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Monday, November 10, 2008
Ordinary Mind has a new wiki for sharing and storing information, at http://ordinarymind.pbwiki.com/. Here you'll find guidelines for practice with Ordinary Mind, chants and sutras, readings, signups for events, and background information. You can add poetry to the poetry folder by creating a new page and pasting the poem into it. Please don't add any materials to the wiki that have been published elsewhere, as we don't have permissions for that. There is a signup sheet for the Thanksgiving potluck at http://ordinarymind.pbwiki.com/Thanksgiving Potluck. I hope you will find this resource helpful!
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Ben Syverson and friend Jon, 2:00 AM November 5, 2008
View more photos | <urn:uuid:78ebf08f-d0d4-484b-b8a5-3f0554c3ae8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ordinarymindaustin.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917824 | 168 | 1.53125 | 2 |
From The Durango Herald (Dale Rodebaugh):
Rotenone, derived from the root of a tropical plant, is registered by the Environmental Protection Agency as a pesticide. It degrades quickly, leaves no residue and is no threat to humans or other wildlife.
“We did the first treatment last summer,” Joe Lewandowski, a parks and wildlife spokesman, said Thursday. “Then in June they went back to electroshock, which found fish that can live in little water.”
The Rotenone applied this week will catch all survivors, Lewandowski said.
In late summer or in the fall, native Colorado River cutthroat will be stocked in that section of the stream, Lewandowski said. | <urn:uuid:39a9d868-ef79-4eed-9d78-69faa8101452> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/the-second-phase-of-the-hermosa-creek-restoration-project-is-underway-brookies-are-in-their-gun-sights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938889 | 151 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Gunmen briefly surrounded the EU's offices in Gaza, demanding an apology for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European papers.
Gunmen also stormed the EU's offices on Monday
Members of Islamic Jihad and the Yasser Arafat Brigades fired into the air and climbed the compound's walls.
The gunmen left the offices after 45 minutes. There were no injuries.
Some Muslim countries have withdrawn their ambassadors to Denmark and boycotted Danish products after a paper there first printed the cartoons.
Other European journals reprinted the images on Wednesday to show support for free speech.
30 Sept: Danish paper Jyllands-Posten publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors in Denmark complain to Danish PM
10 Jan: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU's Gaza office demanding apology
31 Jan: Danish paper apologises
1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons
Some of the cartoons depict Muhammad as a terrorist. One image depicts the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse.
Islam bans any depiction of Muhammad or Allah, in case they lead to idolatry.
The cartoons have sparked protests, flag burning and calls for boycotts across the Islamic world.
Correspondents say armed protests such as Thursday's are common in Gaza.
On Monday, about 15 gunmen burst into the same EU offices and warned citizens of Denmark and Norway, where a newspaper reignited the row earlier this month, not to enter Gaza until an apology was made.
The Norwegian government, however, has taken the threats from Palestinian militant groups seriously and it announced on Thursday that its mission in the West Bank had been closed to the public temporarily.
"We have decided to close our mission in al-Ram to the public for the time being as we consider the security situation," Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Rune Bjaastad said. | <urn:uuid:f083e4de-9eaf-4437-945e-5a8bd1eaf2d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4673214.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951143 | 397 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The MV Rachel Corrie will carry tons of cement and other materials to Gaza. (Free Gaza)
Later this month, ships from all over the world will converge in the Mediterranean and set sail for the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. This international coalition is called the Freedom Flotilla.
The Free Gaza Movement has sailed eight missions to Gaza in the past three years, five of them successful. The last three were violently stopped by the Israeli Navy; the boat Dignity was rammed three times and the Spirit of Humanity turned back in January 2009, then seized and all aboard arrested.
This time the Freedom Flotilla is upping the ante and instead of one- and two-vessel challenges, will be breaking Israel’s siege with an eight-boat front.
In the past, the Israel Navy could pick us off as individual boats. Now, including Free Gaza’s four ships, 700 passengers and some 5,000 tons of reconstruction materials and medical equipment. This includes Free Gaza’s MV Rachel Corrie, which was purchased through generous donations from Malaysia’s Perdana Global Peace Foundation.
The Israeli government has responded to the “sea intifada” coming its way with saber rattling and accusations of serving Hamas. Israel has proscribed the Turkish human rights and relief group Insani Vardim Vakafi (IHH). IHH is responsible for sending a cargo ship and passenger ship in the Freedom Flotilla. Israel has accused it and Free Gaza of “supporting terrorism.” Half the Israeli navy is set to challenge the mission, with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the helm commanding the operation in person. The air force is on standby and “diplomatic pressure” is being applied behind the scenes. The message is clear from Israel: “We will stop you and we will use force to stop you.”
At no point does the Freedom Flotilla enter Israeli territorial waters. The journey starts in local European or Turkish waters, courses through international waters and ends in Gaza’s territorial waters. No checkpoints interrupt us. No walls daunt our sight. We’ve proven that it’s possible to sail a clear line with no borders, as we want the world to be, until we get to Gaza.
Free Gaza is best described as a tactic but in practice, a tactic within a score of tactics active in the global solidarity movement. But it is an expensive one — and many have criticized the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been spent on the missions for boats and finding boats, flagging, registration, legal costs, management costs, port fees, crew pay, mooring fees, repairs, renovation, GPS, warehouses for cargo, crane and forklift hire. Collectively the cost of the Flotilla runs literally into the millions of euros. Some ask: “Isn’t that money better spent on ‘aid’?”
Every Palestinian family we met in Gaza, particularly after Israel’s invasion last winter kept saying to us: “We don’t want aid, we need a political solution; we need our rights. Our issue cannot be reduced or swapped into bags of flour or food parcels. Palestine is not a humanitarian issue — it is a political one.” This reality, of the need for justice, tests the aid industry in Palestine, and the false “objectivity” and lack of political will in the face of human suffering with the claim: “We don’t take sides. We want to continue to keep giving our humanitarian aid.”
Well, we do take sides — that of direct democracy over occupation and apartheid.
This flotilla is an interruption to a discourse of power that says — governments know best, leave it to us to negotiate new “freedoms” and realities; a continuation of not even top-down but top-to-top processes of keeping power out of the hands of ordinary people. Leaders fly from continent to continent, round table discussions go round and round, elephants in the room stamp their feet and roar ignored. This flotilla puts that power back into our hands — to interrupt this ongoing Nakba.
We will not stop. From 1948 until now, history keeps repeating itself, colonies keep expanding, corporations keep reaping the rewards of reproducing repression; daily dispossession and casual killing is normalized, and alienation from the consequences of our work and actions keeps us compartmentalized. The occupation is reproduced on a daily basis in factories, classrooms, courtrooms, cinemas, art galleries, supermarkets and holiday resorts. Radical refusal, radical transgressions can make change happen. Refusing to be alienated from our brothers and sisters and recognizing our community is the essence of solidarity.
This flotilla represents radical solidarity and a force that can be realized when people from all over the world act on their conscience. It’s a force made real through stepping out onto the streets or into occupation-supporting businesses, through speaking out, through fundraising in mosques, churches, synagogues, schools; through writing, singing, sharing, relaying and promoting, and packing and driving boxes of materials and cement, and cheering on and praying for and protesting any attack.
Israel may well succeed in stopping us — but this is an unknown and here is power in that. We can affect that which hasn’t happened yet.
When Rachel Corrie stood in front of the bulldozer driver that killed her, she acted on radical trust — that the soldier would see her humanity. She lost, because the soldier had lost his humanity. Yet Rachel’s faith abides in each of us. Because if our oppressors are losing their humanity then we must never stop showing them that we have it. We are undertaking this mission in the spirit of those who have fought and sacrificed their lives for our collective humanity, and to remind everyone who can see of the need to act on it.
Ewa Jasiewicz is a coordinator with the Free Gaza Movement (http://www.freegaza.org/). | <urn:uuid:1098e44f-3596-4c7d-9bf5-ba1297d895ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://electronicintifada.net/content/force-more-powerful/8826 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944737 | 1,257 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Lab Report: Fuel Management
Strategies to improve your glycogen storage
When you run, your body burns a mixture of carbohydrate and fat. Your body stores carbohydrate as glycogen in your muscles and liver (the fitter you are the more you store), which is broken down to glucose as needed. The harder you run, the more carbohydrate you use. As your glycogen stores become progressively more depleted during a run, your body conserves what’s left by relying more on fat. Because fat is about 15 percent less efficient than carbohydrate as an energy source, when you run low on glycogen you slow down. You can therefore improve your training and race performance by managing your glycogen stores.
Glycogen loading before long races
Glycogen depletion is a key limiting factor in races lasting longer than about 90 minutes. Studies in the 1960s showed that athletes can substantially increase their muscle glycogen stores by doing a long workout seven days before a competition, then eating a low-carbohydrate diet for three days, followed by a high-carbohydrate diet (70-80 percent of calories from carbohydrate) for the three days preceding the race. The long run depletes the body’s glycogen stores and the three days of low carbohydrate intake keeps them low, which signals the body to store as much glycogen as possible. The downside of the carbohydrate depletion phase is irritability, weakness (which is not great psychologically before a key race) and immune system suppression.
Later studies showed that you can increase your glycogen stores to similar levels without the depletion run and low-carbohydrate phase by tapering training and eating a high-carbohydrate diet during the last three days before a race. To ensure glycogen stores are completely topped up for a marathon, I recommend a modified approach with a one-day depletion phase. For a marathon on Sunday, you would do a moderate depletion run (e.g., one hour with 20 minutes at marathon race pace) on Wednesday morning and eat low carbs throughout the day, then after a light run on Thursday morning start carbohydrate loading. The one-day depletion provides a strong stimulus to your body to store glycogen while minimizing the side effects.
You should expect to gain a couple of pounds when you carbo-load because your body stores 2.6 grams of water for every gram of glycogen. The added weight is unavoidable, and the stored water may help prevent dehydration during the race.
Training low and racing high
Renowned exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen have suggested that allowing muscle glycogen levels to become depleted may lead to improvements in athletes’ adaptation to training. Studies have found that exercising with low muscle glycogen levels leads to greater activation of genes involved with several types of beneficial training adaptations. One specific adaptation that is enhanced by glycogen depletion is the ability of the body to store glycogen. Depletion of muscle glycogen leads to increased activity of glycogen synthase, which is the enzyme that increases glycogen storage. So, rather than consistently topping up your stores and using a carbohydrate drink during training, there may be a benefit to allowing your glycogen tank to run low during some workouts. | <urn:uuid:f2f30fb5-b255-4ec9-8a24-11d2e455b38d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.runnersworld.com/print/62288 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938781 | 660 | 2.84375 | 3 |
The Peoples Forum: Life's Outtakes: What Students Learned In Math Class
The Peoples Forum
Life's Outtakes: What Students Learned In Math Class
By Daris Howard
Over the years, we have found that one of the students' greatest criticisms of any math class is their claims that they didn't learn anything. I, therefore, as part of their final, have the students list ten things they learned. These things could be anything at all in relation to the class. They are allowed to write their list ahead of time and bring them to the final if they want. Most observations are quite normal, but some make for interesting reading. Here are some of the classics for this year from my Math In The Real World class, spelling errors included.
1. I learned that I hate story problems. Of course, I actually always knew that, so maybe I didn't learn it after all.
2. I learned that I can't treat a college math class like I treated my high school math class. At least I can't if I want to pass.
3. I learned not to date guys I sit by named Adam. I tried two different ones on two different semesters, and neither one worked out.
4. I learned not to date the girl sitting next to me in math class. (His name was Adam. See #3.)
5. I learned about scientific notation. I felt this was important. I don't know why, because I'll probably never see it again.
6. I learned how taxes are done. I think I'll pay someone else to do them for me from now on.
7. I learned that I don't want to marry a girl that uses a credit card.
8. I learned FICA will probably not provide a living when I retire, so I might move to another country when I do
.9. I learned all about stocks, and I don't plan to invest in them.
10. I've learned to question everything and not trust anything.
11. I learned that many things like birthdays don't follow theoretical probability, but instead occur in patterns. Maybe the cold weather in the north in the winter is why there are a lot of babies born in September and October. They are 9 months after December and January.
12. I learned that I do better in a class that starts at 9:00 than I do in a class that starts at 7:45 in the morning. Maybe it is because I make it to class.
13. I learned that there are lots of close-minded people who annoy me.
14. I learned that some of the buttons on the calculator, that I thought were decorative, really do have a purpose.
15. I learned the national debt is so big that I don't feel that bad about mine anymore.
16. I learned how depressing it is the way the government spends our money.
17. I learned too late that there is a math lab with tutors to help us. I know you told us, but I didn't take you seriously.
18. I learned that sometimes math makes you mad, and you need to just set it aside while you cool down.
19. I learned there are some real cute math tutors at the math lab, but I don't get much studying done when I go there.
20. Most of the guys on campus you think are hot end up already being married.
21. The library isn't really a scary place like I thought, and is actually a good place to study.
22. I lernt math tex are hard to reed. Thats prollaly why I dont do wll.
23. I learned that I need a 3.5 GPA to go into nursing. I think I will go into law enforcement.
I learned people can add and stuff without a calculator. The older a person is the better they are because they were around before calculators were invented. Our teacher is better than anyone at this.
Other Forum Topics Some Previous Reader Views
Why powerful men gamble with women The terms of our relationship were very simple: No vacations together. No dinner dates together in public. No weekend visits. No more than one visit a week. No social or public functions together.
Florida government and Dilbert Florida government has become a lot like a bad boss from a fictional story or cartoon.When I was growing up, I was taught what was important was truth, justice and the American way. Throughout the years, I came to learn that Dilbert's rendition of the work environment was a tapestry painted of the real world.
Indian River Dr. Violations A St. Lucie County contractor working on the controversial Indian River Drive stabilization project could have illegally allowed dirt and pollutants to erode into the lagoon, a state pollution enforcement manager said
Stella Awards It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella Awards. The Stella's' are named after 81-year old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States.
$3 a Gallon? That's Nothing! Without a doubt, gas is now incredibly expensive. However, even without the recent rise in fuel prices, automobiles would still be a severe drain on every Americans' bank account. Simply by having no other viable transportation options, each America family will spend a whopping $560,000 over a thirty-year span just on automobiles.
Where Have All the Small Towns Gone? Talk to anyone about what is quintessentially American, and more often than not, small towns feature prominently in peoples' hearts and minds. Considering this appreciation for community life, isn't it odd that it is illegal to build small towns in America?
Iran's anti-Semitism oped by Teresa Heinz Kerry
Irans president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now joined the ranks of the Holocaust deniers. In calling, as he did on Wednesday, the Holocaust a myth, he drinks from the bloody cup shared by the malevolent enemies of equality and justice the skinheads, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, and the ultra right-wingers and haters who live in historys shadows.
September 2005 - The U.S is a frightningly violent place to live
2,973 innocent Americans lost their lives in the cowardly attacks of September 11, 2001. However, that number pales in comparison to the 30,000 Americans who are murdered every year. Even without Al Qaeda-sponsored terrorism, the US is a frighteningly violent place to live. | <urn:uuid:154c93ea-1ee4-4312-9275-afcd60798ee6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thepalmbeachtimes.com/Pages/PeoplesForum.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976214 | 1,360 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Accuracy is important, consistency equally important. I find that if I have an odd block, most often I cut a strip wrong. You can check by turning it over and using your small ruler to measure the width of the strips instead of completely taking it apart. You can usually find the culprit. Then you can put a little batting and backing on the little block. Bind it, quilt it and put it under a nice cup of coffee or tea. I never throw away an imperfect block. | <urn:uuid:0366c0b4-8902-4fc8-892b-2746ebf18cc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1/newbie-question-how-worried-should-i-about-1-4-inch-t118571-7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948328 | 100 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Try This:The Power of Air
Very simply this is a science activity to teach children about air. First blow up a balloon. Then let the air out in a way that your children can see the air in action: Some ideas are to put the end over a party favor, to let the air out blowing a peace of cotton, child's hair, etc. Additionally you can show how the air escaping can make noise by pulling the opening tight. | <urn:uuid:b717a362-bd9a-4651-ba02-744cf26aeb3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/balloons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918228 | 91 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs, who is described by his biographer as being "brittle and very mean to people," had high regards for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and admired his Silicon valley counterpart for "not selling out."
In an interview with CBS for the show 60 minutes,
biographer Walter Isaacson says he admired Zuckerberg's zest for "wanting to make a company."
"We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don't see anybody other than Facebook out there...Just Facebook, they're dominating this," Jobs told Isaacson.
"I admire Mark Zuckerberg," Jobs said of Facebook's chief executive officer.
"I only know him a little bit, but I admire him for not selling out, for wanting to make a company. I admire that, a lot."
Isaacson's biography 'Steve Jobs' will hit stands today.
He interviewed more than 100 people - Jobs' friends, family, co-workers and competitors for the book which he describes as being "fair."
In the CBS interview, Isaacson said Jobs "was not warm and fuzzy" and "was very petulant. He was very brittle. He could be very, very mean to people at times."
Whether it was to a waitress in a restaurant, or to a guy who had stayed up all night coding, he could just really just go at them and say, "You're doing this all wrong. It's horrible."
And you'd say, "Why did you do that? Why weren't you nicer?" And he'd say, "I really wanna be with people who demand perfection. And this is who I am."
(sic) Jobs was also not the world's greatest manager.
"In fact, he could have been one of the world's worst managers, you know? He was always, you know, upending things. And, you know, throwing things into turmoil. This made great products, but it didn't make for a great management style," Isaacson said in the interview.
Isaacson said much of Jobs' attitude could be traced to the earliest years of his life, and to the fact that Jobs was born out of wedlock, given up by his birth parents and adopted by a working class couple from California.
Jobs said he realized he was not "just abandoned. I was chosen. I was special."
Isaacson said Jobs was also a "pretty abrasive, cantankerous character," sometimes did not take a shower for days and was made to work night shifts by his employer video games manufacturer Atari because he smelled so bad.
Jobs was also not particularly fond of money, and despised people who changed after acquiring money.
"And I was like 25 when, you know, we were worth maybe USD 50 million, I knew I never had to worry about money again. And so I went from not worrying about money cuz I was pretty poor to not worrying about money cuz I had a lot of money," Jobs told Isaacson.
"I saw a lot of other people at Apple, and especially after we went public, how it changed them. And a lot of people thought they had to start being rich, so they-- I mean, a few people went out and bought Rolls Royces and they bought homes, and their wives got plastic surgery, and they, and I saw these people who were really nice, simple people turn into these bizarro people. And I made a promise to myself. I said: 'I'm not going to let this money ruin my life.'"
Isaacson said Jobs was driven by "magical thinking" and according to this "reality distortion theory" Jobs' belief was that rules didn't apply to him.
"He had a great Mercedes sports coupe with no license plate on it. That was his affectation."
Isaacson said Jobs's house in California was a "normal family home" with the multi-billionaire tech guru wanting to "live in a normal place where the kids could walk, the kids could go over to other people's houses."
Jobs did not want to live "that nutso lavish lifestyle that so many people do when they get rich."
His fourth child Lisa Brennan-Jobs, a daughter he had with his girlfriend 33 years ago and whom he had neglected for more than a decade, moved in with the family as a teenager.
Isaacson said their reconciliation was important to Jobs, because his own birth parents had abandoned him.
"He felt there was a hole. He felt something was missing."
Jobs had met his biological mother, but never wanted to meet his biological father since he "learned a little bit about him and I didn't like what I learned."
Jobs did not accompany his sister novelist Mona Simpson when she had gone to meet their father Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a Syrian American with a PhD in political science who worked as a manager at a restaurant in Sacramento.
Jandali told Simpson he had another child and "we'll never hear from him again."
Jandali goes on to tell his daughter, "I wish you could've seen me when I was running a bigger restaurant. I used to run one of the best restaurants in Silicon Valley. Everybody used to come there, even Steve Jobs used to eat there."
Isaacson said, "And Mona's sort of taken aback and bites her tongue and doesn't say, 'Steve Jobs is your son.'"
But she looks shocked. And he says, "Yeah, he was a great tipper."
Jobs later told Isaacson that he went to his father's restaurant once or twice and "I remember meeting the owner who was from Syria. And it was most certainly him. And I shook his hand and he shook my hand. And that's all."
When Jobs got sick, he "no longer wanted to go out, no longer wanted to travel the world. He would focus on the products. He knew the couple of things he wanted to do which was the iPhone and then the iPad. He had a few other visions. I think he would've loved to have conquered television. He would love to make an easy-to-use television set. So he had those things. But he started focusing on his family again as well. And it was a painful, brutal struggle. And he would talk, often to me about the pain. "
In their final meetings, Jobs would occasionally bring up the subject of death.
"I saw my life as an arc. And that it would end and compared to that nothing mattered. You're born alone, you're gonna die alone. And does anything else really matter? I mean what is it exactly is it that you have to lose Steve? You know? There's nothing."
In the final meeting with Isaacson in mid-August, Jobs was still hopeful that there might be one new drug that could save him.
"Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. I think it's 50-50 maybe. But ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of - maybe it's 'cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated. Somehow it lives on."
"Yeah, but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone."
He said and paused again, and he said, "And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices," Jobs told Isaacson.
© Copyright © 2013 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:c45d4e96-7cdc-46a2-ba59-1d1c19857ad9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/899068.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992964 | 1,592 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Pacific Gas links customers, competitors to enterprise network.Pacific Gas Transmission--the largest natural gas pipeline company west of the Rockies--is giving its customers, competitors and suppliers new access to its corporate databases. The purpose: to speed end-to-end planning associated with moving some 500 billion cubic feet of natural gas annually across the country.
For the first time, PGT's new bulletin board service gives everyone equally direct access to capacity and reservation information, and marks the beginning of an electronic market mechanism for natural gas supplies.
This streamlaines customers' administrative planning by allowing them to reserve, book space and release already committed space on natural gas pipelines that stretech from Canada through Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. They dial into an 800 number, communicating at speeds of up to 57.6 kb/s.
"We're supporting 64 lines coming into the bulletin board," says Larry Levitt, manager of computer services for PGT PGT Public Guardian and Trustee
PGT Procuradoria Geral do Trabalho (Brazil general attorney's office of the work)
PGT Pistol Grip Tool
PGT Post Graduate Training
PGT Princeton Gamma-Tech, Inc. , headquartered in San Francisco. ? About 30 or 40 users are typically on-line at a time. Users include about 200 producers of natural gas, and 250 potential customers, known as shippers.
"The bulletin board is also accessed by our five major competitors, who can review how much capacity we have available. And, of course, the federal regulatory agency regulatory agency
Independent government commission charged by the legislature with setting and enforcing standards for specific industries in the private sector. The concept was invented by the U.S. also has access. In fact, we can't exclude anyone from having access, as long as they have a legitimate purpose."
The bulletin board is based on fairly simple and inexpensive technology. It runs on a single 486-based Compaq Computer SystemPro single processor server on a Novell SFT SFT Statens Forurensningstilsyn (Norwegian Pollution Control Authority)
SFT System Fault Tolerance
SFT Secure File Transfer
SFT School Food Trust (UK)
SFT Societe Francaise des Traducteurs III network. The bulletin board software, The Bread Board System (TBBS TBBS The Bread Board System
TBBS The Big Blue Sky (website) ), from eSoft Inc., of Aurora, Colo., runs under DOS. It's linked to a customized database application developed with dBASE III that includes a color graphical interface with drop-down menus and pop-up lists.
The cost, including application development, was about $400,000.
"The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the United States federal agency with jurisdiction over electricity sales, wholesale electric rates, hydroelectric licensing, natural gas pricing, and oil pipeline rates. required every utility to create a bulletin board service by the end of 1993," says Levitt. "Some put up multi-million-dollar mainframes. Our strategy was to see how much functionality we could cram into a PC-based architecture that was compatible with our overall enterprise technology goals."
Aftger investigating client/server architecture, Levitt concluded that comparable functionality would have cost nearly $750,000. PGT's system integrator, International Micronet Systems (IMS (1) See IP Multimedia Subsystem.
(2) (Information Management System) An early IBM hierarchical DBMS for IBM mainframes. IMS was widely implemented throughout the 1970s under MVS and continues to be used under z/OS. ) of San Francisco, designed the network and hardware solution. The Novell Platinum integrator had also designed the WAN installed two years earlier, which now incorporates 20 LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. networks. Hamamersly Technology, of San Francisco, designed and implemented the application system.
"IMS gave us a pool of expertise that allowed us to respond quickly to changing requirements," says Levitt "It would have been prohibitively expensive to maintain that level of skill in-house."
"The bulletin board is part of PGT's long-term corporate strategy to provide information to those who need it, regardless of where it resides," says Stephen Yap, the network engineer who supervised this project. "We complemented PGT's resources by recommending the hardware configuration and ensuring that the bulletin board would communicate with other servers on the network, including an IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) AS/400 in San Francisco, and a dedicated reservations server in Spokane."
Transactions are communicated across the WAN, to the Spokane server, via Novell IPX/SPX See IPX. . IMS recommended using SPX (Sequenced Packet EXchange) The transport layer protocol in the NetWare operating system. Similar to the TCP layer in TCP/IP, it ensures that the entire message arrives intact. SPX uses NetWare's IPX as its delivery mechanism. to ensure delivery, because it automatically resends packets until receipt is acknowledged.
They also developed a Lotus Notes-based database for PGT's bulletin board help desk. Notes' design is ideal for distributing information among diverse work groups; the support application allows PGT's help desk staff to readily track users' requests for technical assistance, and to pool information for quick problem resolution.
In the next year, Levitt anticipates significant expansion of the bulletin board service as users become accustomed to booking their own space.
"Bulletin boards are far better suited to electronic commerce than Electronic Data Interchange See EDI.
(application, communications) electronic data interchange - (EDI) The exchange of standardised document forms between computer systems for business use. EDI is part of electronic commerce. ," says Levitt. "Our customers want to know what's been bid, and what capacity is available. A bulletin board lets you quickly see the results of your transaction--you don't have to wait for hours, like you do with EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) The electronic communication of business transactions, such as orders, confirmations and invoices, between organizations. Third parties provide EDI services that enable organizations with different equipment to connect. ." | <urn:uuid:3f13cd7d-8b4d-4c9e-952a-e7491f827480> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pacific+Gas+links+customers%2C+competitors+to+enterprise+network.-a015055661 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932371 | 1,391 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Padma means lotus. Padmasana is the lotus pose. This is the asana for meditation.
Sit on the floor with legs straight. Bend the right leg at the knee, grab the right foot with your hands and place it on the left thigh. Then bend the left leg, grab the left foot with your hands and place it over the right thigh.
Now both your heels are near the navel. Keep the soles of the feet comfortably turned up. Rest your arms stretched over the knees. Keep the spine erect. You may feel a little discomfort in the beginning. But with repeated practice you will experience that Padmasana is the most relaxing posture.
Padmasana is recommended for practicing Pranayama (yogic breathing technique).
Benefits: Padmasana is described as the basic posture. In Kundalini Yoga, another path for Self-Realization, this posture is of much importance during the process of the awakening of Kundalini, the latent mystic power supposed to be located in the Muladhara (one of the six mystic centres situated in the spine).
To buy the DVD-ROM on Yoga, visit Cultureshoppe | <urn:uuid:7684775c-27cb-4333-95b8-e71fa7227ec8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indiavideo.org/heritage/systems-of-knowledge/yoga/padmasana-yoga-3134.php?rct=50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943182 | 242 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Generation No. 1
1. EDWARD MURRAY was born June 1830 in County Tipperary, Ireland and died after June 1900. He married SUSAN LAUGHLIN 23 February 1862 in McLean County, Illinois. She was born between 1830 and 1840 in Ireland and died before June 1900.
Children of EDWARD MURRAY and SUSAN LAUGHLIN are:
i. MARY A. MURRAY was born June 1864 in Illinois.
2. ii. ELLEN MURRAY was born January 1867 in Illinois.
3. iii. HONORA MURRAY was born 1870 in Illinois.
iv. JOHN MURRAY was born June 1873 in Illinois.
v. CATHERINE MURRAY was born 1876 in Illinois.
4. vi. JOSEPH EDWARD MURRAY was born 18 January 1879 in Gridley, McLean County, Illinois. He died June 1962.
Generation No. 2
2. ELLEN MURRAY was born January 1867 in Illinois. She married TONY MCANDREWS after June 1900.
Child of ELLEN MURRAY and TONY MCANDREWS is:
i. EDWARD MCANDREWS
3. HONORA MURRAY was born 1870 in Illinois. She married OLLIER.
4. JOSEPH EDWARD MURRAY was born 18 January 1879 in Gridley, McLean County, Illinois and died June 1962. He married JULIA ANNA CERNY about 1905. She was born 15 February 1883 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, the daughter of VOJTECH CERNY and KATERINA. She died December 1963.
