed, some of these creations are produced for corporate clients and international buyers.
No less ingenious and fascinating are toys created by and for kids themselves, usually from the simplest of materials and tools. This includes items like toy tractors (Kenya) and SUVs (Uganda) made from recycled plastic bottles.
In Cameroon, one such popular toy crafted by kids is a ‘remote controlled’ car or ATV. These are often built from discarded flip-flops (slippers), sardine tins, bamboo or raffia palm, electrical conduit (pipe), rubber and bits of string. A variation on this theme that incorporates a split bamboo steering column and a full-sized wire steering wheel was blogged by Steve in the northwest of the country.
It’s not difficult to spot toy cars like this being piloted by kids in Cameroon—the trick is usually being able to catch up with them to photograph one. A big advantage of this design is its ability to handle rough terrain when being driven at speed. The bamboo frame, chunky tires and rubber fasteners suck up bumps in the road like a 4WD Toyota. The proud builder of this R/C all-terrain vehicle paused long enough to demonstrate his creation for me.
Our dear friend Bill, who already provided us with this great story on Cameroonian Bamboo Magic, recently also posted another story on the metal workers – les forgerons – in Cameroon on his private blog:
On the outskirts of Maroua, the capital of the Extreme North of Cameroon, is a place quite unlike any other in the country. Here a community of les forgerons—blacksmiths, or metalworkers—practice their craft in the relative cool of a tree grove. Several dozen men with specialized skills are gathered here for a single purpose: to transform piles of scrap iron into finely finished tools, stoves, replacement parts and other useful implements for sale to the local population. Young apprentices learn the craft while operating bellows or shaping wood for tool handles. The production here is performed entirely by hand and on a scale which must be seen to be fully appreciated. ….
Head on over to his blog for the full post: The Extraordinary Makers of Maroua
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For a while now I’ve reflected on the four characteristics of the early church recorded in Acts 2:42. The thought occurred to me that I’m not sure what a church devoted to the breaking of bread looks like. You can make a fair case that the Catholics are because mass is at the heart of their worship, but for a whole variety of theological reasons I’m not going in that direction.
So I’m asking for help. I’m working on the assumption that the reference doesn’t simply refer to common meals together but includes something sacramental.
What does a local church that is ‘devoted to the breaking of bread’ look like? Could you say that about your church? How is it done? How often is it done? What’s the context and variety that surrounds it? Does it get stuck in ritual? Is liturgy used or simply a recital of Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26?
What have been your experiences of the Lord’s supper? When have you seen it done well? How were children included or not? Have you read any books that have shaped or changed your practices? What talks have you listened to that guided your thinking?
I’m looking for resources that are as practical as they are theological, that deals with the realities of regular church life and talks about how to handle it as well as what it means.
Send me links via Twitter, Facebook or here in the comments on the blog. I’ll repost all the resources so everyone can see all the suggestions. If you don’t know any resources yourself, perhaps you’d be willing to repost, share, tweet or in some other push this request out there, because I’d really love to get as broad a response as possible. Many thanks.
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My favorite of all the cocktail glasses are the tall tumblers. As a child, my parents had a set of frosted Collins glasses that had circus animals on them. They would let us children use them for special occasions and there was always the discussion as to who would get the zebra or the lion glass. The glasses are tall and cylindrical and seemed to adult! They were always fun to drink from.
Highballs are the popular choice for drinks, whether it is alcoholic or not. They hold a good size drink, usually 8 - 12 oz. Typically highball cocktails -which are a mixed drink of one alcoholic base and a soft drink mixer (gin & tonic, Scotch & soda, rum & coke). Highball glasses can be found at most every store that sells drinking glasses and are quite common.
Collins glasses are a bit different than highballs, but only slightly different. Collins glasses are taller and more narrow, a bit more elegant than highball glasses. They hold between 8 - 14 oz. It is commonly used to serve soft drinks, Long Island Iced Tea, Mai Tai and Collin's drinks. Collin's drinks are alcoholic drinks made with sour mix and a splash of a soft drink. The added height gives room for the bubbles to rise up to the surface, presenting a refreshing effervescence to the user.
Old Fashioned Glasses are short tumblers that go by many names, lowball glasses, rocks glasses. They are designed to serve alcohol on ice. They usually hold 6- 10 oz and the double Old Fashioned glass holds 12 - 16 oz.
A Shot Glass varies by size according to each country with their specific and legal standards. But, in the USA a shot size is only regulated in Utah where it has to be 1.5 fluid ounces. Mostly in the US, it holds between 1.25 - 1.5 oz or 44 mL. A shot glass is used to hold a shot of alcohol that one will drink from the glass or to measure a shot of alcohol to be mixed into a cocktail shaker. (1.5 oz is also considered a jigger.)
A shot glass was used in the distant past at dinners where the main course was served soon after the hunt. Shot glasses were placed on the table so diners could place and lead shot found in their dinners, from the shotgun blasts to the bird, elk, deer or venison.
A Shooter is very similar to a shot in that it holds between 25 and 100 mL of alcohol. The difference being that a shooter is a mix of at least to types of alcohol. Shooters can be shaken, stirred, blended, layered or poured into the shooter glass.
In the last few years shooter glasses have become a popular use for tiny desserts served in shooter glasses. The desserts are served either as a trifle, pudding or cheesecake with only a few bites for the diner. Some places have a sampling tray with multiple shooters while other restaurants capitalize on miniature desserts for people with sweet tooths who do not want to overindulge.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky's first two novellas, Poor Folks (1845/ 1846) and The Double (1846), are full of surprises, at least to me.
Poor Folks is - here's the first surprise - an epistolary novel, consisting of the letters between a copy clerk and his distant cousin, a younger woman. The cousins live in tenements across the street from each other, so the letters sometimes skip crucial parts of what action there is. Although poor themselves, both characters occasionally encounter truly desperate poor folks, but otherwise spend their time writing up their opinions of the books they have leant each other. The tag I put in the title is the clerk's description of one of his own letters.
Incoherent? Yes, very much so. The short novel is overstuffed with ideas that are undeveloped but provocative.
The Double is quite different, a single strong and coherent (if crazy) story. Mr. Golyadkin, another clerk, finds himself tormented, at work, at home, and in restaurants, by his exact double. The double is quick on his feet, a successful flatterer and schemer, while poor Golyadkin has trouble formlating coherent sentences, much less getting on in the world. What's worse, the double eats ten fish pies when Golyadkin eats only one, and then sticks Golyadkin with the bill.
The reader of Dostoevsky who finds the pinnacle of his art in the Grand Inquisitor chapter of The Brothers Karamazov may find these novels to be a little thin. There are only hints of Dostoevsky the deep thinker, although the two clerks do seem like close relatives of the Underground Man - they're Dostoevsky characters, all right.
I think both short novels are interesting in their own right. The Double, in particular, is even well-written. And both are essentially comic novels, showing a side of Dostoevsky's style that often seems to be overlooked. I'll spend the rest of the week poking at these books, to see what I can make of them.
This is also posted at the Russian Reading Challenge, my last entry there.
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A criminal defense lawyer appointed and paid to represent indigent persons charged with crimes. A public defender can either be a private attorney who accepts such cases and is compensated for each case, or a salaried attorney of a public defender agency. Also called "P.D."
"I don't have enough money to hire my own attorney. I am going to have to ask for a public defender."
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Abrams to get high-tech upgrade
By Kris Osborn
The Army plans to build prototypes of a tougher, more high tech M1A3 Abrams main battle tank by 2014 and field it by 2017. The variant would incorporate improvements based on lessons from Iraq. It will be able to plug into networks such as that planned for the Future Combat Systems, service officials said.
Army plans to preserve the battle-tested, 70-ton tank through 2050 will take Abrams technology well beyond the most advanced current variant, the M1A2 SEP, with more networking capability, laser designation and improved composite armor protection.
The plans build on interim improvements made to the Abrams during the war in Iraq.
“We want to take lessons learned from Iraq and improve interim fixes such as ballistic shields and underbelly armor protection,” said Lt. Col. Jim Schirmer, assistant capabilities manager for Training and Doctrine Command, Heavy Brigade Combat Team.
One analyst said a key factor in planning the M1A3 was that the Abrams’ performance in Iraq exceeded expectations.
“The Abrams design has proven to be more durable and versatile than anyone expected when the Cold War ended. The real turning point was the battle of Fallujah, when the presence of the system seemed to have a decisive impact on the outcome of the fight,” said Loren Thompson, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.based think tank.
One aim of the modernization plan will be to ensure the Abrams can accommodate next-generation battle command technologies and be able to beam radio and satellite images, data and video across the force in real time.
Also, the M1A3 will take advantage of technological gains now being made with lighterweight materials.
The Army is developing an experimental power unit to bring exportable power on board the Abrams to handle the additional electronics. The alternator on the Abrams produces 1,000 amps when the engine is running. Officials want to add to that an 8- to 10-kilowatt onboard generator.
Funding for the Abrams modernization is included in a supplemental spending request in Congress, which calls for $362 million for the project. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told reporters in May that more money may be added to the Abrams in five to seven years.
The M1A3 Abrams tank will fire a range of munitions, including some planned for the future:
■ An Advanced Kinetic Energy round
■ An Advanced Multi-Purpose (AMP) tank round combining multiple ammunition types into a single round and designed to fire as a canister, high-explosive or anti-tank round. It will be ready in five to seven years.
■ Mid-Range Munition, a guided 120mm ammunition with built-in infrared cameras and sensors to autonomously direct it toward enemy targets from ranges up to 12 kilometers.
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You might not have known this, but a lot of non-living objects are actually either male or female. Here are some examples:
FREEZER BAGS: They are male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.
PHOTOCOPIERS: These are female, because once turned off; it takes a while to warm them up again.They are an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong Buttons.
TYRES: Tires are male, because they go bald easily and are often over inflated HOT AIR
BALLOONS: Also a male object, because to get them to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under their butt.
SPONGES: These are female, because they are soft, squeezable and retain water.
WEB PAGES: Female, because they're constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on.
TRAINS: Definitely male, because they always use the same old lines for picking up people.
EGG TIMERS: Egg timers are female because, over time, all the weight shifts to the bottom.
HAMMERS: Male, because in the last 5000 years, they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around.
THE REMOTE CONTROL: Female. Ha! You probably thought it would be male, but consider this: It easily gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying New Law:
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Life is very busy at the moment what with projects, exams and little monkeys! Not to mention my belly dancing, hockey, tennis and PA commitments, throw in a few birthday celebrations, nights out and books to read and I'm exhausted just thinking about it. The project is going really well thanks to Yvonne who moved from Dublin to Luxembourg as a child and has given Mollie lots of valuable information including unusual facts that wouldn't be readily available to Mollie. Dillon's exams are nearly finished, just two left on Friday then he has a week off school. Dillon is fairly confident that they all went quite well, except for the maths paper where he rubbed out every single answer (the less said about that the better)! As for me, I've been busy putting together an outfit for a fancy dress party I'm going to next week, the question is, should I go white and virginal or black and sexy? Can you guess the theme of the party?
Once again I bring you Witty Wednesday thanks to John.
Male or Female?
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Violeta Parra: I'd rather keep the people.
Today's column was written some weeks ago. Then last Monday I learned of the death of the Argentinian singer Mercedes Sosa and a little part of me died that day, too. I felt, right there and then, compelled to modify the content of today's post and turn it, maybe, into a tribute to someone whose heartfelt performances made hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Ibero-Latin people like me feel proud of our rich heritage.
However, I have left most of the original material intact because the topic today is also linked to the art form to which Mercedes Sosa dedicated her life during a singing career that spanned more than five decades: the poet as singer.
It was during my adolescent years in Havana when I finally got the opportunity to choose the music I wanted to listen to - within the narrow confines of the Cuban society of the mid 80s and our government's prohibitions - and the first genre I embraced wholeheartedly was rock and roll. Bluesy, earthquaking, musical notes, became the be-all and end-all of my life's soundtrack. To say that I fell for rock's cliches and platitudes would be stating the bleeding obvious (Twisted Sister anyone? How about Quiet Riot?). But after a childhood where most of the music blaring out of the Made-in-the-USSR Selena radio we had in my house was traditional Cuban rhythms, I craved for a different experience.
During these years I turned my back on anything that had too deep a message and too flimsy a melody. Grand bass hooks, never-ending guitar solos and ear-piercing vocals were all the rage amongst my peers and I am not ashamed to admit that for some years the reigning sound in my life was that of a Fender Stratocaster.
That changed when I reached year 12 in college (high school in the US). One of my mates took me to see Arturo Sandoval at the Havana International Jazz Festival. I tagged along reluctantly and to this day I still remember getting butterflies in my stomach when the famed trumpeter appeared on stage and let rip. He was being supported by Irakere, a famous Cuban band, and they both awakened a strong desire in me to explore this genre further. Jazz is such a liberating and liberated music form that I am still amazed it took me so long to like it and accept it.
What came afterwards when I began university was the result of learning a foreign language in depth - English - and growing older and therefore looking at music from another perspective.
Whereas until then I had paid more attention to rhythm than lyrics, once I had begun to delve into the intricacies of English as a lexicon, I came across the poet as a singer, or a better way of putting it would be a singer who is a poet first and foremost, albeit with a good musical voice. An unexpected addendum was that this process allowed me to re-discover musical gems in my own native tongue. Enter Joaquín Sabina, Leonard Cohen and Joan Manuel Serrat. Enter also Patti Smith.
I was already familiar with the poet-as-a-singer genre. After all, the best example we have in Cuba is Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez, whose compositions feed on the writer's poetic and visually artistic nature. I was familiar, too, with Bob Dylan's songbook, but saw him above all as a performer. And as for the Catalán Serrat, the only tunes that appealed to me when I was younger were his immortal 'Penélope' and 'Mediterráneo'. The rest sounded strange to my teenage ears.
But when in 1991 Cuban television showed a very young Christian Slater playing an independent and rebellious pirate radio station DJ in the film 'Pump Up the Volume' I knew my very own 'Road to Damascus' moment had arrived. The opening track of that film was Leonard Cohen's 'Everybody Knows' and it was these two stanzas that brought the volte face in my life I have so far described: Everybody knows that the boat is leaking/Everybody knows that the captain lied/Everybody got this broken feeling/Like their father or their dog just died(...)Everybody knows that you love me baby/Everybody knows that you really do/Everybody knows that youve been faithful/Ah give or take a night or two/Everybody knows youve been discreet/But there were so many people you just had to meet/Without your clothes/And everybody knows
The softness with which the above lines were delivered, in that peculiarly husky voice Leonard had, made one forget for a minute that he was actually referring to someone who'd just cheated on him. Sublime.
From then on, my musical tastes widened up to include new poets-as-singers - Sabina, Tom Waits - and those to whom my younger years had never given a second chance, i.e., Serrat.
The history of these men and women who put pen to paper to create verses that could or would then be musicalised can be traced back to the ancient troubadours in Europe or griots in west Africa. These were poets (and story-tellers, too, but that's another post) who went after the tales that made up the bulk of their material. They were the purveyors of our folk heritage, never mind in which part of the world you found yourself. They were also the main motif for the appearance of a subgenre: the singer-as-a-poet. Joni Mitchell, please come out from behind that sofa. And you don't need any introduction, Baaba Maal.
And this is where the great Mercedes Sosa comes into the picture. She was the crown jewel of what Dante Alighieri called the fictio rethorica musicaque poita: rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. Evidence of that is the song that made her a household name in Iberoamerica, Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life). This melody had already been popularised by its author, poet-as-singer Violeta Parra. And yet, when you hear it in Mercedes's rich, alto voice, the emotional range through which it takes you makes you connect deeper with the lyrics: Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto/Me ha dado el sonido y el abecedario/Con él las palabras que pienso y declaro/Madre, amigo, hermano, y luz alumbrando/La ruta del alma del que estoy amando. (sorry, no translation)
Mercedes was not a poet (can I still write 'poetess' in English without any fear of being prosecuted?) and some people might even consider her to be an unnecessarily intrusive element between the poet-as-singer and his/her song. She wasn't a composer either, as far as I know. However, each melody she sang, every song she performed, she made it hers, both through her imposing stage persona and her prodigious voice. And to me that is enough proof, if any was needed, of poetry and the power of it. Here she is, performing one of her most famous numbers, Como la Cigarra (Like the Cicada), originally a poem by the Argentinian writer María Elena Walsh (I'm extremely sorry that I coud not find a good translation on youtube, I hope you can still enjoy it). Thanks.
Next Post: 'What Makes a Good Writer' by Zadie Smith, to be published on Tuesday 13th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
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The University Record, October 22, 1996
$1 million trust endows chair of U-M-Dearborn Polish studies
By Terry Gallagher
Frank and Mary Padzieski have established a $1 million trust to endow a chair of Polish studies at U-M-Dearborn.
The position, to be called the Frank and Mary Padzieski Endowed Chair in Polish Studies, will be established in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters.
In addition to teaching courses in Polish history and culture, the holder of the chair will be expected to enhance understanding of Polish culture through University outreach programs.
"I'm very pleased that U-M-Dearborn can play an important role in preserving Polish culture and heritage in this region," says Dearborn Chancellor James C. Renick. "The vision of Frank and Mary Padzieski will allow us to establish a position that will be dedicated to Polish studies as long as this institution exists. Their generosity should be recognized and honored by everyone in our community."
Earlier this year, the Padzieskis gave U-M-Dearborn a bust of Madame Marie Sklodowska Curie, the Polish scientist who received two Nobel Prizes. The sculpture is in the Science Building, to honor the accomplishments of women in science.
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JUSTICE REHNQUIST announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE STEWART, and JUSTICE POWELL joined.
The question presented in this case is whether California's "statutory rape" law, § 261.5 of the Cal. Penal Code Ann., violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 261.5 defines unlawful sexual intercourse as "an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female not the wife of the perpetrator, where the female is under the age of 18 years." The statute thus makes men alone criminally liable for the act of sexual intercourse.
In July 1978, a complaint was filed in the Municipal Court of Sonoma County, Cal., alleging that petitioner, then a 17 1/2-year-old male, had had unlawful sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 18, in violation of § 261.5. The evidence adduced at a preliminary hearing showed that at approximately midnight on June 3, 1978, petitioner and two friends approached Sharon, a 16 1/2-year-old female, and her sister as they waited at a bus stop. Petitioner and Sharon, who had already been drinking, moved away from the others and began to kiss. After being struck in the face for rebuffing petitioner's initial advances, Sharon submitted to sexual intercourse with petitioner. Prior to trial, petitioner sought to set aside the information on both state and federal constitutional grounds, asserting that § 261.5 unlawfully discriminated on the basis of gender.
The fact that the California Legislature criminalized the act of illicit sexual intercourse with a minor female is a sure indication of its intent or purpose to discourage that conduct. Precisely why the legislature desired that result is of course somewhat less clear. This Court has long recognized that "[inquiries] into congressional motives or purposes are a hazardous matter," and the search for the "actual" or "primary" purpose of a statute is likely to be elusive. Here, for example, the individual legislators may have voted for the statute for a variety of reasons. Some legislators may have been concerned about preventing teenage pregnancies, others about protecting young females from physical injury or from the loss of "chastity," and still others about promoting various religious and moral attitudes towards premarital sex.
The justification for the statute offered by the State, and accepted by the Supreme Court of California, is that the legislature sought to prevent illegitimate teenage pregnancies. That finding, of course, is entitled to great deference. We are satisfied not only that the prevention of illegitimate pregnancy is at least one of the "purposes" of the statute, but also that the State has a strong interest in preventing such pregnancy. At the risk of stating the obvious, teenage pregnancies, which have increased dramatically over the last two decades, have significant social, medical, and economic consequences for both the mother and her child, and the State. Of particular concern to the State is that approximately half of all teenage pregnancies end in abortion. And of those children who are born, their illegitimacy makes them likely candidates to become wards of the State.
We need not be medical doctors to discern that young men and young women are not similarly situated with respect to the problems and the risks of sexual intercourse. Only women may become pregnant, and they suffer disproportionately the profound physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of sexual activity. The statute at issue here protects women from sexual intercourse at an age when those consequences are particularly severe.
The question thus boils down to whether a State may attack the problem of sexual intercourse and teenage pregnancy directly by prohibiting a male from having sexual intercourse with a minor female. We hold that such a statute is sufficiently related to the State's objectives to pass constitutional muster.
Because virtually all of the significant harmful and inescapably identifiable consequences of teenage pregnancy fall on the young female, a legislature acts well within its authority when it elects to punish only the participant who, by nature, suffers few of the consequences of his conduct. It is hardly unreasonable for a legislature acting to protect minor females to exclude them from punishment. Moreover, the risk of pregnancy itself constitutes a substantial deterrence to young females. No similar natural sanctions deter males. A criminal sanction imposed solely on males thus serves to roughly "equalize" the deterrents on the sexes.
We are unable to accept petitioner's contention that the statute is impermissibly underinclusive and must, in order to pass judicial scrutiny, be broadened so as to hold the female as criminally liable as the male. It is argued that this statute is not necessary to deter teenage pregnancy because a gender-neutral statute, where both male and female would be subject to prosecution, would serve that goal equally well. The relevant inquiry, however, is not whether the statute is drawn as precisely as it might have been, but whether the line chosen by the California Legislature is within constitutional limitations. K
In any event, we cannot say that a gender-neutral statute would be as effective as the statute California has chosen to enact. The State persuasively contends that a gender-neutral statute would frustrate its interest in effective enforcement. Its view is that a female is surely less likely to report violations of the statute if she herself would be subject to criminal prosecution. In an area already fraught with prosecutorial difficulties, we decline to hold that the Equal Protection Clause requires a legislature to enact a statute so broad that it may well be incapable of enforcement.
The question whether a statute is substantially related to its asserted goals is at best an opaque one. It can be plausibly argued that a gender-neutral statute would produce fewer prosecutions than the statute at issue here.
There remains only petitioner's contention that the statute is unconstitutional as it is applied to him because he, like Sharon, was under 18 at the time of sexual intercourse. Petitioner argues that the statute is flawed because it presumes that as between two persons under 18, the male is the culpable aggressor We find petitioner's contentions unpersuasive. Contrary to his assertions, the statute does not rest on the assumption that males are generally the aggressors. It is instead an attempt by a legislature to prevent illegitimate teenage pregnancy by providing an additional deterrent for men. The age of the man is irrelevant since young men are as capable as older men of inflicting the harm sought to be prevented.
In upholding the California statute we also recognize that this is not a case where a statute is being challenged on the grounds that it "invidiously discriminates" against females. To the contrary, the statute places a burden on males which is not shared by females. But we find nothing to suggest that men, because of past discrimination or peculiar disadvantages, are in need of the special solicitude of the courts.
Accordingly the judgment of the California Supreme Court is Affirmed.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the judgment.
I note, also, that § 261.5 of the California Penal Code is just one of several California statutes intended to protect the juvenile. JUSTICE STEWART, in his concurring opinion, appropriately observes that § 261.5 is "but one part of a broad statutory scheme that protects all minors from the problems and risks attendant upon adolescent sexual activity." I think, too, that it is only fair, with respect to this particular petitioner, to point out that his partner, Sharon, appears not to have been an unwilling participant in at least the initial stages of the intimacies that took place the night of June 3, 1978. Petitioner's and Sharon's nonacquaintance with each other before the incident: their drinking; their withdrawal from the others of the group; their foreplay, in which she willingly participated and seems to have encouraged; and the closeness of their ages (a difference of only one year and 18 days) are factors that should make this case an unattractive one to prosecute at all, and especially to prosecute as a felony, rather than as a misdemeanor chargeable under § 261.5. But the State has chosen to prosecute in that manner, and the facts, I reluctantly conclude, may fit the crime.
Sharon at the preliminary hearing testified as follows:
"Q [by the Deputy District Attorney]. On June the 4th, at approximately midnight -- midnight of June the 3rd, were you in Rohnert Park?
"A [by Sharon]. Yes.
"Q. Is that in Sonoma County?
"Q. Did anything unusual happen to you that night in Rohnert Park?
"Q. Would you briefly describe what happened that night? Did you see the defendant that night in Rohnert Park?
"Q. Where did you first meet him?
"A. At a bus stop.
"Q. Was anyone with you?
"A. My sister.
"Q. Was anyone with the defendant?
"Q. How many people were with the defendant?
