text
stringlengths 211
577k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 14
371
| file_path
stringclasses 644
values | language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.93
1
| token_count
int64 54
121k
| score
float64 1.5
1.84
| int_score
int64 2
2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
Clinton non-viable in student precincts
Hillary Clinton’s campaign may have paid a price for questioning students’ right to caucus, as she failed to reach the 15 percent viability threshold in campus precincts in Iowa City, Ames and Grinnell in Thursday’s caucuses.
Barack Obama swept those same precincts while winning 57 percent of a record turnout of Democrats under age 30 to Clinton’s 11 percent. Obama actively pursued the youth vote, encouraging Iowa students who would be out of town for the mid-break caucuses to caucuses in their parents’ towns, and asking students whose parents lived out of state to come back on caucus night. The effort drew attacks from other campaigns, most notably Clinton’s. The Clinton campaign, and other critics of caucusing by out of state students, acknowledged that it is perfectly legal for students who reside most of the year in Iowa to register to vote and to participate in the caucuses. But they weren’t encouraging. Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee offered a blunt, “The Iowa caucus ought to be for Iowans.”
“We’re talking about Iowa students caucusing in the Iowa caucuses,” Obama said during a Dec. 4 Iowa City campus stop. “As residents of Iowa, we should be encouraging them to caucus, and if they are away for the holidays, we should be encouraging to them to come back.”
The Clinton campaign also famously dismissed young voters at the November Jefferson Jackson Dinner, where top strategists Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn were quoted saying, “Our people look like caucus-goers, and (Obama’s) people look like they are 18. They look like Facebook.”
Clinton was non-viable in Iowa City’s two dorm-dominated precincts, 3 and 5. She was also non-viable in the entire core of downtown Iowa City, including the main student apartment precincts (11, 19 and 20) and in precinct 21, a mixed student-townie precinct so liberal that George W. Bush finished third, behind Ralph Nader, in 2000. Turnout was down from 2004 in the dorm precincts, where residence halls were closed, but was up significantly in the off-campus student precincts.
Hillary Clinton did not make an on-campus University of Iowa stop before the caucuses — in fact, her only campus event was on July 3 with her husband former President Bill Clinton. Clinton 42 did appear on campus on Dec. 10, at the height of the student caucus flap, and said students should follow their conscience. “Since nobody can really say what’s in your mind, it’s up to you,” Clinton said. “For example, if you show up to work on the campaign and have no connection here, then you shouldn’t be able to caucus.”
Reports of Clinton non-viability also come from Grinnell Ward 1, where the Clinton group sent supporters to Joe Biden to help him reach viability and prevent Obama from padding his already big delegate margin. Biden was also viable where Clinton was not in Ames Precinct 4-4, centered on the Iowa State campus.
|
<urn:uuid:be52823a-3d4c-4a6d-9f3d-a73fc24bc105>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://iowaindependent.com/1805/clinton-non-viable-in-student-precincts
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.970733
| 709
| 1.585938
| 2
|
No guarantee of customers for a TFN shopping mall
Suppose the Tsawwassen First Nation built a shopping mall and no one came, what then?
Cutting through the hype and hoopla of the proposed TFN mall, one question remains unanswered: Where are the masses of shoppers coming from to support the new TFN mall? Why would Richmond or Surrey shoppers come to the end of Delta to shop here?
The answer is, they would not.
More and more the proposed TFN mall looks like a Ponzi scheme, with the shopping mall being used as bait to force Delta taxpayers to fund tens of millions of dollars in local road improvements to ensure more and larger roads, not to service the shopping mall, but instead servicing housing developments on ALR lands. Already, farmlands are being assembled by developers hoping the provincial government will take the farmland out of the ALR.
The cost of the new roads for the supposed TFN shopping mall are a lure for Delta council to support new housing developments, to create a larger tax base to fund expensive road construction. What should be of great concern to Delta taxpayers is whether or not the TFN is going to fund road improvements in Delta. If the answer is no, then Delta council should not consider any extra road improvements at all and let the ensuing gridlock on choked roads starve the new shopping mall of its much-needed customers.
The lack of real transportation planning and the lack of real public consultation, certainly point to some sort of provincial flim-flam trying to get precious farmlands out of the ALR, and Delta council should not even consider playing the provincial game.
D. Malcolm Johnston, Delta
|
<urn:uuid:a356539a-f768-41be-bf14-9e217c2ceddd>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.surreyleader.com/opinion/letters/151453585.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.943593
| 342
| 1.75
| 2
|
The Fresh Air Interview
Fri December 7, 2012
Celebrating The Life Of Jazz Pianist Dave Brubeck
Originally published on Fri December 7, 2012 11:28 am
This interview was originally broadcast in 1999. Brubeck died on Wednesday at age 91.
In 1954, polls in the leading jazz magazines Metronome and Downbeat selected Dave Brubeck's band as the year's best instrumental group. That same year, Brubeck was the second jazz musician ever featured on the cover of Time Magazine (the first being Louie Armstrong).
Brubeck celebrated a milestone in 2009, when his seminal album Time Out, featuring the hits "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk," celebrated its 50th anniversary. Brubeck marked the occasion with an outdoor concert at the Newport Jazz Festival. A month later, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that he would be a 2009 Kennedy Center Honoree.
In 1999, Brubeck talked to Terry Gross about his decades in the music industry. He explained that he grew up on a 45,000-acre ranch in California, the son of a music teacher and a cattle rancher.
Though Brubeck and his two older brothers studied piano with their mother, the future jazz pianist initially didn't take lessons for very long. He quit when he was 11 to focus on his first love: rodeo roping. But his mother, who thought he was talented at the piano, wouldn't allow him to rope anything larger than a yearling.
"She didn't want my fingers to become hurt," Brubeck said. "My uncle, who was also a rodeo roper, got his finger caught between the saddle horn and the rope, and it took his finger off. And he used to kid the other cowboys and say, 'I would've been a great pianist like my nephew Dave, had I not lost this finger.'"
Brubeck returned to studying the piano after his first year of college, after his zoology teacher offered him some advice. The teacher noticed that Brubeck's attention span seemed more focused on the music school across the street.
"He said, 'Brubeck, your mind is not here with these frogs in the formaldehyde,'" Brubeck said. " 'Your mind is across the lawn, at the conservatory. Will you please go over there next year?'"
Brubeck agreed and started taking classes at the conservatory. But he had a secret: Despite his lessons as a child, he couldn't read music. Once the dean of the conservatory found out, he threatened to not graduate Brubeck.
"But when some of the younger teachers heard this, they went to the dean and said, 'You're making a big mistake, because he writes the best counterpoint that I've ever heard,'" Brubeck said. "So they convinced the dean to let me graduate. And the dean said, 'You can graduate if you promise never to teach and embarrass the conservatory.' And that's the way I've gotten through life, is having to substitute other things for not being able to read well. But I can write, which is something very few people understand."
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
We're remembering jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, who died on Wednesday. Terry Gross interviewed Brubeck in 1999. Before we hear that interview, let's listen to his composition "Three to Get Ready," from the "Time Out" album. Paul Desmond is featured on alto saxophone, Eugene Wright on bass and Joe Morello, drums.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THREE TO GET READY")
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
Dave Brubeck, welcome to FRESH AIR.
DAVE BRUBECK: Thank you.
GROSS: Now, you grew up in Concord, California. Your mother was a classical piano teacher. Did she give you lessons?
BRUBECK: Yeah, I had two older brothers, Henry and Howard, that also took lessons from my mother, and half the community, the people interested in piano studied with her.
GROSS: Was it hard to study with your mother?
BRUBECK: Yeah. It wasn't so bad for my brothers, but I kind of rebelled.
GROSS: How and why?
BRUBECK: How and why? I wanted to be like my father, who was a cattle man and a rodeo roper. And that was - he was my hero, and I wanted to be more like him. So my mother allowed me to stop taking lessons when I was 11.
And we moved to a 45,000-acre cattle ranch, where I spent my last year in grammar school and my high school years, and all summer I worked with my father. Then I went off to college to study veterinary medicine.
GROSS: In the hope that you'd be a help on the ranch?
BRUBECK: Yes so that - I had to go to college, according to my mother, like my brothers. I didn't ever want to leave my dad or my dad's ranch.
My dad was the manager at the 45,000-acre ranch, but he owned his own 1,200-acre ranch, and I owned four cattle that he gave to me when I graduated from grammar school, from the eighth grade. And those cows multiplied, and he kept track of them for years for me. And that was my herd.
GROSS: You know, I'm used to seeing you behind the piano. It's hard for me to imagine you as a cowboy.
BRUBECK: Well, I could send you pictures.
BRUBECK: And there even are some, what we call movies in those days, some of the very first kind of home movies, where I'm with my dad, lassoing and branding and big round-up. So it is documented.
GROSS: Did you sing cowboy songs?
BRUBECK: Oh, all of them, yeah, when they were real cowboy songs like "Strawberry Roan" and "Little Joe the Wrangler," tunes that people don't sing anymore. I loved those songs. The words can still make me cry, and I used to make my kids cry by singing: Joe you take my saddle; Bill, you take my bed; Jim you take my pistol after I am dead. And think of me, please, kindly, when you look upon them all, for I'll not see my mother when the work's all done next fall. Now, that's a cowboy tune.
GROSS: Did you like singing?
BRUBECK: Oh, yeah. I used to sing that and play my ukulele.
GROSS: Ukulele? No, wow.
BRUBECK: Some of my friends played guitar, cowboy songs, yeah.
GROSS: Let me get back to what we were talking about, which was life on the cattle ranch. And there were two cattle ranches in your life, the one that your father owned, and the larger one that he managed. Did you have really strong arms and hands from the work? And do you think that that helped you as a piano player?
BRUBECK: It didn't hurt. My mother would not allow my dad to have me rope anything larger than a yearling because she didn't want my fingers to become hurt. And my uncle, who was also a rodeo roper, got his finger caught between the saddle horn and the rope, and it took his finger right off. And he used to kid the other cowboys and said: I would've been a great pianist like my nephew, Dave, had I not lost this finger.
GROSS: Was your mother convinced that you were going to become a pianist, or she was just worried about your fingers on general principles?
BRUBECK: Well, she thought that I had a certain amount of talent that I was not developing. And so after my first year as a veterinary pre-med, I switched to the music department, which was across the lawn. And that was at the advice of my zoology teacher, Dr. Arnold(ph).
BRUBECK: He said: Brubeck, your mind is not here with these frogs in the formaldehyde. Your mind is across the lawn at the conservatory. Will you please go over there next year?
GROSS: How did he know?
BRUBECK: He - I guess he'd just seen me become kind of blank and be listening to everybody practicing and the music and drifting away from what he was trying to teach me.
DAVIES: Dave Brubeck, speaking with Terry Gross in 1999. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DAVIES: We're listening to Terry's interview with Dave Brubeck, recorded in 1999. Brubeck died Wednesday at the age of 91.
GROSS: Now, I think in spite of the fact that you studied piano with your mother as a boy, you weren't very good at reading music. How well could you read when you started majoring in music in college?
BRUBECK: I couldn't read, and that caused a lot of trouble in the conservatory. So I hid it until I was a senior by not taking piano. I'd take - the other instruments were cello and clarinet. So I was just playing scales and getting by and doing the subjects I had to pass in.
But in my senior year, they said you have to take piano. And the piano teacher in five minutes ran downstairs to the dean and said: Brubeck can't read at all. So the dean said, you know, you're a disgrace to the conservatory, and we can't graduate you.
And when some of the younger teachers heard this, they went to the dean, and they said you're making a big mistake because he writes the best counterpoint that I've ever had, said Dr. Brown(ph). And Dr. Bodley(ph) went in and said, you know, you're wrong. You know, this guy is talented.
So they convinced the dean to let me graduate if I - and the dean said you can graduate if you promise never to teach and embarrass the conservatory.
BRUBECK: So that's the way I graduated, and that's the way I've gotten through life is having to substitute other things for not being able to read well. But I can write, which is something very few people understand.
GROSS: Well, you know, I thought we might pause here and listen to another recently re-released recording, and this features you with the great singer Jimmy Rushing. Now, you haven't done a lot of work with singers over the years, at least not that I'm aware of. Tell me how you managed to do this session with Jimmy Rushing, who had sung with Basie. And he's considered a great blues singer, but he's also a great singer of swing tunes and standards.
BRUBECK: I was on tour with Jimmy in England, and we had to take the train together to the next city. So we were riding in the train for about three hours. And he said: Dave, I want to do an album with you.
And I said: I don't think I'm the right group for you, Jimmy. And he said: I know you're the right group. I've been listening to you for years. And I'm going to set this up at Columbia Records as soon as we get back.
GROSS: Well, why don't we hear you and Jimmy Rushing doing "There'll be Some Changes Made."
GROSS: You like that?
GROSS: Yeah. So do I. And this is from the recently re-issued 1960 recording "Brubeck & Rushing," The Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Jimmy Rushing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THERE'LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE")
JIMMY RUSHING: (Singing) There's a change in the weather, change in the sea. From now on there'll be a change in me. Walk will be different, my talk and my name. Nothing about me's going be the same.
(Singing) Change my long tall for a little short fat. Change my number where I'm stopping at. Nobody wants you when you're old and gray. There'll be some changes made today. There'll be some changes made.
(Singing) Change in the weather, change in the sea. From now on there'll be a change in me. Walk will be different, my talk and my name. Nothing about me's going to be the same.
(Singing) Change my long tall for a little short fat. Change my number where I'm stopping at. Nobody wants you when you're old and gray. There'll be some changes made today. There'll be some changes, oh, some changes made. Oh baby, there'll be some changes made.
DAVIES: That's the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Jimmy Rushing in 1960. We'll hear more of Terry's 1999 interview with Dave Brubeck in the second half of the show. Brubeck died Wednesday on the eve of his 92nd birthday. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. We're remembering jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, who died Wednesday at the age of 91. Terry spoke to him in 1999.
GROSS: Moving along with the story of your life, you were in the Army, I think, toward the end of World War II. Did you see combat?
BRUBECK: I saw it.
GROSS: OK, didn't participate, huh?
BRUBECK: I avoided participation. But, you know, I was in the Battle of the Bulge, and I was on the wrong side of the lines. I was in German territory and...
GROSS: How did you end up in German territory?
BRUBECK: We didn't know where we were, and everything was going wrong. And so the truck driver just took the wrong turn. And I was up there to play a show for the frontline troops with my band, which were all infantry guys that had been wounded. When I say all, most of the guys in my band had been wounded, and when they'd come back behind the lines, if they were musicians, the doctors would send them to me or who was ever interviewing them.
So I had a good band and a band that was very accepted at the frontline because if you wore your Purple Heart - the frontline guys are hard to reach. The USO people usually didn't go up that close, and also, they would have trouble reaching guys that, in the morning, were going to face a terrible kind of life.
But my guys could reach them because they'd been there since D-Day. Some of them had been three months at the front. And so it made it a lot easier for the soldiers to accept my band.
GROSS: After the war was over, you went back to college on the GI Bill, and I think it was then that you studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud. Had you known Milhaud's work very well?
BRUBECK: Well, my brother was his assistant, Howard.
BRUBECK: And just before I went into the Army, I went to see Milhaud and ask him if, when I got out, I could come back and study with him. And he said I could. So that's exactly what I did on the GI Bill. I went directly after I got out of the Army back to Mills College and studied with him.
GROSS: And were you expecting then to write classical music?
BRUBECK: Yeah, and he would tell me don't give up jazz. He said you can do that so well. Why do you want to give it up and become a classical composer?
And so we'd discuss that a lot, and then he said: Look, if you're going to compose, you have to use the jazz idiom, or you won't represent this country. And he said: My favorite composers are Duke Ellington and George Gershwin.
And this really surprised me because you wouldn't have heard that at probably any other conservatory in the country. But, you see, Milhaud was the first guy, first European composer, to use the jazz idiom in classical music, a piece called "The Creation of the World," a ballet.
So he would say: Don't ever give up jazz. You're free. You can go any place in the world where there's a piano, and you can play, and you can make a living. And you don't have to teach or do some of the things that other composers have to do in order to survive.
And he said: And the worst thing you want to get out of are faculty meetings. And I think that's a good reason not to become a teacher in a university or college.
GROSS: So it sounds like he gave you some good advice.
BRUBECK: Oh, yeah. He said: Travel the world. Keep your ears open. Bring back everything you hear. Put it in the jazz idiom. And that's what I did. I still follow his advice.
GROSS: Well, I want to play a 1956 recording, and this is your recording of "The Duke," which you've described as your tribute to both Duke Ellington and Darius Milhaud.
GROSS: And Ellington also, you know, was wonderful at connecting classical form and jazz. Do you want to say anything else about this composition before we hear it?
BRUBECK: Well, it is one of my favorite compositions, and the second theme is where I use Milhaud kind of influences with polytonality, which wasn't being done too much in early jazz. It was being done some, but Milhaud was a master of that.
And then the first part is just kind of my impression of Duke's wonderful band.
GROSS: Let's hear it. This is "The Duke," composed and performed by my guest, Dave Brubeck.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE DUKE")
DAVIES: We're remembering pianist and composer Dave Brubeck with an interview he recorded with Terry in 1999. Let's listen to a track from the album "Brubeck Time," a tune written by Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. It's called "Audrey."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AUDREY")
GROSS: The recording we just heard was released 45 years ago, which was the same year that you were on the cover of Time magazine. What was the impact of this recording, "Brubeck Time," on your career?
BRUBECK: Well, it's a wonderful time in my life, because we had been struggling for years to get to be more known. And as you mentioned, the cover of Time magazine was really something that helped us a lot. But when you mentioned "Audrey," it was Audrey Hepburn that we had in mind, and we never realized that she ever had heard this tune. There was no communication like that. And because she was so important at the United Nations for the work she did with children, when they did a memorial service for her there, her husband asked that they play what you just played. And they said that she usually played it every night or put it on her headphones as she walked through her garden in Switzerland. So it was wonderful to hear that. I wish Paul Desmond had been around to know that she listened to it and liked it.
GROSS: Now, your first record that I think really made an impression on the record-buying public - I mean, it got bought a lot was "Jazz Goes to College."
GROSS: And it was sessions recorded at three different colleges.
GROSS: And, you know, there's a picture of you on it, and you're wearing your glasses. And those glasses are really such a part of your image. And I think in part because that record was "Jazz Goes to College" and part because of those kind of thick, plastic glasses, you maybe had the image of being what was known in those days as an egghead?
BRUBECK: I wish I had. I'm not that smart.
BRUBECK: But people forget that at the same time, we had a huge following at places like the Apollo Theater...
BRUBECK: ...the Howard Theatre in Washington and the universities that they used to call black universities - Afro-American universities. We played the so-called black clubs all through the South, where there were - no white people came in. And in some of the black clubs, we were the only white group that came in. This is what I wish people would remember.
BRUBECK: And we integrated many, many universities in this country, and those are important things to remember. It wasn't just Ivy League places. We were really doing some work that people seem to forget how hard it was to do, where you had to have a police escort to the concert, the president of the college refusing to let you go on and the students demanding you go on. I could tell you a lot of stories about that.
GROSS: The problem was that you were white, or that one of the musicians in the band was black?
BRUBECK: Eugene Wright was black. Yeah.
GROSS: So that was a problem?
BRUBECK: And we couldn't do some television shows, because in those days, you couldn't have black and white together. One show I had to turn down, Duke Ellington took because he, at the moment, he had an all-black band. Sometimes Duke would have a white drummer like Louie Bellson, and that would maybe give him problems. They just didn't want mixed groups on television.
GROSS: Let me play what might be the most famous of the Brubeck Quartet recordings, and that's "Take Five," which you recorded in 1959. Would you talk about this composition? It's a Desmond composition, but I think you worked with him on it.
BRUBECK: Yeah. Paul has - done a radio show in Canada before he died, where he said I'm so fortunate that Dave assigned me to do the section in 5/4, because that was the one track I wanted Paul to do as a solo for my percussionist, the great drummer Joe Morello, because Joe would often play in 5/4 time backstage, which is a time signature that was very rarely, if ever used in jazz. So I would hear Paul start to improvise over Joe playing on a drum pad before he'd go on stage. And so I said just write some of the melodies, the ideas that you're doing, and bring it to rehearsal in a few days. So that's what happened.
He came and he had some ideas that I thought were great. The first thing he said, I can't write anything in 5/4. I've tried and tried. I said let me see what you've got. So he showed me what he had, and I said I can put this together and it'll be great.
And I put the - what he had together as theme one, theme two, and that's how the thing was born. And I named it "Take Five," and he objected to that name. And I said why, Paul? And he said, nobody knows what take five means. What does it mean? I said everybody knows but you, Paul Desmond, what take five means. So I argued with him and I kept that title, which I think is a great title.
BRUBECK: Then, of course, I later wrote the words to it. So I had a little bit to do with this tune.
GROSS: Well, before we hear it, I want to thank you very much for talking with us about your early career. It's really been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
BRUBECK: Thank you, Terry.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "TAKE FIVE")
DAVIES: Dave Brubeck spoke with Terry Gross in 1999. He died Wednesday at the age of 91. Coming up, Maureen Corrigan reviews two new literary biographies of Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
|
<urn:uuid:ac047217-6806-4f65-adf5-ad74e25f9d9f>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.kuer.org/post/celebrating-life-jazz-pianist-dave-brubeck
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.987113
| 5,213
| 1.703125
| 2
|
The sights and sounds of authentic English Morris Dancing will be on display along the Upper Delaware River Valley during late July and early August as performers of the American Travelling Morrice present a weeklong series of shows in communities throughout Bucks, Mercer, and Hunterdon counties. The ATM is an international ensemble of dancers and musicians that has come together each summer since 1976 to offer authentic presentations of the ritual dances of the English Cotswolds in performances throughout the United States and England.
One of the longtime members is Jamie Watson, a Plainsboro resident since 2007. He was first introduced to Morris dancing in 1979 — at three different folk festivals.
“The thing that attracted me is the music,” says Watson. “Aspects of the dance go down to half the tempo to accommodate leaps through the air, and each part of the dance does something different. It is the integration of a forceful music with dancers, and the tempo is driven by what is happening.”
Most of the men on the tour have been dancing for a number of years, and close to 30 members get together every summer for the tour. “It is really a performance dance,” says Watson. “The beauty of the Morris dance is physical and athletic and requires great teamwork.”
The dancers are usually men. Practice and performances are usually September to May with performances at sunrise all over the world on May 1 (May Day).
This year Watson is the Squire, also known as the leader. He has been trying to get the ATM to the Delaware Valley for many years and organized the tour. During the tour the men all camp together on a private property for a week.
Born in Philadelphia, Watson has a dancing background. His mother was a skater in the USO and still practices ballroom dancing. Watson learned ballroom dancing in the kitchen at home. His father was also a ballroom dancer. Watson became familiar with the Princeton area as a resident student of American Boychoir (then called Columbus Boychoir). “When my sister swam with the YWCA my mother met a woman with a son in the school,” says Watson, who was a boy treble for four years.
Along the way Watson learned how to play guitar and banjo and played the coffee house circuit. He graduated from Temple University with a degree in filmmaking and worked as a film editor in Philadelphia. Watson now runs the cable television station for West Windsor and Plainsboro townships and the WW-P school district.
His son, Casey, 22, is also a Morris dancer in ATM, and the pair is one of several father-son duos. “He saw the dance all his life,” says Watson. When Casey was a fifth grade student at Lansdowne Friends School, he and his friends formed a group that did Morris dancing. “It was a big secret at the school,” says Jamie. Casey attended Stateside Restaurant School in Philadelphia and has been a professional chef in Philadelphia for two years.
Watson met his wife Jackie when he was organizing a reunion for the Boychoir and she worked in the reunion development office. She plays the viola with Princeton Symphony Orchestra and teaches music at Millstone River School. Their daughter, Anya, graduated from High School North in June.
Jamie and Jackie coach an all-girls team at Waldorf School. He plays the accordion and she plays the viola. “I love it and I think it’s a great activity for kids,” he says. “The kids have their own costumes, and they dance at dawn on May 1.”
Morris dancing was already a well-established tradition in Shakespeare’s time, with roots in medieval street theater. For hundreds of years, white-clad Morris men have performed the intricate patterns of the dance featuring ringing bells, clashing wooden sticks, and waving handkerchiefs in time to lively folk tunes played on accordion, fiddle, or the traditional pipe and tabor.
Each team or side has its own costume and the kit worn becomes its trademark. Many sides are typically decked out in traditional whites, said to represent springtime and the renewal of life after the dormant darkness of winter. The blue suspenders and tricolored rosettes worn by the dancers are emblematic of the American Travelling Morrice and add a festive flash of color to the dance. The bells ward off evil spirits and gloomy thoughts, and the fierce clashing of sticks may survive as a vestige of the pagan rituals of much earlier times.
Many of the music used today for Morris dance dates from late 18th-century folk music literature. Modern step and arm movements can be traced to the English village where the individual dances originate. Many sides in the United States have recently created their own American Morris dances based on the English styles.
The time-honored custom of passing the hat has always been associated with the Morris. This ongoing tradition allows the audience to share in the dance and express gratitude to the dancers. It has often been said that dropping a coin in the upturned hat of a Morris man brings the donor good luck and prosperity for a year and a day.
English Traditional Dance, American Travelling Morris, The 37th Annual American Travelling Morrice is performing at several locations on each of six days. Each 30-minute show is different. There are 25 guys and the repertoire is large. 609-575-2100 or americantravellingmorrice.org.
Sunday, July 29. Howell Living History Farm at 11 a.m. Wells Fargo Bank, Lambertville, at 2:30 p.m. East Ferry and Main streets, New Hope, at 3:30 p.m. Logan Inn, New Hope, at 4:30 p.m.
Tuesday, July 31. Riegelsville Inn, 11 a.m.; Ship Inn in Milford at 12:30 p.m.; Frenchtown Inn at 3 p.m.; and Lumberville General Store at 4:30 p.m.
Tuesday, July 31. Riegelsville Inn, Riegelsville, PA, at 11 a.m. The Ship Inn, Milford, 12:30 p.m. Bridge and Front streets, Frenchtown, 3 p.m. Lumberville General Store at 4:30 p.m. Stockton Inn at 6 p.m.
Thursday, August 2. Trenton Farmers’ Market at 11 a.m.; Grounds for Sculpture at 2 p.m.; and Douglas Plaza in Trenton at 8 p.m.
Friday, August 3. Peddler’s Village at 11 a.m.; Fonthill Castle at 1 p.m.; Mercer Museum at 4 p.m.; Doylestown downtown at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 4. Honey Brook Organic Farm, Pennington, at 10 a.m.; Washington Crossing Park at noon; Nassau Hall, Princeton, 3 p.m.; and Princeton Public Library at 6 p.m.
|
<urn:uuid:bac31a5f-0e18-43a3-bb64-a8bfe3b31678>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.wwpinfo.com/index.php?option=com_us1more&Itemid=6&key=7-20-12morris
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.965858
| 1,464
| 1.546875
| 2
|
Here’s a twist on Hitler Youth.
A Western Australian Catholic school has been forced to apologize for handing a costume prize to a pre-teen boy dressed as Adolf Hitler.
A class of 9- and 10-year-olds at a Perth school “had been asked to dress up as famous people,” the BBC reported Friday. The boy’s winning costume featured a swastika.
Trying to cover his tracks, the school principal claimed the prize was a “one-off thing” and Hitler was, in fact, “a fairly famous person.” It’s a point well taken, but still inconsiderate of sensible behavior and sensitive teaching for children.
At least these kids can never plead ignorance on an insensitive Halloween costume.
|
<urn:uuid:37c84672-96fb-4da9-8c91-23ce6e87d206>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://blogs.forward.com/the-shmooze/130818/australia-school-apologizes-for-hitler-costume-pri/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975151
| 162
| 1.507813
| 2
|
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on May 8th, 2009 at 9:58 am
(Photos © J. Maus)
The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has completed a project that permanently closes the right-hand turn from N. Interstate to N. Greeley Ave. The turn was at the bottom of a steep hill and after a sharp turn that inhibits sight lines of bicycle riders and right-turning motor vehicles.
In November of 2007, Mayor Sam Adams (then Commissioner of Transportation) called the intersection "inherently dangerous" and ordered PBOT to put up barricades to temporarily close it. Adams' concern came in the wake of two fatal bike crashes (including one at this intersection) that involved right-turning trucks.
The project is the final infrastructure project that was part of a series of bike safety improvement measures funded by an emergency allocation of $200,000 approved by City Council in December 2007.
City traffic engineer Rob Burchfield said that they looked at other options -- including a bike box and a special, flashing "no turns" signal that would be actuated by bicycles -- but that, "We felt closing the right turn would eliminate the conflict and uncertainty." Crews have poured concrete and connected a median island with the sidewalk. The work cost an estimated $10-15,000.
Local artists are working with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to create a memorial mural for Brett Jarolimek on the underpass at this location. Funding for that project is still in the works.Email This Post Possibly related posts
|
<urn:uuid:3b33275c-8afd-44c4-a8b3-de0bc0660d4f>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://bikeportland.org/2009/05/08/pbot-makes-greeley-right-turn-closure-permanent-18396
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.960282
| 328
| 1.5625
| 2
|
checkup. I had quite some time in the chair, and couldn't thinking
about some of the lessons learned:
- The problem with dental procedures isn't the pain. The discomfort
never got above a 2/10. The problem is the fear of pain. Or more
generally, the fear of the unknown. Manage this, and I'm golden.
- The dentist delegates like a madman. As soon as he's done his little
bit, he hands off the work to someone else and goes and helps another
patient. He must have been doing 3 of us at once.
- The dentist sets a fast pace. I don't know if he really is working
faster, but he gives the impression he is. Usually, you want doctors to
take their time with you. That is, unless they're drilling holes in
your teeth. Speed here is a very good thing.
- Novicaine in a remarkable invention. Simply amazing.
I survived, and have to head back in a week to finish the job.
|
<urn:uuid:44384bde-7c40-4e6f-aaa8-f85824951229>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.blogbyben.com/2008/02/lessons-from-dentist.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.973388
| 218
| 1.703125
| 2
|
Mexico could return old ruling party to powerMEXICO CITY (AP) — A single party dominated Mexico for most of the past century, and its loss 12 years ago proved to many that the country was finally a democracy. Now the nation's voters seem ready to bring it back to power in Sunday's presidential election.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A single party dominated Mexico for most of the past century, and its loss 12 years ago proved to many that the country was finally a democracy. Now the nation's voters seem ready to bring it back to power in Sunday's presidential election.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, led by telegenic former Mexico State Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto, has held a strong lead throughout the campaign, and also seems poised to retake at least a plurality in Congress.
The party has been bolstered by voter fatigue with a sluggish economy and the sharp escalation of a drug war that has killed roughly 50,000 Mexicans over the past six years. The desire for change suddenly works to benefit the party known as the PRI that ran Mexico from 1929 to 2000.
Hoping for a shocking upset are leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose narrow loss in Mexico's last election led to charges of voter fraud and weeks of massive protests, and the candidate of the ruling National Action Party, Josefina Vazquez Mota, the first woman ever nominated for the presidency by a major party in Mexico.
It would be a once-unthinkable comeback for the PRI, which many believed was doomed after its 2000 loss and which was still reeling in the last presidential election, when it finished a weak third.
Pena Nieto has cast himself as a pragmatic economic moderate in the tradition of the last three PRI presidents of the 20th century. He has called for greater private investment in Mexico's state-controlled oil industry, and has said he will try to reduce violence by attacking crimes that hurt ordinary citizens while deemphasizing the pursuit of drug kingpins.
All of the parties are accusing rivals of emulating the traditional PRI tactic of offering voters money, food or benefits in return for votes. Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party says Pena Nieto's campaign has handed supporters prepaid money cards worth nearly $5.2 million (71 million pesos).
PRI activists have published photographs of truckloads of handouts it said were given out by Democratic Revolution backers.
But electoral officials have repeatedly insisted that outright fraud is almost impossible under the country's elaborate, costly electoral machinery.
The government also promises efforts to avoid outbursts of violence linked to the country's endemic drug gang violence.
Military and civilian officials announced that the army would step up election day patrols in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, where a bomb in a pickup truck exploded outside city hall on Friday.
The 45-year-old Pena Nieto, who is married to a soap opera star, also has been dogged by allegations that he overspent his $330 million campaign funding limit and has received favorable coverage from Mexico's television giant, Televisa.
University students launched a series of anti-Pena Nieto marches in the final weeks of the campaign, arguing that his party hasn't changed since its days in power.
Pena Nieto says his party has abandoned the heavy-handed ways of the past and will govern in an open and pluralistic manner, and many say the PRI would not be able to reimpose its once near-total control even if it wanted to because of changes in society, the judiciary and Congress.
"The context has changed dramatically," said Rodrigo Salazar, a professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Mexico City. "Society isn't the same. It's a very critical society, a very demanding society, with a strong division of powers."
The final pre-election polls on Wednesday, the last day they could legally be published, showed Pena Nieto with a lead ranging from 8 to 17 percentage points.
Lopez Obrador, 58, was a center-leftist as Mexico City mayor and pioneered some programs that Pena Nieto emulated in the neighboring state of Mexico, such as local pensions for the elderly. But he alienated many voters with his refusal to recognize the narrow victory of National Action's Felipe Calderon in 2006, declaring himself "legitimate president" and mounting protests that gridlocked much of the capital for weeks.
Lopez Obrador says he wants to keep state control over the national oil company, make Mexico self-sufficient in energy and food production, and fund new social spending and jobs programs by cutting waste and corruption, not by raising taxes.
Vazquez Mota, 51, is a former secretary of education and social development in the conservative administrations of President Vicente Fox and his successor, Calderon. She campaigned on the slogan, "different," but has struggled to distinguish herself from Calderon while maintaining the support of the party's power structure.
She has pledged to continue Calderon's war on drug cartels, increase penalties for public corruption and ease rules on hiring and firing employees in order to spur economic growth. On the last day of campaigning, she even promised to make Calderon her attorney-general if elected.
The latest polls showed Pena Nieto favored by 32.2 percent to 41.2 percent of voters, in polls with margins of error ranging from 2.5 to 3 percent.
Lopez Obrador had support ranging from 23.8 to 25.4 percent. Josefina Vazquez Mota had 18.8 to 20.8 percent.
Also running is Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, 57, the candidate of the New Alliance Party, which has links to the powerful teacher's union. His poll support remains in the low single digits.
Mexicans are also electing 500 members of the lower house of Congress and 128 senators. Voters will also select Mexico City's mayor and governors in the states of Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Tabasco and Yucatan. The president is elected for a single six-year term and cannot stand for re-election.
|
<urn:uuid:37fdab3f-161e-4ee8-a98a-af84605c6213>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/164137/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.972095
| 1,262
| 1.734375
| 2
|
The PICU at Tisch Hospital
The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Tisch is currently staffed by seven full-time pediatric critical care specialists who actively collaborate with surgical subspecialties including: general pediatric surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery. Together with our medical subspecialists, we specialize in the complex, multi-dimensional medical care of children. These areas often include: pediatric neurology and epilepsy, pulmonology, hematology/oncology, cardiology, infectious disease, endocrinology, rheumatology among others.
The PICU at Tisch provides 24-hour coverage by pediatric residents who are supervised by the Pediatric Critical Care Attending on duty. Rotating Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows are also involved in the care of patients in the PICU.
Registered nurses with special training and interest in critical care work in the PICU. Respiratory therapists are present 24 hours a day to assist the pediatric critical care team in mechanical ventilation and other aspects of respiratory care. Supporting staff also include pediatric pharmacists, social workers, child life specialists, nutritionists, and physical/occupational therapists.
|
<urn:uuid:1f9c5c5a-cc65-43be-9337-c1834271d8b9>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://pediatrics.med.nyu.edu/criticalcare/patient-care/picu-tisch-hospital
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.931206
| 250
| 1.609375
| 2
|
"Pic-Of-The-Week" Irises by canesisters
TheEasyGarden - Gardening Forum
Easy - Fun - Fulfilling... How Gardening Should Be
You are not logged in.
This will be "protected growing" even if it isn't officially indoors or a greenhouse. I will take another picture of it once it is covered with plastic and has some flats of plants in there.
That will happen soon since serious overcrowding status has again been achieved in the greenhouse and tunnel! What will probably go in here are some plants that can take a frost and I'll just leave them day & night - uncovering them during hours of sunlight. (We had liquid sunshine today .)
I just wanted you to see how simple what I call a "hoopie" can be! These are 10' sections of 1/2" pvc pipe, pushed over 3/8" rebar. They will be covered with construction-grade 6-mil plastic. As hardening off continues apace, this is a handy way of getting plants under cover, overnight. I have also set hoopies up in the gardens.
I quickly set one up over a bed of zinnias last season when late frosts threaten to make me look like a complete idiot for transplanting those tender babies too early. The zinnias survived under the hoopie for 3 days and had a splendid season, fortunately .
I've also planted under these -- setting out hardy Asian greens very early in the season. Even tho' they can take a frost, veggies like that can really benefit from a little protection.
Another stake is driven into the ground in the center at both ends. That is what the plastic film is tied to. The edges of the plastic can be held down with soil, brick or, I like to use long boards. That way, I can roll the plastic up, around the board.
I'll show you over the next few days what I'm about . . . here. near the 49th parallel .
Last edited by digitS' (04/25/2011 9:19 pm)
It looks like it will work great! I need something like that or a coldframe to get our plants outside,we are now all huddled at one end of the table for dinner.
Love that long view, Steve! I keep thinking about setting something like that up, right in the garden- to extend the season. So far, haven't got past the "thinking" stage!
Collector, I think you would really benefit from a cold frame setup. The most difficult part about starting seeds indoors- is getting them used to outdoors! The cold frame really goes a long way to solving that problem. They really don't need to be fancy...
I've made them up to 25 feet long, Lesa.
You have to be concerned about wind if they are of any size but it is a simple matter to use baling twine and run it over the top from opposite corners with 4 more rebar stakes to tie it down.
This is essentially the construction of my larger tunnel in the backyard. The only difference there is that it uses 15 foot pvc pipe and the center pathway is excavated about 16" below grade. (Today, my tunnel's outdoor vestibule is a little rain-flooded !) The 9' by 20' tunnel is very well protected from the wind.
But anyway, the one over the zinnias and others that I have set up in the garden have been 4'wide, 25' long. Not much choice about the zinnias - if it blew away, it blew away! The plants would have been froze black without it.
I've even had bok choy damaged by frost in a hoopie! They aren't perfect frost protection but I bet if 2 small hoopies were set up over the beds inside the plastic tunnel - it would take temperatures near zero F to risk any harm to something like bok choy .
Steve, do you attach the plastic to the hoops with anything? Or does it just get held down on the bottom edges?
I was thinking of something along these lines as a semi permanent
(summer) structure over my tomatoes. Sure would like ripe tomatoes this year...sigh...
They are just held down by the crossed twine over the top, tied to the end stakes, and the weight on the outside edges, Thistle'.
I've seen them with home-made "clips" on the pipes. These were just cut pieces of pvc with 1 screw thru them.
Last year was the first year for me to leave a couple of tomato plants in the greenhouse thru the growing season. The floor in there is just dirt so they had a place to grow but I don't think I'll do that again. I had a little trouble remembering to water them.
Anyway, I was not only impressed by their size by the end of the season but the health of the plants. Protection of most any sort, I suspect, would benefit tomatoes. I've even thought about putting a clear plastic "fence" around them. Many folks, of course, rap their tomato cages in plastic during the 1st weeks of the season.
If your plants are already outdoors . . . what have you done for protection? You have snow this morning, right?
Interesting about keeping plants in the greenhouse for the season... I was thinking it was a great idea- except for the watering part! I'm going to try my sweet potatoes, a couple melons and at least a cherry tomato- just for the experiment.
I saw somebody wrap their tomato cages with bubble wrap- that seemed kind of inspired...
I'm curious how things are going for you in the new greenhouse, Lesa!
I just open it up completely thru the summer. Since it is actually a sunshed with an insulated roof and because the sun gets so high around here during the summer - there isn't a whole lot of sun inside and it isn't terrible hot. Plenty warm, just not terrible . . .
Greenhouses are wonderful things.
Last edited by digitS' (04/26/2011 5:20 pm)
That's how I've done mine, but I keep losing my rebar in our clay mud. I bought a bunch of 1/2" EMT (metal conduit for electrical wire) and gonna give that a try. I use rocks, but boards sound better...maybe I'll get some cheap landscape timbers for the job. Rocks take too long to put on and off and sometimes poke holes in the plastic.
|
<urn:uuid:cd1fce65-2e93-4b94-a54f-b5ace7214aaa>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=282018
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.966648
| 1,363
| 1.515625
| 2
|
Lawson Support Services welcomed children and families to an open house introducing their new day treatment facility for children and teens, the Den, on Thursday, Nov. 8.
Since its small beginnings in 2001, Lawson Support Services has become a comprehensive provider offing a range of programs to clients of all ages including intensive in-home treatment, day treatment, clinical assessments, individual outpatient therapy, medication management and other psychiatric services.
Clinical director Carol Pulley said, “We have been expanding over the years, and from what I have heard from the schools and the community, there is a definite need for this service in Ashe County.”
The Den, located at Family Central behind the WCC School of Cosmetic Arts, is a day treatment center for children aged 5-17 years who are eligible for Medicaid. The center is a child certified Critical Access Behavioral Health Agency that opened mid-Oct. and is accepting clients.
Day treatment is a structure based facility that works with local schools and agencies to provide services and support to children and teens with issues including, anger, disruptive behavior, bullying, lack of friendships, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity and school difficulties.
As part of the day treatment program, the Lawson Support Services staff utilizes many strategies to help clients such as parenting classes, consultation with school staff, skill development, hands-on adventure activities, coping and anger management, conflict resolution skills and leadership building skills along with individual, family and small group counseling.
According to Pulley, children who participate in day treatment receive therapeutic skill-building interventions.
“The Day Treatment Program focuses on social skills and the behavioral component to enable children to function in school. We work very closely with schools, and have monthly child and family team meetings in the school with principals, teachers-as many people as possible who will be supporting the child,” said Pulley.
“Most children, based on their needs, would come every day and step down as they improve. It all depends on the individual child,” Pulley said.
Eligibility for day treatment is dependent on a clinical assessment performed by one of the facility’s licensed therapists. For more information or to schedule an assessment, call 1-877-550-2911.
|
<urn:uuid:67a14514-dacc-42f2-8478-8b356347e5a5>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.jeffersonpost.com/pages/home/push?class=&rel=&per_page=5&x_page=135
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958527
| 460
| 1.539063
| 2
|
HOW TO CLAIM THE EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY TAX CREDIT
All you have to do to take advantage of the Educational Opportunity Tax Credit (EOTC) is file your tax return. If Maine Revenue Services wants additional documentation, they will contact you, but there is no longer any paperwork to fill out with your college. You can find the tax credit worksheet for the EOTC here.
- If you graduated after December 31, 2009, the tax credit worksheet will provide the “benchmark loan payment,” which determines the maximum tax credit you can claim. The benchmark for 2010 is $343.
- If you graduated on or before December 31, 2009, and you have not yet filled out and filed an Opportunity Contract, the documentation that was used when the program was launched, you no longer have to. However, the cap (“benchmark loan payment”) on your eligible tax credit is determined by your college, based on a formula. The benchmark payment for 2008 was $50 and the benchmark in 2009 was $132.
|
<urn:uuid:7c924767-209e-4107-b105-580ffa054783>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.sjcme.edu/finaid/OpportunityMaine
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.968706
| 221
| 1.585938
| 2
|
The continuing struggle to convince the world that Kentucky is not overrun with redneck morons took a step backward during the holidays, when it came to light through the media, that Casey County, Kentucky, resident Danny Hafley had in his front yard near a well-traveled road a life-size mannequin that depicted U.S. President Barak Obama holding a piece of watermelon. News photos show the standing figure wearing a suit, a wide smile, and holding up a slice of melon from which a bite has been taken. The figure’s arms hold up the object as if poised to eat.
According to news reports, Mr. Hafley said the display was meant as a joke and not as a racist symbol.
Today, Kentucky Commission on Human Rights Executive Director John J. Johnson said about the matter that, “Regardless of the racial composition of the many towns and counties across the state, most Kentucky communities know how to welcome diversity and demonstrate common courtesy to other people no matter their differing physical or other attributes. Perhaps Mr. Hafley would also like to be treated with decency and respect by members of his community."
Executive Director Johnson continued, “The so-called yard display sends a message of hatred and blatant disregard of one’s fellows. I can imagine that the larger citizenry of the town of Liberty and Casey County is embarrassed by this piece of news, and I am confident this is not the attitude of the majority of citizens in Casey County.”
Mr. Johnson said, “The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights believes in the people of Casey County and that the local officials and community at large will discourage any such pitiful display and the backwardness that such an antic communicates to the entire world.”
Today, Executive Director Johnson, on behalf of the commission, sent letters to Casey County Judge-Executive Ronald Wright and the City of Liberty Mayor Steve Sweeney urging them and other officials in the area to discourage this type of activity. The letters said the effigy in a yard of one of their constituents is a throw-back to eras when such symbols were used to demean and stereotype as inferior African American people who were enslaved, segregated and abused.
The most recent census statistics show that the African American population of Casey County is .7 percent, with a majority of 97.9 percent of the population being white.
The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is the state government agency that enforces the Kentucky and U.S. Civil Rights acts, both of which make discrimination illegal. The Kentucky Civil Rights Act protects from discrimination people based on the classes of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, and disability in the areas of housing, public accommodations, employment, and financial transactions. Age (40 and over) and tobacco-smoking status are protected in employment, and familial status is a class that protects households with children under age 18 and women who are pregnant in the area of housing. It is against the law to retaliate against anyone who has complained of discrimination to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. The commission rules on discrimination complaints with the authority of a court of law.
|
<urn:uuid:8675fcdc-bf28-4594-afc9-f8f0cc2f3a9c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.examiner.com/article/kentucky-officially-condemns-obama-watermelon-display
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.960029
| 637
| 1.804688
| 2
|
The University of Alberta’s Department of Medicine is a recognized leader in innovative education, world-class research and outstanding patient care.
We are the largest department in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and the biggest at the University of Alberta. More than 800 academic and clinical faculty, students, residents and fellows help achieve our goal of improving health and health care locally and globally. These efforts are supported by more than 300 health, technical and support staff.
The Department of Medicine includes 14 divisions and serves communities throughout Northern Alberta and parts of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories
A successful partnership with Alberta Health Services that emphasizes innovation and care allows us to attract the world’s top medical minds and researchers to build a successful foundation for the next generation of health care leaders.
To improve the health and health care of current and future generations through excellence and innovation in education, research and clinical care.
|
<urn:uuid:dbcfa239-312c-42d0-a598-262733a77cda>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.medicine.med.ualberta.ca/AboutUs
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.935021
| 183
| 1.507813
| 2
|
Senate Democrats Preserve Preventive Care for Women
Today the US Senate voted down the Blunt Amendment 51 to 48. The Blunt Amendment, which was attached to a transportation bill, would have permitted employers to deny their employees health care coverage based on the employer's "moral" objections. Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal, who was standing outside the Senate floor during the vote, celebrated the vote but commented, "It is outrageous that so many senators think it is ok to empower employers to take away health coverage from workers, especially women."
Senator Olympia Snowe (ME) was the only Republican who voted to kill the Blunt Amendment by tabling it as three Democrats, Senators Robert Casey (PA), Joe Manchin (WV) and Ben Nelson (NE) voted with the Republicans to bring the Amendment to the floor for a vote.
The amendment introduced by Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) in response to the Obama Administration's ruling that employer insurance plans must cover FDA approved birth control with no co-pays or deductibles starting August 2012. Employers at religious institutions such as hospitals and universities could elect not to cover contraception but private insurance providers would be required to cover it at no additional cost. Houses of worship would be exempt from the requirement.
The Blunt Amendment would have allowed employers to withhold coverage not only for contraception but other health care such as annual well-woman visits and cancer screenings, counseling, such as for domestic and interpersonal violence, and testing for HIV and STIs, breastfeeding support, and lactation services and supplies.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said of today's vote, "it's just the latest ploy in the Republican agenda of disrespecting the health of American women. I thank my colleagues in the Senate who are working to strengthen women's health, rather than diminish it, by tabling this extreme legislation."
|
<urn:uuid:4a1969d4-1b0d-424a-b5a4-2a6d5840446e>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.msmagazine.com/news/printnews.asp?id=13498
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.974128
| 375
| 1.632813
| 2
|
Check out five trends to help you start the year right.
1. Everpurse: A handbag that charges your phone
Nothing kills a productive day like a dead cell phone battery. Lucky for us, that's what inspired frustrated social worker Liz Salcedo to create Everpurse. The inventive solution allows you to charge your mobile device simply by placing it inside your handbag.
Salcedo and her husband/business partner designed a bag with a built-in pocket that automatically connects to the charger via gravity. Using the same wireless technology as some Nokia products, each bag is equipped with a receiver and battery inside its lining, pulling off a crafty nontechnical look.
The couple took their prototype to the crowd funding website Kickstarter.com, where they found more than 900 backers and raised over $150,000 in support of their project. The future of wireless charging not only looks promising, but stylish as well!
2. Facedeals: Reading your face to give you better deals
When you hear the words "facial recognition technology," do they creep you out? A Tennessee-based ad agency called Redpepperland thinks that using the technology to give shoppers customized in-store deals may get them past their apprehension.
The concept, called "Facedeals," is an automated check-in system that uses passive facial recognition to send customized in-store deals right to your smart phone. Here's how it works: A Facedeals camera installed at a store entrance scans and recognizes your face as you walk in the door. Don't worry if you don't like the idea -- you have to opt in to participate by creating an account through their Facebook profile.
Once you're checked in, the types of deals you are offered depends on your history of Facebook likes. Although the project is not yet directly affiliated with Facebook, the idea is to get businesses to realize that Facebook check-ins are a powerful tool to provide discounts to loyal customers.
Another inventive use of facial recognition comes from a new service called Plum Perfect, which offers makeup palette suggestions based on a photo of your face.
3. Smart Carpet: Carpet sensors that can tell when you fall
It looks like we finally have a real-life magic carpet -- only it won't fly you to your favorite vacation destination.
Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK have designed a "smart carpet" that can tell when a person has fallen. Sensors embedded in the carpet allow it to detect and map walking patterns in real time by acting as a pressure map. Once the signals are recorded by computer, the carpet can also sense any deterioration in walking behavior. If this occurs, it analyzes the force of a fall against a footstep and can be rigged to call for help.
Right now, the goal is to implement smart carpets in care homes and hospitals as a safety measure to decrease the number of emergency admissions due to falls for the 65+ age group.
4. Lockitron: Lock your house with your smartphone
We've all done it before: You're running late, grab everything you can remember and run out the door trying to beat the clock. It's not until you've almost reached your destination that the nagging "Did-I-lock-the-door?" question rears its head.
Lockitron is offering a solution to this common worry by turning your smartphone into a house key. What makes Lockitron different from other "digital house key" apps like Unikey is that it is installed onto existing deadbolts and connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi, which allows you to access it from anywhere.
The device is powered by AA batteries and runs Bluetooth or NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, depending on which device you use. "Knock sensors" can even be installed to send you a notification when someone is at the door.
5. Wallbrights: Customizable wall décor
If you're looking to add a little pizzazz to your household with some wall décor, this one is definitely an eye catcher.
Wallbrights combines simple wall decals with LED lights that are remotely controlled by -- what else? -- a mobile app. The decals, which come in both hexagons and lines, are equipped with an adhesive backing so you can change the pattern and stick them just about anywhere in your home.
Using a smartphone app, you can not only turn the lights off and on, but also control the color scheme. So whether you are looking for colors that suit your mood or just add style to your walls, this lighting innovation is sure to spark conversation.
|
<urn:uuid:bbf23dbf-67ee-4c00-a028-756efdf4d8f3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.clickondetroit.com/lifestyle/5-trends-to-start-the-year-right/-/1718880/17934424/-/tci4vrz/-/index.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.952896
| 945
| 1.570313
| 2
|
Smith County Master Gardener
The garden is, at this time, a bit tattered, and compared with a month ago; however some of our old standbys give it splashes of brilliant color here and there. Take Oakleaf Hydrangea. It gave us beautiful white blooms in spring and now it gives us beautiful red foliage. You are drawn to it as you round the path in the IDEA Garden as its huge red leaves demand your attention.
When the huge leaves finally drop, the interesting exfoliating trunks will give winter interest.
Right now is a perfect time to plant shrubs and trees. Choose ones that provide interest more than one season. There are so many.
Soon the leaves will drop and we will be able to see all our trees in silhouette. Notice the lacy foliage against the winter sky or against a sunset. It will thrill you.
Plants of all kinds make East Texas the beautiful place it is.
