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You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2010.
I mentioned in a previous post that the top priority for congregational support of families is to help them develop their faith. I also mentioned the UUA Bookstore as an excellent resource. Well, last week I received a perfect example of the kind publication the bookstore offers. It’s a lovely little book called Sunday and Every Day: My Little Book of Unitarian Universalism, edited by Patricia Frevert. Written specifically for children aged 5 and up, this resource is full of information about Unitarian Universalism. There are sections on Chalice Lightings, the Seven Principles and the Six Sources, Music, Table Graces, Prayers (for Any Day and of Your Own), a brief history of How Unitarian Universalism Began, and some Stories of Unitarian Universalism. The book is only $5.00 with a discount of 20% for orders of 10 or more. And, if you order now, you’ll receive a free packet of My Seven Principles Stickers! Read more here.
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More than 1,500 New Yorkers gathered today in Manhattan to mourn the death of a 32 year-old gay man, who was shot down on Friday just blocks away from the historic Stonewall Inn in an apparent act of anti-gay bias.
Unprecedented Pressure on Boy Scouts to Lift Gay Ban Continues Growing; Jennifer Tyrrell, Eagle Scout Ryan speak out as Massachusetts pack denounces policy
News is breaking that a Beverly Massachusetts Cub Scout pack has publicly rejected the Boy Scouts of America policy that bans gay scouts and scout leaders.
“We have been and will always be open and affirming, and will never turn our backs on a child or adult that seeks to embrace the core values found at the heart of Scouting,” Pack 4 Cubmaster Tony Gangi said. The pack’s committee, which has 11 members, voted unanimously to reject the policy last month. This week, the committee issued its own “statement of inclusion,” saying the benefits of Scouting “should be available to all children and their families, regardless of their sexual orientation.”
Today, Ohio mom Jennifer Tyrrell, who was kicked out of her son's Boy Scout troop for being gay in April of this year, called on Americans to support those Boy Scout troops who have stated that they welcome all Scouts and families, despite the discriminatory stance of the Boy Scouts of America.
Tyrrell sent a letter to her local council asking her local leaders to join those around the country who have stood up against discrimination. You can read her letter here.
See Scouts for Equality's full map of all the BSA Councils that have rejected the BSA's discriminatory ban here. Many other packs have taken steps to reject this policy, and to accept and welcome all families.
Ryan Andresen, who was rejected by the Boy Scouts of America for his Eagle Scout Rank despite having met all of the qualifications, spoke today with Ellen DeGeneres about the discrimination he is facing.
More than 350,000 people have signed a change.org petition started by Ryan's mom to allow her son to achieve the rank he worked so hard for. Those signatures join the more than 330,000 asking the BSA to reinstate Ohio mom Jennifer Tyrrell, who was kicked out as den leader of her son's scout troop because she is gay.
Tyrrell is speaking out in support of Ryan, saying “What happened to Ryan and to me, as well as so many other Americans that we’ve read about over the past few months, has to end.”
Joining her in supporting Ryan is 7 year-old Cub Scout Miles from California, who sent a handwritten letter to the Boy Scouts that reads: "I am a Cub Scout in Pack 108. I'm sad you are not letting gay people in your community. My mom and dad are sad too, but they are letting me be a Cub Scout anyway. We hope someday you'll change your mind."
(images via San Fransisco Chronicle)
Miles and Jen have the backing of leaders from corporate America as well. Eagle Scout and LGBT Advocate Zach Wahls recently called for Intel, which also gave to the BSA in 2010, to cease its donations, prompting the company to clarify that it has updated its donation policy to only fund organizations that vow not to discriminate based on sexual orientation, which would exclude the BSA. In 2010, Intel reportedly gave the Boy Scouts more than $700,000.
More and more Americans are calling on the Boy Scouts of America to join other national organizations like the Girl Scouts of the USA, 4-H Club, Adventure Scouts USA and Boys & Girls Club and end its discrimination against gay people.
You can read more about GLAAD's work around this issue with Jennifer, Zach, and others at http://glaad.org/scouts
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From a psychodynamic perspective, a curious paradox can arise. If a patient believes that suicide is a sign of weakness or a sin, unconscious defense mechanisms (such as denial, repression, rationalization, or intellectualization) may create the conscious belief that the patient’s intent is much less than it actually is. When asked directly about his suicidal intent, this patient may provide a gross underestimate of his potential lethality even though he is genuinely trying to answer the question honestly.
From a phenomenological perspective, it is not surprising that some seriously suicidal patients may relay their actual intent in stages. Whether evaluating such patients in an ED or on a crisis line, one would expect that the patient would share some information, see how the clinician responds, then share some more information, reevaluate “where this session is going,” and so on.
Indeed, patients with serious suicidal intent who are trying to decide how much to reveal may share information about a mild overdose while consciously withholding their main method of choice (such as a gun, for they are well aware that once they share information about the gun it may be removed) until they arrive at a decision during the interview that they do not want to die. At this point, they may feel safe enough to share the full truth with the clinician.
Reflected intent: one of the master keys to unlocking real intent
Reflected intent is the quality and quantity of the patient’s suicidal thoughts, desires, plans, and extent of action taken to complete the plans, which reflect how much the patient truly wants to commit suicide. The extent, thoroughness, and time spent by the patient on suicidal planning may be a better reflection of the seriousness of his intent and the proximity of his desire to act on that intent than is his actual stated intent.
Such reflections of intent may prove to be life-saving pieces of the suicide assessment puzzle. The work of Thomas Joiner10,13 has provided insight into the importance of acquired capability for suicide (eg, intensive planning, multiple past attempts) as a reflection of the seriousness of intent and the potential for action.
A wealth of research and theory from an unexpected source—motivational theory—can help us better understand the importance of reflected intent. Prochaska and colleagues’14,15 transtheoretical stages of change—precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance—helped lay the foundation from which Miller and Rollnick’s16,17 influential work on motivational interviewing arose. When it comes to motivation to do something that is hard to do but good for oneself (eg, counseling), the extent of the patient’s goal-directed thinking and his subsequent actions may be much better indicators of intent to proceed than his stated intent. In short, the old adage “actions speak louder than words” appears to be on the mark in predicting recovery behavior.
A patient in alcohol(Drug information on alcohol) counseling may tell the counselor all sorts of things about his intent to change. Nevertheless, it is the amount of time he spends thinking about the need for change (reading the literature from Alcoholics Anonymous [AA]), arranging ways to make the change (finding out where the local AA meetings are), and the actions taken for change (finding someone to drive him to the meetings) that, according to Prochaska’s theory, may better reflect the intent to change than the client’s verbal report.
Motivational theories are usually related to initiating difficult-to-do actions for positive change. But they may be equally effective for initiating a difficult-to-do action that is negative, such as suicide. (Joiner10,13 has pointed out that suicide can be quite a difficult act with which to proceed.) Once again, the amount of time spent thinking, planning, and practicing a suicide attempt may speak louder about imminent risk than the patient’s immediate words about his intent.
Pitfalls of an incomplete elicitation of suicidal ideation
Premature crisis resolution. Arguably, the single most important task in a suicide assessment, whether in a face-to-face interview or on the phone, is to estimate the immediate risk of suicide and to triage safely with appropriate follow-up. Much of this determination of risk is contingent on an accurate estimate of the patient’s suicidal intent. However, significant errors can be made, whether a clinician is in an ED or manning a crisis line.
Picture a patient who mentions suicidal thought and openly admits to a plan (eg, overdosing) yet is withholding much of his intent because of a strong desire to die. The clinician explores the ideation related to overdosing and then prematurely (before carefully eliciting other suicidal ideation and planning that may better reflect the patient’s true intent and method of choice) begins crisis transformation. Being a skilled clinician, the crisis is effectively resolved. The client reports feeling much better. The clinician makes a recommendation for follow-up such as, “Sometime in the near future, I urge you to seek out a therapist.”
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When I bought my house a few years ago, I was introduced to the idea of a notary public. In most capacities, a notary public is a “public official” given the right to administer oaths and affirmations. In many of the cases where you’ll need a notary public to “notarize” a document, they are there to affirm that the person signing the document is in fact the person who is supposed to be signing it. When you get a document notarized, you first provide proof of your identity, you sign the document in their presence, and then they sign and stamp the document, usually with a raised seal (depending on the state).
More recently, I had to get a notary to notarize my Pennsylvania claim form after I found some unclaimed property about a month ago (an old Best Buy rebate I think). It was a little trickier than when I still worked at a company, but eventually I found one. Now I’m going to write it down so I don’t make the same mistakes again!
(Click to continue reading…)
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This is just marginally about KDE4.4. It involves most of the packages in the repo, as Tex explained here:
The original plan was to simply update 2009 through 2010. Due to the complex issues and user intervention required to go to new kernel 22.214.171.124, udev, hal, initscripts, plymouth bootsplash, speedboot, xorg, compiz 3D, nvidia/fglrx drivers, ext 4 default file system, KDE 4.4 it is easier for me to provide a new ISO with a 2010 repository in a couple of weeks than to spend 3-4 months trying to work up some kind of valid upgrade path that probably be more trouble to the end user than it is worth. Once we get everyone on 2010 we can keep rolling along with updates again.
The root partition will definitely have to be formatted and installed. This is where a separate home partition comes in handy.
I personally will also delete the .kde4
folder in my home directory and set up all I need again, but it actually shouldn't be necessary. Of course it always depends on how much effort is required to get back to a working environment one is accustomed to.
I hope this helps understand the process a little more
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Three international teams (51N4E, Studio 012, KCAP) have developed visions for how Brussels will look in 2040. The visions are now being shown in the Brussels 2040: Three Visions for a Metropolis exhibition at the Centre for fine Arts in Brussels. The three teams have produced videos, photos, models, urban master plans to present their visions which hope to provide answers for What will Brussels be like in 2040 if its demographic growth continues? How will people get around the city if the motor car is no longer a sustainable means of transport? How can we reduce the social divide and avoid a dual city? How can we offer everyone an opportunity to live and work in the city with dignity? How can we coordinate the development of Brussels with its hinterland?
The Trust for the National Mall will exhibit the final design concepts of the National Mall Design Competition from Monday, April 9 through Sunday, April 15. The concepts will be displayed for public viewing and comment at the Smithsonian Castle and the National Museum of American History. The concepts, created by the country’s top designers, re-envision three prominent National Mall locations: Constitution Gardens, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds and Union Square.
The award best private plots – Die besten Gärten 2012 recognizes exemplary design of sustainable private outdoor spaces, highlighting the garden as a place of innovation, as a space for creative expression and action, and as contemporary dialogue between architecture, ecology and landscape.
The competition is being held for the 5th time since 2006. The award criteria include: idea, conceptual and artistic quality, ecological quality, use of plants and materials, relationship between inside and outside, delimitation of space and organization of open space, technical planning and sustainability. Special attention will also be given to individual functionality and diversity of use. The outdoor space must be clearly identifiable as intended for private residence and use.
A new international idea competition is announced by reSITE Festival, ARCHIP (Architectural Institute in Prague) and Skanska, to find new ideas for the River Vltava, in Prague, Czech Republic. Skanska Bridging Prague Design Competition is a challenge for interdisciplinary collaboration on new conceptions to connect the river with the historical capital city.
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One way you could sway him is to point to what I think is the key financial lesson of 2012: investing on the basis of gut or intuition is a fruitless exercise that's more likely to end up costing you money than making it.
If you'll recall, for most of last year, investors felt the prospects for U.S. stocks were pretty dismal. They were so convinced that the stock market was vulnerable to a setback that they pulled nearly $100 billion out of stock mutual funds during the first 11 months of the year.
So how did that work out for them?
Well, anyone hunkered down in secure cash investments like money-market funds or money-market accounts earned maybe 0.5% -- if that. Investors who fled to bonds gained about 4%. U.S. stocks, meanwhile, have returned roughly 16% through last Friday.
It's entirely possible, of course, that stock prices could still plummet, especially if investors react badly to the ongoing fiscal cliff saga. But there's always the potential for the stock market to take a big hit. That's the nature of stocks. If anything, recent research shows that stocks are even more prone to sudden setbacks than market pros previously thought.
But the way to deal with this uncertainty isn't to move in and out of the market based on a hunch. That's not an investing strategy; that's a guessing game.
The more prudent way to go is to set the amount you invest in stocks based largely on how long you plan to keep that money invested.
If you're investing money you'll need to tap in a few years, none of it should be in stocks, fiscal cliff or no. Stocks aren't a viable option for the short-term because your portfolio wouldn't have enough time to recover from a market downturn.
If, on the other hand, you're putting away money for retirement, then you don't need to worry as much about short-term setbacks. So you can afford to put at least some of your money in stocks. How much? Well, if you don't plan to call it a career for decades, then you can probably invest upwards of 70% or more in stocks, as growing your nest egg is still your primary goal.
If you're on the verge of retiring, or have already retired, then you may want to scale back to more like 50% or less in stocks so your savings can still grow but won't be as vulnerable to market declines. These percentages can vary, of course, depending on how willing you are to see the value of your savings swing up and down.
I realize many people have a hard time accepting this concept of setting a mix of stocks, bonds and cash and, aside from occasional rebalancing, sticking to it regardless of what the economy and the markets are doing. They can't help but think that they should be able to do better by reacting to conditions, getting more defensive when the markets appear fragile and more aggressive if it seems the markets are poised to soar.
But it's wishful thinking to assume you can be so nimble. Very few pros can consistently make the right call, and even when a few do, it's an open question as to whether their agility demonstrates skill or luck.
Ultimately, you and your husband are going to have to decide whether it makes more sense to go with a disciplined strategy of creating a diversified portfolio that can handle a variety of market conditions and thrive long-term or entrusting your retirement prospects to your husband's gut. I hope for your sake and his that he realizes that the latter choice is folly.
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|Overnight Avg Rate||Latest||Change||Last Week|
|30 yr fixed||3.67%||3.62%|
|15 yr fixed||2.80%||2.76%|
|30 yr refi||3.65%||3.61%|
|15 yr refi||2.80%||2.76%|
Today's featured rates:
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Set in North Korea under Kim Jong Il's regime, TheOrphan Master's Sonexplores what it means to live in the country through the eyes of its imagined hero, Pak Jun Do (a play on John Doe). Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that Adam Johnson "vividly creates this strange, dark, twisted lifestyle of the people who are condemned to live there, who have no other way of seeing the world except through the prism of the distortions the regime has served up ... You never think about what it must be like to live in a world of lies, which is what you get through the consciousness of Pak Jun Do." Johnson suggests that, even in private, North Koreans cannot tell the truth; that everything in their lives is fictionalized to one degree or another. According to Brown, that's part of why his book is so original.
Hundreds of times each year, teams from the Federal Bureau of Investigation slip into houses and office buildings. Armed with a judge's warrant, they seek information or plant bugs, and if all goes well, sneak away unnoticed.There are about 70 people on seven teams who work on such tactical operations, some of whom described their work to Ronald Kessler in The Secrets of the FBI. Some stay on the teams for their whole careers and have done as many as 5,000 break-ins, while others find the stress and travel too much. Kessler tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that this kind of surveillance is what it takes to stop a possible terrorist. "Just one terrorist can wreak havoc, and so they will spend weeks doing the surveillance beforehand," he says. "They'll, in some cases, do bugging for years in order to really catch this person."
In Flooded Earth, NASA astrobiologist Peter D. Ward argues that even if humans stopped all carbon dioxide emissions today, the oceans will still rise 3 feet by 2050, wreaking havoc on many coastal cities and their infrastructure. In the worst-case scenario, he says, the ice caps will melt and give way to global anarchy. After outlining possible geopolitical conflicts over the redistribution of territorial borders, energy and other resources, Ward offers a blueprint for moving forward, arguing that keeping up hope for a workable future is an important goal in itself.
Charlotte Abbott edits "New in Paperback." A contributing editor for Publishers Weekly, she also leads a weekly chat on books and reading in the digital age every Friday from 4-5 p.m. ET on Twitter. Follow her at @charabbott or check out the #followreader hashtag.
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The assembly at the anniversary of the Ф.B.K. was more numerous than I have known it. There were near forty members present, among whom were two from Dartmouth college. Lincoln, who was to have been one of the speakers obtained leave to be excused on account of ill health. The governor, happening to be here with the admiral, and some other officers of the french squadron, now in Boston harbour, honoured us with his presence; as did all the college officers.
Spoken, at the request of the ΦBK Society at Cambridge, September 5th. 1788.
Among the various objects which attract the attention of a youth about to enter upon the scenes of active Life, a view of the prospects before him, and of the Fortunes which expectation leads him to imagine will attend him affords one of the most fruitful sources of contemplation. From an anticipation of futurity, and from the recollection of the past, we chiefly derive the variety of mental enjoyment; and at an early period of life, as
we are necessarily precluded in a great measure from the satisfaction arising from the one, the mind naturally recurs more frequently and with a firmer confidence to the other. It must however be acknowledged that we are often prone to view the distant objects through the deceptive medium of fansy, or of the passions.
Should a concurrence of agreeable circumstances, lead us to the contemplation of this subject, at a time when the spirits are elated by the temporary impulsion of successful satisfaction, we soar rapidly upon the wings of a flattering imagination, and soon lose ourselves bewildered amidst the magnificent objects with which we have adorned the road around us. Unmindful of the precarious tenure by which all human enjoyments are held, we behold Fortune and Fame emulously striving to invest us in the possession of all the blessings which they can impart, and in the ardor of juvenile exultation eastern opulence is scarcely competent to the satisfaction of our avarice, eastern grandeur to that of our ambition. But should some untoward event occur, to awaken us from these fantastic dreams, we descend with rapidity from the visionary elevation, and sink as far beneath the level of rational probability, as we had before been raised above it. The path of life becomes rugged with thorns: a thousand obstacles apparently stand before us, and the approach to the seats of happiness, like that to the garden of the Hesperides seems under the perpetual custody of fiery dragons. We dwell with involuntary terror upon the ideas of the malice, the treachery and envy which we expect from our fellow mortals untill we are ready to imagine that our Life is to be a state of continual warfare with the whole human race. The baseless fabric of our hopes vanishes like the phantom of a fairy tale, and the mind oppressed by the contemplation of these gloomy objects is almost ready to settle in a state of sullen despondency.
I presume your own feelings, my worthy friends, will testify that this representation can scarcely be charged with exaggeration: and yet, why on the one hand, should we ever indulge ourselves in expectations which never can be realized; why on the other, anticipate evils, which can surely never come too late.
Egregiously indeed should we deceive ourselves were we to imagine that in the course of a life of ease and contentment, we could obtain the enjoyments of riches or of honour. It is by a combination of indefatigable industry and rigid oeconomy that
great wealth is acquired; for when we have done all that can depend upon ourselves, when we have laboured without intermission, and been sparing even to parsimony, still we frequently experience that “bread is not always to the wise nor yet riches to men of understanding.” Great honours we must remember are the reward of great exertions. The reputation of a Statesman or a Warrior is generally proportioned to the distresses from which he relieved or attempted to relieve his country; and the defeats of Thrasymene and Cannae are monuments erected to the fame of the elder Scipio, no less glorious than the victory of Zama.
When we contemplate the atchievements of the numerous train of heroes whose names, through the successive revolutions of four hundred years, adorn the annals of the roman republic our bosoms are animated with an ardent desire to emulate their virtues. We admire the undaunted fortitude with which every danger was braved, we admire the invincible resolution and perseverance, with which every difficulty was overcome, in the defence of their country: and when these virtues are recommended by such illustrious examples, the most exalted minds will fervently wish for opportunities to display those qualities which command the admiration of mankind. But when we consider, that those atchievements could never have been performed had not their Country during the same period been engaged in a perpetual struggle to maintain her very existence against her hostile and surrounding neighbours; when we reflect upon the dreadful calamities which the republic underwent, and how often she was brought to the brink of destruction, the rude and imperious calls of ambition must yield to the soft, persuasive eloquence of humanity, and a sentiment of real patriotism, must forbid us from pursuing the painful preeminence.
But if we should carefully avoid a delusion which by promising unreal advantages exposes us to the mortification of disappointment, how much more reason have we to shun another, which by threatening future distresses, embitters the present moment with the reality of woe. If we can circumscribe our desires within rational bounds; if we can be contented with a situation which affords the most essential enjoyments, we may safely conclude ourselves in a great measure, independent of external circumstances. There is a certain station in life, which if well filled will entitle us to the respect and esteem of our fellow citizens, without holding us up exposed to the envenomed shafts
of rancorous envy. The rewards of Reason are proportioned rather to the improvement than to the magnitude of the trust; and in her impartial eye we may presume that the man whose usefulness is confined only by the limits of his opportunities to serve his fellow mortals, is no less meritorious than the founder of an empire or the discoveror of a world.—Such is the Divine, whose paternal labours are calculated to instruct, to enlighten and to improve the minds of the flock committed to his charge: whose periodical precepts teach the importance of the great duties of morality and religion, and whose exemplary sanctity of manners endears the virtues which from the sacred desk he earnestly recommends.—Such is the patriotic merchant whose industrious activity is exerted to promote the public interest in connexion with his own, and who by encouraging the agriculture and manufactures of his Country, enlarges the sphere of her beneficial commerce, and liberates her from the humiliating shackles of european dependency.—Such is the lawyer, who, disdaining the base and servile arts of chicanery and intrigue, uniformly exerts his learning and his talents in the cause of injured innocence and of truth.—And such is the humane physician, whose skill and benevolence are directed to the alleviation of the complicated miseries with which humanity is burthened; who, called to the assistance of human nature in all the variety of physical distress, administers not only the restoring preparation to the languishing body; but the balm of consolation to the wounded mind.
The combined advantages of utility and respectability, are not however confined to these professions. In a free country where honour consists not in idleness, the farmer, the mechanic, and the tradesman maintain the dignity due to their station, and become active constituent parts of the political body.
As the regulation of our conduct must in some measure, depend upon the sentiments which we form in the anticipation of our future appearance in life, it may be of some importance to lay a restraint upon the freedom of a wanton imagination, and to view ourselves seated for life, in one of these intermediate stations where removed “Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife”2
we may spend our days with happiness to ourselves, and with usefulness to our fellow mortals. If notwithstanding all our precautions we are destined to become the sport of adverse Fortune, and to undergo evils against which no human prudence can
guard, at least the cruel stings of disappointed ambition will not add a poignancy to our woes. If on the other hand the blind capricious deity should bestow upon us unexpected favours, we shall be better enabled to improve the advantages which she may offer; to follow her with cautious steps, and to stop without disgrace wherever she may show a disposition to forsake us.
There is indeed one form under which Ambition assumes not merely the form, but with it all the amiable attractions and all the conscious dignity of Virtue. It is in the desire to appear conspicuous in the walks of literature and Science. An ambition, which to the members of the institution, at whose request I appear in this place, which to the sons of Harvard in general, must present itself under an aspect peculiarly engaging. Its gratification depends, not upon the destruction, but upon the improvement of mankind. The trophies erected to the Muses are not upon plains drenched in human gore, but in the hearts of the virtuous and the wise: and although the vulgar of mankind will always bestow more liberal applause upon their destroyers than upon their benefactors, yet the generous and humane will ever esteem the passage through the portico of Science, to be the most honourable avenue to the temple of Fame.
The situation of an infant country is necessarily unfavourable to an extensive encouragement of literary genius: the equality and mediocrity of fortunes renders an active profession necessary for the support of every individual: even those who are the most attached to the pursuits of Literature can view them only as a secondary object: in the ordinary course of human transactions the noblest faculties of the mind must droop and languish for want of culture and improvement.
“Full many a flower be born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desart air.”
We find accordingly, that previous to the late revolution, America had produced so few men of great eminence, that European philosophers of no small note, arguing from this single fact, which is otherwise so well accounted for, have ventured to affirm, that Nature, like a partial step-mother had distributed her favours very unequally between the inhabitants of the two hemispheres: that a smaller portion of the etherial spirit had been allotted to man, on this than on the other side of the atlantic; and in the presumptuous pride of human reason, they have been al•
most tempted to deny us the honours of the species, and to assign us a station among the inferior animals of creation. This humiliating theory is ere this well exploded. The late revolution has brought forth american characters in arts and arms whose reputation is limited only by the boundaries of the civilized world: one of our most illustrious countrymen has successfully combated the insulting system in all its connections: and his performance3
carries an internal evidence in favour of his opinions; as unanswerable, as the arguments and the facts which he adduces.
It becomes then incumbent upon the rising generation to maintain in all its lustre the splendid reputation which our country has acquired. To you therefore who are conscious of possessing the divine spark of transcendent genius, suffer me to express my ardent desire, that you may cherish the generous flame: that, in the various departments of Philosophy and History; of Oratory and Poetry, you may extract from this blooming garden of Science, such fragrant sweets, as shall hereafter diffuse their salutary influence throughout this extensive continent: that you may live to enjoy the fruits of a reputation founded upon your extensive usefulness to mankind; and that, after treading honourably the theatre of human life, when the scene shall close, and the curtain drop, you may be dismissed from the stage of action, with the unbounded plaudits of a grateful and admiring universe.
We separated early in the afternoon, and I went and paid a visit at Dr. Waterhouse's, and at Mr. Williams's. I went to Boston; where Bridge left me; and I took up my brother Tom. We met my classmate Tom Chandler, who just came from Hallifax: we got to Braintree between 7 and 8 o'clock, where I found Mr. Parsons, who pass'd the evening with us but lodg'd at Mr. Woodward's.
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WAGNER, R.: Tannhauser (Bayreuth Festival) (1930) (Bayreuth Festival Chorus/ Bayreuth Festival Orchestra/ Herbert Janssen/ Ivar Andresen/ Karl Elmendorff/ Maria Muller/ Ruth Jost-Arden/ Sigismund Pilinszky/ Ward Marston) (Naxos Historical: 8.110094-95)
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A grosse romantische Oper in three acts to the composers libretto, based on nineteenth-century versions of several mediaeval legends, principally those collated by Ludwig Bechstein and C.T.L.Lucas.
God give me a failure like that! Charles Gounod, writing after the chaotic première of the Paris version of Tannhäuser in 1861.
The history of the composition of Tannhäuser, Wagners fifth opera, is somewhat complex and a brief explanation about the different versions of the score may be helpful.
After a disastrous première in Dresden, Tannhäuser soon gained popularity and within ten years was performed regularly throughout Germany. During this time Wagner made amendments to the score and this revision, published in 1860, is known as the Dresden version. In due course he received an invitation from Napoleon III to produce Tannhäuser in France and, as was customary, Wagner was expected to include a ballet scene for the Parisian audiences. With this in mind, the composer took the opportunity to re-write several further sections, and it is this version, together with yet more alterations made between 1861 and 1875, that is known as the Paris - although it is not exactly what was performed at the première there. The changes for Paris mainly affect the opening scene of Act I and the Song Contest in Act II; there are numerous less significant differences (including a re-worked overture) but the major result of Wagners additions is to enhance the rôle of Venus and extend the bacchanal - providing an ideal opportunity to include the required ballet. For local reasons the Paris production was a calamity, but before long Tannhäuser took its rightful place as one of the great operas of the nineteenth century and these days both Dresden and Paris versions are performed; this historic abridged set is the latter.
In 1927 the Columbia Graphophone Company recorded excerpts from Parsifal in the Festspielhaus, Bayreuth (re-issued, together with other historic passages from the opera, on Naxos 8.110049-50). This marked a turning-point in the story of location recording and, keen to capitalise on the success of their first efforts in Wagners theatre, in 1928 the companys engineers were able to set down sizeable extracts from Tristan und Isolde conducted by Karl Elmendorff. Spurred on by yet more favourable reviews, in 1930 Columbia planned to make an abridged set, on thirty-six 78 rpm sides, of the composers son Siegfried Wagners new production of Tannhäuser, conducted by Arturo Toscanini; but because of his contract with Victor Records, Toscanini was unable to participate in the project and Elmendorff was invited to conduct instead. These are not records of live performances, but were made during August in the empty theatre, and comprise about four fifths of the score. The tricky job of deciding on the cuts was undertaken by the celebrated critic Ernest Newman, whose knowledge and understanding of Wagners music was almost second to none, and by Siegfried Wagner. Siegfrieds death, during the very month of recording, and that of his mother Cosima four months earlier, must have cast a shadow over the whole proceedings but the sessions went ahead nevertheless. Musically the results were magnificent, hardly surprising in view of the fine cast and experienced conductor that were assembled; and by 1930 Columbias technical expertise ensured that, even in the spacious empty theatre, such large orchestral and choral forces would transfer successfully to wax.
Of the five principals, Müller, Jost-Arden, Pilinsky, Janssen and Andrèsen, four were making their Bayreuth dèbuts in this new production of Tannhäuser - only Andrèsen had sung there previously. It was also Toscaninis first season there (he returned the following year, but never subsequently conducted at the Festival) and his influence is naturally seen in the selection of singers. He was keen to establish his mark on the new production, perhaps rejecting some of Bayreuths regular team in order to do so. Although he did not conduct the recording, Toscaninis influence is sensed throughout, though Elmendorff was himself a greatly admired musician and must be given the credit for leading such a fine recorded performance. The orchestra plays magnificently, albeit in a style considered old-fashioned today; but it was the fashion then, and we are fortunate even to be able to make the comparison.
The cuts imposed on the set are not unduly serious, and none of the best known numbers are affected (though the famous Entry of the Guests in Act 2 is abbreviated). One complete, short, scene is omitted (Act 2 Scene 3) and several other sections are excised (the Landgraves introduction to the Song Contest is one). Happily the first act is complete, thus allowing us to hear the most significant of Wagners Paris amendments in full.
Tannhäuser was first performed in Dresden on 19th October 1845; the first performance in Paris took place on 13th March 1861.
Sigismund Pilinsky was born in Budapest in 1891 and died there in 1957. He studied at the Budapest Conservatory and later in Leipzig and Berlin. He made his operatic dèbut in Miskolc in north-eastern Hungary, and from 1913 sang at the National Opera in the capital. In 1928 Pilinsky was John in Meyerbeers Le Prophète in Berlin and in 1930-1 sang Tannhäuser at Bayreuth. He travelled extensively as a guest tenor to Vienna, London, Chicago and San Francisco but returned to Budapest and, in retirement, became a teacher. His rather nasal voice has, however, great resonance and heroic power.
Maria Müller was born in Theresienstadt in 1898 and trained at Prague Conservatory and in Vienna. Her dèbut, as Elsa, was at Linz in 1919 and from 1925 to 1935 she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, singing rôles by Mozart, Wagner, Smetana, Verdi and Strauss among others. Müller sang regularly in Berlin from 1926, at Covent Garden, in Vienna, Milan, Paris and Salzburg. From 1930 she was a frequent visitor to Bayreuth, where her clear lyric soprano was highly regarded, and she retired there after her final performances in Berlin in 1952. She died in Bayreuth in 1958.
Ruth Jost-Arden was born in Berlin in 1899 and died in Bayreuth in 1985. She began her career as a concert soprano in North America, where she was heard by Toscanini and chosen for Bayreuths new production of Tannhäuser in 1930. Rôles that Jost-Arden sang in Cologne from 1931-1940 include Isolde, Brünnhilde, Kundry, Elektra, Salome and Leonore and, in 1933, the lead at the première of Siegfried Wagners opera Der Heidenkönig. Her bright, fresh tone was surely warmly welcomed there in such a dramatic repertory; as guest artist, Jost-Arden appeared in Paris, Milan, Venice, Brussels, New York and Boston.
Herbert Janssen, born in Cologne in 1892, made his dèbut in 1922 at the Berlin Staatsoper. He remained with the company until 1938 when he left Germany and moved to the United States. Janssen sang the lighter Wagnerian baritone rôles
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Classic Interview About Waveskis From 1981 Courtesy of Doug Greaves from Austrailia. Thanks Doug, Great Stuff!
I’ve just uploaded onto Youtube a video from 1981, which was broadcast in Australia on the children’s show “Simon Townsends Wonder World”. It was all filmed at Dee Why Point in Sydney, which was probably the most popular spot for waveskis back then.
The in-water filming was done by a professional film company that was hired by Peter Stuyvesant, the cigarette manufacturer. They were sponsors of the NSW State Titles and they paid for a short documentary about the competition. Fortunately, they agreed to make their film available for the TV show.
Most of the skis in the video were from Raider and were shaped by John Christensen and Roger Shackleton. The riders are Mike Petrie, John, Roger, Paul Wise, Gordon Lang and a few others whose names I can’t remember.
I believe the white Wavemaster was the first epoxy ski ever made. Unfortunately the glasser didn’t really know how to use epoxy, so it was about 15kg (and a dog), which didn’t help to market the benefits of epoxy resin! However, it would bounce off rocks without leaving a mark. Which was handy, as I used to hit a lot of rocks.
I don’t think there’s much high-quality video of waveskis from 30 years ago. So I hope you enjoy this little bit of history.
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On Sunday, the sun emerged from the clouds. The weather was beautiful, apparently perfect for cycling as we saw a lot of serious cyclists go by as we waited for the bus. We also saw around 30 or 40 bikers head for Delicias del Maiz for brunch. They weren’t Hells Angels, but I didn’t manage to see the entire name of their group as they went past.
Our destination was Zoo Ave, a rescue center turned zoo.
Zoo Ave started out rescuing native birds that had been illegally taken as pets. It has now expanded its remit to include monkeys, turtles and crocodiles as well. (Yes, there are people dumb enough to try to keep crocodiles as pets.)
The grounds are carefully maintained as native forest; you wander through trails to get to the animals, who in most cases are living in something reasonably close to their native habitat.
The most common macaw in Costa Rica is the scarlet macaw. Like other macaws, they can live for up to 75 years, and have roughly the intelligence of a 5-year-old child. Their beaks can snap a broom handle, their squawking can be loud enough to cause hearing damage, they poop every 20–30 minutes, they are curious and get into trouble, and they need constant intellectual stimulation. They are emphatically not good pets unless you have a lot of time on your hands and are prepared to spend the rest of your life looking after what is basically a flying toddler.
I love parrots, and macaws are beautiful and friendly birds, but they are way too much parrot for me to deal with as a pet.
The other macaw native to Costa Rica is the great green macaw. It looks similar to the military macaw, but is larger and has a more pronounced red patch above the beak. It’s the second largest parrot, beaten in size and beak strength only by the hyacinth macaw.
Zoo Ave also has some blue and gold macaws who were abandoned pets, though they aren’t native to Costa Rica.
Parakeets, on the other hand, are native, and we saw flocks of them later in our vacation.
Of course, parrot food is also good eating for lizards.
One of the best things about zoos and parks in Costa Rica is that many of the creatures are not locked away behind bars or acrylic glass.
Even the monkeys weren’t kept locked away. I can’t imagine an American zoo having monkeys loose with no fence or cage to keep them separated from the humans. It’s the sort of thing that would make a personal injury lawyer salivate.
Happily we experienced no monkey attacks or poo-flinging. The animals seemed to be pretty happy. In fact, some of them were having a really good time.
I’m obviously not a big fan of zoos in general. However, Zoo Ave seems like one of the least bad options for a rescued Costa Rican monkey or parrot. It’s also the only place you are likely to see a resplendent quetzal up close, though we failed to do so.
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| The Cosmic Ant Farm Of Jesus
Used by permission, from the Agnostic Review of Christianity website
One question that philosophers have pondered for thousands of years concerns itself with the purpose of life.
Many answers to this question have been proposed down through the ages and some have expressed themselves in the form of dogmatic religions.
For Trinity believing fundamentalist Christians, there is only one answer.
The all-knowing, all powerful creator behind everything in the universe is the Bible God, and Jesus is God.
The Catholic believer, Saint Ignatius, generally summed up the Christian position for the purpose of life on earth when he declared that humanity was created to praise and serve God, adding that the other things on earth were created for man to use in that goal.
In detective or spy novels, a truth seeking sleuth often looks high and low for an elusive "Mr. Big", who is the mastermind behind the events in the story.
Christianity loudly claims that it has exclusive rights to the truth regarding this issue (via the Holy Bible), and the Christian version of "Mr. Big" is Jesus the God, who is responsible for all of creation (Col 1:16).
An ant farm is a form of manipulated reality where ants are placed into an environment that's surrounded by glass or clear plastic. The human owner or creator of the ant farm then observes the lives of the ants as they tunnel, search for food, fight with other ants, etc.
An owner looking for gratification or entertainment may add elements to the farm or disrupt the farm so the ants can provide more interesting viewing. An owner may take rival tribes of ants, put them together in the farm, limit the food supply and watch as the ants compete to expand their interests and secure the limited resources of the farm for themselves.
In essence, the owner is a type of God that controls the farm in ways that provide entertainment.
If Trinitarian Christianity is true, then earth is very much like an ant farm or game with a script which is written in advance by the creator God called Jesus.
The ant farm owner's game manual, also known as the Christian Holy Bible, makes it clear that God's will and purpose supersedes all other considerations.
Having made known unto us (Christians) the mystery of his (God's) will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
As the text states, Christians know the mystery of God's will and were predestined by God.
Everything is implied to be predestined because God, who is Jesus, works all things after the counsel of his own will and according to his good pleasure.
Earth's history and future is actually a scripted drama which has already been written by Jesus the God.
This scripture also renders false the very popular Christian advertising claim that God gave humanity "free-will".
Jesus the God also instructed his disciples on how they should pray to him.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Whose "will" is done? The will of Jesus the God naturally.
Jesus is the one calling the shots and writing the script for the universe. As the words from a popular Christian song for children testify: "He's got the whole world in his hands." Since Jesus is God, any verses which speak of God also refer directly to Jesus.
All the standard Christian talk about the Devil being an out of control troublemaker is simply contrived drama.
Jesus the supremely powerful God works out all things according to his plans, and his script on earth calls for a character called "The Devil" to generate drama and suspense for this staged cosmic play.
Most dramatic movies call for a character that wears a black hat or represents "dark" and "evil" thoughts.
Judas was another one of these stage players whose role was to act out the part of betrayer in the script.
As the scripture states (John 17:12), Judas was doomed to destruction so that prophecy would be fulfilled.
Jesus also declared that fulfilling a planned script had priority over all other concerns.
Then said he(Jesus) unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:
For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
Since Jesus the God wrote the script, humans and all other life forms are essentially stage props he uses to act out the drama.
Christianity has spent millions of dollars carefully promoting the fluffy "Prince of Peace" image of Jesus the God.
Children's Bibles usually have pictures of a humble, servant like Jesus sitting with little children or comforting troubled people.
The hype and spin extends well beyond this example and this candy coated image of Jesus has been so promoted and advertised to the world that it simply permeates society.
An often quoted verse used to reinforce this "gentle Jesus" image follows:
But I (Jesus) say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
While this certainly does sound peaceful and fluffy, it doesn't quite cover his other Godly sayings and actions that are found elsewhere in the Bible.
In the cosmic script that Jesus the God wrote for earth, Jesus wanted his name to be proclaimed to the world through conquest, miracles, and killings.
Jesus the God has no trouble using some of his human stage props as vehicles for his glorification.
The Pharaoh of Egypt is an example.
And in very deed for this cause have I (Jesus the God) raised thee (Pharaoh) up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.
According to Jesus, he raised Pharaoh up so that he could be used to promote the power and name of Jesus throughout the earth. This glorification process also involved killing the firstborn children of Egypt, but in the grand scheme of things they can be considered collateral damage.
This use of Pharaoh required that Jesus manipulate Pharaoh by making him stubborn.
And I (Jesus) will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
The more stubborn Pharaoh is, the more miracles and power are needed to make him change his mind.
Jesus then repeatedly manipulates his human subject with ease.
And the LORD Jesus hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD Jesus had spoken unto Moses.
More examples of Jesus hardening Pharaoh's heart follow:
But the LORD Jesus hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.
And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD Jesus hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.
This is not an isolated incident of manipulation on the part of Jesus the God.
The script Jesus wrote for humanity often calls for the mass killing of men, women, and children.
But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the LORD Jesus thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day.
Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.
And the LORD Jesus our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.
And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
Similar mass killings were performed in 60 other cities as outlined in Deut 3:3-6. Jesus had little trouble manipulating the hearts of other kings as he delivered up the enemy so that his followers could annihilate them.
And we (God's people) utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.
Jesus the God was never shy about his agenda, even when he was talking about peace and forgiveness.
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
The cycle of warfare and conflict has been repeated over and over for thousands of years and it surely does add intense drama to the cosmic game that Jesus the God has concocted.
However, the popular fluffy version of sweet Jesus dissolves under the weight of Biblical evidence showing that he likes lots of dark drama and violence in his movie script.
For those hoping that Jesus the God may have changed into a kinder, gentler version of himself over time, the
Holy Bible throws cold water on such wishful thinking.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
An area of particular concern for modern times is the issue of nations who may have weapons of mass destruction.
While this receives lots of ink and soundtrack in the news media and in the speeches of government officials, this issue shouldn't be of any real concern for any Bible believing Christians.
Any nation that has Jesus on it's side has nothing to fear from anyone.
Jesus the God is an expert on weapons of mass destruction as he uses them himself.
The arsenal of Jesus the God is filled to the brim with weapons that easily kill humans as if they were insects being eliminated by an exterminator.
Jesus the God uses cosmic blasts of fire and brimstone to kill those who displease him.
Then the LORD Jesus rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD Jesus out of heaven;
Upon the wicked he (Jesus) shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
2 Kings 1:12
And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of Jesus the God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of Jesus the God came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.
And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD Jesus: and the LORD Jesus heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD Jesus burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.
Jesus the God also uses sound waves to destroy the fortifications of his enemies so that his followers can more easily kill them.
So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
Jesus the God also uses biological weapons and germ warfare on his enemies.
2 Sam 24:15
So the LORD Jesus sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD Jesus will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
Jesus the God uses seismic underground "bombs" to create lethal sinkholes under his enemies.
And it came to pass, as he(Moses) had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:
And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.
They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.
Sometimes Jesus will use more than one weapon at the same event.
In this case, the seismic earth sinkholes were quickly followed with fire from Jesus.
And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.
And there came out a fire from the LORD Jesus, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.
Jesus the God used a cosmic water weapon to flood the entire earth and drown those that displeased him.
And the LORD Jesus said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life,
from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Jesus the God will also simply kill things by "smiting" them with an undisclosed weapon of mass destruction.
For I (Jesus the God) will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD Jesus.
And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.
Or Jesus the God may send one of his drones to do the killing,
2 Kings 19:35
And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD Jesus went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand (185,000): and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
Jesus will also use his drones later on in the movie as well.
Matt 13: 41-42
The Son of man( also known as Jesus) shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus the God actively helps his followers kill others by using the ultimate "smart bomb", a missile guided by the very mind of Almighty God himself.
Jesus used these weapons extensively in the Joshua lead campaigns to eliminate threats to national security, to free heathens from themselves, and secure the national interests of the nation that God blessed.
And the LORD Jesus said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee.
Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night.
And the LORD Jesus discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah.
And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD (Jesus) cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
War, killing, and the use of weapons of mass destruction will be employed by Jesus the God when he makes another one of his cameo appearances in his own movie.
Jesus the God not only writes the script, he makes guest appearances starring as a Savior.
In the next act, Jesus the God will dress in clothes dipped in blood, will have his drones with him, and will kill people with a sword that comes out of his mouth, and will then rule the survivors with a rod of iron.
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he (Jesus) that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And out of his (Jesus) mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
After this first dramatic killing spree, invitations will be sent out for a great supper party where the flesh of the dead will be eaten, hosted by Jesus the God.
Anyone not killed in the first attack will then die when Jesus the God opens his mouth again to use the sword of death that he keeps in there.
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God Jesus;
That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
And the remnant were slain with the sword of him (Jesus) that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Jesus the God, like any good movie script writer, also likes to string his followers along, keeping them in suspense.
Over 1,900 years ago, Jesus promised to quickly make another appearance to bring an end to the game.
And, behold, I (Jesus) come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
What's a little false prophecy if it's in the name of entertainment?
As the cartoon character Porky Pig would say, That's all folks!
Christian churches, television industries, and preachers have made millions of dollars selling books and tapes to an often terrified audience, claiming that only they have the "truth" about the great cosmic game and the purpose of life.
Christianity attempts to convince society that in order to understand the great cosmic game, people need to seek out qualified Christian teachers who are experts on everything from prophecy to the rapture.
The commonly advertised image of Jesus as the Prince of Peace and the only Savior of humanity is all part of a well polished hype and spin campaign, designed to keep the money and profits rolling in.
If Jesus really is God and if the Bible really is his word, then it's all a contrived game, written and controlled by Jesus for his own glorification and entertainment.
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December 11, 2012
NGJ vintage audio
What can a parent do when a child regularly uses anger or bad moods to control those around him?
Mike helps parents understand how to give a child confidence, thus helping him learn self-control over and understanding concerning the destructiveness of his bad moods.
Mail Bag - Attitude: Moody Kids bylisten to this week’s audio >>
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SIGMA Upgrades National Ohmsett Testing Facility in Leonardo, NJ
Oil spills in waterways or the Gulf of Mexico are serious business and call for innovative water cleaning technologies. To test emerging technologies for oil spill clean up, many turn to the Ohmsett National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility, located in Leonardo, New Jersey – right on the Raritan Bay about one hour south of New York City. Sigma Design Company of Middlesex New Jersey (SIGMA) was awarded a contract to lead the upgrade of the Ohmsett Test Facility.
Ohmsett Test Platform – Delivery
The Ohmsett National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility is the largest outdoor saltwater wave/tow tank facility in North America. This is the only facility where full-scale oil spill response equipment testing, research, and training can be conducted in a marine environment with oil under controlled environmental conditions (waves and oil types). The Ohmsett Test Facility is maintained and operated by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).
Recently the Ohmsett Test Facility served as the test site of more than seven different systems that competed for a first prize of $1.4 million in the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE for highly effective oil spill cleanup methods. The facility also has the mission as a research and testing venue for wave energy conversion devices.
Ohmsett Test Platform – Placement
With such increased levels of activity, the 50 year old Ohmsett Test Facility needed an upgrade and critical components needed improvement, especially the test platform – which is affectionately called the Aux Bridge.
Unique in many ways, the Ohmsett test platform is a hybrid bridge/test platform – that is 70 feet long and weighs 35,000 lbs. Test systems are towed through the seawater tank, which is 650 feet long, 65 feet wide and 12 feet deep. The lab can also create 2 to 3 foot waves to better simulate open water challenges in firefighting and oil spill clean up.
After a competitive bidding process, SIGMA was awarded an engineering contract to design and manage the construction, as the owner’s representative, of a new test platform for Ohmsett. The major design challenges were to develop a larger test structure that was safer, easier to use allowing quicker operational set ups while reducing the overall weight, and increasing operational test load capacity.
Ohmsett Test Platform – Installation
SIGMA analyzed, designed and managed every part of the new testing system by using 3D design software, FEA structural analysis methods and mechanical engineering competencies. The platform was validated by: 1) alignment testing – to ensure “she” rolls straight when pulled 6 knots; 2) load testing- with over 80,000 lbs; and finally 3) operational testing – while being pulled 6 knots through seawater tank.