Children of EDWARD MURRAY and JULIA CERNY are:
i. EDWARD ALBERT MURRAY was born 4 July 1906 in Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois and died December 1974 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. He married PATRICIA DOLORES LEDDY 1934. She was born 24 February 1908, the daughter of THOMAS LEDDY and KATHRYN RICE. She died October 1967 in Elmhurst, DuPage County, Illinois.
ii. JOSEPH ROY MURRAY was born about 1911 in Illinois and died 1991 in Illinois. He married MARY GRASS. She was born 1909 and died 1995. | <urn:uuid:58490bc0-68c2-45ec-919b-3de53e2216b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dwsuddarth.wordpress.com/murray-genealogy/?like=1&_wpnonce=c8fd5cd082 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991112 | 509 | 1.75 | 2 |
The latest post at Rands in Response started a bit of a heated discussion with a group of friends, and I thought I'd touch on a few of the reasons I think it is absolutely imperative to automate, even if the automation only saves a second.
The concept of automation is an old one. In fact, automation is the reason computers were built in the first place. They were used to automate processes that were too complex or laborious for humans to tackle themselves. In early days, these complex tasks were simple by today's standards; "discover the trajectory of a bomb" or "calculate one plus two". However, as computers have become cheaper they've started to automate everyday things. This is painfully obvious to anyone who lives in the 21st century, but it's a fact that programmers shouldn't forget. A good programmer is someone who's always looking for redundant tasks that can be automated; both to save time and to reduce human error.
Saving time, however, is a concept that carries with it many externalities. The day of writing this post, I have been working on a fairly complex shell script with many moving parts. This itself is not a problem, but the fact that I've been asked to respond to a few emails at random times during the morning provides a significant complication. As "sufferers" of N.A.D.D. will understand, taking 60 seconds to send off an email may well torpedo 30 minutes' worth of productivity. Extrapolate that to 3 separate yet short tasks, and I've lost about half of my morning. This is an important measure to bring into the cost/benefit ratio when discussing automation. Typically, the equation used to calculate a processes' automated value is the following:
a = Amount of time for task (un-automated) * Number of times task performed b = Amount of time for task (automated) * Number of times task performed + Amount of time to automate the taskIf b is less than a, then the task should be automated.
However, this simplistic equation misses the issue entirely. If my automated task is short enough to keep me from getting sidetracked by any of the hundreds of windows on my desktop, then it's paid for itself after two uses. | <urn:uuid:de6bf8d0-bd21-483a-a7dd-0edb8c039d9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.jdhuntington.com/2008/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976891 | 463 | 1.921875 | 2 |
and community activities were part of
the team’s repertoire. Practice included a
minimum of four skills practices and three
menu practices each week. In preparation
for the national level of competition, team
members raised funds by preparing their
menu twice each week for paying guests.
How did you keep the team motivated?
Winning was important, but the mentality was
never, we are doing this to win. The mentality
was, we are going to produce some of the
best food in the world. During the journey, it
was our goal to expose the team to some of
the finest food preparations in the world.
How has competition contributed to
the educational experience?
Competition teaches you about limits and
how to push yourself to new heights. In
team competition, one’s ability to perform
as a team member is essential. The
team learns through trial and error. Team
members ask questions of themselves
that analyze work space, efficiency,
task execution and menu improvement.
Competition allows the team to think
and learn about food on a different level.
Cooking at this level of refinement and
precision gives team members a deeper
respect for product and technique.
Everything about competition prepares
students for the real world, and as a team,
they learn to embrace and understand
that. Competition teaches individuals about
humility. It is not easy to cook and then be
judged by a panel of seasoned chefs.
How did you cultivate a winning attitude
while working together as a team?
Delhi has fielded teams since 2000. I am
always reminded by my colleagues that
individual attitudes and how the team
meshes is one of the most important
elements to a successful team. One of the
team’s biggest motivations was to bring the
first national championship home to SUNY
Delhi, and they knew the only way they could
do this was to produce the best menu and
execute it at the highest level possible. In the
end, I think if a team is excited about what it
is doing and enjoys every step of the process,
it will win, no matter what the end result is.
At the end of the competition,
did you feel good about the
Whenever the team is competing, I turn into
a ball of nerves and can’t bear to watch. It
always feels as though we are behind, and
every minute feels like an eternity. In reality, I
know they are doing fine, but the thought of
the team not achieving its goals scares me. I
remember how it feels not to win the national
championship, and I didn’t want my students
to feel that disappointment. They understand
that, at the end of the day, we will always be
proud of their achievements, win or lose.
This is my first time coaching a team.
Thomas Recinella, CEC, AAC, team
The student team from ACF Chefs and
Cooks of the Catskill Mountains/SUNY
Delhi celebrates its 2010 Student Team
National Championship, left to right: James
Margiotta, coach; Victor Sommo, CEC,
coach; students Kenneth Liranzo, Joseph
Michaud, Sarah Thurgood (captain), Chase
Devine and Julie Hernandez; Thomas
Recinella, CEC, AAC, team manager; and
Tom Schreiber, HAAC, HHOF, president,
R.L. Schreiber, Inc.
manager, has fielded a team at Delhi since
2000. The joy felt in winning a national
championship is indescribable, and I can’t
imagine what it must feel like for Chef
Recinella. We are fortunate to have a great
team of coaches and, most importantly, a
talented group of students to make this
dream a reality.
Frank Leake, CCC, CCE, AAC, is a
professor of culinary arts at University of
Hawaii Kapi’olani Community College,
Honolulu. He co-coached the 2009 Student
Team National Championship team.
The 2010 Student Team National
Championship is sponsored by
R.L. Schreiber, Inc. | <urn:uuid:1f5c7ee3-53ef-4271-a31f-a96cbeee1a15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncrdigital.com/ncr/201009?pg=37 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942587 | 907 | 1.984375 | 2 |
A dongle is a basic hardware device that was created to ensure that no unauthorized users are able to copy or use specific software programs, especially high-end applications. Some of the more common dongles are hardware keys, special key diskettes and registration numbers. Most of them are mainly put in place to require verification from users before they can access certain software programs. The dongles are kept intact until the verification is confirmed. Otherwise, the user won’t be able to continue on with using the software.
For example, if you’ve ever purchased a piece of software that required a serial number (and I know a lot of you have, because we sell several programs like that here at WorldStart), you have come in contact with one type of dongle. Now, just for some extra information, dongles are not used very often, because a lot of manufacturers don’t like having that type of limit on their products, but as I said earlier, they are used a lot with the more expensive software applications. So, if you’ve been wondering what a dongle is, now you know all about it! | <urn:uuid:da2fed89-ed26-41bf-abfa-2b5a3af59ab6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldstart.com/dongle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957516 | 238 | 3.015625 | 3 |
ANALYSIS - The risk of disease among farm animals and farm biosecurity are a public affair, writes Chris Harris.
Because of this the economic impacts of disease control and ensuring good biosecurity are also of public concern.
The August issue of EuroChoices, the Journal of the Agricultural Economics Society and European Association of Agricultural Economists, looks at the role of economics in animal health decision making and how an economic approach can add value to animal health policies.
Prof Richard Bennett shows in his article "Economic Rationale for Interventions to Control Livestock Disease" that good disease risk management and animal welfare are in the public domain and of public concern and that if the public aspects to them are not taken into account resources could be misallocated in instituting control measures.
"There may be a strong case for government or other authority to intervene to ensure a better use of resource," he says.
He adds: "There is a strong future agenda for appropriate intervention by governments in the management of livestock disease risks, including responsibility and cost sharing for livestock disease control, within the European Union and elsewhere."
A Farm Animal Health and Welfare Stewardship Scheme funded under Pillar II of the CAP in the EU is one policy instrument that is being proposed to help incentivise high standards of farm animal health and welfare.
And Prof Bennett added that some countries have public-private partnership cost- sharing schemes that help to share the responsibility and the costs of controlling livestock disease.
In discussing how animal disease risks can be better managed, Tim E. Carpenter and Karl M. Rich show that understanding the nature of the risks is crucial to improving policy making.
They say in their article "How Can Animal Disease Risks be Better Managed" that " The threat of disease, and actions taken (or not taken) to mitigate it, can impact both the broader livestock sector and potentially society at large if the disease is what is termed zoonotic i.e. impacting both animal and human health alike."
Carpenter and Rich identify various frameworks from economics and epidemiology to analyse the impact of animal disease risks in livestock environments and they look at policy.
They examine policy responses to better manage risk with regard to animal disease outbreaks and point to gaps in current procedures.
"Recent advances in our modeling frameworks have helped streamline the complex decision space faced by policymakers and improved our understanding of the risks and consequences of mitigation strategies," they say.
"At the same time, while there has been significant progress in integrating economic and epidemiological tools to analyze risk, more work is required to understand the feedbacks between disease and behaviour taken to control it."
The entire management of regulatory and government response to potential animal disease outbreaks are examined and how different authorities have met the challenge.
For more information about the latest issue of EuroChoices click here.
TheCattleSite News Desk | <urn:uuid:8bc23b6d-79a6-46d2-8398-888d75c0003a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecattlesite.com/news/39702/can-economics-add-value-to-animal-health-policymaking | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931851 | 587 | 2.625 | 3 |
London - Thought all this rain might at least wash away those summer mosquitoes? Think again. A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology in America has discovered why mosquitoes and other small insects can continue to fly through the air undisturbed — even if it’s bucketing down.
They found a mosquito can be hit by a raindrop weighing 50 times its body weight — the equivalent of a grown man being hit by a falling lorry — and simply fly on. It is all down to the mosquitoes’ remarkably tough frames or exoskeletons and the tiny hairs on their wings and bodies which allow water to run off without the insects losing momentum.
Researchers used small acrylic cages covered with mesh to conduct their experiments. Several mosquitoes were placed into each cage, and a water jet was used to simulate a rain stream. Every mosquito survived unharmed. - Daily Mail | <urn:uuid:cea78f5a-915c-4844-9aa0-8ab2d8abf2cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/news/why-mozzies-aren-t-drips-in-the-rain-1.1340635 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945161 | 178 | 3.25 | 3 |
Copenhagen Leaders Lead by Example
When world leaders gather in Copenhagen this December they will be discussing some of the most important and pressing climate issues facing the world today.
These world influencers are leaving no green stone unturned as they make an effort to environmentally spruce up their trips to the event.
Denmark has developed a luxurious and eco-friendly solution to the issue of ground transportation throughout the conference.
The attendees will be transported in limousines that run on experimental biofuels made from plant waste. How creative!
Although these alternative-fuels are not yet in commercial production, they are considered second-generation because they don’t use the actual crop for the production of the fuel.
This allows the crops to be used for food or other purposes, and then the remaining waste is used for development of the fuels.
These fuels even emit less carbon than the currently used first generation biofuels. These world leaders are setting a positive green example while all eyes will be on them!
Click here to read more. | <urn:uuid:6c6475f4-2afc-4a0b-87a7-9528cc9d8ec4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://liveearth.org/es/node/3800 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931138 | 215 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Exhibit at UND Explores History, Controversy of Native American Mascots, LogosGRAND FORKS (WDAZ-TV) - A display at University of North Dakota this week explores the history and controversy of using Native American mascots and logos.
By: David Schwab, WDAZ
GRAND FORKS (WDAZ-TV) - A display at University of North Dakota this week explores the history and controversy of using Native American mascots and logos.
It's part of the 42nd annual "Time Out Week" which features exhibits and speakers dealing with Native American issues.
Richie Plass, who grew up on a reservation, has spent the last few years trying to educate people about issues that can come from the use Native American mascots and logos.
Plass grew up in Wisconsin as a member of the Menominee/Stockbridge-Munsee tribes. On Tuesday at UND, he set up an exhibit that he spent the last six years collecting. It's a room full of news articles, posters and shirts.
"It's the good, the bad, and the ugly of how our name has been used and is still used. Not only for the mascots and logos, but in education and marketing," Plass said.
One of the items Plass classifies as "ugly" is a poster of the Kansas City Chiefs football team posing as Native Americans in ceremonial dress. Other displays show what a sports team might be called if other ethnic backgrounds were used as macots or logos.
In high school, Plass had a first-hand terrible experience when he tried being the Indian mascot for his school.
"After the third game I did it, which was an away game, I was laughed at, had food thrown on me and I was spit on," Plass said.
Plass says he hopes his exhibit helps educate people on harmful effects of American Indian mascots and logos, though he says he does respect the opinions of others who don't share his views.
"Indian people come up to me and say, 'You know what, I like the Cleveland Indians, I like the Washington Red Skins.' And I go, 'Why?' And then they tell me and I go 'Cool, but I don't.' Because like I said, I personalize it,' Plass said.
If you are interested in checking out the collection, you can see it in the Badlands Room in the UND Memorial Union through Friday. | <urn:uuid:d9091abc-6f53-4953-88b7-1e70f8bf8937> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/13229/publisher_ID/30/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972017 | 517 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Bahrain: Seeking Gender Equality in Quran
Social practices that violate women's rights include the law of male guardianship, unequal inheritance, domestic violence and testimony in Shariah courts. Also, the widespread belief that Islam forbids women from becoming presidents, judges and parliamentarians.
These are against Islamic principals, the Association asserts, publicly throwing a challenge to religious scholars and others who insist that women are inferior to men.
The workshops on "Woman, a Renewable Perspective" have been organised to correct centuries of misunderstanding that gender discrimination has religious sanction. The second workshop in the series was held on Aug. 15. The third has been scheduled for December.
"To change the men-oriented societies, the Muslim world should accept the flexibility of the Quran and Islamic thoughts," advises Rajab.
Women are discriminated against in a number of ways. Lawyer Hassan Ismaeel told IPS that Shariah courts that considered two women's testimony equal to one man's were "not realistic and (were) demeaning to women and their achievements."
He also questioned the prevailing unequal male and female inheritance rights, which will be the focus of the last workshop in the series, sometime early next year. "Previously most women were housewives and dependent on men for financial support," he says. "Now things have changed, and both men and women share financial responsibility. So why should men get double the inheritance women get?" he asks.
Religious scholar Shaikh Ibrahim Al Jufairi, who backs Ismaeel's plea, says the Quran has been misquoted on the issue of testimony.
"The verses that say two women need to be counted as one is not for all testimonies but only (in cases) when a man borrows money from another," he says. "One woman is a witness, and the second woman helps the first to remember in case she forgets something."
"The verses have nothing to do with legal cases," he told IPS in an interview.
Al Jufairi is a member of the nearly 10-year-old Al Tajdeed Cultural Society whose members, all highly educated and in big government and private jobs, believe that Islamic thoughts need to be updated.
"Unfortunately most male scholars don’t even accept the testimony of females for the sighting of the moon at the beginning of Ramadan and on the Eids," he says. "It is unacceptable," he asserts. "Women are humans with eyes that can see the moon like men can."
What about male guardianship? Hiba Eizat, professor at the University of Cairo, said emphatically that as a believer she cannot accept that Islam would demean women and treat them as objects owned by men.
"Many Quran verses are misinterpreted and that is clear when militants use the holy book to justify their inhuman acts," Eizat told IPS. "Why should we (females) allow men to control us," she asks, "because some males are refusing to give the rights to women to be independent and have full control of their lives."
"Islam promotes development and that is why it permits new fatwas (edicts), but unfortunately those who issue fatwas are against development and positive change," she says.
And, if women cannot be decision makers like presidents and judges, "how come their fatwas and religious teaching were accepted in the early years of Islam, before the death of prophet Mohammed," Eizat says.
Bahraini researcher, Jalal Al Ghasab, thinks hadiths (the prophet's sayings) have been deliberately misinterpreted to control women and many scholars are aware of it. He cites the example of the different ways that Muslims pray. "Islamic parties have not been able to agree on one way to pray," he says, while appealing to "people with common sense to accept women as equals."
Instead of controlling women, "to protect the reputation of Islam, Muslims should challenge old fatwas by re-reviewing Islamic regulations and ensure full empowerment of women," he said.
But that is not the view of religious lecturer, Fatima Bosandal. She told IPS that the Quran and hadiths cannot be separated. "Islam is clear about inheritance, guardianship, and testimony because of the soft nature of women. Men are responsible for supporting them financially and emotionally," she says.
According to Bosandal, the new effort to seek modern interpretations of the Quran was part of western pressure on the Muslim world to stop following true Islamic principles.
25 August 2009
By Suad Hamada | <urn:uuid:5d19674b-a7b3-447b-aad0-8bbe3ccc78c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wluml.org/fr/node/5499 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975277 | 927 | 2.375 | 2 |
How Am I Doing? Employees Want To Know!
By Bruce L. Katcher, Ph.D. President of The Discovery Group
Our research shows that employees crave performance feedback but that their supervisors are doing a poor job of giving it to them. 60 percent of employees say that they don't receive ongoing feedback about their job performance throughout the year.
Here are some reasons why supervisors avoid providing feedback:
- Lack of Know-How:
Providing employees with honest and useful performance feedback is not so easy. It requires insight, skill, and maturity that many supervisors lack.
- An Orientation Toward Evaluation Rather than Development:
Supervisors incorrectly assume that their job is to judge rather than to help employees improve.
- Fear of Retribution:
Supervisors worry that if they provide negative feedback, their employees will lose their motivation, argue with them, or try to retaliate against them in some way. They don't realize that employees actually welcome constructive feedback because they want to improve. Providing this feedback will strengthen rather than weaken relationships between supervisors and employees.
- False Belief: "It's Not My Job.":
Many supervisors mistakenly think that their job is only to meet production and expense goals, not to develop employees. Nothing could be further from the truth.
- Relying Too Much on the Annual Review System:
Many supervisors believe that the only time they really need to provide employees with feedback is during the annual performance review meeting. They are dead wrong. In order to be effective, performance feedback needs to be conducted throughout the year.
WHAT EMPLOYERS CAN DO:
- Catch People in the Act:
One of the most well documented principles of behavioral psychology is that feedback is most effective when it is given immediately following a behavior.
- Avoid Surprises:
Annual performance reviews should contain no surprises. These meetings should be a summation of discussions that have taken place throughout the year.
- Focus on Behavior, Not Traits:
Feedback should be a discussion of specifically-observed behavior rather than an evaluation of employee's personality. For example, it is much more effective to say, "you did a great job proofreading the report yesterday and catching those typos" than it is to say, "you have very good attention to detail."
- Think Development, Not Evaluation:
Supervisors should view their role as an employee coach, developer, and teacher. They should not expect the human resource department to take on these responsibilities. Acting as a mentor is much more constructive than playing the role of judge or jury. It also is a much easier modus operandi.
- Skip the Money Part:
Salary and bonuses, of course, are very important to employees, but they also want constructive feedback. Salary decisions are influenced by many factors outside the control of the supervisor or the employee. Therefore, discussions about money and performance should be held separately.
- Conduct Performance Discussions, Not Lectures:
Employees should be involved in setting their own performance goals and articulating plans for their own professional development. Supervisors should talk about the behavior they have observed, but also ask employees for their views of areas where improvements can be made. By involving the employee in their own development, he or she will be more likely to make improvements.
- Commit to Making Ongoing Feedback an Important Part of Your Job:
Ongoing performance feedback is critically important for employee development thus supervisors who are unwilling to make it a major part of their job should be stripped of their supervisory responsibilities.
Contact Bruce L. Katcher, Ph.D., "The Survey Doctor"
President THE DISCOVERY GROUP
9 Blair Circle Sharon, MA 02067
Voice - 781-784-4367 Fax - 781-784-6450
E-mail - BKatcher@DiscoverySurveys.com
Web - www.DiscoverySurveys.com | <urn:uuid:3313e563-c51b-47d9-82af-c225e0d05b59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.accountingweb.com/print/126380 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95005 | 806 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Details: This poster shows Abraham Lincoln along with the text from the Gettysburg Address.
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. As the war was drawing to a close, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated. Before his election in 1860 as the first Republican president, Lincoln had been a country lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and twice an unsuccessful candidate for election to the U.S. Senate. Lincoln successfully rallied public opinion through his rhetoric and speeches, his Gettysburg Address is but one example of this. | <urn:uuid:0192f2c7-cf63-4618-b12c-0d86b7d52d71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.posterrevolution.com/poster.cfm/abraham-lincoln-gettysburg-address-educational-poster-print-24x36 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983993 | 155 | 3.875 | 4 |
Aquarius (Water-Bearer) Zodiac Sign Necklace
Aquarius, Latin for "water-bearer," is the Zodiac sign of those born between January 21 and February 19.
Click on magnifying glass and drag it over the image.
Its constellation is said to resemble a man pouring out a jar of water; Aquarius is sometimes even portrayed as releasing the water of the Great Flood. One of the most salient characteristics of Aquarians is their spirituality. Thus, the “Age of Aquarius” is hoped to usher in a period of spiritual awakening and universal love. Aquarians yearn for this era in which, in the words of the ancient prophet, human beings would “let justice flow like the waters.” Aquarians have a wide-ranging span of interests, often focusing on scientific fields. They have a thirst for knowledge to challenge and satisfy a keen and perceptive intellect.
- Next to the Latin name of the sign its age-old symbol appears.
- Below the Latin name is the constellation after which the sign is named.
- The medallion is made of natural onyx stone and framed in 925 Sterling Silver
- The text is inscribed in 24-karat pure gold by means of an innovative nanno-technology
- Despite the microscopic size of the imprint, this new technology ensures extremely high resolution
- The text can be viewed and admired with the magnifying glass that is included with every item
- Sterling silver matching chain included
- Size of pendant 0.66"x1.02"(inches)/1.7x2.6cm | <urn:uuid:ca409167-bf4f-4885-8af1-e77ba6c45b0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yourholylandstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=1573 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946095 | 334 | 2.171875 | 2 |
As in food, in a fence, for chickens.
The goal of this project is two-fold:
1) Stop the chickens from scratching dirt all over the walkway through their run
2) Provide them with healthy green nibbles that they cannot destroy
Anyone who has read even a few of my chicken posts is probably familiar with my endless battle for order in my hendom. After nearly two years of free-roaming our yard, the hens were restricted to a large, roomy chicken yard; ultimately extending their territory the length of the property with fencing and chicken tractors. While this solution has solved several of our free-roaming hen problems (flies, wasps, poop-mines, exponentially-growing scratch zones), it created a problem as well; nutrition.
Although our hens scratch and peck all day in their 800-sqft enclosure which includes the compost bins and lots of earth, they have pretty much eaten themselves out of fresh greens. And they looooove them some fresh greens! Healthy for them and for us, I bring them grass clippings when I cut the lawn, dandelions when the grow in the gardens, chickweed bouquets from the alley, and plenty of kitchen scraps. But it is never enough.
Last year I grew food for them in enclosures. The first crop they loved to death within days of gaining access. I reasoned that forage food might have a chance if it could be nibbled, but not trampled and scratched. The second crop I left inside the enclosure. They nibbled at it by sticking their heads through the 2″ metal mesh. They could reach about 4″ inside the enclosure and that perimeter was completely denuded. A fence would fix the messy path problem, and, with two sides, would provide a large surface area for nibbling on food. A small enough mesh would prevent denuding inside the fence, allowing the plants to regenerate and produce new growth – hopefully keeping up with the appetite of small voracious omnivores with fast metabolism.
Hence was born the chicken food fence. I originally intended to incorporate roosts and arbors, but the space is already busy and I finally caved into just needing to get it done. As with many of my projects, retrofits will surely be made. In the meantime, I will be choosing what forage foods I will plant for my chickens. They know not what awaits them, but I am so excited!
UPDATE on Chicken Food Fence | <urn:uuid:e9ddd359-c13f-472e-9149-c5cc39874556> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sustainablescientist.net/2012/07/31/chicken-food-fence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972997 | 514 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Armistice Day or Veterans Day is an American federal holiday honoring military veterans. It is also celebrated in many countries around the world every November 11.
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the moment in 1918 when WWI hostilities ceased on the Western Front. The War to end all wars was over. So terrible was the carnage, that people could not imagine ever going to war again. Nothing was worth that kind of hell.
The date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations, to commemorate those members of the armed forces who were killed during war. An exception is Italy, where the end of the war is commemorated on November 4, the day of the Armistice of Villa Giusti. After World War II, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day in the United States and to Remembrance Day in countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Armistice Day remains an official holiday in France. It is also an official holiday in Belgium, known also as the Day of Peace in the Flanders Fields.
In many parts of the world people take a two-minute moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. as a sign of respect for the roughly 20 million people who died in the war, as suggested by Edward George Honey in a letter to a British newspaper, although Wellesley Tudor Pole established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.
In the UK, beginning in 1939, the two-minute silence was moved to the Sunday nearest to November 11 in order not to interfere with wartime production should November 11 fall on a weekday. After the war most Armistice Day events were moved to the nearest Sunday and began to commemorate both World Wars. The change was made in many Commonwealth countries as well as the United Kingdom, and the new commemoration was named Remembrance Sunday or Remembrance Day. Both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday are now commemorated formally in the UK. | <urn:uuid:2b92e23d-fd80-4386-9756-c4ee0650dbfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://getlatestnews.com/16456/armistice-day-and-veterans-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97747 | 401 | 3.40625 | 3 |
By Mindy Mozer
Nabil Nasr had a vision: Create a world-class research and education hub for sustainability. Establish the first doctoral program in sustainability. Position RIT as a global leader in the field of sustainable design and product development. And open RIT’s first living lab, a building ... (more)
By Kelly Sorensen
Many of them had never left the borders of the U.S., but when the opportunity arose for seven RIT photography alumni to donate their time to travel to developing countries ravaged by violence, malnutrition and poverty, these photojournalists did not hesitate. Their mission: to document unsung heroes, faith-based social entrepreneurs transforming lives and bringing hope to some of the worst parts ... (more)
By Greg Livadas
After working as an American Sign Language interpreter at RIT for six years, Lydia Callis ’10 (American Sign Language and interpreting education) decided last summer to face new opportunities and challenges working as a freelance interpreter in New York City.
Little did she know, within a few months, she would be a topic of national conversation, she would be referred to as ... (more)
By Mindy Mozer
Librada Paz was 15 years old when she left Oaxaca, Mexico, with her older sister for what she hoped would be a better life in the United States.
They joined their brothers in Ohio and immediately went to work in the fields harvesting tomatoes. When tomato season ended, they migrated with other workers to New York to pick apples and then to ... (more)
New approach to science education teaches critical thinking
By Susan Gawlowicz
The Amino Acid Starter Kit looks like a toy. At first glance, the clear plastic pieces and colorful foam-covered wires don’t look like they belong in a college classroom.
Don’t be fooled. The three-dimensional models convey the complexity of amino acids and protein folding in ways that elude textbook illustrations. Assistant professor Dina Newman asked the ... (more) | <urn:uuid:7023e84d-8ffc-4cb0-bebf-756615895bc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rit.edu/news/magazine.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945022 | 419 | 1.507813 | 2 |
lares (lârˈēz) [key], in Roman religion, guardian spirits. According to some they were ghosts of the dead, destructive spirits who frequented crossroads and had to be propitiated. Others say that the lares were farm deities, worshiped as fertility powers of the earth. The most common myth, however, identifies them as household gods, beneficent spirits of ancestors, worshiped in close connection with the penates.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on lares from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Ancient Religion | <urn:uuid:733eb0ed-989c-43bb-a39b-eb71fafafe8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/society/lares.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945598 | 133 | 3.125 | 3 |
Posted on February 27, 2013 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Azekah alum Benjamin Sitzmann has put together a number of wonderful videos that captured daily life on the archaeological dig at Azekah last summer (2012).
If your German is up to speed, watch the video below:
Or, you can watch this shorter version, with brilliant stop-motion cinematography of Azekah and the many other holy, natural, and archaeological sites we visit on our weekend trips:
Of course, if you want evidence that this is truly an international experience, you can check out the video I made for my son MacLaren’s first birthday, which shows Azekah excavators wishing Mac happy birthday in 14 different languages:
If you or someone you know is interested in digging at Azekah this summer as part of a team of students from the University of Iowa, please feel free to contact me at email@example.com.
Filed under: archaeology, University of Iowa | Tagged: archaeological, Azekah, Benjamin Sitzmann, dig, excavation, iowa, israel, Lautenschläger, Tel Aviv University | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 4, 2012 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Yeah. THAT just happened.
Roslyn and I are very excited. No knowledge of genders yet, although we do know they are fraternal (and not identical). Ros and the twins (it still sounds weird to write and say it) are all healthy, albeit tired.
Tali is excited and rooting for sisters. Mac is excited, as he wants playmates to climb on. Professor Tiggens, however, is not excited, as he will drop two more spots on the alpha male scale.
We expect the twins, codenamed: Azekah and Sochoh (for reasons unspoken) to be born toward the end of May or early June, just prior to the beginning of Season 2 of the Azekah archaeological excavation beginning mid-July, 2013.