"Q. Now, after you met the defendant, what happened?
"A. We walked down to the railroad tracks.
"Q. What happened at the railroad tracks?
"A. We were drinking at the railroad tracks and we walked over to this bush and he started kissing me and stuff, and I was kissing him back, too, at first. Then, I was telling him to stop --
"A. -- and I was telling him to slow down and stop. He said, 'Okay, okay.' But then he just kept doing it. He just kept doing it and then my sister and two other guys came over to where we were and my sister said -- told me to get up and come home. And then I didn't --
"A. -- and then my sister and --
"Q. All right.
"A. -- David, one of the boys that were there, started walking home and we stayed there and then later --
"Q. All right.
"A. -- Bruce left Michael, you know.
"The Court: Michael being the defendant?
"The Witness: Yeah. We was laying there and we were kissing each other, and then he asked me if I wanted to walk him over to the park; so we walked over to the park and we sat down on a bench and then he started kissing me again and we were laying on the bench. And he told me to take my pants off.
"I said, 'No,' and I was trying to get up and he hit me back down on the bench and then I just said to myself, 'Forget it,' and I let him do what he wanted to do and he took my pants off and he was telling me to put my legs around him and stuff --
. . . .
"Q. Did you have sexual intercourse with the defendant?
"Q. He did put his penis into your vagina?
"Q. You said that he hit you?
"Q. How did he hit you?
"A. He slugged me in the face.
"Q. With what did he slug you?
"A. His fist.
"Q. Where abouts in the face?
"A. On my chin.
"Q. As a result of that, did you have any bruises or any kind of an injury?
"Q. What happened?
"A. I had bruises.
"The Court: Did he hit you one time or did he hit you more than once?
"The Witness: He hit me about two or three times.
. . . .
"Q. Now, during the course of that evening, did the defendant ask you your age?
"Q. And what did you tell him?
"Q. Did you tell him you were sixteen?
"Q. Now, you said you had been drinking, is that correct?
"Q. Would you describe your condition as a result of the drinking?
"A. I was a little drunk." App. 20-23.
"Q. Did you go off with Mr. M. away from the others?
"Q. Why did you do that?
"A. I don't know. I guess I wanted to.
"Q. Did you have any need to go to the bathroom when you were there.
"Q. And what did you do?
"A. Me and my sister walked down the railroad tracks to some bushes and went to the bathroom.
"Q. Now, you and Mr. M., as I understand it, went off into the bushes, is that correct?
"Q. Okay. And what did you do when you and Mr. M. were there in the bushes?
"A. We were kissing and hugging.
"Q. Were you sitting up?
"A. We were laying down.
"Q. You were lying down. This was in the bushes?
"Q. How far away from the rest of them were you?
"A. They were just bushes right next to the railroad tracks. We just walked off into the bushes; not very far.
. . . .
"Q. So your sister and the other two boys came over to where you were, you and Michael were, is that right?
"Q. What did they say to you, if you remember?
"A. My sister didn't say anything. She said, 'Come on, Sharon, let's go home.'
"Q. She asked you to go home with her?
"A. (Affirmative nod.)
"Q. Did you go home with her?
"Q. You wanted to stay with Mr. M.?
"A. I don't know.
"Q. Was this before or after he hit you?
. . . .
"Q. What happened in the five minutes that Bruce stayed there with you and Michael?
"A. I don't remember.
"Q. You don't remember at all?
"A. (Negative head shake.)
"Q. Did you have occasion at that time to kiss Bruce?
"Q. You did? You were kissing Bruce at that time?
"A. (Affirmative nod.)
"Q. Was Bruce kissing you?
"Q. And were you standing up at this time?
"A. No, we were sitting down.
. . . .
"Q. Okay. So at this point in time you had left Mr. M. and you were hugging and kissing with Bruce, is that right?
"Q. And you were sitting up.
"Q. Was your sister still there then?
"A. No. Yeah, she was at first.
"Q. What was she doing?
"A. She was standing up with Michael and David.
"Q. Yes. Was she doing anything with Michael and David?
"A. No, I don't think so.
"Q. Whose idea was it for you and Bruce to kiss? Did you initiate that?
"Q. What happened after Bruce left?
"A. Michael asked me if I wanted to go walk to the park.
"Q. And what did you say?
"A. I said, 'Yes.'
"Q. And then what happened?
"A. We walked to the park.
. . . .
"Q. How long did it take you to get to the park?
"A. About ten or fifteen minutes.
"Q. And did you walk there?
"Q. Did Mr. M. ever mention his name?
JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICES WHITE and MARSHALL join, dissenting [omitted].
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
Local custom and belief -- rather than statutory laws of venerable but doubtful ancestry -- will determine the volume of sexual activity among unmarried teenagers. The empirical evidence cited by the plurality demonstrates the futility of the notion that a statutory prohibition will significantly affect the volume of that activity or provide a meaningful solution to the problems created by it. Nevertheless, as a matter of constitutional power, unlike my Brother BRENNAN, I would have no doubt about the validity of a state law prohibiting all unmarried teenagers from engaging in sexual intercourse. The societal interests in reducing the incidence of venereal disease and teenage pregnancy are sufficient, in my judgment, to justify a prohibition of conduct that increases the risk of those harms.
My conclusion that a nondiscriminatory prohibition would be constitutional does not help me answer the question whether a prohibition applicable to only half of the joint participants in the risk-creating conduct is also valid. It cannot be true that the validity of a total ban is an adequate justification for a selective prohibition; otherwise, the constitutional objection to discriminatory rules would be meaningless. The question in this case is whether the difference between males and females justifies this statutory discrimination based entirely on sex.
The fact that the Court did not immediately acknowledge that the capacity to become pregnant is what primarily differentiates the female from the male does not impeach the validity of the plurality's newly found wisdom. I think the plurality is quite correct in making the assumption that the joint act that this law seeks to prohibit creates a greater risk of harm for the female than for the male. But the plurality surely cannot believe that the risk of pregnancy confronted by the female -- any more than the risk of venereal disease confronted by males as well as females -- has provided an effective deterrent to voluntary female participation in the risk-creating conduct. Yet the plurality's decision seems to rest on the assumption that the California Legislature acted on the basis of that rather fanciful notion.
In my judgment, the fact that a class of persons is especially vulnerable to a risk that a statute is designed to avoid is a reason for making the statute applicable to that class. The argument that a special need for protection provides a rational explanation for an exemption is one I simply do not comprehend. A hypothetical racial classification will illustrate my point. Assume that skin pigmentation provides some measure of protection against cancer caused by exposure to certain chemicals in the atmosphere and, therefore, that white employees confront a greater risk than black employees in certain industrial settings. Would it be rational to require black employees to wear protective clothing but to exempt whites from that requirement? It seems to me that the greater risk of harm to white workers would be a reason for including them in the requirement -- not for granting them an exemption.
In this case, the fact that a female confronts a greater risk of harm than a male is a reason for applying the prohibition to her -- not a reason for granting her a license to use her own judgment on whether or not to assume the risk. Surely, if we examine the problem from the point of view of society's interest in preventing the risk-creating conduct from occurring at all, it is irrational to exempt 50% of the potential violators. And, if we view the government's interest as that of a parens patriae seeking to protect its subjects from harming themselves, the discrimination is actually perverse. Would a rational parent making rules for the conduct of twin children of opposite sex simultaneously forbid the son and authorize the daughter to engage in conduct that is especially harmful to the daughter? That is the effect of this statutory classification.
If pregnancy or some other special harm is suffered by one of the two participants in the prohibited act, that special harm no doubt would constitute a legitimate mitigating factor in deciding what, if any, punishment might be appropriate in a given case. But from the standpoint of fashioning a general preventive rule -- or, indeed, in determining appropriate punishment when neither party in fact has suffered any special harm -- I regard a total exemption for the members of the more endangered class as utterly irrational.
In my opinion, the only acceptable justification for a general rule requiring disparate treatment of the two participants in a joint act must be a legislative judgment that one is more guilty than the other. The risk-creating conduct that this statute is designed to prevent requires the participation of two persons -- one male and one female. In many situations it is probably true that one is the aggressor and the other is either an unwilling, or at least a less willing, participant in the joint act. If a statute authorized punishment of only one participant and required the prosecutor to prove that that participant had been the aggressor, I assume that the discrimination would be valid. Although the question is less clear, I also assume, for the purpose of deciding this case, that it would be permissible to punish only the male participant, if one element of the offense were proof that he had been the aggressor, or at least in some respects the more responsible participant in the joint act. The statute at issue in this case, however, requires no such proof. The question raised by this statute is whether the State, consistently with the Federal Constitution, may always punish the male and never the female when they are equally responsible or when the female is the more responsible of the two.
It would seem to me that an impartial lawmaker could give only one answer to that question. The fact that the California Legislature has decided to apply its prohibition only to the male may reflect a legislative judgment that in the typical case the male is actually the more guilty party. Any such judgment must, in turn, assume that the decision to engage in the risk-creating conduct is always -- or at least typically -- a male decision. If that assumption is valid, the statutory classification should also be valid. But what is the support for the assumption? It is not contained in the record of this case or in any legislative history or scholarly study that has been called to our attention. I think it is supported to some extent by traditional attitudes toward male-female relationships. But the possibility that such a habitual attitude may reflect nothing more than an irrational prejudice makes it an insufficient justification for discriminatory treatment that is otherwise blatantly unfair. For, as I read this statute, it requires that one, and only one, of two equally guilty wrongdoers be stigmatized by a criminal conviction.
Nor do I find at all persuasive the suggestion that this discrimination is adequately justified by the desire to encourage females to inform against their male partners. Even if the concept of a wholesale informant's exemption were an acceptable enforcement device, what is the justification for defining the exempt class entirely by reference to sex rather than by reference to a more neutral criterion such as relative innocence? Indeed, if the exempt class is to be composed entirely of members of one sex, what is there to support the view that the statutory purpose will be better served by granting the informing license to females rather than to males? If a discarded male partner informs on a promiscuous female, a timely threat of prosecution might well prevent the precise harm the statute is intended to minimize.
Finally, even if my logic is faulty and there actually is some speculative
basis for treating equally guilty males and females differently, I still
believe that any such speculative justification would be outweighed by
the paramount interest in evenhanded enforcement of the law. A rule that
authorizes punishment of only one of two equally guilty wrongdoers violates
the essence of the constitutional requirement that the sovereign must govern
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- What is your opinion about employee
- How would you react if your boss demanded to search your purse for
stolen merchandise or contraband?
- Have you ever been warned not
to “gossip” on the
job? Did you ever pay the rule
any heed? Why or why not?
- Do you believe that there is
corporate propaganda on the job?
How does it control workers with
buzzwords like “associate” and “team
- Do you ever think you have been
punished on the job for not having
the “right” politics?
Describe the punishment and what
the exact roots of it might have
- Have you ever avoided confrontation for fear of future reprisals?
- Have you ever had to lower the quality of your work so that you would
fit in with your fellow employees?
- How would you describe the ideal employee?
- Have you ever had to quit a job on principle? Describe the situation.
Would you do the same thing again?
- Describe the ideal boss? Who was the best boss you ever had? Who was
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What is the ACCESS Orientation Program?
During the ACCESS Orientation Program, students and their parents will receive financial aid assistance including FAFSA information, residence life information, placement testing results, academic advisement, and career counseling. Additionally, students will participate in activities, workshops, and seminars to include topics such as college transition, school spirit, study skills, and test-taking strategies. It is expected that new students will leave the ACCESS Orientation Program week with all of the necessary tools and resources required for their Fall enrollment at the University, as well as for their first year of academic success. Students and parents will meet and have access to university deans and administrators who will provide them with critical information and resources for their successful matriculation. Morgan offers four one-week ACCESS Orientation Program weeks for a maximum of 250 students per session in order to accommodate at least 1,000 first-time freshmen during the month of July. The ACCESS Orientation Program pledges to increase access to college for a diverse student population, prepare students for their college matriculation, and provide a head start for students on the path to academic success. It is expected that the campus-wide ACCESS Orientation Program for freshmen which incorporates best practices in higher education will yield outstanding results for the entire undergraduate student population.
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"These are perfect for potlucks, get togethers, or as snacks for the kids. Everyone loves them! You may want to quadruple the recipe. Use toothpicks to keep the creamy towers from tumbling." — RIMMERM
Watch video tips and tricks
whole wheat bread
Try this with Nutella (hazelnut chocolate spread) without butter. It is fantastic. I would recommend, for visual effect, to use dark wheat bread alternated with the white. Yummy!
I dont get it. Tastes just like bread with some peanut butter smeared on it. I was browsing appetizers, and saw this one. Figured my 2 year old would like it, and thinking that if I made it, I might be surprised. But nope, just as I suspected, it was not worthy of following a recipe for.
I made this without the butter (too much fat!) and they were excellent. They didn't last. They kids and myself gobbled them right up.
This is a tasty kid-friendly recipe. My nieces love to be in the kitchen when they're here, so I usually have several recipes printed up from this site that have been rated for children. They both said that this was two thumbs up material. Thanks for the great idea Marc.
I modified it to use whole wheat bread, organic peanut butter, and banana slices or strawberry slices for the sweetness. Much more tastier and very healthy!
My kids loved this! Tried it as written, next time with the nutella...they liked it both ways, but my kids love chocolate, so with nutella was the #1 choice. I will be making again for kids parties! Thanks!
This was very delicious, but cutting the bread was difficult because it kept falling apart. the towers also got "smushed down" becasue of the cutting.
This was so fun! I did one batch peanut butter and the other batch peanut butter and nutella. I big hit!
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Creamy Peanut Towers
Serving Size: 1/9 of a recipe
Servings Per Recipe: 9
Amount Per Serving
Calories from Fat: 58
See how to make perfect glazed doughnuts.
See an amazing method for making “grilled” cheese sandwiches.
Make this whole wheat bread, which is delicious and easy.
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Comment: Exit polls in Denmark show that the left-leaning opposition Social Democratic Party leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt winning a majority int he 179-sea parliament. The best news to come out of Denmark is that this puts an end to the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party (DPP) role in forcing the country to have the strictest immigration laws in Europe.
Since 2001, minority right-wing governments have relied on the support of the DPP.
If Thorning-Schmidt’s bloc wins the election, she will become the first woman to lead the Danish government.
The Social Democrats have refused to work with the DPP and have said publicly that they will stem the influence of Pia Kjærsgaard’s party.
Migrant Tales will publish more on the Danish elections later on.
Danish voters appeared set to elect their first female prime minister Thursday and end 10 years of pro-market reforms and a hardening of immigration laws.
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Information contained on this page is provided by companies via press release distributed through PR Newswire, an independent third-party content provider. PR Newswire, WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE Susan Zimmerman
MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A new financial assessment tool called the MAP (Motivated Asset Pattern) Assessment from Mindful Asset Programs will help financial planners and other investment professionals determine their clients' psychological profiles in less than 20 minutes so they can advise them on their wealth building and retirement plans.
The assessment tool, based on sound psychological and neuroscience principles, will help financial planners discover what motivates their clients about finances and what kinds of issues they have with money so the advisors can best determine how to guide them.
"Planners can show clients they care about them as people before they dare to advise them on financial decisions. The MAP Assessment reveals what motives matter to them, so advisers can prioritize and convey it in a few short minutes. The MAP Assessment saves time, strengthens trust, and eases implementation," said Susan Zimmerman, Chartered Financial Consultant and licensed therapist.
The tool gives planners insights into the client's motivations for such factors as prestige, spontaneity, peace, simplicity, virtue, security, control, and growth.
"This succinct money personality tool helps financial planners get to know clients more thoroughly within minutes," said Zimmerman, co-founder and owner of a Registered Investment Advisory firm. "It helps uncover clients' desires, what habitually has steered their behavior, and what is out of their comfort zone. Planners find it helps clarify what products and services are the best fit for each client, and what kinds of risk the client is willing to take."
Unlike other financial assessment tools that take days to learn in remote training centers and hours to implement, the MAP profiling tool can be learned in a few hours in their offices and takes less than 20 minutes to conduct with a client.
The financial assessment tool helps financial advisors build good will among clients and improve plan implementations, she said.
For more information and a free trial of three assessments in the Tri-Pack for practitioners, go to the "products" tab at: www.MindfulAssetPrograms.com. Use the code: FreeTrial2013.This offer ends April 30, 2013.
"Clients have a historic style and preference driven by their money motives, which have often been on "unconscious auto pilot" mode. The MAP Assessment and Training Guide help structure conversations. Planners will know clients more deeply and in less time with the MAP money personality program. The process heightens clients' awareness of their authentic preferences and integrate their motivational patterns into financial planning recommendations," she said.
Each MAP assessment creates a customized report with a summary version to help the practitioner present findings to clients. A detailed report for the client then provides them with descriptions and checklists to raise their awareness of emotional and cognitive management of financial decisions.
Graphics provide a memorable visual for individuals or couples that help them assess recommended actions.
Zimmerman, LMFT, ChFC
Susan Zimmerman blends the best strategies from the therapeutic and economic worlds and creates customized applications for client business growth. Consistent results are improved persuasive communication skills that increase revenues, and sustainable, energetic leadership.
Susan is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Chartered Financial Consultant.
Known for her creativity and pragmatic solutions, Susan is author of "The Power in Your Money Personality" and other books including "Rays of Hope in Times of Loss", a gift book for people grieving due to loss of a loved one or significant life transitions.
Susan's work has been featured in various media, including Fox 9 TV, the Wall Street Journal, Woman's World, the Minneapolis Star/Tribune, First for Women, the LA Times, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Bankrate.com. Founder of her company, Mindful Asset Programs, she is an author, coach, trainer, and keynote speaker.
©2012 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved.
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Web App Tells You Which Olympic Athlete You Most Resemble
Are you following the London Olympic games? Even if you're not watching every event, you probably at least follow your country's athletes and medal count. No matter the capacity in which you watch the games, there's one thing most of us know–we'll never be like them. But is that really true?
An amusing and informative section of the BBC News website lets you compare your physical attributes to those of actual Olympic athletes. Although we may not be as fit or as talented as these athletes, there's a very good chance we're alike them in shape and size. And hey, that's something too isn't it?
All you have to do is hop on the BBC Olympic athlete body match and enter your height and weight. Once you do that, you'll discover that among all those amazing athletes, there's at least one that's similar to you.
It doesn't end with that, though. After you find the athlete that's most similar to you, you can start browsing the height by weight chart to find random athletes by their measurements.
There you have it! You've just wasted a boring hour learning about athletes, and feeling better about yourself. Just in case you were wondering, turns out I'm similar to Korean Volleyball player Yeon-Koung Kim. Who would have guessed?
So which athlete do you resemble?
Like this? You might also enjoy...
- With the 'Magic Clock,' You'll Always Know Where Your Kids Are
- JAXA’s Space Aquarium Puts Fish Families in Orbit, Out of Reach of Kittehs
- Print a Smell on a Postcard
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My friend the Episcopal priest and professor Father Fred Schmidt posted this illustrated quote from C.S. Lewis on Facebook the other day, and mentioned how fitting it is for mulling on in Lent. Friend Fred also gave Lewis his props for his amazing incisiveness and succinctness in everything he said and wrote.
Which inspired the random thoughts from yours truly that follow on this, Day 8 of the 40 days of Lent:
C.S. Lewis remains one of the most influential Christian thinkers of all time, but the man liked his strong drink, a lot, and liked nothing better than holding forth over beer with his Oxford students at his favorite watering hole.
Which made him my kind of teacher.
Sorry, but I couldn’t resist that cheap joke. A little levity now and again makes the observance of Lent and all that self-denial and self-sacrificial stuff that goes with it a little more, uh, comfortable to deal with.
For me, anyway.
Now one has to wonder if Lewis maybe had wayyyy too much grog when he suggested that Christianity is not about anybody’s comfort.
Like any other self-loving, self-respecting Christian, I hold fast to my Christian faith and practices for the comfort and strength and hope and endurance and all that that I get out of it because after all . . .
it’s all about me, about I, me, mine and my salvation and a ticket to heaven, with heaping amounts of Godly leftovers for others in my Christian walk, of course.
Look, I suppose that His Greatness Mr. Lewis may have had something in mind like what Paul was thinking when he told the Roman Christians: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, for it is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12: 1)
Being a living sacrifice ain’t always easy, or by any means comfortable, which doesn’t mean, btw, that there’s not joy and self-fulfillment and a sense of well being that feels good to a Christian living much of a Christian life outside the comfort zone.
But Lent is a discomforting reminder that being a “living sacrifice” is about a lot about self-denial, self-sacrifice, and even some self-crucifixion that “the world” may look on as “foolish” and a “scandal” (words and concepts that Apostle Paul raised up as well) or even masochistic in some way. But I’ve often said and repeated here recently that Christianity endures because it doesn’t flinch in the face of discomfort or even suffering and death. This is because it recognizes the transformative and redemptive powers of love and love’s ultimate triumph over evil.
And we Christians recognize the transformative power of love on the cross, followed by the triumph of love in the resurrection. This is the language we Christians use and it’s a foreign language with foreign meanings that most in “the world” don’t or can’t or won’t ever get.
Speaking of me–I didn’t get it for a long time myself. But I’m glad I stuck with the journey to greater understanding. Christianity is nothing if not a sometimes uncomfortable and quite confounding journey.
I would argue that His Greatness Mr. Lewis–whose classic A Grief Observed is hard to read–so gut-wrenching is the suffering we can feel him processing in the amazing clarity of his words and message–was plenty sober when he suggested that Christianity is not a religion to be embraced for the comfort it gives to me and my two best friends, Mr. I and Mr. Me.
My friend Mr. Fred was right on, as usual–there’s a lot to think about in that incisive quote from the incisive and always succinct Mr. Lewis in this season of Lent, which–here’s the good news–foreshadows the season of the comfort and joy that ring and reverberate out of three simple words:
“He is risen!”
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Damn Proud to be Guilty
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson
The headlines in the Nova Scotian newspapers self righteously reported that Captain Alex Cornelissen and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt were guilty as charged. My favorite headline was in Nova. In big bold letters it proclaimed:
“Sea Shepherd crew guilty of interfering with Canada's seal hunt”
Of course we were guilty of interfering with the Canadian seal slaughter. Why else would we have been there if not to interfere?
Guilty, guilty, guilty, and proud of it.
This is like a headline in a Berlin newspaper of 1939 stating: “Dissidents Found guilty of rescuing Jewish prisoners,” or a Nazi controlled 1943 newspaper in Paris with the headline “Partisans found guilty of aiding American soldiers.”
How could we be anything but proud of a headline accusing us of interfering with one of the most obscene and horrifically despicable wildlife slaughters on the planet?
Of course the newspapers in Canada did not report that the reason that Alex and Peter did not attend their trial is because the government of Canada had deported them for life and would not allow them to return to defend themselves. Nor did the newspapers report that the Canadian government, without due process of law, seized the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat. In short, they stole our ship without a hearing or a trial and without any charges laid against the ship or the owners (i.e. Sea Shepherd) of the ship.
Not that we were overly upset about it. We had stripped the ship of most of its valuable equipment prior to undertaking the voyage into the ice. We had plans to retire the Farley Mowat. The annual cost of maintaining the ship was becoming a burden for the Society and the ship did not have the speed that we needed for many of our campaigns. Added to that is the fact that de-commissioning a ship is very expensive.
We saw the risk of losing the ship as worthwhile in relation to the benefits of publicizing and dramatizing the slaughter of baby seals in Europe at the same time as the European Parliament was debating the ban on Canadian seal products.
My reasoning was that we had an 80% chance of losing the ship during the 2008 seal campaign, that the loss of the ship considering her age and annual maintenance costs and the benefits of publicizing the seal slaughter would be worth the risks.
Thus we put a Bre’r Rabbit strategy into play and in the process thoroughly confused the bureaucrats of the Canadian Department of Fishy Business. They did not know if we wanted the ship back or did not want it back. They arrested a ship of Europeans at the same time Europe was debating the seal product ban (smart move Loyola Hearn – very well played I must say). They wanted me, but I was conveniently not onboard the ship during the arrest, being a Canadian and thus more vulnerable to prosecutorial persecution. They seized 20 crew and arrested only two officers, one Swedish and one Dutch who they then deported to prevent them from defending themselves. We retaliated by releasing the lawyers because there was no use spending money on legal fees if the defendants were not allowed back into the country.