With the completed installation and acceptance of the new test platform in January 2012, the Ohmsett Test Facility is ready to serve oil spill clean up and wave energy technology testing needs for many years to come.
Sigma Design Company – Solution Analysis, Design and Construction/Installation Management
Visit Website of Sigma Design Company and blog Home page of SigmaDesignCo
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After Crown and Bridge Appointments
Crowns and bridges usually take two or three appointments to complete. In the first visit your teeth are prepared, and molds of your mouth are taken. Temporary crowns or bridges are placed to protect the teeth while the custom restoration is being made. Since the teeth will be anesthetized, the tongue, lips and roof of your mouth may be numb. Please refrain from eating and drinking hot beverages until the numbness is completely worn off.
Occasionally a temporary crown may come off. Call us if this happens and bring the temporary crown with you so we can re-cement it. It is very important for the temporary to stay in place, as it will prevent other teeth from moving and compromising the fit of your final restoration.
To keep your temporary in place, avoid eating sticky foods(gum), hard foods, and if possible chew on the opposite side of the mouth. It is important to brush normally, but floss carefully. Do not pull up on the floss which may dislodge the temporary, pull the floss out from the side instead.
It is normal to experience some temperature and pressure sensitivity after each appointment. The sensitivity should subside a few weeks after the placement of the final restoration. Mild pain medications may be used as directed by our office.
If your bite feels uneven, if you have persistent pain, or if you have any other questions or concerns please call the office.
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From Today’s Times
- Few are particularly keen on the idea of a government shutdown, but virtually no one wants to accept the blame for one. Veteran Republicans, including some of today’s party leaders, can still remember the sting of that blame from the 1995 shutdown. But for some lawmakers in the freshman class, this battle and the possibility of a shutdown are about more than a one-term spending fight; rather, they view it as a crusade to redefine the role of the federal government in American life, the Times’s Jennifer Steinhauer reports.
- Expanding U.S. exports is one of the key initiatives in Mr. Obama’s plan to accelerate economic recovery, but in recent weeks, his trade agenda has almost come to a complete halt amid partisan feuding. Although the White House renegotiated a pivotal free-trade agreement with South Korea in December, House Republican leaders have refused to allow the deal to move forward, the Times’s Sewell Chan reports. They want the administration to first make progress on similar deals with Colombia and Panama that face stiff opposition from labor unions and liberal Democrats.
- In his two-week standoff with Democrats and state employee unions, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is hoping to get the 14 absentee senators to return to the Capitol by using the d-word — deadline. He says the state will be harmed if important fiscal deadlines are not met this week, the Times’s Richard A. Oppel Jr. reports. Democrats are, however, staying put in Illinois in spite of the announcement from the governor’s office on Monday: “One Day Left to Save the State $165 million.” If Democrats do not return today, taxpayers would lose an option to save that money through a “refinancing,” the governor’s office said.
-As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Around the Web
- Adding to the speculation about her possible bid for the 2012 presidential election, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota will headline a big-ticket fundraising brunch in New Hampshire in mid-March, The Wall Street Journal reports. Ms. Bachmann will be making the rounds in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina – all early primary and caucus states – fueling rumors that she has her gaze set on the White House in 2012.
Happenings in Washington
–President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will meet in the Oval Office this afternoon with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
- Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton will testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee today to outline America’s foreign policy priorities.
- The Supreme Court will hear arguments today and decide whether an official interview of a nine-year-old suspected child abuse victim violated the girl’s right to be free from “unreasonable” seizures without a warrant.
- Hearings will begin today to review the fiscal year 2012 budgets for the departments of education and transportation.
- The flag that Libya flew before the era of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi will be raised at the Libyan embassy in Washington today.
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Five tips for choosing a nursing home
(BPT) - Transitioning to life in a nursing home can be difficult, especially after living independently. When thinking about the next step for yourself or a loved one, it is important to consider how the quality of care you receive will affect your health and well-being. It's helpful to plan ahead, consider all your long-term-care options, and make good financial plans early.
Here are five tips for choosing the nursing home that is right for you or your loved one:
Determine if a nursing home is your best option
Depending on your needs and resources, you may have other long-term-care options available to you. For example, you may be able to get the services and support you need in your own home or in other types of community housing. If you're in a hospital or working with a home health agency, a discharge planner or social worker can explain your options and help arrange your care. You can also talk to your doctor, family members, friends, neighbors or clergy to get additional opinions on long-term care options.
Find nursing homes in your area
If you or someone you know has access to the Internet, visit Medicare's Nursing Home Compare at www.medicare.gov/NHCompare
to help find nursing homes in your area. You can search by nursing home name, city, county, state or ZIP code. If you do not have access to the Internet, your local library may be able to help you find the information on Nursing Home Compare. You can also call 800-MEDICARE for further assistance.
Your area agency on aging can also help you choose a nursing home, as well as help you and your family plan for long-term care. Contact the U.S. Administration on Aging to get in touch with your area agency on aging by visiting the Eldercare Locator at www.eldercare.gov or get information by calling 800-677-1116.
Compare quality of care
It's important to compare the quality of care that nursing homes provide in order to find the home that meets your needs. Nursing Home Compare has a five star quality rating system for certified Medicare and Medicaid nursing homes that indicates meaningful differences between high- and low-performing homes. On Nursing Home Compare, you can evaluate the nursing homes you're considering by clinical quality measures, staffing, and health and fire safety inspection results.
Visit potential nursing homes
After comparing the quality of care provided by nursing homes in your area, it is important to visit the homes you are interested in to see if you would be comfortable and happy living there. Nursing Home Compare provides maps and directions to listed nursing homes. The easy-to-use information provided by Nursing Home Compare can guide you in talking to nursing home staff about the quality of care they provide. Medicare provides a great Nursing Home Checklist that outlines things to look for - and key questions to ask - when visiting potential homes.
Consider your needs
When you have all the information about the nursing homes you're interested in, consider which ones will best meet your personal needs. Think about location and proximity to family and friends, availability and when you can move in, any cultural or religious preferences you may have and other personal factors important in creating a comfortable living environment.
If you're helping a loved one choose a nursing home, keep the person you're helping involved in making the decision as much as possible. People who are involved from the beginning are better prepared when they move into a nursing home.
All the resources mentioned above can be found at www.medicare.gov/nhcompare or by calling 800-MEDICARE (TTY 877-486-2048). To objectively compare other types of health care providers such as hospitals or home health agencies, visit medicare.gov/qualitycarefinder.
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Sometimes the annoying hipster parents are right
White picket fences….suburban windy roads…..and two Pamper smelling Gerber babies; add two parents and you have a family of four. Mom stays at home, practices attachment parenting and Dad leaves at eight each morning in his suit and returns promptly at five. Welcome to the modern idealized family: a figment of the imagination.
An estimated six-percent of families in the United States come from two parent single income households. Yet this is held as the gold standard for raising healthy, competent, and successful children. If, God forbid, a child struggles during his teenage years, poor mom’s “choice” to work is blamed.
A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the illusions inherent in the idealized version of the modern family. Poignantly coining the term Motherphillia, the article speaks to the delusion of motherhood and family life displayed on television, in the tabloids, and in society’s psyche. For all we think family life should be like a 21st century version of Ozzie and Harriet, the demands on mothers and fathers only seem to be growing, with the latest hip expectations of cloth diapers, homemade baby foods, and – the newest fad – attachment parenting.
Actually, though, that last one may not be so bad. Attachment parenting is new, but its roots go deep into efective, and humanistic, approaches to parenting.
According to William and Martha Sears, who present attachment parenting in The Baby Book, attachment parenting involves an intuitive style of listening and responding to a baby’s cues and needs as they relate to bonding, breastfeeding, babywearing, bedding/sleeping, and the language aspect of a baby’s crying. Referred to as the seven Baby B’s, each “B” works through the individual attention given to the baby’s natural cues which a mother responds to through harmonious interactions with the little one.
Interestingly enough, the idea of “attachment parenting” comes from psychology and the work of John Bowlby. Bowlby, a noted psychologist and psychiatrist, practiced psychoanalysis and came to develop the theoretical tenets of attachment theory through his work with ethology and evolutionary psychology. Today, the foundational tenets of attachment theory have spread like wildfire and are part of a new parenting revolution. Interestingly, they are also part of humanistic and existential psychology’s Emotionally Focused Couple’s Therapy (EFT).
Experientially based and empirically validated, EFT views healthy relationships as involving secure attachment bonds that are characterized by emotional accessibility and responsiveness. Secure attachment in relationships, particularly in partnerships, marriages or in couple relationships, involve safe environments that allow for emotional regulation, information processing, pragmatism, unambiguous communication patterns.
Two central goals exist in EFT: the exploration and reformulation of emotional experiences, and the restructuring of interactions. The goal of exploring and reformulating emotional experiences is accomplished through interventions including: reflecting emotional experiences, validation, evocative responding, heightening, and empathic interpretation. Lastly, the goal of restructuring interventions is accomplished by: tracking and replaying interactions, reframing cyclic interactions in terms of attachment issues, and through shaping and restructuring interactions that stem from weak attachments.
Attachment theory, stemming from the work of John Bowlby has undeniably had far reaching effects—from babies, to parenting, to therapy and everything in between. Grounded in humanism and existentialism, it mirrors humanity’s need for solid attachments, meaning-making, and actualizing tendencies amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life. And, with attachment theory’s empirical validation, it will likely continue to gain momentum.
Looks like the hip parents get it right once in a while.
- Elizabeth Schreiber
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2012 Regular Session
To: Education; Appropriations
By: Representative Whittington
AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 37-13-91, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO PROVIDE THAT THE PROVISIONS OF THE MISSISSIPPI COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE LAW ARE FULLY APPLICABLE TO KINDERGARTEN-AGE CHILDREN; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. Section 37-13-91, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
37-13-91. (1) This section shall be referred to as the "Mississippi Compulsory School Attendance Law."
(2) The following terms as used in this section are defined as follows:
(a) "Parent" means the father or mother to whom a child has been born, or the father or mother by whom a child has been legally adopted.
(b) "Guardian" means a guardian of the person of a child, other than a parent, who is legally appointed by a court of competent jurisdiction.
(c) "Custodian" means any person having the present care or custody of a child, other than a parent or guardian of the child.
(d) "School day" means not less than five (5) and not more than eight (8) hours of actual teaching in which both teachers and pupils are in regular attendance for scheduled schoolwork.
(e) "School" means any public school in this state or any nonpublic school in this state which is in session each school year for at least one hundred eighty (180) school days, except that the "nonpublic" school term shall be the number of days that each school shall require for promotion from grade to grade.
(f) "Compulsory-school-age child" means a child who has attained or will attain the age of five (5) years on or before September 1 of the calendar year and who has not attained the age of seventeen (17) years on or before September 1 of the calendar year * * *.
(g) "School attendance officer" means a person employed by the State Department of Education pursuant to Section 37-13-89.
(h) "Appropriate school official" means the superintendent of the school district, or his designee, or, in the case of a nonpublic school, the principal or the headmaster.
(i) "Nonpublic school" means an institution for the teaching of children, consisting of a physical plant, whether owned or leased, including a home, instructional staff members and students, and which is in session each school year. This definition shall include, but not be limited to, private, church, parochial and home instruction programs.
(3) A parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child in this state shall cause the child to enroll in and attend a public school or legitimate nonpublic school for the period of time that the child is of compulsory school age, except under the following circumstances:
(a) When a compulsory-school-age child is physically, mentally or emotionally incapable of attending school as determined by the appropriate school official based upon sufficient medical documentation.
(b) When a compulsory-school-age child is enrolled in and pursuing a course of special education, remedial education or education for handicapped or physically or mentally disadvantaged children.
(c) When a compulsory-school-age child is being educated in a legitimate home instruction program.
The parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child described in this subsection, or the parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child attending any nonpublic school, or the appropriate school official for any or all children attending a nonpublic school shall complete a "certificate of enrollment" in order to facilitate the administration of this section.
The form of the certificate of enrollment shall be prepared by the Office of Compulsory School Attendance Enforcement of the State Department of Education and shall be designed to obtain the following information only:
(i) The name, address, telephone number and date of birth of the compulsory-school-age child;
(ii) The name, address and telephone number of the parent, guardian or custodian of the compulsory-school-age child;
(iii) A simple description of the type of education the compulsory-school-age child is receiving and, if the child is enrolled in a nonpublic school, the name and address of the school; and
(iv) The signature of the parent, guardian or custodian of the compulsory-school-age child or, for any or all compulsory-school-age child or children attending a nonpublic school, the signature of the appropriate school official and the date signed.
The certificate of enrollment shall be returned to the school attendance officer where the child resides on or before September 15 of each year. Any parent, guardian or custodian found by the school attendance officer to be in noncompliance with this section shall comply, after written notice of the noncompliance by the school attendance officer, with this subsection within ten (10) days after the notice or be in violation of this section. However, in the event the child has been enrolled in a public school within fifteen (15) calendar days after the first day of the school year as required in subsection (6), the parent or custodian may, at a later date, enroll the child in a legitimate nonpublic school or legitimate home instruction program and send the certificate of enrollment to the school attendance officer and be in compliance with this subsection.
For the purposes of this subsection, a legitimate nonpublic school or legitimate home instruction program shall be those not operated or instituted for the purpose of avoiding or circumventing the compulsory attendance law.
(4) An "unlawful absence" is an absence during a school day by a compulsory-school-age child, which absence is not due to a valid excuse for temporary nonattendance. Days missed from school due to disciplinary suspension shall not be considered an "excused" absence under this section. This subsection shall not apply to children enrolled in a nonpublic school.
Each of the following shall constitute a valid excuse for temporary nonattendance of a compulsory-school-age child enrolled in a public school, provided satisfactory evidence of the excuse is provided to the superintendent of the school district, or his designee:
(a) An absence is excused when the absence results from the compulsory-school-age child's attendance at an authorized school activity with the prior approval of the superintendent of the school district, or his designee. These activities may include field trips, athletic contests, student conventions, musical festivals and any similar activity.
(b) An absence is excused when the absence results from illness or injury which prevents the compulsory-school-age child from being physically able to attend school.
(c) An absence is excused when isolation of a compulsory-school-age child is ordered by the county health officer, by the State Board of Health or appropriate school official.
(d) An absence is excused when it results from the death or serious illness of a member of the immediate family of a compulsory-school-age child. The immediate family members of a compulsory-school-age child shall include children, spouse, grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, including stepbrothers and stepsisters.
(e) An absence is excused when it results from a medical or dental appointment of a compulsory-school-age child.
(f) An absence is excused when it results from the attendance of a compulsory-school-age child at the proceedings of a court or an administrative tribunal if the child is a party to the action or under subpoena as a witness.
(g) An absence may be excused if the religion to which the compulsory-school-age child or the child's parents adheres, requires or suggests the observance of a religious event. The approval of the absence is within the discretion of the superintendent of the school district, or his designee, but approval should be granted unless the religion's observance is of such duration as to interfere with the education of the child.
(h) An absence may be excused when it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the superintendent of the school district, or his designee, that the purpose of the absence is to take advantage of a valid educational opportunity such as travel, including vacations or other family travel. Approval of the absence must be gained from the superintendent of the school district, or his designee, before the absence, but the approval shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(i) An absence may be excused when it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the superintendent of the school district, or his designee, that conditions are sufficient to warrant the compulsory-school-age child's nonattendance. However, no absences shall be excused by the school district superintendent, or his designee, when any student suspensions or expulsions circumvent the intent and spirit of the compulsory attendance law.
(5) Any parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child subject to this section who refuses or willfully fails to perform any of the duties imposed upon him or her under this section or who intentionally falsifies any information required to be contained in a certificate of enrollment, shall be guilty of contributing to the neglect of a child and, upon conviction, shall be punished in accordance with Section 97-5-39.
Upon prosecution of a parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child for violation of this section, the presentation of evidence by the prosecutor that shows that the child has not been enrolled in school within eighteen (18) calendar days after the first day of the school year of the public school which the child is eligible to attend, or that the child has accumulated twelve (12) unlawful absences during the school year at the public school in which the child has been enrolled, shall establish a prima facie case that the child's parent, guardian or custodian is responsible for the absences and has refused or willfully failed to perform the duties imposed upon him or her under this section. However, no proceedings under this section shall be brought against a parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child unless the school attendance officer has contacted promptly the home of the child and has provided written notice to the parent, guardian or custodian of the requirement for the child's enrollment or attendance.
(6) If a compulsory-school-age child has not been enrolled in a school within fifteen (15) calendar days after the first day of the school year of the school which the child is eligible to attend or the child has accumulated five (5) unlawful absences during the school year of the public school in which the child is enrolled, the school district superintendent or his designee shall report, within two (2) school days or within five (5) calendar days, whichever is less, the absences to the school attendance officer. The State Department of Education shall prescribe a uniform method for schools to utilize in reporting the unlawful absences to the school attendance officer. The superintendent, or his designee, also shall report any student suspensions or student expulsions to the school attendance officer when they occur.
(7) When a school attendance officer has made all attempts to secure enrollment and/or attendance of a compulsory-school-age child and is unable to effect the enrollment and/or attendance, the attendance officer shall file a petition with the youth court under Section 43-21-451 or shall file a petition in a court of competent jurisdiction as it pertains to parent or child. Sheriffs, deputy sheriffs and municipal law enforcement officers shall be fully authorized to investigate all cases of nonattendance and unlawful absences by compulsory-school-age children, and shall be authorized to file a petition with the youth court under Section 43-21-451 or file a petition or information in the court of competent jurisdiction as it pertains to parent or child for violation of this section. The youth court shall expedite a hearing to make an appropriate adjudication and a disposition to ensure compliance with the Compulsory School Attendance Law, and may order the child to enroll or re-enroll in school. The superintendent of the school district to which the child is ordered may assign, in his discretion, the child to the alternative school program of the school established pursuant to Section 37-13-92.
(8) The State Board of Education shall adopt rules and regulations for the purpose of reprimanding any school superintendents who fail to timely report unexcused absences under the provisions of this section.
(9) Notwithstanding any provision or implication herein to the contrary, it is not the intention of this section to impair the primary right and the obligation of the parent or parents, or person or persons in loco parentis to a child, to choose the proper education and training for such child, and nothing in this section shall ever be construed to grant, by implication or otherwise, to the State of Mississippi, any of its officers, agencies or subdivisions any right or authority to control, manage, supervise or make any suggestion as to the control, management or supervision of any private or parochial school or institution for the education or training of children, of any kind whatsoever that is not a public school according to the laws of this state; and this section shall never be construed so as to grant, by implication or otherwise, any right or authority to any state agency or other entity to control, manage, supervise, provide for or affect the operation, management, program, curriculum, admissions policy or discipline of any such school or home instruction program.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2012.
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"To cause high prices all the federal reserve board will do will be to lower the re-discount rate..., producing an expansion of credit and a rising stock market; then when... business men are adjusted to these conditions, it can check... prosperity in mid-career by arbitrarily raising the rate of interest.
It can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by greater rate variation, and in either case it will possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down.
This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed.
The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money.
They know in advance when to create panics to their advantage. They also know when to stop panic. Inflation and deflation work equally well for them when they control finance..."
Rep. Charles Lindbergh (R-MN)
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MediNurse Offers Caregivers Tips and Support for Loved Ones Suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease
One in eight Americans suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia that affects memory, thinking and behavior. The holidays can be especially difficult for caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. Memories of better times may surface as reminders of what you've lost or what has changed. MediNurse offers tips for enjoying a stress-free holiday season while caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease.
- Keep daily routines in place as much as possible and, as needed, provide your loved one a place to rest during family get-togethers.
- Celebrate in the most familiar setting. For many people who have Alzheimer's, a change of environment can cause anxiety. Consider the most comfortable setting for your loved one and choose a familiar location to celebrate your family holiday.
- Consider the time of day when planning holiday get-togethers. Remember people who have Alzheimer's tire easily, especially as the disease progresses. Your loved one may appreciate morning and lunchtime visitors more than afternoon or evening visits.
- If caring for a loved one at home, include him or her in holiday preparations. Remember to concentrate on the process, rather than the result.
- Tone down the holiday decorations. Blinking lights and large decorative displays can cause disorientation. Avoid lighted candles and other safety hazards, as well as decorations that could be mistaken for edible treats such as artificial fruits.
“The holidays can be a stressful time for anyone, but especially so for caretakers of loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease” explains Carolynn Ingerson-Hoffman, RN, president and founder of MediNurse, now in its 27th year as the premier provider of private duty services and corporate wellness programs in the St. Louis metropolitan area. “We specialize in helping families and caregivers so that life continues to be meaningful and productive for everyone involved.”
MediNurse provides companions and highly trained Registered Nurses 24 hours a day, seven days a week when needed. MediNurse also offers a support system to family caregivers who often need tips and welcome insights when providing constant care for someone with Alzheimer’s.
For more information about caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s, contact MediNurse at 314.781.2800 or www.medinurse.com.
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Take your gift of support to the next level. Now with the practical companion study guide, Earma personally mentors you and your team to effective service as armorbearers...
Buy your copy!
Barnes & Noble.com
Armorbearer Coach Training Series
In her original book, In the Spirit of Armorbearing, Bible teacher Earma Brown explored "helps" ministry principles. Now with the companion study guide In the Spirit of Armorbearing Small Group Study Edition she has given the Body of Christ an effective training tool for leaders and supporters. Using a simple format this study edition follows a five-step process:
- Read a lesson from a biblical character study.
- Consider provocative questions used to cement your knowledge of the helps principles.
- Ponder explanations of each principle to add further insight.
- Discuss questions to prompt discussion in a group setting.
- Act with practical assignments designed to put the principles into practice.
The insightful truths shared in In the Spirit of Armorbearing Small Group Study Edition will provide valuable instruction to develop leaders and supporters in the local church.
Armorbearing is an administration of the ministry of helps. Our Father God has provided a divine endowment to serve effectively...
A Lesson from Two Deacons
Stephen and Phillip, two of the first deacons, demonstrated an anointing to serve. They started out waiting tables in the Apostles’ feeding program. The Apostles qualified the first deacons with certain qualities that should be present in all who serve. At first glance, the Scripture only says that Stephen and Phillip were filled with the Spirit, wisdom, and faith. After examination, I discovered that with these qualities alone, these men were fully equipped.1 Look with me in the Book of Acts chapter 6 at what the Scripture says about these servants and their anointing. In doing so, we will know what it requires to operate effectively in the anointing to serve:
• Holy Spirit. God chose Stephen and Phillip to serve, yet they walked in tremendous power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. To walk effectively in the anointing, we must allow the Holy Spirit to fill us; the same Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to send to help us, counsel us, and guide us in truth.2 The Holy Spirit that empowers us to obey Christ will empower us to serve our Lord. An anointing from the Holy Spirit will evidence your service.3
• Wisdom. The apostle James instructed us, if a man were considered wise, it would be evidenced by his good life and by his actions done in humility. As he further explained wisdom, we can know that Stephen and Phillip served with a pure heart. They were peaceful, considerate of others, submitted to authority and merciful. They served wholeheartedly with sincerity and without selfish agendas.4
• Faith. Saul of Tarsus was still breathing out threats to the early Church at the time these servants of God came along. The largest portion of the New Testament Scripture had not yet been written, however Stephen and Phillip were full of faith. They exemplified their faith by what they did. Stephen was noted for his working of miracles among the people. Phillip’s faith exemplified his ability to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised us that we could do the same marvelous acts of faith and even greater, “…anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father…You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it.” 5
Just as any other ministry, it takes more than natural ability to effectively fulfill the ministry of serving. It takes an anointing (a supernatural enablement) from the Holy Spirit. We may pattern our service after men full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, and faith walking in the anointing of the Lord.
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Confronting Parallelism: The View from Berkeley
An Interview with John Shalf and David Patterson
(Reprinted with permission from the March 2, 2007 issue of HPCwire. Authors of "The Landscape of Parallel Computing Research: A View from Berkeley" include John Shalf of NERSC and Kathy Yelick and Parry Husbands of the Computational Research Division.)
To explore the important new paper on the challenges of parallelism, "The View from Berkeley," HPCwire talked with NERSC computer scientist John Shalf and David Patterson, professor of computer science at UC-Berkeley. Shalf and Patterson are among the co-authors of "The View from Berkeley."
HPCwire: To what extent has the HPC community learned how to exploit hardware and software parallelism during the past 20 years? Where do things stand today?
Shalf: When the HPC community migrated from vector to parallel machines in the early 90s, the transition was extremely difficult for the first five years. Now, 80 percent to 90 percent of codes have made that transition to MPPs [massively parallel processors] and the community has developed a substantial portfolio of parallel numerical algorithms.
As things stand today, the HPC community has become accustomed to modest increases in system concurrency over the past 15 years. For that matter, the desktop community has become accustomed to virtually no parallelism. As clock frequencies stall, future performance improvements will depend on accelerating the pace of parallelism -- doubling the concurrency of computer systems of all scales every 18 months! The assumptions on which the current generation of codes are founded will break very rapidly under this situation. The software changes necessary to ride this wave of exponentially increasing parallelism will be at least as substantial as the transition from vector to MPP systems.
Patterson: The industry is already betting on multicore for future improvements in computing performance. To use a football analogy, the computing industry has already thrown a "Hail-Mary" pass with the first round of multicore designs. The ball is in the air, but nobody is running yet. That's where things stand today.
HPCwire: Your report is called the "View from Berkeley." What is the view from Berkeley about the challenges of future parallel architectures?
Patterson: The overarching challenge is that we need to find ways to make it easy to write programs that run efficiently on manycore systems. If we don't succeed, then the future of the IT industry looks clouded, because the industry will then face diminishing returns on the value of buying new computers with more cores.
We also offer opinions on good paths to pursue. First, RISC, not CISC. Assuming we can program them, the most efficient hardware in FLOPS per watt and FLOPS per dollar is simple single-issue pipelined cores. Second, manycore, not multicore. We think the target should be hundreds to thousands of simple cores per socket, not four or eight. Third, autotuners, not compilers. We think generating parallel code by dynamically exploring the options heuristically on that computer is a more promising path than producing code only via conventional compilers. Finally, human-centric, not machine-centric programming models. Psychological research on how people design and why people make mistakes shapes HCI [Human–computer interaction] research, but not programming models. We think we should rely on experimental research from psychology to guide future parallel programming models.
Shalf: Underlying all of the arguments laid out in the report is the belief that manycore chip design is our ultimate path forward for future computing systems. We aren't so much wild-eyed advocates for the multicore approach as we are realists. I think Kurt Keutzer, one of the lead authors on the report, sums this up best when he says "This shift toward increasing parallelism is not a triumphant stride forward based on breakthroughs in novel software and architectures for parallelism; instead, this plunge into parallelism is actually a retreat from even greater challenges that thwart efficient silicon implementation of traditional uniprocessor architectures." If you don't accept Kurt's statement at face value, the report provides substantial arguments to turn your opinion around. If you accept that the future of computing is manycore, then the Berkeley View explores the ramifications of that assumption in detail.
Convergence toward manycore for mainstream chips is already apparent. There is the new NVIDIA CUDA GPU, which is moving from the highly specialized pixel and vertex processors of the previous generation of GPUs to 128 more general purpose cores. The recently announced Intel teraflop chip employs 80 simplified cores to hit one teraflop double-precision on a chip that consumes less than 70 watts. Cisco has moved away from its typical ASIC designs towards employing 192 Tensilica cores in the Metro chip, which is the heart of its new high-end CRS-1 router. The common thread is that using hundreds of simpler cores is more power-efficient than attempting to push the clock rate on a few complex cores.
HPCwire: Your new project is called RAMP. Can you tell us what RAMP is, and how it will help in the transition to more parallelism in future systems?
Patterson: RAMP stands for Research Accelerator for MultiProcessing. This project focuses on how can we build low cost, highly scalable hardware/software prototypes, given the increasing difficulty and expense of building hardware. A group of ten faculty members at six institutions (Berkeley, CMU, MIT, Stanford, Texas, and Washington) is exploring emulation of parallel systems via Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The idea is that although FPGAs are slower than real hardware, they are much, much faster than simulators. We believe they are fast enough for the parallel research community to use to evaluate novel ideas in parallel architecture, languages, libraries, and so on.
Despite the project being just 18 months old, we already have two interesting prototypes to demonstrate the potential of the project. For the RAMP Red prototype, Christos Kozyrakis of Stanford led the building of the first Transactional Memory computer using RAMP. This eight-processor system runs PowerPC Linux as the OS and runs SPLASH-2 benchmarks, the C-version of SpecJBB2000 (3-tier-like benchmark), and some AI apps. This single board system runs 100X faster than a simulator on an Apple 2GHz G5 (PowerPC). It should be able to scale to multiple boards relatively easily. In RAMP Blue, John Wawrzynek of UC Berkeley led the building of a message-passing computer using 256 MicroBlazes RISC cores provided by Xilinx, running on eight boards. We demonstrated it by running all the NAS benchmarks, written in UPC.
In both cases, the processors ran at 100 MHz. The RAMP emulation argument is that while this is, say, 20X slower than real hardware, it is plenty fast enough for researchers to run whole software stacks.
We also have a very low cost example. While the two RAMP projects used the BEE2 boards above, which cost about $10K, we also used the $300 XUP board from Xilinx to run full Debian Linux on a 32-bit SPARC processor that comes from an open source hardware group. You just grab the binaries and run them. It runs at 50 MHz. This group just created a multiprocessor version of the processor and a compatible version of Linux, so we expect to demonstrate very low-cost multiprocessors.
HPCwire: Do you think current scientific applications will scale to hundreds of thousands or processors?
Shalf: They have no choice. They have to scale to hundreds or thousands of processors if they have a need for increased performance. There are no alternatives waiting in the wings.
Patterson: It's a shocking statement, but the era of faster sequential processors is over. All hardware companies rely on parallelism for performance, and there are no plans for fast sequential processors.
HPCwire: What will be the biggest challenge for commercial applications -- when future multicore chips arrive with 32 to 128 cores?
Shalf: The programming model for managing massive parallelism has been driven by the needs of the HPC community. As such, it has evolved in a manner that is extremely complex so that it could suit the needs of a handful of parallel programming experts. I don't think the current model is appropriate for a broader audience of software developers. In fact, the complexity and arduousness of existing parallel software development environments is leading to what can only be characterized as widespread panic in the mainstream software development community.
Many commercial software vendors are attempting to side-step this issue by questioning why such high concurrency is necessary in the first place. Why would a word processor or PowerPoint require 128 cores? Does that annoying talking paper clip really need more compute power? That point of view is very short-sighted and limited primarily by a lack of imagination. As someone once said, we won't be done until we match the capabilities of the computers we see in our favorite science fiction, so we have a long way to go.
Patterson: We get questions along the lines of, "What could you possibly run than needs 128 cores on a laptop?" This reminds me of the story of the patent examiner in 1870 who decided that everything of importance had been invented, so he quit his job to look for something permanent. Or that 640KB ought to be enough memory for PCs. We think the most exciting software has yet to be written, and it's going to be highly parallel.
HPCwire: At what point will the current programming paradigm begin to break down?
Shalf: It is already broken. Witness the hand-wringing over Blue Gene/L. And yet, with the current path we're on, the concurrency of Blue Gene will be eclipsed by the first petaflop-scale systems based on more conventional multicore desktop computing technology. If the industry moves to manycore, as our report suggests is our ultimate destination, then the concurrencies, represented as the number of cores, will expand by another order of magnitude.
Patterson: I agree with John. Threaded applications like J2EE are ready for lots of threads, so they'll be okay, at least for multicore servers, but it's not clear what is the right model with thousands of threads.
HPCwire: What attributes will the future programming model need?
Shalf: It has to be human-centric and focused on how users interact with systems. It has to be this way to reduce errors and to reduce uncertainty in the results when errors occur. There are the competing requirements of exposing all the features of the hardware so that experts can tune it, versus providing an elegant way of expressing the problem, such as domain-specific languages.
Often, computer scientists depend on introspection to design next-generation programming languages or the elements of new programming models. Tim Mattson of Intel pointed out to our group that when psychologists actually tested these assumptions, they often found the introspection to be dead wrong. Given that the process of programming is done by humans, it would be good to use the tools of psychology to pick apart that process.
Patterson: The "View from Berkeley" talks mainly about the process that John mentioned, but there are a few specifics that seem glaringly obvious. To maximize programmer productivity, programming models should be independent of the number of processors, allow programmers to use a richer set of data types and sizes, and they should support successful and well-known parallel models of parallelism: independent task parallelism, word-level data parallelism, and bit-level data parallelism.
HPCwire: How do you get people to move to a new paradigm when there's always some pain involved?
Shalf: People will adopt a new programming model only when their backs are against the wall. The rapid acceleration of system concurrency is going to press our backs against that wall in short order. When MPPs began to supplant the vector machines, scientific application developers explored alternative strategies including PVM, MPI, and eventually HPF to see which software ecosystem provided the right direction for the future. The MPI plus Fortran and C ecosystem has been stable for years due to relative stability in the underlying hardware platform. The hardware climate is about to change considerably, so the ecosystem is going to have to evolve to accommodate those changes.
HPCwire: With exponentially increasing concurrency, will some of today's "embarrassingly parallel" applications need to be renamed "humiliatingly parallel"?
Patterson: I've always been struck that we apologize when we do have success at parallelism. There is nothing wrong with task-level parallelism, like we see at Google. The fact that important codes like Monte Carlo or MapReduce are highly parallel is a good thing. We should change the labels to "successfully parallel" or "brilliantly parallel."
Shalf: Attention to locality of communication is the essential feature that enables good scaling, and that can be very difficult to design. For instance, the Cactus Computational Toolkit, which has consumed a large fraction of my life as a contributing developer, scales efficiently to tens of thousands of processors, but it has very demanding communication requirements. It scales because the requirements are well localized by design – not because the communication is trivial.
I agree with Dave that we need to change the lexicon. It is neither embarrassing nor trivial to write scalable algorithms, nor should it be "humiliating" to employ algorithms that are naturally scalable.
HPCwire: To what extent will current algorithms and codes need to be fundamentally rethought and rewritten?
Patterson: In the past, it wasn't clear if it was worth the effort, as you could wait for faster uniprocessors. If you care about performance, there is now no choice but to parallelize. We also comment in the paper that in the past, programmers thought less than linear speedup on an MP was a failure. The new conventional wisdom is that given the universal switch to parallel computers, any speedup via parallelism is a success. Hence, now is the time to rethink and rewrite.
Shalf: The designs of current codes are founded on assumptions that are no longer true. This is natural. Nothing lasts forever.
HPCwire: How much can the HPC community be helped by other domains, such as embedded computing?
Patterson: To the surprise of the representatives of HPC and embedded computing in our group, there is more in common than either group expected. Both embraced parallelism long before the desktop computing community, and both seem more willing to change codes to embrace parallelism than the desktop community.
Shalf: The Cisco Metro chip and Blue Gene/L both provide examples of convergence toward manycore architecture, but they also point to a convergence between embedded and high-end computing technology. As Dave points out, the embedded and HPC worlds are not as far apart as originally thought, and the common need for more computationally efficient designs has pushed us even closer together. In the past, the desktop paradigm targeted performance at any cost. It was all about who could make the fastest processor. Two chief concerns going into the future are power consumption and cost effectiveness. While the desktop world is still in the process of turning their huge ship around, the embedded world has been concerned about optimizing cost and power consumption since its very inception! We have a lot to learn from the embedded computing industry.
Blue Gene is an excellent example of how the flow of innovation is starting to trickle upward from embedded computing to high-end computing rather than trickling down. This upward flow will increase in the future because the embedded folks know considerably more about power efficiency than the high-end computing market does.
Patterson: More specifically, as John says, the focus on energy efficiency is another common concern, as flops-per-watt are important for both battery life and to best use the limited power and cooling ability of a data center.
HPCwire: Can anything be done for legacy engineering codes that don't scale well and can't easily be rewritten because they've been certified based on years of experience and incremental refinements?
Shalf: I can appreciate that concern because I've spent some time as an engineer, and know how arduous the certification processes can be. Even in academic scientific applications such as numerical astrophysics, it takes years for a research group to convince themselves and their community that the code is producing credible answers. If they recode their applications, then they are subjected to a nontrivial revalidation process.
So, in short, it's going to be a real problem for them. We certainly don't have a magic bullet to offer. It's not even clear to me if the ultimate solution for them actually exists yet, even assuming they commit to recoding. The "View from Berkeley" report is identifying the future direction of computer architecture and defining a research agenda that matches the challenges that result from these changes. Since it is research, we are not claiming to have the answers a-priori. However, we are saying that failing to develop a good solution to these problems will guarantee failure for the industry as a whole.
HPCwire: How confident are you that the HPC community has the technical ability to overcome the challenges of increasing parallelism?
Patterson: If the HPC community doesn't have the technical ability, heaven help the hardware industry, which is betting its future on someone having this ability. I would think HPC has more people with experience at large scale parallelism than any other computing community. If this is not the case, then I think multicore will be another force pushing towards centralization of computing via software as a service. To put it simply, multicore and manycore are great for Google, even if it may be an exciting challenge to Microsoft.
Shalf: Necessity is the mother of invention. The HPC community is known to sustain considerable innovation in the face of sea changes in computer architecture. I'm not saying it won't be painful and potentially costly, but they can do it.
HPCwire: How confident are you that the HPC community has the will power to do this?
Shalf: It's not necessarily about will power. If they need more performance, there isn't some alternative architecture waiting in the wings to save them. Our current field of algorithms is a product of the machine architectures we have become familiar with. The fact that we will need to reopen this area of exploration is not unprecedented. That is not to say that good science only happens at massive concurrency – good science comes in all sizes. But if you need performance, massive parallelism is going to be the only game in town.
Patterson: This question sounds like there is a choice. If Bill Gates and his company don't have enough money to find alternatives to parallelizing their codes, then I'm pretty sure the HPC community doesn't have any alternatives either.
HPCwire: Can the HPC community mentor the larger IT market where parallelism is concerned?
Patterson: Absolutely. The HPC and embedded communities have the most experience at highly parallel systems, which is why we brought experts from those fields together to create the Berkeley View. We intend to continue to leverage that expertise in our plans to help show the larger IT market how to write programs that run efficiently on manycore systems.
To learn more, go to http://view.eecs.berkeley.edu to see the wiki, blog, video of lectures, or YouTube-style video interview; or read the paper at: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-158.pdf. To learn more about RAMP, visit http://ramp.eecs.berkeley.edu.
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In our document 'Reconciliation in Communion: A Word to the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church', we reveal our concern for the present and future states of the Episcopal Church (USA). One of the ways we do this is by focusing, in two different points of address, on the place of youth in our church. In what follows, I will begin by summarizing the recent report by the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church, in which alarming decreases in church membership are discussed. I will, however, focus specifically on a point that is only lightly touched upon in the same report: the dearth of young people currently in the Episcopal Church. Far from being a marginal issue, this should be of overriding, central concern. In the second section, I will reflect on the fact that the Church, through its liturgical and catechetical practices, already values young people; I will contrast this predisposition with contemporary practices and debates in the section that then follows. The penultimate section of this paper consists of suggestions for further points of sociological inquiry and statistical analysis that may serve to more effectively guide our Anglican province in reaching out to young people. My conclusion is a thought experiment on a more painfully personal level, reflecting on how the future of the Episcopal Church (USA) is not just in the hands of its own youth, but in the hands of those outside of it, as well.
This tract is also available in .pdf
“He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise he was an old man for old men, that he might be a perfect master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise.”
- St. Ireneaus, Against the Heresies
In our document 'Reconciliation in Communion: A Word to the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
', we reveal our concern for the present and future states of the Episcopal Church (USA). One of the ways we do this is by focusing, in two different points of address, on the place of youth in our church. In the first of these, we state that we
Encourage the Bishops and Deputies to take with the utmost seriousness the recently released report by the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church. In particular, we request that “youth and young adults” be returned to our list of top priorities for the next Triennium. We fear that a church that places little emphasis on the young is a church that risks placing little emphasis upon its own future
This is immediately followed by the second point, in which we
Encourage the leadership of the church, particularly the Bishops, to pursue constructive and charitable relationships with those that are currently estranged from the Episcopal Church, remembering that our quarrels and divisions will become burdens borne principally by future generations
In what follows, I will consider the ways that these two points are related for American Episcopalians today. I will begin by summarizing the recent report by the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church, in which alarming decreases in church membership are discussed. I will, however, focus specifically on a point that is only lightly touched upon in the same report: the dearth of young people currently in the Episcopal Church. Far from being a marginal issue, this should be of overriding, central concern. In the second section, I will reflect on the fact that the Church, through its liturgical and catechetical practices, already values young people; I will contrast this predisposition with contemporary practices and debates in the section that then follows. The penultimate section of this paper consists of suggestions for further points of sociological inquiry and statistical analysis that may serve to more effectively guide our Anglican province in reaching out to young people. My conclusion is a thought experiment on a more painfully personal level, reflecting on how the future of the Episcopal Church (USA) is not just in the hands of its own youth, but in the hands of those outside of it, as well.
I. Raw Data
: Membership in the Episcopal Church
The report by the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church, published in the Blue Book for General Convention 2009, offers a stark and disconcerting perspective on present trends within the Episcopal Church. Relying upon census data collected for the years 2003 – 2007 (inclusive), two statistics immediately stand out: first, the Episcopal Church lost more than 6% of its membership during this period and, second, it has lost an even greater percentage of its Average Sunday Attendance. These net losses must be contextualized by an additional inquiry made by the Committee into the age demographics of the Episcopal Church. Most simply put, the uneven distribution of age groups within the Episcopal Church is resulting in “a natural decline of 19,000 members per year.” More specifically, due to the heavy demographic skewing of our church’s population towards those who are 65 years of age and older, the number of deaths in the Episcopal Church so outweigh the number of births within and conversions into the church that the net growth in annual membership is, in fact, a net loss of 19,000 people. In the words of the same report, “we lose the equivalent of one diocese per year.”
The Episcopal Church has an age distribution that correlates weakly with that of the United States of America. Whereas 25% of the USA’s population consists of those 17 years of age or younger, the same age group comprises only 16% of the Episcopal Church’s membership. Conversely, and at the opposite end of the distribution of age groups, 13% of the national population is above the age of 65, but more than twice this percentage – 27%, specifically – composes the Episcopal Church’s membership in the same cohort. Such variance between the church and the wider nation is not unique to this group, however; although 23% of the national population is between the ages of 18 and 34, only 12% of our church – nearly one-half of the national statistic – is in this age subset. Those between 35 and 49 years of age are present in the church in almost the same percentiles that they are present in wider population; those between 50 and 64 years of age are slightly overrepresented in the national church. This radical discrepancy between the church’s membership and that of the nation it is called to serve indicate that the Episcopal Church is not only out of touch with the United States of America, but increasingly losing touch with the same.
The HODCSC report contains a brief discussion about youth in the Episcopal Church. First, it notes that we retain only half of those that are brought up in the church. One can argue that this means the proverbial glass is “half full.” This is the take given within the report itself: “Despite these trends of decline, about fifty percent of “cradle Episcopalians” are being retained.” However, one-half of those up to 17 years of age is a mere 8% of the church’s total membership. Taking an optimistic view of this particular trend risks missing the larger point: not only are we losing approximately half of the next generation of Episcopalians, but those that we do retain amount to less than 10% of the church’s membership. To assume that those who remain will have the will power and the vision to keep the church going in the forthcoming decades is to hope for quite a lot, and perhaps unrealistically so.
Second, and of even greater concern, the HODCSC report notes that despite this underwhelming statistic, youth and young adults have been removed as one of the top mission priorities for the national church! Thus, not only is the Episcopal Church losing its already disproportionately small base of youth, but it is undermining its capacity to keep this important group from leaving in the first place. In sum, if current trends continue, the age distribution within the church will look like an inverted pyramid: the largest number of members, which should constitute the base, will be at the top; the smallest number of members, which should constitute the peak, will be at the bottom. Such a structure cannot stand. By removing an emphasis upon youth and young adults from its mission priorities, the leadership of the Episcopal Church might as well declare to both the United States of America and the wider world that it has little, if any, discernible interest in its future – especially when it comes to its very own.
II. A Sub-Culture of Life; a School of Virtue
Given my use of the phrase by “sub-culture of life”, I should state from the outset that I am not intending to duplicate arguments made by the late Pope John Paul II about a “culture of life” set over and against a “culture of death.” Rather, sub-culture of life
is intended to convey two ideas. First, it argues that the Church is not a culture parallel to the wider society, but is instead a sub-culture embedded within the wider society, and must pursue a critical negotiation with the norms of the same. The Church, as a trans-cultural, historically bound community, has its own values and practices – its own culture, so to speak. However, aspects of the external culture are sometimes adopted by a church in local settings, either to its detriment (such as when Episcopalians allowed for slavery and segregation), or to its benefit (such as when Episcopalians allowed themselves to be transformed by, and to subsequently join in, the Civil Rights movement). To take an Anglican ecclesiological perspective, each Anglican province is geographically coterminous with a particular country or bloc of countries. Thus, each Anglican church – like every church, I would argue – is part of, rather than parallel to, the geographical boundaries that define its own institutional structure. The sense of the Church as a local sub-culture is not, however, a uniquely Anglican idea. Rather, it is seen in the history of early catholic Christianity, such as when the Church adopted the language of the philosophical schools for its own growth and development, even as it set out to transform the larger culture by making converts – a philosophical, rather than religious concern in late antiquity – to the Church, rather than to other philosophical schools or religious cults.
Second, and no less importantly, describing the Church as a sub-culture of life
explicitly affirms that it has historically valued and liturgically marked and celebrated human growth and development in each of its stages, from infancy through childhood, onward through puberty, marriage, parenthood and, eventually, death. These liturgical practices are rooted in the Church’s own long-standing moral conviction that human life is an inherently good gift from God that reflects, in manifold ways, the Divine image. Thus, the Church baptizes infants and teaches children; youth are confirmed in their transition to adolescence; marriage is blessed; the experience of parenthood (and grandparenthood, for that matter) is recognized through the baptism of newborns; and, at the time of death, life
is commemorated and resurrection is proclaimed through Christian burial. We must remember, however, that sacramental and liturgical practices which coincide with transitions on life’s way do not sanctify these transitions as such but, instead, effectually signify God’s own presence and grace at every point on our spiritual pilgrimage.
If the Church is indeed a sub-culture of life, what does this mean for our young people? There are many facets that define the Church, and any question about the place of young people within the church must yield an answer that gracefully dovetails with what the Church already knows itself to be. Although its full and final membership is known to God alone, the Church is nonetheless a visible community of baptized persons under the guidance of a bishop in apostolic succession, where the Word (i.e., the Scriptures) are preached truly and where the Sacraments are rightly administered. If young people are to (visibly) belong to the Church, they are to belong to precisely this biblical, sacramental, episcopal community. These three, each according to their own end, are equally important. The Scriptures are, as St. Paul wrote to the young man Timothy, “inspired of God, and are useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” In other words, divinely inspired teaching prepares us for good works that we, as Christians, must do. Yet, the Scriptures do not stand alone, but exist alongside the sacraments. We are made regenerate and brought into the Church through baptism; we are gracefully sustained over the course of our lives through the Eucharist. Word and Sacrament are, furthermore, under the direct oversight of the local bishop who, as the successor to the apostles, has the authority and responsibility to make sure that the administration of both remains undefiled. Because Word and Sacrament are bound together in the Divine Service, the biblical equipping for, and the sacramental sustaining of, Christian life are given their fullness in the liturgical assembly which is always under the authority of the local bishop.