Filed under: robert cargill, roslyn, things that rule | Tagged: Azekah, buns in the oven, Sochoh, twins | 15 Comments »
Posted on July 27, 2012 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
The destroyed remains of the Second Temple in Jerusalem
We are presently preparing for the Tisha b’Av (9th of Ab) remembrance here in Israel this weekend. The Azekah students have gone to the Dead Sea for a tour and I am alone here at Nes Harim, watching the Shabbat sun set over Bet Shemesh. All is quiet as it should be for a solemn remembrance of this sort.
The religious mourn the destruction of both the first and second temples in Jerusalem, along with other tragedies that are said to have taken place on the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av. (The defeat of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion and the subsequent leveling of Jerusalem are also attributed to the 9th of Av.) However, even the non-religious here remember with much solemnity the destruction of Jerusalem and its temples. They were tragic, defining moments for Jews in 586 BCE and 70 CE.
And as the state of Israel winds down for this Sabbath, commemoration, and associated period of fasting, I will read and write and reflect on both tragedy and hope for tomorrow.
Because it is good to remember. And it is good to lament for a time. For those who fail to remember the past tend to repeat it.
For more on the 9th of Ab, see here and here.
At the Western Wall in Jerusalem
Filed under: ancient near east, israel, judaism | Tagged: 9th of Ab, 9th of Av, Azekah, Bet Shemesh, Jerusalem, Nes Harim, Ninth of Av, temple, Tisha b'Av | 7 Comments » | <urn:uuid:575c1b2b-33c2-4527-9323-99d52a03fc41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://robertcargill.com/tag/azekah/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94191 | 839 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Market analysts have put forward the belief that handheld computing is in the midst of one of its most dramatic changes since this product category was created. Traditional PDAs now face declining sales and growing competition from smartphones. In the coming year, "connected" PDAs are destined to survive in numbers, but "unconnected" devices - PDAs with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but without an integrated cell phone - should be heading into niche markets.
"There always will be a market for the unconnected PDA. But today's real drivers of growth in this segment are mobile phones, smartphones and converged devices."
- Alex Slawsby, an analyst for research firm IDC.
The future is seemingly in these "connected" devices - converged products that merge the PDA and the smartphone
into one. However, itís not clear yet which will do the best in terms of sales in 2005, the phone with PDA functionality or the PDA with phone functionality, but it seems clear that these devices are set to increasingly merge. | <urn:uuid:4d4450da-ba0b-4fa8-a4fc-e0b752ff9e9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techspot.com/news/16625-pdas-and-smartphones-to-increasingly-merge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951278 | 211 | 1.789063 | 2 |
90971_000_003With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding (Job 12:12).
Sarita loved her new school. I’m probably the happiest second grader in the whole town, she thought.
Next to Sarita sat Amelia. Sarita thought Amelia was very pretty. Instead of having brown hair and eyes, Amelia had long blond curls and beautiful blue eyes. Jed sat on the other side of Sarita. He had red hair. She was staring at him, trying to count his freckles, when Mrs. Wells said, “Good morning, class. Welcome to the first day of school.”
The first day of school was even more exciting than Sarita had imagined it would be. She fit in just fine. She’d been a little worried because she and Mamacita had been living in Sanford only a few weeks. Mamacita had found a good job here, and as she said, the Lord was opening new doors for them.
“I’m sending a note home with each of you,” Mrs. Wells said at the end of the day. “If your mother would like to be a room volunteer, please have her sign and return the paper.”
“My mother was a room volunteer last year,” Amelia said on the way home.
“Mine, too,” said Jed.
Sarita liked her new house. It was smaller than her old home in Texas, but it was still nice. She loved the new curtains with red and yellow flowers and the cozy, red homemade throw rugs that Mamacita had made. “What do you think?” Mamacita had asked. She always asked Sarita’s opinion, and that made Sarita feel special. You see, when Sarita was a small baby, she had been adopted by Mamacita and Papacito.
Sarita had been only four years old when Papacito died, and sometimes when she tried to remember him, she could not bring his smiling face to her mind. Today was a sometimes, so she went into the living room and looked at the family photograph. Then she felt Mamacita’s arm about her shoulder.
“Always remember that we are sealed for time and all eternity,” Mamacita said. “And that we have the Lord’s promise that if we are righteous and endure to the end, we will be together again.”
The next morning Sarita was up early. She made their lunches while Mamacita prepared breakfast, and while they ate, Sarita read a story aloud in Spanish. Mamacita said, “Sarita, you must be the best reader in this state. How talented you are to be able to read both English and Spanish when you are only seven years old.”
Sarita took out the paper that Mrs. Wells had given her the afternoon before. “Will you be a room volunteer?”
“I’d love to,” Mamacita said.
Jed, Amelia, and Sarita handed in the papers with their mothers’ signatures. “There will be a meeting for your mothers tomorrow night at seven o’clock here in the classroom,” Mrs. Wells told them.
After school, the three children waited for their mothers. Jed’s mother arrived first. She had red hair like Jed. She was tall and slender and the prettiest lady Sarita thought she’d ever seen.
Her own mother came next. She waved good-bye to Amelia and got quickly into the car.
The next day things did not go well at school. Amelia brought the first dark clouds when she asked Sarita why her mother was so old. “She’s only fifty,” Sarita said. “That’s not old.”
“My mom is twenty-nine,” Jed said.
“She has gray hair,” Amelia said. “And she’s sort of … well …”
“Fat,” Jed said.
Sarita was horrified. She knew that Mamacita was plump, but she’d never thought of her as fat—or old.
That afternoon Sarita slumped in the seat of the car and looked down at her hands, pretending to be busy so that she wouldn’t have to talk.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting your teacher and your friends and their mothers tonight,” Mamacita said.
“Oh,” Sarita said, “we might not be able to go. I think I might be getting sick.”
“What?” her mother said, wrinkling her forehead with concern.
She looked especially old to Sarita just then, so she closed her eyes tight. “I might be getting a headache.”
Sarita was slow getting dressed that evening. The other mothers would be young and beautiful, and that would make her mother look even older and more wrinkled. “Let’s not go, Mamacita,” she said.
“Sarita, do you really not feel well?”
Sarita tried very hard to feel sick. But she felt fine. Sarita couldn’t lie to her mother. She knew Heavenly Father would not be pleased with her if she lied. “I want to move back home,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “I don’t like it here anymore!”
“Why, you’re homesick,” her mother said, pulling her close. “Bless your little heart, you’re homesick.”
Even though Sarita tried to take forever braiding her hair and putting on her shoes, they were not even late for the meeting. Her mother walked into the room proudly, as if she were as young and beautiful as the other mothers there.
They sat down next to Amelia. “There’s my mom,” Amelia said, but she did not seem very happy.
“Amelia!” Her mother came over and sat down. “Why couldn’t you have waited for me? I don’t know why you have to aggravate me so much. When your father gets home from this business trip, …”
“Hello.” Mamacita smiled. “I’m Sarita’s mother.”
“Her mother? Why I thought you were her—” She stopped abruptly, turning red. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m really happy to meet you. It’s just that my husband has been out of town all week on business, and nothing seems to be going right for me.”
“It must be very difficult,” Mamacita said.
“It is. I own a little dress shop at the mall, and I need to be there. But I had to come to this meeting tonight. Amelia has nagged me about it for two days.”
Jed and his mother walked over and sat down just as Mrs. Wells opened the meeting. After welcoming them, she introduced everyone in the room. Sarita was embarrassed when her mother’s name was called. She stood up and said hello to the others just as if she did not know that she was old and gray. And fat. Sarita looked at Jed’s mother, at the lovely green dress that was exactly the color of her eyes. Then she looked at Amelia’s mother, at her silky beige dress and high heeled shoes. She looked at her mother’s shoes—comfortable work shoes, low heeled and scuffed on one toe.
Mamacita’s dress was plain cotton and homemade. She had let Sarita do the stitching on the button holes, and the sewing that she had once been so proud of embarrassed her now because the stitches were crooked and uneven.
After the short meeting, the three mothers talked together.
“I don’t know how you manage a job and taking care of a second grader by yourself at your age,” Amelia’s mother said. “Amelia and her sister keep me worn out.”
“Sarita and I take care of each other,” Mamacita said. “She brings me great joy.”
“Joy?” Jed’s mother said. “Chaos is more like it at our house.”
“And Amelia gets into everything,” her mother put in. “Yesterday she played with my makeup and ruined my eyeliner!”
Sarita thought of the many happy hours she spent putting on Mamacita’s makeup. Mamacita almost never wore makeup anymore, but she never got angry when Sarita played dress-up with it.
“I love Jed dearly, but he broke my best lamp when he kicked his soccer ball in the house,” his mother said. “It was an expensive antique. I wish he’d learn to play outside.”
Sarita remembered the lovely china dish she’d accidentally dropped. It had broken into so many little pieces that Mamacita had not been able to glue it together again. But Mamacita had not been angry about that, either.
“He and his brother and sister make too much noise in the house,” Jed’s mother went on. “As soon as I get on the phone with a client, they have to interrupt me.”
Sarita thought of all the noise she made at home, especially when she played her Primary tapes loudly and pretended to direct the music. Sometimes Mamacita came to her door and said, “I think that one day you will direct the Tabernacle Choir.”
“It must be difficult,” Amelia’s mother said to Mamacita, “worrying about Sarita all the time. It’s hard enough keeping up at my age.”
“Sarita doesn’t worry me,” Mamacita said. “She is my best friend. In fact,”—she winked at Sarita—“Saturday we are going to St. Augustine to see this country’s oldest city.”
“There’s no way I’d spend an entire Saturday chasing a seven-year-old around St. Augustine,” Jed’s mother said. Amelia’s mother agreed.
“Wow! St. Augustine!” Jed said. “I want to see the old fort there.”
“And Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum,” said Amelia.
“Mamacita, could they … Amelia and Jed … go to St. Augustine with us?”
“I’d love to take them,” Mamacita said, “if it’s all right with their mothers.”
Jed’s mother smiled and put her arm around Mamacita’s shoulder. “You are a most remarkable lady.”
In the car on the way home from the meeting, Sarita closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it had been like six years before, when the Bishop had placed Sarita in Mamacita’s arms. She could have said, “No, Bishop. No baby for us. We are too busy and too tired. She might make noise when we are on the phone. She might aggravate us or ruin my makeup or break something.” But no, Mamacita and Papacito had opened their arms and their hearts to Sarita and thanked Heavenly Father for her in every family prayer. As Sarita looked again at Mamacita, she realized that the lines in her mother’s face were not wrinkles from age as much as they were crinkles from smiling and laughing. Mamacita may be short and plump and have gray hair, but I wouldn’t trade her for anyone else’s mother, no matter how young and beautiful she is! | <urn:uuid:c4815b22-ebcc-4a50-9288-d5688dce37c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lds.org/friend/1990/11/sarita?lang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984887 | 2,640 | 1.796875 | 2 |
It's like they say - give a man a fish and he'll have a wonderful dinner, give a man a fishing rod and he'll have to sit for hours in the cold hoping for a bite to feed his family. Wise words.
Before you even think of learning this profession, remember how patient you have to be to be good at it! And not only that - you could find yourself empty handed after hours of cold waiting by the edge of a pond. To top it all off, you'll only gain experience when you catch a fish of a certain minimum quality!
But don't let that put you off! With bit of perseverance, you'll find that being a fisherman isn't all bad news. Dragoturkeys and pets are just two of the creatures that enjoy eating fish and if you're really lucky, you'll get a bite from a fish that you can sell...
The best way to make the most out of this profession is to become a Fishmonger when you grow tired of the pole and hook. By combining the two, you'll save yourself a lot of Kamas and you'll never go hungry!
If you want to get straight to work as soon as you arrive in Incarnam, go see Foreman Ikure (3,3) to learn the trade of fisherman. But there's no rush - you can always wait a bit and visit one of the two great legends of this profession. If you're near Astrub, go to the pond at the heart of the city and talk to Kana Petch (1,-17) or Madrestam and see Bhan Laka (9,0).
It's all well and good to learn how to fish, but you can't do it with your bare hands!
If you're in Incarnam, you'll get an Apprentice Fisherman's Rod from Foreman Ikure during your training. If you've decided to wait a while, you can buy a Short Fishing Rod from Kana Petch or Bhan Laka for 200 Kamas.
There are several fishing poles available which you can use according to the level of your profession. The higher their level, the farther out from the shore you'll be able to catch fish. Speak to Bhan Laka (9,0) if you're interested:
- Apprentice Fisherman's Rod (level 1)
- Short Fishing Rod (level 1)
- Standard Fishing Rod (level 10)
- Cubic Fishing Rod (level 30)
- Knitting Needle (level 30)
- Big Fishing Rod (level 40)
- Cho's Fishing Rod (level 60)
- Love Staff (level 60)
- Telescopic Fishing Rod (level 70)
- The Big Pole (level 100)
- Harpoon Fishing Rod (level 100)
If you take the trip to Sufokia Pool (15,25), you might also find yourself using the Fishing Rod for Snapper (level 1), but you can only rent this rod, it is not for sale. You can use it to catch Contest Snappers in the Pool.
Once you've found the fishing pole for you, you're ready for action, so you can rush to the nearest bit of water and...and sit for hours waiting for a nibble!
You've got all you need, so let's get started. Put down whatever you're holding, equip your fishing rod and go to the closest water source, either river or sea. Shoals of fish can be seen as dark shadows moving along the surface of the water. Click on one of these groups of shadows and select the action ''Fish''. You can't fish for one fish at a time, and nothing guarantees that you'll get a bite. If you do manage to catch something, it'll go straight into your inventory.
When you start practicing your profession, you'll only be able to catch one type of fish: Small fish (river or sea). You will randomly catch one of the following - Grawn, Crab Stick or Breaded Fish, if you get anything at all! Once you get a little experience under your belt, you can move on to other fish. The list below tells you the different types of fish along with the level you require to be able to catch them:
- Small River and Sea Fish (level 1+)
- River Fish (level 10+)
- Sea Fish (level 20+)
- Big River Fish (level 40+)
- Big Sea Fish (level 50+)
- Giant River Fish (level 70+)
- Giant Sea Fish (level 75+)
The probability of catching something also depends on the time of day and the number of other players on the map. The more people there are the more the fish will be inclined to hide in the deep water.
Tip: Gaining experience is not easy for fishermen, because you have to actually catch a fish, and you won't always succeed in doing this. You should go to the Schwimming pool of Sufokia (15,25) to gain experience quickly at the beginning but to do this, you'll need a rod. You can rent a Fishing Rod for Snapper from Mer to do just this and then go get some training done at the basin. The Contest Snappers you fish aren't useful for anything at all, but at least you'll catch one every time!
You never know when one of your peaceful fishing trips will be interrupted by a Fish Devourer... what is this? It's a resource protector, and if you kill it, you'll drop 50 units of fish! When you think about how long it takes to catch ten of the things, you'll realise what a good thing this can be!
|Kiye Gudgeon||Horror Grawn|
|Ancestral Trout||Exotic Crab Stick|
|Tiger Fish||Igloo Fish|
|Tupe-Halett Pike||Unique Kralove|
|Small Sandy Carp||Dark Sardine|
|Siktrin Bass||Farle's Ray|
So you've cleared whole rivers of everything but water snakes and weed? You've more fish than you could ever possibly eat? Well then, you can either get yourself to the nearest Marketplace and sell your meat as it is, or try to add some value to your catch and gut the fish. In case you didn't know, you are trained to do this too! You just have to go to a fisherman's Workshop.
Just take your fishing rod and wander up and down the rivers or the world or the coast of the Asse Sea and you're sure to find a peaceful spot to cast your line. Here are some of the more well-known spots to get you started.
- - Astrub Pond, right in the heart of the mercenary city.
- - The Port of Madrestam, north-east of Amakna.
- - Sufokia, south of Amakna.
- - The Dreggon Peninsula.
- - Eastern part of Amakna Forest..
- - East of the Enchanted Lakes, Koalak Mountain.
You'll need a workbench to gut the fish you bring home from your fishing trips. You'll find them scattered all over the world, in the fisherman's workshops of the World of Twelve:
- - Astrub (2,-17)
- - Amakna (9,0)
- - Sufokia (14,26)
- - Bonta (-35,-54)
- - Brakmar (-24,40)
When you decide it's time to sell the fish you've gathered, whether you've gutted it or not, you can go to a fisherman's Marketplace. There is one in each of the main cities in the World of Twelve:
- - Astrub (0,-18)
- - Bonta (-35,-55)
- - Brakmar (-27,37) | <urn:uuid:5155e840-34a9-4538-9264-1e7b882a8075> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dofus.com/en/mmorpg-game/jobs/36-fisherman | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93289 | 1,640 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Blue Typhoon is a large blue starship made by Miles "Tails" Prower in the TV series, Sonic X. The Blue Typhoon was created mainly for space-travel when the team had to go with Cosmo into outer-space to defeat the Metarex.
Originally built to battle vessels created by Doctor Eggman, the Blue Typhoon was adapted for space travel. Tails intended to power it with the Chaos Emeralds, but when they were scattered across the galaxy, he was forced to use the Master Emerald instead.
The Blue Typhoon features a large hangar where several aircraft are kept. Directly in front of this is a runway with palm trees lining it, modeled after the Thorndyke residence driveway. The vessel is armed with laser cannons, missile launchers, and its main weapon, the Sonic Driver, (known as the "Sonic Power Cannon" in the 4Kids dub), which fires Sonic as an accelerated projectile. In Episode 77, it's shown that the cannon can also work as a wave motion gun. The Blue Typhoon also comes equipped with a powerful energy projector which can produce a deflector shield or a cloaking field. Its engine, which takes up much of the vessel, allows it to cover great distances in short periods of time, although it requires a "warp ring" (generated by the yellow nose section) to travel at faster-than-light speeds.
The Blue Typhoon's design may have been influenced by the ships from Space Battleship Yamato, especially the Andromeda from that series. While the Blue Typhoon's flight deck resemble the flight deck of Battle 7 from Macross 7, where the VF-11 Thunderbolt III (to which the X-Tornado resembles) are launched. | <urn:uuid:e41efc29-4335-4d0a-8c7f-663d088331aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Typhoon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973148 | 350 | 2.03125 | 2 |
5 Healthy Resolutions for Women
Experts share their thoughts on the top 5 things women can do to get healthy in the new year
By Dulce Zamora
Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
Thirty-year-old Pierangeli has spent most of her adult life trying to do what thousands, if not millions, of women have resolved to do at the beginning of each year: Live a healthier life. This year, however, she is more optimistic about success as she's already started efforts at regular exercise and a well-balanced diet.
"This new year, I will continue and work on my eating habits, go to the gym, and practice balance in all areas of my life," says the Louisville, Ky. resident.
Health-related goals are, indeed, popular among people with New Year's resolutions. In the last 25 years, resolutions concerning weight, exercise, better relationships, and smoking cessation have been at the top of turn-of-the-calendar objectives for both sexes, says John C. Norcross, PhD, co-author of Changing for Good.
For many women, the path to good health is not an easy one, with plenty of roadblocks along the way. Procrastination, family obligations, work demands, and lack of time and energy are only a few culprits that can stop the best of health resolutions in their tracks.
To help women in their quest for better living, WebMD came up with five resolutions to improve physical and mental well-being, and asked the experts to provide tips for success. Their advice is by no means exhaustive, as different strategies work for different people. But, if you've made attempts at sounder mind and body before, here's another chance to make it happen. Good luck!
New Year's Resolution No. 1: Eat, but Don't Pig Out
When women resolve to lose weight, they are often black and white about it, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. She says women tend to want to cut out major food groups, telling themselves they cannot have any candy, dessert, or carbohydrates.
"It's a setup for failure, because by the time mid-January comes around, those resolutions are already in line for the next new year," says Taub-Dix. "It would be a much wiser decision to say, for example, 'I'm going to cut back on desserts.' Maybe pick a Saturday to have dessert." Instead of deprivation, practice moderation during the holidays.
The reduction approach is much more realistic than the all-or-nothing technique, which labels foods as "good" or "bad." When people see certain edibles as "bad," they can end up obsessing about it. Or they may see dieting as punishment for a year of unhealthy eating. Concentrate on getting adequate servings of whole grains, calcium, fiber, fruits and vegetables. This can be as easy as having a high-fiber cereal with milk and a banana.
Slashing entire food groups from the diet often backfires, because food is good and is one of the pleasures in life, says Taub-Dix. "There's no reason why we shouldn't enjoy food just because we're over the weight that we should be."
"Don't wait until the new year to have better eating habits, says Taub-Dix. "It should be a whole year's resolution, not a New Year's resolution."
New Year's Resolution No. 2: Jump Outside the Box
Many women who resolve to become more physically active think of going to the gym. They tend to hit the aerobic machines or join group exercise classes. They may get discouraged easily because they don't achieve desired weight loss or muscle tone in a certain time frame. They may quit because of lack of time, energy, or money. Or, they may tire of the gym atmosphere.
There are dozens of reasons why the best of workout intentions fall by the wayside come February. Yet they don't have to end up that way if you're willing to step outside of a certain mode of thinking -- that exercise has to be done a certain way, at a certain place, at a certain time, and for a certain amount of time.
"Sometimes people have this 'all or none' mentality and they're so gung-ho and so excited when they set the resolution that they judge themselves too harshly if they don't perfectly adhere to what they've established," says Cedric Bryant, PhD, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise.
He says many people make resolutions that are either unrealistic or too vague. A woman, for instance, may resolve to lose 10 pounds in two weeks. If she doesn't see desired results, she becomes discouraged and gives up.
It's better to set fitness goals that are realistic, achievable, and well defined. For example, a woman may strive to lose one to two pounds per week by exercising three to four times per week and holding off on seconds at the dinner table.
While the trend is changing, too many women don't do valuable resistance training, says Bryant. According to the Mayo Clinic, enhanced muscle mass can not only help better manage weight, it can also improve endurance, maintain the flexibility of joints, and reverse age-related declines in strength, bone density, and muscle mass.
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:6b15900a-b4c8-4bff-bf84-c872cfe5a77e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55911 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969765 | 1,111 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Replacing the Blueair filters according to manufacturer recommendations is critical to ensuring that your Blueair air purifying system keeps performing as it should.
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And as used filters are discarded and decompose, the filter media converts into harmless carbon dioxide and water. | <urn:uuid:e2085588-8074-4768-b8ae-cbe5bf87477f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blueair.com/Kuwait/en/filters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901445 | 278 | 1.601563 | 2 |
There is a specter haunting social media, and no, for those of you that recognize the paraphrase, it’s not communism. It’s kind of the opposite, actually: the looming insolvency wrought by insufficient or unsuccessful monetization.
Unlike the (first) dot-com bubble, where so many ideas existed only as vaporware, today many of our best media and technology ideas have been given virtual flesh; they exist, out there in the world, the offspring of programmers, visionaries, and venture capitalists. News aggregators, such as Pulse, that curate the events of the world and deliver them in the manner you prefer, software that converts the messiness of poorly thought-out web design into a beautiful “readable” package, the capacity to share information in the form of ideas, and images, and video, at the speed of 4G LTE, from anyone, anywhere. In popular parlance, status updates have been immortalized (though not necessarily in a good way), and even “tweeting,” a word that once elicited monuments of much-deserved derision, now enjoys a common, even banal standing in popular discourse.
And yet. Despite our current moment in digital media history, when so much seems possible that wasn’t only years before, the present moment lacks anything that we can properly call foundational. We are accustomed to thinking of Facebook and Twitter as the point-to platform giants of the social media revolution, and yet we have seen in recent months that the mighty are not nearly as mighty as we might have once believed. Facebook’s IPO, the center of so much speculation, praise, and blame, has resolved, some months later, into a fairly weighty disappointment. As of today, Facebook’s stock value has fallen to half of what it was when it went public. And why? Because it turns out that despite the unprecedented size of their user base, Facebook just isn’t making sufficient money to justify a higher assessment of value. Now they’re turning to gambling apps to try to fill the coffers. One has to wonder: if Facebook can’t make enough money off a billion users, what shot do the other social media contenders have?
There’s actually quite a bit of disappointment to go around. The former poster-child for web 2.0/social media, Digg, was sold (in pieces) for far less than it was once estimated to be worth. This devaluation happened in part because Digg’s user base fled to other sites (like Twitter and Reddit) that better performed some of the same functions as Digg. Friendster sold in 2008 for a little over $26 million, despite earlier estimates (from the same year) placing its value at $273 million. Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace for $580 million and then sold it six years later for $35 million, a rather substantial loss, even for him. In each case, the story is similar: before one technology or platform could figure out clear and stable monetization strategies that would solidify their market standing, another, newer platform came along and performed what we can call a function disruption, a type of technology disruption in which one technology slowly supplants a previous one by outperforming in a subset of that previous technology’s core functions.
In addition, all four examples – Facebook, Digg, MySpace, and Friendster– made decisions designed to enhance monetization that also served to alienate some of their users – the same users who are then more likely to jump ship and invest time and effort in a successor platform.
There are a few things to learn from this. First, when we’re thinking about disruption, we should understand that part of what makes social media such a disruptive environment is precisely that much of our current social media technology lacks market stability, and relies heavily on investment capital, which is to suggest that these technologies are already primed for and susceptible to function disruptions. As digital media enthusiasts, we tend to celebrate the extent to which digital and social media disrupt traditional media, and to some extent they do, but if we’re arguing from the empirical record, the reality is that both NBC and Random House seem to be adjusting and doing just fine, while many social media platforms rise and fall faster than a summer’s sunflowers.
Second, we really should dismiss any notion that there are no alternatives to the present platforms that dominate social media. While social media itself isn’t going anywhere, we have not yet arrived at the point where we can with confidence say that “X platform is social media, and social media would be unthinkable without X.” Not yet.
All of this brings us to Twitter, which recently made a number of choices that are not exactly user-friendly. They announced late last week that third-party apps would now have a maximum total user count and stricter limits on the types of API calls. These limits are part of an effort to divert more and more traffic back to official Twitter apps, which are generally inferior to many of the third party apps, but have the benefit, from Twitter’s perspective, of not filtering out advertising or other promotions. A while back, Twitter restricted API calls from certain apps – most notably Instagram – because they too closely mimicked the core Twitter experience. And of course there was the rather unceremonious separation of Twitter from LinkedIn in March of last year, a split that coincided with a Twitter developer blog post suggesting that, in the future, Twitter would be cracking down on how third parties used their API. Turns out they meant it.
In a different vein, Twitter also got into a bit of a public kerfuffle when they temporarily banned Guy Adams, a foreign correspondent for The Independent, from Twitter after Adams repeatedly insulted NBC over their coverage of London’s Olympic games and published the corporate email address of Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics so that people could email him their complaints. NBC, who had partnered with Twitter for advertising/promotion, complained to Twitter, Twitter then banned Adams, and a PR nightmare ensued – enough of a nightmare that NBC eventually withdrew their complaint and Twitter reinstated Adams’ user account. But while NBC received the brunt of the bad press, a few serious questions about Twitter’s behavior remain:
- How desperate must Twitter be for big time advertising partners if they’re willing to unilaterally suspend a user’s account based on a partner’s complaint?
- And if Twitter is willing to do that, and critical tweets can result in censure or banishment, how useful/viable is Twitter as a long-term micro-blogging platform?
The problem Twitter has – and at this point it’s a famous problem, and one that is in no way unique to Twitter – is that at some point Twitter had to make a choice about who it is and what it wants to be. It had to choose between a platform that primarily served a function for its users or a platform that primarily served its users to advertisers. One can’t fault them for choosing the side of advertisers and promotional partners; after all, Twitter has investors who expect something for their investment. But there’s the rub: for Twitter to become profitable (which it isn’t yet, not by a long shot), it has to monetize its user base within the constraints of its platform and serve those users to advertisers far more effectively and pervasively than it does now. And that means, like Facebook, that Twitter must increasingly make decisions that prioritize the needs of advertisers over the needs or desires of the users.
The good news is that at present, these decisions impact relatively few users. But the historical record thus far is not encouraging, and I find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which, if push comes to shove, Twitter draws a line in the sand that nicely maintains the balance between user interests and monetization. It seems far more likely that the relationship will become more and more unbalanced, and that Twitter will engage in behaviors that alienate additional users, and that sacrifice functionality (like inhibiting third party apps) in order to maximize ad revenue.
The reason why this problem isn’t unique is simple: nothing is free. Whatever the hype and euphoria over the limitless, low-to-no-cost potential of the social Internet, the simple truth is that services are free only if the cost of their use is paid by some other mechanism, and in the vast majority of instances, just breaking even on cost isn’t enough. The relationship between user and service is thus perverted from the outset, in that the service is a service in name only; its function is to build a user base and to then “serve” (i.e. sell) that user base to parties interested in accessing it. Maybe this involves advertising, maybe it involves selling user information to data miners, whatever. But the money has to be made somewhere, and if users aren’t paying for it, they will invariably run into the limits of their free use and the concomitant realization of the non-financial costs of “free.”
