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They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq : Based on "Blood Brothers," the Michael Kelly Award-nominated series that ran in Army Times, this is the remarkable story of a courageous military unit that sacrificed their lives to change Adhamiya, Iraq, from a lawless town where insurgents roamed freely, to a secure neighborhood with open storefronts and a safe populace. Army Times writer Kelly Kennedy was embedded with Charlie Company in 2007, went on patrol with the soldiers and spent hours in combat support hospitals. During that period, one soldier threw himself on a grenade to save his friends, a well-liked first sergeant shot himself to death in front of his troops, and a platoon staged a mutiny. The men of Charlie 1- 26 would earn at least 95 combat awards, including one soldier who would go home with three Purple Hearts and a lost dream. This is a timeless story of men at war and a heartbreaking account of American sacrifice in Iraq.
|History & Geography||United States|
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“The government better not deploy you this week,” I warned my husband, only half-joking.
Robert missed last spring’s two performances of Carl Jenkins’ “The Armed Man” by days. In reality, he has no choice when he is sent to various sites across the country, but I was devoutly hoping he’d not be deployed until, say, Friday. Would the government understand? Had they heard this piece last spring, perhaps they would.
The Sierra Master Chorale and Orchestra partnered Thursday to perform this viscerally moving concert about war and peace for a third time. And all points of view will be in attendance.
My husband left the Vietnam War a pacifist. He will get satisfaction from this piece. His sister, a military wife for several years, is an avowed patriot and supports war if necessary. She and I often agree to disagree. She, too, would leave this concert feeling honored.
I sent a brochure to my daughter and her boyfriend, not because they’d be able to make the commute from the coast but so that they would understand what I’d been raving about for six months.
The multi-leveled appeal of “The Armed Man” is in its respect for all points of view regarding war, and that is why we’ll have groups of veterans, peace organizations, conservatives and liberals in attendance this week. “The Armed Man” touches something deep inside concert-goers of every persuasion, which is part of its magic.
“I got two tickets; I’ll see you there,” says a friend who hadn’t experienced much choral music until the spring performances. She’ll bring Kleenex, as will others.
Carl Jenkins, a Welsh composer, wrote this piece in 1999, to honor the victims of Kosovo. His goal was to make the music accessible to a wide range of ages, philosophies, hearts and minds.
When we sang last spring, I saw several of my friends openly weeping. Some were from a local peace organization, and others were proud veterans of various wars. “The Armed Man” honors them all.
Some of the movements bring the audience into the fervent, almost hypnotic state of patriotism that precludes being sent off to conflict. Other movements are beatific, ethereal and more like cathartic blessings after the destruction.
To say the concert moves the audience is an understatement. Any of us who sing it, play it or hear it are automatically bound to each other in emotion. For me, it is hard not to cry while and after I sing. We feel as comrades with our orchestra, which has a demanding job to do, and while singing, I sometimes feel that chorister’s dream: to be almost as one with the conductor, Ken Hardin. It’s the ineffable effect a singer experiences when the choir, conductor and orchestra think and feel as an entity.
This is an experience that’s happened to me in choral singing from time to time, but it happens every time we sing this concert.
In my 55 years of choral singing, this is my favorite concert. I’ve loved may others; Handel, Bach, Faure, Mozart and others have claims on my heart. But the Jenkins piece is special.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite movies: “Dead Man Walking.” When I left that movie, whether I was pro-death penalty or against it, I felt respected.
That is the appeal of “The Armed Man.” In the same way that the message is peace, the way it’s conveyed is in a respect for all philosophies — a peaceful action from composer to audience.
Sue Clark lives in Grass Valley.
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The Shepherd Window is a
link to the past for the congregation of St. John's.
This window was originally located in the 1929 sanctuary and
was the main stained glass window for the parishioners.
When the current sanctuary was built in 1952, this window was
removed and stored for safe keeping. Later, one of the
members placed it in a frame and hung it outside the pastors
office. When the 1991 addition was completed, the window
was moved to the east end of the main hallway where it shines
as a beacon to all who enter the church building.
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THE closure today of Vari's specialty Italian shop on The Parade, Norwood, is a small yet significant community loss. It is a sign of the challenging economic times faced by the multitude of small businesses that add such an important part to our city's economic, social and cultural fabric.
The shop was opened in the 1950s by Frank Vari's sister and has operated continuously since. Its success has been a measure of the times.
It began slowly - a shop run by Italians for Italians who migrated to Adelaide after World War II. In the 1970s and particularly the 1980s, it was sought out by a rising tide of Australians who were becoming educated about Italian food in restaurants and on trips overseas.
The 1980s boom time for Vari's reflected the emergence of working couples with a new interest in entertaining at home and a thirst for quality overseas produce.
Vari's sold an enormous range of hard and soft cheese, olives, olive oils, tapinades, pestos and charcuterie. On the counter in the small, overstocked shop were jars of sweet Italian biscuits. It also stocked a selection of homemade frozen pasta, including ravioli and gnocchi that people travelled across town to buy.
The decision to close was based on a combination of falling sales and rising rents as landlords on The Parade test the market in difficult conditions.
But the loss is more than just nostalgia.
Vari's was an eccentric and interesting family business that contributed to the cultural colour of Norwood and drew people interested in food from far afield.
You could buy items from Vari's in a specialised atmosphere not found elsewhere. No supermarket offers stacks of aged cheeses, open tubs of olives and ravioli handmade by a local Italian supplier and sold by a shopkeeper with time to chat.
This kind of small, family-owned business selling goods that reflect the passions of its owners is a valuable part of the fabric of our community.
In The Advertiser's recent Shop in SA campaign, we heard the stories of scores of small businesses offering goods and services outside the spectrum of what the dominant stores sell. Giant retailers have a place but the goods tend to be mass-produced and identical from one store to another.
Spare a thought for the small family businesses like Vari's whose contribution is colourful and particular and whose withdrawal leaves a genuine loss.
As we all look to make best use of our household budgets, we should also remember the benefits of diversity and supporting local business.
Small statue of giant standing
FOR two decades Australians have been successfully storming the barricades to claim a place on centre stage at Hollywood's night of nights. The 85th Annual Academy Awards mark another stand-out year.
Having four Australian nominees in a high-quality field again demonstrates our wealth of film talent to the world and will help breed success back home.
Much as the Oscars - which will be held mid-morning on Monday our time - represent an opportunity for the stars to get glammed up, they are more than just a night of ego-stroking and bragging rights.
There are high stakes involved. A win can make an actor's career - just ask Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman. All had promising careers before their Oscar wins, but now they are Hollywood heavyweights and shining examples of the talent Australia can produce.
And in the behind-the-camera and technical categories, an Oscar can open the door to bigger, better projects and more funding.
Although this year our nominees are outsiders, be sure to cheer on Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Jacki Weaver and Rick Findlater as we all love an underdog and should be proud to be recognised on the world stage.
GRAPHIC IMAGE: A BRITISH soldier has been hacked to death near a barracks in London, while two alleged suspects were shot by police.
POLICE will launch an unprecedented national crackdown on illegal firearms and their suppliers in the first Australia-wide assault on gun violence.
THE SUCCESS of the new Holden Commodore rests on the shoulders of mums and dads across Australia.
HAWTHORN star Lance "Buddy" Franklin has apologised to a woman who accused him of drunken, rude behaviour on Saturday night.
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While drafting a recent post about a very cool senior thesis by a young artist at MIAD, I discussed the question of art and science (rather than art verses science) with my wife, Kira. She is an architect by training and will be starting a graduate program in architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle this fall. She had some really interesting comments about the similar creative conceptual rigor demanded by both art and science but there was no way I could work all of this into my previous post. Instead, I asked her to write her own guest post.
So, without further ado, please give it up for my thoughtful, talented, and much better half….
I am a sucker for science. Nothing excites me more than trying to comprehend something as massive as the universe. I am easily entranced by DNA diagrams. I love reading about species long extinct. Call it geeky or nerdy... I’m fine with that.
The thing is, I am definitely not a scientist. I am a designer.
Somewhere between partial differential equations and linear algebra, my aptitude for the math required to devote serious study to science reached a plateau. Fortunately, I had learned enough to capably continue with my design studies in architecture. Nevertheless, I still peruse the periodic table, indulge in learning about string theory, and feast on new photos of the Large Hadron Collider.
Art and science are often portrayed as the north and south poles of academia—distant extremes. But, as someone who enjoys both of these areas, I can tell you that this portrayal is a shallow interpretation of two vast and complex disciplines.
Kaycie D’s work showcases how complimentary art and science can be. Elements, her rendering of the Periodic Table in the form of animated characters, shows not only an artistic stamina (you try maintaining an aesthetic consistency through 88 iterations!), but also a unique way to interact with the Table itself. In nature, the elements all have distinct traits and properties or, rather, personalities. Kaycie has taken those complex characteristics and rendered them visible, a personification resulting not only in visually stunning art but an accessible communication tool as well.
Elements also shows us how similar art and science can be. Their similarity is not found in mere adjacency, but in the artist’s and scientist’s shared experience of creative and intellectual exploration.
When you can’t necessarily “see” (in a full-scale, literal sense) what you are studying or creating, you have to use a finely tuned imagination. You have to be able to visualize the invisible; make connections and see relationships based on theory as well as observation and experience. Sure, the physicists at CERN can watch data pop up on their computers proving that particle collisions are occurring . But they can’t actually see the collision itself. Similarly, chemists cannot see the molecular groupings that occur when glucose is formed; but molecular modeling kits help students visualize these microscopic combinations. Engineers of all stripes must assess a problem, then imagine and design a viable solution well before fabrication can begin. And math – the mother of all invisible subjects (infinity, anyone?) – is ripe with countless tools like graphs, symbols, equations and numbers themselves that aid with visualization.
Art and design function in much the same way—the artist or designer has to hold a concept in his or her mind while working through various hypotheses and relationships. A visual artist must consider how to communicate with their viewer through composition, color, image, and text in order to create a physical expression of a feeling, experience, or idea. (For an interesting discussion of this topic, check this article from 1963 by David Ecker -- available on JSTOR.) As an architect, I think about how space, shapes, light, and material affect the way people feel, interact with one another, and relate to the built environment. Artists and designers consider countless possibilities simultaneously, mentally bookmarking each with writing, sketching, and modeling. The various possibilities are ultimately compared and evaluated in search of the best solution.
Scientists, artists, designers—we all share a keen ability to imagine and visualize the unknown in order to learn, create, and communicate. The mediums and contexts in which we work can differ greatly, but all of these fields share some common traits. As a result, they provide opportunities for new and exciting perspectives that can challenge and inspire students, researchers, teachers, and practitioners to tackle issues that, until now, we have been unable to see.
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Dr Judy West Executive Director ANBG ‘The new ANBG Management Plan'
You are here
In 2009 Dr Judy West was appointed Executive Director of the ANBG and head of Parks and Biodiversity Science within the then Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. Judy has also been Director of the Australian National Herbarium since 1989 and has held a number of other scientific appointments during her career.
Every ten years the ANBG must develop a detailed plan to guide its management and development for the next decade; the latest such Plan is expected to be finalised by mid-2012. Judy will discuss the new Plan’s vision for the future of the Gardens.
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Busy 24 hours for Auckland firefighters
MARYKE PENMAN AND MICHELLE ROBINSON
A South Auckland furnace and boiler factory that was gutted by fire last year has again caught fire this morning.
Firefighters were alerted at 4am to the blaze at the Crow Refractory in Papatoetoe and have since brought it under control.
It was contained in the middle of the 30 x 16m factory which makes linings for furnaces and boilers.
The products are made to withstand plenty of heat, so not much damage was reported, fire service communications shift manager Nicole Bernard said.
It's the second time there has been an uncontrolled fire at the building.
The factory was gutted in November last year with the bricks produced there being the only things left unscathed. The cause of that fire was not deemed suspicious.
Police and fire safety investigators will work to determine the cause of today's blaze.
The news comes as gas leaking from a restaurant in Albany this morning threatened disaster had it not been for the quick action of firefighters.
Albany Fire Station was called to the HSBC Centre in Corinthian Dr about 7am when office workers next door smelled gas.
Station officer Grant Mitcheson said everyone inside was evacuated while they worked to isolate the gas and vent the building.
"When gas goes bang you wouldn't want to be anywhere near it. It can cause huge damage," he said.
Ongoing maintenance work at a nearby restaurant may have triggered the leak, Mitcheson said.
A gasfitter was making the necessary repairs.
Just an hour earlier Albany fire fighters were called to a rubbish fire at a refuse station in Constellation Dr, Mairangi Bay.
"When the rubbish truck arrived to the dump there was something on fire inside it.
"They did the right thing by emptying it out onto an open concrete area and had the hose on it until we arrived," Mitcheson said.
The busy morning comes amidst what has been a non-stop week for North Shore firefighters.
Crews from Albany, East Coast Bays, Birkenhead, Devonport and Takapuna have been part of the 70 strong ground crew battling the large forest fire started on Saturday near Matakana.
- © Fairfax NZ News
Do you think it's right for dairies to sell legal highs?
Do you have an idea for a story? Email us or give us a call on 09 925 9700.
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A good way to get to know each oil is to test its characteristics.
Set aside some time when you are relaxed and will not be interrupted. Clear your mind to concentrate on the scent. Mark the perfume blotter with the name of the oil you are testing.
Aroma-smell the oil directly from the bottle. Try to discern the notes. What is the intensity of the scent and the characteristics? (After doing the perfume blotter test, think about the difference in the scent of the oil when it is in the bottle and when it is on the blotter.)
Color-Put a drop of oil on a perfume blotter. What is the color? Note the next day if there is a stain on the perfume blotter. Some oils leave a residue due to the solid components.
Feel-Slide a drop of oil between two fingers. How does it feel? “oily”, slick, smooth, thick, or sticky? You will find that essential oils do not have the characteristically “oily” feel. If they do, they may have been diluted with a carrier oil.
Perfume blotter test-Put 1-3 drops of oil on the narrow end of a perfume blotter. As you slowly bring the blotter towards your nose, inhale deeply. Study the aroma. What images come to mind? Colors? Memories?
Inhale immediately, after a few minutes, after 30 minutes, several hours, the next morning and throughout the day. How long does the scent last?
Does the oil run up the blotter? Generally denser oils will remain where the drop was placed while lighter oils run up the blotter.
When describing the oil, use words that you would use to describe wine-warm, cool, sharp, tart, acidic, mellow, sunny or weak as well as words to describe plants: herbaceous, camphoraceous, floral, spicy, minty, nutty, or citrus.
As you are inhaling, think of colors, shapes, taste, character, and emotions. Do you associate the scent with a gender? How do you feel after inhaling the aroma?
Each oil is a top, middle or base note (although some may be in more than one category). Where do you think each fits? As well, each note contains the three notes. Try to smell each note as the oil evaporates.
- Top notes-hit you first and evaporate most easily. These are generally light and disappear within 30 minutes. This is the most difficult to reproduce artificially.
- Body or middle notes-The next note you will be aware of is the middle note. It remains longer on the blotter. This note is normally less characteristic of the oil. It is generally easier to reproduce artificially. This note can last 30 minutes to four hours.
- Base or dryout note-This longest lasting note and the last to appear. It may take one to two hours to appear. And some, such as patchouli, may take even longer. The base note can last up to 36 hours. This is the note that provides the fixative quality of an oil.
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I must apologize, but every time I see that name I think of the English writer. Sorry, please do carry on...
one of India's most polarising politicians and leader of an influential right-wing Hindu nationalist party that has dominated politics in the country's richest city for two decades, has died aged 86.
Thackeray died of cardio-respiratory arrest on Saturday at his home, one of his doctors, Jalil Parker, said. He had been ill for some time and was rumoured to have died earlier this week.
A religious zealot whose grip over Mumbai often resembled that of a mob boss, Thackeray was president and founder of the hardline Shiv Sena A Hindoo nationalist political movement that presents a resistance using the same nasty tactics to aggressive Islamists and that's a pain in the underwear to other Indian political parties... (Shiva's Army) party, built around his fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... rhetoric on religion, immigration and communalism.
A hero of Mumbai's Hindu working class, he was heralded as a staunch defender of regional heritage by his supporters and despised as a hot-headed bigot by others. He devoted his public life to championing the rights of Mumbai's "sons of the soil".
Thackeray, a former political cartoonist, waged a 50-year campaign against immigrants from outside the state. He accused immigrants of taking jobs away from residents of Mumbai, endearing him to large numbers of young working class men.
"Only Marathis have the first right over Mumbai," Thackeray wrote in his party's newspaper last year, referring to natives of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is capital. The party newspaper is called Saamna, which means "confrontation" in the Marathi language.
His rise to power in Mumbai, a city of about 20 million people, underscored the strong pull of religion and regionalism in modern India, a constitutionally secular country prone to festivities over its many faiths and traditions.
Always seen in oversized tinted sunglasses, even when indoors, with a necklace of beads over orange robes typically worn by religious figures, Thackeray held a strong grip on Mumbai through his army of loyal supporters, whose rallies and protests often turned violent and forced the city to a halt.
Thackeray often referred to Indian Moslems as "anti-nationals" and called for Hindu suicide squads to counter what he saw as a rise in 'Islamic terrorism'. He was also fiercely critical of Pakistain, decrying efforts by New Delhi to reach out to its traditional rival.
"Having peace talks with Pakistain which is behind the blasts in India is a farce," Thackeray alleged in Saamna in July, referring to kabooms in Mumbai in 2008. "Playing cricket with them is treason," he added.
A government inquiry into riots in Mumbai in 1992 and 1993 said "there is no doubt that the Shiv Sena and Shiv Sainiks took the lead in organising attacks on Moslems and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of the Shiv Sena".
Thackeray was never charged in connection with the riots, in which about 600 Moslems were killed.
His political influence and huge following saw him courted by big business and some of India's most famous film stars.
Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest name in Bollywood, Mumbai's film industry, fought through crowds outside his house to visit Thackeray this week when the politician's health deteriorated.
Thackeray's views have been condemned by many mainstream politicians, but his party is the fourth-largest in Maharashtra's state legislature, and his face adorns hundreds of billboards across Mumbai.
His death could spark a power struggle in the Shiv Sena, denting its support with its vote base in Maharashtra.
In a video message to party workers last month, a visibly frail and out-of-breath Thackeray said he was exhausted and asked them to "take care" of his son, Uddhav, and grandson, Aditya, who are widely seen as his successors.
Thackeray's estranged nephew, Raj, whose skills as a public speaker have drawn comparison with his uncle, broke away from the Shiv Sena in 2006 to form a rival party, and is seen by many to be gaining influence in the state.
[An Nahar] The U.N. Security Council on Friday called on Sudan and South Sudan to step up efforts to end their wrangling over a disputed territory wracked by protests this week.
A council resolution renewing the mandate of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Abyei demanded that the rival neighbors "urgently" agree nominations for a government for the territory and set up a police force.
Abyei is one of the key territorial disputes left after Sudan and South Sudan split acrimoniously in July 2011.
Most of the local population are ethnic Dinka but nomadic Arab Misseriya maintain a strong presence. U.N. troops this week shot and killed a worker for the U.N. mission who had joined a tribal dispute, residents said.
Sudan overran Abyei last year and tens of thousands of people fled into South Sudan. It has since withdrawn most of its forces, but the Security Council resolution again demanded that Sudan pull its specialized police protecting oil facilities out of Abyei.
Thousands of Egyptians erupted into the streets Friday protesting Israeli attacks on the Gazoo Strip, waving Paleostinian flags across the Egyptian capital and demanding the Egyptian government cut ties with Israel.
"We're here today to say to Israel: Go to Hell," said Mustafa Kamel from a Cairo neighborhood called Imbaba at a demonstration outside Al-Azhar Mosque that was planned by the Moslem Brüderbund. "Moslems are strong. In Egypt, we refuse Israel and the politics of America."
Demonstrations also took place in Tahrir Square following days of intense escalation in violence between Israel and the Gazoo Strip, posing challenges for Egypt's new government and its president, Mohamed Morsi.
"The Moslem Brüderbund has made it clear they want to use this as an excuse to sever ties," said Eric Trager of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Morsi,who formerly headed the Brotherhood's political wing but no longer officially belongs to the party, is caught between his ideology and affiliation with the group and the Egyptian officials he's entrusted to manage Egypt-Israel relations, Trager said.
The matter of ties between the two nations is a "sensitive issue" for Morsi, said Mohamed El Mekkawi, a member of the foreign relations committee for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. The Egyptian president has tried to create a new strategy for relations based on the pillar of benefits between Egypt and Israel, but Israeli attacks on Gazoo have "complicated the situation,"he said.
Egypt's Islamist president delivered his fiercest condemnation yet of Israel's offensive in Gazoo on Friday, warning that the blood Israel sheds will be a "curse upon it" and presenting post-revolution Egypt as the new Arab champion for the Paleostinians.
Good luck with that. They've been nothing but a headache for all previous champions, but perhaps it will be different for you.
Mohammed Morsi spoke in a speech at a mosque after weekly Friday prayers, dramatically stepping up his rhetoric against Israel hours after his prime minister visited Gazoo in a show of support for its Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, rulers. After Friday prayers, thousands marched in Cairo in support of Paleostinians.
"Egyptians love peace ... but they have always been able to fend off aggressors and protect the land, the nation and the Moslem world," he said in his address at a mosque near his home in a Cairo suburb. "We are even more insistent on remaining a protective shield to the Arab and Moslem world."
"We say to the aggressor, peace will never be achieved through aggression ... because war does not build stability or peace," Morsi said. "This blood will be a curse on you," he said as the crowd in the mosque chanted, "God is great" and "With our blood and souls, we sacrifice for Paleostine."
"I say to the aggressor to take a lesson from history and stop this farce and bloodshed or else you will face the wrath of the people and their leadership," he said. "Egypt today is different than Egypt yesterday and that the Arabs today are different than the Arabs of yesterday."
Posted by: Frank G ||
So why doesn't Egypt take back the Gaza strip?
Oh yeah - everybody hates the Palestinians.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
As per #2, yuuuuppp - the Paleos unfortunately are caught in the middle of the "Manifest Destinies" = Geopol tug-of-war between a number of their fellow, + larger, Muslim states.
* DEFENCE/PK/FORUMS > POLL: SHOULD EGYPT [immediately?] ANNEX GAZA?
* TOPIX > IS EGYPT PURSUING A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM? | [The Blaze] PROFESSOR RAYMOND STOCK THINKS EGYPT MAY BE DEVELOPING A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS. Morsi + MB trying to be PCorrect-deniable about it, ee blaming Shia Iran for any Egypt-specific NucProg.
ARTIC > PROF. STOCK = noted that Egypt presently extrapolates + produces 6.0-kilograms of plutonium a year, enough for one NucBomb annually, EGYPT THEORETICALLY COULD HAVE HAD DEV A LARGE NUMBER OF NUCBOMBS ALREADY IFF IT WASN'T FOR THE 1979 PEACE ACCORDS BETWEEN SADAT + BEGIN, + LATER POST-SADAT MUBARAK SIGNING THE NPT.
Professor Stock also denotes that Egypt is now starting to see the former Mubarak Regime in a better or more positive light despite its perceived crimes or abuses.
[Yemen Post] A big shot of the Joint Meeting coalition, Mohammad al-Sabrai, has alleged that Iran incites southern leaders to refuse dialogue.
In an interview with a Saudi newspaper, Okaz, he reiterated that Iran supports southerners with funds and weapons.
He stressed that the former vice president Ali Salem Al-Beidh implements Iranian Agenda in Yemen with the aim of disrupting the political settlement.
Many southern leaders and politicians including al-Beidh repeatedly visit Iran and Leb to meet with Iranian officials.
Locals sources of Aden affirmed that some members of the Southern Movements are taken to Iran and Leb to receive military training.
Houth and southern leaders who adopt separation choices took part in this several conferences, workshops and seminars held in Tehran and Beirut
A number of politicians, politicians and journalists who are loyal to the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... attended those events funded by Iran in light of improving ties between Saleh and the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is "God is Great, Death to America™â„¢, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews" ... group.
A nephew of Saleh, Yahya Mohammad Abdullah Saleh, has recently spent weeks in Leb as he met with Iranian and Hezballah officials, as Yemeni media sources alleged.
Yemen had called Iran to stop interfering in its internal affairs and accused it of seeking to spark seditions and troubles in Yemen, revealing that an Iranian spy ring was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! in Yemen. According to the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , Iran operates increase its political outreach and arms shipments to rebels and other political figures in Yemen as part of a widening Iranian effort to extend its influence across the greater Middle East.
[Yemen Post] The former president Ali Abdullsh Saleh is to launch a specialized news agency in an attempt to have "a media empire" after he was forced to step down, Yemeni military sources affirmed. The sources said that Nabil Al-Sofi, a former member of the Islamic party will chair the agency.The Yemeni law does not allow to create private news agency, TV channels or radios, but the current interim government has turned a blind eye to a number of TV channels and radios that were created after the outbreak of 2011 uprising. Saleh and his family has a number of TV channels, a radio and newspapers. A Yemeni journalist, Mustafa al-Sabri, has said that Saleh seeks to have a media outlets in order to maintain influence and attack his political foes through them.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie was cracking himself up, but nobody else seemed to be getting the non-stop jokes... media sources said that Italia accepted to receive Saleh to receive treatment after the intervention of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Saleh.
The sources said that Saleh still refuses to abandon politics as his opponents demand.
Opponents of Saleh stressed that Saleh must give up politics, pointing out that he was granted the immunity in return for giving up politics.
Naif Al-Qanis, a big shot of the Joints Meeting Parties, said the states that adopted the GCC-drawn power transfer deal verbally pledged to force Saleh to give up politics, indicating that the JMP was surprised as they have not fulfill their promises.
The JMP is frequently charge Saleh with intervention in tasks of the interim government and seeking to disrupt its performances.
[Bangla Daily Star] Home Minister MK Alamgir yesterday reiterated that the government will not hold dialogue with Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. ... a Pakistani catspaw remaining active in Bangla politix, loosely affiliated with the Pak religious party of the same name and closely affiliated with most of the terror organizations in Bangla. A member of the BNP's four party governing coalition.... "There is no scope for holding dialogue with those who kill people, vandalise public property, disobey the country's law and attack coppers," he said.
Speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony at Sachar Degree College in Chandpur, the minister said, "I have made it clear earlier that the government will not sit with Jamaat to talk about this."
He said that the incumbent government always prioritises development issues of the country and works accordingly.
People living in villages have been enjoying a lot of facilities under the tenure of this government, he added.
Earlier that day, Alamgir also laid the foundation stone of a madrasa in Kachua upazila.
[Bangla Daily Star] Myanmar's president has pledged to consider new rights for the stateless Rohingya minority ahead of a landmark visit by President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... , but stopped short of a full commitment that citizenship and other new freedoms would be granted.
In a letter sent to the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... on Friday, President Thein Sein made conciliatory remarks that condemned the "senseless violence" in western Rakhine state between Rakhine Buddhists and Mohammedan Rohingya.
Almost 200 people have died and more than 1,00,000 have been displaced since June in fighting between the two communities, reports Associated press.
The persecution of Rohingyas also affects Bangladesh. Whenever communal violence breaks out in Myanmar, the minorities intrude into Bangladesh through Teknaf bordering area.
Bangladesh accommodates around 29,000 registered Rohingya refugees, although different estimates suggest the number of the Myanmarese minorities unofficially living in and around Cox's Bazar ranges between 2.5 and 5 lakh.
H/T Hotair. Rooters article. Here's a brief synopsis of the relevant part:
In March Tampa DJ 'Bubba the Love Sponge' announced he would deep fry a Koran. Petraeus, Allen and Vice Admiral Robert Harward contacted Kelley asking her to help stop Mr Love Sponge.
Kelly emailed Tampa mayor Buckhorn who replied that Tampa's police chief would intimidate talk to the radio station manager. Kelley requested to be kept informed by the mayor since she'd report on this issue to Allen who'd call her from Afghanistan.
This may read like a Monty Python skit but it makes sense under COIN.
Petraeus and Allen are trying to show the Afghans that ISAF and by extension the Karzai regime are more effective at implementing the will of the Afghan people than the insurgents.
Food for thought: Imagine there's an analyst in the Chinese KGB tasked to develop a psychological profile of the American political class. Imagine the new leadership wants him to assess the US' potential reaction to a military move on Taiwan, or the Philippines or even Japan.
How will this little anecdote shape the analyst's assessment?
Will he be more or less likely to counsel restraint?
All of this is playing in front of a global audience. The real catastrophic consequences of this unserious conduct might in the end be totally unrelated to any conflict with the islamic world.
I believe General Dempsey, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs also made a phone call to a Quran burning preacher asking him to cease and desist.
This points to the need once again, of Combatant Command/FEMA region political commissars to assist in the monitoring of local events (and people.... "we know who you are"). The Global Califate cannot depend entirely upon voluntary compliance.
A Florida socialite at the heart of a scandal that brought down the CIA chief was once asked by him to stop a radio talk show host who was threatening to desecrate the holy Quran, US media reported early on Saturday.
That account, which comes from emails sent by socialite Jill Kelley, offers a new glimpse at her relationship with Petraeus and other senior military officials. In March, a Florida radio talk show host named Todd Alan Clem but known as Bubba the Love Sponge said he was going to desecrate a copy of the holy Quran as a stunt, the reports said.
Gen John Allen, commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan, and CIA director David Petraeus, both asked Kelley, who lives in Tampa, to try to intervene and stop the radio host by contacting the city's mayor, Bob Buckhorn.
"I have Petraeus and Allen both emailing me about getting this dealt with," Kelley wrote to the mayor, according to NBC News. The generals saw the "Bubba" announcement as a potential threat to the safety of US troops stationed in Islamic countries.
Defacing the holy Quran is forbidden in Islam and in the past plans to burn the holy book by a controversial Christian pastor in Florida sparked deadly protests across the Muslim world. Kelley's emails were released by the mayor.
Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley, the two women embroiled in the scandal that brought down CIA chief David Petraeus, visited the White House several times since 2009, a US official told AFP late on Friday.
Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer and former mistress, attended meetings on Afghanistan and Pakistan held at the White House compound - at the Eisenhower building next to the presidential residence, said the official on condition of anonymity.
The first meeting was held in June 2009 with a member of the government team charged with handling Afghanistan and Pakistan policy. The second, two years later, was a briefing with around 20 other people, the same source said.
I believe General Dempsey, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs also made a phone call to a Quran burning preacher asking him to cease and desist.
This points to the need once again, of Combatant Command/FEMA region political commissars to assist in the monitoring of local events (and people.... "we know who you are"). The GloBal Califate cannot depend entirely upon voluntary compliance.
[Bangla Daily Star] The family of Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a Bangladeshi enjugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! by US federal authorities in a sting operation last month, hopes the government will provide the youth with legal aid.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Nafis's father Quazi Mohammad Ahsanullah said Bangladesh embassy officials in Washington wanted to meet Nafis immediately after the arrest.
The US authority told the officials that Nafis had refused to see them. They wanted to hear the refusal from his mouth but got no reply from the US side, he added.
A US District Court grand jury in New York on Thursday charged Nafis with trying to use a bomb as a weapon of mass destruction and trying to provide explosives and communications equipment to al Qaeda terrorists.
Yesterday, US ambassador to Dhaka Dan W Mozena replying to queries at Savar CRP yesterday said the situation with Nafis was known to him. The youth was offered consular access immediately, but for reasons of his own, he demurred, BBC reports.
Contacted, Ahsanullah said he does not believe Nafis had refused diplomatic assistance.
He said none from the government side has contacted him yet. As he went to the foreign ministry about 10 days ago, officials told him that the ministry has been in touch with the US State Department but is yet to get consular access to Nafis.
"I hope Bangladesh government will provide legal aid to prove my son's innocence," the father, a banker in Dhaka, said.
On Friday, for the first time after his arrest, Nafis talked to his parents over telephone from the US. He could just ask his parents how they were doing. The line disconnected in around three minutes and they could not discuss legal issues.
An US attorney for Nafis had advised his parents through an e-mail not to talk anything with their son except exchanging pleasantries.
Also on Friday, Raymond Kelly, chief of New York Police Department, exchanging views with expatriate Bangladeshis said Nafis was not considered different for being Bangladeshi.
Asked whether Nafis was trapped and inspired by detectives to involve in terrorism, Kelly said the court would take legal actions if the Bangladeshi student was trapped.
Foreign Policy features an interview with Jim Jeffrey, the former US Ambassador to Iraq during Status of Forces negotiations. The interview suffers a mildly buried lede, at least for those previously aware (despite political rhetoric to the contrary) that the Obama administration made an attempt to keep some stabilizing forces in Iraq. Excerpts from the interview are below [emphasis mine]:
Jeffrey didn't necessarily support the larger troop footprint envisioned by military leaders at the time, which reportedly ranged from 8,000 to 16,000 to 24,000 troops, depending on the military official. But he said he firmly believed that troops in Iraq past 2011 were needed and wanted by the Iraqi government.
Jeffrey was a key player on both the Washington and Baghdad sides of the 2011 negotiations that were meant to agree on a follow on force to extend the Bush administration's Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) after it was set to expire last December. Those negotiations ultimately failed. The White House has said the Iraqis refused to grant immunity for U.S. troops in Iraq after 2011 and submit a new SOFA through their own parliament, two things the United States needed to extend the troops' mission.
Jeffrey said that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki personally discussed the idea of extending the U.S. troop presence in Iraq via an executive agreement, which would not have to go through the Iraqi parliament.
"Maliki said at one point, 'Why don't we just do this as an executive agreement?'"
Jeffrey said. "I didn't think he was serious, and I didn't think he had thought it through."
But ultimately, the Iraqis did insist that a new SOFA had to go through their parliament and they would not budge on the immunities issue, which made an extension of U.S. forces there impossible, Jeffrey said. He said the insistence on immunity was uniform inside the Obama administration.
The ambassador seems to contradict himself, or at least portrays an evolved, contradictory position of the Iraqis on whether they wanted a contentious political debate over any agreement. The spin that "ultimately, the Iraqis did insist that a new SOFA had to go through their parliament" is diluted by his preceding statements and by reporting from Michael Gordon of The New York Times verifying that it was the Obama administration pushing legislative approval. Thus, to the extent the Iraqis took up that position, it seems to have been after US officials made it a necessity.
Jeffrey's revelation that the Iraqis wanted a continued US presence, and that Maliki privately broached the idea of using an executive order to avoid a messy parliamentary fight echoes a point that I made in the Fall edition of InFocus Quarterly:
But recent reporting by The New York Times' Michael Gordon paints a more complicated picture of U.S. incompetence and disengagement. Most notably, the Obama administration's insistence that any Status of Forces Agreement be ratified by Iraq's parliament set the stage for the inevitable failure of any agreement.
Simply put, while a number of Iraqi political leaders may have privately wished for continued American involvement to serve as a buffer and broker between both domestic rivals and neighboring regimes, far fewer were willing to support this position in a public, contentious debate. No one wants to be regarded as an American stooge in the prideful arena of Iraqi politics. Backing parliamentarians into a corner by demanding public ratification doomed a new SOFA to failure.
The Obama administration's reluctance to apply influence, in addition to its apparent abandonment of allies from the Sunni Awakening, are inexplicable, given the value of a politically stable Iraq in a region beset by rising Iranian influence and resurgent Salafist-Jihadist terrorism.
Not mentioned. A SOFA is a treaty requiring the approval of the US Senate. Lacking provisions for first call on any criminal prosecution of US military personnel which is what other countries (see - Germany, Korea, Japan, etc) have worked with, was never going to fly in the Senate. Check the record, the American military has probably been the most active military to prosecute its own members for offenses than any other in history. It wasn't an issue of 'immunity' rather first option to act upon the criminal complaint.
Iraq has freed Musa Ali Daduq, the senior Hezbollah commander who was tasked by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to mold Shia terror groups into a Hezbollah-like entity. Daqduq was involved in the murder of five US soldiers in 2007. The US government transferred Daqduq to Iraqi custody in December 2011.
Daqduq was freed by Iraqi authorities last night and transferred to Lebanon, his lawyer told Reuters.
"There was no reason for his detention. Last night the decision was made to release him. He is out now and arrived in Beirut two hours ago," Daqduq's lawyer told Reuters. "There are no charges against him in Iraq. His detention was political, not legal."
Daqduq's release from Iraqi custody has been foreshadowed for months. In May, an Iraqi court ordered him to be released from custody, but Daqduq remained in prison while his case was appealed. In June, the US requested that Iraq extradite Daqduq so he could be tried in an American federal court. In August, an Iraqi court blocked his extradition to the US.
When the US transferred Daqduq to Iraqi custody last December, White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said that Iraqi officials assured the US they would prosecute Daqduq.
At the time of Daqduq's release from US custody, American officials said that they feared the Iraqi government would be pressured by Iran and Shia political parties to free him outright. The US Department of Justice had planned to prosecute Daqduq in a US court, but Republican Senators opposed the transfer of the terrorist to US soil for prosecution. Some wanted Daqduq to be tried by a military court at Guantanamo Bay, but the Obama administration has refused to allow the transfer of terrorists to the prison and instead has sought to close it.
[An Nahar] Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... chief Nabil al-Arabi will head a delegation to Gazoo in a show of solidarity after Arab ministers decided on Saturday to review their diplomacy towards Israel and show their support for the Paleostinians.
The delegation will travel to Gazoo "to affirm solidarity with the Paleostinians," a League statement said after the foreign ministers' meeting. Arabi told news hounds it would head for the enclave either on Sunday or Monday.
The statement said the ministers decided to ask an Arab League task force to review "the usefulness of continuing the Arab commitment in proposing the Arab peace initiative as a strategic choice."
In 2002, Arab states offered Israel diplomatic recognition in return for its withdrawal from all occupied territory and an equitable settlement of the Paleostinian refugee question, a cornerstone of Arab diplomacy ever since.
The statement also called on Arab countries to abide by previous League decisions to stop normalizing ties with Israel. This would not affect the peace treaties Egypt and Jordan signed with Israel, an Arab League diplomat said.
[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... contacted during the past two days Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leader Khaled Meshaal to condemn the Israeli assault against the Gazoo Strip, revealed An Nahar daily on Saturday.
It added that the speaker may call parliament to session, should the Israeli aggression continue, "in order to take a stand of solidarity with the Paleostinian people."
His circles told the daily that this step stems from Leb's position and "its closeness to the Paleostinian developments."
"This step is not aimed at cornering the March 14 camp that has taken the decision to boycott Prime Minister Najib Miqati's government," they explained.
An Nahar reported however that should Berri go through with his plan, the March 14-led opposition may indeed feel cornered "seeing as it has not yet taken a decision on whether it will take part in the parliament session, scheduled for November 27, on the occasion of Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian's visit to Leb."
Hamas overplayed it's hand by shooting all kinds of rockets into Israel.
The world (finally) sees them as the aggressor that they truly are. There's nowhere else to go.
Shoot hundreds of rockets at a sovereign country's civilian population and you're going to get spanked.
Gaza will now be de-militarized.
Don't count on it. Even at this point the Gazooks are being seen as the innocent victims.
Soon the ululadies will be howling and the local equivalent of Green Helment guy will be hauling the same dead baby out of six or seven rubble piles. We've already seen the guy in the brown jacket lie down on the road so the ambo guys could carry him away for the cameras.
Any response by Israel will be denounced as "disproportionate." Cries are already being heard for trials of Israelis, not Gazooks, not Hamas, in "international war crimes courts."
Orescient, Fred? I woke up to exactly that tape on NBC's Today Show this morning, and Gaza's rockets presented by omission of previous history as a respnse to Israel's unprecedented and vicious attack... and this on a show aimed at housewives pondering side dishes for Thanksgiving dinner.
I'm so sorry, SteveS. Is it a word? I ask because it turned out that a lot of the words That happened when I spoke German back in the day were real, but only used by me and the elite level of German linguistics professors. Then there were the ones that set my interlocutors to laughing so hard they had tears rolling down their cheeks, most involving separable verbs... Unfortunately I don't remember which was which.
[An Nahar] Syria's new opposition coalition signaled Saturday that it intends to move quickly to establish a broad-based alternative government to the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad. Light of the Alawites... After talks with French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it... , coalition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib assured the international community that the transitional government will be composed of technocrats rather than politicians, and include representatives of all the war-torn country's ethnic and religious groups.
But Khatib appeared to have made little progress on his call for the West to arm the rebels with Hollande indicating that the major powers remain cautious about such a step.
"There is no problem. The coalition exists and we will launch a call for candidates to form a government of technocrats that will work until the regime falls," Khatib told news hounds after the talks in Gay Paree.
La Belle France, which on Tuesday became the first Western state to recognize the coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people, is pushing for the rebels to be given greater support, including some arms.
"I can't hide the importance of this question," Hollande said, while acknowledging that La Belle France could not act without agreement from its partners in the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , which currently has a strict embargo on arms deliveries to Syria.
"The (rebel) Syrians need military means but the international community also has to exercise control," he said.
Hollande also said that La Belle France would increase its recognition of the National Coalition by allowing them to appoint an ambassador in Gay Paree.
Monzir Makhous, an academic, is to fill the post, although it was unclear if this would happen before the transitional government is formed.
EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the arms embargo at talks in Brussels on Monday. La Belle France's Laurent Fabius said Thursday he would raise the idea of modifying the current EU embargo to exclude defensive weapons for the rebels to help them protect areas they hold from bombardment by forces loyal to Assad.
"The protection of liberated zones can only be done in the framework of the international community," Hollande said.
"Once an alternative government has been formed it can itself legitimately call for protection and support."
Hollande noted that Khatib, a Sunni imam, had assured him that the future government would include Christians and Alawites, the minority group to which Assad belongs.
La Belle France, Turkey and the Gulf states have so far granted official recognition to the new Syrian grouping, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who met Khatib in London on Friday, said Britannia was considering following suit.
EU member states Germany, Spain, Italia and Poland have also welcomed the formation of the National Coalition, but have stopped short of recognizing it as the sole representative of the Syrian people.
[An Nahar] Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir announced on Saturday his intention to form a "resistance brigade" in the southern city of Sidon.
He said during a presser: "The decision to form the brigade has been suspended pending consultations with various powers."
He explained that the decision stemmed from the frequent Israeli assaults against the southern city and the need for self-defense.
Discussions on the mechanism needed to form the brigade will be held with the concerned forces, he revealed.
A clash broke out on Sunday between al-Asir and Hizbullah supporters.
Two of Asir's companions and an Egyptian national died in the clash that was a product of sectarian tensions in Sidon.
Asir added: "No one can break our will and we will not back down from our revolt of dignity no matter how many of us they kill."
"The Israeli assault on Gazoo has prompted us to take the decision to form the brigade and the current so-called resistance has not been defending Leb," he said in reference to Hizbullah.
"Our resistance will be aimed against Israel, not like other resistance groups that have turned their weapons towards the internal scene," he stated.
He also attributed the failure to devise a defense strategy for Leb as a reason to form the "resistance brigade."
Addressing Sunday's clash, Asir declared: "We demand justice for the dead and for the state to demonstrate that it can achieve justice."
He also announced that an open-ended sit-in will be held at Sidon's Bilal bin Rabbah mosque until this issue is resolved.
"We have a blood score to settle with Hizbullah that can only be settled with blood," he warned.
Addressing Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... , he said: "I must admit to you that you have succeeded in forcing the state to fulfill your agenda, meaning Iran's."
"You have committed murders with impunity in Leb and Syria for the sake of your agenda," he noted.
"You have spread corruption starting with the illegal activity at ports and with the medications scandal," Asir continued.
"I have repeatedly said that we have no problems with the Shiite sect, but we take issue with Hizbullah and its Iranian agenda," stressed the imam of the Bilal bin Rabbah mosque.
Turning to the March 14 camp, he said: "You have contradicted your principles."
"We do not count on those who headed to Doha and struck deals at the expense of the blood of slain former Premier Rafik Hariri," he added.
"You must review your policies with your supporters and remain true to their aspirations," he stated.
[An Nahar] Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour urged on Saturday Arab nations to adopt strict political and economic measures against Israel, in response to the Israeli assault on the Gazoo strip.
"The Arab countries must freeze their contacts, withdraw their ambassadors and suspend agreements with Israel," Mansour said during an Arab Foreign Ministers emergency meeting to discuss situation in Gazoo at the headquarter of the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... in Cairo.
He pointed out that "the Paleostinian people are demanding the Arabs to courageously stand against the assault."
Israel's harshest Gazoo operation in four years began on Wednesday and was followed by fresh Israeli air strikes, as Paleostinian Death Eaters inside Gazoo responded with rocket fire prompting the vaporous Arab League to hold an urgent meeting for Foreign Ministers in Cairo.
"Israelis must be prosecuted in international courts for committing war crimes against Paleostinians," Mansour added.
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MIT professor’s book digs into the eclectic, textually linked reading choices of people in medieval London.
Some professors require problem sets, others give oral examinations, while still others assign papers and essays. Edward Cohen, senior lecturer in music, assigns a different kind of final project for students in his music composition course (21M 351): a public concert of works they've composed during the term.
This semester's concert, to be presented on Friday, May 17, at 4pm in Killian Hall will showcase "a variety of approaches and styles," said Mr. Cohen. As part of the course requirements, he said, students are also responsible for selecting musicians and scheduling rehearsal time. "It's part of being a composer," he explained.
The performance features John de Guzman's unusual string quartet-a performance piece of sorts. The junior in chemical engineering calls his composition "a comedy with good music, cigarettes, a joint, a cello player getting high, a first violin walking out on the second violin's movement in sheer disgust, an impressive showdown of talent by the two violins at the end of the piece and more."
Leonard Kim, a senior music major, will present "Faschingsschwank: Fragments of an Opera," an allegorical treatment of the relationship between Robert and Clara Schumann. This unstaged mini-opera features three singers and a small ensemble in which Mr. Kim will play cello and piano and sing two tenor roles.
Mathematics and music major Jeff Morrow, winner of the 1996 Sudler Prize in the Arts, named his piece Binaries for Solo Clarinet, "because both movements are in binary form, not because of anything nerdy." Asher Davison, a graduate student in biology, will perform the work.
The concert also includes a more traditional string quartet by senior music major Solomon Douglas and piano pieces by Christopher Merrill, a senior in electrical engineering and computer science. For more information, call x3-2826.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 15, 1996.
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Do you always have to max out with weights? Will a week off from the gym wipe out your fitness gains? And is it essential to wear shoes if you exercise in your living room? Smart Fitness answers your workout queries.
Have an exercise question? To e-mail us, click here . We’ll post select answers in future columns.
Q: I always hear that you have to max out when weight-training, but is that really necessary? I find that training to failure is pretty uncomfortable, and it discourages me from hitting the weights.
A: Common weight-training advice says to choose a weight that you can lift only for a set number of repetitions. So if you are doing 10 reps of an exercise, for instance, you would select a weight that you can lift just 10 times, but no more. In the exercise science world, that means you’ve “trained to failure,” muscle failure.
The idea is that you’ll build the most muscle if you hit the weights as hard as you can. Some people love that challenge; others, like you, find it to be something approaching torture.
So can you build muscle if you don’t max out? Of course you can, assuming you’re stimulating your muscles with some degree of difficulty and not just going through the motions. If you can breeze through a set, it’s probably not doing you much good.
Always training to failure may actually cause harm, says Len Kravitz, coordinator of exercise science at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
“I encourage trainers to not always train clients to failure,” he says. “This may be a contributing cause to overtraining and overuse injuries.”
A safer approach is to mix up your strength routine, Kravitz says. So just as you should incorporate a variety of sets, reps and exercises into your program, you should also vary how often you train to failure. Certainly if training to failure if uncomfortable and preventing you from working out, do it less rather than more.
There’s no single best weight-training program for everyone. If you need help putting together a fitness regimen, consider consulting a trainer, even for a couple sessions. Be sure to factor in your current fitness level, your goals — and your desire to lighten the load a bit — when developing a plan that’s right for you.
Q: I’m a regular exerciser but my travel schedule for work can leave me sedentary for a week at a time. Do I lose my fitness gains during these periods?
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A: An occasional exercise break — be it during a week off for work travel or some R&R on the beach — shouldn’t wreck your fitness routine, says Dr. Jeffrey Tanji, associate medical director of sports medicine at the University of California at Davis.
“It won't happen that fast,” he says.
And the break might actually do you some good. “It is not a bad thing to taper. Tapering allows overuse injuries to heal, and helps to prevent stress fractures, tendonitis and even staleness and burnout.”
An extended break, however, will send you spiraling toward couch-potato territory, and in much less time than it took you to get in shape.
“Life is not fair,” says Tanji. “Deconditioning is quick, and conditioning is slow.”
Well trained athletes such as triathletes and marathon runners can go from being in top form to deconditioned in as little as a month, he notes. But it can take them three to four months to get back into peak shape.
So while you don’t want to go too long without breaking a sweat, Tanji recommends treating yourself to four one-week breaks over a year, which comes out to a week of down time every three months.
Q: I do an aerobics video in the house around three times a week. Since I am in the house I just have sports socks on, and not my trainers. Can this do any damage in the long run to my ankles or legs, etc.?
A: Yes, you do run the risk of injury, says David Davidson, a podiatrist in Buffalo, N.Y., and president-elect of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine.
As he noted in a recent column , a good sports shoe can help stave off problems with feet, ankles, legs, the hips and back.
Sports socks and even carpeting on your living room floor don’t provide enough support and shock absorption, Davidson says.
Are you worried about wearing out the carpet? If so, consider a sturdy exercise mat.
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints
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The UFO Files
while in orbit aboard Salyut-6 Space Station
Date: May 5, 1981
Summary: Cosmonaut Major General Vladimir Kovalyonok, had an encounter during the Saljut VI Mission in 1981. "I just made some gymnastic exercises, when I saw in front of me, through a porthole, an object which I could not explain... I saw this object and then something happened I could not explain, something impossible according to the laws of Physics."