It is here that we must incorporate another facet of the Church’s self-understanding. To borrow from Richard Hooker, “the Church of Christ is the most absolute and perfect school of all virtue.” Ideally, this schooling begins within the interlocking matrixes of the Church – defined above as the biblical, sacramental, episcopal community – and the Christian family, which – again, ideally – initiates this schooling by bringing its newborns to the font of regeneration. Parents seek to consecrate their children unto God through baptism; the Church responds by following Christ’s command and baptizing them. By doing so, the Church shows that it does not merely welcome but desires the youngest of the young as one of its very own, and thereby vows to spiritually birth and nurture the infant at its apostolic breast. The Church – comprised, at the parish level, of the entire baptized community – teaches the faith to the young, trains them in piety, disciplines them unto virtue and, just as importantly if not more so, assists parents with doing the same. The beauty and nobility of these images should not blind us, however, to the fact that the vow of the Church is not an absolute guarantee that the child will receive the faith or pass it on. Bishop Thomas Breidenthal’s observation that “Parental anxiety is the type of all Christian care” is as prescient as it is uncomfortably true. Therefore, the depth and intensity of the Church’s care must itself be disciplined; nurture must never, ever become akin to coercion, no matter how tempting, noble, or necessary it may sometimes seem to be. In this way, common values – discipline, grace, and humility – may give rise both to a common moral discourse and to common expectations between those who are in authority and those who are not. The Church, as both the sub-culture of life and the school of virtue, not only guards those who are “the least of these” but allows itself to be “converted” by them into the likeness of Christ. Put somewhat differently, having received the gift of baptism, the newborn necessarily becomes the paradigm for all Christian self-understanding.
III. A Definite Theological Problem
Given the rich congruence between liturgical celebration and the stages of life, why are young people so underrepresented in the Episcopal Church (USA); why do half of these young people later leave; why is it that people between the ages of 18 and 34 – the age bracket in which most people start their own families – are the most underrepresented demographic in our church today? These are hard questions that need to be asked, not least because their answers may be intertwined; it is hard to imagine, for instance, that the shortage of young people within the national church is unrelated to the even greater shortage of those who are beginning to start their own families. Without any hard data on point, answers given to these questions can only be provisional. However, because they are provisional they can operate in a broadly heuristic fashion, and provide some significant points for theoretical consideration and sociological exploration as we pursue more informed answers. In what follows, I will not attempt to answer these questions, but to set forth the broad outlines of a theological critique of wider cultural trends that are at variance with the Church’s own values.
As a sub-culture, one way of explaining shifts in our church’s demographics can be done by looking at trends in the larger culture. It would be a considerable understatement to write that Anglican sexual ethics have undergone a tremendous shift in the twentieth and, now, early twenty-first centuries. Western sexual ethics as a whole have undergone an equally large if not greater shift during this same time period, and they show little sign of standing still. How do these changes impact children within the life of the Church? Jon Davies sees two issues, in which changes in the family and wider cultural developments perpetuate one another. First, he argues that “whereas ‘sex’ – historically centered in the family and in procreation – once expressed and symbolized the stability of relations between the sexes and the generations, it now – freed from both its familial and procreational purposes – expresses the individualized freedom of the sexual market.” This leads to his second argument, made in a brightly polemical essay entitled ‘Welcome the Pied Piper’. Here he labels this “individualized freedom of the sexual market” as the ideology of ADORASS – “the Adult Orgasm Association.” For the first time in history, he writes, “the concerns of adults take center stage” in society and in marriage, and have thereby marginalized the needs of children. His primary target is the Church of England’s liturgy for marriage in the Alternative Service Book which, like the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer, places procreation last on its list of the purposes of marriage. Davies sees such changes as reflecting a larger shift in both worldview and practice. He does not believe that the old way is necessarily better, but he does believe that “it is the child-free vocabulary of ADORASS that now dominates and children as our direct responsibility will steadily disappear as both subject and object of social discourse.” If given a choice between the present tendency and that of the past, Davies believes that the older assumptions and practices are better for the young.
It should be emphasized that Davies is not talking here about promiscuity, but about marital life and the sexual and familial dynamics that define and are defined by marriage. If he is right, then a broadly consumerist ideology in which pleasure is capital now defines our sexual mores, both within and outside of marriage. Perhaps Karl Marx was all too observant with his poetically articulated, polemically charged statement that under capitalism, there is an “uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions” in which “all fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away.” This analysis is not far removed from that given by Davies; like him, Marx sees the pre-capitalist family as being defined by “venerable prejudices” – a seemingly contradictory statement if ever there was one, and which highlights the lack of a perfect solution for how the family ought to work. Both thinkers are concerned that capitalism has enthroned the individual as the basic economic unit, and that because of this we can only expect that the larger networks of relationships that constitute human society will be in flux and, therefore, dissolution. Unlike Marx, however, Davies appeals both to the Church as the primary institution for valuing children and to the nuclear family, which he defines as “the institution within which genders and generations transact, negotiate and elaborate their prototypical identities and moral careers.” Ideally, as argued above, the Church and the nuclear family would operate as interlocking matrixes for the good of the young. If this ideal is not striven for, and if cultural trends continue as they have been doing, Davies concludes (and I concur) that “We will be a lonely crowd, kept apart by sex.”
Have these sorts of values – the preference for adult needs over those of children, and the enthroning of the individual over larger and deeper networks of relational commitments – begun to infiltrate the Anglican Communion, either in whole or in part? It may come as a surprise to some readers that debates within the Anglican Communion about sexual morality and the wider network of family commitments are not merely or even primarily the result of current societal arguments about the same. For Anglicans, the history of these arguments extends at least as far back as the Lambeth Conference of 1930, which stated in its fifteenth resolution that “in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles.” This resolution provoked a pointed response from no less than Charles Gore, who wrote in protest that historically “The Church has regarded Birth Prevention as sinful because, like other sensual practices commonly called unnatural, it is a deliberate enterprise taken in hand to separate absolutely the enjoyment of the sexual act from its natural issue.” Although the Conference went on in the same resolution to state “its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience”, from Gore’s perspective the proverbial cat was being let out of the bag in such a way that many couples would not only “think that they have a morally sound reason for avoiding
parenthood”, but that “they cannot practise abstinence” either, thereby turning to birth control, which Gore called “the easier course taken.” Given the lack of clear, thoughtful moral guidance on the use of contraceptives, one may ask if Gore has been proven correct – not necessarily, I should add, but through the failures of the church’s present leadership to wrestle with this important issue.
For many if not most Anglicans, I wager, this sort of debate seems more like a dead historical occurrence than a live moral issue. I argue that it is not; happily, I do not argue alone. There seems to be a growing recognition that birth control, which Anglicans do not inherently condemn, ought to be used precisely as Lambeth 1930.15 stated – namely, “in the light of … Christian principles.” Bishop Breidenthal, for example, has written that “The refusal to parent children calls into question the nature of the sexual union because it is such a blatant rejection of the neighbor – the neighbor here being a child.” Such a statement would be fundamentally unimportant if it did not address something that does, in fact, happen. We may, of course, attribute the growing trend of chosen childlessness to wider cultural trends, and this sort of critique has its benefits. Adrian Thatcher, however, warns that this sort of critique can also be “too easy”, because it forgets that undergirding capitalism and its attendant cult of the individual is nothing other than the “pre-modern and deadly sin” of greed. Like Gore, Thatcher is concerned that an unreflective, unfettered use of birth control distorts our understanding of love, undermines family commitments, and ultimately harms children, although – and fairly, I believe – he sees Lambeth 1930.15 as placing a far greater level of restriction upon the use of birth control than Gore did. Even as the Church now lives in a world where contraception is taken for granted and often abused, it must continue to preach and teach the need for children and their care. In Thatcher’s words, “Sexual experience between men and women who are fertile is a bodily self-giving that requires life-long commitment to complete its meaning, and to care for the children who, contraceptive mentalities notwithstanding, may nonetheless arrive.” Such a perspective witnesses to a recognized need for marital commitment – he is adamant that marriage is fundamentally
good, especially for the family – and for the recognition that the needs of children cannot come last within any society – marital, cultural, or ecclesial.
IV. Demographic Inquiries and Future Prospects
In my conclusion, I propose four points for further consideration, each pertaining to different inquiries that our church may wish to pursue in order to both reverse its current trend of rapid decline. First, between 1997 and 2007, almost every diocese in the Episcopal Church had a marked decline in membership; on a national basis, church membership shrank by 9.5% during these same years, with a 7.6% decrease in membership occurring between 2003, when Gene Robinson was ordained, and 2007. Of those dioceses that did grow between 1997 and 2007, less than a handful grew more than 10%: North Carolina increased by 11%, Alaska by 13.1%, Tennessee by 19%, and South Carolina by 23.1%. If the Episcopal Church (USA) wants to know either how to grow or, at the very least, maintain our size, it could do no better than consult these dioceses – South Carolina above all, it would seem. Clearly, they are doing something right. What is it, and how can the rest of us learn to do the same? Second, and rather obviously, what dioceses within our national church have sizable populations of youth, and which of these populations are growing? I suspect that the answer to this question will not be unrelated to the answer to the first question above; I also suspect to bet that one will find a strong correlation between growing dioceses and stable, if not growing, populations of young people. Related to this inquiry are additional inquiries into the value placed on family in these same dioceses, and the prevalence of liturgical celebrations of new life within the parishes of the diocese in question. It may be helpful to then take this information and correlate it with trends in those dioceses that are growing less, remaining stable, or shrinking.
Third, as young people transition from the first cohort (comprising those from birth thru 17 years of age), to the second cohort (comprising those between the ages of 18 and 34), which dioceses are must successful in retaining those persons within the national church? Strong college ministries may very well prove to be the key to keeping more young people in our church; we do well to investigate what works, to strengthen it, and to prune that which yields little or no fruit. Fourth, we must examine our moral teaching and moral witness. Does the Episcopal Church (USA) encourage and bless new life? Do we strengthen and support families in clear, tangible ways? Do we use our rituals, which place such an emphasis upon faith formation in all people – especially those that are newly born – as an opportunity to really give guidance? Or, have our weighty words become rote and empty, divorced from the way of life that they are intended to signify? Each of these four points of inquiry ultimately boils down to a simple question of discipleship: does the Episcopal Church strive to provide each member, throughout every stage of life, with the necessary means for growth in holiness and virtue? At best, I fear, we provide only in the most passive of ways. As the national church continues to shrink by 19,000 people – approximately the size of one diocese – per year, we must study and then act on ways to change the present situation and reverse the present trends.
V. My Brother, My Sister
I conclude on a more deeply personal note. Since the ordination of Gene Robinson in 2003, the Episcopal Church (USA) has increasingly lost members – not just due to death, it should be noted, but due to defections. Between 1997 and 2002, my diocese – Florida – grew by nearly 1,500 active members (from 31,961 in 1997, to 33,494 in 2002); between 2003 and the end of 2007, my diocese shrank by more than 20%, with an active membership at 26,083 members. A rather large parish broke off here in Tallahassee before I moved here. Now known as St. Peter’s Anglican Church, it was affiliated early on with the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, but is now a part of the American Convocation of the Church of Uganda, itself a part of the Anglican Church in North American movement, which aims to create a new Anglican province in North America, thereby replacing the Episcopal Church. I have a number of friends who attend there, several of whom I speak with on a regular basis. I have far fewer friends – less than a handful – who attend St. John’s, where I worship and teach. I have friends at St. Peter’s who are ambivalent about its ecclesiological convictions and actions; I have friends there who disagree with the parish leadership on matters as seemingly central as same-sex marriage. Yet, they continue to attend there rather than at St. John’s. The reason is simple: St. Peter’s has a large number of young people and a dynamic college ministry, and the relational ties between young people there are deep and many. They could not forge such a wide network of substantive relationships with other young people at St. John’s, even if they tried. The reason is simple: there are not very many young people at St. John’s with whom to have such relationships with in the first place. Despite attempting to make converts to my own perspective and way of life, I have yet to meet a single person at St. Peter’s for whom the ideals of ecclesiology ultimately outweighed the emotional and spiritual connections that they have with friends there. This is as regrettable as it is fully understandable.
I do not have any statistics concerning how many young people are in the Anglican Church in North America movement. I do not suspect that it is a numerically large number, although I do suspect it is not terribly smaller than the number currently within the Episcopal Church (USA). I cannot and will not make any attempt to predict the future, although I am intelligent enough to recognize that my own future as an Episcopalian and as an Anglican is very much tied up with both the fragmentation of the Episcopal Church (USA), and the number of young people in the Anglican Church in North America. When the authors of Reconciliation in Communion ask the Bishops to pursue “constructive and charitable relationships with those that are currently estranged from the Episcopal Church”, it is very much because we recognize that “our quarrels and divisions will become burdens borne principally by future generations.” Memory is long; the imagination and its distortions of memory last far longer. Seeds of potential resentment, no matter how seemingly legitimate in the present, may bear disproportionately bitter fruit over the long term. Whether or not any of us like it, the simple truth of the matter is that we will eventually have to work with those who have made different ecclesiological decisions than we ourselves have made. The present leadership ship of the Episcopal Church (USA), like the present leadership of the Anglican Church in North America, has the ability to either make the future more difficult, or to keep from doing so (and, perhaps, even to make it less difficult). As Bishop Breidenthal has wisely – and, perhaps, even prophetically – written, “The generation in power must always deal with the fact that the next generation will have the last word, until in turn it too must give way.” Put somewhat differently, there is no moment more urgent than the present one for beginning to think very, very hard about the crucial and central place of young people in our church.
Bakke, O. M. (2005). When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity
. Fortress Press: Minneapolis.
Breidenthal, Thomas E. (1997). Christian Households: The Sanctification of Nearness
. Cowley Publications: Cambridge and Boston.
Davies, Jon (1997). Sex These Days, Sex Those Days: Will it Ever End? In J. Davies and G. Loughlin (eds.), Sex These Days: Essays on Theology, Sexuality and Society
, 18 – 34. Sheffield Academic Press: Sheffield.
--- (2001). Welcome the Pied Piper. In A. Thatcher (ed.), Celebrating Christian Marriage
, 240 – 249. Continuum/T & T Clark: Edinburgh and New York.
Gore, Charles (1930). Lambeth on Contraceptives. http://anglicanhistory.org/gore/contra1930.html
. Accessed 06.01.2009.
Hadot, Pierre (2002). What is Ancient Philosophy?
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge and London.
Hooker, Richard (1597). Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
. In The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker
, volumes I and II. W. Speed Hill, General Editor. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge and London.
House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church (2009). Report to the 76th General Convention. http://episcopalchurch.org/documents/BlueBook-HODCSC.pdf
. Accessed 04.13.2009.
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels (1848). The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition
. Edited by E. Hobsbawm (1998). Verso: London and New York.
Thatcher, Adrian (2007). Theology and Families
. Blackwell Publishing: Malden, Oxford, Victoria.
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- Happy Birthday, Damian. You lose.
Appearing in "Someday Never Comes"
Synopsis for "Someday Never Comes"
Damian was born of an artificial womb. When his nine-month term cycle had completed, his mother Talia al Ghul took him from the womb and placed him into a pool of water, expecting him to learn to swim as a newborn. One of his nurses warned that this act was foolish, and Talia killed her, causing her body to slump into the pool beside the baby. Damian saw the water change from blue to red as the cold, dead eyes of the woman stared at him under the water. Finally, his mother picked him up, dripping water and blood, and welcomed him to their world.
On his fifth birthday, Talia began training him in swordsmanship, regaling him with a story of Alexander the Great, whom the boy admired. When she mentioned Alexander's father King Philip, Damian stopped fighting, and asked who his father was. She explained that she had chosen not to tell him until a certain time. He would earn the right to know his father's identity when, on his birthday, he could defeat her in a sword fight. On this day, though, she was interrupted by a call from Otto Netz.
While Talia took the call, Damian crept into her bedroom, and in a chest at the foot of her bed, he spotted a piece of dark fabric dangling out. When Talia returned from her phone call, she discovered that Damian had found the Batman's cowl, which she had kept, and had put it on. Smiling, she took it off of him, and explained that while he has some of the Bat in him, he is more. He is Damian; based on the Greek word Damianos for "to tame." He would tame the world, and when that taming was done, the al Ghul dynasty would take shape, and Damian would control it. With luck, she hoped, his father would join them in ruling.
To prepare him for his eventual rule, Talia had Damian train with the League of Assassins to master the art of fighting. She had him learn from musicians, from painters. Every facet of art in life would have to be mastered completely; every subject. Through this education, he would come to understand that he was incapable of nothing when his mind and body worked in tandem. For four years, he trained, and on each birthday, he fought his mother and lost again. Each loss, however, made him want to know the truth of his parentage all the more.
On his tenth birthday, Talia had Damian escape a team of assassins while in free-fall from thousands of feet above the ground. After picking off several with automatic weapons, he downed the rest by trapping them within one of their downed comrades' parachutes. While they fell to their deaths, Damian glided smoothly toward the ground. Talia's training was not yet done, though, and she sent a monstrous man-bat to face her son. Timing his moves just right, Damian leapt into the air and sliced off the creature's wings.
He had decided that it was time for the truth, and he ran up to the chateau where Talia waited. He challenged her again, this time determined to get the truth, finally. After a brutal fight, with the League of Assassins watching, Damian defeated his mother, and she conceded defeat. She promised that she would give him what he wanted while they journeyed to London.
On their submarine, Talia found Damian looking at his father's cowl again. He asked why she had kept it for so long, and she admitted that it was a reminder of the fact that his father had shown her both sides of himself, as she had shown him both sides of hers. Kneeling down in front of him, she presented him with his grandfather's sword, reminding that Damian was to be an al Ghul first, and a Wayne second, always.
In London, Talia had Batman subdued by the Man-Bats, and cryptically revealed that she intended to leave her son - and his son - with him. While she prepared for the coming of a whole new kind of terror, Damian would benefit from his father's guiding hand. And so it was that Batman was introduced to his ten year old son; an accomplished and unabashed killer.
- As Damian was born in an artificial womb, it is possible that his father's genetic material was gathered some time before Bruce Wayne became Batman, and that his sexual relationship with Talia, as Batman, began later.
- This issue was released between issues 12 and 13 of the main series.
- No trivia.
- Write your own review of this comic!
- Discuss Batman and Robin Vol 2 0 on the forums
- Cover gallery for the Batman and Robin series
- Batman (Volume 1)
- Batman (Volume 2)
- Batman and Robin (Volume 1)
- Batman and Robin (Volume 2)
- Batman Confidential
- Batman: Gotham Knights
- Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
- Batman: Shadow of the Bat
- Batman: Streets of Gotham
- Batman Incorporated
- Batman: The Dark Knight (Volume 1)
- Batman: The Dark Knight (Volume 2)
- Detective Comics (Volume 1)
- Detective Comics (Volume 2)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Volume )
Links and References
- No external links.
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Ground is cleared for Saltash Celtic Cross
An area of ground in Cornwall is being cleared ready for a 20m (66ft) Celtic cross to be put up.
Devon and Cornwall Air Cadets have been working at Elwell Woods in preparation for the Saltash Celtic Cross to arrive.
The cross, which will be near the Tamar Bridge, is part of a woodland regeneration programme and it is hoped will attract tourists into the town.
It is anticipated that the cross, designed by Simon Thomas, will be put up in January.Town 're-regeneration'
Joe Ellison, a Saltash town councillor and project leader, said: "This is the final stage. The cross itself is virtually finished now, there's one component still to be manufactured.
"Because of the sheer length it can't go through the Glynn Valley to Saltash so it's going to have to go via the A30 to Exeter and back over the bridge to Saltash."
The cross is made of carbon and resin and will be finished in gold, silver and copper to reflect Cornwall's history of mining.
Mr Ellison said: "We think it will bring visitors into Saltash, who will bring money into Saltash and it will be a good way of re-generating the town."
In January an orchard with up to 20 varieties of Cornish apple will also be planted at the site as part of the project in a bid to restore it to its original use.
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contemporary series His subject matter, primarily figurative, describes the essential in the human condition in a strong and emotionally charged way. Surface texture is an important element in his pieces. The combination of his classical training and experimentation with materials has led to the production of avant-garde art, which combines powerful aesthetic considerations and rich textural surfaces.
Other ideas from Fascination St. Fine Art
Do you have a question?
Do you want the latest news on your favorite artists?
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The Otuataua Stonefields Reserve is about as popular with tourists as Huntly or Island Block, yet it lies only a quarter of an hour from the centre of Auckland and includes half a dozen sites of considerable aesthetic as well as archaeological importance. The paucity of tour buses can probably explained by the fact that the stonefields sit on the shore of the Manukau Harbour between Mt Mangere and the airport, close to Auckland's recently decommissioned sewage works.
Yes, the shoreline still stinks, but a lot of work has gone into regenerating it - three new beaches, which the local council has given the genius names A, B, and C, have been created with sand and shells, thousands of trees have been planted, and a walkway has been laid. And, to be quite frank, I don't want this stretch of coast to completely lose its old smell, in case it starts to attract the yuppie couples who are gentrifying suburbs closer to town and chasing working class darkies away in the process. If the Mangere part of the Manukau Harbour gets too clean and pretty it'll end up on Metro magazine's list of 'Cool places to buy', and we'll see headlines like 'Mangere - the new Mission Bay?' in the Weekend Herald's Lifestyle section. Shit smells better than yuppies and their organic health food shops.
The stonefields themselves are the only sizeable remnant of the huge walled kumara gardens that Maori established across the Tamaki Makaurau peninsula many hundreds of years ago (the Waiohua iwi still has a strong presence in the Mangere area). The crooked, messy walls of the old Maori gardens contrast interestingly with the rigid lines of the walls European farmers built later to keep their stock out of volcanic vents and kumara pits. Ancient karaka and out of control Moreton Bay Fig trees rise out of piles of rock. Here and there the foundations of Maori dwellings can be seen. Rare native cucumbers grow between the stones, and there's even a publicly-owned avocado grove which passers by are invited to sample (the limit is five 'units', a large sign warns sternly).
Muzzlehatch and I were doing reasonably well crossing the stonefields until one of us had the bright idea of wandering from the trail. We ended up half a mile out in the Manukau Harbour, slogging through mud and mangroves in an effort to avoid a flock of hostile bulls and a vindictive electric fence. Things got worse when we tacked back to land and found ourselves in the middle of a quarry full of signs saying things like HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE EXPLOSIVES and DON'T BE A HERO - PHONE 111.
After climbing up a crumbling scoria cliff to escape the quarry we came face to face with one of the descendants of the nineteenth century European farmers who built those stern Protestant walls. In fact, the bloke was so old he may have been one of the wall-builders. After briefing us on the failings of our generation, our fathers' generation, and their fathers' generation, Cedric ordered us back into the high explosives zone, observing that 'I'm not responsible for any damage that occurs there'. He farms in the zone between the stonefields, the quarry, and the airport, and is regularly troubled by burglars. When I protested that we were not the burgling type, and were much more interested in native cucumbers, the old duffer became even less impressed with us. 'How do I know you're not something worse, then, eh? We've got the Japs and the Jerries knocking on the door, you know...'
After prolonged negotiations we were awarded safe passage up his cattle race and back to Muzzlehatch's car. A couple of stiff drinks and some greasy takeaways were in order.
Here are a couple of photos of Auckland's stonehenge and its surroundings. They're blurred because, let's face it, Muzzlehatch's camera is crap.
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ABSTRACT: Two-dimensional (2D) PAGE was used to detect proteins induced in Streptomyces scabies by potato suberin, a lipidic plant polymer. Nineteen up-regulated proteins were excised from 2D gels and analysed by N-terminal sequencing or tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Four of the up-regulated proteins could be linked to the bacterial response to stress (AldH, GroES, TerD and LexA). Specific metabolic pathways seemed to be activated in the presence of suberin, as shown by the increased expression of specific transporters and of enzymes related not only to glycolysis, but also to nucleotide and amino acid metabolism. Suberin also appeared to influence secondary metabolism as it also caused the overproduction of the BldK proteins that are known to be involved in differentiation and secondary metabolism.
Molecular Plant Pathology 12/2008; 9(6):753-62. · 3.90 Impact Factor
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Win These Wheels...... Get a Bike Too[read more]
Ardennes+ and Ardennes Tubular Disc Wheels
For Immediate Release - Vanquish Update
But... it is a fact that carbon rims get hotter because they hold heat better. We have serious questions about the amount of heat a tire can take. Rubber and butyl may not withstand as much heat as the rim itself can, and frankly we're concerned about tires and tubes failing because the Vanqish rims can get much hotter than alloy rims during really hard braking.
They'll be available as a disc brake model in 6 weeks.[read more]
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Monday, November 5, 2012
The wind is causing some power line problems in south Wichita, and it's causing one woman to live in fear of the sparks that shower her yard on windy days.
Cathy Carter says every time the wind blows sparks fly in her backyard. You can see the problem. Trees limbs are resting on the power line.
"They say within a year they will be out," said Carter, "I've replaced my power boxes twice because of power surges, and I can't keep doing it."
Carter called Westar Energy again Monday morning. While we were shooting the story, a crew came by, assessed the problem and trimmed the trees right away. Westar says if you see limbs on power lines or sparks, call them immediately.
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The Dodd-Frank law long ago disappeared down the rabbit hole of the rule-making process — and theres a lot of interesting stuff going on down there.
As the lawyers at DavisPolk point out in their Dodd-Frank progress report for the month of May, Dodd-Frank required regulators to write 398 rules. So far, regulators have missed 148 of the 221 rule-writing deadlines — two-thirds — that have already passed.
You shouldnt blame the regulators. Mr. Dodd and Mr. Frank sponsored a bad law. Appointees and civil servants face an impossible task. To see how regulators are stuck with a knot impervious to untangling, look to just one rule just now completed.
Remember, Dodd-Frank was supposed to end bailouts. In signing the bill nearly two years ago, President Obama said that the law would ensure "[t]here will be no more tax-funded bailouts — period." The presidents signature has now required the FDIC and the Treasury Department to formulate a rule governing . . . future bailouts.
Last week, the FDIC and Treasury announced their final rule to carry out their duties under Dodd-Franks "orderly-liquidation authority." This orderly-liquidation authority, regulators explained, "is intended as a limited exception to bankruptcy."
Under this liquidation mechanism, the FDIC has "broad authority" to use money borrowed from the Treasury to take over and run an otherwise-failed financial institution, not necessarily a bank. As the FDIC and Treasury note, this job could include
continu[ing] key operations, services, and transactions that will maximize the value of the firms assets and avoid a disorderly collapse in the marketplace.
The FDIC and Treasury have now determined just how much of a burden — "maximum obligation limitation" — it can take on with borrowed taxpayer money.
Answer: in the long term, for each bailout, not more than "90 percent of the fair value of the total consolidated assets of each covered financial company."
This rule-making confirms a Dodd-Frank problem: The government can still take over a financial firm and use vast amounts of taxpayer money to take on that firms obligations to bondholders, derivatives-trading counterparties, and other creditors — obligations that otherwise would pass through the bankruptcy process.
And "maximizing the value of the firms assets" will just be an excuse for the government to run the firm as long as possible. Thats what has happened in Britain, with the Cameron government afraid to sell off Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds and realize a loss for the taxpayers. Its not the governments job to maximize value for private creditors. Investors should consider the risk of value-loss stemming from bad financial management — including reliance on short-term debt — before investing in a firm.
Dodd-Franks supporters (are there any now?) would say that orderly-liquidation authority does not constitute a blueprint for bailout, for two reasons.
One reason is that the purpose of orderly-liquidation authority is to "liquidate" the firm. The firm would not survive after eventual "liquidation." No firm, no bailout. This excuse ignores that fact that creditors dont care if a firm is liquidated if theyve been paid off. Orderly-liquidation authority gives creditors, particularly senior creditors, no incentive to scrutinize a firms operations before it goes under.
The second reason supporters would proffer is that the FDIC and the Treasury are supposed to get back any money they spend by levying an assessment on other financial firms, so orderly-liquidation authority doesnt constitute a bailout..
But if Im a shareholder of a large financial firm that doesnt fail, why should I lose a bit of my profit bailing out a firm that should have failed? A bailout socialized by the government through the private sector is still a bailout.
Original Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/297452/rules-bailouts-nicole-gelinas
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Are they really Typos? A typo would be this: "typ9"
You may notice other typos. Not really typos, but... you know what I mean.
It's instead of Its and vicey-versey
I know the difference between It-Is and It-possessive.
But sometimes, in my hast, my fingers type the opposite of what I know. Really. Then I don't catch it. And look like an idiot.
Same with there/their, where/wear, would/wood, that sort of thing.
It's like my fingers hear what I'm thinking, and write what they hear, here.
Not, "Its like my fingers here what I'm thinking and right what they here, hear."
I have no idea why, other than I don't type carefully, or proofread/edit properly.
It doesn't mean I'm some sort of genius. Affect/Effect STILL confuses me, sometimes. If I could wave a magic wand over my scribblings, I'd make it so I felt compelled to proofread them better.
Repost Worth Repeating - Side by Side Let me start off by stating that my daily carry firearm is a small frame 1911 .45ACP with slim grips. I carry it because it's a slim single sta...
27 minutes ago
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Connect to share and comment
From austerity menus to mega-discounting and low-cost packaging, businesses are changing their marketing to profit from Europe’s new poor.
BERLIN, Germany — Three years into the global financial crisis, multinational companies that had made huge profits during the consumer boom that preceded it faced a major dilemma: people were no longer buying the expensive premium products that once sold well in Europe.
That was the complaint from the chief of Unilever’s European operations, Jan Zijderveld, who told the German edition of the Financial Times last August that “poverty has returned to Europe.”
His plan to tackle the challenge was for the world’s third-largest consumer goods company, which owns such brands as Flora margarine and Persil laundry detergent, to market its products as if to customers in Third World countries.
The company would sell more laundry detergent to cash-strapped consumers by offering smaller, cheaper packages, a strategy long employed in Asian countries such as Indonesia, where average monthly wages are less than $400.
More from GlobalPost: London be damned: Scottish artists project new cultural confidence
In Greece, the country hardest hit by the crisis affecting the euro single currency, Unilever now offers mashed potatoes and mayonnaise in small bargain packages, and markets tea, olive oil and other basic products under cheaper generic brand labels.
Others are also adjusting their strategies.
Cut-price “austerity” menus are now common in restaurants across Europe. In France, elite chef Alain Ducasse is trying to entice the masses with a “buy one, get one free” deal in 1,000 participating restaurants, some with Michelin stars.
Spain, Europe’s fourth largest economy, provides a good illustration of the harsh new consumer reality in struggling economies. The country undergoing a spending boom five years ago now has a jobless rate of around 25 percent, poverty that affects 22 percent of the population and the “retail-sector performance has mirrored that of unemployment,” says the Euromonitor International market research firm.
Coffee sales, which often provide a bellwether of retail demand, fell more than 7 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2012, according to the International Coffee Organization. That points to a severe shift in consumer lifestyles in the coffee-loving country.
Billions of dollars in public spending cuts and massive personal tax hikes, among other austerity measures aimed at curtailing the country’s rising sovereign debt, “have had a significant impact on consumer habits, especially consumers with low and medium incomes,” Euromonitor said.
Many local businesses were quick to react.
Forty miles south of Barcelona, Pau Sole runs a tapas bar in the beach resort of Cunit. Located in a part of town that was mostly empty less than 10 years ago, the family-run business grew with the real estate boom that filled the neighborhood with apartments, shops and restaurants.
While most businesses in such developments have suffered since the property market crashed and the debt crisis intensified around 2009, Sole was able to buck the trend by maintaining “very popular” low prices. Sales have been going “very well” since he began offering a cut-price lunch special — two plates, a drink and desert — for only $10.
But in a country in which more than 50 percent of those under 25 are out of work, it’s often only pensioners drawing regular checks who can afford the meals.
“We had a lot of construction workers during the first years,” Sole said. “Now it’s always the elderly who pay the bill. If it weren’t for them, our business would go bust.”
Sole’s restaurant tables tell the story of a country in which the elderly are providing the social safety net for their unemployed children and grandchildren.
Thirty-five-year-old Jose Manuel Soriano, a mechanic who prospered during the bubble years, is typical of Spanish who no longer have the capacity to consume.
He recently bought an apartment north of Barcelona and ate out with his girlfriend at least three times a week. After two years out of work, however, he was forced to move back in with his parents. The rent he changes for his apartment barely covers half his mortgage.
Although Soriano now makes $1,100 a month from a commission-based sales job, “my life is very boring,” he says, “because my [unemployed] girlfriend and I don't have money to spare for leisure. Everything we do is free, such as watching movies at home or going to the beach.”
Buying ice cream is a “luxury.”
More from GlobalPost: UK royals: Topless anger, bottomless support?
As Spanish retailers face ever-shrinking domestic demand, many are trying to entice customers from a country that isn’t so poorly off: China. Department stores are circulating Chinese-language shopping guides, shopping malls have introduced discount cards for Chinese tourists, and retailers are publicizing the fact that visitors are exempt from paying Spain’s high consumption tax, according to the Chinese business publication Stock Market Today.
That’s on top of massive discounting: 70 percent-off signs are a common in districts where luxury designer shoes, bags and cosmetics can often be bought more cheaply than anywhere else in Europe.
With the double-dip recession only growing worse, poverty marketing is probably here to stay. Euromonitor predicts household food spending in Western Europe will drop 2.7 percent in 2012 from last year. In particularly hard-hit countries such as Greece and Ireland, food expenditure is already down almost 9 and 7 percent, respectively.
However, more and more Europeans are falling completely beyond companies’ reach. In Greece, where youth unemployment is now far above 50 percent, there may soon be no one left for marketers to target.
Leta Stavroulaki, 27, an unemployed former kitchen hand from Athens who studied to become a physiotherapist, says there isn’t much she can buy at all.
“I've stopped using the car,” she says. “I've stopped going out to see my friends. I’ve stopped going on trips. Most of my friends are long-term unemployed, too, and they're all desperate. We're stuck in our houses because we don't have money.”
Stuart Braun reported from in Berlin, Nikolia Apostolou from Athens and Meritxell Mir contributed from Barcelona.
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When visiting a new country there is a tendency among many travelers to stick to the more common tourist destinations and activities. For others, an international vacation is an opportunity to explore new and different places that they might have otherwise never seen. Travelers heading to the East Asian nation of Thailand might want to divert their path from the larger cities and explore the sleepy beach village of Bophut on the island of Ko Samui.
Ko Samui is a small island situated off the east coast of the Kra Isthmus in Thailand. Here, tourists will find a collection of seven small towns, of which Bophut is one. Highlighted by its beautiful beach and traditional Thai-Chinese atmosphere, Bo Phut has been gaining acclaim as an out-of-the-way tourist destination, even attracting a number of new hotels and guesthouse developers.
Bophut beach is essentially divided into two halves: the western side which houses the modern hotels, developments and nightlife, and the eastern side that continues the town's traditional heritage as a fisherman's village.
The city is unique in the region in that the island's entertainment and amenities are targeted more toward couples and families than many of their mainland counterparts. These attractions include a go-kart track, a number of romantic restaurants and a sleepy, but rarely empty public beach.
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“I am testing my optimism against the facts, and what I find is that the probability of rapid and server climate change is small; the probability of net harm from the most likely climate change is small; the probability that no adaptation will occur is small and the probability of no new low-carbon energy technologies emerging in the long run is small”
Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist pg.347
Matt Ridley is a noted science writer, the author of several best-selling books on evolution and genetics (Genome, The Origins of Virtue, and The Red Queen). I have several of his books in my collection and until recently regarded him as an interesting writer with a good grasp of science. Indeed Ridley has a doctorate in zoology from Oxford.
We desperately need talented writers to help explain science to a greater lay audience, and for a while Ridley could be counted on discuss evolution and genetics. So, it is with both sadness and dismay that I report the Matt Ridley recent book “The Rational Optimist: how prosperity evolves” is a terrible book.
The book is not badly written, one can’t deny Ridley can string a sentence together.
It’s terrible in the sense that it is horribly misleading on climate science. In fact, it’s so bad that it qualifies as this year’s most dishonest piece of denialist propaganda. His butchering of science ranks up there with the efforts of Christopher “Lord” Monckton’s crude propagandistic attempts to mischaracterize science. In his discussion of climate science Ridley betrays a staggering incompetence.
That bad you ask?
Ridley’s arguments aren’t even sophisticated. He repeats the crudest pieces of denialist propaganda, which anyone with a genuine interest or understanding of science knows are factually incorrect:
- Polar bear populations are rising
- That Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” is broken
- The hoary old “scientists in the 1970s used to believe an ice age was immanent” myth
- Average temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period were higher globally than today
His text is so bad it makes me want to get on a plane, fly to England, track down Ridley and shake him by the collar and say “For ****’s sake man, have you actually read the science?”
Ridley: the new Bjorn Lomborg?
Ridley’s book is a paean to progress and optimism. He takes the long, historical view and argues that everything is getter better. Over the last 5000 years cities have grown, commerce has boomed, we live longer and we now have iPods. Says Ridley:
“This book is about the rapid, continuous and incessant change that human society experiences in a way that no other animal does. To a biologist this something that needs explaining…” (pg.2)
He then goes on in his infectious, bubbly manner for almost 400 pages explaining why everything is so much better and thus will get even better. I wish I could share Ridley’s optimism, but he has built his edifice of “Gosh isn’t it grand!” enthusiasm on a foundation of rotten, misleading denialist propaganda.
The book is a breezy read, but once you start to dig into the references you find serious issues with his arguments. Indeed, Ridley the “Rational Optimist” adopts the same techniques as the “Sceptical Environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg in cherry picking data and misrepresenting science.
For those not familiar with Lomborg, he is a noted climate “sceptic” whose work has been roundly debunked. Lomborg’s tactic is to cite lots of references, but either misrepresent their actual findings our use dubious sources.
It would seem that building your argument on a mountain of misinformation is the new fashion for pro-market ideologues like Ridley and Lomborg. Pro-market ideologue you hear me call Ridley? Indeed, he is one record saying “government is the problem not the solution” (pace Ronald Regan):
Government is a very dangerous toy. It is used to fight wars, impose ideologies and enrich rulers. True, nowadays, our leaders do not enrich themselves (at least not on the scale of the Sun King), but they enrich their clients: they preside over vast and insatiable parasitic bureaucracies that grow by Parkinson’s Law and live off true wealth creators such as traders and inventors.
Sure, it is possible to have too little government. Only, that has not been the world’s problem for millennia. After the century of Mao, Hitler and Stalin, can anybody really say that the risk of too little government is greater than the risk of too much? The dangerous idea we all need to learn is that the more we limit the growth of government, the better off we will all be.
Ridley was also a non-executive director of the Northern Rock, the UK bank that collapsed and had to be nationalised by the UK government during the global financial crises. Indeed, Ridley was criticised for failing to see the warning signs.
Northern Rock, the British lender that last month was the target of the country’s first bank run in 140 years, said Friday that its chairman, Matt Ridley, had resigned…
Northern Rock’s management had asked Ridley to remain in his role at the bank until new funding arrangements were in place but said Friday that “the time is right to accept his resignation.”
Members of parliament had blamed Ridley, 49, and other Northern Rock directors for harming the reputation of the British banking industry by failing to recognize any risks built into the bank’s strategy.
Ridley failed to see warning signs. It would seem he has made a habit of that, facts do tend to dent one’s unimpeachable optimism.
Denialist propaganda case exhibit one: ice ages
In Chapter 10 he opens his discussion on climate change with the following paragraph:
“In the mid-1970s it was briefly fashionable for journalists to write scare stories about the recent cooling of the globe, which was presented as undiluted bad news. Now it is fashionable for them to write scare stories about the recent warming of the globe, which is presented as undiluted bad news…” (pg.328)
Immediately my “spider senses” were tingling. Global warming is a fashionable belief? This is the old “scientists predicted an ice age in the 1970s” myth only slightly amended to change it to “journalists predicted an ice age…” Ridley actually cites the hoary old April 1975 Newsweek article, a trope of the denialist movement that has become is rather tiresome but Ridley still trots it out.
We know conclusively that since the 1970s scientists have been discussing global warming, the influence of CO2 and the risks it poses. Skeptical Science summarises the issue neatly:
“However, these are media articles, not scientific studies. A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 show that few papers predicted global cooling (7 in total). Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming…”
The following graph illustrates the point, showing papers predicating cooling versus warming trends:
What Ridley has done is an intellectual sleight of hand. “See they – journalists, not scientists that is, but never mind the distinction – predicted an ice age! Where is it huh!”
If that isn’t bad enough, things gets worse.
Denialist propaganda case exhibit one: there is a scientific debate
Ridley then goes on to press the idea there is an actual debate about global warming:
I could plunge into the scientific debate and try to persuade you and myself that the competitive clamour of alarm is as exaggerated as it proved to be on eugenics, acid rain, sperm counts and cancer – that the warming of the globe faces in the next century is more likely to be mild than catastrophic; that the last three decades of relatively slow average temperature changes are more compatible with a low-sensitivity model of greenhouse warming; that clouds may slow the warming as much as water vapour may amplify it; that the increase in methane has been (erratically) decelerating for twenty years; that there where warmer periods in the earth’s history in medieval times…
…There are respectable scientific arguments to support all these arguments – an in some cases respectable ripostes to them too. But this is not a book about climate change; it is about the human race an its capacity to change” (pg. 329-330)
This is a “Gish Gallop”.
Named after the notorious creationist Duane Gish, it is a rapid fire presentation of unsupported and bogus “facts” that takes hours of painful deconstruction, chasing down of sources and fact checking.
Ridley tries to imply there is a scientific debate.
There is no debate.
The scientific consensus very much supports the idea the planet is warming due to human activity:
“According to the results of a one-time online questionnaire-based statistical survey published by the University of Illinois, with 3146 individuals completing the survey, 97% of the actively publishing climate scientists (as opposed to the scientists who are not publishing actively) (i.e. 75 of 77 individuals out of the 3146) agree that human activity, such as flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, is a significant contributing factor to global climate change. Overall, 82% reported agreeing with AGW. According to additional sources, the majority of scientists who work on climate change agree on the main points…”
Ridley’s paragraph is fraudulent nonsense.
When one turns to the footnotes section we can see how flimsy Ridley’s arguments are. In order to support his assertion that “average temperatures are more compatible with a low sensitivity model of greenhouse warming” he relies upon one discredited paper by MITs Richard Lindzen.
With the hype surrounding the manuscript, one would think that the article provides a sound, rock solid basis for a reduced climate sensitivity. However, our examination of the study’s methods demonstrates that this is not the case. In an article in press (Trenberth et al. 2010 (sub. requ.), hereafter TFOW), we show that LC09 is gravely flawed and its results are wrong on multiple fronts.
Ridley picks just one paper to support his argument that is fashionable amongst the denial community, but has been shown to be badly flawed by the science community.
For his contention that the average global temperature was warmer during the Medieval Warming Period, her relies upon papers from the dubious journal Energy & Environment. Again, for those not familiar with E&E, it is journal whose editor is a known sceptic and has been involved in numerous controversies over publishing flawed research:
“My political agenda is simple and open; it concerns the role of research ambitions in the making of policy. I concluded from a research project about the IPCC – funded by the UK government during the mid 1990s – that this body was set up to support, initially, climate change research projects supported by the WMO and hence the rapidly evolving art and science of climate modeling…. From interviews and my own reading I concluded that the climate science debate WAS BY NO MEANS OVER AND SHOULD CONTINUE…”
The paper in question is A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies by Craig Loehle. The denial movement loves this paper, I’ve seen it trotted out many times. However, John Cook over at Skeptical Science has taken a very hard look at it:
“The other day I happened upon the Popular Technology blog that has a list of “700 peer reviewed papers supporting skepticism of man-made global warming.” This was news to me so I started to look into the first paper on the list. Loehle 2007 titled A 2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Treering Proxies published in Energy & Environment. I’m sure many Skeptical Science readers are familiar with this paper and Loehle’s 2008 correction. I was not.
I decided to email Dr. Loehle with some questions and got a very prompt response from him. This was followed by a number of back and forth emails. What I got from him was that he believes himself to be one of the scientists whose work is blocked from publication for political reasons…”
Cook notes Loehle excludes critical data:
“The other critique of Loehle’s paper has been that the data ends in 1935. This, from my position in the bleachers of the kung-fu match, is much more problematic for Loehle. I know the paper is not about current warming. I know it’s about treering proxy errors but that is sort of missing the forest for the trees (pun is definitely intended). I understand why the data ends at 1935. But I just can’t buy NOT making the attempt to concatenate this data with the past 150 year of recorded temperature readings. Even if the modern temperature records are not central to the topic of the paper to not add the blade to his hockey stick is a mistake..”
Cook did ask Loehle to provide more up-to-date data, but noted that in comparison with other reconstructions you get a strange mish-mash of “home-mage” hockey sticks:
“What a bizarre, almost absurd, cacophony. What I see in this is a battle of home made hockey sticks. Some straight, some crooked, some short, some long. But I see all our kung-fu masters each beating the other with their own hockey sticks. What’s most strange to me is that it seems like the MWP battles are all about the shape of their hockey sticks and miss the rather more important question of NOW.”
Thus we see just how shakey the foundations of Ridley’s arguments are.
Denialist propaganda case exhibit two: polar bear populations are growing
On pages 338-339 Ridley makes the following claim:
“The polar bear, still thriving today (eleven of the thirteen populations are growing or steady), may contract its range further north, but it already adapts to ice-free summer months in Hudson’s bay by fasting on land till the sea re-freezes…”
“The effects of global warming are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear’s range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed. The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant. The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.
Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season. The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004. Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%…”
While the US Geological Survey notes the following:
“The U.S. Geological Survey predicts two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by global warming. The bears would disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Arctic archipelago of Canada and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they would disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic archipelago.”
And Ridley has a doctorate in zoology?
References and notes: playing fast and loose with the truth
The reader glides through Ridley’s book, buoyed by his cherry exhortations of “Not to worry, all is well!” until you start to examine the footnotes.
Throughout the text, Ridley is ashamed to name his references.
He occasionally mentions an expert here and there, but the text is free from the use of footnotes, the names of studies or research papers. He simply states “facts” with no context or sources is referenced. The reader is pulled along with his enthusiasm.
This is intentional.
Facts do tend to be a bit of downer. But never mind assures Ridley, those pesky things are buried at the back of the book. You don’t have to read them mind you, but if you do… well it’s here that things get ugly real fast.
His footnotes retrospectively reference his arguments in the text. You have to work damn hard to match what he is saying with his sources. One can see why. His entire argument is built upon denialist propaganda. He actually cites “Watts up with that?” as a legitimate scholarly source. I kid you not.