This is why I think that those capable of doing so – and this includes the people of the MCDM to be sure – should throw their personal and institutional ethos behind app.net. App.net is an attempt to create a for-pay micro-blogging service with many of the core features of Twitter, but with the core assumption that – because users are paying for the service – the users are the clients, not the product. And that means that the app.net team makes decisions that they believe are in the best interests of their users, not their investors, and not their advertisers.
It doesn’t mean that advertising is excluded – NBC can still have an app.net account and advertise all they want, and people who wish to subscribe to the NBC feed can. But if we don’t want to see those ads, we don’t have to, pure and simple. It also means that app.net has no incentive to limit third party app innovations that use the app.net service. Indeed, the development team has already committed to a series of standards that will ensure that third party developers can use the app.net core in ways that are both open to innovation and stable, including support for:
- Activitystrea.ms Atom & JSON feeds, as well as RSS feeds, of public posts for individual users, hashtags, etc. (Note that this is different from making them the foundation of our read/write API, which we have decided not to do)
- Pubsubhubbub (PuSH) support (as a publisher, initially)
- Exposing user identities with Webfinger
- Commitment to coordinate between internal and external parties to create and support open-source “lightweight” clients in as many flavors as we can, ala Stripe
- Commit to enabling and supporting users in building inbound and outbound syndication to and from App.net
In other words, what we have is a system that could provide a hook for a number of federated standards and clients – something Facebook and Twitter already do – but this time around the system would be funded by users, which solves the future insolvency problem before it even arises. Indeed, the team behind app.net pursued the initial development using a Kickstarter-like pledge system: pledge fifty dollars for the first year of service (that’s the estimated yearly fee), which works out to about $4.17 per month, or a $100 for the year if you want developer access (the pledge has already been mocked, in a parody that is both funny and misguided). Their goal was $500,000 in initial pledge funds. They received just shy of $800,000 by the time the pledge-by date arrived, and are still accepting sign-ups.
By the way, did I mention you get 256 characters instead of a mere 140? You’ll be amazed at how much more coherent you sound when you have an extra 100+ characters to use.
Now there are all sorts of reasons to suspect app.net might fail. The whole effort seems quixotic in many ways, especially when most Twitter users haven’t yet felt much pain from less-than-ideal Twitter business decisions. Still, what are the alternatives? You could stick with the big guns right now, assume everything’s going to be fine, and that they won’t exploit you too savagely. But if you’re worried about that exploitation, or even anxious about the lack of transparency with which that exploitation takes place, or if you’re worried about the future problems of insufficient monetization adversely affecting the stability of those services, then you have to think about your options.
At the same time, it’s clear that “simple and open” has not won in the social media space, so the dream of a set of federated Diaspora servers seems unlikely to become reality. At present there is no credible alternative to Twitter, and no realistic alternative to Facebook (assuming, like me, you don’t think Google+ was ever meant to be a Facebook alternative). App.net has a chance to be there if and when the floor falls out from under our current dominant micro-blogging platform, and that’s a chance worth supporting. In addition, if app.net does provide a stable hook for OAuth and other cross-platform credentials, it also has the potential to disrupt Facebook in two ways: first, by providing a more stable Identity 2.0 solution than does Facebook Social, and second, by allowing an established user base to use things like a federated Diaspora, which gives that sort of open protocol social network structure a fighting chance. I don’t personally think that last is going to happen (I’m not too confident in the Diaspora Project), but it’s worth mentioning the possibility.
Supporting app.net also has the benefit of implicitly lauding the philosophical underpinnings of the project: that users are customers, not commodities. That’s worth supporting, even if app.net fails, because it encourages the next platform-as-service developer to begin developing.
App.net is, in summary, a potentially Big Deal, because it signifies a potential shift toward realizing social networking as a utility (a la phone or electricity) rather than a data aggregation business. How it performs will tells us a lot about the potential futures of social media in particular and the internet in general. | <urn:uuid:10c90a8c-5bda-4d5d-8b18-cd73d40da12e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://flipthemedia.com/2012/08/ghost-in-the-wire-why-we-should-support-app-net/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957843 | 3,031 | 1.5625 | 2 |
- For other characters named Beren see also: Beren (disambiguation)
Early life in DorthonionEditBeren was an Edain, the son of Barahir and Emeldir. He was a man of the royal House of Bëor of Dorthonion, and the most accomplished hero and adventurer of the First Age. The battle of the Dagor Bragollach (Battle of Sudden Flame) befell during his youth, bringing about the ruin of his kingdom. The young Beren lived with his father and ten loyal followers in the highlands of Dorthonion, and the twelve of them performed many acts of bravery, to the great frustration of Morgoth, the Dark King of Angband. After the ruin of the Outlaws of Dorthonion and the death of his father, Beren lived alone in Dorthonion off the land and came to know the many birds and beasts that lived there, and they helped him when he needed it. During this time, he hunted nothing and ate no meat and only killed the creatures of Morgoth that roamed the country. He learned not to fear death only captivity and bondage; however, things began grow more difficult for him in Dorthonion for Morgoth put an even greater price on his head and he was forced from the land of his birth by Sauron and Draugluin. He crossed into Doriath, where he saw and fell in love with Lúthien, princess of the Sindar and daughter of Thingol and Melian.
The Quest for the SilmarilEditThingol haughtily refused to give Lúthien's hand in marriage. He said that he would allow the marriage to take place only if Beren brought back a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth. The task was intended to be impossible, but Beren and Lúthien, with the aid of Finrod of Nargothrond and Huan the Great Hound (both of whom died protecting Beren), braved many perils (even besting Sauron, then Morgoth's most powerful lieutenant) and captured a Silmaril. However, as they escaped from Angband, the great wolf Carcharoth, whom Morgoth had personally bred, awoke. Beren held out the Silmaril, hoping that its radiance would avert the beast, but he was mistaken. Carcharoth bit off his hand swallowed it and the Silmaril (thus Beren was called Erchamion, One-hand), and proceeded to run rampant through Doriath. Lúthien and the unconscious Beren were rescued by the Eagles of Manwë. When he presented himself to Thingol, he demonstrated to him that he had had a procession of the Silmaril at the cost of one of his hands, and was called Camlost, Empty-handed. Beren participated in the hunting of Carcharoth, where the beast was slain and the Silmaril recovered; the quest was accomplished, but in the process Beren was mortally wounded.
Second lifeEditLúthien's love for Beren was so strong that, hearing of his death, she lay down and died. Her soul went to the Halls of Mandos, where she managed to charm Mandos into granting her a wish in a way much like that of Orpheus in Greek mythology. Both she and Beren were restored to life, but both of them would live as mortals and die the death of men, and go beyond the walls of Arda to a place unknown. Thus Beren and Lúthien lived again, and dwelt on Tol Galen in the middle of the river Adurant in the Ossiriand. There they stayed apart from other mortals; Beren was involved with the events of the First Age only one further time, when he waylaid a group of dwarves who had destroyed Doriath and stolen the Nauglamír (and the Silmaril with it).
Lúthien bore Beren a son, named Dior, Thingol's heir, considered to be one of the fairest beings to ever live, for in him flowed the blood of men, the blood of elves, and the blood of the Ainur. Through his descendants, the blood of Beren and of Lúthien was preserved among the Eldar and the Edain.
Beren's deeds inspired all the peoples opposing Morgoth to unite themselves into a greater force to vanquish his power. His romance and love for Lúthien Tinúviel and what he was willing to do to ensure it helped foster greater respect for men amongst the elves. He was also the first to mix the blood of elves and men with each other and this bloodline continued, siring the Númenórean nobility and the Dúnedain alike on up to Aragorn II Elessar of the Reunited Kingdom. Legend has it that his line shall never be broken as long as the world exists.
Inspiration and Evolution of characterEdit
The story of Beren and Lúthien, though mentioned only briefly in The Lord of the Rings, was a central part of the legendarium. Tolkien once referred to it as "the kernel of the mythology" (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 165). He went on to say that it "arose from a small woodland glade filled with 'hemlocks'", which he visited while serving in the Humber Garrison in 1918 (during World War I).
Tyr, literary inspiration for the sequence where Beren loses his hand to the Wolf.
Tolkien was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery (North Oxford) and this name appears on the stone:
- JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN Beren 1892 - 1973
The name of Lúthien also appears on the stone:
- EDITH MARY TOLKIEN Lúthien 1889 – 1971
The Line of BerenEdit
Bregor | -------------- | | Bregolas Barahir = Emeldir | | ---------------- | | | | Baragund Belegund Beren Erchamion = Lúthien | | | Morwen = Húrin Rían = Huor Dior = Nimloth | | | --------------- | -------------- | | | | | | | Túrin Lalaith Nienor Tuor = Idril | | | | | | | Eärendil = Elwing Eluréd Elurín | ------------------------------------- | | Elros Elrond = Celebrian | | ------------------------ ---------------- | | | | | Kings of Númenor Lords of Andúnië | | | | | | | Elendil | | | | | | | Isildur | | | | | | | ------------------- | | | | | | | | Kings of Gondor Kings of Arnor | | | | | | | Kings of Arthedain | | | | | | | Chieftains of the Dúnedain | | | | | | | Aragorn = Arwen Elladan Elrohir | ---------------------- | | Eldarion Numerous daughters | Kings of Gondor and Arnor | <urn:uuid:49db3a12-03e2-4d8c-a3b5-2beaf9284fe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Beren | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960822 | 1,508 | 2.015625 | 2 |
You can make the place you live safer
Published: Friday, January 16, 2004 at 10:24 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, January 15, 2004 at 11:00 p.m.
The issue: Public safety.
We suggest: Neighbors, not just police, can help reduce crime.
Terrebonne Parish residents are fortunate to live in an area where violent crime, although a problem in some neighborhoods, isn't as pervasive as in many other cities.
From January to November 2003, Terrebonne Parish and the city of Houma logged a total of four murders, 44 rapes and 99 robberies.
To help continue to keep crime under control, this community can take lessons from other communities that have learned that fighting crime isn't just about making the big drug busts and arresting the murderers.
While the latter are obviously important, taking care of small problems helps ward off bigger ones. It's the broken-windows theory of policing, the same one Rudolph Giuliani used as mayor to improve quality of life and clean up New York City. Guiliani first focused efforts on ridding the roadways of squeegee men because a number of them already were the subject of arrest warrants for violent and property crimes. The effort was credited with cutting 5,000 felonies per week. He then concentrated on graffiti and other small nuisance crimes. The result: Citizens felt safer and took more pride in their city. Tourists appreciated the difference, too. In the end, the crime rate dropped 57 percent from 1994 through 2001. Murders were down by two-thirds, shootings by 75 percent.
The proof isn't limited to New York. Research by a Harvard professor found that neighbors' willingness to act directly impacts the neighborhood's crime rate.
The idea is that when people feel better about their community, they will rally around it. They take on responsibility and will not tolerate minor acts of disobedience. They form Neighborhood Watch groups, conduct block parties, watch out for each other. They don't allow teenagers to loiter on street corners, intimidating passersby, and they turn vacant lots into community gardens.
Terrebonne is already on such a path. Twenty-eight Neighborhood Watch groups are organized throughout the parish. The cleanup of trash from a corner near Canal and Point streets, and improvement of a nearby apartment building, is encouraging. When people live in nice surroundings, they are less likely to tolerate the dumping of trash and broken furniture around it.
Parish government is taking steps to clean up bayous, targeting abandoned and sunken boats, and is turning attention to abandoned crab traps that are both unsightly and boating hazards. The Sheriff's Office uses convicts to clean up littered roadways and provide painting and maintenance for public buildings.
Revitalization is occurring downtown. Storefronts and building facades are being renovated, and new offices and retail outlets are opening. Older houses are being rehabbed. And a new mural has added a sense of color and pride to a downtown building.
These efforts would not occur if community pride were absent. And that pride translates into more than just aesthetics; it's a key ingredient to keeping our streets safe. Fighting crime has just as much to do with ordinary citizens as it does with police. And it's often the simple things that make the biggest difference.
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you were an insurance company trying to cut your costs, how
would you do it? Emphasize prevention over cure? Cover birth
control? Allow coverage of cheaper alternatives, like in-home
care over nursing homes or examine ways to encourage use of
primary care providers over the emergency room?
Or perhaps you’d try to avoid paying for the treatment of
teens with eating disorders and then when you get sued, demand
that they give you their diaries, e-mails, and private MySpace
and Facebook posts to “prove” that the conditions were “emotionally
based” not “biologically based.”
In New Jersey, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, may they receive
the corporate death penalty, has chosen the latter. Of course
they are enabled in this by an asinine New Jersey law that
says health insurers are only responsible for covering mental
illness when it’s “biologically based.”
Show me someone who says they understand enough about how
our brains work to clearly draw that line, and I’ll show you
someone with biologically based delusions of grandeur.
You can’t even draw it with so-called non-mental illness.
Emotions and health affect each other on macro and micro levels.
Should my broken leg not be coverable if I got it because
I wasn’t looking where I was going because I was ecstatic
about my first book being published? What if my diabetes is
attributable to my obesity, which is attributable to overeating,
which is attributable to grief at a loved one’s loss? Will
you not cover a doctor’s visit for the flu because I lowered
my immune system staying up late having a fight with my spouse?
How about crippling tension headaches or stress-related ulcers?
This is the slippery slope Horizon is heading down, since
it has the gall to think it should be off the hook for covering
a bulimia treatment if the sufferer was ever upset for any
reason other than weight before or during throwing up. (Does
it really think that large numbers of teens without eating
disorders are going to eating disorder clinics because they
had a bad week at school?) And Horizon’s lawyers think they
have the right to read personal documents (currently limited
to those that have been shared with at least one other person,
but originally they asked for everything) to “determine” this.
It’s like the Bush administration running your health-insurance
This attitude is similar to attitudes that only want to protect
victims of sexual assault who are virginal, meek, and dressed
in suitably “modest” garb. It harms many of the people who
are in the most need of help. Or, as one person commented
in an online mental-health forum: “Brain on the fritz because
of ‘no fault of your own’? OK, we’ll pay. Brain on the fritz
from years of abuse? Eh, we don’t cover that.”
Much like public safety and education, health happens in the
context of real life, which is messy, imperfect, and complicated.
Anyone who tries to make a change for the better in any of
those areas while ignoring that fact is going to spend a lot
of money, hurt a lot of people, and get not very far. Children
can’t learn while they’re hungry or suffering from PTSD or
being forced to sit sill for developmentally inappropriate
lengths of time. Factors from poverty to lead poisoning increase
crime. Illness and injury only rarely appear out of the clear
Which means, when you come down to it, that while I think
Horizon’s actions in New Jersey are heinous and unforgivable,
they do point to a tricky question: If someone is taking on
the responsibility to pay for health care, what constitutes
health care? If you mean literally that which cares for my
health, then most of what I spend on groceries, tea, exercise
classes, bike repairs, vitamins, water filters, posture-improving
shoes, allergen-blocking dust covers, vacations, relaxing
time with my family, books about baby sleep habits, and a
million other things I spend money on would count as health-care
expenditures just as much as a visit to the doctor (traditional
or “alternative”) and my asthma inhalers would. I don’t expect
a health insurance company to pay for all that, and
certainly don’t want them meddling in my choices about my
grocery bill. And yet, what they do choose to cover often
seems off base and counter productive—surgery, but not the
treatments that might make surgery unnecessary, for example.
Can we craft a health care system that encourages, values,
and spends energy on wellness and prevention, but doesn’t
sort the sick into the deserving innocent and the lazy lame-o’s
who don’t take care of themselves? Can we make a compassionate,
affordable health care system that also protects our privacy?
These are hard questions, and I don’t have the answers to
them, though I do have trouble imagining any a coherent long-term
discussion about them happening in any context other than
a national health insurance system. (Relieving people of the
strain of paying for health insurance would in itself help
them afford healthier, less stressed lives in the first place.)
In the meantime, you may want to think twice before blogging
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JERRY McBRIDE/Durango Herald file photo
JERRY McBRIDE/Durango Herald file photo
Bitter conflict threatens to define the early 21st century.
The United States are becoming more divisive. Sorry, but you can’t read or watch the media and avoid the bombardment of politically charged news. That’s why Durango’s community get-together Sept. 27 is such a refreshing anomaly.
“We’re in a very contentious time,” says Jack Turner, the man with the dream. “We’re in the midst of the bitterest election that’s ever going to happen. Whether it’s city politics, county planning, marriage issues, race, foreign affairs – I mean, every page of the paper practically has an element of conflict on it, and so much of it is bitter conflict.”
So, when Thursday morning arrives next week, and thousands of Durangoans converge along a 7.2-mile stretch of the Animas River, can we discard our differences?
“In the big picture,” Turner says, “it’s like, look: How about, we can all agree that the Animas River Trail’s just fine.”
What he’s talking about is Durango Connect, an attempt to form a human chain along the trail’s length. Turner, a fifth-generation native, has been the leading force behind organizing this celebration of a community treasure.
The occasion is the completion of the final link in the now-contiguous trail, which for decades has been a dashed string of concrete and asphalt sections, some more usable than others.
Why celebrate? A trail is just a trail, right? It’s just a path to help us get around town, or to recreate, or to enjoy nature. Why do we need to hold hands and act all happy and stuff? Not quite sure it’s possible to convince everyone why they should be excited, why they should take pride in a civic achievement, but let’s give it a shot.
Let’s start with a tiny item in the minutes of a City Council meeting from June 24, 1975: “Establishment of land for bike trail from East Second Avenue to the 32nd Street Bridge.” The beginning of the Animas River Trail? Perhaps.
Over the years a plan sort of formed to create a contiguous path along the river. But progress was slow, and not always sure. Reluctant landowners and problematic geography offered stiff resistance.
In April 1999 city voters approved a 0.5 percent sales-tax increase to pay for the recreation center and for river trail projects.
“That’s really where things turned,” says Cathy Metz, director of parks and recreation since 1996. If not for those funds, “We wouldn’t be where we are today. ... The community should really be the ones that are thanked.”
The final missing 1,000-foot-long link, a truly magnificent cantilevered section along a steep slope behind the Durango Mall, was finished in June.
It wasn’t cheap, but it is valuable. The trail is the city’s most-used recreation amenity, Metz is fond of reminding you.
Forty years ago the trail seemed like nonsense to some, the sheer logistics too much to even fathom. But “there was a whole group of people who stuck to it,” says Turner, who’s not shy about criticizing government or schools when he disagrees with a policy.
“To me, this trail system is something (the city) really got right,” he says.
OK, great, but why a human chain?
Turner says he was inspired to do something different. The human chain won’t set any records – 5 million Bangladeshis linked along a 650-mile stretch in 2004 – but it will be epic. It’s not often that several thousand people join in a simultaneous community celebration.
“Who else in the country can do something like that?” Turner says. “There’s 10,000 ribbon cuttings every day. All of which are boring.”
Since January, Turner and others involved with Durango Connect have toiled and cajoled to accomplish the task of bringing together the estimated 7,000 to 8,000 people required to complete the chain. Among their accomplishments:
All 5,000 or so Durango School District 9-R kids are attending as part of their class day.
So their employees can attend, many local businesses have agreed to open late or operate with skeleton crews on the morning of Sept. 27.
Individuals and businesses have donated time, water bottles, printing projects, website design and more. A helicopter will shuttle a video crew to record Durango Connect, and Turner plans to make a documentary.
Seventy-two trail captains – one for each tenth of a mile – will help spread people along the path. Entertainers, such as musicians, jugglers, magicians and drumming groups, will keep the mood upbeat.
All this with almost no expenses. “We don’t even have a checkbook,” Turner says.
It’s more than just people standing on a trail linking arms, says Moni Grushkin, a recently retired bank executive who is helping to coordinate media activities for Durango Connect.
“It just seems like a natural way to celebrate all that’s great about Durango,” she says.
Even if the chain doesn’t connect the whole way, “It’s still going to be a big success,” Turner says. “I know we’re going to get close.”
I was asked to invite friends, family and co-workers. I’m going to go whole-hog, lose all journalistic integrity, and invite all you readers, too.
Yes, in the future, the fall of 2012 will be noted for its excessive political rancor, its divisiveness among citizens. But look what happened in Durango at that same time: Thousands joined to celebrate a fantastic community accomplishment. Do you really want to miss out?
Turner, a 1973 Durango High School graduate, sees Durango Connect as a milestone. “The long-term hope I have for this is that kids will look back and say, ‘Remember the day we all came out and did this?’”
firstname.lastname@example.org. John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column. | <urn:uuid:9854f2f1-fe37-4878-924a-6e2b732c872f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://durangoherald.com/article/20120916/COLUMNISTS04/120919598/0/API | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951026 | 1,401 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Kidney Cancer Drug Attacks a Major Type of Acute Myeloid Leukemia
M. D. Anderson researchers show Sorafenib targets AML driven by mutant FLT3 gene
HOUSTON, Jan. 29, 2008 - A drug used to treat kidney cancer also targets a genetic mutation active in about one third of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the most common and lethal form of adult leukemia, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the Jan. 29 edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
In a Phase I clinical trial, the drug sorafenib reduced the median percentage of leukemia cells circulating in the blood from 81 percent to 7.5 percent and in the bone marrow from 75.5 percent to 34 percent among AML patients whose leukemia includes the FLT3-ITD mutation. Two patients had circulating leukemia cells, or blasts, drop to zero.
"AML patients with this mutation have a particularly poor prognosis, so this highly targeted drug appears to be a significant step forward in leukemia therapy," says senior author Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy and Department of Leukemia.
The JNCI paper reports the drug's effect in lab experiments, a mouse model of the disease, and in a Phase I study of 16 patients with relapsed or resistant AML known to have the FLT3-ITD mutation.
There have been no major side effects in the clinical trial to date, so no maximum tolerated dose has been reached, Andreeff notes. The drug has little effect on cells with normal versions of the gene and does not interfere with normal blood cell formation.
A Phase I/Phase II clinical trial for AML is open at M. D.
Anderson that combines sorafenib with the standard of care
chemotherapy combination for AML, idarubicin and cytosine
arabinoside. Presently, the trial is open for relapsed patients and
those newly diagnosed with high-risk disease, says study co-author
Jorge Cortes, M.D., professor in
M. D. Anderson's Department of Leukemia. As safety and dose escalation research progress, sorafenib will be made available to other patients and assume a role in frontline therapy.
About 14,000 new cases of AML are diagnosed annually in the United States and the disease kills about 9,000 people each year. AML is characterized by swift proliferation of immature white blood cells in the blood and bone marrow that crowds out normal cells, leaving patients exposed to infection, severe anemia and bleeding.
While major progress has been made treating some forms of leukemia and lymphoma, acute myeloid leukemia has seen less improvement in recent years. Andreeff says that's because AML exploits multiple molecular pathways and that these pathways differ from one type of AML to the next.
Andreeff and colleagues have shown that molecular pathways subverted and used by AML collude with each other, so when one pathway is blocked, the others redouble their efforts to fuel the disease.
"Here we have a great response against an important mutation, but sorafenib alone will not cure patients," Andreeff notes. Combination therapy will be required. Andreeff and colleagues plan to examine other sorafenib combinations against FLT3-mutant disease.
After in vitro tests showed that sorafenib inhibited the growth of FLT3 mutant leukemia cell colonies, the research team tested the medication in a mouse model of the disease. Sorafenib-treated mice had a median survival of 36.5 days compared with 20.5 days in untreated mice. Bioluminescence imaging showed widespread cancer growth in untreated mice and barely detectable disease in those that had received the drug.
Sorafenib, known commercially as Nexavar® and co-developed by Bayer AG and Onyx Pharmaceuticals, already is approved for advanced renal cell carcinoma and inoperable liver cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is being tested against other solid tumors.
The drug targets both tumor cell growth and angiogenesis - new blood vessels woven by cancer to sustain itself - by targeting two classes of kinases, which are enzymes that affect proteins by attaching phosphate groups to them.
Sorafenib's antileukemia effects appear to be superior to early results of new therapies under development that more narrowly target the FLT3 gene. Andreeff says the drug's ability to hit multiple kinases probably accounts for this, but the exact molecular mechanisms involved require further study.
Co-authors with Andreeff and Cortes are lead author Weiguo Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., who conducted most of the project's laboratory research, Marina Konopleva, M.D., Ph.D., Yue-xi Shi, Teresa McQueen, Xiaoyang Ling, Ph.D., all of the department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy; David Harris, Zeev Estrov, M.D., and Alfonso Quintas-Cardama, M.D., all of the Department of Leukemia; and David Small, M.D. of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Research was funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute, a Leukemia SPORE Career Development Award, and the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program
- 30 -
About the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ranks as one of the world's most respected centers focused on cancer patient care, research, education and prevention. M. D. Anderson is one of only 39 Comprehensive Cancer Centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. For five of the past eight years,
Contact: Scott Merville, Office: 713-792-0661
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Two prominent psychiatrists were each asked to articulate their understanding of the meaning of life. Psychiatrist #1, a well-known novelist and Professor-Emeritus of Psychiatry from Stanford University's School of Medicine, stated, Life has no meaning. The only meaning it has is what we ourselves give it, and, sadly, we often forget we are the ones who gave it the meaning." Psychiatrist #2, a former professor of Psychiatry and Religion at Yale, Harvard and Georgetown, and now with an international private practice in Nassau, Bahamas, clearly at the opposite end of the spectrum, responded, "Man has a deep need to worship, and if he doesn't worship the true and living God, he ends up worshipping false gods that are merely projections of himself."
Clearly experts can disagree.
Sigmund Freud, father of classical psychoanalysis and a founder of present day psychiatry wrote of a universal desire to understand our lives and the world around us. He used the term, "Weltanschauung" or worldview, defining it as "an intellectual construction which solves all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypothesis, which, accordingly, leaves no question unanswered and in which everything that interests us finds its fixed place." He went on to state that, "the possession of a Weltanschauung of this kind is among the ideal wishes of human beings. Believing in it one can feel secure in life, one can know what to strive for, and how one can deal most expediently with one's emotions and interests."1 Of note is that Freud referred to himself as a "godless Jew" clearly aligning himself with psychiatrist #1.
How was Freud's Weltanschauung reflected not only in his writings but also in his personal life? A recent book by a noted Harvard University psychiatrist, Dr. Armand Nicholi,2 addresses this very question and, in addition, contrasts his findings concerning Freud with the personal writings and life of another well-known figure, C.S. Lewis. Lewis is the author of the seven volume series, The Chronicles of Narnia, the bestknown being The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, on which the very popular movie is based.
C.S. Lewis, an Oxford University professor, in his earlier years, in parallel fashion to Freud, called himself "a blaspheming atheist," only later in life to come to a belief in a benevolent God and then to fully embrace orthodox Christianity. His life was radically changed.
The most fascinating feature of Dr. Nicholi's book is the contrast between Freud's and Lewis' personal lives, especially after Lewis comes to faith in God. True belief is belief that is lived out with all its consequences. The quality of Freud's and Lewis' personal relationships with others and how they faced loss, sickness and their own deaths are consistent with and as markedly in contrast as the differences between atheism and faith in God. Freud had difficulty with close relationships throughout his life. C.S. Lewis became a warm, compassionate person with strong intimate friendships. Freud saw little positive meaning in suffering. C.S. Lewis saw that it could have redemptive value. Freud feared death and had his physician give him a lethal dose of morphine to end his pain from oral cancer. C.S. Lewis welcomed death, in its time, seeing with eyes of faith what was yet to come. Dr. Nicholi carefully and artfully presents the evidence and allows the reader to ponder the two contrasting worldview constructs and their accompanying life styles.
We live in a real world of flesh and blood and bones, and rocks and houses…and the need to eat and sleep…and the need for love and relationship. Anyone who thinks otherwise is labeled delusional or psychotic or, at the very least, mistaken. Some speak of intuition, spirituality, transcendence and the mystery of life. The secularist's understanding of these concepts is limited to the observable world that we experience with our senses. Science deals with this world and has been proven to be extremely useful in helping us not only to live, but also to thrive in it.
Psychiatrist #1 would say that this observable world defines reality and that there is nothing beyond it. Psychiatrist #2 would disagree and posit that this real world is imbedded in an equally real, larger (or of a totally different dimension) world that includes an all-knowing, all-caring, all-powerful God. In the case of Orthodox Judaism—and to an even greater extent, Biblical Christianity—it would also include a real heaven and hell, angels, demons, real supernatural miracles, and prayer that is literal communication between human beings and God with equally real consequences.