Dee Bishop writes about plants growing in Tyler Rose Garden.
|
<urn:uuid:6ecc1ed9-a2ea-41ab-addf-f0ffe2d8271a>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://tylerpaper.com/article/20121129/FEATURES03/121129827/-1/FEATURES0701
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.931624
| 208
| 1.742188
| 2
|
NYC - man pushed in front of train
Dec 4, 2012 / 8:06 pm
Police questioned a suspect Tuesday in the death of a New Yorker who was pushed onto the tracks and photographed just before a train hit him, an image that drew virulent criticism after it appeared on the front page of the New York Post.
Investigators recovered security video showing a man fitting the description of the assailant working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.
Witnesses told investigators they saw the suspect talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached Ki-Suck Han at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train's path.
Police took the man into custody Tuesday, but he hasn't yet been charged.
Han, 58, of Queens, died shortly after being struck. Police said he tried to climb a few feet (meters) to safety but got trapped between the train and the platform's edge.
The Post published a photo on its front page Tuesday of Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train as the situation unfolded.
Abbasi said in an audio clip on the Post's website that he used the flash on his camera to try to warn the train driver that someone was on the tracks. He said he wasn't strong enough to lift Han.
"I wanted to help the man, but I couldn't figure out how to help," Abbasi said. "It all happened so fast."
Read more World News
- James Caan revisits the '70s at Cannes
- Military sex abuse victims seek care
- Did North Korea launch missiles?
- Tornadoes level homes in Oklahoma
- Wave of attacks in Iraq, kill at least 70
- John Lennon guitar sells for $408,000
- Arrests made in Las Vegas iPad killing
- Mice and lizards return from space
- Plane crashes at airshow in Turkey
- One winning ticket for $590M Powerball
- Pope decries banks over people
- French gay marriage law signed
(Click for RSS instructions.)
|
<urn:uuid:e8980254-5bc1-4b9d-862c-4efed6750e74>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.castanet.net/news/World/84107/NYC-man-pushed-in-front-of-train
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.976428
| 463
| 1.554688
| 2
|
Compete with your friends and other players to have the best farm in the world. Begins to grow crops, raise animals. Build houses for living and other buildings to make products. Sell and buy products to thrive. Hire employees to help you and communicate with your friends to create cooperatives and thus grow much more and better. Visit the farms of your friends to see if they are doing better than you.
|
<urn:uuid:d088e744-8062-468c-a4b4-6fedb4bbc5f0>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://bigfarm.co/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978611
| 82
| 1.695313
| 2
|
Jesuit Volunteers: Juntos en el Camino (Together on the Journey)
Inside USD -- This reflection was written by Megan Kush ‘10 (pictured far left) for Ministry and Liturgy magazine. Kush, a native San Diegan, graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in sociology and Spanish and served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps until August and hopes to continue working in parish and youth ministry.
St. Therese of Lisieux reminds us so eloquently in one of her well-known prayers to “trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.” As I sat in the first pew of the church on Ash Wednesday watching the youth of the parish distribute ashes to the community, I witnessed their faces beam with delight, and I shared their joy. (Full Story)
|Contact||College Of Arts And Sciences | firstname.lastname@example.org | (619) 260-4545|
|
<urn:uuid:52695fb8-0528-4709-ae5f-af6c70767ec1>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.sandiego.edu/cas/sociology/news_events/news_detail.php?_focus=43316
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.937211
| 199
| 1.53125
| 2
|
In an interview with CBS, Sen. Rand Paul argued that the GOP’s “bomb everyone tomorrow” policy is hurting it on the East and West coasts:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Monday that Republicans can win in New England and on the West Coast if they’re willing to drop a “we need to bomb everybody tomorrow” foreign policy.
“I think one of the problems we face, as a Republican party, is that we’re behind the eight-ball to begin with,” Paul said on CBS’ “This Morning.” “We’re not winning the West Coast. We’re not winning New England. Maybe we need to embrace more Ron Paul Republicans, more libertarian Republicans. … It means people who are little bit less aggressive on foreign policy. They believe in defending the country, but they don’t believe we need to be everywhere all the time.”
If the Obama’s election illustrated anything, it’s that there’s not a major difference between the GOP and Democratic Party when it comes to a general willingness to intervene and a willingness to use force.
The differences are much more apparent when it comes to where, when and how they choose to intervene, and in areas like diplomacy. The Obama administration has ramped up the drone program, gone into Libya, and surged in Afghanistan. And it’s the Obama administration that leaked stories about the “Kill List” and worked with Hollywood on a movie about the Osama bin Laden raid. By Rand Paul’s logic, Obama should be losing New York and California, which he obviously is not.
Of course Americans don’t want the military getting entangled in unnecessary conflicts. But most would probably disagree with what Ron and Rand Paul view as legitimate reasons for national defense. For example, polls show the majority Americans say they would support a preemptive U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear program, if it came to that. People generally understand that sometimes preemptive action needs to be taken to prevent larger conflicts down the road.
|
<urn:uuid:b1f3cce7-b30a-4e38-b84e-e00a5dafb648>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/10/rand-paul-bombs-on-defense-analysis-wars/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.940831
| 438
| 1.523438
| 2
|
Not all games are the same. Some are video games that cam be played for hours for entertainment while others are educational board games. Games are designed for customer appeal for both boys and girls. Genres for games vary from adventure to mystery to appease the masses. There are different goals in each game that teaches a lesson or allows players to have a good time.
I like playing video games and board games. Adventure, mind and luck games are my favorite game genera's. Games that pin family members against one another are also my favorite kinds of games. I don't spend much time playing games but when I do i normally play video games like Raving Rabbits and Pokemon and board games like Kids battle the grownups and Mancala.
|
<urn:uuid:7fca67e6-f397-4a89-a8d0-29291b025155>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://youthvoices.net/posts/user/3269
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975992
| 150
| 1.625
| 2
|
Hi everyone and sorry if this topic has been rehashed too many times. I heard that Emily Hughes uses hinged skates (am not sure if this was only rumour and/or I misread, though). Can anyone enlighten me about these skates? Do they resemble the clap skates used by speedskaters in any way? When I played hockey, I wanted to try clap skates, but my dad told me that what I'd gain in speed, I'd lose in terms of control. Do these hinged figure skates increase a skater's speed but not allow them as much control as traditional skates?
Here are some other random skate questions that I was wondering about; please have patience as I don't skate myself but have been reading here and there about the lack of technological development over the past century when it comes to skates.
1) Are there any "Nike Air" skates out there - with a cushion of air or gel in the sole that makes it easier on the skater when landing jumps?
2) Can edge jumps be done on hockey skates? (And no, I'm not going to try this at home.)
Hinged figure skating boots are different from the clap boots used by speed skaters. The point of the clap boot is that a hinge at the front of the blade allows the skater to raise his foot in stroking without the blade leaving the ice. This increases the speed quite a bit. They were used in the 1998 Olympics and in the time trials every skater set a new world record -- for about two minutes until the next one skated.
The hinged figure skating boot has a hinge in the ankle of the boot. This is supposed to increase the flexibility and cushioning of the boot on jump landings. In principle, this should lead to fewer hip injuries.
Detractors say that (as is the case for any attempt to create a more flexible boot) it might just replace hip injuries with ankle injuries. Skaters have been slow to try them because you do lose some control in jump take-off.
The American skater who uses them exclusively is Alissa Czisny. I don't know about Emily Hughes.
I hope someone will chime in on your questions 1 and 2. Interesting questions. It does seem like people should be working harder to create a boot that doesn't force top skaters into early retirement because of chronic hip pain.
Last edited by Mathman; 08-01-2006 at 01:16 PM.
The Jackson Ultima ProFlex is the brand of hinged boot worn by Alissa Czisny last season that generated quite a bit of publicity during and after Skate America: http://www.proflexboot.info/web/prof...flexpage1.html
Other U.S. Nationals skaters that wear these boots are the senior pair team of Amanda Evora/Mark Ladwig, men's competitor Rohene Ward (he can land the quad toe and triple axel in them), and junior Jonathan Cassar.
Hockey players can do edge jumps in hockey skates. I see hockey players doing loops and axels often in their hockey skates.
In terms of the Nike air skates; I think it would be very difficult to mount a blade on a Nike-like sole. It needs to be a wooden sole. There have been one piece skates like Edea skates but many skaters prefer to have a specialist moutn and adjust their blades.
In terms of shock absorption, I have seen Harlick offer shock absorbing insoles for its custom skates. Regular skaters like myself choose to buy rubber insoles and customize them for our skates. I don't jump but I find that they help a bit. Also many skaters do put orthotics in their skates (Tim Goebal relied on Klingbeils with orthotics after he had all that trouble with his skates) and skatemakers do design skates to allow room for an orthotic.
In terms of a hinge skate, I have seen them in the shop. They look like comfortable skates and are really padded. I'm not an advanced skater and I think that sales people do not want to sell hinged skates to beginner skaters. I really don't see why as the skate is hinged therefore there won't be an issue with breaking in the boot. Usually beginner skaters are directed toward softer boots because they aren't skating hard enough to break in a more advanced pair of boots.
Last edited by soogar; 08-01-2006 at 02:56 PM.
Oops, my bad. Thanks for the correction, Mathman. I only remembered it was an American lady but neither Kimmie nor Sasha, and my mind went immediately to Emily.
Originally Posted by Mathman
Soogar and Sylvia, thank you for your input. Now I am wondering whether the sole of a skate absolutely must be made of wood - is this because it needs to be a stiff material?
Another question that popped into my head: when she was a kid, my mom had roller skates that she strapped to her ordinary shoes. Could this be done effectively with figure skating blades strapped to shoes (much like medieval skates, I think)? Or does the stiffness of the skate boot give necessary support and control?
I think that the soles are made of layers of leather. I know that Riedell has an option where they put a layer of cork in the heel and midsole to absorb some shock. Beginner skates often have black plastic soles. I don't think air or gel soles would be good- movement could affect the angle of the bottom of the sole (where the blade is attached) relative to the top (where my foot is). It's important to have correctly aligned blades.
Old-fashioned skates were made strapped to regular shoes. However, modern leather boots are *very* stiff, much more so than street shoes. As your feet sweat in them, the leather softens and reshapes in the form of your foot- that perfect fit is extremely important.
I tried on the hinged skates when I got new skates earlier this summer and I don't think I would like them- they can fit perfectly but you can still move your ankle completely. I like the resistance I feel in traditional leather skates.
Last edited by IcyBallerina; 08-02-2006 at 04:59 PM.
The hinged proflex boots are a step in the right direction in the future of skating equipment, but there are a few issues that arise when switching to this new technology.
I find it takes an elite skater at least a month to adjust to the different balance point in the boot. They must adjust to landing jumps with a much deeper ankle bend, and a slightly different feel to the run of the blade. The boots are also much heavier than say, a Riedell 1500 with cork soles.
On the plus side- sit spins are much deeper and freeleg extension is better. The take-off to lutz jumps is more controlled, as the boot holds the skater's ankle firmly on the edge more than a traditional skate boot. So there is more stability in the edges but greater flexibility in jump landings and deep knee spinning positions. It does take a bit of time to centre the spins though.
On the negative side -- prepare to be black and blue from the knee to your ankle on your freeleg in the air. There is this lovely plastic knob on the back spine of the boots that loves to cosy up to your shin when in the aerial backspin postion. Let's just say that double axels hurt like heck if you don't have a wrap and pull in tightly!
On the positive side -- back and knee injuries seem to have abated in skaters with proflex that I am familiar with, as the ankle is now absorbing so much more of the shock from triples.
The newest generation of the proflex is not as bulky as in the past, and there are now 4 wires to hold the upper part of the boot together instead of two. Much snugger fit - but I've seen a tendancy to develop tendonitis at the point that the bottom plastic button (where the wires cross over the tongue) But then I've also seen that happen in Harlicks where the tongue crosses over the boot.
Overall - I wouldn't recommend this boot to a beginner or intermediate skater just yet. But I hear there are plans to introduce a lighter, simpler version for that market. I hope that is true because if a skater learns how to use this technology at an earlier stage, they may avoid some injuries
However, if you are a higher level skater and have the time to adjust to the new boot - go for it.
I spoke with a Jackson rep at Adult Nationals, and according to him, there is no reason a beginner/intermediate skater cannot wear the ProFlex. Because the design allows for more ankle bend without having to break in the skate, there isn't the concern of "too much boot" that you see with younger skaters trying to skate in high-level boots. Also, by starting earlier, its less difficult to try to adapt to the differences between regular boots and the hinged ones.
Originally Posted by redhotcoach
My main concern is the technology itself. When this boot first came out, there were complaints about the knob and that the knob actually came off after a time. The manager at the skate shop told me that he wouldn't sell this boot because they hadn't worked out all the kinks yet. Of course, my thought is that someone has to use the product in order for kinks to be worked out.
Th proflex boots don't fit every foot and so custom boots are recommended for elite skaters. If a beginner has money to burn - go for the boots but they cost over $800. Certainly not in the price range of the usual beginner.
Originally Posted by dancindiva03
Plus if it took an elite skater 4-6 weeks to adjust then a beginner might find it very frustrating every time they face plant on the ice - a side effect of too much flex in the ankle.
And, they are very heavy - more weight than a beginner should have on their feet. Until Jackson comes out with a light-weight version, I would get my beginners to wait. That's why learn-to-skate children in the Jackson softec boots are able to pick up skills faster than those in the solid moulded boot.
AS for the knob - the newest version that came out May 1st has a small knob on the back and better security for the wire system, which had a tendancy to fall out in one of the other generations.
That said - the skaters I know in the Proflex will have a back-up pair of boots at all qualifying competitions this year --- just in case!
I'm not saying that an absolute beginner should even consider the ProFlex skates. I'm sure that when the rep told me that "beginners" could wear the boot, he didn't mean Basic Skills kids, or skaters working on the pre-preliminary tests or something. The point is that you don't have to be an elite skater to benefit from them.
Originally Posted by redhotcoach
Elite skaters taking 4-6 weeks to adjust to the new skates is mist likely due to the facts that 1) they have been skating for several years already in the regular boots and 2) they are doing more difficult, high-risk elements. Adapting to a new boot would be easier if you're working on a single loop that a triple loop, or whatever.
My husband just ordered a pair. He does not jump or even have his scratch spin. He got them because he has a dickens of a time flexing his foot for every skating move. He is 58. The rep suggested the flex boot because of the ability to flex without fighting the boot. My husband tried one on and could not believe how much he could flex with it! Plus, it had lots of cushioning so he did feel fully supported and not "loose" like he thought he would.
how about the Graf "hinged" boot (F4000)
we're upgrading boots for our very small/light 14 year old girl-suggestion for the f4000 was made because she tends to get sore knees from impact landing...they don't look much different from her edmonton specials-and told they're good for protecting against injury...but reading about them makes me wonder if they'll do worse instead of better...anyone out there have these boots?
At the rink. Again.
Those should be much better for knee impact. I don't have them, but they have a hinge effect on them (not the same as the Jacksons, though) which should make it easier on the knees.
I know a couple young skaters using them, and they had very little trouble adjusting and there is no break in period. One of them did double axel in the first 5 minutes on them. Also the amount of knee bend with the skaters has greatly improved.
|
<urn:uuid:f6985171-90a4-4bee-be55-aed742369afd>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?13896-Hinged-skates&p=202099&viewfull=1
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.968078
| 2,754
| 1.5625
| 2
|
“Everyone likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.” – Arthur Miller
There is something decidedly magical about wit. Even in its written form, when a comment reveals a refreshing insight, especially within a familiar arena, there is a burst of energy and an experience not unlike when the magician produces a bunch of silk flowers “from nowhere.”
However, unlike the sudden appearance of faux vegetation, wit tends to allude to a meaningful relationship between two or more well-known entities. The witty comment suddenly yanks away the handkerchief et voila, what was hidden is now revealed. Part of wit’s unique charm is that, unlike an overt magic effect, there is seldom a sense of anything hidden or lying in wait prior to the revelation.
Wit in its spontaneous verbal form it is even more magical. To produce a line or comment, obviously on the spur of the moment (after all, the line was in response to a spectator’s comment about her son’s recent birthday party) can appear like a true feat of magic, complete with similar accompanying remarks, “He’s pretty fast!” Improvised wit also has a profoundly grounding effect on both the performer and the audience because improvisation, by definition, is perfectly of the moment and unique to that particular situation.
I love wit. I love the combination of insight, deftness and daring. To not only say sparkling, funny things, but to even run the risk of offending, then instead charm, now that is a thrill! Improvising is magic and juggling combined, and much of its strength lies in it ability to reveal new truths. Two extremely powerful things, the “new” and the “true.” Novelty alone is stimulating. Combined with insight it is a tool capable of inspiring awe. However, such a tool can be easily mishandled so that it offends and separates the performer and audience rather than nurturing an intimacy.
For this reason, the first few witty comments I make in front of a new audience tend to be gently self-deprecating. I will often ask someone if I look like a magician, to which they often reply, “No.” In response, I look a little embarrassed and say, “Thanks for the support!” Self-deprecation can be an extremely dependable way to get an audience on your side, but be sure to keep it gentle. If you are too rough on anyone (yourself or a spectator) it will only reflect badly on you.
After mentioning I am a magician, I will also often quip, “I know what you’re thinking. ’A little more height and hair might be more convincing, Merlin!’” Another self-deprecating line, but I always deliver it with my shoulders back and a big warm smile on my face. My posture and delivery exude strength and confidence while the line undercuts any misperceptions of me as cocky. This in turn only adds to my apparent comfort and sense of security.
Having tossed a few playful darts in my own direction, people will be open to a few witty comments sent their way and even take it as a compliment. As a sign that you trust that they are a secure enough person to not take it “the wrong way.” But of course, choosing the right people to joke with and choosing the right joke is everything. Learning this takes years of performing for “real people” on a regular basis.
Keep in mind, self-deprecating material will not work for everyone, especially if they do not have strong self-esteem. In such cases, the words ring a little too true and can create an uncomfortable mood.
|
<urn:uuid:9f426895-de87-4ac6-98fa-11647ba6151e>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.jaysankey.com/wit/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.951164
| 778
| 1.640625
| 2
|
Research Projects Previously Conducted at RIA
The following list includes a selection of some of the previous research conducted at RIA, now concluded or in the final stages of data analysis, going back as far as 1985. These studies demonstrate the breadth and scope of contributions by RIA scientists to the addictions’ field. The researchers can be reached through
e-mail from the Principal Investigator page of this site.
|Barnes/Farrell||Family and Adolescent Study: A six-wave longitudinal study of family influences on the development of adolescent alcohol misuse has been carried out with funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Respondents in the general population of Western New York were first interviewed in 1989 and were re-interviewed at yearly intervals though 1996. Adolescents were 13-16 years old at wave one and 18-22 years old at wave six. The sample consisted of over 600 adolescents as well as mothers, fathers, and adolescent siblings. Later waves included an adolescent peer who was independently interviewed. Over 10,000 individual interviews were carried out with target adolescents and significant others over the course of six waves of data collection. Numerous presentations and publications have been completed. Key longitudinal analyses using six waves of data show that parenting practices, particularly, support and monitoring, influence the onset of alcohol misuse and the trajectory of alcohol misuse over the course of adolescence. Funded by grants of $3,148,373 from NIAAA, 1989-97.|
|Barnes/Miller||Sports, Gender, & Adolescent Substance Use: Grace Barnes and Kathleen Miller served as co-principal investigators on this project coordinating the research efforts of a team of collaborating scientists which included Dr. Michael Farrell, professor in UB’s Department of Sociology, Dr. Don Sabo, professor at D’Youville College and Dr. Merrill Melnick, professor at SUNY College at Brockport. Extending previous research by this group, the specific aims of the study included determination of the nature of relationships between sports and other specific extracurricular activities and substance use and other risky adolescent behaviors. Analyses indicated that adolescent sports participation buffers against some health-risk behaviors, such as tobacco use, illicit drug use, and suicidality, while exacerbating other health-risk behaviors, such as problem drinking. The effects of athletic participation also differed by gender: teenage girls involved in sports reported reduced levels of sexual risk-taking, while teenage male athletes reported elevated levels. Additional findings, including gender and racial/ethnic differences in relationships between athletic participation and health risks, were published in a number of journals: International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Sociology of Sport Journal, Substance Use and Misuse, and Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Funded by a grant of $462,000 from NIDA, 2000-2004.|
of Gambling and Alcohol Use in Youth: The overall aims of this study were to determine the relationships between
gambling, alcohol misuse, other substance use, and delinquency, and to
examine the factors influencing these problem behaviors among youth. Secondary
analyses were carried out using two longitudinal data sets from previously
funded NIAAA studies. The “Family and Adolescent Study” was
a six-wave longitudinal panel study of 699 adolescents, aged 13-16 in
wave one and 18-23 in wave 6. “Drinking and Delinquency in Young
Men” was a three-wave longitudinal panel study of substance use and
delinquency among 625 males, aged 16-19 in wave one and 19-22 in wave
Results showed gambling, like alcohol use, is prevalent among youth, with annual gambling rates of 81% and 90% among males in studies one and two respectively, and a 70% prevalence rate among females in study one. Cards and games of skill — e.g., basketball, pool — were the most common forms of gambling. Alcohol misuse among males predicted increased gambling over time or a pattern of stability of high rates of gambling. Higher parental monitoring and lower alcohol misuse were significant in predicting a decreasing pattern of gambling among males in the delinquency study. Alcohol misuse predicted an increasing pattern of gambling for females only when other factors such as high impulsivity or low parental monitoring were present. This study showed that while problem behaviors are related, there are also uncorrelated antecedents predicting distinct types of youthful problem behaviors. Peer delinquency showed numerous significant pathways to youth problem behaviors for both females and males. Gambling, while correlated with other problem behaviors, showed the least commonality with alcohol misuse, drug use, and delinquency outcomes. Research funded by a grant of $308,000 from NIAAA, 2000-2003.
|Barnes||Trends in Alcohol Misuse Among Minority Adolescents: The objectives of this project were to examine the trends in alcohol misuse and other problem behaviors among ethnic minority secondary students over the decade spanning the mid 1980s to mid 1990s. Three large, comparable cross-sectional surveys of New York State school students were examined showing the patterns of alcohol use among Native American, West Indian, African American, Hispanic, and white adolescents. The findings showed that a downward trend in alcohol consumption in the 1980s stopped by mid-1990s. These trends were observed in all racial/ethnic groups. Furthermore, alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems actually increased among younger adolescents but not among older adolescents. Implications of this research are that alcohol prevention efforts should be targeted to younger adolescents since early initiation into drinking has been shown to predict the development of alcohol misuse in later adolescence and adulthood. Funded by a grant of $305,741 from NIAAA, 1997-2000.|
|Knowledge Exchange and Skills Training for Therapists
The goal of this study was to develop a training program for therapists using a combination of laptop computers, an interactive database, and distance learning in a state-of-the-science, innovative model of technology transfer and knowledge exchange. The training program offers instructional design technology, a constructivist theory-based approach to learning, and a computer-based Post-Training Support Center. A clinical trial in a series of four phases allowed for ongoing development and refinement of the training materials with 90 volunteer clinicians. This investigation will provide a better quality of learning and understanding and make empirically supported treatments available to broad audiences of community-based clinicians. Dr. Chris Barrick’s co-investigators are Drs. R. Lorraine Collins, UB School of Public Health and Health Professions, School of Public Health and Health Professions, and Nancy Smyth, UB School of Social Work. Funded by a grant of $1,585,000 from NIDA, 2005-2010.
|Relapse Among Severely Mentally Ill Alcohol Abusers
The aims of this research are to look at factors that predict who continues to drink following alcohol and mental health treatment versus those individuals who are able to maintain abstinence from alcohol. We anticipate that some of the important factors affecting these relationships will include the extent and severity of psychiatric symptoms, how long the alcohol problem has existed, how regularly dual-diagnosis treatment is attended, and the types of coping skills project participants have to deal with difficult situations involving alcohol or other drugs. This four-year study will result in a better understanding of the kinds of factors that are most likely to lead to continued problem drinking among severely mentally ill individuals and in turn, help in the design of treatment programs that better meet the needs of this population. Dr. Clara Bradizza's co-investigators are Drs. Gerard Connors and Paul Stasiewicz of RIA and Stephen Maisto, Syracuse University. Funded by a grant of $1,567,083 from NIAAA, 2002-2007.
|Bradizza||Drug Coping Skills Assessment of Dual-Diagnosis Patients: Dr. Bradizza evaluated the drug-specific coping skills of individuals dually-diagnosed with schizophrenia and a drug use disorder. Funded by a grant of $538,368 from NIDA, 1996-2002.|
|Brewer/Frone||Factors Associated with R.N. Decisions to Work: This Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) award to Principal Investigator Carol Brewer, associate professor in the UB School of Nursing was a collaborative effort with Co-investigators Christine Kovner, School of Nursing, New York University, and Michael Frone, RIA senior research scientist and associate professor in the Department of Psychology. The three-year study examined the relationships of R.N. characteristics, work setting, and labor market regions to R.N. job satisfaction and organizational commitment as well as intention to work and actual work participation. Understanding why R.N.s work, work part-time, or do not work may be useful to government and the private sector in developing reforms that may modify workforce participation and help abate the cycles of shortages which occur regularly. The researchers expanded tools that can be used to examine work behavior of the R.N. population and possibly help in the development of relevant policy. Funded by AHRQ, 2003-2005.|
|Coffey/Stasiewicz||Emotion and Craving in Alcoholics with Comorbid PTSD: Using an empirically supported behavioral treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), this project examined whether a reduction in negative emotion leads to a reduction in alcohol craving in persons with comorbid PTSD and alcohol dependence (AD). The study was a collaboration across University at Buffalo departments by the Department of Psychiatry’s Scott Coffey, principal investigator and RIA’s Paul Stasiewicz, co-investigator. Funded by NIAAA, 2001-2004.|
|Motivation in Context: Risk for Early Substance Use
In this longitudinal study, Principal Investigator Dr. Craig Colder of UB’s Department of Psychology examined how shifts in appetitive motivation converge with community and peer contexts to influence both implicit and explicit beliefs supportive of substance use. Starting from developmental-ecological theory that posits the initiation of substance use in childhood and adolescence is a function of reciprocal and interacting influences between individuals and their socio-environmental context, a sample of 10-12 year old children were assessed across three waves. This allowed for the examination of how changes in these constructs presaged substance use. Child motivational profiles based on approach, inhibition and self-regulation were assessed using laboratory tasks, physiological indicators and parent reports. Multiple methods were used to assess beliefs about substance use, and peer and community context. This research has the potential to provide important direction for how the content of substance use preventive interventions could be tailored for specific populations and to target relevant etiological processes for maximal effectiveness. His co-investigators included RIA’s Dr. Rina Eiden and Dr. Liliana Lengua of the University of Washington, Drs. Larry Hawk and Jennifer Read of UB's Department of Psychology, and Dr. William Wieczorek of Buffalo State College. Funded by NIDA to Dr. Colder, subaccount to RIA, 2006-2011.
|Collins/Bradizza||40 oz. Views: Alcohol Expectancies for Malt Liquor: This three-year study developed and tested the psychometric properties of a measure of beliefs about the effects of malt liquor. Malt liquor typically is marketed to younger, hip consumers and is sold in large volume containers (e.g. 40 oz) that cannot be resealed, thereby encouraging heavy drinking. Young adults (age 18 to 30 years) who regularly consumed malt liquor were identified by using computer-assisted telephone interviews. Some participated in focus groups designed to identify beliefs about malt liquor and the contexts in which it is consumed. Questionnaires were administered to approximately 600-800 participants. Results to be released soon.Funded by a $468,333 award from NIAAA, 2001-2005.|
|Collins||Nurses’ Substance Abuse: Stress, Coping, and Self-Efficacy: This study consisted of a survey that assessed nurses’ lifetime and current use of licit (e.g., alcohol) and illicit (e.g., cocaine) substances. Surveys were mailed to 4,000 nurses who were randomly selected from the 25,000 licensed nurses (RNs and LPNs) who resided in Western New York. Initial data was collected in 1990 and the survey was repeated one year later. Results indicated differences between RNs and LPNs. For example, more RNs reported lifetime and current use of alcohol, while more LPNs reported lifetime and current use of cigarettes. More RNs reported lifetime use of opiates and hallucinogens as compared to LPNs. There were differences in lifetime substance use based on work setting and nursing speciality. Age and marital status were related to substance use. Lifetime experiences of negative consequences were rare and few nurses reported dependence on substances other than tobacco and caffeine. Funded by a grant of $776,966 from NIDA, 1990-94.|
|Collins/Dermen||Restraint and Attributions: Risk Factors in Alcohol Abuse
This four-year grant extended Dr. R. Lorraine Collins’ previous program of research (1988-2003) on the drinking behavior of young adults (ages 21 to 30 years) as they moved from being social drinkers to developing drinking problems. The grant involved three studies. The first study examined affect, restraint, and other psychosocial variables involved in alcohol use. The second was a laboratory study in which the researchers induced moods and examined the effects on drinking. The third, an intervention study, examined whether changing individuals’ affective states influencde their drinking behavior over time. Funded by a grant of $1,569,584 from NIAAA, 2003-2008.
|Conner/Houston||Attempted Suicide and Alcohol Dependence
Using a case-control study design, this study examined the roles of reactive aggression and social isolation in suicide attempts and the level of planning preceding attempts in treated alcoholics. This study was funded by NIAAA to Dr. Kenneth Conner, principal investigator on the study and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Co-investigators in Rochester include Yeates Conwell, M. D., Paul Duberstein, PhD and Sean Meldrum, M. A. RIA Research Scientist Dr. Rebecca Houston was co-investigator on the study, managed data collection at two Buffalo sites, and supervised the Buffalo-based staff. Subaward to Dr. Houston from the University of Rochester, 2006-2011.
|Therapeutic Alliance as a Change Mechanism in Alcoholism Treatment
In this two-year investigation, alcohol-dependent patients participating in a 12-week outpatient treatment program were assessed over the course of treatment on their perceptions of the therapeutic alliance (therapist perceptions also will be assessed). The project is examining the within-treatment, week-to-week relationship between the ratings of the therapeutic alliance (as perceived by the patient and therapist) and the patient's alcohol involvement (percent days abstinent and drinks per drinking day) during treatment. The project also is examining profiles of the therapeutic alliance (as perceived by the patient and therapist) over the course of treatment in relation to alcohol involvement during treatment and during a six-month follow-up period. Results from this study will be used to characterize the interplay of the therapeutic alliance with alcohol involvement during and following an outpatient treatment episode. The data are expected to provide direction and foundation for future systematic research on the therapeutic alliance as a mechanism of change in the treatment of alcohol use disorders. Co-investigators include Kurt H. Dermen, PhD and Stephen A. Maisto of Syracuse University. Funded by a grant of $416,063 from NIAAA, 2007-2010.
|Connors/Walitzer||Secondary Prevention of Alcohol Problems in Rural Areas: This study evaluated three secondary prevention drinking reduction interventions among problem drinkers in rural areas, both men and women, living in rural areas. RIA scientists assessed changes in alcohol and drug use, alcohol-related behaviors, and psychological and interpersonal functioning as a result of the interventions. Funded by a grant of $1,369,983 from NIAAA, 1997-2003.|
|Connors/Walitzer||AA Participation, Spirituality and Alcohol Outcome: While researchers have shown greater interest in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) over the past decade, relatively little empirical attention has been placed on spirituality. In recognition of the importance of this topic, this study was conducted to address three primary objectives: (1) to assess the relationship between AA participation to spirituality (defined as sense of life purpose, serenity, and religiosity) over the course of residential treatment for alcoholism and a 6-month posttreatment follow-up period; (2) to assess the role of spirituality as a partial mediator of the demonstrated relationship between AA participation and alcohol outcome; and (3) to examine, in exploratory fashion, several variables (including forgiveness, hope, and the seeking of life purpose) as potential mediators of the proposed relationship between AA participation and spirituality. Data have been gathered, and analyses are ongoing. Funded by a grant of $308,000 from NIAAA, 2000-2003.|
|Connors||Treatment Research Validation and Extension Program: This project was designed to extend knowledge about factors associated with relapses to drinking after treatment. A specific focus was on replicating and extending the Marlatt conceptual model of relapse. Several articles describing the results of this study were published in a special supplement of the journal Addiction (1996). Investigators from RIA, Brown University, and the University of New Mexico collaborated on this multisite study. Funded by a contract of $689,660 from NIAAA, 1991-2000.|
|Enhancing Involvement in Outpatient Alcoholism Treatment: This study evaluated the effectiveness of procedures designed to prepare alcoholics for treatment. The two procedures of interest - a role induction session or a motivational interview session - were compared to a no preparation control condition. The interventions were designed to prevent early dropout and improve treatment outcome. Preliminary results indicate that receiving the motivational interview preparatory session was associated with greater rates of attendance at subsequent individual and group treatment sessions, relative to those not receiving a preparatory session. In addition, clients receiving the motivational preparatory session, relative to those not receiving a preparatory session, had fewer heavy drinking days during a 12-month follow-up period. Funded by a grant of $840,731 from NIAAA, 1994-98.|
|Connors/Walitzer||Secondary Prevention of Alcohol Problems in Women: In this project, women heavy drinkers without histories of severe physical dependence on alcohol participated in a group-based intervention focusing on reducing alcohol consumption. Some participants were exposed to intervention enhancements: life-skills training and/or post-intervention booster sessions. Participants were monitored for an 18-month period following the intervention. In terms of alcohol use, women responded positively to treatment. Participants showed significant reductions in drinking throughout the 18 months after treatment. The treatment enhancements (life management skills and booster sessions) led to significantly improved drinking outcomes among women who were heavier drinkers at pretreatment. There were no significant effects of the treatment enhancements among women who were lighter drinkers at pretreatment. In addition, participants reported significant decreases in drinking consequences and improvements in several domains of life functioning. Funded by a grant of $917,074 from NIAAA, 1990-95.|
|Project MATCH - Buffalo Clinical Research Unit: Project MATCH was a multisite study of how patients respond to different treatment approaches for alcohol use disorders. Outpatient and aftercare clients participated in one of three 12-week treatments: a 12-session Twelve-Step Facilitation Therapy (TSF), a 12-session Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), or a Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), consisting of 4 sessions spread over 12 weeks. Below are some of the broadest conclusions reached by the Project MATCH Research Group, based on analyses completed to date. The overall outcomes of patients receiving all three of the treatments studied in Project MATCH were quite favorable. Matching (or mismatching) of patients to treatments on the basis of their personal characteristics contributed surprisingly little to the overall effectiveness of treatment. The strongest effects observed for the 12-months posttreatment were for psychiatric severity and anger among outpatients and for severity of dependence among aftercare patients. Although MET was less successful among outpatients during the treatment phase, there were only a few outcome differences after treatment between the 4-session MET and the two 12-session treatments. New analyses and publications have appeared or are in progress. Funded by a grant of $2,410,415 from NIAAA, 1989-1999.|
|Dearing||Help-Seeking for Alcohol Problems: A Prospective Study
This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award from NIAAA provided five years of support to Dr. Ronda Dearing for mentored training, advanced coursework, and data collection in the field of help-seeking and treatment for alcohol problems. In the context of the proposed study, individuals with a range of alcohol problem severity were recruited and their help-seeking behavior tracked over a two-year period. The primary aim of the study was to assess whether attitudes about alcohol and alcohol treatment predict help-seeking for alcohol problems. Other potential predictors of help-seeking behavior investigated included: problem severity, pressures to enter treatment, shame-proneness, and guilt-proneness. Dr. Dearing’s mentors for this program of study included Dr. Gerard Connors and Dr. Kimberly Walitzer of RIA. Funded by a grant of $585,095 from NIAAA, 2005-2011.
|Dermen/Testa||Changes in Women’s HIV Risk Following Alcohol Treatment
Women in treatment for alcohol problems are at heightened risk for infection with HIV. Alcohol use may contribute directly or indirectly to risk in this population. The goals of this research project were to evaluate cross-sectionally, before and after treatment for alcohol abuse or dependence, the acute and global relationships of alcohol use and other factors to HIV risk-related behavior; to evaluate prospectively hypotheses regarding the extent to which baseline characteristics are predictive of change in HIV risk behavior during the year after entry into alcoholism treatment; and to evaluate prospectively, the extent to which women’s participation in treatment, exposure to HIV risk-reduction education and counseling, and changes in alcohol use mediate change. The protocol tested an Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills model of HIV preventive behavior in an ethnically diverse sample of women entering either outpatient (n=300) or inpatient (n=150) treatment. Funded by a grant of $2,412,860 from NIAAA, 2005-2011.
|Brief Motivational Intervention to Promote Oral Health
Oral disease is highly prevalent among individuals undergoing inpatient treatment for alcohol dependence. This project consisted of two phases of research with this population. During phase one, a brief Motivational Oral and Dental Health Promotion intervention was developed with the goal of improving personal oral hygiene and utilization of community-based oral health preventive and treatment services. During phase two, a randomized pilot trial of the motivational intervention was conducted. The study was a collaboration between Drs. Kurt Dermen and Gerard Connors, RIA, and Dr. Sebastian Ciancio, UB School of Dental Medicine. Funded by a grant of $597,965 from NIDCR, 2005-2009.
|Dermen||Enhancing HIV Prevention Through Drinking Reduction: Dr. Dermen evaluated the impact of two-session motivational interventions that focused on drinking reduction, HIV risk reduction, and their combination among male and female college students. The relationship between drinking and condom use also was assessed. Analyses of baseline data revealed that alcohol use prior to an occurrence of sexual intercourse was correlated with a greater likelihood of condom use during that occurrence. This was true even when analyses controlled for each student's expectations about the effects of alcohol and the length of the student's relationship with his or her intercourse partner. Analyses of one-year post-intervention follow-up data indicated that the alcohol-focused brief interventions reduced alcohol use but had no impact on sexual risk behavior. The HIV-focused interventions reduced the number of sexual partners reported by students. Frequency of sex without using a condom diminished in all conditions, including a control condition in which no intervention was delivered. Thus, although the brief alcohol-focused motivational intervention appeared to be useful for reducing drinking among college students, reducing college students' alcohol use did not appear to be an effective method of increasing HIV-preventive behavior such as condom use. Funded by a grant of $1,442,033 from NIAAA, 1998-2003.|
|Dermen||Adolescent Alcohol Use and High Risk Sexual Behavior: This study was a third wave of data collection from participants originally interviewed at the University at Buffalo 13 years previous. More than 1,400 African- and European-American young adults were re-interviewed in order to further understanding of the relationship between alcohol use and sexual behavior that increases risk for infection with AIDS and other diseases. M. Lynne Cooper at the University of Missouri was principal investigator of the NIAAA -funded project at all three waves; Kurt Dermen was principal investigator on the subcontract for the data collection effort. Funded by a subcontract of $1,070,386, from the University of Missouri - Columbia, 1999-2004.|
|Eiden||Pre- and Postnatal Cigarette Exposure and Infant Regulation: This study investigated the impact of pre-and postnatal exposure to cigarettes and associated risk factors on infant regulation. Researchers examined the possibility that early exposure to cigarettes may impact regulation beyond the neonatal period through direct teratological impact, environmental cigarette smoke (ETS), and maternal cigarette use on growth outcomes that may in turn influence infant reactivity and regulation. Average Heart Rate (HR) and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) were assessed at 2-4 weeks of age during sleep. Prenatal cigarette exposure and ETS were both related to HR and RSA and fetal growth did not mediate these associations. However, boys in both exposure groups had higher autonomic arousal than girls (Schuetze & Eiden, in press). Results also indicated that mothers who smoked during pregnancy had higher levels of Maternal Insensitivity (MI) and lower levels of Maternal Warmth (MW) during interactions with their infant even after controlling for demographics and pregnancy alcohol use. Maternal anxiety and hostility mediated the association between smoking and MI and maternal anger mediated the association between smoking and MW. In addition, there was an interaction between infant gender and maternal smoking for MW with pregnancy smokers displaying less warmth to boys during interactions (Schuetze, Eiden, & Dombkowski, in review). Data from assessments at 7 months of infant age are currently being analyzed. This study was a collaborative effort between Principal Investigator Pamela Schuetze, SUNY College at Buffalo, and Co-Investigator Rina Das Eiden, of RIA. Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2002-2004.|
|Eiden||Maternal Substance Use, Parenting, Infant Development: Dr. Rina Eiden first completed a cross sectional study that resulted in two papers. The first provided descriptive data about the caregiving environment of substance exposed children (Eiden, Peterson, & Coleman, 1999). The second suggested that exposure to violence is one of the most significant predictors of child behavior problems among these children (Eiden, 1999). Next, a short-term longitudinal study was completed. Mother-infant dyads were recruited at birth and followed for the first year of the infant's life, with assessments at 2, 7, and 13 months. This study resulted in three publications. The first focused on the quality of mother-infant feeding interactions at 2 months and demonstrated that cocaine using mothers were more negative in their interactive style during feeding interactions with their infants. Other risk factors such as a more negative infant temperament, lower gestational age, and maternal use of other substances also contributed to more negative parenting behavior (Eiden, 2001). The second paper examined the association between prenatal substance exposure and infant behavior suggesting that maternal cocaine and other substance use (alcohol and cigarettes) was associated with problems in arousal regulation at 2 and 7 months of age (Eiden, Lewis, Croff, & Young, 2002). The third paper examined the association between maternal substance use and perception of infant cry sounds varying in pitch. Results indicated that substance-using mothers rated cries as less perceptually salient and less likely to elicit active caregiving responses. These results suggest that maternal substance use is associated with altered perceptions of infant distress signals (Schuetze, Zeskind, & Eiden, 2003). The fourth paper examined the development of motor assymetries among cocaine exposed infants. (Schuetze, Croff, & Eiden, 2003). Funded by a grant of $428,466 from the NIDA, 1995-2001.|
|Frone||Workplace Substance Use: A National Prevalence Study : The use of alcohol and other drugs by employed adults represents an important social policy issue because it can undermine employee health and productivity. Although national data exist regarding the overall level of alcohol and drug use among employed adults in the U.S., much less is known about the prevalence of alcohol and drug use on the job and the physical and social availability of alcohol and drugs at work. This study addressed several key issues. First, the prevalence and distribution of workplace substance use and workplace availability was explored. Second, a model of the relating overall and workplace substance availability to overall and workplace substance use was tested. Third, a “correspondence model” of employee substance use and productivity was tested. Finally, the relationship of exposure to coworkers' on-the-job substance use to the performance and morale of individuals who did not use alcohol or drugs at work was examined. The study methodology included a national telephone survey of a representative sample of 3,500 employed adults. Funded by a grant of $1,399,892 from NIAAA. 2000-2004.|
|Frone||Work, Alcohol, and School Performance Among Adolescents: Dr. Michael Frone examined the relations among employment, alcohol/other drug use, and academic achievement during adolescence. He also investigated risk and protective factors that may influence these relationships. Funded by a grant of $564,447 from NIAAA, 1994-2000.|
|Grohman||Neurocognitive Rehabilitation in Alcohol Treatment
This Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Scientist Career Development Award from NIAAA supported a five-year plan to develop Dr. Kerry Grohman’s skills and expertise in addiction research through mentored training, secondary data analyses, and execution of an innovative investigation designed to unite three currently divergent areas in addiction research: treatment, neuropsychological functioning, and neuroimaging. The project included two stages: (1) Secondary analysis of an existing data set to examine posttreatment functioning, following neurocognitive rehabilitation, in a substance-abusing population. (2) Original data collection to provide the first extensive examination of the effect of neurocognitive rehabilitation on treatment and posttreatment functioning in alcohol dependent participants. Dr. Grohman’s mentors in this endeavor included Dr. Gerard Connors, RIA and Dr. Robert Zivadinov of UB’s Department of Neurology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Funded by a grant of $601,960 from NIAAA, 2004-2009.
|Haj-Dahmane||Dopamine Mechanisms and Receptors in Raphe 5-HT Neurons: Dr. Samir Haj-Dahmane used electrophysiological, pharmacological, and immunohistochemical techniques to characterize the cellular mechanism by which D2-like dopamine receptor activation increased the excitability of dorsal Raphe nucleus serotonergic (5-HT) neurons. The results of this research will further our understanding of the functional interaction between the dopamine and serotonergic systems in the dorsal Raphe nucleus, and thus contribute to the identification of novel and effective treatment strategies for psychiatric disorders such as major depression. Funded by a grant of $781,209 from NIMH, 2001-2005.|
|Haj-Dahmane||Muscarinic Receptors in the Cerebral Cortex and Schizophrenia: Dr. Samir Haj-Dahmane investigated the neurophysiological effects of acetylcholine (an endogenous neurotransmitter) in the cerebral cortex. The results of this study may better our understanding of the cholinergic function in the cerebral cortex and further advance the treatment of mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Funded by a grant of $60,000 from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), 1998-2001.|
|Inhibitory Control and Clinical Response in ADHD
Dr. Larry Hawk of the UB Department of Psychology investigated the effects of both methylphenidate (MPH) and performance-based motivational incentives (i.e., monetary rewards, an analogue of behavioral treatment) on laboratory measures of inhibitory control, working memory, sustained attention, and delay-related impulsivity in children with ADHD. This research was the first to test the extent to which MPH affects basic processes assessed in the lab, and whether these processes actually mediate, or account for, individual differences in clinical response to MPH. The researchers have helped to bridge basic and clinical research in ADHD in this work and paved the way for new translational research and theory in ADHD. Dr. William Pelham of UB’s Department of Psychology was co-principal investigator. Co-investigators included Drs. Jerry Richards, RIA, James Waxmonsky, UB Department of Psychiatry, and Gregory Wilding, UB Department of Biostatistics. Funded by NIMH to Dr. Hawk, 2005-2010.
|Homish/Barrick||Linking Advanced Practice Centers and Local Health Departments
The goal of this project was to assist in disseminating information to rural first responders. To do this, a web-based “wiki” board was prepared and demonstrated to allow for rapid editing and enhancing of content to the first responders. Principal Investigator Gregory Homish, PhD, UB’s Department of Health Behavior and Chris Barrick, PhD, RIA, collaborated on the project. Funded by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), and in conjunction with the Western New York Public Health Alliance, the Linking Advanced Practice Centers & Local Health Departments to Gregory Homish, PhD, 2008-2009.
|Impulse Control as a Mechanism of Change in the Treatment of Alcohol Dependence
This project used a multi-modal measurement approach to the assessment of impulse control before, during, and after a cognitive behavioral treatment for alcohol dependence. Since it is likely that the decision to initiate drinking is indicative of a momentary lapse in impulse control for individuals with an alcohol disorder, this study 1) investigated whether changes in impulse control during treatment are related to alcohol use during treatment, as compared to pre-treatment and 2) whether changes in impulse control during treatment result in changes in post-treatment alcohol use, as compared to pre-treatment. A two-group design consisting of a Standard Assessment Group and a Frequent Assessment Group was used with men and women who met DSM-IV criteria for alcohol dependence to examine the multi-dimensional nature of the impulsivity construct. Results yet to be published will better define the role of impulse control as a potential mechanism of behavioral change and inform the development of subsequent avenues of investigation on this mechanism in the treatment of alcohol use disorders. Results will also provide information about refining existing treatments as well as developing new treatment methods. Dr. Houston’s co-investigators are Drs. Ronda L. Dearing and Gerard J. Connors of RIA, and Dr. Gregory G. Homish of UB’s Department of Health Behavior. Funded by a grant of $416,063 from NIAAA, 2007-2010.
|Kristal/Thompson||CNS Opioids and Maternal Behavior
Dr. Mark Kristal, of UB’s Department of Psychology, investigated opioid activation at the end of pregnancy and during delivery and its complex effect on maternal behavior. He and Dr. Alexis Thompson, RIA, focused their work on the development of a comprehensive model of the biobehavioral/neurochemical basis of maternal behavior, including the role of opioids in areas of the brain that mediate motivational processes delivery. Initial results strongly support the hypothesis that at delivery, endogenous opioids in the mesolimbic cortical pathway of the brain facilitate the inititation of maternal behavior. In addition, peri-parturitional behaviors, including placentophagia in animals, facilitate activation of opioid neurotransmission in this part of the brain. Funded by NSF to Dr. Kristal, UB Department of Psychology, subaccount to Dr. Thompson, RIA, 2005-2008.
|Leonard||Alcohol and Early Marriage: Spouse and Peer Influence
This extended Dr. Kenneth Leonard’s previous examination of drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems in young couples beginning with the time of application for a first marriage license, and including celebration of their seventh and ninth anniversaries. The study included the impact of parenthood, major life events, and environmental stressors on couples’ drinking and drinking problems. Funded by an award of $1,525,391 from NIAAA, 2005-2010.
|Alcohol and Bar Violence: This project examined the prevalence and predictors of alcohol-related violence among young adults between the ages of 18-30. Results found that of the 1,400 college students and other young adults who participated in the study, one in three men and one in five women had been the target of physical aggression — ranging from shoving to assault with a weapon. Asked whether in the last year they had been the target of, or had initiated, violence, 44 percent of men in the community, 33 percent of college men, 28 percent of women in the community, and 22 percent of college women said yes. Pushing and shoving were the most common forms of aggression experienced, although 15 percent of the men surveyed said a weapon was used against them. Of the women who identified themselves as targets of physical aggression, 22 percent of the women said the incidents occurred in or outside bars, while 34 percent said the incidents occurred in their own home. In addition, the project reported evidence that drinking on the part of the subject did not predict whether or not an aggressive episode occurred, but it did predict the severity and likelihood of injury. Funded by a grant of $918,856 from NIAAA, 1997-2002.|
|Leonard||Experimental Study of Alcohol and Marital Aggression: This study examined the marital interactions of 60 maritally aggressive and 75 nonaggressive men and their wives under a baseline condition, and then after the husband had received no alcohol, placebo, or alcohol. These sessions were videotaped and coded with the Marital Interaction Coding System by coders blind to group status and specific condition. Aggressive couples engaged in more negative behavior and more negative reciprocity in the baseline interaction than did nonaggressive couples. The administration of alcohol led husbands, but not wives, to increase their problem solving attempts. Alcohol, but not the placebo, led to increased negativity of both husbands and wives. Funded by a grant of $441,251 from NIAAA, 1990-94.|
|Leonard||Frequent Heavy Drinking & Marital Violence in Newlyweds: The primary focus of the project was the examination of the impact of heavy drinking on marital violence within a social learning model of alcohol and aggression. Methodologically, it involved assessing newlyweds with respect to drinking patterns, alcohol expectancies, personality characteristics, and relationship characteristics just prior to marriage and relating these variables to reports of physical aggression at a one-year follow-up and subsequently, at a three-year follow-up. The grant had three specific aims: (1) to provide epidemiologic information concerning the incidence, distribution, and characteristics of alcohol-related marital violence within a high-risk population; (2) to evaluate hypotheses arising from a social learning model of alcohol and aggression; and (3) to create a non-clinical pool of potential subjects for longitudinal and experimental studies of alcohol and family violence. This project has advanced our understanding of alcohol and marital violence among newlyweds in a number of important ways. Funded by a grant of $761,740 from NIAAA, 1988-96.|
|Skill Training for Parents of Adolescent Drug Abusers: The investigators continued their research on skills parents use to deal with problem situations resulting from their adolescent's use of drugs and alcohol. The study evaluated the relative efficacy of skill training and 12 step facilitation interventions for parents of adolescent substance abusers not in treatment. Funded by a grant of $2,523,437 from NIDA, 1995-2003.|
|Miller/Barnes||College Sports, Gender, and Substance Use
This study had two phases: first, an examination of longitudinal relationships between high school sports participation and substance use and other health-risk behaviors in college-age young adults; and second, the development of comprehensive measures of athletic involvement to be used to examine linkages among high school and college sports, gender, and substance use in college students. This study extended previous research by a collaborative working group comprised of Drs. Miller and Barnes, RIA, Michael Farrell, UB Department of Sociology, Merrill Melnick, SUNY College at Brockport, and Don Sabo, D’Youville College. Funded by a grant of $471,000 from NIDA, 2004-2008.