In the end, the Canadian government has spent over a million dollars on this fiasco and in return they now have a white elephant of a ship they can’t seem to get rid of, a conviction of two crew which is essentially meaningless, and they now no longer have a commercially viable seal slaughter.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on the other hand has found an inexpensive way to decommission a ship, a ban on seal products, and flattering headlines denouncing us for interfering with a seal slaughter, which was our intention in the first place.
The case will be officially closed when Alex and Peter are sentenced in September although whatever the sentences are they will be irrelevant since neither Captain Alex Cornelissen or 1st Officer Peter Hammarstedt are allowed back into the country to pay fines or to do jail time. And both men now have the honor of having been found guilty of defending seals, in other words official recognition of their activism as seal defenders.
Nova Scotia Judge Jean Whalen said “Based on the totality of the evidence, I find that the Crown has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt on each element of (the offences of witnessing and documenting and interfering with the slaughter of seals) and find the defendants guilty on all counts.”
It is as if the Canadian courts made the following proclamation:
Captain Alex Cornelissen of the Netherlands and 1st Officer Peter Hammarstedt of Sweden, both officers onboard the vessel Farley Mowat are herby recognized by the Canadian Courts for their role in interfering with the slaughter of baby seals in Canada and thus being successful in their role as conservation activists.
Hey, it’s not the order of bloody Canada but that little trinket is seriously over-rated these days. It is usually given to Canadians who have found a way to exploit the country for profit.
The Farley Mowat remains in Sydney Harbor, tied up at considerable expense to the Canadian government. She may be rusting away but there is still an aura of nobility around her. She made voyages around the globe in defense of our oceans, broke the ice of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Ross Sea, weathered hurricanes in the Caribbean and engaged the poachers in the Atlantic and the Pacific. She was a great ship and she has ended her days as a reminder to the Canadian bureaucrats that they were outsmarted, outmaneuvered and made total fools of by the crew of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Most importantly, she made a significant contribution with three voyages (1998, 2005, and 2008) to the ice floes off Eastern Canada to defend harp seal pups. She has become a legend and a part of the history of the seal hunt and opposition to the seal hunt and in the future this ship will be remembered by future Canadians for helping to bring about an end to something that will one day be a major embarrassment to Canadians.
Canadians hung Metis leader Louis Riel and then later erected a statue to him and put his face on a postage stamp. Today’s “fanatics” and “outlaws” are often tomorrow’s national heroes and angels.
Will more enlightened Canadians in the future look back on those thugs who clubbed seals for money and pleasure as men to be proud of, or will they view the courageous men and women who opposed the cruel and ecologically destructive seal slaughter as heroes?
Time will tell but I’m betting that Farley Mowat, our international director’s face, and maybe the ship that bears his name will appear on a postage stamp someday.
History has a way of sorting out the truth and history will also reveal Judge Jean Whalen as being nothing more than a political pawn for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans for declaring that she reviewed “all” the evidence of the case although the defendants were denied the right to a fair trial.
The great Canadian Kangaroo Seal Slaughter Trial is now over and Captain Cornelissen and 1st Officer Hammarstedt have been found guilty of compassion, activism and courage.
The court has said that the Sea Shepherd crew have 30 days to appeal the verdict. No bloody way – being found guilty of compassion, of defending the seals, of interfering with the seal slaughter and seeing the looks on the faces of those cowardly baby killers as they fled over the ice in the face of our great black ship was priceless and we would have it no other way.
Yes indeed, guilty as charged and damn proud of it.
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Martie was born in Pasadena, California and now lives in Sacramento, California with her husband. Her two sons are grown men with their own families. Her daughter died at the age of eight. She has four grandchildren. She studied English literature, creative writing, and child development at various universities. She has been involved with early childhood education for over 30 years and a writer since her first story in 2nd grade. Her father was an author before she was born. He influenced her direction but died before she could thank him. His stories were published in the Saturday Evening Post. She still has some of those magazines in a box under her bed. Her mother was a kindergarten teacher who showed her the wonder of the simplest things.
She made a pact with herself about writing long ago. She promised that her characters would be people who were human, learning, growing and finding answers to large questions. Having an insight into the deeper part of humanness makes her characters real. Compassion, curiosity and an innate knowledge of human nature have been her tools, abiding and siding with a deep love of observation.
Her writing includes numerous short stories, a memoir in progress and close to 2,000 poems. Sweet William is her first work of longer fiction. She is in the process of writing another. Her poetry has been published in journals, magazines, a book on grief, The History of the Reye’s Syndrome Foundation, and various anthologies. She belongs to several online writing communities and also blogs some of her writing.
To read her blog, click here.
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“The lasting and loving relationship of Norman and Norma serves as a great example to all who value the institution of marriage,” Governor Jindal said.
The Burmahs were married in 1931. Norman is 101-years-old and Norma is 98. They have two children, six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Together, they raised two daughters and lived in New Orleans until 2005.
To this day, they both remain devoted Saints fans. The Burmahs will be inducted into the Louisiana Family Forum’s (LFF) Marriage Hall of Fame.
Since 2002, LFF has identified Louisiana’s longest married couple to honor marriage. LFF’s first recognized longest married couple was George and Germaine Briant in 2002.
The Briants were followed by Fernand and Emily Cavalier as Louisiana’s Longest Married Couple. Since 2008, Governor Jindal and the First Lady have honored Louisiana’s Longest Married Couple at the Governor’s Mansion, including Fernand and Emily Cavalier in 2008, Newton and Anna Leger in 2009, Bennett and Pearl Robin in 2010 and Ralph and Dorothy Richards in 2011.
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A fresh attack overnight on a pipeline delivering gas from Egypt to Israel left one person injured, witnesses and Egyptian security sources said. At least three gunmen in a van opened fire on a gas installation before an explosion hit the pipeline near the town of al-Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula, witnesses said.
It was the sixth such attack on the pipeline since Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February. It carries gas through the Sinai and on to Jordan and Israel. Previous attacks have already disrupted gas deliveries to both countries several times, but it was not immedaitely clear what impact the latest attack would have on supplies. Army experts have also located and defused a number of other devices targeting the pipeline. And last month, four armed men were arrested as they tried to blow up the gas terminal near al-Arish. The same month, Egypt stepped up its police and army patrols in the Sinai to try to protect the pipeline.
Egypt supplies 43 percent of Israel's natural gas and 40 percent of Israel's electricity comes from this source.
The latest blast comes against a background of rising tension between Egypt and Israel. On August 18, Israeli troops killed five Egyptian policemen as they chased militants along the border. That incident followed a series of desert ambushes that killed eight Israelis. Egypt has asked Israel for an official apology and demanded a probe into the deaths.
At the time, outraged Egyptians staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. Then overnight on September 9-10, crowds smashed through an external security wall, tossed embassy papers from balconies and tore down the Israeli flag. Three people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded, including 300 policemen, during the clashes between protesters and the security forces outside the embassy.
It was the worst incident since Israel set up its mission in Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979. Tensions ratcheted up another notch when on September 15 Egypt's Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said the 1979 peace treaty with Israel "is not sacred".
Israel's foreign ministry summoned the Egyptian ambassador over the comments. On Friday, Israeli units deployed along the southern border with Egypt were ordered on "high alert" for fear of a "terrorist attack", an army spokeswoman said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has in recent weeks repeatedly warned Israelis to avoid travelling to Egypt. The new regime in Cairo is in the process of reviewing all its gas contracts with Israel signed under Mubarak.
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Looking for a way to fit school into your busy schedule? Online degree programs might just save your day.
Is every college class you find interesting scheduled smack dab in the middle of your workday? Or maybe it's scheduled during your kid's soccer practice.
Yes, going back to school when you have a life can be tough...Or not.
In case you didn't get the email, online education is a viable option for today's busy student.
"[Busy students] find distance learning to be a suitable or desirable choice because it offers the flexibility of not having to be somewhere at a particular time and place, especially during their working hours or maybe even when they want to be on a soccer field with their kids," says Robert Nash, associate dean of distance learning and professional development at California's Coastline Community College. "They can fit in their learning whenever it best suits their time frame."
And make no mistake; more and more students - over age 25 - are taking advantage of online education. In fact, it's estimated that by 2014, 35 to 40 percent of the 25 and older headcount at degree-granting schools will be online students, according to "Online Higher Education Market Update," a 2010 study by the higher education research and consulting firm, Eduventures.
So keep the job, the soccer games, and even your dream to go back to school. But first, read on for some popular online degree choices that could have you earning your degree...and keeping your life.
Here's a great example of a health care degree that can be taught 100 percent online, says Nash. It's also a major that gives you the option of pursuing an associate's, bachelor's, or master's degree.
And if you're a busy person who signs up for an online course in this field, it'll likely be a good fit since it's all about management. In fact, according to the College Board, an organization of colleges and universities that administers tests such as the SAT, health services administration students are likely to study all facets of overseeing health care facilities such as nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and doctors' offices.
The College Board says that if you choose this path of study it helps to be a "strong organized leader who looks forward to working with others to solve problems." And here's the good news: those are some of the same attributes Nash says successful online students have. He says the best online students are goal-oriented with good time-management skills.
Potential Career: Most medical and health services managers are required to have at least a bachelor's degree, though a master's degree in health services, long-term care administration, public health, public administration, or business administration are also typical, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Want a versatile degree that can be earned in a versatile way? Business could be a great fit. The College Board says a business degree can offer "limitless opportunities," and could prepare you to pursue work in a variety of business settings.
As for its suitability to online instruction, Nash says it's a good match. "For instance, case study is a teaching strategy instructors use for business administration and that can be very effectively done online," he says.
According to the College Board, business administration and management majors might take courses in areas such as financial management, marketing, international management, accounting, and more.
Potential Career: A bachelor's degree in business administration is one option to look into if you're looking to prepare to pursue a career as a financial analyst. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, "many positions require a bachelor's degree in a related field, such as accounting, business administration, economics, finance, or statistics."
With a degree in information technology, you'll be using the latest technologies to study the ins and outs of the tech industry, making it a no brainer for being a good fit for online instruction. Talk about a degree that's appropriate for online learning.
"Anything that involves learning theory, terms and definitions, and describing processes, which covers a lot of what IT is, can be taught online pretty easily," Nash says.
Indeed, the College Board says you'll not only study computer science and acquire strong technical and communications skills, but you'll likely study business as well. You might also have the opportunity to specialize in an area you're interested in, such as web development.
They go on to say that this degree is offered both at the associate's and bachelor's levels, providing more flexible options depending on your career goals.
Potential Career: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, a bachelor's degree in fields similar to computer or information science is most typical in a career as a network and computer systems administrator.
If you're under the impression that studying law has to be done in an oak-lined library filled with leather-bound books, you might want to reconsider that notion.
Paralegal studies associate's degree and certificate programs can be taught 100 percent online, says Nash.
According to the College Board, some typical courses in a paralegal studies program include civil procedure, ethics (yes, lawyers do have them), legal research and writing, and litigation.
And earning this degree online could be a great idea, with the legal field becoming increasingly tech-savvy.
"Law firms increasingly use technology and computer software for managing documents and preparing for trials," notes the U.S. Department of Labor. "Paralegals use computer software to draft and index documents and prepare presentations. In addition, paralegals must be familiar with electronic database management and be up to date on the latest software used for electronic discovery."
Potential Career: According to the Department of Labor, "most paralegals and legal assistants have an associate's degree in paralegal studies, or a bachelor's degree in another field and a certificate in paralegal studies."
What does every business in America have to do? Keep track of their money. Perhaps that's why Nash sees accounting as another versatile online degree option.
And while it's a bit more challenging to offer accounting courses online than it is to offer some other degrees, such as health care administration or business, Nash says that it is still very viable. "Using programs such as Excel and others, instructors have worked out a way to offer good feedback," he says.
According to the College Board, there's a lot more to discover in the world of accounting than bean counting. In addition to introductory and advanced accounting classes, they say you'll likely take commonly offered courses such as business law, government not-for-profit accounting, auditing, and tax accounting.
Potential Career: With a bachelor's degree in accounting, you could prepare to pursue a career as an accountant or auditor, notes the U.S. Department of Labor. In fact, they say most accountant positions require a bachelor's degree, while some employers may prefer a master's degree in accounting.
All potential career information is from the U.S. Department of Labor, May 2011 Occupational Employment Statistics.
Next Article: Earn a Degree in Your Free Time »
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May 29, 2012 | Queens College
– Graduating Student Erica Leong to Teach English in South Korea
as Fulbright Student Scholar –
FLUSHING, NY, May 25, 2012 – Countless studies have found that quality teaching is the most important factor in student success. Just ask Queens College Education Professor Nathalis Guy Wamba, who has founded programs to help struggling high schools. Wamba’s powerful teaching strategy, which bridges educational theory with the practice of encouraging students to think and question, has brought about positive changes in the classroom. This August Wamba will bring his expertise to Malawi, Africa, where he will work for a year with Mzuzu University (a public institution) and Mzuzu Academy (an international baccalaureate school) as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar and Researcher.
In addition, Andrea Khalil, Professor of Comparative Literature, was selected as a Fulbright Scholar in Tunisia for 2012-2013. During her years of teaching at QC, Khalil has been encouraging students to learn more about the people of North Africa, focusing on literature, culture and politics in a region so far from our own. Her current book project on the political crowd, which she will be working on during the research trip, is entitled Productive Instability: The Political Crowd in North Africa. Conducting research for this book project will also allow her to track first-hand the changes in North African society in the wake of the Arab Spring.
And Erica Leong, graduating from Queens College this month, will leave soon afterwards for South Korea, where she will spend the next year teaching English through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.
“The Fulbrights are among the most prestigious awards in academia,” says QC Provost James Stellar, “and we are proud that this year we have three recipients – two faculty members and one student. These honors speak highly of our students and faculty, who consistently receive recognition for their scholarship.”
Professor Nathalis Wamba to Teach and Develop Master’s Program in Education in Malawi
Viewing the Fulbright as his “modest contribution to Africa, where I am originally from,” Wamba will teach and conduct research in the education division of Mzuzu University. He will also help develop and implement a new master’s degree program in teacher education and foster collaboration among Mzuzu University, Mzuzu Academy, educational nongovernmental organizations and QC. Before traveling to Africa, the Hastings-on-Hudson, New York resident will spend three weeks in Hungary, attending Central European University – a postgraduate institution in Budapest that is accredited in both Hungary and the U.S. – to participate in post-doctoral seminars.
Wamba’s research, scholarship and many books and articles focus on the power of education to promote social justice in schools. Most recently, he served as the editor and a major contributor to Literacy and Poverty (Routledge Press, 2012), which examines how to improve schools’ responses to the needs of low-income children. As an NYU graduate student, Wamba worked with homeless teens, co-founding and directing a youth hostel in Brooklyn, and also co-founding a program linking graduate education students with struggling high school students. He also directed an anti-drug initiative in Harlem.
Professor Andrea Khalil to Probe Politics in North Africa Through Its Literary Texts
During her year as a Fulbright scholar, Khalil will focus on Tunisia, Algeria and Libya within the context of the Arab Middle East. She plans to draw upon North African literary texts about crowds as well as interviews with participants and analysis of visual materials on the power of political crowds in the region. “Receiving a Fulbright is a huge honor, and I look forward to sharing my knowledge of the region with my classes at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center when I return from this research trip,” says Khalil.
Khalil, who has previously received a Mellon fellowship for mid-career faculty from the CUNY Graduate Center, is the author of The Arab Avant-Garde: Experiments in North African Literature and Art (Praeger, 2003), which examines the experimental art and literature of North Africa. She also edited North African Cinema in a Global Context: Through the Lens of Diaspora (Routledge, 2008), which provides insight on the socio-economic context of film production and the day-to-day existence of local artists in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. This semester Khalil, who resides in Brooklyn, organized a conference at QC featuring several Middle East experts who explored the spread and global impact of changing politics in North Africa. She is also on the Board of Directors of the American Institute for Maghreb Studies and the associate and book review editor for the Journal of North African Studies.
Student Scholar Erica Leong Finds Music in Teaching English
Fulbright student scholar Erica Leong will spend six weeks of training in Goesan, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea, before receiving her teaching assignment. The Massapequa Park, Long Island resident, who to date has not traveled farther than Canada, will stay with a host family wherever she is assigned and will be immersed in Korean language and culture around the clock. “I’m really excited [about this opportunity], but a little scared about the language barrier,” says Leong, whose parents are from China.
Leong, who had switched from majoring in music education to English, received her Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certification in April 2011. At that point, she began teaching English to Chinese immigrants at a Chinatown YMCA through a program run by Pace University’s AmeriCorps. When that program ended, the YMCA picked it up and Leong continued teaching. Interested in learning about other Asian cultures, she accepted an internship at South Asian Youth Action, a nonprofit group in Elmhurst, Queens. Presumably, her varied background and commitment to ESL helped her stand out amid the thousands of Fulbright applicants.
Sponsored by the U.S. government, the Fulbright U.S. Scholar exchange program offers opportunities for American faculty to conduct research, lecture and consult with other scholars abroad. Fulbright recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. Operating in over 155 countries, the Fulbright program is one of the most prestigious awards programs in the world. Forty-three Fulbright alumni have won Nobel Prizes, and 78 have won Pulitzer Prizes.
The Fulbright U.S. Student program offers fellowships for American graduating college seniors, graduate students, young professionals and artists to study, conduct research and/or teach English abroad. Selection for the Fulbright Student Program emphasizes leadership potential, academic and professional excellence and commitment to mutual understanding. Over 5,600 students receive scholarships in the Fulbright Student Program annually.
Queens College boasts a student body from over 170 different countries who speak more than 90 languages. Located on a beautiful 77-acre campus in Flushing, New York, QC opened its doors in 1937 with the goal of offering a first-rate education to talented people of all backgrounds and financial means. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY) since its founding in 1961, Queens College is one of CUNY’s largest senior colleges. It enjoys a national reputation for its liberal arts and sciences and pre-professional programs, and was cited in the 2012 edition of The Princeton Review’s The Best 376 Colleges for its academic excellence and generous financial aid packages. Over 120,000 students have graduated since the college’s first class of 1941. Our alumni include such household names as Paul Simon and Jerry Seinfeld, as well as such elected officials as Congressman Joseph Crowley, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and NYS Senator Jose Peralta, the CEOs of major companies, and leaders in the fields of medicine, education, media and the law.
For more about Queens College visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx
Contact: Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
Assistant Director of News Services
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Granite State Natural Foods is one of the oldest health stores in New Hampshire. It opened in March 1971 and Peggy Jeannotte, one of the States true pioneers, has owned and managed its development since inception. Under her tutelage, the company has emphasized quality, variety, loyalty to standards, education and, most importantly, customer service.
Today, the store is reflective of a traditional independent natural market in a modern setting, featuring all the departments a customer would expect to find. Their products are hundreds of bulk foods and medicinal and cooking herbs; to dozens of top quality supplement and health and beauty aid companies; to varieties of organic and natural groceries; gluten free and other special diet items; teas; frozen and refrigerated foods; books; and, of major importance, research kiosks for your use.
For more information, please visit http://www.granitestatenatural.com
For 20 years, the closely held Burlington, Vermont-based company has been at the forefront of a cultural change in consumer behavior and business ethics. One of the country’s first self-declared “socially responsible” companies, Seventh Generation is a business that operates according to a new and different set of principles and values that in many ways are a marked departure from those long considered “traditional.” Its business practice is focused on offering people avenues to express their idealism, passion, and commitment to causes larger than themselves at every point along its supply chainfrom suppliers and partners to shareholders, customers and its own staff.
The company derives its name from the Great Law of the Iroquois that states, “In their every deliberation, They must consider the impact of their decisions on the next seven generations.” Every time you use a Seventh Generation product you are making a difference by saving natural resources, reducing pollution, keeping toxic chemicals out of the environment and making the world a safer place for this and the next seven generations. Seventh Generation is committed to becoming the world’s most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home.
For more information, please visit http://www.seventhgeneration.com
Global Protein Products was founded in 1996 and currently operates from facilities in Waterville, Maine. Global Protein Products, Inc. is a zein protein coatings company. Zein protein is the storage protein in corn kernels. Global Protein Products has excellent film-forming and thermoplastic characteristics.
Global Protein Products produces and sell ground-breaking zein-based products: Patented, edible, all natural, shelf-life extension coatings for fresh-cut vegetables that maintain the vegetables’ pristine quality during cross country shipment and distribution. Protective, non toxic coatings for agriculture and seed. Coatings for the paper industry. Zein for all purposes including bio-plastic resins.
For more information, please visit http://www.globalprotein.com
The Maine Dairy Promotion Board is a non-profit, USDA qualified, dairy promotion organization established in 1953 and
funded by Maine dairy farmers. They work closely with Dairy Management, Inc, the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) and regional counterparts to implement national dairy promotion programs in Maine.
The Maine Dairy and Nutrition Council is a non-profit, USDA qualified, nutrition education organization established in 1949 and funded by Maine dairy farmers and processors. As an affiliate of National Dairy Council, their staff of registered dietitians works closely with Dairy Management, Inc and MilkPEP to extend nutrition education programs to health professionals, schools and media here in Maine.
Dairy Management, Inc’s Mission is to increase demand for dairy products through the development and execution of an industry wide market-driven business plan that invests resources in a strategic manner and provides the best possible economic advantage to the dairy farmers.
For more information, please visit http://www.drinkmainemilk.org
Founded in 1913, Omega Protein is vertically integrated monitoring quality from harvest through production. They market
a variety of products derived from menhaden, a member of the herring family, found in abundant quantities in coastal waters off the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
Omega Protein is North America’s largest producer of high quality protein-rich fish meal and solubles and the world’s largest producer of fish oil. Omega Protein is the world’s largest manufacturer of heart-healthy fish oils containing omega-3 fatty acids for human consumption, as well as specialty fish meals and fish oil used as value-added ingredients in aquaculture, swine and other livestock feeds. Omega Protein makes its products from menhaden, a member of the herring family.
Omega Protein is small high oil-yielding fish that are naturally rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. Menhaden are harvested in U.S. waters along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The Company utilizes a fleet of fishing vessels supported by spotter aircraft to supply menhaden to its four processing facilities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia.
Omega Protein provides more than 1,000 jobs in the states where they operate.
For more information, please visit http://www.omegaproteininc.com
Portland Chiropractic Neurology is Maines premier chiropractic neurology practice, offering a new model of healthcare to
the state. Portland Chiropractic Neurology specializes in a variety of conditions, looking at each person as an individual, creating treatments specific to you and your body. All of their treatments are non-invasive without the use of drugs, achieving complete health and overall well-being.
At Portland Chiropractic Neurology they recommend whole foods and whole food supplements. The body needs three things
to maintain optimal health: Oxygen, Activation and Nutrition. Dr. MacArthur treats many of his patients’ conditions with nutrition and, also, offers preventive health care packages engineered towards optimal brain, nervous system and body health.
For more information, please visit http://www.portchiro.com
Nutrition Plus Health Food Store is an independent, family owned health food store that serves Abbeville and the surrounding communities in South Louisiana, by specializing in top quality natural food products. Nutrition Plus Health Food Store carries natural foods, vitamins, food supplements, athletic and bodybuilding supplements, weight control products, herbs, teas, gifts, aromatherapy, and many other products for a healthy lifestyle.
Nutrition Plus Health Food Store’s modern world is filled with environmental toxins and pollutants on a scale never before seen. Your food is loaded with preservatives, livestock hormones, pesticides and parasites. When combined, they overwhelm yuour body’s ability to filter them out and your organs and tissues become saturated with toxins. Nutrition Plus offers a full line of protein powders and supplements.
For more information, please visit http://www.nutritionplushealthfoods.com
Regional Nutrition Assistance, Inc. is a tax exempt, private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization established in December 1990, and governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. Regional Nutrition Assistance is approved to serve children and family day care providers in the nine (9) parishes of southern Louisiana. Regional Nutrition Assistance operates the Family Day Care Home Food Program which is part of the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
The program is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, through the Louisiana Department of Education, Division of Nutrition Assistance. Regional Nutrition Assistance, Inc. mission is to educate children, family day care providers, and parents about good nutrition.