Dr. Paul Bloom, a Jewish professor of psychology and linguistics at Yale University, writing in the December 2005 issue of The Atlantic Monthly,3 addresses this issue head on.
Dr. Bloom and his colleagues studied very young children, acknowledging that it is very difficult to know what they are thinking since they can't speak. The main means of understanding the children's responses was to note how long they looked at different events and to record their facial and physical reactions. For example, they discovered that six-month olds understand that physical objects obey gravity. "If you put an object on a table and then remove the table, and the object stays there (held by a hidden wire), babies are surprised; they expect the object to fall…and contrary to what is still being taught in some psychology classes, they understand that objects persist over time even when hidden. (Show a baby an object and then put it behind a screen. Wait a little while and then remove the screen. If the object is gone, the baby is surprised.)"
Fascinating! He goes on to discuss the babies' responses to their mothers' different emotions. "Before they are a year old, they [the babies] can determine the target of an adult's gaze, and can learn by attending to the emotions of others; if a baby is crawling toward an area that might be dangerous and an adult makes a horrified or disgusted face, the baby usually knows enough to stay away."
From these data he makes an attempt to understand the underlying principles at work. "Understanding of the physical world and understanding of the social world can be seen as akin to two distinct computers in a baby's brain, running separate programs and performing separate tasks. The understandings develop at different rates: the social one emerges somewhat later than the physical one." So far, so good. Dr. Bloom is being a social scientist, gathering data and making objective hypotheses, that is, educated guesses at what might be going on, to explain the data.
Later in the article, he looks at autism and wonders whether the problems of this developmental disorder might be related to a breakdown in the functioning of one of these "computers." "In the most extreme cases, children with autism see people as nothing more than objects—objects that move in unpredictable ways and make unexpected noises and are therefore frightening." He wonders whether their "social computers" are malfunctioning. He is still being the objective social scientist.
But then he brings in belief—his own—as he continues to ponder the meaning of his findings. "They [the computers] evolved at different points in our prehistory; our physical understanding is shared by many species, whereas our social understanding is a relatively recent adaptation, and in some regards might be uniquely human." He gives no scientific evidence to underpin his statement but presents it within the context of objective science. He favors atheistic evolution rather than "intelligent design" though he admits that most Americans (including college graduates and even scientists) believe that God created human beings.
Bloom is no longer being the pure scientist. Let's investigate what is happening here. Early in his article, in a very transparent manner, Dr. Bloom reveals his Weltanschauung, or worldview. He states that he rejects supernatural beliefs. He describes himself as a "secular" person who is "comfortable with religion as a source of spirituality and transcendence, tolerance and love, charity and good works." He is, "uncomfortable, however, with religion when it makes claims about the natural world, let alone a world beyond nature." He would approve if "science gets the realm of facts, religion the realm of values."
Using Dr. Bloom's criteria, the Bible would be in trouble from the beginning. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Whoops! Here is an example of faith stepping on the toes of science, making claims about the natural world as well as the world beyond nature (heaven, God). Or what about instances when the laws of natural science give way to supernatural acts of God such as in a burning bush that is not consumed by fire or in the parting of the Red Sea in the Exodus account: "…and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land" (Exodus 14:21). Dr. Bloom's categories don't leave much room for biblical truth to say anything meaningful about history, our lives and the world around us.
In fact, he states, according to recent polls, that most people don't agree with a secular, non-supernatural understanding of life. (From a practical perspective, many people who say they believe in God, heaven and judgment, live as if they don't, but that is the topic of another discussion.) Dr. Bloom quotes statistics that "96 percent of people in the United States believe in God. Well over half of Americans believe in miracles, the devil, and angels. Most believe in an afterlife…most Americans say they believe that after death they will actually reunite with relatives and get to meet God." He goes on to say that "the rest of the world—Asia, Africa, the Middle East—is not exactly filled with hardcore atheists" and that "most polls from European countries show that a majority of their people are believers."
These facts disturb Dr. Bloom. Even 40% of scientists, when polled, believe in "a real Biblical God, one believers could pray to and actually get answers from…Only the most elite scientists—members of the National Academy of Sciences…[have a] strong majority of atheists and agnostics."
This "embarrassment for those who see supernatural beliefs as a cultural anachronism soon to be eroded by scientific discoveries and the spread of cosmopolitan values" leads these scientists to pursue theories that will be consistent with their worldview. And they use the techniques available to them—evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental psychology—with all the prestige and "authority" that accompany these learned pursuits.
But science doesn't have the authority or the expertise to make judgments about these matters. A biopsy, an X Ray, or a blood test cannot reveal the answers to our deepest questions.
I composed this poem and offer it to many of my patients as an introduction to a discussion of worldview and belief.
But where do our beliefs come from? How do they grow into mature belief? And how do they run amuck? For those who would want to pursue these questions, Ana Marie Rizzuto, M.D., a Catholic psychoanalyst and author of Birth of the Living God, speaks of belief as a foundational psychological function and outlines the rich, healthy supernatural beliefs of the developing youngster. James Fowler, Ph.D., in his writing, outlines Stages of Faith. And for those who would like to investigate the dark side, M. Scott Peck, M.D., presents this in his book, People of the Lie: The Hope of Healing Human Evil.
And while books can offer meaningful insights, I have found that my personal experience has had a most powerful influence on my own life. I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family and participated in all its rich customs and practices—my mother kept a kosher home, I laid tephillin, went to the synagogue with my father on Shabbat, even led the Musaf services as a junior cantor. I laid aside these practices when I went into medicine, eventually going into psychiatry, thinking it would solve my own personal problems as well as enable me to help others.
I learned, very painfully, that psychiatry doesn't have the answers I so longed for. It is a tool, just as a scalpel is a healing instrument in the hands of a skilled surgeon. The same scalpel in the hands of an unskilled or even a criminal person will bring about quite different results.
I discovered that psychiatry, as a science, could not answer the questions that I desperately was asking. Nor could it provide for my deepest needs. I didn't turn to faith in God because it provided these answers and filled these needs in a utilitarian manner alone, but because I believed that this faith was true…true in a way that science could not confirm or deny…true because my soul, my spirit, confirmed that it was true. When I read the words of Y'shua (Jesus) they brought relief, healing and clarity. He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). His words were comforting, but also challenging: "Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me" (John 12:26).
Once I was drawn to the truth of the Bible in the New Testament, I began to read the Hebrew Scriptures with understanding for the first time. I saw that there was a unity that I had never imagined, that the New Testament truths were the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures and that the New Testament was incomplete without that which preceded it. For the first time, I felt God drawing me to himself in love through both of them.
I had already been a psychiatrist for several years and so I had quite a bit of rethinking to do when I came to faith in Jesus. I had to reevaluate my beliefs that were basically atheistic or at best agnostic, and give up seeing psychiatry as the answer in and of itself. I had based my efforts on facts that had no solid foundation in objective truth. In my existential pain and despair, I cried out and began to pray as I had learned to do from my mother as a young child. I was drawn to the words of Jesus by a religious pamphlet I picked up off the street.
At first I was very frightened to even consider anything from the New Testament since I had been taught that Jesus was for the goyim (the Gentiles) and that I was not to consider anything related to Christianity…but I was desperate…and in my desperation, God met me.
It wasn't quick and it wasn't easy. I was very proud and very rebellious by nature. I can admit this now, many years into my faith walk, because it has been clearly shown to me by a loving God who patiently has provided for me as he taught me through others, through Scripture, and through circumstances. He showed me my need to give up childish things and be the man he created me to be.
How sad that the atheistic or agnostic scientists don't see this truth and, as articulated by Dr. Bloom, entertain a "view that religion emerged not to serve a purpose—not as an opiate or a social glue—but by accident. It is a byproduct of biological adaptations gone awry." Dr. Bloom struggles with the fact that much of the intellectual argument against the existence of God doesn't make intuitive sense. He acknowledges,"[This theory] is like quantum physics; we might intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us. When we see a complex structure, we see it as the product of beliefs and goals and desires. Our social mode of understanding leaves it difficult for us to make sense of it any other way. Our gut feeling is that design requires a designer…"
I am glad that Dr. Bloom is struggling with this. It is a good sign that perhaps he will pursue truth until it finds him…until the Way, the Truth and the Life—Jesus himself—finds him in intimate loving relationship. It takes both heart and mind, facts and feelings, to be whole men and women. True faith never pits one against the other. At least that's what I think.
What do you think?
- Freud, Sigmund. "The Question of a Weltanschauung." In New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1933.
- The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life. Simon and Shuster, August 2003.
- Bloom, Paul. "Is God An Accident?" The Atlantic Monthly, December 2005. | <urn:uuid:95abf9cc-7e52-4f18-853a-07861fb031ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/16_06/psychiatrist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969564 | 3,482 | 2.1875 | 2 |
I ran across blog
post on the proposed sales tax increase in Arizona that
referenced an economic analysis done by Dr. Alberta H. Charney from the Eller
Management at UofA. Since I like to read what other economists write, especially
about Arizona, I thought I'd have a look.
I've read both the article and the referenced economic
impact study and there
are problems in both.
Specifically, both the article and the study make
claims that are at odds with recent data.
First, from a macroeconomic model standpoint, it assumes that both government
spending and taxes have a multiplier effect on the economy. That is, an increase
(or decrease) results in an increase (or decrease) in other transactions that
add to (or subtract from) the overall economic effect. From the study:
The cumulative effect of these purchases is referred to as the multiplier
effect and the additional purchases and economic activity created as a result
of the initial increased demand is referred to as the economic impact. The
reverse of all these effects occurs if there is a decrease in the demand for
the output of an industry.
Given the numbers
of jobs they cite, their model apparently assumes that the government spending
multiplier is greater than the tax multiplier. Their model shows that taxing
away $918M costs 7,383 private sector jobs while reducing government expenditures
by $867.6M costs 14,092 mostly public sector jobs. That means their model assumes
that public sector spending is about twice as effective as private sector spending
at creating (or saving) jobs.
While that's what their
it's not what economists have found when they
the multiplier. What
they found was that the government spending multiplier
was about 0.7 while the tax multiplier was between 1.3 and 3.0. In short a
dollar of government spending results in a net of 70 cents of economic activity
while that same dollar received as a tax cut results in $1.30 to $3 in net
economic activity. (The flip side of a tax cut would be a tax increase that
on net decreases economic activity by $1.30 to $3.)
Even adding in the "lost" federal funds won't make up for the private sector
loss if we use measured multipliers rather than their model assumptions.
The study has some reasons that government spending will result in more jobs
than letting people spend their own money.
First, the government is a service provider and, generally, services employ
more persons per $1 million of expenditures than do non-services providers...
Since 80% or more of the economy is services, this won't make that much difference.
Retail jobs are service jobs as are jobs in wholesale and distribution.
Second, from the taxation side, a portion of the sales tax is paid by out-of-state
visitors, so only slightly under 90 percent of the tax is paid by Arizona residents.
So we will get to outsource about 10% of the tax. That raises the cost of
visiting Arizona relative to other places which will decrease the number of
visitors. While we'll get the benefit of taxing those that still come, we'll
lose all of the economic activity of those that will now stay away due to the
For most sales, only the retail margin (the difference between
final sale price and the wholesale cost of the item) is retained in the state.
Retail margins can be as low as 27 percent of the total sales price for purchases
made at general merchandise stores.
Basically this is saying that only a portion of the tax will be paid out of
the retail margin. The rest will be passed back to the out of state wholesaler
or distributor. I don't know how you make this work. I don't know any wholesaler
or distributor that will sell me stuff at a lower price simply because the
state of Arizona has a higher sales tax rate. As a retailer, that means all
of the tax will come out of either my margin or a higher price charged to Arizona
Overall I find the model's analysis and Dr. Charney's arguments unconvincing.
The multipliers their model uses are out of sync
with our experience. The government isn't that much more service job intensive
than the private sector, and I don't see a mechanism for outsourcing
the taxes to other states.
Best I can tell, just based on the multipliers, this tax increase will cost
the private sector at least twice as many jobs as it will save in the public
Labels: macroeconomics, microeconomics | <urn:uuid:e909076f-2d93-4896-abae-b5a1604a5a5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://azecon.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959365 | 967 | 1.960938 | 2 |
For years, Mark Garcia collected random found objects but had no idea why. These things just piled up in his home until, just a few years ago, he decided to manipulate them into a series of shadowboxes.
"These objects became symbols and metaphors for certain human behaviors and beliefs," says Garcia. "Compositions arose out of experimenting and juxtaposing the objects with one another until a message was attained that I found profound enough to make it into a work of art."
Some of these boxes are designed to be light-hearted. Others have a more serious theme. An exhibit of Garcia's art called Just Incase opens this Friday, May 13, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. at Offcenter Gallery (808 Park SW) and runs through May 31. For details, call 247-1172.
In a new exhibit, Really Not Real, Really, [AC]2 (301 Mountain NE), two local artists explore the role of artificiality in artistic creation. Tim Jag's "Industry Code Series" is a project he started four years ago using sculpture, paintings and drawings to delve into the influence of industry on our lives. Jag likes to play with melding machines, plants and animals in a way that's both mysterious and accessible.
In a similar manner, Matt Jones' work attempts to create a bridge between science and religion. His series "Organized Complexity" includes forms that are meant to resemble the mechanisms that serve as the foundation for all life.
Really Not Real, Really opens this Saturday, May 14, with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. at [AC]2. Runs through June 12. 842-8016, www.ac2gallery.org. | <urn:uuid:e9883acc-c625-4636-9072-0d19619d6ee3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alibi.com/art/11622/Culture-Shock.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963664 | 354 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Sooner or later, a child must learn about war. It's an imperative of growing up, even if most adults have no great stomach for breaking the bad news.
But the lesson is coming a lot sooner and more vividly than anyone would have wanted for some children at Glendale's Glenoaks Elementary School.
Among the first- and second-graders in two adjacent bungalows are two sisters, both blonde, adorable and very quiet. Respecting their father's request for anonymity, we'll give them the fictitious names Sally and Laura.
Their mother is a master sergeant in the U. S. Air Force. She shipped out to the Persian Gulf early in the mobilization and has been there since. Her job is supply specialist and involves airplanes. That's about all the school knows about her, which is slightly more than the sisters seem to know, although their reticence makes it hard to tell for sure.
The girls are new to Glendale. They came from Virginia over the summer and enrolled last fall. Their teachers didn't know anything about their personal stake in the developing war until several weeks into the semester.
Laura's teacher, Debbie Parson, said she thinks that she first heard it from a mother in Laura's Brownie troop.
That knowledge put her in a trailblazing spot for a teacher. Seldom before has the living metaphor for war been an elementary student's mommy at the front.
With war clouds building, she was not eager to jump into the task.
"I sort of tiptoed around it until several days ago when we couldn't tiptoe any more," the placid-faced young teacher said.
She was aware that the children were already getting lots of information about the looming conflict, most of it, naturally, from television.
In the skewed way that television teaches, most of them knew about the deadline and knew that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had called President George Bush "Satan," but few knew where Saudi Arabia was.
Explaining to a group of 8-year-olds the global and historical forces behind the largest military action since World War II is not an easy thing.
The school district doesn't have a specific policy on how to treat the war.
A few weeks ago, Donald Empey, deputy superintendent for instruction, briefed principals on the importance of teachers being sensitive to students who might reflect many sides of the complex issue, from those with parents in the armed forces to those who emigrated from Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq.
As for the reasons for the war and whether it is right or wrong, that should be treated like any current event, with discussion of pro and con, Empey suggested.
So Sally and Laura's teachers were on their own.
Next door to Parson, 25-year teaching veteran Joanne LaMonte began with a broadly pacifist viewpoint.
"One tries to be nonpolitical," LaMonte said. "I try to teach them to settle their differences verbally, not to go fighting on the playground. It's very hard when they see the adults fighting."
She had her first-graders write to President Bush a few days before war broke out.
"Dear President Bush:" began a typical example, from a boy named Ernesto. "We don't want a war. Please send Sally's mom home."
Sally's letter, with a smiling face and a crying face as a postscript, said: "Please send my mom home."
When war began, those letters were withheld. Instead, on Friday, the class wrote valentines for Sally's mother.
They cut out pink hearts and wrote messages such as this from Sameer Kulkarni, who comes from India:
"We hope you are safe. Love, Sameer. Happy Valentine."
Sally wrote simply: "I am waiting."
Another batch of valentines will be sent by Parson's second-graders next door. Theirs were noticeably more sophisticated and aware. Some were embellished with drawings of planes in combat, shooting down "bad planes" and Saddam Hussein's boat.
"I hope you win the war," Steve wrote. "Because I think you will win."
"I hope that you be safe in the war," Benjie said. "What kinds of planes do you ride? Were studying endangered animals."
Laura drew a family of four in crayon, with the mother in camouflage fatigues and wrote: "Dear mom, I hope you come back very soon. Dad and Sally are OK, mom. I hope you are safe. Next letter you give to me tell me how you and your war was. . . . I hope you will be safe in the war."
Parson said she has tried to present the concept of war as duty, without becoming a cheerleader. That's a thin line because some of her students told her that their parents oppose the war, while the parents of others support it.
Parson used the analogy of the neighborhood.
"I talked about how we should be proud of the people over there because they're helping a good neighbor," she said. "We've talked about helping and, if things go as President Bush is hopeful, what that will mean to the world."
She talked about how a lot of times the government takes things out of individuals' hands.
"I hope to answer their questions the best I can," she said, conveying equal measures of resolve and futility.
"We don't really understand," she said, with emphasis on "we." | <urn:uuid:b7c1afae-3231-4e9a-bf65-1b1af5cac768> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-24/news/gl-1015_1_teachers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980914 | 1,146 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Posts Tagged ‘sustainability’
As this infographic courtesy of AutoPawn indicates, maybe you can’t have everything—at least not yet.
Climate change is real, and it’s coming to your neighborhood. This comprehensive and disturbing infographic, “How Climate Change is Destroying the Earth,” comes courtesy of LearnStuff.
According to LearnStuff, “Thanks to extensive research and noticeable changes in weather and storm prevalence, it’s getting harder to turn a blind eye to the reality of climate change. Since the Industrial Age spurred the increasing usage of fossil fuels for energy production, the weather has been warming slowly. In fact, since 1880, the temperature of the earth has increased by 1 degree Celsius.
“Although 72% of media outlets report on global warming with a skeptical air, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the extreme weather of the last decade is at least partially caused by global warming.”
So check it out:
Climate Change by LearnStuff.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.learnstuff.com/climate-change/.
Say you’re watching Ed or Rachel for your daily dose of progressive news on MSNBC; they go to a commercial break and this 30-second ad pops up:
Just in time for the regulatory review and so-called scoping coal export proposal season here in the Northwest! It prompted me to take a look at the website that flashes briefly during the ad – the Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports.
One minor detail that gets brushed aside is that this is about selling cheap and dirty coal to international – mostly Asian – markets and hauling tens of millions of tons of it through heavily populated regions in the Pacific Northwest to new and/or upgraded export shipping terminals. Even the alliance’s name shuns the four-letter word. Jobs! Exports! Who can oppose that? Read the rest of this entry »
This is reproduced from Think Progress, by Igor Volsky. Two things – Syria is Iran’s route to the sea? (Didn’t the Mittster even look at a map while preparing for the debate?) And I really like the picture that Think Progress captured.
Enjoy, or something:
1) “Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea.” Romney has his geography wrong. Syria doesn’t share a border with Iran and Iran has 1,500 miles of coastline leading to the Arabian Sea. It is also able to reach the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal.
2) “And what I’m afraid of is we’ve watched over the past year or so [in Syria], first the president saying, well we’ll let the U.N. deal with it…. Then it went to the Russians and said, let’s see if you can do something.” While Russia and China have vetoed multiple resolutions at the U.N. Security Council on Syria, the United States has also been working through the Friends of Syria group and other allies in the region. Obama’s approach “would essentially give U.S. nods of approval to arms transfers from Arab nations to some Syrian opposition fighters.”
3) “Former chief of the — Joint Chiefs of Staff said that — Admiral Mullen said that our debt is the biggest national security threat we face. This — we have weakened our economy. We need a strong economy. We need to have as well a strong military.” If Romney is worried about the national debt, why does he want to increase military spending from 3.5 percent of GDP to 4 percent? This amounts to a $2.1 trillion increase over a ten year period that the military says it does not need and Romney has no plan to pay for it.
4) “[W]hen — when the students took to the streets in Tehran and the people there protested, the Green Revolution occurred, for the president to be silent I thought was an enormous mistake.” Obama spoke out about the Revolution on June 15, 2009, just two days after post-election demonstrations began in Iran, condemning the Iranian government’s hard-handed crackdown on Iranian activists. He then reiterated his comments a day later in another press conference. Iranian activists have agreed with Obama’s approach.
5) “And when it comes to our economy here at home, I know what it takes to create 12 million new jobs and rising take-home pay.” The Washington Post’s in-house fact checker tore Romney’s claim that he will create 12 million jobs to shreds. The Post wrote that the “‘new math’” in Romney’s plan “doesn’t add up.” In awarding the claim four Pinocchios — the most untrue possible rating, the Post expressed incredulity at the fact Romney would personally stand behind such a flawed, baseless claim.
6) “[W]e are going to have North American energy independence. We’re going to do it by taking full advantage of oil, coal, gas, nuclear and our renewables.” Romney would actually eliminate the fuel efficiency standards that are moving the United States towards energy independence, even though his campaign plan relies on these rules to meet his goals.
7) “[W]e’re going to have to have training programs that work for our workers.” Paul Ryan’s budget, which Romney has fully endorsed, calls for spending 33 percent less on “Education, training, employment, and social services” than Obama’s budget.
9) “Well, Republicans and Democrats came together on a bipartisan basis to put in place education principles that focused on having great teachers in the classroom.” Education experts have faint praise for his proposals while he was governor. “His impact was inconsequential,” said Glen Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. “People viewed his proposals as political talking points, and no one took Romney seriously.”
10) “So I’d get rid of [Obamacare] from day one. To the extent humanly possible, we get that out.” Romney cannot unilaterally eliminate a bill passed by Congress and his plan to grant states waivers may also be a non-starter.
11) “Number two, we take some programs that we are doing to keep, like Medicaid, which is a program for the poor.” Medicaid isn’t just a program for the poor. While it provides health coverage for “millions of low-income children and families who lack access to the private health insurance system,” it also offers “insurance to millions of people with chronic illnesses or disabilities” and is “the nation’s largest source of coverage for long-term care, covering more than two-thirds of all nursing home residents.” Medicaid is also a key source of coverage for pregnant women.
12) “[W]e’ll take [Medicaid] for the poor and we give it to the states to run because states run these programs more efficiently.” A Congressional Budget Office analysis of Paul Ryan’s proposal to block grant Medicaid found that if federal spending for Medicaid decreased, “states would face significant challenges in achieving sufficient cost savings through efficiencies to mitigate the loss of federal funding.” As a result, enrollees could “face more limited access to care,” higher out-of-pocket costs, and “providers could face more uncompensated care as beneficiaries lost coverage for certain benefits or lost coverage altogether.”
13) “Our Navy is old — excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917…That, in my view, is making — is making our future less certain and less secure. The U.S. Navy is smaller than it was in 1917, but it is not making America less secure. The navy has actually grown in the sheer number of ships under Obama and Romney’s plans to increase shipbuilding is unrealistic. As one historian told PolitiFact, counting the number of ships or aircraft “is not a good measurement of defense strength because their capabilities have increased dramatically in recent decades.” Romney’s comparison “doesn’t pass ‘the giggle test,’” he said.
14) “And then the president began what I have called an apology tour, of going to various nations in the Middle East and criticizing America. I think they looked at that and saw weakness.” Obama never embarked on an “apology tour.”
15) “And I think that when the president said he was going to create daylight between ourselves and Israel, that they noticed that as well.” They haven’t noticed because it’s not true. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak told CNN, “President Obama is doing . . . more than anything that I can remember in the past [in regard to our security].” “When I look at the record of President Obama concerning the major issues, security, I think it’s a highly satisfactory record, from an Israeli point of view,” said Israeli President Shimon Peres.
16) “And — and — we should not have wasted these four years to the extent they — they continue to be able to spin these centrifuges and get that much closer.” Obama hasn’t wasted time on Iran. In July 2012, Obama signed into law the most effective sanctions ever put into place against Iran, targeting the country’s oil and financial sectors. These sanctions were imposed unilaterally by the U.S. and come in addition to the four rounds of sanctions the UN has enacted since 2006. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the sanctions “very effective,” and Romney has said he would continue them if elected.
17) “I would tighten those sanctions. I would say that ships that carry Iranian oil, can’t come into our ports. I imagine the E.U. would agree with us as well.” Almost no Iranian oil has come into the United States since Ronald Reagan signed an executive order in 1987 banning all U.S. imports from Iran. The nation received a small amount of oil from Iran after the first Gulf War, in 1991.
18) “I see jihadists continuing to spread, whether they’re rising or just about the same level, hard to precisely measure, but it’s clear they’re there. They’re very strong.” Obama’s policies appear to have gravely weakened al Qaeda Central, the lead arm of the organization in Pakistan and Afghanistan principally responsible for 9/11.
19) “It’s not government investments that makes businesses grow and hire people.” The Romney campaign routinely touts government military spending as a way to create jobs and boost businesses.
20) “My plan to get the [auto] industry on its feet when it was in real trouble was not to start writing checks. It was President Bush that wrote the first checks. I disagree with that. I said they need — these [auto] companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy.” Romney’s plan for the auto bailout would have ensured the collapse of the auto industry. In his editorial titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” Romney advocated for letting the private sector finance the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler. Auto insiders, however, have said that plan was “reckless” and “pure fantasy.”
21) “Research is great. Providing funding to universities and think tanks is great. But investing in companies? Absolutely not.” Ryan’s plan, which Romney has endorsed, “could cut spending on non-defence-related research and development by 5%, or $3.2 billion, below the fiscal-year 2012 budget, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Over the long term, Ryan’s small-government approach would shrink funding for research and development to historically small sizes.”
22) “One is a path represented by the president, which at the end of four years would mean we’d have $20 trillion in debt heading towards Greece.” The U.S. is not headed down a path like that of Greece. Greece, contrary to popular belief, had a revenue problem rather than a spending problem. While its spending was high compared to US standards — 50.4 percent of GDP compared to 38 percent of GDP in the US — its spending was average among European nations. As CAP’s Michael Linden and Sabina Dewan note, “Over the past 10 years, Greece has consistently spent less, as a share of GDP, than the European Union as a whole.” However, it generated less that 40 percent of GDP from revenue — one of the lowest rates in the EU.
23) “I was in a state where my legislature was 87 percent Democrat. I learned how to get along on the other side of the aisle.” Given Romney’s 844 vetoes as governor, Massachusetts legislators dispute this claim. As the New York Times has noted, “The big-ticket items that Mr. Romney proposed when he entered office in January 2003 went largely unrealized, and some that were achieved turned out to have a comparatively minor impact.”
24) “We should key our foreign aid, our direct foreign investment, and that of our friends, we should coordinate it to make sure that we — we push back and give them more economic development.” Romney’s website promises to “Reduce Foreign Aid — Savings: $100 Million.” “Stop borrowing money from countries that oppose America’s interests in order to give it back to them in the form of foreign aid,” it says. In November of 2011, Romney said he would start foreign aid for every country “at zero” and call on them to make their case for U.S. financial assistance.
Something? Anything? Listening to the debates one might think climate change was not an economic, health, safety and security issue worthy of discussion.
It’s really disheartening, but it’s also a pure calculation – apparently both sides believe that there are few if any votes in numbers that matter by talking about climate change, especially in the swing states where the final battles are occurring.
It’s also startling, and historic. Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts and ClimateSilence.org: “For the first time since 1984, the presidential and vice presidential debates have ignored the threat of climate change. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Governor Mitt Romney, and Representative Paul Ryan have failed to debate the greatest challenge of our time. Climate change threatens us all: the candidates’ silence threatens to seal our fate.”
In the second debate President Obama and Mitt Romney extolled the virtues of coal and natural gas during a sequence on the high cost of gasoline, but they neglected to mention the costs of climate change now and for future generations by relying so heavily on gasoline and fossil fuels for energy, especially “clean” coal. (This just in – there is no such thing as clean coal.)
In the third debate the focus was on foreign policy, a perfect opportunity to weigh-in on the dangers to security and the environment coming from reliance on oil from the most volatile region in the world, which happens to sit on most of the globe’s oil reserves. But no.
The connection between foreign policy, peace, energy, economic and environmental security is real and needs to be addressed – the candidates’ silence on this is dumbfounding and cynical.
[Image: TV screenshot]
This is 12 minutes of Mitt mendacity monitoring, from the first debate. A good followup to the Is Mitt sustainable blog item – yes he is sustainable — and might become president – if gets away with this stuff.