|Nochajski/Stasiewicz||A Harm Reduction Approach to Reducing DWI Recidivism: This study investigated the use of brief harm reduction approaches with convicted DWI offenders. Researchers assessed the relative utility of increasing client motivation for change and reducing future harm related to alcohol and/or drug use, including DWI recidivism. Early results suggest caution for treatment providers when interpreting stage of change for DUI offenders as assessment of individuals’ stage of change differed between stage of change measures. Motivation to change was not significantly associated with drinking-driving and, as individuals developed more self-efficacy, they reported less drinking-driving. Readiness to change and self-efficacy were significantly associated with binge drinking and as a person’s belief in their ability to refuse drinks increased, binge drinking frequency decreased. Finally, significant predictors of drinking-driving included alcohol dependence severity, were low self-efficacy, number of drinking-related negative consequences including a prior DUI arrest, of drinking, and other drug use. Harm reduction efforts might consider these predictors.The 18-month follow-up interviews have recently been completed and the main outcome results are pending. Funded by a grant of $2,561,901 from NIAAA, 1999-2005.|
|Nochajski/Miller||Indicators of Drinking/Drug Problems and Repeat Offender Status: This three-year grant was funded for the purpose of developing a screening instrument that was to be used in the New York State Drinking Driver Programs. Funded by a grant of $305,353 from the New York State Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee (GTSC), 1991-94.|
|Nochajski/Testa||HCV Transmission: Sex, Violence, Alcohol, and Drug Use: In this study, RIA handled the collection and maintenance of data supplied by the Erie County Health Department about clients' alcohol/drug use, sexual practices, and sexually transmitted diseases. Marcia Russell, of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and formerly of RIA, was principal investigator on the award. Drs. Tom Nochajski and Maria Testa supervised the subcontract for data collection and maintenance. The project was funded by $297,327 from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 2000-2004.|
|Nochajski||Reducing DWI Recidivism: This project monitored the Drinking Driver Program screening and referral process including assessing the utility of the screening instrument, development of potential subscales for identification of recidivists, identification of individuals who had problems with substances other than alcohol, and development of subscales in other areas that might have implications for intervention strategies. Funded by a grant of $329,475 from GTSC, 1994-97.|
|Nochajski||Validation of the RIA Self Inventory for Screening of Drunken/Drugged Drivers: This study focused on validating the RIA Self Inventory (RIASI), with a specific focus on development of the subscales for drinking/drugged-driving recidivism and for problems with drugs other than alcohol. In addition, the grant targeted further assessment of empirically derived subscales that related to current drinking practices, alcohol beliefs, deviance, sensation seeking-impulsivity, and psychiatric distress. Funded by a grant of $48,549 from GTSC, 1997-98.|
|Women Bar Drinkers: Exploring Risks for HIV
This study added to knowledge about the role of alcohol in increased risk for heterosexual HIV transmission among women. Dr. Kathleen Parks and colleagues assessed the relationships among alcohol use, social context, and risky sexual behavior on women bar drinkers risks for HIV. Both unprotected sexual behaviors and sexual assault were viewed as risky sexual behaviors for HIV. The sample consisted of 287 women between the ages of 18 and 30 years of age who were sexually active and reported drinking in bars at least weekly. Dr. Parks’ colleagues include Dr. R. Lorraine Collins, UB School of Public Health and Health Professions, and Dr. Amy Buddie, Department of Psychology, Kennesaw State University, Georgia. Funded by a grant of $1,256,000 from NIAAA, 2003-2008.
|Parks||College Women: The Alcohol and Victimization Link
This five-year longitudinal project utilized a web-based survey, as well as state-of-the-science daily data collection methods, to examine the relationship between alcohol consumption and victimization experiences (verbal, physical, sexual) among a cohort of college women. Nearly 1,000 women who entered college during the fall of 2004 participated in a brief, web-based survey each fall for five years. Findings indicated that rates of sexual victimization were highest in the first year of college and decreased over the remaining years at school. In addition, women who drank prior to entering college were at greater risk of physical and sexual victimization during their first year in college than women who did not drink prior to entering college. Nearly 200 women from the larger sample provided daily data over an eight-week period each spring for four years beginning during the spring of 2005. Based on these data, we found that women were substantially more likely to experience verbal, physical and sexual victimization on days of heavy drinking (four or more drinks) compared to days of no drinking. Women were not at increased risk of victimization on days of non-heavy drinking (less than four drinks) compared to days of no drinking. These findings suggest that college is a time when young women are vulnerable to victimization, particularly when consuming alcohol at rates equivalent or higher than four standard drinks on one drinking occasion. This project was funded by a grant of $1,844,750, from NIAAA, 2004-2010.
|Parks||Women’s Alcohol Use, Drinking Context, and Victimization: As part of three studies of women bar drinkers, Dr. Kathleen Parks assessed the relationships among women’s alcohol use, drinking context, and risk for victimization. Findings from the first study, a survey of 198 women bar drinkers, suggest that women experience a significant amount of verbal, physical, and sexual victimization associated with the bar setting. Nearly half of the women (46.8%) had experienced moderate physical or sexual assault (e.g., being pushed or grabbed, unwanted sexual touching) and 34.4% had experienced severe physical or sexual assault (e.g., being beaten, raped) during the year before the survey. Women with a history of victimization (during childhood or adolescence), greater depression and hostility, and greater frequency of going to bars were at risk for experiencing more severe bar-related aggression (Parks & Zetes-Zanatta, 1999). The second study involved a 12-week assessment of the relationships among alcohol use, drinking context, and victimization in 46 women from the first study. Results showed that when aggression occurred, women spent less time in the bar, consumed more alcohol and reported feeling more intoxicated (Parks, 2000). These two studies suggest that both the bar environment and women’s alcohol use in bars can increase their risk for bar-related victimization. The third study assessed women’s perceptions of an interaction with a male stranger in a laboratory bar setting after consumption of either one or four drinks. Women who consumed four drinks were more variable in their behavior toward the male stranger than women who consumed one drink. These women were more animated (e.g., greater arm/hand movements, more smiling and frowning) during these interactions, but less receptive to sexual interest from the man (Abbey et al., 2002). This research was funded by a grant of $504,540 from NIAAA, 1997-2003.|
|Parks||Victimization Experience of Women Who Drink in Bars: The focus of this research was on assessing the relationships among alcohol use, drinking context, and women’s risk for victimization. The research involved two studies of women bar drinkers: a survey of 200 women, and a 12-week study of a sub-sample of 50 women from the original 200. Funded by a grant of $85,300 from Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation, 1996-98.|
Alcohol and the Activation of Aggressive Thoughts |
This Scientist Development Award will provide Dr. Brian Quigley with the opportunity to engage in career development activities that advance his knowledge of social cognition and alcohol research. The research will examine the structure of alcohol expectancies regarding aggression and how those expectancies, when combined with intoxication, can influence the activation of aggressive cognitions. The first phase of this study is designed to examine if alcohol expectancies relating to aggression can be conceptualized as cognitive-associative memory networks and to assess the validity of three laboratory procedures for examining this question. The second phase will use procedures validated in the first study to examine the impact of intoxication and alcohol expectancies on the activation of aggressive cognitions. Dr. Quigley’s mentor on this project is Dr. Kenneth Leonard, RIA. Funded by a grant of $387,700 from NIAAA, 2003-2007.
|Richards/de Wit||Drug Abuse and Impulsivity: Tests of Animal Models
These studies were designed to advance the understanding of impulsive behavior and its relation to drug abuse by developing valid animal models of impulsive behavior and operationalizing different concepts of impulsivity. In addition, the research examined how both acute and chronic exposure to methamphetamine (METH) affects impulsive behavior and the roles the neurotransmitter systems dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5HT) in impulsive behavior. Relationships between measures of discounting, delayed reward, risk taking, and the ability to stop drug use were assessed. This project was conducted in parallel to a separate project using humans at the University of Chicago. Together these studies will advance the understanding of the behavioral and neural processes mediating impulsive behaviors, and of the effect of drugs of abuse on these behaviors. Dr. Harriet de Wit, University of Chicago’s Department of Psychiatry, is the co-investigator. This project was transferred from UB’s Department of Pediatrics in June, 2004. Funded by a grant of $793,537 from NIDA.
|Rychtarik/Connors/ McGillicuddy/Whitney||Treatment Settings for Alcoholics: A Field Extension
The research team matched and mismatched clients to inpatient vs. outpatient alcoholism treatment in a community field setting based on their drinking problem severity and cognitive functioning measures. Treatment consisted of 21 days of primary (inpatient or outpatient) care and 6 months of outpatient aftercare. Participants subsequently were followed for 18 months postprimary care. The results will contribute to the existing knowledge-base on efficient and effective client placement criteria. Robert Whitney, MD, of the Erie County Medical Center (ECMC), Division of Chemical Dependency Unit collaborated with RIA scientists. Funded by a grant of $2,364,815 from NIAAA, 2002-2008.
|Coping in Those with Pathological-Gambling Partners: This treatment development project extended the investigators’ prior work on coping in women with alcoholic partners to coping in individuals with a pathological-gambling partner. The project developed and piloted the content of a skill training program designed to assist individuals experiencing psychological stress resulting from problems brought on by their partner's gambling as a first-step in the development of a systematic program of research on coping in families of pathological gamblers. Funded by a grant of $665,476 from NIMH, 1999-2003.|
|Rychtarik||Skill Training for Women with Alcoholic Partners: Dr. Robert Rychtarik’s study evaluated the relative efficacy of skill training and twelve-step facilitation treatments for women whose alcoholic partner was not in treatment. Funded by a grant of $1,782,100 from NIAAA, 1990-1998.|
|Rychtarik||Treatment Setting and Aftercare Duration for Alcoholics: This study evaluated the relative efficacy of inpatient, intense outpatient, and standard outpatient treatment for alcoholics and tested two a priori hypotheses about matching clients to treatment settings. Funded by a grant of $787,919 from NIAAA, 1988-96.|
|Schuetze/Eiden||Pre- and Postnatal Cigarette Exposure and Infant Regulation: This study investigated the impact of pre-and postnatal exposure to cigarettes and associated risk factors on infant regulation. Regulation during infancy is defined by the ability to modulate autonomic processes by maintaining physiological homeostasis as well as the ability to modulate responsiveness to both nonsocial and social stimuli. Researchers examined the possibility that early exposure to cigarettes may impact regulation beyond the neonatal period through direct teratological impact, environmental cigarette smoke, and maternal cigarette use on growth outcomes that may in turn influence infant reactivity and regulation. Results will be posted at a later date detailing what was learned about the potential for prevention programs to ameliorate regulatory disturbances among children exposed to cigarettes . This study was a collaborative effort between Principal Investigator Pamela Schuetze, SUNY College at Buffalo, and Co-Investigator Rina Das Eiden, of RIA. Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2002-2004.|
|Shen||Dopamine Function After Prenatal Ethanol Exposure
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a prominent behavioral symptom in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Attention problems have been linked to a dysfunction of the mesolimbic/cortical dopamine (DA) systems. Previous research from Dr. Shen’s laboratory showed that prenatal ethanol exposure in rats leads to a persistent reduction in the number of spontaneously active DA neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the origin of the mesolimbic/cortical DA systems. Therefore, the reduced DA neuron activity may contribute to the dysfunction of the mesolimbic/cortical DA systems and attention problems in individuals with FASD. The reduced number of spontaneously active VTA DA neurons caused by prenatal ethanol exposure is not due to a neuronal loss and can be reversed by acute administration of inhibitory agents such as DA agonists and psychostimulants (e.g. amphetamine, methylphenidate), or by increasing inhibitory input. This led to the hypothesis that prenatal ethanol exposure leads to the reduction in the number of spontaneously active VTA DA neurons by the mechanism of depolarization inactivation Ð cessation of action potentials due to over-excitation. This model predicted qualitative changes in the responses of VTA DA neuron to input signals and terminal DA release and an overall dysregulation of the mesolimbic/cortical systems. In this study, Dr. Shen identified key cellular mechanisms that could mediate the over-excitation in VTA DA neurons. The results should provide better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying attention problems in individuals with FASD and allow for the development of effective phamacological treatment for attention problems. In addition, it sheds light on potential neural mechanism or the treatment of other mental illnesses, as reduced number of spontaneously active VTA DA neurons by depolarization inactivation is also observed after chronic exposure to drugs of abuse and prenatal stress exposure. Funded by a grant of $641,926 from NIAAA, 2007-2011.
|Shen||Dopamine Function After Prenatal Ethanol Exposure: Abnormal dopamine neurotransmission is suggested to cause the attention and hyperactivity problems often observed in children with fetal alcohol effect/fetal alcohol syndrome (FAE/FAS). This study investigated how prenatal ethanol exposure influences the postnatal development of dopamine neurotransmission, how dopamine neurotransmission can be normalized by amphetamine-like stimulants, and more about the cellular mechanisms leading to these changes. The results of this study may lead to the development of more appropriate pharmacologic treatments for specific behavioral problems of FAE/FAS. Funded by a grant of $1,162,538 from NIAAA, 1999-2005.|
|Shen||Chronic Ethanol, Dopamine Electrophysiology and Craving: Dr. Roh-Yu Shen investigated the neurological basis of craving with electrophysiological method. The results obtained further characterize the brain mechanims of craving utlizing electrophysiological, neurochemical, and behavioral techniques. Funded by a grant of $199,362 from NIAAA, 1997-2001.|
|Affect Regulation Training for Alcoholics
In this study, Dr. Paul Stasiewicz and colleagues developed and piloted a clinical intervention that addresses the problem of negative affect as it relates to alcohol use and alcohol relapse. Currently, negative affect is a component of nearly half of all relapses to alcohol use among men and women in treatment, however no well-developed, empirically-tested, efficacious treatments specifically address the impact of negative affect on relapse. This project will assist individuals in treatment to regulate and cope with negative affective episodes that threaten relapse to alcohol use. Phase one will develop a 12-session treatment manual for Affect Regulation Training (ART) delivered concurrently with a standard 12-session Treatment as Usual (TAU). Phase two will encompass a pilot study of outcomes for individuals participating in ART and TAU compared to individuals who receive TAU and a Health and Lifestyle Supplement (HLS). The long-term objective of this line of research is to make a brief, effective affect regulation intervention available to clinicians to enhance treatments for alcohol dependence. Dr. Stasiewicz’s colleagues on the project included Drs. Clara Bradizza, RIA, Scott Coffey, University of Mississippi’s Department of Psychiatry, and Suzy Bird Gulliver, Boston University’s Department of Psychiatry. Funded by a grant of $1,937,729 from NIAAA, 2005-2011.
|Stasiewicz/Bradizza||Emotional Processing as a Change Mechanism in Alcohol Treatment
In this study, Dr. Stasiewicz examined whether a reduction of negative emotional responses to drinking trigger situations, via prolonged imaginal exposure, would produce a concomitant reduction in alcohol craving produced by those same cues. Secondly, he examined whether a reduction in negative emotional responses and negative affect-elicited alcohol craving was associated with positive treatment outcomes among alcohol dependent men and women. Alcohol dependent men and women received six sessions of prolonged imaginal exposure to negative affect drinking situations delivered concurrent with a standard 12-session Treatment as Usual (TAU) for alcohol dependence. The prolonged exposure intervention incorporated two laboratory sessions (pre- and post-treatment) intended to assess change in cue-elicited negative emotions and alcohol craving. Co-investigator on the study is Clara M. Bradizza, PhD. Funded by a grant of $416,063 from NIAAA, 2007-2010.
|Stasiewicz||Contextual Control of Craving for Alcohol: Context has long been known to play a vital role in modulating acquired behavior. This project represented a test of the effect of context on alcohol craving and alcohol cue reactivity in treatment-seeking alcoholics. This research has implications for the development of alternative methods of conducting behavioral cue exposure treatments with the potential to enhance the generalization of treatment effects in the alcoholic's natural environment. Funded by a grant of $687,095 from NIAAA, 1999-2004.|
Alcohol-related STD/HIV and Assault
Alcohol use is implicated in many incidents of indiscriminate sex and sexual assault. In this study, Dr. Maria Testa investigated whether reducing alcohol use among young women, through a parent-based intervention, might be an effective means of preventing STD/HIV infection and sexual assault. This randomized clinical trial examined the effectiveness of a parent-based intervention designed to reduce binge drinking and negative sexual outcomes among women entering college. Funded by an award of $1,962,500 from NIAAA, 2003-2009.
|Testa/Livingston||Alcohol and Women’s Responses to Sexual Aggression: This study examined the impact of alcohol on women’s ability to recognize and respond to risk of sexual aggression. One of the preliminary results was that alcohol consumption impairs women’s ability to recognize subtle sexual aggression cues and subsequently lowers intentions to engage in resistance strategies. Funded by a grant of $351,876 from NIAAA, 2002-2006.|
|Testa||Preventing HIV and Sexual Assault: The Role of Alcohol: This Independent Scientist Award funded Dr. Maria Testa’s development as a researcher while investigating the prevention of sexual victimization and sexual risk-taking behavior among women, with a focus on the role of alcohol. Results of her work during this period have the potential to contribute to the development of effective prevention programs for women. Funded by a grant of $357,728 from NIAAA, 1999-2005.|
|Testa||Alcohol, HIV Risk Behaviors, and Sexual Victimization: This project involved longitudinal examination of the interrelationships among alcohol use, HIV sexual risk behaviors, and sexual victimization. The sample consisted of 1014 women, 18-30 years old, selected through random digit dialing of households in the Buffalo metropolitan area. Funded by a grant of $1,585,322 from NIAAA and the NIH Director's Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH), 1999-2005.|
|Testa||Alcohol and Sexual Risk Taking Among Women: This Scientist Development Award supported Dr. Maria Testa’s investigation of the relationship between alcohol use, personality factors, and unsafe sexual behaviors. Funded by a grant of $509,823 from NIAAA, 1994-2000.|
|Testa||Health Beliefs and Alcohol Use in Pregnant Women: This project examined the association between women’s health beliefs regarding the dangers of alcohol during pregnancy and their actual consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. The role of social networks and perceived social support for drinking during pregnancy also were examined. Funded by a grant of $99,996 from NIAAA, 1992-95.|
|Facilitating Involvement in AA During Alcoholism Outpatient Treatment: In this five year project, Dr. Kimberly Walitzer assessed the effectiveness of two strategies designed to facilitate involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous during a 12-session outpatient alcoholism treatment program. The “motivational” strategy focused on enhancement of clients’ motivation towards AA participation. The “directive-confrontive” strategy included AA education, instruction, and attendance contracts. Funded by a grant of $1,442,378 from NIAAA, 1999-2004.|
|Dissemination of a MI-based Preparatory Procedure
This study investigated the dissemination and “real world” effectiveness of a motivational interviewing-(MI)-based preparatory procedure designed to reduce early attrition from alcoholism outpatient treatment. In order to study dissemination and adoption of the procedure, 150 New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) alcoholism outpatient clinics were randomly assigned to one of three dissemination conditions. Researchers examined the clinic sites’ rates of client retention and client treatment outcome prior to and following dissemination. Funded by a grant of $2,670,633 from NIAAA, 2004-2011.
|Walitzer/Dermen||Spouse Involvement in the Treatment of Alcohol Problems: Dr. Kimberly Walitzer examined whether the involvement of the drinker’s spouse and the inclusion of marital therapy improves the effectiveness of programs targeted to adults with mild to moderate alcohol problems. Data analysis is ongoing. Funded by a grant of $2,006,786 from NIAAA, 1994-2000.|
|Welte/Barnes||Gambling and Substance Use Among Youth in the U.S.
The goals of this study were to examine the prevalence of pathological gambling among U.S. youth; the relationship of youth gambling to neighborhood characteristics and the availability of gambling opportunities; and the relationship of youth gambling to other problem behaviors. A telephone survey of 2,274 U.S. youth found problem gambling (gambling with three or more negative consequences) was occurring at a rate of 2.1 percent among youth between the ages of 14 and 21. That percentage projects to approximately 750,000 young problem gamblers nationwide. In addition, 11 percent of the youth surveyed gambled twice per week or more, a rate that describes frequent gambling. Sixty-eight percent of the youth interviewed reported that they had gambled at least once in the past year. The results were published in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Gambling Studies. Funded by a grant of $1,827,000 from NIMH, 2003-2008.
|Co-occurrence of Gambling and Substance Use in the United States: This study was a nationwide telephone Survey of Gambling in the United States (SOGUS) conducted in 1999-2000 with 2,631 U.S. adults. It included a geographic analysis using census data and the distances from the respondent’s home to gambling facilities such as casinos and tracks. It found a prevalence of pathological gambling of between one and two percent, and also found a very strong co-morbidity between gambling and alcohol pathologies. The study also found that respondents living in disadvantaged neighborhoods had a higher than average chance of being pathological gamblers, as did those who lived within 10 miles of a casino. Funded by a grant of $1,194,053 from NIAAA, 1998-2002.|
|Welte||Hospital Intervention Service (HIS) Program Evaluation: This study evaluated the New York State Hospital Intervention Service. HIS screens hospital patients for alcohol and drug dependence, and if necessary, performs a brief intervention or referral to treatment. Results showed that the HIS reduced the amount of heavy drinking among those with whom it intervened. Funded by a grant of $798,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 1992-95.|
|Drinking and Delinquency in Young Men: This project was a three-wave panel study of the relationship between substance abuse and criminal offending. Data analysis is ongoing. The following is an example of the results obtained to date: Among heavy-drinking young men with low intelligence, violent criminal behavior is much more prevalent than would be expected merely from their heavy drinking. Funded by a grant of $1,816,462 from NIAAA, 1991-97.|
|Windle||Vulnerability Factors and Drinking in Adulthood
Dr. Michael Windle, of Emory University in Atlanta, recently completed his Middle Adolescent Vulnerability Study of factors that place adolescents at risk for substance abuse with Western New York high school students and their families. This third phase of the study included participants with an average age of 28 years. The project expanded to include both mothers and fathers, as well as the spouses of the young adults (53% are now married). The areas of investigation also expanded to include physical health, exercise, and dietary habits. Renamed the “Lives Across Time Study,” results to date include the finding that youth who demonstrate problem drinking in adolescence are three and one half times more likely to have alcohol problems in young adulthood. In addition, they are four times more likely to manifest a substance use disorder. Gender differences in patterns of binge drinking -- six drinks or more on one occasion -- across early adulthood were indicated and were predicted by adolescent levels of delinquency and alcohol use. Subaward from from Emory University, 2006-2011.
|Wu/Houston||Neurophysiological and Behavioral Characteristics of Heavy Drinkers and Aggressive Drivers
This pilot study combined both biological and human factors approaches to inform transportation safety. The project examined the potentially interactive effects of aggressive driving and heavy drinking history on neurophysiological (event-related brain potentials) and behavioral measures during a driving simulation task. In addition, computational modeling techniques were applied to the experimental data to enhance the development of a driver-adaptive workload management system to optimize driver workload and improve transportation safety. Funded by the UB Interdisciplinary Research Fund to Dr. Changxu Wu, UB Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and subaccount to Dr. Rebecca Houston, RIA, 2008.
|York/Welte||Gender Comparison of Alcohol Exposure on Drinking Days: This project extended the investigators’ previous research on gender differences in alcohol consumption by focusing upon alcohol intake during discrete drinking episodes. The study documented for the first time the duration of typical drinking episodes, as well as the quantity of consumption, in a national general population survey of 2627 U.S. adults. This information, combined with anthropomorphic data, allowed for the reasoned estimation of the peak blood alcohol levels (BAC) achieved on a typical drinking day. The results found little difference between genders in the estimated peak BAC, which was also found to decrease gradually with advancing age in both genders. The study also quantified the risk of adult drinking problems for individuals who reported taking their first alcoholic drink in early adolescence and supported earlier reports that U.S. women are becoming more like men in their drinking habits. Funded by a grant of $116,250 from NIAAA, 2001-2003.|
|York||Age-Dependent Acquisition and Loss of Ethanol
Tolerance: In this animal model study,
the findings include:
Funded with a grant of $264,591 from NIAAA, 1990-94.
|York||Aging and Musculo-Motor Consequences
of Alcohol Abuse: This musculo-motor
performance study found the following:
|Zhuang/Richards||Genetic and Behavioral Dissection of Inhibitory Control
This study investigated biochemical changes underlying impaired inhibitory control in dopamine transporter expression (DAT knockdown) mice. Researchers tested the hypothesis that impaired postsynaptic dopamine D2 receptor function underlies impaired inhibitory control using a pharmacological rescue approach. They also tested the hypothesis that impaired D2 receptor function underlies impaired inhibitory control using mice that lack or have reduced postsynaptic D2 receptors. Funded by NIMH to Dr. Xiaoxi Zhuang, University of Chicago’s Neurobiology/Pharmacology/Physiology Department; subaward to Dr. Jerry Richards, RIA, 2003-2008.
|Back to Top.|
|
<urn:uuid:db2a62de-c3cf-4d52-af94-35c515c2f112>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.ria.buffalo.edu/pastproj.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.936077
| 15,023
| 1.609375
| 2
|
SIMILAR BOOKS BY CATEGORY
LINK FROM YOUR SITE
During the Second World War a great secret was kept from the Nation – and the enemy. Unknown to a war torn Britain, another war of intrigue, covert operations, spies, intelligence gathering and daring was being fought.
The battlefield was the English Channel. Under great secrecy an elite force of men and women were gathered on the remote coastline of the Scilly Isles. These men and woman, British and French, courageously kept open secret channels, between England and France, during the Second World War. The Special boat Operations (SBO) was central to British Naval strategy and planning, which operated in a secret and dangerous world at a time when Churchill demanded that ‘we set Europe ablaze’. The SBO was a radical departure from Royal Navy tradition but their ingenuity, indomitable spirit, loyalty and success was a major factor in the Allies’ victory in Europe.
This thrilling fictional account is based on true events. Mike Williams, a surviving member of the SBO, has created characters that brilliantly evoke the dangerous waters and desperate times in which the men and women lived – and sometimes lost – their lives.
|
<urn:uuid:b9c0258b-2966-4d48-9a1c-3f704acffa26>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=6825onfocus=
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.964934
| 245
| 1.742188
| 2
|
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Alp Governments’ Delivery of Commitments
You see: Parliamentary Secretary McLucas laughs, because she does not understand that point either. I dwell on it because it is the crux of the public policy debate when it comes to the so-called objective of this government: to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Senator Penny Wong did not understand it and clearly Senator McLucas does not understand it either. It might well be in the world’s best interests for Australia to increase its emissions if it means that as a result we can reduce emissions by more in the world overall—and that is what the net impact of what we do in Australia is all about. For every tonne of additional emissions increasing LNG production in Australia we can reduce emissions in China by five to nine tonnes if it displaces coal. We can reduce emissions in Japan by about four tonnes if it displaces coal. That is a net beneficial impact for the world.
If you look at the emissions trading scheme model, it was a model that gave some compensation, but not 100 per cent. So there was going to be an additional cost for the LNG industry, an additional cost for the uranium mining industry and an additional cost to other industries that can actually help reduce emissions in the world. This government says, ‘We want to make it harder for you to do that. We want to make it more difficult for you to attract investment, to increase production of energy.’ It says this even though if we increase production of energy in Australia not only will we have reduced emissions in the world so there is an environmental benefit, it will also be good for our economy, good for jobs and good for small business, which can benefit from downstream contracts from these industries.
But what does this government say? It says, ‘No, we want to put on a tax.’ It is so obsessed with reducing emissions in Australia domestically, whether it is five per cent or whatever the target is that the government agrees with that it says, ‘We don’t care what the flow-on consequences are in other parts of the world. We don’t care whether there is a global environmental benefit. We don’t care whether people have to make a sacrifice. We want people to make a sacrifice so that we can say we are reducing emissions in Australia by a certain percentage point, irrespective of what the impact is in terms of global emissions reduction.’ That is the fundamental problem that this government has.
The reason that then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pulled back from the ETS—as we understand it, on advice from the Treasurer and the then Deputy Prime Minister—is that after Copenhagen even the government realised that that was the case. Even the government realised that in the absence of an appropriately comprehensive global framework an emissions trading scheme as it was put forward—a carbon tax—is nothing more than a tax, which does not actually help to address the problem that this is supposed to be all about. Why would we put a tax on business, put a tax on jobs, put a tax on everything and impose sacrifices if it does not actually help to achieve any beneficial outcome?
The reason I asked Senator Wong the question I did today was that I had hoped, given that that was part of the debate two or three years ago, by now she would have had an answer. The broken promise by the Prime Minister last week is not really telling us anything new. They got the photo opportunity: the Prime Minister and Senator Bob Brown. And when you look at him in the chamber here, you can sense the feeling of power; he is getting quite bolshie and is feeling very strong right now because he knows that he has got this government on the run. This government is jumping to the tune of the Greens, irrespective of whether it is good public policy or not.
What was actually announced last week? The only thing we got was a date. We already knew that the Prime Minister wanted to break her emphatic re-election commitment that there would be no carbon tax. We already knew she was going to do that but she gave us a date, 1 July 2012. Did she give us anything else? No, she did not. There was no price, although we can look at what was on the table before, given that this is just a carbon copy of what then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd put forth.
|
<urn:uuid:9e47548f-2eca-43a5-89d0-3a067ecd8641>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?gid=2011-03-03.129.21
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978057
| 901
| 1.515625
| 2
|
People can take gap years or career breaks
People with the means to travel the world should do so - possibly on a hiking holiday or activity trip - Lonely Planet has said.
Heather Carswell, a spokeswoman at the travel guide company suggested that people should partake in long-term travel on a gap year or as a career break in later life.
"If you have the money and time to take a gap year then you should give it serious consideration as opportunities can be few and far between," she said.
"A gap year can be a rewarding and even life-changing experience. It is worth having a good think about what you want from it … [as] there are a multitude of options to consider before taking the plunge," Ms Carswell added.
According to recent research by Continental Tyres, the United States, Africa, Canada, Australia and the Caribbean make up the top five destinations for the adventure generation.
|
<urn:uuid:947a8fbc-bb73-46c6-9892-7fdb91c359a0>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.exploreworldwide.com.au/features/5821-long-term-travel-can-be-a-rewarding-and-live-changing-experience?cc=AU&nr=1
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962541
| 188
| 1.515625
| 2
|
Aperture Magazine (Summer 1999)
The interview took place on August 25, 1998, in the living room of Madonna’s duplx apartment on Central Park West. The space is large and imposingly formal, with oversize deco armchairs and a plush sofa across the room from a fireplace flanked by shelves that are empty save for a few deco vases and some art books. There are paintings by Tamara de Lempicka on two walls, a small exquisite Dali canvas near the fireplace, and some frames photos of her child, Lourdes, on a sideboard. A book by the Peruvian photographer Martin Chambi sits on the coffee table, where an assistant has placed a tray with a china tea service, but the room feels like a public space, a meeting room for guests rather than an integral part of the apartment’s regular domestic life.
Madonna, fresh from emergency root-canal work, says she’s a bit groggy from the gas, but she looks just fine in all black, and she moves quickly from subdued to playful to witty woman of the world – Vince Aletti
Vince: I found a quote from your interview with Bill Zehme, when you said “I’d rather own an art gallery than a movie studio. Or a museum. I’d rather be Peggy Guggenheim than Harry Cohn.”. Where did your interest in art and photography start?
Madonna: My interest in art started as a child because several members of my family could paint and draw and I couldn’t, so I was living vicariously through them. And from going to the Detroit Institute of arts, which is how I got into Diego Rivera, which is how I found out about Frida Kahlo and started reading about her. Then, if you go to enough Catholic churches, there’s art everywhere, so you get introduced to it that way, from a religious ecstasy point of view. And then just coming to New York and dancing. As an incredibly poor struggling dancer, you could get into museums for free, so that was my form of entertainment. It was just something I was interested in. And then you get into it, and when I started collecting, I started reading more and more about the artists themselves, and names would keep popping up – you know, Peggy Guggenheim. And of course I started reading about her and she was just -
Vince: She was definitely a character.
Madonna: Oh, my God! What a life she led! Just the idea of being in contact with all those great artists and nurturing them and giving them a place to show their work and being their patroness is, to me, fabulous.
Vince: It’s the one great thing to be.
Madonna: Totally! I mean that’s real art. And to be able to be a part of that and to nurture it – it’s a very enviable and honorable position.
Vince: I’ve always collected images and torn pages out of magazines and put them up on the wall -
Vince: And one picture that’s been up on every dorm room or apartment wall I’ve ever lived in was this Richard Avedon photo of Lew Alcindor from Harper’s Bazaar. I wondered if there was anything like that in your life early on. Was there an image that you’ve carried with you?
Madonna: The image that always struck me was one that I ended up using as an inspiration for one of my videos, and that’s a really sort of Cubist photograph – I forgot who the photographer is – of a man working on some big, huge piston-shaped cylinder.
Vince: The famous Lewis Hine photo.
Madonna: Right. Well, that ended up in my “Express Yourself” video; that was totally the inspiration for that. Every video I’ve ever done has been inspired by some painting or some work of art.
Vince: That’s what I was wondering. Obviously “Vogue” with the Horst references, which I know you got into some trouble for.
Madonna: Well, those were all pretty obvious. I consider them to be hommages of course. And I didn’t get into trouble, the director did. Fortunately, I owned the Tamara de Lempicky painting that I used for the opening of “Open Your Heart”. That one over there. Only we put lights on her nipples.
Vince: What else? Most of the others aren’t so -
Madonna: Obvious? Well, my “Bedtime Story” video was completely inspired by all the female surrealist painters like Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. There’s that one shot where my hands are up in the air and stars are spinning around me. And me flying through the hallway with my hair trailing behind me, the birds flying out of my open robe – all of those images were an hommage to female surrealist painters; there’s a little bit of Frida Kahlo in there, too. What else? The “Frozen” video was totally inspired by Martha Graham – I have a lot of photographs of her dancing; the big skirts and all the iron shapes and stuff like that.
Vince: I thought that the “Vogue” video was especially terrific because those were all pictures that -
Madonna: We brought to life.
Vince: Yeah, and it angered me that Horst couldn’t see that as a tribute. What could be better?
Madonna: Yeah, and those images are really powerful, and it’s great to remind people of them and to bring it into pop culture and not to keep it so outside where people are never going to exposed to it.
Vince: When did you start collecting?
Madonna: When I got my first paycheck, $5’000 or something.
Vince: Do you remember what you bought?
Madonna: This is a good question for my art dealer. I bought a Leger and I bought a Frida Kahlo self-portrait, but I don’t know which came first. But I remember buying it and I had just gotten married and it looked completely out of place in my house in Malibu (She laughs in a light, breathy burst). But those were my first paintings.
Vince: And were those things that you had always wanted – always hoped to have?
Madonna: Well I’ve always been kind of obsessed with Frida Kahlo, so I was really into the idea of getting something that belonged to her. And then from Frida Kahlo I found out about Tina Modotti and then I started collecting her stuff and Edward Weston, and one person always leads to another person with me, because for me it started with Diego Rivera, then it went to Frida Kahlo, then it went to Tina, and Edward and… (She trails off.). Also, if you’re into Picasso, and you want to find out about him and that whole area of art and European culture, then you start reading about Man Ray and the surrealists and Andre Breton, and all of a sudden you’re in that whole world and you start having interests in other people. It’s like a disease.
Vince: Of the best kind.
Madonna: Lately, I’ve gotten more into newer photographers. I’m really into Guy Bourdin (Note by madonna-online.ch: Bourdin was the inspiration behind the visuals of Madonna’s 2003 video Hollywood) right now; I’ve got a couple of his photographs in my bedroom that I wake up to every morning. I just move all over the place, really.
Vince: That’s been my impression whenever I read about the art that you have; it seems to be very wide-ranging.
Madonna: It’s more that a sensibility appeals to me. I’m really interested in two things in art. One is suffering, and the other is irony and a certain bizarre sense of humour. And that you can find everywhere.
Vince: Who else beside Guy Bourdin would you consider somebody new for you?
Madonna: That I love? Well I love Nan Goldin. She’s amazing. Now I’m into color photography – don’t get me wrong. I still love black and white – and I like a lot of the really young photographers. I interviewed Mario Testino for his show in Naples and Rio, and he has a new book – it’s great! Fantastic book – I love it. And I did a piece for him for the book and we had a lengthy discussion about young photographers that we really like right now. Like Mario Sorenti – people that are considered fashion photographers. For instance, I love Inez van Lamsweerde. She photographed me for Spin magazine and she is unbelievable. She’s Dutch.
Vince: What is she like? I’m really curious about her work.
Madonna: She’s so interesting. She’s tall; she’s got really long black hair; she looks like a Modigliani painting. She and her boyfriend (Vinoodh Matadin) work together and he does all the art direction. They make such beautiful photographs, and they do a lot of campaigns for a lot of young designers.
Vince: A lot of their work looks very computer-altered. Did they do that with you?
Madonna: Not that I know of, because I don’t like that. I knew I was going to get it with… what’s his name? I’m sorry I had too much gas and I can’t remember anyone’s name right now. David LaChapelle! Because you can’t work with him without being computerized.
Vince: It’s part of the look.
Madonna: Yeah. Anyway, I just love van Lamsweerde’s photographs, but I’m into Sean Ellis and Mario Sorrenti. Their photographs are very cinematic and they’re like a whole new wave, I think, of photography that transcends fashion and Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier – that whole school of photographers, who I think were really inspired by Avedon and Helmut Newton.
Vince: You brought up Mario Testino. I’d been wondering who would be the official photographer of your baby and he’s not the person I would have expected.
Madonna: Why, who would you have expected?
Vince: Someone you had worked with before, like Herb Ritts or Steven Meisel.
Madonna: Herb Ritts did take photographs of my daughter that are quite beautiful, two days after she was born, and those are all framed and in my house in L.A. But more like the classic, black-and-white; there are some beautiful, beautiful shots of her foot in my hand – incredible. There are some shots that look like photographs Man Ray did of Lee Miller, too. My hair was really blond and I had red lipstick on and they were black and white; just the way he processed them, they look very Man Ray-ish. But Mario’s really one of my favorite photographers right now, which is why he ended up taking the official portrait of me and her together. And when she had a real personality; I mean, babies don’t have personality when they’re two days old. I suppose some people think they do, but they’re just amoebas. They can’t even focus on anything.
Vince: I thought Testino’s pictures were wonderful.
Madonna: Believe me, there’s a lot more. He captures something about her. He has a real, natural kind of journalistic style of photographing that I like, which I think is better for a baby who’s running around and can’t stand to sit still. It’s not about lighting or anything, it’s about capturing her doing something, and he took some fantastic pictures of her.
Vince: It was those pictures that convinced me he was more interesting than I’d thought.
Madonna: Have you ever met him? He is a scream. He’s so much fun. He’s the kind of guy who will photograph you, and if he doesn’t like the way you’re standing or something, he’ll kick you. And he’s constantly singing and moving around the room and he’s so full of life, and I feel like his photographs are, too. He creates an atmosphere, a relaxed atmosphere, and then he just starts taking pictures. Which is very, very different than someone like Steven Meisel, who is really precise. (She says this last phrase with a deliberate pause between each word.)
Vince: I suspected that.
Madonna: He has a very specific aesthetic. But because I worked with him for so long, I felt like I needed to get away from it.
Vince: Let’s talk a little but about him, because I’m very curious about him and yur relationship with him. It did seem like you two formed one of those bonds that a subject and a photographer can form.
Vince: Yeah. And that you brought out very interesting things in each other.
Madonna: Yeah, well, first of all I have to feel like I’m friends with a photographer and that we enjoy the same things, like the same movies, have the same sick sensibility. And I felt that with Steven, which is why we just kept working together and working together and finally the idea of doing a book together came up. You really have to feel like someone’s part of your family to work on a book like that, where you’re just like hanging out. And not only did we photograph everything, we also filmed everything on a Super-8 camera – everything that we did.
Vince: Really? What’s happened to all that stuff?
Madonna: Oh, it’s around. It’s in the archives. It’ll be unearthed after I die. It’ll be playing at the Film Forum.
Vince: What drew you to Meisel in the first place, and what clicked between you?
Madonna: Well, first of all, he just really, really appreciates beauty, and he knows how to photograph a strong female. He’s a diva himself. And he, like me, is sort of a scavenger who picks stuff out of things, whether it’s old movies, old Warhol films. He’s interested in street fashion., He picks up stuff from all over the place and puts it in his work and so do I. And he likes a lot of the same things I like. I don’t know – we just clicked. He’s one of those people who will call you and go, You’ve gotta see this movie or rent this movie. It’s always movies you have to go and rent or buy somewhere; it’s nothing that’s out, nothing modern.
Vince: He fascinates me because there’s always what’s there on the surface and then there’s all this stuff behind it. I know he has this incredibly broad range of things that he pulls from, and they’re never what I’m expecting next.
Madonna: No, and that’s the great thing about Steven. He’ll take you down a road and then he’ll completely throw a curve ball. I wish he’d do more outside of Vogue magazine. I suppose he can’t. Because that’s certainly working within a serious restriction, and unfortunaely Vogue has turned into a Speigel catalogue.
Vince: I hardly pay attention to his work in American Vogue, because -
Madonna: It’s all about Italian Vogue.
Vince: That’s so great, and it does seem that he can get away with just about anything there. But I am curious about the Sex book and how that came about. A lot of the visual influences there seem to be Man Ray and experimental European work.
Madonna: Man Ray and every movie that Visconti ever made starring Helmut Berger and – did you see “The Damned”? – Ingrid Thulin. I mean I was Ingrid Thulin for several of those photographs. And the book was inspired by all those kind of things; those old Warhol films, where people did nothing and just sat there and peeled bananas and stuff, to all the Visconti stuff, especially the stuff we shot at the Gaiety when I’m dressed in an evening gown and I’ve got all the men on leashes and I think Udo Kier is even in the photographs. We had to bring Udo Kier back – he’s incredible.
Vince: Was the book something you concocted together or something you decided you should do and then you pulled Meisel into it?
Madonna: We were always fooling around and doing stuff anyway – stuff that never made it into any magazines – because we were always working together on so many things. I guess it was my idea and then I pulled him into it. I mean, we had talked about doing a book together, we just weren’t sure where we wanted to go with it and what kind of book, because I love taking on different personas and becoming and transforming and the whole chameleon thing with a twist on Cindy Sherman – something a bit more aggressive than that. I’m a big fan of hers, by the way. So originally it was going to be this thing of different guises, and then we used to go to the Gaiety all the time and we got onto the subject of sex and gender confusion and role playing and men playing females and women playing men and that’s how the Sex book came about. Steven, like me, likes to f*ck with people, so that was a big part of it, too.
Vince: With the public, you mean, or with the people who are his subjects?
Madonna: Everyone, everything, at every level. It was about celebrating the ultimate taboo and just having fun doing what you’re not supposed to do. I mean, a pop star’s not supposed to do those things. I’m telling you, I had the time of my life while I was doing it. Of course, I got the shit kicked out of me for it, so it’s a good thing I had a good time doing it. And I had fun. I don’t regret it. The whole thing was like performance art while it was happening and it was a real throw-caution-to-the-wind, devil-may-care time of my life.
Vince: Can you imagine doing something like that again?
Madonna: I don’t know…
Vince: There’s no point of doing that again, obviously, but…
Madonna: I never want to repeat myself. I like the idea of doing something political and provocative, but I don’t know what it would be. That’s one of those things that you can’t plan, you just have to let it happen.
Vince: I suspect that if you meet another photographer who inspires you in the way that he did…
Madonna: Or maybe I’ll do it with film; maybe it won’t be photography.
Vince: In a sense, you did it with Truth or Dare.
Madonna: This is true, and I like that confusion of is it real or is it not real? Is it life imitating art or is it art imitating life? Is it something that we planned that we filmed, or is it something that we captured? Because I’m telling you, the line starts to get very blurred.
Vince: Even when you’re in the middle of it.
Madonna: Totally. And that’s beautiful, too.
Vince: Let’s talk about Cindy Sherman. I know that you sponsored her show of “Film stills” at the Museum of Modern Art. What is it that appeals to you about her work?
Madonna: Just her chameleon-like persona – her transformation. What she’s able to evoke – the subtlety of her work, the detail. I just think her stuff is amazing.
Vince: Do you own work of hers?
Madonna: No, can you believe that? I’ve always admired her work, but the images that were available to be bought I wasn’t that crazy about. But I really respect and admire her.
Vince: What exactly was your involvement in the Modern show? Did you actually put up the money to buy that whole group of “film stills”?
Madonna: Yeah, I was a patroness. (She laughs at her own pretension.)
Vince: I like the idea; I think it’s important.
Madonna: It’s the best place to put your money, honestly. I know it’s good to get involved in lots of charities, but I think its really, really important to do things that inspire people in other ways. Because people need to have their consciousness raised in many ways, and sometimes it’s too easy to just give your money to something that you don’t have any connection to. It’s much more gratifying for me to be able to give money to tangible things, like to help keep a theater open, to a school, to supporting an artist in getting a show together.
Vince: How did the Cindy Sherman arrangement come about?
Madonna: My art dealer (Darlene Lutz), she has relationships with a lot of people at the Museum of Modern Art. They come to me a lot and ask if I want to get involved with different shows. The only shows I’ve been involved in in terms of financing have been the Tina Modotti show and the Cindy Sherman show – that’s it. You know, we chicks have to stick together.
Vince: And you want to do something that -
Madonna: That I love – that I love totally.
Vince: To go back to photographers that you’ve worked with, I wanted to ask about Herb Ritts. It seemed to me that you had an interesting, symbiotic relationship with photographers, both as a muse and as a great subject. And these people helped to create your image in a lasting way.
Madonna: Yes, aboslutely. And Herb Ritts was really a big part of that, especially in the beginning of my career.
Vince: What did he bring to the relationship that made those pictures so effective?
Madonna: An innocence. Herb is one of those people who doesn’t even seem like he’s a photographer. It feels like he discovered it by accident in a way, and he has a real naivete about him. He doesn’t really plan things; he kind of stumbles across things. He’s got a real aw-gee-shucks vibe on him. He’s a really innocent, geeky-nerdy type of a person, and I became friends with him. I asked him to photograph my wedding, and things went from there. Because I always have to be friends with them first, and they become part of my inner circle, and once I’m really comfortable with them, that’s then things start to be created. And Herb was very much part of my social circle. And Herb – Steven doesn’t do this much, but Mario does it – they always have a little camera in their pocket. I mean, Herb and Mario must have a billion photographs of me in their archives – just of parties, hanging out at my house, coming to visit me on the sets of movies – that I’m sure will resurface someday, when I’ve been reincarnated as a camera lens. But there’s a certain comfortability factor that came with Herb. And I’d never really been conscious or aware of photographers before, and, believe me, I’d been photographed a lot before that, but I wasn’t really present, I didn’t care. And, in fact, all the nude photographs that surfaced of me from my early days of modeling for art classes and photography schools and stuff, I didn’t want to be there that I removed myself from the whole process. I wasn’t relating to the photographer, I wasn’t relating to the camera, and it wasn’t a relationship. I wasn’t there – I was gone. It must be like what a prostitute does when they’re with a john. I was not present. So, to me, the whole Herb Ritts thing was the first time that I realized that symbiosis, that exchange of energy and the creation of magic that happens from that exchange. A good photographer creates an environment for you to shine – for you to express yourself in whatever statement it is you want to make. And you do have to feel comfortable with people. I remember Robert Mapplethorpe kept asking to photograph me back in the day, but he scared the shit out of me.
Madonna: I don’t know why, he just did.
Vince: You seem relatively unscareable.
Madonna: Yeah, but there was some energy that he had that I didn’t feel comfortable with. And I couldn’t even explain to you what it was. I was very young when I met him and I hadn’t been living in New York that long. Anyway, Herb was the first photographer that I really had a relationship with.
Vince: And then Meisel after that?
Madonna: Pretty much. I worked with other people, but nobody that made a difference. And then I worked with Steven. What was the first thing I didn with him? I don’t even remember. But I remember once I got more into fashion and started collecting more art and becoming a lot more aware of the intersection of art and fashion, that’s when I got into Steven Meisel.
Vince: In a sense, you were more on his wavelength, then.
Madonna: I sort of went into Steven’s wavelength, and then that worked for a while. too, and culminated in the Sex book and all of that stuff. And then I didn’t want to have my photograph taken for a really long time, and then I hooked up with Mario Testino. I worked with lots of photographers inbetween, but a sort of artist-muse relationship excisted with those three photographers.
Vince: There are tons of other pictures of you -
Madonna: But those were just one-offs.
Vince: – but those were the photographers who seemed to bring you out in a collaborative way. Is there one, definitive Madonna picture?
Madonna: I think there is with each photographer, but there isn’t just one, because I feel like I change and evolve so much that it’s hard for me to put my finger on one.
Vince: I suspected that you’d say that, because if you chose once, you’d be pinning yourself down to just one moment and there is really no one moment. Are there other photographers that you’d like to work with?
Madonna: Like to become the muse of? Well, I really wanted to have my picture taken by Helmut Newton, and I did. I love his stuff, too. But I didn’t have a relationship with him; he’s not available, or accessible. I also had my photograph taken by this other photographer who I adored, but the photographs never got used: Paolo Roversi, he does beautiful work. They were going to be pictures for my album cover – not this record but the record before – but the people at the record company were all too freaked out; they thought the pictures were too blurry, they weren’t going to read well – whatever.
Vince: In all of photographic history, who would you wish to have photographed you?
Madonna: Well, Man Ray – no question, no question. There are a lot of photographers that I admire, but I’m not sure that I would have wanted them to photograph me. Irving Penn, but not now – forty years ago. I can’t think of anyone else.
Madonna: Yeah, yeah. No question; he was amazing. But I think that’s it: Weston, Man Ray, and Irving Penn – not a shabby crowd.
Vince: Following that, who in the history of art would you like to have painted your portrait?
Madonna: Wow! That’s a good question. Well, Picasso would have been amazing. I’ve got a portrait of Dora Maar that’s un-believable. It wouldn’t have been a pretty picture, but we would have liked it anyway.
Vince: With Picasso it would have been so beyond just having your picture done.
Madonna: He paints your personality, he doesn’t paint your portrait; and he paints his personality, too. But I’m happy to share a canvas with Picasso. I would have loved Bouguereau to paint my portrait, because I would have looked really good. (She laughs) He doesn’t paint an ugly picture of anyone. Or Rembrandt, he would have been OK. (Said with the feigned unconcern, and sly smile, of a princess indulging in high nobless oblige. Then, after a long pause;) Oh, I know who: Edward Hopper. Love his paintings.
Vince: With your photographs, your videos, and your perfomances you’ve had a real impact on our ideas about femininity and, I think, masculinity because of the way you’ve pulled that into it. I’m curious about what influences you’ve had on your ideas about femininity and masculinity over the years. What were the defining influences, if there are any?
Madonna: I think a lot of the art that I have has influenced me in that way. I have a photograph in my office that Man Ray did of Lee Miller kissing another woman that I think is really powerful and that has really inspired me. I’ve also been inspired by – well, everything inspires me. A lot of the movies have inspired me – a lot of the movies of Visconti and Pasolini. With Pasolini, there’s a lot of religious ecstasy intertwined with sexual ecstasy, and when I think of Visconti’s films, I always feel sexually confused by them. For instance, did you see The Night Porter?
Madonna: You haven’t seen it? (She slaps a pillow like a disapproving school mistress.) Anything with Charlotte Rampling you must see. She is a genius! Images of women dressed in Nazi Gestapo uniforms – the vulnerability and fragility of a female but the masculinity of a uniform, and the whole sense of playing that out and performing, doing sort of cabaret – the movie Cabaret! The confusion: what’s male, what’s female? For me, David Bowie has a huge influence on me because his was his first concert I went to see. I rememer watching him and thinking I didn’t know what sex he was, and it didn’t matter. Because one minute he was wearing body stockings – the whole Ziggy Stardust thing – and the next minute he was the Thin White Duke in white double-breasted suits, and there’s something so androgynous about him. And I think androgyny, whether it’s David Bowie or Helmut Berger, that has really really influenced my work more than anything.
Vince: You project so many facets of femininity very strongly so it’s fascintating to me that androgyny is also part of the mix.
Vince: That definitely comes out in the Sex book.
Madonna: Yeah, but when you think of all the stuff that I did in my live shows with Gaultier and the costuming and having the two guys standing by my bed with the cone-shaped bras on. It’s always been about switching genders and playing with that whole masculinity / femininity issue.
Vince: What do you find powerful about that – or intriguing?
Madonna: I don’t know – the most interesting people to me are people who aren’t just one way. And obviously I’m attracted to it because I am a female but I have been described as being very male-like or very predatory or having a lot of male traits. But that’s because I’m financially independent, and I have spoken about my sexual fantasies in the sort of frank and blunt way that has been reserved for men. And the more people have criticized me for behaving in an unladylike fashion, the more it’s provoked me to behave in an unladylike fashion and say, I can be fminine and masculine at the same time.
Vince: It’s seems to me you’ve always been about blasting away old ideas about what is feminine and what is masculine. To say that you’re not feminine because you take charge – that’s an old idea about what femininity is.
Madonna: And, by the way, artists through the centuries have been into role-playing. I mean Frida Kahlo always dressed like a man. And so did Lee Miller for a time. There are lots of people sort of switched back and forth, but that was always reserved for fine art; in pop culture, you’re expected to behave in a socially acceptable way.
Vince: In a sense it’s easier for guys – from Bowie to Jagger to Boy George – to f*ck around with that.
Madonna: Absolutely. Because men feel safe about it. Men feel safe with men dressing like women; they do not feel safe with women dressing like men. You’re not feeling intimidated by a guy who dresses like a female, but you might feel intimidated by a woman who walked around in a pin-striped suit with her tits hanging out, grabbing her crotch – who absolutely doesn’t need you for anything. Except for one thing, but even then, you can leave after that.