Full Report / Article
Source: Michael Hesemann, International UFO Congress (2002)
COSMONAUT MAJOR GENERAL VLADIMIR KOVALYONOK:
Many cosmonauts have seen phenomena which are far beyond the experiences of earthmen. For ten years I never spoke on such things. The encounter you asked me about happened on May 5, 1981, at about 6 PM, during the Saljut Mission. At that time we were over the area of South Africa, moving towards the area of the Indian ocean. I just made some gymnastic exercises, when I saw in front of me, through a porthole, an object which I could not explain. It is impossible to determine distances in Space. A small object can appear large and far away and the other way around. Sometimes a cloud of dust appears like a large object. Anyway, I saw this object and then something happened I could not explain, something impossible according to the laws of Physics. The object had this shape, elliptical, and flew with us. From a frontal view it looked like it would rotate in flight direction.
It only flew straight, but then a kind of explosion happened, very beautiful to watch, of golden light. This was the first part. Then, one or two seconds later, a second explosion followed somewhere else and two spheres appeared, golden and very beautiful.
After this explosion I just saw white smoke, then a cloud-like sphere. Before we entered the darkness, we flew through the terminator, the twilight-zone between day and night. We flew eastwards, and when we entered the darkness of the Earth shadow, I could not see them any longer. The two spheres never returned.
SOURCE: UFO Evidence Case ID: 396
Russian Astronaut Says He Saw
A UFO In Orbit
Summary: Soviet astronaut, USSR Hero Vladimir Kovalenok spent 217 days of his life living in space. "When I was working at the Salyut orbital station, I saw something strange in a porthole one day. The object was the size of a finger. I was surprised to see it was an orbiting object," Kovalenko said at a press conference in Moscow.
Soviet astronaut, USSR Hero Vladimir Kovalenok spent 217 days of his life living in space. The astronaut does not exclude the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. "When I was working at the Salyut orbital station, I saw something strange in a porthole one day. The object was the size of a finger. I was surprised to see it was an orbiting object," Kovalenko said at the press conference in Moscow on Friday.
The astronaut added he called his partner Viktor Savinykh to take a look at the unidentified object in space. "It was hard to determine the size and the speed of an object in space. That is why I can not say exactly, which size it actually was. Savinykh prepared to take a picture of it, but the UFO suddenly exploded. Only clouds of smoke were left. The object split into two interconnected pieces. It was reminiscent of a dumb-bell. I reported about it to the Mission Control immediately," the astronaut said.
Vladimir Kovalenok said they had not managed to photograph the object, Interfax reports.
"The Soviet press headlined the event widely. Soviet newspapers and magazines published a lot of articles and messages about it, but they were mostly critical articles. Journalists excluded the existence of the extraterrestrial reason," Kovalenok was quoted as saying. The astronaut said nobody knows, what happened that day, when he saw the strange object in space. "It was probably a UFO, but it was definitely not mysticism - two people watched it at the same time," said he.
When on Earth, Kovalenok learned specialists had registered considerable radiation emission the day the astronaut saw the object. "I do not believe it when astronauts say they have never seen anything extraordinary in space," concluded Kovalenok.
SOURCE: UFO Evidence Article ID: 397
Originally posted by spacebot a member of ATS Post ID 4202058
IMO I have to think that this, the dumb-bell object, was a larger vehicle that carried the 8 to 10 meters smaller spaceship near the vicinity of the Salyut 6 orbit. What I've discovered with my research is that this dumb bell object probably displayed above from the link posted by itisibrian, was THE SAME object the crew of Apollo 11 saw, (and Buzz Aldrin confirmed) to their trip to the moon!
Here is the object seen from inside Apollo 11!
I have even made a CGI model of this object 2 years back but I must search for it. It mostly resembles the sketch in the first picture which is the Russian sighting.
Now notice another sketch by Vladimir Kovalyonok (the cosmonaut with the camera) the egg shaped object in the right in front of the large bell that holds another vehicle inside, might have been connected to the ship at the front and was detached later, also it could be with enhanced luminosity compared to the other parts of the dumb-bell!, we can see them all connected together in the Apollo 11 video here if my theory is correct! Also it would add more credibility to the Salyut 6 contact and prove Kovalyonok was not trying to pull something for personal benefits!
|May 14, 1981; in space, from
onboard the Soyuz T-4 spacecraft
Cosmonauts Savinikh and Kovlenok observed a strange object from their space station. At first the object was 1/2 mile away but it eventually approached to a distance to 300 feet. Inside the cosmonauts saw three brown skin beings with slanted bright blue eyes. straight noses and bushy eyebrows. At a distance of 100 feet, the witnesses thought that the beings resembled mechanical robots. The beings facial expressions remained quite emotionless. The beings onboard the object requested close contact with the Soviet craft but this request was denied. Their craft shifted around erratically and from time to time it would vanish, but then reappear in an instant. Their craft seemed to be metallic, but it had no doors no solar batteries, no optical systems, no antennae and no marks or writing of any kind, it was spherical with eight windows and 16 other strange transparent illuminated spheres arranged throughout the hull. The cosmonauts also noticed quite normal looking armchairs, some devices, and walls inside the craft. Using a pair of powerful binoculars the cosmonauts saw the beings showing them what appeared to have been a star map. (HC addition # 3252, Source: Paul Stonehill, The Soviet UFO Files)
SOURCE: NICAP Listing
|Russian Astronaut saw UFO in
Front page / Science
The astronaut says he does not believe other astronauts
when they say they have never seen anything unusual in space
The astronaut added he called his partner Viktor Savinykh to take a look at the unidentified object in space. “It was hard to determine the size and the speed of an object in space. That is why I can not say exactly, which size it actually was. Savinykh prepared to take a picture of it, but the UFO suddenly exploded. Only clouds of smoke were left. The object split into two interconnected pieces. It was reminiscent of a dumb-bell. I reported about it to the Mission Control immediately,” the astronaut said.
Vladimir Kovalenok said they had not managed to photograph the object, Interfax reports.
”The Soviet press headlined the event widely. Soviet newspapers and magazines published a lot of articles and messages about it, but they were mostly critical articles. Journalists excluded the existence of the extraterrestrial reason,” Kovalenok was quoted as saying. The astronaut said nobody knows, what happened that day, when he saw the strange object in space. “It was probably a UFO, but it was definitely not mysticism – two people watched it at the same time,” said he.
When on Earth, Kovalenok learned specialists had registered considerable radiation emission the day the astronaut saw the object. “I do not believe it when astronauts say they have never seen anything extraordinary in space,” concluded Kovalenok.
SOURCE: Russian astronaut saw UFO in spaceship porthole - Pravda 16.08.2004
|Salyut UFO sighting: Reference
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (article now deleted from Wikipedia)
Between May 14 and May 18, 1981, cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalyonok and Viktor Savinykh supposedly established a contact with an object of unknown origin while working at the Salyut 6 orbital station.
The two-man crew of the Soyuz T-4 docked with Salyut 6 on March 12, 1981 and were to spend 75 days in orbit. On May 14, Kovalyonok was conducting scientific experiments when he noticed a round object appearing a kilometer away. He alerted Savinykh and they observed the object. Kovalyonok took a camera and filmed the object for 45 minutes. The object seemed to be half the size of the Salyut 6 (about 8 meters). For the rest of the day, the UFO remained at that position. In the next cosmic day, it was only 100 meters away. Now that it was closer, the cosmonauts observed it more carefully: There was no sight of a propulsor or anything similar which could have given the ship an impulse to get closer. The ship had 24 windows, divided between three levels. They could see also three humanoid creatures. The creatures were wearing helmets, but it was still possible to see their faces: Big eyebrows, straight noses, and big blue eyes, which didn't express any emotions. According to the cosmonauts, none of the muscles on the face was moving, and all their movements seemed normal, although mechanical and artificial.
As the beings appeared to be friendly, the cosmonauts requested permission from Earth to try some visual and physical contact. The first was cleared, but the second was denied. Kovalyonok grabbed and opened a map of the universe to the beings. They answered and opened theirs, which was much more precise and complete. They pointed to the Solar System inside the Milky Way. Kovalyonok then made a positive sign with his hand. The being answered with the same gesture, and then the space ship went away very fast, but soon it was back. They repeated the action six times in all, with no clear reason.
Using a powerful flashlight, Kovalyonok tried to communicate via Morse code, by signalling: "Soviet cosmonauts salute Earth visitors." in Russian. The beings didn't understand, so Kovalyonok tried to signal "Are you receiving us?" in English, but again there was no answer. He tried to use binary language. He signalled 101101 with the flashlight. The message was not a simple answer to Kovalyonok's words, but a Logarithm to the base used by him.
The next day, the beings were flying outside the ship. The cosmonauts requested permission to disembark, but it was denied. On the fourth day, the ship disappeared.
In June 18, 1981, the Gosplan called an extraordinary meeting. Several soviet authorities, ufologists and cosmonauts attended the meeting. Kovalyonok and Savinykh were present and Soyuz 3 cosmonaut Georgi Timofeyevich Beregovoi also participated. Kovalyonok presented the video he filmed with his camera, showing the UFO and its beings.
SOURCE: The Full Wiki
|On September 24, 1984, the Journal headline brought
prominently in its pages an impressive news.
On June 18, 1981, Gosplan (Ministry of Planning of the former USSR) has convened an extraordinary meeting. On occasion were present several ufologists, cosmonauts and Soviet authorities, including military. Its moderator was the very chief of the Soviet space program, General Georgi Timofeevict Beregovoy. By his side was Vladimir Kovalyonok, cosmonaut who, along with Viktor Savinikh, stayed 77 days in space aboard the Salyut-6 station in 1981.
At the meeting, the cosmonauts would have declared that the Salyut-6 had made contact with a ship of unknown origin for 4 days (with interruptions) that orbited along with it, at a distance of 400 km of our planet. The event would have involved the astronauts, and Kovalyonok Savinikh, three unknown beings and the mysterious that the vehicle had the shape of a sphere and only half the size of the Salyut-6, 16 meters long.
According to the description of the cosmonauts, the vehicle also had no bumps like solar panels, which the spacecraft are usually normal extract energy. The two ships met on May 14, 1981, near the end of the prolonged stay of two Russian astronauts.
At the meeting, after a brief introduction of Gen. Beregovoy, everyone would have seen an amazing movie, a document made by Soviet cosmonauts during the period in which the two ships kept in touch. The film was shot through the portholes of a Salyut-6. The unknown craft, at times, appears at a distance of only 40m.
It tells the story that the two astronauts were working on his scientific experiments, after 75 days of stay in the cosmos, when Kovalyonok observed a spherical object, rising suddenly from a distance of about 1,000 m, and warned Savinikh. Spent some time looking through two separate hatches. Kovalyonok picked up a camera and shot the first frames of which became a movie in 45 minutes. He had no explanation for what was happening. With the help of binoculars saw the other ship hatches.
During the first 24 hours, that is, all day May 14, 1981, the mysterious object remained stationary in front of the Salyut-6, without showing signs of life. Suddenly, by agreeing on the day following the cosmic, the two astronauts saw the unidentified ship closer, less than 100 meters away.
According to the cosmonauts, the unidentified ship had moved without using jets, pulse or any other visible features. Even up close, not denoting any slip on its surface smooth, uniform, silver. The astronauts identified a number of windows, 24 in all, on three levels, and three human-looking heads back, respectively, three portholes.
Through the windows, could see light beings who wore helmets, hoods like tight, and thus their faces partially covered. But three quarters of the faces were visible through transparent displays. Eyebrows were long, thick and straight noses. But what most impressed the cosmonauts were the eyes - huge, blue, two times higher than those of humans - fixed, without showing the slightest sign of emotion. Not a muscle moved on their faces.
Later that day, and during the next day, showing how humans are friendly, willing to enter into communication, Kovalyonok would request authorization to establish contact with Earth more immediate. He received permission to try to exchange visual messages, but asking about the possibility of physical contact, Mission Control replied with a nyet.
The cosmonauts were feeling quite at home against the very human behavior of strangers, whose ship changed position frequently, without difficulty. On one occasion came A Dis 30 meters from the Soviet station. The astronauts could not only see the strangers, but also to observe their movements, which looked human, though very hard, mechanical and artificial.
The cosmonauts then have a big open sky map near the door. The letter showed our solar system in the center. Kovalyonok was surprised when one of the beings drew his own map. Kovalyonok saw the solar system on one side. There was never any doubt that they were equipped with navigation maps of absolute accuracy and pointed to the portion of our galaxy with any precision. Kovalyonok nodded, putting his thumb up, and the strange being, without smiling, did the same thing. Then their ship departed at a very high speed. In the next orbit, was back. She turned away six times in all, never for a reason.
Using a torch, Kovalyonok would have tried to communicate, first in Russian, using Morse code, signaling: "Soviet cosmonauts greet visitors to Earth." The strange beings do not understand. He then tried a message in English: "Are you receiving us?", Also in Morse. No answer. So he tried a mathematical figure, using a brief light to ZERO and ONE for a long, and signaled the number 101101. Soon after came a light signal in response. The message was not just mere repetition of cipher Kovalyonok and was being decrypted with a logarithm base used by Kovalyonok.
The next day, human beings would have left the ship and walked through the space. They had about two feet tall and wore the same clothes. The cosmonauts would then also request permission to leave, which was denied. On the fourth day the ship disappeared.
For some reason, according to the report reproduced by Headline Review, Kovalyonok Savinikh and had grown accustomed to those strange beings, silent and antiemotivos.
Despite the importance that such an event would have been made public and if confirmed true, very little reflected the bombastic headline magazine report. Did not even own a lot of hype after that, which contributed to the episode had left - and even whether any research had been carried out to reveal it - entirely in obscurity ...
This case was taken from an article published in the Journal headline of September 24, 1984, with adjustments of the Journal Editorial Vigil.
SOURCE: Salyut UFO sighting at Revista Vigília - Caso Salyut-6 - (Google Translation)
|The following article, translated from its original
Portuguese, is reprinted with permission from the Sept/Oct, 1985 issue
of Brazil's UFOLOGIA, possibly the largest-circulated UFO magazine in the
30,000 circulation. Translator Catherine Solange is now working on another UFOLOGIA story, also by Luis Gonzaga, which attempts to explain a theory of extraterrestrial classification based on spiritual hierarchies.
SOVIETS RELEASE INFORMATION ABOUT
E.T.-ASTRONAUT CONTACT ON SALYUT
UFO crew members appeared in space and interacted extensively with the three Solviet cosmonauts who linked up with Salyut 6 in early 1981. Surprisingly, the U.S.S.R. has elected to release some ot the information on the history-making encounter.
During their Salyut 6 msiiion that began in March and
ended in late May, 1981, Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Kivalyonok and Viktor
Savinikh maintained extraordinary contact with three human interplanetary
aliens. For an extended period of time, the cosmonauts watched as these
aliens operated an extremely advanced, circular
Public awareness of this event was held back until 1984, when the September 24 issue of `Manchete' was published. Displayed on that issue's cover was the face of international model Jushiu Manegal, In a relatively minor position on the inside left-hand corner of the cover we read the sensational words: "Russians Encounter UFO's".
For approximately four days, with periodic interruptions, the Salyut 6 and the round UFO orbited 400 kilometers above Earth. The crews interfaced to approximately 30 meters of distance between their two
Shaped like a ball, the alien ship measured an estimated 9 to 10 meters in diameter. The circumference of the UFO was ringed with eight symmetrical portholes, or windows. Sixteen additional transparent areas, eight above and eight below the UFO's center area, were lit up in a way that sugeested some automatedform of lighting.
By this interior light, the cosmonauts were able to observe a relatively conventional-looking cabin space within the craft, exhibiting control panels, chairs, retaining walls and other equipment and structures. The surface sheen of the craft looked metallic. No obivous points of entry and exit were seen, and the Soviets also noted a remarkable absence of assumed necesities on the ship's exterior-identifying marks, antennae, optical systems terminals, solar panels and the like.
The encounter was initiated on May 14, when through his porthole, cosmonaut Kovalyonok spotted the round object in front of the Salyut 6 from about 1,000 meters distance. He had made out the ship's portholes with long-distance binoculars.
The following day, the cosmonauts were surprised to see that the UFO had moved in much closer, within 100 meters of the Salyut. Since their unterstanding of propulsion systems was limited to the disposable resources of Earth's rocket technology, the cosmonauts were perplexed that the UFO could produce such a vast alteration of its orbit: If rockets were used for propulsion, escape hatches for attendant fuel emissions were noticably lacking on the aliens' stark craft!
Positioned by the portholes were three beings of human aspect clearly making various gestures. They were of a solemn and serene countenance, reminiscent of devout Hindus, with straight noses and thick eyebrows visible above their enormous, slanted blue eyes. They looked out at the cosmonauts with a deep and penetrating gaze, yet displayed no emotional qualities in terms of our understanding of emotions. At one point, the cosmonauts asked their Soviet base of command for permission to make contact with these unknown voyagers. The immediate response that got back was a decisive and definite, "no," that the only manner of contact they could utilize must be instrumental.
Little by little, the alien ship was getting closer to the Salyut, and at an unimaginable velocity. Ti would appear and disappear at various angles. For frations of a second, it would disappear behind the Earth and then reappear in a new relative position, stopping abruptly with no apparent effect on the crew members. In one of its reappearances, the alien ship stopped within 30 meters of the Salyut.
On impulse, cosmonaut Kovalyonok opened a celestial map and took it to the window. To his amazement, he noticed that two of the aliens did exactly the same thing, opening a map so that Kovalyonok could clearly perceive out solar system in the upper right-hand corner, along with many other celestial bodies not identified during the brief time the map was glimped.
Without knowing exactly how to proceed , the Soviet cosmonauts waved and offered a "thumbs up" gesture of fraternity-and they returned it. Tentative communication was achieved by instruments, but didn't evolve to the level desired.
Using a high-potency light source, the Soviet cosmonauts used Morse Code to welcome the visitors in Russian. There was no reaction from the aliens. The Soviets tried English: "Are you reading us?" again, no reaction. On the third try, still in Morse Code, the cosmonauts tranmitted a binary number: 101101, which expressed a certain geometric figure. The aliens responded with another sequence of numbers, not the same as theirs. Later the cosmonauts verified that the aliens had transmitted the value of the letter "E," based on a logarithmic configuration applied frequently by the computers on Salyut 6, when programmed to graphically linearize the relative curves of a complex mathematical function.
Dressed in the same spacesuits they were wearing on board, which looked like diving suits with visors, the aliens left their ship and floated in space. They made strange movements, as if they were sitting in chairs. They wore no knapsacks of any other kind of apparatus that normally would be used to maintain life as it's known on Earth.
At the end of the fourth day, the aliens went away and didn't reappear. It left the cosmonauts with a strange feeling of homesickness, in the words of one ot the Russian crew.
Members of Russia's military and scientific communities
met with the cosmonauts on June 18, 1981, to view photographs and film
footage taken on the mission. Cosmonaut Kovalyonok was bombarded with questions
Footnote: Author Gonzaga lives in Brazil's capital, Brasilia, where he's spearheading a community project to facilitate contact and communication between Earthlings and extraterrestrials.
Originally posted by suomichris a member of ATS Post ID 6700689
My Russian friend was quick!
It says "bright golden flames" in circles on the both left and right sides, "sphere" in parentheses, and "white smoke" under the circles. There is also some abbreviation (numbers?) under the scribbly line and the "N.P." abbreviation in the upper right corner, but I can't make sense of them.So, seems that this image is representing both the pre- and post-explosion versions of object, neither of which is a very good match for the description in the Ufologia article...
|A crew of Salyut 6 also had his rendezvous, and more
importantly, documented on video. Of course, we know that is kept under
the greatest secrets in the famous Star City. Everything was in May 1981.
Cosmonauts Vladimir and Viktor Kovalyonok Savinikh rose on 12/03/1981, and would be 77 days in space, returning 14/05/81. After 75 days in orbit, 400 km altitude, Kovalyonok saw a spherical object at some 1000 m from Salyut, and along with his companion began to observe and record the images. For almost a day nothing happened, and when they awoke they realized the object was less than 100 m away.
They might notice that the ball was half the size of the station (which was 16 m long), a surface without interruption except for 24 windows or portholes, in 3 rows, one being much larger than the windows of the Salyut, and too much lower. Behind these three windows, there was human-looking heads. They used a kind of hood, which was part of a display of plastic appearance, where they could see their faces, straight noses, eyebrows, long and big blue eyes. Their faces did not show any expression, sometimes being compared to robots, cosmonauts and described them as similar to Hindus solemn brown.
Faced with the seemingly friendly attitude of all beings, the cosmonauts asked license to try to control land communication, which was allowed, but vetoed any physical contact.
The alien ship changed position and moved away with ease, not bear any visible propulsion mechanism. Kovalyonok just showing them a map where it appeared our solar system, in which was answered by one of the beings displaying their own maps with our well-defined sector of the galaxy. Even tried to communicate with Morse code using a flashlight, but the aliens only responded when the Russian signaled 101,101 with the flashlight. The flashes of ets were not a simple repetition of the signal Kovalyonok, but a logarithm of the same base used by him.
The alien has left his ship, wearing the same clothes they wore on board. Obviously, they commented on the Russians, they had developed a power system that was not heat or nuclear, and mastered the forces of gravity. Soon after, the alien ship pulled away and disappeared.
All this was discussed at a meeting of the Planning Ministry of the USSR in June 18, 1981, chaired by General Georgi Beregovoi, head of the space program. It was also shown the film obtained by the cosmonauts, and cosmologist Aleksander Kazantsev, present at the meeting, said the film is very well kept in the vaults of Star City. Beregovoi always refused to comment, but it is said that he hoped new contacts. There are unconfirmed suspicions of another encounter with a similar ship, this time from the Salyut 7.
The station Salyut 6 was in orbit until July 1982, being replaced by the Salyut 7 was launched in April 1982.
SOURCE - Portuguese (Google Translation)
|From Paul Stonehill:
One version of the event is described in Mysterious Sky: Soviet UFO Phenomenon. The key person, when it comes to the video footage, was General Beregovoy. The whereabouts of the video footage is a state secret of the Russian Federation, I am certain. Others have looked for it, producers from Hollywood, etc. I do not think they found it.
"It followed us during half of
our orbit. We observed it on the light side, and when we entered the shadow
side, it disappeared completely. It was an engineered structure, made from
some type of metal, approximately 40 meters long with inner hulls. The
object was narrow here and wider here, and inside there were openings.
Some places had projections like small wings. The object stayed very close
to us. We photographed it, and our photos showed it to be 23 to 28 meters
NOTE: Transcript needed
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Kolkata: Hundreds of thousands of people across West Bengal had a harrowing time as the state witnessed a total blackout triggered by the Eastern Power Grid’s sudden collapse. The power outage also left thousands of passengers in several trains stranded.
The grid, which collapsed yesterday afternoon, led to severe power outage in all the 18 districts of the state, Power Minister Manish Gupta said.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered all government offices to declare a holiday for the rest of the day to enable the employees to go home and appealed to people to maintain calm.
“The Eastern Grid has collapsed... it is a big disaster. All 18 districts of the state are going to face power outage. We have started the repair work. But normalcy can’t be restored before tonight as repair work will take at least 10-12 hours,” Gupta told IANS.
According to the spokesperson of West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd, “the power generation in five plants that mostly supply power to Bengal had come down to nil. Private power Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) which supplies power to Kolkata, suffered a shortfall of 500 Mega watts leading to power cuts. But the situation in Kolkata is far better than that of other cities like Delhi or Lucknow.”
Train services were stalled at major junctions like Howrah, Sealdah and Asansol divisions because of the grid failure. According to South Eastern Railway large areas under its jurisdiction in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar were seriously affected. Twenty-six trains were stalled in the Howrah-Kharagpur section, 11 on Kharagpur-Bhadrak and four on Kharagpur- Tatanagar sections.
The grid collapse severely hit Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Adra and Ranchi divisions of the South Eastern Railway, though a little power was available from Jharsuguda, Kolaghat and Santragachi.
“The railways is trying to run the local train services by using diesel engines wherever possible specially during the evening rush hours or millions of people will be stranded as they will not be able to return home from office,” said Union Railways Minister Mukul Roy.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, “We request people not to panic. The authorities are trying their best to restore power, but considering the magnitude of this problem, it won’t be solved so soon. Metro Rail services in Kolkata are running with power drawn from CESC Limited. The situation is far better in Kolkata, but all the other districts of West Bengal have plunged into complete darkness and that is a major worry for the government. “
Though Kolkata was not severely affected, its satellite township Saltlake plunged into darkness leaving hundreds of Information Technology companies gaping for power. “We are running on backup, but that will only last for a while. We may have to stop operations if power doesn’t get restored soon,” said an official of Tata Consultants Services, the largest software company in India.
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About the WOVD
The WOVD is the International Organisation of Volleyball for people with physical disabilities and is affiliated to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). The WOVD was formerly part of the International Sports Organisation for Disabled (ISOD) and was established in 1981. The WOVD became a separate organisation in 1992 after the Paralympic Games in Barcelona. The headquarters of the WOVD were established in The Netherlands.
The WOVD is responsible for managing and controlling the conduct of international volleyball competitions (Paralympics, World and Zonal Championships, and other international competitions) for men, women and youth.The WOVD also liaises with IPC (as an independent organisation) and with other organisations for people with or without disabilities.
With Sitting Volleyball, the disability of a player is no longer a handicap. Since players must be sitting on the floor when hitting the ball, only the skill is important, not the disability.This produces a very competitive sport which began in 1956 when the Dutch Sports Committee introduced this ‘new game’. Since then, Sitting Volleyball has grown into one of the biggest sports practised in competition. Not only by sports people with disabilities, but also by interested ‘able-bodied’ volleyball players with or without injuries, just because of the fun of this fast and spectacular sport.IPC included Sitting Volleyball in their programme in 1980. Since 1993, championships are organized for men, women and youth (man & women).
*Excerpt from http://www.wovd.info
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Parks and Recreation Department Holds Teen Leadership Camp
CLEARWATER - As another summer comes to a close, a group of Clearwater teens will return to school with more confidence and better tools to make it in the world. These teens attended the Teen Leadership camp at the North Greenwood Recreation Center, held by the Clearwater Parks and Recreation Department.
During the camp, teens attended field trips, worked with younger campers and attended information sessions by the JWB and Achieva Credit Union. Achieva, a community partner with the Parks and Recreation Department, gave their time and expertise to instruct the teens on budgeting their money and balancing a checkbook, opening various types of bank accounts, applying for a loan and applying for credit. These valuable skills will prepare the teens to properly manage their money and obtain credit and loans helping to break the cycle of poverty and debt in their community.
As a continuation of the partnership, Achieva will continue to hold free information sessions on a quarterly basis. These sessions will be open to teen club members throughout the Parks and Recreation system and feature hour-long sessions on career, financial and professional topics.
If you would like more information regarding the Clearwater Parks and Recreation teen programs please contact Karen Maldonado at 727-562-4803 or by e-mail at Karen.Maldonado@myclearwater.com.
Return to Current Edition
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NEW YORK — At last, a head has rolled since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Mary Ryan, Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, has "retired" from the State Department. She was pressured out on July 9 after suffering severe criticism for a program she pioneered called Visa Express. Unique to Saudi Arabia, it fast-tracked visa applications for Saudi citizens and alien residents hoping to come to America. Rather than visit U.S. diplomatic posts, visa applicants were expected to hand their papers to Saudi travel agents who would deliver them to American consular personnel. So long as they could afford passage and did not have criminal records or appear on watch lists, these applicants were greenlighted to enter America, usually with neither interviews nor any other contacts with U.S. officials until they actually landed here.
This program was particularly convenient for Salem Alhamzi, Khalid Almihdar and Abdulaziz Alomari. These Saudi citizens were among the 19 hijackers who killed 3,056 innocents on September 11. Without even being interviewed, these three mass murderers reached U.S. shores through Mary Ryan's brilliant initiative.
Visa Express is gone. So is Ryan and her "I'm OK, You're OK" approach to visa applicants from a hostile, anti-western, anti-American, anti-Semitic country that she embraced like a sandier, flatter Switzerland.
Ryan's departure should force State to practice vigilance rather than hospitality when it screens people eager to come to America — not to see the sights, but to detonate them. State now says it will interview Saudi visa applicants. While it is hard to believe this was not always the case, it is unforgivable that this did not become policy on September 12, 2001 rather than July 10, 2002.
Better yet, visa approval — at least for applicants from pro-terrorist nations like Saudi Arabia — should be shifted to the new Homeland Security Department. Congress is weighing this radical, but prudent, reform of U.S consular operations.
If Mary Ryan is this tale's vanquished villain, its hero is Joel Mowbray, my colleague at National Review Online (NRO). He deserves enormous credit and the nation's gratitude for discovering the Visa Express story and sinking his teeth into it as if he were a pit bull that caught up with a jogger. His initial piece, "Catch the Visa Express," was published in National Review's July 1 issue, which appeared on June 17. The State Department that day changed the program's name and its description on State's web page. Ignoring such cosmetics, Mowbray followed up his scoop with additional NRO and newspaper dispatches, media appearances and testimony before a House panel eager to learn more about the idiocies he unearthed.
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Parliamentary Privilege: Major Developments and Current Issues
Download the full paper as PDF 712Kb
Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.
Background Paper No. 01/2007 by Gareth Griffith
This background paper, which reflects the law as at 1 March 2007, discusses questions and issues in parliamentary privilege that continue to be the subject of debate or uncertainty.
These include the law relating to:
Considered is the case for and against the statutory codification of the powers and privileges of the Houses of the NSW Parliament. [3.5]
- the execution of search warrants, the issuing of subpoenas and orders for discovery in Parliament; [4.5]
- the ‘effective repetition’ of statements outside Parliament and other areas where parliamentary privilege impinges on the law of defamation; [6.3]
- the meaning of the words ‘place out of Parliament’ in Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689; [6.7] and
- the interpretation of statutory secrecy provisions and their effect on parliamentary privilege. [6.8]
Also discussed in this paper are continuing issues relevant to orders and addresses for papers, at the heart of which lies the struggle between Executive power and parliamentary scrutiny. [4.2]
Recent cases are analysed from NSW and comparable jurisdictions. These cases may not point in any discernible direction or reveal any definite trend, turning as most of them do on the particular facts at issue. What can be said by way of a general observation is that the 1999 report of the UK Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, chaired by Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, one of the Law Lords, has proved a landmark in thinking on this subject, one that clearly resonates with the courts in their attempts to apply the principle of non-intervention in contemporary circumstances. With NSW in mind, it might be said that the ‘test of necessity’ favoured by the Joint Committee is really only a restatement of the test of ‘reasonable necessity’ which has always applied in this jurisdiction. What is different perhaps is the new vigour with which the courts, in their capacity as the guardians of the rule of law, approach their task of determining the limits of Parliament’s jurisdiction.
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http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/key/ParliamentaryPrivelige:MajorDevelopmentsandCurrentIssues
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First publishedin Aggregates Business Europe
The Rapid rise in concrete construction in the United Arab Emirates sultanate of Oman is driving investment in quarrying equipment as operators step up aggregate production to meet demand
Oman's network of wadis (dry channels that only flood with water during heavy rain) provide near perfect quarrying conditions. The floodwater travelling at up to 30km/h often deposits similarly sized, unconsolidated silt, sand or rock in the channels that can be quarried easily using wheeled loaders.
Local quarry operator Salem Mohiyaddin Bin Saif & Bros
has been working wadis in Oman since 1975 and has seen demand for aggregates in the region change considerably over the last 32 years. According to founder Salem Mohiyaddin Bin Saif, the market for aggregates in Oman has increased significantly since the company was first established and it has had to look at its production to cope.
The country has moved away from traditional natural stone and mud buildings, which were commonplace in the early 1970s, towards concrete construction. These changing construction techniques combined with the current high levels of investment in infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates has driven increasing demand for aggregates.
Salem Mohiyaddin Bin Saif & Bros's operations have also expanded to meet the growing market and the family now extract from numerous wadis within a 40km radius of the city of Salalah. The quarried material is processed at four sites around the city to deliver red sand, white sand, natural sand and aggregates for the local market. Aggregates are crushed and screened on site at a rate of up to 500tonnes per hour to produce 10mm, 16mm, 20mm and filler materials.
The company has also diversified into concrete block manufacturing and ready mixed concrete. The factory produces up to 50,000 blocks per day - around a 95% share of the local market - while the concrete operation has a fleet of 30 mixer trucks supplying the local area. According to Salem, the company's concrete operations use around 40% of its aggregate production.
Although the company will not disclose its exact production volumes, it is thought to run to several hundred thousand tonnes per year and Salem is expecting demand to continue growing and has been looking at increasing productivity. When Salem Mohiyaddin Bin Saif & Bros first started quarrying in Oman, the aggregates were extracted by hand but operation then switched to second hand wheeled loaders, dozers and crushers.
"The growing demand exposed the weakness of our used equipment," said managing director Hafeedh Bin Aqeel Mohiyadding Saif. "We needed to invest in new loading equipment to improve our production rate to meet the demand." The company has just taken delivery of eight new Volvo
L180E wheeled loaders and the benefits of the new equipment are already being noticed. Hafeedh said, "The new loaders use around 180 litres of fuel a day, compared with 400 litres for the same period with the older units." At 29tonnes the new L180E fleet are smaller than the used machines and take around eight cycles to load a truck compared to the older units, most of which weigh in at around 40tonnes, and take six cycles to fill a truck. "Despite the smaller size and greater number of cycles, the new wheeled loaders are still quicker than our older equipment, which means the cost per tonne is lower," said Salem.
Despite the growing demand for aggregates in the region and the higher productivity delivered by the new Volvo wheeled loader, finding sites to quarry in Oman is becoming more difficult. According to Salem, the Government is starting to restrict wadi dragging licenses as the wadis represent Oman's environmental heritage and local people are becoming very protective of their surroundings. This is forcing Salem's company to extract from more difficult wadis, making the new equipment even more vital to the continued profitability of the quarrying operation
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Letter Campaign To Preserve Oldest Forest Hills Rowhouses & Most Endangered (Please help)
June 21, 2007
I am Michael Perlman, Chairman of the "Rego-Forest Preservation Council," which advocates for the preservation of potential individual landmarks & potential historic districts, throughout Forest Hills & Rego Park, and proudly supports the efforts of other Queens neighborhoods. I would like to inform you of an effort that Jeff Gottlieb (Pres of Central Queens Historical Assoc.) & I are working on. We would appreciate your assistance by composing a letter of support to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).
We are hoping to spare an extremely significant piece of Forest Hills history; the unique "Manhattan-style" rowhouses that are on the west side of 72nd Ave between Austin St & Queens Blvd (108-11, 15, 17, 19, 21 72nd Ave). They are Forest Hills' oldest buildings & the only remaining rowhouses of its type. They were erected in 1906 by Cord Meyer, on the first street to be cut through, Roman Ave (now 72nd Ave). They are also synonymous with the naming of Forest Hills by Cord Meyer. They were dedicated in 1991 by the Central Queens Historical Association, and re-dedicated in Aug 2006 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the rowhouses and Forest Hills' 100th. A plaque notes their significance.
Sadly, the rowhouses on the east side of the street have been completely demolished over the last few years. Out of the 5 remaining rowhouses on the west side, 2 are imminently endangered. They're presently for sale, and being pitched as "a perfect site for developers &/or investors."
Current & vintage photos are as follows: [Click here to view them.]
My proposal to the LPC is here: [Click here to view the text of the letter.] Please feel free to reference any facts, and send your version of the letter to the following addresses:
• Chairman Robert Tierney (email@example.com & firstname.lastname@example.org), and
• Dir. of Research Mary Beth Betts (email@example.com)
and carbon copy:
• Michael Perlman (firstname.lastname@example.org) &
• Jeff Gottlieb (email@example.com).
Also, please encourage other potential supporters to take out a few moments, and do their share. It is important that we unite in solidarity for noteworthy causes in our neighborhood(s).
Thank you for your support!
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Appeals Court Bars Michigan Ban on College Affirmative Action
The National Law Journal
A Michigan law banning race-conscious admissions policies at the state's universities is unconstitutional, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled.
Judge Guy Cole Jr. wrote the majority opinion for a split en banc court in the November 15 ruling in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the University of Michigan.
The decision reversed a March 2008 ruling by Judge David Lawson of the Eastern District of Michigan District that found constitutional a ballot initiative that amended the Michigan constitution to prohibit affirmative action. In November 2006, Michigan voters passed the ballot initiative, known as Proposal 2, by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent.
The initiative amended the Michigan Constitution "to prohibit all sex- and race-based preferences in public education, public employment, and public contracting." Proposal 2 also barred Michigan public colleges and universities or their boards from revisiting the issue without repeal or modification of Article I, Section 26 of the Michigan Constitution.
The case involved a challenge by a collection of interest groups and individuals who sued then-Governor Jennifer Granholm, and top-ranking state university officials the day after Proposal 2 passed.
The ruling by the Sixth Circuit creates a circuit split with one by the Ninth Circuit this year upholding the constitutionality of California's Proposition 209 ban on affirmative action, Wilson and Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Brown.
George Boyer Washington of Detroit's Scheff, Washington & Driver, who argued for plaintiff Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), called the ruling "a tremendous victory…for tens and hundreds of thousands of black, Latino and other minority students." The Michigan law that was just struck down and five other state laws in Arizona, California, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington have "devastated minority enrollment," Washington said. "To have laws that drive down minority enrollment by one-third is just tragically wrong and illegal," Washington said.
In a November 15 statement, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced plans to file a petition of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. Schuette said that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which was overturned by the ruling, "embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law. Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit. We are prepared to take the fight for equality, fairness and the rule of law to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Judges Eric Clay, Bernice Donald, Boyce Martin Jr., Karen Nelson Moore, Jane Branstetter Stranch, Helene White and Senior Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey joined Cole's majority opinion. Chief Judge Alice Batchelder along with judges Deborah Cook, Julia Smith Gibbons, Richard Allen Griffin, John Rogers and Jeffrey Sutton joined two sections of the majority.
Cole began his opinion by comparing an applicant who wanted a Michigan public university to consider her family's alumni connections in her application to a black applicant who wanted the school to adopt a constitutionally permissible race-conscious admissions policy. Cole explained that the legacy applicant has several options for influencing the school, but the only option for the black applicant is to seek repeal of Proposal 2. "The existence of such a comparative structural burden undermines the Equal Protection Clause's guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change," Cole wrote.
Cole cited two U.S. Supreme Court rulings, its 1969 Hunter v. Erickson ruling and its 1982 ruling in Washington v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1: "[Those two cases] emphasize that equal protection of the laws is more than a guarantee of equal treatment under existing law. It is also a guarantee that minority groups may meaningfully participate in the process of creating these laws and the majority may not manipulate the channels of change so as to place unique burdens on issues of importance to them."
He found that Proposal 2 affects a "political process" because the elected university boards can change admissions policies. He also held that it altered the political process in a way that burdens racial minorities. "Because less onerous avenues to effect political change remain open to those advocating consideration of non-racial factors in admissions decisions, Michigan cannot force those advocating for consideration of racial factors to traverse a more arduous road without violating the Fourteenth Amendment."
Judge Danny Boggs delivered a separate dissenting opinion joined by Batchelder. Rogers also filed a dissent, joined by Cook. Sutton also wrote a dissent, joined by Batchelder, Boggs and Cook. Griffin filed an additional dissent.
Gibbons wrote a dissent joined by Batchelder, Cook, Rogers and Sutton. Griffin joined Gibbons' dissent except for a section which stated that Michigan voters "removed admissions policy from the hands of decisionmakers who were unelected and unaccountable"…and "placed it squarely in an electoral process."
In her dissent, Gibbons wrote that "Proposal 2 is not unconstitutional under either a political restructuring theory or under traditional equal protection analysis." She noted that the Supreme Court 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger held that race-based admissions policies must be limited in time and that states and their public universities, not courts, must decide when to end them. Grutter also held that such policies are not constitutionally required, Gibbons observed. "In short, equal protection jurisprudence regarding the use of racial classifications has developed markedly since Seattle was decided, and this development makes clear that applying the political restructuring doctrine to the enactment of Proposal 2 is hardly appropriate."
Gibbons also wrote that "the people of Michigan have not restructured the state's lawmaking process in the manner prohibited by Hunter and Seattle. Instead, their vote removed admissions policy from the hands of decisionmakers who were unelected and unaccountable to either minority or majority interests and placed it squarely in an electoral process in which all voters, both minority and majority, have a voice."
Gibbons said that the evidence shows that, in practice, the university boards do not affect the admissions policies that faculty committees approve. Although someone who seeks legacy preferences in university admissions "may attempt to lobby a faculty committee or university directly, these entities according to the clear testimony of the law school deans and the manner in which authority has been delegated will likely be unresponsive," Gibbons wrote.
In a one-paragraph dissent, Rogers wrote "Under the majority opinion, it is hard to see how any level of state government that has a subordinate level can pass a no-race-preference regulation, ordinance, or law."
Sutton in his dissent wrote, "A first premise for resolving this case is, and must be, that a State does not deny equal treatment by mandating it." Sutton added that there's "nothing unusual" an equal-protection guarantee in a constitution. "That is where individual-liberty guarantees often go, and that, after all, is where the national framers placed the federal counterpart," he wrote.
Finally, Griffin wrote in his dissent that "today's decision is the antithesis of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.…In my view, racial discrimination and racial preference are synonymous."
Judges Raymond Kethledge and David McKeague did not participate in the case decisions.
John Bursch, the Michigan solicitor general, argued for the Attorney General's Office. Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, argued for appellee Chase Cantrell.
Stephanie Setterington, a partner at Varnum in Grand Rapids, Mich., who argued for Wayne State University, declined to comment without her client's permission.
Charles Cooper, chairman of Washington-based Cooper & Kirk who argued for would-be intervenor Eric Russell, did not respond to a request for comment. Leonard Niehoff, an Ann Arbor, Mich., of counsel to Detroit's Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn who argued for the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, also did not respond for a request for comment.
Sheri Qualters can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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January 14, 1901 - London
London, 1901. It was a time when the grip of the Empire stretched into the depths of the African jungle, to the lofty peaks of the Himalayas and to the distant islands of the Pacific. In those days London was the still the commercial centre of the world, the point around which all events pivoted. It was in Queen Victoria's last days, which would see the passing of an era. Soon the automobile would succeed the hansom cab, the electric turbine would replace the water wheel and furnace, and the aeroplane would make its debut at Kittyhawk, North Carolina. But all that was in the future.
Sir Arthur, Ace and the Doctor arrived to see a population going about its business with the leisurely confidence of knowing the world revolved around them. In dark alleys shadowy figures skulked, flitting images gone in the wind. Horses waited patiently, tethered to iron posts. Young debutantes walked hand in hand with eligible bachelors, signs of social circles gearing themselves up for the 'Season', when the far flung nobles of the land would arrive to mingle with Royalty, and improve their prestige among friends.
Sir Arthur let them off at the Royal Albert, while he wound up his affairs with his father's solicitor. The Doctor looked around and then walked up to the ticket office.
‘I'd like two tickets for tonight's performance, please.’
‘You're in luck,’ replied the ticket lady. ‘It's Rama's last night.’
‘Surely you've heard? He arrived a couple of weeks ago from Cairo, and he's been the talk of London ever since.’
‘What does he do, this Rama?’
‘Everything. Magic, fire eating. He's a real wizard with the knives. You can't miss him. He's a great Arab. I don't usually hold with foreigners, but he's something else. Here are your tickets, then. See you tonight.’
‘Oh, one other thing. You wouldn't happen to know where I could find a Mister Henry Jago, would you?’
‘Henry? He retired a few months ago. Can't rightly recall where he is at the moment. Litefoot'll know, though. Professor Litefoot is a great friend of Henry's. He has an office over in Greenwich by the Royal Observatory.’
The Doctor doffed his hat, and escorted Ace back into the sunshine. The ticket lady was busying herself with the cashbox when she felt a cold presence behind her. She started, surprised by the silent dark figure, until recognition dawned.
‘Oh, Mister Rama, you scared me. Creeping up, all silent like. What are you doing here then?’
‘Those two people you were talking to, who were they?’
‘I don't know. Just two people wanting to buy tickets. One was a friend of Mister Jago's though. Seemed to know him from a long time back.’ The Egyptian gave no reply, instead staring intensely at the space where they had been. His expression sent shivers down the ticket lady's spine. She felt that sometimes he possessed knowledge beyond that of mere mortals. There was something eerie about the way he carried himself. Maybe that was why he was so popular with the patrons. Magic of the orient, the fear of the supernatural. But her mind was wandering. Rama had left abruptly, and there were still things to be done. She wondered why he was so interested in the customers, though. Like those two were... special?
A short ride later, a hansom cab dropped off the two time-travellers at Litefoot's offices. The Doctor walked up to the door, and wiped a smudge from the neatly stencilled brass plate on the wall. Grabbing the heavy embossed door knocker he gave several short knocks. The door was opened by a harassed looking clerk.
‘Hello? Do you have an appointment?’
‘I'm the Doctor and this is my assistant Ace. We've got urgent business with Professor Litefoot. Just mention Mr Sin to him, and Giant Rats.’
Inside the building, Professor Litefoot sat, gazing at the window. As Hobbes entered, he made a pretence of poring over various accounts.
‘Yes, Hobbes, what is it?’
‘Two people to see you, Sir.’
‘I'm busy, Hobbes. Tell them to make an appointment.’
‘Very good, Sir. Oh, one mentioned something about giant rats and Mr Sin. Couldn't understand it myself, Sir.’
As Hobbes left, Litefoot stood pondering. ‘Giant rats...’
‘My dear Litefoot,’ the Doctor exclaimed from the doorway.
‘Heavens, this is most improper. Identify yourself at once!’
‘Litefoot, is that any way to greet a friend?’
‘I have never seen you before in my life.’
‘Don't you recognize the Doctor?’ Ace asked curiously.
‘But that's preposterous. He was...’
‘All teeth and curls? Yes, that part gets a bit difficult.’
Litefoot's heart sank. Another madman. Still, he could afford a few minutes of his time to humour this impostor. ‘What brings you here, Doctor? I trust it's nothing too unusual. Henry gets so excited. He's liable to do something foolish.’
‘Actually, we're here for a holiday. Allow me to introduce my companion, Ace.’
‘What's your line, Professor?’ she asked, examining a shrivelled hand on a shelf with unsettling relish.
‘I don't understand.’
‘What's your occupation?’ the Doctor translated.
‘That's what I said!’ she protested indignantly.
‘I am a criminal pathologist.’
‘You cut up a bodies?’
‘That's one way to put it. I prefer to think of it as advancing science.’
‘What do you make of these disappearances, Litefoot?’
Litefoot started to despair. Would there be no end to these questions? ‘They're very strange. Nobody can make head nor tail of them. Henry's the one to ask. He's heard all the rumours. Can't say I pay much attention to them myself.’
‘What about George Cartwright?’
‘Sir Arthur's father? The renowned archaeologist? Now there's an exception. He didn't actually disappear. He was brought into the morgue about a fortnight ago. It was most strange. Sudden heart failure, severe burns. I could have sworn it was a lightning strike.’
‘Where was he found?’
‘In the study of his manor. It might have been electrical charge, but his estate hasn't been put on electricity yet. The circumstances were peculiarly disturbing.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
At that moment, the door opened and Hobbes entered.
‘Mr Jago, sir.’
Henry Jago was just as the Doctor remembered. A few more lines perhaps, the odd grey hair, and a few extra inches round the waistline, but that was all.
‘My dear Henry Jago, how have you been? Still in the music hall business? It's me, the Doctor!’
‘Surely my eyes are deceiving me?’
‘He seems to be the genuine article, Henry,’ said Litefoot, turning to face the newcomer, and winking broadly.
‘Of course I am. Who did you expect? Now Henry, I was wondering if you could give me some information. What do you know of these disappearances?’
Henry was a trifle taken aback by the stranger's effusive manner, but then his showman's instinct reasserted itself. An audience was an audience, no matter who they claimed to be. ‘Rumours have been rife, ever since it started.’ His voice dropped to a low whisper. ‘The latest word from the speculators is that it's a mysterious group.’
‘What sort of group, Henry?’ The Doctor's voice was as quiet as Henry's.
‘An Arab cult, with strange purposes, and stranger ways.’
‘Not Arabs again!’ said Ace, breaking the silence. ‘First there were the two blokes with swords, then we find out about Rama at the ticket office, and now this.’
‘It fits. What do they want though? Tell me, Henry,’ suddenly resolute, 'when did these disappearances first occur?’
‘A couple of weeks ago. I remember Rama had just arrived in town. Must have been the night of his first performance. He created quite a stir, I can tell you. Lockerbie was in the audience, I think. I spoke to him briefly, just as he was leaving. He never made it home that night.’
‘The plot thickens, eh Professor?’ Litefoot started at Ace's comment. It had definitely been addressed at the person calling himself 'the Doctor'.
‘Professor?’ Litefoot glanced at the pair suspiciously.
‘So nice talking to you Litefoot, and you Jago, but we really must be going.’ With this cue, the Doctor tipped his hat and they made a quick exit from Litefoot's office.
When they were gone Jago turned to the pathologist.
‘Do you think it was really him?’
‘If it wasn't, Jago, it was an impersonation the likes of which your Rama would be hard put to match.’ Litefoot sat down, wondering if he would ever know just who the person who had stepped through his door was.
‘But the performance is going to start in half an hour. You can't go out for a walk!’ The theatre manager's protestations went unheeded by the figure methodically wrapping himself up against the cold. The mechanical, bespectacled figure that did up his final buttons was hardly recognisable as the great mystic of the posters.
‘Your performance will not be affected. You will receive the full value of the ticket sales, and none of your patrons will ask for refunds. That is all you need to know. Now go. I have business to attend to.’ The manager thumped his palm in frustration, muttering low inaudible comments about unreliable acts. ‘No, wait.’ Rama called the fuming manager back. ‘Tonight, no one must enter the backstage area, no one. Especially not a short man, with a floppy hat and red-handled umbrella, or a girl, in a black jacket. Watch for them. They could be dangerous.’ The theatre manager was mesmerized by Rama's words, so startled by the request that he could only nod foolishly in agreement. The Arab picked up an umbrella, and strode purposefully out.