Regional Nutrition Assistance administers a federal Child and Adult Care Food Nutrition Program to family child care providers through the Family Day Care Home Food Program. They are committed to the philosophy of this federal food program that all children have the right to be well fed, regardless of income. This program promotes a life long healthy approach to eating for both children and parents and insures that children enrolled in Family Day Care Homes are receiving nutritionally balanced meals.
For more information, please visit http://www.regionalnutrition.org
Impastato Chiropractic is a research based corrective/rehabilitative facility where spinal and extremity injuries are treated. They use only the most current and most researched techniques to provide treatment. Their facility and equipment
is up to date and state of the art. As part of their service to you they also provide evidenced based nutrition through Doctors Nutrition which includes bloodwork, analysis of bloodwork, vitamins, herbs and nutritional supplements.
Impastato Chiropractic provides evidenced based nutrition information, where you get information based on years of experience treating patients with natural compounds and verifying the results with pre and post lab tests. They also provide access to the pharmaceutical grade products that you need. This insures that you get only the formulas that you need based on your specific health needs. The evidenced based nutrition service they provide includes a thorough nutritional, natural medicine based analysis of your recent blood work.
For more information, please visit http://www.impastatochiro.com
Planet Nutrition is a leader in today’s juice bar industry and was founded in 2001 in Lafayette, Louisiana. They believe
in the simple concept of providing customers with reasonably priced smoothies-served quickly- in an attractive, clean, and pleasant surrounding every day. Their trademark smoothie base contains liquid pasteurized egg whites, non fat dried milk, water and turbinado. The high quality ingredients are mixed for twenty minutes and then poured into a Taylor machine which provides a rich, soft, and creamy texture. Fresh fruit of your choosing is added to make your own unique smoothie. Planet Nutrition offers four sizes: 12oz Small, 20oz Medium, 32oz Large, and 44oz Big Ole.
Planet Nutrition sets the standard in the nutritional supplement industry by demanding truth in labeling, ingredient safety and product potency, all while remaining on the cutting-edge of nutritional science. As their company has grown over the years, so has their commitment to customer service. In fact, Planet Nutrition is devoted exclusively to helping its customers improve the quality of their lives. Planet Nutrition has design their own product line which has been tested to highest quality. Their commitment to quality extends to their interactions with you in their stores and after you buy their products.
For more information, please visit http://planet-nutrition.net
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PHILADELPHIA - A debate over the fiscal future of the U.S. that has engulfed Congress, the Obama administration and policymakers in Washington is resonating with everyday Americans in one way or another as they size up their tax bills and refunds.
As they mailed off their last-minute returns Monday at post offices across the nation, some said they were willing to pay more to help reduce the deficit, while others doubted they could bear paying higher taxes to help the cause.
Mike Kleinberg, a 29-year-old electrical engineering doctoral candidate from Philadelphia who expects an $86 federal refund, said he'd be hard-pressed to squeeze anything more out of his already-modest income.
"The deficit right now is so far off my radar," said Kleinberg. "Taking more money to pay some abstract deficit would be hard to justify right now."
But 60-year-old Martin Rich, at the post office in Hartford, Conn., said he wouldn't mind paying a little bit more.
"We've got to do something," said Rich, a facilities management consultant from Avon, Conn. "We've all been in the same condition where we owe credit cards. You can default as an individual, but as a country, it would be unconscionable, as far as I'm concerned."
Officials have said the U.S. will reach its borrowing limit no later than May 16, risking an unprecedented default.
In an AP-GfK poll released last week, 29 percent of respondents said the government should hike taxes to eat away at huge federal deficits. About 62 percent said they favor cutting government services instead.
Internal Revenue Service statistics show the nation's wealthiest taxpayers shelled out 17 percent of their income in 2007, the most recent figures available, compared with 26 percent in 1992. For all filers, the average federal income tax rate declined from 9.9 percent to 9.3 percent, data show.
But overall, 45 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax for 2010 because there are so many tax breaks, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
Athens Banner-Herald ©2013. All Rights Reserved.
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Cold air is expected to surge into Georgia this weekend as an arctic front moves into the state.
The National Weather Service said in a special weather statement that the front is expected to sweep through all of Georgia by early Saturday. Forecasters said the front will be followed by sharply falling temperatures and gusty winds.
Temperatures Saturday are expected to drop from the 40s in the morning to the 30s by late afternoon in much of Georgia.
The weather service is predicting temperatures in the 20s by early Sunday, with temperatures in the teens possible in the north Georgia mountains.
Winds of 15 to 25 mph are also expected, with gusts of up to 35 mph.
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The Marie Curie fellowships described in part I and part II of this short series offer opportunities for early career researchers who wish to undertake part of their research training in another country. The European Commission promotes this, as it sees that Europe's competitiveness and growth depend on its ability to make full use of all of Europe's bright minds. However, after a period of mobility in another country, life goes on and researchers need to continue their careers.
Researchers are often hesitant to spend part of their research career abroad because they fear that they will miss out on opportunities in their home country. They are also afraid that it will be difficult to find a research position in their home country having been away for a number of years. Furthermore, they are sometimes sceptical that the experience they have gained during their period abroad will be fully appreciated by potential employers in their home country.
A number of researchers toy for a while with the idea of going abroad for a number of years, only to drop it because of such concerns. The Marie Curie Reintegration Grants aim to make it easier for fellows to continue their scientific careers after working elsewhere, in part by making them more attractive to employers at home. The hope is that as it becomes easier to find employment after the period of mobility, going abroad in the first place will become more attractive as well.
There are two types of Reintegration Grants, the first being the European Reintegration Grant. Researchers who are from EU Member States or Associated States and who have been Marie Curie fellows for at least 2 years can apply for this award.
This fellowship seeks to assist the fellow with professional reintegration after the initial Marie Curie fellowship, preferably (but not necessarily) in his or her country or region of origin. The idea is that the grant will therefore improve the career development of researchers by allowing them to capitalise on their transnational mobility period.
Researchers have to submit a project proposal to be carried out at a host institution in the country they wish to reintegrate in. The grant consists of a lump sum of ?40,000 that must be used within 1 year following the term of the Marie Curie fellowship. The grant may not be used for the remuneration of the fellow, but it can be used for all expenses necessary to the project (such as costs of other personnel, equipment, or travel).
If the proposal is funded, the European Commission signs a contract with the (re)integration host--which can be an academic institution or a research-active company. The researcher's salary is paid by the host, which has to prove that it will assure the researcher's "effective and lasting reintegration" for at least 2 years, for example by signing an employment contract with the researcher. In return, the host also has to secure the researcher's commitment to stay for at least 2 years. A longer-term employment offer improves the proposal's chance of being funded, since this is even more in line with the European Commission's objective of improving the fellow's career prospects.
Researchers have to apply for these grants in the final year of their fellowship, at least 6 months before it ends. There are four deadlines per year (see box). It really is worth writing a proposal for a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant: So far, the success rate has been up to 90%.
The second type is the International Reintegration Grant. European researchers who have carried out research outside Europe for at least 5 years (with or without a Marie Curie fellowship) who wish to return to Europe can apply.
The objective of this fellowship is to stimulate European researchers to come back to an EU Member State or Associated State. The idea is that they transfer the knowledge they have obtained abroad to European research. With this type of fellowship, the European Commission intends to halt brain drain to third countries.
Researchers have to apply for these fellowships in liaison with their (European) host organisation. The grant consists of a lump sum of ?80,000 that, as with the European Reintegration Grant funding, can be spent on all necessary project expenses except the researcher's salary. Similar conditions also apply regarding the host institution's relationship with the fellow, but in this case, "effective and lasting reintegration" must be assured for at least 3 years.
Time spent writing a proposal for an International Reintegration Grant is also time well spent: The success rate so far has been 80%.
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CHESHIRE - A backhoe rolled on the Cheshire Inn at roughly 7 a.m. on Monday, leveling the 18th century building by 10 a.m. and ending a story that started just after the American Revolution.
A handful of locals and onlookers joined employees of contractor D. Condron Construction and a member of the Cheshire Police Department keeping an eye out for safety concerns.
"It's tough to see [the inn] go down," said Peter Krutiak, who previously owned the building for more than a quarter-century, as the bulldozer did its work.
In 1985, Krutiak bought the building for $85,000. Along with many others in town, Krutiak wanted to see the historic building restored.
And so had the town Historical Commission.
"We reached out to everyone we could think of," said Diane Hitter, a member, on Monday. "Unfortunately, no one stepped in."
As late as seven years ago Town Hall was still receiving developers with designs to "bring [the inn] up to code," according to Transcript files.
According to some accounts, the building was built by a Capt. Daniel Brown in 1797 but Hitter and Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society agree that the builder was innkeeper Moses Wolcott, in the year 1795.
A former symbol of opulence during the
"I love old buildings," Krutiak said. "But this one has just been too far gone for a decade."
For the demolition, Condron intended to soak the building in order to limit dust, but Monday morning's frigid, 20-degree conditions got in the way.
A nearby fire hydrant wouldn't work and a garden hose lent by a neighbor quickly froze.
Onlookers talked of how a raccoon who'd been making its home on the third floor scrambled down the side of the building as the machine tore through the roof.
"That was the best part," a woman waiting on Route 8 to catch the bus said. "When the raccoon got evicted."
The town assumed ownership of the inn in 2011, taking it by tax title from Krutiak.
Officials voted in favor of demolition and awarded the project to Condron this year for $47,870. Just over $15,000 of that sum represents the cost of safely disposing of asbestos in the inn's floors and ceilings. So begins a new discussion about what's to be done with the one-acre lot along the highway.
Selectmen recently suggested that the property, once cleared, could be turned into a park or place to host farmers markets. But these are only thoughts, and options remain open.
In the end, officials say they'll wait and see what this central space - soon to be freed up and planted over for the first time in centuries - comes to mean to the town.
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Two young entrepreneurs who started an award-winning international ice cream business from scratch are urging talented Italians not to abandon their recession-hit country.
Friends Guido Martinetti and Federico Grom started their Grom ice cream company in 2003, when the pair, in their twenties and with little capital, set out to revolutionize Italian gelato despite knowing nothing about it.
Inspired by Italy’s gourmet and eco-friendly Slow Food movement, the ice cream was a hit and there are now 58 Grom parlors across France, Italy, Japan and the US, with booming profits despite the crisis.
“Neither of us knew how to make ice-cream, that was the first problem. Worse than that, we didn’t have any money,” joked Federico Grom, 39, who confessed that the initial business plan was “not very sound at all.”
However, Martinetti — inspired to act by Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini’s comments that it was no longer possible to find “ice cream made with excellent ingredients” — refused to give up on his plan to plug the gap in the market.
He took out a loan of 32,500 euros (US$40,800) and, with Grom’s savings, they opened their first shop in Turin, the Italian city that is home to the Slow Food movement, which strives to boost local cuisines and respect the environment.
The pair say that despite a sense of resignation and frustration among Italy’s youth, who have been hit hard by the economic crisis and recession that followed, the answer is not to flee the country, but to become innovators.
According to Confimprese Italia business association, about 120,000 Italian youths went abroad in 2008 and 2009, 70 percent of them graduates.
The economic outlook has since worsened, with Italy re-entering recession last year and youth employment at a record high in May.
The country’s young must disregard “the myth that everything is easier abroad” and instead seek out the “great opportunities” at home, the pair said.
Martinetti and Grom, committed at first to recreating the traditional nut and chocolate gelatos of the region with pre-industrial methods, began sourcing ingredients such as coffee beans and pistachios from small farmers globally.
Determined to use only fresh seasonal fruit, they bought a 15-hectare farm in the Piedmont region in 2007. They named it Mura Mura, which means “slowly” in Madagascar, as homage to the Slow Food philosophy.
From dark chocolate to pistachio or liquorice, their ice creams are made with organic eggs and cocoa and coffee from Central America, while fig, mandarin and apple-flavored sorbets are made with Italian mineral water.
“We grow certain fruits so as to be able to control how they are grown and have the best quality ingredients to make excellent sorbets,” Martinetti said as he showed off the organic farm in Costigliole d’Asti in the Piedmont hills.
The mixtures are shipped frozen to Grom parlors abroad from the farm and factory outside Turin and are then churned on location.
Despite the economic crisis, Grom’s turnover has jumped from 250,000 euros in 2003 to 30 million euros to day, and the company has sold 5 percent to Italian coffee maker Illy and another 5 percent to a partner in Japan.
Martinetti and Grom say they hope their success can inspire some of the 36 percent of 15 to 24-year-olds now unemployed in the country to have faith in themselves.
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About the center
The Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare- North was established at the University of Tromsø in the 1990s as one of four competence centres. These centres are responsible for quality assuring and providing training in child and adolescent mental health.
The other three RKBUs are RBUP Mid-Norway, RKBU West and RBUP East and South. The RKBUs receive basic funding from the Norwegian Directorate of Health, and form part of the national mental health system. RKBU North is responsible for the regions of Nordland, Troms, Finnmark and Svalbard.
The overall objective of RKBU North is to help improve the quality of services provided to children and young people who have mental health problems or who risk having such problems. RKBU's primary remit included teaching, research and specialist training.
RKBU North is responsible for providing preventive mental healthcare on a national level. This work is carried out by its Prevention Unit. In the autumn of 2003, RKBU North was commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate of Health to establish a permanent department/unit which would provide preventive mental health services to children and young people within RKBU North. This unit has been entrusted with the task of developing effective intervention strategies and leading prevention efforts on a national level (which comes on top of the work normally carried out by other RKBUs).
The Prevention Unit is a research and development unit and its purpose is to establish services in a way that increasingly incorporates knowledge and research-based approaches and methods into existing practice. At the same time, the unit is also responsible for developing and sharing knowledge about any effective strategies with practitioners.
RKBU North is managed by a leadership team composed of the Head of Centre, the Head of Research and Development, the Heat of the Prevention and the Head of Training.
RKBU North's Regional Council was established in 2007. The Council is responsible for providing advice about RKBU's activities and helping RKBU gain a foothold in clinical practice and local and regional communities. The Council also has the task of promoting regional cooperation between professionals in the child and adolescent mental health field in Region North. The following entities are represented on the Council: Northern Norway Regional Health Authority, Finnmark Healthy Authority, University Hospital of the Northern Norway Health Authority, Nordland Hospital HF, Helgeland Hospital HF, Norwegian Directorate for Children, Young People and Family Affairs (Region North), the County Governor of Troms, Nordland and Finnmark, Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities, Adults for Children, The Faculty of Medicine/Department of Clinical Medicine of the University of Tromsø. RKBU North performs the roles of the Council's secretariat.
In 2008, RKBU North established an internal Scientific Council. The Scientific Council is composed of professorial staff who spend 20% or more of their hours working for RKBU North. The Council is headed by RKBU North's Head of Research and Development (FOU).
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Pennsylvania remained in Hurricane Sandy's crosshairs Sunday, with forecasters predicting a one-two punch of wind and rain to start hitting the Lehigh Valley late tonight.
Although a degree of uncertainty remains about the storm's precise path, there is little doubt that it will strike most of the mid-Atlantic region at the same time as a winter storm from the west and an arctic air mass from Canada move into the area.
"It's going to be one those storms you'll remember," said National Weather Service meteorologist Valerie Meola.
The combination of weather patterns could create a hybrid storm of historical proportions based on its estimated size and duration, meteorologists said. Tropical-storm force winds will extend from the Carolinas to southern New England and could swirl over the northeast until Wednesday.
» The latest on traffic, delays and road construction delivered to your mobile phone. Click to sign up to receive text alerts!
Sandy, which was briefly downgraded to a tropical storm Saturday morning before regaining hurricane strength, was churning north in the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast late Saturday. Its maximum winds were clocked at 75 mph, the minimum for hurricane status, although higher gusts were recorded.
"Little overall change in strength is forecast during the next couple of days," according to a National Weather Service report Saturday.
The storm was on track Saturday night to make landfall around Cape May Courthouse late Monday night or early Tuesday, according to the Weather Service. But strong winds and torrential rains will be felt long before Sandy's eye crosses the coast.
The Weather Service predicts 4-8 inches of rain and winds gusting more than 50 mph, with the worst of the weather expected to strike the Lehigh Valley on Monday and continue Tuesday.
Mike Mark of Whitehall Township was taking the storm seriously Saturday afternoon as he wheeled a cart full of bottled water and frozen pizza to his SUV at the Wegmans in Hanover Township, Northampton County.
"It's just to be safe," Mark said, patting the cases of water in the cart. "I'd rather have two cases of beer."
Mark also gassed up and checked his generator in case the storm knocks out power to his home. He said he bought one last year after Hurricane Irene thumped the region.
"I'm a ex-Boy Scout," Mark said, "I'm always prepared."
Inside Wegmans, Sandy's impact could be seen on the bare shelves in the water aisle — though bottled water was available in other parts of the store. Bread remained plentiful, though most varieties of peanut butter were scarce.
Sandy's still uncertain path will dictate what areas sustain the greatest impact. More rain will fall to the south and west of the storm's eye, while wind-driven storm surges — exacerbated by a full moon Monday — will be most severe north and east of the eye, Meola said.
One early prediction that the union of Arctic air and tropical moisture would bring copious amounts of snow to Pennsylvania is unlikely to pan out, she added.
Up to two feet of snow, however, is forecast for parts of West Virginia and western North Carolina, the weather service said.
Flooding may make driving difficult Monday morning when streams may start spilling their banks and water may pool on streets. Significant river flooding across Pennsylvania is likely to follow, forecasters said.
The flooding situation is not as dire as it was when Irene struck last September, Meola said. Irene was preceded by weeks of wet weather, but now the ground is dry and river levels are relatively low.
With the flooding and extended power outages after Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and a freak Halloween snowstorm last fall fresh in their minds, many Lehigh Valley residents are spending the weekend preparing for the worst.
Chris Shala was raising cases of beer and new coolers as high above the floor as he could get them at Kicker's Pub on West Main Street in Bath Saturday, after Lee's rains destroyed his old coolers. Last year, the sump pumps in the historic tavern's basement were no match for the Monocacy Creek, which spilled its banks and settled three feet high in the pub.
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Look at the typical digital agency. It excels in exploring new horizons. It supports a flat and loose organizational structure in which a developer has access to the CEO. And it makes sure everyone's opinion is heard. It's one big crazy family.
Digital agencies are having a ton of fun experimenting with ideas, technologies and strategies to find new alternatives superior to obsolete ways of doing marketing. That's what they do best.
The problem is, this is the only thing they are doing.
When they are asked to actually follow through on their ideas, they often come up short. It is because they don't know the business of marketing (or want to know it, for that matter), and they rarely have the organizational structure or past practices to guide them.
This comes at a cost. Digital agencies impress clients with their passion, drive and technology know-how. Clients then say: "You gave us a lot to think about." Which often means that the account is awarded to someone else. Where digital shops fail is giving confidence to the client that all this momentum will be indeed executed in a well-led marketing campaign.
All of this is not new. It is already described in organizational theorist James March's exploration vs. exploitation dichotomy. The best companies have the optimal balance between the two; those less successful are doing too much of either.
There certainly are places around that represent an uneasy mix of exploration vs. exploitation: Digitas, Razorfish and AKQA. They are sort of stuck in between recently acquired marketing knowledge and their digital savvy, trying to combine them to sometimes embarrassing results (think Razorfish's Laundry Fairy, for example).
If digital agencies excel at exploration, traditional agencies thrive on exploitation. A traditional agency is risk-averse, accountable and systematic. It knows its business inside-out. It knows its clients' businesses and executes campaigns reliably. Its people hang out with the CMOs. A typical traditional agency has decades of experience.
This, too, comes at a cost. A traditional agency, organized around exploitation, ends up doing the same thing over and over again. For every marketing challenge, their solution is "better creativity." This is not surprising: If an agency spends all its time making sure that everything goes efficiently, that leaves it with little time to experiment. And then, even if it wanted to do things differently, it would be met with its own organizational inertia.
How is the exploration/exploitation gap closed? Like most things in marketing, it comes back to the client. As much as people like to talk about the agency of the future, it will never happen until the client gets there first.
Shorter client-agency alliances, smaller budgets and faster review cycles create a more competitive environment that forces everyone involved to be more alert. When relationships are unstable, shifting and temporary, it's the balance that counts. That means not only having innovative ideas, but also executing them swiftly and flawlessly.
Until digital agencies show they can strike this balance, they are also the ones who don't get it.
|ABOUT THE AUTHOR|
Ana Andjelic is a freelance strategist and did her Ph.D. dissertation on digital branding. You can follower her thoughts at I [love] marketing, where this piece was originally posted.
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Named last year as one of the ten most important emerging technologies by the MIT Technology Review social TV is fast rising as one of the hottest topics since group buying. Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol group the largest independent production company in the world responsible for Big brother said Social TV is going to be huge.
“The ability to create content that will enable people to interface with each other, to connect, to recommend, to share and experience over television, is going to change the landscape of the industry.”
But will social TV really live up to the hype? In this article we take a look at what social TV is, what the main trends are shaping TV, the challenges and the opportunities going forwards for media companies, businesses and marketers alike.
What is social TV?
Simply put, it’s about merging your social media networks to the TV. It’s making TV social–again. It’s about taking the water cooler effect and making this virtual, it’s about the empowered consumer viewing content when and where they want, deciding who they want to share it with and being able to do this all in real time.In essence it is a term that describes technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content.Viewers are now using social media to connect with the TV with content that matters to them. Then, as the MIT study shows, they are engaging in massive real-time conversations around those shows and learning to be a part of that conversation and it is a participatory culture as well as a personalised one.TV always been social and on the face of it TV and social media seem like a natural fit but if the TV industry is going to make the most of the opportunities it is going to have change quickly and learn the lessons of the music industry.
The Drivers shaping Social TV
Whilst the rise of the web has heralded talk about the death of TV the convergence of internet & TV has meant quite the reverse where social media is directly contributing to a spike in TV ratings around events. Indeed some TV executives are crediting the power of social media as being instrumental in transforming ratings and TV as we know it now it. So what has changed?
1. The empowered consumer
Perhaps the most important trend catalysed by social media is the need to share and contribute to the experience. People not only want to watch and consume, they actually want to actively connect to others while watching and be heard. They use their smartphones and tablets to share their thoughts and feelings on Twitter and their Facebook wall while watching TV, in preference to using their remote or SMS texting to vote in Live Talent shows. In essence viewers want to contribute, and have a bigger impact on the story than they have now?
Indeed a recent UK survey conducted by Digital clarity of mobile internet users below the age of 25 it was found that: Most use a mobile device to talk to friends about the show they are watching.The most common way to communicate is to use:
- Twitter 72 %
- Facebook 56%
- mobile applications 34 %
Whilst 62 % of Social TV users like a combination of all three.The study also found that 34 % of respondents described the trend as "fun,and 32 % said it made television "more interesting" ,With 42 % mentioned the "community" aspect of Social TV. Indeed it is the younger generations that are driving the change turning TV programs into real-time online events which you have to watch as they happen to be part of the experience with your friends.
See below ThinkTV video 'The Power of Audiences'
Think TV – ‘An Initiative of Free TV Australia’
2. The adoption of the second screen
Likewise in Australia a Nielsen Online Consumer survey of 5800 internet users said that 77% of respondents saying they “juggled at least 2 forms of media at once” especially the potent mix of TV & web (tablet, smartphone, laptop) When people did two-screen, 65 per cent said the internet had most of their attention, with only 14 per cent saying the TV did.
3. The Rise of Twitter TV
In recent months the rise of Twitter and TV has been quite staggering to the extent that I think it is fair to say that TV has a Synonymous relationship with Twitter whilst some commentators have gone a step further by crediting Twitter as redefining real-time TV. Not only does twitter allow you to get Instant feedback on shows but it allows the viewer to feel plugged in to the experience and be part of the conversation.
James Franco, host of this year’s Oscars, put Twitter into overdrive for fans by tweeting before and during the show. Indeed during the 2011 Oscars, there were over 10,000 tweets per minute-with the event racking up 1.8 million tweets overall. Oscar hashtags such as #OscarsRealTime and #SatisfyingWin further extending the conversation.
Not to miss out on the action MTV brought back the Twitter tracker for this year’s MTV Movie awards (see below) parsing a barrage of tweets in real-time to come up with the top trends of the event, from the top actors and actresses to the most-talked-about movies... Throughout the broadcast, MTV plugged various hashtags to correspond with the moment, with #MovieAwards being the predominate theme.