(Here, inspired by the film Elizabeth, which she’d seen in London, Madonna digressed into retelling the history of Elizabeth I, including her unconventional life, her ascension to the throne, and her eventual triumph as a queen. She led up to this point:)
Madonna: But she never had public favor; it was a bit like the Hillary Clinton thing. She did all the right things for her country, but she wasn’t ultimately revered. So she had a conversation with her confidant-adviser. She asked him, when have they ever looked up to or idolized a woman? Only one, he told her, the Virgin Mary. So she said, Then I will become like the Virgin Mary, and she did. She created a facade for herself; she stopped having lovers; she became like a virgin. She became sexless, and painted her face in a white alabaster way, and turned herself into an icon that was untouchable and sexless, and then she had everybody’s respect.
Vince: At what cost?
Madonna: I know, but for me it was a very enlightening moment.
Vince: But it is a terrible cost – to give up everything in order to rule?
Madonna: Right, but if you are a powerful female and you don’t play the traditional role that you are supposed to play when you get married and have a family and everyone feels safe with you, then you are going to be intimidating to people. And that idea has always been running through my work. Accepting it, not accepting it; accepting it, not accepting it. And shoving it in people’s faces. I mean that whole crotch-grabbing thing was just so like, OK every other rock star in the universe has done it, so I’m going to do it. And you know how freaked-out people got about it. Whatever. But we got off the subject.
Vince: Is there an early influence on your ideas about femininity and masculinity?
Madonna: I think probably my earliest influences probably came from the world of dance, especially with Martha Graham, because I studied at her school and I read all about her and saw the movies of her dances and performances. She freaked people out, too, because she brought to life all of these Greek myths and she reenacted them in her dances. And she was always turning things around; she was always the agressor who trapped the men. And her dances were very sexually provocative, very erotic, and very female-assertive, and I know that that really influenced me. And also ballet is such a female thing, and when I was younger, being surrounded by male ballet dancers – to me, that’s gender confusion. I mean, a bunch of guys walking around in tights putting their toes up in the air, and they’re incredibly effeminite men. Being surrounded by that on a regular basis when I was growing up – I mean, I wanted to be a boy when I was growing up because I was in love with all of the male dancer I know and they were all gay. And I thought, Well, if I was a boy, they’d love me. So I got into role-playing then. That’s where it began. I remember when I was still in high school, I had cut my hair off really short, and I was totally anorexic – I had no boobs – and I would dress like a boy and go to gay clubs and my goal was to trick men into thinking I was a boy.
Vince: Did it ever work?
Madonna: It did actually, a few times. Yeah, it really started in the dance world.
Vince: And when you got into music, it wasn’t in the rock and roll world, which is a lot more gender-defined, but through disco, which was much more fluid.
Madonna: And I’m sure that’s really influenced me, because from the dance world to the music world, my social strata was mostly gay men. That’s who my audience was, that’s who I hung out with, that’s who inspired me. For me, it freed me, because I could do whatever I wanted and be whatever I wanted.
Vince: Knowing that your audience is ready to be f*cked with.
Madonna: Totally. Ready to be f*cked with and certainly not intimidated by a strong female. So the problem arose when I left that world and went into the mainstream. Suddenly, there was judgment. But before that I was in my little gay cocoon.
Vince: But you certainly fed off the judgment.
Madonna: Well, absolutely. As soon as you tell me I can’t do something – And that’s how I’ve always been, starting from when I was a little girl. The boys could wear pants to church and the girls couldn’t. And I used to say, But why? Is God going to love me less if I don’t wear a dress? It just irked me – the rules. So I would put pants on under my dress, just to f*ck with my father. And after church, I would tell him I had pants and I’d say, See, lightning did not strike me. And I guess I’ve been doing that ever since.
Vince: Do you have a feminine ideal? Is there someone who seems like perfection – and I mean totally in your own terms?
Madonna: Well, a lot of the artists that I collect and that I admire: Lee Miller, Tina Modotti, Frida Kahlo – that whole group of females that kind of started off as muses and became artists in their own right and absolutely worked in a lot of different worlds and moved in a lot of different worlds and were artstic and political and still had their femininity about them. I can’t think of anybody now. That’s a tough one. I’m sitting here and combing all the areas; Is there an actress? Is there a singer? Is there an artist now? Help me!
Vince: For some reason, Liz Taylor came to mind, but most of the stars around today are complicated because they’ve made so many compromises along the way.
Madonna: Hollywood is about playing the game, and I can’t think of any successful actresses who didn’t play the game. there’s a lot more renegades in the music business, from Patti Smith to Janis Joplin.
Vince: So Lee, Tina and Frida, but neither of us can come up with someone working now who could qualify.
Madonna: It’s lonely out there.
Vince: Is there a masculine ideal, either now or in the past?
Madonna: I would say David Bowie, absolutely. I was terribly inspired by him and I still think he’s an amazing human being. He keeps pushing the envelope in his way. I can think of a lot of male artists that I admire, but everytime I start to think about them, and how they behaved, they were all real shits. F*ck-faces. And the thing is, all those women that I names – I know a lot about them. I’ve gotten into their work and then read their biographies and really followed them and really studied them, and they’re women that I really look up to. Whereas the men, I haven’t followed as much; I haven’t felt the desire to know more about them. I mean, everybody knows what a shit Picasso was. But all of those guys – they were all pigs. I’m sure Man Ray was a pain in the ass, too.
Vince: But is there an ideal image of masculinity, one that doesn’t depend on biography?
Madonna: I got back and forth. For me, a male image that I’m really moved by is somewhere between of Oscar Wilde type of a male: the fop, the long hair, the suits, too witty for his own good, incredibly smart, scathingly funny – all that. But then my other ideal is more like the Buddhist monk – the shaved head, actually someone who sublimates their sexuality.
Vince: Not exactly like anybody you’ve ever been involved with.
Madonna: I wouldn’t say that.
Vince: I shouldn’t assume.
Madonna: No. Like one of my yoga teachers, for instance. He has a Jesus-like quality to him. I know he’s heterosexual, he wears earrings and he’s got a very androgynous look to him and long hair. But he has an aesthetic and a humility about him that I think is very appealing and something to aspire to.
Vince: Interesting. When I think of you and males, I think of all the guys in your videos, most of whom have been like thugs.
Madonna: Hunky boys? Yes, I am attracted to a thug. I like that quality, but I like the other side of it, too. Because all guys who go around behaving in macho ways are really scared little girls. So you have to look beneath the surface. There’s a difference between my ideal man and a man that I’m sexually attracted to, believe me. Therein lies the rub.
Vince: What is your overriding visual inspiration?
Madonna: The crucifix. It’s the first image that sticks in my mind from my childhood. I’ve used it a lot in my work; I’ve used it in my videos; I’ve used it on stage. The whole idea of the crucifixion and the suffering of Christ is all kind of intertwined with masochism and Catholicism is a huge part of my upbringing, my past, my influence. And it’s a very powerful image.
|
<urn:uuid:1afef8e8-1318-481c-92ef-d363aceeaf5f>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-interviews-articles/aperture-magazine-summer-1999
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.976424
| 9,566
| 1.523438
| 2
|
HULL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (HIN)
All vessels manufactured since 1972 are permanently marked with a Hull Identification Number (HIN) a number that is permanently affixed to the rear of vessel's hull indicating the manufacturer and serial number as well as the month and year of production., which is the 12-character serial number of your vessel. To identify your vessel, HINs are marked at the sternrear portion of a vessel. on the starboard (right) side, or as close to that area as possible. You must NOT deface or alter the HIN.
THE HIN INDICATES THE BOAT'S:
Month and year of production
|
<urn:uuid:b7f34610-78b0-4c18-a9ec-1d223e54f386>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.boaterexam.com/usa/georgia/education/?chapter=1&page=11
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.932426
| 140
| 1.742188
| 2
|
First timer? In this formerly once-a-day blog (then every-other-day blog and now a one-to-three-times a week blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48). I call this “landing.” I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near. I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.
Dan - The LG is a cruel master – after 5 USers in a row, you guessed it: 5 OSers in a row with this landing in . . . KS; 58/52; 5/10; 8; 156.3.
Here’s my landing map, showing my proximity to Alta Vista and Alma.
Dan, you may remember Alma because of a previous landing back in 2008. Was this the town you visited off of I-70 when you gave me a call? Here’s a slightly expanded landing map, showing I-70:
Here’s an even broader view:
Anyway, I landed in the watershed of the Illinois Creek, on to the Mill Ck; to the Kansas R (57th hit); to the Missouri (361st hit); to the MM (769th hit).
Here’s my GE shot, showing a prairie/pasture setting rather than straight ahead agriculture:
Here’s a somewhat expanded view, showing clearly the watershed of the Illinois Creek:
Here’s a street view shot looking north, with my landing about a mile away:
Just to include a little local history, here’s a back-in-the-day picture of the Rock Island Railroad depot in Alta Vista:
Rather than feature the towns, I’m going to feature the geographic/geologic region in which I landed, the Flint Hills. This region is not agricultural, as I noted above. From Wiki:
The bedrock of the Flint Hills were created approximately 250 million years ago during the Permian Period. During this time much of the Midwest, including Kansas and Oklahoma, were covered with shallow seas. As a result, much of the Flint Hills are composed of limestone (a rock created by the leftovers of limey sea critters like shell fish and coral) with plentiful fossils of these critters. Some of the bedrock is contains chert (i.e., flint). Many of the honey-colored limestones have been used for building blocks. The non-chert-bearing limetones are best for this, since the chert is extremely hard to cut, yet it can fracture quite easily.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, homesteaders replaced the American Indian in the Flint Hills. Due to shallow outcroppings of limestone and chert, corn and wheat farming were not practical over much of the area and cattle ranching became the main agricultural activity in the region. Because the area was not ploughed over and is still sparsely developed today, the Flint Hills represent the last expanse of intact tallgrass prairie in the nation and the best opportunity for sustained preservation of this unique habitat that once covered the Great Plains.
Here’s a picture of Alma City Hall (marnox1, Panaramio), built from the local limestone:
For all of you weather fans (like me): I’m sure you spend a fair amount of time checking out Doppler Radar (the maps showing the precipitation with shades of greens, yellows and reds representing rainfall intensity). Anyway, just southeast of Alma is a Doppler Radar:
This is a beautiful area, so the rest of the post will be a picturesque photo album. These are all Panaramio shots. I’ll start with shot from west of Alma (by Pennington):
Here’s a butterfly bush from SE of Alma by lgpfort:
Just 2 miles east of my landing, here’s a shot by “srpouch”:
I’ll close with this lovely shot by prairypan, from about 3 miles north of my landing:
That’ll do it. . .
© 2011 A Landing A Day
|
<urn:uuid:ac1be116-c334-4cb4-8d1e-a18ae6af9ae1>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://landingaday.wordpress.com/2011/03/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.933483
| 948
| 1.539063
| 2
|
Virginia Garcia-Kaiser Permanente Partnership
What does Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest health care systems in the country have in common with Virginia Garcia, a group of safety net clinics in Washington and Yamhill Counties? As it turns out, quite a lot. “Kaiser and Virginia Garcia share the same core values in our commitment to providing health care to underserved populations,” said Tracy Dannen-Grace, Kaiser’s community benefits manager. “About twenty percent of our members live in Washington County and could be well served by Virginia Garcia.”
For the last decade, Kaiser has provided sponsorship, financial and in-kind support to Virginia Garcia. Grants from Kaiser have supported everything from capacity building, to electronic medical records (EMR), to expanded dental services, to ongoing trainings for Virginia Garcia staff. In 2005, Virginia Garcia received capital monies to help establish the dental clinic in Hillsboro, giving Virginia Garcia the capacity and resources to concentrate on oral health for the first time. Four years ago, when Virginia Garcia began the transition from paper to EMR, Kaiser provided grant money for the purchase of hardware and software for EPIC electronic records. In addition, information technology teams from Kaiser worked shoulder to shoulder with Virginia Garcia providers and staff to help smooth the transition to the new system. Last year Kaiser gave Virginia Garcia a grant for the Oral Health Initiative to introduce dental care at its School-based Health Centers (SBHC). Kaiser has also offered project management and medical team leadership trainings for all Virginia Garcia clinics.
What does Kaiser gain in return? “Virginia Garcia has an innovative model,” said Dannen-Grace. “Virginia Garcia is small enough to be nimble in how they put the medical home into practice. The team–based care combined with ancillary services to meet the needs of the population Virginia Garcia serves is something we can all learn from.” Virginia Garcia’s experience working with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds and the use of community health workers and classes has helped inform Kaiser’s approach to working with similar populations, according to Dannen-Grace.
In fact, Kaiser has formalized an ongoing ‘intellectual exchange’ between the two health care systems. In November, Kaiser and Virginia Garcia brought senior leaders in clinical care, finance, operations and wellness and prevention together to share ideas on best practices. “It was the first time we’ve dedicated one of our community service days to an intellectual exchange,” said Dannen-Grace. “Both organizations found it so beneficial that we’ll probably do it again.”
Kaiser and Virginia Garcia are also partners in a Clinical Quality Improvement program. This three year grant supports the hiring of a full time nurse coordinator to develop a program to help manage diabetes care at each Virginia Garcia primary care site. “Our goal is to develop the best practices and protocol in managing our patients with diabetes,” said Ann Turner, Virginia Garcia’s co-medical director.
One of the most innovative Virginia Garcia projects that Kaiser helped launch is the Oral health Initiative. Beginning in the 2011-2012 school year, Virginia Garcia began providing oral health services to students at the two SBHC at Tigard and Forest Grove High Schools. Each week, a dental hygienist from Virginia Garcia provides oral health screenings, cleanings and sealants for students at each SBHC. “After initial screenings, we bring the Virginia Garcia mobile van equipped with dental chairs and services to the schools to see kids who can’t get to our clinics,” said Lisa Bozzetti, Virginia Garcia’s dental director. “These visits give us the opportunity to educate students about oral health and to look for significant oral health issues that need to be referred to the Virginia Garcia dental clinic. Kaiser provided funds that help us purchase equipment and get the Oral Health Initiative off the ground.”
In March, executives from Kaiser visited the Tigard SBHC to see the Oral Health Initiative in action. A video team shot footage of the mobile dental clinic and interviews with dental care experts from Kaiser and Virginia Garcia. “The northwest is the only region in which Kaiser has a focus on oral health care,” said Dannen-Grace. “The introduction of dental care in the SBHC is ground-breaking and we hope to bring national attention to this program.”
|
<urn:uuid:8b96c844-35f6-4274-8292-5043a62953eb>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.virginiagarcia.org/VGKPPartnership.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.934938
| 916
| 1.632813
| 2
|
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said Wednesday he is considering implementing a controversial stop-and-frisk policy similar to that used in New York and other cities, where officers try to reduce violent crime by searching people they consider suspicious in an attempt to seize illegal weapons.
“This is under consideration as a way to make sure that we keep homicides and some of these other violent crime(s) down,” Lee told The Chronicle‘s editorial board. “I think we have to get to the guns. I know we have to find a different way to get to these weapons, and I’m very willing to consider what other cities are doing.”
It’s a surprising move for a mayor who has described himself as “a progressive before progressive was a political faction in this town” and who leads what is viewed as one of the most liberal cities in the country.
“Wow,” said Supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents a large swath of southeastern San Francisco and hadn’t heard about the idea until contacted by The Chronicle. “That’s shocking and alarming.”
Civil rights groups and others have denounced stop-and-frisk policies in various cities as a racist approach that disproportionately affects Latino and African American residents. Several thousand demonstrators marched through New York’s streets this month to protest the policy.
A recent report by the New York Civil Liberties Union found that the vast majority of people stopped by police there were black or Latino, and that of 686,000 people stopped in 2011, 88 percent of them had done nothing wrong.
In Philadelphia, city officials agreed last year to court monitoring of their stop-and-frisk program to settle a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, who alleged that police officers used racial profiling and stopped people with little or no justification.
Supporters of stop-and-frisk policies say the approach helps reduce crime and get guns off the streets.
A risky move
Lee did not provide details but acknowledged he is considering tactics that “might be edgy” to reduce gun violence, particularly in the city’s southeastern neighborhoods and in public housing projects such as Sunnydale, the scene of four recent shootings.
Other attempts have been thwarted, such as a 2005 voter-approved ballot measure banning the sale or possession of handguns within city limits that the courts ruled invalid.
“It’s controversial. I will be tagged – as the minority mayor of this city – for racial profiling,” said Lee, a former civil rights attorney. “But I’m going to let everybody know that if it works … I’m going to do something in that direction.”
Lee said he wants to explore the idea after having “a good conversation about stop-and-frisk” with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Later Wednesday, Lee’s spokeswoman, Christine Falvey, said the mayor would not mimic New York or Philadelphia. “He wants to talk about what’s working there.”
Lee said he will meet soon with the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, to try to get him and other black ministers to join him in supporting a new policy in the city.
Brown said it’s true that gun violence in the city’s African American and Latino communities is “out of hand.”
But he said he will support a stop-and-frisk policy only if police officers will enforce it without using racial profiling and in a calm, compassionate way.
“I’m not supporting any rough, gruff officers coming in like they do in a police state,” he said.
If done wrong, the approach could undermine the city’s community policing efforts, where an increase in foot patrols and contact with residents and merchants breeds trust and greater cooperation, some analysts said.
“It is a legitimate tool, but it’s also one that is abused and has the ability to destroy community-police relations,” said David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer who represented eight people who sued Philadelphia over its stop-and-frisk approach.
Alan Schlosser, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said he was shocked that Lee is considering bringing stop-and-frisk to San Francisco.
“San Francisco for years has tried to develop … policies that reduce racial profiling,” Schlosser said. “This just seems like a total reverse of that.”
Ex-gang member skeptical
Shawn Richard, a former gang member who now leads the nonprofit Brothers Against Guns in the Bayview, said racial profiling would occur here, too. He’s doubtful that a white person driving through the Bayview would be pulled over under the policy.
“Who does that leave? People of color, right?” he said.
Richard said there are “a lot” of concealed weapons carried in Bayview-Hunters Point and that shootings in the neighborhood are rampant. He shared Brown’s feeling that the policy could prove helpful – but only if it’s applied without regard to race.
Police Department figures show that in 2009, homicides in the city were more than halved, from 97 the previous year to 46, and have since held steady at 50 for both 2010 and 2011. There have been 37 homicides so far this year, but Police Chief Greg Suhr said shootings overall are down 10 percent year to date.
“We know we’re doing it right,” said Suhr, whom Lee appointed last year. “We have no interest in racially profiling here. … I think we’re more of the model in the country on how to do it right.” Lee takes the news of shootings in the city very personally, Suhr said.
“He’s more upset than I can tell you,” the chief said. Suhr is confident that once the mayor “hears the downside of this and how it was not well received in New York or Philadelphia or by law enforcement in general, he’ll see that’s not the best way to do business here.”
John Coté and Heather Knight are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.org
|
<urn:uuid:5ac7a248-029e-48d4-93f2-e41d4a3ed06b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://bayviewmagic.org/2012/07/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.963509
| 1,340
| 1.585938
| 2
|
It’s almost impossible to read an article or blog posting today about patents that doesn’t complain that “the patent system is broken.” It’s especially prevalent in reports on high-tech patents, software patents, or the “smart phone wars.” (I’m not hyperlinking here, because there’s just too many examples to choose between.) In fact, the din on the increasingly clichéd statement that “the patent system is broken” is really reaching histrionic proportions. It’s even prompted Patent Commissioner David Kappos to appeal to “those reporting and commenting on the smartphone system patent wars” to “move beyond the flippant rhetoric and instead engage in thoughtful discussion.”
Although it’s tempting to think that Commissioner Kappos is engaging in his own bombastic exclamations in his criticism of “flippant rhetoric,” it’s unfortunately true. Here’s just one relatively recent example from the venerable New York Times, called “Apple Now Owns the Page Turn,” by Nick Bilton.
In this brief article, Mr. Bilton decries that Apple “now owns the page turn” in ebook readers with its recently issued design patent (D670,713). Proclaiming that this is proof of “how broken the patent system is,” Mr. Bilton informs his readers that this design patent “gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application.”
No, Mr. Bilton, it does not, and the NY Times should be embarrassed that such ignorant proclamations continue to be published under its masthead, including the blatantly biased and equally ill-informed hit piece on software patents published by the Old Gray Lady last October.
When most people talk about patents, they usually are speaking about a utility patent, which do secure exclusive property rights in new technology and discoveries. But there is an entirely different type of patent, called a design patent. Despite legal requirements that superficially sound similar, such as requirements of novelty and nonobviousness, design patents are entirely different from utility patents.
If Mr. Bilton had bothered to do even the minimal amount of research that most college undergraduates do today, say by checking Wikipedia’s entry on design patents, he would have discovered that it is certainly not true that Apple has “exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application.” Despite Wikipedia’s well-deserved reputation for ill-informed entries, it actually has a good, succinct summary of design patents, describing briefly the differences between design patents and utility patents, and it even cites some classic examples from 150 years ago, such as design patents on famous fonts, the design patent on the statue of liberty, etc.
So, if Mr. Bilton had bothered to take five minutes to check Wikipedia before writing his NY Times posting, he would have learned that design patents are not patents on functional technology, but rather secure only non-functional, ornamental designs. For the sake of this vaunted NY Times writer and the many people he has mislead, I’ll repeat the most important word here in the definition: non-functional. Thus, Apple does not own e-book page-turning technology nor does it own the function of turning pages in an e-book reader. What this design patent secures is the novel ornamental design Apple has developed for its particular e-book reader, and it’s limited to exactly this particular ornamental design — no more, no less. For anyone even semi-aware of Steve Jobs and Apple Computer — an innovative person and his company who recognized the fundamental role and value of artistic design in computer technology since 1984’s release of the famous Macintosh computer – it should hardly be surprising that it is protecting its IP rights in these innovative design features.
Instead, Mr. Bilton negligently suggests that Apple could sue other e-book readers for their page turning technology because it now has “exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application,” but this is patently false (pun intended). And Mr. Bilton is clearly negligent here and his mistake is entirely his fault, because in the second paragraph of his NY Times report, he explicitly identifies Apple’s patent as a “design patent.” This is significant, because everything he writes in his report after saying “design patent” is 100% wrong by mere dint of this term, because everything he writes after this wrongly assumes that Apple’s patent is a “utility patent.”
(As an aside, this design patent might be invalid, but Mr. Bilton provides no information or facts to make this judgment, because all of his high-handed rhetoric is based on the assumption that it is a utility patent. Of course, if this was a utility patent, it would be invalid, as ebook readers that change pages have been around for many years, but what of the particular ornamental design of this ebook reader? One will search in vain in Mr. Bilton’s report for any information on this all-important question.)
Admittedly, there is much confusion today about the patent system, and much of this confusion is caused by misleading reports like those written by Mr. Bilton. Of course, there are some good reporters and bloggers, who are commenting sensibly on the “smart phone wars” and other issues in the public policy debates over patents today. But, unfortunately, Mr. Bilton represents a far larger cadre of reporters and bloggers who spread confusion and misinformation about the patent system and about the “smart phone war” in particular.
The real problem with this “broken reporting” by Mr. Bilton and his ilk is that it is feeding a growing anti-patent frenzy among commentators, academics, and the public, who seem to think that your smart phones, tablets and other technological marvels just don’t exist because of a so-called “broken patent system” that has stymied software and other high-tech innovation at every turn. I’m glad to see that some people, like Commissioner Kappos, the Honorable Paul Michel, and the Honorable Randall Rader, are starting to push back against this “broken reporting” on the patent system.
|
<urn:uuid:9e465d6d-228f-4fb4-9607-0f1a659fe91e>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://truthonthemarket.com/category/journalism/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955297
| 1,337
| 1.789063
| 2
|
After over a year into the blogging world I felt I had to discuss conformity. Most of us are suffering from a severe case of blogging conformity. Because we just ran out of the uniqueness in blogging.
What is conformity?
Conformity is when you conform or comply or behave according to certain rules and standards because they are perceived as the “norm”. Let me make it easier. You act in a particular manner and stick to it because that manner is perceived as socially acceptable. Okay, this might work in the actual social world. But it really is something to think about when we enter the blogging scene.
Many of us have this tendency to stick to the same pattern of blogging behavior because we feel it might “work”; it will do the “trick” and because others are saying so. We tend to get into the trap that we feel will lead to blogging success and help us make money.
Two major symptoms of the conformity case:
- You don’t know what your passion is
That’s right. You are just blogging because everybody seems to be doing it. You don’t have any idea as to what you want to be blogging about and where your core interests lie. So, you blog hop and see how blogging is done and then seem to know it all. And begin your own blog about how it’s all done. Not everybody out there is blogging about blogging and social media. And not all top blogs have to do with social media. There are loads of topics, why stick to one?
- You have nothing new to offer
All your topics have been discussed and written about a million times over. You talk about the same old tricks and tips about making your blog number one, blogging ideas, making money, optimization and all that jazz. Why didn’t you think of something new? No one is going to read another SEO tutorial. There are major sites already telling them how it is done. What’s the point about talking about it all over again?
The conformity cure:
Though there isn’t one way to find the cure, there sure are a lot of things that can be thought about.
- Find your passion. I can’t stress this anymore. What do you really like talking about and writing about? What kind of posts do you enjoy? Where does your passion lie?
- If you HAVE to talk about the same topics, have your own twist to it. Be fresh, be interesting.
- Bring in new ideas. Loads of us are all waiting for new ideas to come by and strike us. Inspire us.
- Experiment, push your abilities, test your ideas.
Do you think there is such a thing as too much conformity in blogging?
Do you think you have fallen into the conformity trap?
Any other conformity symptoms that you have noticed?
Are you following your passion in blogging?
What is your take on the conformity cure?
I love talking and I love your thoughts! Jump right in!
P.S. A special thanks to Holly for her anti-conformity comment that started this discussion!
|
<urn:uuid:949f6654-f802-40bb-91cc-463b0196fcdb>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://basicblogtips.com/blogging-conformity.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958085
| 652
| 1.648438
| 2
|
The new Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is investigating IT failures at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) that affected customers in June and July 2012.
UK banks' 2012 profits have been wiped out by mistakes and fines, but banks have made progress, thanks to fall in bad debts and strong performance from investment
PwC has been called in to investigate the computer malfunction that affected millions of RBS customers.
The Royal Bank of Scotland and customers of its subsidiaries NatWest and Ulster Bank are getting back to normal after a software upgrade last Tuesday disrupted internal transaction processing.
Sub-prime lender Cattles has claimed in a court hearing that PwC’s audits of the firm between 2005 and 2007 led to a “gross misstatement” of its financial position.
Two MPs have written to RBS demanding an explanation of its use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to distort its financial position by up to £25bn.
Politicians are calling for an independent valuation of the government’s asset protection scheme following controversy over publicly funded plans to insure Royal Bank of Scotland’s toxic loans.
This week the government doubled its investment in bailing out the already part nationalised RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, injecting a further £37bn into the ailing banks.
|
<urn:uuid:b134e14e-47fa-4c51-90af-50cfd64c107b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/category/tags/rbs
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955289
| 270
| 1.507813
| 2
|
|No, that is not a hammock in North Dakota|
Research out of neuroscience confirms similar aspects looking at neuroplasticity and attempts to reorganize cortical motor outputs. So not only might time off relegate peripheral systems but also activity centrally within motor cortex; The Plastic Human Brain Cortex.
This is also important in the sequencing of the microcycle, as not all situations are ideal and athletes may come back to train after a 2 day weekend in which some have probably been entirely 'off' (they may have been assigned recovery sessions but unless a coach is present, it would be ignorant to think it always gets done). In this case it may NOT be advisable to perform a "high" day like so many coaches do the first day in a training week; working fast or heavy or both and then tapering as the microcycle goes. I've tried to be very careful about performing intense speed and/or agility work after a full 2 days off. Instead it might be advisable to perform a "low" day to restart the systems, open up ranges of motion, and hormonally flush the system (i.e. purposeful circuits)... preparing for a "high" session the next day, while still getting quality training in. Injury prevention/reduction is about many things and not always about what is being done.
Many coaches focus on the macro-, meso-, and maybe to some extent the microcycles, but reality needs a close look; and there are many factors to consider in the world of chaos we live in. If "off" days are not or can not be filled with active recovery, then I need to be smart about what goes on when the athletes are in front of me.
|
<urn:uuid:2e2afc62-d97a-4a7e-b1a6-54495c248cbd>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://aaronschwenzfeier.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.966693
| 347
| 1.8125
| 2
|
That They May Be One
by Carl Robbins
No Christian would say he is for division in the church. Divisiveness stands condemned (1 Cor. 1:10). Even the newest believer knows that we are given warnings not to tolerate those who would cause division (Rom. 16:17–18; Titus 3:9–11). And any church that has division will certainly not be a healthy, growing church.
Conversely, we know that the New Testament reveals a strong emphasis on unity and community in the church. As believers we have a declared unity:
- The church has one Head: Ephesians 1:22–23.
- Christ is building one church: Matthew 16:17–18.
- The church has one foundation: 1 Corinthians 3:11.
- All believers have a “sevenfold unity”: Ephesians 4:4–6.
- All barriers to unity have been broken down in the Gospel: Ephesians 2:11–19.
Those are the objective realities. But how do these objective realities work into our practice ? How do we come to the place where we are united in the same mind and the same judgement (1 Cor. 1:10)?
We need to recognize that unity, peace, agreement, community, and cooperation do not come naturally to us. What does come naturally to us is alienation and disunity. In fact, it can be easily demonstrated that our culture is running headlong away from community. In Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster, 2000) we have a piercing analysis of the breakdown of relational culture. Trends over the last twenty-five years include a 58% decline in those attending club meetings, a 33% decline in family dinners, and a 45% decline in having friends over. Americans belong to fewer organizations that meet face-to-face, we know fewer of our neighbors, and we even bowl alone (not on teams). Indeed, several cultural factors are at work to drive us farther away from community: the transiency of our society, rootlessness, the Internet, the technological transformation of leisure, and many other things.
Yet regeneration and conversion change our bent toward alienation (Eph. 2:11–20). Instead of viewing ourselves as loners and strangers and individualists hiding from others, we must now view ourselves as part of a “holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9).
In our creed (the Westminster Confession of Faith, 26:1) we are instructed: “All saints…being united to one another in love….have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.” Our confession is not overstating the case when it uses the language of “obligation.” For this is exactly what the New Testament frequently does in its “one-anothering” imperatives. Listen to a smattering of these obligatory mandates: we are commanded to love one another (John 13:34–35; 15:12); we are commanded to welcome one another (Rom. 15:7); we are ordered to encourage one another (1 Thess. 5:11); we are mandated to show hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9); we are told to be kind to one another (Eph. 4:32); we are commanded to outdo one another in showing honor (Rom. 12:10); we are ordered to pray for one another (James 5:16); we are told to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2); we are mandated not to grumble against one another (James 5:9); we are commanded to serve one another (Gal. 5:13) and to bear with one another (Col. 3:13).
Unity and community will not “just happen” in your congregation. The body will only grow in unity as we obey these “one-anothering” commands. This is akin to a marriage-loving unity, which doesn’t just appear overnight! It happens as a man and a woman care for one another through hard times, as they serve one another, as they speak gracious words to one another, as they overlook a thousand small slights, as they forgive each other, and as they use all the other “means of unity.” Just so, your church will only grow healthy and strong as they practice
How can you and your family help the growth of your local congregation in unity? Here’s a plan for this month:
Week One: plan to show hospitality to another family in the church, call them now and invite them over for Sunday lunch.
Week Two: plan to encourage three people in your church that you know are discouraged.
Week Three: strategize on where you can serve. Yes, it will cost you time and energy, but you will be building the unity of the body.
Week Four: spend time each day praying for different members of your church — the church’s children, the deacons, the senior citizens, the elders, the teachers and Bible study leaders, and finally pray for your pastor and his sermon preparation.
© Tabletalk magazine
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred (where applicable). If no such link exists, simply link to www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Any exceptions to the above must be formally approved by Tabletalk.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: firstname.lastname@example.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
|
<urn:uuid:6c745e60-53db-4daa-93d8-eaead0bb386c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/they-may-be-one/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941037
| 1,276
| 1.828125
| 2
|
Considered one of the most important Catholic theologians and Bible commentators, Cornelius à Lapide’s writings on the Bible have remained critical to the Catholic Church for centuries. Although à Lapide’s commentaries were written from the Catholic perspective, Christians of all denominations worldwide have benefited from his sound exegesis and the wide-breadth of learning his works provide. Brimming with spiritual devotion and scholarly acumen, à Lapide’s commentaries weave together his profound insights into the biblical texts alongside commentary from many Church Fathers, including the Venerable Bede, Cyril of Alexandria, St. Augustine, Tertullian, St. Jerome, Origen, and more.
Volume 7 of The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide provides verse-by-verse commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Lapide provides a synopsis for each chapter, and regularly cites Church Fathers, such as Theophylact, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Anselm, and more, in his in-depth commentary on this Pauline Epistle.
With the Logos edition, all Scripture passages in The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide are tagged and appear on mouse-over. This makes these resources more powerful and easier to access than ever before for scholarly work or personal Bible study. With the advanced search features of Logos Bible Software, you can perform powerful searches by topic or scripture reference.
- Preface by W. F. Cobb
- Key work by Cornelius à Lapide with assistance from various scholars
- Verse-by-verse commentary enhanced with writings from the Early Church Fathers
Praise for the Print Edition
His method makes his commentary not only a valuable work for proficient students of Holy Scriptures, but it further brings the study of the sacred writings within the reach of all educated minds, and at the same time provides a delightful fund of sacred instruction and devotional reading. Cornelius à Lapide loses none of its charms in the clear, pure, vigorous English of its present translation; indeed, we confess that it seems to borrow a new beauty and allurement from its English dress.
We set a high store on this commentary. There is about it a clearness of thought, a many-sided method of looking at truth, an insight into the deeper meaning, and a fearless devotion to what appears to him to be truth, which lend a peculiar charm to all that he writes. We heartily commend the work to our ministerial readers.
It is one of the most learned and richest commentaries that have ever been written. They are a storehouse for the preacher and a valuable aid to the devout lovers of the Word of God among the laity.
A very mine of research and exegetical learning of the rarest kind.
It is one of those few ‘books which are books,’ an unfailing magazine of instruction and devotion of the profoundest views of the Holy Scripture and theology in general, and one of the most valuable and important recently issued from the press.
The varied and solid learning, the intense theological acumen, combined with verbal exegesis of the most comprehensive and practical character, and last, and by no means least, the deep and spiritual insight into the more remote and hidden sense of the Gospel narrative are here displayed in thoroughly idiomatic English, which reads like an original composition rather that a translation.
To say one word in recommendation of the great work of a Lapide is superfluous, but it is our simple duty to call attention to the great work now being done by Mr. Mossman for English readers.
The commentary is learned, intelligent, and full.
Mr. Mossman has done his part well, as an able and sympathetic scholar might be expected to do; and the books, both in execution and translation, its worthy of its author.
- Title: The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide, vol. 7
- Author: Cornelius à Lapide
- Translator: W. F. Cobb
- Publisher: John Grant
- Publication Date: 1908
- Pages: 408
About Cornelius à Lapide
Cornelius à Lapide (1567–1637) was born at Bocholt in Limburg, Belgium. Educated in philosophy and theology at the University of Douai and the Catholic University of Leuven, Lapide was ordained in 1595. Lapide was a professor of philosophy, Hebrew, and theology for over 20 years before dedicating himself full time to writing and editing his celebrated commentaries.
|
<urn:uuid:c3a14a45-0642-404d-833d-cb16d13476fe>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.logos.com/product/27573/the-great-commentary-of-cornelius-a-lapide-vol-7
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.936573
| 935
| 1.734375
| 2
|
(CNN) - The McCain campaign announced Sarah Palin is set to make a stop in North Carolina Tuesday night, two days after the Republican VP candidate stumped in Nebraska - two reliably red states that haven't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in at least three decades.
Palin's most recent travel schedule is the latest indication Barack Obama and the nation's ailing economy have put John McCain on the defensive, even in states where the prospect of a Democratic win was unthinkable only four years ago.
Palin's visit to North Carolina comes as most recent polls of the state show Obama and McCain essentially in a dead heat there. A CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation poll of North Carolina last month showed the candidates dead even, while some recent polls have even suggested a slight Democratic lead. CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation will release a new North Carolina poll Tuesday morning.
Election Center: Check out the latest state polls
Then there’s the unknown variable of an anticipated rise in turnout in the African-American community. In 2006 that voting bloc made up 26 percent of North Carolina's electorate, with 85 percent voting for Sen. John Kerry. Obama is expected to win an even higher percentage of the black vote this cycle, with a higher expected turnout as well.
"The North Carolina of today is far more diverse than the North Carolina of twenty or even ten years ago," CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib said. "The state’s changing economy has attracted thousands of new voters willing to pull the lever for a Democratic nominee. Second, the state’s sizable African-American voting bloc is extremely energized by Obama’s candidacy. Third, the economic downturn has made Tar Heel voters — just like voters in the rest of the country — much more receptive to the Democratic message of change."
Palin's appearance in the state comes more than five months after McCain held his last public event there, delivering a speech in early May at Wake Forest on his vision for judicial appointments. The event came the same day as Indiana and North Carolina's Democratic primaries and was largely overshadowed by the still-ongoing battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton.
McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt said Monday the campaign remains confident the Republican ticket will carry the state.
"This is a state that Barack Obama has put millions of dollars into," he said. "This is an opportunity to speak to our supporters there and makes sure they turn out."
Porritt also declined to say whether McCain has any plans to visit North Carolina before Election Day.
The North Carolina visit comes after Palin traveled to Nebraska's Second Congressional District Sunday, prompting pundits to speculate the McCain campaign is worried the Obama could peel off an electoral vote there. Nebraska, like Maine, awards its electoral votes by the winner of each congressional district, and the second district - which includes Omaha and its surrounding areas - is the most Democratic.
But Palin told Nebraska voters Sunday she was not visiting the state because the campaign was worried about a possible loss there.
“The pundits today on TV—one of them was saying, check out the vice president’s schedule, check out where she’s going—she’s going to Nebraska,” she said. “But the pundit was saying the only reason she’d be going there is ‘cause they’re scared, so they got to go there and shore up votes. And I wanted to reach into that TV and say no, I’m going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska."
|
<urn:uuid:d90f5d32-3950-4913-b439-76872c6ff4ac>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/06/palin-schedule-shows-mccain-on-the-defensive/comment-page-5/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958842
| 739
| 1.632813
| 2
|
CHICAGO – June 21, 2010. Governor Pat Quinn today signed a bill into law that will increase protections for Illinois residents obtaining consumer installment loans. The new law caps interest rates charged by consumer finance companies, which can sometimes be as high as 1,000 percent.
“Many consumers who take out short-term loans are doing so as a last resort to pay their bills and provide for their families. It is all too easy for lenders to take advantage of them by raising interest rates and setting very short repayment periods,” said Governor Quinn. “It is important that we do everything we can to protect these consumers who are already hurting, by helping to make these loans more affordable.”
House Bill 537 sponsored by Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) and Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Westchester) protects consumers by setting reasonable interest rates for loans. Current interest rates for consumer installment loans can be exorbitantly high. Under the new law, rates on consumer installment loans will be capped at 99 percent rate for loans $4,000 and less and 36 percent for loans greater than $4,000.
"For too long, Wild West lending practices have dominated the marketplace in Illinois and consumers have suffered as a result - saddled with costly loans that they could never repay," said Attorney General Madigan. "Now that has changed. House Bill 537 reigns in abusive and predatory lending practices and protects consumers. I want to thank Senator Lightford, Representative Lang, the Governor's Office and consumer advocates for their hard work on this important consumer protection legislation."
The new law also includes provisions to help borrowers repay loans more easily. For example, lending is based upon the borrower’s ability to repay the loan. Monthly payments on consumer installment loans are limited to 22.5 percent of the borrower’s gross monthly income. In order to give borrowers enough time to repay the loan, the new minimum loan term will be set at six months – an increase from the previous four month term.
“We look forward to working with licensed lenders and their customers to make sure this law is strictly enforced,” said Secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation Brent Adams. “For too long, Illinois borrowers have been at the mercy of lenders who were free to charge quadruple-digit interest rates.”
The law expands the existing statewide database that tracks payday loans to also track consumer installment loans, which will enable the state to ensure that lenders are complying with the new law. The law also eliminates balloon payments and prevents lenders from penalizing borrowers for paying off loans early.
House Bill 537 was supported by numerous consumer groups and lenders alike, and it passed through the Illinois General Assembly almost unanimously.
Governor Quinn signed the legislation in Chicago. It goes into effect nine months after becoming law.
|
<urn:uuid:2a34a11a-db9b-4b3e-a7a6-7256a282c6ec>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www3.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=8558
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.965216
| 580
| 1.78125
| 2
|
Helifor Canada used a Columbia Model 234 Chinook to carry 104 towers from three assembly yards for the construction of the AltaLink Southwest Alberta 240-kV project. Ninety four of the towers were placed directly onto bases, and 10 were flown to the site and laid next to the site. The work was done in early March, 2010.
Southwest Alberta 240-kV project is an AltaLink project that will connect energy created from wind generation to Alberta’s electrical grid and support continued development of wind projects in the southwest part of the province.
The project involves a new 240-kV transmission line approximately 90 km in length from the Goose Lake Substation, in the vicinity of Pincher Creek to the North Lethbridge Substation, near the City of Lethbridge. The project crosses two First Nations reserves.
The project also includes the construction of a new 240/138-kV substation in the Pincher Creek area, the expansion of two existing substations and improvements to the existing 138-kV transmission system in southern Alberta.
The towers averaged approximately 225-ft tall (76.68 m) and weighed as much as 22,000 lb (9979.2 kg).
SNC-Lavalin T&D is the Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor for this project which has a scheduled in service date of Summer 2010.
|
<urn:uuid:5549f71a-0e8d-4902-8efb-428d72eef099>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://tdworld.com/projects-progress/helicopter-used-install-transmission-towers-altalink-240-kv-project
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.939964
| 287
| 1.625
| 2
|
In Boston, the average age is 30, thanks to the large number of students. This means that Boston cannot be anything other than a lively city.
Boston is one of the oldest cities in America, a cultural melting pot and a true university town. One of Boston’s attractions is its friendly “village” atmosphere, even though it is a big cosmopolitan city. The most important sights are to be found along the Freedom Trail. You certainly won’t want to miss Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, Old North Church and Paul Revere House.
Boston’s cultural attractions include one of America’s leading orchestras, the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Another attraction is the Museum of Fine Arts and the JF Kennedy Library is the place to be for Kennedy fans. On the other bank of the river, there is Cambridge, which is actually a different city, but is certainly worth a visit because of its cafés, bookshops, galleries and its fascinating entertainment facilities.
|
<urn:uuid:ddd6255b-d3c5-468b-9e65-a2ce7a318420>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://brusselsairlines.com/en_fr/look-for/destinations/united_states/boston.aspx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9518
| 207
| 1.640625
| 2
|
The egiptian Gos of fertility, vegetation and rain, guardian of the comerciants. Represented with black or green skin and symbolised with a lion or a bull (again, the bull is related with fertility…he was worshipped in form of a white bull in Coptos. Remember that Zeus will chase Europa in the shape of a white bull). They offered him lettuce in worship due to the supposed afrodisiac effects of this plant.
(jeroglyph of Min)
|
<urn:uuid:33a8936a-ea68-4ff9-9484-52be08addcee>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://192116801.tumblr.com/post/26268373491/min
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94007
| 101
| 1.835938
| 2
|
Former Elkins’ acquaintance and Nunnally’s Custom Framing store owner Ann Welch first spotted Elkins’ paintings on a recent visit to Quintard Mall, where a new store features his work. Welch said the first time she realized the former “picture taker” was also a painter was inside the mall store where his paintings are displayed beside the artist’s black-and-white photos.
“This was so different,” Welch said of Elkins’ vivid paintings. “I thought it was light hearted.”
Elkins’ paintings are the subject of an art exhibit at her Noble Street frame shop, which doubles as a local art gallery. There, Elkins’ work fills almost every available space in a small nook dedicated to the gallery’s featured artists each quarter.
Like Elkins’ photographs, his colorful paintings depict rural life. Many of them feature recurring one-dimensional figures such as pigs, watermelons, snakes, flowers and farms.
Several of the subjects hearken back to experiences from Elkins’ early life, his daughter Karen Fedoriw said. The snakes, for example, are reflective of Elkins’ experiences photographing Sand Mountain snake-handling congregations.
Fedoriw said the snakes have particular personal significance because the Sand Mountain coverage prompted her father to launch into a period of introspection and self analysis. More specifically, she said, it prompted him to consider his own connection to God and his salvation.
The pigs, Fedoriw said, are likely reflective of the family farm Elkins grew up on, and the watermelon likely links back to his teen years.
“He and his buddies used to steal a watermelon every once in a while and take it to the mountain and eat it,” Fedoriw said.
While Elkins’ paintings and his photographs focus on the same rural subjects, they were, in some ways, quite different.
Unlike the black-and-white photographs the late artist is known for, his paintings are full of color. And unlike his photographs, his paintings include several self portraits.
His self portraits are easy to pick out because Elkins, like Albert Einstein and Mark Twain, maintained an unkempt quaff and a thick mustache. One piece on display at the gallery contains three self portraits.
“Because his photography was about everyone else … I think he just did that for himself,” Fedoriw said.
Elkins didn’t pick up the paint brush until about 1980, his daughter said. She said his foray into the art form was sparked after he was introduced to the work of other painters, like Mose Tolliver.
“He brought home some work that he had bought and it was on wood and he said I can do that,” Fedoriw said.
Elkins’ work was crafted using some of the techniques established by American folk artists, including Tolliver, who Elkins once photographed. Like folk art by other southern artists, Elkins used simple strokes to create flat images in bright hues on rustic material.
Folk art is usually a cultural representation crafted by people who make little money and were never taught how to paint. Sometimes folk artists are inspired to create later in life and they often say they are inspired by God to make art, said Emily Leigh, assistant director of Kentuck Art Center in Northport.
In life, Elkins’ work was sometimes the subject of family jokes, but when she found a basement full of her father’s paintings after his death, Fedoriw said she felt obliged to share them.
“We used to joke with him and say it’s a good thing you’re a photographer,” she said.
Though he discovered the art form late in life, Fedoriw said he enjoyed it greatly.
“That was his time away when he didn’t have to be a photographer, I guess.”
Staff Writer Laura Johnson: 256-235-3544. On Twitter @LJohnson_Star.
|
<urn:uuid:f042c2aa-c1fe-44a4-bb5c-85757ccedb3b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.annistonstar.com/view/full_story/21665035/article-Personal-passion--Paintings-by-Ken-Elkins-debut-at-Nunnally%E2%80%99s?instance=special
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.980748
| 859
| 1.710938
| 2
|
Butchered horse found in Miami-Dade
Another butchered horse was discovered in rural western Miami-Dade County.
A police officer on patrol made the gruesome discovery. The chopped up remains of a pony were dumped in the 17900 block of NW 128th Avenue. The bloody scene was just plain disturbing to witnesses.
"I found two puncture wounds under the chin and that's basically how the horse is bled out and the throat was slashed but it took a while for this horse to die," said Richard Couto, founder of Animal Rescue Mission, a private organization that investigates animal abuse cases.
Just last month, another butchered horse was found in this same location. Couto said the horse meat is a delicacy for some people, and the demand for it is high.
"This guy, his meat his probably on someone's grill, someone is sitting down and consuming this horse as we speak," said Couto.
He said it was a female pony, probably around 5-years-old. It was likely someone's pet and probably stolen. The horse was well cared for; it had new horseshoes, a nice coat and its mane had been brushed.
"Too many times, too many times," said Alberto Medina who lives just down the rural dirt road. He called this area a popular illegal dump site for stolen cars, construction debris and myriad of other items. The area is known as the C-9 basin.
"This is a shame because it makes everybody around here look bad," Medina said.
"The C-9 basin is a hotbed of illegal activity and horse slaughter is at the top of the list," Couto said.
He and his partner documented the find and said they will work with police to help track down the killers.
"If this person that killed this animal is caught, they're looking at a minimum of a year in prison," Cuoto said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crimestoppers at 305-493-TIPS.
Copyright 2012 by Post Newsweek. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
<urn:uuid:10398348-5732-4f24-99ca-da6414a89afe>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.local10.com/news/Butchered-horse-found-in-Miami-Dade/-/1717324/8811328/-/view/print/-/b9clyvz/-/index.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.986817
| 445
| 1.5
| 2
|
DEPUTY Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene says SA’s banks must identify projects in the state’s multitrillion-rand infrastructure programme that they can fund.
This could help ease the pressure on the government to use debt and tax collections to fund the infrastructure build, especially at a time when revenue is constrained by a weak global economy. The government plans to spend about R3.2-trillion on infrastructure until 2020.
Mr Nene yesterday told a summit hosted by the Banking Association of SA that about R1.9-trillion of the spend would be on electricity generation, transport, education and health. About 75% of the projects required funding.
In his keynote address, Mr Nene said the co-operation of all stakeholders, not only financial institutions, was needed to make the infrastructure plan a success.
He said there was limited capacity for the government to fund everything, thus creating an opportunity for banks to grow their lending potential.
He warned that SA’s banks needed to invest for the long term.
"While private sector investment is vital, we must always ensure the risks and benefits are shared fairly between private and public sector. Infrastructure development should not be seen as an easy way to make money out of government," he said. "Long-term profitability requires a long-term vision, and banks need to lend long term. Lending for consumption might be profitable in the short term, but is not sustainable."
Cas Coovadia, MD of the Banking Association of SA, said the government should point out which infrastructure projects were critical.
"It’s not a question of whether the banking sector chooses to invest. Government needs to look at which infrastructure programmes are critical to them.
"What we would then want to do is to sit down ... at the level of sitting the boffins together around financing," he said.
Mr Coovadia said what was needed was to narrow down the number of projects from the 17 that were identified to about four important ones for which the banks could structure financing.
But Mr Nene maintained, talking to Business Day after his address, that the banks and not the government should make the first move.
"The banks must identify which areas most suit their profiles.… The more they release funds the better," he said.
|
<urn:uuid:52f248b4-36eb-46a9-858d-a665f1fb429b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/financial/2012/08/22/banks-have-to-fund-infrastructure-projects
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.969808
| 476
| 1.523438
| 2
|
The Lord, Isaiah prophesied, would destroy the vineyard—the house of Israel—because His Chosen People had abandoned Him. In today's reading, however, the Lord restores the vineyard and gathers the just to worship Him in Jerusalem, the symbol of Heaven. The "children of Israel" are now all the faithful.
In that day the Lord with his hard, and great, and strong sword shall visit leviathan the bar serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent, and shall slay the whale that is in the sea.
In that day there shall be singing to the vineyard of pure wine. I am the Lord that keep it, I will suddenly give it drink: lest any hurt come to it, I keep it night and day.
There is no indignation in me: who shall make me a thorn and a brier in battle: shall march against it, shall I set it on fire together? Or rather shall it take hold of my strength, shall it make peace with me, shall it make peace with me?
When they shall rush in unto Jacob, Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed. Hath he struck him according to the stroke of him that struck him? or is he slain, as he killed them that were slain by him? In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it. He hath meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat.
Therefore upon this shall the iniquity of the house of Jacob be forgiven: and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away, when he shall have made all the stones of the altar, as burnt stones broken in pieces, the groves and temples shall not stand. For the strong city shall be desolate, the beautiful city shall be forsaken, and shall be left as a wilderness : there the calf shall feed, and there shall he lie down, and shall consume its branches. Its harvest shall be destroyed with drought, women shall come and teach it: for it is not a wise people, therefore he that made it, shall not have mercy on it: and he that formed it, shall not spare it.
And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord will strike from the channel of the river even to the torrent of Egypt, and you shall be gathered together one by one, O ye children of Israel.
And it shall come to pass, that in that day a noise shall be made with a great trumpet, and they that were lost, shall come from the land of the Assyrians, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall adore the Lord in the holy mount in Jerusalem.
- Source: Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition of the Bible (in the public domain)
|
<urn:uuid:d6f631cb-ccc4-40e7-ba6f-8757707ed1b1>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://catholicism.about.com/od/adventreadings/qt/Adv_Read_FrW2.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.968271
| 582
| 1.625
| 2
|
TOWNSEND -- A few days before in advance, the word gets out. A winter storm is coming.
The grocery store will be jammed as people search for just the right treat to enjoy while snugging up warm inside while the wind howls. Outdoor types check the bottom of their skis. Others dream of warmer climes.
In the meantime, the guys at the highway department are getting ready for whatever might be headed their way.
Trucks are checked, supplies monitored and outside contractors lined up.
Between year-round staff, temporary workers and self-employed plow truck drivers, you can expect to see 17 people out clearing the streets.
Usually, things go smoothly for the crew.