Let’s look at one of the worst examples that screams at you from the pages.
Denialist propaganda case exhibit three: the “Hockey Stick” is broken
The footnote listed on page 415 that discusses “previous warm episodes” to buttress his points on page 334:
“The famous hockey stick seemed to prove that the Medieval Warm Period never happened has since been comprehensively discredited. It relied far too heavily on two sets of samples from bristlecone pine trees and Siberian larch trees that have since been shown to be highly unreliable; it spliced together proxies and real thermometer data in a selective way, obscuring the fact that the proxies did mirror modern temperatures, and it used statistical techniques that made a hockey stick out of red noise..”
These are some of the worst, most debunked pieces of denialist propaganda on the internet and Ridley presents them as facts?
He cites the website Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre, articles form the dubious journal Energy & Environment back up his argument. This are all well-known platforms for “sceptical” views and hardly qualify as genuine sources.
Ridley neatly ties together not one, but two denialist myths. For readers not familiar with the debate around the “hockey stick” see the article on Sceptical Science.
The “broken hockey stick” is a much beloved myth of the denier movement:
“In 2003 Professor McKitrick teamed with a Canadian engineer, Steve McIntyre, in attempting to replicate the hockey stick and debunked it as statistical nonsense. They revealed how the chart was derived from ‘collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects’, substantially affecting the temperature index.”
When in reality:
Since the hockey stick paper in 1998, there have been a number of proxy studies analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes and ice cores. They all confirm the original hockey stick conclusion: the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years and that warming was most dramatic after 1920
I’ve found dozens of other examples in Ridley’s book. I’ll keep posting over these over the coming weeks as I chase down references and provide further evidence of this shear intellectual fraud that Ridley has committed.
Is it deliberate?
I think Ridley believes what he is saying, but he can only maintain his arguments by using a very narrow selection of denialist propaganda.
It’s shameful actually. The book contains page, after page of fallacies, badly sourced facts and outright fabrications.
Ridley claims he has “tested” his optimism against the facts. He has done no such thing. Instead he has indulged on a massive bout of confirmation bias, seeking out information that accords with his arguments and selectively quoting sources to buttress his overall point that “things will always get better”.
Quite frankly, Ridley needs to be called to account on this.
Aspects of denial
Ridley uses two of “The six aspects of denial:
- Magnify disagreements among scientists and cite gadflies - his entire case against the seriousness of global warming rests upon using the work of noted outliers/gadflies such as Lindzen, Tol etc.
- Acceptance repudiates key philosophy - Ridley begins his book with a quote from Adam Smith, and then goes on to sing the praises of the market. He dismisses global warming because it would seem to imply global warming is a by-product of our industrial civilisation. He queries the need to place limits on growth.
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For a lot of pfbloggers and those that read us, the goal seems to be $1 million in net worth (or net worth minus housing). For those trying to attain this goal, you might think that wall street investment companies would be interested in helping you invest. According to Market Watch and a new study by Cerulli Associates, what they will actually consider you is “leftovers.” It seems that $1 million doesn’t buy much respect on Wall Street these days and anyone with “more than $500,000 but less than $2.5 million” to invest gets the “leftover” tag. To get quality treatment on Wall Street, you need to have eight figures to invest:
High-net-worth individuals with eight figures or more in their bank account often receive “family-office-like” treatment, where they get estate planning, trusts services and preferred investor status. These are the kind of investors who were made privy to shares of hot Internet IPOs of the 1990s.
Meanwhile, the rest of us suffice with “commoditized service” as Cerulli puts it. That’s a nice way of saying “off-the shelf.”
The average net worth of a U.S. household is $55,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This is the terrain of discount brokers like Charles Schwab & Co.
It would seem to me that a Wall Street company that would cater to these “leftovers” could do pretty well considering that they represent 10% of total households in the US, even if it were a scaled down version of the eight figure customers. There are always opportunities when segments of the population are being under-served and it will be interesting to see if Wall Street catches on or if it’s a newcomer that taps the potential profits of these investors
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The Community Environment Program (CEP) provides opportunities for residents to actively participate in the 'on-ground' maintenance and management activities of bushland and open spaces in the Fraser Coast Regional Council area, as well as environmental awareness programs including events and education.
Who can participate?
Anyone can be part of the Community Environment Program. Participants should have at least - a keen interest in caring for reserve and open space network; enjoy working outdoors; a desire to learn more about the environment and gain new skills; enjoy working in teams and meeting new challenges.
Participants have the opportunity to undertake some of the following activities within Council's reserve and open space network. These include:
restoring natural areas including tree planting and weed control;
assessing the health of the reserve and open space network;
project planning, implementation and monitoring;
fauna and flora observations and recording;
facilitate and participate in various events such as World Environment Day;
seed collection and propagation; and
other fun educational activities.
If you would like more information, or would like to join a CEP Group please phone Council's Community Environment Officer on (07) 4197 4644.
Upcoming CEP Events / Activities
If you would like information regarding upcoming events please phone Council's Community Environment Officer on (07) 4197 4644.
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The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State's debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy... See full summary »
The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State's debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke's affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins... Written by
Eduardo Casais <email@example.com>
A multi-part story of a grand duke who has run out of money. He is being pushed by wealthy to men to sell off certain property, but he fights back through an alliance with a foreign woman.
Some have made something of the homoerotic opening with boys swimming, especially with Murnau being gay. I will not comment on it further than just to mention it here.
The film specifically referenced paintings, which is no surprise -- Murnau was an art historian. It has been said some directors view film as artists and some as cameramen. Murnau was an artist. This works well, and it is added to by the fact the sets were painted with shadows rather than using lights. A similar technique was used in "Caligari" by Weine's set designers... was this a strictly German invention? Allegedly, only half the original film exists today. Yet, the part that does exist still makes complete sense. Odd. Also allegedly, the anti-Semitism is toned down from the book, even though the character of Markovitz remains. The book is not available in English so this would be hard to verify. The inclusion of any anti-Semitism strikes me as odd, though, as I believe there were Jews working on the set.
While the big name here is director Murnau, pay attention to actor Max Schreck (better known from Murnau's "Nosferatu"), and notice this script was adapted by Thea von Harbou, the wife and creative partner of Fritz Lang.
David Kalat's audio commentary is brilliant and he ought to write a book on Murnau, though he does play down the role of Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Freund, which is a mistake.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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People in Pennsylvania and others living elsewhere expect to return home safely from work each day. Sadly, that wasn't the case for one Pennsylvania man. The 59-year-old was electrocuted while he was working at Wean Hall on the campus of Pennsylvania's Carnegie Mellon University. The man was a contract worker and was employed by the Eaton Electrical Company. Many accidents covered by workers' compensation are not fatal, but this accident resulted in the man's death.
A text message was sent to a number of students to alert them of the accident. The message cautioned that there was no need for special precautions or evacuation from campus. A spokesperson for the university called the work-related incident an "industrial accident" and declined to give further information. Later in the day, the Vice President for Campus Affairs asked those associated with the university to keep the victim and his friends and family in their thoughts and prayers.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death of the man, as it does with all work-related fatalities. Once its investigation is finished, OSHA will create a detailed report that may allude to the individuals or organizations responsible for the event.
Pennsylvania's Workers' Compensation Act is intended to help victims of work-related accidents. This act provides compensation for lost wages and also ensures that medical care is given for injuries that occur on the job. The man's family in this situation may be eligible for death benefits. An experienced lawyer may be able to explain the process of filing for a claim and guide a victim's family through the process.
Source: The Tartan, "Fatal accident in Wean Hall," Brent Heard, Jan. 28, 2013
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Report from the Field: Circumnavigation of the Black Sea II
Published on Friday, October 09, 2009
After individual arrivals at Istanbul Airport we made our way to the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Galata on the northern side of the Golden Horn, the wonderful natural harbor that divides Istanbul in two. In the afternoon many set out to explore the city while some rested after the long journey to Turkey. In the evening we had a welcome wine reception and dinner.
Istanbul / Embark Le Levant / Bosporus Cruising
Today was reserved for a full-day excursion in Istanbul, formerly Constantinople. We all visited Topkapi Palace, where we inspected several of the different museums on the extensive grounds of the palace. We had a delightful lunch at the palace restaurant where we enjoyed spectacular views over the Bosporus.
In the afternoon we had three tour options. One group visited Aya Sofya, the 'great church' of the Byzantines that was for more than 1,000 years, the largest enclosed space in the world. This was followed by a visit to the Blue Mosque, so called because of the myriads of hand painted blue tiles with which it is adorned.
Another group paid an in depth visit to the Archaeological Museum, situated adjacent to Topkapi. One of the spectacular sights on offer was several porphyry sarcophagi in which members of the imperial hierarchy were interred on death. This hard stone is only found in eastern Egypt and large pieces of it weighing several tons were transported to the Red Sea, across the Suez isthmus, then to Rome for carving, and finally to Constantinople, where they remain to this day.
The final group visited Rustem Pasha Mosque, a relatively small edifice near the Spice Bazaar, where there were further examples of beautiful Ottoman tiles. They then visited the Chora Church, situated just outside the old walls of Constantine, a beautiful example of late Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture with wonderful mosaics and frescos still in place.
We then boarded coaches for the short trip to the Galata side of the Golden Horn to embark our ship Le Levant. During our passage through the Bosporus, we noted several Ottoman palaces on both sides of the channel and also the great fortress of Rumeli Husar, which soon after its construction by the Ottomans in early 1452, acquired the name the 'throat cutter,' as it was ideally placed to control traffic along the Bosporus.
Bartin / Amasra
We awoke to find Le Levant in the cozy little harbor of Bartin on the northern coast of Turkey. Our plan for the morning was to visit the ancient seaside town of Amasra, some 40 minute drive along the coast. We arrived and divided ourselves into three groups. The hikers set off for the important promontory overlooking the town. They accomplished this feat with ease and then descended to the small, but excellent Archaeological Museum. The walkers started at the Museum and then completed a stroll up into the oldest part of town where they admired buildings full of character, some dating from the period in which the Genoese occupied the town just before it was taken over by the Ottomans. Some of the streets had a recognizable Italian flavor, showing that once a cultural imprint is in a place it is almost impossible to remove it, even during the passage of centuries. The amblers went straight to the Museum and all three groups coalesced there. We returned to the ship and after lunch our lecture program for the trip began. The first speaker was Ian Stone, who lectured on the subject Sailing to Byzantium followed by Paul Harris whose topic was The Making of Modern Turkey. The evening was concluded with Captain Erwann LeRouzic's welcome cocktail party and dinner.
Samsun / Amasya
Today our adventures began in the important port of Samsun, our base for a visit to the city of Amasya. Located in a narrow valley of the Yesilirmak River, Amasya's history reaches back 3,000 years, during which many civilizations left priceless remains of their times. Many of us explored the wonderful Beyazit II Mosque and strolled through the old town admiring the ancient houses eventually reaching the Ethnographic Museum; an Ottoman house reconfigured as it would have been in the 19th century. The hardy climbed up for a closer look at the Pontic Tombs, the final resting place of Pontic Greek kings, carved into the cliffs overlooking the river around which the city lies. Meanwhile some opted to visit the interesting Archaeological Museum in the town.
We then mounted our coaches for the dizzying ride up out of the valley to the Ali Kaya Restaurant perched high on a cliff overlooking the town. Here in an idyllic setting we lunched on a lavish scale, the delicious dishes washed down with copious drafts of the local wine. On our trip back to Samsun, most of us caught a quick cat nap, but we revived on our arrival back at the ship with a pleasant afternoon tea. It was the turn of Jim Higginbotham who lectured on Pontus, Mithridates, and Rome, which engendered many questions. This was followed by our first recap of the trip.
Trabzon / Sumela Monastery
Our base for today was the city of Trabzon, in eastern Turkey, from which we ascended into the mountains to visit the famous Sumela Monastery. This monastery was established in 386 A.D. by two itinerant monks from Athens. It became an important center of Orthodox spirituality and was continuously occupied by monks until 1916. It was noted that the monastery had been protected by the rulers in Constantinople since its establishment, including both the Christian emperors of Byzantium and the Muslim sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The climb to the monastery offered excellent views and we were most impressed by the wonderful frescoes on the walls. These seemed to be a little different from the ones we had seen in Istanbul and it was explained by our guides that this reflected the Georgian influence in church architecture.
We returned to the ship for lunch and then we set out for a short excursion to the Aya Sofya Church to the west of the city. This was a perfect example of late Byzantine architecture, and we again marveled at the wonderful frescoes that had somehow survived the centuries. A particular star of this visit was the tortoise resident in the park around the church. The chefs on the ship kindly prepared a lettuce and tomato lunch which he seemed to appreciate. We had a little free time in town before our return to the ship where we resumed our lecture program. Our naturalist David Stephens lectured on A Byzantine Bestiary to the great interest of everyone.
After an early wake up call we boarded our buses at the port of Poti for our day in Georgia, a country that few of us had visited before, and which is reputed to be the destination of Jason and the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece. Our aim for the day was to explore the city of Kutaisi, situated some 100 miles inland. On arrival we enjoyed a pleasant snack at a local restaurant and then departed for the Gelati Monastery complex founded in 1106 and situated high on a hill overlooking the town. During this fascinating visit we learned that the founder, Kind David the Builder, arranged on his death to be buried directly in the gateway so that all visitors could tread on his tomb. Afterward some of us explored the local museum while others visited the Bagrati Cathedral built by King Bagrat III in the 11th century. This was under restoration but we were still able to appreciate its noble architecture.
We then returned to the restaurant where we enjoyed a sumptuous lunch of Georgian delicacies and were entertained by a wonderful choir singing a cappella, and an extremely energetic and accomplished dance troupe.
Back on board, we had a recap followed by a superb Around the World buffet.
After an overnight relocation northwards along the east coast of the Black Sea, we arrived at the attractive port of Sochi in Russia. Much of this attraction results from the town's fabulous location, between beautiful green mountains and sparkling sea, with obvious appeal to the tourist trade.
Here, we had two tours to choose from. The intrepid among us ascended Akhun Mountain for a scenic overlook followed by a hike along a rushing river through a dramatic canyon to some beautiful waterfalls. Those with more cultural interests visited Stalin's dacha where the great man took his holidays. Stalin's dacha is a relatively modest building, but the curious character of its owner was revealed in the extraordinary locks on the door of the main reception room, so constructed that it was impossible to peep through the keyhole, and from the fact that he apparently slept in a different room each night. There were fascinating relics of the life of Stalin and we summed up our visit as one of the more unusual that is offered to tourists.
During the afternoon our lecture program continued with Ian Stone speaking on Into the Valley of Death: An Introduction to the Crimean War, followed by Paul Harris who lectured on William Howard Russell, one of the earliest war correspondents, whose communications in The Times alerted the British public to the course of events in Crimea during the war.
Yalta / Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukraine
Today we had the difficult decision of deciding which tour to take. Some opted for a visit to the house of Anton Chekhov, now a well presented museum, where he lived for the last years of his life. He was a keen gardener and the surrounding gardens are delightful. Others visited the beautiful Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Yalta, itself. Our next stop was the Livadia Palace, summer home of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, and site of the famous Yalta Conference in 1945. These afforded fascinating comparisons, the opulence of the former occupancy contrasting with the relatively modest furnishings of the latter. We had lunch at the Palace Restaurant and yet another very difficult choice had to be made. One option was to visit the ancient Greek city of Chersonese, situated just to the west of Sevastopol, for an archaeological and nature walk. Or we could undertake a visit to Balaclava, the main British base during the Crimean War and an important Soviet naval base during the Cold War followed by a visit to the famous, and evocative, panorama of the 1855 Battle of Sevastopol.
As we headed off for our various choices for the afternoon our coaches drove through the important Crimean War site, near Redoubt No. 4, on the Causeway Heights, from which a magnificent view of the North Valley, famous as the site of the Charge of the Light Brigade was secured.
We awoke to an overcast autumn morning in Odessa, but the weather rapidly improved and it became clear and sunny. We had a couple of choices for the morning. Those who felt really invigorated ascended the famous Potemkin Steps, the signature landmark of the city, and then boarded their bus for a tour of the city to include the Monument to the Unknown Sailor, the Russian Art Museum and a stroll to the newly restored Opera House. Those more circumspect boarded their bus at the ship and avoided the step ascent. Otherwise their tour was identical.
The early part of the afternoon was free, but many assembled at the Archaeological Museum for a guided tour followed by a wonderful concert of classical music that took place in the Museum of Literature. Then we walked to the newly restored opera house where we marveled at the opulent decorations of this stunning building.
Our evening meal, a Black Sea Feast, was preceded by a performance from members of Odessa's famous conservatoire playing banduras (a Ukrainian folk instrument).
Danube River Delta, Romania
This was the first of our two days in Romania and in this case our focus of interest was the delta of the River Danube. After ascending some 40 kilometers up the Sulina Channel, we disembarked and boarded the smart little vessel Europolis. We were told that Europolis only draws 90 cm (3 ft) and marveled at the skill of her captain in navigating her through waters that seemed far shallower than that to us. Our staff and local guides kept us enthralled with the kaleidoscope of wildlife and scenery at every bend. We sighted at least 35 species of birds including the white-tailed eagle, pelicans, swans, and many different types of waterfowl. The scenery was also extremely attractive and the weather was perfect, clear and sunny, but with a refreshing breeze. We had lunch on board and continued nature watching until the afternoon when we suddenly emerged into the main channel to see the good ship Le Levant waiting for us. In the evening we enjoyed a caviar tasting.
Histria / Constanta
This morning we proceeded to the ancient site of Histria, a Greco-Roman settlement an hour to the north of Constanta. This beautiful place was occupied successively by Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines for more than 1,200 years before silt deposits closed off the channel leading to the Black Sea causing its decline. Histria is quite extensive, though only partially revealed, and we marveled at the neatness of the layout, that standard gridiron pattern that the Romans used throughout their empire, as well as the stout construction of the walls of the buildings. The adjacent museum further illustrated the unfolding of civilization in the region. Afterwards we visited the large Roman mosaic in a covered building in Constanta. Our last stop of the day was the Archaeological and Ethnographical Museums in the town.
Today found us in our sixth and final country, Bulgaria, specifically in the attractive port of Varna. After a short ride we arrived at the Archaeological Museum which has a splendid display of artifacts from all periods of Bulgaria's history. The highlight was the Thracian gold, of such exquisite craftsmanship that it was difficult to believe that some examples were more than 3,000 years old. We then set out on a walking tour of the old town stopping at the impressive Church of the Assumption, constructed in the mid 1800s. Moving further down the road, we arrived at the Ethnographical Museum, with its interesting display of folk life in rural Bulgaria. Our last stop was the Roman Baths, a bathing and social complex. This was really interesting because of its excellent state of preservation, requiring almost no effort to imagine how the building appeared during its heyday in the 3rd century.
In the evening there was a disembarkation briefing before the captain's farewell cocktail party and dinner.
Istanbul, Turkey / Disembark
Our ship docked in Istanbul early this morning, thus completing our Circumnavigation of the Black Sea. After breakfast we said our goodbyes and disembarked, some to the airport, and others to hotels in the city; all of us pleased with the experiences enjoyed and friends we made on our voyage around the Black Sea.
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Impact on Students
Preparing students to thrive in an increasingly competitive and global economy is a top priority at Florida State University. This undertaking starts by recruiting the best, most deserving students and providing them with the financial resources they need to succeed.
The following are areas where philanthropy can make the greatest difference to students at FSU:
Fellowships are critical in attracting the best and brightest graduate students to FSU. The awards allow these talented students to complete their degrees and undertake research without the need for outside employment. They are excellent gift opportunities for donors with an interest in both the academic and research missions of the University.
Endowed scholarships enable FSU's colleges and schools to assist undergraduate and pre-professional students with tuition and other college expenses according to donor stipulations. Scholarships reward high achievement and bring the region's best students to FSU. They also enable deserving students with financial need to develop their gifts and experience careers and futures they might never have had.
Private giving is the primary means for providing students with these resources. Your gifts increase the funds available for attracting top students, primarily by creating new undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.
Learn More About the Impact on Students
The Last Gift to Her Husband: A Commitment to FSU
For Elaine Alexander, a non-alumna of Florida State who lived 3,000 miles from Tallahassee, the opportunity to connect with FSU was seldom. But all of that changed when her husband, Robert C. Alexander '68, '72, lost his battle with cancer in late 2009.
Building a Legacy of Excellence in Medical Education
Thanks to the generous planned gifts established in the College of Medicine by Mina Jo Powell, Ashley Lucke is preparing to live her dream of serving others as a physician.
Preserving the Seminole Identity
A decade after beginning his higher education at The Florida State University, Jonathan Grandage has found his future in Florida's history thanks to the Walbolt Fellowships in History.
Supporting the Dreams of First-Generation College Students
Obtaining a higher education is considered a given in many families. But for many students, they are the first in their family to pursue a college degree and may face unique challenges and obstacles. Thanks to the James and Mary Koalska Scholarship, first-generation students in the College of Social Work are able to follow their dreams and earn a college degree.
One Woman's Dream Lives On Through Another
Erin Gray, a junior who recently completed her first semester in the nursing program, was named the first recipient of the Pamela Thompson Scholarship. The scholarship was established in memory of Pamela Thompson, who was just 19 years old when she was the victim of a violent crime.
Hospitality is Her Business
Cassandra Rayne, a Summa Cum Laude graduate in with a bachelor's degree in Hospitality Management, found her FSU experience even sweeter than she expected when she was named a recipient of the Jane Zuknick Morgan Scholarship in the Dedman School of Hospitality.
One Student's Juggling Act
Dustin Brown is a busy guy. He is a fourth-year student in The Florida State University's Bachelor of Fine Arts Studio Art program, holds down a part-time job and spends his free time clowning around. Literally.
For Scholarship Recipients, It's All in the Family
The Spykers, two of three triplets and a sister 14 months older, found out that each girl's entire college costs would be paid for without loans through a combination of private donations, university, federal and state grants and college work study. Theirs is a story of all the pieces of financial aid working together to benefit eligible students.
Fostering Undergraduate Research: The Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Awards
The Office of National Fellowships awards URCAA scholarships to undergraduate students—including Jared Doster and Marlee McCleary—to carry out a research or creative project of their own design in partnership with a supervising professor.
Honoring the Heart of a Resident Assistant
Wanting to preserve the memory and spirit of their daughter, Michaela Thomas, Kathleen and William Yockey created an award to recognize and provide scholarship money to an exemplary returning resident assistant (RA).
Minority Scholarship Opens Doors at FSUPC
As a single mother of three, Latasha Jones never thought she'd be on her way to earning a bachelor's degree.
FSU Alumnus Creates Chance of a Lifetime for Students
Alumnus David Ford's endowment to establish the Office of National Fellowships provides students, such as Myron Rolle, with a chance of a lifetime.
The Impact of Unrestricted GIfts
“I think what they [donors] are doing for FSU and for students like me is great,” says Michael Cain.
Shaping Students Into Active Citizens
"The Service Scholar Program was a major factor in my choosing Florida State," said Thelma Acquaah-Harrison.
Florida State University—Changing Lives
Dana Ford always knew he would attend college and eventually become an attorney.
Nursing Students Excel With Support from Longtime Philanthropist
Camille Guidry was honored to be a recipient of a special scholarship designed to help female students succeed.
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Prelate describes suffering, desperation in Damascus
CWN - July 19, 2012
Syria’s capital has become a place of fear, desperation, and suffering, according to the city’s Maronite Catholic archbishop.
“On the streets of Damascus you see people fleeing, there are refugees who, desperate, cross the city in search of a refuge,” said Archbishop Samir Nassar. “The lack of charity structures, the embargo, and the limited resources available do not help to face this emergency and contribute to fueling anxiety.”
In this period of mindless violence, our voices are drowned by the long ordeal of the country and by a complexity that is blocking any diplomatic solution. The country is sinking in sorrow and gratuitous violence and there is still no end in sight, we have been in a protracted conflict for more than 16 months.
Beyond the political divisions, unemployment and insecurity have favored the terrible phenomenon of people kidnapped for ransom. They are often abducted from school or factory. One should see the panic and anxiety of families struggling to collect from relatives, neighbors, friends and parishes a sum of money sufficient to save a kidnapped son, brother or father. This horrible practice paralyzes social life.
“We note that faith has weakened, children no longer go to catechism and pastoral activities languish,” Archbishop Nassar added. “Many Christian families, terrified, think only about how to leave the country.”
“The Christian community, exhausted, turns in silence and prayer to … the three brothers, Francesco, Abdel-Mooti, and Raffaele Massabki, Maronite Catholic laity [beatified in 1926] and martyred during the persecution unleashed by the Turks in 1860 against the Church. They remind us of what Jesus said: Do not fear.”
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We hold a Luminary Initiative every year on the last Sunday in September to honor mothers who have lost a son or daughter serving in the U.S. military.
From the Revolutionary War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mothers throughout America’s history have always seen their loved ones heed the call to duty. And with that duty comes the ultimate burden that these mothers must bear. Lighting a luminary on Gold Star Mother’s Day lets them know they don’t stand alone.
In communities big and small, organizations and individuals honor these women, from citywide events to a single luminary at the end of a driveway. Community service clubs, church groups and military organizations all participate – and they all need leaders, someone who will coordinate the day’s activities, someone who will send out the call to action.
Is that someone you?
Here are suggestions about how to create a Luminary Initiative event in your community:
- Make a commitment to establish a Luminary Initiative lighting event within your organization or community. Put it in writing, and select one member to lead the organization in your efforts.
- Involve you local civic leaders, and try to have a citywide promotion of the Luminary Initiative.
- Pick a location, such as a park, and time for the luminary lighting.
- Spread the word through traditional media and social media resources. Create awareness of your event.
- If no event is possible, encourage neighborhoods to light luminaries in front yards, driveways or on front porches.
- If possible, invite any Gold Star family members in your community to attend, or alert them to the activities you have planned in their honor.
- Join the Luminary Initiative group on Marine Family Network to connect and share with others who are participating around the country.
Make Your Pledge Today
We are encouraging you to pledge your support for the Luminary Initiative and to light luminaries on that day. Our goal is to have as many communities as possible in each state to support these mothers of our fallen heroes. In 2011, more than 400 people from 19 states pledged to and held Luminary Initiative lighting ceremonies, and we received wonderful notes and photos from many. Sign your pledge of support by clicking here.
To help you get the word out, you can download a pdf file of our Luminary Initiative rack card, or you can order them through the EGA Shop; click the respective links in the beige box to the right. Hand them out at church, during a club meeting and spread them throughout your neighborhood.
To hold a Luminary Initiative, you’ll need luminaries. You can order them, complete with tea light candles and a candle base, or make your own bags by following our directions and downloading our star outline. Either way, click the respective links in the beige box to the right.
History of Gold Star Mothers
Gold Star Mother’s Day was designated by a joint Congressional resolution in 1936. Each year since then, the day has been observed by presidential proclamation, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama.
Shortly after World War I the Gold Star Mothers Club was formed in the United States to provide support for mothers that lost sons or daughters in the war. The name came from the custom of families of servicemen hanging a Service Flag in their home’s windows. The Service Flag had a star for each family member in the military. Living servicemen were represented by a blue star, and those who were killed were represented by a gold star.
American Gold Star Mothers, Inc. was founded in 1929, receiving a charter from Congress. It began with 25 mothers living in Washington, D.C. and soon expanded to include affiliated groups throughout the nation. On June 23, 1936, a joint congressional resolution designated the last Sunday in September as Gold Star Mother's Day, a holiday that has been observed each year by a presidential proclamation. Click here to see the proclamation.
Past Luminary Initiative Event
Sunday, September 25, 2011, marked the third year MarineParents.com, Inc., encouraged people and communities across the country to participate in the Luminary Initiative on the last Sunday of September in honor of Gold Star mothers. It was a huge success, and we thank all who participated by lighting luminaries and holding local ceremonies.
We held a ceremony at a park near our headquarters in Columbia, Missouri, and it was a beautiful and serene evening. We were honored to have two Gold Star families in attendance, and we thank them for coming out and sharing the evening with us. "This is one small gesture … a little light in honor of the families we hold so dear and what they have sacrificed for us," said Tracy Della Vecchia, founder and CEO of MarineParents.com.
Also in attendance were the Patriot Guard Riders, who arranged American flags around the area, a bagpipe player who played “Taps” and provided background music for the evening, and a chaplain who recited a poem and a prayer at the ceremony.
Here’s a slideshow of the photos from our Luminary Initiative event in Columbia.
Find more photos like this on Marine Family Network
A local newspaper covered the event, and this year we hope to have even more coverage of this special Luminary Initiative. Last year’s newspaper article provides an excellent snapshot of the evening.
"Della Vecchia presented the two Gold Star Mothers in attendance with clear glass suncatchers — bordered by red, with a gold star in the center — to hang in their windows." Click here to read the article in full.
People in 19 states lighted luminaries outside their homes, and a few of them sent us their photos and comments from the evening:
Jenna from St. Joseph, Missouri:
"We made 23 luminaries, 21 of which we put a name on to represent that particular Marine. The other two were left blank in representation of all of the others who gave their life for our country. We all live in St. Joseph, Mo. Next year I hope to get my entire neighborhood involved.”
Adriana from Santa Clarita, California:
"My daughter and I made seven luminaries with no names representing all of the Marines that have given their lives protecting our country, and we placed them in our yard. I think all it matters is that God knows our hearts and minds."
Barb Patterson (our Director of Outreach) from Richland, Michigan:
"The event on our cul-de-sac went VERY well. It was a beautiful, crisp fall evening, and everyone came outside at dusk to light their luminaries. We lined the cul-de-sac with the luminaries instead of putting them on the driveways, and it looked really nice.
“We all gathered and talked about what a huge sacrifice all of these families had made. Everyone was incredulous that this day originated in 1936 under President Roosevelt, and yet they never knew about it until we started this Luminary Initiative. One little neighbor boy who is a Boy Scout and in fifth grade said that he wanted to do a service project next year and get our entire village to have luminaries on Gold Star Mothers Day; I thought that was really sweet."
The neighborhood event was featured in the Kalamazoo Gazette. Click here to read the article in full.
Participation in the Luminary Initiative has increased every year since we began, so let's continue to encourage others to participate so that each year more people and communities can honor our Gold Star families!
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The Reserve Officers Association was briefed at Heritage Foundation about the New Start Treaty. One issue that was highlighted in the discussion is that a number of Senators from both parties have requested the record of negotiation from the White House. Based on precedent, past administrations have provided this information as part of the ratification process (e.g. Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) and The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaties.) These records are 1000s of page in length and will require time for Senate staffers to review. The earlier that copies are received, the quicker a resolution of ratification can be considered by the Senate Foreign Affairs committee. ROA members can contact their home state Senators to request that they make similar requests for a copy of the record of negotiation on the New Start Treaty to be sent to the Senate from the Obama Administration.
This Treaty is a complex issue and ROA hopes to have treaty experts on both side of the debate to publish articles in our November issue of The Officer.
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If sheva brachot occur at a seudah shlishit which finishes after sunset, is one allowed to drink the wine even though it is prior to making havdala? If yes, who specifically would be allowed to drink it? E.g. what about someone who was not the leader or one of the newlyweds, but just wants some for a segula?
Sh'miras Shabas K'hilchasah 59:17 reads as follows. The translation is my own and slightly free, and you should not rely on it; in any event, as always, CYLOR with any practical questions.
He notes in footnote 65 that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein is quoted by Rabbi Efrayim Greenblatt as having said that the bride and bridegroom should drink from the cups but no one else. [The way the SSK quotes him, it sounds like he means this for the latter case (that s'uda sh'lishis extends past tzes hakochavim), but I haven't checked the RE.]
See also footnote 66.
(That's it for the SSK, but note that I seem to recall hearing from Rabbi Yisrael Reisman (Brooklyn, New York) the idea that the bridegroom lead birkas hamazon and drink immediately afterward. I don't recall whether that was his advice or something he had seen or what: I merely recall his mentioning the idea. It would seem to fit in with the discussion above: according to Rav Moshe, apparently, the leader of birkas hamazon shouldn't drink unless he's the bridegroom, whereas according to some others the leader can drink anyway, so this removes some doubt as to what to do.)
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Thu October 20, 2011
Green building architect: Insulation is sexy
If you want to build a new home, you want an architect who can take your lifestyle and design a home around it. When it comes to building an environmentally-friendly house, you might even want someone who challenges you a little.
I was at the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual conference earlier this month to moderate a panel on America’s oldest net-zero energy home. That house happens to be here in Michigan and owned by Matt Grocoff. Matt wanted me to meet one of the architects leading the green building movement. His name is Eric Corey Freed.
As we talked to Freed at the conference… I wondered if people knew what they were getting into when they decided to build green…
“I think most people just assume I’m going to slap solar on it and be done.”
Solar. Yeah, it’s the sexy add-on that everyone seems to want. But Freed says solar is way too expensive unless first the house is built to be as energy efficient as possible. That means basic things… like proper insulation… which is not so sexy.
“Well, I think insulation is sexy, frankly. I mean, I think everybody should get naked and roll around in it. Not in the fiberglass! Because that could hurt. Maybe the recycled cotton one, that’d be pretty cozy. But remember, to me insulation is like chocolate: the more you have the better it is. So just bring it on.”
Freed used to spend a lot of time trying to educate his clients, explain why he’s using certain materials. These days… he doesn’t do that so much.
“I just force a lot of things automatically. It just seems stupid to ask permission, ‘Is it okay if we don’t put cancer-causing products in the building? Is that alright? Is it okay if we make an energy-efficient building?’ You just start to feel like a moron after a while, asking that question. So, I just stopped asking. And so now every project gets a whole slew of things automatically and everybody’s happy.”
Freed says --hey--he’s a professional… they have to trust him. But, there are some limits.
“If we’re going to do something that’s going to affect their daily experience - composting toilets –which are great, by the way- I have to ask them. Because, otherwise they’re going to be a little freaked-out the fist time they go to the bathroom.”
So, Eric Corey Freed has to find a balance with his cutting-edge ideas and what a customer feels he or she can live with.
On the other hand, Matt Grocoff is trying to get everyone to start fresh. Start questioning all the things they do that affects consumption at home.
“Eric’s limited by right now he’s got to convince a client with a certain amount of budget. It’s easy to convince someone to put in motion sensor light switches, to put in LED lighting, to put in insulation and all these other things. It’s much harder to talk to people about what’s next. What I want to do is have people look in every direction. Why am I using a freezer when outside it’s already freezing. So, if we look back and say, ‘Wait. People used to store their fruits and vegetables in a root cellar. That was free energy.”
Grocoff says it’s not always about the latest gadgetry… sometimes you just have to think about what you’re doing.
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I know China holds a special place in the hearts and minds of many Pakistanis. Mention of Mao’s land evokes feeling of sanguineness- elation and trust. On the contrast Bangladesh – well I will leave it up to your imagination.
But I believe it is in Pakistan’s interest to change that attitude immediately. Pakistani entrepreneurs, professionals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should learn Bengali in a hurry because Bangladesh is on it’s way to becoming the most desirable destination for Western buyers.
That’s a big loss for China that had up until recently nearly 40 percent share of Western markets for readymade garments. According to a survey released by McKinsey – a global management consulting firm, chief purchasing officers of leading American and European apparel companies are planning to decrease procurement from China over next five years because of “declining profit margins and capacity constraints.”
And, China’s loss is Bangladesh’s gain. “Although Western buyers are evaluating a considerable number of sourcing options in the Far East and Southeast Asia, many chief purchasing officers said in the survey that they view Bangladesh as the next hot spot,” reported McKinsey last week.
A survey of Bangladesh’s ready-made-garment industry identified solid apparel-sourcing opportunities, but also some hurdles.
In 2010 Bangladesh had exported approximately $15 billion worth of ready-made garments to value buyers in the US and Europe. This sector, “represents 13 percent of GDP and more than 75 percent of total exports.”
McKinsey forecasts “Export-value growth of 7.0 to 9.0 percent annually within the next ten years, so the market will double by 2015 and nearly triple by 2020,” bringing the estimate for 2015 to $30billion annually.
A majority of the respondents identified attractive prices as the most important reason for purchasing in Bangladesh. And the expectations are that prices will continue to be competitive as the efficiency is enhanced “to offset rising wage costs.”
Capacity was reported in the survey as the second-biggest advantage of Bangladesh’s ready-made-garment industry. “With 5,000 factories employing about 3.6 million workers (of a total workforce of 74.0 million), Bangladesh is clearly ahead of other Southeast Asian suppliers in this respect,” chief purchasing officers were reported saying.
Bangladesh also “offers satisfactory levels of quality, especially in value and entry-level mid-market products.”
You maybe thinking – well Bangladesh offers low prices, has sufficient production capacity and no quality issues- how can Pakistanis add value here. And it’s true that recent reports identify distinct advantages of sourcing from Bangladesh. However, the McKinsey study did identify five challenges for “apparel companies seeking to do more business there.”
The leading challenge for Bangladesh is infrastructure. “Transportation bottlenecks create inefficient lead times for garments and delay deliveries to customers,” McKinsey says, adding that this issue will become even more important in the future, “since buyers want to source more fashionable products with shorter lead times.” But this can be a golden opportunity for Pakistan. There are several successful infrastructure vendors in Pakistan who can benefit from the boom in a neighboring country. This also means job opportunities for civil engineers from Pakistan to go work in Bangladesh. Industries ancillary to infrastructure can also benefit.
The second biggest challenge for Bangladesh is “energy supply”—90 percent of the more than 100 local suppliers, McKinsey interviewed rate it as “poor or very poor.” The government (in Bangladesh) has “prioritized improvement in this area and started to upgrade power systems over the last two years”, with tangible results. Here Pakistan may not have much to offer but we can learn plenty from Bangladesh. Why is it that our Pakistani factories have to shut down while Bangladesh is able to address this issue adequately enough to keep the machines running?
Labor and environmental compliance is an issue for the majority of export driven countries- including China. The McKinsey survey shows most European and US chief purchasing officers saying, “standards have somewhat or strongly improved over the past five years,” with a caveat that “suppliers vary greatly in their degree of compliance.” There are several NGOs that monitor Bangladesh for labor and social-compliance issues and here is an opportunity for Pakistani NGOs to take their expertise outside their country. When it comes to environmental compliance, which has started to get serious attention, Pakistani NGOs and consulting firms can establish themselves very quickly. Western buyers will likely find it easier to engage a non-Bangladeshi entity for compliance. It makes perfect sense for Pakistan’s NGO to expand and take their expertise to Dhaka.
The McKinsey survey suggests that Bangladeshi suppliers need to optimize productivity to “mitigate the impact of rising wages and to close gaps with other sourcing countries and to satisfy new customer requirements for more sophisticated products.”
Bangladesh also needs “new machinery and technologies,” providing an opportunity to Pakistani apparel experts to lend their expertise. The insufficient size of “the skilled workforce, particularly in middle management,” provides opportunity to many Pakistanis who have worked in this industry all their life to travel east.
McKinsey reports that Bangladesh does not have adequate supplies of “natural or artificial fibres, and its dependence on imports creates sourcing risks and lengthens lead times.” I wonder if Pakistani experts have learned any lessons here that they can take to Bangladesh.
I believe the ready-made apparel boom in Bangladesh presents significant opportunities for Pakistani entrepreneurs, professionals and NGOs. Unlike India, where visa requirements and historical hostilities becomes a major barrier, Pakistanis can actually benefit from this rising star with whom we have a shared history.
This article first appeared in Daily Times. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\04\13\story_13-4-2012_pg5_6
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Scotland County has some of the safest roads in the state, according to a report released Thursday by the AAA Carolinas.
The report said Scotland was in the top five for the smallest percentage of fatal accidents per vehicle miles traveled.
Topping the state list for 2011 traffic deaths per mile traveled were Yancey, Camden, Swain, Durham and Scotland counties. There were two reported fatal vehicle accidents in Scotland County last year, according to 1st Sgt. A.K. Dietrich of the state Highway Patrol.
That is down from 6 fatalities in 2010, Dietrich said. There were a total of 475 reported accidents in 2011, down from 496 total accidents in 2010.
Dietrick credits an increase presence of troopers on the roads in Scotland County for the decrease. He said trooper have stepped patrols in during peak times and in areas with higher percentages of accidents such as U.S 74 and major state roads.
“Another factor could the increases in gasoline prices,” Dietrich said. “People are traveling less and that is making a difference.”
Still AAA officials said Scotland was untypical for a rural county. The report found that rural counties were the killing grounds for traffic deaths in North Carolina with the top five counties combining for 61 fatal crashes - 5.4 percent of the state’s total - despite carrying only 2 percent of the state’s vehicle miles traveled.
It was the third straight year that rural counties were the most dangerous roads in the state based on the number of traffic deaths in relation to the miles traveled, according to the analysis. At the top for 2011 traffic deaths per mile traveled were Clay, Graham, Hyde, Robeson and Hertford.
Nationally, two-thirds of fatal crashes occur along rural roads. Neighboring Richmond county was listed as one of the most dangerous counties for tractor-trailer fatalities.
“Rural counties have roads that are generally narrower, with more curves, lower shoulders, faded or non-existent road markings and less police presence than major highways,” David E. Parsons, AAA president said in a statement. “These roads are notorious for single-vehicle accidents involving speeding, drinking and younger drivers.”
AAA Carolinas bases its annual ranking of the most dangerous counties on the likelihood of a certain type of crash based on total vehicle miles driven.
Clay County handled less than 0.1 percent of North Carolina’s total vehicle miles traveled but had five fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle miles traveled - nearly five times more than the state average of 1.11 fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
The counties with the highest chance of being in any kind of collision were Pitt, New Hanover, Person, Watauga and Cumberland counties. All five also appeared on the list in 2010. Pitt has topped the list of the most dangerous counties for being in a collision for the past four years.
For a crash in which someone was injured, the counties of Graham, New Hanover, Pitt, Wayne and Cumberland counties were the top five.
Graham County, located in the North Carolina Mountains on the Tennessee border, continued to be the most dangerous county for motorcycles, topping the list for collisions, injury and fatal crashes. The sparsely populated county is home to “the tail of the dragon,” a scenic mountain road popular with motorcyclists that includes 11 miles of 318 curves.
The other counties ranked most dangerous for fatal motorcycle accidents were Alleghany, Clay, Pamlico and Pender. Swain County, also in the North Carolina Mountains, was in AAA’s top five safest counties for any kind of vehicle collision or injurious crash. However, Swain proved to be extremely dangerous for motorcycles, ranking fifth most dangerous for motorcycle collisions and fourth for injurious motorcycle crashes (see chart).
North Carolina’s most dangerous counties for tractor-trailer collisions in 2011 were Anson, Bladen, Polk, Lee and Wayne counties. With the exception of Polk County, all are located in the central-eastern part of the state, which has a high concentration of tractor-trailer traffic.
The top counties for fatal crashes with tractor-trailers are Hyde, Richmond, Yadkin, Ashe and Northampton.
Swain County was ranked as the safest county for not being in a collision and not being in a crash with injuries, and Yancey County offered the best chance of not being in a fatal crash. Yancey and Camden counties both had 0 fatalities in 2011, but the ranking was based on total vehicle miles traveled, which was higher in Yancey County.
The deadliest county for the highest number of fatal crashes was Mecklenburg, with 67 fatal crashes in 2011, up from 46 in 2010. The total number of traffic fatalities in North Carolina dropped 8 percent from 1,328 in 2010 to 1,217 last year. This number has been dropping steadily over the past few years (1,344 in 2009; 1,452 in 2008) and is attributed to more targeted traffic enforcement on crash-prone roads by local and state law enforcement officers, a decline in miles traveled and more safety features in new cars, such as traction control.
For all vehicles in North Carolina, the total number of crashes in 2011 was 208,545, down from 213,739 in 2010. Although vehicle miles traveled was also down from 2010, the relative number of crashes dropped from 208.9 crashes per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2010 to 205.7 crashes per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2011.
The safe roads analysis was inaugurated in 1995. AAA Carolinas puts the report together from state traffic statistics from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It performs its own analysis to determine the most dangerous counties based on vehicle miles traveled.
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School Library Journal
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Gr 10 Up-Cat, 16, has isolated herself over the past three years, retreating from her friends and life after being violated by a boy she knew. But after a gay-bashing incident involving her former best friend at the local convenience store where he works leaves him in a coma, she is determined to enter the world again and investigate the crime to make up for all the years she abandoned him. The sheriff suspects his attackers are most likely out-of-towners angry with Patrick because he refused to sell them alcohol. Cat assumes the perpetrators are closer to home since the "redneck posse" that Patrick hung around with never fully accepted him and must know something since they partied with him earlier in the night. In a week's time, Cat pays visits to her old friends and slowly learns about the hidden relationships in the meth-addled underbelly of her hill-country Southern town. Most of the teens in this novel have either dropped out of high school, come from broken families, or been abused. It's a bleak story leavened a little by the things Cat learns about herself in the course of her investigation. Myracle captures well the regret that many feel for things in their past about which they are ashamed. Cat's reflections on these moments are spot-on.-Shawna Sherman, Hayward Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Cat has been distant from childhood best friend Patrick for three years (she began to "ignore the whole world" after an older friend of her brother's molested her). Even so, when a horrific and possible hate crime leaves openly gay Patrick comatose, she decides to "look straight into the ugliness and find out who hurt him." She grows suspicious of her brother's friends, "the redneck posse," who were with Patrick the night of his attack-especially as she learns they are keeping dangerous secrets, including dealing and using meth. Myracle (Bliss) paints the desperate poverty and bitter divisions within Cat's mountain community well, with memorable details like a friend coloring the duct tape patches on her couch to match the fabric or a meth cooker's bathtub filled with funnels and coffee filters. These details and the thick mystery that Cat unfurls will keep readers engaged-and suspecting several characters, as Cat does. The final faceoff strains believability and the conclusion is a tad neat, but readers will find themselves thinking about Cat's complicated rural community long after the mystery has been solved. Ages 14-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Patrick Truman has been beaten and left for dead at the convenience store where he works. His attackers left a gas nozzle stuffed in his mouth, meant to reference his sexual preference. Cat used to be his best friend, and the shame she feels for having dropped him propels her to find out just what happened and who among those in her closed, North Carolina backwoods community is responsible. Myracle treads carefully to avoid stereotypes: Patrick is not reviled by the other guys (he is something of a mascot), and the young suspects who readers will initially target as perpetrators are more dimensional than they seem. Cat, too, grows throughout the story, as she must face both her prejudices and her fears. But even with her eye on character, Myracle doesn't forget her story, and this is a rip-roaring mystery that will have readers turning pages. The rushed ending is something of a fairy tale. Still, this provides a lot to think about, and teens who are experimenting with their own places in the world will find someone in the book whose problems match their own.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
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The feeling’s mutual
Mr Hollande and Mrs Merkel are clashing over Eurobonds, and more
HOW quickly François Hollande is changing the terms of European politics. When he spoke about the need for more growth, others quickly echoed him. And now that the new French president is talking about the need for Eurobonds, even the IMF and the OECD have joined the chorus of those demanding joint euro-zone debt issuance. At his first European Union summit, over an informal dinner in Brussels on May 23rd, Mr Hollande found more allies. Predictably, though, he ran into firm opposition from Germany.