‘Doctor...’ began Ace.
‘Shhh. Rama's about to come on. We don't want to miss him.’
Ace looked as if she was going to continue anyway, but then a voice bellowed from the stage.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Royal Albert is proud to present, in his last night in London, the incomparable Great Rama!’ There was a thunderous round of applause from the packed house. Rama had drawn a capacity audience to see his final act.
The clapping died down. Silence stole over the crowd. Ace involuntarily held her breath, waiting to see what would happen. Almost imperceptibly the gaslights dimmed, until the theatre was nearly pitch black.
Suddenly the stage blazed into life. The curtains had parted in the darkness. On the stage stood a huge throne, standing high upon a large platform. Wide steps led down to the stage floor, where dozens of dark skinned figures prostrated themselves, chanting strange words, a deep constant hum. An explosive cheer welled from the crowd.
As the cheering died down, Ace noticed the figure on the golden throne. Dressed in vermilion robes, he commanded attention. His face was clean, his hair closely cropped, a magnificent crown adorned his head. To Ace's eyes they didn't look like Arabs... her mind struggled to remember a long-forgotten history class. The crown he wore... her face creased in concentration.
‘The crown of the high priest,’ she exclaimed, momentarily forgetting where she was.
‘What is it?’ whispered the Doctor.
‘This Rama bloke is wearing the crown of the high priest of Amunra. On important ceremonial occasions, the high priest of Amunra wears this special crown.’
‘What sort of important occasions?’
‘Only on the death or coronation of a king of the united kingdom.’
‘Who's Amunra? I seem to have forgotten that particular god.’
‘Not surprising really. Our history teacher dredged him up from some prehistoric textbook. Some king ascended to the throne and thought he better cut the church down to size. So he replaced the old gods with new ones, and a hierarchy controlled by him. He was murdered by fanatics four years later, who wanted the old gods back. The high priest vanished taking his crown with him.’
‘Until now. I think a word with the great Rama after the performance wouldn't go amiss.’ Deciding on a course of action, the Doctor settled down to enjoy Rama's act.
Rama had stood up while they were talking, and now he moved to the front of the wide platform. He started to speak, a rich mellow timbre, complemented by the low chanting from the worshippers.
‘A light for the Temple of the Sun,’ he boomed. He held a club in one hand, its head shrouded in a pitch soaked rag. He slowly held it aloft and tilted his head back. Pausing for what seemed an eternity, he then began to exhale. There were gasps of admiration and awe. As he breathed out, a jet of flame lit the torch. He held out a hand to silence the applause.
‘As night comes, so darkness falls.’ The torch descended. Ace realized with fascinated horror that he was going to swallow the flame. The fiery head disappeared into Rama's mouth, then emerged extinguished. Suddenly he tossed the torch into the air.
The move caught the audience by surprise. Hardly had they registered the fact that he no longer held the club, than he was holding a golden sceptre seemingly plucked from the rafters. The clapping was rapturous.
He motioned for silence. An almost imperceptible signal, and hidden drums boomed. At the back of the platform, two sun-bronzed giants opened an ornate gate set in the rear wall.
Out wafted a beautiful young woman, her face veiled by soft white robes that might have floated on and stuck there. She paused, the gaslights now catching her radiance. Rama beckoned. Smoothly she flowed beside him.
He turned and gently lifted the delicate veil. He murmured a few low words, unintelligible to the audience. As he spoke, he brought the sceptre up and started to move it across the girl's face in a complicated pattern. Slowly, he increased the speed up the sceptre's passage. His words were louder, clearer. Now the legions of figures on the stage were providing an invisible counterpoint, echoing the words, magnifying them, filling the hall with their power. It was only a short phrase repeated over and over. Yet nobody could think of anything else.
‘Rahtep, Rahtep Ularum, Rahtep, Rahtep Ularum.’
Ace was concentrating on the pattern the sceptre was making. The speed was dizzying. The Egyptian's words drummed on her skull. The rhythm of the drum was almost hypnotic. She couldn't tear herself away. The theatre blurred. She felt herself slipping... ‘Ace!’ The Doctor's sharp whisper brought her back to self awareness with a snap. She looked at the stage. The young woman was now in a trance. Rama had stopped the sceptre's bewildering flight, and was now using it to emphasize his words.
‘Rahtep, Rahtep Ularum, Rahtep, Rahtep Ularum.’
Now Rama was speaking alone. At every emphasis he thrust the sceptre at the air. It was as if he was trying to levitate the woman by will-power alone.
Then to the audience's astonishment, the woman slowly began to rise, a few inches at a time. When she was several feet off the stage, Rama changed the direction of his movements. He started to draw the sceptre across his chest, struggling against some invisible force, still chanting.
The woman's body turned till she was lying on her back. The delicate robes hung from her limply, shaping the curve of her body. She began to move forward, floating across the platform. At the far side, Rama motioned the figure to stop. There was silence.
To Ace, watching a magician levitate someone was not a new experience. However it was the first time she had seen it in a live performance, and even by her own modern standards she couldn't help but admire Rama. He knew exactly how to hold an audience.
A large board was rolled out by some invisible stagehand. To Ace's surprise Rama positioned the woman on it. Ace corrected herself - the woman was floating upright a few inches in front of the board, still trance-like.
Rama plucked several knives seemingly out of thin air. Each one was a masterpiece unto itself. The blades were curved with a wicked edge, but the handles were ivory, intricately carved. He held them aloft, then turned towards the woman. He stood perhaps fifteen feet away, on the opposite side of the platform. Ace could see that the board extended about a foot from either side of the girl. Rama drew back one of the glittering blades.
The first knife whistled through the air, to sink into the wood above the girl's head. More knives followed the first, outlining a pattern around Rama's assistant. The supply seemed endless. When the last one was thrown Ace counted twenty four knives sticking from the woodwork, none more than six inches away from her immobile body. The applause was deafening.
Rama put on a blindfold, and held up his last knife. This one was the most ornate of all, with colourless gems flashing above the painstakingly carved handle. Ace looked to see what his target was. She gasped. The woman was holding a small wooden target, not more than three inches across. How could Rama possibly hit such a target blindfolded?
Rama was not even facing her. His back was turned as he held out the knife in front of him. With no almost no apparent movement, he flicked the shining blade across the stage. There was silence for a moment as the audience tried to discern where the knife had landed. It was then they noticed the target. In the exact centre protruded the ornate knife.
Before the audience could react the lights went out. One woman screamed and pandemonium was unleashed on the unsuspecting crowd. Shouts, screams, a cacophony of panicking gentry, forced to suffer incalculable damage to their dignity. Finally the lights rose. A short balding gentleman, perspiring heavily, walked out in front of the lowered curtain.
‘I'm sorry for that interruption to the performance. We had a minor technical difficulty which we are working on. However I'm afraid to say that the rest of the evening's entertainment will have to be cancelled. Partial refunds are available at the door.’ He walked off, and ushers appeared, to escort the unsettled audience out.
As the crowd slowly shuffled towards the exits, Ace noticed the Doctor hadn't moved.
‘What's up, Professor?’
‘I'm just interested in knowing where Rama is at this moment.’
‘We're going to take a look, aren't we?’
‘And the staff won't like that, will they?’
‘Not particularly, I'd imagine.’
‘So what are we waiting for?’
The stage of the Royal Albert was a cathedral. Cat-walks and ladders stretched as high as the eye could see. Ace peered into the unfathomable depths of the stage. The Doctor had found an oil lamp in some corner, and was now casting it round the gloom. What they saw was unsettling.
The stage was empty. Not one set, not one board remained to betray the existence of the act which they had witnessed scant minutes before. Nobody was in sight. Of the cast of hundreds, not one lost soul was in sight. The Doctor bent down.
‘Looking for clues, Professor?’
‘Yes. Look at this dust.’
‘What about it?’
‘Elementary, my dear Ace.’ Slowly he dragged his finger across, revealing a thick coat on the stage. ‘This dust hasn't been disturbed for a long time.’
‘But that's impossible, we saw...’
‘Never rely on what you see, Ace. Things are not always what they seem.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘I think I'd like to have a word with the great Arabian magician, Rama. You, are going to wait for Sir Arthur. He should be back any minute.’
She was left talking to the darkness.
The maze of corridors honeycombing the dark recesses of the theatre could be daunting at the best of times, but the Doctor wasted no time in finding Rama's dressing room as soon as possible. There was only one problem, and it stood six feet tall.
It was only as he was staring at the sentry's muscular torso that the Doctor realized he wasn't going to be allowed in. The Doctor retreated a little, and considered his choices. He was several hundred years out of practice with his Venusian Aikido, and he didn't favour his chances against the brawny Arab's sabre. The guard looked impassively resistant to bribery, not that he had much of worth anyway. Intimidation he could rule out, pleading was too humiliating, and the guard might as well have been set in stone.
Still he had to try. The Doctor slowly sauntered up to the guard...
Ace was getting irritable. Sir Arthur had turned up, but the Doctor had been gone for ages.
‘Come on, Sir Arthur.’
He looked up in surprise. 'Where are we going?’
‘It's time we found the Doctor,’ she said nonchalantly.
‘But... but the sign says Staff Only.’
‘When do you ever follow the sign's advice? Come on.’ She tugged him through the door.
The corridor beyond the door was like the entrance to Hades. It stretched on into darkness, doors branching off on either side. They rounded a corner and...
‘Looking for something?’ The voice was cold and hard. Ace's gaze moved upwards to fix on the granite features of the Theatre Manager.
‘A friend of ours is down here,’ Ace said, without her usual bluster.
‘You are mistaken. This area is off limits to the public.’
‘I would advise you, Sir, that I am Sir Arthur Cartwright, of the Royal Society. We are assisting the investigation of Inspector Mackerby into the recent and sudden disappearances. I hope you will do all you can do help our inquiry.’ Ace was amazed by Sir Arthur's speech, and it seemed the theatre manager was taken aback as well.
‘Do you have proof of your authenticity?’
‘You doubt the word of a knight of the realm?!’ Sir Arthur exploded. ‘I have in my possession the royal seal, and a special dispensation signed by her majesty, Queen Victoria herself! Sir, you offend me!’ The theatre manager was completely undone by Sir Arthur's brutal condemnation.
‘How could I possibly think that you were anything but what you claimed to be? I am your humble and obedient servant, Sir. Anything I can do to help?’ Sir Arthur winked at Ace.
‘Yeah, bilge bag, what happened to the sets for Rama's act?’ The theatre manager's reply might have been markedly different if Sir Arthur had not been looking sternly at him. As it was he reined in his barely controlled temper.
‘I don't know. Rama agreed to provide all his own sets and costumes, if we would let him perform. Any theatre owner would jump at the chance, especially if he had an act with the crowd pulling power of Rama. He was sensational. This was his last night. He was responsible for what he did with the sets.’
‘Can we perhaps have a word with Rama?’ said Sir Arthur, matter of factly.
‘I'm afraid that after the performance he disappeared completely, along with everything he brought with him. His contract had expired so we weren't overly worried. He left prematurely I know, but we can't do much about it.’
‘I think that about concludes our enquiries. I will pass on your information to Scotland Yard. Thank you for your time.’
The Doctor was frustrated. He had completely exhausted his repertoire of tricks to get past stubborn guards. Even his unusually fertile Time Lord imagination failed to produce a satisfactory solution to his problem.
Irritated and annoyed, he set out to rejoin Ace. His agitated state of mind could be blamed for his lack of concentration. But whatever the reason, the Doctor soon found himself lost in the labyrinthine underworld. It was only by pure chance that he stumbled on an exit.
The Doctor found himself in a dark alleyway. Debris piled high, like silt resting on a river bed, catching in rips and eddies. The Doctor had experienced alleyways on a multitude of worlds, but one was much the same as another. The forgotten parts of cities, invisible to the public at large.
The Doctor disliked alleyways. They often reflected the real character of cities, and this was not always a pretty site. He had once written a thesis on the philosophy of alleyways. They were places for intrigue, for secret rendezvous, brutal murders and displaced souls. Of course the thesis had been heavily censored when he had started wondering why Gallifrey had more dark alleys than anywhere else. He had abandoned the project and delved into bus stations instead, which were an unknown concept on Gallifrey.
Just when the Doctor thought he should probably start to find Ace and Sir Arthur, his musings were interrupted. Was that a shadow he saw? He quickly dismissed it as a figment of his imagination.
There, another one! Never quite in full view, they danced like fairies at the edge of his vision. The Doctor started towards the road.
Something banged behind him. He whirled to see a startled cat fleeing as some unidentified piece of antique garbage lay creaking on the cobbles. He relaxed and turned.
The war-cry was unexpected and shocking. From some high perch a white figure leaped in front of the Doctor, sabre brandished viciously. The Doctor turned and saw to his dismay that from behind him, more white-robed figures were approaching. As they encircled him he could not help but notice the evil swords they wielded. The fearsome edges were starting to get uncomfortably close, and he couldn't help but think Ace was right...
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With her background at Shelter, Louise Casey understands the power that a strong case history can have in humanising and illustrating a complex policy issue. But her report on interviews with 16 families, in her current role as Head of the Government’s ‘Troubled Families’ project (or Troubled Families Tsar if you prefer), published this week, leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
The problem lies not so much in the project itself, which builds on the previous and successful work on family intervention, but in the spin and the dirty politics that lie behind it. A potentially useful programme is being dressed up for media consumption to make a point.
We have commented before that Ministers seem absolutely determined to portray these ‘troubled families’ in a particular way, to caricature them as depraved not deprived. That way they hope the public will conclude that all we have to do is address the personal behaviour of a tiny minority, heaping the blame on the so-called dependency culture rather than poverty and failing services.
The original estimate of the size of the problem, which led to the adoption of the oft-repeated ‘120,000 families’ figure, was based on 2004 data which took a much wider view of indicators of multiple deprivation, including poor housing, no qualifications, mental health problems, disability, and inadequate income to cover basics. The criteria for the selection of families are now much more targeted at involvement in crime, risk of going into care, school truancy, and domestic violence, factors that have very little to do with the original 120,000. This has been expertly exposed by Jonathan Portes and by Fullfact. As New Statesman says ‘This zombie statistic refuses to die’.
The excellent Fullfact have challenged the way CLG spins the 16 as being somehow representative of the 120,000, which they aren’t, and then spins the 120,000 as being somehow representative of a whole underclass, which is misconceived.
It looks like the project itself is being steered away from families experiencing multiple deprivation (which might require public resources to resolve) towards the Prime Minister’s idea of neighbours from hell (and he has experience given what we have discovered about his neighbours in Chipping Norton), and towards Eric Pickles’ notion of people we should understand less and condemn more. Gone are the criteria relating to poor housing and disability and low income. And nowhere is there reference to the fact that existing Family Intervention Projects have been subject to cuts so there are fewer services not more.
Casey’s report on the selection of 16 families is undoubtedly grim. The stories of violence and abuse are shameful and disturbing. As always, there are a few families that fit the Shameless stereotype and you do wonder what young people are being taught about contraception. But ultimately the report reads like a script from the loathsome Jeremy Kyle Show: pointing at the Chavs and moralising about their sub-human behaviour. Despite being mainly in the families’ own words, it feels like it has been put together by a redundant News of the World journalist.
I couldn’t get past case study 7 and jumped to the end. Here we find an assessment of the evidence that is largely balanced and occasionally insightful. But most journalists didn’t get that far and so more lurid headlines are generated. ‘Criminal culture at the heart of feckless families: Shocking report lifts lid on incest, abuse and spiral of alcohol abuse’ said the Daily Mail. No wonder that Zoe Williams in the Guardian concluded: ‘I believe the ulterior motive is the demonisation of the poor’.
The problem with the whole underclass theory is that many of the behaviours that are identified are classless. Undoubtedly they have a much harsher impact, and are a lot harder to resolve, when the family is also badly housed, poorly educated, and very poor – but that is the bit the Government doesn’t want to recognise. Having a child with ADHD, or a parent with mental ill-health, as many of the 16 families have, would devastate most middle class families with good incomes. Alcohol and drugs can have a huge impact on even the wealthiest families, witness the Rausings; but children from wealthy homes don’t normally end up in the disastrous care system. Sexual abuse and violence have been perpetrated by the most religious as well as the most godless. And as for incest…..
The problems faced by the 16, or the 120,000, and indeed many more families, are rooted in poverty and bad housing whatever their individual pathology or personal failures. The latter will not be treated without also treating the former.
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Independence Movement Holding Sahrawi for "Espionage" After He Backed Morocco's Autonomy Plan for Region
(Washington, DC) - The Polisario Front, the Western Sahara independence movement, should release a dissident detained on September 21, 2010, if the real reason for his arrest is his vocal support for Morocco's autonomy plan, Human Rights Watch said today.
Polisario security forces arrested Mostapha Selma Sidi Mouloud, a police officer, as he travelled toward the Polisario-run Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria. His arrest followed a visit to Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, during which he publicly declared his support for Morocco's proposal to resolve the conflict over the disputed territory's future by granting it autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
"Selma publicly praised Morocco's solution to the conflict and said he would return to Tindouf to defend it, which is his right," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "If the Polisario Front wants to show that they are not persecuting Selma for his views, it should free him immediately or ensure that he receives a fair and transparent trial on credible charges."
The Polisario Front, which administers Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria with the approval and support of the Algerian government, demands a popular referendum on the political future of Western Sahara. Morocco has administered the territory de facto as if it were part of its own territory since seizing control over it when Spain, the former colonial power, withdrew in 1975.
A UN-backed plan to organize a referendum was set in motion in conjunction with a Polisario-Morocco ceasefire in 1991, but stalled in the face of opposition from Morocco. Morocco rejects independence as an option for Western Sahara and has proposed instead a measure of autonomy under continued Moroccan rule.
In the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, support for Morocco's autonomy plan is rarely heard publicly. The Polisario Front and its supporters consider Morocco an occupation force in their homeland and its autonomy proposal a denial of Sahrawis' right to self-determination.
While Selma is not the first Sahrawi refugee to return to Western Sahara and back Moroccan sovereignty, he may be the first to have done so in so public a fashion and then announced that he would return to Tindouf to defend this position.
In a statement issued today, the Interior Ministry of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the state proclaimed by the Polisario Front, said it had arrested Selma yesterday for espionage on behalf of "the enemy [Morocco]," to which he had "publicly pledged loyalty" and "divulged secrets" relating to Sahrawi institutions. The statement said that Selma would be referred to Sahrawi justice under the terms of the SADR's penal law relating to "espionage" and "treason."
Selma reportedly had no prior political profile in the refugee camps, where he lives in el-Ayoun camp with his wife and five children.
At a news conference on August 9 in Smara, Western Sahara, Selma praised the autonomy plan as a viable third option between independence and full integration into Morocco.
Following Selma's news conference, Polisario officials promptly denounced "traitors" to the cause, in an apparent reference to him. The next day, Brahim Ghali, the Polisario ambassador to Algeria, declared, "Traitors would in no way deter the Sahrawi people in pursuing their struggle for self-determination."
Reached today by telephone in Smara, Mohamed Sheikh, Selma's brother, said his family in the Tindouf camps did not know where he was being held. Late in the day, a Polisario source informed Human Rights Watch that he was being held in Mehrez, in the small section of Western Sahara that it controls.
Human Rights Watch urged the Polisario to disclose Selma's precise whereabouts, to provide him prompt access to his family and a lawyer, and to bring him promptly before an independent judicial body to determine whether there is a well-founded basis for his detention.
Human Rights Watch also reminded Algeria of its responsibility to guarantee human rights of all persons on its territory, whether or not the state has, de facto, ceded supervision of the Sahrawi refugee camps to the Polisario Front.
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Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.
In the DMZ separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier. But the 11 bullets found in the bodies, together with the 5 ... See full summary »
A Navy navigator is shot down over enemy territory and is ruthlessly pursued by a secret police enforcer and the opposing troops. Meanwhile his commanding officer goes against orders in an attempt to rescue him.
Young Bruno lives a wealthy lifestyle in prewar Germany along with his mother, elder sister, and SS Commandant father. The family relocates to the countryside where his father is assigned to take command a prison camp. A few days later, Bruno befriends another youth, strangely dressed in striped pajamas, named Shmuel who lives behind an electrified fence. Bruno will soon find out that he is not permitted to befriend his new friend as he is a Jew, and that the neighboring yard is actually a prison camp for Jews awaiting extermination. Written by
Although the concentration camp where the movie is set is never actually mentioned by name throughout the movie, we know it is Auschwitz because it was the only Nazi death camp with 4 crematoria. The SS officers are discussing the building's construction in the Commandant's office when Bruno's mother interrupts the meeting. In the book it is referred to as "Out-With" (coming from the P.O.V. of Bruno, who is only nine years old and can't pronounce some words properly). See more »
(At 46:04 > 46:15) After Bruno visits Shmuel and throws the ball into the concentration camp, Bruno comes back to the house, and as he shuts the back door he is caught by his mum. Yet as the camera moves to his mum and back to Bruno, the back door is ajar again. See more »
Mum, what's going on?
Mm, your father's been given a promotion.
That means a better job.
I know what promotion is.
So we're having a little party to celebrate.
He's still going to be a soldier though, isn't he?
[...] See more »
Quotation displayed before the opening titles: "Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows - John Betjeman" See more »
Although it starts of slow,you soon get wrapped up in the story and feel as if you are there. It's amazing to see the different points of view and the acting is so believable you feel as if it is all happening there and then. I have cried at films in the cinema before but this is the only film that has made me want to sob. When it finished and the credits started rolling, no one moved from their seats or said anything. We were all shocked, and when people did start to get up an leave the cinema, still no one said anything. It is the best film i have ever seen and recommend everyone sees it.
Sophie x x x
109 of 140 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- If you've paid your car insurance bill lately, you probably did not notice the $10 dollar fee that is tacked on for the "mandatory NY Motor Vehicle Law Enforcement Fee." It is officially known as Section 9110 of the State Insurance Law. But one of our viewers named Mary did and contacted WGRZ - 2 On Your Side to ask us to look into it.
After checking with a variety of state agencies, we determined that the funds collected go to the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services and the New York State Police. The State Division of Budget puts the total fee amount collected at $119.1 Million for the fiscal year 2011-12.
A spokesperson for the Division of Criminal Justice Services says they get a fixed amount of $4.7 Million. That money is then distributed in the form of grants to police and prosecutors here in Western New York and around the state. Those grants are used for car theft and auto insurance fraud investigations, training, and cases.
A state police spokesman says $9.1 Million of the fee goes into the Motor Vehicle Enforcement Account which is used for detection, prosecution, and reduction of insurance fraud and vehicle theft prevention. The remaining fund of nearly $105 Million dollars allocated to the state police are used for activities related to highway safety and public security according to a state police spokesman. The State Police Public Information Office also points out that this funding replaces budget money that had come from other revenue sources.
Budget Division spokesman Morris Peters says that it does not appear that any of this funding goes to the state general fund. We asked him if this is actually a transfer of funds of moving revenue from one agency to another. He claims it is not and that the revenue from the fee is being used in accordance with the law.
This fee has also been raised significantly through the years. It went from the original $1 dollar ten years in 1993 to $5 dollars in 2005 and then was doubled up to $10 dollars in 2009 which was the height of the state's budget crisis during the recession.
We will follow this story by contacting state lawmakers and the State Comptroller's Office to determine more about how the funds are spent.
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Dreamliner quick fix looks less likely
Boeing still investigating battery concerns
As the mystery deepened surrounding the new 787 Dreamliner battery system, U.S. transportation investigators were set to oversee more tests aimed at determining the cause of a fire central to the grounding of the Boeing jetliners.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the next round of testing was planned for Tuesday in Arizona.
Earlier tests conducted in Washington showed that a lithium-ion battery that caught fire aboard an empty Japan Airlines 787 in Boston this month was not overcharged, the board said on Sunday.
That determination ruled out one relatively simple explanation, potentially making the broader investigation more challenging and dragging out problems for the world's biggest aircraft manufacturer as well as the airlines globally that fly the technologically advanced wide body.
The Boston fire and a subsequent incident involving a battery alarm and a report of a burning smell on another 787 that made an emergency landing in Japan prompted the Federal Aviation Administration and other safety agencies globally to ground the Dreamliner last week.
The stakes for quickly and decisively figuring out what is wrong with the Dreamliner are enormous for Boeing, which has placed a huge commercial bet on the aircraft's success.
Only 50 have flown since the model entered service in 2012, but the manufacturer struggled for years to bring it on line and has several hundred orders in the pipeline.
The $200 million planes, including six flown by United Airlines, are grounded until the manufacturer can demonstrate that the problem is fixed and the plane safe to fly.
The Boston and Japan incidents were among a series of mechanical and other Dreamliner glitches that have been reported since it entered service.
Sunday's NTSB announcement "doesn't bode as well for a quick fix as Boeing would have liked," said John Goglia, a former member of the safety board, which investigates aviation and other transportation accidents.
"It's one step in the process. It's not great news, but it's not bad news either," Goglia said.
Mary Schiavo, a former U.S. Transportation Department inspector general who remains outspoken on aviation safety as a lawyer in private practice, agreed with Goglia.
"It does not sound like a quick resolution is in store for Boeing," the former watchdog said.
The main investigation, which also involves the FAA and Boeing, focuses on the 787's cutting-edge lithium ion battery system that powers the plane's auxiliary power unit. The APU, for instance, powers the plane's systems when the engines are idle.
The batteries in question are manufactured by Japan's GS Yuasa, under a subcontract to France-based Thales, Boeing said. But other companies, such as units of United Technologies and other vendors, contribute to the plane's extensive electrical system.
Officials from Japan's Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry and the FAA conducted a site inspection of GS Yuasa's headquarters in Kyoto, Japan, on Monday and Tuesday, said Yasuo Ishii of Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau. The inspections are expected to last several days, Ishii said.
GS Yuasa said it is "fully cooperating in the investigation to determine the cause" of the problem but "could not comment on the details" of the inspection.
The investigation aims to identify the problem. It will be up to Boeing and its partners to figure out a remedy satisfactory to the FAA.
The next step for the safety board will occur on Tuesday in Tucson, Arizona, where the battery charger and power starter unit will be tested and relevant data downloaded. Testing on other components will be conducted by various manufacturers.
The examination of data from the Boston 787 indicated its APU battery did not appear to be overcharged by exceeding its designed voltage of 32 volts, according to Sunday's NTSB statement. But experts pointed out to CNN that there was no mention in the statement about how quickly the JAL 787 battery was discharging.
Discharging the battery too quickly, or with too low voltage, can also cause it to overheat, said University of Dayton professor Raul Ordonez, an aircraft electrical and computer engineer who spent time observing Dreamliner development at Boeing's Seattle headquarters.
Investigators in Washington have taken X-rays and CT scans of the lithium-ion battery that caught fire in Boston, the safety board said. They have also dismantled the battery and examined some of its individual cells.
The agency said it has also examined several other components from the plane, including wire bundles and battery management circuit boards.
"The fact that the NTSB is basically looking at every component around the battery, including the computer hardware and the (memory) software, means that they have no idea yet about a culprit and (they) suspect everything," Ordonez said.
Whatever the fix, Schiavo said any changes other than minor will require at least some re-engineering which will in turn require FAA approval. Both of those can result in a "slow process taking months, depending on the extent of engineering changes."
Boeing is using the lithium-ion batteries to electronically assist some of the functions that were previously performed using hydraulics. A lighter plane is more fuel efficient, which is one of the 787's main selling points.
There is no need to drain lithium-ion batteries fully before recharging, meaning less maintenance, though they can catch fire if overcharged.
Airbus uses lithium-ion batteries to power some systems aboard its A350 airliners. A spokeswoman said in a statement to CNN that Airbus "will carefully study any recommendations that come out of the 787 investigation and evaluate whether they apply to the A350 XWB," a new airliner still being developed by Airbus.
"Boeing was very, very lucky there was no catastrophic event," said Schiavo. "But, the luckiest of all is Airbus ... now they can make the fixes [to the A350 XWB] without the public relations hit Boeing has taken."
Boeing said Friday it will not deliver any Dreamliners to its customers as it works with the FAA over the battery concerns.
"We need to get the bottom of this," said Goglia. "We need to get comfortable with flying these airplanes again."
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Photos and VideosMore Photos and Videos
President Obama will deliver later tonight what is undoubtedly the most important speech of his presidency so far.
His domestic policy priority depends on convincing Congress -- or at least the right mix of influential moderates (like Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus) and liberal Democrats -- that a plan to guarantee the American people's physical health is a necessity at this time, not a luxury.
Problem is, the aforementioned American people -- the other principal audience to which this address is directed -- seem to have adopted a priority that may be 180 degrees from the president's.
To wit: The public has seemingly decided that fiscal health might be more important than guaranteeing physical health.
The signs are everywhere: Americans cut their debt by a record amount in July. And it wasn't even close -- debt was slashed five-fold from what economists were predicting. Consumers are turning more frugal in all areas. The back to school period, traditionally the second-biggest sales period of the year (after pre-Christmas), has seen a clear drop since last year.
Besides cutting debt and adopting thrifty behavior from a bygone days, the public is also putting more cash into savings.
So, with all of this, President Obama will ask the Congress to approve a plan that will cost taxpayers at least $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And, yes, that's in the face of a projected 10-year deficit of $9 trillion.
Barack Obama, who adopted new social media tools like Twitter and Facebook two years ago as he launched his presidential campaign, found novel ways to reach his voters and the public at large.
Alas, President Obama has forgotten the old Nietzsche phrase, "If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Just as individuals are achingly aware of their own financial circumstances, so too has this information-drenched age made the public as a whole much more painfully aware of how much the nation now over-spends. Indeed, people are more worried about ballooning red ink than they are about whether health care will be overhauled. They're cutting up the credit cards in their personal lives and are beginning to wonder why the government can't start doing the same with their public dollars.
That's the reality to which President Obama speaks this evening. He may be able to corral enough of Congress to get members to go his way.
But what if that direction is completely different than the one the American people are going in?
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Is it really Sephardic? Is it Sephardic enough?
Ethnic food is born and evolves out of common cultural experience and worldview. There’s no law against creating your own modern Sephardic recipes and no need to think you can’t do a riff on someone else’s version of a traditional one, either. We can be become so obsessed with preserving our culture that we tend to deny ourselves permission to experiment, or to accept someone else’s interpretation of something as valid, even if they’re from within the same culture. This holds true for any people (but probably with a higher level of anxiety when they’re propagandized as being extinct!). But it’s openness and experimentation that keep all cultures alive and interesting, and that can also get things back on track if they’ve lost their connection to a basic principle. If you do lose touch with the fundamentals of your own culinary heritage, if you start using too many shortcuts and too many substitutions, you deviate so far from your roots that you’re left not so much with a pale imitation of the real article as with something virtually unrecognizable. Continue reading
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In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to ... See full summary »
In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family. Written by
Review: The Necessities of Life/Ce qu'il faut pour vivre 9*/10
It's a tale of hopelessness, terror, confusion and desperation, and Ungalaaq makes you feel all of that. The Necessities of Life has done well on the festival circuit and was Canada's entry for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year, although it didn't make the final cut to be in the running Sunday.
Language barriers are no problem with sub-titles, but even without them I think the film would still work just in how Ungalaaq manages to get so much across with expression and pitch. Éveline Gélinas as a sympathetic nurse is also very good, as the relationship between her and Tivii shows that common language is not an impediment to either friendship or understanding. I also liked Denis Bernard in a small role as a sympathetic priest that tries to help Tivii adapt an orphaned Inuit that's also a patient in the hospice; some genuine laughs are mined out of their visit to the monsignor.
This proves that things aren't all black and white in the story. The actions of the government are not driven by I think some imperialist mentality, but by the notion that they were genuinely doing all right by the Inuit by taking them far from home and treating them in spite of everything. Their self-deluded altruism may have blinded them to certain facts on the ground, but Necessities isn't a story about the right-or-wrong of government policy. It's the story of one man's struggle to get some semblance of control of his situation, and whether or not he can maintain a sense of self so far from home. It's a simply powerful story that works its magic in small and unexpected ways.
At times filled with humor and warmth and at others feeling compounded by isolation and a hint of claustrophobia, Necessities of Life reaches out from the past and across cultures to remind us how fragile we are in a number of equally important ways. Is one's health worth a trip hundreds of miles away from home and being thrown into the deep end of some strange culture? It's a tough question, and while I think I know my answer, it's up to the audience to make up there own minds as to whether Tivii's journey made him the worse for ware, or worn for the better
In examining what constitutes the necessities of life, Pilon presents a variety of options communication, belonging, acceptance and family. But chief among them is dignity.
Seen at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
25 of 27 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
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“Exceptionally, we have taken issue with the rating agency. It’s something we don’t like to do but there comes a point when the analysis is not robust” NTMA CEO, John Corrigan in August 2010 re-acting to Standard and Poor’s downgrade of Ireland’s sovereign debt
“The projections include Fund and EU disbursements. Government-guaranteed NAMA bonds are excluded, based on Eurostat guidance. For 2015, no policy change is assumed” IMF first and second review Staff Report, May 2011
The Irish government doesn’t, the IMF doesn’t, Eurostat doesn’t but ratings agencies do regard NAMA bonds as part of our national debt. This entry examines the difference in position and what it means for our country’s creditworthiness and prospects for re-entering the money markets.
First up, NAMA bonds are State-guaranteed pieces of paper which NAMA gave the banks in return for loans. The banks tend to exchange these pieces of paper for cash with the ECB and thereby we have the miracle of banks exchanging a class of loan assets which are of doubtful value with nice, crisp cash of certain value. Presently NAMA bonds amount to approximately €30bn. These bonds will be redeemed by NAMA by 2020, in other words, NAMA needs to generate €30bn in cash from its operations over the next ten years. In addition to NAMA bonds, there is also something called NAMA subordinated bonds which represent 5% of what NAMA paid the banks for their loans. These subordinated bonds will only be redeemed if NAMA makes a profit. The subordinated bonds amount to €1-2bn and that is on top of the €30bn of NAMA bonds. It should be noted that there exists a possibility that the sub-€20bn land and development and associated lending at AIB and Bank of Ireland, totalling €16.6bn gross, may yet go to NAMA and NAMA might be expected to pay €7bn for these loans based on its experience with its existing portfolio. NAMA may also absorb another €3bn-odd of loans whose borrowers have thus far been objecting to NAMA’s involvement and this loans may require NAMA to issue some €2bn of bonds. And the NAMA Act confers on NAMA the ability to raise up to €5bn to help complete developments. Taking all of this into account, NAMA could have a potential gross liability of €45bn.
Plainly at the outset, NAMA’s €30bn of bonds are backed by loans which are worth €30bn. Okay NAMA paid a 10% long term economic value premium for the loans which meant that NAMA automatically over-paid at the start and also NAMA’s main property market, Ireland has dropped 10-20% since the date by reference to which the loans were valued. Though on the other hand, 5% of the consideration paid for the loans, the subordinated bonds, will only be honoured by NAMA if the agency makes a profit. But give or take (actually, at this early stage it’s most definitely “take”) low single-digit billions, NAMA is still sitting on assets that roughly equate to the NAMA bonds.
And remember that NAMA is still an agency independent of government. Yes, we’ll all smile at that one but on a strict evaluation of the agency’s role and its funding, it has been so judged by Eurostat, the EU agency whose responsibilities including setting standards for measuring member state national debt. Eurostat’s preliminary view of NAMA’s bonds was that they were not to be regarded as part of the national debt. There is a detailed entry on Eurostat’s assessment here, including a copy of the assessment, but in brief, Eurostat paid heed to NAMA’s shareholders which include a 51% holding by private investors and the probability of NAMA making a profit (and the vestigial bank levy should NAMA make a loss). The government has gone to great pains to maintain this semblance of independence; the initial €49m shareholding was converted to a loan which was repaid and even though the State now owns 95% of AIB which in turn owns 17% of the 51% private NAMA shareholding, the State has seemed keen to bat away any suggestion that NAMA is majority owned by the State.
So, given the above, the fact that NAMA’s bonds are backed by loans of similar value and the Eurostat assessment that NAMA bonds are not part of our national debt, why do ratings agencies take a seemingly contrary position?
Standard and Poor’s issued a detailed note on the issue last August (available here) after being on the receiving end of then-Minister Lenihan and John Corrigan’s ire. The ratings agency dismissed the Eurostat assessment and said “we take a different approach and have treated similar off-balance-sheet arrangements to support national financial systems in other countries as direct obligations of the government”. That I would suggest isn’t too contentious but what about apparently ignoring the underlying value of the loans which were purchased with the bonds? S&P said “we view these loans as having value, and as recoveries occur in the medium term we expect them to be available to pay down general government debt. However, based on the information available to us, we would not expect recoveries to amount to much more than €16 billion (10% of GDP) over the time frame that our ratings address. As and when recoveries on NAMA’s assets materialize, we may revise our forward-looking estimates ofIreland’s gross and net general government debt.” S&P also said “in our view, the loans that NAMA is acquiring have limited liquidity and cannot readily be sold in the near term”. I would suggest that S&P is on shakier ground here and it is not hard to see why Minister Lenihan and John Corrigan were upset.
Will NAMA recoup its outlay on loans in time to redeem €30bn of NAMA bonds by 2020? Who knows? NAMA’s central scenario plan last year indicated the agency might generate a €800m Net Present Value. I would have said the short term inIrelandis assured to be challenging with both commercial and residential prices coming under continued pressure. But there seems to be consensus that we are close to the bottom of the macroeconomic cycle, by which I mean GDP, and that there will be growth of 2-3% per annum from 2013. NAMA will be incurring meaty operating costs, and for what it’s worth, it is hard to see where NAMA has made provision in its plans for the 5% loan management costs that are seen as intrinsic to the asset management business. Also the outlook for interest rates suggest NAMA will need pay more on its NAMA bonds. So although the general economic environment might begin to support higher property prices, it is still far from certain that NAMA’s existing losses won’t be exacerbated.
So what do NAMA bonds mean for our credit standing? Plainly the ratings agencies (and Moody’s and Fitch appear to regard NAMA bonds in line with S&P, that is, that the liability attached to the bonds should be associated with the State and national debt) see NAMA bonds as relevant. The NTMA produced an extraordinary information note two weeks ago which seemed to be in response to Morgan Kelly’s article in the Irish Times. The NTMA refused to account for NAMA bonds in national debt and coyly showed a “Loan assets of NAMA” and “Bonds issued by NAMA”, both at €30.7bn; even NAMA is apparently recognising a €1bn decline in value of the loans so the NTMA just looks silly in ignoring NAMA bonds. As for our credit standing in the market, the market is more likely to look to the ratings agencies and accept NAMA bonds as a contingent liability but with a decent probability of being substantially repaid. The same with external media as, for example, The Economist which might show the official government debt but which will then adjust it to reflect the NAMA liabilities.
It seems increasingly pessimistic that we will be able to re-enter the bond markets in the second half of 2012 when we will need roll-over maturing national debt, and indeed there are now unofficial suggestions that the “saving” on the bank bailout of some €11bn (€35bn contingency allowed for in the IMF/EU bailout less the €24bn maximum identified in the stress tests in March 2011) will be used to help roll-over maturing debt. Should we be able to use the “saving” in this way, it will be 2014 when we need go back to the bond markets and by then, on an optimistic basis, NAMA may have demonstrated its acumen with generating profits or at least breaking even. So at that stage, NAMA bonds will probably be still regarded as part of our gross national debt but the sovereign bond market may recognise that the NAMA assets will eventually lead to the extinguishing of that debt. On the other hand, if NAMA continues to generate losses, we might see the €30bn of bonds regarded as a contingent liability with an uncertain prospect of being offset by NAMA breaking even.
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Okay, you really weren’t supposed to eat them, but how were kids to know? After all, they were in the candy aisle. Technically though, the liquid inside was the candy, not the wax container that surrounded it – which didn’t stop kids from ingesting enough wax to turn their digestive tract into a candle, sans the wick. That’s right, we’re talking about the wax bottles of our youth.
Although there have been many brands of these popular treats, such as Nik L Nip, which were introduced in the 50s, most kids have always just referred to them as wax bottles. Shaped like you might imagine, each container was filled with an artificially colored and flavored syrupy liquid similar to Kool-Aid. Gnaw off the cap, taking care to keep the hole at the neck open so as not to restrict flow, and proceed to drench your taste buds with a shot of sweet nectar – a sugar rush and thirst quencher in every bite.
What you did from there was entirely up to you, of course. Nowhere on the package did it say not to eat the wax. Apparently, manufacturers just assumed that kids would instinctively know not to ingest the exterior. The millions of kids that have introduced wax to their digestive system over the years prove otherwise. Luckily, nobody was ever much worse for the wear as a result of these indulgences. The evidence exists in the countless adults that consumed these little colorful cocktails in their youth, bottle and all, and survived to tell the tale.
Do you still have a soft spot in your heart for the wax bottles of yesteryear, or have they become something you wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole these days? Share your recollections of these unforgettable treats with all of us in our comments section, as we wax nostalgic over these little bottles of sugar water.
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Myths or Facts in Feminist Scholarship?
By Nancy K. D. Lemon, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Christina Hoff Sommers accused me of being a "scholarly merchant of hype" for material in my popular textbook, Domestic Violence Law. In fact, she is the one whose assertions are untrue and who is impervious to correction.
I have worked in the domestic-violence field as an attorney since 1981, and pioneered teaching domestic-violence law. When I started teaching this course in 1988 at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Law, it was the first such course anywhere. I created a reader, which was in such demand by other law teachers that I contacted a publisher, and the book Domestic Violence Law was first published in 1996. The third edition by Thomson/West has just come out, along with an updated teacher's manual.
Sommers first contacted me by e-mail on February 21, 2009, and told me she had been traveling around the United States criticizing me and my textbook. The timing of her e-mail message was fortuitous, as I was working on the final edits of the most recent edition. I double-checked the specific points she expressed concern about and read the sources she cited in her e-mail message. In my response to her, I stated that while I had found some minor inaccuracies in the piece about the origin of the "rule of thumb" and had corrected those, I had confirmed the sources of the other supposed inaccuracies she challenged.
In spite of my response, she wrote in The Chronicle Review that she is "open to correction," yet she ignored my response to her and continued to complain of the same purported inaccuracies.
In regard to the rule of thumb, for example, she asserted that Romulus of Rome, who is credited in my book with being involved with the first antidomestic-violence legislation, could not have done this as he was merely a legendary, fictional character, who along with his brother Remus was suckled by a wolf.
In fact, Plutarch and Livy each state that Romulus was the first king of Rome. He reigned from 753-717 BC, and created both the Roman Legions and the Roman Senate. He is also credited with adding large amounts of territory and people to the dominion of Rome, including the Sabine women. The modern scholar Andrea Carandini has written about the historic reign of Romulus, based in part on the 1988 discovery of the Murus Romuli on the north slope of the Palatine Hill in Rome.
R. Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash, pioneers and well-respected leaders in the field of domestic-violence research, discuss Romulus in their 1979 book, Violence Against Wives. They state that the marriage laws passed in 753 BC, under Romulus of Rome, allowed men to beat their wives, and that this rule continued into England and the United States in the 1700s and 1800s. Dobash and Dobash refer to a "rod drawn through the wedding ring" in describing the size of the stick husbands were allowed to use for this purpose, the same guideline referred to as the rule of thumb.
Professor Henry Ansgar Kelly has also researched the history of the term "rule of thumb," along with the historic right of husbands to chastise their wives. In his article, "Rule of Thumb and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick," in the September 1994 issue of the Journal of Legal Education, he cites Matthew Bacon, an 18th-century jurist, who published a legal treatise in the United States and England in 1736 containing the comment that husbands had a legal right to beat their wives. Similarly, Kelly cites Sir Francis Buller, an English judge, who said in 1778 that it was acceptable for husbands to beat their wives with a stick the size of their own thumb, though Kelly notes that others disagreed with Butler that this was permissible. Kelly also says that while canon law did not condone husbands beating their wives, the ordinary gloss to civil law did allow this. The history he reviews finds early jurists and legal treatises on both sides of condoning actual wife-beating. However, Kelly cites numerous early sources showing the right of husbands to "moderately chastise" their wives.
There are several 19th-century American cases in which judges referred to the rule of thumb, if not by name, then by reference to sticks or switches and their relationship to the sizes of the husbands' fingers or thumbs. These cases include Bradley v. State (Mississippi, 1824), State v. Rhodes (North Carolina, 1867), Fulgham v. State (Alabama, 1871), and State v. Oliver (North Carolina, 1874).
According to John K. Wilson in the fall 1994 issue of Democratic Culture, Elizabeth Cady Stanton also stated in her 1854 address to the New York legislature, "By the common law of England, the spirit of which has been but too faithfully incorporated into our statute law, a husband has a right to whip his wife with a rod not larger than his thumb, to shut her up in a room, and administer whatever moderate chastisement he may deem necessary to insure obedience to his wishes, and for her healthful moral development!" (quoting Stanton et al., History of Woman Suffrage, 1881).
Sommers has also stated that my textbook includes an article by Joan Zorza referencing a March of Dimes study on domestic violence that never took place. Sommers states that she contacted the director of science education for the March of Dimes, and he denied that there was any such study. Rather than asking me for a citation, she announced in her lectures that the study did not exist and that my book was full of made-up truths. Even when I told her I had seen a copy of the study as provided by Zorza, Sommers went on to make the same assertion in her piece in The Chronicle.
Apparently the March of Dimes employee was unaware of the research this agency financed. The study Zorza sent me, "Battering During Pregnancy: Intervention Strategies," by Anne Stewart Helton and Frances Gobble Snodgrass, appears in the September 1987 issue of the journal Birth. The article states at the bottom of the first page: "This work was supported by a March of Dimes grant for the prevention of battering during pregnancy." The study states that battered women had twice the number of miscarriages than did nonbattered women.
Zorza also sent me a scanned copy of "Domestic Violence, a Women's Health Issue," a 1994 report of the N.Y. State Senate Democratic Task Force on Women's Issues, chaired by Senator Suzi Oppenheimer. That report included a reference to the March of Dimes Protocol of Care for Battered Women, which noted that battered women are twice as likely to miscarry, four times as likely to have low-birth-weight babies, and 40 times as likely to have infants who die within the first year, compared with nonbattered women.
Sommers also challenged a statement by Zorza in my textbook regarding the high incidence of battered women in emergency rooms. Sommers says she received a message from a statistician at the Centers for Disease Control who stated that the incidence of females in emergency departments because of domestic violence was 0.01 percent in 2005 and 0.02 percent in 2003.
Apparently that statistician has not read the Centers for Disease Control Web site, which stated, when I checked it on July 15, 2009: "IPV," or intimate-partner violence, "is a major cause of violence-related injuries. Intimate partners were identified as the perpetrators in 36 percent of all emergency department visits by women who suffered from one or more violent injuries."
Similarly, the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice has reported that 37 percent of all women who sought care in hospital emergency rooms for violence-related injuries were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend (Michael R. Rand, "Violence-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments," 1997).
We also find similarly high figures published in medical journals, hardly bastions of radical feminism. D.C. Berios and D. Grady, in their article "Domestic Violence: Risk Factors and Outcome," in the August 1991 issue of Western Journal of Medicine, found that among 218 women presenting in a metropolitan emergency department with injuries due to violence, 28 percent required hospital admission and 13 percent required major medical treatment.
Doctors Evan Stark and Anne Flitcraft, prominent researchers in this field, announced similar findings in their 1996 book Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women's Health: "The initial conclusion of our research was that more women sought medical treatment for injuries resulting from domestic violence than for any other cause." … Later "studies continued to document substantially the same or higher figures than we uncovered" (Sage Publications Page xvii).
The N.Y. State Senate report mentioned above cites the American Medical Association's "Diagnostic and Treatment Guidelines," which note that battered women account for 19 percent to 30 percent of injured women seen in emergency departments.
Similarly, the study cited above backed by the March of Dimes contains the following statement: "The magnitude of the problem is shown in a Yale University study in which 21 percent of the 2,676 women treated in the emergency department were battered." (See "Wife Abuse in the Medical Setting," by Stark and Flitcraft et al., in Domestic Violence Monograph Series No. 7, 1981.)
Sommers seems to have a history of making inaccurate assertions. Ironically, one of the articles she cited in her e-mail message to me in support of her assertions regarding the origin of the rule of thumb was the Kelly piece. In fact, rather than supporting Sommers, Kelly disagrees with her, stating: "The explanation she gives from a Women's Studies Network communication by a folklorist, Philip Hiscock, that [the term "rule of thumb"] comes from woodworking … is supported by no evidence."
Kelly is not the only researcher or scholar to find Sommers's scholarship in error. In Women at Risk, Stark and Flitcraft note that their research findings regarding the high numbers of battered women in emergency departments were challenged in 1994 by none other than Christina Hoff Sommers, even though she is a philosopher, not a medical researcher, and thus had no basis for disputing their findings.
Sommers seems to have made a career out of attacking other academics and researchers and disagreeing with their findings, citing the same assertions repeatedly over at least the last 15 years, even in the face of evidence contradicting her claims. It seems I have the honor of being her most recent target.
I have been teaching law students for 22 years and am the author of one of the leading textbooks on domestic violence. It is important for students to receive accurate information; good scholarship requires nothing less.
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MITES of 2010
2010 MITES: Top row (left to right): Jeremy Kaplan, Saulo Mendoza, Jonathan Calderon, Bradley Jean-Baptiste, Elia Lopez
Middle row (left to right): Khalil Griffin, Nicholas Bravo, Ayantu Regrasso, Hana Page, Tynesha Dias
Bottom row (left to right): Jessica Sandoval, Estefania Avila, Hilary Higgins, Priscilla Inoa, Odalmy Molina
Jeremy Kaplan, Chino Hills, CA - The Genomics elective was a great introduction to the study of genetic variation and disease. We were placed right at the middle of understanding how patient might have developed cancer through sequencing a few of her genes. It was definitely hard work, but rewarding. Not only have we learned about how far genomics has come and where it is to date, but we have also caught a glimpse of its future and the medical advances that could arise from its discoveries.