"It's worked well for the last 15 years I've been here," said Highway Superintendent Ed Kukkula.
Town workers set out as soon as the roads get slippery, spreading a mixture of sand and salt.
The salt is the effective substance but expensive, he said. Using sand decreases the material cost.
If the storm is shaping up to be a doozy, the plows start going out as soon as the sanding is done. If the snowfall is slow, the crew waits until a few inches have fallen.
The job takes a toll on equipment. Contractors use their own vehicles.
"It's not something you want to do in a new truck," he said.
Drivers also face another challenge: vehicles left in the road.
"You'd be surprised," Kukkula said.
It is not uncommon to find all the cars moved out of
Kukkula suggested clearing the driveway in stages, moving the cars from one spot in the yard to another in order to leave the roadways open for plows.
Piles of snow moved onto the street are another problem.
Some private plow operators push snow across the street from the end of a private driveway.
No problem, the superintendent said, as long as a mound of snow is not left on the road.
If the workers spot a problem with cars or snow piles on the road, the police are called in.
Under the town bylaws, the highway department can have vehicles towed but have not done that, Kukkula said.
Occasionally, property owners have problems with the plows.
Mailboxes are damaged by piles of snow and the edges of lawns are torn up.
"We don't pay for that," he said.
Homeowners should check their mailboxes to make sure the poles are not rotten. Even pressure treated lumber can fail if it is 20 years old, he said.
If the property owner can prove the damage was malicious, the town might pay for the damage. It would have to be a direct hit, perhaps with paint on the damaged box, before a claim could be made, he said.
And the damaged lawns?
"Most of the time, we own that property," he said. Roads have a 30 to 40 foot right-of-way owned by the town. Some property owners re-apply mulch at the roadside yearly, others plant new seed.
It is all part of living in New England.
|
<urn:uuid:11a7dca5-4fe9-4222-bc05-6bc9d5a02fe2>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.nashobapublishing.com/townsend_news/ci_22401416?source=rss
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.97163
| 660
| 1.539063
| 2
|
all home speakers?
Speaker Placement for Home Theater
The guidelines below can help you get great surround sound, even in rooms with less-than-ideal layouts.
Try not to get too hung up on finding the exact right spot for each speaker. Keep in mind that most newer receivers come with automatic speaker calibration, which makes it easy to compensate for imperfect speaker placement. Watch our short video to see how this works.
Center channel speaker
Place your center speaker directly above or below your TV and line it up with the midpoint of your TV screen. If your center speaker is placed much lower or higher than the tweeters in your left and right speakers, tilt it up or down to point the sound toward your listening position.
Front left and right speakers
Ideally, your front speakers will form a slight arc with your center channel speaker and point toward the center of your main seating area. To form the perfect arc, use a measuring tape to make sure your front and center channel speakers are exactly the same distance from your listening position. If your interior decorator insists that the front speakers sit flush against the wall, don’t worry. You can compensate for the lack of a perfect arc when you calibrate the system.
Position your front speakers at equidistant points to the left and right of your primary listening spot. The front speakers’ tweeters should be at ear level when you’re seated.
Your surround speakers are meant to envelop you in a cloud of atmospheric sound and special effects, so you feel like you're actually in the middle of the action unfolding on your TV.
In a 5.1-channel system, surround speakers are best placed to the left and right of your listening position — either in line with it, or just behind it. If side placement isn't practical in your room, placement your surround speakers behind your listening position, facing front. Either way, place the speakers high enough so that the drivers don’t fire directly at your ears, around ear level while standing.
Wall mounting is often a great option for surround speakers. You'll need to mount the speakers to a stud, or use wall anchors.
5.1-channel setup with the surround speakers wall-mounted to the sides of, or slightly behind, the listening position.
7.1-channel setup with the surrounds wall-mounted to the sides of the listening position, and two back surrounds wall-mounted behind the listening position.
In a 7.1-channel system you can place surround speakers beside and behind your seating area. With some receivers, you can use the two additional channels up front instead, for "height" or “width” channels that give you a bigger front soundstage. If your receiver has even more channels available, you can expand to a 9.1- or an 11.1-channel surround system. Click on the blue letters beneath the Audyssey DSX 2 illustration to see speaker placement options for these scenarios.
Get room-friendly tips for running cable to your surrounds in our article on connecting home theater speakers.
Dipole and bipole speakers
Some manufacturers offer dipole/bipole surround speakers, which are equipped with a switch for selecting between different modes of operation. These surround speakers are great for movies, because they produce a diffuse sound that doesn’t call too much attention to itself. [Shop dipole/bipole speakers.]
Dipole mode creates a diffuse, ambient soundfield when the speakers are placed on the side walls.
Bipole mode fills your room with surround sound when the speakers are placed on the rear wall.
Since low bass frequencies are omnidirectional, you can usually place your subwoofer just about anywhere in your home theater room with good results.
Most people place their subwoofer in the front of the room, so that it’s easier to connect to their home theater receiver. Placing your subwoofer near a wall will generally result in more bass, and placement near a corner — where three room boundaries come together — will get you even more. Keep in mind that even though the bass increases as you place the sub near a wall or corner, the quality of bass may be slightly "boomier" and less controlled. Aim for a spot where you get a compromise between quality and quantity of bass.
If you’re not quite getting the bass you’d hoped for, see if your subwoofer has a 2-position switch called a phase control. Choose the setting that produces the most bass while all your speakers are playing. After you've got your sub where you want it, check out our article on tuning your subwoofer for more tips on how to get great bass.
One cool technique for placing for your subwoofer is to put your sub in your listening spot, play some music, move around the room, and listen. You'll probably notice that the bass sounds a little bit different as you move around from location to location within the room — where it sounds the best may be where you want to put your subwoofer.
Tips for odd-shaped rooms
Of course, not everyone's going to have a room that easily accommodates a surround sound system. Ideal speaker locations may be taken up by doors, windows, or furniture. And some floor plans are notoriously tricky.
L-shaped rooms are tough because much of the sound is pulled into the empty space outside your listening area. It's not doing anyone any good there, so this placement is designed to direct the sound away from that vacant space as much as possible.
- Start by putting your TV where the two axes of the "L" meet, instead of at one end of the "L."
- Arrange the front and centers speakers around your TV as described in "The basics." Try angling the left and right speakers slightly toward your listening position.
- Place your surround speakers to the sides of where you're seated, or in the corners if there's not a good spot on both sides.
- Place your subwoofer along the wall about halfway between your TV and your seating. For better sound, make sure it's not touching the wall, but sitting four to six inches away from it.
|The challenge with L-shaped rooms is to keep sound from being pulled into empty space outside your listening area. Careful placement of your couch can really help.|
TV in a corner
Sometimes, the combination of windows, doors, built-in bookshelves, and fireplace leaves you without any place for your TV except a corner. It might seem hard to get good home theater sound with this setup, but all is not lost.
- Set up your front soundstage in the usual way.
- Mount one surround on the rear wall and one on the side wall.
- Place the sub can in the corner a few inches from the wall.
Sometimes, it's hard to put your TV anywhere but in a corner. Fortunately, you can still get your speakers oriented so as to make the sound match up with the picture on screen in a way that sounds natural.
Open floor plans
As with a room where your TV is placed in a corner, the biggest challenge you'll face with an open floor plan is where to put your surround speakers.
- Set up your front soundstage in the usual way.
- Consider using ceiling mount speakers for your surrounds. Look at models with angled baffles or pivoting drivers. These will let you aim the sound in the direction that yields the best surround effects.
- Again, the sub can be placed in the corner, but experiment to see what sounds best in your room.
|More and more houses are designed with an open floor plan. This layout can give you great sound even when there aren't clear distinctions between the kitchen, dining, and living areas.|
Tips for In-wall and In-ceiling Speakers
In-wall and in-ceiling speakers can be a great way to save space, but you won't be able to follow all the same placement guidelines. Check out the illustrations below to get an idea of where to install these speakers. For more details, check out our articles on in-wall and in-ceiling speaker placement and installing in-wall and in-ceiing speakers.
In-wall or in-ceiling speakers can give you the excitement of surround sound, without the bulk of conventional speakers.
Need more help?
Our advisors have helped thousand of people design surround speaker systems for all types of rooms. Please don’t hesitate to call for help. You may also want to check out a fun interactive tool from Dolby. It lets you specify your speaker configuration and select your viewing distance from your TV, then gives you recommendations for where and at what angles to place your speakers.
|
<urn:uuid:3d9f4f72-9561-46a4-ade4-24ad506c62ae>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-7OvgHf8iA0C/learn/learningcenter/home/speaker_placement.html?i=107TL250
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.930799
| 1,817
| 1.757813
| 2
|
The Atonement of Jesus Christ has given the Savior the power to help you grow into the young man He knows you can be.
Growing into the Priesthood99911_000_018
I am very humbled by this great responsibility to address this body of brethren who hold the priesthood of God. I pray sincerely for the Spirit of the Lord to attend us so that what I have to say will sink deep into your hearts.
I love speaking to the brethren of the priesthood, particularly to the young men of our Church who hold the Aaronic Priesthood. Believe it or not, it doesn’t seem all that long ago since I was a young man. When I was a deacon, the ominous signs of the Great Depression began to appear. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. Money was scarce. Families had to do without. Some young people did not ask their mothers, “What’s for dinner?” because they knew all too well that their cupboards held very little.
My parents were hardworking. They made every penny stretch as far as possible. That was probably the major reason everything they gave me was always two or three sizes too large.
I was 12 years old when I received my first pair of ice skates, so large that I had to stuff a third of the toe space with cotton.
When I took them out of the box, I looked up and said, “Mother, I can’t skate with these.”
“Be grateful for what you have, Joseph,” she’d say. And then, the phrase I had become so accustomed to hearing, “Don’t worry; you’ll grow into them.”
A year later, what I wanted more than anything else was football shoulder pads and a helmet. On Christmas morning, I opened my packages and there they were, shoulder pads and a helmet, except they were sized to fit Goliath—who, by the way, was six cubits or about nine feet tall.
“Mother, they’re too big,” I said.
“Be grateful for what you have, Joseph,” she said again. “Don’t worry; you’ll grow into them.”
Prior to high school I played a lot of neighborhood football. When I put on the new equipment, the shoulder pads hung so far over my shoulders that about the only things they protected were my elbows.
Even though I stuffed cotton and newspaper in the helmet, it jostled every time I took a step. When I ran, it would turn and turn until the only way I could see where I was going would be to look out through the ear hole.
One time I rambled for a long gain at full speed right into a tree. Each time I was tackled, the helmet would spin 180 degrees and I’d get up looking like my head had spun with it. Then I would have to repack the cotton and newspaper as best I could, put it back on, and head back to the huddle.
My father was truly a great man. I remember one day putting my feet in my father’s shoes. I was amazed at the size. Would I ever be big enough to fill his shoes? Could I ever grow into the man my father was? I wondered.
I think back on those days with some tenderness. Curiously enough, I also look back with tenderness to my dear mother’s encouraging words, “Don’t worry, Joseph; you’ll grow into them.”
In a similar way, we all need to learn how to “grow into” our responsibilities as priesthood bearers.
The Great Possibilities of Youth
First, I want to tell you young men that the Lord has His eye upon you. He loves you. He knows you. He knows your triumphs and your trials, your successes and your heartaches.
He knows that at times you may look at the challenges you may face and may think they’re too big to handle. He is, however, willing and ready to help you as you grow into the men you are to become.
You may think at times the duties you have as Aaronic Priesthood bearers are insignificant or unimportant, but I assure you they are not.
Everything you do in the Aaronic Priesthood has a spiritual purpose and is important to the Lord. Whenever you exercise the priesthood, you are on the Lord’s errand, doing the Lord’s business. You go as His servant bearing His authority to act in His name.
I remember when my father, who was also my bishop, laid his hands upon my head to confer upon me the Aaronic Priesthood. I felt something special that day. In the coming weeks that feeling returned as I passed the emblems of the sacrament to the members of our ward, and I looked up to them as my ideals. It came to my mind that I was doing the very thing the Savior had done at the Last Supper.
I would like to share with you five principles that, if lived and incorporated into your lives while you are young, will assure happiness and peace throughout your lives, no matter what trials and temptations come your way. These principles are revealed by the Lord as counsel to all of us who are striving to grow into the kind of men He would have us be.
Five Principles for Bearers of the Aaronic Priesthood
First, place Heavenly Father first in your life. Remember the words of Alma to his son Helaman: “O, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God.” 1 The Savior reminded us of that priority when He taught that the first and greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” 2
It is essential that you know and understand that our Heavenly Father loves you like a son, because He is the Father of your spirit. That makes you His literal son, spiritually begotten of Him.
As such, you have inherited the potential to become like Him. His greatest desire is that you grow in this life line upon line, becoming more like Him so that one day you can return to His presence. Remember, it is God’s work and glory to bring to pass your immortality and eternal life. 3
God’s love is complete and without limit for you and for all mankind. 4 He is perfectly just 5 and merciful. 6 He is perfectly kind 7 and understands your circumstances and condition. He knows you better than you know yourself.
Because your Heavenly Father is perfect, you can have complete faith in Him. You can trust Him. You can keep His commandments by continually striving to do so.
“Does that mean all of God’s commandments?” you might ask. Yes! All of them!
Joseph Smith said, “[God] never will institute an ordinance or give a commandment to His people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which He has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of his law and ordinances.” 8
God’s commandments are not given to limit or punish us. They are exercises that create character and sanctify souls. If we disregard them, we become spiritually flabby and weak and without defense. If we keep them, we can become spiritual giants, strong and bold in righteousness.
Do you take the time each day to review your day’s events with your Heavenly Father? Do you express to Him the desires of your heart and your gratitude for the blessings He pours out upon you?
Day-to-day obedience to God’s commandments is indispensable, and it protects us during mortality and prepares us for the tremendous adventure that awaits us on the other side of the veil.
Second, come unto Christ and follow Him as your Savior and Redeemer. We can come unto Christ as we learn to love Him and as we study the scriptures diligently. How do we show our love for the Savior? He gave us the answer: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” 9
Every one of you can read something in the scriptures each day. You should spend some time pondering and studying the scriptures. It is better to read and ponder even one verse than none at all. I challenge each young man to read something in the scriptures every day for the rest of your lives. Few things you do will bring you greater dividends.
Learn of your Savior. Jesus Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane more than you can comprehend. Willingly and lovingly, He took upon Himself not only our sins but the pains, sicknesses, and sufferings of all mankind. 10 He suffered similarly on the cross, where He gave His life to pay the penalty for our sins if we will repent. And then in His ultimate triumph, He was resurrected and broke the bands of death, making the Resurrection available to all.
The Atonement of Jesus Christ has given the Savior the power to help you grow into the young man He knows you can be. It is through repentance that the Atonement becomes operative in your life.
The more you understand the Atonement and what it means, the less likely you will be to fall prey to temptations of the adversary. No other doctrine will bring greater results in improving behavior and strengthening character than the doctrine of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is central to God’s plan and is preeminent in the restored gospel.
My sincere testimony as a special witness is that I know Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth, and our Lord and Savior.
Third, nurture the companionship of the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost is one of the most precious gifts you can receive in mortality. The Holy Ghost can become your guiding light. The Holy Ghost “will show unto you all things what ye should do.” 11 The Holy Ghost can be helpful to you in any righteous endeavor in which you are involved, including in school and among your friends.
However, the principal mission of the Holy Ghost is to testify of our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. If you are careful in keeping the commandments, the Holy Ghost will help you learn more about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. He will enlighten your mind as you ponder and study the scriptures each day.
The promptings of the Holy Ghost may come to you in a still, small voice. You cannot grow into the man you must become unless you first rise above the things of the world that clamor for your attention. For example, some of the world’s music is degrading, vulgar, and inappropriate and will drown out the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Bringing into your body substances forbidden by the Lord in the Word of Wisdom will prevent you from feeling and recognizing the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
The failure to live a clean and chaste life deadens the promptings of the Spirit. Take your thoughts to higher levels than the vulgar and immoral. Avoid objectionable television shows and movies, evil Internet sites, and all forms of entertainment that portray or encourage immorality and violence. Shun pornography like a deadly, contagious sin and disease. You cannot afford to become addicted to its bondage and slavery. It will drive the Holy Ghost and His influence from your life.
Fourth, love and revere Joseph Smith as the great prophet of the Restoration. Since my youth, I have always been impressed by the fact that our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, would answer the heartfelt prayers of a 14-year-old boy who was searching for the truth. Just as He answered Joseph Smith’s prayer, our Heavenly Father will answer your prayers in His own time and in His own way.
As you learn more about the Prophet Joseph, you will learn that through him the fulness of the everlasting gospel was restored, including the keys of the priesthood. In addition, you will learn of the greatness of his spirit, the compassion he felt for those who suffered, his grasp of the mysteries of heaven and of the workings of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, among men.
The more I know of the Prophet Joseph, the more I love him, the more I yearn to follow his example, the more I appreciate what our Father in Heaven and His Son have done in restoring this gospel that is destined to fill the earth in these, the latter days.
Fifth, love, follow, and be loyal to God’s living prophet. President Gordon B. Hinckley is the successor and guardian of those priesthood keys that were first restored to the Prophet Joseph Smith. In mortality, only one man at a time holds and exercises all of the priesthood keys; today that man is President Gordon B. Hinckley.
Follow the teachings of our modern-day prophet. He is inspired of the Lord to teach us those things that are necessary for us to live happily and righteously.
Love for the Young Men of the Aaronic Priesthood
My wonderful young brothers in the gospel, I love you and have great respect for you! You have been told often, and I will say it again: You are a chosen generation. You have been raised up by the Lord to carry His Church and kingdom into the 21st century. You have been chosen by the Lord to come forth on the earth when wickedness and evil are very powerful. But you are up to the challenge.
“I have every reason to regard you,” said President Gordon B. Hinckley, “as the greatest generation we’ve ever had in this Church—notwithstanding all of the temptations which you face.” 12
That does not mean you will not face your share of heartache, challenges, and trial. Since the days when I first stuffed cotton into my ice skates and put on oversized shoulder pads and helmet, my life has been filled with experiences and challenges that seemed at the time too big for me. Even today I can’t help but feel, every now and again, that the size of the mantle I have been asked to wear is perhaps too large.
But every day I try to put Heavenly Father first in my life, I try to come unto Christ and follow Him as my Savior and Redeemer, I nurture the companionship of the Holy Ghost, love and revere the Prophet Joseph, and listen to and follow God’s prophet today. As I do those things, I am confident the Lord will bless me.
Even after all these years, I can still hear the voice of my mother: “Be grateful for what you have, Joseph. Don’t worry; you’ll grow into it.”
It is my prayer that we may all grow into the priesthood and be the kind of men our Heavenly Father wants us to be, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
See Moses 1:39.
See John 3:16.
History of the Church, 5:135.
See Alma 7:11–12.
“‘You Live in Greatest Age of World,’ Pres. Hinckley Tells Spokane Youth,” Church News, 4 Sept. 1999, 3.
Official Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
© 2013 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All Rights Reserved
|
<urn:uuid:b8a0f00b-8fa9-4ece-9142-4a2a7bbbaaa6>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.lds.org/ensign/print/1999/11/growing-into-the-priesthood?lang=eng&clang=eng
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.96827
| 3,255
| 1.6875
| 2
|
Peter DeWitt, who is an elementary school principal in upstate New York, got very ticked off by a column written by David Brooks in the New York Times.
DeWitt has written a post in which he takes Brooks to task for his confusion and ignorance about schools today. He sees it as just another example of school-bashing by an uninformed critic, the sort that is making teachers and administrators feel shell-shocked.
Brooks blames schools for being too feminized, too collaborative, too sensitive, too eager to medicate rambunctious boys, and thereby turning boys off. Boys are falling behind girls in academic achievement, he says, because of the schools.
Boys need competition, says Brooks, as though the testing regime is not competitive enough for him. Boys need boot camp, he says, echoing one of the themes of the “no excuses” wing of the charter school movement, which Brooks admires. Boys need military virtues, he says, not more environmentalist sentimentality.
I have no idea what Brooks’ evidence is, but I suspect he is just spouting off. He recently returned from the Aspen Ideas Festival, and he seems to be recycling some opinion he picked up there.
Brooks is not a tough guy, at least not in appearance, and he appears to be the sort of kid who would have been bullied by the sort of boys he thinks we need more of.
Judging from our nation’s performance on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, I don’t think our society is in any danger of being too soft and too sensitive. We appear to have an adequate supply of warriors to fight all over the world.
What in the world is David Brooks worried about?
|
<urn:uuid:94f156c3-c98c-434a-b1a1-fe820e4e8079>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/10/david-brooks-knows-nothing-about-schools-today/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.974978
| 363
| 1.5625
| 2
|
• Horizontal Bicep Curls (PDF)
• Shoulder Pumps (PDF)
• Push Ups (PDF)
• Hula Hoop (PDF)
• Do Something Fun (PDF)
• Standing Shin Raise (PDF)
• The Pull Down (PDF)
• Shoulder Rolls (PDF)
• Shoulder Circles (PDF)
• The Transverse Abdominus (PDF)
• Posture (PDF)
• Basic Squat (PDF)
• Basic Calf Raise (PDF)
• Standing Knee Lift (PDF)
• Outer Thigh Lift (PDF)
What’s this all about?
It’s silly to ignore it. We all know about it. It’s right there in front of us!!
All studies about getting - and staying - healthy point to just a small number of simple facts. We need to nourish our bodies better and move more!
Our bodies - especially our hearts - rely on us, and long amounts of time spent sitting still is not what our bodies want. Sedentary lifestyles can be a major health risk!
CAROL For Heart is thrilled to be working with all of you and hope to make a difference in your lives. Some of you may already participate in a fitness program, and you may already choose heart-healthy foods as a regular part of your diet. However, some of you may feel overwhelmed by the thought of adding more activity to your daily schedules, and feel bewildered by what food choices to make. The good news: it doesn’t have to be complicated at all.
Thankfully, the best way to improve the quality of your food choices and to add more activity to your life is to start s-l-o-w-l-y! Making too many lifestyle changes too quickly can lead to confusion and the inability to make these positive changes “stick”. The key to success is to choose ONE thing, either a slight dietary change or a new activity, per week or even per month. Once you are comfortable with that one change, and can easily fit it into your daily life and make it stick, then you can feel confident to add one more thing. Then another the following week or month, then another; the goal is to have adapted to at least 12 healthy new changes to your daily life by the end of a one-year time period.
You do not have to do this alone, we are with you every step of the way!
We will be providing one set of FUN health-improvement ideas every month through Stitch Your Heart Out to help guide you on your way. These efforts will be launching this new program in 2010 beginning with February - Heart Health Month! We wish you all the best of luck for a healthy New Year, and are here to answer all of your heart-health questions.
We started CAROL For Heart because Carol Pawelski died from 30 years of undiagnosed heart disease. She was sick for one week before she died. We didn’t know that she had up to 10 heart attacks over 30 years. How is that possible? How didn't she know? No one ever talked to her about the risk factors for heart disease, and what to do about them. That’s why we are here to help you. We don’t want you to become one of the 1 in 4 women in this country who die from heart disease. Don’t become a heart statistic. With each month's new bits of heart information, recipes and ways to increase your physical activity, you are well on your way to a healthy lifestyle.
|
<urn:uuid:c0d2dfae-1eb5-495c-937e-f0e00b806d92>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://carolforheart.org/CFH/exercise.ashx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.938585
| 751
| 1.640625
| 2
|
Senate Gives "Go Ahead" for Pentagon Green Energy Investment
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate has given the green light to the Pentagon's investment in green energy.
By a vote of 62-37 on Wednesday, the Senate deleted a provision from the defense bill that would have prohibited the military from spending money on alternative fuels if the cost exceeded traditional fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil.
The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado.
In May, a sharply divided Senate Armed Services Committee had included the provision in its far-reaching bill that sets Pentagon policy. Republicans such as Sens. John McCain and Jim Inhofe had argued that clean energy sources such as biofuels were too expensive as the Pentagon deals with smaller budgets.
Eleven GOP senators from states such as Iowa and the Dakotas backed Udall's effort.
|
<urn:uuid:0d5aff78-54c4-43cd-bb4e-415c48c04f8c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.ktvn.com/story/20210293/senate-gives-go-ahead-for-pentagon-green-energy-work
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.971674
| 178
| 1.75
| 2
|
In the 22nd century of Earth-90110 in which the Ultra-Vision ruled an expanding United Earth empire, a team dubbed the “Cosmic Avengers” was formed to protect United Earth’s interests. In the year 2136, the Cosmic Avengers were brought together by the Ultra-Vision onboard their base-ship, the Henry Pym, in order to deal with a threat from the Kree and Skrull empires. These empires planned to crash Halley’s Comet into the Earth in the hopes of crippling Earth’s influence in the galaxy. The Henry Pym approached the comet and the Cosmic Avengers were dispatched to battle the Kree and Skrull forces assembled there. The original line-up of the Cosmic Avengers included Thor (Earth-90110), Starhawk (Earth-90110), Commander America, Jhen the Gammazon, Tachyon Torch and Irondroid. Their main opponents on the comet were the Kree Supremor, the physical manifestation of the Supreme Intelligence, and the Mega-Skrull, a super-powered robot. The Cosmic Avengers won the battle fairly decisively, although Irondroid was killed by the Kree Super-Sentry.
Some time later, the Cosmic Avengers – now without Thor and Starhawk – investigated what they thought was a raiding Skrull starship. But inside the ship were a time-displaced Korvac and this dimension’s Guardians of the Galaxy who were under Korvac’s psychic influence. (Korvac had been diverted to this Earth by the Time Keepers because they believed the Ultra-Vision to be a threat to them.) The Guardians captured the Cosmic Avengers, and they were promptly hypnotized by Korvac. Korvac then led all of the mesmerized heroes to Mars’ moon Deimos, whose interior housed the program that was the Ultra-Vision. The assembled heroes assaulted the base, while Korvac went about destroying the Ultra-Vision. The Cosmic Avengers eventually broke Korvac’s psychic hold and managed to free the Guardians of the Galaxy of theirs, but it was too late for the Ultra-Vision; Korvac had destroyed him. Nevertheless, Irondroid (a replacement from the one killed years earlier) managed to create a duplicate Korvac program, and this managed to eliminate Korvac himself. After this victory, this second Irondroid was whisked from the team by the Time Keepers for use in their future machinations.
|
<urn:uuid:a70e5270-5f3c-4648-9c3d-c7af51b8d0c8>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://marvel.com/universe/Cosmic_Avengers_(Earth-90110)
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.95426
| 516
| 1.5625
| 2
|
Labor's push to mandate paid sick days — and the business lobby's slightly inaccurate facts
May 05, 2009
If Kia Murrell gets sick, she can call out from work and still earn a day's pay while recuperating at home.
If Marie gets sick, she's got to sniffle, sneeze and vomit her way through the work day.
Murrell is a lobbyist for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA), the state's largest business lobby. Marie drives buses for Bridgeport public schools.
CBIA gives its employees paid sick days. Marie's company doesn't. If CBIA has its way, that's how it will stay.
CBIA is leading the fight at the Capitol against a progressive piece of legislation that would make Connecticut the first state to guarantee paid sick days for all hourly employees. Business leaders call it "a bad idea at any time," especially now with the economy in the toilet.
But the main proponent of the bill, the Connecticut Working Families Party, says it probably wouldn't cost employers a thing in the long run — and accuses the CBIA of spreading misinformation to protect business owners at the expense of sick employees who work for dirt pay.
Consider Marie's story, then ask yourself if you'd want her driving your kids to school, rather than staying home sick in bed.
Marie shuttles Bridgeport children to schools in leafy suburbs like Trumbull and Easton. Marie (whose real name we're withholding because she fears retaliation for speaking out against her employer) works through colds, fevers and flu because if she calls out sick, she doesn't get paid. Without the pay, she can't afford her blood pressure medication, and without the medication, she sometimes gets too sick to work.
Last year, she went to work so sick she had to pull her school bus over and vomit on the side of the road — twice. Marie had already missed several half-days due to illness. Any more, her employer told her, and she'd be out of a job.
So instead of staying home and resting, she hauled herself down to the bus yard, sick to her stomach, and drove 15 young children home from school.
"This is no good for me or the kids," says Marie, who is 45. "I don't want to spread my germs to them and give them the flu, but I have no choice. I earn around $93 a day. Even if I didn't have to fear for my job when taking a day off, how can I pay my bills without that?"
Marie's a compelling poster girl for paid sick leave, but by no means the grossest example. Think about the cafeteria cook making pans of lasagna, hands clammy with cold, who comes into work because he can't afford to miss a day's pay — or would get fired if he did. Think about the home health aide changing Granny's diaper who works through a stomach bug — or God forbid, swine flu. It's as much about public health as it is about fairness in the workplace, proponents say.
The legislation, now on its third try at the statehouse, would require companies with 50 or more employees to provide accrued sick time for hourly workers, up to 6.5 days a year. Workers could use their time to treat illness or injury for themselves or their children, for preventative care or for care related to being a victim of family violence or sexual assault.
Fully 40 percent of private-sector workers in Connecticut — some 600,000 individuals — don't get paid sick time, though it's unclear how many of those would be covered by the bill.
Jon Green, director of the Working Families Party, estimates it's somewhere around half, and points to three ways in which employers' costs go up when they don't give paid sick leave:
• Presenteeism: Human resources jargon which refers to lost productivity from employees who go to work sick (and from other workers those sick employees infect).
• Turnover: Employers that provide paid leave experience less of it.
• Health care costs: Workers without paid sick time are more likely to put off routine medical visits and forgo earlier (and cheaper) interventions.
The paid sick bill recently cleared the Judiciary Committee and now goes to the House, where it faces an uphill battle from majority Democrats wary of looking anti-business.
The CBIA, in turn, has ramped up its campaign against the bill, sending an e-mail blast last week that warns the measure would cost the state of Connecticut $1.2 million — just as the state's trying to close a gaping $8 billion two-year budget gap.
"Given the deep state budget deficit, our state economy simply can't afford these extra costs," the CBIA said in its most recent "Government Affairs Report."
But Green says the CBIA is relying on "potential" costs that are unlikely to materialize. The state's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis says the bill would require $500,000 a year to cover workers in the state university and community college systems, plus $116,900 a year for a Labor Department attorney to handle complaints.
But the bill clearly states the Labor Department must handle disputes within its existing budget — without new money. The $500,000 figure relates to college assistants and lecturers, and a forthcoming amendment will exempt them from the bill, Democrats in the legislature say.
"The direct impact to taxpayers would be zero dollars and zero cents," Green says.
CBIA's Kia Murrell says she feels for Marie, and all employees who work sick, but says business owners have it just as rough.
"This woman, as bad as her story is, isn't the only person out there," Murrell says. "The guy that she works for may be operating on a shoestring budget. He may be going broke trying to cover the shifts she can't work."
Murrell insists that if paid sick time were a basic human right, it would be mandated at the federal level. And since it's not, she reasons, it isn't a basic right.
But states pass laws to improve working conditions in all sorts of ways when Congress drags its feet. The federal minimum wage, for instance, is a pitiful $6.55 an hour. Connecticut lawmakers — recognizing that no one could live on that with our sky-high electric rates, expensive rents and generally high cost of living — set the state's minimum wage at a slightly more livable $8 an hour. It's the same thing lawmakers could do with paid sick days: Take the lead locally, rather than waiting for clueless congressmen in Montana or Florida to finally realize it's a national problem.
Short of that, Marie and her passengers are facing another germ-ridden year on the big yellow school bus.
|
<urn:uuid:ff6a922e-f101-4a45-b7e1-2180dba9af99>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/documents/region/htfd_advocate_050509.asp
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.971707
| 1,412
| 1.609375
| 2
|
Title: What’s holding you back trying to reach the next level in the office – or developing the next stage of your career?
The “Fear of Failure” is easy to spot. It’s easy to spot, because the fear gets in the way and you never get started. It’s called procrastination. So, if you never get started, you never have to answer for failing at something.
There may be issues and items, and circumstances that get in the way of you accomplishing your goal. These issues and items conveniently pop up and victimize you, don’t they? So when circumstances arise and you feel like your life is being forcefully guided by them, remember that circumstances don’t make the man … they reveal him.
It plays on circumstances. It goes like this … if it weren’t for the economy, or the kid’s college fund, or the fact that new patient numbers are down … if it weren’t for all of these things, you’d be better off and you wouldn’t have to complain!
The “Fear of Success” is less understood. Fear of success plays on self-deception, and self-sabotage. You actually know that you can do the work and be successful at it, and you’re not afraid of failing at your goal.
What you’re afraid of … is what it’s going to take to stay at that new level. It takes more and better leadership. It takes more and sustained energy. It takes a better and quicker delegation. It takes trained and motivated staff (like a team). It takes more and better systems. It takes … more of what you don’t have.
And here’s what I hear you saying. “It just seems easier to stay at the level I am right now. It’s pretty good. I mean, it’s not too bad.”
But, when you follow someone who’s done it (and done it well), you can see the solution to your problems in their insights/words/actions. And you come away saying “I like what I see. I can do this!”
So the path might be lightly treaded (less travelled), but the rewards for your persistence and consistency are nothing short of astounding!
Solution for “Fear of Failure” – get up and do it (even if you hate doing it). A successful person fails a lot. Losers seem to fail once.
Solution for “Fear of Success” – get up and do it with someone who will guide the way for you.
Peter S. Evans, MS, DDS, MAGD
Protect your practice and your lifestyle by adding a profitable and healthy BioCompatible dental care component without turning your practice upside down. Call, click or come by. 757-220-1848, www.TheBioCompatibleDentist.com , Williamsburg, VA.
I can only guess why more dentists are not diagnosing and treating temporomandibular disorders, but I can give my perspective. It is complicated. Not the explanation of why, the diagnosis and treatment planning. It can be attributed to pain in the musculature surrounding the temporomandibular joint much of the time, but relieving the pain is tricky and can be a very long process, if there is relief of the pain at all. Patients often have headaches that we know originate in the musculature surrounding the TMJ, but we feel as if headaches fall within the scope of medical practitioners or physical therapists or someone else, but not dentists. Not to overlook that there are not many dentists that are very skilled at getting excellent results for patients and significant pain relief. But for the average practicing general dentist, we often have little interest in taking care of these patients, because the protocols are complicated or confusing, but the results are often mixed. It can also be lacking in financial reward, as well, which is a practical matter that most of us do need to consider. So, due to this combination, it can be frustrating to attempt to help these patients.
Fortunately, there are new protocols that have been developed that can make the process of helping these patients simple, effective and productive financially for our practices. The Trudenta system (Trudenta.net) is a marriage of therapies that have been utilized across the fields of dentistry, medicine and physical therapy. The system involves keeping a TMD/headache patient in the dental office for a series of therapy appointments from the start to finish of the Trudenta protocol. We have been using the protocol in our practice with great success. I am proud to offer this unique, extremely marketable system in our practice for our patients that have been suffering. Many patients have been suffering for years, sometimes even decades and are experiencing truly amazing results. Finally, many of the puzzle pieces have been put into place to offer our patients relief to their pain. One of the best parts of being a dentist is helping patients to look and feel their best. It is extremely gratifying to help patients that had previously thought that they were a “lost cause” or had run out of hope. Dentistry can certainly be a challenge, but it also is a joy when we help those that need it most.
Each day, we each have a limited amount of time. How we maximize that time defines who we become and what direction our lives will take. What habits we develop will determine nearly everything in our lives. Do we take time to pray, exercise, cook healthy meals, plan for business strategy, enjoy our loved ones and many other crucial habits? A wise mentor of mine, David Greenwalt, has often told me to remember the acronym, M.E.A.T. It stands for Money, Energy, Affection and Time. The point is that there is always enough M.E.A.T. for the most important things, but not for everything. For example, if you want to be fit and healthy, but never “find” the time to exercise or cook a healthy dinner, how likely is it that you will become or stay healthy? If you are giving all of your time to your practice, but not spending quality time with your family, how will your loved ones or your relationships fare?
It is the same in our lives or our practices, there is never enough time to do everything, but we CAN make time for the most important things nearly every day. It is a matter of priority, and believe me, with a busy practice and an amazing husband and four pretty darned great kids, there is a lot to do. I start every day (OK, to be honest, almost every day) with a list of the 3 most important things that once accomplished, will make the biggest impact in my practice. I also have an implied list of personal and family priorities. The rule is that before I can do anything else in addition to those 3 things, I must have finished the 3 priority items for that day FIRST. I nearly always have something on my list that I would rather avoid, but I am always happy and relieved to be done with those priority items first. Only then do I feel free to get the “busy work” done that tends to rule our lives when not put in the proper order on the good ole’ priority list.
Think of it this way, do you want to become super productive and enjoy the rewards of accomplishing the most important goals every day? It feels great and you will see significant progress when you do. I also recommend that if you need a push or accountability, you share your list of the 3 things with someone that you trust to hold you to them. An accountability partner plays a vital role in getting the most important M.E.A.T. items in our lives every day. Enjoy your life and your business to the fullest today and every day! Good luck!
Learning and studying marketing BY FAR the best dollars I have ever spent on education after my DDS. I didn’t start out to learn marketing, it was a case of “necessity is the Mother of invention”. I HAD to learn marketing, I started up with an associate as well as myself, two dentists, no patients…it’s a long story!
While I would encourage anyone that owns a business to invest in a marketing education, the real place to start is defining who YOU are and what type of practice you wish to have. Literally, anything is possible, but you can’t get there without a concept of what your dream practice resembles. If you love restorative dentistry, developing that part of your practice makes perfect sense. If you love ortho, there have never been more options to help patients get a straighter smile. Invisalign and Six Month Smiles have made orthodontics more accessible than ever before to the general population.
The great thing about dentistry today, is that we offer many services that our patients NEED, but also many that they WANT. For example, a patient can survive without teeth, but they are much happier with their appearance if they have a beautiful set of dentures. They are even happier if they have implants to secure their denture, so that it doesn’t fly out of their mouth when they laugh.
I look at my marketing as layers. We market for new patients for replacing patients that move, die or just don’t click. Then we layer on targeted niche marketing for implants, Invisalign, sleep apnea and TMJ/headache relief (Trudenta), and some other niches in dentistry that we have developed.
When I first began marketing, I have to admit, I was not great at tracking, but now it’s my favorite game – a little addictive, actually. I check our system on MyDentistCalls.com nearly every day just to see what calls come in from which campaign. It allows me to really pinpoint what is a better return on investment for my practice’s marketing dollars. It has made marketing so much more predictable and a ton more fun. It truly takes much of the guesswork out of marketing.
Referrals, PR (charity, networking groups, customer service, press releases) and training and teaching my team to think like a marketer and a caring, kind dental team is the best use of my time and energy. Marketing is the best use of my money (along with time, as well), it’s built me tons of equity and a practice in which the revenue fuels tons of fun and freedom for me and my family.
I gave my kids a gift for Christmas this year that I enjoyed WAY more than they did. It’s a board game called Cashflow by Robert Kiyosaki. I loved it, because I am determined to teach my kids that money does not, in fact, grow on anything, including trees. The game has a starting point and a smaller inner circle on the board called the Rat Race. To escape the portion of the board known as the Rat Race, a player must achieve a passive income that exceeds their monthly expenses. Simple, right? Just create investments, income properties or other interests that create more monthly cash flow than you spend every month. This leads to playing a much bigger, more lucrative part of the game.
So, what if you could create a dental practice that did the same thing? What if your two hands were not necessary to have the practice cash flow? OR, what if you could create enough cash flow to have the practice succeed with your production only a few days every month? What if you could structure your practice to be able to do a few chosen procedures that you truly love, rather than being “Jack of all trades”? Or you could choose to work less hours IN the practice and more time working ON the practice. The real question is what if you had the power to create whatever your dream practice looks like to you?
What would the picture-perfect practice be for you?
I will venture a guess that the practice picture would appear differently for every single one of us. For me, it’s no general dentistry anymore – I just don’t enjoy it as much as I once did. I also don’t check hygiene patients, so I am not tied to an every day schedule in the practice. Clinical dentistry for me is one to one and a half days per week. For me, it is Invisalign and placing and restoring dental implants, and Trudenta TMD/headache therapy. It can be life-changing dentistry for many patients.
I also love improving the business systems of the practice in order to maximize the patient experience and overall happiness, while increasing hourly production for all care providers. I spend a lot of time marketing the practice in order to maintain a healthy patient flow. I truly enjoy the business and clinical sides of dentistry, although I do realize this is not the case for many dentists.
For me, it is my dream way to practice. I love my role as the leader, marketer and clinician in the practice, on my own terms. The funny thing is that when I practiced dentistry the way that it has “been done” for decades, I was miserable. When I customized my practice to my needs, my family’s needs and our patients’ needs, everything fits. Patients know if you are passionate about them and the dentistry you provide every visit for them.
It took a ton of work, humbly learning my weaknesses as well as improving my strengths, a clear strategy and a great desire to love my profession as much as I thought I would when I graduated from dental school. Is your goal to escape the rat race or are you just doing what you’ve always done to get what you’ve always received? Practicing dentistry in 2013 is a puzzle, but when you focus on the right pieces, it can become a beautiful picture.
|
<urn:uuid:3e336219-58dc-4dc0-ab1e-a82c341309fe>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://lovemypractice.com/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962699
| 2,922
| 1.601563
| 2
|
Embracing a Pastoral Approach
What does it mean to be “pastoral”?
I’m a pastor. Have been for ten years. Best job I can imagine. I get to serve the God I love and work with the things our God loves most deeply: his word and his church. As the Senior Pastor of University Reformed Church I am 100% in favor of being “pastoral.”
So long as the word means what the Bible means for it to mean.
When I see the adjective “pastoral” placed in front of a noun it seems to me the word is almost always meant to convey, in contemporary parlance, a truncated set of virtues. A “pastoral approach” implies gentleness, patience, and a lot of listening. If someone is “pastoral” he is good with people, sensitive, and a calming influence. “Pastoral care” means comforting the sick, visiting widows, and lending a shoulder to cry on. These are all find examples of being a good pastor.
But these examples do not exhaust what the Bible means by “pastoral ministry.” My fear is that the soft virtues of pastoral care have so eclipsed the hard virtues that for many people a “pastoral approach” is another way of saying “amiable, personable, and psychological.” At worst, “pastoral” becomes that wonderful temperament we exude when we get through being preachy and theological. Slap the pastoral adjective in front of something and that thing becomes a whole lot sweeter. The biblical approach might be nasty and theological approach nefarious, but the pastoral approach sounds nice.
And yet, what is the “pastoral approach” except the approach of a shepherd? By definition, a shepherd is pastoral. That’s what the word means. So think about what shepherds must be like. According to Psalm 23, a good shepherd feeds, leads, guides, protects, and preserves. Shepherds in the ancient world were “remarkable and broadly capable persons.” As Timothy Laniak observes, “They were known for independence, resourcefulness, adaptability, courage and vigilance. Their profession cultivated a capacity for attentiveness, self-sacrifice, and compassion” (Shepherds After My Own Heart, 57). Shepherd leadership involves the use of authority, expressions of compassion, and protection of the flock. A “pastoral approach” may entail sympathy and patience, but the adjective pastoral must not be reduced to these things. The work of the shepherd encompasses everything from watching little lambs, ordering the sheep, and fending off wolves.
At its most foundational, pastoral ministry, Laniak concludes, “is the subtle blend of authority and care” (quoting Tidball, 247). Above all, the shepherd aims to serve the flock, even at great personal cost to himself. The shepherd is accountable for the sheep as their “protector, provider, and guide.” He must be the type of leader who can rule with a rod of iron (Psalm 2) and tenderly carry the nursing ewes (Isaiah 40). To be “pastoral” is to be tough and tender, courageous and comforting. The adjective must be sufficiently broad as to make sense of the broadness of the biblical imagery. Being pastoral is different than active listening combined with non-offensiveness. A truly pastoral approach exercises authority with compassion, provides protection through self-sacrifice, and looks after the weak by offering leadership that is strong.
|
<urn:uuid:89c7ffcd-e62c-4a96-98bd-51d884f0678b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/07/06/embracing-a-pastoral-approach/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941538
| 755
| 1.609375
| 2
|
I just posted the article about Ushahidi and its future challenges that was published in the Index on Censorship last month (‘Crowd Wisdom’ by Heather Ford in Index on Censorship December 2012, vol. 41, no. 4 33-39 doi: 10.1177/0306422012465800) . I wrote about Ushahidi’s emergence as a powerful tool used in countries around the world to document elections, disasters and food – among others – and the coming challenges as the majority of Ushahidi implementations remain ‘small data’ projects and as tools move towards automatic verification, something only possible with ‘Big Data’.
First published on PBS Idea Lab
During the aftermath of the Chilean earthquake last year, the Ushahidi-Chile team received two reports — one through the platform, the other via Twitter — that indicated an English-speaking foreigner was trapped under a building in Santiago.
“Please send help,” the report read. “i am buried under rubble in my home at Lautaro 1712 Estación Central, Santiago, Chile. My phone doesnt work.”
A few hours later, a second, similar report was sent to the platform via Twitter: “RT @biodome10: plz send help to 1712 estacion central, santiago chile. im stuck under a building with my child. #hitsunami #chile we have no supplies.”
An investigation a few days later revealed that both reports were false and that the Twitter user was impersonating a journalist working for the Dallas Morning News. But this revelation was not in time to stop two police deployments in Santiago that leaped to the rescue before they realized that the area had not been affected by the quake and that the couple living there was alive and well.
Is false information like this one just a necessary by-product of “crowdsourced” environments like Ushahidi? Or do we need to do more to help deployment teams, emergency personnel and users better assess the accuracy of reports hosted on our platform?
Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company that develops free and open-source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. We’ve just published an initial study of how Ushahidi deployment teams manage and understand verification on the platform. Doing this research has surfaced a couple of key challenges about the way that verification currently works, as well as a few easy wins that might add some flexibility into the system. It’s also revealed some questions as we look to improve the platform’s ability to do verification on large quantities of data in the future.
What We’ve Learned
We’ve learned that we need to add more flexibility into the system, enabling deployment teams to choose whether they want to use the “verified” and “unverified” tagging functionality or not. We’ve learned that the binary terms we’re currently using don’t capture other attributes of reports that are necessary to establishing both trust and “actionability” (i.e., the ability to act on the information). For example, the “unverified” tag does not capture whether a report is considered to be an act of “misinformation” or just incomplete, lacking contextual clues necessary to determine whether it is accurate or not.
We need to develop more flexibility to accommodate these different attributes, but we also need to think beyond these final determinations and understand that users might want contextual information (rather than a final determination on its verification status) to determine for themselves whether a report is trustworthy or not. After all, verification tags mean nothing unless those who must make decisions based on that information trust the team doing the verification.
The fact that many deployments are set up by teams of concerned citizens who may have never worked together before and who are therefore unknown to the user organizations makes this an important requirement. Here, we’re thinking of the job of the administering deployment team providing information about the context of a report (answering the who, what, where, when, how and why of traditional journalism perhaps) and inviting others to help flesh out this information, rather than being a “black box” in which the process for determining whether something is verified or not is opaque to users.
As an organization that is all about “crowdsourcing,” we’re taking a step back and thinking about how the crowd (i.e., people who are not known to the system) might assist in either providing more context for reports or verifying unverified reports. When I talk about the “crowd” here I’m referring to a system that’s permeable to interactions by those we don’t yet know. It’s important to note here that, although Ushahidi is talked about as an example of crowdsourcing, this doesn’t mean that the entire process of submission, publishing, tagging and commenting is open for all. Although anyone can start a map and send a report to the map, only administrators can approve and publish reports or tag a report as “verified.”
How Will Crowdsourcing Verification Work?
If we had to open up this process to “the crowd” we’d have to think really carefully about the options we might have in facilitating verification by the crowd — many of which won’t work in every deployment. Variables like scale, location and persistence differ in each deployment and can affect where and when crowdsourcing of verification will work and where it will do more harm than good.
Crowdsourcing verification can mean many different things. It could mean flagging reports that need more context and asking for more information from the crowd. But who makes the final decision that enough information has been provided to change the status of that information?
We could think of using the crowd to determine when a statistically significant portion of a community agrees with changing the status of a report to “verified.” But is this option limited to cases where a large volume of people are interested (and informed) about an issue, and could a volume-based indicator like this be gamed especially in political contexts?
Crowdsourcing verification could also mean providing users with the opportunity of using free-form tags to highlight the context of the data and then surfacing tags that are popular. But again, might this only be accurate when large numbers of users are involved and where the numbers of reports are low? Do we employ an algorithm to rank the quality of reports based on the history of their authors? It’s tempting to imagine that an algorithm alone will solve the data volume challenges, but algorithms do not work in many cases (especially when reports may be sent by people who don’t have a history of using these tools) and if they’re untrusted, they might force users to hack the system to enable their own processes.
An Enduring Question
Verification by the crowd is indeed a large and enduring question for all crowdsourced platforms, not just Ushahidi. The question is how we can facilitate better quality information in a way that reduces harms. One thing is certain: The verification challenge is both technical and social, and no algorithm, however clever, will entirely solve the problem of inaccurate or falsified information.
Thinking about the ecosystem of deployment teams, emergency personnel, users and concerned citizens and how they interact — rather than merely about a monolithic crowd — is the first place to look in understanding what verification strategy makes the most sense. After all, verification is not the ultimate goal here. Getting the right information to the right people at the right time is.
Image of the Basílica del Salvador in the aftermath of the Chilean earthquake courtesy of flickr user b1mbo.
Patrick Meier just wrote a post explaining why the term he coined, “bounded crowdsourcing” is ‘important for crisis mapping and beyond’. He likens “bounded crowdsourcing” to “snowball sampling”, where a few trusted individuals invite other individuals who they ‘fully trust and can vouch for… And so on and so forth at an exponential rate if desired’.
I like the idea of trusted networks of people working together (actually, it seems that this technique has been used for decades in the activism community) but I have some problems with the term that has been “coined”. I guess I will be called a “muggle” but I am willing to take the plunge because a) I have never been called a “muggle” and I would like to know what it feels like and b) the “crowdsourcing” term is one I feel is worthy of a duel.
Firstly, I don’t agree with the way that Meier likens “crowdsourcing” work like Ushahidi to statistical methods. I see why he’s trying to make the comparison (to prove crowdsourcing’s value, perhaps?) but I think that it is inaccurate and actually de-values the work involved in building an Ushahidi instance. Working on an Ushahidi deployment is not the same as answering a question through statistical methods. With statistical methods, a researcher (or group of researchers) tries to answer a question or test a hypothesis. ‘Do the majority of Hispanic Americans want Obama to win a second term?’ for example. Or ‘What do Kenyans think is the best place to go on holiday?’
But Ushahidi has never been about gaining a statistically significant understanding of a question or hypothesis. It has been designed as a way for a group of concerned citizens to provide a platform for people to report on what was happening to them or around them. Sure, in many cases, we can get a general feel about the mood of a place by looking at reports, but the lack of a single question (and the power differential between those asking and those being asked), the prevalence of unstructured reports and the skewed distribution of reporters towards those most likely to reply using the technology (or attempting to game the system) make the differences much greater than the similarities.
The other problem is that the term lacks a useful definition. Meier seems to suggest that the “bounded” part refers to the fact that the work is not completely open and is limited to a network of trusted individuals. More useful would be to understand under what conditions and for what types of work different levels of openness are useful, because no crowdsourcing project is entirely “unbounded”. Meier says that he ‘introduced the concept of bounded crowdsourcing to the field of crisis mapping in response to concerns over the reliability of crowd sourced information.’ But if this means that “crowdsourced” information is unreliable, then it would be useful to understand how and when it is unreliable.
If we take the very diverse types of work required of an Ushahidi deployment, we might say that they include the need to customize the design, build the channels (sms short codes, twitter hashtags, etc), designate the themes, advertise the map, curate the reports, verify the reports, find related media reports, among others. Once we’ve broken down the different types of work, we can then decide what level of openness is required for each of these job types. I certainly don’t want to restrict the advertising of my map to the world, so I want to keep that as “unbounded” as possible. I want to ensure that there are enough people with some “ownership” of the map to keep them supporting and talking about it, so I want to give them some jobs that keep them involved. Tagging reports as “verified” is probably a more sensitive activity because it requires a set of transparent rulesets and is one of the key ways that others come to trust the map or not. So I want to ensure that trusted people, or at least those over whom I have some recourse, do this type of work. I also want to get feedback on themes and hashtags to keep it close to the people, since in the end, a map is only as good as the network that supports it. Now if I have different levels of openness for different areas of work, is my project an example of “bounded” or “unbounded” crowdsourcing?
Although I am always in favor of adding new words to the English language, I feel that the term “unbounded crowdsourcing” is unhelpful in leading us towards any greater understanding of the nuances of online work like this. Actually, I’m always surprised at the use of the term “crowdsourcing” over “peer production” in the crisis mapping community since crowdsourcing implies monetary or commercial incentivized work rather than the non-monetary incentives that characterised peer production projects like Wikipedia (see an expanded definition + examples here). I can’t imagine anyone ever “coining” the term “unbounded peer production” (but I seem to be continually surprised, so I should completely discount it from happening) and I think that this is indicative of the problems with the term.