However it is not just the biggest blockbuster live-events where the numbers are always impressive but this water cooler effect has spread to other genres of shows that people care about. In a recent study into behaviour on Twitter by British content discovery company TV genius it was found that Over a six day period in the UK there were over 38,500 tweets about TV shows, with 90 different shows receiving more than a tweet a minute while they aired.
Clearly, many consumers have already bought into the idea of social TV – and are busy sharing what they love and hate on Twitter.One of the interesting facets the data reveals is that the show with the highest audience rating doesn’t always receive the most tweets. Twitter trends reveal shows that viewers wouldn’t necessarily know to watch. But they may want to tune in if they know that there is an extra juicy episode of a soap playing or an interview generating lively debate.People are naturally curious and want to see what all the chatter is about. Channelling Twitter effectively could curate content discovery habits, encouraging viewers to tune into a programme they might not watch otherwise.
Twitter has also made itself a mainstay in the newsroom, often being the first to break news stories with over 77% of TV newsrooms now use twitter. In fact, many news channels use the videos and images shared by viewers on Twitter to add meaning to their reports. Indeed the integration of social media into the newsroom has taken a step further with the launch of Al Jazeera’s social media cantered program ‘the stream’ which is probably the most ambitious integration of Twitter into a news program to date.
According to Twitter’s Chloe Sladden, ”What we’re seeing now is that Twitter is, in fact, about flocking audiences back to a shared experience, and that usually means a live one…If you’re not watching live — and reading the comments from friends, your favourite celebrities, and even total strangers via Twitter — you’re missing half the show.” Furthermore she says “In the future, I can’t imagine a major event where the audience doesn’t become part of the story itself.”
Considering using Twitter in connection to promote your TV program then check Digital agency Wiredset Twitter TV best practices below
In recent months Facebook has made a big play for TV & Mark Zuckerburg Speaking at the EG8 technology forum in Paris recently said that TV, music and books are the next “media experiences” that will be revolutionized by social media. “I hope we can play a part in enabling those new companies to get built, and companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social”.
At MIPTV Facebook outlined four key ways that the platform can be used to encourage social TV behaviour:
4.1 Building TV communities- Top Gear demonstrates how a TV show can successfully leverage Facebook as marketing and commercial vehicle. To guarantee conversation after each episode ends, Top Gear posts clips of the last episode on Facebook. This reminds viewers about the highlights, and helps fans share and talk about each episode on Facebook. Additionally, Top Gear posts behind scenes video clips, making the fans feel part of a privileged community. Top gear has also fully integrated social plugins to its site & one photo on the site received 10,000 likes.
4.2 Check-ins. Not to be left out on the hype attached to checking into shows along with Miso and Get Glue Facebook has also announced you can now check into your favourite TV show as well as places and with Top Gear for examples, a user would be able to see that actually ten of their friends are also watching Top Gear at the same and helps drive conversation.
4.3 Facebook EPG. Facebook could also provide a platform for a personalised electronic programme guide (EPG), complete with check-ins, reminders, personalised recommendations, and social integration. A social EPG could take the form of a Facebook app, check-in, or game. Facebook would like to see the EPG featuring filters based on time, and personalisation based on the user profile. For instance, the ability to browse EPG based on friends, like shows directly, and browse top ranked TV could prove compelling associate like with TV shows. The Facebook EPG would essentially act as a gateway to content discovery. By integrating social trends and friend’s preferences, users could discover new, relevant content. UK specialist TV research company TV Genius has developed some excellent Facebook EPG apps for just this purpose see below
4.4 Facebook as a second screen –The UK game show Million Pound Drop was supported by a wildly successful Facebook game. The show estimated that 8-10% of the TV audience played the game. The game served as an opportunity for advertiser sponsorship, helping monetise the second screen. The game featured social components that let players compete against their friends. The game was integrated into the live-event as well: the live show featured a real-time game leader board. Players were also incentivised to play; the best players had a chance to go on the show and play. 8-10% of TV audience plays the game.
Likewise American Idol is piloting a programme where users can login with Facebook and vote for free. Like the Million Pound Drop game, the voting is monetised through a sponsorship. American Idol is looking to further monetise the system in the future by allowing users to buy votes based on Facebook credits.
5. Social TV Apps
One of the main drivers of social TV has been the rampant proliferation of mobile social & TV apps which fall into two main categories:
5.1 TV “check-in” apps: “Check-in” with apps like Get Glue, Miso, PHILO, IntoNOW, TV Chatter and new Aussie kid on the block Twelevision, to share what you’re watching with your friends and, in some cases, earn social currency/rewards.
These apps are directly leveraging existing behaviours for example how many times when watching TV have you gone onto IMDB.com, Google, or YouTube to find out more about a show or actor? How many times have you tweeted or posted to Facebook about the show you’re watching? The various “social TV” apps begin to bring all of this natural online behaviour into a single second screen experience.But if you thought social TV apps were just check-in devices think again as Miso one of the main social TV apps has just announced a partnership with Fox that takes their app one more step beyond “just a check-in.”
See video here
Miso CEO Somrat Niyog is aiming the service not just live events but the long tail of TV programs so if you are watching Dexter for the first time you can engage with other fans to see what they said around particular episodes. As more and more TV becomes a “what you want when you want it ‘experience apps like this make sense to engage and add to the viewing experience no matter when you get into watching your favourite new TV series. Rival service ‘get glue’ has also been quick to run promos around key TV shows like scfi classic show the Fringe where subscribers have the opportunity to win props from the show as part of a promo for loyal fans.
5.2 Synced i-Pad apps: enable viewers to get additional content while you’re watching a show with a show specific app such as The Kennedy’s, Oscars, Royal Wedding or a via specific TV network (NBC & Discovery).Perhaps one of the best known ones in the Greys anatomy app which Using the audio watermarks that TV programs typically use for tracking TV ratings, the app can figure out where a viewer is in a program and offer up corresponding content on the i-Pad. This means that in addition to using the app when watching the show live, users can also use the app when watching on a time-shifted copy of the program or when fast-forwarding or rewinding the show.
See below video
The i-Pad since its launch is quickly becoming a unique second screen device and a new study by Nielsen reveals where people are using their iPads, and it’s even more evidence that tablets are natural “second screen” devices in front of TV. Compared to smartphones and e-readers, iPads are more TV-friendly, although television also ranks as the top “time spent” (20%) and “situational use” (68%) for smart phones.
It is a trend not lost on Daniel Heaf, Digital Director of the BBC Worldwide, who said in a Beet TV interview that he see’s tablets as an amazing opportunity for long form content
“Whether being on our magazine app or whether on our news app, are much more akin to the types of session times we’ve seen in traditional media apps, like TV and magazines,” he says. “It might not be a fully lean-back event in a way like watching your plasma screen might be, but it’s definitely not a lean-forward experience, it’s definitely not a 3-minute medium.”
Expect the iPad to grow in importance as a quick and easy way to leverage existing TV behaviour and enhance the viewing experience whilst TV manufactures rush to get app content launched on their respective connected TV sets.
6. Connected TV & The battle for the living room
At the moment 50% of all TVs currently being sold are internet-capable, and this figure could be 80% of all televisions within three to four years’ time. Convergence is happening now. In the near future there won't be much of a distinction between web content and TV content consumption as web and mobile applications will cross over to TV to deliver in-screen interaction and formats.Google are rushing to upgrade Google TV to integrate their Android platform system, YouTube is upgrading its media channels to include more hi-quality content, Microsoft with its X-Box live community and with its recent acquisition of Skype and Yahoo with its acquisition of Social TV app ‘Into now’. The TV manufactures are also cutting in and have launched connected TV ‘s with their own apps platforms whilst there are over 100 companies globally currently vying in the IPTV space along with cable and satellite, along with traditional broadcast channels all pushing hard for their slice of the social TV market. Web enabled games consoles like WII & PS3 are also shifting focus whilst X-box has been allowing people to gather in online groups around streamed TV programming since 2010. Not to be left out are the numerous social TV start-ups in the space like Boxee, Starling TV, Matcha.TV & Bee.TV who are all making a play for the social TV space. Only time will tell who becomes the dominant players in the social TV space BUT one thing is for sure the rate of adoption of social features across the various platforms is happening on an aggressive rate.
So what does the Social TV User look like?
In order to better understand the those people out there watching television today and why social TV is relevant, User Insight began a Social TV project which has mapped out the key social TV user personas to help us understand how social media is changing TV. How do the key user vary in their behaviour ? Results to date from this innovative project have shown five key personas based on technology, social media usage and enthusiasm for TV see below
So what are the opportunities in the multiplatform social TV arena?
1. Building Brand loyalty by sharing and driving real-time conversation brands have the opportunity to become facilitators when consumers have the need to share their experience. We have seen this with this with the concept of the check-in in Social TV apps which has evolved from a sign of presence in one place to gradually becoming a way to share participation in an experience.
2. Leveraging online communities- The big opportunity is to learn how to leverage the communities that exist outside of TV and their owned media assets to their advantage. Whether contributing in real time, via the TV set or via a second screen device, creates opportunities for people to become even more socially engaged with TV programming and nowhere better is this done than leveraging online communities. They provide real time feedback; act as a focus group, sharing content and recommending shows to their friends there by driving viewing figures especially during live events. Ultimately is about creating deeper relationships with your biggest fans.
Here’s a great example of USA Network utilising Facebook and twitter via its own onsite “Chatter” viewing companion which it uses for nine of its TV series. It integrates Twitter and viewers can connect with other viewers — and in some cases, actors and producers from the show — while the show is airing.
For its popular shows USA network also as a Facebook app and an iPad app.
The web and Facebook app experiences allow viewers to switch between three different views — what viewers are saying, a curated feed of official accounts or all of the above. You can authenticate via Facebook or Twitter, and post to either or both accounts — or just keep it inside the Chatter experience.
3. The Gamification of Social TV –The opportunity exists to produce new TV shows that are designed to be social from the ground up which are more interactive & participatory through gamification. Gary Hayes presentation at the recent Australian TV show conference provided some great examples of the different levels of gamification. Not only can you include elements of gaming mechanics (competition), prize offers (awards, rewards) and participation voting but the opportunity to make TV a fully immersive experience can now be fulfilled.
Two such examples are where live users connect to the show and Users become characters or play roles in the show. In Destination truth Fans tweeted things for the actors to do and see where they were in real time. The viewers are also going to be able to track the teams in real time while they’re investigating. Whereas Beckinfield a sci-fi web series in which anyone can create and play a character build an audience and collaborate on storylines through social media. Called Mass Participation Television It is a blending of the technology and entertainment industries.
4. New business models & monetisation opportunities- So far, most of the money in social TV has been generated through sponsorship. For instance, in 2011 the Oscars ran a successful integrated social campaign to encourage viewership. The most significant part of this campaign was Mercedes Benz sponsorship of the GetGlue event which enabled event check-ins on its website through Get Glue’s widgets and users accessed stickers directly through Oscars.com which Fans have to “peel off” Mercedes-Benz branding to unveil the actual Oscar stickers.
Other Increased monetisation opportunities with a two screen approach include in-app advertising which falls into three main categories:
1. In-App Advertising: Display advertisements inside the applications
2. In-App Purchasing: Leading to in-app purchasing inside the application.
3. In-App Subscriptions: Paid for subscription video on demand.
Industry analysts now estimate the TV app market will be worth $1.5 Billion by 2013 with the availability of more than one billion apps downloaded by 2015. Retail has also been quick to jump into social commerce space with interactive social TV channels like Debenhams & French connection’s Youtique. Whilst another exciting innovation that takes the idea of social and commercial layering within TV to the next level is GOAB.
Developed by Syzygy The iPad app transforms the users handset (tablet/mobile) into a socially and commercially-enabled TV remote. The app brings the possibility of user interaction within television to life with a look at how social integration may work in the future.
5. Measurement & Social Data-Social TV also offers ample opportunities for extra media value, measurements and conversion. One of the main opportunities is around social graph data for content recommendation and TV viewing behaviour. This wealth of data can be used to target and identify future opportunities and potential new services to drive action. Measuring services will be critical moving forward to analyse the impact social TV is having and agency Wiredset this year developed its Social TV charts measurement system.Trendrr looks at data from Facebook, Twitter, Miso and GetGlue, combining mentions with check-ins to determine “total activity.” You can also drill down into sentiment analysis by show. There’s much more data available in Trendrr’s premium service — “most anticipated” shows and competitive graphs — which it offers to television clients.
6 Every brand to become a media company-With Social technologies it has never been easier to produce your own content quickly and easily. Two great examples of brands that have transformed themselves into modern day media companies are Billabong & Red Bull who are now competing with more traditional media companies in the space.
The opportunity going forward is for social TV to proliferate to the enterprise sector in the next few years. A great example of this exists here is Sydney in the shape of Evo TV who have built a media company off the back of the financial services sector not exactly renowned for its willingness to invest in the social media. Their ‘no more practice’ show was the first ever reality TV show for financial advisers with over 50,000 views over the entire series.
So what will the future of TV look like in 2020?
1. The Decline of traditional TV as we know it. The concept of TV as we know has changed and will be in the future over multiple platforms and social will be designed into all TV formats as a natural part of the viewing experience.
2. TV will be al a carte & you will be able to pay to avoid Ad’s. It will only be a few years away where you will be able to subscribe to your favourite TV show and pick and choose what show you watch based on your tastes as part of a subscription package and watch them on any device anywhere anytime.
3. Global communities will dominate media –Global social networking applications will continue to proliferate into the video arena, providing communal interaction and real-time ratings and recommendations, creating shared experiences and across geographic boundaries.
4. Every TV network will have a social media Team -Every launch will have a dedicated social media plan. Two years ago, there was nothing. Today, social is a core component of how the US networks do their job. This will spread globally across broadcast media.
5. Most viewing will be on personalised screens- The opportunities around Tablets and touch screens are only just beginning and more audio and video will be consumed on personal devices than on the traditional shared living room display, which will become more multifunctional and less defined by the television viewing experience.
6. Mobile will be the number one device people view TV on with programs made specifically for the format. In Tokyo there are currently more than 1.5 million paid subscribers for TV shows specifically made for mobile which will only spread globally between now and 2020.
7. Transmedia story telling will be the norm -Storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a fan's understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, transmedia creates "entry points" through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. Watch out for the new Fox8 series ‘Slide’ which launches in August a great example of home grown transmedia storytelling via Hoodlum entertainment.
8. Social Commerce on TV will be ubiquitous via new business model like GOAB
9. Touch devices will replace remotes-the awful point and click will be replaced by touch sensitive, interactive devices including tablets and multipurpose smartphones.
10. All TV’S will be connected to the web
Social TV is important because social media will bring together the TV and the digital world. People already use their TV’s socially: they either watch it together as a family, or watch a show separately but talk about them together at a later time. So Social TV is about bringing real-time interactivity back to TV, which has been lacking in recent years.The people who used to sit in front of a television and talk about their experiences to friends, family and co-workers are now empowered to do so right here, right now. Perhaps more important however, people are building full-fledged networks around them, creating a distribution channel of audiences with audiences and their reach is as influential as it is infinite.As WIRED magazine recently stated, TV is moving from a “vast wasteland” to a “vast garden". Today, “TV is a crazy, weed-filled, wonderful, out-of-control garden.” It is time to rethink TV. It is time to imagine what it could be and redefine it for the participatory culture of tomorrow.
What do you think do you think ?
How important will social TV be?
Want to learn more about Social TV then check out the following resources:
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Welcome to our department which is physically located in Grote Hall. We are dedicated to excellence in undergraduate education in the areas of classical and environmental geology.
We offer three awards. The Hoover-Nofsinger and Lebron B. Carver scholarships are awarded to deserving Geology majors. The Geology Award is presented to the most outstanding graduating geology senior.
Thin-section and polished section equipment is housed on the first floor of Grote Hall.
Other teaching and research equipment include: X Ray Diffractometer, Hach Spectrophotometer, assorted transmitted- and reflected-light petrographic microscopes, computers interfaced with scanner and plotter.
In addition to teaching, our faculty are engaged in research activities
in which geology majors may participate. Often, student research presentations are made at regional and national geology society meetings.
Each spring the department offers a ten-day field experience to examine either the geology of the Southwest USA or Costa Rica (in alternate years).
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View Full Version : How to get started
07-29-2009, 07:52 PM
I want to start my own animation studio. And create 3d films. For this I need top notch 3ds Max education. I have around 2-3 thousand dollars to burn on DVD tutorials etc. I've already purchased
Gnomology - Introduction to 3ds max
Digital Tutors - Introduction to lighting and mental ray.
What I want to do is create alluring footage like ASII (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVWhWsgHzKM) Trailer created by the famous DIGIC. I want to be all rounder for several months this means I would also need to learn Zbrush for detailing etc.
Please list some DVD programs that I should get to sharpen my 3ds senses :beer:. And even on how to get started with Zbrush. I've obviously started watching the Gnomology Introduction to 3dsMax and so far I am enjoying it.
Help would greatly be appreciated.
P.S: I am also thinking of getting in to game designing but that will come really later on maybe after 3-4 years of excellence in CGI.
07-29-2009, 08:19 PM
Simply max - http://www.simplymax.com/
Digital Tutors - http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/index.php
Gnomon Workshop - http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/
These are what I recommend if you are serious about learning. The training these guys provide is top notch.
07-29-2009, 08:56 PM
Yes I know but I am not sure what I want to learn yet.. I mean Modeler/Animator/Matte painter etc..
Do you recommend any programs. I want to have the exact realism that DIGIC has in Assassin's creed 2 Trailer in my films. I want to be an all rounder.
Edit: I can even start by creating short funny films that look similar to this image in your gallary
07-30-2009, 09:50 AM
Okay. I really don't want to be a killjoy and I think your enthusiasm is great, but you also need to keep your feet on the ground and be realistic here. That Assassin's Creed trailer was done by an entire team of extraordinarily talented, experienced artists at a very highly regarded studio, with a lot of resources at their disposal. You're simply not going to achieve that on your own, in a couple of years, especially if you're a fresh beginner.
So while I think it's important to have ambitions and goals, if your ambition is to achieve that quality of work on your own, you're likely to end up frustrated because it's not going to happen. At least not within the next ten years. Especially if you're aiming to be an all-rounder, because to master every aspect of 3D production to the level seen in that cinematic, it's going to take you years and years and years. And that's if you're good at it from the start.
07-30-2009, 02:52 PM
What if I specialize in one field (Texturing) and then find group of talented people and make a small studio? Would that be quicker to accomplish? I see they used tones of tools for them selves.
Actually, when I said All-rounder I actually thought I'd master one subject (which I did not know since I am pretty much a newbie in thie field) and then learn basics of other aspects for general purposes.
07-30-2009, 03:00 PM
I really think you're jumping the gun. Starting a studio is a huge, huge undertaking. It requires business sense and knowledge, leadership skills, an extremely good understanding of your craft, and a hell of a lot of money. Not to mention a team of excellent artists, as well as production staff, and other business types. Frankly, the best way to really develop in this field is to work at a couple of different studios over the course of a few years, getting experience and developing your understanding and skills, whether you're a specialist, or a generalist artist. Only after some years in the field should you be thinking about starting your own studio.
This really isn't something you can rush into. You should think of your own studio as more of a longterm goal than an immediate one.
07-31-2009, 02:48 AM
Alright thanks guys.
I've decided to work as a Texture artist and a set designer/environmental artist. Good job? I want to do something thats not pretty contested atm and yet is really fun.
07-31-2009, 02:48 AM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.
vBulletin v3.0.5, Copyright ©2000-2013, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
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How To Make A Balance Rail To Improve Your Snowboarding
The idea of a balance rail was presented to me as part of a series of instructional videos. The aim: work on your balance, body position and movement without actually being on the hill. Improve whilst you’re at home. That sounds good, doesn’t it? So how do I get one?
Actually there’s not much too it. I popped into a builder’s merchants on the way home from a shopping centre and bought a single, 3.0m length of 4″ x 4″. No planning required. The cost was £7
3m might seem quite long at first, but it’s probably the right length overall for what you need. I ended up cutting off two, 40cm segments into the car park as it wouldn’t fit in the car in one piece.
The design, as you can see in the pictures, is pretty simple. After taking off the two supports (40cm each) you’re left with around 2m of usable rail, which is a good length considering the size of different snowboards out there.
Nothing to it:
As far as the construction goes, I used a few 4″ nails for each support. Longer probably would have been better, but they were the longest I had in the shed and I was keen to give it a try, and so far there haven’t been any problems.
And there it is – a balance rail. Easy really; once you’ve got the wood you can put it together in 15 minutes. Now all you’ve got to do is use it…
Balance rail in action
If you want to see how to use the balance rail, check out this post, which includes a video.
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"The issue of greatest concern on America’s most distinguished university campuses is no longer traditional learning but a new form of social and sexual indoctrination."
Most Americans have some vague notion that all is not well on the university campus. Parents know that colleges are run by liberals, that silly ideas are being pushed by tenured radicals left over from the sixties. They understand that the climate on campus these days is more sexualized than ever before, but they’re not sure what it’s all about. They don’t know what to worry about and what to ignore, so they wait and watch, and hope for the best.
Of the 14.9 million students who enroll in college this year, less than half will graduate. More than two-thirds of American high-school grads will go, but less than half will receive a diploma. And thanks to the politici- zation of the campus, receiving a diploma no longer guarantees the student has received a good education or can succeed in a highly competitive marketplace.
The Dangers of Indoctrination
The cost of a college education has never been higher, and admissions standards have never been lower, but the entire calculus has changed. The university campus is no longer that idyllic place of your imagination, where callow youths are educated and prepared for life in the real world. The campus is, indeed, a place of radical transformation, but not the kind that most parents were expecting.
To put it plainly, the university is not a safe place to send your child. The reason is that the university is only marginally about education today. From Harvard to Stanford and on hundreds of campuses in between, the best and brightest of America’s youth are being introduced to ideas that will shake the foundations of their beliefs, challenge their confidence and objectivity, and, one way or another, shape the future of this nation.
The problem is that higher education is now a pretext for concentrating large numbers of unsuspecting and often poorly-prepared students on campuses, away from their families and other mediating influences, where they may be socialized and manipulated by leftist faculty members and administrators for purely ideological reasons. Since the social revolution of the 1960s, the agenda of the Left has been to transform the United States into a socialist utopia; consequently, the issue of greatest concern on America’s most distinguished university campuses is no longer traditional learning but a new form of social and sexual indoctrination.
An End to Intellectual Tyranny
For years parents have sacrificed their own well-being and virtually indentured themselves for the sake of their children’s education and future success. In so doing, however, they’ve unwittingly placed their offspring into the hands of the academic reprogrammers whose radical agenda is to subvert the family values, beliefs, and aspirations of their charges, and to render the next generation of Americans as unwitting pawns of the state.
If there’s to be any hope of turning things around, parents, alumni, fraternal and private organizations, public servants, and legislators at all levels of government, along with scholarship providers and the funding agencies who have been bankrolling this dangerous resocialization of the next generation, will have to summon a new sense of urgency about the severity of this crisis. They need to recognize what’s happening to our finest young men and women, and demand immediate changes throughout the system. We must insist on academic freedom and an end to the intellectual tyranny that passes for education on the majority of American university campuses.
To help precipitate that awakening and to provoke such a rebellion is the overriding mission of this book.
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Taxpayers Going Postal Over Public Employee Pensions, Perks. Unions’ miscalculation: Opting for secrecy.
BY PETER SCHEER—For public employee unions–those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local level–these are the worst of times.
Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold on to past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that, on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a Saturday Night Live skit, followed, the next day, by a New York Times magazine cover article proclaiming the “Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand.”
Public unions’ traditional strength–the ability to finance their members’ rising pay and benefits through tax increases–has become a liability. Although private sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can’t choose–they are, in effect, “captive consumers.”
At some point, however, voters turn resentful as they sense that: (1) they are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have; and (2) government services, from schools to the DMV, are not good enough—not for the citizen individually nor the public generally—to justify the high and escalating cost.
We are at that point.
In California, government sector unions, once among the most entrenched and powerful labor groups in the country, mainly have themselves to blame. For most of the post-war period, they were a force for progressive change, prospering by winning over public support for their agenda.
In the 1970s and 80s they backed laws like the Public Records Act and Brown Act to make state and local government more transparent. Because unions enjoyed broad-based political support, efforts to enhance government accountability and responsiveness to voters were seen–correctly–as benefiting the unions and their members.The public interest and public employees’ interests were aligned.