Saulo Mendoza, Los Angeles, CA - The Genomics elective has allowed me to understand aspects of cancer I never knew about.
Jonathan Calderon, Redwood City CA - I would describe the Genomics program to be an enlightening experience that has shown me how cancer develops and how individualized it can be. It has shown me that because cancers can differ on the molecular level it is necessary to treat each of them differently in order to treat them effectively.
Bradley Jean-Baptiste, North Miami, FL - Working at the Broad this summer as part of the Genomics elective was truly an opportunity of a lifetime. I was able to sequence DNA of cancer patients, meet many important people and explore possible careers in the exciting field of genomics. Best elective by far!
Elia Lopez, Edinburg, TX - The Genomics course has enabled us to delve into the cores of human structure as well as broaden our scope of understanding cancer.
Khalil Griffin, Maryland Heights, MO - The Genomics elective has been a valuable learning experience. Through its emphasis on working as a team to do research and present our findings in an understandable manner; it has increased my likelihood of becoming a successful research scientists in the future.
Nick Bravo, Elk Grove, CA - The Genomics elective has been one of my favorite classes this summer. Working at the Broad is an amazing experience that I will never forget.
Hana Page, Lakewood, WA - Through the Genomics course, I acquired a greater understanding of cancer research. It was fascination got learn about cutedge research being conducted at Broad and throughout the world. Also, Genomics gave me the opportunity to confirm my interest in becoming a biomedical researcher.
Hilary Higgins, Miami, FL - The Genomics elective gives us a peek into the rapidly growing field of genomics; it gives us an opportunity to learn lab procedures, familiars ourselves with how to read scientific papers, and immerse ourselves into the world of research.
Odalmy Molina, Hialeah, FL - The Genomics course has been an eyeopening experience that has allowed me to see that the pursuit of medical research will bring me the greatest internal satisfaction. It has been a course that has honed my analytical skills and widened my spectrum of thought.
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Hexagonal Boron Nitride (HBN) — How Well Does It Work?
For years, many shooters have coated bullets with Moly (molybdenum disulfide) or Danzac (tungsten disulfide or “WS2″). The idea was to reduce friction between bullets and barrel. In theory, this could lengthen barrel life and extend the number of rounds a shooter can fire between cleanings.
Moly and WS2 both have their fans, but in the last couple of years, some guys have switched to Hexagonal Boron Nitride (HBN), another dry lubricant. The advantage of HBN is that it won’t combine with moisture to create harmful acids. HBN is very slippery and it goes on clear, so it doesn’t leave a dirty mess on your hands or loading bench. Typically, HBN is applied via impact plating (tumbling), just as with Moly.
HBN Results — Both on Bullets and Barrel Bores
Many folks have asked, “Does Hexagonal Boron Nitride really work?” You’ll find answers to that and many other questions on gunsmith Stan Ware’s popular Bench-Talk.com Blog. There Paul Becigneul (aka Pbike) gives a detailed run-down on HBN use, comparing it to other friction-reducers. Paul also discusses the use of HBN in suspension to pre-coat the inside of barrels. Paul observes:
We coated our bullets … how we had been coating with WS2. Now our bullets have a slightly white sheen to them with kind of like a pearl coat. They are so slippery it takes a little practice to pick them up and not drop them on the trailer floor. What have we noticed down range? Nothing different from WS2 other than the black ring on your target around the bullet hole is now white or nonexistent. Our barrels clean just as clean as with WS2. Your hands aren’t black at the end of the day of shooting and that might be the most important part.
Interestingly, Becigneul decided to try a solution of HBN in alcohol, to pre-coat the inside of barrels. Paul had previously used a compound called Penephite to coat the inside of his barrels after cleaning. Paul explains:
If Penephite was used because it was slippery wouldn’t HBN be better? … We called Jon Leist again, and talked to him about mixing HBN and 90% alcohol for a suspension agent to pre-lube our barrels. He though it sounded great but that the AC6111 Grade HBN would be better for this use. It would stand up in the alcohol suspension and cling to the barrel when passed through on a patch. We got some from Jonn and mixed it in alcohol 90%. We use about one teaspoon in 16 ounces of alcohol.
We started using it this fall and what we have noticed is that now that first shot fired out of a clean and pre-lubed barrel can be trusted as the true impact point. We use tuners so now I got to the line, fire two shots judge my group for vertical, adjust the tuner as needed or not, and after tune has been achieved go to my record targets. This use has saved us in time at the bench and bullets in the backstop.
You really should read the whole article by Becigneul. He discusses the use of barrel lubes such as Penephite and “Lock-Ease” in some detail. Paul also provides links to HBN vendors and to the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the various compounds he tested.
- Boron Nitride Bullet Lube Sources
- Applying Boron Nitride (HBN) to Bullets
- Boron Nitride Application Procedures for Bullet-Coating
- Boron Nitride? — Tubb Bullet Coating
- Boron Nitride Sources and Application Procedures
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Into the storm
Another recession is on its way. Even so, the government’s policies are broadly right
REMEMBER the Big Society? Free schools? Health reform? Nor does anybody else. With Britain having barely emerged from recession and the outlook darkening in Europe, all politics is now about the economy.
The chancellor of the exchequer's autumn statement, not guaranteed to capture the public interest, dominated the airwaves on November 29th and the front pages this week. George Osborne's announcement raised two questions which will determine the future of both the country and the government. How bad are things likely to get? And is the chancellor making things better or worse?
Back towards the thunder
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), a newly established fiscal watchdog, provided Mr Osborne with the official answer to the first question. The OBR reckons that although growth will be much weaker this year and next than had been forecast in March, Britain will narrowly avoid a second recession. That sadly already looks too optimistic.
The OBR's forecast assumes that the euro crisis can be resolved without too much fuss, which seems increasingly unlikely—and the uncertainty is pushing the euro zone towards recession fast. Across the continent banks are finding it hard to refinance their own debts cheaply (see article). They are also shedding assets at an alarming rate in order to meet EU capital-adequacy targets by next June. Britain's banks have lent heavily to businesses and governments in the euro zone's worst trouble spots, as well as to German and French banks. The threat of a severe credit shortage will force businesses across Europe to conserve their cash and make them cautious about spending on new equipment or hiring new workers. Add in the ever more severe budget cuts planned by euro-zone countries and the picture gets even stormier.
Britain's economy has its own home-grown problems, to which the misery on its doorstep will add. Spending power is scarce. Wage growth is running at less than half the level of inflation. Public-sector workers, who staged a large strike over the government's pension reforms this week (see article), face a further two years of squeezed pay. Householders will be reluctant to dip deeper into their savings while their own debts are so high. That leaves Britain's economy dependent on foreign demand. As two-fifths of exports are shipped to the euro zone, recession there will drag down Britain's economy as well. Jobs are already being cut in London's financial district, one of Britain's more reliable export industries, because fees and commissions have dried up.
The Bank of England is likely to raise its target for “quantitative easing” (bond purchases using newly created money) above the £275 billion ($431 billion) it agreed on in October. But even swift action seems unlikely to prevent the economy shrinking for at least two quarters (enough to count as a recession). The second dip of a “double-dip” ought to be shallower than the first because there are fewer excesses to work off than after a boom. But a cumulative fall in output of 1% is easy to imagine. And recovery after that will be a long, hard slog.
Given the government's lousy inheritance in 2010 and the suicidal nature of the euro zone's leaders, it is hard to see how Britain could ever have avoided another dip. But what of Mr Osborne's competence? Has the government's budget-cutting strategy only made a bad hand worse? Has it been a “colossal failure”, as the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, attests?
No, it has not. Mr Osborne is certainly guilty of over-optimism in the past, especially claiming that an aggressive fiscal tightening would show immediate benefits by promoting growth, rather than depressing demand. But he was right to act in 2010 to make an early start in cutting the deficit. Left untackled, the budget deficit, which at 11.2% of GDP in 2009-10 was larger than those of almost all other rich countries, would soon have undermined confidence in the government's ability to service its public debt. That faith is all the more important because of Britain's outsize banking sector.
The deficit will fall to 8.4% of GDP this fiscal year. The credibility won by such progress means Mr Osborne's plan has helped secure the country the trust of both the credit-rating agencies and the bond markets. Britain's triple-A credit rating seems assured, unlike France's (see article). Only a handful of countries can borrow more cheaply over ten years.
A little looser, please
And what of his policies now? There, we reckon he could afford to have loosened more. The plans announced this week imply that public-spending cuts will now last until 2017, in part because the OBR reckons the economy's growth potential is far more damaged than it had thought as recently as March, so there will be less growth to close the gap through increased revenues. Mr Osborne hopes to generate some growth by using private saving to pay directly for public infrastructure (see article) and he plans to use the savings made on current spending to boost capital spending on schools, roads and such like by £5 billion over three years.
Mr Osborne could surely afford to do more capital spending without jeopardising Britain's financial credibility. Infrastructure is hard to get right, but more targeted investment would add to the economy's supply potential and provide a surer boost than the temporary tax cut that Mr Balls is advocating, much of which would be saved by anxious consumers. It would not be a threat to Mr Osborne's main fiscal target or to the bond markets' good faith. And although his scheme to guarantee bank bonds to foster up to £20 billion of small-business lending is a sensible use of the state's still-sound credit rating, its success relies on the take-up by cautious banks and nervous small businesses. A small-business bank, capitalised with £2 billion of public money, would probably work better.
So Mr Osborne has not got things completely right. But this government's instincts have been saner than its big-spending predecessor's. Mr Osborne was correct in his determination to tackle the deficit quickly. The notion that he has caused the coming recession is nonsense. More flexibility is now needed. But, sadly, all the options for Britain are pretty dark.
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February brought great heaps of snow to parts of the country not used to it, but being shut in for days at a time must inspire frugal thinking, because it was a good month for cutting-edge frugalist tips.
Laundry continues to be a fertile area for frugality. Keeping Kingdom First carried a guest post that thoughtfully reminded us to make sure our dirty laundry is really dirty. But the author may go too far when she advises that you ask yourself "If I was paying someone to wash my laundry, would I want to pay to have this item washed?" Obviously, if a frugalist were paying somebody else to wash their clothes they would do it themselves to save money.
SavingAdvice.com brought us instructions on how to make our own dryer sheets. Finally, a way to save money on these household miracles with a thousand thrifty uses.
SavingAdvice.com had a very good month, also sharing a useful guest post on the many advantages of dental tourism, that is, flying to Mexico for a root canal. It was written by the president of Pan American Dental Tours, so he must know what he is talking about. And SA had a third post advising that we Get Politically Active to Save Money. The author shared her experiences saving money by campaigning to save her local library and keeping the county from raising her taxes. After all, what could be more frugal than lobbying for free services and tax breaks?
Of course, there was a major holiday in February, and many blogs helped out with tips on how to make your Valentine’s day a frugal one. Most of the suggestions were fairly commonplace: celebrate it on the 15th, make dinner at home, give your special someone a "certificate" for "services", and so on. One blog that did break new ground was Almost Frugal, which suggested Google AdWords as a budget gift for your special someone. "Target the keywords your partner search the most, write some ads and you are set."
For year-round savings, Quirky Momma explains that you do not need to buy a newspaper to clip coupons. Just bring your scissors to the library. They won’t mind.
More than a few blogs mentioned it was a good time to buy a Toyota. But PersonalFinanceAnalyst went further, spreading the secrets of really saving money with Cars for Under 500 Dollars: How to Find Them. The author does mention that it takes skill both to find such a car and to operate it safely, as it may be missing such things as second gear. "A novice driver will probably end up in an accident."
Continuing on the car theme, and adding to the growing science of Frugal Thermodynamics, The Simple Dollar had a list of tips to save on your daily commute, including that you should only use the A/C or heater long enough to get the temperature in the car where you want it, then switch it off. After a while, "If you find the temperature getting uncomfortable again, just flip the A/C or heat back on." Of course, if you have one of those fancy over $500 cars, it might be equipped with a high-tech device known as a thermostat.
(Speaking of which, I am no engineer, but I’ve noticed that car engines tend to get hot after running for a little while. Couldn’t somebody rig up a car heater that used engine heat to warm the passengers? Wouldn’t this be practically free, or at least a lot cheaper than heating the inside of the car with electricity, or forced hot water, or however it is done now? Again, I don’t know much about this….)
Wise Bread rounds out this month’s survey of what is new in the frugalosphere with a post suggesting we reduce the number of birthdays we celebrate. They suggest 1-10, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and every one after that. I am not sure I share their enthusiasm. Firstly, it is not clear to me that, with appropriate planning and frugal party skills, a person cannot garner enough presents to make a profit on any birthday. And if your birthday celebrations are doomed to run at a loss, why celebrate any of them?
Of course, there is the terrible problem of children’s birthdays. This is a raw deal for most parents. They are expected to have the little urchin’s friends over and feed them ice cream, cake, and soda. You get nothing out of the deal other than the mischievous joy of handing the brats back to their parents just before the sugar crash sets in. Sure, there are presents, but the damn kid gets those. Parents get nothing.
Which is why I am surprised that the entire month of February went by without a single mention of a frugal strategy I have long advocated: having kids on February 29th. It does take planning, and possibly induced labor, but it is well worth the effort. Instead of having to endure and pay for 13 birthdays (according to the Wise Bread plan) before the kid goes to college you only have to celebrate four times.
[Photo – Tudokin]
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In 2003, my family returned to the United States after living abroad for fifteen years. After only a few days in the humid, allergen-laden Houston air, my son Sam had an asthma attack. Luckily, a precautionary “emergency” inhaler quickly dilated the bronchi in his lungs and he recovered. Based on my experience when he was a baby, I also realized that in this city–our new home–we were going to need some help to keep Sam’s body in balance. My first stop was locating a couple of good complementary practitioners who practiced natural medicine—an acupuncturist and a homeopath. This was followed by a trip to the grocery store to stock up on fresh food and, finally, naturally “allergy-proofing” his bedroom. In less than a week, Sam was back to normal and breathing easy.
Interpreting from one health system “language” to another On the glass shelves of my medicine cabinet these days, I find an array of herbs, medicinal products, and conventional medications. The combination allows me to care for my body and remain true to the most basic doctrine of medical law: “First, do no harm.”
There are many ways to create a disease-free, healthy life. Dealing with the illness of my own baby, I had to leave no stone unturned. Conventional medicine saves lives every day. If one of my children breaks an arm, we go straight to the emergency room, or if one has an ear infection, I use antibiotics when appropriate. But these examples involve fixing the body in crisis; I encourage you to create wellness—to prevent illness before it occurs. In ancient Asia, people paid a doctor for a healthy check up and went for free if they became sick—imagine if we could switch our emphasis to prevention! How many health care providers would jump on the bandwagon and turn their practices into well-being centers?
The “magic bullet” to keep up with the pace Returning to the USA, I realized that we Americans use conventional medicine as a magic bullet enabling us to keep up with the pace of society. It was a culture shock. Initially, I felt alone in a place that was supposed to feel like home. But I found ways to incorporate what I had learned overseas, and now my belief in holistic health and happiness partners comfortably with my training in medical science. As America attempts a major healthcare overhaul and I see our crippling problems with costs and the fear of interdependence on a fragile system, I recall those first few weeks back home. Weaving complementary practices through our healthcare system and through our own lives allows us to build and sustain total health and wellness, instead of reacting to problems as they occur.
Reach beyond the habit of using conventional medicine as a quick fix and reclaim the wisdom lying dormant in your own body. You will find yourself healthier and happier, feeling your interconnectedness to our world. As mothers, this approach to living takes many forms. Leading our families in living a greener life teaches them to value this sacred connection and the responsibility we have to care for our ecosystem. And, it can start in your own medicine cabinet.
Are you frustrated with our current health care system? Would you like to create wellness—to prevent illness before it occurs? Do you understand complementary therapies–how they work and why you may want to try one? Your body is capable of healing itself when given the chance.
Want more?: www.elizabethirvine.com
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The Supply Chain Top 25: Raising the bar
September 01, 2012
Gartner’s Supply Chain Top 25, published since 2004, is an annual ranking of leaders in the global supply chain. At its core, the Supply Chain Top 25 is about demand-driven leadership. Every year, we identify the companies that push the envelope of supply chain innovation. Our goal is to raise awareness of the supply chain discipline, as well as how it impacts the business, and to catalyze the debate and the cross-fertilization of ideas about what supply chain excellence really means.
What Is the definition of excellence?
Our methodology, detailed below, is based on a composite score for each company that is made up of a set of financials combined with an opinion component, providing a balance between objective and subjective components. In completing their ballots, voters are asked to identify those companies they believe are furthest along the journey toward the demand-driven ideal, as defined in Gartner research and on the voting website.
What does it mean to be demand-driven? Exhibit 1, on page 12 captures the organizational ideal of demand-driven principles as applied to the global supply chain. This model has three overlapping areas of responsibility:
Supply management—Planning, sourcing, manufacturing, logistics.
Demand management—Marketing, sales, and service.
- Product management—R&D, engineering, and product development.
Excellence is a matter of visibility, communication, and reliable processes that link all three of these functional areas together. When these processes work together, the business can respond quickly and efficiently to opportunities arising from market or customer demand. Defining characteristics of supply chains built to this design include the ability to manage demand rather than just respond to it, a networked rather than linear approach to global supply, and the ability to embed innovation in operations rather than keep it isolated in the laboratory. The demand-driven model is inherently circular and self-renewing, unlike the push supply chains of our factory-centric industrial past.
Subscribe to Logistics Management magazine
entire logistics operation. Start your FREE subscription today!
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Pick-to-light improves productivity for Delta Galil
For Delta Galil Industries, a global manufacturer and supplier of apparel for men, women and children, increasing accuracy and capacity was a must to keep up with increasing customer demands.
“Our pickers were doing 2,000 picks per day with paper,” explains Steven Seidman, vice president of supply chain at Delta Galil. “We were auditing 100% of the orders due to 97% pick accuracy. We desperately needed to increase capacity and accuracy without increasing the footprint of the distribution center.”
Delta has manufacturing and distribution facilities on four continents, serving retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart and J.C. Penney, and leading fashion brands including Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein, Nike, Hugo Boss and Pierre Cardin.
And with more than 40 million items shipping a year from its Willamsport, Pa., DC, a new system was critical. Delta tossed out its paper picking system and implemented a warehouse control system
with pick-to-light and productivity management that could be scaled for future applications (AL Systems, http://www.alsystems.com). Dynamic picking was a key requirement, as Delta needed to accommodate multiple pickers in a zone at one time. The system also provides associates with the ability to simultaneously pick orders for multiple customers in a given zone.
Since implementing the system, Delta more than doubled productivity and significantly reduced the number of pickers required to fill orders. Delta’s new minimum requirement for pickers is 3,500 picks per day at 99.5% accuracy. The system generates reports that measure productivity and accuracy rates by picker and zone. However, associates now average more than 4,000 picks at 99.95% accuracy and audit less than 7% of the orders. “We achieved payback on our implementation in about 13 months,” says Seidman. “We were expecting an 18-month ROI, but did much better due to the dramatic increase in productivity and accuracy.”
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I hate to throw around phrases like “the Walt Disney of Japan”…but that’s the easiest way to describe Studio Ghibli for those not familiar with the Japanese cartoon studio. Ghibli has impacted not only the anime scene of Japan (a commonly held belief is that the name means that the studio was blowing a new wind into the Japanese anime industry) but also most modern cartoons and the work of Pixar.Studio Ghibli is headed by Hayao Miyazaki, an amazingly talented writer, artist, and generally imaginative mind. Compared to the bland backdrops of Disney films, (another forest, really? ) the settings of Ghibli films are fantastical and surreal. The gadgets, vehicles, characters are inventive and familiar at the same time if that makes sense.
So it was no surprise to me that the museum was built with the same sense of wonder and whimsy. Unfortunately they don’t allow photography inside the museum (but I snuck off a couple shots from my dangling camera – so apologies for the quality)… my brief explanations will have to whet your appetite for a visit.
It’s almost like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory for animation. The main lobby features tiny spiral staircases leading up to tiny doorways you have to squat to walk through (unless you’re a kid). There’s a room with a giant plush kitten bus…but sadly only for elementary aged kids. There’s a fixed exhibit that shows how animation works that must be seen to be fully appreciated as pictures and descriptions aren’t as magical as the actual presentation…unless you are an epileptic (lots of strobing lights).
The recreated work spaces for the artist and rooms is exactly what you’d imagine from a highly creative mind…books everywhere, toys, models, drawings…perfectly disheveled and mismatched.
The museum also features changing exhibits from other artists and films. On my visit they were featuring the new Studio Ghibli film and a small feature on Wallace and Grommit.
The gardens and park around the building are beautiful and worth the trip even if you’re not into the animations themselves (or are dragged there by a nerdy significant other).
And no trip is complete without venturing to the roof to have a picture with a robot from Laputa Sorry for the rain drops on the camera lens…not the best day to be up on a rooftop snapping away.
If you have time to slowly make your way through the museum your patience is rewarded…there are stain glass panels depicting scenes from movies.
Little hidden bits of humor like this window outside chock full of stuffed creatures
And lots of subtle insider info for those up on their Ghibli films:
Getting to the museum is easy, but does take some time. Get to the Shinjuku station and take the JR Chuo line to the Mitaka Station. Take the South Exit at the station and you’ll see signs for the Ghibli museum bus service. Purchase a round trip ticket at this stop for 300 Yen and they’ll take you right there and back. Probably one of the easiest experiences I’ve had in Japan.
DO BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE!!! I can’t emphasize this enough. The museum doesn’t let loads of people in (well they do, but not as much as they could). So to avoid heartache buy before you go. Go to a Lawson store…there’s like a zillion of them in Tokyo and find a Japanese person to input the info for you. I just pointed at Ghibli merchandise till someone new what I was talking about. Cost for entry is 1,000 Yen and includes a viewing of one short film shown only in the museum.Pin It
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Every Friday I try to post one of my favorite quotes that I find inspiration from. I love featuring the one and only Maya Angelou. I cannot get enough of her or her writings. In today’s favorite quote friday she was asked about growing older and this was her response:
I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better…eventually.
I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.
I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.”
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Can I get an AMEN!! I swear she can see into my soul! Every time I read something of Maya Angelou’s I get goosebumps. Her writing is so pure, so honest, so truthful. I hope to one day be able to be as reflective and wise as this phenomenal woman. What have you learned thus far in your life about growing older? I’ve learned that no matter how hard you try to protect your heart, it will break.
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AfriGeneas Brick Wall Forum
Re: Alstons in North Carolina
In Response To: Alstons in North Carolina ()
Hello Pasha, thanks for a nice posting!
Yes I believe the 1880 Hill family is the right family. In 1900 Aaron is living with brother George (also in 1880 census) just eight census pages from Janet Hatcher, Aaron's wife & Jermans mother in 1910. That PLUS the fact that Aaron's age in 1900 and 1910 is consistent PLUS that no other Aaron Hill in Wake County really fits the profile should be enough to assume it's the same Aaron in 1880 and 1910, your ancestor. I also think one sister Della (Marrow) in your 1880 family is listed in the North Carolina Death Index on familysearch.org, born in Chatham NC 1866. That may be something for you to follow up on, I don't think the Hill family is in Wake County in 1870 but may be elsewhere with a different surname.
But that's enough of the good news. On your Alston side I did not find anything at all! I refuse to believe that they were missed in 1910, 1920 and 1930 (except Mary Hill in 1930). I also looked at births, marriages and deaths at familysearch.org with no success.
Here are a few questions:
Nelson Alston, do you know when/where he passed away? Have you looked for any death certificate for him? Do you know around what year he was born?
Here are a few things I would consider:
Also if you haven't already you need to look for obituaries for Mary and Janie hoping that they mention other relatives.
Another thing that I'm not sure of is how reliable the birth place is on those death certificates: Mary's death certificate says that Fred was born in Chatham County, and there is a 'good' Fred Alston in Chatham in 1900 census. It strikes me kind of odd that a Fred Alston was from Chatham County (and maybe living there in 1900) but that both Mary and Janie were born within ten years in Columbus County, then migrated back to Wake County? I have seen other out of the blue migrations but (since I don't know North Carolina that well) could there be another city Chadbourne closer to Chatham or Wake Counties? Or another city that sounds like Chadbourne? Or could the birth city be incorrect altogether? The informant on both Mary's and Janie's certificates was again Jerman, do you have any other documentation that verifies the place of birth for Mary and Janie?
Here is one death certificate that looks suspicious to me:
This makes me believe that this Lucy's maiden name was Alston. Could your Nelson Alston be of some other relation than a brother of Mary and Janie?
I think I have found this Lucy in 1910, but no signs of your Mary. I may also have found her in 1900 in Robeson County, North Carolina. She had plenty of siblings (including another brother Nelson). I'm thinking that maybe one of these siblings passed away early and had children Mary and Janie and maybe this Lucy took care of them?
All this are just guesses though, I still can't find Janie and Mary in 1920 which is key here I believe. Also no sign of Fred Alston anywhere except that 'maybe' in 1900, Chatham NC.
I can look a little further if you reply to this posting with more info. I guess my number one question of this mystery is: Are you sure Janie and Mary had a brother Nelson, or could Nelson be of some other relation further back in your family tree?
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Text: Urmas Sellis
Photos: Ülo Väli
Larger spotted eagle Tõnn surprises us once more. The Scandinavian peninsula felt too small for him and neither did he find a mate there - now Tõnn tries his luck in Finland.
Excerpt from the migration map, data as of May 22
Finland is not the best place for finding a single greater spotted eagle lady either. Maybe he has to go to Karelia or Russia or return to Estonia ... We will see in due time.
Tõnn this winter in Spain
While the nesting birds with transmitters now are busy in their breeding areas and tracks cannot be viewed publicly, hybrid spotted eagle Luule has been staying in the southwestern corner of Latvia for the last week, and crane Ahja 2 spends his time in the southwestern corner of Belorussia, on the virgin lands at the Ukrainian border.
No more information has arrived about black stork Valdur after his migration-time stopping places in the Near East. Towards summer (when storklets are left on their own) we will probably be able to peer into his nest to see if Valdur is there or not.
See the migration map here
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Promotion prospects best for the heart!
London, June 8: Employees with better promotion prospects are 20 percent less likely to suffer heart disease than those with slender chances of improving their situation.
So says a study conducted by professors from the Unversity College London and the University of California, Berkeley.
The Telegraph newspaper said the researchers looked at the employment histories of 4,700 Whitehall civil servants over 15 years.
The found that those in offices with high promotion rates were much less likely to develop heart disease than those with low rates.
Specifically, those working in departments with double the promotion rate had about a 20 percent lower chance of being diagnosed with heart disease over the 15-year period (1985-99).
Past studies have found that Oscar winners outlive runners-up, Nobel laureates outlive nominees who do not win, and baseball players, who reach the Hall of Fame, outlive those who fall just short.
The study was conducted by Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology at University College London, and Michael Anderson from the University of California, Berkeley.
The authors said their research provides evidence that being successful is good for one's health. IANS
Lastupdate on : Fri, 8 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 8 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 9 Jun 2012 00:00:00 IST
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‘Govt committed to holistic development of JK’
GK NEWS NETWORK
Srinagar, June 8: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Friday said that “equitable development of J&K is my government’s commitment and a holistic roadmap is being followed to reach out to all areas and all More
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Compactors to carry multiple truckloads in one go; KHARA, KHROF hail sanitation novelty on Boulevard
GK CITY REPORTER
Srinagar, June 8: At a time when Nano Technology is going trendy, something of the sort has embedded the City at least with regard to garbage collection. The loosely loaded trucks of garbage ferrying trash More
Jammu, June 8: Jammu and Kashmir government has sought Rs 700 crore assistance under Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) - a Union Home Ministry funded programme in the state – for the current More
‘We are fighting Pakistan’s war’
REZAUL H LASKAR/PTI
Islamabad, June 8: Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin has vowed to turn the guns on Pakistan if it stops backing Kashmiri militants who, he said, were fighting “Pakistan's war”. “We are fighting More
London, June 8: Employees with better promotion prospects are 20 percent less likely to suffer heart disease than those with slender chances of improving their situation. So says a study conducted More
- Education and Career
Charity Show Concludes At Islamic University
Srinagar, June 8: The Government is contemplating to start short term winter courses and summer courses both in Srinagar and Jammu provinces during winter and summer vacations for ensuring better utilization More
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Dec 2, 2012
Western intelligence officers were seeing new signs of activity at Syrian chemical weapons sites, they told the New York Times Sunday, Dec. 2. “It’s in some ways similar to what they’ve done before,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said. “But they’re doing some things that suggest they intend to use the weapons. It’s not just moving stuff around. These are different kind of activities.”
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources add rumors were flying around the region Saturday night and Sunday morning that President Bashar Assad had been killed or fled Syria. Neither is confirmed. However, the rebels have in recent days made major strategic gains and begun to turn the tide of war against’s Assad forces.
The new rumors tie in with the suggestive movements of chemical weapons detected by Western intelligence without any indication of their likely target.
Since the Syrian uprising erupted against his regime last year, Assad has often declared he would fight his enemies to the end and threatened that if his back was against the wall and life and regime were in jeopardy, he would rather set the entire Middle East on fire than surrender.
This article was posted: Sunday, December 2, 2012 at 10:47 am
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Is a new kind of arms race brewing?
It was back in 2008 when I came across an old 'Air & Space Power Journal' paper titled 'Russian Views on Information Based Warfare' (1996) which had a reference to a retired Russian General who characterized sixthgeneration, or "fundamentally new types of weapons," to include geophysical, electromagnetic or radio frequency, infrasonic, genetic, ethnic, psychotronic, beam, laser, and nonlethal weapons.
Now while radio frequency weapons, laser, particle beam and non-lethal weapons certainly exist (and are beginning to approach a stage where they may see wide deployment) it is the allusion here to geophysical and psychotronic weapons that falls more than the others in the realm of speculation. I don't say the same for 'infrasonic' because far more overt research has been conducted in that area and infrasonic frequencies are even believed to be associated with ghostly apparitions. And genetic or ethically targeted Bioweapons may have been explored under the Soviet 'Biopreparat' program. But true blue geophysical and psychotronic weaponry takes us firmly into territory usually inhibited by people obsessed with various HAARP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAARP) related conspiracies for instance.
Of course to be fair, post-Soviet Russian analysts have always been rather more candid about weapons research by their country in hitherto uncharted territories and have often maintained that they actually lead the rest of the world in such areas. Concomitantly many Western commentators have dismissed these as tall claims by a Russia finding it difficult to modernise its conventional forces. Nevertheless it was in 2010 that Russian officialdom started overtly alluding to these potentialities with the new Russian Military Doctrine released in 2010 talking about - "the mass employment of weapons systems and weapons technology, based upon new physical principles and approaching in effectiveness that of nuclear weapons".
And now in 2012, we have everything being made candid with the current Russian defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov apparently stating in a meeting with Prime Minister (and President-Elect as well) Vladimir Putin last week that - "The development of weaponry based on new physics principles; direct-energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, genetic weapons, psychotronic weapons, etc., is part of the state arms procurement program for 2011-2020."
Clearly the 'Men Who Stare At Goats' kind of scenario is now no longer something in the deep black world. And I really wonder if Serdyukov's statement can be dismissed out of hand as mere propaganda. We may just be beginning to see the start of the publicization of a till now covert race to build new kinds of weapons. How successful these efforts ( i.e to build these kinds of weapons) will be or have been are of course a different set of questions altogether.
More about Saurav Jha
Saurav Jha studied economics (and debated politics) at Presidency College, Calcutta, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He writes and researches on global energy and security issues and is a regular contributor to publications such as World Politics Review, The Diplomat and Le Monde Diplomatique, and has written for Deccan Herald, The Telegraph and Hindustan Times. He is the Consulting Editor of Geopolitics magazine. His first book, The Upside Down Book of Nuclear Power, was published in March 2010 to excellent reviews. He is presently working on The Heat and Dust Project, a quirky travelogue, based on an intense budget journey through India, co-authored with his wife Devapriya.
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While all the talk about cloud music in the last year or so was centered on when Apple would launch their service, it was Amazon, the leading online retailer who made the first move into the cloud last week with the announcement of their Cloud Drive & Cloud Player.
I’m sure a few of you are wondering what kind of hippy dippy nonsense I’m on about. Cloud music? It all sounds suspiciously like an ill-advised experimental ambient concept album, but fear not, this is THE FUTURE (probably). The cloud concept in computing is one that is becoming much more ubiquitous (ironically after the last big computing system concept was called “ubiquitous computing”).
Cloud computing allows you to harness the power and resources of multiple computers rather than rely on one computer or server to host your website, email or files. So, as we all become increasingly more connected, the theory is that everything we own on our hard drives could exist on the virtual cloud, so we could access it anywhere we needed it and our data will persist across our digital life.
Amazon have actually been on the forefront of “the cloud” since they launched Amazon Web Services in 2006 which included online backup systems and the Cloud Drive is a logical extension of that. The service offers 5GB of starter space (20GB if you purchase an album) to which, Amazon account holders can upload their documents, photos and music collection.
That library or “digital locker” can then be accessed everywhere via an Android mobile, laptop or desktop and voila, your music will be with you everywhere via the sleek looking Cloud Player app. The only catch is that it’s a U.S. only operation at the moment.
Amazon are not the first company to launch a cloud entertainment service. MSpot & Mp3Tunes have been offering similar solutions for a couple of years now but Amazon are certainly the biggest. Apple will inevitably launch a cloud service at some point in the future while Google is said to be currently testing a similar music service amongst employees in the company.
You might be wondering how Amazon managed to get the blessing of the music industry to allow their users to upload their files? They didn’t. In a bold move, Cloud Player is currently unlicensed by the industry. Amazon has said that uploading an MP3 file to the cloud is the same as putting it on an external hard drive but after Sony Music expressed disappointment with Amazon that they didn’t even ask, it seems likely that behind the scenes, there is some negotiation going on. Record labels, artists, publishers, Google and Apple will surely be interested in any outcome.
However, Cloud Player points to a greater trend in digital music – that of solving the customer problem first and worrying about the music industry afterwards. As Amazon’s Director of Music told Billboard “We’re trying to solve a customer pain point that affects how much people buy digital music. We’re trying to make purchased music more valuable. And we think that’s good for everybody.”
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A week ago, we published a story about the issue of copper thefts and what businesses could do to protect their copper, whether that's the copper located in wiring or in HVAC units.
We asked our readers to tell us about their own solutions to copper theft, and John Elmore Jr., of the security installing firm Security by Elmore Inc., based in Birmingham, Ala., wrote in to tell us about what they've done.
"We are mainly protecting HVAC outside units. These are on roofs, behind fences on the ground and vacant buildings. The majority are on the ground without a fence.
"We use a GE Magnapull SR-2105AG and put it inside the unit attached to the fan housing or outside attached to the main housing and fan housing.
"We also use a 7lb low Freon sensor switch if a HVAC tech can install and run brown wire to simulate thermostat wire back to the panel.
"Mainly what we see are units outside churches and small commercial offices. The burglars are removing the top fan housing and cutting the copper tubing to the condenser and removing the whole condenser without the compressor.
"In large commercial vacant buildings we use standard installation of panel, door contacts and motions. For monitoring we use the GS-3650 DSC for full contact ID. We are usually protecting interior copper cables. For AC roof units we use the aforementioned freon sensor."
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Marion County Juvenile Detention
Our mission is to provide each youth time to emphasize their strengths in a safe and secure environment, reflect on their choices, and encourage positive family relationships.Our facility provides every juvenile with positive role modeling from highly trained staff members.Marion County is located at 2970 Center St. NE, Salem, Oregon.The Detention Center operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year within the guidelines and requirements as established by both Oregon State Statute and County policy. All youth are expected to follow the rules and requirements of the facility while in custody.Detention provides a safe and secure environment for the temporary custody of delinquent youth who:
Detention is a structured environment. Youth receive education, counseling, medical services, physical education and recreation, and cognitive and other skill development programs.
Education:Youth are provided year round education for all youth in detention.
Medical and Counseling Services:Youth have access to medical and counseling services while in the facility. Each youth is medically screened at their intake and have the ability to access counseling services for emotional needs while in the facility.
Physical Education and Recreation:Youth receive the opportunity for large muscle and leisure recreation activities daily. The goal of the recreation program is to provide a variety of activities, which promote healthy and fit lifestyles and to educate youth on the importance of regular exercise and healthy social interaction.
Skills Development:Youth are provided opportunities to engage in skills development activities daily. The objective of the skills development is to provide a variety of activities, which promote healthy attitudes, values and beliefs and to educate youth on the importance of developing awareness of how their thinking effects their behavior.
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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Pulled quad muscle
I have been running for a few months and have just recently decided to do interval sprinting/walking into my program. After the 2nd day of sprinting I pulled my quad muscle. I have done ice and some rest(about 1 week). I can run again but the pain is still there when I sprint. Is there something else I should be doing to fix this quad muscle?
A strained muscle (commonly referred to as a "pull") may take several weeks to heal. Ice and gentle stretching are always a good guide for treatment. If you are noticing pain with sprinting, do less explosive activities like jogging or bike until you are pain-free. Gradually increase into sprinting with 50% effort, the 75%, etc. If the pain persists, you should follow-up with your health care professional.
Angela Justina Beisner, MA, AC
Department of Athletics Instructor
College of Medicine
The Ohio State University
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Several things about the financial services sector are widely
known. First, the group has been the source of much controversy
and angst for investors over the past several years. Second, it
is the second-largest sector weight in the S&P 500 behind
Third, financial services names have, broadly speaking, been
excellent performers this year. Fourth, those bull runs were seen
as endangered if President Obama won reelection. Finally, the
President did win and financials have subsequently slumped. Over
the past five trading days, the Financial Services Select Sector
) has tumbled 3.6 percent.
There are multiple reasons for the post-election fallout among
bank stocks, including that investors are simply taking profits
in anticipation of higher capital gains taxes in 2013.
"Anytime a sector has such a strong run compared to other
sectors, it certainly becomes susceptible to investors taking
profits and redeploying their funds elsewhere-especially given
the president's proposal to raise capital gains taxes on
higher-income investors," WisdomTree Research Director Jeremy
Schwartz said in a note.
Predictably, investors and bankers themselves are concerned
about the regulatory outlook facing the sector. After all, the
Dodd-Frank legislation was passed under President Obama's watch
and with his reelection, repeal of that law seems unlikely.
"Investors are concerned about the financial sector's
potential moving forward due to the election results. With the
re-election of President Obama, the increased regulations of the
Dodd-Frank Act are now unlikely to be repealed,"
according to Schwartz
. "Some of the run-up in financials may have been a belief that
Governor Romney had the potential to come in and scale back some
of the harsher regulations contained in this law."
With a potential return to turbulent times looming for bank
stocks, investors should consider some
with reduced (or no) exposure to the financial services sector.
Enter the WisdomTree Dividend ex-Financials Fund (NYSE:
), which has almost $1.2 billion in assets under management.
DTN debuted in June 2006, making it one of the first ETFs to
find success with the "ex" sector strategy. Excluding bank stocks
when times are bad for that group makes an obvious difference
when it comes to returns. For example, DTN is down 4.7 percent
over the past five years while the iShares Dow Jones Select
Dividend Index Fund (NYSE:
), which today features a nearly 10 percent allocation to
financials, is off 16.2 percent over the same five-year
Over the past three years, DTN has crushed DVY and the SPDR
S&P Dividend ETF (NYSE:
). With less volatility than its rivals, DTN has returned 54.2
percent, including dividends paid, since November 2009. DVY is up
46.3 percent over the same time while SDY has gained 36.7
Adding to DTN's allure is the fact that
it pays a monthly dividend
, providing investors with a steadier stream of income.
"We believe DTN offers a means to generate continued exposure
to dividend-paying U.S. equities while avoiding the financial
sector-all the more important as a potential source of income
when interest rates remain at historic lows," wrote Schwartz.
DTN charges 0.38 percent per year. Consumer staples and
utilities names combine for over a quarter of the fund's
For more on ETFs, click
(c) 2012 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment
advice. All rights reserved.
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Allrecipes.com, founded here 14 years ago, is now part of Readers Digest but is still headquartered in Seattle, overlooking Westlake Park. The site received 435 million visitors in 2010, so they know something about what America wants for dinner.
Less processed food, more fruit and vegetables, for beginners. More South American and Japanese recipes, for another. Less meat in general. More pies. The biggest trend: more frequent neighborhood shopping at local bakeries, farmers markets, fruit stands, and wine and butcher shops.
Now, you could say these are self-fulfilling prophecies, that the home chefs with the inclination to use the internet to look up recipes are more savvy than most, and that trends like "eating healthier" are really nothing new. But it's hard to argue with the data provided by 435 million visits. Says the latest Allrecipes newsletter: "In October 2010, 71 million cooks (1/3 of all internet users 18+ years of age) visited food sites, consuming 1.2 billion pages of content." Recipe sites are said to be the fourth-most frequented internet category, after porn, search and social media. Allrecipes ranks in the top 500 websites worldwide, and saw a 38 percent spike in use in the past three months.
So you better believe it when the stats tell you "that even with all that baking going on, the majority of consumers are not making their (pie) crusts from scratch but buying them from the grocery store fridge or freezer case." The flip side of that is a whopping 1025 percent increase (since 2009) in the use of prepared frosting and a 239 percent increase in prepared cookie dough. Shopping increasingly involves smart phones as well: "Growing across all age groups, the consumer is searching for recipes, checking competitive pricing and making grocery lists with phones ... stored in an apron pocket."
Monthly, casual meals at home were reported by over half the Allrecipes users, as were formal sit-down dinners for special occasions. The rationale for a lot of trends, like home entertaining and "drinking at home" is clearly financial, but that doesn't stop a contradictory trend: more restaurant-style high-end stoves and fancy accoutrements like microplane graters, mandolines, and heat-resistant spatulas. In the unending battle for space on the kitchen counter, the indoor barbecue is on its way out, in favor of more useful appliances like blenders and bread machines, not to mention charging stations for those mobile phones.
Now, Allrecipes isn't the only source of information about how Americans spend their food dollars. We wrote last year about the not-so surprising data produced by supermarket scanners: Americans buy more soda pop than milk, for example, more cookies than fresh vegetables. And the new Zagat guide says Seattle diners spend less when they eat in restaurants than any city in America except New Orleans. And tip less, too.
No wonder Seattle restaurants are in such disarray, throwing money onto the sidewalk in hopes of luring bargain-hunters to their tables. Not money, exactly, but Groupon-style half-off coupons. Same thing. A nation of penny-pinchers, a city of cheapskates. But that's another story.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism. Become a member of Crosscut today!
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Without an education, a child has little hope of breaking free from poverty. And children who have lost parents to AIDS are unable to stay in school because they can’t afford fees and supplies. Instill hope in two grieving children in a country such as Zambia, Chad, or Ghana with your gift to provide essentials like school supplies, a uniform, and school fees. You’ll help these special children overcome tragedy and reach their God-given potential.
Learn more about our Impact on Education.
Give monthly to Child Education to help even more children.
We promise to honor your generosity and use your donation in the most effective way possible. The needs shown in this catalog reflect World Vision projects at the time of writing and the suggested donation amounts are based on periodic surveys of the countries we serve. Each item is representative of the gift category in which it appears and donations will be used to provide assistance where it is needed most within that category or to address a similar need.
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Posted 5:20 PM 11/6/2012 : Volunteers on hand to make sure voting goes smoothly
TUCSON - Members of many organizations are hanging out at polling places today, d helping people troubleshoot and making sure everyone exercises their right to vote.
Volunteers reported no major problems today, but should there be a problem, they are ready.
"It's really important for our voice to be heard as the people," said voter Carl Yates.
Most people would agree, so volunteers from the Pima County Election Protection Committee are making sure that happens.
"They call in to us and we look over the law and make sure it's being followed correctly, and if we need to, then escalate it to the county recorder," says Nate Wade, with the committee.
The volunteers include lawyers and law students who are standing by, ready to help.
Because of the district changes they're mostly helping people find their right polling place and doing what they can to ensure that provisional ballots count.
Volunteers are helping out "across the country to be sure that every voter is able to exercise their right to vote with no difficulty or misunderstanding," Wade said.
It's a reassurance for voters like Carl Yates, who said: "I think it's really important that people get out there to vote if they have the right to, and are not held back from that."
Volunteers said most issues today are simple to solve, but some will be forwarded to the county recorder's office for further review.
Check out the latest events FC Tucson has scheduled.
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The one-party regime has cast a shadow of fear and anxiety and sorrowful gloom over the whole country. It has made a hollow mockery of the country's motto: Freedom and Justice.
Before Independence Nkrumah led men, women and children to shout Freedom! - at party rallies, in the markets, in the streets, in all the towns and villages in the country. But today, anyone who shouts Freedom risks imprisonment without trial. Why? Because there is no freedom in Ghana, and Nkrumah does not want to be reminded that he has betrayed his promises and deceived the people. His one-party regime has been accompanied by ruthlessness and cruelty and oppression, by unjust dismissals, house arrests, imprisonments without trial, mass poverty, unemployment, and all forms of economic hardship. I do not need to remind you of the large number of Brigaders and Young Pioneers, or the new Party Police, or the large number of paid secret informants in taxis, 'buses, public offices and private homes; nor do I need to remind you of the thousands of Ghanaians, young and old, men and women, who languish indefinitely in prison without trial, their families and the country deprived of their services. These arrests and detentions which started five years ago still continue.
As you well know, nowadays people are arrested in secret, sometimes at dead of night, and taken away to prisons. Their families do not know where they are detained or how they are being treated. No one is safe. Cabinet ministers and even security officers have themselves been arrested. Not even those who are thought to be close to Nkrumah or hold high posts in his party are safe. Everyone has heard of the detention of the former Minister of Information, or the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, or of Dr. Danquah; but few know that among recent detentions were the sister of the former Finance Minister and her husband (Mr. and Mrs. Cudjoe) or Chief S. Dombo, Leader of the "Minority Group" inPaliament,or Mr. William Ofori-Atta, of the United Party, or Dr. Kuta-Dankwa, known to be a close friend of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I could extend the list ad nauseam.
Many of you know the new slogan: "One o'clock:" It refers to the 1 p.m. news bulletin in Ghana for which everyone waits anxiously. Many people, including Cabinet Ministers and Regional Commissioners, heave sighs of relief if they do not hear, in the one o'clock news broadcast, that they or others for whom they care have been dismissed, or that orders for their detention have been signed! So people live from day to day in painful and anxious suspense.
Let me add that Ghana is the only country I know of in Africa where freedom of speech is not only denied, but has also been made an offence punishable by law. The recent so-called "rumour mongering" law means anyone can be tried and punished for saying anything or expressing any opinion of which Nkrumah does not approve. A taxi driver and a Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Information have already been sentenced to terms of imprisonment under this law.It is a sad, sad state of affairs that Ghana should today be a country where
There are no free trade unions in Ghana. The trade unions have long been under control, and instead of protecting the interest and welfare of the worker, and helping him to get what he needs, the unions have been used to keep the worker down, and make him a slave to toil for Nkrumah and his henchmen.
No aspect of social life is being left without control. It is now the turn of the Universities. Professors have been dismissed, and students have been arrested and sent to prison without trial. Everybody must conform or be crushed. As it has been made apparent in the party press, the guns will be trained against religion and beliefs, and that will give ground for more people to be thrown into prison without trial.
The press, which in some countries champions the freedom of the people, is now an instrument of oppression in Ghana. It denounces civil servants, judges, even party members, and all who do not toe the party line, and the denunciation is usually a prelude to demotion, dismissal or detention. Far from defending the rights of the people, the Ghana press frequently urges the Government to mete out savage punishments and ruthless oppression.
The press is also making enemies for Ghana by its irresponsible attacks on countries which it dubs as capitalist, such as Britain, France, the United States and West Germany. At the same time the Government seeks investments from these very countries. A Ghanaian delegation recently visited the United States. At a press conference it held in New York, a Ghanaian journalist, who was a member of the delegation, when questioned about the attacks on the United States in the Ghanaian press tried to justify them, and his futile performance wrecked any good the delegation might have done to attract investment.
But even more reprehensible and disgusting are the attacks on other African States, among them Nigeria, Congo (Leopoldville). Liberia, the Ivory Coast and Tanganyika. This makes Nkrumah's avowed aspiration for African unity questionable. The much-advertised Ghana-Guinea-Mali union came to nothing because neither Guinea nor Mali wanted Nkrumah's dictatorship: and there have been subversive activities against other African governments, suspected or known to have been financed or directed from Ghana: such accusations have been made in respect of Togo. Liberia. Nigeria, the Ivory Coast. Sierra Leone, the Cameroons and the Congo: and Ghana's subversive attempts to prevent the creation of a union between Senegal and the Gambia, and also the Federation of the East African States of Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika and Zanzibar is now common knowledge throughout Africa.
It is now generally accepted that Nkrumah is not really seeking unity, but only the domination of African dream which other African leaders regard as ridiculous and unreal. But Nkrumah continues to spend millions of pounds of much-needed public funds on his selfish schemes to spread his dictatorial rule. Consequently, there are top-level talks for more practicable steps towards cooperation and eventual unions from which Ghana for the time being is excluded. In our own interest, and for the good of Africa, we must learn to live on better terms with our neighbours. We must win their respect and confidence again.
There is also the make-believe about cleaning up corruption, given publicity in the C.P.P. press, whilst the "Adankos" and "Patakus" and the favoured few carry on extorting bribes. It is widely known that it is those who shout loudest about being apostles of socialism who have amassed huge fortunes which they have stored abroad or used in buying palatial mansions in foreign countries. They are the ones who have drained the country of its wealth, and brought suffering to the masses.
For the good of the country, and the happiness of the masses who suffer most under a corrupt government, Ghana must be saved from corruption. But the truth is that the corruption which has been allowed to grow to such menacing proportions cannot be effectively dealt with unless the cleaning starts from the top and moves downwards. It is not dealt with by exposing the weak at the bottom and protecting the strong at the top. Corruption still continues and causes injustice, inefficiency, and waste of public funds. The Government should not pretend to be stopping bribery and corruption while it passes iniquitous laws to deprive the people of their right to question its actions.