So, yes, if we’re talking about different ways of improving the reliability of information produced on the Ushahidi platform, I’m excited to learn more about using trusted networks. I just think that if a term is being coined, it should be one that advances our understanding of what the theory is here. Is it that: if you restrict the numbers of people who can take part in writing reports, you get a more reliable result? Where do you restrict? What kind of work should be open? What do we mean by open? Automatic acceptance of Twitter reports with a certain hashtag? Or an email address that you can use to request membership? Is there a certain number that you should limit a team to (as the Skype example suggests)?
This “muggle” thinks that the term doesn’t get us any further towards understanding these (really important) questions. The “muggle” will now squeeze her eyes shut and duck.
I wrote a short memo to the Ushahidi team about what exactly an ethnographer does and how ethnography as a discipline could be useful to Ushahidi (and Crowdmap in particular). I’m thinking of actually writing more about this and interviewing ethnographers working at technology companies to shed some light on this growing field.
What is ethnography?
Ethnography is a research method, with roots in anthropology, that aims to gain a rich perspective of user communities. Ethnographic research projects require the researcher to be deeply immersed in a specific research context (also called “participant observation”) and to develop an understanding that would not be achievable with other, more limited research approaches (Lazar, Feng, Hochheiser: 2010). Ethnography emerged from the practice of early anthropologists who studied “new” cultures Continue reading
Eight years ago, I applied to the Digital Vision Fellowship Program at Stanford University with an interest in developing GIS (Geographic Information Systems) tools to map conditions that could lead to conflict in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Benetech generously sponsored the fellowship hoping that I could help them with Martus, a human rights reporting tool that they were developing for people to report human rights abuses using computer networks. But when I got to Stanford (fresh from being transfixed by Larry Lessig for the first time) I started volunteering for Creative Commons and was so excited by the potential for cc in Africa that I did a 180 and worked on copyright reform and digital culture in Africa and globally for the next five years.
In 2009, driven by some of the hard questions that I started to ask myself about what we were doing with iCommons, I came back to the US to do my Masters at the UC Berkeley School of Information. It was here that I discovered ethnography in a class taught by the wonderful Jenna Burrell. Jenna is not only a great teacher (her classes actually demonstrate the philosophy that she’s trying to teach!) she also brought me around to thinking that there was a way that I could combine my passion for writing and journalism with deep, systematic analysis of where virtual and “real” worlds meet (and sometimes collide). And so I decided that I wanted to be an ethnographer.
But ethnography jobs in the tech sector seem to require PhDs and I was starting to give up on actually being able to find someone to give me a break. Last week, I saw a job posting on Ushahidi’s website for an ethnographer/behaviorist and I immediately wrote to Jon Gosier to ask what he required for the application. I have always had deep respect for Ory Okolloh who co-founded Ushahidi and Erik Hersman (aka “WhiteAfrican“) who is now Director of Operations and Strategy, and intuitively thought that it would be a really wonderful opportunity.
Jon called me yesterday to interview me for the job. He asked me to tell him my story, about the work I was doing and why I wanted to work for the Ushahidi platform. I briefly introduced him to my ethnographic work and he asked me to tell him more about my Wikipedia research. After a while, he said: ‘This is going to sound strange but your essay was one of the reasons why I dreamed up this position. It made me realize how this kind of work could really help what we’re doing. I wasn’t going to say anything when you applied because I wanted to hear why you wanted to join us, but I know all about you and was stoked when you applied for the job.’
I have been wondering for a long time how I would ever find anything that fitted me. I kept thinking about how I didn’t want to end up in a position where I didn’t have the freedom to be who I am, to speak out about what I’m passionate about, and to feed my passion for Africa while still doing something that is globally relevant. And then all of a sudden, the universe provided me a job that was – literally – made for me. Speaking to Jon, I felt like a gibbering wreck I was so blown away. The job will enable me to work on improving SwiftRiver and Ushahidi’s great tools for harnessing the social web. And since I’m working 70% time for them, I’ll get to do some teaching and writing on the side. I will be mostly be in the San Francisco Bay Area but the job isn’t dependent on a particular location so I’m hoping to spend some time in Kenya learning Swahili and researching Wikipedia as planned. More than that, I have no idea, but I feel like this new chapter is going to be a pretty exciting one. I start 1 June.
|
<urn:uuid:d95e2b7e-436e-4f38-a27a-367135054f04>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://hblog.org/tag/ushahidi/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.960654
| 3,987
| 1.695313
| 2
|
Back in June 2009 Neda Agha Sultan was shot by a Basij member. Basij is a so-called volunteer militia that operates in the Islamic Republic of Iran (whenever the authorities want to use violence against the public or need a rent a mob. In reality these people are not volunteers they are on the payroll). She was shot as part of the policy to spread fear amongst peaceful protesters who were upset by the rigged elections. In those days I was watching events live on the internet and broadcasting it wherever I could. I was so moved by watching this event that with the slightest mention of her name I had to force myself and hold back the tears.
Inspired by the poem “Anthem for Doomed youth” by Wilfred Owen on 23rd June 2009 I wrote this poem and created this image of a man with the face of the globe looking behind a distorted glass.
What lamenting cry for you who fell like a leaf?
More howling guns or sound of protesting feet?
What drops should pour for this anguish?
Their tears of Gas? More weeping in blood vanquished?
No mockeries for you; no drink from their martyr’s well,
Nor sound and vision from a TV deaf and blind for those who fell,
No gleam of sorrow from these murderous beasts,
Only a frenzy as they persist their blood feast.
How many candles should we burn to keep your memory alive?
Burn the World with your light or go back to just survive?
You gave your youth, life and beauty,
Shame on us to live but not to do our duty.
Life is just a day, our lives race towards the dusk,
We shall walk your path in freeway, we must until we turn to dust.
Ramin Tork 23rd June 2009
Regained Grandour, a set on Flickr.
Back in 1977 when I was 13, I was fortunate enough to be awarded this comic book titled “Azemat-e Baazyaafteh” (“Restored Grandeur”) by my school. It is perhaps now a collector’s item as it was not sold in shops and I doubt if many copies have survived in Iran. Irrespective of your views on the late king, it is a fun book to read. I will try to scan and send the 62 pages bit by bit.
It just shows that whilst other kids read Superman and Batman comics, we were being nurtured on the milk of politics from an early . I recently saw an exhibition of Soviet Propaganda posters in Tate Modern, London and it was great. It is a shame that with our regular regime change, we destroy a lot of history but If someone ever opens a Museum of Iranian Propaganda in Iran, I might be tempted to donate this book after I’m dead.
In response to BBC Persian‘s 6 greatest Iranians, I have made a list of 10 most influential Iranians as well as depict them in my Art work.
I was happy with the panel’s chosen list and apart from one or two parallel universe moments when Mr Masoud Behnoud was trying to shove-in the despicable and insignificant Mr Khatami into the list the result was in my opinion a respectable choice of 6 great Iranians.
I made the list bigger so that I could allow 4 more and changed it to most influential rather than greatest. I will explain why I added these four.
Khayyam laid the foundation of pragmatist philosophy in our culture. What is more, he expressed this philosophy in beautiful and comprehensible verse.
For the scientific minded, he is a significant mentor.
Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī os simply known as Farabi
Just as prominent as Avicenna but before him, he was another multimath but I have included him for his contribution towards Persian musical theory. His writing was in Arabic so he is mistakenly recognized as an Arab. He was born in Farab which was then part of Iran and the Greater Khorasan, and he is also claimed by Tajiks who were once Iranians.
Forough’s poetry has laid the foundation of modern Iranian feminism. There have been many prominent Iranian women and I can’t believe that for millenniums old nation a single woman was not chosen. She represents the modern Iranian woman and the Iranian woman is the most significant Iranian cultural phenomena at any time but more so in today’s Iran. Our women have become the significant force against Islamic tyranny and opposition both in and outside Iran.
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
I have always protested that I prefer the system of republic to monarchy and by the very fact that he was the last king over a nation that was always ruled by kings he should be included.
Non-monarchists have become historically kinder to the late shah ( or at least I have!). To a great extend this is because Iranians paid a heavy price for the Islamic revolution and after 33 years many consider it as one of the worst afflictions to be bestowed on our nation and the nation could had prospered by pushing for reforms rather than bringing a regime that burns everything it touches to the ground.
Does that make Shah better? Well yes, when you review his portfolio without prejudice it does!
Shah was really a custodian rather than a king of an independent nation. The reality is that after WW2 after the allies removed his father he became a western ally that helped to keep the Russians out. He had great significance during the cold war. He was blamed for his part in the 1953 Coup against the popular prime minister Mossadegh and ironically when he rebelled against the Western leaders in OPEC and (thanks to oil wealth) he genuinely set the nation towards prosperity he no longer had the support of people.
Losing popularity from both sides and secretly being ill with cancer allowed a counter revolution to take place in an Iran that was ready to burst. Iranians forget that in his own private corner he was trying to hold a nation together, inch by inch make them more prosperous and through his last prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar let them have democracy.
About the Art work
Cyrus the great – The first Persian King. Made from his declaration of human rights on the famous Cyrus cylinder
Mohhamad Reza Shah Pahlavi – The last Persian king. Made from his speech at Cyrus the great’s tomb.
Ferdowsi – Made from the end poem of Shahnameh were he states he has spread the seeds of persian speech.
Forough – Made from her poem “Another Birth” were she openly professes her love and binding it to all that there is.
Avicenna – Made from a summary of his achievements in various fields of philosophy, medicine etc.
Mossadegh – Made from his speech at the Internation court of Justice defending the nationalisation of oil.
Zarathushtra – Made from Avesta words.
Hafiz – Made from his poem.
Omar Khayyam – Made from his poem.
Farabi – Made from the 12 musical main modal system.
Farabi the great Iranian Multimath. I chose him for his contribution towards musical theory and the foundation of musical Dastgah (Persian 12 musical main modal system) so his image is made from the list.
He was many things including a philosopher, chemist, logician, psychologist, and physicist.
Cyrus the great image made from the ‘first charter of human rights’ on the Cyrus cylinder.
Translation of the Cyrus Cylinder
[When ... Mar]duk, king of the whole of heaven and earth, the ……. who, in his …, lays waste his …….
[........................................................................]broad ? in intelligence, …… who inspects} (?) the wor]ld quarters (regions)
[..............................................................…] his [first]born (=Belshazzar), a low person was put in charge of his country,
but [..................................................................................] he set [a (…) counter]feit over them.
He ma[de] a counterfeit of Esagil, [and .....….......]… for Ur and the rest of the cult-cities.
Rites inappropriate to them, [impure] fo[od- offerings ….......................................................] disrespectful […] were daily gabbled, and, as an insult,
he brought the daily offerings to a halt; he inter[fered with the rites and] instituted […....] within the sanctuaries. In his mind, reverential fear of Marduk, king of the gods, came to an end.
He did yet more evil to his city every day; … his [people ................…], he brought ruin on them all by a yoke without relief.
Enlil-of-the-gods became extremely angry at their complaints, and […] their territory. The gods who lived within them left their shrines,
angry that he had made (them) enter into Shuanna (Babylon). Ex[alted Marduk, Enlil-of-the-Go]ds, relented. He changed his mind about all the settlements whose sanctuaries were in ruins,
and the population of the land of Sumer and Akkad who had become like corpses, and took pity on them. He inspected and checked all the countries,
seeking for the upright king of his choice. He took the hand of Cyrus, king of the city of Anshan, and called him by his name, proclaiming him aloud for the kingship over all of everything.
He made the land of Guti and all the Median troops prostrate themselves at his feet, while he shepherded in justice and righteousness the black-headed people
whom he had put under his care. Marduk, the great lord, who nurtures his people, saw with pleasure his fine deeds and true heart,
and ordered that he should go to Babylon He had him take the road to Tintir (Babylon), and, like a friend and companion, he walked at his side.
His vast troops whose number, like the water in a river, could not be counted, were marching fully-armed at his side.
He had him enter without fighting or battle right into Shuanna; he saved his city Babylon from hardship. He handed over to him Nabonidus, the king who did not fear him.
All the people of Tintir, of all Sumer and Akkad, nobles and governors, bowed down before him and kissed his feet, rejoicing over his kingship and their faces shone.
The lord through whose help all were rescued from death and who saved them all from distress and hardship, they blessed him sweetly and praised his name.
I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world,
son of Cambyses, the great king, king of the city of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, the great king, ki[ng of the ci]ty of Anshan, descendant of Teispes, the great king, king of the city of Anshan,
the perpetual seed of kingship, whose reign Bel (Marduk)and Nabu love, and with whose kingship, to their joy, they concern themselves. When I went as harbinger of peace i[nt]o Babylon
I founded my sovereign residence within the palace amid celebration and rejoicing. Marduk, the great lord, bestowed on me as my destiny the great magnanimity of one who loves Babylon, and I every day sought him out in awe.
My vast troops were marching peaceably in Babylon, and the whole of [Sumer] and Akkad had nothing to fear.
I sought the safety of the city of Babylon and all its sanctuaries. As for the population of Babylon […, w]ho as if without div[ine intention] had endured a yoke not decreed for them,
I soothed their weariness; I freed them from their bonds(?). Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced at [my good] deeds,
and he pronounced a sweet blessing over me, Cyrus, the king who fears him, and over Cambyses, the son [my] issue, [and over] my all my troops,
that we might live happily in his presence, in well-being. At his exalted command, all kings who sit on thrones,
from every quarter, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, those who inhabit [remote distric]ts (and) the kings of the land of Amurru who live in tents, all of them,
brought their weighty tribute into Shuanna, and kissed my feet. From [Shuanna] I sent back to their places to the city of Ashur and Susa,
Akkad, the land of Eshnunna, the city of Zamban, the city of Meturnu, Der, as far as the border of the land of Guti – the sanctuaries across the river Tigris – whose shrines had earlier become dilapidated,
the gods who lived therein, and made permanent sanctuaries for them. I collected together all of their people and returned them to their settlements,
and the gods of the land of Sumer and Akkad which Nabonidus – to the fury of the lord of the gods – had brought into Shuanna, at the command of Marduk, the great lord,
I returned them unharmed to their cells, in the sanctuaries that make them happy. May all the gods that I returned to their sanctuaries,
every day before Bel and Nabu, ask for a long life for me, and mention my good deeds, and say to Marduk, my lord, this: “Cyrus, the king who fears you, and Cambyses his son,
may they be the provisioners of our shrines until distant (?) days, and the population of Babylon call blessings on my kingship. I have enabled all the lands to live in peace.
Every day I increased by [… ge]ese, two ducks and ten pigeons the [former offerings] of geese, ducks and pigeons.
I strove to strengthen the defences of the wall Imgur-Enlil, the great wall of Babylon,
and [I completed] the quay of baked brick on the bank of the moat which an earlier king had bu[ilt but not com]pleted its work.
[I …… which did not surround the city] outside, which no earlier king had built, his workforce, the levee [from his land, in/int]o Shuanna.
[… .......................................................................with bitum]en and baked brick I built anew, and [completed] its [work].
[…...........................................................] great [doors of cedarwood] with bronze cladding,
[and I installed] all their doors, threshold slabs and door fittings with copper parts. [….......................] I saw within it an inscription of Ashurbanipal, a king who preceded me;
[…..................................................................] his … Marduk, the great lord, creator (?) of [ ... ]
[….................................................] my [… I presented] as a gift…………………] your pleasure forever.
|
<urn:uuid:f3193a01-8030-4c16-936a-d110a3867783>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://doodlejuice.com/category/iran/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.972113
| 3,252
| 1.671875
| 2
|
April 23, 1906.
My Dear Brother:
Just while I have a minute, instead of eating breakfast I will try and send you a few lines to tell you we still live. Ere this I suppose you received my first letter, that was written while the fire still raged. After writing that letter we were in danger again of being burned out and the real danger did not pass until last night, when a rain came up, and we are now practically safe. As I said, the fire would stop when it consumed all, and so it did. The little district we are now in is all that remains of this city, and most of it is uninhabitable. Many houses are shaken down or are too dangerous to go into.
To begin with, I will relate some of my experiences from the quake:
At the first shock it knocked over furniture, plaster fell, and in Miss Danks' room the chandelier fell off, allowing the escape of gas. At her screams I ran in and on my way stopped to put out a fire that had started by matches that had fallen with other material and lighted. Soon as I saw the gas escaping I ran to the meter, and as luck would have it I was able to turn it off with my fingers.
The damage to the house was not apparently serious, so far as a place for habitation, and after we had righted some of the wreck and eliminated the danger of fire we joined the multitude in the streets for by this time there were thousands in the middle of the street.
As no buildings in our immediate vicinity were crushed the people seemed good-
On a bike I went down to my office and the picture of desolation increased with every block. Fires on the way had started and desolation was on the way.
The Columbian Building, on the fifth floor of which my office is located, did not have a piece of plaster on it the size of my hand. The front wall was leaning toward the street two feet and the steps in places were loose. The elevators were helpless. I waded though the plaster and debris and found my office like all the rest.
After loading up with what I considered the most valuable articles I started out. On the way down a piece of marble struck me in the back, and with my bundles and typewriter I rolled down about twenty steps, and the typewriter suffered the least of all. For a while I could not move, but the raging fire which was in the block across the street from me soon brought me to my feet.
I staggered to the rear door, which was the only one that could be opened, and stood contemplating what to do when a strong, husky lad walked by with the multitude that was filing past. I grabbed him and asked if he wanted to work. He said "Yes, " and with him we moved up a half mile and returned for another load. The fire at this time was across the [Market] street and the beautiful Emporium, Academy of Sciences and Flood Buildings were in flames. Martial law was declared and people were driven back. My Government appointment enabled me to get past with my boy and we got another load. I could not carry a thing, but he was a regular packhorse. We got this load safe, and as the fire had escaped us, and as the other buildings on the other side were gone, we took hope.
I started home and met one of my patients with an auto. With him I returned and got my diploma, some Government books and packages we could not get out on my first trip, and these we took to Miss Danks' house at 2007 Devisadero street ... I reached home at 8 p.m. and went right to bed, for I felt the fire could not reach us before morning, and besides I could no longer stand up. I slept like a good dog and the only one in the block that did sleep. I can't write more today. I have treated fully a hundred people while writing this letter and the number is increasing, as it is now raining.
Well, as I remarked, I went to bed, for I had but two hours sleep the night before the quake and I was exhausted. I slept well, awaking occasionally by the explosion of dynamite that was used in the endeavor to check the flames. In these intervals I could plainly hear the roar of the flames and that dreadful and unmistakable sound of a great conflagration, but I slumbered on until daylight, knowing that I would need all the strength I could store for the morrow. If the disaster had ceased there, there was enough work, and if it continued there would be more. It continued and seemed it would never end.
Miss Danks' house, 2007 Devisadero street, had been made a temporary emergency hospital the day before, but there was little to work with. supplies must be had, and for them I started to get authority to purchase.
I spent half a day trying to locate the Mayor's headquarters and when I found it I thought my chances to see him [Mayor Eugene Schmitz] were hopeless. Fortunately the policeman on guard was a patient of mine and when he caught sight of me behind a hundred struggling man he was keeping back he raised his finger in reply ... and shouted to me, "Come in." This was my chance. The crowd turned to see who the great personage was that could get such recognition, and as they turned to look I remembered the saying, "People stand back for a man who knows where he is going," and I started in. They parted for me as if by instinct, and of that mass who had passed three barriers already only my companion and myself were permitted to enter.
I soon learned the reason. The little room was filled with prominent men. They, too, turned to see who the new intruders were, and I remarked direct to the Mayor, who was in his shirt sleeves sweating from the violent work he had done. His headquarters had been moved three times that day. I told him what I had done and what I wanted, and he dictated to his stenographer an order, a part of which reads: "And he is invested with the same authority that I possess." I wasted no time leaving that room and getting things organized.
Now everything works like a clock and I have a staff of over fifty persons aiding in this good work. They are all good hustlers. No special credit is taken by any one. It is given to the entire force, and includes physicians, nurses, messengers, assistants, cooks, firemen, baby clothes factory with a dozen young and elderly making clothes for the youngsters who are born in the parks, squares and improvised maternity homes spread about the city, or what is left of it.
I have not had time to dwell on my misfortune, and it is just as well. For the first few days I used a bike to lean on instead of crutches, and am getting on in good shape. I have a good bed to rest in about three hours a night since the two nights' rest five days ago, and the authorities are good enough to honor any order I send out.
I have been singularly fortunate in getting two wagons in my service, donated by friends. With these we have established communications with the vegetable gardens, dairies and the adjoining county of San Mateo, where we secure what we need.
On our staff is Harry Butman, a commercial traveler, who is engaged in placing those who are lost and wandering into the dispensary. Harry is a noble worker and all traveling men can feel proud of the work he is doing.
Another is Kelley; he is chief distributor of baby clothes and is kept busy looking after the new arrivals and visiting the maternity and camps.
Both of these boys were burned out. They spent three nights in the open and are now on cots in a room with me.
All cooking is in the street. We have a stove that was resurrected, and it was a godsend The Chinaman cook is a prince and we cook for than a hundred a day on that stove. Everybody is cheerful and the health in our district is good, considering the disaster.
All "grog" is shut off without a prescription. We have some for medical uses, and Miss Danks is custodian of it. Yesterday Kelley came in wet and wanted a drink. The old lady was working near by and I wrote her this note. "Miss Danks: The bearer is suffering with wet feet and desires something to warm and dry them from within. Please give him a good potion of "grog" and oblige. Dr. C." There was a lull in the rush that had been going on all day and in a grave and dignified manner she started to get the potion. As she started she turned a look of deep sympathy upon the sufferer, which soon changed when she saw who it was, and needed coaxing to get it. Everybody laughed to see the change of expression and the pathetic look of Kelley.
We are all in good condition, considering. Last night we had another very heavy shake, and it scared many people.
The reports you read cannot give you any idea of the terrible extent of this disaster. It cannot be exaggerated, and must be seen to be appreciated. You can get more information from the papers than I can give you, as I have not been three blocks from the dispensary for three days. Tomorrow I will try and see where my safe fell and the prospects of getting it. There is but little in it but a few diamonds that were left with me for safety.
Affectionately your brother,
CHARLES V. CROSS
|
<urn:uuid:236397ad-80d3-482b-aea1-bd65fdd4dde3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/ew2.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.989983
| 1,991
| 1.765625
| 2
|
July 16, 2008
Can too many child rapes be a constitutional argument against making this crime death-eligible?
I am intrigued but troubled by the arguments developed by John J. Donohue III and Daniel Schuker over at Balkanization, in this post titled "Dodging the Death Penalty Bullet for Child Rape." The post asserts that Supreme Court's decision in the Kennedy child capital rape case "managed to reach the correct result of saving the state and the country from a major, and almost certainly harmful, expansion in the use of capital punishment."
After discussing the military law error that might be the hook for the state of Louisiana to seek rehearing in Kennedy, this post runs some numbers and makes these interesting assertions:
Coupling [a Department of Justice victim-age] estimate to findings in the 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey implies that roughly 36,500 children under 12 were victims of rape. By comparison, 16,740 murders took place that year.
If we include both reported and unreported incidents, the annual number of child rapes may thus exceed Justice Kennedy’s estimate by at least a factor of six. The Court’s decision, consequently, forestalls the costly and ultimately ineffectual legal haggling that would take place over an immense new body of death-eligible cases.
Even if we executed as many child rapists as we did murderers — there were 98 executions in 1999, the most in any year in more than half a century — narrowing down some 36,000 incidents of child rape to the 100 most egregious would prove a taxing and largely ineffective gesture....
Conceivably, the concerns about discrimination, arbitrariness, and the waste of scarce judicial resources could be overcome if the death penalty lessened the incidence of child rape, but there is no reason to believe that capital punishment will be any more successful in reducing child rapes than it is in deterring murder....
Untold resources are spent deciding which vile crimes merit the death penalty, when equally serious crimes avoid this sanction. A wiser choice could be to invest those resources in providing aid to victims and working to prevent repetitions of these awful crimes.
Having avoided the legal mayhem of adding a new realm of death penalty prosecutions, the country can now focus its efforts on solving, instead of creating, vexing social problems. The Court’s ruling should encourage legislators to take serious steps to address the abuse of children in all its many tragic and damaging forms, rather than to grandstand with death penalty laws whose implementation will certainly be highly unusual if not cruel.
Though there are a lot of logical steps in this argument that might be subject to debate, I have a hard time at the outset understanding if the authors are really claiming that the Kennedy decision reached a "the correct result" as a constitutional matter or just a proper policy outcome. The final sentence of this long post almost concedes that it may not be cruel to execute certain child rapists. If the authors come to that conclusion, how exactly they defendant the constitutional conclusion that the policy choice by the Louisiana legislature is precluded by an amendment that only prohibits cruel and unusual punishments? (Notable, some state constitutions prohibit cruel or unusual punishments, but the Eighth Amendment uses the conjunctive.)
As a voter and a taxpayer, I share the authors' instinct as a policy matter that it is a poor use of limited state resources to apply the death penalty to child rape rather than to use these funds for other crime-prevention purposes. But, of course, the same argument can (and likely should) be made against almost all long prison sentences and many other aspects of the modern criminal justice system. I do not think most folks (even most anti-punishment scholars) seriously contend that the US Supreme Court ought to actively use the Eighth Amendment to regulate the efficacy of how states allocate their crime-fighting dollars. And yet, apparently when it comes to the death penalty, the authors of this post (and perhaps the Justices in the Kennedy majority) believe this is an appropriate way to apply the Constitution.
I have a lot more criticisms of this post --- e.g., the failure to recognize that all states but Louisiana had limited capital child rape to the smaller population of repeat rapists, the failure to acknowledge that deterrence realities for child rape may be VERY different than for murder, the failure to appreciate that the development of degrees of rape through the death penalty might produce collateral legal benefits (as it has in the context of the history of the death penalty) --- but it is the post's fundamental failure to distinguish (or desire to conflate?) policy arguments and constitutional claims that gets my legal-process goat more than anything else.
July 16, 2008 at 06:24 PM | Permalink
TrackBack URL for this entry:
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Can too many child rapes be a constitutional argument against making this crime death-eligible?:
Is what they're getting at, though, summarized in this syllogism:
(a) The Death Penaly is a "two wrongs _almost_ never make a right" punishment.
(b) Looking at our contemporary understanding of it, the "almost" should be paramount and the death penalty limited to the most socially outrageous and morally apprehensive crimes.
(c) There were 36,500 reported child rapes and many more unreported in 2005.
(d) This act is an act being performed by potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans. (Or at least being performed hundreds of thousands of times.)
(e) Therefore, it cannot be so socially outrageous and morally apprehensive.
(f) Therefore, it is cruel and unusual to apply the death penalty for that crime.
I'm not defending the logic, but that's the logic, right? If too many people do it, then it can't be so outside the mainstream as to require captial punishment for it?
Posted by: (Former) District Clerk Battling Booker | Jul 16, 2008 6:44:41 PM
(F)DCBB, I'm not sure that (a) is the reason for premise (b), but the rest is about right.
I'm not sure what the philosophical reason is for the idea that the death penalty should be extremely rare, but that idea is widely accepted, and it's probably sufficient to start at (b).
Posted by: | Jul 16, 2008 7:31:44 PM
"I do not think most folks (even most anti-punishment scholars) seriously contend that the US Supreme Court ought to actively use the Eighth Amendment to regulate the efficacy of how states allocate their crime-fighting dollars."
A reasonable objection, but I wonder what percentage of the state dollars are actually federal dollars allocated through different federal crime bills to fight crime.
Posted by: George | Jul 16, 2008 11:36:21 PM
Doug wrote: "...but it is the post's fundamental failure to distinguish (or desire to conflate?) policy arguments and constitutional claims that gets my legal-process goat more than anything else."
How would you determine what's "cruel and unusual"? And how do you pretend that how you answer that question is not rooted in policy considerations? If we're going to be honest, let's be honest. Besides, the Supreme Court has long applied policy tests to constitutional text. That's why it often weighs State interests against individual interests. The text of the First Amendment certainly does not contain an exception for yelling fire in a crowded theater.
Posted by: DK | Jul 17, 2008 12:12:57 AM
Fair point, DK, and I agree that some measure of "policy" is always influencing constitutional rulings (and certainly there will always be subjective judgments integral to constitutional claims). But, especially in the context of the Eighth Amendment and claims raised by individual defendants, I think the policy judgments can/should/must focus on case-specific factors rather than on system-wide factors.
Consequently, I could understand an argument that says in the Kennedy case is the C&U to seek to execute Patrick Kennedy because the process for selecting him as the first child rapist to be executed fails to ensure he truly is among the most horrific child rapists deserving death and it is constitutionally problematic to subject a person to the punishment of death as a result of a rigged lottery in which he is the only one to have been given a death ticket. But to say it will cost the system a lot of money and will likely not produce benefits worth the costs to allow this use of the death penalty seems to turn the Eighth Amendment from a constitutional claim that can be brought by defendants claiming they were wronged into a mechanism enabling courts to be super-regulators of the general operation of criminal justice systems.
That all said, I might really prefer a legal universe in which courts use the Eighth Amendment as a means to super-regulate the operation of criminal justice systems. But what gets my goat is the willingness of so many to embrace the Justices' super-regulatory efforts in the death penalty context and then to resist these efforts in non-capital settings. In other words, I guess what really gets my goat is the tendency of courts and scholars and others to approve polcy-based methodology in capital contexts but in so few others.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jul 17, 2008 7:56:04 AM
"36,500 reported child rapes"
I haven't had time to look into this figure, but it strikes me as suspicious... not because of the number, but how the number was calculated. After all, it's widely agreed that most of these crimes go under-reported.
Posted by: Steve | Jul 17, 2008 8:43:38 AM
Sorry, that should be "unreported"
Posted by: Steve | Jul 17, 2008 8:44:28 AM
Just two points.
First, if you go through Justice Kennedy's description of the rape, I think you'll see that it was extremely aggravated and brutal. The anatomical details are painful to read, apart from being disgusting.
Second, to whatever extent various policy considerations belong in Eighth Amendment analysis, cost factors must be at the very bottom of the list. Cost per se has absolutely nothing to do with whether the DP for child rape comports with the famous "evolving standards of decency." Even more to the point, cost is something over which the elected branches, not judges, have and ought to have a full measure of control.
In other words, the budgetary question whether we want to invest tax dollars in capital prosecutions is quintessentially one to be decided by those who'll be called upon to pick up the tab -- namely, the taxpayers. There is no earthly reason courts should have a say in it.
For that reason, the article is wide of the mark. One of its principal points is that, with so many thousands of child rapes out there, a system that provides the possibility of capital punishment for them is too expensive. But the authors seem to overlook the obvious fact that, just as with capital prosecutions for murder, capital prosecutions for child rape will be only a miniscule percentage of the overall universe. And if the expense of doing even this very small number of child rape capital prosecutions gets too high, the answer is not for the courts to find that the death penalty for child rape is an Eighth Amendment violation -- which would be the non sequitor to end all non sequitors -- but for the executive branch to do fewer of them.
Cost considerations are perfectly valid in deciding whether to seek the DP in any particular case, but they do not even arguably establish that the DP ought to be taken off the table for all time and AS A MATTER OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, no matter what the circumstances.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jul 17, 2008 9:36:37 AM
I believe you are correct in stating that executions of child rapists would have constituted a "miniscule percentage" of the overall universe. Indeed, that was the case pre-Kennedy. The Louisiana law (which allowed the death penalty for essentially any child rape, no matter what the circumstances) had been on the books for over 10 years, but led to only two death penalty convictions. The other jurisdictions had much narrower statutes that never led to any death sentence.
But . . . isn't this even more problematic from an 8th amendment perspective? If the death penalty is only imposed for a "miniscule portion" of child rapes, what is the purpose of having it at all? How, for example, could it have a deterrant effect if it was almost never used? Imposing the penalty in these circumstances is arguably cruel - and certainly "unusual".
This, indeed, was exactly the logic adopted by the more conservative judges (Stewart and White) who joined the majority in Furman, which briefly struck down the death penalty for murder.
Posted by: rn | Jul 17, 2008 2:22:17 PM
You are quite right in saying that the DP is not imposed often enough to have the deterrent effect it could. But it does have a deterrent effect even being carried out in the very small percentage of murder cases in which it could apply. That, at least, is the finding of each of a dozen studies over the last few years. The studies are collected in Kent Scheidegger's C&C website, and Kent discussed them in his testimony in California earlier this year. I believe he also mentioned them in the debate he and I did together last month on the Federalist Society website.
You are also correct in noting that the death penalty is, to say the least, rarely imposed for child rape. I believe the last such case in this country was over 40 years ago. But that does not make it "unusual" in the sense used in the Eighth Amendment. (If it did, executions for murder could not have resumed in 1977, there having been not a single one for the preceding ten years). "Unusual" in the Eighth Amendment sense means "bizarre" or "freakish," not "occurring very infrequently."
In addition, Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has changed in the 32 years since Gregg was decided. The whole idea of trends in public acceptance of the death penalty has grown up since then. This is an idea of which I am a great deal less than fond, but there it is, whether I like it or not.
Under this notion of trend-spotting, that which is infrequent might still not count as "unusual" in the Eighth Amendment sense, if growing public acceptance of it (exemplified, for example, by an increasing number of states that adopt it) can be shown.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jul 17, 2008 3:11:38 PM
I would not conclude that a punishment is "unusual" simply because it has not been used for a long time. That said, I don't why the frequency of a punishment's use would not have some bearing on whether it is "cruel and unusual".
The Louisiana law, which made essentially any child rape a death penalty offense, was passed over 10 years ago. Presumably hundreds of cases filed since then have qualified for the DP. Until Kennedy, prosecutors had sought the death penalty in a total of 4 cases, and obtained it in 2. This frequency of capital sentences seems to me to be "unusual," or even (to borrow your language) "freakish." To borrow Potter Stewart's phrase, getting a death sentence for a child rape in Louisiana was like being "struck by lightning."
As for "trend-spotting", only 6 states had allowed the death penalty for child-rape - and 4 of those states confined capital punishment to repeat offenders (a 5th, Georgia, required additional aggravating circumstances), a requirement that drastically limits the number of death-eligible cases. Indeed, Louisiana may have been the only place in the country where Kennedy's offense was death penalty eligible.
Whatever one may think of the Kennedy opinion (and I agree with the result, although for different reasons than those stated by the majority) it was correct to strike down the Louisiana law, which was (a)unique in expanding the death penalty to all child rapes, and (b) not being applied in any sort of reliable or consistent fashion.
Posted by: rn | Jul 17, 2008 5:26:55 PM
Child rape is a vague term that can include all sorts of things and really shouldn't be used in a substantive conversation about law or policy. It's a media term, and that is it.
I am not taken with the SC's 8th amendment logic primarily because it's circular. It has left us with a penal system that remains stuck in the 1800s. Anything novel is by definition unusual and therefore out of line. The death penalty for rapists is neither cruel (unless you believe all death is cruel) nor can it be said to be unusual (unless you believe that there is no death penalty in America.) I disagree with it from a policy standpoint, but I don't agree it's unconstitutional.
Oh wait. It is unconstitutional because the court has now said so. I need to keep repeating that to myself.
Posted by: Daniel | Jul 17, 2008 6:15:21 PM
|
<urn:uuid:83f590cb-d051-4c6f-ae08-ba7755b40d2a>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2008/07/is-too-many-chi.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962385
| 3,542
| 1.710938
| 2
|
My mom gave me today’s interviewee’s book, Cleopatra: A Life, for Christmas and I’m reading it right now. As I read, the book got me thinking so much that I couldn’t help but jot down questions I would ask the author if I spoke with her. Then I just decided to actually ask her. It’s a fascinating book written with dry wit and an eye for tantalizing detail which is especially admirable when you think about how little concrete information many of us actually have about its subject. Schiff is also the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize, the Ambassador Award in American Studies, and the Gilbert Chinard Prize of the Institut Français d'Amérique. Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Director’s Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. You can learn much more about her here.
When you envisioned Cleopatra, did you tend to mentally insert the face of anyone in particular, famous or otherwise?
No. I wasn't overly concerned with the face. It was the personality for which I was searching. From Plutarch in particular we get the sense of woman who charmed and flattered and (intellectually) seduced, also one with a fierce sense of humor.
The first pages of the book detail a whirlwind of murder. Someone ascends to the throne and immediately get murdered. Were none of the Ptolomies or their family members able to see this coming or prevent it?
Nope. Really an orgy of backstabbing and murder. And as Plutarch reminds us, this was standard operating procedure in dynasties. Think of the Medicis! It happened, sighs Plutarch, "in the best of families."
Life in Alexandria seemed so chaotic then--was it, to them, or was it just life?
Doesn't strike me as any more chaotic than say, New York or Mumbai. The city was vibrant and restless, as multiethnic cities in particular tend to be. It was also artistically fertile and as sophisticated as any city of its time.
Are there any certified descendants of Cleopatra or any of the big players from your book around?
The bloodline ends with Cleopatra's grandson, the King of Juba. He is -- to drive home the point about dynasties -- murdered in Rome by Caligula. Do you know what this means for the biographer? No one to interview!
If you could meet Cleopatra in real life, what’s something you’d love to hear her confirm or deny herself?
She dressed as a goddess, comported herself as a goddess, passed herself off before her subjects as a goddess. Did she truly think of herself as divine? Of course I'd have a few questions about her relationships with Caesar and Antony as well.
This is sort of a silly question but why was the ancient symbol of royalty a diadem? It seems like a simple ribbon is something that anybody could acquire. Why not something more rare?
Wonderful question. I don't know the origin of the diadem, but it was a constant among Hellenistic rulers. I bet there weren't a lot of imitators.
What helped you recreate what the palace looked like? The way you describe it is so enticing and vivid, yet it’s not like we have photos that helped you.
Indeed there's nothing whatever left of Cleopatra's palace. Josephus's descriptions of Herod's palace are precise, and Cleopatra's could only have been far more opulent. (Her fortune far, far exceeded his, and a Ptolemy made a religion of luxury.) Athenaeus -- born in Egypt, if later -- is very specific on the fittings. Lucan and Aristeas go on at length, though I took those descriptions with a grain of salt. Among modern reconstructions I leaned on Inge Nielsen, Hellenistic Palaces, and Maria Nowicka, La maison privee dans l'Egypte ptolemaique.
In that same section, you talk about the meals, flowers, processions, and so on that went on during Cleopatra’s reign: that all sounds great, but who was in charge of executing all that?
An army of florists and lamplighters and seamstresses and silver-polishers and specialists of all kinds. And above them an administrative staff that knew not only about how to throw a party, but how to make pageantry work to political end.
When I envision researching a book such as this, I imagine the author in the stacks of a dusty, ancient library, poring over materials that haven’t been accessed in hundreds of years. What’s the most interesting place that you did your research? What were the most fascinating sources you found?
Most interesting spot was probably the eastern desert, near the fortress of Pelusium, where Cleopatra was camped with her mercenary army when Caesar arrived. It looks little different today than it did in her time, save that the fortress is in ruins and the Mediterranean is further away. As for sources, the nuggets came from reading around in the classical authors. Plutarch's sigh about bloodthirsty dynasts above, for example, does not come from his Life of Antony.
Which parts of the book were most difficult to fill in, in terms of fact (or what we can assume as fact?)
Why exactly did she Cleopatra to Rome, and for how long? How did she react on hearing of Caesar's murder? How did her people greet her? How did they address her? I could write a book of the unanswered questions.
Of the subjects you’ve written about, who do you think would be the most enjoyable to spend time with (within your best guess?)
A very close tie between Ben Franklin and Saint-Exupery. If you felt like sharing a bottle of wine, the former. If you felt like drinking a lot of caffeine, the latter.
Whom do you think you’d like to write about in the future?
My next book is on the Salem witch trials. I like to think that is the answer to your question.
Who’s a subject that you’d love to read a book on but don’t have it in you to actually research and execute?
I've several times approached and abandoned a subject which would require time in Mexican archives.
What’s the best or most enjoyable biography you’ve read lately?
I've just started Robert Massie's new Catherine the Great biography. John Matteson's Margaret Fuller is next. Most delicious recent read, if more the biography of a time: Anka Muhlstein's Balzac's Omelette, published next month.
Have you discovered a theme, after all the books you’ve written, in terms of which part of the process is most difficult for you?
The beginning, the middle, and the end. Seriously, probably getting started, as it's difficult to know which questions to ask when you're still limited by your own ignorance and entirely prey to misconceptions. Asking a difficult question in an interview does not come easily to me either. Not a problem in writing about Cleopatra, of course.
How does it feel to be the 293rd person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
You ask truly terrific questions, though I bet you did even of interviewee #1.
|
<urn:uuid:32fd26a5-35e9-4e0c-a098-2a19107feeb3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.wbez.org/blog/claire-zulkey/2011-09-23/stacy-schiff-interview-92342
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.96864
| 1,641
| 1.523438
| 2
|
Coming To A Computer Near You
You might have heard this week that you will be able to see a lot more of your state government in action online.
Governor O'Malley, along with the leaders of the General Assembly, the comptroller and treasurer announced that starting in two weeks you will be able to watch live meetings of the Board of Public Works.
This is an institution unique to Maryland in that it approves all state spending above $1,000, even after the General Assembly approves the spending in the budget.
The meetings are held twice a month in a packed Governor's Reception Room at the State House.
CLICK HERE to watch a state test video.
The reason these meetings are packed is that most cabinet secretaries attend, and they bring an entourage of staff with them. You also have budget analysts both from the administration and the legislature attending. There are also lobbyists, reporters and yes the general public who pack the room that includes large tables where about 20 participants sit.
Starting in January, you will also be able to stream hearings in the Senate and House.
Right now you can get a live audio stream of House and Senate floor sessions through the General Assembly website.
The challenge with this lies in the House and Senate rules in that you don't always know who is speaking. Lawmakers are not recognized by name before they start to speak. Usually Speaker Busch or Senate President Miller will say "The chair recognizes the gentleman from Baltimore County." The county has more than one senator and delegate, so you might not recognize who is speaking.
The Senate will only stream audio of hearings, so potentially you will have the same problem. The House is offering video streaming, so you will be able to see who is speaking.
O'Malley, Busch and Miller all say the new online services increase "transparency" of state government.
Ryan O'Donnell, executive director of Common Cause of Maryland, agrees with that but as he told me this week, there are still limits.
CLICK HERE to listen to my interview with Ryan O'Donnell.
A lot of the decisions made by lawmakers and the Board of Public Works are made out of the hearing room, away from cameras. This includes conversations with lobbyists and the General Public.
Still O'Donnell believes that by streaming the hearings where the votes are taken and decisions are made are a good thing, and will help you know what is really going on at your State House.
|
<urn:uuid:e6c86897-e35c-4c16-8bf4-771f843d7b38>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://roblang.wbal.com/2010_06_01_archive.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.963439
| 501
| 1.515625
| 2
|
As corporations expand their philanthropic giving, an epidemic that affects millions of American women is being pushed further out of sight: Domestic violence. The economic toll that domestic abuse exacts on our social service system, workplaces, and law enforcement is in the billions.
It has been a brutal summer for victims of family violence. If we send someone new to Washington DC, will they take action? Will a new Senator or House Representative reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)?
Originally passed in 1994, VAWA has been consistently reauthorized and improved with broad bipartisan support. This year, however, the far right wing in the House is insisting on leaving specific groups of women unprotected. Why?
VAWA. PRENDA. Aderholt. What do all these words (and acronyms) have in common? They represent the escalating attacks on the health and rights of women of color, and immigrant women in particular.
After consulting with a deranged all-dude activist group, the GOP-controlled House finally agreed to pass the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, but not before totally stripping it of its merits like it was a Ferrari in a chop shop.
The House of Representatives should take a deep breath, change course, and revise its Violence Against Women Act bill to ensure that our laws continue to uphold our nation’s proud tradition of protecting vulnerable immigrant victims.
Unfortunately, House Republicans are advancing H.R. 4970, which would undermine the core principles of VAWA. H.R. 4970 is not VAWA – it goes against the intent of VAWA which is to protect victims – if anything, this bill will only make it worse for victims.
The government cannot let abusers continue to have control. The government is supposed to protect victims. VAWA saved my life, and I hope it is left as it is now so it can continue to save other women in dangerous situations.
We are appalled at the immigration provisions that the judiciary committee in the House of Representatives passed in HR4970. This bill erodes protections available to immigrant victims who are the victims of domestic abuse.
This week, Senators Leahy and Crapo introduced a bill to reauthorize and amend the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The bad news is that the proposed bill substantively slashes funding by almost 20 percent.
|
<urn:uuid:116748d2-f03e-4d67-b401-179b6e9c76eb>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://rhrealitycheck.org/tag/violence-against-women-act/page/2/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.945492
| 488
| 1.570313
| 2
|
Stating, as the New Democrats did in a Wednesday press release, that provincial changes to allow movie patrons to drink liquor "will help address issues that have been plaguing local movie theatres" is overstating it a bit.
It's going to take a lot more than the ability to serve liquor to help turn around an industry that is fighting pirated films available online, pay-per-view TV and services like Netflix — all which already let people to watch shows in the comfort of their livingrooms with a drink in hand, if they choose.
But it was time that the province modernized its laws in this regard, despite fears by some that allowing theatres to serve alcohol in "adult only auditoriums and adjacent lobbies" will mean a night at the movies will be spoiled by a bunch of slobbering drunks.
"When they're showing a film, if there's only adults, they can actually take their drink to their seat," said Minister Rich Coleman. "If they're just going to a normal live event or film festival where children will be in attendance . . . they'll be able to have a drink in the lobby, but not take it to their seats."
Theatres will be required, as restaurants similarly are, to adhere to a multitude of rules that will essentially try to govern over-consumption and if they are found to be operating outslde these guidelines, their licenses will be yanked.
Licencees, managers and servers will be required to take a Serving It Right course, which teaches how to recognize signs of impairment, responsible beverage policies and issues of legal liability.
So catching a movie shouldn't become be a free-for-all by drunken louts — just as it isn't at hockey games where children attend and adults are already allowed to drink beer.
What it will do is give a struggling industry, which includes two theatres in Kamloops that pay taxes, the opportunity for a new revenue stream, both by way of the liquor sales and the potential for new patrons who might choose to attend and enjoy a glass of wine with their movie popcorn.
We Say editorials represent the viewpoint of The Daily News and are written by editor Robert Koopmans, city editor Tracy Gilchrist, news editor Mike Cornell or associate news editors Dan Spark and Mark Rogers.
|
<urn:uuid:6962580f-6df2-4b37-a693-1b090916ce63>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20120413/KAMLOOPS0302/120419902/-1/kamloops0302/allowing-booze-good-for-struggling-theatres
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.970964
| 476
| 1.601563
| 2
|
Most people have stuff, and many have far too much of it. What a lot of people don’t have, though, and may not buy for themselves in a down economy are things like a meal at a downtown restaurant, a massage at an independently owned spa, or that much needed tune-up at a local automotive shop. This year, when thinking about what to give those special somebodies in your life, consider giving them a service that they can use or enjoy. And, when that gift comes from a local service provider, you’re also gifting that independent business owner, their employees and the local economy in general. Gifting a local service really is a gift that keeps giving.
Coloradans are expected to spend $13.1 billion throughout the 2012 holiday season on purchases from oil changes to holiday hosting expenses, according to the Mile High Business Alliance. Where we spend that money can directly impact our neighbors. If spent locally, on service-based gifts, it can actually pay for someone’s hourly wage or even create a job.
Imagine if all — or even just 10 percent of the $13.1 billion — was spent locally this year. According to Mile High Business Alliance, money spent locally recirculates at least three times directly back into communities. It creates jobs, improves wages and boosts the economic health of an area.
“Studies show that local businesses recirculate money more often and more quickly in the local economy,” says Mickki Langston, founder and executive director of Mile High Business Alliance. “The economic multiplier of a local business is much higher than a national chain.”
Last year, Coloradans spent $12.6 billion during November and December. If just 20 percent of those purchases were made at local retailers, it would translate to a $2.5 billion boost to the state’s economy over two months, explains Langston.
Spending that money on services not only gives the people on your holiday shopping list an experience rather than a thing, but it might well provide your neighbor with a job.
“The busier the service industry is, the more people who are needed to support those businesses,” says Terri Takata-Smith, director of marketing and communications for Downtown Boulder. “And, not only does it give back to the community, but giving someone an experience or a service is a great twist on the standard type of gift.”
Shine Restaurant and Gathering Place employs 40 people and sources at least 10 percent of the food they serve from local providers. And, this summer, they sourced 70 percent from local providers during peak growing season. Gifting someone a gift card to Shine or another locally owned downtown restaurant that offers local food directly supports their employees and local farmers.
“Shine’s vision is to support local businesses and the local economy,” says Jill Emich, co-owner of Shine. “We want to provide our community with jobs so we can all thrive.”
Gifting a local service also boosts the community’s sense of peace and contentment during the holiday season because business owners and their employees feel supported when their financial stresses are alleviated, explains Meredith Guthrie, spa manager at Sensorielle Natural & Organic Wellness Spa. She and owner Jewl Petteway explain that the best gift for a loved one is a gift that promotes wellness.
“When you purchase a gift certificate for a service from a local business, you not only are taking care of the person’s body and mind, which is so essential in these difficult transitory times, but are also stimulating the local economy by providing a job to your peers,” says Petteway. “Everyone benefits when you support local and independently owned businesses by keeping your money in the local economy and stimulating job growth with your mindful support.”
And, keeping money in the local economy supports jobs here, rather than abroad in places like China, explains David Pruess, coowner of Chicago Hair, a hair salon that’s been locally owned and operated in Boulder since 1989.
“Anytime you can keep money in the local economy, that’s great,” says Pruess. “Chances are that the business owners and stylists live in that same community. Gifting someone a haircut or a highlight rather than an iPod ensures that you are directly paying for someone’s living wage here and not supporting an industry based in somewhere like China where people are not making a living wage.”
And gifting a service, such as a carpet cleaning or car tune up rather than a thing has economic as well as environmental benefits.
“In a down economy, maintenance is key,” says Barry Joe Howard, owner of Request Carpet Cleaning, which has been servicing the Front Range since 2001 and employs 33 community members. “Gifting someone a service like a carpet cleaning helps that person to prevent having to replace those carpets, which is expensive. It also helps me keep my employees employed and earning a living wage.”
This holiday season, we have control over where and how we spend our money, continues Howard. Investing locally in service-based gifts empowers and enriches the life of not only the recipient, but also the people in our community who provide valuable services.
“Money is power, in so many ways,” says Langston of Mile High Business Alliance. “For each of us, it is an opportunity for us to directly impact the state of our local economy.”
|
<urn:uuid:1abf059b-22f7-4485-8a4b-c2b4ab9288c9>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-10229-local-services-make-great-gifts.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.959122
| 1,155
| 1.828125
| 2
|
Sun August 19, 2012
Caring For Canines In Seguin, Texas
Mama Bella is sudsy, and we're soaked. I'm holding the leash while Carol Hirschi scrubs the black dog's tummy.
"When people bring me a dog, I'm sure they don't picture me washing her crotch," she laughs.
Hirschi rescues dogs. Her Moshiem Mansion Bed & Breakfast houses a changing cast of 10 to 15 dogs that have escaped death in the shelter.
"I leave the happy-go-lucky ones and pull the ones who are terrified," Hirschi says, "The ones who understand what's happening."
When she's loved and cared for them and found them homes, she heads back to the shelter to pull another dog.
Robin Bisha teaches communication studies at Texas Lutheran University and is training one of the rescue dogs in the photo. She listens to KSTX.
|
<urn:uuid:3d686684-edc0-4f75-9850-4dac6947af98>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://wkyufm.org/post/caring-canines-seguin-texas
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.954537
| 196
| 1.53125
| 2
|
PayPal's 45 million users racked up $4.3 billion in payments in the first quarter of 2004. Now, the subsidiary of eBay (San Jose, Calif.) wants to become a ubiquitous "payment mark" for larger merchants as well.
If successful, customers would be enticed to conduct e-commerce using ACH debits rather than credit cards and signature debit. Nevertheless, PayPal hopes that banks will see it as a partner instead of a competitor. "We are offering a service that they can add to their stable of services and make some money out of it," says Alan Tien, senior product manager on PayPal's merchant services team.
Specifically, PayPal could help banks create relationships with budding sellers not yet ready for a merchant account. "Today, the bank, at a certain cutoff level, says, 'Sorry, I can't deal with you, because you're too small or you're too risky.' There's a lot of lost opportunity," Tien says.