But the unions switched strategies. Although the change was gradual, by the 1990s California’s government unions had decided that, rather than cultivate voter support for their objectives, they could exert more influence in the Legislature, and in the political process generally, by lavishing campaign contributions on lawmakers. Adopting the tactics of other special interest groups, government unions paid lip service to democratic principles while excelling at the fundamentally anti-democratic strategy of writing checks to legislators, their election committees and PACs.
While not illegal (in fact, such contributions are constitutionally protected), the unions’ aggressive spending on candidates puts them on the same moral low ground as casino-owning tribes, insurance companies and other special interests that have concluded that the best way to influence the legislative process is to, well, buy it.
Public unions in California turned distrustful of voters and ambivalent about government transparency. In the mid-1990s unions backed improvements to the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, but also inserted a provision assuring that the public would have no access to collective bargaining agreements negotiated by cities and counties—often representing 70% or more of their total operating budgets—until after the agreements are signed.
What happens when voters and the press have no opportunity to question elected officials about how they propose to pay for a lower retirement age, healthcare for retirees’ dependents, richer pension formulas and the like? The officials make contractual promises that are unaffordable, unsustainable (and, in general, don’t come due until after those elected officials have left office). In the case of Vallejo, in northern California, this veil of secrecy, and the symbiotic relationship it fosters, has led to municipal bankruptcy.
The biggest blow to unions’ public support has come from revelations about jaw-dropping compensation and pension benefits. Police have received unwelcome attention for budget-busting overtime and the manipulation of eligibility rules for “disability pensions,” which provide higher benefits and tax advantages. Other government employees, particularly managers, have been called out for “pension-spiking:” Using vacation time, sick pay and the like to boost income in the last years of employment, which are the basis for calculating retirement benefits.
Such gaming of the system boosts starting pensions to levels that can approach, and even exceed, employees’ salaries. Some examples from the reporting of the Contra Costa Times’ Daniel Borenstein: A retired northern California fire chief whose $185,000 salary morphed into a $241,000 annual pension; a county administrator whose $240,000 starting pension was 98 per cent of final salary; and a sanitary district manager who qualified for a $217,000 pension on a salary of $234,000. At a time when most Californians anticipate an austere retirement (if they can afford to retire at all), government pensions are a source of real voter anger.
The harm to the credibility of public employee unions from these excesses is made far worse by the unions’ attempts to hide them. The revelations about pay and pension abuses have surfaced only as a result of lawsuits. (Disclosure: The First Amendment Coalition has been a plaintiff in several of these cases.) Public employee unions, rather than taking the lead to stop abusive compensation practices, have vigorously opposed disclosure of individual employees’ salaries and pension amounts.
Public employee unions need to reboot. The old strategy of cynically buying political influence and excluding the public from decision-making has run its course. Unions can rebuild public support by recommitting to an agenda of open government in the public interest. If they don’t, they will be further marginalized.
KPBS School Board Sup Candidates to be Public
The SD School District is including the public in an open process to select a new top administrator. The pool of candidates is narrowed down behind closed doors to three candidates and after that the public will get to interview and help vet these top candidates.
The City of Encinitas could benefit from doing something similar when hiring a new top administrator, who's job it is to serve the entire community.
NCT WATER: SD County Water Authority ponders subsidy for desal plant
The San Diego County Water Authority is considering a subsidy to help Poseidon Resources Corp. build its proposed desalination plant, water authority Chairman Bud Lewis said Friday.
The subsidy, which would flow to water districts that have agreed to buy from Poseidon, would replace a subsidy promised by Metropolitan Water District, Southern California's main wholesaler...
VoSD How Your Water Rates Subsidize Golf
San Diego - In the last four years, the price of water for almost every customer in San Diego has exploded. Scarcity and new construction projects have fueled constant rate increases and higher bills.
But one class of customers has escaped the rate hikes unscathed: The 475 businesses, homeowners associations, golf courses and public agencies that buy reclaimed water from the city.
In Encinitas one of the San Dieguito Water District's largest customers is a for-profit public-private partnership (Encinitas Ranch Golf Authority).
LATimes reports, Calpers is poised to ask cities and schools for more money to fill the pension hole.
One quote is revealing:
After weighing those factors, CalPERS actuaries concluded that it would be all right for the fund to go ahead with the hike because it wouldn't overly affect the state's general fund. The general fund, currently at $86 billion, pays for major state programs, including health and welfare, education and public safety.
A question California residents should be asking, why aren't Calper's financial gurus basing the contribution request on how much is needed to fund the pension pot, NOT how much can be squeezed out of state budget? If the budget were flush would they be admitting that the pension pot needs way more money in it to remain solvent?
SUNANA BATRA --
Before Encinitas Union School District trustees consider on June 29 whether to place a 30-year, $44 million bond measure on the November ballot, taxpayers must require the list of "specific needs" and "precise costs" for this loan that the district is asking taxpayers to bankroll.
After viewing how the board and superintendent operate June 1, I am sounding the alarm to fellow Encinitas residents: These folks have a completely half-baked plan to continue reaping taxes from us and throwing that money at projects without determining the district’s true needs. MORE.
And from a blog reader:
Get this; when [Batra] from NCT asked under public questioning
what the $44 million is for, the Superintendent told her; we'll try
and have the language ready by next month, less than 90 days before the election.
If you know the number is $44 mil, then you know in detail what you
need the $44 for...don't you?
If you do know, why aren't you telling the public and the parents what
the money is for?
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Special to Churchill Wild
by +George Williams
The 54-year-old from Tabernacle, New Jersey, has now created three children’s books about polar bears, each featuring a selection of photographs from the 17,000 he captured at Churchill Wild’s Seal River Heritage Lodge. Images from his trip can also be seen at his LifeScapes Imaging Web site.
“I never knew where wildlife photography would take me,” said Daniel. “But I had an idea for a book for preschoolers – a whimsical, rhyming book about polar bears.
“We have four children ages 8-23, and some of my fondest memories are of reading to them to when they were growing up. I wanted to create something that would get parents reading to their children and get children interested in wildlife. Parents are interested in the beautiful photos. Children are curious about the bears. And because parents are spending quality time with their children reading the books to them, it gets the children more interested in reading.”
A noble cause to be sure, and it’s been a long journey to get to the stage of published author, but Daniel has enjoyed every bit of it. He took up photography in high school and spent the last year or so photographing weekly in New Jersey before being able to participate in some of the more elite photography adventures.
Daniel’s wife probably had something to do with ramping up the photography hobby in the family. A former dental hygienist with an interest in sports, she participated in the Sports Photography Workshop at the Summit Series of Photography Workshops. Daniel tagged along and this led to him attending the Summit Landscape and Wildlife photography workshop a few years later. Unfortunately, his medical career still didn’t leave him the time he would have liked to have spent on photography — until recently.
About two years ago, Daniel hired an associate, which allowed him to free up some time for longer trips to elite photography havens that included the Richard Clarkson Photography at the Summit Workshop in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming; the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge located on the subtropical barrier island of Sanibel in the Gulf of Mexico; the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico; and finally the Polar Bear Photo Safari at Churchill Wild’s Seal River Heritage Lodge on the West Coast of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada.
“The Churchill Wild experience was the trip of a lifetime,” said Daniel. “We first heard about it from Scott Fryer and his wife Paula, who he met while at the Photography at the Summit Workshop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We went on the trip as part of a group with Bob Smith of Elk Meadow Images, who organized a photography workshop for 14 people at Churchill Wild.
“The trip from Winnipeg to Churchill with CalmAir was wonderful. And we had a lovely flight on a small plane from Churchill to the Lodge. It was my first trip on a small plane and we had an excellent pilot. Seal River Heritage Lodge is beautifully hand constructed and extremely comfortable. The staff was unbelievably accommodating and the food was outstanding. It was just like home.
“Our guides, Andy and Terra, really made us feel like we belonged, not like we were goofy outsiders. They would scout the polar bears first to see where they were at, and then we would go on two hikes a day. The furthest we had to go was about a mile and we were able to set up for polar bears, arctic fox, ptarmigan and briefly an arctic hare.”
Being able to take on-the-ground photos of wildlife has been Daniel’s modus operandi in photography, so the daily hikes worked out perfectly for the group. This despite the fact that Daniel brought his 28 lbs. 2½ foot 600 mm lens, which it was suggested he consider leaving at home.
“I’m used to carrying my lenses in the wilderness,” said Daniel. “Whenever I’m photographing I have one smaller lens on my right shoulder, the heavier one on my left, and my backpack. So that wasn’t a problem.
“And we weren’t interested in going out in tundra buggies. I wanted to be on the ground with the polar bears. I like the freedom of the out of doors, the solitude of hiking the trails, and the beauty of observing nature. I don’t want to do it from inside a vehicle unless it is an absolute necessity. Whenever you’re out in the wild there will be certain element of danger involved. In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I carry bear spray. In New Jersey it’s not an issue.
“Sure there is some fear of bears. But we learned there is a mutual respect between the polar bears and the people up there in Churchill. If done carefully and properly there is an acceptable risk. We never felt unsafe at any time. I think our group would uniformly say we would like to repeat our experience at Churchill Wild.”
Daniel went on to describe how much he enjoyed the spectacular landscapes, sunrises and sunsets over Hudson Bay. Flat, rugged and desolate, “it was like looking out over the surface of mars when the tide was out. You’d think you just went to another planet.
“But that’s the best thing about wildlife photography. You can never predict what you’ll see. Every day is a little bit of joy. And when I get back from a trip like this – my family notices the difference in me.”
Besides being a new author, Daniel also donates framed polar bear and wildlife prints to his local hospital. “I sell a few prints,” he said, “But the people at the hospital love them. They have them up on the walls and they always get nice comments from the patients and visitors.
“Wildlife photography has made me a much happier and more content person. It’s like being rich… but in different way.”
Daniel D’Auria’s polar bear books for children can be found on Amazon.com at the links below. He’s also working on two more children’s books about birds and is always interested in pursuing joint ventures that will also benefit a good cause in some way. Thank you Daniel!
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In this quest we call life, we may find ourselves at a cross-roads, unsure about the decisions we have to make. SuhaibWebb.com is happy to announce the launch of a new advice column designed to answer your personal questions. We believe that human beings are created resilient by God, and that with a little encouragement and advice, they can regain the confidence to make responsible decisions and move forward with their lives.
*Please note that our counselors are not religious scholars and will not issue religious rulings.
“I’ve been depressed and cutting myself for over a year. I’ve tried stopping multiple times, but each time has led to a relapse. My parents found out, got overly concerned, and started saying things that made me feel worse, such as how I was never going to go anywhere in life, never going to find love, etc. I understand they were trying to help me break out of it…but it made things so much worse. Now, I don’t know whom to turn to. I’m not close enough to anyone to share this with or ask for advice. My imaan (faith) is getting exponentially weaker, and I feel like I’m dooming myself. There are days when I just want to end it all because I feel like such a burden in everyone’s lives.”
It sounds like you are struggling with many overwhelming emotions. Cutting yourself has become a way for you to cope with the intense feelings you have about your life situation or your relationships. It sounds like you are desperate for an emotional connection, and the people closest to you (your parents) were not able to help or understand your struggle, so now you feel despair.
Most people who cut do not wish to end their life, but rather habitually cut themselves in order to reduce the pressure they are feeling. Cutting helps you lessen your emotional pain and temporarily feel better about yourself and your life. However, the result of habitual cutting is that your brain connects a false sense of relief from this behavior, so now you have the urge to cut every time you are trying to escape intense feelings. Cutting is not a healthy way to cope with negative feelings of depression, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc. It is possible to stop. A commitment to learning new strategies to deal with your emotional pain will help you successfully stop your cutting behavior.
Your first courageous step forward should be to seek a counselor or doctor who can support you in ending your desire to cut. A mental health professional will help you identify the triggers for your cutting and help you develop alternative behaviors when you have the urge to cut. Some examples of positive coping behaviors are: breathing exercises, running, journaling, drawing, listening to music, reading Qur’an, making du`a’ (supplication), performing prayer, and so on.
Engaging in an alternative behavior as well as understanding your feelings and emotions when you have the urge to cut, will help you gain greater self-awareness. It can be difficult to stop a habitual behavior alone, and having support from a counselor will be extremely helpful as you find the inner strength to overcome your cutting and develop healthier ways of dealing with your feelings.
If you are feeling suicidal, you need to get help right away. Call the National Suicide helpline at 1-800-273-8255, or talk to a trusted friend or mentor and share with them how badly you are feeling and ask for help. Encouragement from someone close to you will help you in seeking assistance from a mental health professional, who will help you overcome your depression and cutting behavior.
WebbCounselors is a collaborative advice column produced by two WebbAuthors, Amal Killawi, a Clinical Social Worker with a specialization in mental health and marriage education, and Munira Lekovic Ezzeldine, a Marriage and Family Therapist, specializing in premarital counseling. Please note that our counselors are not religious scholars and will not issue religious rulings. To read our full disclaimer, please visit our disclaimer page. To submit questions to the WebbCounselors, please email email@example.com.
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Morsi warns about dangers to Egypt economy
- From: AAP
- December 30, 2012
EGYPT'S Islamist president used his first address before the newly convened upper house of parliament to warn against any unrest that could harm the country's battered economy, as he renewed calls for the opposition to join in a national dialogue.
In the nationally televised speech, Mohammed Morsi said the nation's entire efforts should be focused on "production, work, seriousness and effort" after a new constitution came into effect this week.
Morsi blamed protests and violence the past month for causing further damage to an economy already deteriorating from the turmoil since the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak early last year.
In an alarm bell over the economy, the central bank announced soon after Morsi's speech that foreign currency reserves - which have been bleeding away for nearly two years - are at a "critical" level, the minimum needed to cover foreign debt payments and buy strategic imports.
Morsi's strongly-worded address to parliamentarians appeared aimed at sending a message to the mainly liberal and secular opposition not to engage in any new protests, depicting unrest as a threat to the priority of rebuilding.
All sides must "realise the needs of the moment" and work only through "mature democracy while avoiding violence", Morsi told the 270-member upper house, or Shura Council.
"We condemn and reject all forms of violence by individuals, groups, institutions and even from the nation and its government. This is completely rejected."
The mainly liberal and secular opposition accuses Morsi of concentrating all power on the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails, and other Islamists and steamrolling any alternative voices.
The main opposition groups have refused to join a national dialogue convened by Morsi, saying past talks have brought no compromise. They also stayed out of the president's appointments last week of a few opposition figures to the overwhelmingly Islamist Shura Council, calling the move tokenism.
The bitterness between the two sides was inflamed by the crisis of the past month leading up to the referendum that passed the new constitution.
Mass street rallies were held by both the opposition trying to stop the charter and by Morsi's Islamist supporters determined to push it to victory.
Clashes that erupted left 10 dead.
The charter was approved by 64 per cent, but with a low turnout of around 33 per cent.
Civil society groups and the opposition also point to incidents of fraud in the vote they say have not been properly investigated.
Opponents fear the new charter will consecrate the Islamists' power. The document allows for a stronger implementation of Islamic law, or Shariah, than in the past and has provisions that could limit civil rights and freedoms of minorities.
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H. B. 4241
(By Delegates D. Campbell, Ferro, Hartman, Hatfield, Iaquinta, Mahan, Morgan, Poore, Staggers, Talbott, Walker and Williams)
[Introduced January 20, 2012; referred to the
Committee on Health and Human Resources then Government Organization.]
A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated §30-7E-1, §30-7E-2 and §30-7E-3, all relating to professions and occupations; establishing nurse health programs; definitions; and authority of the West Virginia Board of Examiners for Registered Professional Nurses to designate these programs.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended, by adding thereto a new article, designated §30-7E-1, §30-7E-2 and §30-7E-3, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 7E. NURSE HEALTH PROGRAMS.
For the purposes of this article, the following words and terms have the meanings ascribed to them, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
"Board" means the West Virginia Board of Examiners for Registered Professional Nurses.
"Major mental illness" means a diagnosis of a mental disorder within the axis of psychotic or affective or mood, or alcohol or chemical abuse, or alcohol or chemical dependency, as stipulated in the International Code of Diagnosis.
"Nurse" means those health care professionals licensed by the West Virginia Board of Examiners for Registered Professional Nurses.
"Nurse Health Program" means a program meeting the requirements of this article.
"Qualifying illness" means the diagnosis of alcohol or substance abuse or alcohol or substance dependency or major mental illness.
§30-7E-2. Nurse health program.
(a) The board may permit a nurse diagnosed with a major mental illness or qualifying illness to participate in a nurse health program.
(b) The board may designate one or more nurse health programs. To be eligible for designation by the board, a nurse health program shall:
(1) Enter into an agreement with the board outlining specific requirements of the program;
(2) Agree to make its services available to all licensed West Virginia registered professional nurses with a qualifying illness;
(3) Provide for the education of nurses with respect to the recognition and treatment of alcohol, chemical dependency and mental illness and the availability of the nurse health program for qualifying illnesses;
(4) Offer assistance to any person in referring a nurse for purposes of assessment or treatment or both for a qualifying illness;
(5) Monitor the status of a nurse who enters treatment for a qualifying illness pursuant to a written, voluntary agreement during treatment;
(6) Monitor the compliance of a nurse who enters into a written, voluntary agreement for a qualifying illness with the nurse health program setting forth a course for recovery;
(7) Agree to accept referrals from the board to provide monitoring services pursuant to a board order; and
(8) Include such other requirements as the board determines necessary.
(c) A designated nurse health program shall:
(1) Set and collect reasonable fees, grants and donations for administration and services provided;
(2) Work collaboratively with the board to develop model compliance agreements;
(3) Work collaboratively with the board to identify qualified providers of services as may be needed by the individuals participating in the nurse health program;
(4) Report to the board no less than annually, statistics including the number of individuals served by license held; the number of compliant individuals; the number of individuals who have successfully completed their agreement period; and the number of individuals reported to a particular board for suspected noncompliance: Provided, That in making the report the nurse health program may not disclose any personally identifiable information relating to any nurse participating in a voluntary agreement as provided herein. However, if a nurse is not in compliance with the requirements, full disclosure of information will be provided to the board.
(d) The fact that a nurse is participating in a designated nurse health program is confidential, as is all nurses patient information, acquired, created or used by the nurse health program, and it remains confidential and may not be subject to discovery or subpoena in a civil case. The disclosure of participation and noncompliance to the appropriate board, as required by a compliance agreement, waives the confidentiality as to the appropriate board for disciplinary purposes.
(e) The nurse health program and all persons engaged in nurse health program activities are immune from civil liability and a civil action may not be brought or maintained while the nurse health program and all persons engaged in nurse health program activities are acting in good faith and within the scope of their duties.
(f) The board is immune from civil liability and a civil action may not be brought or maintained against the board or the state for an injury alleged to have been the result of the activities of the nurse health program or the board referral of an individual to the nurse health program when they are acting in good faith and within the scope of their duties.
§30-7E-3. Discretionary authority of board to designate programs.
The West Virginia Board of Examiners for Registered Professional Nurses has the sole discretion to designate nurse health programs for licensees and provisions of this article may not be construed to prohibit the board from establishing its own nurse health program or entitle any nurse to create or design a nurse health program for any individual qualifying illness or group of qualifying illnesses.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to authorize the West Virginia Board of Examiners for Registered Professional Nurses to have sole discretion to establish nurse health programs.
This article is new; therefore, it has been completely underscored.
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Originally subtitled "An Adventurous Education, 1935-1946," Vanity of Duluoz
is a key volume in Jack Kerouac's lifework, the series of autobiographical novels he referred to as The Legend of Duluoz
. With the same tender humor and intoxicating wordplay he brought to his masterpieces On the Road
and The Dharma Bums
, Kerouac takes his alter ego from the football fields of small-town New England to the playing fields and classrooms of Horace Mann and Columbia, out to sea on a merchant freighter plying the sub-infested waters of the North Atlantic during World War II, and back to New York, where his friends are the writers who would one day become known as the Beat generation and where he published his first novel.
Written in 1967 from the vantage point ot the psychedelic sixties, Vanity of Duluoz gives a fascinating portrait of the young Kerouac, dedicated and disciplined in his determination from an early age to be an important American writer.
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As a student at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), you have certain rights concerning your education records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). These rights include:
- The right to inspect and review the student's education records within 45 days of the day that the university receives a request for access. Students should submit to the registrar, dean, head of the academic department or other appropriate official, written requests that identify the record(s) they wish to inspect. The university official will make arrangements for access and notify the student of the time and place where the records may be inspected. If the records are not maintained by the university official to whom the request was submitted, that official shall advise the student of the correct official to whom the request should be addressed.
- The right to request the amendment of the student's education records that the student believes are inaccurate or misleading. Students may ask the university to amend a record that they believe is inaccurate or misleading. They should write the university official responsible for the record, clearly identify the part of the record they want changed, and specify why it is inaccurate or misleading. If the university decides not to amend the record as requested by the student, the university will notify the student of the decision and advise the student of his or her right to a hearing regarding the request for amendment. Additional information regarding the hearing procedures will be provided to the student when notified of the right to a hearing.
- The right to consent to disclosure of personally identifiable information contained in the student's education records, except to the extent that FERPA authorizes disclosure without consent. One exception which permits disclosure without consent is disclosure to school officials with legitimate educational interests. A school official is a person employed by the university in an administrative, supervisory, academic or research or support staff position (including law enforcement unit personnel and health staff); a person or company with whom the university has contracted (such as an attorney, auditor or collection agent); a person serving on the Board of Regents; or a student serving on an official committee, or assisting another school official in interest if the official needs to review an education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibility. Upon request, the university discloses education records without consent to officials of another school, in which a student seeks or intends to enroll.
- The right to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education concerning alleged failures by the University of Colorado Denver to comply with the requirements of FERPA. The name and address of the Office that administers FERPA is:
Family Policy Compliance Office
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202-5920
FERPA generally requires the University to obtain your consent prior to disclosing your education records or personally identifiable information contained in your records. One exception, which permits disclosure without your consent, is information about you that the University has designated as “directory information.” The following items are designated "directory information" and may be released at the discretion of the University of Colorado unless a student files a request to prevent their disclosure:
- address, telephone number, and e-mail address
- dates of attendance
- registration status
- class (i.e. freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
- degrees conferred
Although these items are designated by UC Denver as directory information, only a limited amount of this information is routinely disclosed by UC Denver officials and the University retains the discretion to refuse to disclose directory information if it believes such disclosure would be an infringement of your privacy rights.
Forms to prevent disclosure of directory information can be obtained at the Student Service Center in the North Classroom Building, room 1003, or via the Registrar’s website at www.ucdenver.edu/registrar. Questions regarding your rights under FERPA should be directed to the Registrar's Office:
Those records directly related to a student and maintained by the institution or by a party acting for the institution are considered education records. The term "education records" does not include the following:
- Records of instructional, supervisory, administrative, and certain educational information that is in the sole possession of the maker thereof, and are not accessible or revealed to any other individual except a substitute who performs on a temporary basis (as defined in the institutional personnel policy) the duties of the individual who made the records.
- Records maintained by a law enforcement unit of the educational agency or institution that were created by that law enforcement unit for the purpose of law enforcement.
- Records relating to individuals who are employed by the institution, which are made and maintained in the normal course of business, relate exclusively to individuals in their capacity as employees, and are not available for use for any other purpose. Records of individuals who are employed as a result of their status as students (for example, work study students) are education records.
- Records relating to a student which are:
- Created or maintained by a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, or other recognized professional or paraprofessional, acting in his/her professional capacity or assisting in a paraprofessional capacity or assisting in a paraprofessional capacity.
- Used solely in connection with the provision of treatment to the student.
- Not disclosed to anyone other than individuals providing such treatment.
This means the demonstrated need to know by those officials of an institution who act in the student's educational interest, including faculty, administration, student employees, clerical and professional employees, and other persons who manage student records information.
Any school official who needs information about a student in the course of performing instructional, supervisory, advisory, or administrative duties for the University of Colorado Denver has a legitimate educational interest.
This includes contractors, consultants, volunteers and other outside providers used by the University of Colorado Denver, such as the University of Colorado Foundation and the National Student Clearinghouse.