Thanks to CannonfireVideo.
It’s time well spent, but you’ll need a shower after viewing it. Don’t let him get away with this stuff.
Vivint Inc., one of the largest home automation companies in North America, designed this infographic. It was sent to me courtesy of Alex Koritz, partner and vice president at Method Communications, a Salt Lake City PR firm. Vivint provides services to about 500,000 customers through its offices in Provo, UT, South St. Paul, MN, and Calgary, AB.
Vivint says its mission is to help families “live intelligently by creating simple, affordable home automation systems where all devices work together to enhance safety and convenience and improve energy efficiency.”
It seems like such a simple step: Time to get smart and green on the home front.
Continuing with my recent theme on health and climate change, Pfizer, the “world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company,” also maintains that “as a science-based health care company [it] has long recognized the risks posed by global climate change such as more severe weather events and potential adverse impacts on human health.”
So why does Pfizer, manufacturer of Viagra and Zoloft among other modern drugs, support the ultra-conservative Heartland Institute—the think tank famous for its infamous billboard campaign comparing people who agree with what scientists say about climate change to the Unabomber? This is the same outfit that The Economist says is “‘the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change.” Read the rest of this entry »
It should be pretty obvious that climate change is bad for the health of the planet and, well, all of us. But when a major health care provider such as Kaiser Permanente publicly recognizes that climate change threatens its basic mission—delivering improved health—shouldn’t that go a long way to depoliticizing the topic and shutting the diehard climate deniers up?
One would think so, but logic, science and the facts don’t work that way anymore. As we’ve seen in the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, the spread of lies, inaccuracies, fear-mongering and just plain stupidity about what the ACA means and will do coming from right-wing’s sore-loser opponents of the law continues unabated. (Message to the Republican Party: You lost! Get. Over. It.) Read the rest of this entry »
At some point it comes down to doing the right thing for all of the American people, not just for corporations and partisan right-wing ideology. The uninsured poor, the jobless and freelancers (who pay too much for too little insurance coverage) count too.
Image: Supreme Court HDR by Envios via Flickr | <urn:uuid:32f713d8-e5c2-4562-895d-bf78844e989b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wrdforwrd.com/tag/sustainability/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961497 | 4,017 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Darwinist publications in Turkey have started ceasing publication one after the other. The journals in question, which began publication with great fanfare, are now silently leaving the stage. This is taking place in the same way across the whole world. Even if all the financial resources of the Darwinist dictatorship were diverted their way and all kinds of material infrastructure made available they still could not remain in circulation. Because the problem is not a material one. It is that they have lost all their strength and belief.
The scientific evidence demonstrating the invalidity of Darwinism has at once undermined all the efforts of Darwinist propagandists. Fossils were first shown to the whole world through Atlas of Creation. These consisted of some of the more than 300 million fossils proving that Creation is a fact and evolution a fraud. But even that small number was enough to set the whole world in a state of alarm, to put countries that had been bastions of Darwinism into a state of shock and to pull the rug from under evolutionists’ feet. In the wake of these proofs, people were then told a very important fact about the beginning of life:
A PROTEIN CANNOT COME ABOUT WITHOUT THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER PROTEINS.
Thıs fact put an immediate end to all Darwinist speculation, past and present. This stunning fact for Darwinists, led to the complete abandonment of the theory of evolution.
In addition to these two major pieces of evidence, there are of course many other crushing scientific facts that can be mustered against evolution: for example, one can go on at length about how mutations can never benefit living things, the glories of DNA, the extraordinary complexity in living things, the Cambrian period, how natural selection has no evolutionary effect, the scientific impossibility of the scenario of one life form turning into another and Darwinist hoaxes. These all represent severe blows to evolution. But the inability to account for a single protein and the way that fossils prove the fact of Creation put the matter beyond any doubt, both for Darwinists and for anyone eager to learn the truth.
Because of the fact that proteins cannot form by chance, those bodies that used to devote funds to Darwinist journals NOW BELIEVE THAT MONEY WILL BE WASTED. Because they realize that no matter how many journals they produce, and no matter how much they produce fake materials to serve Darwinist propaganda purposes, they are still defeated. And they know that people see they have been defeated and do not believe a word they write. They have realized that propaganda techniques no longer work. When it was easy to deceive people using propaganda techniques, they believed that Darwinist journals would also work. BUT THEY HAVE NOW REALIZED THAT THEIR PUBLICATIONS ARE WORTHLESS. AND THAT IS THE SOLE REASON WHY THEY ARE CEASING PUBLICATION ONE BY ONE, PRODUCING NOT A SINGLE STORY ABOUT EVOLUTION AND NO LONGER ABLE TO ENGAGE IN PROVOCATION. Darwinists no longer have a shred of belief that they will be able to deceive people, that their frauds will do any good and that they will be able to spread the lie that is Darwinism.
All this will now continue and gain pace. All sources of Darwinist propaganda will one by one cease. Time will bring no victory or benefits to Darwinists. They will never be able to return to the halcyon days when it was easy to deceive people. By Allah’s leave, we are living in the time of the way of the Mahdi. And Allah’s promise will definitely come true, the moral values of the Qur’an will prevail across the world and everyone will rid themselves of Darwinist nonsense and turn to Allah. As our Lord says in these verses:
When Allah’s help and victory have arrived
and you have seen people entering Allah’s religion in droves,
then glorify your Lord’s praise and ask His forgiveness. He is the Ever-Returning. (Surat an-Nasr, 1-3) | <urn:uuid:bca3b6ca-6bed-458e-86a1-e66b75ce0ea0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harunyahya.com/en/Articles/43073/Why-are-Darwinist-journals-ceasing-publication-one-after-the-other | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952866 | 835 | 2.484375 | 2 |
November 30, 2008
Google and Free Speech
Law professor Jeffrey Rosen turns reporter in this New York Times Magazine article on "Google Gatekeepers." In this feature piece, he explores how demands from various countries that YouTube take down what they consider to be offensive videos have forced Google, as YouTube's parent company, to confront an important issue: the extent to which it will stand up for free speech as we conceive of it in the U.S. and when it will honor foreign laws that support different balances between free speech and other considerations.
November 30, 2008 | Permalink
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On June 8 and 15, poet-scholars Stefania Heim and Wayne Koestenbaum shared their favorite “lunch poems” by the beloved poet Frank O’Hara—who worked on and off at MoMA from 1951 to 1966—in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden at lunchtime. They effortlessly elicited O’Hara’s humor, earnestness, and timelessness, while also giving the public the chance to experience what his creative process might have looked and felt like.
Both Heim and Koestenbaum pose a challenge to all of you: go out onto the streets of New York and write your own lunch poems according to their prompts and guidelines. So get moving, explore the city, put it down on paper, and send what you’ve come up with to us at email@example.com. Our favorites will be posted here on June 29.
Stefania Heim’s Challenge:
LUNCH POEM RECIPE
(Please use as many of these as possible in constructing your lunch poem)
- A description of the contents of your pocket or bag
- One food item you or someone you see is eating
- One foreign phrase, place name, or the name of a foreign head of state
- One instance of personification
- The current day and time (ideally this should interrupt other action in the poem)
- The weather and your opinion about it
- One sentence you hear someone say
- One existential question
- A comparison of someone you see to a famous person
- One thing you wish you were doing
- One literary reference
- Your current attitude toward love
Wayne Koestenbaum’s Challenge:
18 POETRY ASSIGNMENTS IN THE SPIRIT OF FRANK O’HARA’S LUNCH POEMS
- Go into a store where you would never buy anything (because you can’t afford it, because you don’t wear women’s clothes, because you hate candy and toys), and write a poem about the merchandise—maybe just a list of it.
- Stand on the steps of a church or temple or mosque and make an inventory poem of what the people walking in and out are wearing.
- Ride the subway and get off at a stop you’ve never gotten off at. Write a poem whose title is that subway stop. In the poem, include all the reasons you’ve never gotten off here.
- Stand in front of a painting in MoMA for 15 minutes and write a poem that includes all the phrases you overhear from fellow museum-goers. The title of your poem should be the name of the painting; don’t describe the painting.
- Take an elevator in a building. Not your usual elevator. Not your usual building. Write a very quick poem while in the elevator. Get out of the elevator when you’re finished with the poem. Mention the name and function of the building and, if you feel like it, some of the businesses in the building. (If there are businesses.)
- Take a walk on your lunch hour and make a list of all the trees you see, identifying each tree (“the birch tree in front of the Clearview Cinema where Dark Horse is playing at 5:10”).
- Find a seat in a public place. Sit down for 10 minutes. Describe or annotate or list some of the noises you hear—not words, just noises.
- Strike up a conversation (however brief) with a stranger. Afterward, write down the conversation in as much detail as you wish. Include a description of this stranger and indicate why you chose this specific stranger.
- Find a seat in a public place and write down the first memory that comes into your mind, especially if the memory is stupid or embarrassing. After you’ve written down the memory, describe where you are seated. Then describe the next place you’re headed. Then stand up and go to your next destination.
- Stand up in a public place where you can find a surface to lean on. Write down the 10 people you’d most like to see today, in no particular order. Give a brief reason for why you’d like to see each of them. Then mention exactly where you are standing.
- Sit down somewhere and have a drink or a cup of coffee. In the vicinity (within your range of vision) find three people whom you’d like to meet or whom you find attractive or interesting. Say why. If you can only find one person you find attractive or interesting, that’s OK. If you find none, that’s OK, but speculate why there aren’t any attractive or interesting people around you right now.
- Find a magazine or newspaper. (Ideally, don’t pay for it.) Write down a few headlines or stray phrases. Write a short poem, very quickly, using these phrases, and little else.
- Take a five-minute walk and write down the names of signs and any other words you see around you. Take another 10 minutes and put these names and words into a poem.
- Go into a pharmacy (Duane Reade, whatever). Choose a specific kind of product. (Shampoo.) Write down 14 varieties of it. Write a 14-line poem, each line containing one of the varieties, or at least one word from the name of the variety. Now you’ve written a sonnet.
- Sit in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden. Write down everything you’ve done today, starting from the moment you woke up. Be quick. Let the last line or sentence of the poem include the art work you’re seated nearest to and the exact time. (12:10.)
- Describe what you’re wearing. Why did you choose these clothes? Which item do you like most? What would you rather be wearing? If you could change one item, which would it be?
- What did you have for lunch? What do you want to have for lunch?
- Take a walk. While walking, keep a list of whatever music you hear—tunes in your head, sound systems in stores, songs on car radios. Write a quick poem that includes these tunes. | <urn:uuid:c83650c1-b151-421b-bd92-7f1cbe684afe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/06/21/poetry-challenges-in-the-spirit-of-frank-oharas-lunch-poems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935812 | 1,329 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Four years ago, the thriving Chicago Board Options Exchange decided to abandon the landmark building on Jackson Street it shared with its founder, the Chicago Board of Trade, in favor of a glitzy new facility across the street.
The break was more than just physical. Tensions between options and futures traders had existed since the CBOE`s start-up in 1973.
At the CBOT, a century-old center for trading farm commodities, soybeans were king. Its veteran members largely viewed the brash, young breed of hotshots who traded the new-fangled options as if they came from another planet.
As a pioneer of listed stock options, the CBOE became increasingly entwined with the securities industry and the exchanges drifted further apart. In 1983, the CBOE unsuccessfully explored the idea of a futures-trading partnership with the CBOT; the two sides proved unable to overcome
But finally, the explosion in trading indexes in recent years, coupled with increased global competition for that business, provided the exchanges with a common ground for easing their tensions.
Last week`s joint venture agreement between the CBOE and the CBOT is an attempt by the two exchanges, each the largest in its industry, to join forces in trading new financial products.
``It can be a very potent combination,`` said Philip Johnson, the former CBOT attorney who was instrumental in creating the CBOE. ``I can`t help but be delighted that the two are working together again.``
``Both sides are looking ahead,`` said Alger ``Duke`` Chapman, CBOE`s chairman, noting that growth in futures and options trading is being driven by index-related instruments.
In focusing on portfolios of assets, institutional investors have found such instruments as stock-index futures and U.S. Treasury bond futures to be fast and inexpensive ways of shifting their investments to meet changing market conditions.
Under the joint venture, which is subject to members` approval in separate votes late in July, the CBOT and CBOE plan to introduce compatible contracts that could be traded side-by-side by members of both exchanges.
In addition, the exchanges would share automation systems, revenue from the mutually traded contracts and perhaps eventually, a third trading floor.
The exchanges moved physically closer together last year by building a bridge high above Van Buren Street to connect their two buildings.
Still, there is some skepticism that more than a decade of bickering will easily be forgotten.
``On the surface, it looks good,`` said Fred Arditti, head of Drexel Burnham Lambert`s asset management group.
``But given the difficulties the two exchanges have had working things out in the past, I`m taking a wait-and-see attitude.``
Initially under the joint venture, CBOT is considering a stock-index futures contract that would complement the CBOE`s popular Standard & Poor`s 100 options contract, which is based on the value of 100 blue-chip stocks.
Such a contract would compete with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange`s similar but broader-based stock-index futures contract based on the Standard & Poor`s 500.
About a third of the Merc`s S&P 500 volume comes from CBOE traders, who could provide a healthy base of business for a new contract in hedging their positions in S&P 100 options.
Whether such a joint-venture contract would attract enough additional business to succeed remains to be seen.
``It`s very hard to take business from an established market,`` Arditti said.
The exchanges also could face problems in blending two floor cultures.
For the most part, trading practices will be determined on a contract-by- contract basis. Some touchy issues have been worked out, however.
For example, the agreement specifies that the controversial practice of dual trading--allowed at the CBOT but generally prohibited at CBOE--will be barred in equity-index futures contracts under the joint-venture umbrella.
The CBOT stands to benefit from CBOE`s more advanced computer systems for order routing. Like most futures exchanges, the CBOT is well behind the securities industry in automating its trading floor.
The added technology will be helpful, according to futures traders.
``I think that will be an advantage,`` said Harlan Krumpfes, a CBOT grain trader. ``It could could help us stay in front of the pack.`` | <urn:uuid:3f772e8f-5db8-4e4d-a784-afea47912bde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-06-29/business/8702170747_1_cboe-cbot-two-exchanges | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959428 | 914 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Eighteen-year-old Taylor Wilson has designed a compact nuclear reactor that could one day burn waste from old atomic weapons to power anything from homes and factories to space colonies.
The American teen, who gained fame four years ago after designing a fusion reactor he planned to build in the garage of his family’s home, shared his latest endeavor at a TED Conference in southern California on Thursday.
“It’s about bringing something old, fission, into the 21st Century,” Wilson said. “I think this has huge potential to change the world.”
He has designed a small reactor capable of generating 50-100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power as many as 100,000 homes.
The reactor can be made assembly-line style and powered by molten radioactive material from nuclear weapons, Wilson said. The relatively small, modular reactor can be shipped sealed with enough fuel to last for 30 years.
“You can plop them down anywhere in the world and they work, buried under the ground for security reasons,” he said, while detailing his design at TED.
“In the Cold War we built up this huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and we don’t need them anymore,” Wilson said. “It would be great if we could eat them up, and this reactor loves this stuff.”
His reactors are designed to spin turbines using gas instead of steam, meaning they operate at temperatures lower than those of typical nuclear reactors and don’t spew anything if there is a breach.
The fuel is in the form of molten salt, and the reactors don’t need to be pressurized, according to the teenager.
“In the event of an accident, you can just drain the core into a tank under the reactor with neutron absorbers and the reaction stops,” Wilson said.
“There is no inclination for the fission products to leave this reactor,” he said. “In an accident, the reactor may be toast, which is sorry for the power company, but there is no problem.”
Wilson, who graduated grade school in May, said he is putting off university to focus on a company he created to make Modular Fission Reactors.
He sees his competition as nations, particularly China, and the roadblocks ahead as political instead of technical.
Wilson planned to have a prototype ready in two years and a product to market in five years.
“Not only does it combat climate change, it can bring power to the developing world,” Wilson said with teenage optimism.
“Imagine having a compact reactor in a rocket designed by those planning to habitat other planets. Not only would you have power for propulsion, but power once you get there.”
Raw Story is a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media. While giving coverage to the big stories of the day, we also bring our readers' attention to policy, politics, legal and human rights stories that get ignored in an infotainment culture driven solely by pageviews.
Founded in 2004, Raw Story reaches 5 million unique readers per month and serves more than 19 million pageviews. | <urn:uuid:84a737df-0a63-4543-954d-7a595f169549> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/01/american-teenager-designs-compact-nuclear-reactor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963379 | 662 | 3.4375 | 3 |
The idea of offering continuing professional development to teachers through networks with local college departments of education was not always widely accepted.
It wasn't until the mid-1980s with the publication of Tomorrow's Teachers by The Holmes Group, that the concept of professional development schools began to gain mainstream recognition as the preferred method of on-going professional development.
Since that time, much praise has been extended to professional development schools. Supporters credit the schools for providing a dynamic exchange between teachers and student teachers and an opportunity for teachers to discuss classroom experiences with peers. But recently, professional development schools have come under closer scrutiny and criticism.
Despite the potential benefits they offer teachers, some educators see professional development schools as inflexible and potentially removed from teacher input. "If people go in with an idea in mind of what the structure should look like and impose it on the k-12 schools, then its unlikely to serve the needs of either the school or the teacher and will lack good mechanisms for feedback," says Mary Diez, chairwoman of the education department at Alverno College in Milwaukee. Instead she encourages professional development schools to work jointly with educators to develop programs that promote continued learning.
Supporters of professional development schools argue that teacher involvement is the hallmark of these schools. According to Frank Murray, dean of the education college of the University of Delaware, "Professional development schools are a collaborative effort invented by the local school and the university. There is nothing prescribed about them." Teachers must take an active role in setting program guidelines of the professional development schools; otherwise the programs are ineffective.
In addition to charges of inflexibility, professional development schools have come under attack for failing to demonstrate how their programs have led to increased student achievement. Professional development programs that do not provide follow-up mechanisms have no accountability. Educators are left wondering which programs work and why.
Efforts are currently under way at the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to address these concerns. "There are many places that are calling themselves professional development schools, but they don't really meet the definition of a professional development school," says Marsha Levine, director of the professional development school standards project for NCATE. For the past two years, NCATE has been working on draft standards for professional development schools. According to Ms. Levine, "The project is designed to develop standards working with individuals in the field to identify the characteristics that are the most important clinical aspects of professional development schools." NCATE plans to release the standards for comment in October of 1997.
Instead of working with professional development schools, some school districts have chosen to rely on alternative community networks to build their professional development programs. Working with volunteers, community-based organizations, and private institutions, public schools throughout the country are creating professional development programs with increased student performance as the main goal. In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Education Fund provides resources to local public schools for professional development programs and helps educators partner with community-based organizations. The results of these efforts have led to increased teacher collaboration and classroom problem solving skills.
While educators continue to debate the ideal for continuing teacher education, public schools, strapped by limited financial resources, will experiment with various programs to find the right combination of resources for their professional development efforts.
Additional Sources of Information on Professional Development:
501 Erickson Hall
East Lansing, MI 48834-1304
(517) 353-3874 FAX (517) 353-6393
2010 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W., Suite 500
Philadelphia Education Fund
7 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19103
One Dupont Circle, Suite 610
Washington DC, 20036-1186
(202) 293-2450 FAX: (202) 457-8095
Professional Development Schools Network
National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching
Box 110, Teachers College,
New York, NY10027
Upcoming Conferences featuring Professional Development Issues:
Article by Cristal Metta-Gallagher
Copyright © 2006 Education World | <urn:uuid:81056409-5dc0-44b8-b176-d0fd17c79b13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin006.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959257 | 816 | 2.359375 | 2 |
For most of us as Witnesses, the term "blood transfusion" conjures up a grim mental picture of a patient connected to a suspended IV bag bearing the label "CPD WHOLE BLOOD [HUMAN]." Several other labels stating such enigmatic things as "Kell Negative", "Anticoagulant Citrate Phosphate Dextrose Solution USP, " and "Group O Rh Positive" practically obscure the dark red fluid within which we regard with a mixture of fear and revulsion.
Despite how widely held an image this is, it is not one that is entirely accurate. For a number of reasons ranging from issues of efficacy and practicality to simple economics, whole blood is administered very infrequently today. Donated blood as a rule, is almost always broken down into its component parts soon after being collected. In this way, individual patients are given not whole blood, but only the specific blood component that they actually need. This is known as "blood component therapy." There is therefore no single answer to the question "What is a blood transfusion?" because technically, a blood transfusion has taken place when any one of these components is administered. The question has as many answers as there are transfusion types.
Blood transfusions can be divided into the following main types and subtypes. Those listed in red are prohibited and those in green are permitted according to the Watchtower's rules on the use of blood products.
Red Blood Cells
Red Blood Cells or Erythrocytes ferry both oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the body's tissues. Red blood Cells are administered in cases of anemia resulting from kidney failure, malignancies, gastrointestinal bleeding and acute blood loss resulting from trauma. Red blood cell transfusions are forbidden to Witnesses. RBC's are typically administered in the following forms:
Packed Red Cells:
One unit of PRC's contains the red cells from a unit of whole blood plus a small amount of plasma with an anticoagulant.
Washed Red Cells:
A unit of red blood cells that have been washed and resuspended in a saline solution. Washed Red Cells are free of almost all traces of plasma. They are given in place of packed red cells in patients who are hypersensitive to plasma proteins or when multiple transfusions are anticipated.
Leukocyte Reduced Red Blood Cells:
A unit of RBC's that has been filtered to remove white blood cells.
White Blood Cells ? ? ? ?
White Blood Cells or leukocytes generally are not transfused. However, granulocytes (a type of leukocyte) are occasionally given to leukopenic patients with very low granulocyte counts and to patients with runaway bacterial infections that are unresponsive to antibiotics, although the effectiveness of this treatment for either condition is debated. White Blood Cells are forbidden to Witnesses. However, in a breaking development, we have learned that at least one Witness received a green light to accept WBC transfusion if it is done under the name of "peripheral blood stem cell autografting". That is exactly the message conveyed in the article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Platelets are essentially irregularly shaped cell fragments. They perform a vital role in blood coagulation and hemostasis. (the cessation of bleeding) When an injury occurs, platelets adhere to each other and to the edges of the injury to form a plug that covers the area. This plug is stabilized by the activation of protein coagulation factors that result in the formation of a mesh around the platelet plug. Platelets are given in the treatment of thrombocytopenia and other inadequacies in platelet number or function which can be caused by chemotherapy or excessive blood loss. This component is also forbidden to Witnesses
Plasma consists of 90% water with the remaining 10% being primarily composed of the plasma proteins such as albumin, the various clotting factors, (designated I through XIII) and the immunoglobulins. Plasma also contains small amounts of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride and other minerals. Plasma is administered for factor V deficiency and other bleeding disorders for which no factor-specific concentrate is available. Plasma transfusions are forbidden to Witnesses.
Albumin is the most abundant of the plasma proteins. Albumin provides the critical colloid osmotic or oncotic pressure that regulates the passage of water through the capillaries by virtue of the fact that it diffuses very poorly through the capillary walls. Abnormally low levels of Albumin will result in excessive leakage of fluid in the tissues known as edema. Albumin also performs a number of other functions including the transportation of nutrients and wastes, the binding of toxins and heavy metals, and the prevention of red blood cells from 'sticking' together. Albumin is available in either 5% or 25% solution osmotically equivalent to normal plasma. Albumin is transfused to replace proteins and fluids in burn patients and in cases of shock due to hemorrhage or surgery. Albumin is also administered for adult respiratory distress syndrome and in cases of liver failure. Witnesses are allowed to accept a transfusion of Albumin if their conscience permits.
Among the plasma proteins, the immunoglobulins or antibodies as they are also called are normally second only to albumin in concentration. Antibodies are synthesized by plasma cells in the lymphoid organs and are a vital component in the defense against infection. The immunoglobulins are commonly divided into five classes designated as IgA, IgG, IgM, IgE, and IgD. Immunoglobulins in the gamma family (IgG) are commonly used in a number of vaccines including TIG (Tetanus immune globulin) HBIG, (Hepatitis B immune globulin) VZIG (Varicella zoster immune globulin) and RIG. (Rabies immune globulin) Immunoglobulins are administered both intravenously and intramuscularly (as injections) depending upon the type. Witnesses are allowed to accept any of these preparations if their conscience permits.
Factors I through XIII are agents which are part of the complex process whereby blood clots in the event of injury. When someone is afflicted with the genetic disorder known as hemophilia, one of these factors is missing. (factor VIII for hemophilia A, factor IX for the rarer hemophilia B or Christmas disease as it is sometimes called.) One way to extract the clotting factors used in the treatment of hemophilia is by freezing and then slowly thawing the plasma. The extracted product is called Cryoprecipitated Antihemophilic Globulin. Witnesses are allowed to accept this or any of the other of the other hemophiliac preparations if their conscience permits.
In addition to the aforementioned allogeneic (from the blood of others) transfusion types there are also three main autologous (from your own blood) transfusion types.
Patients who are likely to require a transfusion during an upcoming surgery may decide to donate their own blood beforehand for possible reinfusion. as needed. This procedure virtually eliminates any of the traditional risk factors associated with allogeneic blood. However, this procedure is forbidden to Witnesses.
Through the use of a piece of equipment specifically designed for this purpose, (usually called a "Blood Salvage Machine" or "Cell Saver") blood seeping into the surgical field can be suctioned off and processed. The red cells are separated and "washed" so that the heparin, fat, and free hemoglobin are removed. These washed red blood cells are then transfused back into the patient. This procedure is permitted to Witnesses as their conscience allows.
In this process 3 to 4 units of the patient's blood is removed and replaced with a plasma expander before surgery then transfused back after surgery as needed. Since this process reduces the total number of red cells in the body, the blood that is actually lost during surgery is "diluted." The net result is a significant increase in the amount of allowable surgical blood loss. This in turn can diminish or even obviate any need for allogeneic transfusion of red cells. This procedure is permitted to Witnesses as their conscience allows.
It should be noted that at least one half of the transfusion types listed here are allowed. What then does it mean to abstain from blood? There is not and cannot be a straightforward answer to this question. In light of the information just presented, it can be seen that it is not so much a question of abstaining from blood as it is a question of what components of blood must a Witness abstain from and why. Why are Witnesses permitted some blood transfusions and not others?
© 2012 Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood | <urn:uuid:85a1b811-f1d7-4deb-9c99-62e84a081c86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ajwrb.org/articles/articles/blood_transfusion.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938155 | 1,816 | 3.328125 | 3 |
10 ways to show you're a programming rockstar
How many programmers do you know who are rock stars? What characteristics do they have?
It seems nowadays that programmers are a dime a dozen, but how do you pick the best programmers from the rest of the crowd.
It's not just about coding (although that is a big factor). It's about building your skill set over the years and nurturing them so you can stand out from the programming "collective."
What characteristics makes them stand out? Are they easy to get along with? How long have they been programming? Are they teaching you things you never knew were possible? Here's how to find out if you are a programming rock stars!
Master your language and tools. Whether it's Visual Studio, Eclipse, or even Aptana, your programming tools should be second nature to you when developing that next web application. Just like a plumber or carpenter, if you don't have the proper tools, you won't get the job done right.
Enhance your tools and environment. With that said, even though you've mastered your tools, always strive to find ways to enhance your environment. This may include plug-ins to Visual Studio or Eclipse or a code generation tool that works along side your environment. If you're not looking for better ways to enhance your productivity, you may be working yourself into an early grave.
Research new technologies. While your primary language may do everything you need, make time to research your craft and experiment with new frameworks that wrap around your existing technologies. For example, while programming in web forms with C#, I heard about a new framework from Microsoft called MVC. Since I've started working with MVC, I've been programming in MVC for more than 2 years now and I haven't looked back or regretted my decision since.
Leverage your existing code you wrote. Programmers who write code and then immediately disregard it are missing out on the most exceptional tip on this list: start building your library of routines and techniques. If you are in a corporate environment, yes, you will have a corporate library to pull from for your projects. If you are an individual programmer, yes, you will have your own collection of routines or libraries that you can use in your "outside" projects. As the object-oriented saying goes, the routines are reusable.
Automate like crazy. If you've been around the programming block for a while, you know that there are always quicker ways to accomplish certain tasks. It's now getting to the point in this industry where if someone asks you for a web site, you can build one relatively quick. Then they start asking for features. It's the features part that makes the difference and slows you down.
Perform proper analysis. New developers always shoot first (start coding) and ask questions later. Take the time to analyze the project and ask as many questions as you can. The more questions you ask upfront, the better your ability to complete a more thorough and clear design of your application.