That did not seem to bother him. Finding agreement can wait for the next summit, in late June, if not later. For now Mr Hollande was demonstrating that he was different from his predecessor, who stood on the same podium in Brussels in March. Before every summit Nicolas Sarkozy would seek a common position with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. By contrast Mr Hollande chose to meet the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, before the pair took the train (not the presidential jet) to Brussels.
Mr Hollande was all too happy to highlight his differences with the chancellor. “For Mrs Merkel Eurobonds are the end point of a process of integration. For me they are the starting point,” he declared. This is a striking change of tone from the election campaign, when Mr Hollande, though critical of Mrs Merkel's brand of austerity, seemed keen to find an accommodation. He flew to Berlin within hours of his inauguration. Most of his calls for growth-inducing European investment seemed modest, based on existing proposals by the European Commission. When he spoke of “Eurobonds”, he had once suggested that he merely meant “project bonds”, a scheme to sweeten debt issued by private firms to finance EU-backed infrastructure projects.
That pretence is over. Mr Hollande now wants countries to pool new public debt. Is it acceptable, he asks, that Spain must borrow at 6% while Germany can raise money almost for free? This week Germany sold two-year bonds with a 0% coupon.
For Germans, Eurobonds are the wrong prescription at the wrong time. Mrs Merkel says they are illegal under EU treaties and do not contribute to growth. Financial Times Deutschland, a German daily, calls the dispute “The German-French Ice Age.”
Yet it is too soon to conclude that Franco-German relations have gone into the deep freeze. Any new French president is bound to cause some realignment in Europe. Perhaps Mr Hollande, boosted by a successful trip to America, is setting out a tough opening position ahead of the June summit. Perhaps he is playing up his differences with Germany for the sake of domestic politics, as he seeks to secure a clear majority for his Socialist Party in elections to the National Assembly next month.
There is certainly a need to reappraise policy as the euro zone's debt crisis enters a perilous new phase. Investors are fleeing both the banks and the sovereign bonds of Mediterranean countries. Without a restoration of confidence in the ability of the euro zone to survive, it is hard to see how growth can return. Spain, sucked into a worsening recession, is pleading for the European Central Bank (ECB) to inject more liquidity into its banks and buy its government bonds.
More ominously, the exhausted Greeks may soon vote themselves out of the euro zone. Although the politicians said they wanted Greece to stay in, the Bundesbank seemed ready to boot it out. It declared that the turmoil caused by a Greek exit would be “considerable, but manageable given prudent crisis management.” A bigger danger, it suggested, is that agreeing to a substantial renegotiation of Greece's bail-out conditions “would damage confidence in all euro-area agreements and treaties”.
Others are not so sanguine. Few have any real confidence in the firewalls erected so far. Thus the call for the ECB to do more with its vast arsenal. Two sets of longer-term reforms make sense.
One is to create a form of “banking union”, with a Europe-wide system of deposit guarantees, recapitalisation and regulation. This would help break the link between weak banks and weak sovereigns. The other is to move towards greater “fiscal union”, including the creation of Eurobonds. This would reduce borrowing costs for troubled countries and create a safe asset for banks to hold.
The euro's future
So Mr Hollande is right to reopen the debate on the euro's future. He is also right in thinking that an exclusive Franco-German duopoly cannot pretend to run the euro zone. But there are limits to how far he should push the confrontation with Mrs Merkel. The chancellor is hardly without friends in Europe. She is backed by, among others, the remaining AAA-rated countries, such as Finland and the Netherlands. And everybody knows that the crisis has, for the moment, shifted financial power to creditor states.
A prolonged Franco-German dispute will lead to a debilitating stalemate that will help nobody, least of all France. The harsh truth is that France is more vulnerable than Germany. It is forecast to miss its budget-deficit target next year, and French banks are dangerously exposed to troubled Mediterranean countries.
So Mr Hollande will need to practise the art of persuasion. Above all Germany must be reassured that greater risk-sharing will not amount to handing its credit card to profligate governments. Mr Hollande might tell Mrs Merkel that creating a more solid euro zone, far from creating moral hazard, will make it easier to threaten Greece or others with expulsion. And setting out clear conditions for the introduction of Eurobonds could create incentives for countries to keep to the path of reform. Mr Hollande wants all issues to be put on the table. He, too, should be asked what France is offering by way of domestic reforms and concessions to Germany's wish for deeper political union.
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World Magazine Announces "2009 Daniel of the Year": Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen Meyer has already made year-end lists with Signature in the Cell, an Amazon bestselling science book and one of Times Literary Supplement's books of the year for 2009, but the latest news goes far beyond that: Stephen Meyer has been named World Magazine's "Daniel of the Year" for 2009:
This fall Meyer came out with a full account of what science has learned in recent decades: Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (Harper One, 2009) shows that the cell is incredibly complex and the code that directs its functions wonderfully designed. His argument undercuts macroevolution, the theory that one kind of animal over time evolves into a very different kind. Meyer thus garners media scorn for raining on this year's huge celebration of the birth of Charles Darwin 200 years ago and the publication of On the Origin of Species 150 years ago.
The cover story is what should become the essential profile of Meyer, following what World's Marvin Olasky describes as "the four-stage pattern that is common among intellectual Daniels: Questioning, discernment, courage, and perseverance."
Meyer says, "You ask how someone gets the moxie to take something like this on. Part of the answer is that I didn't know any better when I was young. I was just so seized with this idea and these questions: 'Was it possible to develop a scientific case? Were we looking at evidence that could revive and resuscitate the classical argument from design, which had been understood from the time of Hume and certainly the time of Darwin to be defunct?' If that was the case, that's a major scientific revolution."
Courage becomes a determinant once we count the cost and see that it's great. Meyer's first inkling came when "talking about my ideas to people at Cambridge High Table settings, and getting that sudden social pall." But the cost was and is more than conversational ease: San Francisco State University in 1992 expelled a professor, Dean Kenyon, who espoused ID, and other job losses have come since. Meyer and other ID proponents saw "that this would be very controversial. One of the things that emboldened all of us who were in the early days of this movement was meeting each other. In 1993 we had a little private conference [with] 10 or 12 very sharp, mostly younger scientists going through top-of-the-world programs in their respective fields who were all skeptical. I think the congealing of this group gave everyone the sense that this was going to be an exciting adventure: Let's rumble."
Rumble, indeed -- Meyer just returned from schooling Michael Shermer (listen to the audio here).
The article, as the title indicates, is a profile in courage worth reading, particularly this bit:
Many who enter the courage stage at first think that the war in which they find themselves will end in a few years. There comes a time in many lives, though, when a hard realization sinks in: It will not be over in my lifetime. That's when some give in while others proceed to the perseverance stage. That's where Meyer is: Signature in the Cell ends with a long list of testable predictions concerning the direction of science over the next several decades. Meyer predicts that further study will reveal the importance of "junk DNA" and the reasons for what seem to be "poorly designed" structures: They will reveal either a hidden functional logic or evidence of decay from originally good designs.
Read the whole article here.
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After Colorado State hurricane experts decided to stick with their forecast for this season, the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration today did the same.
NOAA predicts eight to 12 hurricanes and four to six becoming major storms.
That would make this the busiest hurricane season since 2005, not good news for those who went through the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005. Folks like those on the Treasure Coast.
The forecasts, which pretty much agree with one another, blame the busy season on warm ocean temperatures and La Nina.
Not good. Let's hope all of them are wrong. Very wrong and nothing much happens at all.
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Pre-Post Student Teaching ePortfolio Presentation
UW-La Crosse Teacher Education
Initial teacher education preparation and continued support of professional educators are the focus of the School of Education.
The School of Education, represents a collection of Teacher Education Programs housed in a variety of departments and colleges across campus. Teacher Education is a campus wide effort at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. The programs offer bachelors and masters degrees in education and offer credit and non-credit continuing education for professional educators.
UW-La Crosse programs in teacher education are fully approved by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Our Conceptual Framework and the Wisconsin Educator Standards, are the foundation of our programs. A strong general education program, quality subject-area majors/minors, multiple-level field experiences and performance-based assessment further enhance the teacher education preparation experience at UW-La Crosse.
For more detailed program information about any of our programs please continue to explore this website.
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U.S. corn futures climbed an expanded daily limit Friday as unexpected demand from China renewed concerns about low supplies.
Corn jumped 45 cents, the most allowed by the Chicago Board of Trade, in the first two contract months before paring gains. The most actively traded May contract closed up 37 cents, or 5.7%, at $6.83 1/2 a bushel. It was the second consecutive day the market touched the daily limit, pushing prices up 11% from Wednesday's close.
Futures soared as an employee of an international trade service agency said China purchased corn from the U.S. on Thursday and may make further purchases this year. The deals caught U.S. grain traders by surprise as high prices had reduced expectations for purchases by China.
"It's psychologically a big deal for right now," said John Kleist, senior analyst at ebottrading.com, an agricultural research and brokerage firm.
The market is sensitive to increased demand after rallying to a 32-month high March 4 on concerns about supplies, which are projected to drop to a 15-year low this year. The U.S. is the world's top corn producer and exporter.
Chatter about China re-emerged when the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday reported private exporters struck deals to sell 116,000 metric tons of corn for delivery to unknown destinations during the 2010-2011 marketing year. Traders said China may have entered the market because prices had pulled back significantly since reaching the recent high.
South Korea took advantage of the price break, contracting purchases for at least eight cargoes of corn totaling 455,000 tons this week, a Seoul-based grains broker said Friday.
"The end users, whether they're domestic or international, said, 'I've got to start buying this stuff,'" said Alan Brugler, president of Brugler Marketing & Management, a brokerage firm in Nebraska.
Private analytical firm Informa Economics gave futures an extra boost by projecting U.S. corn plantings at 91.8 million acres, below the USDA's recent forecast for 92 million. Grain users are on edge about how much corn will be sown because of the need to replenish supplies. Informa's forecast raised concerns federal forecasters will lower their planting forecast in a crop report due March 31.
Informa pegged soybean plantings at 75.3 million acres, below USDA's forecast for 78 million acres. Soybean acreage in the corn belt will be down from 2010 in all states, except Kansas, as farmers increase corn plantings, the firm predicted.
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Zap your brain into the zone
Fast track to pure focus
by Sally Adee
Whether you want to smash a forehand like Federer, or just be an Xbox hero, there is a shocking short cut to getting the brain of an expert
I'm close to tears behind my thin cover of sandbags as 20 screaming, masked men run towards me at full speed, strapped into suicide bomb vests and clutching rifles. For every one I manage to shoot dead, three new assailants pop up from nowhere. I'm clearly not shooting fast enough, and panic and incompetence are making me continually jam my rifle.
My salvation lies in the fact that my attackers are only a video, projected on screens to the front and sides. It's the very simulation that trains US troops to take their first steps with a rifle, and everything about it has been engineered to feel like an overpowering assault. But I am failing miserably. In fact, I'm so demoralised that I'm tempted to put down the rifle and leave.
Then they put the electrodes on me.
I am in a lab in Carlsbad, California, in pursuit of an elusive mental state known as "flow" - that feeling of effortless concentration that characterises outstanding performance in all kinds of skills.
Flow has been maddeningly difficult to pin down, let alone harness, but a wealth of new technologies could soon allow us all to conjure up this state. The plan is to provide a short cut to virtuosity, slashing the amount of time it takes to master a new skill - be it tennis, playing the piano or marksmanship.
That will be welcome news to anyone embarking on the tortuous road to expertise. According to pioneering research by Anders Ericsson at Florida State University in Tallahassee, it normally takes 10,000 hours of practice to become expert in any discipline. Over that time, your brain knits together a wealth of new circuits that eventually allow you to execute the skill automatically, without consciously considering each action. Think of the way tennis champion Roger Federer, after years of training, can gracefully combine a complicated series of actions - keeping one eye on the ball and the other on his opponent, while he lines up his shot and then despatches a crippling backhand - all in one stunningly choreographed second.
Flow typically accompanies these actions. It involves a Zen-like feeling of intense concentration, with time seeming to stop as you focus completely on the activity in hand. The experience crops up repeatedly when experts describe what it feels like to be at the top of their game, and with years of practice it becomes second nature to enter that state. Yet you don't have to be a pro to experience it - some people report the same ability to focus at a far earlier stage in their training, suggesting they are more naturally predisposed to the flow state than others. This effortless concentration should speed up progress, while the joyful feelings that come with the flow state should help take the sting out of further practice, setting such people up for future success, says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Claremont Graduate University in California. Conversely, his research into the flow state in children showed that, as he puts it, "young people who didn't enjoy the pursuit of the subject they were gifted in, whether it was mathematics or music, stopped developing their skills and reverted to mediocrity."
Despite its potentially crucial role in the development of talent, many researchers had deemed the flow state too slippery a concept to tackle - tainted as it was with mystical, meditative connotations. In the late 1970s, Csikszentmihalyi, then a psychologist at the University of Chicago, helped change that view by showing that the state could be defined and studied empirically. In one groundbreaking study, he interviewed a few hundred talented people, including athletes, artists, chess players, rock climbers and surgeons, enabling him to pin down four key features that characterise flow.
The first is an intense and focused absorption that makes you lose all sense of time. The second is what is known as autotelicity, the sense that the activity you are engaged in is rewarding for its own sake. The third is finding the "sweet spot", a feeling that your skills are perfectly matched to the task at hand, leaving you neither frustrated nor bored. And finally, flow is characterised by automaticity, the sense that "the piano is playing itself", for example.
Exactly what happens in the brain during flow has been of particular interest, but it has been tricky to measure. Csikszentmihalyi took an early stab at it, using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brain waves of expert chess players during a game. He found that the most skilled players showed less activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is typically associated with higher cognitive processes such as working memory and verbalisation. That may seem counter-intuitive, but silencing self-critical thoughts might allow more automatic processes to take hold, which would in turn produce that effortless feeling of flow.
Later studies have confirmed these findings and revealed other neural signatures of flow. Chris Berka and her colleagues at Advanced Brain Monitoring in Carlsbad, California, for example, looked at the brain waves of Olympic archers and professional golfers. A few seconds before the archers fired off an arrow or the golfers hit the ball, the team spotted a small increase in what's known as the alpha band, one of the frequencies that arises from the electrical noise of all the brain's neurons (The International Journal of Sport and Society, vol 1, p 87).
This surge in alpha waves, Berka says, is associated with reduced activation of the cortex, and is always more obvious in experts than in novices. "We think this represents focused attention on the target, while other sensory inputs are suppressed," says Berka. She found that these mental changes are accompanied by slower breathing and a lower pulse rate - as you might expect from relaxed concentration.
Defining and characterising the flow state is all very well, but could a novice learn to turn off their critical faculties and focus their attention in this way, at will? If so, would it boost performance? Gabriele Wulf, a kinesiologist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, helped to answer this question in 1998, when she and her colleagues examined the way certain athletes move (Journal of Motor Behavior, vol 30, p 169).
At the time, she had no particular interest in the flow state. But Wulf and her colleagues found that they could quickly improve a person's abilities by asking them to focus their attention on an external point away from their body. Aspiring skiers who were asked to do slalom-type movements on a simulator, for example, learned faster if they focused on a marked spot ahead of them. Golfers who focused on the swing of the club were about 20 per cent more accurate than those who focused on their own arms.
Wulf and her colleagues later found that an expert's physical actions require fewer muscle movements than those of a beginner - as seen in the tight, spare motions of top-flight athletes. They also experience less mental strain, a lower heart rate and shallower breathing - all characteristics of the flow state (Human Movement Science, vol 29, p 440).
These findings were borne out in later studies of expert and novice swimmers. Novices who concentrated on an external focus - the water's movement around their limbs - showed the same effortless grace as those with more experience, swimming faster and with a more efficient technique. Conversely, when the expert swimmers focused on their limbs, their performance declined (International Journal of Sport Science & Coaching, vol 6, p 99).
Wulf's findings fit well with the idea that flow - and better learning - comes when you turn off conscious thought. "When you have an external focus, you achieve a more automatic type of control," she says. "You don't think about what you are doing, you just focus on the outcome."
Berka has been taking a different approach to evoke the flow state - her group is training novice marksmen to use neurofeedback. Each person is hooked up to electrodes that tease out and display specific brain waves, along with a monitor that measures their heartbeat. By controlling their breathing and learning to deliberately manipulate the waveforms on the screen in front of them, the novices managed to produce the alpha waves characteristic of the flow state. This, in turn, helped them improve their accuracy at hitting the targets. In fact, the time it took to shoot like a pro fell by more than half (The International Journal of Sport and Society, vol 1, p 87).
But as I found when I tried the method, even neurofeedback has a catch. It takes time and effort to produce really thrumming alpha waves. Just when I thought I had achieved them, they evaporated and I lost my concentration. Might there be a faster way to force my brain into flow? The good news is that there, too, the answer appears to be yes.
That is why I'm now allowing Michael Weisend, who works at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to hook my brain up to what's essentially a 9-volt battery. He sticks the anode - the positive pole of the battery - to my temple, and the cathode to my left arm. "You're going to feel a slight tingle," he says, and warns me that if I remove an electrode and break the connection, the voltage passing through my brain will blind me for a good few seconds.
Weisend, who is working on a US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency programme to accelerate learning, has been using this form of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to cut the time it takes to train snipers. From the electrodes, a 2-milliamp current will run through the part of my brain associated with object recognition - an important skill when visually combing a scene for assailants.
The mild electrical shock is meant to depolarise the neuronal membranes in the region, making the cells more excitable and responsive to inputs. Like many other neuroscientists working with tDCS, Weisend thinks this accelerates formation of new neural pathways during the time that someone practises a skill. The method he is using on me boosted the speed with which wannabe snipers could detect a threat by a factor of 2.3 (Experimental Brain Research, vol 213, p 9).
Mysteriously, however, these long-term changes also seem to be preceded by a feeling that emerges as soon as the current is switched on and is markedly similar to the flow state. "The number one thing I hear people say after tDCS is that time passed unduly fast," says Weisend. Their movements also seem to become more automatic; they report calm, focused concentration - and their performance improves immediately.
It's not yet clear why some forms of tDCS should bring about the flow state. After all, if tDCS were solely about writing new memories, it would be hard to explain the improvement that manifests itself as soon as the current begins to flow.
One possibility is that the electrodes somehow reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex - the area used in critical thought, which Csikszentmihalyi had found to be muted during flow. Roy Hamilton, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, thinks this may happen as a side effect of some forms of tDCS. "tDCS might have much more broad effects than we think it does," he says. He points out that some neurons can mute the signals of other brain cells in their network, so it is possible that stimulating one area of the brain might reduce activity in another.
Others are more sceptical. Arne Dietrich of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, suspects that learning will be impaired if the frontal cortex isn't initially engaged in the task. What's more, he thinks you would need a specialised type of tDCS to dampen activity in the prefrontal cortex. "But then again, it is not clear what sort of ripple effect tDCS has globally," he concedes, "regardless of which brain area is targeted."
In any case, it is clear that not all forms of tDCS bring about flow. Roi Cohen Kadosh at the University of Oxford certainly saw no signs of it when he placed an anode over the brain regions used in spatial reasoning.
This debate will only be resolved with much more research. For now, I'm intrigued about what I'll experience as I ask Weisend to turn on the current. Initially, there is a slight tingle, and suddenly my mouth tastes like I've just licked the inside of an aluminium can. I don't notice any other effect. I simply begin to take out attacker after attacker. As twenty of them run at me brandishing their guns, I calmly line up my rifle, take a moment to breathe deeply, and pick off the closest one, before tranquilly assessing my next target.
In what seems like next to no time, I hear a voice call out, "Okay, that's it." The lights come up in the simulation room and one of the assistants at Advanced Brain Monitoring, a young woman just out of university, tentatively enters the darkened room.
In the sudden quiet amid the bodies around me, I was really expecting more assailants, and I'm a bit disappointed when the team begins to remove my electrodes. I look up and wonder if someone wound the clocks forward. Inexplicably, 20 minutes have just passed. "How many did I get?" I ask the assistant.
She looks at me quizzically. "All of them."
Diy brain enhancement
Zapping your brain with a small current seems to improve everything from mathematical skills to marksmanship, but for now your best chance of experiencing this boost is to sign up for a lab experiment. Machines that provide transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) cost £5000 a pop, and their makers often sell them only to researchers.
That hasn't stopped a vibrant community of DIY tDCS enthusiasts from springing up. Their online forums are full of accounts of their home-made experiments, including hair-curling descriptions of blunders that, in one case, left someone temporarily blind.
What drives people to take such risks? Roy Hamilton, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, thinks it is part of a general trend he calls cosmetic neuroscience, in which people try to tailor their brains to the demands of an increasingly fast-paced world. "In a society where both students and their professors take stimulant medications to meet their academic expectations," he warns, "the potential pressure for the use of cognitive enhancing technologies of all types is very real".
Sally Adee is a technology feature editor at New Scientist
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Kaspersky has done it again! This company deserves recognition in the cyber-hall-of-fame for their discoveries of the most amazing pieces of malware ever to come into light.
Let us forget the history and fact that Stuxnet code was made readily available to the world at large and at this time of writing, has been downloaded 10,127 times from ONE site alone. Never fear, no one else downloaded the code, modified it to their liking and redistributed it. That could never be the case, it has to be state sponsored.
Guess this makes the new buzzword "state sponsored" for media. Media that brashly ignores too many facts. Far better to fire off an article within minutes to drive traffic to one's site than it is to fact check. Now, before I get ahead of myself and you, I must tell you that it must be more thrilling for "state sponsors" such as the United States Government and their military/contractors/agencies to cobble together bloated worms, viruses and malware in an effort to obtain financial information.
Think about that for a minute. Imagine the rush of infecting hundreds of machines for the sake of "weeding out terrorism" as opposed to using exiting methods such as SWIFT , or, providing companies like Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and others with National Security Letters telling them to give the same financial information.
The rush of analysts having to sort through millions of scattered transactions versus having a detailed and verified list of what financial transaction transpired in any geographical region. Don't know about you, but I know this "state sponsored" cyberwarfare route is where it's at!
Some of you will read this wondering "gee that makes sense" but will still follow the FUD and diatribe coming from companies like Kaspersky. It is far more sexier and intriguing than to simply look at it for what it is, targeted phishing. Targeted phishing though is not headline grabbing.
I cannot phathom any reader coming to my website for: "Targeted Malware Attacks Middle East" but I can tell you right now that I WILL get a plethora of visitors by giving my article a cool title. "State Sponsored Malware Takes Control Over Mars Rover." What does this article have to do with Mars Rover? Absolutely nothing, but I did made you read this didn't I. Just sounds juicy.
Writers at many of these security companies know what they're doing with this "spiel" they call "analysis". Wording is purposefully crafted to generate attention. The reality is, on a bare logical level, it all eventually collapses.
Little talked about Fact on Stuxnet: Its C&C was housed on server (184.108.40.206,220.127.116.11) with known ties to all sorts of RBN scamsters not to mention its main C&C was a gambling site. Am I to believe that the United States went through all this trouble for this super secretive program, then chanced operation security of the program by placing a C&C on a server with criminals? Are people "that" naive to buy into that?
Flame: 20+ megabytes of bloat. Seriously? Enter Gauss... More drivel.
Companies need to watch their wording. State sponsored means absolutely nothing at this point. Companies like Kaspersky, F-Secure, Mandiant and others have oversensationalized this term in order to push their agendas. Nothing more, nothing less.
While I applaud the efforts by the researchers, I also know factually from experience, many companies will omit many details and shift-slash-skew agendas to meet their concerns. Those concerns will ALWAYS be financial ones. Wish I had the money to purchase Kaspersky software. At this point it is obvious that they and only they are capable of detecting the unseen, unheard of, undetectable, uberfilthware capable of infecting Curiousity on Mars.
Cross-posted from Infiltrated
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A 61-year-old woman presented with a 3-month history of recurring asymptomatic bumps on her legs. These lesions would periodically ulcerate and drain a cloudy, yellow exudate. The patient suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, managed with low-dose prednisone and etanercept. Constitutionally she felt well. She denied any exposure to whirlpool footbaths, though she did frequently have pedicures in a nail salon. The patient did not recall any previous leg injury. Examination revealed several firm, erythematous papules on her legs, as well as a few deeper dermal to subcutaneous nodules near her ankles (Figs. 1 and 2). A few of the lesions had overlying erosion. No inguinal adenopathy was noted.
An incisional biopsy was performed from a deep nodule near her ankle. Histologic examination of this lesion showed necrotizing, granulomatous inflammation with mycobacteria identified on an acid fast stain (Figs. 3 and 4). Additionally, a culture grew Mycobacterium mucogenicum.
Her therapy entailed both discontinuing the etanercept and initiating systemic antimicrobials. Based on the identified susceptibilities of the isolates of M. mucogenicum, the patient was started on clarithromycin 500 mg BID and minocycline 100 mg BID. Continuous treatment with these medications is planned for 6 months and further follow-up is pending.
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Emmanuel Yeboah brings his inspiring life journey to Inner Light Ministries
It is widely considered a curse to be born disabled in Ghana, West Africa. If you are not poisoned or left for dead, you will most likely spend your life begging on the streets. Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah was born in Ghana in 1977 with a severely deformed right leg. Lucky enough to be raised by a supportive mother, Yeboah became a national hero at age 25 when he successfully rode his bicycle, one-legged, across Ghana in 2002.
Yeboah says he was inspired to complete the ride because he wanted to change the perceptions of disabled people.
“[I wanted to] bring positive change, because of how people are treating disabled people in my country and Africa as a whole,” he says in an email to Good Times. “This makes me ride my bicycle.”
Today, Yeboah continues his mission to change the way disabled people are treated in Ghana and throughout the world. Yeboah is the subject of the documentary film, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey, and travels the world giving lectures to raise awareness about disability in third world nations.
“The film, Emmanuel’s Gift, is a true story, so I came out with courage and love to show everyone that there is a way we can make changes,” Yeboah says.
Thanks to Cory Ybarra, founder of the local nonprofit, Building for Generations, Yeboah will speak in Santa Cruz on March 9 at the Inner Light Ministries in Soquel. Ybarra says the event would not have been possible without the help of local sponsors.
The event will feature a full screening of Emmanuel’s Gift and a dance to African drumming by local musician Malima Kone. Local nonprofits will present information and sell merchandise at booths.
In addition to the Santa Cruz event—tickets are $20—Building for Generations booked a second, free engagement for Yeboah at San Jose State University’s Morris Dailey Auditorium on March 8.
Yeboah’s story is interwoven with that of Building for Generations. The organization began when Ybarra, the mother of a disabled son, took a trip to Tanzania where she was introduced to members of a local school. They asked her for help funding a three-unit classroom for disabled students. When she returned home unsure whether or not to orchestrate a fundraising project for the school, someone gave her a copy of Emmanuel’s Gift.
“I watched the movie and I was so inspired,” she says. “It moved me to just throw myself into the project.”
When the three-classroom block in Tanzania was completed in 2006, Building for Generations filed for nonprofit status.
“At that time someone suggested that perhaps I should try to do an event with Emmanuel, but it felt so far out of my reach,” she says. “And yet I have to say I felt like we were kindred spirits. He played such an important role in my story.”
Building for Generations went on to complete an aid project in Peru following the 2008 earthquake, as well as a local musical project for people with developmental disabilities.
“We were growing and doing bigger events to raise money,” she says. “I just looked at what I had raised in the past for events and calculated that it would be a risk for me to commit to Emmanuel, but wasn’t unreasonable. It was believable at this point.”
Ybarra called Yeboah’s publicist and sent the down payment, then set out to raise the money to bring him to Santa Cruz.
“Emmanuel actually called me,” says Ybarra. “I was kind of in shock when I picked the phone up and he said this is Emmanuel. And I thought I might be tongue tied, but instead I couldn’t stop talking, I was so excited, and told him what an inspiration he had been to me and our organization. His response was: ‘This was exactly what I want to do for people.’”
Yeboah’s connection with U.S. nonprofits and California in particular, is an important part of his story. When Yeboah originally decided to embark upon his historic ride, he wrote to the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) in the United States asking them not for help with his disability, but for a bicycle. They sent a bicycle to Ghana and, following his successful cross-country ride; the foundation flew Yeboah into Loma Linda Hospital in San Diego, Calif. There, the disabled portion of his right leg was amputated and he was fitted for a prosthetic leg.
“It was a shock to me for me to walk on two legs, but I was so happy to walk with two legs because it was the first time,” he says. Just weeks after he received the prosthetic leg, Emmanuel was walking, swimming and running.
The film, Emmanuel’s Gift, concludes with Emmanuel’s marriage, and the birth of his first child, whom he named Loma Linda.
Yeboah says his greatest hope is for the entire world to support disabled people the way they are supported in the United States.
After he received his prosthetic leg, Emmanuel organized a program to bring wheelchairs to disabled people in Ghana. Emmanuel became the first handicapped individual to be invited to the king’s palace, where he awarded 15 handicapped children with educational scholarships.
With awards Emmanuel received from Nike and CAF, he founded the Emmanuel Educational Foundation and Sports Academy for the Physically Challenged.
The foundation has collaborated with other organizations on many projects, including one to create a bicycle workshop operated by and beneficial to handicapped people in Ghana.
“People should believe [in] disabled people, because disability is a gift,” he says. “My favorite part in this movie, Emmanuel’s Gift, is where I am giving the wheelchairs to the disabled people in Ghana, and how they’re smiling, happy to receive the chairs.”
He has also gone on to speak with politicians in the United States and Europe, as well as the Ghanaian prime minister, about the treatment of disabled people.
Foster Anderson became severely disabled in a motorcycle accident when he was 17 and is now the founder of the local nonprofit, Shared Adventures, which focuses on improving the quality of life for people with disabilities through access to outdoor and adventure sports. He says Yeboah’s story is a great inspiration to people with disabilities.
Ybarra told Foster about Yeboah a couple of years ago and he watched the documentary shortly after.
“I was so touched by watching it—it’s just like, ‘Alright, this guy is rocking off the Richter scales,’” says Anderson. “He didn’t dwell within his disability and he didn’t give up, sort of like me.”
Yeboah says his best piece of advice to people with disabilities is to believe in themselves.
“Keep on pounding until dreams come true because a dreamer fights to the end,” he says. “I want to go further to do more to help others in the world with courage and inspiration.”
Emmanuel Yeboah will speak at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 9 at Inner Light Ministries, 5630 Soquel Drive, Soquel. Tickets are $20. For more information and tickets, call 465-9090, or visit BuildingforGenerations.com or BrownPaperTickets.com.
Photos:#1 Samson Chan #2 Lisa Lax
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You have to be in the U.S. to vote for American Idol. Get the word out to Vote for CASEY ABRAMS!
In my opinion the best American Idol contestant this year is either Casey_Abrams (Jewish) or Jacob_Lusk (black Christian). Both are good, just different.
The three judges did a spectacular "save" this year when Casey was voted out by the American public. The judges have the ability to "save" one contestant per year and that is usually at the end of the season. They "saved" Casey way early in the proceedings. Then they each talked about how great a decision they made in "saving Casey." Casey was so sure he was cast away that when they "saved" him, he nearly fainted and went back stage where he was attended by a doctor and said he couldn't stop crying. I believe this is somehow prophetic that Israel will be "saved" by Ha Shem (the Judge) and not destroyed as the American public seemed to want.
Casey was doing his best and "singing for his life" when he was saved by the judges! See, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNiBkgOOQbw
Jennifer Lopez: "We know you've had a rough time. You deserve to be here!"
What a wonderful picture of Israel!
save (sâv) verb
saved, saving, saves verb, transitive
1. a. To rescue from harm, danger, or loss. b. To set free from the consequences of sin; redeem.
2. To keep in a safe condition; safeguard.
3. To prevent the waste or loss of; conserve.
4. To set aside for future use; store.
5. To treat with care by avoiding fatigue, wear, or damage; spare: save one's eyesight.
6. To make unnecessary; obviate: Your taking the trunk to the attic has saved me an extra trip.
7. a. Sports. To prevent (a goal, score, or win by an opponent). b. Baseball. To preserve (another pitcher's win) by protecting one's team's lead during a stint of relief pitching.
8. Computer Science. To copy (a file) from a computer's main memory to a disk or other storage medium so that it can be used again.
1. To avoid waste or expense; economize.
2. To accumulate money: saving for a vacation.
3. To preserve a person or thing from harm or loss.
save (one's) breath
To refrain from a futile appeal or effort: Save your breath; you can't dissuade them.
[Middle English saven, from Old French sauver, from Late Latin salvâre, from Latin salvus, safe.]
- sav´able or save´able adjective
- sav´er noun
Synonyms: save, rescue, reclaim, redeem, deliver. These verbs are compared in the sense of freeing a person or thing from danger, evil, confinement, or servitude. Save, the most general, applies to an act of keeping safe or preserving from danger, harm, or the consequences of evil: The smallpox vaccine has saved many lives. A police officer saved the tourist from being cheated. Rescue usually implies saving from immediate harm or danger by direct action: rescue a rare manuscript from a fire; rescued sailors from a torpedoed ship. Reclaim, applied to people, means to bring back, as from error to virtue or to right or proper conduct; it can also mean to return a thing to usefulness or productivity: "To reclaim me from this course of life was the sole cause of his journey to London" (Henry Fielding). "The foundations of the capital were gradually reclaimed from the watery element" (William Hickling Prescott). To redeem is to free someone from captivity or the consequences of sin or error or to save something from pawn or from deterioration or destruction; the term can imply the expenditure of money or effort: The price exacted by the hijackers for redeeming the hostages was extortionate. He redeemed his ring from the pawnbroker. Deliver in this comparison applies to liberating people from something such as misery, peril, error, or evil: "consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them" (George Washington).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.
YouTube - american idol casey abrams
See his performances here:
casey abrams saved - Google Search
See Casey get the boot. See Casey saved. See Casey nearly pass out on stage. Meet Dr. Shaun Nasseri. See Dr. Nasseri make Casey lie down backstage, and telling Casey it’s okay to cry after that trying experience.
Ryan reminds Casey that more than 55 million votes were cast this week after he got saved last week, adding, “and, my friend, if you knew how many you got you’d be very proud. You are safe.” ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/american-idol-2011-double-elimination/2011/03/31/AF2VMyDC_blog.html
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|The Fat Lady|
1960s or earlier
Gryffindor Tower door guard
The Fat Lady is a portrait, who guards the entrance to Gryffindor Tower at Hogwarts Castle. She asks for passwords before she lets anyone in, then swings her picture backward so that students could enter through a portrait hole. She is a very fat woman in a pink silk dress but as her personality changes, she becomes an opera singer in a Roman toga with a wreath on her head.
Life at Hogwarts
It is unknown when or how she died, but it was by some time in the 1960s at the very latest, and then she began guarding the Gryffindor Common Room. It is also unknown who or what guarded the common room before her. The Fat Lady is a dutiful guardian to the Gryffindor Tower, only granting entrance to those who produce the correct password. She had, however, been known for reprimanding students when they returned late, annoyed that they woke her up from her sleep. She had been known to move about occasionally and had a friend, Violet, who visited her, especially during such holidays as Christmas break. The two drank together frequently, once consuming several vats of wine that were in a picture of some drunk monks.
When Molly Weasley was still a student, she returned to Gryffindor Tower at 4 a.m. in the morning after taking a late night stroll with her then boyfriend (now husband), Arthur Weasley, and they both got a telling-off from the Fat Lady.
In 1993 the Fat Lady's portrait was ruined by Sirius Black and pulled off the wall, although Argus Filch, the caretaker, restored her. She was temporarily replaced by Sir Cadogan, but after he was fired she returned to her original location, with security trolls stationed in the hallway to prevent further vandalism.
When Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were called by Hermione Granger to go to the kitchen, the Fat Lady was annoyed that she had to open the door just after they planned to not use it. Later that year, after the Yule Ball ended, the Fat Lady and Violet were both drunk, and Harry Potter had some trouble getting her to open the door. Again, when Harry tried to enter the tower, the Fat Lady was asleep, and he had to shout the password to wake her up, much to her irritation.
Once, when Harry Potter returned late and woke her up, she refused to let him in, claiming that the password changed overnight. When Harry ran off to see Dumbledore regarding Slughorn's memory, she called after him and admitted that she was just kidding, though Harry proceeded to Dumbledore's office anyway.
Later that year, when Dumbledore was murdered by Severus Snape, the Fat Lady was in sorrow, and she allowed Harry to enter the Tower without the password, while she cried. She presumably continued to carry out her same role after the war.
Known passwords used to enter the Gryffindor Common Room
- Abstinence (1996-97)
- Balderdash (1994-95)
- Banana Fritters (1994-95)
- Baubles (1994-95)
- Caput Draconis (Latin for "dragon's head") (1991-92)
- Dilligrout (1992-93)
- Fairy Lights
- Flibbertigibbet (1992-93)
- Fortuna Major (Latin for "greater fortune") (1993-94)
- Mimbulus Mimbletonia (The only one that Neville Longbottom was able to remember) (1995-96)
- Pig Snout (1991-92)
- Quid Agis? (Latin for "How are you?")
- Scurvy Cur (1993-94)
- Tapeworm (1996-97)
- Wattlebird (1992-93)
Behind the scenes
- In the film adaptation, of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Fat Lady is played by Elizabeth Spriggs. She is shown with black hair and a pink silk dress and she doesn't seem to have much personality. Oddly, this version of her is not particularly fat. Her portrait is located at the end of a corridor somewhere in the castle, but its location is never specified. The Fat Lady as portrayed by Spriggs moves only when approached by a student and very little at that. She also asks for the password, ensuring more effective concealment of the common room. In the first film, given the Fat Lady's dress and background, she seems to have lived in the sixteenth century Europe. The Spriggs version of the Fat Lady's portrait is also used in the video game adaptations of Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets.
- In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, she is played by Dawn French, who portrays the character with a more humourous side, such as giving her a bad singing voice (possibly from the saying "the fat lady sings"). This iteration of her is much, much fatter than the previous one. She is much louder and more flamboyant and would be obvious to any passing members of other houses, who would also be able to hear Gryffindor students as they gave her the password, which this version of the portrait is reluctant to listen to. By this time, her portrait has been moved to the seventh floor of the Grand Staircase Tower. The portrait is shown to swing backwards rather than forwards in this film as well. In the third film, given the Fat Lady's dress and background, she seems to have lived during the Classical period.
- In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is suggested that the Fat Lady's portrait may actually be a hidden passageway or shortcut. This is because the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory is shown to be located in a small tower at the corner of the Paved Courtyard close to the Clock Tower and it is presumed the Fat Lady's portrait remains located in the Grand Staircase.
- In the video game versions of the fifth and sixth films, characters do not give the Fat Lady a password, as she simply opens to admit them on recognising them.
- It can also be noted that although the location of the portrait changes in the films, the shape of the actual Gryffindor Common Room remains the same.
- The Fat Lady is a playable character in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7, in which she, despite being opaque and not floating like ghosts, only has ghostly abilities (like scaring other characters).
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Mentioned only)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Building the Magical World (Appears in portrait(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Characters of the Magical World (Appears in portrait(s))
- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Appears in portrait(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Appears in portrait(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (First appearance)
- Harry Potter LEGO Sets (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter Trading Card Game (Appears in portrait(s))
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Article Archive for Year 2010
The recently opened “Myakinino” metro station will not be renamed “Kazakhstanskaia.” Instead, the name will go to a station that is currently under construction. This information was announced at a press-conference by Dmitri Gaev, head the Moscow metro. Read the full story »
Editor’s note: To commemorate the coming new year, neweurasia is looking heavenward to gaze into Central Asia’s past, present, and future. neweurasia’s Schwartz explores outer space’s ultimate meaning for the region’s destiny…
The “Astrostan” series is far from over. Central Asia and outer space is a topic — to some wacky, to others (me) fascinating — that we’ll be returning to again, sometimes in a way, ironically, more “down to earth”, e.g., talking about the space industry and space ideology, and sometimes in the more speculative ways of some of the posts you’ve seen this week, like using Mars as a model for understanding the region’s history. See you soon, space cadets. ;-)
The residents of Baikonur have a saying: “The cosmos are inside you.” I think it’s incredibly apt for this week’s exploration of Central Asia’s relation to outer space. This is a region with so many very earthly struggles that, as Averroes has repeatedly pointed out in his posts, we need to think carefully about Central Asia’s inner space as the real meaning of its reach heavenward.
But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.
Yes, I’m quoting none other than Marx himself, and yes, I’m taking him a wee bit out of context, but for a reason: 2009 has been one helluva year for the entire world. Now that it’s finally passed and we enter into 2010 and all that could be, let’s take a moment to fearlessly review all that was and could have been.
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.- Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples addressed the priests and missionaries of the world yesterday calling on them to use a three dimensional approach to their service: doctrine, discipline, devotion.
The Vatican cardinal spoke on Monday afternoon at the General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Rome, emphasizing the qualities that all priests and missionaries around the world must develop to help others encounter Christ.
"Every priest, on his path of growth and in his ministry, should safeguard these three dimensions: Doctrine, Discipline, Devotion,” Cardinal Dias counseled.
He then focused on each dimension, beginning with “doctrine.” He said that “safeguarding doctrine” is defined by remaining faithful to the “Word of God, the Magisterium of the Church,” as well as the teachings of Benedict XVI.
The second dimension of discipline, the prelate emphasized, is extremely essential today, and must “be taken more deeply into account.”
“This implies the discipline of mind and body, a sign and fruit of a human and spiritual maturity. This includes formation in chastity and proper relations with the opposite sex; management of discord and conflict in relationships and in the community; management of free time and use of new technologies.”
Moving on to the final dimension of devotion, the cardinal underlined that each priest today “should bear in mind that he is a man of God. He should give primacy to the spirit, keeping in mind that he is in the world, but not of the world."
Addressing the priests and missionaries in attendance, Cardinal Dias said that in general, they must always assist in “helping others to encounter the living and active person of Jesus Christ,” in their daily work and in the celebration of the sacraments.
The cardinal concluded by saying every priest, like every Christian, "has the missionary spirit in his DNA," otherwise he would be "a deformed Christian or at least not yet well-formed ..."
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|01/06/2009||The Rise of Texas
The actual creation of Texas Hold’em is a faint memory with a lot of gaps. In other words, a boring story to tell. However, the rise to fame, like the rise of a superhero, is a story always worth telling.
The Texas State Legislature officially acknowledges Robstown, Texas as the birthplace of Hold’em, as it was called back in the early twentieth century. There was no need to put the word Texas before Hold’em because that was the only place anyone ever played the game. Not until a few Texan card players went to the city of Las Vegas in 1967, did anybody ever see the game. The word Texas did not take much time for it to become synonymous with Hold’em.
The game did get to a slow start, only playing at the Golden Nugget Casino in Downtown Las Vegas. The location and facilities were not the kind of place high rollers wanted to be seen or play, so in 1969 the professionals found another place more liking to their standards. The now non-existent Dunes Casino entrance on the famous Las Vegas Strip became the place to play Texas Hold’em. That same year the first ever poker tournament was held and Texas Hold’em was playable. The next year in 1970 the World Series of Poker moved into the Horseshoe Casino and Hold’em followed. The following year Texas Hold’em became a no-limit poker game and that is what it has been since.
In the 1980s California became interested in the game. At first
Texas Hold’em was illegal under a statute because of its similarities to a now forgotten game called stud-horse. In 1988 Texas Hold’em was declared legally distinct from stud-horse as Hold’em is more of a strategy game than luck. In a blink of an eye poker rooms were playing the game across the state of California. As the saying goes once California latches on to something, it is only a matter of time before the rest of the world does too.
|Copyright © 2008 Online Casino Style Quick links for news ♦ Jan 2008 ♦ Oct 2008 ♦ Nov 2008 ♦ Dec 2008 ♦ Jan 2009 ♦|
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Maybe the kid in Alaska would take me in?
Another demographic I wish I didn't belong to:
Got that sinking feeling? Amid signs that the U.S. housing market is finally rising from a long slumber, real estate Web site Zillow reports that homeowners are still under water.
Nearly 16 million homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their home was worth in the first quarter, or nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages. That’s a $1.2 trillion hole in the collective home equity of American households.
Despite the temptation to just walk away and mail back the keys, nine of 10 underwater borrowers are making their mortgage and home loan payments on time. Only 10 percent are more than 90 days delinquent.
Still, “negative equity” will continue to weigh on the housing market – and the broader economy – because it sidelines so many potential home buyers. It also puts millions of owners at greater risk of losing their home if the economic recovery stalls, according to Zillow’s chief economist, Stan Humphries.
“If economic growth slows and unemployment rises, more homeowners will be unable to make timely mortgage payments, increasing delinquency rates and eventually foreclosures," he said.
For now, the recent bottoming out in home prices seems to be stabilizing the impact of negative equity; the number of underwater homeowners held steady from the fourth quarter of last year and fell slightly from a year ago.
Real estate market conditions vary widely across the country, as does the depth of trouble homeowners find themselves in. Nearly 40 percent of homeowners with a mortgage owe between 1 and 20 percent more than their home is worth. But 15 percent – approximately 2.4 million – owe more than double their home’s market value.
Nevada homeowners have been hardest hit, where two-thirds of all homeowners with a mortgage are underwater. Arizona, with 52 percent, Georgia (46.8 percent), Florida (46.3 percent) and Michigan (41.7 percent) also have high percentages of homeowners with negative equity.
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Ohio Senate passes student-athlete concussion bill
The Daily Briefing
Buckeye Forum Podcast
The Dispatch public affairs team talks politics and tackles state and federal government issues in the Buckeye Forum podcast.
Your Right to Know
Starting as soon as the spring sports season, Ohio’s young athletes would have to be immediately removed from a game or practice when they showed symptoms of a concussion.
As public awareness rises over the potential long-term consequences of repeated head injuries, a bill aimed at ensuring that concussions in student athletes are properly handled passed the Senate yesterday and should soon be on its way to Gov. John Kasich for his signature.
Meanwhile, the House voted yesterday to double Ohio’s minimum auto-insurance liability requirements, which have not been updated in 43 years.
The Senate unanimously approved the concussion legislation, House Bill 143, which requires that steps be taken to educate parents, youth coaches and officials about symptoms, and that a young athlete who shows such symptoms be immediately pulled from a game. A youth could not return to competition unless cleared by a physician.
Among the health-care professionals who support the bill is Dr. Jason Dapore with OhioHealth Sports Medicine, who has served as the team physician for the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Upper Arlington school district.
Dapore said no two athletes will have same experience with concussions: Some can suffer far-reaching consequences that affect function, emotion or pain, while others can have only a mild headache for a few days.
“This is why prompt recognition and removal from play are critical in protecting the athlete who has suffered a concussion,” Dapore told a Senate committee last week.
Dapore also stressed that anyone suffering a head injury should be examined by a physician to ensure there is a careful assessment and diagnosis of the injury.
The Ohio Department of Health would develop an information sheet on concussions and head injuries. Before an athlete could play, a parent and the student would have to verify that they have reviewed the information, and coaches would have to complete a training program on brain trauma.