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| 0.942473
| 1,203
| 1.71875
| 2
|
(Prof. Inese Ivans' research group)
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
12:30pm (JFB Library)
Title: Squirrels in the Spectra: Dealing with unmodeled effects in spectral data for chemical composition determination of stars
In principle the spectrum of a star contains nearly all the information that can be learned about it. In order to extract the most information from a stellar spectrum it is necessary to model radiative transfer through the stellar atmosphere. I will discuss the limitations of modeled stellar spectra and talk about known effects which limit our ability to model the spectrum well. Stellar chemical abundance analysis consists of comparing observed absorption features in the spectrum with predictions based on the number density of the associated element in the atmosphere. Each transition between atomic or molecular energy levels has the potential to give rise to a feature in the observed spectrum. Of the millions of known atomic transitions only a relatively select few have had their transition probabilities measured in the laboratory with high precision. Theoretical calculations of transitions can give answers which are wrong by orders of magnitude. This creates a situation in which the majority of the features in a stellar spectrum either have properties which are poorly known (and therefore can only be poorly modeled) or in some cases completely unknown. Computational constraints and poorly known atomic physics data create a situation in which the error distribution of observed and modeled spectra is non-gaussian. The typical approach to avoiding this problem is to attempt to use only features whose transition probabilities are well known. However because of the density of weak features throughout a stellar spectrum this is only partially effective since there may be contamination from many poorly understood features which are too weak to resolve as they are on the order the noise in the data. I will discuss detecting and dealing with non-gaussian error distributions and analyze the actual error distribution found when comparing modeled spectra to observed spectra.
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<urn:uuid:7b790b70-e866-46ac-9883-b60fbc1ee16c>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.physics.utah.edu/index.php/seminars-a-colloquia/thesis-defenses/400-sang-yun-lee-thesis-defense-6911
|
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| 0.948359
| 378
| 1.609375
| 2
|
The authors wish to acknowledge support of this work by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the U. S. Department of Energy. An interface damage function (IDF), which statistically describes the area fraction of interface damage as a function of up to eight parameters defining crystallite interfaces, was determined for commercial purity copper specimens crept in plane strain tension. The IDF was determined from stereological parameters measured on plane sections cut through damaged specimens. The eight-dimensional space of the function was investigated by analyzing two-dimensional projections of the complete domain. Certain special interfaces were observed to damage preferentially. A low planar density of atoms near crystallite interfaces apparently increased the propensity for the occurrence of damage. Other microstructural mechanisms contributing to the observed heterogeneous distribution of damage are also considered.
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<urn:uuid:0bcbede5-76bd-4d56-acfd-6d9971f1000a>
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http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/IR/id/102/rec/3
|
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|
en
| 0.935621
| 157
| 1.5625
| 2
|
Jobless, local governments could be among the first to feel the pain of federal budget cuts
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Who'll be the first to feel the sting?
Jobless Americans who have been out of work for a long time and local governments that are paying off loans to fix roads and schools are in tough spots when it comes to the automatic federal budget cuts that are scheduled to kick in Friday.
About 2 million long-term unemployed people could see checks now averaging $300 a week reduced by about $30. There could also be reductions in federal payments that subsidize clean energy, school construction and state and local public works projects. Low-income Americans seeking heating assistance or housing or other aid might encounter longer waits.
Government employees could get furlough notices as early as next week, though cuts in their work hours won't occur until April.
The timing of the "sequester" spending cuts has real consequences for Americans, but it also has a political ramifications. How quickly and fiercely the public feels the cuts could determine whether President Barack Obama and lawmakers seek to replace them with a different deficit reduction plan.
In shift, Syria says it is ready to talk to armed opposition fighting to oust Assad regime
BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria said Monday it is prepared to hold talks with armed rebels bent on overthrowing President Bashar Assad, the clearest signal yet that the regime is growing increasingly nervous about its long-term prospects to hold onto power as opposition fighters make slow but persistent headway in the civil war.
Meanwhile, the umbrella group for Syrian opposition parties said it had reversed a decision to boycott a conference in Rome being held to help drum up financial and political support for the opposition. Walid al-Bunni, a spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition, said the move came after a phone call between the group's leader, Mouaz al-Khatib, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Al-Bunni told pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Arabiya the decision was made based on guarantees al-Khatib heard from western diplomats that the conference would be different this time. He did not elaborate. The boycott had put the group at odds with its Western backers.
The Syrian talks offer, made by Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem during a visit to Moscow, came hours before residents of Damascus and state-run TV reported a huge explosion and a series of smaller blasts in the capital, followed by heavy gunfire.
State-run news agency SANA said there were multiple casualties from the explosion, which it said was a suicide car bombing. Britain-based activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosions targeted a checkpoint, adding there were initial reports of at least five regime forces killed and several wounded.
10 Things to Know for Tuesday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Tuesday:
1. WHO WILL FEEL THE AUTOMATIC BUDGET CUTS FIRST
The long-term jobless will see their unemployment checks shrink by about 10 percent.
Billions of dollars at stake for BP, other companies as trial opens for Gulf oil spill
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- BP put profits ahead of safety and bears most of the blame for the disastrous 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a U.S. Justice Department attorney charged Monday at the opening of a trial that could result in the oil company and its partners being forced to pay tens of billions of dollars more in damages.
The London-based oil giant acknowledged it made "errors in judgment" before the deadly blowout, but it also cast blame on the owner of the drilling rig and the contractor involved in cementing the well. It denied it was grossly negligent, as the government contended.
The high-stakes civil case went to trial after attempts to reach an 11th-hour settlement failed.
Eleven workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by the BP exploded on April 20, 2010. An estimated 172 millions of gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf over the three months that followed in the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Justice Department attorney Mike Underhill said the catastrophe resulted from BP's "culture of corporate recklessness."
C. Everett Koop, anti-smoking surgeon general who spoke frankly on AIDS, dies in NH at 96
With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era -- and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.
His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.
Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.
Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.
An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.
Latest Plains blizzard slows travel, knocks out power to thousands in Okla., Texas; 2 dead
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- The nation's midsection again dealt with blizzard conditions Monday, closing highways, knocking out power to thousands in Texas and Oklahoma and even bringing hurricane-force winds to the Texas Panhandle. Two people have died.
Already under a deep snowpack from last week's storm, Kansas was preparing for another round of heavy snow Monday evening and overnight, prompting some to wonder what it could do for the drought.
"Is it a drought-buster? Absolutely not," National Weather Service meteorologist Victor Murphy said. "Will it bring short-term improvement? Yes."
The storm is being blamed for two deaths on Monday. In northwest Kansas, a 21-year-old man's SUV hit an icy patch on Interstate 70 and overturned. And in the northwest town of Woodward, Okla., heavy snow caused a roof to collapse, killing one inside the home.
Earlier on Monday, blizzard warnings extended from the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles into south-central Kansas. The blizzard warnings were dropped Monday evening for the far western portion of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.
Skeptical Syrian opposition leaders to attend Rome talks that are centerpiece of Kerry trip
BERLIN (AP) -- Skeptical Syrian opposition leaders agreed Monday to attend an international conference in Rome after first threatening to boycott the session that was to be the centerpiece of Secretary of State John Kerry's first overseas mission in his new job.
Opposition leaders had protested what they see as inaction by other nations in the face of violence from Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
Kerry not only made a public plea at a joint news conference Monday with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, he also called Moaz Khatib, leader of the Syrian Opposition Council, "to encourage him to come to Rome," a senior U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter, described the conversation as "good" but declined to offer more detail.
Spokesman Walid al-Bunni said the council had decided to send a delegation to Rome after all.
Al-Bunni told Al-Arabiya TV the decision was made based on guarantees al-Khatib heard from western diplomats that the conference would be different and that the opposition would receive real commitments this time. "We will go and we will see if the promises are different this time," he said.
SAfrica authorities: Pistorius must provide training schedule if he returns to track on bail
JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Oscar Pistorius on Monday informed South African authorities that he wants to resume athletic training while on bail for the murder case against him, a government official said.
A spokeswoman for the Olympic runner, however, denied that he was making immediate plans to return to the track while awaiting trial for the Feb. 14 shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
"Absolutely not," said spokeswoman Janine Hills. "He is currently in mourning and his focus is not on his sports."
The double-amputee Paralympian discussed bail terms with his probation officer and a correctional official at the Pretoria Magistrate's Court in the capital, according to correctional officials. The guidelines will determine his daily routine until his next court appearance on June 4.
"It's his wish to continue to practice," James Smalberger, chief deputy commissioner of the department of correctional services, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Italy faces political gridlock after crucial elections watched closely by markets
ROME (AP) -- Italy faced political paralysis Monday as near-complete results in crucial national elections showed no clear winner and raised the possibility of a hung parliament. The uncertainty bodes ill for the nation's efforts to pass the tough reforms it needs to snuff out its economic crisis and prevent a new round of global financial turmoil.
The chaotic election scenes in the eurozone's third-biggest economy quickly snaked around globe -- sending the Dow Jones index plunging more than 200 points in its sharpest drop since November and causing Tokyo's red-hot benchmark index to sink nearly 2 percent at open.
A major factor in the murky result was the astonishing vote haul of comic-turned-political leader Beppe Grillo, whose 5 Star Movement has capitalized on a wave of voter disgust with the ruling political class.
That has coupled with the surprise return as a political force of billionaire media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who was driven from the premiership at the end of 2011, to roil the Italian ballot. Berlusconi's alliance was neck-and-neck with center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani's coalition for both Parliament's lower house and the Senate.
The ballot was so close that final official results were not expected until daytime Tuesday, at earliest.
Warrant issued for suspect in shooting, crash on Vegas Strip; search widens to southeastern US
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Police said Monday they have a warrant for a 26-year-old ex-convict identified as the prime suspect in a shooting and fiery crash that killed three people last week on the Las Vegas Strip.
"We can say with certainty that Ammar Harris is the suspect who fired the fatal shots," Las Vegas police Capt. Chris Jones told reporters at an afternoon update about a manhunt that he said would be advertised on southern Nevada billboards.
Police previously released a photo of Harris taken after his arrest last year in Las Vegas in a 2010 prostitution case. It showed Harris with tattoos on his right cheek and words on his neck above an image that appeared to depict an owl with blackened eyes. Jones said Harris should be considered armed and dangerous.
Jones said investigators were looking everywhere Harris had lived in the past. He wasn't specific.
Public records show that Harris previously lived in South Carolina and Georgia, and told a police officer when he was arrested in Miami Beach last December that he had lived in Florida for about a year.
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How do I benefit from Ubuntu Pre-Install?
August 31, 2011 21 Comments
I was reading the Ubuntu Forum when I saw a thread called Ubuntu-certified hardware is not accurate ! This grabbed my attention.
The main issue seemed to be that the user that started the thread wanted to know if he should buy the Lenovo X220 or not. He had looked around and seen that the system is Certified (pre-install only) for 10.10 but found several user comments in the web pointing at problems with stock Ubuntu.
I was planning to reply explaining when I found this great reply from williumbillium:
First of all, the X220 works well with Ubuntu. I bought one last week and for the most part the laptop is well supported and IMO the current issues are either minor (probably wouldn’t cause the laptop to fail certification) or will likely be fixed soon. I’m documenting my experience on the wiki.
I believe that the “special image of Ubuntu” referenced on the certification page must be a business only deal. I’ve contacted Lenovo about it and been told that it’s not available.
That said, I saw a number of bugs fixed by Canonical employees before the laptop was even released so I believe that us consumers are benefiting from the fact that it’s certified.
Finally, I would not recommend installing 10.10 on this machine unless you have a particular reason to. Since it’s using brand new hardware (Sandy Bridge) it really needs the latest kernel to work well. I don’t have most of the issues mentioned on this ThinkWiki page for example.
The reason why Williumbillium “saw a number of bugs fixed by Canonical employees” is that Canonical has commercial engagements with companies like Lenovo to make Ubuntu work well on their systems. These engagements result on:
- A custom image delivered to the manufacturer with all major problems fixed. The manufacturer then chooses in what cases to distribute this image with their system. This is why it is certified as Pre-install only.
- Stock Ubuntu Certification in a future release. Canonical continues to work after we deliver the custom image to include all the fixes into the latest development release. We do this until all issues blocking certification have been resolved.
Following this process, the Canonical team has successfully Certified with standard Ubuntu over Fifty systems for 11.04 that previously did not work well with Ubuntu. And more are in the pipeline for 11.10…
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WASHINGTON – President Obama on Wednesday unveiled the most comprehensive federal gun-control plan in decades, but even some of his supporters tacitly acknowledged that major parts of what he is proposing are unlikely to make it into law.
While Obama called for a renewed federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, congressional sources said that those ideas face stiff opposition, even from many rural-state Democrats.
More realistic, they said, was Obama’s proposal for universal background checks for all gun buyers, as well as his adoption of a long-standing proposal by Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to make gun trafficking a felony.
“If you look at the combination of likelihood of passage and effectiveness of curbing gun crime, universal background checks is at the sweet spot,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “We’re glad the president put such emphasis on it, and we look forward to working with him on this and other proposals to make our nation safer from the scourge of gun violence.”
Meanwhile, Gillibrand said: “By cracking down on illegal gun traffickers and their vast criminal networks, we can stop the flow of illegal guns and reduce the violence that plagues too many communities around New York and across the country.”
However, even those proposals are expected to face strong opposition from the National Rifle Association, which, in a statement, chided the president for ignoring its plan to put armed police officers in every school.
“Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation,” the NRA statement said. “Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected, and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.”
While issuing 23 executive orders toughening enforcement of current laws, Obama also proposed several major changes that would require legislation, such as:
• An assault weapons ban that’s more comprehensive than the one that was in effect for a decade before its 2004 expiration.
• A ban on ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds, as well as a ban on armor-piercing bullets.
• Eliminating a loophole in the law that allows people to buy guns without a background check at gun shows across the country.
• A proposal to make gun trafficking a felony.
• About $500 million in addition federal spending to train police officers and teachers about gun violence, to hire school psychologists and social workers, to conduct research on violent video games and media images and to bolster mental health programs.
“The most important changes we can make depend on congressional action,” the president acknowledged.
Obama outlined his plan at an emotional White House event. Behind him were four children who had written letters to the president, pleading for action.
Before him sat an audience filled with people who had lost loved ones to gun violence, most notably the families of children who were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.
In detailing his plan, Obama implicitly acknowledged the difficult political fight ahead.
“If there’s even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try,” he said.
The legislative effort on gun control is likely to start in the Senate, which, congressional sources said, is likely to take it up piecemeal rather than in one comprehensive bill. That’s because an assault weapons ban could be a poison pill that could kill the entire package if everything were wrapped into one bill.
With Senate Democrats up for re-election next year in gun-friendly states ranging from Louisiana to Montana to Alaska, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he wasn’t sure that an assault weapons ban could pass the Senate.
Congressional sources said Obama’s proposal to limit the sale of high-capacity magazines faces similar political perils.
Legislation requiring more comprehensive background checks stands a much better chance of passage, Leahy, D-Vt., said at an appearance at Georgetown Law Center. “There are some who say nothing will pass. I disagree with that,” he said. “What I’m interested in is what we can get.”
And even local gun rights activist Harold W. “Budd” Schroeder, of Lancaster, chairman of the Shooters Committee on Political Education, said he could be open to expanding background checks to gun show purchases if there’s evidence that criminals are buying their weapons there.
“People who will be a danger to themselves or others should not have access to guns,” Schroeder said. “None of the legitimate gun owners want those people to have guns. That is the only part of the [Obama] proposal that makes any sense.”
Congressional sources said legislation that would make gun trafficking a felony and would boost federal spending on school safety and mental health also could conceivably pass.
Still, congressional Republicans were, at best, noncommittal about any legislation.
The appropriate House committees will review Obama’s proposals, said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio. “And if the Senate passes a bill,” Steel said, “we will also take a look at that.”
Meanwhile, rank-and-file Republicans were largely hostile to any legislation stemming from Obama’s suggestions.
“I believe he is trampling on the rights of law-abiding citizens” who own guns, said Rep. Chris Collins, R-Clarence. “The president is using this tragedy [in Connecticut] to force through gun legislation and, to some extent, is politicizing tragedy, which I find inappropriate.”
Facing such stiff Republican opposition, Obama also used his executive power to enact 23 initiatives aimed at curbing gun violence.
Most notably, Obama is:
• Requiring federal law enforcement agents to trace guns used in crimes.
• Strengthening penalties for people who lie on gun background checks.
• Bolstering government research on gun violence.
• Setting aside federal grant money for school safety programs and community efforts to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.
• Launching a national gun safety campaign.
Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, focused his criticism at the president’s legislative proposals.
“A number of the proposals laid out by the president today place considerable restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment rights, and I remain concerned that eroding one of our constitutional rights will lead to more limits,” said Reed, who stressed the need for better mental health services instead of gun control.
Gun-control advocates, on the other hand, were thrilled with the president’s proposal. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg both issued statements praising the effort.
And Arlee Daniels, program director of Buffalo’s Stop the Violence Coalition, said: “I think this is long overdue. I hope all of this passes.”
In particular, Daniels said he hopes Congress enacts restrictions on large-capacity magazines.
“There’s no reason to have a 30-round clip unless you’re preparing for war,” he said.
Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, also praised Obama for “a very comprehensive proposal,” saying he was pleased that it included not just needed gun regulations, but also an emphasis on mental health issues.
News wire services contributed to this report. email: firstname.lastname@example.org
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Again this is new for me but, here is my understanding. An inline regulator will regulate the pressure going in. If you set it at 25 psi nothing more that 25 will pass through it. The pressure relief valves do the opposite, they release pressure from the inside out at a set pressure. If the PRV is set at 25 psi and pressure inside keg gets too high it will vent out until it reaches the 25 psi again.
So if you wanted to use an inline regulator to prevent more CO2 than a set psi entering the keg that would work. However it will not vent out the keg if too much pressure is inside...for example with me, I plan to sugar prime in the sealed keg. If I had too much sugar, the excess will vent out according to my set psi.
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Indian and Himalayan Art
As Passion Took Over
or Guler, Himachal Pradesh, India, Asia
Artist/maker unknown, India
Opaque watercolor with gold on paper
Currently not on view
2004-149-75125th Anniversary Acquisition. Alvin O. Bellak Collection, 2004
LabelFrom the final chapter of the Gita Govinda series, this painting depicts Radha and Krishna in their forest love nest. The verse on the back of the page describes them at the threshold between foreplay and intercourse. Radha grabs Krishna's hand, both delaying and encouraging his fondling; she shyly bends her head, but meets his eyes with an upward glance. Such visual ambiguity escalates the mood of passionate anticipation. Their playful courtship battle heightens their eventual union, a union symbolizing the merging of the human soul with God. At some point in its history, about half of this painting was cut away and the stretch of river and hills that would have emphasized the lovers' isolation was lost. Although probably made in Nainsukh's family workshop, this series does not show that master painter's love of individualization; instead this artist prefers to move entirely into the dream world of earthly perfection characteristic of late-eighteenth-century painting from the Panjab Hills.
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Ciência & Saúde Coletiva
Print version ISSN 1413-8123
SCHRAIBER, Lilia Blima. Healthcare needs, public policies and gender: the perspective of professional practices. Ciênc. saúde coletiva [online]. 2012, vol.17, n.10, pp. 2635-2644. ISSN 1413-8123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232012001000013.
This paper examines the relationship between public policies and professional practices with respect to healthcare needs. Taking a theoretical-conceptual approach, practices are defined as acts that are permeated by technical-scientific and socio-historical determinants for the social production of work, and the possibilities for cultural, ethical and political changes were analyzed in order to take critical action regarding gender inequalities. With comprehensive healthcare for men as the reference point, the relevance of a distinction between male and female needs, as partial and not necessarily convergent realities in (re)producing these inequalities, is examined. Likewise, professional practices are examined as partial and distinct realities of policies that establish non-immediate relationships. It is considered that the following are symbolic and practical obstacles to change: the reduction of needs through biomedical normalization; the culture of self-employment and approaches that individualize needs; the traditional gender-based culture that conserves unequal practices for men and women; and the lack of registration of rights as part of professional action. This requires proposals specifically geared to healthcare practices and male needs, in order to achieve greater convergence with policy reforms.
Keywords : Gender; Health practices; Health policy.
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Wed March 6, 2013
Arkansas Legislature Embraces Strictest U.S. Abortion Law
Originally published on Thu March 7, 2013 4:42 am
Arkansas has approved a law banning most abortions after 12 weeks of gestation, as both houses of the state's legislature vote to override a veto by Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe. The Republican-backed Human Heartbeat Protection Act will become the nation's most restrictive law.
In vetoing the Senate version of the bill Monday, Beebe said that it "would impose a ban on a woman's right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion well before viability."
The bill, whose main sponsor is Sen. Jason Rapert, would require anyone who provides abortions in Arkansas to "perform an abdominal ultrasound test necessary to detect a heartbeat of an unborn human individual according to standard medical practice."
If a heartbeat is detected and the pregnancy is at 12 weeks or greater, an abortion would be forbidden. Exceptions are provided for cases of medical emergency, rape, and other situations.
In Arkansas, state law requires a simple majority vote to overturn a veto by the governor. The Senate voted 20-14 to overrule that move Tuesday, and the House followed suit by a vote of 56-33 Wednesday. If it survives legal challenges, the bill would take effect this summer.
After the successful bid to overturn the veto, Rapert said, "I'm just grateful that this body has continued to stand up for the bills that have passed. The eyes of the entire nation were on the Arkansas House of Representatives today," according to the website Arkansas Business.
Writing in support of his veto, Beebe said the bill "contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court." And he warned that defending the bill in court could prove "very costly to the taxpayers of our State."
As Politico reports, the ACLU plans to fight the new measure. Last week, the legislature overruled a veto of a similar bill that forbade any abortion after 20 weeks of gestation.
The 12-week ban could affect roughly 1 in 5 abortions in Arkansas.
"The Arkansas Department of Health shows that 815 abortions, or roughly 20 percent of all abortions, took place in Arkansas in 2011 at or after 12 weeks of gestation," reports The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "The department shows a total of 4,033 abortions took place in 2011."
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It's Time for Clearwater to Use Red Light Cameras
If you operate a motor vehicle in Pinellas County, this scene plays out every day: a driver, either impatient with traffic or late for an appointment, runs a red light.
All incidents of red light running are frightening, but most only leave other drivers breathlessly shaking their heads in disbelief as the offender somehow avoids colliding with others.
But some are catastrophic, resulting in death, disfigurement or permanent disability.
Last week's accident involving Clearwater City Councilmember John Doran puts red light running in a different perspective. Many believe that habitual offenders are responsible for most red light running. But as Doran's accident has proven, honest law-abiding citizens are capable of mental lapses whose consequences can be equally severe.
"Where are the cops when you need them" is a common refrain among those who witness red light running. The Clearwater Police Department has recently equipped their patrol cars with digital video cameras whose movies can be used as evidence to prosecute red light runners. But police officers must witness the offense in order to issue a citation.
Unfortunately, Clearwater can't afford to hire enough patrol officers to devote to monitoring intersections. But the City Council did endorse the State Legislative initiatives of the Florida League of Cities, one of which called for the passage of the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act. That bill, which would allow the use of red light cameras as sufficient evidence to issue points-carrying traffic citations, died in committee in the State Senate last year and is being reintroduced this year.
While Clearwater waits for the State Legislature to take action, other municipalities and counties are making an effort to control their own destinies and those of their citizens. Hillsborough County Commissioners will consider a red light camera ordinance next month, and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office has already identified 10 intersections that would be the first priority for their installation and use according to reports published in the Tampa Tribune. The City of Port Richey in Pasco County is also making plans to install red light cameras at three of their most accident-prone intersections.
Citations issued under municipal or county ordinance do not count toward points on a driver's license, nor are they reported to insurance companies. The value of municipal red light camera citations would be to serve as financial deterrent for habitual offenders and as an educational tool for otherwise law-abiding drivers who occasionally suffer mental lapses like Doran's.
It's time for Clearwater to undertake a red light camera ordinance to augment the public safety campaigns CPD already conducts, and Councilmember John Doran is the right person to initiate it. Of those sitting on the dais, he best understands how red light running can happen, and he best knows the fright, the bone-chilling sounds, the bruising and the injuries that red light running can cause.