Perform Unit Testing. Along with preceding your coding with proper analysis, always finish your coding by performing unit tests. This not only tests the quality of your code but will also let you know when your system fails on regression testing. Unit Testing should be the "checks and balances" of your programming.
Extend your reach. Most developers keep to their code and that's all they do. Break out of your comfort zone and read up on usability studies, how to document your code better, and/or using better design techniques. Expanding your skills into other areas will do three things: 1. Make you more visible to other people; 2. Make you more valuable to others because of your thirst for knowledge; and 3. Provide you with more opportunities than just programming.
Communicate effectively. This is in regards to project management, coding, documentation, and impromptu meetings. If you can't explain an extremely awesome cool coding technique to your peers or communicate why a particular feature shouldn't be in the project to a project manager because of a time constraint, you may need to work on your verbal skills instead of your coding skills.
- Make time to assist others. You will seem as a definite team player by taking the time to help a fellow programmer in need. Help them understand a new concept or technique that is unclear to them and they will be grateful for the help and see you as a definite resource and go to guy.
As you can see, there are a lot of factors to take into account when deciding who is a programming rock star and how they will be perceived by other team members or by clients.
Come to think of it, you could even use some of these factors for general interview questions.
Did I miss any factors? What skills or characteristics do you think makes a programming rock star?
Jonathan Danylko is a freelance web architect and avid programmer who has been programming for over 20 years. He has developed various systems in numerous industries including e-commerce, biotechnology, real estate, health, insurance, and utility companies.
When asked what he likes doing in his spare time, he answers..."programming."
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- Two Tools Required for a Freelance Developer to Accomplish Anything
- GoDaddy Tips and Tricks for ASP.NET MVC Web Sites
- 10 ways to show you're a programming rockstar
- 5 best practices for building ASP.NET MVC web sites
- Mail Bag: What programming languages should I learn? | <urn:uuid:58fbe91c-8694-4896-a472-5f642550a780> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dcs-media.com/Archive/10-ways-to-show-youre-a-programming-rockstar-PG | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951854 | 1,143 | 2.125 | 2 |
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Show a PDF in one of two ways. You can email the PDF to yourself or place it into iTunes. Try both ways to see which way makes sense to you, or you can switch back and forth between each method as it suits you.
You might need to use parental controls for your iPad if it is a family device. Simply enable restrictions. You can find this option in the general settings. When you do this, your iPad restricts inappropriate (i.e. explicit or mature) content. This setting isn't perfect, though, so you need to monitor small children when they browse the internet.
It is important to protect your children from inappropriate sites when they are surfing the web on your iPad. Go to Settings, General, and then Restrictions. In the menu that appears, tap "enable restrictions." This will ensure your child cannot view unacceptable content. This restricts all adult content to keep your child safe.
Does your email notification drive you crazy? Were you aware that this feature can be disabled? Find your Settings tab, then go to General. Select the Sounds option from there. Choose to completely turn off the new mail chime or lower its volume.
When you first purchase an iPad, the factory settings set a signature that lets everyone know you are using this particular device. This can be boring. It is possible, however, to customize your signature. Just go to "Mail" under the settings, choose "Contacts," then "Calendar" and choose "Signature" from there to change it.
Are you unhappy with the Google search engine on your iPad? You may change it to another. Go to your Settings menu, select Safari, then Search Engine. Pick another engine you'd prefer. You can choose between Bing, Yahoo and Google.
Do you want the option of finding your own iPad if you have lost it? Go into your Settings menu and pick iCloud. There, place in your ID. Look then to the bottom area of the page to turn on "Find My iPad." Thus, if you lose the device, you just need to go to iCloud.com.
You don't need to click the camera icon on your screen to view your photos. Simple swipe right with a single finger and you will see your video or photo. Swipe toward the left and your previous pictures will appear.
A great way to keep pages open is to open new pages in a new tab. If you are using Safari, you can access this feature by tapping on a link and holding your finger there for a couple seconds till a menu of options appears. In that pop-up menu, you may choose to open your new link inside a new tab.
It's so simple to send photos to loved ones. There is a quicker way than sending an email with an attachment. Just go to your photos, choose the on you want to share, click on the arrow in the upper-right corner, and choose 'email' photo for an easier way to send.
Do you enjoy playing games? Are you in school? Do you work all of the time? Trying to shed pounds? Are you having a baby? Are you aware that an iPad can help with those things and then some? There are endless apps for different purposes, but apps are not the only great thing about the iPad. Keep reading for some great tips on using your iPad.
It is possible to gain access to all apps that are currently running on your iPad. Press the Home button twice to view all of your current apps. Simply tap on the app you want to view. When you no longer want to see it, swipe downwards to eliminate the bar from your screen.
Lots of people find tablet typing to be tough, though with time, they get more comfortable. That said, a button for speech dictation exists on your iPad. Push your Home button two times and just tap on the tiny microphone you see. After you finish speaking, push that icon again, and what you've said will appear as text.
You can shortcut to your most used apps. Just double click the "home" button, and you will see them all along the bottom of your current screen. This single trick is a great way to save time as opposed to needing to scroll through every screen.
A great way to keep pages open is to open new pages in a new tab. If you are using Safari, you can access this feature by tapping on a link and holding your finger there for a couple seconds till a menu of options appears. In this pop-up menu, you will have the option to open the new link in a new tab. | <urn:uuid:681aa3e7-e190-47f3-b7b8-93fb7986ea71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lafascination.com/tag/zooey-deschanel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920397 | 956 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Caring For Your Vinyl Pool Liner
The most important factor that determines the life of your pool liner is water chemistry. Maintaining proper balance of ph allows the other chemicals to perform properly, while allowing chlorine to kill bacteria & algae.
A test kit is needed to test for proper ph and chlorine levels. See Table below.
Proper ph levels are important not only for allowing other chemicals to perform properly, but also important for your liner. Having pool water with high ph (basic) accelerates the aging process of your liner and in turn will not last it’s expected life span of 12-18 years in Winnipeg. Low ph (acidic) under 7.0 can cause your liner to swell and create unwanted wrinkles.
Chlorine Levels: Normal chlorine levels range from 1-1.5ppm (parts per million) for a conventional chlorine pool while levels as low as .25ppm are achievable when using a UV sanitation system. Too low chlorine levels do not kill bacteria, while high concentrations of chlorine in your pool water will “bleach” your pool liner and shorted its life.
How To Use Chlorine: When using granular chlorine, add chlorine only once it is dissolved. Granular chlorine can be dissolved by mixing it in a warm pail of water. This dissolved mixture can then be added to your pool water by pouring it in around your pool perimeter and will get mixed in by your pool jets. Note*never mix chemicals together in a bucket. Mixing certain chemical together can cause toxic gases or reactions to occour.
Liner Care: Keeping the area of vinyl above the water level clean will not allow contaminants such as body oils, suntan oils, and airborne contaminants from “baking” on your liner. This is very important with the side of your pool that has the most sun exposure. These baked on contaminants cause your liner to crack and dry out causing premature failure. You can easily clean off the bathtub ring from around your pool by using a sponge and approved vinyl pool liner cleaner such as TLC cleaner. Do not use CLR, petroleum, household cleaning products, or abrasive cleaners. Use only brushes that are approved for use on your vinyl liner.
Suns effect on your liner: All pool liners installed by us are coated for protection against the fading effects of the sun, chemical absorption, algae, and mold. Keeping your pool full of water at all times is important in keeping it from drying out or shrinking. When your pool is winterized this is an exception to lower the water level of course. If your pool is pumped down to the level of the shallow end floor and left, the liner will shrink and eventually rip around the staircase, jets, and skimmer.
|Items to test||Range||Test Frequency|
|Total Alkalinity||80-120 ppm||Weekly|
|Calcium Hardness||200-300 ppm||Monthly| | <urn:uuid:957b8d5d-c620-414b-97d7-9bae3b981a5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uvpools.com/caring-your-vinyl-pool-liner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905842 | 607 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Our predecessors risked everything to protect a woman’s right to choose. If we want, we can defeat the Stupak amendment.
I am reading an inspiring book, Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California. From free speech rights to the gay rights movement, the book recounts numerous stories of civil rights activism in California and the efforts of those who risked everything for freedom.
I have been reading the book in the aftermath of the Stupak Amendment and have been inspired and motivated by its amazing stories. One fight that the book highlights is the dynamic struggle Californians have fought for abortion rights.
The book tells the following story of brave pro-choice activists, which I hope will serve as a poignant reminder that ours is not the first generation to fight, and win, the battle for choice. [Read more...] | <urn:uuid:24c4a892-3918-4b63-b1ad-c8cf62299bf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://feministsforchoice.com/tag/pat-maginnins | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939207 | 190 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The tapes were an issue in the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui
The Central intelligence Agency (CIA) has destroyed 92 tapes of interviews conducted with terror suspects, a US government lawyer has admitted.
The agency had previously said that it had destroyed only two tapes.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a lawsuit against the CIA to seek details of the interrogations of terror suspects.
Techniques involved are understood to have included water-boarding, which the Obama administration says is torture.
The acknowledgment of the 92 destroyed tapes came in a letter sent to the judge presiding over the ACLU lawsuit.
"The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed," the letter by acting US Attorney Lev Dassin, obtained by the BBC, said. "Ninety-two videotapes were destroyed."
The letter, dated 2 March, said the CIA was gathering more details for the lawsuit, such as a list of the destroyed records, any secondary accounts describing what was on the destroyed tapes, and the identities of those who may have viewed or possessed the recordings before their destruction.
Government lawyers said some of the information may be classified.
"The CIA intends to produce all of the information requested to the court and to produce as much information as possible on the public record to the plaintiffs," the letter said.
CIA 'ENHANCED INTERROGATION' TECHNIQUES
Water-boarding: prisoner bound, with cellophane wrapped round his head. Water is poured onto his face and is said to produce a sensation of drowning
Cold cell: prisoner made to stand naked in a cold, though not freezing, cell and doused with water
Standing: Prisoners stand for 40 hours and more, shackled to the floor
Belly slap: a hard slap to the stomach with an open hand. This is designed to be painful but not to cause injury
Source: Described to ABC News by un-named CIA agents in 2005
In 2005 a judge ordered the preservation of all evidence regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
In December 2007, the CIA revealed that two tapes from interviews had been destroyed five months after the ruling.
But the agency said the ruling did not apply to the destroyed tapes, as they concerned interrogations that took place before the suspects had been transferred to Guantanamo.
The agency's chief said the recordings had been made in 2002 as an internal check, and had been erased because they no longer had an intelligence value and could permit identification of CIA officers.
In January 2008, the justice department launched an investigation to answer questions over the tapes.
Tapes were a contentious issue during the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who was jailed for his part in the attacks.
Prosecutors initially claimed there were no recordings of his interrogation, but then acknowledged video and audio tapes had been made. | <urn:uuid:b147e15b-5608-4a64-9722-b357441c366b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7919579.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980103 | 596 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Human Physiology forms an integral part of the curriculum for most of the undergraduate and a large number of postgraduate courses offered by the Faculty of Health Sciences, as well as a few undergraduate courses offered by other faculties, i.e. Natural & Agricultural Sciences, Humanities and Education.
Human Physiology is furthermore offered as a major subject that can be combined with one of a number of elective subjects (e.g. Biochemistry, Genetics, Psychology, etc) for a degree in science (BSc) and also combined with Anatomy for a BScMedSci degree. Postgraduate degrees that can be obtained in Human Physioloy include three levels, namely BSc Hons, MSc and PhD.
The following prizes and medals are annually awarded to outstanding students in Human Physiology:
- HS Ebrahim Memorial Medal for the best achievement in Human Physiology by a MBChB & BChD student in the second year of study.
- MJ Pitout Prize for the best academic achievement in Homeostasis BOK 280 by a BChD second year student. | <urn:uuid:2ad57d10-0f27-4b96-85ec-e7af77a678ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web.up.ac.za/default.asp?ipkCategoryID=513&subid=513&ipklookid=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952203 | 222 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Man: Putting the Quest in Question
The problem I'm having is that I don't yet feel qualified to discuss Rahner, since I keep thinking that I'm going to get his overall point, which will then organize the hundreds of pages I've slogged through already.
But it's not happening. In Bion's terms, there is no PS <--> D.
What is PS <--> D? That refers to a critical psychopneumatic process whereby a mass of seemingly unrelated material suddenly discloses its inner coherence, and the outward "many-ness" resolves into an internally related One. Or, it could just mean you're paranoid.
It's complicated enough when you're just dealing with space, more complex when you toss time into the mix, and even more so when you're talking about what amounts to hyper-dimensional chess.
Or again, think of what we were saying about a person who spontaneously produces all those musical notes while simultaneously searching, so to speak, for their interior unity.
For those of you who are new to the incoondescent luminareum, blah blah blah, this is what I was attempting to do in the book of the same flame.
In short, we moderns are aware of the fact that everything is situated in history -- that history didn't just begin when we started writing stuff down, or when man split off from the Homo Yelverton branch of protohumans and began thinking for himsoph.
Rather, we now know -- or at least think we know -- that history has been going on for 13.7 billion years -- next month, if my calendar is correct. This means that it isn't just possible, but really necessary, to tell OneStory that encompasses the whole existentialada. To do less than this is to approach the task in a completely arbitrary manner.
For example, think of contemporary Darwinism. It is certainly a historical science. And yet, it arbitrarily starts its history with a bright line between organic life and its cosmic matrix.
As I wrote in the book -- and I wasn't kidding -- who's to say that biological life isn't just what we see in a sufficiently mature cosmos? I mean, there are very good reasons why it couldn't get going more than 3.85 billion years ago, because the cosmos simply hadn't reached puberty. Once it did, the planet became a hotbed of biological activity.
As it so happens, this is precisely the approach Rahner takes. You can say that Christianity starts with the Resurrection, or the Incarnation, or in Genesis, but each of these presupposes an awful lot of stuff that we need to take into consideration, at least if we want to go beyond a mythopoetic understanding.
Again, the latter is fine, except it won't necessarily speak bo diddley to a modern mind rendered barren by scientism, college, and TV.
Anyway, Rahner is trying to do this, but I'm not sure he's succeeding. Again, it seems to me that he's putting it all out before having completely digested and assimilated the material, so that too much work is required on the reader's part.
Nevertheless, we'll try, dammit. At least we'll try.
He writes in the preface that the purpose of the book will be to "try as far as possible to situate Christianity within the intellectual horizon of people today." As such, he doesn't "begin with a faith in which everything is completely settled and simply repeat what is in every catechism." That's an entirely different task which has already been done thousands of times, so there's no need to do it yet again.
This task is a more difficult one, and "is going to require some rather strenuous thinking and some hard intellectual work." He even warns off the looky-losers and spiritual thrillseekers: "Anyone who is just looking for religious inspiration and shies away from the demands of patient, laborious, and at times tedious reflection should not enter into this investigation."
Think of all the disciplines and subdisciplines one must deal with in order to do justice to such an endeavor: "philosophy of knowledge and the philosophy of language," "sociology, history, phenomenology and philosophy of religion," not to mention biology, cosmology, anthropology, neurology, psychology, and more. And let's not even talk about the fragmentation within theology, nor the extrinsic fragmentation produced by awareness of other faiths.
Who but a metaphysical b'atman would be brash enough to even try! Readers who are not up to the task can "only be referred to the church's catechism and told that they should simply believe what is taught there and in this way save their souls" (which he is by no means trivializing).
In short, Rahner wants to provide "an intellectually honest justification of Christian faith," one that is again geared toward modern sensibilities (or prejudices, if you want to be less charitable).
First of all, the task might not be as daunting as it appears to be at first blush, because although many people in the modern world have convinced themselves that they are wholly rational and bow to the scientific worldview, absolutely nobody actually lives, or could live, in that cold and dark world. Every sane and decent person recognizes the limits of science, even if he pretends otherwise.
Rather, we always inhabit a human world, and religion is addressed to just this world. In other words, it is not addressed to animals, because they wouldn't understand it. It is not about the world of physics, nor is it about some other hypothetical cosmos. Rahner addresses the book to the person who is Christian or who wants to be, and who wants to situate his Christianity within "the totality of his own existence."
First of all, we must begin where we are, which is to say, in the human form. But what is a human?
Ah, good question! If you are intellectually honest, the first thing you will acknowledge is that man is a mystery to himself, period. Yes, we can learn more and more about ourselves, but this is a vessel that can never be filled.
Therefore, Rahner posits man as "the universal question he is for himself." You might even say that man is the original (?!), or the sacred WTF!
I mean, right? Isn't it obvious when you think about it? And isn't it immediately apparent that such godforsaken disciplines as evolutionary psychology and behaviorism are just so much whistling past the graveyard, just fairy tales the tenured tell themselves so they can sleep at night?
To jump ahead more than a bit, Rahner later suggests that Christianity is first and foremost the mysterious Answer to the mysterious Question that man is.
And in fact, we can jump even further ahead, and suggest that the figure of Jesus will represent both the Question and its Answer in the same being. But we will first have to do a lot of preluminary gruntwork to get there.
To be continued. Another entirely different kind of gruntwork beckons. | <urn:uuid:d77c0bf8-214f-4525-9e0c-7f6750989d3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2012_11_11_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971779 | 1,467 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Respect & Dignity
The service shall treat people equally, respect diversity and recognise that human rights and equality of opportunity are necessary for people to live dignified lives.
The service shall not reveal the names of clients of the service nor details of their individual situation without the permission of the client, and then only as relevant. Workers shall regard this rule as binding both whilst they work for the service and after they cease to do so.
The service shall at all times aim to maintain the privacy of the client, maintaining an environment that minimises the emotional cost to the client.
Self Determination of the Client
The service shall respect and encourage the right of clients to make their own decisions. Wherever appropriate, the CABACT shall offer the client alternative courses of action to enable them to express their needs and advocate on their own behalf.
Workers shall respect the individuality of the client and as far as possible be aware of their own attitudes so that they will not be discriminating or prejudiced in their dealings with clients.
Workers shall whenever necessary take action to ensure that clients receive the assistance and/or information they need. The CABACT may provide low-key advocacy, intervention and representation on behalf of a client with their permission.
This service shall not provide any information or advice which could be more appropriately supplied by a specialist service.
Workers should try to preserve their own anonymity when dealing with clients who phone or visit the shopfront.
Workers shall operate in accordance with CABACT policies and shall endeavour to maintain a high standard of sensitivity, efficiency and integrity.
Workers shall not accept personal remuneration from clients, nor provide material or financial assistance to clients from their own resources, whilst acting in their positions.
Workers shall endeavour to provide appropriate information with the goal that the information provided is not deliberately misleading or designed to impede or harm the client in any way.
Duty of Care
The CABACT shall endeavour to provide a safe environment for clients, visitors and workers of the organisation. | <urn:uuid:54f07006-3963-431b-9f67-f20ff8a08e98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.citizensadvice.org.au/content/view/77/86/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923115 | 414 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Have you ever wondered about the fate of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence ? In many cases it was not good!
·Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
·Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
·Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
·Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
·They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their honor.
What kind of men were they?Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners who were men of means and well educated, but who nevertheless signed the document knowing full well the penalty was death if captured.
·Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his Ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
·Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his plight.
·Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Rutledge, and Middleton.
·At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
·Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
·John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
While enjoying this 4th of July holiday consider a silent thanks to these patriots, none of whom we knew and most of whom we’d never heard of without inspecting the signatures on the document. | <urn:uuid:721ce4e4-7928-49a2-a3aa-e423a543bf44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quiltingboard.com/general-chit-chat-non-quilting-talk-f7/4th-july-t193617.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.996323 | 476 | 3.65625 | 4 |
The Man With the Unclean Spirit
Talk of demons, devils and unclean spirits is not so common today as it once was. We have rationalized away the spiritual realm and when we read of Jesus’ encounters with the demonic it is common procedure to turn to the modern language of psychology. In today’s Gospel we might be more comfortable saying Jesus healed a man with psychological problems then saying he helped a man possessed by an unclean spirit.
It is true that the science of psychology has come a long way in the past century. Many mysterious ailments of the human mind are now better understood. Treatment with therapies, both cognitive and pharmacological, have vastly improved the quality of life for many people. But there is still a depth of understanding that is lacking. We might be beginning to understand how the human brain works at a superficial level but has anyone tapped into the human spirit?
Does anyone really know what makes human beings tick? There is so much going on in our hearts and minds that we do not really have a grasp of and this is the area of understanding in which Jesus excelled. While others saw symptoms Jesus exposed the root of anxiety. Once exposed to the light of day it could not survive and people were “cured” of their ailments. Demons, Devils, neuroses, phobias… all these are but words that describe what we cannot fully understand. These are the unknown specters that keep us from living to our full human potential. Jesus breaks through these barriers and calls us to fullness of life, sometimes even beyond what we can imagine for ourselves.
On the television series “Hoarders” we are introduced to people who cannot throw anything away. Living up to their necks in piles of rubbish and filth these people are possessed, in biblical terms, by an unclean spirit. Usually the source of their compulsion to hoard can be traced to a trauma which they have suffered and the cure is always the same. It takes time and people who are willing to journey with the person as they share their story and come to terms with the hurt they have suffered that is now manifesting itself in their symptoms. Perhaps this is not the quick cure that is described in the Gospel but it is a work of Christ to walk and talk with those who are suffering. Perhaps we will not come to understand their plight in a conscious way but the healing power of companionship and compassion transcends human understanding and connects at the level of the human spirit.
This is the level at which God knows us, right to the depth of our human spirit. It cannot be seen, it cannot be measured and yet it is at this depth that we are forgiven and redeemed by Christ and it is from this depth that all healing begins to take root and spread through our life. Science cannot reveal this to us, only God can and it is from the depths of our Spirit that we come to know God. | <urn:uuid:397fd673-3348-47b2-b3e9-1d216aa75409> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redemptoristpreacher.com/tag/suffering/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97686 | 593 | 1.859375 | 2 |
The first stop on the Ratatouille film trail in Paris is the
famous Eiffel Tower, which was designed by Gustave
Eiffel and has become the monumental symbol and well known landmark in France.
Having had well over two hundred million visitors since it first opened, virtually
everyone in the World has heard of the Eiffel Tower and this is how Remy realised he had
ended up in Paris. In the film you will see
him gazing from the rooftops in awe at the City of Lights along with this Paris landmark.
Remy's family also arrive in Paris and settle in the sewers beneath the city, but for
Remy, he wants to live above ground and pursue his dream of becoming a great chef like his
Yet the second stop on the Paris film trail is a
visit to the sewers. Yes you read correctly, you can actually have a tour of the
Paris sewers and learn about how drainage first started in Paris, through to their
construction and what they are like today! The Paris Sewers Museum is also called
the Musée des Egouts and is located on the Left Bank
of the River Seine but with the museum entrance only being
a ticket booth on ground level, you have to look out for it or you could quite easily miss
In the movie, Remy is trying to escape from the tyrant chef called Skinner and he ends up
jumping from bridge to bridge and boat to boat along the River Seine until eventually the
horrible chef fall into the water.
And yes, you have guessed it, you take a walk along the River Seine viewing the sites as
you go like the Petit Palais, the Palais de Tokyo and The Louvre to name but a few. You will even
get to see some lovely yachts that are moored at the Arsenal basin, which have been dug
from the moats of the former Bastille
Now we cannot forget about the bridges that span the River Seine and there are actually
over thirty bridges with the oldest being the Pont Neuf, which was first constructed in
the 1600's. There were quite a few bridges that featured in Ratatouille, which
included the Pont St Michel and the Pont au Double, but you can also visit more recent
additions such as the Charles de Gaulle bridge and it was along the banks of the River
Seine that Remy's life changed for the better.
Remy's family and especially his father were totally against him living above ground and
pursuing his dream of becoming a chef and he took Remy to see the shop called Aurouze,
known as the Exterminator shop, which did shock Remy, but didn't stop him.
The shop itself has always specialised in pest control and does still exist even though it
was originally founded back in1872. Called the Julien Aurouze & Co and located
on Rue des Halles close to Hotel de Ville,
it has a very traditional and old fashioned style frontage. But being one of the
more unusual shops in Paris, it still supplies numerous gadgets and other products for
getting rid of unwanted pests.
In the Ratatouille movie there was a restaurant called Gusteau that was home to the most
famous chef in Paris and at one time had been the ultimate dining experience. It is
here that you see Remy pursuing his dream of becoming a great chef, just like his hero
However, you will not actually find any restaurants
in Paris that are named Gusteau, but the film restaurant was inspired by the famous
haute cuisine restaurant called the Tour
d'Argent, which is probably one of the most famous restaurants throughout France if
not in the World.
This marvellous restaurant with views of the Notre Dame
Cathedral, the River Seine and the Eiffel Tower in the distance has been an
inspiration to many and has seen many celebrity diners and royalty over the years and this
is the last stop on the Ratatouille film trail in Paris.
There is a lot more information, pictures and anecdotes that are mentioned on the little
guide available from the Tourist Information Centres, but we would not want to spoil your
fun prior to this unusual way of seeing Paris. | <urn:uuid:22e9f6a7-32fb-4b75-991d-b7df19fe7598> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.placesinfrance.com/ratatouille_film_trail_in_paris.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975352 | 895 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Last night I was thinking what a crazy American tradition it is, building an entire holiday around consumption of sugary sweets. Of course, it didn’t start out that way. Originally, it was simply a fall fest to drive away evil spirits. Sugar was introduced later with the Trick-or-Treat tradition.
Nowadays, it is aptly referred to as the “Sugar Fest, with Imagination.”
Mexico’s Day of the Dead, for example, is more about fine dining: “In some places, people will have dinner [at the cemetery], usually dishes that were the favorites of the deceased,” explains Jorge Carretero of MIT’s Mexican Student Association. “In a way, it is like sharing a meal with them.”
Our Halloween “feast” is more about getting a sugar-rush: the time-honored tradition of kids eating too much candy and groaning from a belly ache later. And what a nightmare for parents of diabetic children!
I guess it helps that there are plenty of online tips on how to deal with Halloween. I also just discovered this very cute book on Trick-or-Treat for Diabetes, which you D-parents may know quite well.
I am happy to report that my three don’t have diabetes, but I’m still concerned about the sugar loading. So here’s what I do: put their candy in the cupboard and let them pick a few pieces each night for dessert. Of course, I sort it first (when they’re in bed) and discard anything too disgustingly gooey or rock-hard. I also immediately throw out anything too tempting to me (me first, right?). Over the next week or so, I gradually throw out more and more (when they’re in bed). Luckily, my kids aren’t old enough to read this blog.
Anyway, the costumes are fun. We’ve got a vampire rock-star, a shiny unicorn, and an oh-my-God-how-cute poodle going at our house this year. Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:1592214f-6363-441c-9f9e-4bbeefb3e251> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetesmine.com/2005/10/happy_halloween.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962317 | 449 | 1.609375 | 2 |
'Superpowered' Bacteria May Lurk Behind Sinus Infections
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 12 (HealthDay News) -- A small new study offers insight into the germ warfare that goes on inside the heads of people with chronic sinus infections.
Harmless bacteria become superpowered and create trouble in the sinuses of affected people, the findings suggest.
The research doesn't seem likely to immediately help relieve long-lasting sinus infections, which can be extremely difficult to treat and cause intense misery in sufferers. But the study could open the door to greater understanding of the disease, said study co-author Susan Lynch, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
"This may be why some patients never recover," she said. "There's promise of maybe having an alternative approach to treatment."
Sinus infections are defined as chronic when they last for more than three months. Bacteria can cause them, often after a cold, and they lead to swelling and lots of mucus production. Viruses and allergies can also cause sinus infections.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that at least 30 million adults in the United States suffer from diagnosed sinus infections.
The new study examines what happens in the sinuses of infected people, which -- like other parts of the body -- are home to bacteria that aren't normally harmful.
Researchers looked into the sinuses of 10 people with chronic sinus infections and 10 healthy people. They found evidence that normally benign bacteria become superpowered and turn bad, possibly because other bacteria aren't around to keep them in check.
Why does this happen? Possibly because antibiotic treatment for sinus infections focuses on getting rid of bad bacteria, which creates an opening for good bacteria to multiply and become a problem, Lynch said.
The next step, she said, is to test new treatments in humans that keep this in mind.
Dr. Jordan Josephson, a sinus and allergy specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, cautioned that the picture is even more complicated because of the presence of other things in the sinuses, such as fungus.
Another sinus specialist, Dr. Reginald Baugh, chair of otolaryngology at the University of Toledo in Ohio, agreed that other factors are part of sinus infections. "Additional studies are indicated to replicate and further substantiate their findings," he said.
Baugh added that the findings of the study sound reasonable. It's possible, he said, that doctors have done the wrong thing by targeting germs for death instead of focusing on harmony among bacteria in the sinuses.
It may make more sense to emphasize "harmony within the bacterial community rather than the scorched-earth policy of antibiotic therapy," he said. "Whether or not it is effective remains to be proven."