PayPal allows buyers to use either a credit card or an ACH debit to fund their transactions. Last October, the company formed a partnership with CyberSource (Mountain View, Calif.) to allow online merchants to accept PayPal payments without additional integration. That's the value of using CyberSource as a payments "gateway," according to Tien. "Instead of hooking into five different processors, you hook into one gateway," he says. "Then they negotiate all of the different back-ends."
But for entities that want to connect directly into PayPal, the company has now made it easier to do so using Web services technologies, such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL ). Web services are technical standards used by developers to ensure interoperability and adherence to common protocols. By publishing its technical standards, PayPal has made it easier for developers to integrate PayPal into their existing payment processes, and even into their development tools. "If you're using Visual Studio .NET, you download the WSDL file from PayPal, and all of a sudden, all of our variables just show up in your tool," Tien says.
Merchants' fulfillment processes can be improved as a result. "You might want to see the details of the orders that have been placed - in real time," says Dave McClure, director of PayPal developer networks. "Or even on a daily basis, [you could] download a series of all of the transactions that have occurred, and then do a 'pay, pack and ship' process."
PayPal will also allow automated handling of refunds and disbursements. "It's a very flexible way to do a check run for a mass group of recipients," says McClure, who points out the cost savings of eliminating paper checks.
PayPal's new Web services are a step in the right direction, notes Gwenn Bezard, analyst, Celent Communications (Boston). "I'm not sure if it's enough," he says. "The tools that they are providing are designed for the merchant to track the sales and query the transaction," he adds. "But it's not really on the consumer side."
Online merchants such as Amazon.com thrive by encouraging impulse purchases, such as with "One-Click" ordering, which may be a challenge for PayPal with larger players. "They know that consumers may stop buying something along the way if the process to make the payment becomes cumbersome," Bezard says.
"A mid-size-to-large merchant is going to favor close, tight integration between the payment system and its own Web site," Bezard explains. "Typically, you have to leave the Web site of the merchant to make a payment with PayPal."
|
<urn:uuid:4fcf1e2a-b536-43fc-a78c-a578159f8311>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.banktech.com/management-strategies/paypal-wants-to-pal-around-with-larger-m/22103713
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.964852
| 760
| 1.65625
| 2
|
Editing text on the iPad can be a total pain. Say you want to insert a word in the middle of sentence. You have to tap just so or you'll stick it in the wrong spot. A guy named Daniel Hooper thinks there needs to be a better way, showing off his idea for a superior alternative in the video above.
His improved keyboard would let you select text by holding the shift key as you swipe. You'd be able to drag to move the cursor, or drag with two fingers to move it faster. The methods he demonstrates could make for a faster, more user-friendly keyboard.
But he doesn't want to keep the idea for himself, and he's not selling any kind of product. He suggests that you should send Apple a bug report to tell it you're unhappy with the keyboard, encouraging it to work on a fix. Who knows if Apple's listening but Hooper has been told that Apple looks at it as a problem, so maybe we'll see something different in the next big update to iOS. [iDownloading via Engadget]
|
<urn:uuid:2f2118c5-2fe2-4142-af3a-9eb69eca374a>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://gizmodo.com/5907760/please-apple-make-the-ipad-keyboard-work-like-this
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.966398
| 220
| 1.679688
| 2
|
The ability to engage in activities free of shame is as amazing to behold in its application as it is destructive to witness in its results.
One need look no further to find examples of this pathology than today’s union movement which, having diminished to the point of representing less than 12 percent of the American workforce, has been reduced to threats, coercion and extortion just to maintain a pulse.
In San Diego we have seen this manifest itself over the last decade with antiquated trade unions. Trying to re-establish their long-gone dominance in the construction industry, they must now resort to forcing workers to join a union using what is know as a project labor agreement or “PLA.”
A recent example of this occurred with the unveiling (kind of) of the PLA “agreed” to by Clark Construction and local trade unions for the $600 million-plus San Diego Convention Center expansion. By “kind of,” I mean this backroom deal hasn’t been made public. But we’ll get to that part later.
For three years, unions have been pretending to be the Sierra Club claiming that this proposed expansion was “bad for the environment.” The unions through their South San Francisco law firm submitted more than 700 pages of comments and supporting documents during this project’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) comment period.
Now, suddenly, the unions have told us their concerns have been answered and the project has their blessing. Why the sudden change? Simple: The unions have their monopoly PLA so let someone else worry about the environment. Shameless.
Now the $600 million-plus convention center expansion will be built using an exclusionary, union-crafted document that San Diego citizens just voted in June to ban by a 58 percent to 42 percent margin. Democrats voted in favor of it, independents voted in favor of it, Republicans voted in favor of it. A majority of union households voted for it.
But Clark Construction and big labor bosses think they have pulled a fast one on voters and taxpayers with their scheme. Should it remain in place, we can look forward to the same results as they have had at the San Diego Unified School District with their PLA: fewer local workers and higher costs. Results like these are in part why we presented voters with the opportunity to ban these agreements, and the voters agreed with us.
Understanding this, we will see to it that the law is adhered to and that this backroom deal is never implemented.
How? First and foremost, the PLA “agreed” to by union bosses and Clark Construction must be made public immediately. City law is quite clear on the point that the PLA needs to be made public.
We will pursue any and all legal avenues possible regarding both the PLA itself as well as the coercive manner by which it was “agreed” to. Does the PLA violate Proposition A and thus city law? Was it “agreed” to in a manner that violates the National Labor Relations Act?
|
<urn:uuid:3b88bb70-59ad-402a-8f58-df4ab8260ca4>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jan/04/labor-deal-raises-concerns/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.97271
| 620
| 1.671875
| 2
|
WHITE SALMON, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 27, 2003--As the green buildings market continues to grow at a greater rate than any other segment of the commercial building market, Energy
Benchmark for High Performance Buildings (E-Benchmark™), Version 1.0, makes it easier to use off-the-shelf technologies to ensure energy efficiency
and indoor environmental quality in high performance buildings.
Published by the New Buildings Institute Inc, E-Benchmark™ provides more than 30 criteria, from equipment efficiencies to outdoor lighting design, tailored to the specific needs of 15 different weather regions.
"Our goal is that buildings work for people," said Institute Executive Director Jeff Johnson. "If they work for people, they will work for the environment."
A national committee consisting of manufacturers, contractors, building owners, designers, property managers, government representatives, efficiency experts, and the public was involved in E-Benchmark's™ rigorous, year-long development and review process. "If you follow the criteria, you will be building a better building," said Merle McBride, who reviewed the criteria on behalf of the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association.
Institute Project Manager Jim Edelson adds, "This thorough, objective process has resulted in criteria that are technically feasible with off-the-shelf technology."
The E-Benchmark™ effort has been widely supported by utilities and public benefit organizations across the nation. "The E-Benchmark criteria themselves provide an excellent resource for program administrators," states Michael McAteer, manager of commercial and industrial efficiency services for National Grid, a utility that serves four northeastern states. McAteer plans to use E-Benchmark™ to assist architects and developers of mid-sized buildings, which make up the largest inventory of new construction and use the largest portion of energy resources. Such buildings also tend to have the smallest design budgets, so it may be a challenge for their developers to incorporate high performance features. But McAteer says E-Benchmark™ offers a "very cost effective" way to do so.
Even better news for developers, owners and tenants: Analysis shows that investments in high performance buildings pay for themselves, usually within a couple of years, and sometimes sooner, according to Alan Whitson, a facilities manager and national lecturer. "Often it's not a question of spending more money," says Whitson. "It's spending money in the right place."
On a 355,000-square-foot building in a northern community like Minneapolis, for example, installing high performance windows, though more costly, can reduce the need for heating and air conditioning by 150 tons. "That's 150 tons of cooling you don't have to buy, nor do you have to run the system at less than optimal conditions," Whitson said.
Many new buildings don't perform up to expectations, even though they meet relevant energy codes. "Energy costs can vary as much as 35 to 40 percent for supposedly similar buildings within blocks of each other," Whitson noted. "A large percentage of these inefficiencies are designed into the buildings, based solely upon up-front costs rather than life cycle costs. In other cases, operational inefficiencies raise costs."
"The value of the E-Benchmark™ criteria comes from so many experts hashing out every little detail," Whitson said. "On a real-life project, you couldn't afford to pay for all that expertise. If you were to calculate the cost of the time it took to develop these standards, you would be looking at a bill for $20,000."
Using representative buildings including an office, a school, a supermarket, and a "big-box" retail store, E-Benchmark™ criteria will yield energy savings of 10 to 25 percent beyond the levels specified by ASHRAE minimum energy standards. And with additional first costs of only $0.80 to $1.50 per square foot, building operation can pay back the cost of high performance features within a year and a half to four years.
Nationally, annual construction of new commercial space is expected to exceed one billion square feet by 2010; increased building performance will bring financial, energy and environmental returns to developers, owners, users, and the nation.
"The upshot is that a high performance building should be the first choice for commercial developers," states Edelson. "Planners, architects, engineers, contractors, developers, and owners will want to have this volume at their fingertips when they are trying to build a better building."
E-Benchmark™ can be viewed or hard copies (available November 1, 2003) ordered at www.newbuildings.org/ebenchmark. Hard copies will also be available at Powell's Technical Books in Portland, OR. For more information about E-Benchmark™ and the Advanced Buildings project, go to www.newbuildings.org/ABG.htm.
In addition to E-Benchmark™, next year the Advanced Buildings project will publish the Design Manual - a how-to resource for architects, engineers and contractors who apply efficient technologies and practices - and an Owners Guide to High Performance Buildings - a description of the process and benefits of designing, constructing and verifying a building that meets E-Benchmark's™ voluntary specifications.
|
<urn:uuid:4f7df8ce-fb22-4c9e-9c94-871802d5c59a>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/1609/title/energy-benchmark-puts-high-performance-buildings-within-easy-reach.aspx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.948803
| 1,086
| 1.609375
| 2
|
Crissman Elementary & Malow Junior High have built the State Lego Robotics champions!
The eight-member "Crazy Pizza People" team earned the Grand Champion Award at the state's Lego Robotics tournament Dec. 1 in White Lake Township. A total of 163 other teams competed in regional events leading up to the state tournament in which the 48 top teams participated.
The top honor means the students will compete against 100 of the best international teams at the World Festival Tournament this April in St. Louis.
Team members include Crissman students Austin Motloch, Carter O'Donnell, Corey Reynolds, Katie Roy, Cheyenne Smith, and Nicholas Tobin, and Malow students Giovanni Pansera and Alex Roy. The team is coached by Pascal and Amy Roy.
The Grand Champion Award is the top award at the state tournament and is earned by the team that does the best overall in all 3 categories judged: project including research, solution and presentation; team work and gracious professionalism; and robot including mechanical design, programming, strategy, and performance.
The team also earned the top award at the UCS Thunderquest, a regional competition held at Henry Ford II High School in November.
FIRST Lego League (usfirst.org) introduces younger students (ages 9-14) to real-world engineering challenges by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface. FLL teams annually compete under a theme, with this year’s challenge being "Senior Solutions."
In the 2012 challenge, more than 200,000 students from over 55 countries are studying how to improve the quality of life for seniors by learning about the obstacles some people face as they get older.
The tournament features several competition categories, including a robot challenge where students create an autonomous robotic vehicle that completes specified tasks on a 4X8 table. Students also compete in teamwork challenges and a project presentation that describes their solution for issues identified in the Senior Solutions theme.
|
<urn:uuid:bbfe64dc-8dc5-4a0a-a659-d05fcd0b9c61>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://shelby-utica.patch.com/blog_posts/ucs-students-earn-state-lego-robotics-title
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941924
| 397
| 1.570313
| 2
|
This was a total fluke how I came to this solution! It first started when I was trying to be a “cool” mom and showed the girls a fun soap experiment I found on pinterest where you microwave a bar of Ivory Soap and it magically (scientifically) turns from a simple bar of soap into a cool cloud of giant fluff right before your eyes! Thanks “Our best Bites” for the great trick! The girls LOVED it!
The girls were fascinated to see the soap grow and bubble and almost fill the entire microwave! It was a huge hit! Soooo… after we had this giant cloud of soap that the girls were holding and helping fall apart I was like “What now?”
I had the littles put the huge pieces of soap cloud into a bowl and let them have fun breaking it up into tiny flakes! It crumbles so easily! We were left with this bowl of fluff!
THEN IT HIT ME!!!! For all of those who LOVE to make home made laundry soap THIS was a great way to get your Ivory soap prepped!
One of the steps that everyone complains about when it comes to making DIY laundry detergent is the step that required you to hand grate bars of soap! UGG!
Well “UGG” no longer! Pop your bar of Ivory soap into the microwave on top of a large piece of wax paper! Set your timer for about 3 min. but you’ll open the door well before that time runs out! When the bar of soap turns into a HUGE mass of fluff then you want to stop the microwave. Each microwave is so different it’s hard to tell you an exact amount of time!
Be careful when you first touch it, it might be hot in certain spots! When it is completely cool put all the fluff into a bowl and break it up by hand! AND your done!
DIY Laundry Detergent!
- 3 Bars of Ivory Soap prepped in the microwave to turn into fluff! Do one bar at a time!
- 1 Box of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda 55oz.
- 1 4 lb 12 oz Box Borax
- 1 4lb Box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
Mix together and store! Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load. Perfect for High Efficiency washers! This batch will last you FOREVER!!!
*** You can also add Oxyclean to the mix for extra umph!
Watch the soap in action…
|
<urn:uuid:beb4a54d-ea55-4305-a480-093ad70b6fec>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/category/diy
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.948241
| 525
| 1.617188
| 2
|
Even as America reels from the horrific massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the clock continues to count down toward the so-called "fiscal cliff."
In the face of a legitimate crisis, it is harder to stomach manufactured ones. And that's exactly what the so-called fiscal cliff is.
In fact, every time I hear the term, I want to slam my head on the table. Luckily, I'm not alone. Today, December 19, a collection of artists are coming together to expose the "fiscal cliff" as a "fiscal bluff," and remind progressives of the power of culture in helping to win the long-term war of ideas.
My organization, Rebuild the Dream, is joining artist groups CultureStrike and 5D Stories on a special project: "ARTSTRIKE: America's Not Broke, America is Being Robbed." On Wednesday, with the help of Rebuild the Dream's members and partners, millions of people will see works of art that convey what is at stake in the big budget fight.
Some of the artwork takes the form of arresting and powerful visuals with a fierce message. Other works explain what is happening in Washington, or graphically depict the choice our nation faces. There are songs and videos touching on issues from student debt to long-ignored poverty.
Not every piece frames the debate exactly as I would, and I may not share every artist's exact view. But that's not the point of a project like this. I believe this project conveys a message that policymakers need to hear. And it couldn't come at a more urgent moment than now, as reports indicate President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner could be nearing a deal that slashes Social Security, cuts benefits for veterans and raises taxes on the poor and middle class to pay for the Bush wars, tax cuts and bailouts.
Our country is in the midst of a massive jobs crisis, the next generation is saddled in debt, the climate crisis is rapidly approaching a point of no return and now unspeakable gun violence shatters the heart of our nation. Instead of tackling these problems, some of our nation's leaders are apparently contemplating putting Social Security, and maybe Medicare, on the chopping block in a panic move -- all to avoid an artificially contrived deadline.
We can make a huge dent in the rest of the deficit just by returning to the higher taxes and lower defense spending of the Clinton boom years, asking those who do well in America to do well by America. Washington should also deal with spending by cutting wasteful subsidies to oil companies, defense contractors and agribusinesses that do little but line CEOs' pockets with our tax dollars.
The main part of the cliff that worries me is taxes going up on poor and middle-class Americans. The House of Representatives could fix that with one vote to extend the current low rates.
We need to spread the word, and I am glad that artists are leading the way. Artists have been at the forefront of all great modern social movements. They inspire people to dream bigger, force us to imagine a different world and confront people with new ideas. We must embrace the power of art to better protect the American Dream for generations to come.
We should never allow Washington politicians to stampede the American people into supporting cuts they otherwise would never accept.
They're bluffing -- and hoping we fold. It's not a fiscal cliff, it's a fiscal bluff. And as our nation struggles to deal with real emergencies, I am glad that America's artists are calling them on it.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.
|
<urn:uuid:6730474e-10b5-484d-8dc0-235e3a72098a>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.wcti12.com/news/national-news/Jones-Artworks-call-the-fiscal-cliff-s-bluff/-/13530322/17828772/-/151sukuz/-/index.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.948516
| 746
| 1.710938
| 2
|
Trouble in paradise
When most people think of the Maldives, they picture an azure sea, the cobalt sky and a sprinkling of flat, sandy beaches in between. They picture paradise on Earth.
But it seems that where there is paradise, there are people ready to make a buck off it. Until recently, apparently aided by some resort owners, who didn‘t want to pay taxes, a tyrannical president ran the Maldives by banning any form of opposition or discussion about the way the islands should be run.
Enter Mohamed Nasheed, who was so sure about the need for democracy that he was arrested, tortured several times and suffered eighteen months of solitary confinement for his beliefs. One time while in jail, he became aware of a young boy who died in prison. Word got out. It was the catalyst that forced to the president to hold elections.
Before long, Nasheed had to leave the country, but when he returned it was as a candidate for the presidency, which he won in 2008.
Jon Shenk’s film tells the story of a principled and courageous year in office, ending with the Copenhagen Climate Summit, where Nasheed’s Maldives played a surprisingly key role, well out of proportion to its 300,000 population.
Despite comprising some 2,000 islands off the coast of India, no part of the chain is more than a few feet above sea level, so the predicted effects of climate change could mean that the Maldives become the first nation to disappear from the planet for climate reasons. The capital, Male, is particularly vulnerable. With high-rise buildings densely packed from shore to shore, it looks as if a section of Manhattan has been cut and pasted CGI-like into the Pacific.
When Shenk films Nasheed’s underwater cabinet meeting (part of a campaign to make the Maldives carbon-neutral) he captures governance and nature in one scene – as well as recording the President’s astute way of making a point.
What he particularly captures is a passionate politician unusually driven by concern for his country, wanting to slash red tape in order to make some real changes in the way that the world works. Because they expect to be in office for such a short time, many politicians work from month to month, giving little attention to the long term. Nasheed knows that climate decisions have to be made now, before it is too late.
With unprecedented no-holds-barred access to a head of state, showing cabinet meetings in the Maldives and behind-the-scenes discussions in the UK, as well as at the UN General Assembly and throughout Copenhagen, Schenk picks enough bureaucracy to convey the necessary politics, but not so much that it offsets the sapphire visual impact of the islands.
Involving drama, dignity, statesmanship, susceptibility and betrayal, all against a stunning backdrop, Shenk’s watchable film focuses the global issue of climate change onto one nation and one man.
Note: President Nasheed was forced at gunpoint to resign from his office in February.
For screening dates, see theislandpresident.com.
|
<urn:uuid:f37457f1-27b5-47e2-9d40-73fb9e1c4d85>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.phantomtollbooth.org/index.php/home/movie-reviews/487-the-island-president
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.96814
| 647
| 1.742188
| 2
|
This article was originally published in the September/October 1992 issue of Home Energy Magazine. Some formatting inconsistencies may be evident in older archive content.
| Home Energy Home Page | Back Issues of Home Energy |
Home Energy Magazine Online September/October 1992
New Construction in New England: The Energy Crafted Home Program
by Nancy A. Schalch and Lynn R. Fryer
Nancy A. Schalch is the technical analyst and program manager for Mass-Save, Inc. and the chair fo the Board of Directors of the Northeast Sustainable EnergyAssoc. (NESEA). Lynn R. Fryer is a senior analyst and program planner for New England Power Service Co., and is on the Board of Directors at NESEA.
The comprehensive design of the Energy Crafted Home program includes regional utility collaboration, builder involvement, and a multi-media marketing approach.
Several electric utilities in New England developed the Energy Crafted Home program to encourage the construction of single-family and multifamily homes that are substantially more energy efficient than those built to code. New construction energy efficiency programs tend to be cost-effective for utilities because it's less expensive to build a home right the first time than to retrofit it later.
In some respects, the Energy Crafted Home program is similar to the Canadian R2000 and the Bonneville Power Administration Super Good Cents programs. It is performance-based and provides builders with training and technical assistance in getting their homes to achieve the program specifications. Field inspections of each home are also part of the program. Builders receive cash incentives for each qualifying home, but even more important to the builders is the program's marketing support.
In other respects, the program is unusual. It is open to all homes regardless of fuel type. (The financial incentives are significantly larger for electric heat homes.) Besides heating, other end-uses are targeted, including lighting and cooling. Blower-door tests verify air- tightness standards, and indoor air quality issues are addressed, in part by requiring mechanical ventilation.
Because of the program's thermal and ventilation standards, these homes should be less expensive to operate, healthier to occupy, and more comfortable to live in-significant advantages to both the builder and homebuyer.
Table 1: Building Shell Performance Requirements Heating: <= 1.4 Btu/ft2 of shell/heating degree-day Cooling: <= 2.7-3.7*Btu/ft2 of shell/cooling degree-day (*depending on cooling load of utility region) Infiltration: <= 1.0 in2 of opening/100 ft2 of shell (at 4 Pascals of pressure difference) Moisture control: Continuous vapor barrier (on walls, ceiling and floors, around insulated ducts, and under slabs) Indoor air quality: Pollutant source reduction and continuous ventilation (60 cfm in small homes and 100 cfm in larger homes) Fossil-fuel appliances: Sealed or closed combustion on heaters and water heaters (fireplaces/stoves must have airtight doors and fresh air supply) Lighting: Hard-wired fluorescent fixtures are encouraged (also, bare-bulb fixtures must have compact fluorescents)
The program helps builders improve their construction standards by providing training and technical assistance, an energy analysis of each home, and a series of quality assurance inspections during construction. Financial incentives defray some or all of the added costs of building a home. And marketing to homebuyers and promotion to real estate agents and lenders helps create demand.
The Energy Crafted Home program achieves energy savings in new construction by increasing thermal efficiency. With performance- based energy standards, builders can maintain design flexibility and participate regardless of the size or complexity of the home. Every house must meet building shell energy performance budgets for heating, cooling, and infiltration (see Table 1).
All interested builders attend two-day training workshops. The utility sponsors these workshops frequently throughout the region, and at a very low cost. Builders learn to treat a house as a system, with special attention to moisture, indoor air quality, thermal integrity, isolation of combustion equipment, and controlled ventilation (instead of uncontrolled infiltration). For example, they are shown various techniques for minimizing thermal bypasses and installing continuous vapor barriers in difficult areas (namely, around windows and in corners). They are also provided with a reference manual and computer software so they can perform their own building thermal performance simulations. The builder's manual includes program requirements, many examples of good construction detail, and explanations behind recommendations and requirements. A number of small builders in New England already use many of the state-of-the-art construction details recommended at the workshops, but the majority of the participants see these construction techniques for the first time at the workshops.
Plans Evaluation and Technical Support
Builders submit plans for each Energy Crafted Home to the utility that will serve it. An evaluator reviews the blueprints and system details for compliance, and uses a computer simulation program to determine whether the design meets thermal efficiency standards. Modifications are generally required, so the plans evaluator analyzes the energy performance and thermal integrity of various changes and works with the builder to select upgrades to meet program specifications.
Even after the training workshop, most builders need additional technical assistance with such issues as continuous air/vapor retarders, state-of-the-art heating and ventilation equipment, and overall design for maximum thermal performance. Most builders feel the plans evaluation process is beneficial and depend on the evaluators' technical and construction expertise as they design and build their first Energy Crafted Homes.
Inspections and Quality Control
The utility ensures that a home is constructed to specification by paying an inspector to make three site visits. The first inspection verifies that the insulation and air/vapor retarder are properly installed. The primary purpose of the second inspection is to confirm that the building meets the program's air-tightness standards. The inspector uses a blower door test to measure infiltration and to identify any air sealing still required to meet program guidelines. This inspection takes place after the drywall is in place, but before any trim has been installed. The third inspection is a final walk- through once the home is complete. While the heating, domestic hot water, ventilation, and distribution systems are generally examined at each stage, the final inspection confirms that these systems and their controls are functioning properly. Sealed combustion is critical, as is proper air flow and balancing of ventilation systems. The utility inspector checks lights, duct and pipe insulation, fireplaces, wood stoves, and exhaust hoods during a final inspection.
When the house is complete, the utility certifies it as an Energy Crafted Home and registers the builder as an Energy Crafted Home builder. An owner's manual, which details the advantages of owning an Energy Crafted Home and how to care for it, is then presented to the buyer.
The utility pays financial incentives for each home. For electrically heated homes, the incentives ($1,650 for single-family and $900 per multifamily unit) were designed to cover the average incremental cost to the builder of going from a code-built home to an Energy Crafted Home. Incentives for fossil-fuel-heated homes ($150 for single family and $75 for multifamily) are based on the electrical savings for lighting, water heating, and cooling. In addition, builders receive $25 for each hard-wired fluorescent fixture they install. It turns out the primary incentive for most builders is not the money, but the program marketing-more about this later.
Getting Everyone Involved
A Commonwealth of Utilities
The Energy Crafted Home program was developed jointly by several electric utilities in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. (The participating utilities are Blackstone Valley Electric, Boston Edison, Eastern Edison, Granite State Electric, Massachusetts Electric, Narragansett Electric, Newport Electric, and Western Massachusetts Electric.) The program began in early 1989 when the utilities established the Joint Management Committee to oversee program development, builder training, marketing, and implementation. It includes representatives from each of the participating utilities, and involves builders, technical experts, and a consultant who helps coordinate it. The Joint Management Committee met biweekly for the first two years and continues to meet monthly.
Coordinating the effort of so many separate utilities presented many challenges; fortunately, the resulting regional program has many advantages. Most builders work across utility jurisdictions, so having one program means they need to learn only one set of program requirements and attend just one training session. It is also more cost-effective to have one program and marketing plan to reach customers throughout the region.
True Trade Allies
Using a regional design approach, the utilities were able to pool resources and retain the services of experienced energy-conscious builders, architects, and engineers. They assembled more than a dozen teams to work on specific issues such as the building shell, cooling, lighting, appliances, construction details, ventilation, and passive solar design.
The utilities' Builders' Advisory Board was established to provide a forum for communication between the Joint Management Committee and builders. Through regular meetings of the Builders' Advisory Board, builders have been kept apprised of program status, and invited to provide input and feedback on documents and training sessions. Several marketing tools, including a video for prospective clients and a display booth for home shows, were developed based on suggestions from the Builders' Advisory Board.
The involvement of so many industry gate-keepers has been critical to the program's acceptance by the building community. These local professionals all feel some program ownership and hence are likely to build Energy Crafted Homes themselves and encourage their colleagues to do likewise. A measure of the programÕs success is its endorsement by such diverse groups as the Massachusetts Association of Home Builders and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Assoc. (formerly Northeast Solar Energy Assoc.). NESEA has also endorsed and helped to market the program, and its members have played key roles as program designers, workshop instructors, and inspectors.
Performance Standard Approach
The utilities and building professionals selected performance-based standards for several reasons. Design flexibility is critical for most participants. Another advantage is that, as building technologies or building codes improve, it is simple to update the program by changing performance targets. Performance standards also require overall energy savings, so contractors aren't tempted to trade off sloppiness or inefficiency in some areas to meet prescription standards in others. Actual savings should therefore be higher for performance-based programs than prescriptive programs.
The program can only succeed if builders erect and people buy Energy Crafted Homes. Without widespread acceptance, a technically sound program will not save much energy. Thus, marketing targets both builders and buyers with the message that energy efficiency is an indispensable feature in a new home.
The core of the marketing strategy is to communicate that energy efficiency is not only an economic feature of a new home but part of a package of features as important as siting or kitchen design. These features include comfort, durability, and environmental safety. Reduced energy costs are assured through energy analysis and inspections during construction. Educational materials emphasize that features such as mechanical ventilation and sealed combustion appliances, which are not standard in new homes, can significantly reduce risk of unsafe air quality in homes. Energy-efficient homes have fewer drafts and temperature swings than do traditional homes. Moisture damage is prevented by extensive use of vapor retarders and proper exhaust systems.
To get the program going, we sold it first to builders. The message to them combined two themes:
In both cases, the idea is that the Energy Crafted Home package of features will help give them a sales advantage over others that lack these features. Both small custom builders and large developers receive assistance with marketing.
Utilities and builders are using creative strategies to enhance the marketing of certified homes. Feature articles in newspapers, lawn signs, homeowner manuals, cooperative advertising in real estate journals, home show booths staffed by Energy Crafted Home builders, videos, television advertising, brochures, educational booklets, and promotional items such as hats and pens are just a few of the marketing approaches currently in place. The single program logo and name reinforced the message.
The newest marketing piece is a video, created as a result of builders' requests. The video, made for builders to distribute to prospective clients, features Energy Crafted Homes in various layouts and architectural styles. Builders explain the quality of construction and satisfied customers talk about lower fuel bills, increased comfort, and environmental responsibility. An abbreviated version is currently running as an ad on cable television.
Evaluation and Future Direction
The utilities are evaluating the program by way of interviews and focus groups with program designers, utility staff, plan evaluators, field inspectors, trainers, participating builders, non-participating builders, and recent and prospective homebuyers. The biggest barriers to builders are the slow market and the relatively low priority most buyers place on energy efficiency. Preliminary results indicate that most builders are aware of the program. Potential homebuyers, however, remain largely unaware of the program, indicating a need for marketing to target them.
A small, two-year end-use metering project began in January 1992. Sample program and control homes with similar floor plans and occupancy patterns were built by the same developer. The study is monitoring many end-uses. In addition, the whole building load and indoor and outdoor temperatures will be measured. Computer analyses for these homes predict a reduction of 30-40% in space heating for electric heat homes as compared to code, and a 40-50% reduction for fossil heat homes. (The difference in savings is due to the stricter code for electric heat.) The measured data will be used to modify the results of the computer simulations. While the measured results are not yet available, a preliminary analysis was presented at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy Summer Study in August.
Converting the Building Industry
Builders routinely depend on subcontractors for insulation, vapor retarders, heating systems, plumbing, and electrical work. One of their biggest challenges has been finding installers willing to comply with program standards. One way to expand builders' choices of qualified subcontractors would be to offer focused training sessions and Energy Crafted Home Installer Certification. A ventilation workshop and certification program already exists.
NESEA's annual Quality Building Conference and workshops are another avenue for providing more education to program builders. Other options include an information hotline or a panel of experts who could be available to answer questions and provide advice. Currently, evaluators and inspectors still provide most of the technical support.
In the first full year of implementation, the program trained over 400 builders who built nearly 150 Energy Crafted Homes. Most of the 1992 workshops are already booked to capacity. The regional goal for 1992 is to begin construction of another 400 to 600 single- and multifamily units (an ambitious goal in New England's slow market). Ultimately, the utilities plan to include 30% of the new, electric heat homes in the program.
Typical Construction Detail
The performance-based approach of the Energy Crafted Home program results in a great deal of flexibility on the part of the builder. However, several basic construction details are typical of many Energy Crafted Homes.
Walls: Some house plans pass the thermal analysis with R-20 or -21 in the walls (226 studs with cellulose or high-density fiber glass) but most are 226 construction with an inch of rigid foam on either the inside or outside (R-24 to R-28 total). The foam, typically extruded polystyrene or foil-faced isocyanurate, helps reduce thermal bypasses through the studs, and in some cases can function as the air/vapor retarder.
Ceilings: Virtually every Energy Crafted Home has more than the R-30 ceiling insulation required by code. R-40 is typical, and builders use various techniques to minimize thermal bypasses.
Windows: Since windows can be a major source of heat loss and solar gain, most Energy Crafted Homes have either thermal low-E glazing or argon-filled glazing. The thermal analysis considers orientation, unit U-values, solar transmittance, and exterior shading in evaluating the effect of windows on heating and cooling loads.
Heating Equipment: Heating systems and fuels vary, but they are consistently smaller and more efficient than the traditional installation. Design loads are typically 25-50,000 Btu per hour instead of 50-150,000 Btu/hr. Many houses have integrated systems, where one heating unit provides both space heat and domestic hot water.
Moisture Control: Energy Crafted Homes must also comply with moisture control specifications. Vapor retarders reduce the potential for condensation of water vapor in walls and attics, which can lead to dry rot and structural damage. Although technically required by building codes, vapor retarders have often been no more than kraft paper, often improperly installed. In Energy Crafted Homes, a continuous vapor retarder must be installed on exterior walls, ceilings, and floors and around insulated air ducts. Moisture retarders are also installed under slab floors and on crawl space floors. These continuous vapor retarders also serve as air barriers, significantly reducing infiltration.
Air Quality Control: With the very low natural infiltration rate of an Energy Crafted Home, special precautions assure good indoor air quality. The best solution to indoor air pollutants is to eliminate the source, so builders avoid materials with high urea-formaldehyde content. Since radon is another potential concern, program homes are built with a sub-slab layer of stone which will permit the installation of a sub-slab ventilation system, should radon mitigation become necessary.
Ventilation Equipment: Most Energy Crafted Homes have heat recovery ventilators, sometimes fed directly into the heating system ductwork. The rest have exhaust-only ventilation, which typically exhausts air continuously from bathrooms and kitchens directly outside, drawing in fresh air through inlets in living room and bedroom walls. Either method of controlled ventilation is acceptable; however, less energy is required to heat air that has passed through a heat recovery ventilator.
In addition, mechanical ventilation brings in fresh air and exhausts air which may contain pollutants and/ or excess moisture. Systems must provide 60 cfm of continuous ventilation in small homes and 100 cfm in larger homes. These levels of ventilation are based on ASHRAE recommendations of 15 cfm per person above .35 ACH. An Energy Crafted Home-certified installer must install and balance the system.
Heating and Domestic Hot Water: All fossil-fuel heating appliances must have sealed or closed combustion, where outdoor air is provided directly to the combustion chamber and flue exhaust gases are vented directly outside. No interior house air is used for combustion, so there is no risk of backdrafting.
Lighting Hard-wired fluorescent fixture are encouraged, and for each one installed, the builder receives an additonal incentive. Compact flourescent bulbs must be used in all bare bulb, non- decorative sockets inside an Energy Crafted Home.
Measuring 40% Savings
Is it possible to measure the energy savings obtained through construction of new, efficient homes? The Pacific Northwest found that it was possible to determine the energy savings with surprising confidence. Moreover, the results were obtained with old-fashioned technology.
In 1985, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) wanted to test the efficacy of the proposed insulation standards for new electrically heated houses in the Pacific Northwest. The standards required heavy insulation, triple-glazed windows, and mechanical ventilation. Like those in the Energy Crafted Homes program, participating builders received extensive training prior to construction (in addition to generous subsidies). The monitoring was surprisingly primitive: separate kilowatt-hour meters for the furnace and water heater. That, along with the normal meter on total use, provided submetered data for space heating, water heating, and other uses (including appliances, cooking, lighting, and miscellaneous uses). One other device recorded the average inside temperature. The occupants took readings from each meter every week and mailed them on postcards to BPA. More than 200 efficient homes, plus an equal number of control homes, were monitored for two years. (The energy and temperature data for a typical house are shown in Figure 1.) The houses were inspected for physical factors, such as infiltration rates and general quality control. Finally, builders and occupants were surveyed to order to determine costs, appliances, demographics, and satisfaction.
These data were sufficient to determine that the homes built to the new standards used about 40% less space heating energy than those built to current practice. The actual metered difference was smaller - about 30% - but the efficient homes were also 25% larger than the control homes and were kept warmer. If the two groups of homes had been the same size and operated at the same temperature, then the savings would have been over 40%. The energy use of each house depends on the climate, insulation levels, appliances present, and occupants' behavior, but the average savings were unmistakable. (The range in performance and savings are shown in Figure 2.) The results of the study convinced the Northwest to adopt new, tighter building standards. (For more on the savings from the standards, see Model Conservation Standards Prove Themselves During Cold Snaps, HE, Sept/Oct '90, p. 11- 12.)
Good Cents' Measured Savings Fall Short of Prescription
Just a bit to the north, Central Maine Power has been running a training and incentive program to encourage construction of new, efficient, electrically heated homes for several years. Central Maine Power's Good Cents program did not prescribe specific levels of insulation; instead, it required a level of performance under design conditions (an 80 degrees F temperature difference). This allowed builders to trade off various features, such as extra glass area with thicker wall insulation. Builders prefer this kind of standard because it gives them much more flexibility to meet the demands of individual clients.
Based on a 1985 field study, the thermal performance of current- practice new homes was thought to be around 30 Btu/hr/ft2, so CMP required Good Cents homes to consume less than 16 Btu/hr/ft2 for those smaller than 1,250 ft2 (less than 15 Btu/hr/ft2 for 1,250 ft2 and larger). Good Cents promotional literature promises a 40% space heating savings compared to baseline homes. Over 4,500 houses and condominiums have been built to Central Maine Power's specifications.
The energy savings were recently estimated in a report by the consulting firm, RCG/Hagler, Bailly. It evaluated the savings based on utility bills, engineering estimates, and a small number of submetered homes.
The engineering surveys revealed one problem: the current practice houses (that is, the non-participants) were much better insulated than the utility had supposed: audits found that the average new electrically heated house's thermal performance was actually 18 Btu/hr/ft2. So, even though the Good Cents houses were also a little better than assumed, the expected savings were considerably reduced. The billing data confirmed the engineering estimates: actual energy savings were only a little more than 20% (about 3,000 kWh per single-family house).
The analysis was complicated because the Good Cents homes were larger than the comparison homes, the occupants wealthier, and many used wood heat. Furthermore, only whole-house billing data were available for most homes, so space heating consumption could only be inferred through Princeton Scorekeeping Method (PRISM) analysis. Logistical problems prevented full use of the submetering phase of the project. Nevertheless, the small sample of submetered homes proved to be very reliable indicators of the savings. RCG/Hagler, Bailly recommended that future studies should submeter the heating system because data from that portion of the study were particularly reliable. The Bonnevile results (discussed in the box Measuring 40% Savings) reinforce that advice.
| Back to Contents Page | Home Energy Index | About Home Energy |
Home Energy can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.org
Home Energy magazine -- Please read our Copyright Notice
- FIRST PAGE
- PREVIOUS PAGE
|
<urn:uuid:24b21bbe-5385-48d0-926a-555c79798c45>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.homeenergy.org/show/article/year/1992/magazine/75/id/899
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.943314
| 4,972
| 1.710938
| 2
|
The campaign season is still young, yet we already have a strong contender for what might be the most dishonest paragraph of this election year. It was spoken by Sen. John Kerry, by way of explaining how a candidate wrapping himself in Vietnam veterans made his public reputation by accusing them of war crimes.
In his famed 1971 anti-war congressional testimony, Kerry cited the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation, which gathered falsified testimonials of atrocities committed by American soldiers. Kerry regurgitated stories of rapes, beheadings, torture and pillaging ("in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan") as part of his indictment against the Vietnam War. So it is odd that Kerry would celebrate the "band of brothers" he now says are fighting on behalf of his candidacy the way they once fought for their country. Does that mean they will behead Howard Dean and pillage the John Edwards campaign headquarters?
Asked about the testimony the other day by Knight Ridder, Kerry said he relied on the Winter Soldier Investigation "because some of it was highly documented and very disturbing. I did in my heart what I thought was correct to help people understand what was going on. I've always honored the service of people over there. I never insinuated that everybody fell into one pot. I was looking forward to telling the truth about some of the things that were happening."
This is a statement shot through with mendacity. Let's take it sentence by sentence: 1) The Winter Soldier testimony was not "highly documented," but -- as Mack Owens of the Naval War College has reported -- totally unsubstantiated. The fantastic stories of atrocities should have been unbelievable to any Vietnam vet. 2) Kerry didn't "help people understand what was going on," but rather helped publicize lies. 3) Kerry didn't "honor" the service of vets, but said, "We are ashamed of ... what we are called on to do in Southeast Asia," and maintained that in the vets, America "has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence." 4) Kerry did insinuate that the atrocities were widespread, noting that they were "not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." These crimes tainted the nation -- "the crimes threaten [the country], not Reds," as "America lose[s] her sense of morality." 5) If Kerry wanted to tell the truth, he shouldn't have traded in falsehoods.
|
<urn:uuid:bbf6467c-93ff-4827-8218-6638b21dbe47>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://townhall.com/columnists/richlowry/2004/02/13/kerry_vs_vietnam_vets
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.986412
| 519
| 1.664063
| 2
|
Schools for Cartoonists
I was asked in August 2005 for advice on schools in the Ottawa-Gatineau region that might have classes and/or diploma programs of use to cartoonists in training. I thought it a good question deserving of a good and useful answer. Being the self-contradictory person I am, I wonder if I might not be making trouble in the job market for myself by doing this, but as I said on the Resources page, I've got to pay the debts I owe my teachers forward somehow, right?
So, here's the list:
- Algonquin College: They have a three-year diploma program for Animation(TV). I took it and got the diploma back when it was a two-year program, but I suspect that the industry's changed enough to make the rerigging of the program worth the extra time of the student.
- Ottawa School of Art: I take the odd night and weekend workshop here every few months to brush up on this or that skill set aspect. Definitely useful to any student after they've got at least one diploma under their belt, since the learning process never really stops.
- Universite de Quebec a Gatineau: I don't know much about this institution beyond the fact that they have a diploma program for comics -- "BD" en fran¨cais -- for interested students.
|
<urn:uuid:f07de555-9531-49cc-ae8b-67f4d3958f4d>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://web.ncf.ca/ad696/schools.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.969759
| 283
| 1.789063
| 2
|
|« Back to Article|
In Cypress, a center heals body and spirit
Kyrie O’Connor | March 21, 2013 | Updated: March 22, 2013 7:54am
Ayurveda is the traditional medicine of India, but it's also a way of life, and it's what Sharon Kapp calls the "sister science" of yoga. It focuses — and I'm sure I'm oversimplifying — on balancing out the elements in the body, healing and taking care of oneself.
Sharon presides over the Healing Tree: Houston Yoga & Ayurveda Wellness Center in Cypress. It's a pretty place, tucked back from the road. Birds are singing in the trees, and I think I hear frogs, too.
She looks like any doctor, albeit more serene. In India, she would have that title. But the center looks nothing like that of your primary-care provider.
Learn more about this way of life and the center in Cypress at houstonchronicle.com.
|
<urn:uuid:5e18c750-4ecd-4e7a-8f7e-e48481c2c69b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/In-Cypress-a-center-heals-body-and-spirit-4374422.php
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.948408
| 216
| 1.570313
| 2
|
BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin takes a look at social search, focusing on Yahoo, in his article: Yahoo's Social Circle.
These deals are key building blocks in one of Yahoo's biggest bets. By cultivating online communities -- and encouraging people to tap into the collective knowledge of these groups -- Yahoo is hoping to change the way people find information online.
Let's also not forget the introduction of homegrown services like Yahoo 360 (beta), MyWeb, and Yahoo Answers.
He goes on to say:
Social search aims to shift power from Web publishers, who create these links, to everyday Internet users by examining their bookmarks or giving them tools to express their opinions.
The article also focuses on those who are skeptics to the whole social search "thing." They include that, at least to this point, "most Internet users haven't even heard of Flickr or del.icio.us, let alone spent time sharing photos online or posting bookmarks of their favorite sites." He also correctly (IMHO) that it takes effort and time (something many people don't have enough off) to make social search work well for both the individual and group as a whole.
Vivisimo/Clusty CEO, Raul Valdes-Perez is quoted saying that the wisdom of crowds might not trump what "raw" computing power can offer.
The article has more on Google's feelings about social search that Elgin characterizes as "tepid." He also includes as mention of Eurekster (kudos Ben on remembering a pioneer) and includes a comment from Charlene Li who says that, "social search is not one of these things that will take off overnight. It will take a lot of time to build."
So, the question is how long, if ever, to make these services mainstream and if, the smaller ones, can keep going if and until social search becomes something mom and grandma are doing.
Personally, I see a combination of the raw computing power that Valdes-Perez describes coupled to some degree with professionals, yes humans, to help make the most efficient use of this power. Remember, what some call metadata, tagging, etc. has been done by librarians for years and is really cataloging. Granted, it's not at the scale that the open web poses.
However, the skill sets info pros (aka librarians and other info scientists )have and are trained to have could prove to be very useful both with large general-purpose engines as well as the booming search vertical marketplace. Perhaps this is new and growing role for information professionals and a reason why library and information science graduate programs have never been more crowded.
Early Bird Rates have been extended!
June 12-14, 2013: Join industry experts at SES Toronto for a crash course in the latest strategies in Online Marketing and Advertising.
Save $300 when you register by Thursday, May 23.
|
<urn:uuid:9efe2f10-0381-43e9-bdf6-66984888d7f8>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2059808/BusinessWeek-on-Yahoo-and-Social-Search
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955676
| 597
| 1.734375
| 2
|
Feb 6 2006
President Bush Calls for More H-1B Visas
Earlier this month, President Bush called for a raise to the current H-1B visa cap at the 3M Corporate Headquarters. As part of his American Competitiveness Initiative, Bush emphasized the importance of creating a national culture that supported the inclusion of exceptional international workers. The following is an excerpt from President Bush’s speech:
"Now, in the meantime, there's another issue that I want to discuss right quick. . . . There are more high-tech jobs in America today than people available to fill them. And if that's -- so what do we do about that? And the reason it's important, and the American citizen has got to understand it's important, is if we don't do something about how to fill those high-tech jobs here, they'll go somewhere else where somebody can do the job. In other words, there are some who say, we can't worry about competition. It doesn't matter, it's here. Don't worry about it, do something about it. It's a real aspect of the world in which we live.
And so one way to deal with this problem, and probably the most effective way, is to recognize that there's a lot of bright engineers and chemists and physicists from other lands that are either educated here, or received an education elsewhere but want to work here. And they come here under a program called H1B visas. And the problem is, is that Congress has limited the number of H1B visas that can come and apply for a job -- a H1B visa holder can apply for a job at 3M. I think it's a mistake not to encourage more really bright folks who can fill the jobs that are having trouble being filled here in America -- to limit their number. And so I call upon Congress to be realistic and reasonable and raise that cap.
We'll educate our kids. That's the goal. Of course, we want every job that's ever generated in America filled by Americans, but that's not the reality today. In order for 3M to remain competitive, in order for this job base to remain strong, in order for us to be a leader in innovation, we got to be wise about letting kids come here who've got the skill sets needed to fill the jobs that help us remain the leader in the world."
|
<urn:uuid:7fddee6c-55db-406b-b5a1-76f9e7e19a83>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.omolaws.com/omolaws_news_articles.aspx?page_nbr=160
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.972116
| 489
| 1.710938
| 2
|
More than anything, when I finally take that giant step and become a mother, I want to make sure I foster my child's creativity. I want them understand the important of imagination and I want them to feel like there's nothing they cannot do.
Here are five creative truths put together by Shirley-Anne Dick. Her idea was to design a poster calendar, bearing quotes from famous artists, poets and scientists.
Which one is your favorite?
Add a Comment
|
<urn:uuid:ddf1c8dd-d703-4ecc-ada8-1ae8537299cf>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/5-creative-truths-by
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.973951
| 94
| 1.648438
| 2
|
There are none of my uncles or aunts in our archive theme image this week. But there is a lot going on in this hundred year old photograph of the Dughi family store in Raleigh, North Carolina. The photograph is part of the collection of the State Archives of North Carolina which they have made available on Flickr Commons and they inform us that the two gents on the left are Antonio Leo Dughi and John J A Dughi. As I have already suggested, you might want to go with old store fronts, oysters, fruit and veg, barrels, or odd machines on curved legs. Or you may find some other potential theme in there; or abandon themes altogether and go with any old image. The choice is yours and, if the front of Dughi's store is anything to go by, there is plenty of choice available inside. Just post your post on or around Saturday 26th January 2013 and link it to the list below.
Our Sepia Saturday Facebook Group is going from strength to strength and they have asked for a little mini banner which people can put on their sites to direct people to the group. I have produced one, but I am not sure how people will be able to use it to steer people to the Facebook Group. I will throw that question out to that group and hope that an answer emerges.
I have also put together a little banner which can be used to draw attention to the post I wrote last week (or rather, the one I wrote along with Auntie Miriam, which looks at how Sepia Saturday works. As her fans will instantly recognise, the mini banner features Auntie Miriam herself.
Now let us have a look ahead to the next couple of Sepia Saturdays. Here are the next two theme images for those who like to work on them in advance.
162 2 February : Bicycles, lads with caps on their heads ... the writing is on the wall.
163 9 February 2013 : Snow, snow and more snow. But there is also lamp-posts, long coats and those ubiquitous barrels again.
So, there we go. Sepia Saturday - there is so much to choose from. Who needs an oyster saloon when you can have so much fun with old photographs?
|
<urn:uuid:fa1e495b-97c2-4df0-a560-00592610f2c0>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/01/sepia-saturday-161-26-january-2013.html?showComment=1359208243681
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.964998
| 463
| 1.53125
| 2
|
WHEELER GORGE VISITOR CENTER
Teaching others how to take care of the forest.
Located 8 miles above Ojai on Highway 33, at 17017 Mari Copa Hwy, Ojai California is the Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center, the gateway to the southern portion of the Los Padres National Forest. The Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center is the first dedicated visitor center in the 100 year history of the forest. The center operates under a permit from the Forest Service. Since opening in June 2001, the center has served many visitors.
The Center provides to the public about the Los Padres National Forest. In addition, the center sells local hiking trail maps and wilderness maps, Adventure Passes (annual, second vehicle and one day), books and other items.
The trained staff can help guide you to a variety of recreational activities and educational opportunities in the forest. Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center has educational programs between May and September on Saturdays. Also includes membership functions within our summer programs.
We consider the visitor center to be a community center for local communities such as the Ojai Valley, Ventura, Santa Paula, Camarillo, Oxnard and many outlying areas such as Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, and San Fernando Valley. The center has displays of both local wildlife as well as ones from the prehistoric past.
The center has a conference room, classroom, audiovisual equipment and an outdoor classroom under the trees, a parking area and outside picnic area. The center serves as a staging area for training Boy Scouts, both youth and adults in a trail maintenance program within the forest.
Become a member of the Los Padres Forest Association Ojai Chapter Committee and help with our center, programs and many other events throughout the year. We are always looking for help in any way that you can contribute. We especially need help from volunteers with construction skills that include hammering, dry walling, sawing and painting. The center is open on Saturdays and Sundays only from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm and closed during certain holidays. Our center is currently undergoing repairs and remodeling and we are designing a new display area. The master plan includes building an amphitheater and a new parking lot.
In addition, our master plan will include opening the center to local schools and youth groups during the weekdays. We look forward to the implementation of this program and many other additions to the center in the near future. Funding for the Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center and its programs comes from donations and sales at the center. Your support will help us continue to improve the center displays and programs.
Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center
17017 Maricopa Highway
Ojai, CA 93023
Telephone: (805) 640-9060
Fax: (805) 640-9059
To reach Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center from Ventura take Highway 33 towards Ojai at the “Y” intersection (by the Vons shopping center) turn left on Hwy 33 for 8 miles. From the Carpentaria area, take Hwy 150 east until you connect with Hwy33 and turn left at the intersection.
Hours of Operation
The Wheeler Gorge(ous) Visitor Center is currently opened from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
|
<urn:uuid:73e382f4-3345-4981-b214-c519a19cc547>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://lpforest.org/wheeler/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.935118
| 691
| 1.71875
| 2
|
When I heard that Caleb Glover, an Alabama 3- year-old, had been banned last summer from an RV park swimming pool for being HIV-positive, I was enraged. It was 2007! How many decades of HIV-positive people swimming safely with others would it take for people to understand that there is no risk of infecting anyone else in the water?
Watching Caleb’s adoptive parents tell their story on Good Morning America was like watching the Ryan White story all over again. Ryan was diagnosed with AIDS at 13 and became internationally famous for fighting fellow students, their parents and the school administration—who all wanted to expel him. Wrestling with the Glover outrage, I tried to convince myself that we shouldn’t blame people who don’t understand the facts about HIV for trying to “protect” themselves. After all, it took me 10 years to become comfortable with HIV. I don’t expect people encountering HIV for the first time to be immediately at ease. But this was outright discrimination—and I wanted to race down to Alabama and give the people who hadn’t bothered to learn the facts about HIV transmission a crash course.
That’s exactly what activists from the Campaign to Ends AIDS did. Rallying at the RV park, they helped the folks in Alabama get their AIDS facts straight. When Charles King, mastermind of the Campaign to End AIDS, carried Caleb into the water, several vacationers jumped into the pool and joined them in solidarity. The spectacle of HIV-negative people who had never met a positive person bobbing around among activists wearing hiv positive T-shirts was a sight for my very sore eyes.
People armed with the medical facts about HIV can get their heads around it—and their arms around us. Take Silvia and Dick Glover, Caleb’s adoptive parents. They discovered his HIV status when they took their new baby to the hospital to be treated for an abscess and pneumonia. It never occurred to Silvia and Dick not to keep Caleb. Unfazed, the Glovers asked their church to pray for him. Soon after, some children were not allowed to play with him. It was the first of many times that the Glovers would encounter AIDS stigma.