“There is a clear risk of further complication when an athlete plays while experiencing concussed symptoms,” said Sen. Scott Oelslager, R-Canton. He noted that under the bill, an athlete removed from a game with a head injury must sit out for at least 24 hours.
The bill needs final House approval of Senate changes before it can go to the governor. Rep. Michael Stinziano, D-Columbus, a joint sponsor of the bill, said he supports the changes.
Sen. Cliff Hite, R-Findlay, a former high-school football coach, said coaches don’t know how to handle head injuries. “This is a great bill that will really help coaches make the right decisions."
Legislators also could finish work next week on House Bill 279, which would increase the auto-insurance liability minimums of $12,500 for a single injured person, $25,000 for an accident with multiple people injured, and $7,500 for property damage. Those levels are lower than in all but one other state, Florida. If approved, the new law would take effect in about a year.
Under the bill, state minimums would rise to $25,000 per person, $50,000 for a multiperson accident and — after two years at $15,000 — $25,000 for property damage.
“I, through my (law) practice, have seen the devastation that has fallen upon people who had bad insurance coverage,” said Rep. Mark Okey, D-Carrollton, who jointly sponsored the bill with Rep. Gerald Stebelton, R-Lancaster. Stebelton said that with the rising costs of vehicles and health care on top of general inflation, it’s “almost unbelievable” that minimums have not increased.
Okey said some drivers will experience a premium increase, but the bill would “increase insurance coverage for people who desperately need it. I want people in this state to have adequate coverage so if they are involved in an auto accident, they will come out of it physically and financially sound.”
A state report last session estimated that premiums for those with minimum coverage would rise by $2 to $3 a month.
Before the 85-7 House vote, Rep. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, argued that because of the state’s jobless rate, many people are already illegally driving without insurance. “I think this is a bad time to be increasing insurance rates for people who just cannot afford it.”
The Senate started hearings on the bill yesterday.
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Posted on Wed, Mar. 04, 2009
last updated: March 04, 2009 08:41:34 PM
WASHINGTON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a joint session of Congress on Wednesday that the world must have a unified response to the international economic crisis if it's to survive an "economic hurricane."
Mixing optimism with frankness, Brown said the best way for all nations to avoid economic catastrophe was by working in unison to stimulate the economy and by agreeing on global rules and standards for banks.
"So that the whole of the worldwide banking system serves our prosperity rather than risks it, let us agree on rules and standards for accountability, transparency and reward that will mean an end to the excesses and will apply to every bank, everywhere, and all the time," he told members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who'd gathered in the House chamber.
Brown told lawmakers to resist nationalistic protectionism "that history tells us that, in the end, protects no one" and hurts everyone in the interwoven global economy because "a bad bank anywhere is a threat to good banks everywhere."
The prime minister also said that the time was ripe for greater cooperation between the United States and Europe because of pro-U.S. heads of state such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and himself.
"And let me say that you now have the most pro-American European leadership in living memory," he said. "And a leadership that wants to cooperate more closely together, in order to cooperate more closely with you. There is no old Europe, no new Europe, there is only your friend Europe."
Brown pledged Great Britain's constant friendship with the United States and announced that Queen Elizabeth would bestow an honorary knighthood on Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who's battling a brain tumor. Kennedy issued a statement that said the honor was "moving and personal."
Brown addressed a Congress that's deeply split along partisan lines over what approach to take to fix the ailing U.S. economy, with Republican lawmakers railing against President Barack Obama's stimulus plan and budget proposals.
The divisions were reflected in the reaction to Brown's economic message. Democrats applauded heartily, while Republicans responded tepidly.
"There was nothing that I heard that I didn't agree with," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. "We have an integrated economic system; we have a global market. If banks get sick here, they get sick there. He (Brown) understands it, President Obama understands it."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that Brown's ideas posed "an interesting question" about how far international cooperation could go, but he added that the United States is busy "working on our own (economic problems) right now."
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said he feared that Brown's ideas could lead to the United States losing a degree of sovereignty.
"I have concerns about having international control of the banking system," King said. "I don't want to surrender economic banking power to an overseas body."
Brown's trip to Washington came as his popularity is sinking at home. A recent poll found that his Labour Party has the support of only 28 percent of Britons, while 48 percent back the Conservative Party.
Brown's appearance wasn't the hottest ticket in town. Many seats on the House floor were filled by congressional staff rather than lawmakers.
He also didn't receive the kind of raucous reception that Sarkozy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair did when each of them addressed Congress. Brown's lukewarm reception wasn't lost on King, who told colleagues it was embarrassing that some lawmakers skipped Brown's address.
"That's not a reflection against Gordon Brown, it's a reflection on us," King said. "Here's our greatest ally. Congress should have been here at 10:30 a.m. It shows parochialism; it shows a lack of interest."
King surmised that there were no-shows because Brown isn't perceived as being as charismatic as Blair was.
"It could have been star appeal, but we should get beyond that,"" he said. "The guy had something to say, and he's our closest ally."
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
McClatchy Newspapers 2009
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Would you know of any software or a tool that may be an aid to me, an absolute beginner in the discipline?
I found this an hour ago and was a very interesting read.
I'm actually looking for some tutorial that may lay a systematic approach to achieve the ability of a lyricist, and would like to see if it works. Or else, yes, a collaboration is always fruitful. I just want to try it on my own first. Moreover its tough to find someone in your country who writes in the language that's least rewarding monetarily in the country.
I guess someone who is writing lyrics for his own songs would know a method or two.
Edited by AuralSerenity (21/10/10 08:17 AM)
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Economist, Paul Krugman:
Clearly, there was a massive increase in financial concentration, with a few true behemoths emerging. It’s easy to argue that this creates moral hazard, because the giant firms know that they’re too big to fail – which is also an easy slogan to remember. The idea that size is the problem has gained a lot of credibility from Paul Volcker, who personally embodies the truth of too big to fail (if you’ve ever met him); more seriously, Volcker has argued strongly that the repeal of Glass-Steagall, allowing financial firms to grow big in part by merging conventional banking with investment activities, set the stage for the crisis.
My view is that I’d love to see those financial giants broken up, if only for political reasons: it’s bad to have banks so big they can often write laws. But I’m not sold on the centrality of too big to fail to the crisis, for reasons best explained in terms of the second doctrine.
Economist, Simon Johnson:
There is no social value to having banks above $100 billion in total assets and we all now understand the danger of allowing banks to become 10 times that size – let alone entering the $2-$3 trillion range; we will gradually and responsibly force our biggest banks to become smaller. This worked for Standard Oil – no one can claim it hurt the oil industry. And who would really want to go back to having AT&T run a monopoly in any part of telecommunications?
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April 22, 2011 at 6:24 am in INFORUM
TOPPENISH, Wash. A high school student who faked her pregnancy for six months as a social experiment stunned a student assembly this week by taking off the belly bundle. Continue Reading
Tags: odd, updates 18 Comments »
This took a lot of courage to do. So many stereotypes are out there and she was exposed to many of them. Also, it should make her stop and think before she uses a stereotype. Good luck to her.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 45 16
Frankly, I think this was a rather cruel thing for her to do. Most members of her family and her boyfriend’s family thought there was going to be a baby. Whether their feelings about that were positive or negative…there had to have been a lot of emotion involved. It isn’t nice to play with people like that.
Hot debate. What do you think? 46 36
She never could have done this “experiment” in a college class…she violated a bunch of ethical standards
Hot debate. What do you think? 25 21
The old saying have proven to be true, again.
“Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover”
Are we teaching children that, these days??
Hot debate. What do you think? 30 17
Overall, I think this was awesome! This must have taken a lot of inner strength and courage.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 42 21
Looks like a big ole liar to me.
Like or Dislike: 16 11
If I was her boyfriend’s mother, I’d never forgive them for the lie.
Hot debate. What do you think? 27 15
that was my first thought too. if the experiment was mostly about how peers treated you differently, than why put the boyfriend’s parents into such an emotional roller coaster. this could have been their grandchild, of course they were thinking about that future baby a lot and probably already started some attachment to the baby in her mind. that was very unethical and cruel to do that to the boyfriend’s parents.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 25 9
A good intentioned project with questionable methods that I do not believe should be entirely blamed on the student.
I wouldn’t expect a high school student to have enough perspective to go about this “Experiment” in a way that wouldn’t cause a lot of hurt feelings. The school administration “signed off” and I think maybe they should have given her some more guidelines before approving. For ex. A counselor could have overseen the project, explained what the ramifications of allowing someone to believe they were going to have a grandchild might be etc. I think she deserves credit for trying to do the right thing by clearing this project first. If the principal thinks it’s OK it’s reasonable she should too.
It also seems like adults should be the ones helping support teen mothers, not other teens. I would be curious to know if there was any support for her available in the community and how that interaction went.
Like or Dislike: 15 4
All of Kevin’s posts lately have a lot more votes than anyone elses comments, and most of them are thumbs up. Even when he has the only comment they have 37 or so thumbs up and no thumbs down.
Like or Dislike: 11 7
He could be using one of those programs like the ones the kids use on youtube/forums to give the thumbs up/down as many times as they want? A little faux pas among serious nerds over the age of 16. He looks older than that so I would give him the benefit of the doubt but I guess I haven’t been watching :p
Like or Dislike: 11 4
That’s a very interesting point Becky. I’ve been wondering how that works because there are some others doing the same thing on here also. I only know how to do one thumbs up per comment but I’ll give you one for that comment.
Like or Dislike: 12 1
In order to generate more than 1 thumb up or down per comment, one must change their IP address on their computer, because that is what the protocol of the thumb up/down function looks for when people vote. Each computer gets 1 vote, essentially, for each comment because each computer is only assigned one IP address. To reset an IP address is a HUGE hassle, and personally I do not think it is worth it to go through all that to make myself appear better to an online community of people I have never met and do not really care about. To do so would require a person to start the “run” function on a computer and enter a few prompts, and even then it doesn’t always work because an ISP only has so many IP addresses to hand out. Each time you change your IP with the run command line, it only assigns 1 new IP. Therefore, you would have to do it once for every thumb up. Now, unless he created a program to do this automatically, which probably isn’t that hard, I would assume people actually like his comments. (By the way, Apple computers don’t have a run command prompt so I do not know how to do it on an Apple, just Windows.)
Like or Dislike: 9 4
Based on the responses to his blog, I seriously doubt that there are that many people who actually agree with him. He doesn’t come up with anything original, and frankly, he doesn’t have anything original to contribute. He’s a troll with a blog. Nothing to see there.
Like or Dislike: 5 0
Even a broken watch is right twice a day.
Like or Dislike: 3 2
this young woman has serious psychological problems. this was in no way a scientific experiment.
she wasted her senior year lying to friends and family.
Hot debate. What do you think? 15 15
This is more and more strange the more I think about it. What if she had shaved all the hair on her body and lost weight saying she had 6 months to live and came out saying it had been an “experiment.” This is completely wrong. This girl needs to be held up as an example to our kids of what NOT to be.
Like or Dislike: 5 3
The point of the experiment was to show how judgemental people are. If she would have told her boyfriend’s parents the reactions wouldn’t have been genuine, especially when other people talked to them about it. This girl gave up almost her entire senior year. That is an amazing sacrifice right there. How many of us look back (way back for some of us) on high school and mainly focus on our senior year and some of the things we’ve done?
I think this was amazing and she really showed courage and resiliance. Good for her. I hope everyone that talked negatively about her feels like an _ _ _, because whomever said it earlier was right, “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover”.
Like or Dislike: 4 4
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Boob burns not bikini-related: Swedish retailer
Published: 18 May 12 11:40 CET
The manufacturer of the bikini suspected of having caused severe bust-line burns on a Swedish woman claims that test results reveal the beach garment is not responsible for the woman's scorched skin.
“We take what has happened very seriously and have promised the customer that we will do everything we can to help find the cause of the unpleasant occurrence,” said Charlotte Högberg, head of information at the women’s fashion store Kappahl that retailed the bikini.
However, when an independent company tested the used bra, as well as one that was unused, they found that the chemical content of the two bikinis were different, but they could find nothing to corroborate the claim that it was the metal underwiring of the bra that was the cause of the burns.
However, in the chemical evaluation the company detected the chemical Oxybenzone, an organic compound used in sun screens which is relatively common in the US but is not allowed to be used in European products without a specific marking within the EU.
The reason why the marking is required is because in intensive light it can cause skin reactions reminiscent of burns.
The company also said that despite selling over 100,000 underwired bikinis a year, they have never before heard of any connection between the underwiring and sunbathing.
The testing, however, was important for them as they wanted to make sure it was not their bra that caused the woman’s discomfort.
“It is important to us that our customers are feeling safe with our garments, both when it comes to dangerous chemicals and other defects,” Högberg said.
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(Reuters) - A decision to cut $350 billion in security spending over the next decade will force the Pentagon to make difficult trade-offs that could lead to layoffs, canceled weapons systems or a smaller nuclear arsenal.
Following are some of the areas likely to be considered for cutbacks as the Defense Department attempts to reduce spending as required by the new deficit reduction law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama.
About 45 percent of the Pentagon's base budget -- which was $526 billion this year -- goes for pay and benefits for the Defense Department's 2.3 million employees. Nearly 20 percent of the growth in the defense budget over the past decade has been due to rising personnel costs.
Defense analysts have suggested taking a knife to the $250 billion in personnel costs by shrinking the overall size of the department or changing the pay and benefit structure.
"Personnel costs really are a major driver in the defense budget, so reducing the number of personnel can generate a significant amount of savings," said Todd Harrison, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent national security think tank.
"I think they will want to reduce the total active duty end strength a bit. With the $350 billion cut, they won't have to do much," Harrison said, adding that the civilian work force would probably be trimmed back proportionately as well.
Analysts at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, recommended in a recent report that the Pentagon eliminate 74,200 Army and 27,000 Marine positions along with a similar number of civilians in an effort to save $39.16 billion through 2015.
"The United States is unlikely to deploy large land armies in the near future due to the tremendous cost of these wars in both blood and treasure," said the analysts, led by Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense.
PAY AND BENEFITS
The Pentagon also may look at reforming the military's pay and benefit structure -- everything from base salary and housing allowances to medical costs and retirement funding.
The overall annual per-person cost for active duty military personnel has risen by 46 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars over the past decade, to $121,600, Harrison said.
"They certainly can't continue allowing personnel costs to grow at that rate, but to really rein in the growth they'll have to make changes to healthcare benefits that they provide," he said.
Healthcare costs have been rising rapidly and now amount to about $52.5 billion annually. Some 9.6 million people are covered, including active-duty troops, their families, retirees and reserves.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others frequently mentioned one area they believe is ripe for reform -- the cost of health coverage for those who retire from active duty after 20 years or so and then go into the private-sector work force.
Their health insurance payments have not risen since the 1990s. Prices are so low that retirees have no incentive to take health insurance through their civilian employer rather than sticking with the military's plan. Congress has rejected attempts to raise the price in the past, but the Obama administration is now seeking a $5 per month increase.
The Center for American Progress estimated the Pentagon could save $42 billion through 2015 by reforming the healthcare system to require military retirees who work to pay a greater proportion of their healthcare costs.
The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a group of defense analysts and academics, foresaw even greater savings in a report last year. They said the Pentagon could save $115 billion through 2020 by changing the compensation and healthcare systems.
With the United States still engaged in three conflicts overseas and unemployment topping 9 percent, analysts say lawmakers may find it politically difficult to tackle personnel and compensation issues in the military. As a result, weapons programs may be the first to be sliced by the budget knife.
Some of the weapons systems likely to draw scrutiny:
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a likely candidate, if for no other reason than its size. The Pentagon has been planning to buy 2,443 of the aircraft through 2035 at a cost of $382 billion.
The Sustainable Defense Task Force last year recommended canceling both the Navy and the Marine Corps versions of the F-35 and replacing them with other aircraft, saving $9.85 billion through 2020.
But canceling the Marine F-35 would eventually leave the corps without a strike fighter capable of taking off from the Navy's 11 amphibious assault ships. The vessels currently carry Harrier jump jets, which are nearing the end of their service life.
What would become of the assault ships?
One possibility, said Harrison, would be to fund the Marine Corps F-35 and instead eliminate one of the Navy's full sized aircraft carriers. The short-takeoff aircraft could be used off of the assault ships.
Joint Tactical Radio System - The joint tactical radio is aimed at enabling communications among soldiers, airmen, Marines and others operating in a given theater.
The Pentagon is planning to spend another $27 billion to complete it in the coming years. It has had technical issues and some of the resulting radios cost about 10 times the versions they replace.
"I think it will make the services question whether or not they need the advanced capabilities the radios provide, whether or not it's worth the cost," Harrison said.
Aerial refueling tanker - The new Air Force refueling tanker program received bad publicity when Boeing announced just months after winning the contract that the cost of the first set of planes would be higher than the contract price.
Pentagon officials said the cost overruns were Boeing's problem -- it had offered a below-cost price in hopes of making money on the planes ordered after the initial development.
But the announcement angered some lawmakers and gave the program a black eye, contributing to the sense that the Pentagon procurement process needs reform. The Sustainable Defense Task Force has recommended that the tanker project be delayed, at a savings of $9.9 billion.
Despite the concerns about the tanker, Harrison said he did not think the project would be cut. "The Air Force has needed this tanker for more than a decade," he said.
The U.S. government could make substantial savings by reducing the size of its nuclear arsenal.
Under the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia ratified this year, deployed nuclear warheads are due to be cut to 1,550 in seven years. In securing Senate approval, the administration promised to spend billions on modernizing the nuclear arsenal.
Analysts say the United States could save huge amounts of money by reducing the nuclear arsenal even further and eliminating one leg of the so-called triad of delivery systems -- missiles, bombers and submarines.
The Sustainable Defense Task Force recommended cutting deployed nuclear warheads to 1,000 on seven nuclear submarines and 160 Minuteman missiles while eliminating the nuclear bomber force.
It estimated savings of $113.5 billion through 2020.
(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Warren Strobel and Kieran Murray)
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After losing huge amounts of retirement money in the stock market, many people are asking: Should I stop contributing to my 401(k)? Should I take money out of my 401(k) and invest it in something else, despite the tax penalties for doing so?
The problem with a 401(k) is that you put up 100% of the capital, assume 100% of the risk, and you only get 20% of the profits. The other 80% of the profit goes to fees and commissions. The key question is: Do you have the financial education needed to find an investment that will give you a better return?
There are certainly better investments than 401(k)s. But for people who have little financial education a 401(k) may be the best investment. I do not advise people to get out of their 401(k) if they don’t have the financial education needed to find and wisely manage a good investment.
Just like you wouldn’t want to give a teenager a car before they learn to drive, you don’t want to purchase an investment before you’ve learned to control the risk. Every investment carries some risk, but as your education about that investment increases, your risk decreases.
With a 401(k) you are turning your money over to someone else, which means they get most of the control... and most of the profits. You can do a better job with your money than anyone else. First, however, you need to arm yourself with some financial education.
So if you want to get out of your 401(k), set aside some time now to increase your financial education a little bit every day. That is one investment that is sure to bring you good returns!
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A frisbee friend of mine just had twins and has faced some seriously difficult times getting one of the two girls to nurse well. It reminds me of how hard it was for us (well, my wife and daughter, I was just collateral damage) fourteen years ago. My take home lesson was that breastfeeding was not natural. Well, as natural as infant mortality because failure happens and is really hard. Lots of the books and culture around it make it much harder for the woman because of the increased expectations and the consequences of not getting it to work.
These pressures led to some early mistakes and a quick visit to the emergency room when Jessica was all of a couple of days old due to dehydration and jaundice. I will never forget the game of "pin the IV on the dehydrated baby." Good times. Fortunately, my pal has heaps of resources, friends and a community upon which to rely. As always, the lessons of Lost apply: you need a community and you need to ask for help. We didn't have the former in Lubbock, and most of my family's community today is pretty virtual. We are still not that implanted in Montreal, but we have heaps of resources elsewhere.
Anyhow, the message today is that it is easy to forget that having a baby is really, really hard, and that failure used to be an option (high infant mortality rates) but is much less so today.
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- UNC-TV Series
- UNC-TV Specials
- Programs A-Z
To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever
The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest blood feud in college athletics. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses sports; it is locals against outsiders, elitists against populists, even good against evil. It is thousands of grown men and women with jobs and families screaming themselves hoarse at eighteen-year-old basketball geniuses, trading conspiracy theories in online chat rooms, and weeping like babies when their teams—when they —lose. In North Carolina, where both schools are located, the rivalry may be a way of aligning oneself with larger philosophic ideals—of choosing teams in life—a tradition of partisanship that reveals the pleasures and even the necessity of hatred.
What makes people invest their identities in what is elsewhere seen as "just a game"? What made North Carolina senator John Edwards risk alienating voters by telling a reporter, "I hate Duke basketball"? What makes people care so much? In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, author William Blythe explains that the answers have to do with class and culture in the South, and in his new book, To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry, he expands on the history of this epic grudge through an examination of family, loyalty, privilege, and truly Southern manners. Blythe, the former longtime literary editor of Esquire and a lifelong Tar Heel fan, immerses himself in the lives of the two teams, eavesdropping on practice sessions, hanging with players, observing the arcane rituals of fans, and struggling to establish some basic human kinship with Duke's players and proponents. With Blythe's access to the coaches, the stars, and the bit players, Blythe shares how his latest work is both a chronicle of personal obsession and a picaresque record of social history.
King of Lies
John Hart's stunning debut, King of Lies is a complex mystery thriller. Hart's protagonist, Jackson Workman Pickens, whom most people call "Work," is a struggling North Carolina criminal defense attorney. Work has wrestled with inner demons for most of his life, especially after the death of his mother and the disappearance of his wealthy father, Ezra Pickens, a highly successful lawyer who took him into his practice. When Work Pickens finds his father murdered, the investigation pushes a repressed family history to the surface and he sees his own carefully constructed facade begin to crack.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, John Hart explains how he created a literary thriller that is as suspenseful as it is poignant—a riveting murder mystery layered beneath the southern drawl of a humble North Carolina lawyer. The Durham native who grew up in Salisbury, shares his mastery of prose and plot that belie his newcomer status. An illuminating anatomy of a murder and the ripple effect it produces within a family and a community, The King of Lies is a stunning debut, and now New York Times Bestseller, revealed in this one-on-one interview with the first-time author.
New York Times Bestselling author Sarah Dessen returns with Just Listen , a multi-layered, impossible to put down book that perfectly depicts Annabel, a teenager dealing with the hardest year of her life. Last year, Annabel was "the girl who has everything"—at least that's the part she played in the television commercial for Kopf 's Department Store.This year, she's the girl who has nothing: no best friend because mean-but-exciting Sophie dropped her, no peace at home since her older sister became anorexic, and no one to sit with at lunch. Until she meets Owen Armstrong—tall, dark, and music-obsessed, Owen is a reformed bad boy with a commitment to truth telling. With Owen's help, maybe Annabel can face what happened the night she and Sophie stopped being friends.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Sarah Dessen shares this story of a year in the life of a family coming to terms with the imperfections beneath its perfect facade. During this special interview, the Chapel Hill native and University of North Carolina graduate reveals her unique perspective on the world of fiction for young adults and the local experiences that helped shape her latest best-selling work.
While They’re at War: The True Story of American Families on the Homefront
There is a war story most Americans never hear. It is the story of what life is like for the women and men who are married to the military when a loved one is deployed. Most have seen the tearful goodbyes and the joyful homecomings occasionally caught on camera, but the rest of the homefront experience has been hidden behind closed doors, until now. In While They're at War: The True Story of American Families on the Homefront , author Kristin Henderson exposes the often-difficult aspects of military culture on and off America's bases.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Henderson, a military wife herself, reveals how her new book focuses on two very different women at Fort Bragg who are facing their husbands' first deployments. The author shares scenes from the lives of these women and illuminates the overwhelming costs of being married to the military—anticipatory grief; strongly enforced rules concerning infidelity; isolation and alienation from non-deployed military officers and the civilian world; the effects of e-mail, cell phone, and CNN culture; homecoming violence; and much more. The author also discusses her powerful chapters on casualty notification, the challenges military children present to schools, and the complexity of reunions after deployment.
Back to Wando Passo
David Payne has been hailed as "the most gifted American novelist of his generation" ( Boston Globe ) and has been likened to "Pat Conroy or perhaps a Southern John Irving" ( Winston-Salem Journal ). Now, in his new novel, Back to Wando Passo , Payne introduces us to Ransom Hill, lead singer of a legendary-but-now-defunct indie rock group who has come to South Carolina to turn over a new leaf. A bighearted artist and a bit of a wild man, Ran knows that his wife Claire's patience with him hangs by a frayed thread. After a five-month separation, he's come south from New York City to rejoin her and their two young children at Wando Passo, Claire's inherited family estate, determined to save his marriage, his family, and himself.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, the Payne shares his fast-paced adventure story filled with lyrical writing, wicked humor, and unforgettable characters. The Henderson, NC, native reveals how Back to Wando Passo propels its two love stories, linked by place through time, to a simultaneous crescendo of betrayal, revenge, and redemption, that asks whether the present is doomed to ceaselessly repeat the past— or if it can sometimes change and redeem it.
John Hope Franklin
Mirror to America
At ninety years old, John Hope Franklin remains one of the most admired, influential and relevant historians in the world. Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin is not only a unique and invaluable historical document, but a testament to the courage and determination of one American who throughout the twentieth century and in the twenty-first—from the first petition he was selected to deliver to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to his appointment as chair of President Clinton's taskforce (to say nothing of his writing and scholarship)—has helped redirect the social and political course of our nation.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, John Hope Franklin shares his personal legacy and the book that Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Severus Lewis has called “a great historian's autobiography that will serve as an indispensable history of our times.”
The Myth of You and Me
When Cameron was fifteen, Sonia was her best friend---no one could come between them. Now Cameron is a twenty-nine-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet.When an unexpected letter arrives from Sonia ten years after the incident that ended their friendship, Cameron doesn't reply, despite Oliver's urging. But then he passes away, and Cameron discovers that he has left her with one final task: to track down Sonia and hand-deliver a mysterious package to her. Now without a job, a home, and a purpose, Cameron decides to honor his request, setting off on the road to find this stranger who was once her inseparable other half.
Leah Stewart's The Myth of You and Me, the story of Cameron and Sonia's friendship—as intense as any love affair—and its dramatic demise, captures the universal sense of loss and nostalgia that often lingers after the end of an important relationship. In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch , the Chapel Hill author shares how her searingly honest new novel is a celebration and portrait of a friendship that will appeal to anyone who still feels the absence of that first true friend.
With a mix of his own military knowledge and vivid creativity, Andrew Britton sets his new novel The American in contemporary times, introducing readers to 33-year-old Ryan Kealy, a man who has achieved more in his military and CIA career than most men can dream of in a lifetime, but who has also seen the worst life has to offer and is lucky to have survived it. Now, living on the coast of Maine, Ryan wants nothing more than to be left to his sporadic teaching and his demons. However, he is soon brought out of retirement when a complicated terrorist plot to assassinate the U.S., French, and Italian presidents by Al-Qaeda, Iranian terrorists, and even Americans out to destroy their own country, is uncovered.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Britton discusses his exciting debut, written at age 21 and crafted in the tradition of the masters—Ludlum, Forsyth, Clancy, Higgins, le Carre—but with a completely contemporary, post-9/11 sensibility. With his first novel published at age 24, this University of North Carolina graduate shares how he hopes to make his mark over the coming decades—shaping the future of contemporary thrillers.
New Stories from the South
In the third decade of the New Stories from the South series—the book welcomes a new editor—Allan Gurganus. In this latest collection, Gurganus combed through hundreds of short stories written in 2005 to assemble a muscular array of talent, twenty stories ranging from low-down, high-octane farce to dark, erotic suspense.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Gurganus spotlights many of the stories from this year's volume that combines seasoned writers like Tony Earley, Wendell Berry, and George Singleton with gifted newcomers, including Keith Lee Morris, Erin Brooks Worley and J. D. Chapman. Their stories range from a communal love poem for a hunting dog, to a tale of a newly rich retiree trying to micromanage a Hollywood movie and losing his trophy wife to each new young screenwriter, to a harrowing work about a Virginia slave-woman burned alive for witchcraft and many are shared in this special one-on-one interview.
When young Ernal Foster spent his life savings to build a juniper-hulled sportfishing boat in 1937, he gave birth to what would become the multimillion-dollar charter fishing industry on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Today, Ernal's son, Captain Ernie Foster, struggles to keep the family business alive in a time of great change on the Outer Banks. Hatteras Blues is their story—a story of triumph and loss, of sturdy Calvinist values and pell-mell American progress, and of fate and luck as capricious as the weather.
Within the engaging saga of the rise and decline of one family's livelihood, Tom Carlson relates the high-adrenaline experience of blue-water sportfishing and the precarious early development of Hatteras Village in the heart of "Hurricane Alley."
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, author Tom Carlson shares how, in recording this truly North Carolina story, the author unexpectedly found himself becoming part of it. Struggling to come to terms with the illness and death of his wife to a degenerative disease, Carlson learns a lesson from the Fosters—and the townspeople—in how to prepare for absence and loss, and then how to grieve with some measure of grace and dignity.
Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook's Corner and from Home
For more than a decade now, Bill Smith has presided over the kitchen at Crook's Corner, bringing his instinctive and creative approach to cooking to an ever-growing, always enthusiastic crowd who have come to associate dining at Crook's with good company, great food, and a belief that every meal is a reason for celebration. Bill Smith's recipes are marvelously uncomplicated: Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Corn and Mustard Butter Sauce, Cold Stuffed Pork Loin with an Artichoke Spread, Scallops with Spinach and Hominy, Really Good Banana Pudding, and Honeysuckle Sorbet. Structured around the seasons and inspired by the abundant local produce, these recipes not only reinvent classics of Southern culinary tradition, but offer up imaginative interpretations of bistro fare.
Seasoned in the South captures the flavors of the freshest seasonal foods and the spirit of one of the South's liveliest and most innovative kitchens. In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Smith shares the traditional and classic Southern fare that has marked the seasoned chef's unique style throughout his culinary career.
The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson
Perhaps not southerners in the usual sense, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson each demonstrated a political style and philosophy that helped them influence the South and unite the country in ways that few other presidents have. Their intimate associations with the South gave these three presidents an empathy toward and acceptance in the region. In urging southerners to jettison outworn folkways, Roosevelt could speak as a neighbor and adopted son, Truman as a border-stater who had been taught to revere the Lost Cause, and Johnson as a native who had been scorned by Yankees.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, author and master historian William E. Leuchtenburg combines the vivid biography and political insight of his engrossing study The White House Looks South to offer an engaging account of relations between these three presidents and the South, while also tracing how the region came to embrace a national perspective without losing its distinctive sense of place. The William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of more than a dozen books on twentieth-century American history explores in fascinating detail how each President's unique attachment to "place" helped them to adopt shifting identities, which proved useful in healing rifts between North and South, in altering behavior in regard to race, and in fostering southern economic growth.
Refuge: A Novel
In Refuge , a young Charleston society matron named Mary Seneca Steele goes to bed while considering what to wear for her suicide. Now, suddenly seized by an otherworldly fiddle tune playing in her head, she arises, steals her children and her husband's new Auburn Phaeton, and sets out on a journey of enlightenment in the year 1929, which begins with learning to drive. Before she makes this impetuous exit from the proper South, Mary Sen's worst transgression has been going out in public without her hat. But there will be no returning to her old life once she abandons it.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, author Dot Jackson discusses Mary Sen's great escape, along with its guilt and raptures, and in the process, the former prize-winning reporter at the Charlotte Observer shares her debut novel's story of hard-won redemption.
Blue Blood: Duke-Carolina: Inside the Most Storied Rivalry in College Hoops
For fifty years, the rivalry between Duke and Carolina has featured famous brawls, endless controversy, long-nurtured hatred—and some of the best basketball ever played in the history of the sport. The Duke-Carolina rivalry has fostered more than thirty former players from the two schools playing or coaching in the NBA; it has cultivated a maniacal subculture of fans who camp out for weeks just to get tickets to the seasonal matchups; it has enchanted a nation of spectators to watch games between the archrivals, garnering some of the highest regular-season TV ratings in history. Art Chansky's Blue Blood : Duke-Carolina: Inside the Most Storied Rivalry in College Hoops is a chronicle of the Duke-Carolina fight as it has evolved over the last fifty years— celebrateing the history of this rivalry, the traditions, the heritage, and, most importantly—the spectacular basketball.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, veteran journalist and author Art Chansky details the colorful, revered, and respected rivalry. Chansky has seen every Duke-Carolina game since 1968 and now gives audiences the never-before-told story behind the story of a sporting challenge that has polarized the nation.
For more than twenty years, the murder of a thirteen-year-old boy during racial unrest in rural South Carolina has gone unpunished, unsolved, even uninvestigated. But that changes when Charlotte Times reporter Matt Harper sits down with a fellow who shows up in the newsroom—a guy with a grievance.
As he struggles with his journalistic legacy, Harper comes to understand why the investigation must be pursued and why he must be the one to do it—despite the opposition of his publisher, violent threats from mysterious forces that do not want the story told, and his father's ill health.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Charlotte resident and former Charlotte Observer reporter Mark Ethriddge shares his new novel Grievances —a story of newspapers, murder, and redemption— set in the rich scenery of a Savannah River town that time and justice have forgotten.
Music of a Thousand Hammers: Inside Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity International focuses on two goals. The first is to build as many houses as it can, using the principles of sweat equity, no interest, no-profit, volunteer-driven construction- one house, one family at a time-in every corner of the world. Today, Habitat is completing a house somewhere in the world every 26 minutes (20,000 per year). Habitat also attempts to make housing a matter of conscience everywhere. Habitat wants everyone to understand that it is morally and socially unacceptable for any human being not to have a simple, decent place to sleep at night. Yet, all is not well in the Habitat household. In late 2004, Habitat’s founder Millard Fuller was forced out of his job by the board of directors of the Christian homebuilding ministry. The announcement that Fuller was stepping down came near the end of a tumultuous year for Fuller and the Americus, Georgia-based organization that he co-founded in 1976 with his wife, Linda. The year included allegations against Fuller by a female employee of inappropriate behavior and a struggle concerning the organization’s future. The shakeout, now apparently complete, could affect Habitat for years.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, former Habitat for Humanity CEO Paul Leonard shares his book Music of a Thousand Hammers: Inside Habitat for Humanity. Part memoir, part history of Habitat, and part expose, the Davidson University graduate ’s work provides a glimpse into the shattered world of an organization built on a solid foundation of trust.
Angela Davis-Gardner's novel Plum Wine features Barbara Jefferson, a young American teaching in Tokyo in the 1960s, is set on a life-changing quest when her Japanese surrogate mother, Michi, dies, leaving her a tansu of homemade plum wines wrapped in rice paper. Within the papers Barbara discovers writings in Japanese calligraphy that comprise a startling personal narrative. With the help of her translator, Seiji Okada, Barbara begins to unravel the mysteries of Michi's life, a story that begins in the early twentieth century and continues through World War II and its aftermath. As Barbara and Seiji translate the plum wine papers they form an intimate bond, with Michi a ghostly third in what becomes an increasingly uneasy triangle. Barbara is deeply affected by the revelation that Michi and Seiji are hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, and even harder for her to understand are the devastating psychological effects wrought by war.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, author and North Carolina State University professor Angela Davis-Gardner examines the human relationships, cultural differences, and the irreparable consequences of war that runs deep in Plum Wine 's original and timeless tale.
Fourth Down and Goal To Go
Part history and part autobiography, Fourth Down and Goal To Go is the humorous and telling narrative by North Carolina native Pat Taylor. A popular local storyteller, Taylor has recorded his life in the Old North State through tales that stretch back as far as the Great Depression.
Incorporating Southern humor and wit, Taylor’s accounts will spark laughter and recognition among any reader who grew up in the American South during the past seventy-five years. Reminiscing to a time when life was simpler, he elaborates on everyday details such as telephone party lines, ice wagons and milk delivery services. Still active in politics, law and academics, Taylor believes that studying our history is the key to a successful future.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Taylor expounds on the events that have shaped North Carolina into the state it is today. Commenting on parts of North Carolina history, he successfully explains the present economic, political and social atmosphere of the region found in his must-read for any native North Carolinian or Southern historian.
On Agate Hill
It is 1872, Agate Hill, North Carolina. On her thirteenth birthday, Molly Petree peeps out the chink of a window from her secret hiding place up in the eaves of a tumbledown old plantation house to survey a world gone wild, all expectations overthrown, all order gone. “I know I am a spitfire and a burden,” she begins her diary. “I do not care. My family is a dead family, and this is not my home, for I am a refugee girl…but evil or good I will write it all down every true thing in black and white upon the page, for evil or good it is my own true life and I WILL have it. I will.” Carefully she places the diary in her treasured “box of phenomena” which will contain “letters, poems, songs, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and a large collection of bones, some human and some not” by the time it is found during a historic renovation project in 2003.
The contents of Molly’s box make up this extraordinary novel which chronicles her passionate, picaresque journey across” the whole curve of the earth” -through love, betrayal, motherhood, a murder trial---and finally back to Agate Hill to end her days under circumstances that even she could never have imagined.
In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, literary legend Lee Smith shares her eagerly-anticipated 12th novel On Agate Hill, the story of a self-described "ghost girl" who survives the Civil War devastation that claims her family.
Like North Carolinian Charles Frazier’s memorable first novel, Cold Mountain-a romantic epic detailing a Civil War deserter’s homeward odyssey that won the 1997 National Book Award and inspired a haunting 2003 feature film- Frazier’s long-awaited second novel, Thirteen Moons is the story of one man’s remarkable life, spanning a century of relentless change. At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map and is sent on a journey through the wilderness to the edge of the Cherokee Nation, the uncharted white space on the map. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Will’s character. All the while, his love of Claire, the enigmatic and captivating charge of volatile and powerful Featherstone, will forever rule Will’s heart.
In this episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, Frazier shares his all-new story in which a rootless and restless protagonist, like Cold Mountain’s embattled hero, Inman, expends the energies of a long lifetime seeking permanent reunion with the only woman he’ll ever love.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
A small tiny Singapore island with a tiny population which was just 3 million is in trouble when it determined to become something it is not, by the simple expedient of flooding it with foreigners.
Lets look at a hypothetical example. Take the island of Nauru in the Pacific which may have half million people. It's dictator is determined to turn it into a first world industrial country. To do it, he brings in 5 million Samoans, who look similar to the islanders (he wants to give the impression that they are Naurians), starts all sorts of businesses in the island by importing people from Western countries, compels people to speak Samoan instead of Naurian, destroys all Naurian traditional houses and buildings and replaces them with modern skyscrapers, puts anyone who complains in jail or bankrupts them.
In 5 years time, there are no more Naurians left, or even if there were, they are of mixed breed with Samoan, the language culture and traditions of the Naurians of thousands of years are all destroyed, the people and the country are changed entirely, leaving it another satellite island of Samoa.
This scenario is what is happening today in Singapore. Massive numbers of Chinese from Communist China are being brought to Singapore at such an extent, coupled with the low birth rate of Singaporeans and their fleeing to Western countries to escape Lee Kuan Yew's repression, means that in 5 years time, just 5 years, Singapore as we knew it would have disappeared entirely.
Chinese Hokkien language which has a long rich culture and traditions would have disappeared through Lee forcing everyone to speak Mandarin instead. It is like forcing a German in Europe to speak English, because China is as big as Europe with a multitude of languages, distinct cultures and history.
The colonial buildings, Chinese Malay and Indian cultural and religious traditions are all wasted and destroyed in Lee's mad rush of turning Singapore into something it is not.
Mainland Chinese from China are as different from local Singaporean Chinese as would be a cat to a dog. But whether you like it or not, the crude peasant ways of the Chinese from China, become the way of life for Singaporeans. It demeans and reduces Singapore from being a sophisticated people to the type you see in the streets of Chengdu, the Chinese interior.
I am sure true Singaporeans are being pushed to the limit and anytime soon, I will not be surprised that loyal citizens will not take it much longer. I expect them to rebel, I hope peacefully, but their anger is so great that I fear it may be even worse. Mass peaceful demonstrations is expected to stop the destruction because I do not believe Singaporeans would allow their country to just disintegrate entirely.
Attorney at Law
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Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to firstname.lastname@example.org And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
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Last week, Microsoft promoted Horacio Gutierrez, formerly vice president of intellectual property, to corporate vice president. This week, Gutierrez polished his new business cards and sent them TomTom's way, with a patent infringement lawsuit.
As CNET News' Ina Fried reports, Microsoft on Wednesday launched a patent infringement lawsuit against TomTom, maker of GPS systems. TomTom, for its part, summarily rejects the claims and says it will "vigorously defend" itself. Lawsuits are filed all the time, but this one is of particular interest to the open-source community because it includes three claims of patent infringement related to Linux file management technologies.
Glyn Moody wonders whether Microsoft has taken the first step in an all-out patent offensive against Linux. After talking with Gutierrez earlier this week, I highly doubt that.
As Gutierrez told CNET News, Microsoft's lawsuit is very specific to how TomTom uses the Linux kernel: "(It's the) TomTom implementation of the Linux kernel that infringes these claims. There are many flavors of Linux (and) many implementations of the Linux kernel. Cases such as these are very fact-specific."
This hardly sounds like a sneaky launch of the spiffy new patent product line at Microsoft. It sounds more like what Gutierrez claims it is: "This is just a normal course-of-business dispute between two companies. (Linux) is not the focal point of the action." Ironically, it could have been obviated had Microsoft bought TomTom back in 2006, as it was then rumored to be interesting in doing.
For all the bluster in the open-source press right now, it's important to keep in mind that TomTom has been battling patent lawsuits for years, some of which may relate to its use of Linux. In 2005, its CEO said at the ICT2008 conference that TomTom spent more that year on patent litigation than on anything else combined. Microsoft's eight-part lawsuit is par for the TomTom course, it would seem.
This speaks ill of the patent minefield that awaits any technology company, a problem called out recently by Red Hat associate general counsel Rob Tiller. But it doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft has declared war on Linux.
For Microsoft to do that credibly, it would have to go where Linux is strongest and has the highest earning potential: servers. There, Microsoft will encounter IBM and others with bigger patent portfolios than its own. Microsoft has shown little appetite for that fight.
It's also important to remember, as TechFlash reminds us, that Microsoft has never been a litigious company. While I despise the FUD that Microsoft has promulgated around open source and Linux, specifically, over the past few years, the reality is that Microsoft has sued only three times in its company history over patent claims.
This is not Microsoft's opening salvo in a war against open source. That "war" has been ongoing for years, has taken many forms, and seems to want to change open source's $0.00 price tag to something higher. Something, in other words, with which Microsoft can compete.
Even so, I think that Microsoft has resigned itself to coexistence with open source, even if it's not always a peaceful coexistence. On the same day that Microsoft announced the TomTom lawsuit, Microsoft Windows chief Bob Muglia also acknowledged that eventually, "almost all our product(s) will have open source in (them)." Microsoft has taken a reality check, and open source is part of reality.
But part of that reality will absolutely be infringement of Microsoft's patents, and Microsoft's own violation of Linux-related patents (held by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and others). That's the patent minefield in which the software industry operates.
It's not a system I like, but let's not get carried away. The GPS community doesn't seem to be wringing its hands over the fact that most of the claims in Microsoft's case relate to TomTom's alleged infringement of Microsoft's GPS technologies.
Maybe we, in the open-source world, need to settle down a little. We have an allergic reaction to patent infringement suits--and for good reason--but one company-specific lawsuit does not a war campaign make.
This TomTom suit, in other words, may well be the opening shot in a broader battle, but for now, it's the action of a sniper, not a broad fusillade.
In some ways, we should be grateful for how Microsoft has carried itself in this TomTom infringement claim. There are no broad pronouncements of Linux violations, as in the past. There are no white papers being circulated, decrying open source as anti-American and cancerous. There is just a reasoned, FUD-free patent infringement claim.
It may turn out to be specious, but it's very welcome to see it made without the sound and fury of past Microsoft public pronouncements about open source.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
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For our times the resignation or deposition of a pope comes as a shock, as something unheard of and unthinkable....
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Thanks to Prof. Morrissey--a former colleague--for his interesting history. However, not accounted for is the impact and implications of this retirement for the modern world and Church. It has taken 600 years for such an action to be taken. In the meanwhile, we are now acquainted with senility, Altzheimers, and other afflictions that bedevil our friends and family. This retirement seems to be an acknowledgement of such problems we all recognize in the modern world. We can wonder, then, what other 'modernization' might be needed in the Church, or whether it look at other aspects of modernity (birth control, women priests?) that deserve its attention. Many Catholics confuse the laws and doctrines of the Church with Biblical injunctions; however, much is the the work of fallible men (and I stress 'men") in response to historical pressures and contexts. Some scholarship might address this 'human' side of the Bible and thus its historical contingency.
Tom Regelski Brocton
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WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
The Florida Supreme Court has questions and criticism of the law passed to preserve the life of Terri Schiavo.
TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court greeted Gov. Jeb Bush's lawyers with skepticism Tuesday about the constitutionality of the law that forced the reinsertion of the feeding tube keeping Terri Schiavo alive.
In oral arguments before a court that could ultimately decide whether Schiavo lives or dies, justices appeared concerned that "Terri's Law" granted Bush unfettered powers.
"The act does not even require the governor to take into account the patient's wishes," said Chief Justice Barbara Pariente.
Bush's lawyers argued that the governor had the power to step in to protect the rights of a disabled adult when her own wishes are in doubt.
"The courts do not possess the exclusive domain to protect the rights of disabled people and to ensure that their health care choices are respected and protected," said Ken Connor, an attorney representing Bush. "There is a role for the Legislature. There is a role for the governor."
Attorney George Felos, who represents Schiavo's husband Michael Schiavo, said the law was an illegal power grab by lawmakers.
"It is absolutely extraordinary for the governor to argue the Legislature in 18 hours and the governor in a matter of hours somehow possess some inherent wisdom . . . that could not be ascertained by justices of this state over a six-year period," Felos said.
If the law is overturned, Felos is expected to ask a Pinellas-Pasco judge to again order the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube, allowing her to die. Terri Schiavo, 40, lives in a Clearwater nursing home.
As her parents and husband looked on Tuesday in a courtroom packed with more than 100 spectators, the justices often focused on whether the law violated the separation of powers doctrine of the Florida Constitution. It says one branch of government, such as the Legislature, cannot usurp the powers of another, such as the courts.
Justice Charles Wells expressed the most doubts about the law, saying it appeared to be designed to subvert a lower court's order.
"What is going on here is that the Legislature set about to set aside the final judgment of the court," Wells said.
The high court has no timetable on when it will issue a ruling and its word on the case could be final. Lawyers representing Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, said the case involves only issues of state law that can't be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Terri's Law" was adopted by lawmakers in October. It allowed Bush to order doctors to reinsert Schiavo's feeding tube, which had been removed for six days.
A Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge ruled in May that the law was unconstitutional. Bush's attorneys appealed. In an unusual move, the 2nd District Court of Appeal passed the case directly to the Florida Supreme Court, which it can do on matters of great public importance.