It has been blatantly announced to the whole world by the dismissal of the Chief Justice. Sir Arku Korsah, the subsequent dismissals of Justices Akufo-Addo, Blay, Bossman and Prempeh, and by the law which empowers the President to appoint and dismiss Judges as he likes, and even review court decisions he disapproves, that justice and the rule of law are extinguished in Ghana in Nkrumah's one -party regime. No citizen has protection in law against the whims of the President, however capricious and unreasonable these may be. It is not surprising that Mr. Koi Larbi, the Senior Defence Counsel in the recent treason trials, has been thrown into prison without trial. The "justice" in the motto is a hollow mockery. Ghana has enthroned tyranny.
What the one-party has done in Ghana is to empower one man to rule absolutely, without anyone having the right to disagree with him, and without giving the people any real opportunity to change him. It has been claimed that the one-party State accords with the traditions of Ghana and that the President must be seen as a Big Chief. This is false. I challenge anyone to produce evidence from the country's traditional institutions to substantiate the claim. Those who seek to justify this tyrannical and despotic rule on the basis of our tradition do us injury, as well as insult us. Wherever you look at our traditional political institutions, whether of the Ga, or Adangbe, or Krobo, or Ewe, or Akwamu, or Asante, or Fante or any of the Akan tribes; or Mamprusi, or Dagomba, or any Northern tribe; all of them, despite their diversities, had one thing in common. Each political organisation brought together heads representing the interests of various groups and communities who at the Central Council protected the interests of the respective groups and communities they represented, whilst at the same time they sought agreements on the matters which concerned them as a whole.
The wisdom of our ancestors lay in their ability to devise political institutions which reconciled sectional interests. Multi-interest representation was a fundamental principle of our traditional political institutions. The case for monolithic one-party rule cannot be based on our tradition. It should also be noted that the traditional systems provided alternatives from which to choose; and heads, whether of families, or tribes, or chiefdoms, could be changed by those whom they represented. If we care to learn from our past, we shall find pointers to the solution of our contemporary problems of government, central as well as local. We had foundations for a democratic system of government.
Everyone knows that the referendum which was supposed to have given the people's approval to the one-party State was a fraud. Ballot papers were marked and thrown into the voting boxes for people who never voted; the "No" boxes were sealed sotnat ballot papers could not be placed in them; the declared figures were much larger than the numbers that actually voted. The referendum was a gigantic fake. These facts were reported in the world press, and could not be challenged by the Ghana Government. It is known both outside and within Ghana that the referendum was an outrageous fraud. We of the United Party outside Ghana do not accept the results as a genuine reflection of the will of the people; they represent a fraudulent abuse of power. This is not the first time elections have been rigged in Ghana; rigging elections is in accordance with the teachings of Lenin, whose avowed disciple Nkrumah is, and he has used it to keep himself in power.
What is happening in Ghana has exposed Nkrumah's false theories that one-party government is the best way to economic progress. Ghana's bitter experience is clear for all to see. You know that the cost of living has been rising. You know that there has been scarcity of essential commodities, such as sugar, salt, fats, oils, onions and meat; that the cloths and consumer goods available in the people's shops are very high in price. You know that whatever you wish to buy, be it food, or shoes, or belt or dress material, you have a limited range to choose from, if you have any choice at all. You know that private cars, lorries and public 'buses have been standing idle for want of tyres or spare parts. You know that the crippling economic controls and the licence systems that were instituted have not only been used as instruments of corruption to enrich a few, but that they have failed to increase supplies, and have inflicted hardship on traders and consumers alike.
Ghanaian traders are being driven out of business. The saddest thing is the lack of needed drugs. The government just does not care about the health of the people. Deaths have occurred through snakebites for lack of anti-snake serum. Instruments have had to be sterilised in iodine in hospitals, for lack of methylated spirits. Some people have had to find their own drugs to take to hospitals 1 There has been a black market in drugs. The sick have suffered needlessly because of the shortage of anaesthetics, some even dying, for lack of drugs in common demand. All this has happened in Ghana, and yet the government shouts about being the people's government.
The signs are that the economic situation which has been deteriorating willgrow worse. This is largely because of the muddle in the issue of import licences, and the confusion between this and the arbitrary exchange control. The shortage in commodities will become more acute; because our foreign exchange, our earnings from our cocoa, our timber and our minerals, have been irresponsibly bartered for guns, the price of which could have bought life-saving drugs, food and clothes. Besides there are huge sums representing the ill-gotten takings of certain individuals tucked away in foreign banks. There is much talk about the establishment of factories, but what is the good of that when shortage of raw materials and vital spares for the factories holds up their activity? As a result, one factory has shut, and some traders and manufacturers have said that they will soon have to close.
The trade unions have given notice of pay claims, and in terms of the increase in price, their claim for wage increases is justifiable. But since more and more people are likely to become unemployed, the position is only likely to get worse.
Ghana had money which could have been used to provide employment and meet the pay claims workers are demanding, but the money is no longer there. It has been squandered on non-productive prestige projects, on gifts and so-called loans, and on subversive activities, in pursuit of Nkrumah's personal ambition to build a United States of Africa under his rule, and, above all, on expensive military equipment. The military equipment would be of little avail if Ghana were attacked by a major power: its real use lies in the fact that it terrorizes the people of Ghana, and so bolsters the Nkrumah dictator -ship. When the people needed jobs, food, houses and medical supplies, the government bought guns.
You are being asked to place your hopes in the £1,016 million seven-year development plan which has recently been launched. It is expected to bring in Nkrumah's paradise. In the meantime, while the bosses at the top wallow in luxury the rest are asked to tighten their belts and to pay taxes beyond their means. Unemployment and poverty grow for the many, while the privileged party bosses, who preach the blessings of one-party rule, grow rich at the expense of the masses.
After Western countries and investors have been denounced and abused, and crippling taxes have been imposed on those who ha vein vestments in Ghana, and Ghanaian traders have been saddled with intolerable restrictions to stifle them, there are now sugar-coated words inviting foreign investors to come in "a spirit of partnership", and delegations are sent round to woo investors: As though the investors were all born yesterday: They must have followed recent events in Ghana. They know about the compulsory subscription for Government Bonds for which there is no market, and about the unpredictable exchange controls and restrictions. They know also that neither they nor their investments are safe in Nkrumah's one-party State, where judges and the courts can offer no protection to them or to their contracts. This is not a reassuring invitation to the much-wanted investors.
In any case, the plan is so unrealistic that it will prove just as illusory as the previous plans launched by Nkrumah's Government, always loudly heralded and trumpeted, only to be scrapped mid-stream. It cannot provide the barest essential needs of the people fast enough to meet even the most urgent demands.
The comments of the economists called in to study the plan would make revealing and interesting reading. One of them said that even if a kindhearted nation could be found to give all the money being sought, the impact of the plan on the standards of living of the people would be negligible , because the whole plan is misconceived. We need an economic policy which will seek first to meet essential needs for employment, for food, health, clothing, shelter and education.
And is it not also revealing that Nkrumah, who has been screaming so loudly about neo-cokmialism. should be making Ghana more and more dependent on Soviet Russia? By means of a series of agreements and commercial transactions, and the employment of hordes of Russian experts maintianed at fantastic cost, the economy of Ghana is being increasingly tied to the Soviet Union, and whilst the Soviet Union always gains, Ghana is always the loser in these cunning transactions. And another point - why copy the Soviet Union in the one field in which she her self, by buy ing wheat from the United States, Canada and Australia, has admitted failure? I refer to agriculture. Soviet agricultural policy has failed; it constitutes one of her most difficult hurdles, and Kruschev himself has recently praised United States agriculture. We have a saying in Twi: "No one takes the medicine-ball of the man who has died, and says to it 'give me health, give me life"." If it could not save its own master, how could it save you? The Ghana farmer will not be saved by Soviet methods. Ghana will not get cheap and plentiful food that way, despite all the trumpeting about State farms.
The Soviet Union could doubtless help Ghana in some ways: but proof must first be given of her sincerity to give genuine help. Agencies like the W.H.O., or F.A.O., or Unesco of the United Nations are giving valuable help to African countries. Their work is held back if countries like Russia do not pay their dues to the United Nations. The Soviet Union has helped with scholarships to African students to study in the U.S.S.R.; but there have been reports of the bad treatment of African students, and even of brutality and suspected murders. There was the story of the Ghanaian student who died near Moscow and the demonstrations which followed. Since then there has been a report of the death, under suspicious circumstances, of another African student, This was reported in the French paper "Aurore" for 14th April, 1964. Yet the Ghana press, which consistently upbraids Western countries, refrains from attacking such incidents in the Soviet Union.
It must even now be clear that the one-party regime does not hold the magic wand for prosperity it is supposed to hold. It is merely an instrument of oppression; an instrument to muzzle protest, to do away with all opposition, and with all independent associations; an instrument to prevent any persons or groups of persons from providing alternative leadership to the nation. It is an instrument which denies the people of Ghana that without which democracy is only a mockery - the right to choose between alternatives. If there are no alternatives to choose from, then elections are a meaningless exercise.
Let me remind you of another Twi proverb. "One head does not form a Council." That is why traditional political institutions were based on councils of representatives of different groups or communities coming together to give advice, to talk things over, to settle questions together . Where one head constitutes a Council, there can only be folly and disorder. One-party rule for Ghana, in the light of our traditions, is a step backward from the accumulated wisdom we inherited from our ancestors.
There is no doubt that many Ghanaians, those who belonged to the C. P. P. as well as those who never joined, feel for the prisoners suffering in jail; there is no doubt that we all love freedom; that we all like to be free to speak our mind; to join what associations we like; to criticize our rulers and to be able to change them. The one-party regime in Ghana does not allow any of these things. It rests on force, and it therefore encourages simmering discontent which is bound to explode dike a volcano one day.
The change has already begun. You have only to join in to play your part. Your part is to say and do the things you know to be right, and which fall to your lot to say and do in the service of the community. You will discover to your surprise that you have joined a mighty, irresistible force which will soon drive away every trace of dictatorship and oppression. Others are playing their part. Do likewise.
Five years ago, at apolitical rally of the United Party held at Bukom Square, Accra, I told the following story: "A man thought himself very strong; he repaired to a castle built on a rock; he surrounded the castle with stone walls; he mounted on the walls the mightiest weapons of destruction he could find; his armies stood on guard night and day; then he said, 'now I am safe; anyone who defies me must perish'. One thing he did not know. Beneath the rock on which the castle stood was a small, silent river. Every day, silently, the river eroded the seemingly impregnable rock; it gathered force, till one day it burst through; and all the arms and all the soldiers were useless. In nature, the strongest forces build up and work silently; then they burst out in irresistible strength." Those who heard me will no doubt remember, and understand better now what I tried to convey then. There lare forces of the human spirit which no arms, imprisonments, threats or intimidation can overcome.
We of the United Party have always laid emphasis on civil liberties and personal freedom, on the right of every individual to the protection of the law and the courts, against illegal or arbitrary action of the government and its agents; on the right to free speech, association and movement; and on the right of the people to choose their own government through free and honest elections. We have fought for these things because we realised that without them there would be no happiness for the people of Ghana, and no foundation for stable and lasting progress. We still believe that national planning, private enterprise, and political freedom can and must go together. We believe that the resources of the nation should be used by the government to attain social justice. The government should ensure equality of opportunity and protection against poverty for every individual, and prevent exploitation of the people by individuals, or groups, or by those in power.
We believe that planning should not mean indiscriminate, excessive and rigid central control, but should aim primarily at the fair distribution of the wealth and produce of the nation among all citizens, and the narrowing of the gap between the well-to-do and the poor; not as at present, where the so-called Nkrumahist "socialism" concentrates on controls and on an unjust legal system to create a widening gap between the newly-rich party bosses, whose help Nkrumah needs, and the majority of the people who are made poorer and less free by harsh and oppressive measures. This is to reduce socialism to an immoral economic and political system.
It is to make Ghana really free and happy that members of the United Party have fought for so long and endured so much suffering, mass arrests, false accusations, imprisonments without trial, deliberate misrepresentation and distortion of our aims by Nkrumah and his henchmen. People do not make such heavy sacrifices and suffer such persecution for so long unless they firmly and sincerely believe in what they are fighting for. We shall see to it that Ghana gets afresh start. To this end, we shall achieve, among other things, the following:
We shall build a Ghana peaceful and free in which citizens do not live in fear, under constant threats and intimidation. We shall build a Ghana in which all of us join in freedom in the battle against poverty, disease, and ignorance, in a common purpose which promotes human dignity and democracy. We shall build a Ghana in which economic development will provide opportunities for the uplift of man, and not be used as an excuse for oppression; development in which everyone will have a job to do, a house to live in, and a decent standard of living.
We shall build a Ghana which will treasure friendship with its neighbours; a Ghana dedicated to the building of a free, peaceful and united Africa through genuine co-operation and respect for the rights of all.
Let me end by assuring you that though the parent body, the United Party at home, has been allegedly dissolved, and thousands of the supporters of the party, and many of its officials and leaders have been thrown into jail, the United Party outside Ghana continues to flourish and to work with ever increasing determination for a free Ghana. Our numbers are growing rapidly. We have been joined by many Ghanaians who are outside, including professional and business men, and a large number of students in Britain, on the continent of Europe, and in the United States, who have brought youthful determination and enthusiasm and eagerness to our struggle against tyranny.
We know there are those who, having grown fat on ill-gotten gains, and fearing their personal losses, go about, both in Ghana and abroad, telling us: "We agree things are bad; but there is nothing you can do about it; it is hopeless; do not sacrifice yourself in a lost cause". They find it necessary to do this, because they know the change is coming, but they want to delay it as long as possible so that they may selfishly enjoy their ill-gotten gains, while the majority suffer. We know them for what they are. Nothing can shake our faith and determination. Cast away the fear and defeatism which they try to instil in you in order that you may accept and support dictatorship and tyranny. Ghana will be free.
Be prepared. More will follow.K. A. Busia
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Tips on Applying to Law School
by Dr. Schotten
1. Applying to law school is not a casual process. Successful law school admission requires thought, planning and a strategy.
2. The LSAT Test:
Study seriously for the LSAT. It counts approximately 50% toward your admission for most law schools. A good score is crucial if you desire to get (merit) scholarship assistance. You should take the test in June at the end of your junior year, or, at the latest, in September during your senior year. You may want to retake the test (which you can do as late as December your senior year) but you should NOT do so frivolously or merely because you feel you could do better. Please consult with your pre-law advisor regarding this matter.
3. Formulate a law school application strategy and carefully consider:
- if you will simultaneously apply to other graduate level program(s) while applying to law school;
- if your chances of being admitted to the law school(s) that you have identified are realistic;
- what plans you have for financing your law school education;
- eventually where you want to live; and
- what kind of law (you think) that you might want to practice, etc.
Visiting with your pre-law advisor at this time would be a good idea. Be sure you select a range of law schools to apply (usually 6-9 schools is a good idea).
Focus on completing your application EARLY. It would be best to have your applications complete and sent by September/October of your senior year. Since many law schools use a rolling admissions formula for admissions, and because a number of them give an advantage to earlier applications for awarding financial aid, there is no reason to delay your application.
4. The application process:
What drives your law school strategy and schedule is when you want to attend law school. If you want to enroll the same year you graduate, then you must be focused upon the time schedule outlined above. If you are thinking about taking a year or two off before attending law school, you still may want to take the test during your senior year and prepare a file (containing letters of recommendation), each of which would be appropriate for the future.
Information on applying to law school is contained in The LSAT and LSDAS Information Book. Your pre-law advisor can give you a copy of this publication. It can also be accessed on line, under the Law School Admission Council Web site. This is an essential Web site for it explains in detail virtually all aspects of the law school application process (and contains a great deal of other useful information as well).
When seeking admission, you will need to apply to each individual law school. The most challenging aspect of the individual law school application is the personal statement. Even though these seem easy, they are very challenging to write. It is vital that these be well written. Count on writing at least two to three drafts.
Be sure to register for the LSAT on time. You will need to set up an individual student account. Consult with the Law School Admission Web site on how to do this.
If you are applying to law school for the year after you graduate, you will need to send your transcript (from Augustana and from all other colleges you have earned academic credit) to the LSDAS (Law School Data Assembly Service). Again, the Law School Admission Web site explains how to do this.
If you have been convicted of any violations of the law, you will need to disclose them fully and honestly when applying to law school.
5. Go forth! Do well!! Good Luck!!!
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Mark D. Weingarten, M.D.
1135 W. University, Suite 346
Rochester, Michigan 48307
(248) 650-2255 (877) 219-8303
Hours: Monday through Friday with evening and Saturday morning appointments also available
Ambylopia or lazy eye results in defective vision during childhood without any obvious injury or disease to the eyeball. Ambylopia may be temporary or permanent. There are three main causes of ambylopia: physical occlusion by conditions such as a cataract or drooping eyelid; high or unequal refractive errors and strabismus.
Strabismus or crossed eyes is an abnormal turning of the eye inward or outward. During this condition the brain will ignore the vision from the weaker eye, possibly leading to blindness in that eye. It is important that all children starting at age three have their vision evaluated to make sure they are not at risk for developing ambylopia. If detected in early childhood, it is treatable.
At the beautifully appointed, soothing offices of Rochester Eye Care, all patients are treated as if they were dear family members. This approach helps reduce anxiety of Dr. Weingarten's LASIK and cataract surgery Detroit patients, which in turn leads to better treatment results. In addition to surgical procedures, Dr. Weingarten offers a full range of general eye care treatments, including glaucoma therapy and presbyopia evaluation and treatment. At his offices both adults and children can also receive comprehensive eye exams.
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Part 5 out of 5
I should have run, not from fright but to escape the horror.
They were moving forward past the front of the house, the men still on
foot, gripping the leather at their horses' bits, the restive animals
plunging so wildly as to make it seem more the advance of a mob than a
disciplined body. A shell exploded in the road to their left, tearing a
hole in the white pike, and showering them with stones. I could see
bleeding faces where the flying gravel cut. Another shrieked above, and
came to earth just in front of the house, shattering the front steps
into fragments, and leaving one of the wooden pillars hanging,
unsupported. Yet with no halt or hesitancy, the gray mass moved slowly
across the lawn, and then deliberately formed in line beneath the trees
of the orchard. Their horses were led to the rear, and the men fell into
rank at the sharp command of officers. Facing as they did I was left in
doubt as to their purpose. Just inside the gate a battalion of infantry
stood at parade rest, some of Johnston's men, I judged from their
appearance, who had held together. Beyond them a little group of
horsemen had reined up on a knoll, and seemed to be studying the
surrounding country through field glasses. I could see the glitter of
them in the sun.
Straight across the grass from the line of dismounted cavalry an officer
rode, galloping through the dust of the pike, and trotting up the
incline until he reached this distant group. I watched curiously as he
pointed toward the house, and the others turned and looked. I could
dimly distinguish features, and realized the meaning of some of their
gestures. Then the cavalry-man turned his horse, and came trotting back.
But now he rode directly up the gravelled driveway to the front of the
house, a white rag flapping from the point of his uplifted sword. Thirty
feet away he pulled up his horse, his eyes searching the house, and I
stepped out on the porch roof. The broken pillar made me afraid to
venture to the edge, but we were plainly in view of each other.
"Are you the Yank in command?" he asked brusquely, staring up at me.
He removed the rag from his sword, and thrust the weapon into its
"What force have you?"
I smiled, amused at his display of nerve.
"You will have to come in to discover that, my friend."
His naturally florid face reddened with anger.
"I'm not here to joke," he retorted. "General Chambers wishes me to
offer you a last opportunity to surrender without bloodshed."
"And if I refuse?"
"We shall attack at once, sir," haughtily. "A glance about will show you
the helplessness of your position."
I waited long enough to glance again over the scene. I was convinced
they possessed no artillery which could be spared from the front for
this small affair, and believed we were capable of making a strong
defence against musketry. With the exception of that battalion of
infantry near the gate, and the cavalry regiment in the orchard, every
organized body of troops was being hurried forward to strengthen their
line of battle. Even General Chambers and his staff had disappeared over
the hill, and every sound that reached us evidenced a warm engagement.
The stream of wounded soldiers flowing back across the pike was
thickening, and Federal shells were already doing damage at
"I thank you for your information," I said civilly, "but we shall
endeavor to hold the house."
"You mean to fight!"
"Yes--if you wish this place you will have to come and take it."
He drew back his horse, yet with head turned, hopeful I might say more.
But I stepped back through the window, and as I disappeared he clapped
in his spurs, and rode out into the orchard. A moment later the
dismounted troopers spread out into a thin line, covering the front and
left of the house, unslung their carbines and began to load. Something
about the way they went at it convinced me they expected no very serious
resistance. A word to my men on that floor brought them to the point
threatened by this first attack, and I gave them swift, concise
orders--no firing until they heard a signal shot from the front hall;
then keep it up while there was a man standing in range; carbines first,
after that revolvers, and keep down out of sight from below. I looked
into their faces, confident of obedience, and then ran down stairs.
Here the two sergeants--veterans both--had anticipated everything, and
massed their men at the windows facing front and left. They lay flat,
protected in every possible way, and each man had an extra gun beside
him, and a pile of cartridges. Mahoney was in the parlor, and Miles in
the hall, watchful of each movement without. I gave them the
instructions about withholding their fire, and, grasping a carbine
myself, pushed forward to where I could see outside. The troopers were
already moving, advancing slowly in open order, but came to a halt just
within carbine range. At sharp command their guns came up, and they
poured a volley into the house. Beyond a shattering of glass no damage
was done, but under the cover of the smoke, the gray line leaped
forward. I waited until they reached the gravel, and then pulled
trigger. Almost to the instant the whole front and side of the house
blazed into their very faces, not once only, but twice, three times, the
men grabbing gun after gun. It was not in flesh and blood to stand it;
the line crumbled up as though seared by fire, men fell prone, others
staggered back blinded, and, almost before we realized, there remained
nothing out there but a fleeing crowd, leaving behind their dead and
wounded. Only three men had placed foot on the porch, and they lay there
motionless; one had grasped the sill of a window, and had fallen back
with a crushed skull. It was all over with so quickly that through the
smoke we looked at each other dazed, and then stared out at the flying
figures. I groped my way from room to room, ordering a reloading of the
guns, and asking if there were any injured. The walls were scarred by
bullets much of the piled up furniture splintered, but only two men had
been hit, and their, wounds were slight.
"They'll try it again, lads," I said. "Get ready." There was no doubt of
that, for they were old soldiers out yonder, and would never rest under
the stigma of defeat. But they were bound to be more cautious a second
time, and would give us a harder tussle.
The fleeing men were rallied just beyond the negro cabins, cursed by
their officers and driven back into line; then moved slowly forward
again to their former position in the orchard. The sudden terror which
had smitten them when the silent house burst into death flames, had
somewhat worn off, and a desire for revenge succeeded. I could see the
officers passing back and forth talking and gesticulating. A dozen
troopers under a flag of truce came forward to pick up the wounded, and
without even challenging we permitted them to do their work. The house
remained quiet, sombre, silent, nothing showing but the dark barrels of
our carbines. The infantry battalion at the gate moved against the left
of the cavalry, and couriers were despatched to hurry up more. Out by
the negro quarters a dozen officers held council, pointing at the
house, and by gestures designating a plan of attack. I think they sent
for artillery, but none came, and when one of the couriers returned and
reported, bringing only another infantry battalion, it was decided to
delay the attempt no longer. They formed this time in double line,
sufficiently extended so as to cover the front and two sides of the
house, with a squad concealed back of the stable, prepared to rush the
kitchen and take us in the rear. It was not a bad plan had we misjudged
it, but the ground was so open nothing could be concealed. A wagon came
up with ammunition, and the men filled their belts. They moved forward
to within long firing distance, the cavalry covering the north side, one
battalion of infantry the south, and the other prepared to assail the
front. These latter began firing at once, their muskets easily covering
the distance, although our lighter weapons were useless.
Yet, beyond keeping us down close to the floor and out of view, this
preliminary firing was but a waste of ammunition, the heavy balls merely
breaking what glass remained, and chugging harmlessly into the walls. We
were ready and waiting, extra loaded guns beside each man, our nerves
throbbing with the excitement of battle, every trooper posted at some
point of vantage for defence. For a few moments the formation of our
assailants was almost completely concealed behind the black musketry
smoke. All else was forgotten except our own part in the tragedy, even
the thunder of artillery deadened by the continuous roll of small arms.
Under the powder cloud the charging line sprang forward, determined to
close in upon us with one fierce dash, almost encircling the house. The
reserves elevated their guns, firing at the upper windows, while those
chosen for the assault leaped forward, yelling as they came. I scarcely
had time to cry a warning, and to hear the echoing shouts of Miles and
Mahoney, before the gray line was on the gravel. It was then we struck
them, every window and door bursting into flame simultaneously, the
deadly lead poured into their very faces. We worked like fiends, the
smoke suffocating, firing as rapidly as we could lay hands to weapons,
seeing nothing but the dim outline of gray-clad men, surging madly
toward us, or hurled back by the flame of our guns. It was hell,
pandemonium, a memory blurred and indistinct; men, stricken to death,
whirled and fell, others ran screaming; they stumbled over prostrate
bodies, and cursed wildly in an effort to advance. Now it was the sharp
spit of revolvers, cracking in deadly chorus. All I knew occurred
directly before me. A dozen or fifteen leaped to the porch floor,
swinging a huge log against the barricaded door. I heard the crash of
it as it fell inward, the cry of men underneath. There was a rush of
feet behind; the flame of revolvers seemed to sear my face, and the log
lay on the porch floor, dead men clinging to it, and not a living
gray-jacket showing under the smoke.
MISS BILLIE REAPPEARS
I was leaning against the side wall, aware I had been wounded yet
scarcely feeling the pain of it, an empty revolver in each hand, blue
smoke curling from the muzzles. For the moment I could not comprehend
what had actually occurred--that, for the second time, we had driven
them; that we still held the house, now fairly encircled by dead bodies.
Then the truth dawned, and I gazed almost blindly about on the ruck, and
into the faces of the men nearest me. I hardly recognized them,
blackened by powder, with here and there a blood stain showing ghastly.
The door was crushed in, splintered by the heavy log, the end of which
still projected through, and beneath it three men lay motionless. I saw
others between where I stood and the stairs, one leaning against the
wall, his blood dyeing the carpet, another outstretched upon the steps.
All this came to me in a glance, my head reeling; I felt no power to
move, no ability to think. Then Miles' voice at my very ear aroused me.
"Are you hurt, Lieutenant? Here, let me see."
I stared at him, and seemed to come back to life again with a start.
"No, nothing serious, Sergeant. The door must have struck me as it
fell--my whole left side and arm are numb. We drove them, didn't we?"
"You can bet we did, sir, but my fellows got here just in time. They
didn't make much of a fight along my side, so when I heard that door
crash we come a-runnin'."
"Oh, it was you then. That's about the last I remember. Where is their
reserve? Didn't they come in?"
"I guess not," peering out through the opening. "There's no signs of
'em, so far as I can see, but there ain't no air, an' the smoke hangs
close to the ground."
As he said, it was useless endeavoring to perceive what was happening
without, the powder smoke clinging to the earth, and hiding everything
from view. Yet I realized what must have occurred; the dead bodies in
sight proved how severely the assaulting column had suffered, and no
doubt the entire force had been disorganized, and sent helter-skelter
for safety. Yet they would come back--either they or others. This muss
must be cleaned up; this opening closed. After that we could attend our
dead and wounded. I gave a dozen swift orders, and Miles instantly took
command. The imprisoned bodies were dragged out from underneath the
door, the heavy log taken into the hall, the door itself torn from its
remaining hinges and forced back into position, the log, one end resting
against the stairs, being utilized as a brace. If anything it was now
stronger than before for purposes of defence. We had barely completed
this work when Mahoney came out into the hall, his head bound up with a
"A foine, lively shindy, Leftenant," he said, grinning amiably. "Bedad,
but Oi thought they had us that last toime--Oi did that." He glanced
about curiously. "An' ye must hav' had it hot in here too."
"It was hand to hand, Sergeant, and we lost some men--four dead. How did
you fare along your side of the house?"
"Three kilt, an' maybe a dozen wounded. Oi got chipped up myself, but
only the skin av me. Those lads come up fierce, sorr, an' they'd 'a'
made it too, only fer our ravolvers. We must have shot a dozen of 'em
right in the winders."
"And the rest of the house--do you know how they came out?"
"Oi do, sorr; Oi've made the rounds. There's one man shot in the
kitchen, but nobody got hurted up stairs."
"And our men?" I asked eagerly. "From those upper windows did you see
any sign of troops down in the ravine?"
He shook his head.
"Not a domn thing, sorr."
I looked into the faces clustered around us--blackened, savage faces,
still marked by the fierce animalism of battle--feeling to the full the
desperation of our position.
"Well, lads," I said soberly, "there is no use hiding the truth from
you. I know you'll fight to the end, and that won't be long coming,
unless help gets here. We can never repulse another assault; we've got
eight men killed, and more than that wounded now--the next time we'll
all go. What do you say--shall we hold on, hoping?"
"Oi'm fer doin' it, sorr," broke in Mahoney, "an' Oi'm spakin' fer ivery
Irishmon in H troop."
"And you, Miles?"
"I'm not so bloomin' fond of a fight, Lieutenant," he said, scratching
his head, "but I like to stay fighting after I once get started. Ain't
that about the size of it, boys?"
Several heads nodded, and one fellow growled,
"Hell! we kin giv' 'em the same dose a third time."
"I don't expect that, Sims," I returned. "But those other fellows ought
to be up any minute now. Anyway we'll have a breathing spell, for the
Johnnies must have had enough to last them a few minutes. How is the
"'Bout twenty rounds apiece left."
"Then get to work, men; load up and strengthen every weak spot. We'll
put up the best show we can. What did you want, Foster?"
The man addressed, a slim, awkward fellow, his spindle legs conspicuous
under the short cavalry jacket, jerked off his cap in embarrassment.
"Why nuthin' much, sir," he stammered. "I ain't no objections to goin'
on with the fightin', only if we're so sartain to catch hell it don't
seem exactly right fer us to keep that thar young gal here in the house.
She ain't no combatant, sir, an' dern me if I don't think she ought to
be got outside first."
"Girl! What girl?" I cried, believing I must have misunderstood. "What
is it you are trying to say, man?"
The soldier jerked his thumb back over his shoulder.
"The one in thar behind the stairs," he explained slowly. "Tom Ragan he
made her go thar when the rumpus begun, an' then Tom he got killed.
Ain't that the way of it, Talbot?"
"Sure," chimed in the other. "It is the same one that was in the parlor
last night, sir. She don't seem scared, ner nuthin' like that, only
Ragan told her she'd got to stay thar. I heard 'em talkin', an' she said
she wanted you."
"What did Ragan answer?" now thoroughly aroused to the knowledge this
must be Billie.
"He only told her to git right back in thar, an' keep still. It was just
as that whole caboodle come tearin' up this las' time, sir. It wan't no
safe place fer a girl whar you was. Ragan he promised to tell you, only
he got hit 'fore the fracas was done. That's why Foster chirked up, an'
that's all of it."
The man had made it clear as far as he understood. There were no more
questions to ask him, and I could only hope to uncover the mystery of
her presence through the confession of her own lips. She had not gone
over to the enemy then; had never left the house; instead, was seeking
me. It was all so strange that I stood a moment bewildered, striving to
reason the affair out, before attempting to approach the girl. What
could have occurred? Where could she have hidden? Why, indeed, had she
thus endeavored to conceal herself from both her father and myself? The
troopers had scattered in obedience to orders, a few remaining at the
openings watchful for any hostile movement without, before I ventured
down the hall. It was dark behind the stairs, but she saw me instantly,
greeting me with a little cry of delight and a quick outstretching of
"I am so glad you have come! I--I haven't known what to do."
"If I had supposed you still in the house," I explained, "I should have
been with you before."
"But I sent word; I told the soldier it was most important."
"That was Ragan, Miss Billie--a big fellow, with red moustache?--he was
"Killed! Oh, in the attack; yet--yet you still hold the house, do you
"Yes, or I certainly should not be here with you. We have repulsed two
assaults, but have lost heavily, and can scarcely hope to come safely
through another. Before it is made I must get you away."
"Out of the house, you mean?"
"Yes, and at once. We have made such a spirited defence that when we are
finally overpowered there will be little mercy shown. Not even your sex
would protect you, even if you were fortunate enough to escape flying
bullets. Your father is with Chambers, and, no doubt, the Confederate
commander out yonder will forward you to his care. I will take you to
him under a flag of truce."
We were out where the light shown upon us dimly, yet sufficiently to
reveal expressions. Her face was colorless, but her eyes exhibited
"Wait, Lieutenant Galesworth," she insisted, still clinging to my hand.
"I must understand better, and you must hear first what I have to tell.
Why did father leave the house without me?"
"We both believed you had already gone."
"I? That was a strange supposition."
"Not at all; you had disappeared; we could discover no trace of you
anywhere. Your father reported that you had overheard all that occurred
in the hall below--the arrival of reinforcements, my orders to defend
the house, the Federal plan of attack. Major Hardy told you his parole
prevented him from reporting this discovery, yet no pledge of honor
bound you. What else could I think, but that you had escaped into the
Confederate lines with the news?"
She stared into my face, breathing heavily, yet without speaking. Then
she released the clasp of my hand, and leaned back against the wall,
shading her eyes.
"Do not misunderstand me, Billie," I urged anxiously. "I could never
have blamed you. I sent that word to you through your father. You are a
daughter of the South, and I honored your loyalty. There was no reason
why you should not sacrifice me for the sake of the cause."
"Are you sorry I did not?"
"No, far from it, and--and, Billie, it is not the first time; does it
"It means nothing," she broke in, "except a strange combination of
circumstances. I did think of all this; it came to me in a flash. I
realized that it was undoubtedly my duty, and--and, perhaps I should
have found courage to attempt the task. I went to my room tempted, my
purpose swayed by the call of the South, and--and my friendship for you.
I had to be disloyal somewhere, and--and it was so hard to choose. I am
glad you do not blame me, but I believe I should have gone, just as you
thought I did, except for what happened."
A shell exploded near the corner of the house, shaking the whole
structure, the fragments tearing into the wood. She caught me by the
arm, and I held her tightly, with face buried on my shoulder.
"We must be quick," I urged. "Those are Federal shells overshooting
their mark, but one may strike the house at any moment. Tell me what it
was that happened."
"It seems so unreal now," she faltered, her whole form trembling, "that
I hardly know how to tell it--yet every word is true. I--I have captured
the murderer of Captain Le Gaire."
"You have! Who was he?"
"I cannot tell; I--I haven't even seen the man's face, but--but he is
one of your soldiers."
"Impossible! There is not one of our men unaccounted for. I could call
every trooper of our first company here now to confront you, except two
who have been killed. The fellow does not belong to us."
"Well, he wears your uniform," and she drew back indignantly, "even to
having the buttons removed. You must believe me, for I can prove it; I
can take you to where he is."
"Down cellar, in the place where you had the Confederate prisoners
confined. He--he is locked in there; I held the door against him, and
dropped the bar."
I looked at her in speechless wonder, a wonder not untinged by
admiration and love. She was standing now, erect, facing me, her cheeks
reddening under my direct gaze.
"I am going to make you believe," she insisted. "I will tell you how it
happened, and then you shall take some men with you, and go down there,
and bring the man up. No, I want to tell you about it first--- please,
"Would you mind if I call Miles, and then you can tell your story to
both of us?" I asked. "The fellow is armed, is he not; and I shall need
to take some one along with me?"
"Yes, the man has a revolver. You mean the sergeant? I do not mind
I hurried back to the front of the house, more anxious to be assured as
to what was going on outside than to discover Miles. Yet there was
nothing alarming, even the cavalry regiment having been withdrawn across
the pike. Without a question the sergeant followed me back to where the
She remained exactly as I had left her, leaning against the wall in the
slight recess left by the stairs, and she recognized the sergeant with
an inclination of the head, although her eyes were upon me.
"Your friends outside seem inclined to allow us a few moments in which
to investigate this matter," I said. "But we shall need to hurry. This
is Miles, and I want you to tell the entire story from the beginning."
My tone was incisive, and she responded as though to an order.
"I will be brief," she began. "My father and I were at the head of the
stairs when your reinforcements came. We were merely waiting there to
make sure you had left the house. Yet we could not fail to overhear what
was said, and to at once realize the importance of the information. I
spoke of it to Major Hardy, but he felt himself still under parole,
bound by his word of honor. I was under no such obligation, however,
and, for the moment it seemed as though my whole duty demanded that I
should escape immediately, and bear this news to the nearest Confederate
commander. Nothing else, no other obligation appeared as important as
this. It was not that I wished to harm you, or to betray you to possible
death or imprisonment, but it seemed to me all that was personal should
be forgotten in duty to the cause of the South. It--it did hurt me,
Lieutenant Galesworth," her voice suddenly changing into a plea, "but I
believed it to be right, to be what I should do."
"I understand fully; we both respect your convictions."
Miles nodded gravely, but said nothing, and the girl hurried on, yet
with evident relief.
"I started back to my room with that intention--your men were all at the
front of the house; it would be easy to slip down the back stairs, leave
by the kitchen door, and run for the stable. I knew father would oppose
my plan, and so I said nothing to him about it. Indeed it all came to me
in a flash, and, almost before I knew it I was back in my own room ready
to act. I passed out the side door into the next room, which would bring
me nearer the back stairs, believing I would thus be less exposed to
Major Hardy's observation. I glanced out first, and saw him beside the
front window at the opposite end of the hall. He was intent upon the
battle, the noise of which was deafening. The firing was so continuous
and so near at hand--the very house shaking--that I almost lost my
nerve. Then I turned my head and looked the other way, and there, back
in the shadows of the ell hallway, in almost exactly the same spot where
I had seen him before, stood one of your soldiers. He had his revolver
out in his hand, and was crouching forward in such a way that his hat
brim almost totally concealed his face, but I knew instinctively that he
was the same man I saw last night. And--and he was watching father."
Her voice broke, and she pressed her hands to her eyes, as though to
blot out the memory, yet her hesitancy was but for an instant.
"I didn't know what to do. If I cried out, or made any alarm, I was
afraid he would fire. My father was standing unconsciously, his back
toward him, unarmed. I cannot tell you how frightened I was, for,
somehow, the man did not seem real; I--I felt as I have sometimes in
dreams. But I had to do something, something desperate. There was an old
gun standing back of the door--just a relic, and unloaded. Yet it
occurred to me it might answer, might serve to frighten the fellow. I
slipped back, grasped it, and returned, but--when I looked out again he
She took a deep breath, and I heard Miles clinch and unclinch his hands.
"Maybe it was just a ghost, Miss, or a shadow," he interrupted hoarsely,
"for I swear to God there wasn't none of our men up there--you know
"We called the roll in the front hall not ten minutes before, anyhow," I
replied, still looking at Billie, "and I hardly see how any of them got
away after that."
"I--I almost believed the same thing," she confessed, speaking swiftly.
"As I said, it did not seem exactly real from the first, yet I had to
trust my own eyes, and I saw him almost as plainly as I see you two now.
Then he was gone; gone so quickly I could not conceive the possibility
of it. The whole affair appeared imaginary, a matter of nerves. It was
an hallucination; out of my own brain, it seemed, I had conjured up that
crouching figure. I had overheard your roll-call, and realized no
trooper could have been there. I even convinced myself that it was all a
fantasy. I was so certain of it that I stole out into the hall, and
peered down the back stairs. I was frightened, so frightened I shook
from head to foot, but it was because my nerves were all unstrung. I
was sure by this time there had been no one there, and forced myself to
investigate. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and step by step advanced
clear to the back window, and looked out. Then, without the slightest
warning, something was thrown over my head, and I was utterly helpless
in the vice-like clutch of an arm. I cannot explain how startled, how
helpless I was. It occurred so suddenly I could not even cry out, could
scarcely struggle. I was instantly stifled, and left weak as a child. I
know I did make an effort to break away, but the cloth was clutched
closer about my face, and the assailant's grip hurled me to the floor.
The horror was more intense because he never uttered a sound; because I
was in the dark, my mind still dazed by conjecture, and--and I fainted."
The dramatic intensity with which she told this held us speechless. Her
hands were to her face, and I took them away, holding them tightly.
"Go on, Billie," I urged gently. "It was a man then, after all."
"Yes, it was certainly a man, yet I did not really know it until he had
carried me, unconscious, down the back stairs into the kitchen. I came
to myself then, but remained dazed, and only partially comprehended what
occurred. I could see nothing, as he had knotted the cloth about my
head so tightly I could hardly breathe. But I could judge something from
sounds, and I knew he was a man, because he swore once. I think he
intended to leave me lying there, and himself escape through the back
door. I know he lifted the bar and looked out. It was then he shut the
door again quickly, and became profane. Something he saw outside
compelled a change of plan, for he came back quickly, dragged the table
to one side, and opened the trap leading down into the cellar. Whoever
he was he evidently knew all about the house. Then, he caught me up
again, took me down the steps in his arms, and dropped me at the foot,
while he ran back and shut the trap. I was nearly smothered by this
time, scarcely half conscious, and the man must have realized my
condition, for, when he came back, he loosened the wrap about my face.
This enabled me to breathe again freely, but I was so weak I could not
get up, and he was obliged to drag me across the cellar floor. I
struggled still to escape, and succeeded in getting the cloth lifted so
I could see out a little with one eye, but the light was poor, and the
man kept hidden behind where I couldn't get even a glimpse of his face."
One of the men passed us going back into the kitchen, and she paused a
moment until he had gone by, Miles and I waiting impatiently.
"He didn't seem to know what to do with me. I don't think he intended
any injury, and only seemed anxious to escape himself. I tried to talk,
but he would not answer a word. After the first attempt I was not so
much afraid of him, although he was rough enough when I tried to get
away. You know how the cellar is divided off into compartments. Well, he
discovered the one with the door, where you put your prisoners, and
dragged me in there. I knew he meant to close the door and leave me, but
he thought me so weak and helpless that, after we were once inside, he
walked across to test the iron bars at the windows. I don't know how I
did it; I couldn't have stood alone a moment before, but, all at once,
it seemed as if I must, and I made the effort. I think I crawled out,
for I can scarcely remember now even how it was done, but I slammed the
door shut, and dropped the bar across. I heard him pounding and swearing
inside, but was certain he couldn't get out. I didn't faint, but I lay
down there quite a while, so completely exhausted I could scarcely lift
my hand. I could hear him digging at the wood of the door with a knife,
and the awful firing outside and up stairs. I knew the house was being
attacked, and then when it became quiet again, I was equally sure you
had driven the Confederates back. By that time I was able to get to my
feet once more, and felt my way forward to the front stairs, for I knew
I could never lift the trap. In the hall I met the soldier, and he made
me hide here behind the stairs because the fight had begun again."
"And you never saw the man's face, Miss?" questioned the sergeant.
"No; he seemed to try and keep out of sight, and, in the cellar, it was
too dark for me to distinguish features a few feet away. He acted as
though afraid I might possibly recognize and identify him."
"You can give no description? He reminded you of no one you had ever
She was trying to think, to recall every detail to memory, but only
shook her head.
"He was not a large man, rather slenderly built, but strong; young, I
think--the same one I saw before and told you about, Lieutenant
Galesworth, and he wore the same uniform."
My eyes turning from her face encountered Miles; and he burst out,
"I'm jiggered if this don't beat me, sir. Of course the lady is telling
the truth, but where did that buck ever get one o' our uniforms? We
didn't bring no change o' costume along, an' I could tell you now,
within ten feet, where every one o' the lads is posted. They ain't any
of 'em been long 'nough out o' my sight to pull off this kind of a
stunt, an' every mother's son of 'em has got his own clothes on. An'
somehow her description don't just exactly fit any of our boys. Who do
you reckon the sucker is?"
"I have given up guessing, Sergeant," I answered brusquely, "and am
going to find out. If he is down below in the cellar we will be at the
bottom of all this mystery in about three minutes. Come on with me. No,
the two of us are enough. Miss Billie, you had better remain here."
"But," catching me by the sleeve, "he is armed; he has a revolver and a
"Don't worry about that," and I caught the restraining hand in my own.
"One of us will open the door, and the other have the fellow covered
before he knows what to do. Come on, Miles."
It seemed dark below, descending as we did suddenly from out the glare
of the upper hall, and we had to grope our way forward from the foot of
the stairs. I saw Billie follow us a few steps, and then stop, leaning
over to witness all she could. I was a step or so in advance of Miles,
and had drawn my revolver. The cellar was as quiet as a grave. I felt
my way along the wall toward where I remembered this special door to be,
endeavoring to make no noise. My eyes could discern outlines better by
this time, and, as we approached, I became convinced the door we sought
stood ajar. I stopped, startled at the unexpected discovery, and began
feeling about for the bar; it was not in the socket. What could this
mean? Had Billie told us a false story, or had her prisoner, by some
magical means, escaped? She had said he was hacking at the wood with a
knife; could he have cut a hole through sufficiently large to permit of
his lifting the bar? This seemed scarcely possible, yet no other theory
suggested itself, and I stepped rather recklessly forward to
investigate. My foot struck against a body on the floor, and, but for
Miles, I should have fallen. A moment we stood there breathless, and
then he struck a match. A man lay at our feet, face downward, clad in
Federal cavalry uniform, about him a shallow pool of blood.
THE DEAD MAN
The match flared out, burning Miles' fingers so he dropped it still
glowing on the floor. We could yet distinguish dimly the outlines of the
man's form at our feet, and I heard Billie come down the stairs behind
us. There was no other sound, except our breathing.
"Strike another, Sergeant," I commanded, surprised by the sound of my
own voice, "and we'll see who the fellow is."
He experienced difficulty making it light, but at last the tiny blaze
illumined the spot where we stood. I bent over, dreading the task, and
turned the dead man's face up to the flare. He was a man of middle age,
wearing a closely trimmed chin beard. I failed to recognize the
countenance, and glanced up questioningly at Miles just as he uttered an
exclamation of surprise.
"It's one of Mahoney's fellows, sir," he asserted sharply. "Burke's the
"Then he couldn't possibly be the same man Miss Hardy saw up stairs
that first time."
"No, sir, this don't help none to clear that affair up. But it's Burke
all right, an' he's had a knife driven through his heart. What do you
ever suppose he could 'a' been doin' down here?"
"Where was he stationed?"
"He was with me till that last shindy started; then when you called for
more men in the kitchen I sent him an' Flynn out there."
Miles lit a third match, and I looked about striving to piece together
the evidence. I began to think I understood something of what had
occurred. This soldier, Burke, was a victim, not an assailant. He lay
with his hand still clasping the bar which had locked the door. He had
been stabbed without warning, and whoever did the deed had escaped over
the dead body. I stepped back to where I could see the full length of
the cellar; the trap door leading up into the kitchen stood wide open.
Convinced this must be the way Burke had come down, I walked over to the
narrow stairs, and thrust my head up through the opening. There were six
men in the room, and they stared at me in startled surprise, but came
instantly to their feet.
"When did Burke go down cellar?" I asked briefly.
The man nearest turned to his fellows, and then back toward me, feeling
compelled to answer.
"'Bout ten minutes ago, wasn't it, boys?"
"Not mor 'n that, sir."
"What was he after?"
"Well, we got sorter dry after that las' scrimmage, an' Jack here said
he reckoned thar'd be something ter drink down stairs; he contended that
most o' these yer ol' houses had plenty o' good stuff hid away. Finally
Burke volunteered to go down, an' see what he could find. We was waitin'
fer him to com' back. What's happened ter Burke, sir?"
"Killed! Burke killed! Who did it?"
"That is exactly what I should like to find out. There is some one in
this house masquerading in our uniform who must be insane. He killed a
Confederate captain this morning, crushed in his skull with a revolver
butt, and now he has put a knife into Burke. Has any one come up
"Not a one, sir."
"And I was at the head of the other stairs. Then he is hiding in the
Suddenly I remembered that Billie was below exposed to danger; in that
semi-darkness the murderous villain might creep upon her unobserved.
The thought sent a cold chill to my heart, and I sprang down again to
the stone floor.
"Three of you come down, and bring up the body," I called back. "Then
we'll hunt the devil."
She had not left the lower step of the front stairs, but caught my hands
as though the darkness, the dread uncertainty, had robbed her of
"What is it?" she asked. "I do not understand what has happened."
"The man you locked up has escaped," I explained, holding her tightly to
me, the very trembling of her figure yielding me courage. "I haven't the
entire story, but this must be the way of it: One of the men on duty in
the kitchen came down here hunting for liquor. Either the prisoner
called to him, and got him to open the door, or else he took down the
bar while searching. Anyway we found the door ajar, and the
"Then--then the--the other one is down here somewhere still," cowering
closer against me, and staring about through the gloom. "Who--who are
"Soldiers coming for Burke's body--he was the trooper killed. Don't be
afraid, dear--I am here with you now."
"Oh, I know; I would not be frightened, only it is all so horrible. I
am never afraid when I can see and understand what the danger is. You do
not believe me a silly girl?"
"You are the one woman of my heart, Billie," I whispered, bending until
my lips brushed her ear. "Don't draw away, little girl. This is no time
to say such things, I know, but all our life together has been under
fire. It is danger which has brought us to each other."
"Oh, please, please don't."
"Why? Are you not willing to hear me say 'I love you'?"
Her eyes lifted to mine for just an instant, and I felt the soft
pressure of her hand.
"Not now; not here," and she drew away from me slightly. "You cannot
understand, but I feel as though I had no right to love. I bring
misfortune to every one. I cannot help thinking of Captain Le Gaire, and
it seems as if his death was all my fault. I cannot bear to have you say
that now, here," and she shuddered. "When we do not even know how he was
killed, or who killed him. It is not because I do not care, not that I
am indifferent. I hardly know myself."
"Billie," I broke in, "I do understand far better than you suppose. This
affair tests us both. But, dear, I do not know what five minutes may
bring. We shall be attacked again; I expect the alarm every instant, and
I may not come out alive. I must know first that you love me--know it
from your own lips."