Our other cover boy, Jack Mackenroth, has swum upstream for other reasons. A swimmer since youth, and open about his positive status, he has never been banned from the pool, let alone ostracized for being HIV positive. In fact, he was put on a national reality TV show (Project Runway) despite—or perhaps even because of—his HIV status. But when he developed a staph infection, unrelated to HIV, and had to leave the show because he was immediately contagious to other people, it seemed a strange irony. A show that had no problem embracing Jack and his HIV had to watch him depart when he developed an entirely different condition.
Mackenroth then dedicated himself to serve, like Caleb, as an educational example, showing people not only that HIV-positive people aren’t dangerous to others, but that they can be pictures of health—even when recovering from other serious diseases.
Bridging gaps of generation, race and background, these two Aquamen are proof that education and awareness can banish discrimination. But the fact that they and so many others living with HIV must continually take a stand against misperception speaks to a flood of ignorance that must be dammed, once and for all.
|
<urn:uuid:3816dd7d-4054-4fee-a506-221e59bf8404>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.poz.com/articles/2166_14206.shtml?commentson=no
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.984355
| 711
| 1.625
| 2
|
This is an issue we’ll be debating in lots more detail at BlogCamp next week, but we are getting lots of questions on Twitter about this issue, so thought a brief Q&A might be a good place to start. If you have other questions, do leave them in the comments and we’ll ask our panel at BlogCamp to provide more guidance!
In recent weeks, you’ve probably heard lots of discussion about follow links and no follow links and Page Rank.
What’s it all about?
There are a few things you need to understand to get your head around this stuff.
Why Google cares about links:
When you search Google for any information, some sites rank more highly in the results than others. Being a top ranked site in Google is very important if you run a business. And the sites that rank at the top of the results are those with the most links pointing to them.
How your blog is a part of this:
Every so often Google crawls your blog (along with all the other sites on the web) and looks at all the links it contains. A regular, normal link on your site is known as a ‘follow’ link because Google will follow that link to see where it points.
If Google finds a link to Site X in a post about cats, this basically means you have recommended Site X as a good place to find out about cats. As a result, the site will rank a little higher on Google next time someone searches for ‘cats’.
How PR/SEO is part of this:
Being a top ranked site in Google helps companies make more money – so they are happy to invest money in making that happen. One way is to simply ‘buy’ links on blogs like yours, that tell Google you recommend their sites. That link might be purchased by a PR agency who asks for a paid-for text link in a post or on your blog sidebar. Or they might ask you to write a sponsored post containing a link.
Why it’s a problem:
The problem with this is that paid-for links unfairly skews Google’s results. After all, when you’re looking for information about cats, do you want to see the sites that have the most money? Or the sites that are really, genuinely recommended by other Internet users?
What Google recommends:
To avoid these skewed results, Google came up with the ‘no-follow’ link. This is a special sort of link that tells Google not to count the link when it crawls a website. Google’s own guidelines say that any website owner or blogger should ALWAYS use a no-follow link when adding a paid link to their blog. That includes links in posts, links in your sidebar and (yes) banner ads. Affiliate and network ads should already be set up with a different sort of tag that lets Google know they’re advertisements, so you shouldn’t need to worry about those.
What’s no follow?
A no-follow link is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a link Google doesn’t follow.
If you use WordPress, there are plug-ins to help to create no-follow links, and Blogger recently added the capability to its blogging platform.
Otherwise, creating a no-follow link isn’t too difficult. You simply need to add rel=nofollow to your existing link. For example:
A follow link might be:
<a href=”http://www.nappiesrus.com”>Buy discounted nappies here </a>
The no-follow version could be:
<a href=http://www.nappiesrus.com/ rel=”nofollow”>Buy discounted nappies here<a>
Why should I worry about this stuff?
To an extent, you may not need to worry about this stuff at all. Google’s guidelines aren’t the LAW, and it’s not illegal to accept sponsored posts with follow links. Nobody will go to prison or be fined for this stuff.
However, Google is clamping down on these paid links, and if you get caught by its algorithms, you can be penalised in different ways:
- You might find your site is demoted in Google search results, either just for specific searches, or for all searches. This could mean your site traffic could drop dramatically.
- You might find your site is removed entirely from Google. Again, if lots of your traffic comes from Google, this could be a problem. It’s also likely to be a problem if you’re running ads that are paid based on page impressions, for example.
- You might find your site loses its Page Rank. This is a score from 1-10 that Google gives to all websites to indicate how influential they are. Many blogs have a Page Rank of 3-5. If your score falls to 0, you may find you receive fewer PR and advertising opportunities. (You can check your Page Rank at www.prchecker.info)
Can I get around this?
Some SEO and PR ‘professionals’ may tell you that if you use a word that isn’t ‘sponsored’ in a sponsored post, then Google won’t know the link is paid for. They might suggest you use an image saying ‘sponsored’ because Google can’t read images.
We can’t say for sure whether this strategy works or not, but ask yourself – do you think Google’s algorithms are REALLY that easy to fool?
What if I get caught out?
It’s not the end of the world, so don’t panic.
If you find you’ve lost your Page Rank or been removed from Google results, you can get in touch with Google to find out why and they will tell you what the problem is.
Experts then recommend you spend some time removing the links that Google doesn’t like, or amending them to no-follow links. Once this has all been done, you can apply for re-inclusion. The process should take around 90 days.
So, should I stop accepting paid links?
We know paid links and sponsored posts are a REALLY important source of revenue for many of you. It may be that you choose to accept sponsored posts with follow links – but you should be making an informed choice, and be aware of the potential consequences.
Should I go back and remove old sponsored posts?
Again, this is a personal choice.
In some cases, companies will specify a certain type of link in a sponsored post, or require that the post remains live for a specific period of time. If this is the case, then you have entered into a contract with that company, and you can’t change the terms of that contract (ie change the link or remove it) without their consent.
In practice, companies are unlikely to give such consent, and you will need to decide whether to live with the link on your blog, or offer a refund to the company.
However, if a company requesting a sponsored post didn’t request the post remain live indefinitely, and didn’t request a follow link in the post (or provide specific code for the link) then you should be fine to make changes, as there is no contractual requirement to provide a follow link.
PS: This isn’t the same as disclosure
While Google isn’t the law, and there’s nothing to stop you NOT using follow links for paid links on your blog, there are laws and regulations that mean it is NEVER okay not to disclose a paid-for link or post on your blog. Both the OFT and ASA take a very dim view of web publishers who do not disclose when they’re being paid to recommend something. So regardless of the link you choose to use, remember to always tell your readers when you’re being paid to do something, or have been compensated for writing something.
|
<urn:uuid:77a91a9d-f2ba-413b-8694-bce83abd2673>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.tots100.co.uk/2012/04/14/a-simple-guide-to-follow-and-no-follow-for-bloggers/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.930217
| 1,689
| 1.523438
| 2
|
What helped propel their careers before they had track records?
For the past year I’ve been fortunate enough to interview some of the world’s most successful people to find the answers to these very questions. Below are just a few of the traits I’ve noticed that have stood out in the personalities of people who have truly made it big:
In his early twenties, Tim Ferriss, bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, was running an online sports nutrition company and realized that he would be risking his businesses’ survival if he followed the industry standard of accepting payment up to twelve months after the product was shipped.
“Everyone followed those rules,” Ferriss revealed to me. “I realized I was inviting disaster and financial ruins if I risked my cash flow that way by following the standard protocol, so I insisted on prepayment. Nobody had ever done prepayment. I think that is one of the reasons why my sports nutrition company succeeded where a lot of other startups of that type failed.”
Straying from the norm isn’t easy when you’ve spent your whole life following rules laid out for you at school and at home. It takes a major cognitive shift to understand that the way things are, and have been, can be challenged.
Ask yourself what rules in your industry you accept as fact. Why do you follow them? If the excuse is “that’s the way it’s always been,” it’s time to consider pulling a Tim Ferriss.
Growing up, Sugar Ray Leonard would wake up, get dressed for school, and walk with his siblings to the bus stop. As the yellow bus would pull to the curb, his friends and siblings would step up into the school bus, but young Sugar Ray Leonard, who is now a six-time world champion boxer, would refuse to get on. As the bus drove away, Leonard tightened up his sneakers and ran behind the bus all the way to school.
“The other kids thought I was crazy,” Leonard said, “because I would run in the rain, snow—it didn’t matter. I did it because I didn’t just want to be better than the next guy, I wanted to be better than all the guys.”
My generation is used to instant gratification. But Sugar Ray Leonard demonstrated the necessity to be able to buckle down for the long haul and accept that you won’t see any return on investment for years. You have to be able to stay passionately committed even when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. And remember, Sugar Ray Leonard, now one of the greatest boxers in history, was running behind that yellow school bus at a time when others thought he wasn’t “boxing material.”
Sugar Ray Leonard kept at it, to the point that others thought was irrational. Turns out irrational commitment leads to irrational success.
|
<urn:uuid:e9639843-6204-4254-9c38-200d7b109fe7>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/the-5-traits-of-radically-successful-people/2012/06/15/gJQAfG5FfV_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.97439
| 619
| 1.726563
| 2
|
Extraordinary renditions, torture, abuse, humiliation, detention without charge or end, an obsession with protecting American officials (and military men) from future foreign or domestic criminal charges for their acts -- these are the cornerstones of foreign policy under George Bush, and they have produced horror stories galore. His is a presidency that has made the beautiful speech about the spreading of freedom and human rights just the sunny-side up version of the infliction of pain, the double standard, and the detention center.
There is, not surprisingly, no accurate count of those held by this administration without charge or recourse. Perhaps 15,000 prisoners are at present incarcerated by the American military in Iraq; 505 in Guantanamo; untold numbers are shuttled in and out of various forward military bases and detention centers in Afghanistan (which has become something like a giant Central Asian Guantanamo for detainees from all over the world); scores of "ghost detainees" are in ghost prisons at unknown places around the globe (including, possibly, on U.S. Navy warships, on the American-controlled island of Diego Garcia, and in the prisons of various allies, especially those known to have a propensity for using torture themselves); and a few are in military brigs here in the U.S. Of this large group of detainees, most without rights of any sort, many beyond the reach of the world or of anyone who has ever known or cared for them, significant numbers are -- as has been seen in case after case -- innocent men (or women, or, in some cases, children) who were simply swept up in the hysteria of the Bush administration's "war on terror" and the actual wars and occupations that followed.
To take but one example, at Camp Bucca in Iraq, where prisoners are kept by the U.S. military for a year on average, Steve Fainaru and Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post reported the following:
"Many of the freed detainees express bewilderment at why they were held; even the U.S. commander who oversees Bucca, Col. Austin Schmidt, 55, of Fairfax, estimated that one in four prisoners ?perhaps were just snagged in a dragnet-type operation' or were victims of personal vendettas. ?This is like Chicago in the '30s: You don't like somebody, you drop a dime on them,' Schmidt said. ?And by the time the Iraqi court system figures it out, they go home. But it takes a while.'"
Others have offered far higher estimates of the numbers of such detainees; but whatever the number, multiplied globally, it adds up to a lot of angry, resentful people (and families and friends and associates). Alienating the world has, however, been something of a sub-specialty of the Bush administration. Almost alone among those they did not alienate were, until recently, a bare majority of the American people -- all they needed to do what they wanted to do. With that support, they have been unfazed not just by moral arguments against the use of torture and detention without end, but by practical arguments against them as well. We now know that such arguments were made quite forcefully by a range of military lawyers back in 2003 when the details of administration torture policies were just being hammered out. These lawyers pointed out (though to no purpose at the time) that torture is a surefire way, in the long run, to create the very atmosphere within which terrorist groups can recruit and thrive.
Some thought has, at least, been given to the tortured in the last couple of years; little, however, has been given to the torturers. It is often argued, for instance, that torture produces unreliable information for all the obvious reasons; mostly because sooner or later people will say what's necessary to make it stop. No one ever mentions that torturers are unlikely themselves to be reliable or that their sense of the world and its boundaries is simply not to be trusted. After all, one of the hallmarks of torture is that it takes not just the tortured but the torturer beyond all normal bounds and into another psychic universe where perverse fantasies of every sort are likely to run wild. The very position of interrogator in a situation where a prisoner is without rights and in a detention without end is likely to lead to mirror-fantasies of power beyond all bounds.
Here, for instance, is a description offered by Benyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian who was kidnapped in a CIA extraordinary-rendition operation, passed through the prisons of Pakistan, Morocco, and our Afghan detention centers (and claimed he was tortured in all three places) before landing in Guantanamo. According to his lawyer, "he is being held without charges. Mohammed's remarks to the lawyer do not allege physical torture there. But he said one interrogator, who said his name was Matthew, screamed in his ear: ?I am GOD here! I can do whatever I want with you. Don't think you're safe here.'"
Though the threat was undoubtedly made to terrify the prisoner, it also reflects a potential psychological reality for anyone under such boundary-less conditions. But who would trust a man who believes himself in any sense to be God to offer reliable or well considered information? Who would want a corps of such disturbed human beings, trained in the ghost world of our mini-gulag abroad, to return home -? as they certainly will?
The hallmarks of the Bush administration have been lack of accountability, lack of responsibility, lack of shame, and an urge for destruction. Unfortunately, when it comes to torture, pundits and public alike, largely through fear and the feeling of being in a new and unknown situation after September 11, 2001, have generally gone along for the ride.
Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), where this piece first appeared.
Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt
|
<urn:uuid:443e4293-fba0-43ff-a9e8-b98ee33b5bd3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/08/no-accountability-no-shame
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.967408
| 1,206
| 1.789063
| 2
|
John Lundberg published a nice compilation of Memorial Day poems here today and I thought I'd share a couple that touched me as we remember those that gave their lives for our rights to daily argue political philosophy.
I shot a man yesterday
And much to my surprise,
The strangest thing happened to me
I began to cry.
He was so young, so very young
And Fear was in his eyes,
He had left his home in Germany
And came to Holland to die.
And what about his Family
were they not praying for him?
Thank God they couldn't see their son
And the man that had murdered him.
I knelt beside him
And held his hand--
I begged his forgiveness
Did he understand?
It was the War
And he was the enemy
If I hadn't shot him
He would have shot me.
I saw he was dying
And I called him "Brother"
But he gasped out one word
And that word was "Mother."
I shot a man yesterday
And much to surprise
A part of me died with Him
When Death came to close
-James Lenihan; fought in Europe during World War II as a sergeant in the 104th Infantry Division.
Shiny as wax, the cracked veneer Scotch-taped and brittle. I can't bring my father back. Legs crossed, he sits there brash
with a private's stripe, a world away
from the war they would ship him to
within days. Cannons flank his face
and banners above him like the flag
my mother kept on the mantel, folded tight,
white stars sharp-pointed on a field of blue.
I remember his fists, the iron he pounded,
five-pound hammer ringing steel,
the frame he made for a sled that winter
before the war. I remember the rope in his fist
around my chest, his other fist
shoving the snow, and downhill we dived,
his boots by my boots on the tongue,
pines whishing by, ice in my eyes, blinking
and squealing. I remember the troop train,
steam billowing like a smoke screen.
I remember wrecking the sled weeks later
and pounding to beat the iron flat,
but it stayed there bent
and stacked in the barn by the anvil,
and I can't bring him back.
And one for the kiddos:
by Roger Robicheau
Each Purple Heart shall always be
Hold deep inside a fervent pride
They showed their best for liberty
Their wound of war, their Purple Heart
Some bore a wound which took their life
True patriots, they faced their call
Deep scars of war are carried by
Pray for the brave, their loved ones too
|
<urn:uuid:bd6359cc-4410-4aff-8202-0839c2a8fff6>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://dailyhurricane.com/2010/05/memorial-day-poems.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.971939
| 584
| 1.757813
| 2
|
His budget comes as the state's comptroller, Tom DiNapoli, finds revenues are not coming to New York in quite the amount anticipated.
Right now, a farm with 200 cows or more has to prepare detailed and costly manure...
The legislature has a long list of issues on the schedule, including decriminalizing marijuana, women's reproductive rights, and expanding casino gambling in...
Cuomo says he wants to give schools the option to have a longer school day and school year, and he says the state will provide grants to pay for districts who would like to opt in. The governor is expected to increase school aid at a pre-agreed upon rate of around four percent, he's also said he'd like children from disadvantaged homes to have access to all day pre-kindergarten.
Cuomo's said he does not want to raise taxes to pay for programs and to close a budget deficit of at least $1 billion. Total costs from Hurricane Sandy are still unknown. The governor's asked lawmakers to expand casino gambling, which could eventually bring in additional revenue from related taxes and fees.
And while he may not be able to give local governments any additional aid, the Albany Times-Union reports that Cuomo might ease some costly state-mandated regulations that they are forced to pay for.
The State Comptroller, Tom DiNapoli, finds that three-quarters of the way through the current fiscal year, tax collections are more than half a billion dollars lower that what was originally anticipated when the budget passed last April.
DiNapoli says, luckily, the Cuomo Administration has kept the lid on spending, so a budget gap already estimated at one billion dollars has not growing significantly yet.
"That's really what's kept us in balance," said DiNapoli. "Although revenue's been down, spending's been down as well."
The Comptroller is more worried about the state's debt. He says New York has the second highest per capita debt in the nation, when all of the money owed by state government agencies and authorities is added up, and is fast approaching its legal borrowing limit. The Comptroller wants a statutory cap on debt, based on the personal income growth of New Yorkers. DiNapoli would also like to see less backdoor borrowing, and more debt directly voter approved by voters in a ballot referendum.
There's no word on whether Cuomo will propose a debt limit cap in his new budget.
|
<urn:uuid:17db2532-ecf5-4972-a6cf-06eb98172960>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/21302/20130122/cuomo-budget-address-today
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.973421
| 493
| 1.539063
| 2
|
Matthew Keasling, a developer at Code Science, works on a computer at their office in Chattanooga, Tenn. on Wednesday. The company, which is a cloud computing and online business software company, recently established its headquarters in Chattanooga.Photo by Doug Strickland /Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Name: Code Science
Location: The company is based in the Business Development Center on 100 Cherokee Blvd. and has an office in California.
Contact information: 423-954-7400, CodeScience.com
Age: Two years. Code Science has been based in Chattanooga since the beginning of the year.
Products/services: Custom platform development for businesses that use SalesForce.com. The popular SalesForce.com system can be customized to meet specific business needs, and Code Science specializes in that customization. "It gives a lot smaller businesses an ability to grow at a faster pace," said Cassie Courtney, who manages the company's Chattanooga office.
Top projects: Founder Tim Youngblood describes Code Science as a boutique-type development group focused on solving difficult problems specific to companies. He's worked with major companies such as Apple and Constant Contact, but is particularly proud of his work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The nonprofit receives tens of thousands of children's wishes. Code Science developed a platform for the foundation to collect those wishes and organize that huge volume of requests.
Getting started: Youngblood has been fascinated with computers since the age of 12. "I kind of got sucked into it," he said. "It was a hobby that just took over my life." Since then, Youngblood has worked in technology for most of his life, starting up a business that became part of Intuit, before starting Code Science.
Lessons learned: When starting a business, it's best to do it cheap. "Go as low as you can. Don't spend money frivolously," Youngblood said. "That's the formula for success. It's not very sexy, but it definitely works."
related articles »
In a high school made up of Chattanooga businesses, Little Debbie would be prom queen.
Sheldon Grizzle started learning how to run a business before he reached fifth grade.
Cards By Teresa: Customizable, low-priced greeting cards. Cards are sold both to individuals and businesses looking to send cards to ...
The Tennessee Valley Authority has named Paula Sharpe Brockhoff as the vice president for enterprise support and customer operations in ...
|
<urn:uuid:f3383d8c-36ff-498b-a865-0dd71350c577>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jun/05/smallbiz-tech-company-helps-companies-adapt/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.968983
| 504
| 1.59375
| 2
|
Patients battling cancer can feel a loss of identity and self-possession as the disease and its treatments turn their worlds upside down. Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Visible Ink writing program helps participants restore a sense of stability to their lives through the creative expression of their thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears.
Founded by Judith Kelman, a successful author of 17 novels, Visible Ink offers patients the opportunity to work individually with a writing professional on a project of their choice. The topic need not be disease related, and the format can range from a personal essay or letter to a novel in progress, poem, or screenplay.
“Patients have to surrender a lot of personal control to their doctors during their illness,” Ms. Kelman says. “We give them an opportunity to be in charge. We tell them: 'This is your story. We'll help you tell it any way you want.'”
Ms. Kelman piloted Visible Ink within Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Service in 2008, but the program has since expanded to include the Center's entire patient population. To date, more than 400 patients have participated in Visible Ink, producing more than 10,000 pages of written work. Some of the pieces are published annually in an anthology compiled by the program
As Visible Ink's Team Leader, Ms. Kelman matches interested patients with one of the 35 seasoned writers or editors who volunteer as coaches. Patient and coach then meet or communicate online or by phone to develop the writing project.
Sherry Suib Cohen, a longtime friend of Ms. Kelman and full-time nonfiction writer, has coached more than 15 Visible Ink participants since the program began. She says it is thrilling to watch patients become engaged and empowered rather than resigned as a result of their diagnosis. She emphasizes that while coaches offer suggestions and guidance, they also challenge participants to reach their creative potential.
“We're happy to work with anyone with the urge to write, no matter their level of expertise,” Ms. Cohen says. “While most participants are a bit out of practice, there's no question that some of them can write circles around me. And I feel I gain more from the collaboration than they do. I find the experience to be remarkable.”
After Liya Khenkin was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in 2009, at the age of 30, she turned to Visible Ink and was paired with Ms. Cohen. When Ms. Khenkin showed Ms. Cohen her irreverent musings on funerals — especially her dislike of many common practices — she received enthusiastic support. The resulting piece, “Love, Loss, and What I Won't Wear to My Funeral,” lays out Ms. Khenkin's unconventional rules for her own memorial service and is published in the 2011 anthology.
“I was apprehensive because I had never published anything so personal that I knew family and friends would read,” Ms. Khenkin says. “Sherry made me realize that while our experiences, such as cancer, do not define us, they become part of who we are and give us better insight into ourselves. She encouraged me to trust my voice and gave me confidence to say what I feel and not be afraid of what people might think.”
For patients, the sense of achievement gained from conceiving and completing a written project can help them move forward after treatment. Participation in Visible Ink also allows some patients to create a legacy in situations where time may be running short. “It's extraordinary to be able to leave something for family and friends, or reach down through generations to grandchildren you may never know,” Ms. Cohen says.
Each spring, Visible Ink presents a staged reading of select participants' work. The event is directed by Greg Kachejian, who serves as Visible Ink's Administrator and Artistic Director and runs Memorial Sloan-Kettering's patient library. On April 4, a packed house in Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Rockefeller Research Laboratories Auditorium watched professional stage and screen actors give voice to patient writings through performances that also included music, images, and dance.
“The very act of writing a piece and finishing it brings an immense feeling of accomplishment,” Ms. Kelman says. “Now imagine the thrill of your words in the mouth of an eloquent actor or actress — it's very inspiring and enlightening.”
|
<urn:uuid:347ed275-5bd5-4329-9d06-4a5c422959e4>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.mskcc.org/magazine/july-2011/msk-cultivates-healing-power-pen
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.969227
| 928
| 1.726563
| 2
|
Pennsylvania General Assembly
|Pennsylvania General Assembly|
|2013 session start:||January 2, 2013|
|Website:||Official Legislature Page|
|Senate President:||Jim Cawley (R)|
|House Speaker:||Samuel Smith (R)|
|Majority Leader:|| Dominic Pileggi (R) (Senate),|
Mike Turzai (R) (House)
|Minority leader:|| Jay Costa (D) (Senate),|
Frank Dermody (D) (House)
|Members:||50 (Senate), 203 (House)|
|Length of term:||4 years (Senate), 2 years (House)|
|Authority:||Art II, Sec 3, Pennsylvania Constitution|
|Salary:||$82,026/year + per diem|
|Last Election:||November 6, 2012 |
25 seats (Senate)
203 seats (House)
|Next election:||November 4, 2014|
|Redistricting:||Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission has control|
The General Assembly has 253 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation (behind New Hampshire) and the largest full-time legislature. It consists of the Pennsylvania State Senate with 50 members and the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with 203 members.
The Pennsylvania general elections are held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every even-numbered year. A vacancy for a seat must be filled by special election. The presiding officer of the respective house sets the date for such elections.
Senators must be at least 25 years old and Representatives at least 21 years old. They must also be citizens and inhabitants of the state for a minimum of four years, living in their respective districts for at least one year. Individuals who have been convicted of various felonies including embezzlement bribery and perjury are ineligible for election. The Pennsylvania Constitution also adds the category of "other infamous crimes" which can be broadly interpreted by state courts. No one who has been previously expelled from the General Assembly may be elected in the future.
Legislative districts are drawn every 10 years following the U.S. Census. Districts are drawn by a five-member commission, of which four members are the majority and minority leaders of both houses (or their delegates). The fifth member (and chairperson of the committee) is appointed by the other four and may not be an elected or appointed official. If the leadership cannot decide upon a fifth member, the State Supreme Court may appoint the chairperson.
While in office, legislators cannot hold civil office. Even if a member resigns, the Pennsylvania Constitution states that the individual may not be appointed to civil office for the duration of the original term for which they were originally elected.
The Assembly meets in the Pennsylvania State Capitol which was completed in 1906. Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, the Assembly must meet in the City of Harrisburg and can only move if given the consent of both chambers.
Article II of the Pennsylvania Constitution establishes when the General Assembly is to meet. Section 4 of Article II states that the General Assembly is to convene its regular session on the first Tuesday of January each year.
Section 4 gives the Governor of Pennsylvania the authority to convene special sessions of the General Assembly either when he judges a special session to be in the public interest, or when a majority of each legislative House requests a special session.
- See also: Dates of 2013 state legislative sessions
In 2013, the General Assembly will be in session from January 2 to a date to be determined.
Like many other states, Pennsylvania lawmakers will have to work on a budget deficit. Other issues include economic development, public pension reform, liquor privatization, and child abuse.
- See also: Dates of 2012 state legislative sessions
In 2012, the General Assembly began its legislative session on January 3.
- See also: Dates of 2011 state legislative sessions
In 2011, the General Assembly will be in session from January 4 through a date to be determined by the General Assembly.
- See also: Dates of 2010 state legislative sessions
The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Senators are elected for four years. Senators terms are staggered with only half of the Senate contested at each election.
It is made up of 50 members who are elected by district from around the Commonwealth. The President of the Senate is the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania (currently Catherine Baker Knoll) who has no vote except in case of a tie.
|Party||As of May 2013|
House of Representatives
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the lower house Pennsylvania General Assembly. There are 203 members, elected for two year terms from single member districts. Elections are held in November of even numbered years.
Following the 2006 elections the house consists of 101 Republicans and 102 Democrats, giving the Democrats control of the House for the first time since 1994. In a compromise vote, a Republican was elected to preside over the Democratic controlled chamber.
|Party||As of May 2013|
Partisan balance 1992-2013
Pennsylvania State Senate: From 1992-2013, the Democratic Party was the majority in the Pennsylvania State Senate for one year while the Republicans were the majority for 21 years. The Pennsylvania State Senate is one of 13 state senates that was Republican for more than 80 percent of the years between 1992-2013. Pennsylvania was under Republican trifectas for the final three years of the study.
Across the country, there were 544 Democratic and 517 Republican State Senates from 1992-2013.
Pennsylvania State House of Representatives: From 1992-2013, the Democratic Party was the majority in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives for seven years while the Republicans were the majority for 15 years. Pennsylvania was under Republican trifectas for the final three years of the study.
Across the country, there were 579 Democratic and 482 Republican State Houses of Representatives from 1992-2013.
Over the course of the 22-year study, state governments became increasingly more partisan. At the outset of the study period (1992), 18 of the 49 states with partisan legislatures had single-party trifectas and 31 states had divided governments. In 2013, only 13 states have divided governments, while single-party trifectas held sway in 36 states, the most in the 22 years studied.
- See also: Redistricting in Pennsylvania
As far as legislative redistricting, the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission is responsible. This commission is normally made up of the majority and minority leaders of each legislative chamber, plus a fifth member selected by the other four to serve as chair. If the four cannot agree on a fifth, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decides. The commission has until the October of the redistricting year to submit a plan.
Pennsylvania received its local census data on March 9, 2011. The state had a low 3.4 percent growth rate from 2000-2010. The five most populous cities showed mostly stagnation: Philadelphia grew by 0.6 percent, Pittsburgh decreased by 8.6 percent, Allentown grew by 10.7 percent, Erie decreased by 1.9 percent, and Reading grew by 8.5 percent. By county, the major standout was Forest County with a 56 percent rate of growth.
On August 17, 2011, the Commission approved the census data and went to work on a preliminary map, which it passed on October 31, 2011 by a vote of 3-2. Democrats were not happy with the plan or the negotiation process. Final maps were approved on December 12, 2011 by a 4-1 vote, moving a Senate district and five House districts from west to east. There was a 30-day window to file appeals, of which 11 were filed. The state Supreme Court threw out the maps on January 25, 2012 after appeals were heard.
The commission met on April 12, 2012 to vote in favor of a compromise map, which contained two Senate district splits and 68 House splits. On June 8, the commission approved the final plan, which went to the state Supreme Court for final approval.
- See also: Comparison of state legislative salaries
As of 2013, members of the Pennsylvania Legislature are paid $82,026/year during legislative sessions. Legislators receive $159/day (vouchered) tied to the federal rate, which they can receive actual expenses or per diem.
Legislators in Pennsylvania are able to retire at age 50, while other state workers cannot retire until they turn 60. In 2011, the average legislative pension was $35,221 annually, while the average state employee pension was $23,491. According to former legislator David Mayernik, who began collecting a pension of $29,583 a year when he retired at age 50, the lowered retirement age was intended as compensation for small legislative salaries as well as the uncertainty of serving in office.
When sworn in
Pennsylvania legislators assume office in January.
2005 pay raise controversy
In the early morning hours of July 7, 2005, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed pay increases for state lawmakers, judges, and top executive-branch officials.
The vote took place at 2 a.m. without public review or commentary and Governor Ed Rendell signed the bill into law. The raise increased legislators' base pay from 16% to 34% depending on position.
The pay raise included a provision allowing legislators to take their raises immediately in the form of "unvouchered expenses." This provision was included due to the Pennsylvania Constitution's clause prohibiting legislators from taking salary increases in the same term as which they are passed. State courts have ruled similar legislation to be constitutional on three separate occasions.
Anger over the raise spawned several grass-roots movements, some geared toward voting out incumbents and some seeking support for a Constitutional Convention or a reduction in the size of the legislature. .
The first victim of the public uproar was Supreme Court Justice Russell M. Nigro who became the first Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice to be denied retention. Nigro asserted that he had not taken part in the pay raise. However, critics noted that Chief Justice Ralph Cappy helped draft the bill and that prior Court opinions upheld such practices.
On November 16, 2005, Governor Rendell signed a repeal of the pay raise after a near unanimous vote for repeal; only House Minority Whip Mike Veon voted against the repeal.
Despite the repeal, a total of 17 legislators were defeated in the 2006 primary elections including Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer and Senate Majority Leader David J. Brightbill. They were the first top-ranking Pennsylvania legislative leaders to lose a primary election since 1964.
The November 2006 General Election claimed several more members who supported the pay raise including Reps. Gene McGill, Mike Veon, Matt Wright, Tom Gannon and Matthew Good. The defeats were attributed to anger over the pay raise.
Joint legislative committees
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has ten joint legislative service agencies, the following eight of which have joint committee functions:
- Capitol Preservation Committee, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Center for Rural Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Commission on Sentencing, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Joint Conservation Committee, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Joint State Government Commission, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Local Government Commission, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Legislative Data Processing Center, Pennsylvania General Assembly
- ↑ Post-Gazette, "Pennsylvania lawmakers start settling in," January 2, 2013
- ↑ 2011 Legislative Sessions Calendar, NCSL
- ↑ 2010 session dates for Pennsylvania legislature
- ↑ Population in 2010 of the American states
- ↑ Population in 2000 of the American states
- ↑ Population in 2010 of the American states
- ↑ Population in 2000 of the American states
- ↑ U.S. Census Bureau, "U.S. Census Bureau Delivers Pennsylvania's 2010 Census Population Totals, Including First Look at Race and Hispanic Origin Data for Legislative Redistricting," March 9, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
- ↑ NCSL.org, "2012 State Legislator Compensation and Per Diem Table," accessed March 18, 2013
- ↑ USA Today, "State lawmakers pump up pensions in ways you can't," September 23, 2011
- ↑ http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?syear=2005&sind=0&body=H&type=B&bn=1521
- ↑ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05320/607333.stm
- ↑ http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_450776.html
- ↑ http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/14597854.htm
|
<urn:uuid:4ca58521-b952-45fb-b17c-c6fc17b19a11>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Pennsylvania_General_Assembly
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94991
| 2,659
| 1.671875
| 2
|
By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
The writer and social critic, Malcolm Gladwell, defines the ‘Tipping Point’ as the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point; the point at which the buildup of minor changes or incidents reaches a level that triggers a more significant change or makes someone do something they had formerly resisted.
Another way of saying it would be that point in time and space when everything changes and there’s no turning back.
Every day there are more encouraging headlines appearing in newspapers and on the Web from California to Maine supporting medical marijuana legislation suggesting the tide is turning.
Even when the cynics call medical marijuana a joke and claim the real goal of this smokescreen movement is legalization of pot, there are medi-jane supporters with valid and logical arguments to counter-balance any archaic rhetoric with which the anti-pot forces continue to misinform.
New Jersey passed one of the most restrictive medical marijuana rights and benefits program on the books so far. The state with a very conservative governor will soon have medical marijuana. Why? Because the people wanted it.
It does seem like Time is marching on, but when is it gonna get there?
We’re zeroing in on something but when is the Tipping Point going to kick in fully regarding medical marijuana?
What possible signs do we need to see before we believe that it works?!
Here are some small recent events that may prove someday to have influenced the way we think, tipping the scales our way towards a bigger picture…
|Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff opposed medical marijuana — then he got cancer.
1) Okay, this guy never ever got high and he’s for Medical Marijuana!
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff approves of medical marijuana after battling cancer.
Shurtleff said he would support the legalization of medical marijuana after experiencing months of intensive cancer treatment.
Shurtleff said never used marijuana himself, but had talked to other patients who had traveled out-of-state to receive marijuana treatment.
|Miss USA Alyssa Campanella:
“Medical marijuana is very important to help those who need it medically”
2) Not innocent enough. Okay, as they say, from the mouth of babes…
During the question-and-answer part of the competition, Miss California Alyssa Campanella was asked about her perspective on the medicinal cannabis.
“Well, I understand why that question would be asked, especially with today’s economy, but I also understand that medical marijuana is very important to help those who need it medically,” Alyssa said.
“I’m not sure if it should be legalized, if it would really affect, with the drug war,” she said. “I mean, it’s abused today, unfortunately, so that’s the only reason why I would kind of be a little bit against it, but medically it’s OK.”
She got Miss USA.
When’s the last time you had the crown on the line and you spoke the truth?
I actually can understand why someone could dismiss a beauty queen and a cancer patient as being not scientific enough. They’re just regular people.
3) What about Big Business. They have scientists? They have economists? They understand the world…? Don’t they?
Scott’s Miracle-Gro Company has long sold weed killer. Now, it’s hoping to help people grow killer weed.
In an unlikely move for the head of a major company, Scott’s Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said he is exploring targeting medical marijuana as well as other niches to help boost sales at his lawn and garden company.
“I want to target the pot market,” Mr. Hagedorn said in an interview.
“There’s no good reason we haven’t.”
4) We’ve heard from the People, Big Business, and now from across the aisle comes…
Congressmen Ron Paul, Barney Frank and others will introduce legislature Thursday that aims to end a major part of the war on drugs — namely the battle against marijuana.
Reps. Paul (R-Texas) and Frank (D-Mass.), though technically on opposite sides of the aisle, have often spoken out against the war on drugs and will propose a bill “tomorrow ending the federal war on marijuana and letting states legalize, regulate, tax, and control marijuana without federal interference,” according to a statement from the Marijuana Policy Project via Reason.
The bill would allow the individual states to decide how they want to deal with pot.
The legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), is the first of its kind to be proposed in Congress that would end the 73-year-old federal marijuana prohibition that began with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.
These four events that just transpired in the last month couldn’t be more current, more ‘now.’ What is it going to take in order for that cosmic plate to tilt to our side? And stay that way!
Entrepreneurs and forward thinkers are testing the waters of the medical marijuana Industry with venture capitalists abroad throwing dollars into edible research think-tanks and other esoteric ganja-related enterprises.
Politicians and law enforcement from all walks and talks of life are coming forward, decrying that the time is now to lose the campaigns that have never worked and to embrace a new way of thinking. To challenge the uncommon wisdom and to end the wars on law abiding citizens who because they ingest a specific weed, they could have their lives ruin because we, as a nation and a society refuse to change.
Sixteen states support medical marijuana. Every poll taken shows public support for medical marijuana. GW Pharma (Weed) and Novartis (Ritalin, Excedrin) have become partners in Sativex (medical marijuana spray) licensing pact overseas and now, in America.
“My professional view of cannabis as a substance is that it appears to be a remarkably safe substance in comparison to most medicines prescribed today,” said Dr. Geoffrey Guy, chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals. “The more I learn about this plant the more fascinated I become. It has through its various constituents multiple effects of therapeutic interest, many of which are now being validated by the enormous growth in basic cannabinoid research.”
What is it about marijuana that makes us afraid to go forward and embrace a new safer tomorrow? Pharmaceutical giants are moving forward with patents and marketing. You would think that the data from research geeks would be refutable, they’re the same people who give us our aspirin, for gosh sakes.
The data’s coming in like a Haboob through Phoenix. Unstoppable. Marijuana has applications that can help certain people. That’s it. It can’t be changed.
Marijuana does some good. It’s proven.
You can’t go backwards with that. Only thing you can do is not open your eyes to what’s in front of them.
Why aren’t we coming together as a nation over this issue when people with perspectives as different as those of Miss USA to the Mormon Attorney General of Utah support medical marijuana?
When law enforcement officials and Ex-President Jimmy Carter come forward to say the War on Drugs not only doesn’t work, it’s unwinnable. A waste of money.
Speaking of money, when Wall Street, Main Street and Home Depot all say the time is right to build the future fields of dreams of medical marijuana that only Weed-Gro can protect. What more do we need to hear?
Do we need Nancy Reagan in her Chanel housecoat to come forward to say she was wrong? Would that be the final straw? Would that be our national Tipping Point? To have someone other than ourselves say it is okay for us to have this weed? Mommy, please say its okay because in 1937, someone said it was bad.
Right now President Obama has alienated the Ganja Nation with his reversal on leaving the medical marijuana community alone. More and more his obtrusive agenda is forcing the hand of medical marijuana to take a stand, one way or another in various localities. Howard Zinn said you can’t be neutral on a moving train.
Opinion is sliding to the side where the weed grows green and high. Mendocino County is aggressively constructing a platform that is workable for growers and law enforcement alike. Not perfect, but a start.
Growers are paying taxes in exchange for their right to grow medical marijuana. They pay just like anyone else.
The Tipping Point is already here. Embrace it.
|
<urn:uuid:a2b93ec4-4526-4094-acc9-7478c40af03c>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://valetudocafe.wordpress.com/tag/prohibition/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.952809
| 1,878
| 1.554688
| 2
|
Welcome to Books Abroad
We help to educate children worldwide by sending free school books that are carefully chosen to match the need of each school.
Books Abroad promotes literacy, education and understanding, which provide the means of a sustainable escape route from the plight of poverty. We recycle used books by sending them to schools and other institutions in developing countries. We should aspire to meet the worldwide demand for recycled books, whilst maintaining a quality level of service.
EDUCATION FOR ALL
Books Abroad believes that, in the long term, education is what is required to help solve the world's problems. With the power to read and write, the children of today will have a better understanding of the issues surrounding them.
Better communication skills will help them to avoid conflicts and resolve disputes of all kinds by negotiation.
|
<urn:uuid:2285b398-1999-443d-b424-10fca167392e>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.booksabroad.org.uk/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958637
| 164
| 1.835938
| 2
|
July 25 - August 11, 2000 - Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Math Forum Summer Institute:
Beginning the fourth week of July, the Math Forum hosted its sixth Summer Institute for mathematics educators who are committed to or experienced with the use of computers in the classroom. We brought together a group of creative teachers in order to introduce them to each other, to new tools, to interesting mathematics, to Forum staff from whom they might receive continuing support, and to the possibility of receiving modest financial support during the school year through the Forum Teacher Associate program. Our goal was to enable teachers and students to exchange ideas, conduct projects, explore new software, organize and create electronic resources, and enhance learning through access to mathematicians and math educators internationally.
Home || The Math Library || Quick Reference || Search || Help
|
<urn:uuid:9850030c-d897-4fa1-a0a7-484cc7cc3550>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://mathforum.org/workshops/sum2000/index.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.949816
| 160
| 1.789063
| 2
|
The U.S. seized a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who once served as an al Qaeda spokesman and flew him to New York to face trial, an antiterrorism coup that casts light on the group's murky relationship with Iran.
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was captured in Jordan, has been talking to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents for several days in New York City, according to multiple people familiar with the case. He was captured after leaving Iran, which has sheltered remnants of the global terror group.
The Justice Department on Thursday unsealed an indictment charging Mr. Abu Ghaith with conspiring to kill Americans, and he is set to appear in federal court in Manhattan Friday morning. It was unclear Thursday if Mr. Abu Ghaith had a lawyer representing him.
The arrest has also reanimated the debate about whether terror suspects should be tried before civilian judges or military tribunals.
Mr. Abu Ghaith's arrival in the city where al Qaeda terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, marked what may be the final stop in an odyssey that took him from his native Kuwait to Afghanistan by the side of his father-in-law and, around 2002, to Iran. He faces a life sentence if convicted.
"He was never an operational commander in al Qaeda, but in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he was the voice of al Qaeda,'' said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. His biggest intelligence value now, Mr. Hoffman said, is to provide insight into what he called the "very perplexing and enigmatic" relationship between Iranian authorities and al Qaeda.
U.S. officials have long been trying to figure what Mr. Abu Ghaith and other al Qaeda figures were doing in Iran and how much leeway the Iranian government was giving them to operate their terrorist network.
U.S. officials believe that Iran last year gave new freedoms, including the option to leave the country, to Mr. Abu Ghaith and other members of what was known as al Qaeda's management council in Iran. He was detained in Ankara, Turkey, last month on suspicion of entering that country with a false passport.
Turkey didn't turn Mr. Abu Ghaith over to U.S. authorities, as Washington had initially wanted, but instead decided to deport him to Kuwait via Jordan, officials said. U.S. operatives then captured him in Jordan, which has worked closely with the U.S. in hunting terrorists, they said. Officials at the Turkish Embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The suspect was flown to New York by the FBI last week, and he has been talking to interrogators since, said the people familiar with the case. Officials decided to file charges against him after he stopped cooperating.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the arrest shows "no amount of distance or time will weaken our resolve to bring America's enemies to justice." George Venizelos, head of the FBI's New York office, described Mr. Abu Ghaith's position in al Qaeda as "comparable to the consigliere in a mob family or propaganda minister in a totalitarian regime."
Counterterrorism experts described Mr. Abu Ghaith as a 47-year-old former teacher and preacher. U.S. officials believe Mr. Abu Ghaith traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 and joined up with al Qaeda there. According to the indictment, on the night of Sept. 11, 2001, bin Laden summoned Mr. Abu Ghaith and requested his assistance.
The next morning, Mr. Abu Ghaith appeared with bin Laden and the al Qaeda leader's then-deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He stated that a "great army" was gathering against the U.S. In another statement, he said millions of Americans would be killed.
In one October 2001 videotaped message, Mr. Abu Ghaith warned America that "the storms of planes will not stop until you drag your defeated tails from Afghanistan, not until you raise your hands from the Jews in Palestine, not until you lift the embargo on the Iraqi people, not until you leave the Arabian Peninsula, not until you stop supporting the Hindus against the Muslims in Kashmir.''
After the videos appeared, Kuwait stripped him of citizenship.
Many al Qaeda figures captured in the Middle East shortly after the 9/11 attacks were sent to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the plot's self-described mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Some, including Mr. Mohammed, now face military commission trials at Guantanamo, but the process has bogged down for years because of legal and logistical hurdles.
U.S. officials have said federal courts, such as the one in Manhattan where Mr. Abu Ghaith is set to appear Friday, are often a faster and surer way to try suspected terrorists. Men such as Ahmed Ghailani, accused of the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, and "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab have been convicted in federal courts.
An Obama administration official said national security officials—including those at the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the Department of Justice—unanimously agreed that Mr. Abu Ghaith should be prosecuted in federal court.
Some Republicans, however, said that top terror suspects like Mr. Abu Ghaith should be sent to Guantanamo. "Al Qaeda leaders captured on the battlefield should not be brought to the United States to stand trial," said Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "We should treat enemy combatants like the enemy."
Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) an outspoken critic of some of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies, said in this instance he didn't object to a civilian trial for Mr. Abu Ghaith, because he thought the videotapes and other public evidence would be enough to convict him without the need to disclose any sensitive intelligence.
It is unclear where a terror suspect would be sent if he is acquitted.
Since 2002, Mr. Abu Ghaith's activities have been something of a mystery. U.S. officials believe he has been a member of al Qaeda's so-called management council in Iran, a group formed in 2002 to advise bin Laden and provide support to the group's leaders in Pakistan. Bin Laden was living in Pakistan when U.S. forces killed him in a May 2011 raid.
White House officials became angry when Turkey didn't immediately hand over Mr. Abu Ghaith after his arrival in that country, said a former U.S. official familiar with the matter. The route to the U.S. through Jordan appears to have provided an alternative more palatable to Turkish officials.
The capture of Mr. Abu Ghaith is significant because it takes a key player out of the game and will provide "a much better firsthand understanding of the Iranian dimension to al Qaeda," said Seth Jones, an al Qaeda specialist at the nonprofit research institution Rand Corp.
Iran has provided sanctuary in effect to several senior al Qaeda leaders over the years, said Mr. Jones. Some al Qaeda operatives fled to Iran when the U.S. opened its Afghan offensive in 2001.
Since then, these operatives have used their Iranian beachhead to communicate, move money and recruit members, Mr. Jones said. Some lower-level al Qaeda operatives also are believed to be in Iran. Why Mr. Abu Ghaith went to Turkey isn't clear.
"For him to have actually left the country, he would definitely have known he was taking a big gamble," Mr. Jones said.
The Iranian Mission to the United Nations didn't immediately return messages seeking comment.
A version of this article appeared March 8, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Bin Laden Kin Nabbed.
|
<urn:uuid:bd6bb622-ce6e-457c-b6c5-730c214ef0d3>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324034804578346243937198214.html?mod=WSJ_article_MasterpieceHeadlines
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.973127
| 1,631
| 1.648438
| 2
|
Photographer stripped of gold medal after plagiarism scandal
A prize-winning photographer has been accused of plagiarizing the work of a Chengdu photographer, reports the West China City Daily.
"Tomorrow's Reality" (《明天的现实》), one of the gold-medal winners of the Chinese National Photographic Art Exhibition 2010, was submitted by Hunan photographer Hou Xie.
The work shows bare trees standing in quiet water against a dark blue background. Pictures of colorful birds are floating on the water.
After the gold medal was awarded, Chen Lianju, a member of the Photographers Association of Jiangsu, found that "Tomorrow's Reality" shared many similarities with an uncredited photo that appeared in a book published 10 years ago.
Convinced that the award-winning work was plagiarized, Chen published an article online earlier this month in which he dubbed the case "Plagiarism Gate."
On August 10, Guo Ji, a photographer from Chengdu, told journalists that he had taken the prize-winning photograph in Longchi, Dujiangyan, more than 10 years ago.
"The respected Sichuan photographer Wang Jianju first told me about this," said Guo. "The gold-medal winner plagiarized my work."
Guo has been taking photographs since the late 1980s. He is now a member of Photographers Association of China and the vice president of Photographers Association of Chengdu.
"Obviously those pictures on the water were made with Photoshop," said Guo as he showed journalists the film and the original photograph on his computer, which is identical to the background of "Tomorrow's Reality." "Hou just rotated the photo and retouched it," he said.
Guo said he took the picture on a foggy morning in December 1997. He spotted the bare trees in the water while on his way to a shoot. "The mood of the scene was so unique," he recalled. He continued shooting for several hours, until the fog cleared.
"After that day all the trees were cut down. No one else can take photos like these," Guo told journalists while showing them his archive of over 100 photographs taken that morning in Longchi.
After shooting, Guo selected the best to include in his photograph collection, and sold the rest to Beijing Panorama Stock Ltd (北京全景视拓有限公司) for commercial uses. The plagiarized picture was then archived as image No. 0976 in the stock-photography database Imagine China (中国图片网).
"I sold them for about RMB20,000," added Guo. "The well-known photographer Yuan Xuejun helped me to find the company." Yuan verified this to the journalists later by phone.
The Response of Hou
Hou explained to journalists that "Tomorrow's Reality" was entered into the artistic and conceptual category of the exhibition. In this category, using Photoshop to facilitate the communication of the photographer's idea to viewers is allowed.
"I've sent the shooting and composing materials of the work to the committee," said Hou. "There is substantial originality in 'Tomorrow's Reality.'"
Yet Hou's remark is disputed by Liang Yankai, vice president of Photographers Association of Guangdong. "It's true that competition candidates can use Photoshop, but the background photograph should be taken by the candidates themselves," said Liang. "It's a rule that everybody knows."
The Photographers Association of China called Guo on August 10 to confirm that he had taken the picture numbered 0976 on Imagine China. Later that day Panorama Stock Ltd sent Guo a statement saying: "Guo Ji created Picture 0976 on Imagine China. Panorama Stock Ltd owns the copyright of the photograph, and the film is saved in the archive."
Guo sent the original photograph in the book and other evidence to the exhibition's organizing committee. And on August 15, the committe announced their decision to strip Hou of the gold medal. "Tomorrow's Reality" has since been removed from the winners' list on the official website of China Photographic Art Exhibition 2010.
Plagiarism is "common" in photography
"It seems common since so many photographers have plagiarized in recent years," said Guo. "My case should be a warning to photography professionals."
Just this past July, "Searching for Water," the first-prize winner of the Human and Water International Photography Competition 2010, was accused of plagiarism. Earlier this year, Sang Yuzhu, the vice president of Photographers Association of Jilin, was also found to have plagiarized his winning entry to the 8th Chinese Photography Award.
Duan Yuting, the art director of Lianzhou International Photo Festival, ascribed the misconduct to Chinese photographers' "eagerness to win" and "lack of confidence." She also said that these photographers "have nothing to lose."
Wuhan photographer Qiu Yan, for instance, Duan said, hired models to pose in his staged image "The Wedding during SARS," which then went on to win third place in the photojournalism World Press Contest in 2004. Even after the scandal was exposed, Qiu's career was not seriously harmed, he now lectures in universities as a "famous photographer."
|
<urn:uuid:40a62dd9-2d43-425c-9da4-d04cdc73077b>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.gochengdoo.com/en/blog/item/1748/photographer_stripped_of_gold_medal_after_plagiarism_scandal
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978813
| 1,115
| 1.6875
| 2
|
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said there is no evidence to suggest the horse meat detected poses a danger to humans, but confirmed that tests have been ordered on products for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone as animals treated with "bute" are not allowed to enter the food chain.
Mr Paterson was speaking after warning that the next set of results on all retailers' and manufacturers' processed beef products could reveal further traces of horse meat.
"There may well be more bad results coming through, that's the point of doing this random analysis," Mr Paterson said. The results, ordered by the FSA, are due on Friday.
Appearing on BBC1's Sunday Politics show, Mr Paterson repeated his vow to get to the bottom of the scandal, which he has suggested is part of an international criminal conspiracy.
He said: "This week obviously we'll be talking to counterparts across Europe, because ultimately this is European Union competence."
But asked if there should be a moratorium on meat imports in the EU, he said: "That is not allowed within the European common market. "If they find there is a product which could potentially be injurious to public health, emphatically, I will take the necessary action."
Asked if he would consider a ban if tests proved there was a food safety risk, he added: "If there is a threat to public health that is allowed within the rules of the European market."
He spoke after the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee backed a ban and urged the public to buy their meat locally.
Conservative MP Anne McIntosh told BBC Breakfast: "I called for a ban on meat (from the EU) last week. I believe there should be a moratorium on the movement of all meat until such time as we can trace the source of contamination." But shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said she thought banning meat imports was a "knee-jerk reaction".
|
<urn:uuid:99b2abc2-a8fc-49fe-a57a-f857826c3084>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/376751/Meat-ban-only-if-health-at-risk
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975788
| 397
| 1.796875
| 2
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.