As court opened Tuesday, a small crowd of protesters stood outside with signs, including one that read, "Commute Terri's Death Sentence." A group of people from Not Dead Yet, an Illinois disability rights advocacy group, also appeared in support of the law. Other national groups have taken stands on the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes it.
Inside the courtroom, Michael Schiavo sat beside his brother, Brian. Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and brother and sister sat across the aisle.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Michael Schiavo criticized Bush, saying the governor failed to respect his wife's right to make her own medical decisions. "I'm basically thinking if this case is so important to the governor, where is he?" Schiavo said. "I don't see him anywhere."
Bush declined to speak to reporters Tuesday.
Terri Schiavo has been in what some doctors call a vegetative state since 1990, when she suffered cardiac arrest from a chemical imbalance that doctors think might have been caused by an eating disorder.
Her husband said at a 2000 trial that his wife would not want to be kept alive by artificial means. He said she has no hope of recovery and is brain dead.
But the Schindlers disagree, saying their daughter reacts to them and might be helped with therapy.
After the hearing, Bob Schindler said he will never believe that his daughter, as her husband says, made statements during her life that she wouldn't want if she knew her condition.
"Anybody who knows Terri knows she would never ever make that kind of statement," Schindler said. "She loved life."
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Lessons learned: Weekly Genealogy Prompt #21
Week #21: Lessons learned. Fess up to your research mistakes so others can learn from them!
I immediately knew what my number one mistake was: Not documenting my sources. Many times I have other researchers email me asking me how I found data I had included in my family trees either on Ancestry or Familysearch. It is frustrating and embarassing to tell them, “I don’t really know” or “I copied it from another site and forgot to put down where.”
Now, I try to take that extra “less than a minute” time to document where I found my data. I will not be here forever, everyone has their time to “meet their maker” so to speak. Will others behind me, say in the year 2061 (don’t think I’ll live or be researching when I am 100!) be able to find where I got my information?
So, learn from my mistake and always document your sources. Even if you don’t document like a professional, do something to state where your records were found!
More articles written by Tina Sansone can be found at Genealogy@Bellaonline.com
Entry filed under: Genealogy Prompt. Tags: .
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Medical researchers do not often speak or write with exclamation points, but then most medical researchers don’t spend much time trying to figure out why some women are sexually unhappy.
Dr. Susan Davis, however, does just that, and she’s annoyed. “Women’s sexual health has been very trivialized and neglected,” Davis argues. “If a man has a problem with sexual function, he is seen to have a biological problem. If a woman has a problem with sexual function, it is first considered psychological!”
Davis is correct. A 1977 review of “marital sexual dysfunctions” in the prestigious journal Annals of Internal Medicine declared: “For classification purposes, the three basic physiologic deficits — excitement phase dysfunction, orgasmic phase dysfunction and vaginismus — are subdivided into primary and secondary types. Primary dysfunctions represent long-standing developmental problems and are usually purely psychological in origin. Secondary dysfunctions occur after a period of normal sexual functioning and may be organic or psychological in origin.”
That dogma has held back research into female sexual function to the point that science still knows little about it. Davis, an M.D. and scientist at Australia’s Monash Medical School in Victoria can testify to the challenge. In a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) this week her team found that no single measurement of androgen hormones, like testosterone, could predict low desire.
As faithful readers of Sexploration know, there has been hope that treatment with testosterone can reignite passion, but Davis’ work shows that things may be more complicated. Some women with low testosterone did not have low desire, while some women with normal levels did.
A tool belt of sex drugs for men
So now we have just one more mystery about women’s sexual health and that’s what I found so fascinating. The new JAMA paper arrives shortly after a study showing that men who are too quick on the draw can be helped by a drug called dapoxetine. The drug, which is now being considered for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, may be good news for men with premature ejaculation.
Those who read the FDA tea leaves say a decision ought to come (sorry, I couldn’t help that) late in 2005 or early 2006.
So among our three choices (Viagra, Cialis and Levitra) to help us get and keep a stiffy, and maybe a drug to give us a more leisurely trip to Nirvana, we men are developing a tool belt of sex drugs. Look out, baby.
Meanwhile, women have … um … lemme think. Well, actually, I couldn’t think of much, so I went looking, and here’s what I found in the research: “lack of knowledge,” “additional studies needed,” “there have been limited anatomic and physiological investigations,” “information about the sexual health care needs for midlife women is limited.”
Though the situation is improving, science knows far too little about how women’s parts work. And government is mounting precious few studies to find out. When I looked for clinical trials related to female sexuality being sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, I found exactly two and they were related to the effects of cancer treatment.
And yet, according to a recent study by researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, nearly half of all women suffer from some sexual problem. Many suffer from more than one.
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Scientists like Davis are trying to change this and in so doing they have walked into something of a controversy. Last year, when Procter and Gamble was trying to win FDA approval for their female testosterone patch, which the company claimed could help women boost their sexual desire, some critics argued that drug companies were medicalizing nature, creating a new disease or syndrome in order to then sell a drug to treat it.
Davis has no patience for that argument. “There is a very loud lobby group that says this field of research is being driven by industry,” she says. But, she insists, “this is a real quality of life issue for a lot of people. When a disparity exists between sexual desire in a couple, it puts huge stresses on the relationship and in turn the family unit. Women want to be proactive in changing this and they have a right to be proactive if they choose … They are saddened that they have lost the desire for intimacy, which is such an important human emotion and they want to do something about it.”
“Industry,” she insists, “has not ‘created’ a health issue, it already exists.”
There’s no question that industry will be happy to capitalize; that’s what industry does. And with the success of the male sex drugs, it doesn’t take a business genius to realize what the payoff might be if you provided for the other half of the world’s population.
And business certainly is trying. In 2000, the FDA approved a clitoral suction device called Eros. Some studies have shown it increases blood flow to the clitoris and may enhance lubrication and satisfaction.
A New Jersey drug company called Palatin Technologies, which specializes in the brain — the main sex organ, is studying a nasal spray called P-141 in women with low desire (and in men with impotence).
And of course, there’s Intrinsa, the P&G testosterone patch, and a testosterone gel called Libigel from BioSante. They may or may not receive FDA approval, but both are far along the development path.
May never be a magic bullet
As this week's study shows, however, the link between hormone levels and sexual desire is still murky and it’s possible there won’t be a one-shot drug fix for the sex doldrums. In some cases, psychology may indeed be involved. Quality relationships are important, too. It all gets complicated.
Which brings me back to my point. Nobody really seems to know what’s what. This may be partly the fault of women themselves. Surveys show that most women hardly ever discuss sex with their doctors. But Davis attributes the new corporate interest to those women who do. “The surge of interest is very much being driven by the women in the community who are now being far more open about their sexual concerns," she says. "Women need to let it be known that they want more research into women’s sexual health.”
So women — and the men who love them — can affect change. Talk to your doctors and don’t spare the nitty gritty. If you aren’t getting lubricated, say so. If your lover is doing aerobics in bed to please you but you’d really rather switch on Leno, say so. If it hurts, say so.
Good sex is one of those things that makes life worth living so tell that doctor you want to shiver and shake like a Pentecostal at a revival meeting.
Nobody ever got answers by being shy.
Brian Alexander is a California-based writer who covers sex, relationships and health. He is a contributing editor at Glamour and the author of "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion" (Basic Books).
Sexploration appears every other Thursday.
© 2013 msnbc.com. Reprints
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Speak Out: Do Armored School Supplies Go Too Far?
A Maryland company started making bulletproof school supplies in response to the shootings at Newtown, Conn. Company owner tells Capital News Service the supplies are a last line of defense.
Since the shootings in Newtown, Conn., much of the discussion has swirled around gun control and school security, whether there should be armed police officers or guards in America’s schools.
But what about bulletproof school supplies?
Several Montgomery County Patch sites picked up a Capital News Service story about Hardwire LLC. The Eastern Shore military armor company started making bulletproof whiteboards and clipboards in response to the tragic school shootings.
The company’s CEO George Tunis told CNS that the bulletproof school supplies could be effective if incorporated into a broader security strategy. He donated 90 of the white boards to a school in Worcester County, according to the report.
"Inside every classroom, with every adult inside that school you know we have a layer of defense that's built in," Tunis reportedly told CNS.
Speak Out: What do you think: Would equipping classrooms with bulletproof school supplies stir up more fear? Or do you think they are as Tunis described to CNS, another layer of defense?
Please post your comments below.
Video by Jenny Kay Paulson | Captial News Service
Bulletproof Schools: Maryland Factory Creates Armored School Supplies (Capital News Service)
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CIEF: Industry’s Link to Dedicated University Coatings Sciences’ Programs, Students, & Graduates
The Coatings Industry Education Foundation (CIEF) is the coatings industry’s foremost non-profit coatings technologies educational platform. For over 25 years, CIEF has fostered the evolution of a nationwide network of top-flight U.S. university undergraduate and graduate Polymers and Coatings Programs, where highly motivated students receive CIEF scholarships to pursue degrees in the field, perform cutting-edge research, and prepare to enter the industry. Click here to learn more about these specific universities.
Coatings companies now compete in a fast-paced world economy, where consumers, industrial customers, and regulators, alike, are pushing for the most sophisticated, “smartest” coatings ever. These coatings must meet scientifically-challenging utility, as well as economic and environmental requirements. Companies, therefore, must be engaged in coatings technologies progress and be superbly positioned to tap into the best and brightest minds — those men and women trained in the newest technologies and practical applications.
CIEF is an exceptional mechanism to help support this business imperative and act on behalf of enhancing coatings science progress, generally, and to underwrite scholarship by the new generation of leaders in the field. Thanks, in part, to the experiences made possible by these scholarships, CIEF beneficiaries are uniquely equipped and eager to join the coatings industry upon graduation to help lead the new generation of coatings technologies.
For example, one of a number of outstanding CIEF beneficiaries (see student profiles) is described by his program head as “a great example of a CIEF scholarship recipient who has many accomplishments. He began his education as a candidate in chemistry. Soon, he learned about the polymers and coatings program and its ties to industry and developed a keen interest in the field. He added the objective of the MS degree in Polymers and Coatings Science and, in a short period of time, contributed to two major research projects — one on VOC aspects of stain-blocking primer coatings and another on surface modification of polypropylene compounds to improve coating adhesion. He is highly appreciative of the support he has received through CIEF and is looking forward to joining the coatings industry upon graduation this winter.”
It is experiences such as these that CIEF hopes to continue to make possible for promising students at
The American Coatings Association’s Role
CIEF is incorporated in Delaware as a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit, with by-laws empowering the American Coatings Association’s (ACA) Board of Directors to act as its sole governing “Member,” with power to elect CIEF Trustees, oversee its operations, and utilize ACA staff as its Officers. ACA employs its Science & Technology (S&T) Committee as an expert steward for the Foundation, with formal interface involving CIEF Trustee(s) and S&T Committee Members. The overall design is to align programmatic goals; enhance fund-raising efforts; serve as a forum for universities and the industry to collaborate; contribute to student assistance via formal proposal review, grants, and monitoring; and maintain success rate information.
Currently, CIEF scholarships go to coatings technology-focused degree programs that collectively have over 400 active students. Over the past three years, CIEF tracking of bachelor’s degree graduates shows, on average, some 40% go on to pursue advanced degrees in coatings-related science, while more than 35% accept immediate employment with paint and coatings companies. The balance of graduates are strategically retained within the coatings industry, as they are employed by raw material suppliers and other industries that require expertise in polymer science, coatings technology, and product finishes.
CIEF is committed to promoting work within the paint and coatings industry as a challenging and rewarding career path.
The Science and Technology Subcommittee
The new CIEF By-laws require a shared membership between the CIEF Board of Trustees and the ACA Science and Technology Committee (S&T). Accordingly, the CIEF Chairman and Vice-Chairman are members of the S&T Committee, and a member of the S&T Committee, has become a trustee of the CIEF. This arrangement allows for close cooperation between CIEF and the ACA.
The S&T Committee has established a University Liaison Subcommittee that, among other things, seeks to foster regular, enhanced communication between ACA and the leaders of the coatings science programs that are primarily supported by the CIEF. Improving mutual understanding and support for continuing education objectives and attracting other relevant university programs into its network are among its goals.
The S&T Committee has also formed a Continuing Education Work Group to undertake an analysis of the industry’s professional education needs. Inherent in this effort is the assessment of which university-based programs currently are offering the desired training. This may be useful for CIEF as it evaluates best approaches for the future.
CIEF is a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization (Federal Tax ID – 231521323) and depends on the generous contributions of donors for its success. All contributions not otherwise designated go directly to the general scholarship fund and are available for distribution in the next award cycle. Additional award funds maintained and managed by CIEF may also receive designated donations, including:
Joseph A. Vasta Memorial Scholarship
The Vasta Scholarship is awarded annually on a rotating basis to educational institutions associated with the CIEF scholarship program. The student recipient is selected by the school.
Honor and Remembrance Fund
The Honor and Remembrance Fund was founded in 1992 to provide an opportunity for individuals, corporations, coatings societies and associations to honor those individuals, both living and deceased, who have contributed to the coatings industry. Earnings from the principal of the fund are used for scholarships, grants, and fellowships at colleges and universities associated with the CIEF program.
A. L. Hendry Scholarship
The A.L. Hendry Scholarship Award is given by the Southern Societies for Coatings Technology for the best college student-written coatings-related paper submitted for their annual conference.
Jim McCormick Scholarship Fund
In 2007, the Board of Trustees of the CIEF set aside contri-butions received in the memory of James McCormick. Donations are used for scholarships, grants, and fellowships at colleges and universities associated with the CIEF program.
The Trustees of the Coatings Industry Education foundation appreciate your consideration of a contribution that will help ensure the future of the coatings industry. To make a donation, please click here and complete the Contribution Form. A separate tax statement acknowledging your donation will be sent to you by the CIEF Secretary.
The new Sidney Lauren Memorial Learning Center, located at the University of Southern Mississippi School of Polymers and High Performance Materials, was dedicated in a ceremony held Sept. 23, 2011, in honor of coatings industry leader Sidney Lauren.
The center is a comprehensive learning environment housing the Sidney Lauren Coatings Lab, which features a state-of-the-art touch screen computer system; a physical library and archive of coatings-related materials; and an online learning center – www.laurenlearningcenter.com – where students may access lectures, patents, and other resources.
The facility was established with the assistance of a CIEF donation; such contributions have also benefitted USM students through the Sidney Lauren Memorial Scholarship.
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How Hu and Obama can cleanse toxic US-China relations
If President Hu Jintao and President Obama can’t at least begin to unwind the self-perpetuating spiral leading toward ever-deeper mutual strategic mistrust, bigger trouble awaits.
Port Townsend, Wash.
Heads of foreign government flow through Washington like water, often with little public notice outside the Beltway. Photos of President Obama with President Nicolas Sarkozy or Prime Minister Angela Merkel might not make the nation’s front pages.Skip to next paragraph
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The reasons are obvious: China’s is now the world’s second-biggest economy, after our own. It now generates more atmospheric greenhouse gasses even than the US. Its military is advancing conspicuously in technical sophistication and skill, potentially bumping up against long-held US assumptions and prerogatives in the Pacific. The US and China in 2010 found themselves out of sync, or at loggerheads, on issue after issue, with China adopting a more muscular tone than Americans have been accustomed to.
Most important bilateral relationship
In fact, the US-China relationship, which the Obama administration regularly calls the most important bilateral relationship on the globe in this century, needs work. The two countries are increasingly wrapped into a security dilemma, in which each side – both at high government levels and at popular levels – sees actions taken by the other as dangerous to its own future, and reacts with countermeasures that simply deepen the other side’s suspicions about its intentions. Strident voices in each nation proclaim the heightened dangers presented by the other. This is especially true in the fragile and hypersensitive military sector, but it is mirrored in the looming tensions on the economic and commercial fronts – in spite of the huge and often mutually beneficial ties linking the American and Chinese economies.
Thirty years ago, when the US and China were just getting acquainted after their bitter cold war divorce, pundits noted that the relationship was “trip driven.” A trip by the US or Chinese president was an “action-forcing event,” capable of galvanizing sluggish bureaucracies and overcoming internal paralysis arising from interest-group conflicts.
That’s still true, but to a lesser extent. The range of US-China engagements is now so broad, the channels of official communication so numerous, and the maintenance of routine contacts so regular that no presidential visit in either direction can write a new script on an empty blackboard.
Moreover, anyone who has ever watched at close range the advance work that precedes a Chinese or US president’s state visit knows that, a week before game time, the scripts are mostly set in stone. Those staffing the visitor, particularly when the traveler is from China, are as much concerned with how their man will look to the home audience as they are with either the optics in the host country or, for that matter, the substantive content of any agreements the two leaders reach.
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Trollope and Gender: the papers (2) · 29 July 06
Tuesday was supposed to be a very long day. Sessions were to begin at 9 am and end at 5:30 pm; there was supposed to be a 2 hour break and then a dinner. In the event, one of the two keynote speakers didn’t show, nor did he send a paper (!) and so the last sessions for the day were moved up, a tea was offered and the day was finished at 4. Three and one half hours was too long to wait in the heat for a dinner I’d have to leave early (as there was no late train back to Lympstone from Exeter St Davids), so I went back at 4:30 and arrived at the tower by 5.
The day again opened (9 am) with a keynote address: by one of the conference organizers, Deborah Denenholz Morse. Prof Morse presented a post-colonial reading of He Knew He Was Right. There is a long detailed summary of her argument in the Programme and Abstracts for the conference; basically she argued that beyond making visible in the story of Louis and Emily Trevelyan the oppressive patriarchal power structure, one where the male seeks to control and repress the distrusted sexuality of his wife, in He Knew He Was Right Trollope uses Emily and the place she comes from to show how European males sought to imprison and quell slaves, the colonized peoples they were exploiting. She used the analogy Trollope sets up between Shakespeare’s Othello and this novel to suggest that we have a racial story. The three romantic subplots are there by contrast.
By the end of her talk she had convinced me. Strong evidence came from the descriptions of Emily (dark and passionate) and the many references in the book to England’s colonial empire as well as the characterization of Hugh Stanbury and Nora Rowley’s modern (relatively free and equal) relationship. I’m still inclined to find the analysis of the novel I present in one of the chapters of my book more central: that the Trevelyan story is one of sexual anxiety and jealousy, with an intensely frustrated wife who despises a psychologically weak if tyrannical husband, with the other three stories mirroring better and parallel situations and solutions to the problem of the interaction of dominance and submission in human relationships. Her reading added or uncovered another layer or thread of meaning running through this big complex book.
Marcus Stone, "’Am I to go? [back to the West Indies]," He Knew He Was Right
There again followed two sets of two panels run at the same time, with one panel directly after the other. The themes across both were class, gender, masculinity, race, ethnicity, and imperialism in Trollope’s fiction.
This time I chose the session which was about the lesser known short stories and novels. Dr Helen Blythe examined Trollope’s presentation of European colonizers who try to hold onto their Englishness or gentility. "Catherine Carmichael, or Three Years Running" (set in New Zealand) was her text. Holding onto genteel class ideals is seen by Trollope as central to their cherished identities and very survival. Catherine Carmichael endures brutal behavior from a husband who scoffs at such norms.
Dr Susan Shelangoskie presented a lucid thorough-going analysis of Trollope’s presentation of young women in a newly technological world which offered them independence through work. Trollope is for this as long as the work remains subordinate towards what is to be the young woman’s "real" goal: marriage to a man. She showed how the norms and customs used to control women in the home were transferred to work outside the home. Her texts were Trollope’s short story, "The Telegraph Girl" and non-fiction journalistic article, "The Young Women at the Telegraph Office".
G. H. Thomas, "She read the beginning—Dearest Grace", Breakfast Scene, The Last Chronicle of Barset
I found Dr Blythe’s analysis compelling and told her about the recent powerful Australian film, The Proposition where the goal English police officer (played by Ray Winstone) struggling to make a genteel life for himself and his wife (played by Emily Watson) in the bush in Australia, is much sympathized with, but shown to have a unrealistic if poignantly understandable goal. She is raped and he near murdered by the desperate bush rangers he must try to subdue. Dr Shelangoski’s paper was sensible, straightforward and accurate. I was glad she called attention to the little-known article, and she told me afterward that she had found my online bibliography for the short stories and etexts of non-fiction very helpful.
To be honest, as I was to give my paper within the next hour I was too nervous to listen closely to the third speaker.
Of the papers in the panel I didn’t hear, the one which had attracted me most (from the abstract) was an analysis by Prof. Mary Jean Corbett of the conflicts in identity Phineas Finn experienced (does he enact an Irishman really?) and the way readers have perceived Finn to be "too much like a woman." I now realize Prof Corbett discussed the intersection between Irish and English identities as they were seen stereotypically at the time1.
(From the abstract I had thought its phrases and thus paper referred to how Phineas might to conventional thinking appear to be weak because he is willing to change his mind (=womanish), especially since at the close of Phineas I, Phineas loses his battle to maintain his integrity and yet stay within Parliament. What attracts me to Phineas II is since he is Irish and Catholic but also a gentleman Phineas remains a half-outsider, a fringe person. Thus since most of the characters are indifferent to all but their own interests, Phineas becomes a target for radical distrust, is put on trial for murder, and experiences intense depression when his illusions about how his friends view him as one of them and as an honorable man, and about their capacity for loyal friendship, are shattered. To me Phineas’s sensitivity is central to the finest elements in his character and Trollope’s iconoclastic depiction of manliness in his heroes.)
I was the first speaker in one of the two second sets of panels, and have now put my paper online: Trollope’s Comfort Romances for Men: Heterosexual Male Heroism in his Work. Here is my central argument:
My argument is that Trollope’s most profound analyses of characters reside in his perceptive realistic depiction of male heterosexual patterns of sexuality as these conflict with the social customs of his age and ours. Drawing on his personal experience, Trollope justifies unheroic heroes and redefines worldly loss, defeat and individual withdrawals from social life and competition as misunderstood and understandable choices whose courage is underrated; through his presentation of heterosexual heroes Trollope defends his male readers against the norms he suffered from as a boy, young man, and as a older successful man too. There is much subversion here: very unusually Trollope gazes boldly on heroes who are not sexually and socially triumphant. He repeatedly presents the norms for such triumphs as oppressive, shallow, and even useless and counterproductive except when powerful characters instinctively admire them. He frequently sympathizes with males who regard the demand that they enact masculinity in dominating, aggressive, glamorous and overtly ranked-based ways as distasteful and against the grain of their character; they are unable or unwilling to articulate their point of view because they fear shaming and defeat. Their inability or refusal to manipulate these social codes disables them in the continual struggle for dominance against submission that Trollope depicts as also what shapes most human relationships. When their story is tightly interwoven with that of strong, passionate, frustrated or equally repressed, and obtuse and understandably vindictive women, they become crippled, paralyzed and tragic figures.
While I ranged across Trollope’s oeuvre in my opening few paragraphs and closing two, I focused in the center of the talk on Miss Mackenzie, Is He Popenjoy?, and Ayala’s Angel. In the last panel of the third day people were asked to answer the question why should we read Trollope today. My answer was:
In an era where we find ourselves in the midst of a re-masculinization of the norms of behavior and art in terms of a narrow macho male ideal, where not only a woman’s freedom to express her sexuality is contested, but a man’s is too, Trollope’s male romances provide a salutary alternative and ironic reading of heterosexual male personalities. Trollope has provided us with material capable of opening up our understanding of masculinity, manliness, and heroism so as to enable men’s lives to be less unhappy.
I was still too excited to listen to the second paper in my panel. I spent the time calming down. I did, though, listen to third presentation, Prof David Skilton’s talk. He argued that the way that the thought processes in making choices which Trollope endows women with allows modern readers to find in the women’s subjective life the same depth and richness of thought that we find in his men’s subjective life so that it does not matter if the women’s actual or literal choices for how they will spend their lives are severely limited.
I’m not sure I was persuaded that the literal limited choices can be overlooked just in favor of ethics and psychology as such, for the latter are dependent on experience hoped for as well as had. I’m also not sure that women’s thoughts processes are the same as men’s. However, he presented such good quotations from Trollope’s novels, and included some of the most fascinating characters like Mary, Lady Mason, the tragic heroine of Orley Farm, who forges a will in order to give her son a chance at gentlemenly status, and women of "action" like Lady Laura Kennedy (the Phineas books), and women making conflicted major life choices (e.g. Alice Vavasour from Can You Forgive Her?) and women carrying on a career next to their husband’s (Lady Glencora Palliser).
We all then broke for lunch. Quiche, sandwiches, fruit, coffee, juice and wine were on hand. We could eat at the large windows or outside on picnic tables. I much enjoyed mingling with the participants and talking to Nick, Clare, and Rob Polhemus for a while.
Again there were two sets of panels. This time I did not go to "Dissonant Feminities" but instead treated myself to Michael Brook’s witty talk, "Anthony Trollope: American Feminism, and the women on the New York City horse cars." Since I still mean to try to write a paper on Trollope’s North America, that being his text made his talk clearly useful for me. He divided the women Trollope encountered during his time in North America as women who challenged the system of separate spheres and women who didn’t, and said that while Trollope disagreed with the first group, he responded to them with a patient tone (and liked some of them very much); as to the second group, Trollope castigated these women when they were aggressive. He said Trollope did not like women to have separate spheres (like ladies’s drawing roolms) in public. These were invented for women to come out comfortably in public.
A good deal of Prof Brooks’ talk was about Kate Field and Trollope’s ambivalent and ambiguous love relationship with her. I’d like to read the biography of her life he mentioned and some of her writing. He also described some books by feminists which I’ll see if I can get hold of, e.g., Catherine Dall’s Women’s Right to Labor. Like Field (and Barbara Bodichon whose Women and Work I argued in my notes to my paper Trollope read), Dall argued women had a right to a career, to do useful work for a living wage. Prof Brooks said Trollope’s chapter on women in North America was partly meant as a refutation of Dall. In it Trollope insists "the best right a woman has is the right to a husband."
As I recall, Trollope said the woman question is about male power and to give women incomes and independence is to take power from men, i.e., jobs, money, control, the ability to dictate how their lives in private shall be led without having to shape themselves by a particular woman’s needs. His strongest point I thought was the one that if you allow women to work for money, soon men will refuse to support them or demand that they equally support the household. His weakest point is his basis: he insists on pretending that men do in fact support women willingly and stay married to them, and that men do in fact treat women well. In reality a large proportion of women spend their lives single and when you give people power most will take ruthless advantage of those they can control, and here we are talking about men’s control of women’s bodies.
A smaller point brought up in Prof Brooks’s talk: it is true that Trollope produces "astonishing diatribes" towards women who wear crinolines and demand equal literal space in public with men. When we read the text on Trollope-l and I studied it afterwards I became convinced that he deeply resented women behaving independently of men as if they were not beholden to men for not attacking them physically. He seemed to feel that "chivalry" was something men did by choice for women, and if women didn’t show gratitude, the men were justified in "returning" to making visible how brute power was the source of the social order which gave men control over women.
John Millais, "Waiting at the Railway Station," from Good Words
The other two papers I heard and the three in the other session were all feminist in outlook. Maia McAleavey, a doctoral candidate at Harvard, showed how Trollope’s request that the reader "love" Lily Dale revealed how he was imagining this reader to be a male who is erotically desirous of this imagined seductively sexually yielding victim-heroine. There was a paper by a DPhil student, Yvonne J. Huang, on Trollope’s hunting women and one by Prof ILana Blumberg about how Trollope presents female self-sacrifice as something they take pleasure in which gives them what they (really?) want: both papers were about 19th century women’s struggle for autonomy as mirrored in Trollope’s strongly masculinistic fiction. Prof Anca Vlasopolos focused on Trollope’s short story, "Mary Gresley" (as had Prof Polhemus) and Trollope’s novella, Sir Harry Hotspur: for her in the first we see the destruction of a young woman from the distanced approving perspective of an older man; in the second, the erasure of a young woman who devalues herself. The value of these for the modern reader is they allow us insight into Victorian gender politics.
Just on Sir Harry Hotspur I’ve always felt this sympathetic tragic romance (Trollope wants us to grieve over the heroine’s death) anticipates Henry James’s Washington Square. I prefer James’s story as it seems to me more truthful about how the relationship between parents and children are adversarial as well as supportive. Trollope buys into the myth of young female masochism before the sadistic rake male while James shows the cruelty and indifference of people (in this story just about everyone) and their willingness to bully and use the sensitive and good-hearted. I find it unbearably moving when Catherine Sloper turns her face to the wall and lives within and on herself rather than be hurt so radically again. Erasure in this James’ story is safety and peace. James’s heroine didn’t have to die but can live on in the minimal way described by Virginia Woolf at the close of A Room of One’s Own; alas, that she has lost all hope and will not create anything outside herself for she does not think anyone will appreciate or use it well. She does provide money and services for the poor.
When this last session was over, everyone trooped out to the front area where we had had lunch and there was tea and cakes and biscuits and cheese. To me it was too hot for tea and any sweets so I drank cool water. I talked with Nick and Clare for over half an hour and then Clare again drove me down the hill to the train station. I was very lucky as an air-conditioned long train (from London) had just driven up. I jumped inside.
Half an hour later Edward was walking on the beach just in front of the tower when I arrived. Since we had planned to do this (and had not bought anything to cook for supper), we went out to eat in one of the two good pubs (I liked the meal) and then went for another long stroll. We were back in our tower by 10 and asleep before the clock tolled 11.
Peters Tower, late evening, before sunset, high tide, Lympstone Village, Devonshire.
Back again on Monday night to tell of the last day,
1 See Professor Corbett’s exposition in the comment section of this blog.
Posted by: Ellen
* * *
- I’ve realized more these last two or three weeks that I get a lot from your writing, not just the intellectual discussion, which is always worthwhile, but even more so the energy and engaqement with which you address what you care about.
Kate Field had a strong personal relationship with Dickens, and it seems to some scholars, including me, that she hoped to have an affair with him. I’d like to read the biography of her you refer to.
It interests me that you met the very impressive Nick. Would you mind describing him a bit?
— bob Jul 30, 2:17pm #
- The name of the biographer is Lilian Whiting and the book Kate Field: A Record. I've read Dickens and Collins went in for casual sexual encounters when in Paris, and both lived with women they weren’t married to; however, from what I’ve read of Dickens, I don’t see him going in for casual sex on a regular basis with so-called respectable women. I know very little about Kate Field beyond that she could write very superficially and Anthony Trollope was "in love with" her.
I would not describe someone in public the way you ask. Among the suggested rules of conduct on my lists I ask that people not talk about other people in front of them as if they weren’t there.
— Elinor Jul 30, 8:26pm #
- Dickens and Kate Field had a deep friendship of some duration, so had they had an affair it would not have been casual sex. It didn’t happen because he was involved at the time with Ellen Ternan, but otherwise it might have.
I agree it’d be inappropriate to report in a place like this on certain personal aspects of friends one knows or meets. But I thought there might be other qualities that might be noted, just to be pleasant. Nick is such a friendly guy that I’d like to be able to picture him a little.
— bob Jul 31, 10:21am #
- You seem to know a whole lot about Kate Field :)
Do you have an opinion on whether she "hoped to have an affair with Anthony Trollope"? There are many entrenched stereotypes about him: he was a man who did have liaisons outside his marriage, and he was deeply in love with Kate Field.
Maybe I’ll buy that biography myself. Alas it’s probably one of these safe books which denies all sex activities unless there is an explicit record. It was written in 1899 though so has the merit of contemporaneity. And even today it’s the rare writer who reveals their inner life.
Trollope is very sceptical about how truthful any autobiography can ever be, and calls his own this "so-called autobiography."
— Elinor Aug 1, 7:36am #
- Googling, I find that Gary Schornhurst has a new biography of her that a year or two ago was "forthcoming," but I can’t find it anywhere. When I think more about KF and Dickens, I wonder if, even if he had been single, he would’ve wanted an affair with a strong woman like her.
— bob Aug 2, 12:07pm #
- From Claire Tomalin’s biography of Ellen Ternan (and also Charles Dickens during the years he was basically living with Ternan on and off), I gather Ternan was a very strong woman. The man she married next she dominated. If she and Dickens hid their affair so hysterically, it seems it was not just a matter of his possibly losing the public adulation of fools and the conventional, and therefore lots of money, but their own overwrought attitudes towards sex.
This is born out by Dickens’s own portrayal of women (or lack of it) in his novels. He has saints and monsters or flat two-dimensional heroines.
About Kate Field’s attitudes I know nothing but she too would probably be careful to hide all affairs, and it would not be easy with the famous Dickens.
— Elinor Aug 2, 9:11pm #
- Prof Corbett wrote offblog to say:
"I just checked out your blog re the Trollope conference (via your VICTORIA post) and discovered that you were sorry to have missed my paper. Since you read only my abstract, which is quite different from the paper itself, I think you’ve no doubt got the wrong impression of what I actually wound up saying (I’ve pasted in that bit below).
“Two Identities”: Gender, Ethnicity,
and Phineas Finn
In the second volume of Phineas Finn (1869), Phineas secures a place in government upon the death of Lord Bosanquet, which elevates Mr. Mottram to the House of Lords:
“ … as he was Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and as the Under-Secretary must be in the Lower House, the vacancy must be filled up.” The heart of Phineas Finn at this moment was almost in his mouth…. But his great triumph soon received a check. “Mr. Mildmay has spoken to me on the subject,” continued the letter, “and informs me that he has offered the place at the colonies to his old supporter, Mr. Laurence Fitzgibbon.” Laurence Fitzgibbon! “I am inclined to think that he could not have done better, as Mr. Fitzgibbon has shown great zeal for his party. This will vacate the Irish seat at the Treasury Board, and I am commissioned by Mr. Mildmay to offer it to you’” (II, 43-44).
The narrator continues:
“Phineas was himself surprised to find that his first feeling on reading this letter was one of dissatisfaction…. Had the new Under-Secretary been a man whom he had not known, whom he had not learned to look down upon as inferior to himself, he would not have minded it…. But Laurence Fitzgibbon was such a poor creature, that the idea of filling a place from which Laurence had risen was distasteful to him” (II, 44).
Laurence Fitzgibbon rises, as Phineas reflects, from “‘favour and convenience … without any reference to the service’” (II, 44); Laurence Fitzgibbon rises without a shilling to his name, as Phineas has learned to his own chagrin; Laurence Fitzgibbon rises despite being, as Jane Elizabeth Dougherty notes (140), the most stagy of stage Irishmen in Trollope’s English fiction. Phineas’ own “mastery of standard English forms” (McCourt 53) may be an asset, but Laurence Fitzgibbon’s brogue does not prohibit his advancing to a salaried post of £2000 a year.
Most of all, Laurence Fitzgibbon rises owing to his “‘great zeal for his party’”; but he falls four short chapters later, “having by mischance been called upon for some official statement during an unfortunate period of absence” (II, 80), because he will not do his work. “‘Nothing on earth would induce him to look at a paper during all those weeks he was at the Colonial Office’” (II, 100), as Barrington Erle confides to Phineas, who thus becomes an Under-Secretary for the Colonies after all. Phineas attacks his new job with the “great zeal” Laurence reserves for politicking and, presumably, gaming: although “his back was broken” from Violet Effingham’s refusal, he prepares for a meeting with Lord Cantrip and Mr. Gresham, “determined that “as long as he took the public pay, he would earn it” (II, 143). Like any subordinate, Phineas’ primary job is to make his boss look good to his boss: “he left it to Lord Cantrip to explain most of the proposed arrangements,—speaking only a word or two here and there as occasion required. But he was aware that he had so far recovered” from his broken back “as to be able to save himself from losing ground” (II, 143). And his efforts meet with praise of a particular kind: “‘He’s about the first Irishman we’ve had that has been worth his salt,’ said Mr. Gresham to his colleague afterwards. ‘That other Irishman was a terrible fellow,’ said Lord Cantrip, shaking his head” (II, 144). Like Phineas, Gresham and Cantrip have “learned to look down upon” Laurence Fitzgibbon “as inferior to [Finn] himself,” to see one Irishman as better than another, with their favorite preferred for his superior industry, his devotion to his work, his willingness not just to collect but to earn “the public pay.”
Interestingly, Laurence Fitzgibbon also articulates Phineas’s value in these terms. When the party men gather at the opening of Phineas Redux (1874) to choose candidates who will help them to take back the “Whitehall cake” (PR 10) from Daubeny and the Conservatives, some of those that Finn left behind on his return to Ireland are still singing his praises:
“He’s the best Irishman we ever got hold of,” said Barrington Erle—“present company always excepted, Laurence.”
“Bedad, you needn’t except me, Barrington. I know what a
man’s made of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can’t do. I’m not bad at the outside skirmishing. I’m worth me salt. I say that with a just reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man. Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come back again after dinner” (PR 12-13).
Where Barrington Erle pronounces the ethnic superlative, Laurence neither surrenders his own claims to efficacy nor makes the ethnic distinction that all the Englishmen make: “‘a different sort of man’” from me, not necessarily a better or worse man, but different from me in his possession of different “powers”—close application, industry, commitment.
I am belaboring the opposition between these two figures of Irish masculinity at some length in order to contest the claim made by Nicholas Dames that “Phineas’s career sequence obscures … any element of ethnic or class conflict”: “his Irishness, or his class status as son of a country doctor, is strangely washed out compared to the vividness of his vertical ascension…. the narrative emphasis upon the individual’s upward progression obscures the larger class or ethnic trajectories that may be in play” (260). I’m broadly sympathetic with Dames’ approach to “the career,” and particularly to his point that “‘the colonies,’ as an avenue of professional advancement, signifies in Trollope a necessary specialization”—like Palliser’s passion for the decimal coinage—“that mitigates against any more all-encompassing ambition” (268). But it’s not quite right to say that class and ethnicity are “washed out” in Phineas Finn. Clearly, Trollope makes some strategic choices, and one of them lies in departing from explicit stereotypes of Irishness in the representation of his central character and his plot(s). As one of Phinny’s many foils, Laurence Fitzgibbon is a feckless, improvident, “youngest son” (I, 3) of an Irish lord, a good fictional example of what the Irish historian Roy Foster calls “micks on the make”—and isn’t there a pun even in his name? Fitzgibbon bears the dubious distinction of being to his political superiors (and even to Finn himself) that “other Irishman,” “a terrible fellow” from the administrative point of view, so that our hero need not be tarred with that particular brush.
To begin to understand the “class and ethnic trajectories” in play here, I am suggesting, requires an initial recognition that Trollope does not construct Irishness exclusively in opposition to Englishness. As John McCourt has established, Phineas’ Irishness is not signified, as Fitzgibbon’s is, through the stereotyped conventions of Irish speech, phenotype, or even conduct. As the son of a professional rather than a landlord, associated with the Catholic middlings rather than the Anglo-Irish gentry, Phineas decidedly belongs to the stratum to which Trollope, in the years after the famine (which Phineas and his family must have lived through), assigned some of the modernizing powers of progress. The difference between the careers of the two Irishmen is thus given moral and ideological weight over the course of the novel. Phineas, like Laurence, gets his start as a junior lord by filling “the Irish seat at the Treasury Board,” for which their national origins presumably qualify them both. But having “achieved his declared object in getting into place,” Phineas “felt that he was almost constrained to adopt the views of others, let them be what they might” (II, 163)—a conscientious qualm to which Laurence is never apparently subject. Phineas resigns his position as Under-Secretary for the Colonies so as to be able to support the legislation for Irish tenant right to which he commits himself on his Irish tour with Mr. Monk, legislation that would (and did, in 1870) give Irish tenants security for improvements they made to their land holdings. Here Trollope makes Phineas’ Irishness matter, as he gives up his post and thus his seat on a point of equity and fairness: “his Irish birth and Irish connection had brought this misfortune of his country so closely home to him that he had found the task of extricating himself from it to be impossible” (II, 330). Having failed to accept “that as he had made up his mind to be a servant of the public in Parliament, he must abandon all idea of independent action” (II, 179), Phineas in the end chooses “independent action” on behalf of Ireland rather than what Mr. Low calls “‘slavery and degradation’” (I, 46).
In this choice, Phineas conforms not just to conscience or patriotism, but to the ideal and ideology of manliness, a construction that exerts some considerable sway over Trollope’s characterization of “the Irish member.” In A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England, the historian John Tosh defines “manliness” as an internal state made evident in outward display: “Sometimes there was an implied claim to natural endowment; more often a manly bearing was taken to be the outcome of self-improvement and self-discipline. This aspect was explicit in what was for the Victorians the key attribute of manliness— independence” (111) of thought, speech, and conduct. “The manly man,” as Tosh writes in his recent collection of essays, “was someone who paid more attention to the promptings of his inner self than to the dictates of social expectation” (“Gentlemanly” 87), with the opposition between the two something that Tosh and his sources take as a given. And in politics, a man’s attention to said promptings would ideally issue in “a rejection of all forms of patronage,” the dependency that would vitiate “autonomy of action and opinion” (“Middle-Class” 111). Tosh argues that “manly independence” constituted “a vital prerequisite” for, rather than being an effect of, “responsible political agency” (“Gentlemanly” 96), which seems true enough in the context of the 1860s, as English workers (and some women) agitated for the extension of the franchise in the face of elite anxiety about their ability properly to use it, while Fenian activism only confirmed in some English eyes an Irish insufficiency for exercising political autonomy. Yet in distinguishing “manliness” from “gentlemanliness,” associating the latter with “exclusiveness and affluence” and characterizing the former as “open and unhierarchical,” Tosh suggests that the manly ideal was accessible to a broader range of Victorian men: “birth, breeding and education were secondary, compared with the moral qualities which marked the truly manly character” (“Gentlemanly” 86). Is it open to some Irishmen, too? Or is it ethnically and racially specific?
If the ideal was represented as democratically open, then it also generated particular exclusions and depended on particular oppositions: it’s easy to see, for example, that “manly independence” implied, indeed “was premised on,” as Tosh writes, “a powerful sense of the feminine ‘other’” (“Gentlemanly” 91), the “womanly dependence” emphatically represented in the Phineas novels by Robert Kennedy’s recurrent references to his wife as “‘bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh’” (e.g., PR 86). With Tosh limiting the scope of his study to Englishness, it’s difficult not to wonder how taking notice of a persistently feminized and racialized Catholic Irishness within mid-Victorian culture might complicate his picture. Yet in relation to the distinction that I have noted in Phineas Finn, where Fitzgibbon embodies the stereotypical ethnic elements of Irishness, the claims of “the Irish member” to manliness and independence, in Tosh’s terms, look pretty strong.
What’s important to remember is precisely the relational character of a category like manliness and a quality like independence, the variations they undergo when you shift the context. Phineas looks independent, for example, in choosing to support Mr. Monk in the debate over tenant right, by contrast not just with Fitzgibbon, but also with Ratler, Bonteen, or Erle, the whole pack of functionaries for whom the concept of voting against the party is anathema because keeping power and place is the supreme goal. (It’s not voting with them that elicits feminizing rhetoric: as Bonteen says to Ratler to provoke Phineas, “‘I’ll bet you a sovereign Finn votes with us yet. There’s nothing like being a little coy to set off a girl’s charms’” [II, 296]). He also looks a good deal more independent by the side of Lady Laura Kennedy, “who from her earliest years of girlish womanhood had resolved that she would use the world as men use it, and not as women do” (II, 10-11), and lives to regret the choices she made. Trollope indeed supports an ideal of “manly independence,” against which he measures Finn and other characters (including some female ones), but he persistently figures that ideal for conduct within the contexts of class and gender privilege, ethnic and national character. Thus when John McCourt argues that “Phineas has neither the political nor financial resources to be independent of the men who put him into parliament,” I agree; but when he goes on to claim that Phineas “suffers this dependency which is surely metonymic of Ireland’s more general dependency on English favours” (55), I must disagree. If Phineas is “dependent” in some contexts, and is thus represented or understood as “effeminate” or “feminized,” then in the specifically Irish dimension of his political identity, he is very much the manly man, in rejecting the patronage that got him his place because it impedes his “autonomy of action and opinion.” He is freer as an individual than the nation whose collective interests he indirectly represents, and Trollope emphasizes this in making his Irishness most evident in the actions that send him back to Ireland at the end of Phineas Finn.
Issues of “manly independence” are also at play in how Trollope represents Phineas’ relationship to his girl back home, which waxes and wanes according to his English romantic and political fortunes. From the outset, Phineas exploits the distance between an Irish “here” and an English “there”: he appears differently to others, and to himself, depending on the location he occupies. Each time he returns to Ireland in Phineas Finn, usually at the end of the parliamentary session, he does so having spent a good part of the previous six or nine months pursuing an Englishwoman, during which time he has given the Irish “there” nary a thought. Already rejected by Lady Laura, he nonetheless tells Mary Flood Jones “‘how often’” he’s thought of her, committing one of those “perjuries” that “can hardly be avoided altogether in the difficult circumstances of a successful gentleman’s life. Phineas was a traitor, of course, but he was almost forced to be a traitor, by the simple fact that Lady Laura Standish was in London, and Mary Flood Jones in Killaloe” (I, 145). Rejected for the first time by Violet Effingham after the end of the next parliamentary session, he goes to Killaloe to find that Mary and her mother have decamped to Floodsborough “because it was thought that he had ill-treated the lady” (I, 328-29). If the narrator has previously called him “a traitor” with some mild irony on the nature of a “gentleman’s life,” on this occasion he makes no judgment, but gives us Phineas’s thoughts instead: “Now that he was in Ireland, he thought that he did love dear Mary very dearly. He felt that he had two identities,—that he was, as it were, two separate persons,—and that he could, without any real faithlessness, be very much in love with Violet Effingham in his position of man of fashion and member of Parliament in England, and also warmly attached to dear little Mary Flood Jones as an Irishman of Killaloe” (I, 330). Phineas here settles upon a fiction less troubling to his own sense of honor than the narrator’s charge of perjury and treachery through the conceit of the “two identities,” in which potential “faithlessness” is rewritten in accord with the distance between there and here, his English career in London and his position as “Irishman of Killaloe.” And at this point in the novel, it’s the first identity he most wants to maintain: being “constant to Miss Effingham” (I, 145) would mean achieving the “politico-social success” (I, 143) in England that an alliance with her would guarantee, by which he would gain “Violet’s hand for his own comfort, and Violet’s fortune to support his position” (II, 131). And for as long as this is on the cards, being “an Irishman of Killaloe” will take second place.
What begins as a sort of comic Bunburying, from the narrator’s point of view, takes a more serious turn in the second volume, as Mr. Low’s early response to Finn’s decision to pursue a parliamentary career—there is “‘nothing in it that can satisfy any manly heart’” (I, 46)—looks more and more like a fair prediction. When Phineas goes back to Ireland to stand for the seat at Loughshane, the narrator comments on the danger to his character: “Perhaps there is no position more perilous to a man’s honesty than that in which Phineas now found himself;—that, namely of knowing himself to be quite loved by a girl whom he almost loves himself…. Phineas was not in love with Mary Flood Jones,” but “he would have liked to have an episode,—and did, at the moment, think that it might be possible to have one life in London and another life altogether different at Killaloe” (II, 107). With Mary clearly available and Violet still possibly so, the distance between the two locations widens: potential success with Violet seems to enable the fiction of “two identities,” or the double life, to persist. On his next visit to Killaloe with Mr. Monk, however, when he knows for certain “that all hope was over” of ever marrying Violet and “was in want of the comfort of feminine sympathy,” “Mary had kept aloof from him”: and “as a natural consequence of this, Phineas was more in love with her than ever” (II, 261). Putting emotional distance between them, Mary incites desire. When he returns from the tour, having “pledged himself” (II, 263) to tenant-right and knowing that he and Monk “must give up the places which they held under the Crown” (II, 264), he pledges himself to Mary as well.