She was silent, it seemed to me a long, long while. The three soldiers
went by carrying the dead body, and Miles came to the foot of the
stairs, saw us, and passed along without speaking. Outside was the dull,
continuous roar of musketry, mingled with an occasional yell. Then she
held out both hands, and looked me frankly in the face.
"I am going to be honest," she said softly. "I have loved you ever since
we were at Jonesboro; I--love you now."
I knew this before she spoke; had known it almost from the beginning,
and yet her words, the message of her uplifted eyes, gave me a new
conception of all love meant. A moment I gazed into the blue-gray depths
where her heart was revealed, and then my arms were about her, and our
lips met. Surely no one ever received the gift of love in stranger
situation. On the stairs leading down into that gloomy cellar where a
murderer hid, his victim borne past as we talked; all about us silence
and gloom hiding a mysterious crime; above us the heavy feet of men
treading the echoing floor, and without the ceaseless roar of battle,
volleying musketry, and hoarse shouting. Yet it was all forgotten--the
fierce fighting of the past, the passions of war, the sudden death, the
surrounding peril--and we knew only we were together, alone, the words
of love upon our lips. I felt the pressure of her arms, and crushed her
to me, every nerve throbbing with delight.
"Sweetheart, sweetheart," I whispered, "you have kept me in doubt so
"It has only been because I also doubted," she answered,--"not my love,
but my right to love. To a Hardy honor is everything, and I was bound by
honor. Dear, could you ever think a uniform made any difference?--it is
the man I love." She drew gently back, holding me from her, and yet our
eyes met. "But we must not remain here, thinking only of ourselves, when
there is so much to be done. Remember what is down there, and what
scenes of horror surround us. You have work to do."
The way in which she spoke aroused me as from a dream, yet with a
question upon my lips.
"Yes," I said, "and we are in midst of war--in this are we yet enemies?"
"I am a Southerner," smiling softly, "and I hope the South wins. My
father is out yonder fighting, if he be not already down, and I would do
my best to serve his cause. Do you care for me less because I
"But now," she went on, more softly still, her words barely audible, "my
heart is with you here; with you, because I love you."
We both glanced up swiftly, startled by the sound of heavy steps in the
upper hall. A man's head was thrust through the half-opened door at the
top of the stairs. Apparently he could not see any distance through the
gloom, and I hailed him, although still retaining my clasp of the
"What is it, my man?"
"Sergeant Mahoney told me to find the lieutenant."
"Well, you have; I am the one sought. What's happening?"
"They're a-comin', sorr," his voice hoarse with excitement, and waving
one hand toward the front of the house, "an' thar's goin' ter be hell
ter pay this toime"
"You mean the gray-backs? From the front? What force?"
"Domn'd if Oi know; Oi wasn't seein' out thar--the sergeant told me."
I could not leave Billie down there alone, nor the door open. Whoever
the crazed assassin was, he must still remain somewhere in the cellar,
watching for an opportunity to escape. But I was needed above to direct
the defence. It seemed to me I thought of a thousand things in an
instant,--of my desire to clear up the mystery, of my orders to hold the
house, of Willifred Hardy's danger,--and I had but the one instant in
which to decide. The next I made my choice, at least until I could
discover the exact situation for myself.
"Come," I said soberly.
I closed the door, and faced the trooper.
"You remain here with the lady. Don't leave her for a moment except as I
order. Keep your revolver drawn, and your eyes on that door. Do you
"Oi do, sorr."
"She will explain what you are to guard against. I'll be back to you in
a moment, Billie."
I caught one glimpse out through the south windows as I passed the door
of the dining-room--moving troops covered the distance, half concealed
under clouds of smoke, but none were facing toward us. On the floor,
behind the barricades, a dozen of my men were peering out along the
brown carbine barrels, eager and expectant, cartridges piled beside
them on the floor. At the front door I encountered Mahoney, so excited
he could hardly talk.
"What is it?" I questioned swiftly. "An attack in front?"
"It's the big guns, sorr; be gorry, they're goin' to shell us out, an'
whar the hell was them reinforcemints, Oi'd loike to know!"
"So would I. If it's artillery we may as well hoist a white flag. Here,
my lad, let me look."
A glance was sufficient. Just within the gate, barely beyond reach of
our weapons, with a clear stretch of lawn between, was a battery of four
guns, already in position, the caissons at the rear, the cannoneers
pointing the muzzles. Back of these grim dogs was a supporting column of
infantry, leaning on their muskets. There was no doubting what was
meant. Angered by loss, Chambers had dragged these commands out of the
battle to wipe us clean. He was taking no more chances--now he would
blow the house into bits, and bury us in the ruins. What should I do?
What ought I to do? The entire burden of decision was mine. Must I
sacrifice these men who had already fought so desperately? Should I
expose Billie to almost certain death? Surely we had done our full duty;
we had held the house for hours, driving back two fierce assaults. The
fault was not ours, but those laggards out yonder. I would tell Mahoney
and Miles I was going to put out a white flag; that further resistance
was useless. Miles! With remembrance of the name I recalled where the
man was--down below searching for the murderer. I sprang back, passing
Billie and her guard, and flung open the door.
"Miles," I cried into the silent darkness, "we need you up here at
There was just a moment of tense waiting, and then a gruff voice
sounding afar off,
"I can't, sir, I've got him."
THE LAST STAND
I had no time to answer, no opportunity to even realize what was meant.
There was a fiendish roar, a crash that shook the house to its very
foundations, sending us staggering back against the walls. I remember
gripping Billie closely, and seeing her white face, even as I warded off
with uplifted arm the falling plaster. The soldier was on his knees,
grovelling with face against the floor. A great jagged hole appeared in
the opposite wall, and I could see daylight through it. My ears roared,
my brain reeled.
"Lie down," I cried, forcing her to the floor. "Both of you lie down!"
I caught a glimpse of her eyes staring up at me, her arms uplifted.
"I am going to stop this," I answered, "and you must stay here."
I stumbled over the rubbish, with but one thought driving me--the
dining-room table, its white cloth, and the possibility of getting
outside before those deadly guns could be discharged again. I knew the
house was already in ruins, tottering, with huge gaping holes ripped in
its sides; that dead men littered the floor; and the walls threatened to
fall and bury us. Another round would complete the horror, would crush
us into dust. I gripped the cloth, jerking it from the table, stumbling
blindly toward the nearest glare of light. There was a pile of shattered
furniture in the way, and I tore a path through, hurling the fragments
to left and right. I smelt the fumes of powder, the odor of plaster, and
heard groans and cries. The sharp barking of carbines echoed to me, and
a wild yell rose without. There were others living in the room; I was
aware of their voices, of the movement of forms. Yet all was chaos,
bewildering confusion. I had but the single thought, could conceive only
the one thing. I was outside, gripping the white cloth, clinging with
one hand to the shattered casing. Some one called, but the words died
out in the roar of musketry. The flame of carbines seemed in my very
face, the crack of revolvers at my ears. Then a hand jerked me back head
first into the debris. I staggered to my knees, only to hear
"They're coomin', lads, they're coomin'! Howly Mary, we've got 'em now!"
"Our own fellars, sorr! They're risin' out o' the groun' yonder loike
so many rats. Here they are, byes! Now ter hell wid 'em!"
His words flashed the whole situation back to my consciousness. The
house still stood, wrecked by cannon, but yet a protection. To the left
our troops were swarming out of the ravine, and forming for a charge,
while in front, under the concealment of the smoke, believing us already
helpless, the Confederate infantry were rushing forward to complete
their work of destruction. We must hold out now, five minutes, ten
minutes, if necessary. I got to my feet, gripping a carbine. I knew not
if I had a dozen men behind me, but the fighting spirit had come again.
"To the openings, men! To the openings!" I shouted. "Beat them back!"
I heard the rush of feet, the shout of hoarse voices, the crash of
furniture flung aside. Bullets from some firing line chugged into the
wall; the room was obscured by smoke, noisy with the sharp report of
guns. I could dimly see the figures of men struggling forward, and I
also made for the nearest light, stumbling over the debris. But we were
too late. Already the gray mass were upon the veranda, battering in the
door, clambering through the windows, dashing recklessly at every hole
cleft by the plunging shells. Rifles flared in our faces; steel
flashed, as blade or bayonet caught the glare; clubbed muskets fell in
sweep of death; and men, maddened by the fierce passion of war, pushed
and hacked their way against our feeble defence, hurling us back,
stumbling, fighting, cursing, until they also gained foothold with us on
the bloody floor. The memory of it is but hellish delirium, a
recollection of fiends battling in a strange glare, amid stifling smoke,
their faces distorted with passion, their muscles strained to the
uttermost, their only desire to kill. Uniform, organization, were alike
blotted out; we scarcely recognized friend or foe; shoulder to shoulder,
back to back we fought with whatever weapon came to hand. I heard the
crack of rifles; saw the leaping flames of discharge, the dazzle of
plunging steel, the downward sweep of musket stocks. There were crash of
blows, the thud of falling bodies, cries of agony, and yells of
exultation. I was hurled back across the table by the rush, yet fell
upon my feet. The room seemed filled with dead men; I stepped upon them
as I struggled for the door. There were others with me--who, or how
many, I knew not. They were but grim, battling demons, striking,
gouging, firing. I saw the gleam of knives, the gripping of fingers, the
mad outshooting of fists. I was a part of it, and yet hardly realized
what I was doing. I had lost all consciousness save the desire to
strike. I know I shouted orders into the din, driving my carbine at
every face fronting me; I know others came through the smoke cloud, and
we hurled them back, fairly cleaving a lane through them to the hall
door. I recall stumbling over dead bodies, of having a wounded man
clutch at my legs, of facing that mob with whirling gun stock until the
last fugitive was safely behind me, and then being hurled back against
the wall by sudden rush.
How I got there I cannot tell, but I was in the hall, my clothing a mass
of rags, my body aching from head to foot, and still struggling. About
me were men, my own men--pressed together back to back, meeting as best
they could the tide pouring against them from two sides. Remorselessly
they hurled us back, those behind pushing the front ranks into us. We
fought with fingers, fists, clubbed revolvers, paving the floor with
bodies, yet inch by inch were compelled to give way, our little circle
narrowing, and wedged tighter against the wall. Mahoney had made the
stairs, and fought there like a demon until some one shot him down. I
saw three men lift the great log which had barricaded the door, and hurl
it crashing against the gray mass. But nothing could stop them. I felt
within me the strength of ten men; the carbine stock shattered, I swung
the iron barrel, striking until it bent in my hands. I was dazed by a
blow in the face, blood trickled into my eyes where a bullet had grazed
my forehead, one shoulder smarted as though burned by fire, yet it never
occurred to me to cease fighting. Again and again the men rallied to my
call, devils incarnate now, only to have their formation shattered by
numbers. We went back, back, inch by inch, slipping in blood, falling
over our own dead, until we were pinned against the wall. How many were
on their feet then I shall never know, but I was in the narrow passage
beside the stairs alone. Out of the clangor and confusion, the yells and
oaths, there came a memory of Billie. My God! I had forgotten! and she
was there, crouching in the blackness, not five feet away. The thought
gave me the reckless strength of insanity. My feet were upon a rubbish
heap of plaster, where a shell had shaken the ceiling to the floor. It
gave me vantage, a height from which to strike. Never again will I fight
as I did then. Twice they came, and I beat them back, the iron club
sweeping a death circle. Somewhere out from the murk two men joined me,
one with barking revolver, the other with gleam of steel; together we
blocked the passage. Some one on the stairs above reached over, striking
with his gun, and the man at my right went down. I caught a glimpse of
the other's face--it was Miles. Then, behind us, about us, rose a cheer;
something sent me reeling over against the wall, striking it with my
head, and I lost consciousness.
I doubt if to exceed a minute elapsed before I was able to lift my head
sufficiently to see about me. Across my body sprang a Federal officer,
and behind him pressed a surging mass of blue-clad men. They trod on me
as though I were dead, sweeping their way forward with plunging steel.
Others poured out of the parlor, and fought their way in through the
shattered front door. It was over so quickly as to seem a dream--just a
blue cloud, a cheer, a dozen shots, those heavy feet crunching me, the
flicker of weapons, a shouted order, and then the hall was swept bare of
the living, and we lay there motionless under the clouds of smoke. The
swift reaction left me weak as a child, yet conscious, able to realize
all within range of my vision. My fingers still gripped the carbine
barrel, and dripping blood half blinded me. Between where I lay and the
foot of the stairs were bodies heaped together, dead and motionless most
of them, but with here and there a wounded man struggling to extricate
himself. They were clad in gray and blue, but with clothing so torn, so
blackened by powder, or reddened by blood, as to be almost
indistinguishable. The walls were jabbed and cut, the stair-rail
broken, the chandelier crushed into fragments. Somehow my heart seemed
to rise up into my throat and choke me--we had accomplished it! We had
held the house! Whether for death or life, we had performed our duty.
I could hear the echoing noises without; above the moans and cries,
nearer at hand, and even drowning the deep roar of the guns, sounded the
sturdy Northern cheers. They were driving them, and after the fight,
those same lads would come back, tender as women, and care for us. It
was not so bad within, now the smoke was drifting away, and nothing
really hurt me except my shoulder. It was the body lying half across me
that held me prone, and I struggled vainly to roll it to one side. But I
had no strength, and the effort was vain. The pain made me writhe and
moan, my face beaded with perspiration. A wounded man lifted his arm
from out a tangled heap of dead, and fired a revolver up into the
ceiling; I saw the bullet tear through the plaster, and the hand sink
back nerveless, the fingers dropping the weapon. The sounds of battle
were dying away to the eastward; I could distinguish the volleys of
musketry from the roar of the big guns. I worked my head about, little
by little, until I was able to see the face of the man lying across me.
It was ghastly white, except where blood discolored his cheek, and I
stared without recognition. Then I knew he must be Miles. Oh, yes, I
remembered; he had come up at the very last, he and another man, and one
had been knocked down when the stair-rail broke. I wondered how they
came to be there; who the other man was. I felt sorry for Miles, sorry
for that girl back in Illinois he had told me about. I reached back and
touched his hand--it felt warm still, and, in some manner, I got my
fingers upon his pulse. It beat feebly. Then he was not dead--not dead!
Perhaps if I could get up, get him turned over, it might save his life.
The thought brought me strength. Here was something worthy the effort
--and I made it, gritting my teeth grimly to the pain, and bracing my
hands against the wall. Once I had to stop, faint and sick, everything
about swimming in mist; then I made the supreme effort, and turned over,
my back against the wall, and Miles' ghastly face in my lap. I sat
staring at it, half demented, utterly helpless to do more, my own body
throbbing with a thousand agonies. Some poor devil shrieked, and I
trembled and shook as though lashed by a whip. Then a hand fell softly
on my forehead, and I looked up dizzily, half believing it a dream, into
Billie's eyes. She was upon her knees beside me, her unbound hair
sweeping to the floor, her face as white as the sergeant's.
"And you live?--you live!" she cried, as though doubting her own eyes.
"O God, I thank you!"
THE MYSTERY SOLVED
It was impossible for me to speak. Twice I endeavored, but no sound came
from my parched lips, and I think my eyes must have filled with tears,
her dear face was so blurred and indistinct. She must have understood,
for she drew my head down upon her shoulder, pressing back the matted
hair with one hand.
"My poor boy!" she whispered sobbingly. "My poor boy!"
"And you--you are injured?" I managed to ask with supreme effort.
"No, not physically--but the horror of it; the thought of you in midst
of that awful fighting! Oh, I never knew before what fiends men can
become. This has taught me to hate war," and she hid her face against my
cheek. "I was in that dark corner against the wall; I saw nothing, yet
could not stop my ears. But this sight sickens me. I--I stood there
holding onto the rail staring at all those dead bodies, believing you
to be among them. I thought I should go mad, and then--then I saw you."
Her words--wild, almost incoherent--aroused me to new strength of
purpose. To remain idle there, amid such surroundings, would wreck the
"It was a desperate struggle, lass," I said, "but there are living men
here as well as dead, and they need help. Draw this man off me, so I can
sit up against the wall. Don't be afraid, dear; that is Miles, and he is
yet alive. I felt his pulse a moment ago, and it was still beating."
She shrank from the grewsome task, her hands trembling, her face white,
yet she drew the heavy body back, resting the head upon the pile of
plaster. The next moment her arms were about me, and I sat up supported
by her shoulder. Even this slight movement caused me to clinch my teeth
in agony, and she cried out,
"You are hurt? Tell me the truth!"
"My shoulder and side pain me," I admitted, "but they are nothing to
worry over. Can you find water?"
"Yes," eager now for action. She was gone not to exceed a minute,
returning with a pail and cloth, and dropping again on her knees, began
bathing my face.
"It is a charnel house, with dead lying everywhere. I had to step across
their bodies to get to the kitchen, and stopped to give one poor
wounded lad a drink. Oh, I never can blot this scene out; it will haunt
me in my dreams." Tears were in her eyes, and stealing down her cheeks,
but there was no faltering. Softly she bathed the wound on my head, and
bound it up. Then she kissed me. "Will they never come to help us?" she
cried, lifting her eyes from mine. "Hear that man yonder groan. What can
I do, Robert? I cannot sit still here!"
"Try to revive Miles," I suggested, pointing to him. "You heard what he
replied when I called him just before the charge. He had caught the
murderer, and, if he dies, we may never know the man's identity. Here,
Billie, take this cloth and sprinkle water on his face. Don't mind me
any more; I am all right now."
She started to do as I requested but had scarcely dampened the rag when
a man came in through the wrecked door, picked his way forward a couple
of steps, and stopped, staring about at the scene. Behind him were other
figures blocking the entrance. Apparently we were indistinguishable from
where he stood, for he called out,
"Is there any one alive here?"
I heard a weak response or two, and then answered, "A few, yes--back
here behind the stairs."
He moved to one side, shading his eyes with one hand so as to see
better. I could tell now he wore the uniform of a Federal officer, but
was unable to distinguish his rank. The sight of the girl, standing in
the midst of all that horror, her loosened hair falling below her waist,
evidently startled him. An instant he stared toward us incredulously;
then removed his hat.
"Who are you?"
"I am Lieutenant Galesworth," I answered, although his question was
directed to her. "And this lady is Miss Hardy, the daughter of Major
Hardy of the Confederate army."
"This, I believe, was the Hardy plantation?"
"Yes--she was present throughout the fight."
"I understand. By all the gods, I thought I had gone crazy when I first
saw her. A woman in such a scene as this seemed impossible. Here, men,
quick now," and he turned to his following, pointing. "There were
several voices answered among those lying there. Place the dead against
the wall, and," glancing through the doorway beside him, "carry the
wounded into the parlor. Corporal, you and one man come with me."
He stepped across carefully, picking a way between the bodies.
"Galesworth, did you say? Then you were in command here?"
I bowed, feeling as I did so that Billie had slipped her hand into mine.
"Great fight you made," he went on warmly. "Perfect shambles, outside
the house as well as in. Nothing like it in my experience. I am Doctor
McFarlan, Surgeon Medical Corps. Much hurt yourself?"
"Nothing serious, I think, Doctor. Shoulder and side pain some, but I
want you to look at this fellow. He was my sergeant, and seems to
The shrewd gray eyes surveyed us quizzically.
"Exactly, I see," he replied. "Love and war--the old story. Ah! that
brought a little red into your cheeks, my girl. Well, it's good for you.
Which is the man?--this one? Here, Corporal, lift his head, and you,
Jones, bring me the water; easy now."
I drew her closer to me, our eyes on the surgeon and Miles. The former
worked with swift professionalism, forgetful of all else in his task,
yet commenting audibly.
"Ah, a bad blow, a bad blow; however, skull intact; concussion merely.
Bullet wound right chest--must probe for it later; right arm broken; not
likely to see any more of this war. Live? Of course he'll live, so far
as I can see. Tough as a knot--country stock, and that's the best kind;
constitution pull him through. More water, Jones; that's it, my
lad--yes, you're all right now, and among friends. Lift him up higher,
Corporal. Do you begin to see things?--know that man over there?"
Miles looked at me dully, but slowly the light of returning intelligence
came into his eyes.
"The lieutenant?" he asked weakly, "the lieutenant?"
"Yes, Sergeant," I replied eagerly, "we're both here, but we're about
all there is left."
"Did they come, sir? Did our boys get here?"
"Did they!" broke in the surgeon, his face glowing. "It was like bees
out of a hive the way they came up from that ravine. The lads had been
held back until they were mad clear through. The moment they saw what
was going on they broke for the house; never waited for orders, or
formation--just made a run for it. I guess they didn't get here any too
soon either. Well, that's all I can do for you now, son. Jones, you stay
here until I come back--you know what to do."
Miles' eyes followed him; then he looked at the dead bodies,
shuddering, his hands to his face. When he took them down again he
seemed to see Billie for the first time.
"You--you here, Miss! Oh, I remember now; it had been knocked plum out
o' me. Did he get away?"
"That feller who knifed Burke. I had him all right, sir, back in the
coal cellar. He'd crawled away there into one corner, an' it was dark as
hell--beg your pardon, Miss." The sergeant sank back against Jones'
shoulder, and the man wet his lips with water. "I couldn't see only the
mere outline of him, and didn't dare crawl in, for I knew he had a
knife. All I could do was cover him with a gun, an' try to make him come
out. That's what I was up to when you called. Damned if I knew what to
do then--there was some racket up stairs, let me tell you, an' I knew
there was a devil of a fight goin' on. I wanted to be in it the worst
way, but I couldn't find it in my heart to let that devil loose again.
Finally I got desperate, an' grabbed him by the leg, an' hauled him out,
spittin' and fightin' like a cat. He cut me once, before I got a grip on
his wrist, an' my gun shoved against him. Then he went weak as a rag.
But I wan't thinkin' much except about the fracas up stairs--the boys
catchin' hell, an' me not with 'em. So I didn't fool long with that
feller. I just naturally yanked him 'long with me up stairs into the
kitchen, an' flung him down against the wall. I got one glance out into
the hall, an' didn't care no more what become o' him. You was facin' the
whole mob of 'em, swingin' a gun barrel, an' I knew where I belonged.
But damned if that feller didn't startle me. He was up like a flash to
his feet, an' I thought he was trying to get me. But he wasn't. When I
run to you, he wasn't two steps behind, an' may I be jiggered, sir, if
he didn't jump in there on your right, an' fight like a wild man. That's
all I saw, just the first glimpse. He sure went into it all right, but I
don't know how he come out."
"Well, I do; I happened to see that myself, though I hardly know how. He
was clubbed with a musket from the stairs. The man who hit him fell when
the railing broke. The two of them must be lying over there now. Who was
he, Miles? Did you know him?"
The sergeant wiped the perspiration from his face with his sleeve, and
Jones moistened his lips again. I felt Billie's grasp tighten, and her
hair brush my cheek.
"Well, I thought I did, sir," he admitted at last, but as though not
wholly convinced, "only I don't like to say till you have a look at the
lad. He was dead game anyhow, I'll say that for him, an' I don't feel
just sure. I never got eyes on him in daylight, an' when I yanked him
out o' the coal hole he was mostly black. Maybe that's him over
The hospital squad had cleared out much of the front hall, but had not
reached the plaster pile where we had made our last stand. Those that
were left were mostly clad in gray, but over against the stairs, one leg
and arm showing, was a blue uniform. The hospital men came back, and I
called to them,
"Sergeant, there is one of our men lying in that pile. Will you lift him
up so I can see the face?"
This was the work of a moment only, and for an instant no one spoke.
Disfigured as the face was, blackened and bloody, there could be no
mistake in identity--it was that of Charles Le Gaire.
"Why--why," exclaimed Billie, thunderstruck. "I know him, but I cannot
remember. Who is the man?"
It was all clear enough to me now; I only wondered at not suspecting the
truth before. After guiding us up the ravine he had not returned to
camp, but remained, intent on revenge, feeling that this was an
opportunity for vengeance which would insure his own safety. Yet she did
not know, did not understand, and it must all be explained to her.
Miles broke in impatiently.
"Ain't it the same nigger, sir, what brought us up here?"
"Yes," I said, but with my eyes on the girl's face. "Billie, listen,
dear. The man was Le Gaire's servant, his slave, but also his son. He
was here with his master, but you never knew of the real relationship
between them. The boy was our guide last night, and he told me his
story--of how justly he hated Le Gaire. Shall I tell it to you now, or
wait? The doctor is coming."
She glanced from my face up into that of the approaching surgeon. The
hospital squad, at the nod of command, were bearing the body down
"Tell me now."
"It will require but a moment, dear. It was because this Charles Le
Gaire had lived here that I asked for him as a guide. He agreed to come
as far as the end of the ravine only, as he did not wish to be
recognized. Then he disappeared, and, I supposed, returned to camp.
Instead, he evidently stole into the house. He was Captain Le Gaire's
son by a slave mother. Bell told me later that the mother was sent back
into the fields, and died as a result. That would account for the hate
the boy felt against the father."
"How--how old was he?" her trembling lips white.
"Not over eighteen."
Billie hid her face on my shoulder, sobbing silently. A moment the
surgeon stood looking down at us compassionately.
"I am going to have both you and your sergeant taken up stairs," he said
at last. "Come, Miss Hardy, you have no right to break down now."
THE COMING OF THE NIGHT
It was sundown, and silent without, except for voices and the constant
movement of men. The din of battle, the roar of guns, had ceased, and
everywhere gleamed the light of fires where the tired commands rested.
The house stood, shattered but stanch, great gaping holes in its side,
the front a mere wreck, the lower rooms in disorder, with windows
smashed, and pools of hardening blood staining the floors. Appearing
from without a ruin, it yet afforded shelter to the wounded.
I had had my own wounds washed and cared for. They were numerous enough
and painful--an ugly slash in the side, a broken rib, the crease of a
bullet across the temple, and a shoulder crushed by a terrific blow,
together with minor bruises from head to heels--and yet none to be
considered serious. They had carried me up the shattered stairs to her
room, and I lay there bolstered up by soft pillows, and between clean
sheets, my eyes, feverish and wide-awake, seeking out the many little
things belonging to her scattered about, ever reminded of what had
occurred, and why I was there, by my own ragged, stained uniform left
lying upon a chair. I could look far away out of the northern window
from where I rested, could see the black specks of moving columns of
troops beyond the orchard, the vista extending as far as the log church,
including a glimpse of the white pike. The faint odor of near-by
camp-fires reached my nostrils, and the murmur of voices was wafted to
me on the slight breeze. Some lad was singing not far away, although the
words could not be distinguished, and from the farther distance sounded
clearly a cavalry bugle. I could hardly realize, hardly comprehend what
it all meant. It hurt me to move, and the fever made me half delirious.
I fingered the soft, white sheets almost with awe, and the pillows
seemed hot and smothering. Every apartment in the house held its quota
of wounded, and down below the busy surgeons had transformed the parlor
into an operating room. In spite of my closed door I could overhear
occasionally a cry of pain.
Yet I was only conscious of wanting one presence--Billie. I could not
understand where she had gone, why she had left me. She had been there,
over in the far corner, her face hidden in her hands, when the surgeon
probed my wounds. She had been beside me when he went out, her soft
hand brushing back my hair. I remembered looking up at her, and seeing
tears in the gray-blue eyes. Then some one had come to the door, and,
after speaking, she came back to me, kissed me, said something softly,
and went out, leaving me alone. I could not recall what it was she said.
That must have been an hour, maybe two hours, ago, for it was already
growing dusk. I do not know whether I thought or dreamed, but I seemed
to live over again all the events of the past few days. Every incident
came before me in vividness of coloring, causing my nerves to throb. I
was riding with Billie through the early morning, and seeing her face
for the first time with the sunlight reflected in her smiling eyes; I
was facing Grant, receiving orders; I was struggling with Le Gaire, his
olive face vindictive and cruel; I was with Billie again, hearing her
voice, tantalized by her coquetry; then I was searching for Le Gaire's
murderer, and in the fight, slashing madly at the faces fronting me. It
must have been delirium, the wild fantasy of fever, for it was all so
real, leaving me staring about half crazed, every nerve throbbing. Then
I sank back dazed and tired, sobbing from the reaction, all life
apparently departed from the brain. I could not realize where I was, or
how I got there, and a memory of mother came gliding in to take
Billie's place. I was in the old room at home, the old room with the oak
tree before the window, and father's picture upon the wall at the foot
of the bed. I thought it was mother when she came in, and it was the
touch of mother's hand that fell so soft and tender upon my temple,
soothing the hot pain. Gradually the mists seemed to drift away, and I
saw the gray-blue eyes, and Billie.
She was kneeling there beside me clasping one of my hands, and she
looked so happy, the old, girlish smile upon her lips.
"You have been away so long," I began petulantly, but she interrupted,
"No, dear, scarcely fifteen minutes, and I have had such good news. I
hurried back just to share it with you. The doctor says you are going to
get well, that all you need is nursing, and--and I have heard
I looked at her, dimly understanding, and beginning to reflect her own
"How did you hear? Is he a prisoner?"
"Oh, no! Could I be happy under those conditions? He is unhurt, and has
sent for me. General Johnston despatched an officer through the lines
with a flag of truce. He was brought here, and that was why I left you.
He had a letter for me, and authority to conduct me back to the
general's headquarters. Was not that thoughtful of them?"
"Yes," I answered wearily, clinging to her hand, "and--and you are going
now? You came to say good-bye?"
"You poor boy, do you really think that? Shall I tell you what message I
My face must have answered, for she lowered her head until her cheek
rested against mine, her eyes hidden.
"I--I said I would stay here with my soldier."
I was still a long while it seemed to me, our hands clasped, our cheeks
pressing. I could feel her soft breath, and the strands of her hair.
"Billie, there is no regret, no doubt any more?" I asked falteringly.
"It is all love for me?"
"All love," she answered, moving just enough so that our eyes met. "You
are my world forever."
"And that uniform yonder--it is no barrier, dear? I am still a Federal
She glanced at the rags, and then back into my face.
"Sweetheart," she whispered gently, "I can be loyal to the South, and to
you also--you must be content with that."
Content! It was as though everything else had been forgotten, blotted
out. It was almost dark now, and far away the camp-fires blazed red and
yellow among the trees. I lay there, gazing out through the open window,
her rounded arm under my head, her cheek still pressed tightly against
mine. My nerves no longer throbbed, my veins no longer pulsed with
fever. She never moved; just held me there against her, and in the
silence I fell asleep.
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In a new book, MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman asserts that we need to overcome the Internet’s sorting tendencies and create tools to make ourselves ‘digital cosmopolitans.’
MIT's Class of 2003 has felt only the nip of the wringer that's now squeezing job seekers nationwide, according to Elizabeth Reed, director of the MIT Careers Office.
"The end of the technology-fueled boom of the late '90s sent hiring needs plummeting, but so far MIT graduates have been spared the extremes reported elsewhere," Reed reported.
Signs of troubled economic times affecting seniors have included fewer job offers and perks, rather than an acute drop in the number of employers recruiting at MIT, she added.
In fact, recruiting activity by employers is expected to increase at MIT during the coming academic year, an auspicious sign for the Class of 2004, and it has remained steady over the past two academic years. "At this point the number of employers who have reserved dates for 2003-04 is higher than it was at this time last year," Reed noted.
The highest proportion of recruiters last year came from management and technical consulting firms and from finance. They accounted for more than 25 percent of recruiters, she said.
Firms specializing in biomedical devices, pharmaceuticals and software were the second most significant recruiters at MIT. Firms that provide Internet products and services such as Amazon.com, AltaVista and Doubleclick, as well as information systems consultants, recruited at MIT in smaller numbers, Reed said.
Top employers of MIT's Class of 2002 included Oracle, Goldman Sachs, MIT, IBM, Merrill-Lynch, Microsoft, Raytheon and Texas Instruments.
Student interest in technical consulting, software development and biotechnology has remained strong in recent years, according to Careers Office figures.
The national economic picture has inspired MIT students to seek advice and guidance from the Careers Office.
"We've noted an increase in attendance at career panels on science policy, science journalism and nonprofit work, and the number of MIT applicants to law school has doubled in the past year," said Reed.
The Careers Office anticipated student concerns about the recessionary job market. "We worked hard to help students strategize, identify potential employers, hone job search tools and skills, and maintain optimism," Reed said.
Jason Wall, assistant director for employer development, created new opportunities through a nonprofit career fair co-sponsored with Tufts and Harvard, eFairs with Caltech (to increase West Coast opportunities) and the Ivy-Plus schools, and the office's first virtual employer presentation.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on June 4, 2003.
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When an incredulous Jane Campion fan asked what I hated about her version of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, I immediately responded, "Everything." Actually, I thought Barbara Hershey, as the subtle villainess, Madame Merle, made a good first impression: I laughed appreciatively when the heroine, Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman), surprises Merle at the piano, because Hershey gives the right ironic lilt to the line, "I am afraid there are moments in life when even Schubert has nothing to say to us." But sooner or later, everyone, including Hershey, wilts in Campion's artificial hothouse atmosphere, which suffocates James' account of a lively American girl's unsentimental education as she quests through Europe in search of a life of value. I did hate everything about the movie if you define "everything" the way James did -- as the sum of the essential and the significant. (Isabel asks Madame Merle, "What have you to do with me?" and Madame Merle answers, "Everything.") What Campion and screenwriter Laura Jones have left out of Isabel's progress is her inner landscape -- the foundation of the book. James revealed in his preface that when he sat down to write the novel, he said to himself, "Place the center of the subject in the young woman's own consciousness." The only consciousness here belongs to the filmmakers. A sad, paltry thing it is.
James biographer Leon Edel noted that at moments in The Portrait of a Lady, "The story verges on melodrama when it isn't pure fairy tale: a rich uncle, a poor niece, an ugly sick cousin who worships her from a distance, three suitors, a fairy-godfather who converts the niece into an heiress, and finally her betrayal by a couple of her cosmopolite compatriots into a marriage as sinister as the backdrop of a Brontë novel." To Edel, James' work is a prime example that what gives a novel life isn't the story -- "it was the way in which the story was told, the qualities of mind and heart that flowed into it, suffusing it with the warmth and texture of life itself." (Or, as Sam Peckinpah said, "It's the way you blow up a bridge.") Campion and Jones tell it with full-frontal banality; it doesn't verge on melodrama, it drowns in melodrama. Like the most blatant hacks (but with flurries of art-house filigree), the filmmakers use a raging hormonal imbalance to account for Isabel's odd choice to marry Gilbert Osmond (John Malkovich), that paragon of useless good taste. Poor Isabel: She's transformed from a seeker after truth and beauty to a sort of hard-shelled ditz whose destiny changes with a kiss.
Although I'm all for adapters of classic work boldly announcing their freedom from tradition, Campion and Jones' devices aren't far removed from Baz Luhrmann's in William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. This period piece begins with contemporary young ladies in languid poses, photographed with the fungoid gloss that Campion long ago made her visual signature. We see a girl whose blank face seems to scream out "tabula rasa" subtly swaying to the music on her Discman before we fade into the intense, empty face of Nicole Kidman. If Campion and Jones were saying solely that, throughout the years, "girls will be girls," the device would be condescending and facile; what makes it worse is that on the soundtrack we hear the girls' silly chatter about kissing -- and when you get right down to it, this movie really is about nothing more than kissing.
Before we get a chance to acclimate ourselves to the strange closed world of American expatriates in the late 1800s, Isabel, at her uncle Mr. Touchett's British estate, is already putting off the admirable, forward-thinking Lord Warburton (Richard E. Grant), surprising everyone including her termagant aunt (Shelley Winters) and her sickly, loving, observant cousin, Ralph Touchett (Martin Donovan). Then we learn of her previous suitor, the aggressive American businessman Caspar Goodwood (Viggo Mortensen), who's been tipped off to her location by her roving journalist friend Henrietta Stackpole (Mary-Louise Parker). Before long Isabel has a dream of Ralph and Caspar and Warburton making love to her. Jones has written that if James "is turning in his grave at the vision of Isabel's romantic sexual fantasies, I hope he is turning with pleasure." From what -- imagining himself in Isabel's place? (Really, this latter-day Jamesian sexual revisionism has gone too far.)
By the time Ralph advises his father to give half his inheritance to Isabel, the film's tone has already been set: ugly, brutish, and warped. And there on in, the moviemakers relentlessly telegraph the plot turns, so that rather than empathize with Isabel as her upward-aspiring vision plays tricks with her, we deem her incredibly stupid for not seeing that Gilbert Osmond is a well-dressed homunculus. The moviemakers guarantee that we'll feel superior to Isabel by giving away at the outset that Madame Merle was Osmond's mistress. In the famous last line of the novel, which of course has no correlation in the movie, Henrietta Stackpole teaches the spurned-yet-again Caspar Goodwood "the meaning of patience." One wishes it had been taught to Campion and Jones. Throughout, they seek to grab us with clipped scenes and stark effects, the nadir being a flickering black-and-white montage of Isabel freaking out during an Egyptian tour over her response to Osmond's ardent courting, a sequence complete with a spinning-parasol pattern out of Vertigo and, yes, talking lima beans. And the direction of the actors is ludicrously overemphatic -- at one point, Osmond brays in imitation of a donkey. James wrote that in his novel he strove to attain "the maximum of intensity with the minimum of strain"; Campion and Jones exert the maximum of strain to achieve the minimum of intensity.
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Windows 8 & Windows RT Explained
Microsoft is officially launching its new Windows 8 operating system on Friday, October 25, 2012. This is a brand new and completely redesigned operating system from Microsoft. It will be available for upgrade on computers that are currently running Windows 7, Vista and XP and it will come standard on some new PCs. There are also tablets that run the Windows 8 operating system.
Microsoft will also debut its Windows RT operating system which looks and functions like Windows 8, but is not in fact the same thing. Windows RT is essentially a “lite” version of Windows 8 meant to run smoothly and conserve battery life on the new Windows tablets like the Surface. I’ll spare you the exact details of the differences between these two separate systems and just send you here if you are interested in learning more about it: Windows 8 vs. Windows RT: It matters. Let’s explain.
Olive Tree’s Windows Apps
With the variety of devices and computers floating around out there running a variety of Windows operating systems, I want to clarify a few things about the Olive Tree Windows apps.
We have a full-featured Olive Tree Bible Study app available for computers running Windows 7. You can download it by visiting our website at https://www.olivetree.com/pc/ and clicking on the “PC Download Now” icon. This app includes features like highlighting, the Resource Guide, and supports a majority of the titles available from the Olive Tree store.
There is an Olive Tree app called Bible+ available for Windows 8. The Windows 8 app is a much simpler version of our Bible Study app. That being said, our Windows 8 app features some cool functions like the Search Charm and a smooth design. We will be building up this platform in the future, but for now the Windows 8 app does not offer highlighting, note-taking, sync, or the Resource Guide and has a limited number of titles available for purchase and download. It is important to note that Windows 8 currently runs legacy applications from Windows 7, which means that you will be able to download and install the Windows 7 version of the Olive Tree Bible Study app onto your Windows 8 device.
We now have an app available for Windows RT. The Olive Tree Bible Study app for Windows RT is the same as the Windows 8 app and has the same features and limitations. Please be patient with us as we work to build and develop our app for these new platforms.
We do not currently offer a Bible Study app for Windows Phone, but we are still seriously considering building for this platform. We will announce any new developments in this area as we learn more about the way the different Windows operating systems work together.
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I spoke this about this briefly on Kagro in the Morning yesterday, but it wasn’t clear how it worked. Now we know. Oh, and climate change skeptics rejoice! We’re off the hook! New research indicates it’s been the earthworms all this time!
Earthworms probably increase GHG emissions through a combination of mechanisms, as they change the soil environment in many different ways. They mix organic plant residues in the soil, which may increase decomposition and CO2 emissions. Moreover, the earthworm gut also acts as a microbial incubator, boosting the activity of N2O-producing microbes. Finally, by burrowing through the soil, earthworms make it easier for GHGs in the soil to flow to the atmosphere.
So earthworms produce nitrous oxide farts? I expect that make make the little wrigglers even more popular among a certain segment of the population than they might soon be among their new found champions among the usual suspects.
Wait a second, it seems to me I recall a powerful congressman mocking the idea that humans, with all our technology and intelligence and prodigious numbers couldn’t possibly affect the climate, that’s solely in the Divine hands of God-eh and it even says so In Genesis.
Think Progress — Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.
Now, let’s countdown to the spine snapping 180 degree reversal where tiny spineless Precambrian annelids are suddenly given power over nature recently reserved only for the Lordeh. So God and earthworms change the climate … but definitely not humans, it says so in the Bible, probably somewhere in the back …
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Horsemeat scandal: Bute found in eight horse carcasses
Eight horses, killed in the UK, tested positive for the painkiller bute and six may have entered the food chain in France, the Food Standards Agency said.
England's chief medical officer said the highest level detected was 1.9mg of bute per kg of horsemeat, which posed "very little risk to human health".
Testing started before horsemeat was discovered in processed beef products.
Earlier, food minister David Heath said tests on Findus beef meals found to contain horsemeat were negative.
The prime minister's spokesman said the UK was working very closely with the French authorities tracking the carcasses, which were identified on Thursday morning.
FSA rules which came into force this week mean all horsemeat in the UK should be tested for bute before it is allowed to be sold for food.
Tests on a sample of horse carcasses took place over a three-month period last year after intelligence from abattoirs suggested bute was present in the food chain. Some six per cent of the carcasses tested positive, prompting the FSA to start testing on all horse meat in January.
A total of 206 carcasses were examined between 30 January and 7 February and the eight with bute were discovered.
The FSA said six of the horses were slaughtered at LJ Potter Partners at Stillman's in Taunton, Somerset, and were exported to France, where horsemeat is regularly consumed.
The two killed at High Peak Meat Exports in Nantwich, Cheshire, did not leave the slaughterhouse and have been destroyed.
In a statement, LJ Potter Partners said all the horses it slaughtered had been accompanied by a horse passport issued by the government permitting entry to the food chain.
But it said it had warned the scheme "would not ensure public health" when drafted into law and also questioned "ineffective" EU regulations.
"We are seeking a fundamental reappraisal of the legislation to permit our legitimate industry to perform its dual role in protecting horse welfare and providing customers who wish to purchase and consume horsemeat with a product in which they can be confident," it said.'Meaningful results'
Concerns about horsemeat first came to light on 15 January when tests by Irish authorities found horsemeat in beefburgers made by firms in the Irish Republic and the UK and sold in supermarket chains including Tesco and Aldi.
Bute is not allowed to get into food as it can cause serious complications in people.
Those concerns have been eased as the levels detected were very low.
However, it seems as though horses given bute do enter the food chain and on a regular basis.
One estimate suggests 540 bute-treated horses leave UK shores each year, destined for dinner plates on Continental Europe.
While the risks may be low, the risks are still there. The Food Standards Agency says it is unacceptable for any bute to enter the food chain.
It is for this reason that it has adopted a new policy of testing all slaughtered horsemeat for bute before allowing it to be sold for food.
A growing number of UK retailers have since recalled processed beef products found to contain horsemeat. And last week the British unit of frozen foods giant Findus started to recall its beef lasagne on advice from its French supplier, Comigel, after tests showed concentrations of horsemeat.
In other developments:
- The French processing company that supplied Findus sold meat labelled as beef despite knowing it could have been horsemeat, the French government has said. Spanghero had previously said it was a victim of its supplier but officials said it appeared the Romanian company had acted in good faith
- The European Union is urging member states to conduct random tests for horsemeat in processed beef products
- Horsemeat has been detected in frozen lasagne on sale in Germany and supermarkets have started removing the product from their shelves
- Beef has been removed from school meals across Staffordshire as a precautionary measure amid the horsemeat scandal
- In Wales, Conservative rural affairs spokeswoman Antoinette Sandbach has called for local authorities to test all meat entering the public sector food chain
- A meat processing factory in the Irish Republic, Rangeland Foods in County Monaghan, has withdrawn some batches of burger products which contained beef supplied from Poland - some of which were found to contain between 5-30% horsemeat
- A report from the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee called for the FSA to have stronger powers to force meat producers to carry out testing
Chief medical officer Prof Dame Sally Davies said an individual would have to consume vast quantities of horsemeat containing bute to be at risk.
She said: "A person would have to eat 500-600, 100% horsemeat burgers a day to get close to consuming a human's daily dose. [The drug] passes through the system fairly quickly, so it is unlikely to build up in our bodies."
Bute is sometimes used as a drug to treat individuals suffering from a severe form of arthritis, but in rare cases it causes a serious blood disorder known as aplastic anaemia, where the body does not make enough new blood cells.
FSA chief executive Catherine Brown accused some vets and horse owners of not ensuring horse passports are kept up-to-date, leading to bute-treated horses ending up in the food chain.'Catastrophic complacency'
Responding earlier to an urgent question in the House of Commons, food minister David Heath said that retailers and suppliers were "on course" to provide "meaningful results" on testing of beef products on Friday.
- Experts say horsemeat is as safe to eat as beef
- The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has demanded food businesses to check for horsemeat in all processed beef products, such as burgers, meatballs and lasagne. The first set of results are expected on Friday
- There is concern that some horses are given a drug called bute (phenylbutazone) which can be dangerous to humans
- In rare cases it causes a serious blood disorder known as aplastic anaemia, where the body does not make enough new blood cells
- Animals treated with phenylbutazone are not allowed to enter the food chain for this reason
- The Food Standards Agency ordered Findus to test its beef lasagne that contains horsemeat for bute, but no traces were found
He confirmed that tests on Findus products had revealed no trace of bute. Findus withdrew its beef lasagne from sale after tests found it to contain up to 100% horsemeat.
Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh - who tabled the Commons question - went on to accuse the government of complacency over the danger of bute entering the human food chain.
She first raised concerns in the House about bute contamination in January.
Meanwhile, Aintree Racecourse has confirmed reports that the Peter Boddy Licensed Slaughterhouse in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, under investigation in the horsemeat inquiry, has the contract to remove dead Grand National racehorses for disposal purposes.
But it said it was illegal for horses humanely put down by injection on the racecourse to be sold for consumption and was "as confident as we possibly can be that no unfit meat ever reaches the human food chain".
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|Photos by Katharine Shilcutt|
|Silence Huang points out good and bad characteristics on a calibration cup of latte.|
Judging a latte art competition is deceptively difficult, as we found out on Friday night. Silence Huang, one of our fellow judges and a master barista from Taiwan, drew careful diagrams on the back of our judging sheets, pointing out all the idiosyncrasies and aspects that we should watch for in each cup of latte that hit the table.
"Which of these looks more balanced and symmetrical to you?" he asked, pointing at three different pictures he'd drawn of little foam hearts in a coffee cup. "Do you see how the rosetta is well-defined on one side but not the other? And do you see the direction of the handle? It should be angled 90 degrees from the design, so that you can drink it right-handed." Color infusion, definition, use of space, sheen and even bubbles were all factors in determining a perfectly pulled piece of latte art.
We had no idea.
At the H-Town Latte Art Throwdown on Friday night, more than 20 baristas created one latte apiece for presentation to the three judges. Some were elaborate and intricate designs; some looked like little more than white smudges on top of a mass of brown foam. It was easy to tell which baristas were still learning the craft, which were home baristas and which were just barely holding back as to not crush the competition.
|The Super Mario Brothers -- baristas from Dallas -- placed well in the competition. Was it their outfits?|
Coffee Groundz was packed tighter than an espresso puck, as coffee nerds and the dozens of baristas themselves gathered around to watch each latte being pulled and poured. Aaron Blanco of the Brown Coffee Co. in San Antonio acted as expediter, carefully transporting each hot cup to the judging table as people oohed and aahed (or occasionally groaned) over the art that decorated the top. Blanco and Huang both pointed out good and bad points in each cup -- "See the bubbles there? How they're coming to the surface and breaking? It looks like Styrofoam. That's not a good thing." -- before we scored each piece of art on six different metrics and passed it along.
|Raising money for Coffee Kids.|
A few of the lattes were consumed by the judges, but most were distributed to a thirsty crowd after being judged. For a $10 donation at the door, the guests were treated not only to great lattes (both inside and outside, at the practice espresso station) but the sheer spectacle of a competition that would shock prize fighters in its fierceness. As it raged inside, guests also competed in their own way for silent auction prizes like a dinner for four at Catalan. Between the door takings and the silent auction proceeds, $2,200 was raised for Coffee Kids
over the course of the night.
|Grand prize winner Dan Streetman.|
In the end, Dan Streetman of Cuvee Coffee outside of Austin took home the grand prize, a bike donated by Bikesport, and the admiration of his fellow baristas. It was only fitting, as Cuvee is a noted training ground for baristas. In fact, Silence Huang is one of Cuvee's current trainers, a skill he showed off later on in the night.
Second place went to Fabio Pontes, Houston's own Brazilian-born barista, while third place went to Jon Meadows of White Rock Coffee in Dallas, who, with his co-worker, came dressed as Mario and Luigi. But even though the main competition was over, the best was yet to come.
|Ecky Prabanto of Tuscany Coffee|
Master baristas such as Max Gonzales from Catalina Coffee and David Buehrer of Tuscany Coffee -- who organized the entire event -- who hadn't competed in the main competition offered a challenge to the assembled baristas: a high-stakes throwdown in the parking lot outside, $20 to get in, winner takes the pot. Within minutes, a $220 pot was at stake and we were judging again, this time alongside Keith Adkins of Fontana Coffee Roasters, the Houston roaster which had donated all the beans for the night.
Over the near-perpetual hiss of steam and the buzz of the espresso grinder, the baristas heckled each other mercilessly and tried to shake their opponents. The smack talk would have made Jim Rome stutter, but it didn't seem to faze the baristas, who poured effortlessly through wry grins and chuckles (and the occasional well-timed comeback). Although Gonzales and Buehrer (and the others who participated) drew beautiful pieces of art in the foam, it was Silence Huang who stunned the crowd and won the pot with his expertly drawn phoenix.
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Bicyclists, Pedestrians Unhappy with Midtown Power Substation
There's a brewing debate in Midtown over a new Xcel Energy power substation.