Return to Current Edition
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“What is it that you really like in a picture? Does it make any difference if that picture has been set up or manipulated in one way or another? Dimitri Vasileiou shares his thoughts on this highly debatable subject”
Every so often, I receive questions about some of my images, such as, “did you put the leaf there”? The answer is, “no, I didn’t, as I couldn’t reach it, though I wish it had been possible”. My next reaction usually is, so what if I had put it there? Does it really matter, and does it make any difference to you, the viewer? This supplied me with food for thought and is the reason for this article. What is it that you really like in a picture? Is it the view; the sunset colours perhaps; the stunning composition that brings out the beauty of a location? Let me extend this a little further. How many times do we wonder if the colours in a picture are real or even if the compositional elements have been manipulated in Photoshop? Is it really important what we think has been done to it, or is the final result and our deep affection for it really all that should matter?
Take this image for instance. How…
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Poll: Americans of all faiths see a civility problem in U.S. politics
December 3, 2010
Whether they rally behind Fox News’ Glenn Beck to “Restore Honor” or Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart to “Restore Sanity,” Americans agree on one thing: our political system has a civility problem.
Four out of five Americans, regardless of party or religious affiliation, think the lack of respectful discourse in our political system is a serious problem, according to a PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll released Nov. 11.
The findings echo sentiments expressed by a range of religious leaders, including Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World, and Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Alarmed by the 2010 campaign season, which 4 in 10 Americans consider more negative than past elections, Mouw, Gutow and others are calling for a kinder, gentler tone — even on hot-button topics like Islamophobia, homosexuality or abortion.
“We’ve had heated public debates before, but the level of discourse in this campaign and even following the campaign has been atrocious,” Mouw said, citing as an example Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pledge to prevent President Obama’s reelection, as opposed to advocating for policy shifts.
“There’s a real hostility now, and Christians with very strong and more conservative convictions really don’t seem to be contributing much to a civil discourse and a calming of the heated discussions in the larger culture,” Mouw said.
In fact, white evangelicals and Republicans are less likely than other Americans to say the 2010 election’s tone was more negative than past campaigns, which PRRI research director Daniel Cox said may reflect their satisfaction with the outcome.
Mouw has another theory: evangelicals are more accustomed to inflammatory rhetoric from the pulpit, and therefore don’t see it as a problem in politics.
Other findings from the poll, conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service, include:
- One-third of white evangelicals report that the election was more positive than past elections, a figure that’s significantly higher than among white mainline Protestants (17 percent), the unaffiliated (17 percent) or Catholics (23 percent).
- Two-thirds of Americans say that people in their local community work well to overcome differences, and more than eight in 10 Americans who attend religious services say people in their congregation work well to overcome differences.
- Nearly 6-in-10 Americans think the country is more divided over politics today than in the past. More than four in 10 Americans said the country is more divided over religion than in the past.
- About half of white evangelicals and black Protestants think the country is more divided over religion than it was in the past, compared to less than 40 percent of Catholics and white mainline Protestants.
- Young adults (50 percent) are less likely than seniors (61 percent) to say Americans are more divided over politics, but more likely to say Americans are divided over religion (42 percent of young adults and 33 percent of older adults, respectively).
Americans are justifiably afraid and upset about the stagnant economy and terrorism, Gutow said, but he agreed with Mouw that 24/7 cable news channels and the blogosphere have encouraged and magnified negative, fear-based rhetoric.
In his organization’s new “Statement on Civility,” prompted by polarizing debate over Israel as well as domestic concerns, Jews agree to “treat others with decency and honor and to set ourselves as models for civil discourse, even when we disagree with each other.”
The JCPA pledge has collected more than 1,100 signatures since it was launched Nov. 1, and will form the basis for dialogue amongst Jews and with people of other faiths.
“I don’t think this country, and I don’t think our community, are going to make good decisions if people can’t talk to each other rationally and pragmatically,” Gutow said. “We need to lean back, talk to each other, look each other in the eye and respect each other’s humanity.”
Calls for civility have clear religious roots. In Judaism, Talmudic study encourages back-and-forth conversation, Gutow noted. In the New Testament, Mouw said, the Apostle Peter tells Christians to express their convictions “with gentleness and reverence.”
“In the world where our Savior has not yet returned to make all things right, we’re going to have to find our way of coping in the present and trying to do as much good as we can without oppressing other people, without bearing false witness against other people,” Mouw said.
“We have to defend the faith, that’s clear, but it says to do it with ‘gentleness and reverence.’”
The PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll was based on telephone interviews conducted Nov. 5-8, after the midterm elections, with 1,022 U.S. adults. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Saturday, January 29, 2011
Houston At-Grade Rail Gets Safety Repackaging
With that in mind, we’re returning to a frequent Yes2Rail theme – safety – by checking in with Houston, TX, which is scrambling to make its at-grade rail system safer.
Earlier this month, Houston’s METRORail unveiled a wrapped train (pictured above) that implores vehicle drivers to pay attention to approaching trains. Too often, drivers don’t, and the results are themselves eye-catching, as we showed here last February.
Honolulu’s trains will run on tracks elevated about 30 feet above ground level. We’ll never experience events like what the citizens of Houston and Phoenix, AZ have almost come to expect.
That’s why officials are wracking their brains for safety campaigns, for example, wrapping their trains. Looks like they gotta do what they gotta do.
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Nationalised industries were inefficient because they were used as a means of soaking up unemployment* there was no real excuse for not having a job as the NI's soaked up the slack. At least to get your dole you had to get up go somewhere for eight hours and do a bit of something.
*They were also also held back from investment by unions reluctance to change and governments failure to invest, private industry had the exact same problems but worse, worse in the sense that owners refused to invest anything at all in their business as long as they could cream of a profit.
The only privatised industry I can see a price reduction in is telecoms, that has been subject to massive competition the rest have just been given a licence to rip-off Joe public and put nothing back.
I love this excuse that "we have to put pricess up to invest", how come other industries invest without putting prices up (they have to stay competitive) but former publicly owned utilities year on year seem to have to not bother about improving services through investment whilst maintaining prices at 'competitive' levels.
How do you privatise them again, simple put a massive tax on them and pass a price control law until they want to give them back.
Ce message a été modifié par Padge - 19 octobre 2012 - 08:08 .
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Schools Hit by Morality of Wal-Mart Guns Funding Charity
Since the Academy of New Media Middle School in Columbus, Ohio, opened in 2011, it has scraped by, with its principal cleaning toilets and a math teacher pressed into service as school nurse. Only $250,000 in gifts from the Walton Family Foundation keeps the 85-student charter school alive.
Now, in the aftermath of the Dec. 14 massacre of 26 school personnel and pupils in Newtown, Connecticut, New Media principal Andrew Sweigard said he’s worried that its angel may be tarnished. Walton family members own more than 48 percent of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest seller of guns in the U.S.
“It’s a dilemma,” Sweigard, 27, said in his cinderblock office, furnished with a worn carpet, torn chairs, and a snow shovel. “It’s a moral issue. Can we take funding from a company that is linked to a potential disaster in our school? Do we want to associate ourselves with guns?”
Sweigard’s quandary illustrates a growing tension, post- Newtown, between the Walton family’s educational giving and its primary source of income -- the retail giant that Sam Walton founded in 1962. The family’s foundation has given $312.9 million to charter schools since 1997, more than any other private donor.
Wal-Mart revenue from sales of guns and ammunition increased 76 percent and 30 percent, respectively, from April to October, the company said at an October analysts’ meeting.
Since Newtown, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS) has suspended sales at its more than 500 stores of the military-style rifles of the type used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School carnage, a Dick’s spokesman said. About 1,200 of Wal-Mart’s almost 4,000 U.S. stores continue to sell them, often running out of stock due to customer demand.
Jared Lee Loughner, who shot 19 people in a Tucson, Arizona, supermarket parking lot in 2011 with a pistol, wounding U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killing six people including third-grader Christina-Taylor Green, bought his ammunition earlier that day at a Wal-Mart, according to Tom Peine, spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
Wal-Mart faces intensifying public pressure to halt sales of semi-automatic firearms, or what the gun industry calls “modern sporting rifles.” Almost 300,000 people have signed petitions calling on Wal-Mart to limit gun sales, according to New York-based corporate watchdog group SumOfUs.org.
After initially declining to send a representative to Vice President Joe Biden’s Jan. 10 meeting to discuss gun control, company officials reversed course, saying they “underestimated the expectation to attend.”
The Walton foundation didn’t respond to phone calls and e- mails. It supports charter schools because it wants to “infuse competitive pressure” into the education system “by increasing the quantity and quality of school choices available to parents, especially in low-income communities,” according to its website. Charter schools are privately run public schools that generally operate without many of the rules of traditional schools, such as union contracts.
Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg declined to address charter schools’ concerns specifically.
“We recognize there are a lot of views on this topic and many ideas being considered,” Lundberg said. “Over the years, we have been very purposeful about striking the right balance between serving our customers that are hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that we sell firearms in the most responsible manner possible.”
Wal-Mart (WMT) doesn’t sell high-capacity magazines for military- style guns, Lundberg said. It doesn’t sell handguns in the continental U.S., and firearms aren’t available for purchase on the retailer’s website.
The company complies with eight of 10 criteria of the “Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership,” including requirements that results of background checks must be received before sales and that firearms transactions be videotaped, Lundberg said. It doesn’t enforce provisions to flag buyers who had previously purchased guns from Wal-Mart that were used in crimes, he said.
Lundberg said the company has a “commitment to work toward implementing” all 10 points. Wal-Mart helped create the voluntary partnership with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, co- founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
Dozens of gun violence survivors -- including former Giffords staffer Pam Simon, whom Loughner shot in the chest and wrist -- signed a Jan. 9 letter urging Wal-Mart to follow the company’s 2004 pledge not to sell assault rifles. The company began selling them in 2011, Lundberg said.
“It is puzzling why a family-friendly store like Wal-Mart would sell such weapons just aisles away from the strollers and school supplies,” Simon and the other survivors wrote.
Three miles from a Wal-Mart store that sells semi-automatic weapons, the 8 Points Charter School in Jacksonville, Illinois, opened in 2011. It has about 100 students in grades five through eight. The Walton foundation made three gifts totaling $260,000 to the school, which has a budget of about $800,000.
While the foundation is a “friend to schools” and “made everything we did possible,” it’s “sad if they’re doing that on the backs of mentally ill people buying guns when they have no business buying guns,” said Bridget English, director of operations and family advocacy at 8 Points.
“Wal-Mart does not think about the morals of it -- they think about the bottom line,” said English, 39. “They have a responsibility to get on board for legislation and reform.”
The school remains interested in applying for Walton foundation grants for innovation, she said.
Edwin Jones said he helped establish a Washington-based charter school for fifth-graders in 2007 with money from the Walton foundation. He regrets accepting the funds, he said in a telephone interview. Hope Academy closed within a year because of low enrollment.
“If I could turn back time, I would not have taken the Wal-Mart grant,” said the 62-year-old Jones, a Baptist pastor involved in the Respect DC Campaign, a union-backed group that opposes Wal-Mart’s labor practices. “What is Wal-Mart’s real concern? Kids who you say you care about -- in schools, malls or theaters -- are in danger.”
Other educational administrators said they’re glad to take Walton foundation funds. Firearms sales are “a decision for the shareowners,” said Richard Moreno, executive director of Charter School Services Corporation, a Fort Lauderdale-based organization that helps operate charter schools and whose umbrella group received more than $1.6 million from the Walton foundation in 2011.
“Our support from the Walton Family Foundation is separated from what the business is,” Moreno said.
Three members of the Walton family are on Wal-Mart’s 17- member board: Chairman Samuel Robson “Rob” Walton, Jim C. Walton and Gregory Penner -- the founder’s eldest son, youngest son and Rob Walton’s son-in-law, respectively.
The Walton Family Foundation -- which, like Wal-Mart, is based in Bentonville, Arkansas -- is the country’s 50th largest foundation, with about $1.3 billion in assets. Separately, Wal- Mart’s corporate foundation has about $35 million in assets. The Wal-Mart Foundation supports a variety of community groups and makes small grants, typically less than $1,000 apiece, to schools, including charter schools.
In Columbus, debate about Wal-Mart and the Walton family donations has divided the faculty. Located across from boarded- up apartments, the Academy of New Media received $30,000 from the Walton foundation in startup funds in 2010 and an additional $220,000 in 2011. The middle school has no security guard, and doors are unlocked.
Sweigard has met with his staff since the Newtown shootings to discuss updating the security policy. A Wal-Mart 17 miles away in Lewis Center, Ohio, sells military-style weapons. In Ohio, customers who pass a background check can buy an unlimited number of firearms without a waiting period.
While Sweigard has reservations about the Walton donations, he would not rule out applying for its funds again. “I would not limit our ability for extra income,” he said.
Two math teachers said the financially struggling school is in no position to pass them up. The charter receives less government funding than regular public schools, and teachers wonder if it will have adequate resources and enrollment to survive another academic year.
“How do you turn down money?” said Melissa Morris, 39, a math teacher and de-facto school nurse. “You can’t.”
Mike Stuckey, 31, a math teacher who also drives students home in his car, said he doesn’t own guns but supports Second Amendment rights. He has no problem with Wal-Mart’s gun sales, he said.
“It’s not up to me to criticize their financial decisions,” Stuckey said. “That’s part of running a business.”
Tiffany Martin, 38, whose 13-year-old son Kendall is an eighth-grader at New Media and a forward on its basketball team, likened the Walton foundation’s donations to the state lottery’s contributions to public education.
“They take an evil and give to something good and think it’s all forgiven,” Martin said.
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The tax hikes that so many states levied to plug holes in their recession-ravaged budgets this year could endanger a few incumbent governors’ careers in 2010 when 37 gubernatorial contests are at stake.
The defeat Nov. 3 of one-term New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), who signed nearly $1 billion in tax increases this year after pledging earlier to cut property taxes, could be a bellwether. Experts caution against reading too much into one race. But a look back at the last big gubernatorial election year to fall in the midst of a state budget crisis—in 2002—showed voters were in a mood for change.
Four sitting governors were ousted in 2002, and party control flipped in 18 of the 36 governor’s seats on the ballot. The GOP lost the governor’s mansion in 10 states, while the Democrats lost in eight. Two open seats held by Independents went in 2002 to a Democrat and a Republican. Turnabouts occurred even where the incumbent’s party traditionally had been strong, including Georgia, Kansas, Maryland and Tennessee. The handling of the economic downturn was a major factor in many of the 2002 races.
In that election, 22 seats were open, compared to 21 gubernatorial races without incumbents competing in 2010 — a number that still could change if more governors decide not to seek another term. Just last week, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut opted against seeking re-election. She took over in 2004 after GOP Gov. John Rowland stepped down to face corruption charges, and she was elected outright two years later.
Read the full report Economy to Sway 2010 Gov Races on Stateline.org
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HPPR hosts & contributors
Wed March 13, 2013
With Official Wink And Nod, Young Saudis Join Syria's Rebels
Originally published on Wed March 13, 2013 4:36 pm
Following a circuitous route from Saudi Arabia up through Turkey or Jordan and then crossing a lawless border, hundreds of young Saudis are secretly making their way into Syria to join groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, GlobalPost has learned.
With the tacit approval from the House of Saud and financial support from wealthy Saudi elites, the young men take up arms in what Saudi clerics have called a "jihad," or "holy war," against the Assad regime.
Based on a month of reporting in the region and in Washington, more than a dozen sources have confirmed that wealthy Saudis, as well as the government, are arming some Syrian rebel groups. Saudi and Syrian sources confirm that hundreds of Saudis are joining the rebels, but the government denies any sponsoring role.
The Saudis are part of an inflow of Sunni fighters from Libya, Tunisia and Jordan, according to Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"Most of the foreigners are fighting with al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham," both extremist groups, Zelin said.
Sunni extremist fighters are now part of a vicious civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people and created more than a million refugees.
The Saudis hope to weaken their regional competitor Iran, a Shiite theocracy that is backing Assad. Saudi officials also hope to divert simmering political unrest at home by encouraging young protesters to instead fight in Syria, according to Saudi government critics.
The government seeks to "diffuse domestic pressure by recruiting young kids to join in another proxy war in the region," said Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani, a human rights activist and economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Riyadh. They are joining ultraconservative groups who "definitely are against democracy and human rights. The ramifications could be quite serious in the whole region."
Road To Syria
In one documented case, a Saudi judge encouraged young anti-government protesters to fight in Syria rather than face punishment at home. Mohammed al-Talq, 22, was arrested and found guilty of participating in a demonstration in the north-central Saudi city of Buraidah.
After giving 19 young men suspended sentences, the judge called the defendants into his private chambers and gave them a long lecture about the need to fight Shiite Muslims in Syria, according to Mohammed's father, Abdurrahman al-Talq.
"You should save all your energy and fight against the real enemy, the Shia, and not fight inside Saudi Arabia," said the father, quoting the judge. "The judge gave them a reason to go to Syria."
Within weeks, 11 of the 19 protesters left to join the rebels. In December 2012, Mohammed al-Talq was killed in Syria. His father filed a formal complaint against the judge late last year, but said he has received no response.
Saudi Arabia shares no border with Syria, so young fighters such as Mohammed must travel through Turkey or Jordan.
Those without criminal records can fly as tourists to Istanbul. Those convicted of crimes or on government watch lists cannot travel without official Ministry of Interior permission. Critics say the government allows such militants to depart with a wink and a nod. Then they sneak across the Jordanian border into southern Syria.
The young militants are sometimes funded by rich Saudis. They acquire black market AK-47s and cross at night along the now porous Syrian borders, according to a local journalist.
Sami Hamwi, the pseudonym of an exiled Syrian journalist who regularly reports from inside the country, has carefully observed the flow of the Saudi fighters to Syria. He told GlobalPost that groups of three to five Saudis often join Jabhat al-Nusra, a prominent rebel faction the United States says has links to al-Qaida.
Many Syrians "like the fact that Saudis come with a lot of money," Hamwi said. "Civil society activists do not like foreign fighters. They think they will cause more trouble."
The term "civil society activists" refers to the largely secular, progressive Syrians who led the initial stage of the Syrian uprising but who have since been eclipsed by the armed militias.
Saudi officials deny that the government encourages youth to fight in Syria. But they also admit they have no control over people who legally leave the country and later join the rebels.
Fighting with the rebels in Syria is illegal, declared Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior. "Anybody who wants to travel outside Saudi Arabia in order to get involved in such conflict will be arrested and prosecuted," he said. "But only if we have the evidence before he leaves the country."
Human rights activist al-Qahtani called the Saudi stand a "don't ask, don't tell policy." Saudi authorities have a strategic goal in Syria, he said.
"Their ultimate policy is to have a regime change similar to what happened in Yemen, where they lose the head of state and substitute it with one more friendly to the Saudis," al-Qahtani said. "But Syria is quite different. It will never happen that way."
Last week, a Saudi court sentenced al-Qahtani to 10 years in prison for sedition and providing false information to foreign media. Human rights groups immediately defended al-Qahtani, saying he is being persecuted for his political views and human rights work.
Meanwhile, evidence mounts that Saudis are pouring into Syria.
Last year, a close friend of Abdulaziz Alghufili bought a Kalashnikov rifle and slipped into Syria to join an extremist militia fighting the Assad regime. "My friend is putting his life at risk," said Alghufili, an electrical engineer not involved in his friend's activities.
So far his friend remains alive. But dozens of Facebook pages and Twitter feeds document the deaths of other Saudis not so fortunate. Almost all joined the al-Nusra Front.
"Most people going there don't think they will come back," Alghufili said. "They will fight to die or win freedom."
Parallels To Afghanistan
Al-Qahtani argues that Saudi support for al-Nusra resembles their aid to the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
But he notes that the support for Syrian rebels falls well below the massive effort in Afghanistan, in part because the Obama administration has tamped down Saudi efforts, worried about the growth of extremist groups.
Some U.S. officials and analysts argue that the Saudi government doesn't arm extremist groups at all, having been chastened by the Afghan experience. A State Department official described Saudi Arabia as an opponent of Syrian extremist groups.
"The Saudi government and Arab League share the same concerns about Nusra," he said. "Nobody wants instability."
Randa Slim, a scholar with the Middle East Institute in Washington, says the Saudi royal family doesn't want a repeat of terrorist fighting on its own soil, nor does it want to anger its chief ally, the United States.
"To avoid U.S. ire, they can have individuals fund al-Nusra while the government funds groups vetted by the U.S.," she said. "The Saudis are outsourcing the fight."
The activities of Saudi Arabia — along with Turkey, Qatar, Iran and the United States — have significantly complicated the Syrian civil war, according to Saudi human rights activists.
"The people of Syria want their revolution to be as clean as possible," al-Qahtani said. "Once foreigners are involved, it could lead to the situation of Afghanistan. It could give an excuse for the Syrian regime that it is foreigners who are fighting, which is a wrong policy."
Freelance journalist Reese Erlich's reports from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are part of a GlobalPost Special Report on the role of the Sunni/Shiite rift in Middle Eastern geopolitics, in partnership with NPR.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now, hundreds of young men from Saudi Arabia are sneaking into Syria to fight against the Assad dictatorship. Saudi authorities provide funds and arms to Syrian rebels, although they deny sending fighters.
Independent producer Reese Erlich traced those fighters back to the Saudi Arabia.
(SOUNDBITE OF A CALL TO PRAYER)
REESE ERLICH, BYLINE: A crowd of men walk slowly out of a working-class mosque after Friday prayers. The Mosques' imam has just asked everyone to pray for the Syrian rebels. Worshipper Taher Mohammad wants to see the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
TAHER MOHAMMAD: Bashar, his army is making all kinds of crime. Yes, of course, I support the revolution.
ERLICH: Mohammad says he also supports Saudis going to fight in Syria. Dozens of Facebook pages memorialize Saudis killed in Syria.
Late last year, a judge in one Saudi city told young anti-government protesters that they should be fighting jihad in Syria, not demonstrating at home. Reached by phone, Abdurrahman al-Talq, father of one of the defendants, recalls what the judge said.
ABDURRAHMAN AL-TALQ: (Through Translator) The judge said, you should save all your energy and fight against the real enemy, the Shia Muslims in Syria, and not fight inside Saudi Arabia.
ERLICH: Within weeks, 11 of the 19 defendants left to join the rebels. In December last year, al-Talq's son was killed in Syria.
(SOUNDBITE OF CONVERSATIONS)
ERLICH: At a human rights meeting in Riyadh, participants discuss Saudi involvement in Syria. Mohammad al-Qahtani, an activist and professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies, says the judge's remarks reflect a government effort to undercut domestic protest.
MOHAMMAD AL-QAHTANI: Diffuse the pressure, the domestic pressure, by recruiting young kids to go and join another proxy war in the region.
ERLICH: Don't participate in the Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia. Go to Syria and do it there?
AL-QAHTANI: Oh, that's exactly the case.
ERLICH: Qahtani says most of the youth join ultraconservative rebel groups such as the Al-Nusra Front. The U.S. State Department has designated Al-Nusra a terrorist organization.
AL-QAHTANI: Make no mistake, these folks definitely are against democracy and human rights, and so on and so forth. So you have to be really careful because it could backfire. The ramifications could be quite serious in the whole region.
MAJOR GENERAL MANSOUR AL-TURKI: Saudi Arabia does not allow any Saudis to get involved in any other internal affairs. It's illegal.
ERLICH: Major General Mansour al-Turki is spokesperson for the Saudi Ministry of Interior.
AL-TURKI: Anybody who wants to travel actually outside Saudi Arabia in order to get involved in such conflict, he will be arrested and prosecuted. But only if we have the evidence before actually he leave the country.
ERLICH: Critics say the government doesn't try very hard to find such evidence. Professor Qahtani says meddling in the Syrian civil war hurts the entire region.
AL-QAHTANI: Once foreigners are involved there are going to be mercenaries leading the war. It could give an excuse, if you will, for the Syrian regime that these are foreigner mercenaries fighting, which is a wrong policy to do.
ERLICH: Last week, Qahtani's outspoken criticism of Saudi authorities led to his arrest and sentencing to 10 years in prison for sedition. Amnesty International denounced the arrest and called him a prisoner of conscience.
For NPR News, I'm Reese Erlich.
INSKEEP: And, by the way, Reese Erlich's reporting from Saudi Arabia is part of a partnership between NPR and the GlobalPost.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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