For Phineas, independence in political matters means loss of independence in financial ones: neither a pledge to Ireland nor a pledge to Mary corresponds with the material, economic independence necessary to heterosexual manliness. Women in the novel know this well. When Mary Flood Jones tells her future mother-in-law “that it was quite possible that Phineas would be called upon to resign,” so “‘that he may maintain his independence,’” “‘Fiddlestick!’ said Mrs. Finn. ‘How is he to maintain you, or himself either, if he goes on in that way?’” (II, 276). Moving from this conversation in Killaloe to a London drawing-room in the space of a single paragraph, Madame Max tells Phineas that “‘a poor fellow need not be a poor fellow unless he likes’” (II, 276), holding out another hand and another fortune that would make him financially and thus politically independent by means of marriage. The terms in which Phineas contemplates her offer suggests the mix of materialist and psychic motivations that underpin his fantasy of total success:
Immediately after this Phineas left her, and as he went along the street he began to question himself whether the prospects of his own darling Mary were at all endangered by his visits to Park Lane; and to reflect what sort of a blackguard he would be,—a blackguard of how deep a dye,—were he to desert Mary and marry Madame Max Goesler. Then he also asked himself as to the nature and quality of his own political honesty if he were to abandon Mary in order that he might maintain his parliamentary independence. After all, if it should ever come to pass that his biography should be written, his biographer would say very much more about the manner in which he kept his seat in Parliament than of the manner in which he kept his engagement with Miss Mary Flood Jones. Half a dozen people
who knew him and her might think ill of him for his conduct to
Mary, but the world would not condemn him! And when he
thundered forth his Liberal eloquence from below the gangway as an independent member, having the fortune of his charming wife to back him, giving excellent dinners at the same time in Park Lane, would not the world praise him very loudly? (II, 276-77)
It’s not only amusing but significant that Phineas imagines a biographer who, much like Trollope himself in An Autobiography (1883), will subordinate “the little details of my private life” and write instead of “what I, and perhaps others round me, have done in” public and professional matters, “of my failures and successes such as they have been, and their causes” (1). And it’s significant, too, that because the distance between an English “here” and an Irish “there” has enabled Phineas not just to think of his engagement to Mary as “a thing quite apart and separate from his life in England” (II, 271), but to keep it entirely private, the fiction of “two identities” proves to have some currency after all, for “the world” certainly “would not condemn him” for his “faithlessness” if “the world” effectively knew nothing at all about it. To break his vow to Mary would be bad, very bad, certainly an ungentlemanly thing to do, but a thing that, like the engagement itself, could be kept hidden; if he could do it, and by marrying Madame Max both “maintain his parliamentary independence” and affirm “the nature and quality of his own political honesty,” Phineas could “[thunder] forth his Liberal eloquence” without stint.
The dicey term “eloquence,” associated with Turnbull and Daubeny, should give us some pause. As part of a rhetoric of display—what one puts on for “the world,” a little like “excellent dinners”—fine words are opposed to manly speech; ultimately, Trollope frames the desire to look well and to have a reputation, to be a public figure constituted for, even by others, as the end to be avoided, both by Phineas and by Madame Max herself, who turns down the Duke of Omnium just a few chapters before Phineas turns her down. Standing in Madame Max’s elegantly appointed drawing room, Phineas thinks, “What would such a life as his want, if graced by such a companion,—such a life as his might be, if the means which were hers were at his command? It would want one thing, he thought,—the self-respect which he would lose if he were false to the girl who was trusting him with such sweet trust at home in Ireland” (II, 314). “The promptings of his inner self” win out over “the dictates of social expectation.”
In this way, I think, Trollope represents a “manly” Irish subject whose affirmation of Irish choices constitute an effort to consolidate an independent Irish identity, which yet contains elements or traces of the gendered and racialized discourse of dependence that it disavows. Undercut by Trollope’s subsequent claim that “to take him from Ireland” was “a blunder” and that he was “wrong to marry him to a simple pretty Irish girl” (Autobiography 318), the characterization is yet significant as a particular moment in the broader literary history of Trollope’s relationship to Ireland, intervening as it does in what would become an increasingly polarized debate on English-Irish relations after 1870, a debate in which Trollope himself, as in the unfinished Landleaguers (1883), would take a far more hostile view of Irish members.
Dames, Nicholas. “Trollope and the Career: Vocational Trajectories and the Management of Ambition.” Victorian Studies 45 (Winter 2003): 247-278.
Dougherty, Jane Elizabeth. “An Angel in the House: The Act of Union and Anthony Trollope’s Irish Hero.” Victorian Literature and Culture 32 (2004): 133-45.
Foster, R. F. “Marginal Men and Micks on the Make: The Uses of Irish Exile, c. 1840-1922.” Paddy & Mr Punch: Connections in Irish and English History. London: Penguin, 1995. 281-305.
McCourt, John. “Domesticating the Other: Phineas Finn, Trollope’s Patriotic Irishman.” Rivista di Studi Vittoriani 6 (2001): 39-63.
Tosh, John. “Gentlemanly Politeness and Manly Simplicity in Victorian England.” Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Essays on Gender, Family and Empire. Harlow, England: Pearson Longman, 2005. 83-102.
___. A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999.
___. “Middle-Class Masculinities in the Era of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1860-1914.” In Manliness and Masculinities 103-125.
Trollope, Anthony. An Autobiography. 1883. Ed. Michael Sadleir and Frederick Page. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
___. Phineas Finn: The Irish Member. 1869. Ed. Jacques Berthoud. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
___. Phineas Redux. 1874. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
— Elinor Aug 2, 11:13pm #
- I asked Nick what "Bunburying" meant and he replied:
"Very quickly Bunburying is from Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest. Bunbury is an imaginary friend whom the hero (or protagonist) uses to escape social obligations which he wishes to avoid. It has come to have a meaning associated with sexual duplicity I think – I am not sure this is present in the play (I am not an enormous Wilde fan so my recollectioni s hazy).
— Elinor Aug 3, 7:50pm #
- Because my wife just last month directed a production of "Earnest," I happen to know that Bunburying is generally thought to be Wilde’s reference to secret homosexual relationships carried on while leading a straight life. As to your point about Ellen Ternan being a strong woman: undoubtedly she became that. But she began her affair with Dickens when she was virtually a child, in fact, his daughter’s age. It was a forbidden relationship for him on several scores—and very exciting and romantic for that reason—while an affair with Kate Field would’ve been with someone much more his equal, not only in age and culture but also in the kind of strength that comes with personal development. It would’ve been good for him to finally have such an experience, but I wonder if he’d have wanted to.
— bob Aug 4, 5:03pm #
- So then the paper on Phineas Finn was using the term somewhat inaccurately. Nick suggested that and said "given its origin ‘comic Bunburying’ is tautologous (dear me I sound pedantic! :))." Jim suggested the equivalent of Bunburying can also be when students tell me their grandparent is dying and they must go hold his hand at the hospital. This sort of lying appalls me.
I told Nick (Jim would know this if he had been there and listened) the stance of numbers of the papers I heard on Trollope were alien to me. Why?
Despite the overt post-colonialism and other similar points of view many readers of Trollope (academic and non-academic like) do not identify with the underdogs and do not like Trollope’s characters for their continual subversion. These readers appear not to notice this, or if they do, and the character is a woman, inveigh against it. I've read people on lists ridicule Trollope's males or talk of how these characters "annoy" them.
I love Phineas Redux for Trollope’s depiction of Phineas’s depression and shattered state and for his explanation (justification for why he was so depressed). The horrible way Phineas was dropped by his so-called friends is made the novel's focus. It's why Trollope has him accused of the crime. But many readers appear to like Phineas for his great networking (instinctive pleasantness is the way Trollope presents this) and buy intoc onventional views of success and manliness.
On another panel, one ostensibly feminist, one woman speaker during question time after the papers were done just about burst out to say how she worried lest her daughter not marry someone presentable who would make money. I suppose what else could you expect from someone acting out a successful bourgeois career
How often a philistine point of view (or self-interested socializing one) comes out from people reading Trollope. Alas, he allows for it, does not overtly critique it, even justifies it. Trollope likes to argue on behalf of density and deliberately presents highly limited (semi-stupid) characters who have much power. It's called realism.
I really did think Polhemus’s paper was one of the very best, and Markwick’s worth listening to as revolutionary. Whether she will make a difference in Trollope studies will be interesting to see. Of course to do that she’s got to have a book and it’s got to appear in a "respected" venue (Ashgate is).
For what it’s worth I think Trollope had a few such relationships, and they were sexually consummated. One is strongly hinted at in The West Indies and the Spanish Main. It didn’t change his personality nor would it have Dickens. The attitude towards women in the period really marginalized them as effective presences with significant ideas. Mill was rare for seeing them otherwise.
And today it’s not much different. A woman’s body is what most men value her for. As to Bob's comments on Dickens and Field and possible sex: exciting and romantic ? What rot and rubbish. This is woman as "other," as the "dark continent."
You should read Tomalin's book for a glimpse of Dickens and Ternan. Ternan was also a real reader, an intelligent creative actress and later tried to build a better life for herself with a school. She couldn't as she didn't have the connections or prestige and her husband didn't know how to manipulate his. That makes me sympathize with him, but he also was under her thumb so he is finally pathetic. I do give him the respect of not believing he thought her 13 years younger and never asked about her past life.
Perhaps Bob it's you who are wanting to go to bed with Kate Field? having dreams about her?
— Elinor Aug 4, 10:17pm #
- I sent George Landow my paper to put on Victorian Web, and he wrote me about it:
"Thanks for sharing your excellent essay with readers of the Victorian Web! It has filled, or at least begun to fill, a need on the site for significant material on masculinity and permitted me to create a gender matters sitemap in the Trollope section. You’re up at http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/trollope/moody2/comfort.html
When your essay enters the VW or similar site, however, it becomes part of a network, and individual notes become, whether one likes it or not, separate nodes or documents in that network. What this means in practice is that some notes that might originally have served as minor comments to a much more important argument (such as your notes on manliness in Trollope’s heroines or Trollope’s non-traditional heroes) become valuable documents in their own right and as such (1) need their own titles and (2) may bring readers to your main argument rather than the other way around, and (3) often need or at least permit considerable expansion. Feel free to suggest new titles for the lexias made out of notes and to add any material you wish. E-text is both like velcro — things keep sticking to it — and always unfinished because always easily changeable …
As someone who’s been at this game for more than 4 decades, I have some criticisms and suggestions about both the html and your generally excellent writing. But I won’t bother you with them unless you’d like to receive them.
Thanks for thinking of VW!
— Elinor Aug 10, 11:34pm #
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Reduced dust nuisance on site
A cloud of dust around powder products as they are being mixed and stirred is one of the least pleasant occurrences for builders and tradesmen working on site. These blends of cement, sand and different additives are mixed with water on the spot, inevitably causing a fine dust to infiltrate the ambient air and causing nuisance to the workers and also anyone else in the vicinity. However, with the development of a completely new microgranulation technology, binding the fine particles that cause the dust to form larger clusters, Henkel researchers have now succeeded in reducing these unpleasant side-effects to a minimum, assigning dusty site atmospheres to the past.
In the vanguard of this new generation of low-dust powder products are the tile adhesives Ceresit Microgranulat Flex Plus and CM 90 and also the Thomsit smoothing compound RX 20 from Henkel. Aside from outstanding processing properties, they have been proven to reduce the evolution of fine dust by up to 90 percent compared to conventional products. This year Henkel will expand its portfolio of low-emission powder products by introducing two new joint mortars and a new waterproof slurry. So the professional user will be offered a complete range of well matched system solutions.
For the professional user, this innovative technology brings double benefits: when working with conventional powder products, craftsmen in particular are exposed to health risks every day. The cement dust often remains for a long time in the ambient air. Regular contact with relatively large quantities of cement dust can cause skin and eye irritation, asthma and even allergic reactions. With its new technology, Henkel has found a solution that will help to safeguard craftsmen against such health risks in the future. This Henkel innovation is also particularly beneficial from an economic standpoint. For fear of dirt and dust deposits in adjoining rooms, many consumers shy away from placing an order for reparation and renovation work, even in cases where the need for refurbishment is acute. Now such concerns can be completely eradicated thanks to the new microgranulate. Indeed, the newcomers under Henkel’s Ceresit and Thomsit brands are suitable for even the most delicate renovation work in department stores, museums or hotels.
The effect of the new technology can impressively be demonstrated on the basis of two glass vessels, each a quarter filled with tile adhesive or smoothing compound; one containing a conventional cement-based product and one with the new microgranulate. If the conventional product is shaken, a cloud of dust forms in the glass container which takes many minutes to settle again. In the case of the microgranulate, on the other hand, there is only a hint of dust evolution, and this settles again immediately. It is a solution that has also convinced the experts. The new Ceresit and Thomsit products have been widely acclaimed both at construction industry trade shows and by employee insurance associations in Germany. Hans-Peter Sattler, head of research and development at the site in Unna, Germany, where Henkel operates a large plant for building products, has played an active role in the development process. He is convinced: “The bigger the share of low-dust products used, the safer work will become in the construction industry. Microgranulation technology is an important milestone in achieving this aim.”
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May 7th, 2013
Much has been made of the slowdown in health spending growth and the role played by the economy. I have to confess that my first take, after studying plots of business cycles and health spending, was that health spending “had a mind of its own” and paid no attention to business cycles. Consider the two most recent recessions depicted in the chart below. During the recession of 2001, health spending growth actually shot up at the same time that the growth in gross domestic product (GDP) was dropping, and continued to rise even after the recession officially ended.
During the Great Recession, spanning December 2007 through June 2009, the growth in health spending dropped by about 2 percentage points and then leveled off while GDP growth dropped by nearly 10 percentage points and then quickly rebounded to a more normal long run rate of growth (though not sufficient to make a large dent in unemployment). I hope you can see why I was skeptical of a predictable relationship.Read the rest of this entry »
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Do you really want to know about The Enema Within?
(21 May 2004, Texas) Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary
alcoholic, but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor, well, rectally.
His wife said he was "addicted to enemas" and often used alcohol in this
manner. The result was the same: inebriation.
The machine shop owner couldn't imbibe alcohol by mouth due to a painful
throat ailment, so he elected to receive his favourite beverage via enema.
And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party. Two 1.5 litre bottles
of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces, right up the old address!
When the rest of us have had enough, we either stop drinking or pass
out. When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out) the alcohol
remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed. The next morning,
Michael was dead.
The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself. According to
toxicology reports, his blood alcohol level was 0.47%.
In order to qualify for a Darwin Award, a person must remove himself from
the gene pool via an "astounding misapplication of judgment." Three litres
of sherry up the butt can only be described as astounding. Unsurprisingly,
his neighbors said they were surprised to learn of the incident.
Slashdot Discussion in which we learn that alcohol enemas are all
around us! Apparently the alcohol absorbs more quickly through the
capillary beds of the rectum, a fact exploited by many party animals."
"Drunk off my ass."
"Takes shit-faced to a whole new level."
"He earned the Award, no ifs ands or butts about it."
"This puts a new light on the old saying. 'Up Yours Mate!'"
"Up the hatch."
"What a bummer."
"Rectum? Hell no it killed him."
"In the end, no drinks for me, thanks."
"A drop never touched his lips."
"Texas is back in the lead!"
"Beware what lies beneath."
"Never again will I look at a tableful of liquor at a party and think,
'Damn, that's an assload of booze.'"
DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2012
Submitted by: grimreaper
Reference: Houston Chronicle, Seattle PI, TheAge.com, Reuters
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Google may be the world's most widely-used search engine, but that doesn't mean that it's perfect. Indeed, the past several years have seen a growing number of complaints from users and experts alike relating to the quality of Google search results.
More recently, it appears that Google has focused much of its efforts to improve on weeding out spam and the low-quality content made famous by content farms.
But a new update that the company revealed yesterday shows that Google isn't just focusing on minimizing the amount and prominence of cruddy content in its index.
As detailed by Google fellow Amit Singhal on the Official Google Blog, the company wants to make sure that Google can keep up in today's fast-paced world:
Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.
Enter Caffeine, the faster indexing system Google released last year. On its own, Caffeine allowed Google to index the web much faster, ensuring that the information in its index was fresher. But what to do with that information?
Google's new Freshness update, which Singhal says affects approximately 35% of searches, is designed to ensure that the latest information appears in search queries that are time-sensitive, such as those related to news, current events and recurring events.
For instance, a search query about a football match might surface the current score and liveblogging posts if the match is in progress since Google assumes that's going to be most relevant to you. On the other hand, if you're searching for information about the first computer ever built, you probably don't care when the content was produced.
Needless to say, the Freshness update seems like a sensible move by Google as it seeks to make search results more relevant. For publishers and SEOs, on the other hand, it may be more of a mixed bag as Freshness is just the latest in a growing number of changes to search that mean the SERPs are more dynamic and what's in them harder to predict.
The good news, of course, is that publishers and SEOs don't need to do too much analysis to figure out Freshness' primary implication: if you're producing timely content on a regular basis, you'll probably do better than if you're not. The challenge, of course, is finding the right balance between quality and speed. For Google to really produce a better experience, it can't ignore the former as it rewards the latter.
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The Parent and Grandparent Immigration Program in Canada: Costs and Proposed Changes
Global Economics Ltd.
February 6, 2012
Global Economics Working Paper No. 2012-1
This paper examines the need for the parent and grandparent immigration program in Canada and provides critical observations on its objectives and operations and offers empirical estimates on its costs. And, as a contribution to the Government’s recently launched consultations on how to redesign the program to make it more fiscally sustainable, it offers a specific proposal.
First, the costs: taking into account a $1.3 billion per year increase in transfer payments to parents and grandparents (in 2005) estimated from the Census 2006 Public Use Microfile and the $4.6 billion extra healthcare spending estimated from Canadian Institute for Health Information data and allowing for growth in numbers and costs, the annual fiscal costs of the parent and grandparent program to all levels of government in Canada could easily exceed $6 billion per year at the present time. Bringing in the Government’s estimate 165,000 individuals in the backlog and its expected increase in numbers applying to 500,000 by 2020 (including the 165,000) would more than double the fiscal costs from the $6 billion estimated here. This would represent a significant increase in the claims on Canada’s income support programs, which are already under severe strain from the ageing of the Canadian population.
Many Canadians have trouble understanding the meaning of multi-billion dollar cost estimates. Some illustrative examples of the potential benefits to individual immigrant families can help to put the figures in the perspective of their own household budgets. For instance, an immigrant family that brings in one parent or grandparent might benefit from subsidized health care worth $9,600 per year during the parent’s senior years. The immigrant parent might also get income support worth on average $7,644 ($6,262.24 OAS/GIS plus $1,381.30 other government transfers). Together, this adds up to a total health and welfare benefit of $17,244 per year, which over a 20-year life time as a senior would equal a rather hefty $344,880. And if an immigrant family were able to bring in all four parents of both the husband and the wife, or perhaps a grandparent if one of the parents can’t come, the total fiscal benefit would equal $1,379,520 over the assumed 20-year post age 65 life of the parents.
The only way to make the parent and grandparent program “sustainable in the future” and to “avoid future large backlogs and be sensitive to fiscal constraints,” the objectives specified by the Government in its press release announcing the consultations, is to drastically pare the numbers of parents and grandparents admitted and/or to shift the costs of the income support of the parents and grandparents and their health care back on to the shoulders of their sponsors where it belongs. Specifically, the sponsors must be made personally responsible for the support and health care of their parents and grandparents by requiring them to purchase life annuities for their parents and grandparents that provide a minimum level of lifetime income support and also to buy health insurance, perhaps from a special risk pool established by the Government for that purpose to help ensure coverage. This will eliminate the large subsidy from Canadian taxpayers to the parents and grandparents of immigrants admitted to Canada.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 17
Keywords: recent immigrants to Canada, Canadian immigration policy, parent and grandparent program, old age pensions, healthcare costs
JEL Classification: J24, J61, H51, H55working papers series
Date posted: February 12, 2012
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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There is only one problem with glazed carrots as they're most often made: They're sickeningly sweet, almost as cloying as Crosby's sentimental standards. I am not an anti-sugar crusader, and I'm certainly not opposed to the occasional teaspoon added to savory dishes to round out their flavors. But adding sugar (or honey or maple syrup, as the case may be) to carrots is mind-bogglingly wrong-headed, because carrots are already sweet. Adding more sugar takes them to a weird, nauseating no-man's-land between dinner and dessert — vegetal in appearance and texture, candied in flavor, disconcerting all around. (This is not to say carrots cannot appear in desserts — carrot cake is a topic for another day — only that they should be thoroughly processed and disguised when they do.)
A much better addition to glazed carrots is sugar's polar opposite: soy sauce. Soy sauce complements carrots' sweetness instead of amplifying it, and the resulting sweet-and-salty mélange makes soy-glazed carrots exceptionally
Glazing is kind of like streamlined braising: Instead of browning the carrots in butter and then simmering them in liquid, you just throw all the ingredients together in a pot, cover it, and cook until the carrots are tender. Then, you remove the lid and let the remaining liquid boil down to a shiny glaze. The glaze in this recipe isn't quite as syrupy as the glaze in a recipe containing sugar, but the carrots release enough starch as they cook to thicken the sauce — and the resulting dish is indisputably dinner, not dessert.
Soy- and Butter-Glazed Carrots, 4 servings
Time: 30 minutes
2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch slices
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Put the carrots, soy sauce, butter, and 1/3 cup water in a small pot. Season with black pepper. Cover and put the pot over medium heat. Cook until the carrots are mostly tender, about 20 minutes. Uncover the pot and raise the heat to medium-high. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is reduced to a glaze, about 5 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve hot.
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The following is an excerpt from Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.
Image remixed from auremar (Shutterstock).
The Passion Hypothesis
To simplify things, I’ll use the “passion hypothesis” to refer to the popular belief that the way to end up loving your career is to first figure out what you’re passionate about, and then pursue it (an strategy often summarized with the pithy phrase, “follow your passion.”) The more I studied this hypothesis, the more I noticed its danger. This idea convinces people that there’s a magic “right” job waiting for them, and that if they find it, they’ll immediately recognise that this is the work they were meant to do. The problem, of course, is when they fail to find this certainty, bad things follow, such as chronic job-hopping and crippling self-doubt.
But without the passion hypothesis to guide us, what should we do instead? How do people really end up loving what they do? To answer this question we need to turn our attention to an unexpected career adviser.
Becoming a Craftsman
In a 2007 episode of the Charlie Rose show, Rose was interviewing the actor and comedian Steve Martin about his memoir Born Standing Up. They talked about the realities of Martin’s rise. In the last five minutes of the interview, Rose asks Martin his advice for aspiring performers.
“Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear,” Martin said. “What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’ . . . but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’ “
In response to Rose’s trademark ambiguous grunt, Martin defended his advice: “If somebody’s thinking, ‘How can I be really good?’ people are going to come to you.”
This is exactly the philosophy that catapulted Martin into stardom. He was only 20 years old when he decided to innovate his act into something too good to be ignored. “Comedy at the time was all setup and punch line . . . the clichéd nightclub comedian, rat-a-tat-tat,” Martin explained to Rose. He thought it could be something more sophisticated. It took Martin, by his own estimation, 10 years for his new act to cohere, but when it did, he became a monster success. It’s clear in his telling that there was no real shortcut to his eventual fame, and the compelling life it generated. “[Eventually] you are so experienced [that] there’s a confidence that comes out,” Martin explained. “I think it’s something the audience smells.”
If you’re not focusing on becoming so good they can’t ignore you, you’re going to be left behind. This clarity is refreshing. It tells you to stop worrying about what your job offers you, and instead worry about what you’re offering the world. This mindset–which I call the craftsman mindset-allows you to sidestep the anxious questions generated by the passion hypothesis — “Who am I?”, “What do I truly love?” — and instead put your head down and focus on becoming valuable.
Martin’s advice, however, offers more than just a strategy for avoiding job uncertainty. The more I studied it, the more convinced I became that it’s a powerful tactic for building a working life that you eventually grow to love. As I’ll explain below, regardless of how you feel about your job right now, adopting the craftsman mindset can be the foundation on which you build a compelling career.
Career Capital Theory
Research shows that the traits that lead people to love their work are general, and can be found in many different career paths. They include things like autonomy, a sense of impact and mastery, creativity, and respect and recognition for your abilities. Once you recognise that these traits have little to do with following a pre-existing passion, and can be cultivated in many different fields, you can safely abandon the myth that there’s a single right job waiting out there for you.
Of course, this still leaves open the question of how you gain these factors in your working life. One of the first things I noticed when I began to study this question is that these traits are rare. Most jobs, for example, don’t offer their employees great autonomy and the ability to make a big impact. If you’re a recent college graduate in an entry-level job, you’re much more likely to hear “go change the water cooler” than you are “go change the world.”
By definition, we also know that these traits are valuable — as they’re the key to making a job great. But now we’re moving into well-trod territory. Basic economic theory tells us that if you want something that’s both rare and valuable, you need something rare and valuable to offer in return — this is Supply and Demand 101.
When you hear the stories of people who ended up loving what they do, this same pattern comes up again and again. They start by painstakingly developing rare and valuable skills — which we can call career capital. They then leverage this capital to gain rare and valuable traits in their career. These traits lead to a feeling of passion about their working life. If career capital is the key to developing passion, then this explains the importance of Steve Martin’s craftsman mindset. By focusing on becoming so good they can’t ignore you, you’re maximizing the rate at which you acquire the capital you need to take control of your livelihood.
“Follow your passion” is an appealing idea because it’s simple and immediate. If you can figure out what you’re meant to do, it promises, a deep love for your career is just around the corner. The reality I’m proposing is less glamorous. It argues that passion takes time and hard work — harder work than most people naturally invest in their jobs. It’s also less certain in the sense that you cannot predict in advance the details of the compelling career you’re cultivating. But it compensates with clarity.
Stop worrying about what the world owes you, it says, and instead, put your head down, like Steve Martin developing his act, and strive to become so good you can’t be ignored. It’s this straightforward goal — not some fairy tale about dropping everything to pursue a dream job — that will lead you toward a working life you love.
Adapted from the book So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport. © 2012 by Calvin C. Newport. Reprinted by permission of Business Plus. All rights reserved.
Cal Newport is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. He previously earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2009, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 2004. Newport is the author of three books of unconventional advice for students, which have sold a combined total of more than 100,000 copies: How to Be a High School Superstar, How to Become a Straight-A Student, and How to Win at College. His fourth book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, is a contrarian look at career advice that was just published by Grand Central in September, 2012.
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Twitter on a ZX Spectrum
And other wonders from the Vintage Computing Fair
Photo Diary Britain's first Vintage Computing Festival took place over the weekend at Bletchley Park, which was the perfect excuse to visit the National Museum of Computing, a recent addition to the Park site. All three are a tribute to the passion of volunteers – the state has only very recently saw fit to give any money to the historic site, and the Museum is a private venture.
First the Fair.
I hadn't visited Bletchley Park for almost a decade, and it's now almost unrecognisable. Computer enthusiasts always had a weekend presence there, making it a natural focus for something more formal – hence the Museum.
But the spirit of hacking old kit is alive and well. Here's a new use for a ZX Spectrum:
I've obscured the next screenshot, but if you're of a certain age, you'll be able to recognise it right away:
And if you find your fingers involuntarily tapping out C Scramble:... then you'll not need the next picture:
More here if you're feeling nostalgic.
Not all micros were successful. I believe this was a relative of the TRS-80, but never a hit here. The box captures it all, though:
Computers for hobbyists go way back, pre-dating digital. Here's HeathKit's Educational Analog Computer:
Most of the 8-bits I saw were cleverly modded, many had SD card expansion added:
Back then, the disk drive cost a lot more than the computer, and the printer even more:
But around the Xmas 1980, here's what we thought the 21st Century would look like, quite fabulous:
Forgotten but not gone
The Fair brought up some entire categories that I'd forgotten. This is the Sinclair ZX PBS+ Executive IV from 1985:
Yes, it's pretty neat with the included printer. But the USP was that it came in a suitcase:
It also has something you'd never expect to see on a Sinclair:
...which is a decent keyboard.
The predecessor was this – we had one of these in our attic. Note the screen size. There's far too much emphasis on graphics these days, this was pretty "immersive", in its own way:
Another category I'd forgotten about was the early portable. Sinclair's Z88, launched in 1987, ran off 4 AAs. (More here ).
Amstrad was offering something similar as late as 1993:
(More on that here ).
Here an attendee shows a more recent vintage:
Over in the Amiga users' tent was a wide range of business computing. I'm impressed if you can tell what machine this is, without cheating:
Any old iron
It's a PDP-8. There's at least one PDP-11 in the main Museum – that one belonged to UK Air Traffic Control, and the operator consoles are nicely preserved:
Cray and IBM kit complete with a fully working Teletype. This was lovingly restored:
Note the splendid keys:
The "HERE IS" key was used to alert another Teletype that it was awake. Of course, we wouldn't have the Alt if it hadn't been for Teletypes, and where would we be without the Alt key? Here's El Reg running on some decent, recent Amiga hardware
You could see AmigaOS running on Atom netbooks too. ACPI power management is on its way.
Fittingly, there's a strong ICL presence at the National Computing Museum itself. I thought this was a quite fantastic logo for the company's mainframe:
It's another example of volunteers devoting a lot of their time to restoration.
The weekend's events included a talk and concert by OMD, and talks by Acorn and ARM designer Sophie Wilson, and restorer of the Colossus, Tony Sale.
The National Museum of Computing shows what can be achieved with enthusiasm and dedication. It's nothing short of a scandal that while millions were spent on public relations consultants, or huge white elephants of arts centres, no money could be found for preserving the UK's computing history.
Or perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. It's better placed to survive the cuts, it's better to have knowledgeable enthusiasts in charge, rather than some leisure marketing consultant, and funds go on valuable exhibits, not funding applications.
Even without the Model Railway, it's a grand day out.®
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Where YouTube's legal problems lie
Is Goo-Tube vulnerable to legal attacks from people who appear in videos posted there? Depends on the copyright, Fortune's Jia Lynn Yang reports.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Up until very recently, John Hall was in his 18th year of teaching management at the University of Florida. Then he wound up on YouTube.
"Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere," Hall recites in a video of his lecture from the morning of Sept. 5. The class is MAN3025: Principles of Management, and instead of covering Peter Drucker, he touches on the Han dynasty, his love of old churches, the origin of the middle finger (followed by a demonstration), and the city of Boston, where "the Cabots talk only to the Lodges and the Lodges talk only to God. Yeah, there we go. Umm."
Three days later students received an e-mail saying Hall had been replaced by fellow business professor Amy Brownlee. Soon, an online video of Hall, recorded by the university for students unable to attend the lecture, spread to YouTube.
"What was displayed on that video is not what we'd expect as professional behavior from one of our faculty," says Kyle Cavanaugh, Florida's associate vice president for human resources. When called at home, Hall picked up the phone but declined to speak with Fortune, deferring all questions to a university spokesperson.
Now that Google (Charts) acquired You-Tube earlier this month, in a stock deal worth $1.65 billion, one wonders if "Goo-Tube" is vulnerable to legal attack from private citizens like professor Hall whose reputations are damaged with a few clicks of a mouse.
According to David Korzenik, a media lawyer at the New York law firm Miller Korzenik Sommers LLP, it's very difficult for an individual to control how they've been portrayed on YouTube. To start, media outlets - traditional or online - do not need a person's permission before printing a photo of him or her. It's only necessary if the image is used commercially, like in an ad or on products and merchandising.
Even though YouTube profits from the traffic its videos draw, its model is more like that of a newspaper or magazine, where people exchange ideas with one another; the purpose, one can argue, is editorial rather than commercial.
Secondly, even if the content is libelous, the law heavily protects sites like YouTube from being held accountable for what its users post, even if Hall is being referred to on YouTube by users as "zany professor," "stoned prof," and "business prof wasted drunk teaching class."
"YouTube would be exempt from libel claims even if the headlines are wrong," says Korzenik. "He [Hall] would not have a claim against the interactive service provider. He would have a claim against the person who posted the video."
YouTube's real legal problems still lie in copyright protection. There, the law (in the form of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) gives the site less protection for what its users do, and YouTube will have to find a way to respond to complaints quickly, or face lawsuits.
In the case of Hall and the University of Florida, the video may be under copyright protection by the school. Korzenik suggested that one way someone like Hall could get his way, should he want the video taken down, is to petition the school to report a possible copyright violation to YouTube and see if the site responds.
Otherwise, someone like Hall has only two other options: Try tracking down whoever posted his video in the first place and threaten suit. Or, watch from the sidelines as his reputation becomes just another casualty in an age when one person's gaffe can spread faster than you can say Goo-Tube.
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- My Money Personality
- Savings Made Simple
- Shopping Savvy
- Car Costs
- Hunger Attack!
- Privacy Please
- ¡Ataque de hambre!
Is it better to purchase Euros for U.S. dollars in the U.S. or in Europe? Thanks.
Some people like to exchange a small amount before going to Europe so they have some ready cash. However, it’s probably safer to exchange money in Europe than the U.S. All that cash could be lost or stolen during your travels. Instead of exchanging all your money in the U.S., consider putting most of your travel money into an account that you can access through your debit card. You will find ATMs or other money exchange facilities at most airports so it is easy to get cash when you arrive in Europe.
Once in Europe, you can use your debit card in one of the many ATMs to get cash in the local currency or to pay bills. However, there will probably be some fees. Before leaving the U.S. find out if your bank is partnered with a European bank that allows you to use their ATMs for free.
You can also use an ATM to get a cash advance on your credit card. However, this is expensive as you have to pay fees plus interest charges. If you plan to use your credit card in Europe, before leaving the U.S. find out what your credit card company charges for conversions. Some will charge a flat fee and others will charge a percentage (generally 1-3%) of the amount converted.
Un En Español:
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A student gets an offer of help from his sister, but doesn't want to put her in a difficult tax situation.
A recent graduate's part-time job offer has him questioning whether it's worth it to take the job and become ineligible for loan deferment.
Our college expert answers a reader's question about the right - and wrong way - to defer student loans.
Student loans carry standard 10-year terms but most people refinance them and end up taking 16-18 years.
One parent asks if moving assets around can lead to a better deal on financial aid. The answer? Yes, but be careful.
Mark Kantrowitz, our education planning expert, tells a parent how to shop for a great private student loan.
Grandparents can provide a meaningful contribution to a child's education, but read the fine print.
A student wants to accelerate her degree program or pursue two at once, without compromising her financial aid.
One parent asks whether it's okay to use home equity to help pay for college. MainStreet's expert, Mark Kantrowitz, has the answer.
One parent with two kids wonders when and how much to start saving for college. MainStreet's expert, Mark Kantrowitz has the answer.
|
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The past couple of months have been quite busy. On top of my usual day job, I’ve been fortunate enough to take Midnight Sweatlodge on the road for a few readings and a festival, and I’ve also had the opportunity to work on some features for CBC’s upcoming 8th Fire project. While these storytelling and sharing experiences have been immensely fulfilling, this fall, nothing has warmed my heart and lifted my spirit as much as reconnecting with the traditional language of my people. Every Monday and Wednesday evening since early September, I’ve been taking Ojibway language classes at Carleton University. It’s a unique program available to students for course credit, and it’s also open to Ottawa community members (like me) for free. I’ve neglected Anishinaabemowin for far too long, and being able to learn it again has been fun, enlightening, and most importantly, it’s been healing.
As a small child I learned a handful of words and phrases growing up in Wasauksing. The older generations offered a few grains of the language here and there, but it never dominated everyday dialogue. The elders often spoke it regularly with each other, but rarely with us kids. I suppose there was still a great deal of shame attached to it as a “primitive” language. We went to Ryerson Indian Day School on the reserve, and when that became Wasauksing Kinomaugewgamik in the late 1980s, I remember learning a lot more Anishinaabemowin in school. It became like a refurbished old toy for me and my peers – we shared jokes and funny words in Ojibway because we thought it was neat. But we never really understood how fragile it was, or how important it was for us to maintain it.
Then we all went to high school off-reserve. Some of us kept it up, but for me, it dropped from my priorities. I really don’t know why. I became interested in sports, music, literature, and popular culture, and I guess my native language didn’t fit in with those western ambitions. Learning how to play a D minor chord on guitar was more important than knowing how to say the act in Ojibway. I then went to Germany for a year and rehashed some lines for the novel benefit of my hosts, but after a while that didn’t feel right, so I stopped.
Soon after returning to Canada I moved to the city to go to University and I sparsely revisited Anishinaabemowin until now. I have been an urban Indian for 13 years, spending time in Toronto, Winnipeg, and now Ottawa. I always found it somewhat difficult to find ways to speak Ojibway in each city. Every time I went home to Wasauksing I attempted to pick the language back up through conversations with my grandmother and other relatives, but when you’re only doing that once every couple of months, it’s never gonna stick. They always seemed like feeble attempts just to make myself feel better as an Anishinaabe person. So there’s always been a fog of guilt hanging over my head that’s just been easier to ignore than to try to clear.
But now at age 32 I have the opportunity to devote some serious time to reconnecting with it, and I’m thankful that my classmates, friends, family, and Carleton have allowed me to learn with them. Some may find it ironic that it took a contemporary classroom in a higher learning setting for me and my peers to accomplish this, but this shared understanding transcends the classroom. We challenge each other. We laugh. We continue our dialogue well beyond the classroom. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. But as my friend Geraldine pointed out to me the other day, although we may not know it, we’re healing. This language was supposed to die. But mere decades after the authorities tried to beat it from us, here we are, speaking it proudly.
Nmwendis. Wii Anishinaabe-gaagiigido. Wii mino bemaadiz. Miigwech ndikid.
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|
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| 0.971349
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| 1.570313
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|
Archbishop Kurt Koch speaks to reporters at the Vatican in September 2009 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
a lecture in Rome on December 15, 2011, the President of the Pontifical Council
for Promoting Christian Unity likened ecumenical dialogue to air travel: the Holy Spirit is the pilot, and you
hope and pray that the plane lands safely.
Kurt Koch, formerly Bishop of Basel (Switzerland), has been jetting around
Europe since his appointment to his present position in the Roman Curia in July
2010. He accompanied the Holy
Father during his recent pastoral visit to Germany and at the ecumenical
service in Erfurt on September 23 read the Gospel passage containing Christ’s
prayer, “That all may be one.” On
October 3 in Heiligenkreuz Abbey near Vienna, he lectured on “The Ecumenical
Dimension of the New Evangelization of Europe” at the Philosophical-Theological
College named after Benedict XVI.
In Assisi later that month he
introduced the sign of peace at the conclusion of the Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and
Justice in the World. From
November 12 to 16 he participated in a conference in Minsk (Belarus) on the
contribution of Christian ethics to the formation of Europe. Then in Istanbul he personally
delivered to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople the Pope’s traditional greetings
to the Orthodox Church on the Feast of St. Andrew, their patron.
his lecture on December 15, Cardinal Koch put these wide-ranging efforts in a
broader perspective. The talk
might be described as his end-of-the-year, “State of the Reunion of Christians”
message. In it he identified
several changes and challenges in the Church’s ecumenical dialogue:
For example in several churches we have a
new reflection on their own confessional identity. That can be a great advantage, because one must have a clear
identity in order to be in dialogue.
It can also happen, though, that a group distances itself somewhat from
A second challenge is that the actual
goal of ecumenism is becoming increasingly unclear. We have various concepts of unity, but we have no common
goal. And that makes it
difficult. After all, we cannot
act according to the motto of the [late] Viennese comedian [Helmut] Qualtinger: “Well, I don’t know where I’m going,
but that way I get there sooner.”
Instead we must seek anew what the real goal is. And the reason why we have no common
goal is actually because each church has its own notion of the unity of its
church, and therefore it is necessary for us to reflect on what the nature of
the Church really is.
third challenge is presented by the new dialogue partners of the Catholic
We have very strong growth among
Pentecostal movements. That is a
new reality worldwide, which is almost the second largest [Christian] movement
after the Catholic Church. Actually
we should speak of a Pentecostalization of ecumenism. And these are brand new challenges.
A fourth change is that today
controversies between churches mainly concern ethical questions, and so a
dialogue about these ethical questions has to be conducted. And I think that most of these ethical
questions have to do with our image of man, so that we are facing the challenge
of developing a common ecumenical anthropology, in other words, a doctrine
about the human being.
Swiss cardinal acknowledged the benefits of ecumenical discussions at the
national level, for instance the most recent visit of a delegation of the
German Bishops’ Conference to Moscow.
[Such encounters] are certainly very
good, because in the Council for Christian Unity we can act only at the global
level. Many questions arise in
regional form, however, and then it is perfectly all right for bishops’
conferences or delegations to stay in contact intensively with other individual
churches. I can only welcome and
Koch concluded the lecture by noting that Christian holidays also have great
Ecumenism stands and falls on whether we
reflect on the central mysterywhich, after all, we have in commonand deepen
it. And Christmas, the fact that
God became man, is this central mystery of the Christian faith. And the closer we come and gather
together in this center of the faith, the closer we will come to one another
Of all the other
Christian churches and ecclesial communities, the Orthodox Church, because of
its sacramental structure and traditional creed, is the closest to the Catholic
Church. As Benedict XVI sees it,
this makes Orthodox Christians partners with Catholics not only in ecumenical
dialogue but also in the new evangelization.
In his message to Bartholomew I of Constantinople dated November 30, 2011, the
Pope recalled that the power of Jesus’ message to convince others depends in
large measure on the unity of Christians.
According to Benedict XVI, the revival of the Christian faith in
secularized countries must be a common cause of Catholic and Orthodox
Christians. The Holy Father
applauded efforts for interreligious dialogue, citing the day for world peace
in Assisi in late October, in which the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch also
participated. In conclusion the
Pontiff thanked God “for having allowed me to strengthen the bonds of sincere
friendship and true brotherhood which unite us”.
Cardinal Koch traveled to Belarus in November at the invitation of Orthodox
Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk.
The occasion for the trip was an international conference on the theme
of “CatholicOrthodox Dialogue: the ethical values of Christianity as a
contribution to social life in Europe.”
The conference was co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity and the Belarusian Orthodox Church.
a November 18 interview on Radio Vatican, Cardinal Koch reflected on the event
in Minsk: “I think that this is a
very sensible initiativeabove all, the fact that it is organized
ecumenically…. I have the
impression that ecumenical relations [in Belarus] are quite positive and very
deep. That of course is essentially
to the credit of the Orthodox Metropolitan Filaret, who is a very open-minded
man and undertakes a great deal ecumenically.”
Lithuania, Belarus is the country from the former Soviet Union that has the
largest percentage of Catholics.
The Republic of Belarus has remained strongly allied with Russia and the
Patriarchate of Moscow. Yet the
concluding statement of the conference noted “the fact that the Catholic Church
has been able to restructure and reorganize herself following the fall of the
Soviet Union, and that this has happened in harmony with, and often with the
support of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, and the civil authorities.” Indeed, the President of Belarus,
Alexander Lukashenko, has boasted that his country presents a model for
ecumenical cooperation, and he invited both Metropolitan Filaret and Cardinal
Koch to meet with him on November 14.
During their conversation President Lukashenko recalled his audience
with the Pope at the Vatican and declared that maintaining good relations with
both Churches is an important concern of his.
In his radio interview on November 18, Cardinal Koch said that in Minsk he had
had many discussions with Orthodox theologians, and also with an Orthodox
bishop from Ukraine, about “the common mission of Orthodox and Catholics… and
their responsibility in today’s society”.
The interviewer asked about news concerning plans for a Council of all
the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, which would be the first in more than a
thousand years. The Swiss cardinal
replied, “There was no talk about this pan-Orthodox Council, but of course that
is always in the background, and basically we Catholics can only hope that this
pan-Orthodox Synod will come to pass, because it will be a substantial help for
our dialogue also.”
When asked about a possible meeting between the Russian Orthodox Patriarch and
the Pope, Cardinal Koch answered that it “will not happen soon,” and noted that
he himself had met with Kirill I in March 2011. The latter “clearly said that we cannot talk about dates
yet, because it is more important to make intensive preparations for such a
meeting than to publicize dates.”
The itinerary for the Pope’s pastoral visit to Germany in late September 2011
included an ecumenical meeting with a Lutheran delegation in Erfurt in the
Augustinian monastery where Martin Luther had lived, followed by an ecumenical
liturgy of the Word in the monastery church with a congregation of around 300
According to an old
German custom, a visitor brings a gift for his hosts, for instance chocolates
or flowers, and it was expected that Benedict XVI would come to Erfurt with an
“ecumenical gift”. Some speculated
that Lutheran spouses in mixed marriages might be admitted to receive Communion
in the Catholic Church.
In an interview on September 9, Cardinal Koch warned that the Pope cannot
resolve longstanding differences by fiat.
“For instance, the 1999 Augsburg [Joint] Declaration on Justification
spells out quite clearly the questions that remain open. These questions must be clarified in
ecumenical dialogue. It is
actually not quite fair to expect the Pope now to bring about this resolution
The cardinal went on to emphasize the significance of the Pope’s visit. “Germany is the central country of the
Reformation. The Pope himself is a
German and is very well versed in the ecumenical dialogue. He contributed a great deal to it. That is why he will certainly remind
the Catholic Church that the path of ecumenism is irreversible. There is no turning back.”
Although many Germans were disappointed in September when they did not get the
gift that they had wanted, on Christmas day Deutsche Welle broadcast a
television interview with Cardinal Koch in which he extended an olive branch to
the Lutherans. He described the
meeting in Erfurt on September 23 as very hopeful and “a signpost for the
future,” noting that the Pope had spoken positively about Martin Luther.
head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity called on
Protestants and Catholics alike to reflect on their 1,500 years of shared
Church history. This could lead to
a new and fuller understanding of the Reformation. After all, “Martin Luther did not want to found a new
Church”; he was concerned about the “renewal of the Church”, not about a
“complete break”. The Swiss
cardinal observed that dialogue between separated Christian communities is
about the healing of memories.
Catholics and Protestants still have no common understanding of
Eucharist and the Lord’s Supper; therefore it is not yet possible for them to
celebrate it in common. That very
fact, though, may be “a great incentive” in the dialogue.
Cardinal Koch said that he himself looks at the future of ecumenism in Germany
with great confidence: The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation have launched a joint
commission to discuss the Reformation in preparation for the 500th
anniversary in 2017.
Michael J. Miller translated Church, Ecumenism and Politics
Joseph Ratzinger for Ignatius Press.
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