The facility will be built right along the Midtown Greenway - and some bicyclists are taking issue with it.
The substation will be built east of Hiawatha on 28th. The bike path runs next to where the substation will go.
One thing everyone agrees on this will NOT look like a substation when it is complete.
Xcel's new Hiawatha West substation will have stonewalled base with giant metal screens to cover up all the electrical stuff inside.
It's something that's never been done before according to Xcel’s Joe Samuel, “We are very excited about this substation - we are very excited about the public process we went through to come up with the substation design."
The issue isn't how it looks - but how much of the new substation will be covered up with the fancy meshy material.
Xcel had to scale back due to budget reasons - now most but not ALL of it will be blocked from view.
So at a meeting Tuesday night members of the Midtown Greenway Coalition expressed their concerns. They want more artsy covering - with less substation showing, as initially agreed upon, after months of public meetings on the subject with the power company.
Even the Sierra Club is also weighing in.
"People on bicycles, and the people walking on the trail are really getting the short end of the stick here,” said Joshua Houdek, with Sierra Club.
The Hiawatha West substation is one of two new substations planned for Midtown Minneapolis, and part of a larger project to upgrade the electric infrastructure in the area.
Parts of the neighborhood discussions that have been going on for months have been regarding placing the new power lines below 28th street.
Xcel says it will take these new complaints over esthetics into consideration. They have some time to get things sorted out - work isn't supposed to be complete until June of 2014.
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blackbearnh writes "With the release of the 3.1 iPhone OS, application developers will finally be able to develop augmented reality (AR) apps. In other words, Terminator Vision is right around the corner. O'Reilly Media recently talked to Chetan Damani, one of the founders of Acrossair, about how they developed their new AR application, Nearest Tube, which displays the closest London Tube stations over a live video overlay on an iPhone 3GS. According to Damani, developing AR applications on the 3GS is dead easy, and the real trick will be developing good augmented reality apps. 'It's all about who's going to have the most amount of data and the most valid data. So there's the obvious types of apps which you're going to launch and those are the find me my nearest bar, find me my nearest event, find me the nearest tube stop, find me the nearest ATM. And those sorts of apps are all going to be around. But they're only going to be useful for when you're trying to look for things. So if we want to get users to use augmented reality a little bit more, we have to start introducing other bits of functionality, things like show me the offers available in a particular high street. Show me when I'm walking down a high street if there's a table available at a particular restaurant. And it's that sort of interactivity and providing that real-time data in this augmented reality view which is going to start getting people to use it a lot more rather than just for show me where the nearest area is.'"
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THE CRUMBLING, 17-STORY FAÇADE of Chungking Mansions contrasts sharply with the high-end boutiques and restaurants that surround the five-tower complex. Air conditioners jut from the towers' windows at intervals, dripping water that stains the concrete walls beneath them. On the sidewalk, aggressive touts, many from South Asia, do their best to entice passersby to enter the Mansions and change money or enjoy a quick meal. Most walkers shrug off these advances and give the building a wide berth as they keep moving toward their intended destination. Those who venture inside can find the intensity overwhelming, as I discovered during a trip in 2005 when I went in search of an Indian restaurant my guidebook praised. I was unprepared for the extreme claustrophobia I experienced in the chaotic hallways, although I resisted the urge to abandon my quest and exit the building immediately. Even by the standards of bustling Hong Kong, Chungking Mansions gives new meaning to the word "crowded." The complex is home to dozens of small restaurants and guesthouses (the latter providing lodging to almost 4,000 impoverished migrants and backpackers every night), as well as countless small businesses and wholesalers that serve traders from Africa and South Asia. In Ghetto at the Center of the World, anthropologist Gordon Mathews asserts that it is "the most globalized building in the world."
On the "Golden Mile" of Nathan Road, at the tip of Hong Kong's Kowloon Peninsula, Chungking Mansions is, in many ways, a world unto itself. As Mathews says, in the eyes of many Hong Kong locals, Chungking Mansions "is in Hong Kong, but it is not of Hong Kong." Though it stands in close proximity to several of Kowloon's upscale tourist locales (notably the Peninsula Hotel, which serves lavish afternoon teas and offers rooms for upwards of $400 per night), fearful residents and skittish visitors treat the complex as a no-go zone. With a reputation for drug, theft, and prostitution problems, Chungking Mansions appears to be "an alien island of the developing world lying in Hong Kong's heart."
Constructed in 1961 as a complex of residential and commercial spaces, Chungking Mansions had a mixed reputation in its early days. Some locals remember it as a high-class place that boasted a shopping mall, with escalators and a nightclub, and housed a few local celebrities and British Army officers in the apartments above. Others describe it to Mathews as already "a dump" by the mid-1960s. Built of low-quality concrete that was typical of still-developing Hong Kong at that time, Chungking Mansions did not age well. The exterior grew stained and weather-beaten, and the electrical system within the complex quickly became insufficient for the building's needs. By the 1970s, Chungking Mansions was renowned among backpackers for its cheap guesthouses, while Hong Kong residents viewed the Mansions' increasingly dodgy atmosphere with wariness.
Then, in 1988, a Danish tourist died while trying to escape a fire. The incident called attention to the complex's dilapidated and unsafe conditions, which led to several rounds of refurbishments and upgrades. However, the building retains a dingy, seedy quality that has been impossible to renovate away. When the Western backpacker trade fell off a bit in recent years, new waves of tourists and long-term visitors filled the void; at present, the guesthouses largely cater to a mix of South Asian, African, and mainland Chinese clientele.
In Ghetto at the Center of the World, Mathews illuminates what lies within the warren of hallways and shops behind the decaying façade of the Chungking Mansions complex. He invites readers to accompany him inside the high-rises as he talks with people from around the world who found their way to Hong Kong. What emerges is not simply a string of conversations, but a thoughtful, detailed investigation of how Chungking Mansions became a global nexus of trade, and how the complex may represent hope for the future in the eyes of those who live and work there. Mathews writes: "It is their best chance to climb out of developing-world poverty and make a prosperous life for themselves."
Mathews makes clear that it is no accident Chungking Mansions developed into the global interchange it is today. The relatively lax restrictions on entry into Hong Kong enable visitors to stay in the territory for weeks or even months without a visa, which is sufficient time to broker a deal or two and return home with suitcases full of cheap mobile phones or knockoff designer clothing. Hong Kong also provides convenient access to the factories of southern China, which churn out those phones and clothing for shipment to sites around the world. For African and South Asian businessmen operating on the slimmest of profit margins, the inexpensive accommodations and restaurants of Chungking Mansions make the complex a natural base of operations in Hong Kong.
Cell phones (small, inexpensive, and light) are among the most commonly sold products in Chungking Mansions. Pakistani vendors dominate the wholesale phone trade and Africans are the most frequent customers; Mathews estimates that 20 percent of mobile phones in sub-Saharan Africa have passed through the Mansions en route to their final destinations. The quality of these phones varies widely, ranging from refurbished models to China-made copies of European, Korean, or American brands; a buyer must be vigilant lest a few inferior-quality handsets find their way into his pile. Profits vary widely, subject to fluctuating exchange rates and airline ticket prices, as well as the cost of bribes needed to convince customs officials at home to turn a blind eye to the contents of a buyer's suitcase.
Although Hong Kong locals generally look down on Chungking Mansions traders, Mathews points out that traders are among the moderately wealthy in their homelands, able to assemble the resources necessary to leave for extended periods of time and pay in cash for their shipments of goods. Few of these businessmen operate on a large scale. Instead, their ventures typify what Mathews terms "low-end globalization": "individuals dealing with each other largely on the basis of trust and working with a high degree of risk, often carrying their goods themselves across the globe." Drawn to Hong Kong by the prospect of economic success, the international entrepreneurs of Chungking Mansions work hard to accomplish this uncertain goal, one suitcase of cell phones or fake designer clothing at a time.
Chungking Mansions is more than just a wholesale marketplace, though; restaurants and guesthouses also fill the building, providing jobs and sanctuary to thousands of economic migrants and asylum seekers. Like the vendors and buyers, most of these individuals operate in at least partial violation of the law. Restaurant servers might lack a work visa, and phone stores might sell blatantly copied goods, but such offenders are rarely prosecuted. Despite the site's widespread reputation for serious problems with drugs and crime, crime is more rumor than reality: One officer estimated that the police receive 15 calls per week concerning Chungking Mansions, most reporting minor infractions such as elevated noise levels. Residents of the Mansions break the law on a daily basis, but in the eyes of Hong Kong authorities, and Mathews himself, these transgressions do not merit much concern. Indeed, if the local government sought to prosecute every lawbreaker within Chungking Mansions, the complex's economy would cease to function.
Keeping the Chungking Mansions economy going, Mathews says, is the chief objective of everyone who has a stake in it, the government no less than the vendors and businessmen, and the various parties have settled into a relationship that seems to work for all involved. While those in the Mansions will occasionally file police reports if they have been cheated or robbed by other complex residents, most prefer to resolve disputes through informal networks of relatives or business acquaintances. The police, as one officer informed Mathews, are generally happy to leave low-level law enforcement to the individuals concerned and overlook technical matters like expired visas entirely. The "live and let live" attitude that prevails at Chungking Mansions prevents the kind of intolerance that plagues countries like Pakistan, an attitude Mathew ascribes to "Islam, with its stern moral codes governing some half the people in Chungking Mansions, coupled with Hong Kong's own tolerance toward human diversity"; and "the Hong Kong government's neoliberalism — its emphasis on business over all else."
Though a blend of Islam and laissez-faire capitalism might not be the expected recipe for success, the two seem to have settled well together within the walls of Chungking Mansions. Perhaps this partnership should not surprise us. Chungking Mansions, as locals say, is "not of Hong Kong," not part of the community it inhabits: its visitors, residents, and the shabby complex itself are often viewed with disdain by their Nathan Road neighbors and Hong Kong residents beyond. Yet Chungking Mansions might actually be considered a quintessentially Hong Kong locale: a space apart, overseen, but not ruled, by Chinese authorities; a site where global currents flow and mix; a zone that not only tolerates but celebrates free-market economics. While outsiders regard it as a blemish that mars the shiny, new face of Hong Kong, Chungking Mansions nevertheless embodies the forces that shaped the territory's past and continue to carry it into an uncertain future.
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I've also used my imagination to help others heal themselves. I once went to visit a Hopi rattke maker in Arizona. It took all of my intuitive powers to find her house up high in the mountains, having to make choices of which way to go every hundred feet or so. When I arrived, her granddaughter was crying in pain, holding her ears. She had had a terrible earache for twenty-four hours. Instinctively, I approached the five-year-old and told her, "I'm going to put my hand on your ear and take away the pain. I want you to see the pain. What does it look like? What shape is it? What color? What does it sound like? Does it smell? How would you feel if you touched it? Now I want you to imagine it leaving your ear and entering my hand." She looked up at me with huge brown eyes full of trust. I put my hand on her ear, held it there a few minutes, and then ran to the door and blew the pain out of my hand and closed the door. Within seconds the pain was gone. Her grandmother, the rattle maker, stood there grinning from ear to ear. "That's what my grandfather would have done," she said, "He was a shaman."
In a few minutes, the room seemed to fill with people. Someone placed a chair in the middle of the room and people took turns sitting in it, asking for a healing. Headaches, sores, back pains, and so on. In each case I trusted myself to do what came naturally. It's a day I'll never forget, as I discovered the range of my healing powers as they were drawn out by people for whom healing power was natural medicine.
Imagination is powerful. Imagination is healing. All you need is the courage to visualize what should be, and then give yourself to its creation. The result may not be what you expected, but it will be right.
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Crash Course: Teleconferencing Fundamentals
Aug 8, 2011 1:41 PM
Understanding the theory, terminology and application
of audio conferencing systems.
With Iain Gregory and Kevin Brown
August 30, 2011 at 11:00 AM PDT | 1:00 PM CDT | 2:00 PM EDT
Successful teleconferencing environments depend on understanding how audio quality fundamentals can be applied. With that in mind:
Can you answer the following questions?
- Why wouldn’t we just use a speaker phone in a conference environment?
- What is Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) and why do we need it?
- Does AEC benefit the people in the conference room or the people on the phone who are calling in?
- Why won’t AEC remove noise from a projector fan?
- When does AEC processing latency matter?
Iain Gregory is the Marketing Lead for Installed Sound at Harman Signal Processing. He studied Physics at the University of Birmingham, England and began his audio career in Technical Sales at a reseller of professional audio equipment in West London. Iain joined BSS Audio as UK and Ireland Sales Engineer in 2002, prior to assuming the role of Product Manager for BSS Audio in 2004. He moved to live and work in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2005 and now has marketing and product development responsibility for Installed Sound products from BSS Audio and dbx Professional Products.
Kevin Brown is the Product Specialist for Installed Sound at Harman Signal Processing. He studied International Business Finance at the University of Kansas while also performing with and mixing live bands, a passion of his since the age of 11. Kevin joined BSS Audio in 2009, and has since taken on the role of lead domestic trainer for Soundweb London Level 1 courses. He also assists in product development, marketing, and pre/post sales support for Installed Sound products from BSS Audio and dbx Professional Products.
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
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year of induction2000
place of birthShreveport, Louisiana
date of birthFebruary 25, 1932
date of deathDecember 10, 1996
From the early 1950s through the mid-1970s, Faron Young was among the top stars and most colorful personalities in all of country music. Signature hits like “If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’)” and “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” marked him as a honky-tonk man in both sound and personal style, while other chart-topping singles like “Hello Walls” and “It’s Four in the Morning” showed off his versatility as a vocalist. A music industry entrepreneur, he invested in Music Row real estate, and in the 1960s he published the influential trade paper Music City News. Though his career did not lack for controversy, Young’s voluble, outgoing personality was well received, and the entire community was as shocked as it was saddened when he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of sixty-four.
Born in Shreveport and raised on a farm outside of town, Young, as a teenager, was more interested in pop music than country. But that changed when his high school football coach, who moonlighted in a country band, started Young singing at the local Optimist Club and nursing homes. Young then met Webb Pierce and began working with Pierce in clubs and on KWKH. By 1951, Young was appearing on the radio station’s feature program, the Louisiana Hayride.
Though he recorded in Shreveport, Young’s first sides appeared on Philadelphia’s Gotham label. But by February 1952 he had been signed to Capitol Records, for which he would record for the next ten years. His first Capitol single appeared that spring, and soon thereafter he moved to Nashville. He recorded his first chart hit, “Goin’ Steady,” in October 1952, but his career got sidetracked when he was drafted the following month. While in the service, he performed on army recruitment programs and continued to record. He was discharged in November 1954, just as “If You Ain’t Lovin’ ” was hitting the charts.
From 1954 to 1962, Young cut a slew of honky-tonk classics for Capitol, including the first hit version of Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams.” Most famous was “Hello Walls,” a crossover smash for Young in 1961. It was written by Willie Nelson, who reportedly pitched the song to Young at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge.
In 1963 Young switched from Capitol to Mercury Records. Though initially his Mercury catalog drifted through various bland Nashville Sound stylings, by the end of the decade he had recaptured much of his hard country fire with hits like “Wine Me Up.” Released in 1971, the waltz-time ballad “It’s Four in the Morning” was one of Young’s finest records and his last #1 hit. By the mid-1970s his records were becoming overshadowed by his salty persona. For example, he made headlines in 1972 when he spanked a little girl who was in the audience at a concert in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Young switched labels again in 1979, signing with MCA. The association lasted only two years, and little was heard from Young after that until the Nashville independent Step One picked him up in 1988. He recorded for Step One into the early 1990s (including a charming, if not particularly exciting, duet album with Ray Price), and then withdrew from public view. Though young country acts like BR5-49 were putting his music before a whole new audience in the mid-1990s, Young apparently felt the industry had turned its back on him. That and despondency over his deteriorating health were cited as possible reasons why Young shot himself on December 9, 1996. He died in Nashville the following day. - Daniel Cooper
- Adapted from the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s Encyclopedia of Country Music, published by Oxford University Press.
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If you or someone you care for is living with HIV/AIDS which affects your everyday living, you may be able to get help from Adult Social Care.
To find out if we can help, we will talk with you about what you can do and what help you think you need. We may be able to provide you with special equipment or adapt your home to help you live as independently as possible. To be eligible for equipment or adaptations you have to meet certain criteria. For more information on these criteria please see our How to get social care support page.
In Southampton, the following organisations provide support for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS:
Groundswell provides practical, home based support, befriending and advocacy for people living with or affected by HIV in Southampton and South West Hampshire as follows:-
- transport – for hospital visits and social outings
- friendship and support
- help with meals
- support for carers
- small financial grants
Groundswell is a voluntary group with a professionally trained volunteer team, and are happy to work alongside other agencies if a person wishes. Groundswell’s services are free and confidential. They accept self-referrals or referrals via any other source with a person’s permission. Contact will then be made by the client services manager who will arrange to meet the person to discuss their needs.
Further information on the Groundswell Trust, including their contact details, can be found by using the link below.
Positive Action has a centre in Southampton from which it provides a range of services, including counselling, complementary therapies, group activities, support and advice for people who are HIV positive and their families and carers. Details of their location and opening times can be obtained from the link below.
If you would like more information, advice or help with living with HIV/AIDS, please contact us using the details below.
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Navy to solve mystery
Such is the interest surrounding whether a mini-submarine lies on the river bed, that a specially arranged meeting was held at Londonderry Harbour yesterday - involving everyone from the Environment Minister to the Royal Navy.
The purpose of the meeting was to find the best way to investigate what was described as an “underwater anomaly” which many believe to be a WWII submarine, perhaps a German mini-submarine.
There are fears it is a war grave, or that the vessel may contain dangerous explosives.
Representatives of the Royal Navy, Search and Rescue teams, the Harbour Commission, PSNI, NI Environment Agency, the Crown Estate and the University of Ulster were in attendance yesterday.
Sonar readings were also conducted yesterday afternoon to find out more but also in various locations of the Foyle so the exact location would not be revealed to curious onlookers.
Environment Minister Alex Attwood spoke of the “huge” interest in the discovery, and said that if specialist teams can establish whether or not a mini-submarine lies at the bottom of the Foyle, there was great potential for “development.”
He did point out, however, that no-one yet knows exactly what lies on the Foyle’s bed.
He said: “I am not expert so I rely on what the experts say, but if it transpires that it is a German mini-sub then that is a pretty rare find and a unique asset and therefore opportunities might open up.
“There has been a lot of speculation and it is probably best that I don’t fuel it. I am not going to have a situation where we are sending out our own NIEA divers who don’t have the skills and they accept that they don’t have the skills.
“They are great – very skilful people – but not at dealing with munitions or ordinance. Once we can identify what is lying on the river bed, opportunities may arise. There is massive interest in what is there but at this stage we don’t know.
“There are risks associated with the site. This requires a specialist team to conduct a dive on the site. I have requested the assistance of specialist Navy divers to undertake this task and I anticipate a positive response.”
A Royal Navy representative who attended the meeting told the Sentinel about how Londonderry and the Foyle was a “hub” of activity during World War Two, but that it was unlikely there were any “missing” vessels.
He said: “I don’t know at this stage what it is down there, no-one knows for sure.
“There would be safety concerns surrounding the find, especially with regards to whether or not there would be munitions if this is a military vessel.
“Although, it is unlikely that something would have been unaccounted for – it is not very likely that something would have gone missing. Very detailed records were kept.”
Speaking about the history of the area and its significance he said: “The whole area was hugely significant.
“In 1945 the whole place was a real hub of activity, from the Navy to the RAF. The Foyle was pivotal.”
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Weather for Londonderry
Thursday 20 June 2013
Temperature: 12 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South
Temperature: 12 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North west
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Related BLS programs | Related articles
September 1990, Vol. 113, No. 9
Helping employees with family care
Stephanie L. Hyland
One of the more noteworthy recent developments in employee compensation practices has been an increase in the number and types of benefits offered by employers. In the postwar period, companies have offered a fairly standard package of benefits emphasizing health and life insurance, retirement income plans, and paid leave such as vacations and sick leave. Several other common benefits such as severance pay and employee discounts have a long history, but these items are often of secondary value to the employee. In the work environment of today, however, employers are beginning to recognize another need among their labor force: the need for child care and related benefits to assist working parents.
These developments reflect several labor force trends. The increasing presence of women in the work force and the rise in the proportion of families in which both parents work outside the home have led to greater emphasis on providing family-related benefits, such as child care and parental leave. In a related development, the aging of the population and advances in medicine have led to increasing numbers of workers who must care for elderly dependents. New benefit plans are also reflecting these trends.
This excerpt is from an article published in the September 1990 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
Read abstract Download full text in PDF (421K)
Within Monthly Labor Review Online:
Welcome | Current Issue | Index | Subscribe | Archives
Exit Monthly Labor Review Online:
BLS Home | Publications & Research Papers
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Consumer Fraud Lawyers
As a consumer, you have the right to be treated ethically, and receive products and services that work as advertised. Consumer fraud encompasses a wide-range of unlawful and unfair acts. It can mean hidden fees, price fixing, antitrust litigation, and more.
Stephen M. Garcia and his team of consumer fraud lawyers at Garcia, Artigliere & Schadrack have a successful history of representing people against companies whose products or policies are deceptive or defective. We have achieved multi-million dollar jury verdicts and settlements. We have pursued a number of large-scale consumer fraud cases, including cases against high-profile companies with familiar names such as:
- AOL and Best Buy
- Bluetooth Headsets
- S-Ram, Flash Memory
How to identify consumer fraud:
Consumer fraud exists when you buy something that doesn’t work as it’s advertised to work. The “something” can be a defective product, a real estate swindle, a fake charitable cause, bad faith denial of insurance coverage, a travel scam, as well as many other shams.
The United States government and all state governments have consumer protection laws to protect you against many forms of fraud and unfair business practices. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main federal agency enforcing consumer protection laws. The FTC uses what it calls “industry guides” and trade regulations to define what an “unfair or deceptive” trade practice is.
Enforcement is achieved via administrative proceedings, lawsuits or FTC rule making power. State laws also protect consumers. Your state has common law (judge-made law), giving you protection against fraudulent business practices.
How to prove consumer fraud:
To prove consumer fraud, you usually must prove:
- The person doing business with you made a false statement of “material fact” (a fact that was important to your transaction).
- The person making the statement knew or believed the statement was false.
- You relied on the false statement to your detriment.
The best option, if you suspect you have been a victim of consumer fraud, is to contact a lawyer specialized in consumer fraud. This allows us to start collecting evidence immediately.
Individual Enforcement vs. Class Action
Consumer protection law often allows you to file a private civil lawsuit. Sometimes the amount of money each consumer is losing is too small for an individual lawsuit, where a class action suit may be the best option. With over 26 years of experience in consumer fraud litigation, we can help you determine the best course of action based on your needs.
When it comes to confronting large companies, Stephen Garcia and his team of consumer fraud lawyers take aggressive and ethical action, to help you achieve the best results possible. Stephen Garcia and his consumer fraud lawyers have a history of multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements to prove our expertise.
Contact a Consumer Fraud Lawyer
For a free, no-obligation consultation, contact Stephen Garcia and his team of consumer fraud lawyers at Garcia, Artigliere & Schadrack.
$750 Million: Eight partial class action settlements were preliminarily approved by the court against 12 corporate defendants that manufacture TFT-LCDs used in flat panel televisions, computer monitors, mobile phones, and more.
$8 Million: AOL and Best Buy were held responsible for fraudulent business practices.
$5.4 Million: An Orange County, Calif., court imposes injunction and monetary relief to elder and infirm adults in Sunwest long-term healthcare facilities in California.
$4.25 Million: Pleasant Care Corporation is held responsible for systematic violations of rules, laws, and regulations enacted to protect elder and infirm adults in their long-term healthcare facilities.
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A record number of out-of-state and international students are planning to enroll as University of California freshmen in the fall, the result of a controversial effort by the revenue-hungry university to garner the much higher tuition that nonresident students must pay.
More than 8% of UC's projected 37,151 freshmen will be from out of state or overseas, up from 6% for the school year just ended, according to figures released Wednesday. The change is concentrated mainly at UC Berkeley and UCLA, with Berkeley showing the most dramatic shift. That campus expects non-Californians to constitute 22.6% of its freshman class, double the proportion for last year, the figures show.
The enrollment numbers were discussed at a UC regents meeting in San Francisco, at which university leaders also took a tentative step into the world of Internet-based education, approving a pilot program of undergraduate online classes, if private funding can be found.
California students and families have expressed concern that some in-state students are being squeezed out as UC's nine undergraduate campuses pursue the $22,000 that each nonresident must pay on top of regular student fees. But UC officials say that the university admits as many Californians as state funding allows and that the extra money from out-of-staters helps subsidize classes and campus services for Californians.
"All campuses were more conscious this year of nonresident enrollment, and three of the campuses -- Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego -- were especially effective in enrolling a larger number of nonresidents," said Susan Wilbur, UC's director of undergraduate admission.
A UC commission planning for the university's future has suggested raising the share of non-California residents to 10%, an idea that alarms some politicians and educators even though it would be modest compared with some other states. Prestigious public universities in Colorado, Michigan, Virginia and elsewhere regularly enroll more than 30% of their freshmen classes from beyond their state borders.
However, Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said UC could be hurt politically and economically if state legislators come to see nonresident tuition as an excuse to cut the university's funding even more.
"It doesn't help to build your case in the state to be revenue-chasing around the country and the world," he said. "I understand the financial constraints they are in, but this should have been one of the last resorts, not one of the first."
At UCLA, the number of freshmen from California and other U.S. states will be about the same as last year, but the number of freshmen from abroad will increase to 364, which is 207 more than last fall. As a result, non-Californians are expected to make up about 15% of UCLA's freshman class, up from 11.4% last year.
Thomas Lifka, UCLA's associate vice chancellor for student academic services, said UCLA wants both the revenue and the cultural and intellectual diversity the foreign students bring. He said public resentment about the shift "doesn't take into account that the state is not meeting its responsibility to subsidize students."
UC Berkeley reduced its number of in-state freshmen by about 900, to 4,059.
The UC system hoped to cut in-state freshman enrollment by about 1,500 this year, after a drop of about 2,300 last year in response to reduced state funding. As part of that effort, it adopted the widespread use of admissions waiting lists for the first time. However, demand is so strong that the number has declined so far by just 180 students from last fall, to 34,116. Wilbur said that students' decisions about college attendance remain in flux through the summer and that she anticipated that final numbers in September will be close to the target figure.
In contrast, in response to new UC policies that encourage community college transfers, such transfers increased by 2,220 students this year, to 17,472. About 90% are from California.
Among California freshmen, Asian Americans once again form the largest ethnic group, with 40.7% of the class. White students account for 26.2%, with Latinos at 23.1% and African Americans at 3.9%.
In other business, the regents gave informal approval to a proposal that could move the university more fully into online education. The plans calls for UC to raise about $6 million in private donations to launch as many as 40 all-online undergraduate courses, an experiment that could be widened in the future. UC's extension programs now have about 1,250 online courses, but the new ones would be credit-bearing versions of undergraduate classes that are now overcrowded.
Some UC faculty leaders have opposed more ambitious online plans, saying they worry about course quality, displacement of professors and the rocky experience of some other universities with Internet education.
But UC Berkeley law school Dean Christopher Edley, a leading advocate of online education at UC, said the proposal would help the university cut costs, gain revenue and expand access to students whose family or job responsibilities keep them from attending traditional classes.
He promised that faculty would have control over the plan but stressed the importance of moving quickly. He called it "a question of how well we perform as an engine of opportunity in California and for the country."
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Can growth in the global chemical industry be sustained given recent economic headwinds? Find out from Dr. Thomas Kevin Swift, chief economist and managing director, Economics and Statistics, American Chemistry Council (ACC).
Financially sound green engineering; smooth, safe and secure processes; and efficient bulk-solid handling are the three main areas of focus for the Educational Conference portion of the Chem Show, Tuesday, October 30 through Thursday, November 1, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, N.Y.
Innovative products and technologies previously unseen in the United States will be debuted by nearly 50 companies from 15 different countries at the Chem Show, Tuesday, October 30 through Thursday, November 1, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, N.Y.
A new Outsourcing Services and Contract Manufacturing Pavilion has been added to the Chem Show, Tuesday, October 30 through Thursday, November 1, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, N.Y.
For the first time at the Chem Show, a two-day workshop and symposium titled Nano 101 Nanomaterials Processing will provide an overview of the nanomaterials industry and market, synthesis and processing issues, safe handling and use of nanostructured materials and case studies on engineered nanoparticulate material systems.
With the last of mandated security deadlines now approaching, plants ponder future steps. Read about all of the improvements and procedural changes that have already occurred and find out what might be next for your plant's security plan.
Accidents and deaths have not been enough to spur regulatory change under the Bush administration. There have been 167 accidents in the past two decades, and 108 people were killed in 48 of the incidents.
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<urn:uuid:cd1724c6-d85c-4c99-a4c7-bebae59c165e>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/?referrer_keywords=AICHE,%20Chem%20Show,%20American%20Institute%20of%20Chemical%20Engineers,%20Joe%20Cramer,%20Texas%20A&M%20Pump%20Symposium,%20Valve%20Manufacturers%20Association,%20chemical%20processing,%20process%20engineering,%20chemical%20engineering
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
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US universities report increase in enrollment of foreign students on F-1 student visas
02 January 2012
For concise and recent immigration information watch our news.The number of international students on F-1 student visas enrolled in post-graduate business schools in the US has been rapidly increasing. According to a recent BusinessWeek article, the average international student enrollment in the top 20 full-time US MBA programs "is now 33.4 percent, up from 30.2 percent at the height of the economic crisis, when visa and financing issues prevented many international applicants from enrolling."
According to Businessweek, part of the reason for the increase in international students is because there is a higher approval rate for F-1 student visas, in part due to US Secretary Hillary Clinton's push to get more international students to study in the US.
"Because of the excellence and diversity of our colleges and universities, more students worldwide are choosing to study in the United States," said Ann Stock, Assistant Secretary of State. "Young people who study abroad gain the global skills necessary to create solutions to 21st Century challenges. In turn, international students globalize our campuses and communities."
If you would like to apply for a US visa, WorkPermit.com can help. WorkPermit.com is a specialist visa consultancy with over twenty years of experience dealing with visa applications. We can help with a wide range of visa applications to your country of choice. Please feel free to contact us for further details.
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<urn:uuid:7220dd65-da1c-476a-8d32-2567a2a05ce5>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.workpermit.com/news/2012-01-02/us/us-universities-report-increase-in-enrollment-of-foreign-students-on-f-1-student-visas.htm
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en
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The Boy Scouts of America’s executive board has directed committees to continue an exhaustive review of the BSA’s policy barring gays and lesbians from the program. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013 in Grapevine, Texas.
Please read the full text of the BSA’s release:
For 103 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been a part of the fabric of this nation, providing it’s youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public. It reinforces how deeply people care about Scouting and how passionate they are about the organization.
After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy.
To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013.
View the PDF of the release at this link.
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<urn:uuid:f660bcc8-2510-4c83-b589-8b214941d3bc>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2013/02/06/membership-policy/comment-page-4/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.962246
| 293
| 1.585938
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|
Propools - 3:43 pm on Feb 21, 2012 (gmt 0)
The U.S. mobile phone industry is running out of the airwaves necessary to provide voice, text and Internet services to its customers.
The problem, known as the "spectrum crunch," threatens to increase the number of dropped calls, slow down data speeds and raise customers' prices. It will also whittle down the nation's number of wireless carriers and create a deeper financial divide between those companies that have capacity and those that don't.
See the Chart - [i2.cdn.turner.com...]
(Full Story........ [money.cnn.com ])
There are potential solutions, but none are inexpensive, easy to implement, or comprehensive.
That means there's no major fix on the horizon.
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<urn:uuid:e7372128-264d-4879-a4e1-a47aa94ed7df>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.webmasterworld.com/printerfriendlyv5.cgi?forum=45&discussion=4419996&serial=4419998&user=
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en
| 0.930645
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| 1.671875
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VIENNA - Iran said on Friday it will never suspend its uranium enrichment programme and sees no reason to close the Fordow underground site, making clear Tehran's red lines in nuclear talks with world powers later this month.
Last month a senior US official said the United States and its allies would demand that Iran halt higher-grade enrichment and immediately close the Fordow facility at talks over Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West.
The New York Times reported that negotiators for Western countries would press Iran to ultimately dismantle the site near the city of Qom, which has been used to expand the higher-grade enrichment the Islamic Republic began just over two years ago.
But Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told Reuters he saw "no justification" for closing Fordow, which he said was under IAEA surveillance.
"When you have a safe place, secure place under IAEA control, then why do you tell me that I should close it?" he said, making clear Iran built the site to better protect its nuclear program against any Israeli or US attacks.
"Fordow is a safe place. We have spent a lot of money and time to have a safe place," Soltanieh added.
Iran and major powers resumed talks in mid-April in Istanbul after a gap of more than a year - a chance to ease escalating tension and help to avert the threat of a new Middle East war. They are to meet again on May 23 in Baghdad.
The West says Iran's nuclear work is a cover for developing atomic bombs and wants verifiable assurances to the contrary from Tehran - for example, by accepting much more intrusive UN nuclear inspections and limiting its enrichment capacity.
Iran denies having a weapons agenda, saying it is enriching uranium solely for peaceful energy purposes. Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, which is Iran's stated aim, or provide the core for a bomb if processed more.
"One thing is clear: the enrichment in Iran will never be suspended," Soltanieh said.
He declined to comment however on Western demands that Iran halt the higher-grade enrichment, to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, it started in 2010 and has since sharply increased, shortening the time needed for any nuclear weapons breakout.
The UN Security Council has demanded in a series of resolutions since 2006 that Iran suspend all enrichment but Western diplomats have indicated the immediate priority is to get it to cease the more sensitive higher-grade work.
Many analysts say it will be possible to find a negotiated solution to the long-running row only if both sides compromise: Iran would be allowed to continue some lower-level enrichment if it accepts more far-ranging UN inspections.
Iranian officials say they are optimistic that the talks with United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain will make progress and they underline their expectations that the negotiations will lead to an end of sanctions.
However, the United States and its allies have made clear Tehran must take action to allay their concerns about its nuclear ambitions before they can consider relaxing sanctions.
Western states have imposed expanded, more biting sanctions against Iran's energy and banking sectors since the beginning of this year. The European Union is preparing to slap a total embargo on the purchase of Iranian crude oil in July.
Soltanieh said the sanctions could not stop Iran's nuclear program: "Neither sanctions, nor military actions, nor terror against our scientists will stop the enrichment."
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<urn:uuid:75c29c4a-1274-41f1-b0b6-c6c8d5a6dd02>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=268703
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en
| 0.951084
| 714
| 1.65625
| 2
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With or by good planning.
From "planning": the cognitive process of thinking about what you will do in the event of something happening
cf. luckily, often incorrectly used instead.
Planningly, when the server died (as servers do from time to time), we had a current backup. Luck had nothing to do with it.
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<urn:uuid:22fe9491-638e-45ad-8a39-81f58815ce65>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=planningly&defid=1299528
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.965721
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| 1.507813
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NC12 is open, high water in some areas
Dare County, NC – NC12 on Hatteras Island in Dare County is not closed. However, there are spots of Highway 12 on Hatteras Island where there is still high water, some areas as much as 20 inches.
As of 8:17 a.m. on Thursday morning, Dare County officials say most of the flood waters have receeded on NC12. There is still some sand and water on the road, but NC12 is open. Sand and water are on other roads throughout the Outer Banks, but all roads are open and passable.
High profile vehicles may be able to make it through, officials say – but drivers will be at their own risk.
The Nags Head Causeway is still restricted to one lane of traffic, which is the eastbound lane, as there is water and debris in the westbound lane. Nags Head Police Department is monitoring the conditions and have cones set out. Officials urge drivers to use caution.
The Kitty Hawk Police Department has set out cones as a precautionary measure for ‘No Thru Traffic on Moore Shore Rd.’ from the Wright Memorial Bridge to Beacon Drive.
In Manteo – Sir Walter Raleigh St. from Queen Elizabeth St. to Old Tom is still flooded and the water is still deep from Sir Walter Raleigh to Fernando and from Fernando to Agona St.
Watch NewsChannel 3 for more updates as they are released.
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<urn:uuid:fdbc8649-a6ab-4834-b9d9-f947697b79fc>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://wtkr.com/2013/03/07/nc12-is-open-high-water-in-some-areas/
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en
| 0.970563
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A look at some of the issues that will be prominent in President Barack Obama's second term:
House and Senate committee leaders say they will try to pass far-reaching legislation to overhaul the tax code this year, but prospects appear to be dimming amid continuing partisan budget battles and limited attention from the Obama administration so far.
Comparing 2009 and 2013
The president being sworn in Monday at the Capitol was the same man as in 2009, but not everything else was the same. Take a look at what's changed.
Compare how often presidents used selected words in their inaugural addresses.
Iconic Images of Past Inaugurations
People, Politics and Culture of America
A snapshot of our population, attitudes and society at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term.
Members of the GOP-run House Ways and Means Committee and the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee are aiming to produce bills that revamp the tax system, lower rates for businesses and individuals, and narrow tax breaks. Both also say the goal is to increase economic efficiency and make U.S. businesses more competitive globally.
But the overarching disagreements between the two parties—particularly over whether and how much to raise new tax revenues in the process—could derail the effort.
Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) said the end-of-year budget deal that raised tax rates for high-income households has complicated the task, because it raises future revenue targets. He had hoped to lower the top individual income-tax rate to 25%, but that would require finding additional tax breaks to be reduced or eliminated to generate the revenue increases needed to offset the lower rates.—John D. McKinnon
The next six months could make or break the Obama administration's campaign to deny Tehran a nuclear-weapons capability, according to U.S. and European officials, underscoring how Iran is expected to dominate Mr. Obama's second-term foreign-policy agenda.
The negotiating track has been stalled since last June, but American and European diplomats are voicing cautious optimism that Tehran will agree within the month to resume international talks, now that Iranian officials have publicly acknowledged that oil exports have fallen as much as one million barrels a day due to U.S. and EU sanctions. Iran had been selling about 2.4 million barrels a day before the sanctions took full effect. Iran's currency has lost about 80% of its value against the dollar over the past year.
Still, a June vote to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could stir nationalist sentiment inside Iran that might limit the government's ability to make concessions, U.S. officials said. And Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran's ultimate arbiter, has offered no signs that he is preparing to shift his hard-line position on advancing Iran's nuclear program.
If the diplomatic track stalls, it could rekindle Israeli calls for a military strike on Iran's nuclear program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said such action may be needed by this summer, when he says Tehran likely will have acquired enough fissile material to quickly develop a nuclear weapons capability.—Jay Solomon
Four years ago, advocates thought they were on the brink of passing legislation overhauling the nation's immigration system. They wound up disappointed.
Now, political forces in both parties appear to be aligning. Mr. Obama, who didn't make an immigration-law overhaul a priority in his first term, has put it high on his agenda. And the November election, in which Mr. Obama overwhelmingly won the Hispanic vote, prompted many in the GOP to conclude they must change their rhetoric and policies.
In the Democratic-controlled Senate, a bipartisan group of eight hopes to produce the outline of a bill this month, legislation by the end of March and Senate passage by the August break. There is considerable GOP opposition in the Republican-controlled House—particularly in the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue—but House Speaker John Boehner has said he would like to bring the matter up for a vote.
Elements of a comprehensive bill likely would include enhanced border security; better employer verification systems to be sure workers are in the country legally; a guest-worker program for seasonal employees; more visas for high-tech workers; and—most controversially—legal status for some 11 million people now in the country illegally. Advocates, and the White House, say these people should have a path to citizenship after gaining legal status, something some Republicans will resist.—Laura Meckler
In the wake of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Obama is pushing for the biggest changes to gun laws since the early 1990s. He unilaterally launched an effort to update records in the system used to screen gun-buyers and restarted federal research into gun violence. But he's acknowledged that his most consequential proposals require congressional approval—extending background checks to all gun buyers, banning high-capacity magazines and banning some semiautomatic rifles that are often called assault weapons.
Legislation is expected to originate in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but it is unclear whether Democratic senators who represent states with a strong gun-rights tradition, such as Arkansas, Montana and Alaska, will support the measures. House Republicans have been cool to Mr. Obama's recommendations. Of his legislative proposals, expanded background checks is the most likely to gain traction.
Mr. Obama has urged the American people to lobby their lawmakers to counteract expected opposition to the president's efforts from the National Rifle Association, the country's most powerful gun lobby. He and Vice President Joe Biden plan to travel to build support for their plan, and they are activating their campaign network in an effort to build public support for gun control.
A version of this article appeared January 22, 2013, on page A6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: New Term, New Challenges for the President.
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<urn:uuid:5a7ac299-33ce-4e8a-b526-1500a729404e>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578254161780888702.html?mod=WSJAsia_hpp_LEFTTopStories
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.961525
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Conducting business in the 21st century typically requires some understanding of the global economy. As manufacturing continues to move out of North America, even small companies need to understand how to conduct business internationally. This global economic expansion also requires trade associations to increase their international expertise in order to serve the changing needs of their members.
The Water Quality Association (WQA) understands the importance of the international markets emerging in the water treatment industry. Because of the rapid growth of the water treatment industry throughout the world, WQA’s International Section has become one of the most active groups in the association. WQA’s International Section is working on a variety of issues, but its newest initiative to develop individual task groups throughout the world will be the focus of this article, along with a brief description of the upcoming Aquatech show in Amsterdam.
The WQA Gold Seal program has always welcomed international participation. Due to emerging international standards and regulations, the WQA has taken great strides to ensure its Gold Seal Mark is recognized throughout the world. Because of the WQA’s growing Gold Seal program, international task forces can be developed at little expense to the members.
Recent Initiatives of the WQA International Section
WQA’s International Section is heavily involved in standards and regulatory issues throughout the world. The WQA keeps its members up to date with the European Union harmonization efforts that are currently under way during the development of the CEN standards for drinking water. The WQA staff is actively participating in the CEN working groups that have been given the task of developing the new standards.
International Task Group Development
In order for the WQA to participate more actively throughout the world, the International Section is in the process of developing individual task groups for each region. The individual task groups would be chaired by a member company located in that specific region and would hold meetings to discuss local and regional issues for that part of the world.
International members have already informed the WQA that they are anxious to set up and hold individual task group meetings in their representative countries to discuss WQA regional issues with companies that are conducting business in their countries. The task group will be responsible for developing an agenda and setting up at least one meeting at the task group chair’s facility or at a local trade show to discuss the agenda items with companies. A WQA representative will be present at each meeting. This representative will be responsible for taking minutes and ensuring that the meeting is conducted in accordance with WQA antitrust policies.
Phase I (one year)
The WQA shall pilot-test the international task force idea in India and set up the following:
Task Force Name: Indian Chapter Task Force
WQA Staff: WQA’s Gold Seal administrative assistant shall coordinate all activities between the Indian Chapter Task Force and WQA’s International Section. All minutes shall be distributed through the International Section and discussed during section meetings.
Costs: The WQA shall require that the meeting be set up in conjunction with WQA Facility Assessments to minimize travel expenses. The WQA currently conducts numerous facility inspections in India each year. Spending one extra day staffing the task force meeting shall incur a minimal cost.
Benefits: WQA shall promote the association and recruit new international members by:
- Increasing consumer awareness of the WQA and its role of improving drinking water throughout the world;
- Increasing WQA’s international membership;
- Increasing Gold Seal certified companies internationally;
- Increasing WQA’s Professional Certification Program;
- Growing WQA’s trade show;
- Providing additional member benefits to international companies;
- Discussing local government testing standards and regulations;
- Providing local lobbying efforts;
- Providing consumer education;
- Recruiting new companies to attend the meetings, becoming aware of their local issues along with all international issues and promoting WQA membership;
- Providing solutions for WQA membership and Gold Seal logo misuse;
- Providing international venues to take certification exams; and
- Translating documents.
Implementation: The WQA shall contact active members located in India to populate the task force. The WQA shall select the task force chair and vice chair.
1. The task force chair, vice chair and the WQA shall:
- Select a meeting date, time and location;
- Develop the agenda for the meeting; and
- Contact all companies and regulatory bodies that shall be invited to the meeting.
2. All WQA member companies and regulatory bodies shall attend the meeting for free. All non-members shall be required to pay a fee for attending the meeting. This fee shall be determined by the chair, vice chair and the WQA in an effort to recover WQA costs for the year.
3. The meeting shall be held with a WQA representative present.
4. The meeting minutes and action items shall be shared with the International Section for discussion and to establish resolution for any action items.
5. The task force chair and vice chair shall serve for one year. The task force shall elect a new vice chair every year.
Phase II (two to five years)
After the WQA has fully implemented the Indian Chapter Task Force and evaluated its productivity, costs and member benefits, the WQA shall determine if additional task forces shall be established in different countries as well as if the Indian Chapter Task Force will remain intact. Malaysia and China have both expressed interest in having their own task forces.
Phase III (after five years)
The WQA shall maintain staff in each country that has a working task force.
The WQA, like other businesses in the water treatment industry, is adapting to the increase in international business conducted by member companies. The WQA and its members need to stay on top of all international issues that affect the industry. WQA’s Gold Seal program and International Section have kept the association abreast of the standards and regulation issues over the past 30 years. Now, the development of individual task groups will ensure that the WQA remains the international trade association educating the drinking water treatment industry and its members, and covering and monitoring all the issues affecting the drinking water industry throughout the world.
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<urn:uuid:8d2299e8-d5f1-49b8-a1d0-2904faf08d9e>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.wqpmag.com/across-borders
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.946835
| 1,311
| 1.625
| 2
|
There is a fine line between “wants” versus “needs”, but when a financial hardship arises, that line becomes even thinner. Being able to prioritize your monthly expenses around your financial situation can be difficult to do, because these days we are used to added luxuries. Believe it or not, cable and cell phones still are considered to be luxuries. During times of hardship, we need to be able to temporarily cut ties with these wants, even though we’ve have grown accustomed to them. Keep in mind that certain monthly expenses are non-negotiable like rent and mortgage, and it can be a little more challenging when it comes to prioritizing your variable expenses in our budget. Just keep telling yourself that every little bit helps!
Small adjustments, like reducing minutes on your cell phone plan, using internet access at home instead of paying for a data package on your phone, and refraining from purchasing applications or extra features like ring tones, can all help lower your monthly cell phone expense. It is a compromise because you can still have a cell phone, just maybe not all the added perks. If cable is a priority then sign up for basic cable instead of all the added features. If having Internet access is more important, then find a plan that provides Internet access only and watch DVDs instead of cable. There are many ways to walk that thin line between wants versus needs, and making smart compromises can allow for some flexibility in your budget and a little more peace of mind.
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<urn:uuid:a7ac170f-ce6a-4afa-8289-f8c2cccb15b8>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.cccsstl.org/blog/budgeting/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-to-save-money-2/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.950749
| 305
| 1.601563
| 2
|
The first is a Ficus, which is about 1 foot
in diameter, recently cut down. The tree was
about 25 feet tall. It rooted under a
concrete patio, which was very poorly made,
only about an inch and a half to three inches
thick, and not very strong. There are lots
of surface roots extending up to 20 feet from
the stump and still an inch in diameter.
So, how much of the root system do I need to
get out? Is there any treatment that should
be given to the roots that remain in the
ground? My main concerns are that I don't
want this stuff to become a source of termites to eat my building, and I don't want
it to shrink or collapse underground and
cause the new concrete above it to crack.
The second was cut down a long time ago, it's
a palm tree with a trunk about two feet in
diameter, and I guess about a 4-5 foot root
ball. My guess is that it'll be a lot of
digging and chain sawing, but less grief than
the Ficus. Is there anything I should watch
When all this is done, I'll be back filling
with the dirt I get from some of my foundation work.
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<urn:uuid:17e34aed-e7f1-49cb-a119-33255c9f8b1a>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.bobvila.com/posts/617-tree-stump-removal
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962982
| 269
| 1.765625
| 2
|
The Naksa 70 is a recently developed (August 2010) solid state, push-pull stereo power amplifier module delivering 72 watts RMS into an 8 ohm load and 110 watts into a 4R load, depending marginally on the regulation of the single power transformer. It is fully built and tested, requiring only that you connect up two secondaries of a suitable transformer, the signal inputs, and the speaker outputs. Input sensitivity for 72W output into 8R is 841mV rms into a Zin of 30K.
The 2010 replacement module for the Lifeforce 55, the NAKSA 70, employs an unconventional topology and design principle to create a power amplifier with very high resolution, extremely low noise peformance, and a rich, vivid sound, but at much higher power than the LF55 it replaces. The entire stereo amplifier including all power supply circuitry is built onto a single, double-sided pcb of 280mm x 70mm mounted on a single 300mm x 75mm 0.37C/W heatsink. The NAKSA 70 offers power with glory, an almost tube-like sound, and represents the ideal option for people with moderately efficient speakers, an average sized listening room, and demanding musical tastes. The sound quality of this amplifier is true high end, and shames many amplifiers many times its cost!
The following distortion measurements for the NAKSA were taken at 14.14Vrms, 20Vp, or 25W into 8R at 1KHz using the Clio Audiomatica system:
H2 -72dB, H3 -79dB, H4 -79.5dB
This sums to a THD of 0.0404%, 91% comprising H2, H3 and H4. At just
1W output, 2.83Vrms, THD is 0.008%, of which H2, H3 and H4 comprise 0.005%.
The NAKSA circuit board is extremely compact, fully integrating both
amplifier channels and a bifurcated, bipolar power supply. Output devices
and drivers are mounted beneath the board directly to a large, 0.37C/watt
heatsink. This construction is both mechanically robust and compact, and
ensures that in even the hottest climate both amplifier channels will
always remain well cooled.
The NAKSA amplifier was developed to offer a warm, involving musical
presentation, and to overcome most of the sonic problems of SS push pull
technology. It incorporates innovative thinking, not just dictated by
the engineering (which is crucial) but also by the subjective musical
experience. Mindful of the engineering issues, the design cycle
has also been focused on the audiophile listening experience, and the
inspired desire of every audiophile to experience emotion via the musical
artform. The rationale behind this is simple; people listen
to music to be moved, not to marvel at the elegance of the amplifier design
or the paper specification. While the technical aspects are important,
they are a means to an end, and not the end in itself.
The NAKSA 70 creates a presentation comparable to a quality tube amplifier, whilst delivering stunning resolution and a pure, sweet, musical sound. This has been achieved at low cost in an attempt to balance the pricing policies of high end audio against the principles of DIY audio. Like many tube amplifiers, the NAKSA 70 amplifier shines with just about any loudspeaker system, including electrostatics, ribbons and horns, regardless of efficiency.
Key features of the NAKSA are the almost supernatural silence, the extraordinary
low frequency grip, a strong emotional communication, startling transients,
crystalline clarity, and palpable depth of image. The warmth
and image depth are most unusual for solid-state amplifiers, reflecting
single ended design where possible and an unusual feedback regime.
The NAKSA 70 is powered from a single 300VA toroidal (or EI) transformer
with two 30Vac secondary windings. This creates two isolated 42V rails
for each amplifier module, one positive and one negative. The power supply
is bifurcated, effectively a dual mono configuration. The best toroid
to use for the power supply (the transformer is NOT supplied in the kit)
will have 8% regulation or better. Good choices are supplied by Plitron,
based in Canada. The transformer has little sonic impact, so no specific
brand is recommended; most of the power supply benefits accrue from the
filter caps and rectifiers which are all integrated into the pcb layout.
The NAKSA runs very efficiently in Class AB with a quiescent output stage
current of 80mA, and delivers imaging, slam and clarity to rival the best
Class A designs with none of the troublesome thermal problems. NAKSAs
are part of the green revolution - they are VERY efficient!
This amplifier is winning plaudits around the globe for its astonishing
sonics, especially in North America and Europe. The NAKSA truly represents
the pinnacle of development of modern day analogue amplification. The
elegance and compactness of this jewel gives it stunning looks as well
as performance, and the low cost guarantees it will be a top seller for
years to come.
Build this amplifier, and join the growing cadre of blissful NAKSA owners,
many of whom go on to buy more amplifiers from Aspen for multi-amp Home
BUILDING THE NAKSA:
The NAKSA 70 product shipment includes:
Module pcb, with both power amplifier modules and an integrated power
You will be supplied with extensive and detailed instructions (with many photographs and diagrams), and full email support and backup. You will require only a single 300VA transformer with two secondaries each of 30 volts AC, an IEC power entry socket, a suitable mains switch, speaker binding posts, rubber feet for the case, and an enclosure. That's it!
WHAT YOU NEED TO SOURCE:
There are a a few essential components you will need to acquire. Mostly
these are the large, heavy components that are impractical to ship around
YOU WILL NEED:
A case to mount the components in, some wire, a mains switch and IEC power entry module, a 300VA power supply transformer (ONE required with two independent secondaries, each of 30Vac), rubber feet for the case, speaker binding posts, and several small fasteners.
Tools and facilities:
A FEW TESTIMONIALS FROM CUSTOMERS:
'The sound.....detail is amazing, every instrument clearly defined in such a musical way and vocals, my God! I was listening to the backing vocalist on a track the other day and really couldn't believe how easy it was to follow her, no mumble in the back ground. No tinnyness , just rich full sounding music.' Lindsay, NZ
'The biggest surprise was the comparison with a top end 300B amp on
94dB speakers, Audio Note AN/E. A great surprise for all listeners was
that the NAKSA produced exactly the same character as the 300B across
the whole spectrum. It was also clear to everyone that the NAKSA was better
in control. On one area the 300B was slightly superior and that was its
airy flow. That's a feature of tubes that's hard to beat. But hey, what
a surprise that a SS amp is able to compete with a famous 300B and that
with more than ten times more output power! We all were impressed. In
the light of this review the NAKSA is a real bargain. The tube amp was
in the 5000 euro area.'
'The Naksa performed flawlessly over the weekend for some musicians,
and left them shaking their heads. They played some of their instruments
through the amp and were very impressed with the detail, bass response
and overall clarity. I think we converted some old "Tube Heads"
to solid state. In fact they wanted me to leave the amp with them but
that wasn't going to happen.'
'This amplifier is in a different universe than the one it replaces. I am not a frequent upgrader and it takes something special to prompt me to move!
'On first listen with less than 4 hours on the amp it is detailed
beyond anything else I have heard, but amazingly not at the expense of
musicality and smoothness. There is stomping bass, magnitudes above what
the Lifeforce is capable of; deep and musical. Vocal highs are unstressed
and presented so separate and forward it is uncanny. The thing is, from
some prior listening comparisons of this amp, I was expecting to sacrifice
some detail given the smooth analogue slightly tube sounding presentation,
but it is not the case, the presentation is revealing and detailed while
remaining eminently listenable and relaxing.'
'My audition period with the new Naksa ended a couple of days ago and I now feel that I have recovered from the audio equivalent of a hangover, sufficiently recovered, that is, to make some hopefully helpful observations on Hugh's latest and greatest. I say greatest because I firmly believe it to be the best amp that I've had in my lounge room.
In no particular order some of the Naksa wins are as follows:
Martin, Melbourne Australia
'Good God, I really wasn't fullsome enough in my praise of this amp - the more I play it & listen the more astounding it sounds. I don't know if this is a burning-in or if I'm playing for long periods & it's reaching a nice thermal equilibrium (no heat coming from the heatsink vanes) - but it's incredible.
I'm trying to put my finger on its sonic secrets and all I can come up with is that it is so quiet & THD is so low that the instrument tails are clearly revealed giving a true foot-tapping & engaging sound to it. I'm in the process of finishing a Sabre DAC & can't wait to hear what an improvement in the front end will reveal. Problem is I just don't want to stop listening to music with this amp.
I brought the Naksa to a friend's house yesterday & he was madly impressed with it. I won't give the details of the amp we compared it to or the rest of the system but I made the comment which I think seems apt here in light of the gorgonzola cheese - the amp had " delicacy with balls".
Hugh, my hat off to you - I knew you were a good designer but this
is truly exceptional.'
'I've now had one of my NAKSAs up and running for about a week and have listened a fair bit to it.
I have to say right up front that this is the best amp I've ever had! I liked my LifeForce 55 very much for its musicality, but the NAKSA bests it with a wide margin
I am using the NAKSA in conjunction with my GK-1R, and even though
the NAKSA may sound very good indeed driven directly from a source, I
can vouch for the GK-1/NAKSA combo - very impressive pair. And very silent.
With the LF55 I had a slight bit of hum, which is gone now. The noise
floor in my system is now very low, even though I have speakers that are
94-95 dB/m efficient!'
The prices for all our products can be found at: BUYING/PRICELIST
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If ever you wanted an example of multi-generational governmental dysfunction, here it is.
In a report recently presented to City Council, which included cost estimates for renovating City Auditorium, this little gem stood out:
“In 1922, the City Auditorium was completed for city ownership and operation…. From records available, it does not appear that any major repair or renovation has been performed since its opening.”
I guess that we can give the city a pass up until, say, 1962, when the facility celebrated its 40th birthday. By then, a little updating would have been in order.
But the city didn’t do a thing. And despite the decades of prosperity since, which saw the city’s general fund budget double, and redouble and double yet again, the city continued its policy of not-so-benign neglect.
Since the early 1990s, elected officials and administrators have been perfectly aware of the needs of the auditorium, but they’ve chosen to ignore them. During the last 15 years, the city has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on other priorities, while allowing one of the Springs’ crown jewels to deteriorate.
At a given moment in time, a city is defined by the people who live there, by its economic, social, and cultural life, by its politics and by the collective decision-making that creates its future.
But most of all, a city is defined by its natural and built environment, and by the stewardship of its residents. Imagine New York without the Chrysler Building, Washington without the Capitol, Texas without the Alamo, San Francisco without the Golden Gate.
Colorado Springs is fortunate enough to be situated at the base of Pikes Peak, but that only gets us so far. For most of us, the peak is a picturesque backdrop or a close-in recreation area that we visit once or twice a year. It’s not where we live.
A city which preserves and enhances its natural setting, and which treasures the tangible reminders of its past, is simply a better place to live than one which does not. A city with a vibrant, historic downtown is far more attractive to the so-called “creative class” than one without a living center. A city whose leaders are content to allow a major historic structure to molder away within eyesight of City Hall is, to put it mildly, clueless.
It’s a tribute to the extraordinary construction of the auditorium that, after nearly a century of hard use, it can be completely renovated and updated for about $15 million.
We asked Chuck Murphy, our city’s leading contractor/renovator of historic properties, what it might cost to build a similar structure today.
“I wouldn’t try to guess,” Murphy said. “Just the ground alone would cost at least $40 a foot, and then before you start building you’ve got tap fees, user fees of all kinds, and then architects, engineers, and of course parking requirements, setbacks. It’d be at least $300 to $350 a foot — and then if you want to create a dome like the one that’s there, well that’s an enormous undertaking …
“But that’s just Chuck Murphy talking of the top of his head. You know, I’ve been in business since 1960, and I continue to be surprised by how much things cost.”
But assuming that Murphy’s in the ballpark, a generic auditorium-like structure (let’s call it auditorium lite) would cost somewhere north of $35 million — a far cry from the Aud’s original $424,000 price tag.
City Council seems to be in a state of passive denial about the situation. They’re fond of making sympathetic noises, while pleading poverty. “Of course we want to fix the auditorium! But, alas, (insert crocodile tears), we just can’t afford to … maybe all of you auditorium-loving citizens could come up with some ideas for us?”
It’s a great excuse, but it’s nonsense.
Sure, it’d be a stretch if the city had to write a check for the whole amount, but there’s no reason to do so. It’s simple enough to issue certificates of participation (COPs), debt instruments which require no voter approval, because they’re not, technically speaking, city obligations.
El Paso County used COPs to build the new courthouse and jail addition, and the city financed the renovation of City Hall with COPs.
Moreover, the recent designation of the auditorium block as “blighted” has created opportunities to partner with two powerful sets of developers, now working to break ground on a pair of exciting developments. Fully funding the Aud’s renovation might jump-start both projects, by highlighting the city’s commitment to the redevelopment of near-east downtown (now known as NEDo).
And let’s not ignore the obvious — a gleaming, renovated City Auditorium would bring life, people, events and excitement to downtown, and to the entire city.
So let’s hope that council can manage to overcome the torpor of 85 years of inaction, and actually, like, do something!
Meanwhile, it’s my sad duty to report that the upcoming April elections are going to be even less fun than watching grass grow or paint dry.
Mayor Lionel Rivera is as close to being a sure-thing as mortally possible, despite his flame-out in the Republican congressional primary. For some reason, no credible opponent has chosen to run.
That leaves us with the council candidates and they’re are tiptoeing around, making nice and being as careful and prissy as reformed sinners at a church singles group.
Are there, in fact, any issues? Apparently not — they’re all in favor of the same things. Just check their Web sites and read their so-called “positions.” If you have any trouble getting to sleep at night, this stuff’ll beat Ambien by a mile.
Bernie Herpin: We must have good City streets and safe bridges.
Jan Martin: I don’t consider myself a politician, just someone who cares a lot about this community. Can someone like me get elected?
Bob Null: If enough people ask about a particular issue, I will publish my position here.
Tom Herold: I want to work on the issues we are facing today and the ones we will face tomorrow.
Well, OK — I guess they’re all nice folks. But here’s a question for each and every one of them (even the ones too lazy, too technologically challenged or too mega-geezed to have a Web site — that means Larry Small, Randy Purvis and Tom Gallagher):
Renovate the auditorium, or just let it decay?
John Hazlehurst can be reached at John.Hazlehurst@csbj.com or 227-5861.
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Jeremy’s first two films Peace One Day and The Day After Peace have played worldwide to millions of people. The Day After Peace is produced in association with the BBC and Passion Pictures. Peace One Day Part Three (produced by Jeremy and Jude Law) was first broadcast in 2010 on BBC World, with a reach of 306 million households in over 200 countries.
If you only have time to watch one of the three films mentioned above, we recommend The Day After Peace, which you can watch for free, online here.
THE DAY AFTER PEACE
This is the second award-winning documentary film from Jeremy Gilley, which follows his work towards a globally observed day of ceasefire and non-violence. But even after the member states of the UN unanimously adopt Peace Day, the struggle isn’t over. As the years pass, there’s not a single ceasefire. The voices of the cynics are growing louder – and now Gilley’s non-profit organisation, Peace One Day, is in dire financial straits. But he can’t let it fail. The film’s breathtaking conclusion finds Gilley joined by Jude Law in Afghanistan attempting to spearhead a massive vaccination against polio on Peace Day. Will peace prevail? Will lives be saved? Or were the cynics right? This film is a moving testament to the power of the individual and the perseverance of the human spirit.
We’re so happy that The Day After Peace has been licensed for broadcast in 96 countries, with further special screenings in many corners of the world. View past screenings here.
FILM NATION: SHORTS
In partnership with Panasonic, the Cultural Olympiad project Film Nation:Shorts launched in March 2010 and invited 14-25 year olds to create short films that celebrated the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games: respect, courage, excellence, friendship, equality, determination and inspiration. The project gave film-makers the chance to get their work showcased at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Peace One Day director Jeremy Gilley and ambassador Jude Law teamed up with London 2012 to launch a new strand to the competition, where young people were encouraged to make short films inspired by the theme of ‘Truce’. Whether it was making a short film about young people’s own experience of a truce with friends or family, how a truce either past or present inspired them or made a difference to their lives, or what a global truce would mean to them personally, London 2012 with Peace One Day looked for films with inspiring stories.
More information on forthcoming workshops and how to register can be found at www.filmnation.org.uk
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November 1, 2012
As it became clear on Wednesday that city schools would not be able to reopen this week because of damage to the city’s infrastructure, concern deepened at the Department of Education.
The department has ramped up a push to toughen academic standards this year, and a week off eight weeks into the semester — even if the days are likely to be made up later — could set back those efforts.
So department officials started compiling worksheets, suggested study schedules, test preparation guides, and lists of television shows with educational merit for students in each grade. On Wednesday night, they emailed principals to ask them to send a message alerting families to the new resources.
“We know that you and your students are eager to get back to school, and we are working hard to reopen schools as soon as possible,” Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky wrote in the message to families, which schools without power could have difficulty distributing. “In the meantime, we are encouraging students and their parents to continue learning at home during this time away from school.”
He suggested that families look to a silver lining in this week’s storm clouds: “Extra time at home is an opportunity to begin or continue planning for your future after graduation,” he wrote.
It’s an approach that some families and schools have taken since early in the week, when Hurricane Sandy’s danger passed for the many New Yorkers living out of the flood zone and in areas that retained electrical power.
When her nephews finished the homework they brought home on Friday, Wanda Fisher said her husband started quizzing them on mental math problems.
“You did math, multiplication, subtraction, division,” Fisher reminded the boys, second-grader Jacob Stone and fourth-grader Thomas Daniel, as they trick-or-treated in Harlem on Wednesday afternoon.
“And then we did plus/minus, and addition,” Stone added. A second-grader at P.S. 200, Stone said he had spent the days since the storm “reading and watching TV and seeing the hurricane.”
Other parents said they also had pushed their children to go above and beyond the homework assignments they received last week.
“I want them to be safe, but I want them to keep up with their education, too,” said Rosy Lopez, whose son Joseph is in first grade in Harlem’s P.S. 46. She said she had made sure Joseph had tackled all of the work that his teachers had sent home, which included social studies, and math. Then he read books about pirates and the movie “Toy Story.”
Some schools were able to give families additional assignments to keep students busy and engaged with academics.
Ralph Martinez, the principal of P.S. 89 in the Bronx, said his teachers had posted new homework assignments and practice materials online using the program Jupiter Grade. But he said not every student has internet access at home.
Martinez, who said he was not concerned about his Bronxwood school building because of its elevated location, had driven into Manhattan on Wednesday with his two sons, who attend Catholic school, to buy ice and stock up on other supplies. They live in New Jersey and have been without power since Tuesday.
“Many of our teachers live in Rockland County. Fortunately they’re okay, but without light, like I am,” Martinez said. “We have been emailing each other back and forth, almost every day.”
Not every school had taken that approach as of Wednesday, and some that were most affected by the storm are not likely to be able to. Department officials said 200 school buildings were “not operational” because of the storm, including 86 that did not have power.
“Because our building is closed and because many staff members are dealing with power outages at home, there will be no online assignments emailed to students, as some parents have inquired,” Millennium High School told families on Wednesday. “We recommend that students take the opportunity to do review work and read until school reopens.”
Millennium is housed in a Lower Manhattan office building whose basement was flooded. The building’s management company informed the school that no one would be able to enter until Monday, according to an email sent to parents on Wednesday from the school’s parent coordinator on behalf of its interim principal, who she said did not have power.
For high school seniors, the days off come at an opportune time: Most colleges have their first application deadline this week. (Many colleges have extended the deadline for students affected by Sandy.)
Adelya Baimukhamedova, a senior at the High School of Environmental Studies, said she had taken the time so far to catch up on assignments and put the finishing touches on college applications. No teachers assigned new homework since Friday, she said, but “they sent emails to reschedule exams. And I’m caught up with my homework now.”
Dyani Lebron, a fifth-grader at Manhattan’s P.S. 116, also said she had not heard from her teachers this week. She finished her weekend homework on Saturday under the assumption that this week would be a regular school week, so for now, she has been reading “The Mysterious Benedict Society.”
Lebron was walking on the Upper West Side Wednesday afternoon with Jocelyn Alvarez, a senior at Norman Thomas High School, which is in the process of phasing out and now has only an 11th and 12th grade this year. Alvarez said she is worried the storm could deepen the school’s difficulties.
“It’s already very disorganized,” Alvarez said. “Classes, schedules, students mixed in with the wrong grade. There are students who are behind and need to catch up, and this hurricane has made it worse.”
At more thriving schools, some teachers found innovative ways to trouble-shoot the situation. At Stuyvesant High School, which is located next to the West Side Highway and currently does not have power, longtime computer science teacher Mike Zamansky resumed classes for some of his students on Wednesday by online Google chat.
About 40 students watched the class live and others watched a recorded video afterwards, said Zamansky, who documented the experience on his blog.
“People keep talking about recorded lectures … but if anything, today’s experience just confirms to me that there’s nothing like an in-class teacher, particularly with a small group of students,” Zamansky wrote. “That said, I think this was a good experience and my students seem to agree. We spent part of an otherwise unproductive day in a productive manner and we’re planning on doing it again tomorrow.”
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A group of about 20 women gathered around the scenic pond behind Ann Shurmacher’s home to learn about fly-fishing and escape the daily stress of life last Saturday. But these women were not just attending fly-fishing class in hopes of catching the bluegill and bass swimming beneath the water. They were there to help support the fight against breast cancer.
Dr. Anna Perry and Dr. Martin Segal, of Advanced Dental Care, sponsored the five-hour fly-fishing class taught by female instructors. The class was $125 per person, and all proceeds were donated to Casting for Recovery, a national nonprofit organization that offers fly-fishing retreats for women who have or have had breast cancer.
“Fly fishing is calmer, it’s slower and it’s very peaceful,” said Deloris Cummings, one of the fly-fishing instructors. “It’s almost like a form of meditation – a way for me to lose myself in the fishing. It takes a lot of concentration, it’s physically challenging, it’s mentally challenging and it just kind of soothes your soul.”
The serene art of fly-fishing is especially beneficial to women who have battled breast cancer. As Candy Parrack, a lymphedema therapist explained, fly-fishing classes have been coupled with wellness treatments for breast cancer because the physical act of fishing can help circumvent lymphedema – a condition in which fluid builds in the arms and legs due to missing, impaired or damaged lymph vessels or lymph nodes. Women who have had a mastectomy or other breast cancer treatments are especially vulnerable to the condition.
Consequently, Casting for Recovery established a fly-fishing retreat for breast cancer patients that would teach women how to fish, while also helping them to improve their sense of well-being after battling cancer.
“Casting for Recovery is a wellness program that helps the women that participate to understand that they’re a whole person,” Parrack said. “Our goal is to introduce them to something new. Most of the participants who come have never tried fly-fishing before, so they’re trying a new skill, they’re in a supportive environment and they have resources to ask questions – not only in the staff who are present but also the participants.”
Several of the women who attended Saturday’s fundraiser for Casting for Recovery were breast cancer survivors who were considering applying to the free three-day retreat funded entirely by donations.
“I’ve been catching myself watching the line go back and forth,” said Angela Sherman, a one-year breast cancer survivor. “You forget about everything else. It’s nice to have a few hours just for me. I’m just glad for every day and definitely take advantage of every chance I get to try something new every day.”
Standing alongside Sherman was her new friend from fly-fishing school, Joy Williams, who is a 10-year breast cancer survivor. Williams was grateful for the time to enjoy the warm weather and calm wind on Saturday and explained the invaluable lesson that cancer had taught her.
“We go through life in such a hurry all the time,” Williams said. “You just notice and pay more attention to things. You don’t take it for granted. And, I don’t stress about the small stuff anymore. Every day is a blessing.”
Sherman, Williams and the other women in the class were extremely compassionate toward one another and the cause they were supporting. All of the women had a connection to breast cancer, whether having experienced it themselves or having known someone who did.
Sherman emphasized the importance of having a mammogram and performing self-exams in order to detect cancer early on. Sherman and the other women shared these types of tips and stories from their experience with breast cancer as they stood on the bank of the pond learning how to fly-fish.
The women concluded the day with a demonstration on fly-selection and took to the water for the last few hours of the day.
“This has been a real interesting group,” sponsor Perry said. “There’s a retired police officer, there’s a couple of physical therapists and a nutritionist. They just all kind of fall into it. But for me, fly-fishing is my passion. I just love it. It’s nice to be able to use what you consider your passion to help somebody.”
If you are interested in attending the Casting for Recovery retreat at Wooded Glen near Henryville, Ind., visit www.castingforrecovery.org. You can also donate to the CFR fund by sending a check to Casting for Recovery, PO Box 1123, 3738 Main St., Manchester, VT 05254.
Visit www.reelrecovery.org for information on the cancer recovery retreat for men.
Contact writer Ashley Anderson at firstname.lastname@example.org.
About the Author (Author Profile)
Ashley spends half her time writing stories at The Voice-Tribune office and half her time out on the town conducting interviews, while occasionally dressing in wild outfits to fully immerse herself in the experience (aka Princess Leia at Comic Con). Ashley is a huge UofL fan and loves the Yankees and the Boston Celtics (she is fully aware of the irony). She hopes to one day outshine Erin Andrews on ESPN and enjoys running, Bardstown Road/Fourth Street, Breaking Bad and reality TV (she’s not ashamed to admit that).
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Archive for the ‘Women Running Shoes’ Category
One sure way to improve your health is by exercising. Studies show that by doing so consistently, you’ll have a lesser risk of many diseases. And you’ll probably be happier too. You can get these great benefits in different ways. If you want to do so without the aid of machines, you’ll need some running tips to get started.
Nutrition is the foundation of growth in the body. Most people already get enough macro-nutrients (carbs, proteins and fats). To insure you get enough of the other nutrients too, you need to eat whole, unprocessed foods. So you could eat fruit instead of candy, and whole grains (such as oatmeal or buckwheat) instead of white bread. You must also stay hydrated, so make sure you bring water with you on runs.
Are you in it to run once, or two keep running over the long term? In order to be successful with the latter, you must stay motivated. A great way to do this is to continuously set goals for yourself. Set long term goals (months to years away) as well as medium and short term goals. Reinforce your success frequently.
Support groups are great for success. Yours could be anything from a running club to just a group of friends. You can all meet up and share good running tips. You can also hold each other accountable, and help each other reach for higher and higher goals. You can even learn some great marathon running tips from more experienced runners, if that suits you.
The ability to hold yourself accountable and change your approach when necessary will be the deciding factor in your success. You can help yourself greatly by recording things in a journal. That way, you will know what you did well and what still needs work. Most importantly, you must take action and get started. You can read mile running tips as much as you want online, but none of that information will do you any good until you apply it. So stop making excuses. Just get up and start running now.
Are you a runner with a larger frame? Have you had problems finding running shoes in the past?
According to Andre Kaokane at Cross Country Running Shoes 101, the most important shoe features for larger framed-runners to consider are support, motion control, and cushioning. Let’s look at the most important features that you will want to pay special attention to, as a larger runner.
A support shoe is most important for a runner who displays a kind of foot motion called over-pronation. If you know that your pronation level is normal, then a support shoe is not important. But as a larger-framed runner, if you do over-pronate, then you should try increasing the shoe support level by one category. For example, if your level of over-pronation is mild, then try a shoe with a moderate (instead of mild) level of support.
A motion control shoe is designed for a runner who severely over-pronates. However, motion control technology can also benefit a larger-framed runner, especially one training at a high weekly mileage. (25 mi/40 km or more per week).
- Try moderate motion control if you moderately over-pronate
- Try maximum motion control if you severely over-pronate
The term cushioning refers to the amount of shock absorption provided by a shoe, not how soft and plush it feels. The amount of cushioning you need is related to the size of your body frame. The larger the runner, the faster the cushioning breaks down, because of the greater force of impact with each stride. So as a larger runner, you should look for a shoe that has moderate or maximum cushioning.
- Moderate is fine for occasional running
- Maximum is better for daily running, or high weekly mileage
Putting It Together
Now that you you know which features to look for, you are ready to visit a specialty running store and start your shoe selection! No matter what your size, speed, or running goals, the staff at a good running shoe store will be happy to help you select the perfect pair of shoes for you. Happy running!
Before you buy your new pair of Brooks running shoes , you need to identify your own foot type by inspecting the arch on your feet. Foot types determine which running shoe is appropriate for you. If you do not know your own foot type, then read on the following descriptions about the three types of feet, and subsequently determine which one is yours. Also, you can find excellent ideas on what Brooks running shoe is perfect for you.
NEUTRAL FEET – The neutral type of feet is also considered as the normal type of feet.
- This is the most ideal feet to be worn with different kinds of running shoes.
- Any Brooks running shoes can be worn as long as it provides ample comfort, cushioning and stability.
- Most often, stability running shoes are recommended for this type of feet.
- Examples of Brooks running shoes appropriate for this kind of feet are the Brooks Ghost, Brooks Defyance, Brooks Infiniti and Brooks Glycerin 8.
FLAT FEET – You have flat feet if you have little arch or no arch distinctly seen between the heel of your foot and the ball.
- This makes your foot land flat or as the same level on the ground.
- If you leave footprints, you can see the entire area of your foot, without any spaces in between the heel and the ball.
- With flat foot, more running injuries are experienced if not paired with the right Brooks running shoes.
- Injuries might include shin splints, knee and heel pain, and sometimes, leg and back pain.
- Overpronation, also known as outward rolling of the feet, is the most common problem when running with a flat foot.
- Your feet move frequently and overuse injuries occur. Thus, it requires a good motion-control running shoe that prevents excessive movement of the feet and offer firmer support.
- Examples of Brooks running shoes appropriate for Flat feet are Brooks Dyad, Brooks Ariel 8, Brooks Beast and Brooks Addiction 8.
HIGH-ARCH FEET – People with high-arch feet have exceptionally sharp curve on their feet.
- The arch should be more than ¾ inch to be considered high-arch.
- When examining their footprint, there’s a large blank space between the ball of the feet and the heel.
- This type of feet also experiences running problems such as underpronation.
- Undepronation occurs when the feet moves outwards when running. This can also cause running injuries when not given with proper attention.
- In order to fix the problem, runners with high-arch feet require a cushioned type of Brooks running shoes. This provides ample cushioning especially on the midsoles.
- They also need shoes that are flexible to promote movement of the feet, rather than those with flat feet whose movements should be restricted.
- Example of Brooks running shoes for high-arch feet includes Brooks Glycerin 7.
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For female athletes, or girls that just like to keep in shape by going out jogging regularly, it is very important to wear the right running shoes. Women’s anatomies are different to men’s in that their hips are generally wider. This means that the top of the legs create a bigger angle from the hip to the knee, and this can result in a higher probability that knee injuries and strains will occur due to running.
This problem is somewhat magnified by the fact that many women also exhibit either unusually high arches or indeed the completely opposite extreme, namely flat feet. Both of these problems can be perfectly counteracted by choice of the correct girls running shoes.
For girls who have flat feet, or collapsed arches, running can be painful. This rolling inwards of the feet during running is called overpronation. So the shoes you will need to buy should have extra protection built into them to prevent injuries to the bones in your feet. Look for specialist running shoes that have descriptions which say “motion control” or “stability”, and ask the sales staff to show you some recommendations for overpronation.
The opposite effect, namely high arches, also needs some extra features built into the shoes, and these are readily available. Underpronation – sometimes called supination – running shoes incorporate extra cushioning to support the arches when you go jogging, so that you do not injure yourself. Again, the wording used in the product description should say something like “cushioned” or “flexible” for shoes for high-arched runners.
Of course, you might not suffer from either of these running gait irregularities – if you do, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean you are weird in some way. After all, if the big sports shoe manufacturers make millions of pairs of these types of shoes every year, then there are loads of other people who are in the same boat as you! But if you are a neutral gait runner, then you can pick from a range of shoes suited to you too.
These modified shoes, designed to counteract inward or outward motion of the feet during running, are often called orthotics running shoes. Sometimes, people will have a pair of neutral running shoes but get into difficulty, in which case they can get orthotic inserts made, and simply transfer them from the old pair to any new pair they buy. Measuring for, and making, the orthotic inserts is done by a specialist, and is probably more expensive than going for the rather generic solutions available directly from your local running supply store. You first port of call should still be the local store, however, and they will do a gait analysis to see which type of shoes will be best for you.
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Growing up in the Washington suburbs, my best friend was Norwegian American; they were the only young White family in our predominantly Black neighborhood. From first grade until we got to high school, we would hang out almost daily, naturally standing out because of our differing skin tones. One day in 1989, we’re listening to N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” and my friend dropped a few N-word bombs. At first I tried to ignore it, but when it happened again, I shut it down immediately. He apologized profusely and we went back to being the tight buddies we are — nearly 35 years now.
SEE ALSO: Oprah Loses Her Way With Kardashians
It’s understandable why some Whites would feel comfortable speaking the racial epithet, considering the word peppers the speech of many African Americans, especially in the realm of hip-hop. Kanye West and Jay-Z’s collaborative album, “Watch the Throne,” has spawned the hit “N****s In Paris” — perhaps one of the most unavoidable rap songs ever crafted. In its popularity, the song has given some non-Blacks license to use the N-Word – even if they swear it’s all in jest.
Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow found herself ensnared in a controversy surrounding the N-Word, when at the top of this month, Paltrow tweeted “N****s in paris for real” to coincide with Kanye and Jay’s Paris concert and the performance of the single. Naturally, folks on Twitter handed her heavy criticism to which she responded back by writing, “Hold up. It’s the title of the song!”
Strangely enough, several Black entertainers fell on their swords for the actress, including Toure, Russell Simmons, R&B singer The Dream and, most recently, Nas. Although the diplomatic approach employed by Simmons and The Dream was head-scratching, nothing could top Nas and his defense of Gwyneth Paltrow during a recent interview last week with CBS.
I would slap the s–t out of somebody for Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s the homie, she’s cool. Gwyneth gets a pass. Real people get a pass. We know what this s–t is. We don’t interrupt Italians when they say, ‘Wop,’ to each other. They gonna punch you in the mouth if you interrupt that. Don’t interrupt us. We pick and choose.
Nas would go on to declare the actress a “real n***a.” What makes this irresponsible is that the Queensbridge rap veteran is essentially giving the green light to Whites to use a term that nobody should be using in any fashion.
In effect, Nas is saying to White America that using a racist term is cool, but only if we think you’re cool enough to say it.
What happens when little White boys sling the word around little Black boys and gets physically harmed as a result? Is his reasoning for saying that term going to be that Nas said that Whites can be “real n***s” too?
A Tribe Called Quest‘s front man Q-Tip was one of the few high-profile rap entertainers to speak out on the controversy with any reasonable sense. In a series of tweets, Q-Tip spoke directly to the Paltrow defenders in a gracious attempt to highlight the fact she didn’t even apologize for stepping out of line.
Ironically, Q-Tip is now signed to West’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint and surely has the ear of the superstar should he require contact. It would be interesting to see what the creators of the “N****s In Paris” track think of the brouhaha surrounding Paltrow’s tweet. One has to wonder, however, if behind closed doors if anyone close to the actress truly checked her on her freely dropping the N-word given her profile.
As Q-Tip noted in his tweets, Gwyneth Paltrow has to be aware of the historical context of the word and the psychological damage it has caused for generations. Yes, we’ve heard the argument that the word is given far too much power but that doesn’t explain how an actress can feel so comfortable saying a word where many of her Black contemporaries are hardly moved to react. Allowing Gwyneth Paltrow the space to say that word doesn’t lessen its power by any means. In fact, it dangerously emboldens it.
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With 58 homicides, Stockton set a grim record in 2011.
And 2012 was worse. The number of homicides investigated by Stockton police hit 58 in October, and it continued to rise, reaching 71 as the year's end approached. That's not counting the six other killings that happened in unincorporated areas in and around Stockton.
Devastating to the families of victims and the communities where they occurred, the violence continued throughout the year, across the city and seemingly any time or place, be it in a crowded area by daylight or on a lonely street in the dead of night.
As the violence mounted, the public noticed. It was likely on voters' minds when they took to the polls in November, when three of four incumbent City Council members, including Mayor Ann Johnston, were unable to hold onto their seats.
And the public also met with each other and city leaders to try and break the grip of violence in their hometown while law-enforcement agencies formed new partnerships to tackle violence.
Hope remains, too.
A program known as Operation Ceasefire is credited in helping Stockton knock down homicides in the 1990s, which had been another violent period in the city's history.
Operation Ceasefire is back, and it's in its first phases of implementation.
Readers of The Record picked the homicides as the top story of 2012.
But there was an anomaly in the voting that is worth noting.
More votes were cast for the story of a federal civil court awarding more than $2 million in damages to the family of Joey Pinasco Jr., the 21-year-old who was shot and killed by California Highway Patrol Officers in 2008.
An investigation by the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office and Sheriff's Office found the two involved officers were justified in their actions.
But a jury found the CHP liable for battery and wrongful death, and a federal judge ordered the state to pay.
The verdict and award for damages was one of the year's big stories.
The number of votes for this story exceeded votes gained by the next three top-vote getters combined, an anomaly that could be explained by an online campaign to garner votes for the Pinasco story.
The year's homicides, and the impact on the Stockton community, reflected a broader representation of the votes.
To discourage tampering in the future, The Record and www.recordnet.com will discontinue use of the ballot system used for this and previous years.
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related linksRead more about green living
FIND YOUR DREAM HOME OR APARTMENT
must-see on msn
First, search the web for sites that describe what all is included in making and maintaining a green roof.
http://www.roofmeadow.com/ is a fantastic site that includes specs and detail drawings to help understand the mechanics of a green roof.
http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/#/en/home is a site operated by Patrick Blanc who was a frontrunner in creating living walls, or "Vertical Gardens". It is full of inspiring images that may help with ideas, but finding technical information is difficult.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/advice/most-popular/2008/10/11/how-to-grow-a-roof-for-your-garden-shed-115875-20792352/ This site offers the steps you have to go through to get the project completed.
Secondly, I would check with the city, or planning officials in your area, and see what benefits are available for green roof owners, as well as what permits you may have to acquire.
Third, try your hand at some smaller project, like outfitting a dog house, tool shed or other small scale outdoor structure with a green roof. If you can handle that, you may have a better idea of how they work, look and what it takes to complete the process.
Finally, contact a reputable contractor or two, or *three* and see how they could help you. Replacing a few shingles isn't really a big job, and it's easily accomplished by someone who can get onto a roof. But completely refitting a roof is a big job, and in order to do it well, it has to be done by someone with construction experience. Make sure the design is something you are happy with. It's the job of the architects, engineers and contractors to make you happy and provide you with a design that is safe, effective and beautiful.
PS: GODVOX is a moron. Just thought I'd mention that. Go ahead, flag me. It's not going to change anything.
Find a GED toting liberal/hippie, bathe it give it a job then kill it dig it up and kill it again
If a person wants to spend their own personal money this way, fine. But creating green roofs on governent buildings and schools is wastefull. These roofs are very expensive to build and are a maintenance nightmare.
Money for books and money for teachers and money for basic education should not be wasted on green roofs. Its just stupid when there are much higher priorities.
Natural Beauty ?? that home shown above with weeds growing on the roof is natural beauty ?? I bet you think Pond Scum is beautiful also.. wouldn't want that thing next to my home...and all the insects it attracts I suppose feeds the children..ILMAO at all the high brow comments..sorry I shook up your little Love in, Ill go away....
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Men Behaving Badly... Publicly
Business and sports have long rewarded risk-taking, encouraging participants to extend this element of chance to other aspects of their lives. What could possibly be riskier than having intercourse in public?
Fact of the matter is that Jack Ryan wouldn't have found the thrill of risk-taking in politics; politics rewards the minimization of risk for an adequate level of return. Just think of polls and why they exist: if you can secure a broad enough range in the middle, extending to both the left and right, you win.
Above the law
A simple fact of life is that men with power and money think (and in some cases truly believe) that they are above the law. Of course, this is often the downfall of otherwise great men, but that is an altogether different story.
Double standard, perhaps?
Finally, perhaps the most obvious reason explaining such seemingly odd behavior is what I like to refer to as the "rock-star syndrome," in which men with power and money seeking fame (or infamy) will engage in acts that they otherwise would never contemplate.
What these men fail to recognize is that actors and singers trade in their actual personalities and identities for personas that act as metaphorical "Get Out of Jail Free" cards, which they can use when they actually cross the line. And because businesspeople, politicians and the like are not forced to adopt personas in public (at least not openly), they cannot casually give in to temptation.
E-mail of the week
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Several weeks ago, reports started to trickle out that a number of Dropbox users were under attack from spam. Since then, Dropbox has been investigating those attacks (with some help from a third-party) and today gave the first update on the progress, saying that some accounts were indeed accessed by hackers, but that it is now adding two-factor authentication and other security features to prevent further problems.
For some background: On July 17th, a number of Dropbox users begun noticing an increase in the level spam attacking their accounts. As Sarah reported at the time, the red flag appeared when users begun reporting that the email accounts receiving spam were in fact only tied to their Dropbox accounts, which indicated that the address leak had come from Dropbox itself. Many of those reports came from the company’s international users, including Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands.
To its credit, Dropbox was quick to respond. Less than 24 hours later, in a message posted to forums, the company said they were bringing in “an outside team of experts” to back up their own security team in the investigation along with help from law enforcement. Today, we received the first round of answers.
The company (via Dropbox’s VP of Engineering, Aditya Agarwal) said in a blog post that its investigation found that the usernames and passwords were in fact stolen and were stolen from third party websites, which were then used to sign in to “a small number of Dropbox accounts.” The company did not cite numbers specifically, so it’s not clear exactly how many accounts were accessed, but the company did say that it has contacted those users and is helping them to further protect their accounts.
The company also said that one of those stolen passwords was used to access a Dropbox employee’s account, which contained a project document with user email addresses. The company believes that “this improper access is what led to the spam.” The company also apologized and said that it has “put additional controls in place to help make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
What is that going to mean?
Dropbox is taking a number of steps, which they laid out in the post. We’ve shared them below:
Naturally, it appears that this issue is one in which both sides are somewhat culpable. On its end, Dropbox is taking steps to improve security, and meanwhile, it suggests that users consider coming up with a unique password for each website they use. Reusable passwords, again, are not your friend. As Dropbox points out, “though it’s easy to reuse the same password on different websites, this means if any one site is compromised, all your accounts are at risk.”
As to the spam controversy, the company did not say if there were any other causes behind this other than just some wayfaring miscreant, hacker-types, because the investigation is still ongoing. But keep in mind that there have been some fairly high-profile hacks and leaks recently, like the one that targeted LinkedIn back in June.
It would not be surprising to learn that Dropbox is essentially the first service to experience a ripple effect from that hack. Given that many people use the same passwords for multiple different accounts, if hackers were able to retrieve passwords from LinkedIn accounts, it wouldn’t be too difficult to gain access to Dropbox accounts.
Dropbox was founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. Frustrated by working from multiple computers, Drew was inspired to create a service that would let people bring all their files anywhere, with no need to email around attachments. Drew created a demo of Dropbox and showed it to fellow MIT student Arash Ferdowsi, who dropped out with only one semester left to help make Dropbox a reality. Guiding their decisions was a relentless focus on crafting a...
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Twin threats peril preprint newspaper ads
Representing some $5.2 billion a year in sales in 2011, advertising inserts from companies like Best Buy, Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot and Kmart represent the second largest revenue stream left to an industry that has lost half of its sales since revenues peaked at $49.4 billion in 2005. The only bigger revenue source for publishers are the local retail ads carried in the pages of their print editions.
The growing importance of the preprint business to newspapers in the last five years is illustrated in the pie charts below, which show that preprints represented 26% of the industry’s $4.4 billion in sales in the first quarter of this year vs. 17% of the industry’s $9.8 billion in revenues in the first three months of 2007.
Preprint advertising has a significant impact on the industry’s profitability. “Preprint advertising accounts for 70% of the Sunday revenues at the average newspaper,” said one industry leader who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak for his organization. With the Sunday paper producing “most of the profitability” for many publishers, he added, the health of the preprint business has a direct bearing on the bottom line of almost every publisher.
A major drop in preprint revenue would be “draconian” for the industry, agreed Caroline Little, the chief executive of the Newspaper Association of America, in a telephone interview.
Unfortunately for publishers, preprints are threatened by two circumstances that are well beyond their control. They are:
∷ The digital revolution, which is (a) unraveling the business models of many of the big-box retailers who historically have been the biggest buyers of preprint advertising and (b) encouraging even healthy bricks-and-mortar retailers to shift from high-priced print advertising to targeted and inexpensive digital formats.
∷ A favorable rate cut granted last week by the U.S. Postal Service to Valassis Communications, which will enable the direct-marketing company to mail certain types of national retail preprints for 42% less than newspapers are required to pay for the same product. The NAA says the Valassis deal could divert no less than $1 billion in advertising revenues from newspapers to the direct-mail company, which generated more than $2 billion in sales in the last 12 months by mailing its Red Plum ad circulars to consumers.
The above developments put publishers are in a classic squeeze, where they are being forced to battle declining customer demand at the same time they are being undercut by a newly empowered, low-price competitor.
Exhibit A in the “declining demand” side of the equation is BestBuy, the last-standing, national big-box retailer of computers, consumer electronics and appliances in a field once crowded with the likes of such faithful preprint purchasers as Circuit City, CompUSA and the Good Guys.
Best Buy, which reported a 90% drop in profits in the second quarter of this year and told investors it could not offer any earnings guidance for the balance of 2012, is being decimated by Amazon and other online merchants, who can afford to charge less than Best Buy for laptops, TVs and dishwashers because they don’t bear the expense of operating bricks-and-mortar stores.
In the interests of maximizing its marketing efficiency and efficiently connecting with consumers through digital media, Best Buy cut its purchase of newspaper preprints to $257,000 in 2011 from more than $1 million in the prior year, according to Advertising Age. At the same time Best Buy trimmed its preprint spending by 75%, the company boosted Internet advertising by 40% to a bit less than $23 million.
Beyond Best Buy, some of the other long-time preprint buyers suffering from challenged business models include Radio Shack, J.C. Penney, Sears and Kmart. A recent study by Group M Next, a market researcher, found that 45% of consumers say they would abort a transaction in a physical store if they could find a discount as low as 2.5% from an online retailer.
Even thriving bricks-and-mortar retailers today are trying to improve the efficiency of their marketing by seeking low-cost and highly targeted advertising options. Major retailers like Target and Safeway are not only putting more of their ad budgets into digital media but also are seeking to establish direct relationships with consumers through their own websites and the social media (as discussed previously here).
The local and national retailers still relying on preprint advertising in newspapers are demanding that their circulars go only into papers delivered to specified Zip Codes. With insert quantities limited, publishers often run out of highly prized Sunday ads for single-copy papers, angering incidental readers they would like to convert into regular subscribers. At the same time advertisers cut preprint allocations, they are demanding ever-greater discounts in the delivery fees that publishers charge.
Discount-hungry advertisers will have fresh ammunition in dealing with newspapers as a result of the decision last week by the Postal Regulatory Commission, the body overseeing the postal service, to grant Valassis a significant discount in mailing rates for circulars it delivers for durable and semi-durable products sold by national brands.
The discount will let Valassis mail a nine-ounce bundle of inserts for 17.2 cents apiece, or nearly 42% less than the 25.4 cents per unit that a newspaper would pay for an identical package sent to a non-subscribing household in its delivery area. Prior to the adoption of the new discount, Valassis and other saturation-mail services already were being charged 3 cents per piece less than newspapers.
The Valassis discount, which does not apply to ads it already mails on behalf of local retailers, requires the company to boost its volume by 1 million pieces within 12 months. If the company hits the goal, the discount will apply for three years and the financially challenged postal service estimates it will reap up to $15 million in fresh profits for itself. If Valassis misses the minimum, it will owe the Postal Service a one-time penalty of $100,000.
After surveying more than 300 publishers, the NAA calculated that the Valassis discount will put $2.5 billion in existing newspaper ad revenues at risk. Of that sum, the organization predicts that up to $1 billion in business would switch away from publishers, leading the NAA to not only denounce the discount but also to mount a legal challenge against it. While the NAA is asking both the Postal Commission and a federal court to block the immediate implementation of the discount, Valassis will be free to pursue newspaper advertisers unless a stay is issued.
It is not unprecedented for the postal commission to grant favorable discounts to major bulk mailers, said Paul J. Boyle, the senior vice president for public policy at the NAA. Credit card marketers got lower rates by promising to increase the number of solicitations they dropped in the mail.
But the Valasiss discount, he said, represents the first time that the postal service acted to help one bulk mailer to try to switch business from another. “Newspapers don’t have the ability to go after Valassis advertising, because the postal commission won’t let you cannibalize existing mail,” said Boyle. “This only works [for Valassis] because it goes after ads that are currently in newspapers.”
As big a challenge as the Valassis deal poses to newspapers, it may not be the only competitive threat facing publishers from bulk mailers. The Smart Source service operated by a division of News Corp. mailed twice as many coupons last year as Valassis, according to Kantar Media, an independent market research company.
The threats to the preprint business come at a time that the advertising category has become second in importance only to the ads that local merchants buy in the pages of printed editions. Run-of-paper retail advertising generated $6.6 billion of the industry’s aggregate $24 billion in sales in 2011, according to the NAA. In generating $5.2 billion in advertising in 2011, preprint volume surpassed classified, national and digital advertising sales.
Penultimate sobering note: Notwithstanding the stated intention of most publishers to migrate vigorously to digital publishing, printed papers remain the primary revenue source for the industry. Print advertising accounts for about two-thirds of sales, print circulation produces about a quarter of revenues and digital advertising generates only about 10% of revenues.
Final sobering note: Although the nation’s publishers collectively sold a bit less that $24 billion in advertising in 2011, they are unlikely to do as well this year. The NAA reported that industry revenues fell nearly 6.9% in the first three months of 2012 and reports from individual companies indicate that the decline continued at about the same level in the second quarter, too.
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Transfer of blood products in coolers from the emergency room to the operating room
A Medical Technologist in North Carolina reports that at her hospital they currently issue emergency release blood in a cooler that is stored in the emergency department. The blood product units are 'issued' to "Code trauma cooler" in their computer system. They recently had an occurence where a patient was transported from the emergency department to the operating room with the cooler of emergency released blood. She wonders if such a transfer is covered under a "standard", and what is the experience of others? Do other institutions experience a similar situation, and if so, how do they manage the blood products so that they are not misdirected or wasted, or administered to the wrong person?
The following comments have been submitted in response.
ADDENDA June 12, 2009
- A hospital in Arizona reports that they dispense RBCs to the trauma center in coolers. The RBC units are allocated to the trauma patient in their computer. The cooler may be transported with the patient to diagnostic imaging and/or the OR. The cooler is kept with the patient at all times. When the patient is transferred to the PICU the cooler is returned to their blood bank. So far they report no problems with this process.
July 1, 2009
- A transfusion service supervisor at a hospital in Colorado reports that her facility issues 'trauma units' in a cooler and their policy is written to include that the units can be transferred with the patient to OR, Interventional Radiology or ICU at the discretion of the surgeon/physician. Their medical technologists are trained to monitor where the coolers are and to ask if the coolers will still be needed after 4 hours.
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Ira A. Shulman, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Senior Editor & Moderator
W. Tait Stevens, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Editor & Moderator
Elizabeth M. St. Lezin, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Associate Editor & Moderator
The e-Network Forum is supported in part by the California Blood Bank Society (CBBS) and the American Red Cross Blood Services (ARCBS) and endorses collegial discussion among blood banking and transfusion medicine professionals. However, neither the CBBS nor the ARCBS in any way endorse the specific views and opinions expressed in the forum. The forum is not intended as a substitute for medical or legal advice and the content should not be relied upon for any medical or legal purposes. Readers should make their own determinations as to: (i) what constitutes appropriate medical, technical, and administrative practices, and (ii) how best to comply with laws and regulations relevant to their questions. For the latter, they should consider consulting, as to any medical matters, a qualified physician, and, as to any legal matters, an attorney familiar with related state and federal laws. The user of the forum, by accessing same, assumes all risks arising out of such use and releases CBBS and their respective members, directors, officers and agents from and against any loss, damage, claim or liability arising out of such use of the Forum.
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are compensated for recommending products.
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Getting started with left
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90% of the worlds “would be guitarist” population.
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Just what is the level of your handedness dominance?
If you are starting out from
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If after having tried this for
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Either you will have to source
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With your left handed guitar
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Elements of any
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what they are seeing is an exact mirror image of what they will be playing.
It can be that if you wish to begin left handed guitar
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If you have started off with a flipped and restrung guitar
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| 0.958436
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