The study appears in the Sept. 12 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
For more about sinus infections, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
SOURCE: Susan Lynch, Ph.D., associate professor, medicine, University of California, San Francisco; Jordan S. Josephson, M.D., sinus and allergy specialist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City, and author of "Sinus Relief Now;" Reginald Baugh, M.D., professor and chair, otolaryngology, University of Toledo, Ohio; Sept. 12, 2012, Science Translational Medicine | <urn:uuid:fa74cbce-9bd2-4964-a261-19e7a5fa1107> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mmhospital.org/Taxonomy/RelatedDocuments.aspx?id=0&ContentTypeId=6&ContentID=668560 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947151 | 716 | 2.859375 | 3 |
And so tragic news has broken – Giant tortoise Lonesome George, last of his subspecies, has died.
I first encountered George’s story in Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of the World’s Most Famous Tortoise, which is the sad story of how you go about trying to save a species that just doesn’t want to reproduce. Looks like the inevitable has finally caught up with the Pinta giant tortoise.
I guess the whole thing raises important questions – how far should conservationists invest limited funds and resources into saving species that, apparently, don’t ‘want’ to be saved? A similar argument is made for giant pandas who, while cute, have to be among the most awkward animals on Earth.
But then, maybe humans should be paying penance – after all, George’s ancestors were hunted and eaten to the edge of extinction by our ancestors. It’s not like we don’t have a bad habit of blundering in and destroying the ecological balance of everywhere we go. A hundred or so years later and it’s our fault that the sole surviving member of a particular species is an individual with the sex drive of a brick. It feels like some sort of karmic irony.
I have no conclusions. I’m just sad and apprehensive about what we’ve done to our world.
Rest in peace George. | <urn:uuid:b71c5baa-7f62-4199-be35-51c3a39a327b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://matthewhyde.wordpress.com/category/science-2/nature-science/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934187 | 301 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Most Active Stories
Sun January 1, 2012
2012: The Year Of The Smart Superhero Movie
Though last year was the year of the "staggeringly disappointing superhero movie", according to NPR arts and entertainment reporter Neda Ulaby, 2012 may mark the year of the smart superhero movie with releases of The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises.
Ulaby tells weekend All Things Considered guest host Rebecca Sheir that superheroes have always reflected what's going on in politics, "whether it's Captain America punching Hitler on the cover of a comic book in 1941 or the X-Men that much more recently explicitly critiqued issues like homophobia or the Patriot Act."
But, because studios aren't doing well, perhaps they continue producing superhero movies because they keep hoping that "someone in a cape is going to swoop in and save the day," Ulaby says.
But there are other big screen offerings to look forward to in 2012: The Great Gatsby and The Hobbit are two of the most anticipated literary adaptations. And movie readers are looking forward to The Hunger Games, which is based on the popular young adult novel. The book series has sold more than 12 million copies and is intended to be a mass-market blockbuster.
Kids should get ready for the movie version of The Lorax, which will be released on Dr. Seuss' birthday in March. | <urn:uuid:0ca02991-30e7-48ae-81d3-7dcb556210b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wwno.org/post/2012-year-smart-superhero-movie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941649 | 283 | 1.601563 | 2 |
A protein, nucleic acid, or polysaccharide molecule.
a naturally occurring polymer generated using natural resources like plants and micro-organisms
a polymer found
a polymer of one or more types of repeating units
In a living organism, any large molecule (such as a protein, nucleic acid, lipid, or polysaccharide) made from smaller parts.
Any polymer (a long repeating chain of atoms) found in nature. Examples include starch, proteins and DNA.
Any large molecule in an organism that is made up of a repeating number of smaller components. Examples include proteins (made up of amino acids), starch and cellulose (made up of sugars) and DNA (made up of nucleic acids).
Any large polymeric molecule (protein, nucleic acid, polysaccharide, lipid) produced by a living organism.
Biopolymers are a special class of polymers produced by living organisms. Starch, proteins and peptides, DNA, and RNA are all examples of biopolymers, in which the monomer units, respectively, are sugars, amino acids, and nucleic acids. | <urn:uuid:fd3b5a06-8b8b-45a2-92fa-e6253f77bf71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://metaglossary.com/meanings/691783/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911571 | 231 | 3.484375 | 3 |
This year presents and uncommon opportunity to bring change to the senate.
This week's election of Scott Brown to the US Senate from Massachusetts puts the spotlight on senate races generally. One-third of senators are elected in each two-year election and serve for six years. That's 33 1/3 per election--and this is the year when that 34th senator is up for election.
Furthermore, in ordinary times incumbency is a strong advantage that almost guarantees reelection. So only where a senator is not seeking reelection is there a "competitive" seat. Two liberal Democrats (Dorgan, Dodd) have already announced retirement plans. Two others have been appointed rather than elected (Bennett, Burris) and only Bennett has announced that he intends to run. One more (Spector) was elected as a Republican and changed parties. (I wonder if he's regretting his decision right about now.)
The potential for change we can really believe in is great.
Larry Sabato predicts that if the election were held today, the Democrats would retain only 52 seats. He suggests that the political environment might be better for the Democrats in the fall if the economy improves. I don't see the Democrats making any changes in their direction that might make that happen. The more likely scenario is worse both for the economy and for them. read more » | <urn:uuid:aea7c1fb-ff26-4bad-95c1-bd3570bcc154> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conservativeoutpost.com/tags/election_1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979728 | 271 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Turfgrass Information File
The Turfgrass Information File is a cooperative venture between Michigan State University and the United States Golf Association (USGA) Turfgrass Research Program. Turfgrass Information File (TGIF) indexes all types of works related to turfgrass culture including journals, monographs, fact sheets and pamphlets, images, and web documents. Most records in TGIF contain informative abstracts; some contain full text or are linked to web-accessible full text.
The databases had been freely available for a number of years but after upgrades and improvements the Turfgrass Information Center began charging for access. This is a focused database with many unique resources. The UMC Library is pleased to be able to provide access to this. | <urn:uuid:d6470dfb-a204-4d35-9133-3241a7d2ec5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jamcarls/umclibrary/2006/11/turfgrass_information_file.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90974 | 150 | 2 | 2 |
Let's celebrate Earth Day every day, not just April 22nd!
Take a look at the two yards below. Your yard is on the left. It may look like nothing more than a dirt pile, but just underneath that ground you’ll find plenty of garbage – 4 apple cores, 4 fish bones, 2 banana peels, and 1 long-stemmed rose.
The yard on the left is the Earth's. It's full of the same garbage, and even though you can see it, you still have to find it in your own yard.
Can you clean your yard before Earth cleans hers?
Dig in your yard (left) by clicking on a section of dirt. Earth will do the same. If you find part of some garbage, try to find the rest. Just for fun, you can see where the garbage in Earth's yard is hiding (but she can't!) The first one to dig up all 11 items wins.
You click first. | <urn:uuid:7600e7d1-07b9-4bab-b25e-22e9861aaf20> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googolplex.cuna.org/14777/5spot/games/edaybday/start.htm?doc_id=1754&title=Earth%20Day%20Birthday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946472 | 200 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Hare Krishna Food for Life
Hare Krishna Food for Life is the world's largest vegan and vegetarian non-profit food relief organization with projects in over 60 countries. Volunteers serve more than 1,500,000 free meals daily in a variety of ways, including: food vans serving to the homeless within major cities around the world; lunch time meals for poor school children throughout India; and also in response to large natural disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
With roots in India, the Food for Life project is a modern day revival of the ancient Vedic culture of hospitality with its belief in the equality of all beings. It was conceived of and began by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in 1974 and is thus commonly known as ISKCON Food For Life or Hare Krishna Food For Life. It has been lauded by The New York Times and the International Rescue Committee (among others) for its relief efforts worldwide.
Food for Life as a project was initially inspired by an elderly Indian Swami, known as A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In 1974 when watching a group of village children fighting with dogs over scraps of food, the Swami became upset and told his students, "No one within ten miles of a temple should go hungry... I want you to immediately begin serving food." In response to his plea, members of ISKCON and volunteers around the world were inspired to expand that original effort into a global network of kitchens, cafes, vans, and mobile services, all providing free food, and establishing daily delivery routes in many large cities around the world. Since that day, Food for Life has grown into the world’s largest vegan/vegetarian food relief program.
Food For Life volunteers have provided food for the poor and homeless during several recent disasters.
- 2008 - Food For Life served freshly cooked vegan meals to survivors of Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike in the southern United States.
- 2007 - Food For Life volunteers were on the ground to feed many of the hundreds of thousands of survivors who were left homeless after the deadliest cyclone to hit Bangladesh in a decade.
- 2005 - Following the earthquake in Pakistan, Food For Life volunteers worked side-by-side with local military and police personnel, distributing drinking water, food, tents and blankets.
- 2005 - When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast with deadly force, Food For Life volunteers were among the first responders, distributing up to 800 freshly cooked meals daily to needy families in Mississippi and Texas.
- 2004 - 2005 A killer Tsunami wreaked incomprehensible devastation in South Asia, resulting in the deaths of nearly 200,000 people. Food For Life volunteers joined the relief effort on the very day of the disaster, providing thousands of meals daily, along with medical care, clothing, and shelter in Sri Lanka and India.
- 1990s - Food For Life volunteers risked their lives in the war-torn countries of Chechnya, Bosnia and Abkhazia, distributing food to needy and frightened civilians.
In total, Food for Life has distributed more than 750 million meals since its inception.
Food for Life has expanded its reach to include, eco projects such as Working Villages International; as well as orphanages such as Gokulam – Bhaktivedanta Children’s Home Gokulam in Sri Lanka, a refuge where needy children receive food, shelter, medical care, education and loving care.
Mid Day Meals
A Strategic program to address two of the most pressing problems of India : Hunger & Education. The Government of India has made education for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years compulsory, but poverty prevents the underprivileged from getting full value of their educational experience.
Hunger obstructs education as children are forced to leave schools and take up menial jobs. Lack of education curtails opportunities for development and leads to the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger. Education empowers a child to explore his potentials and earn a decent living and live a respectable life in our society.
ISKCON FOOD RELIEF FOUNDATION, has resolved to liberate the underprivileged from this vicious cycle by feeding the poor with sanctified and nutritious food.
In the three years since it was founded, the program has scaled to provide over 1,000,000 hygienic and nutritious meals every day through a cost-effective program. has demonstrated and is now showcased as an operating model that can strategically address two of the most pressing problems for poor children in India : hunger and education.
Disaster Relief
Siege of Sarajevo
In the war zone of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, volunteers visited orphanages, homes for the elderly, hospitals, institutes for handicapped children, and basement shelters on a daily basis throughout the three-year conflict; an estimated 20 tons of food have been distributed since 1992.
Chechnyan Wars
In a New York Times article dated (December 12, 1995) volunteers in Chechnya were described as having "a reputation like the one Mother Teresa has in Calcutta: it’s not hard finding people to swear they are saints."
2004 Tsunami
Food for Life was the first food relief agency to respond to the tsunami disaster of December 2004. On the same afternoon the great tsunami hit, Vaisnava monks at ISKCON's temple in Chennai, India were preparing their weekly Sunday vegetarian feast, when they heard of the disaster. They immediately raced to the most affected areas on the southeast coastline of India and began serving thousands of people with their preprepared vegetable curry. Over the following 6 months, Food for Life Volunteers in Sri Lanka, India, Europe, USA and Australia provided more than 350,000 freshly cooked meals, along with medical care, water, clothing, and shelter for children at ISKCON's orphanage in Colombo, the Bhaktivedanta Children's Home.
Hurricane Katrina
Pakistan Earthquake
Volunteers from Udhampur, Jammu, Amritsar and Haridwar under the guidance of His Holiness Navayogendra Swami Maharaj, a prominent disciple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, came together to provide relief for victims of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Working from an ISKCON temple in Udhampur, which was within the earthquake-affected region, the volunteers loaded trucks with drinking water, rice, bread, and blankets.
Food for Life Global
Food for Life Global (FFLG) website, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization established in 1996 and registered in the State of Maryland, is the international headquarters for all Food for Life charitable activities. It is directed by Paul Rodney Turner, also known as Priya Vrata the Food Yogi (FOOD YOGA website). In order to position itself as completely non-sectarian, the organisation registered independently from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness ISKCON. The non profit has numerous affiliates that are not connected with the Hare Krishna movement. FFLG overall mission is to create peace and prosperity in the world through the liberal distribution of pure food prepared with loving intention. To achieve that end, the organisation strives to collaborate with other NGOs that are in line with the core beliefs of Food for Life. The managerial role of FFLG is providing organizational and operating support to Food for Life projects through activities such as:
- coordinating and sponsoring emergency relief
- teaching the public about Food Yoga site
- publishing a Food for Life Global newsletter
- providing small grants to FFL affiliates
- producing training material for Food for Life volunteers downloads
- maintaining the Food for Life website website
- producing promotional materials – videos, music CDs, media kits, posters, etc.
- conducting training seminars
- representing Food for Life at health conferences
Food for Life Global is funded by private donations, foundations, and corporate and government grants. With the support of its members and corporate sponsors, Food for Life Global seeks to maintain and expand its current programs to feed the world’s hungry and fight poverty by promoting health, education and sustainability.
See also | <urn:uuid:984194cf-8870-4672-81bb-38763328b9a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_Food_for_Life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952073 | 1,688 | 2.1875 | 2 |
The Incidence of Clinical Depression Among Directors of Entry-Level Occupational Therapy Educational Programs in the United States and It's Relationship to Preferred Leadership Styles
William Matthew Marcil
This study examined the incidence of clinical depression among directors of entry-level occupational therapy education programs in the United States and its relationship to preferred leadership styles. All 148 program directors were contacted by electronic mail and encouraged to participate in an on-line survey comprised of the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), which contains three self-typing paragraphs describing leadership styles as being either democratic, autocratic, or laissez-faire, and a 14 item demographic survey. A total of 62 people participated in the actual study, and another 10 responded directly to the researcher as to why they would not participate. Seven (11%) of the participants had SDS scores indicating clinical depression. All participants, save one, chose the democratic leadership style and there was no difference between the two groups.
Regent students, staff, and faculty: Available in full text from Regent University Library
Non-Regent researchers: Available in full text from UMI Dissertation Services | <urn:uuid:39ce4b3c-bee3-4b01-a150-670034e1eb6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://regent.edu/acad/global/publications/dissertations/marcil2004.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925529 | 231 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Articles from Citizens Justice Association
While Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all teach that usury is wrong, their members apparently cannot get enough of it.
The Massachusetts domestic violence statute has been an ordeal for many of those who have been on the receiving end of notorious restraining orders...
Lawyers do not like David Grossack. Though the Massachusetts attorney has enjoyed a successful litigation career spanning over three decades, few of his peers have supported Grossack’s work.
Many women will no longer stop when directed by a police officer to pull over. Some will call 911 and ask for additional police to come to the scene and refuse to open their windows until backup police arrive.
The right to have a sexual orientation that differs from what is professed and presumably practiced by the people who make up the mainstream culture has been expressed in the writings and works of America’s founding fathers.
A truly scary book that will convince you beyond a doubt that Americans live in a controlled state, where the government is conducting a war against its own citizens. A MUST READ---Buy today!
The human species is very skilled in adapting to difficult situations. Since time immemorial humans have built tools to hunt, farm, cook, eat, provide shelter and wage war.
Decent people everywhere took genuine satisfaction at the irony of the televised bar proceedings involving disgraced Democratic prosecutor Michael Nifong recently. Here was the prosecutor being prosecuted.
This is an analysis of many of the problems found in municipal governments, and what we as non-lawyers can do to fight back legally.
When you can't afford a lawyer or cannot find a lawyer to work with, sometimes you have no choice but to represent yourself.
I am excited to post this interview with James Nollet, an actual pro se litigant who has worked with the Citizens' Justice Institute! Here is some of the interview; please comment and let me know if you would like to see more of this and other interviews
Imagine being sentenced to prison for eight years. In the outside world you leave behind a son, who is now being completely estranged from you...
AKRON, OHIO, April 16, 2010-While President Obama campaigned for the White House on a platform promising “transparency,” a conservative organization located in Ohio is disputing whether the promise is being kept.
Discusses the techniques of a pre-litigation strategy that a savvy debtor can use to wear down collection lawyers.
The following essay by Attorney David Grossack, who helps and encourages pro se litigants through his Citizens' Justice Institute, really expresses the feelings of many in the pro se movement.
Void judgments have become the sensation of the year in pro se and related circles. Seminars, special reports, and person to person networking have produced a number of efforts at eliminating bad results in Court, as well as some frustration.
Debt collection messages can be aggravating. This article discusses the federal and state protections you have when others contact you to collect money owed for personal, family, and household debts...
Many people do not realize is that aside from the war, pollution, epidemics, and poverty, the social systems imposed upon us by the elites produce emotional sickness...
In the Newton, Massachusetts, office of Attorney David Grossack, one item stands out. Amidst the legal manuals and diplomas, there is a book called How to Win a Lawsuit Without a Lawyer. | <urn:uuid:ddc679c4-1f6b-4db9-96da-bbfc2220c86e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.citizensjustice.com/get-educated/articles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968469 | 704 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Community celebrates MLK Jr. Day at Bo Diddley
Published: Monday, January 21, 2013 at 10:40 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 21, 2013 at 10:40 p.m.
Wearing a Gators ball cap with an “I voted” sticker clinging to the inside of the bill, 67-year-old Robert Minniefield marched down University Avenue recalling the time when the sidewalk was a luxury.
“I remember when I had to step off the sidewalk when certain people would walk by,” he said, walking along the route of Monday's commemorative march in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On the same day as President Barack Obama's second inauguration, hundreds of area residents gathered for the King celebration.
Ericka Jackson, 38, listened to recordings of King's speeches with her 6-year-old daughter Kailani before the kickoff program began at the Bo Diddley Community Plaza.
She said the day was about remembering for those who were alive to experience King's leadership during the civil rights movement, and learning for those who weren't.
“He fought so hard … How can I not come out and support,” she said.
Kailani said she learned that King was an important reason why everyone can drink from the same water fountain.
“He was a preacher,” she said. “He was a teacher.”
Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe greeted the crowd at Bo Diddley with comments about how racism and intolerance are still concerns in this age, then he transitioned to speaking about the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the Sanford youth who was killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator under unclear circumstances. The shooter, George Zimmerman, has claimed self-defense and is facing murder charges in the case.
He then spoke out against gun violence, citing several high-profile shootings, including the most recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., as examples of why gun reform is needed.
“My right to own a gun does not outweigh your right to live,” he said.
Lamont Wallace, a student at Gainesville High School who won an oratorical award sponsored by event organizers, said he saw King's dream playing out on his TV screen during the BCS National Championship game a few weeks ago.
“I saw the black kids and white kids playing. I saw them in the crowd hugging and kissing,” he said. “And I said, ‘Isn't that part of the dream?' ”
Ariannah Jennings, 10, played with her friends in the grass before the crowd poured onto University Avenue for the march to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center.
She talked with her friends about how she learned that black and white people used to be separated most of the time, until King made a difference.
“Now that's all changed, because of him,” she said.
Her friend Savanna Beauregard, 10, agreed.
“Now black and white people can be together,” she said.
At around 1 p.m., hundreds marched about a mile and a half to the rec center. Spontaneous reunions sprung up all around as old friends caught up. Some groups sang hymns as they walked.
Ryan Azeem, a 19-year-old accounting sophomore at UF, walked with his Phi Beta Sigma brothers, a historically black fraternity.
Azeem said the holiday reminds him that people can come together for a common cause and that one person can make a difference.
“We're here to carry out his legacy,” he said.
Minniefield walked with his two grandsons, smiling as he thought about the questions they had asked him earlier.
He later said it's important to keep teaching the youth about King's message of equality and justice.
“It's important,” he said. “Just the way people treat each other.”
Sun correspondent Alli Langley contributed to this report.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:a6c3752a-3417-4d44-8b54-bddcf5521a88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gainesville.com/article/20130121/ARTICLES/130129946/1002/news01?Title=Community-celebrates-MLK-Jr-Day-at-Bo-Diddley- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972551 | 872 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Plans and Purchasers Team Up To Manage Kidney Disease
MANAGED CARE October 2003. ©MediMedia USA
Cooperation between three health plans has fostered better employer appreciation of early detection and intervention in kidney disease.
An employer-driven health coalition in western New York that has tackled hospital report cards, patient surveys, and asthma education among other projects has moved on to its next target — better identification, prevention, treatment, and education of kidney disease patients.
The Niagara Health Quality Coalition, which is made up of employers, health plans, and health care providers, has taken the first steps in what is meant to become a full-blown, communitywide disease management program.
As part of the project, and with the backing of employers, the area's three health plans recently demanded that the region's laboratories improve the clinical reports they send back to physicians about how well patients' kidneys are functioning.
The insurers also plan to distribute clear, concise standards for how primary care physicians should interpret and act on those results. An education program for patients and a data-collection system to track the results of the project are in the works as well, says Bruce A. Boissonnault, president of the coalition. It's a step-by-step process, he adds, that "can be emulated in other markets."
The effort is an attempt to catch kidney disease as early as possible to help patients avoid dialysis and long hospital stays, says Gord Cumming, director of associate services at Rich Products, a privately held frozen foods company in Buffalo. Prior to the project, employers had not considered kidney disease to be a significant problem individually, "but when we began to look at it collectively, we began to understand how big the problem is and how big it will become in the future," he says.
The incidence of kidney disease has doubled in the last 10 years and is likely to at least double again in the next 10 years, especially because of the prevalence of obesity and high blood pressure in the United States, says Bradley Truax, senior associate medical director at Independent Health, an HMO. Care for patients with end-stage renal disease costs about $70,000 per year in the Buffalo area, he says.
Identifying patients early enough to stave off or even eliminate the need for dialysis will greatly reduce those costs as well as patients' quality of life, Truax says.
Existing disease management programs for kidney disease focus almost exclusively on patients who are already on dialysis; that's regrettable, and it makes the Niagara Health Quality Coalition's project worth watching, says David B. Nash, MD, MBA, professor of health policy at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. "Looking at kidney disease before dialysis may have a very positive outcome down the road."
The coalition's attempt to install a communitywide program also puts it in uncharted waters, says Nash. "Community-based disease management programs are pretty new. It's very hard to get anyone to work collaboratively."
Initially, the coalition's project grew out of the group's desire to put together a comprehensive disease management program that could improve the quality of health care in the region. After agreeing to that goal, however, the coalition asked the area's three health plans — Independent Health, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Western New York, and Univera Healthcare — to come up with a target disease.
The insurers worked from a set of criteria when deciding which disease to take on, Truax says. First, they wanted to pick a condition that had a significant effect on the community, in either human or financial costs.
Kidney disease affects both very heavily, Truax says.
Second, the health plans wanted to identify a condition for which very little disease management was taking place.
And third, the project could not be something that would potentially give one health plan a competitive advantage over the others. "No one plan could go out and advertise, 'We have the best management for chronic kidney disease,' because it would get all of the chronic kidney disease patients — who are very high cost — and go out of business."
All of the insurers will benefit if patients are given better care for kidney problems over the long term, Truax says. People in the region remain with health plans only two years on average, according to the coalition.
In western New York, primary care physicians will play a major role in identifying kidney disease patients early. Approximately 20,000 of the 1 million people in the area are likely to have kidney disease, yet only about 20 nephrologists practice in the area, Truax says.
One of the key tools that physicians need to identify patients in the earliest stages of kidney disease is glomerular filtration rate, or GFR. Laboratories calculate GFR by starting with the serum creatinine level — which has been the standard way to measure kidney function for years — and factoring in age, gender, and race.
The GFR is more accurate than the basic serum creatinine value, yet less than 10 percent of labs across the country calculate the GFR for physicians, according to the American Society of Nephrology.
Letters to labs
In Buffalo, health plans sent letters to all of the labs in the region stating that they needed to supply the GFR on lab reports, as well as letters to physicians instructing them how to order the lab tests correctly, says Mary Lee Campbell-Wisley, regional president of Univera, a Buffalo insurer. "We sent out letters signed by all three of us," she explains.
Getting laboratories to put GFRs on reports is "a great idea," says Nash. "But it will also require simultaneous physician education as to what this really means."
The coalition's efforts to educate physicians are under way, and at least one group practice's computer system already automatically generates a referral to a surgeon if a patient's GFR is in a specific range, Boissonnault says.
But there's a lot of work ahead. Nephrologists and the health plans have put together letters to primary care physicians and standards-of-care guidelines that will be distributed early next year. The coalition is also developing a class with the National Kidney Foundation for patients who are at risk for dialysis.
Insurers are taking other steps to move the project into its next phase. They are evaluating national disease management vendors that could help manage kidney disease patients once they are identified from lab reports — at least until local nephrologists can develop a care-management system of their own, Truax says.
Truax puts it this way: "Insurers need to rethink how we handle reimbursement for chronic kidney disease or, for that matter, any chronic disease. The current model of payment only for face-to-face visits does not help promote getting the right things done, which often don't require a face-to-face visit. We need to develop reimbursement models that reward our providers for getting all of those key things done regardless of whether a face-to-face visit was needed."
While insurers are shouldering much of the work — and the cost — of the kidney disease project, employers are funding its continued administration through their financial support of the coalition. "Ultimately, improved outcomes will reduce costs for the health plans," says Cumming of Rich Products. "They will see savings from moving forward with this model."
But employers benefit from the coalition's collaborative efforts at improving health care quality in the region, too, of course, say Cumming and Jack Keebler, human resources director at Moog, a manufacturer of precision control systems for aerospace and industrial applications.
"The Niagara Health Quality Coalition, as an independent entity, has the opportunity to push forward initiatives like this without there being a particular vested interest driving the project," Keebler says.
Avoiding vested interests
Removing the taint of a "vested interest" helps health plans accomplish tasks such as getting the GFRs on lab results, Boissonnault adds. "Knowing that this was a community initiative that involved every blue-chip employer in this region, every major hospital system and a wide array of specialist and primary care physician leaders added to the weight this work was given in the practice community as well as among the laboratory leaders who had to change all of their reports.
"Sometimes health plans are reluctant to get out in front alone on public policy issues because people question their motives," Boissonnault adds.
There's a huge advantage to doing projects like this one on a communitywide basis, says Independent Health's Truax. "The provider community likes that. Things that come out collectively and collaboratively are much better accepted than if an HMO issues guidelines on its own. When the whole community has had input into the development of a process, providers develop their own buy-in. The collaborative approach is very effective."
As the coalition gets its kidney project off the ground, employers and insurers are anticipating the first wave of outcomes results from other collaborative projects on diseases such as diabetes and asthma that have been taking place this year. Early indicators suggest the coalition's efforts at asthma education, for example, have reduced emergency room visits, Truax says.
To keep the support of employers, Boissonnault also will have to collect data that show the kidney disease program is a success, he says. The coalition hopes to see survival rates for patients in their first year of dialysis go up, days of hospitalization in that first year go down, and — most important — the number of people who go onto dialysis falls below the national average. For their money, he says, employers want results. | <urn:uuid:47626052-c58d-4cf1-975f-e7f1654b0b9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/0310/0310.employers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968999 | 1,974 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Fort Hood hearing focuses on homegrown threats, ‘political correctness’
"I worry about a sense of political correctness ... in a post-9/11 world," said Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security advisor during the Bush administration.
The chairman emphasized that the committee would seek to answer a few vital questions: What information did the government have on Hasan before the attacks, including e-mails he may have sent? What judgments were made about those e-mails? If the Joint Terrorism Task Force did have vital information on Hasan, was any of it shared with the U.S. Army?
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the panel’s ranking Republican, reinforced Lieberman’s points. She recalled that in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, investigations revealed that the attacks could possible have been prevented “if only the dots had been connected.” (See video below.)
“In the wake of the mass murder at Fort Hood, we must once again confront a troubling question: Was this another failure to connect the dots?” Collins said.
The first witnesses at the session expressed fears that warning signs about Hasan may have been ignored or downplayed because he is Muslim.
“I worry about a sense of political correctness … in a post-9/11 world,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security advisor during the Bush administration.
Retired Gen. John Keane recalled instances during his Army career when possible over-sensitivity to issues of ethnicity and religion made military leaders blind to potential threats.
Fort Hood hearing focuses on homegrown threats, ‘political correctness’ | National Policy Institute | <urn:uuid:629e0b0e-c12f-4b70-a56a-7fb8597fe018> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/showthread.php?p=63269 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956451 | 345 | 1.765625 | 2 |
- What is Business Aviation?
- Flight Department Administration
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- Professional Development
- News & Publications
- Products & Services
New AvKids Book Teaches Children About AviationContact: Cassandra Bosco
Washington, DC, March 8, 2004 – The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) has released a new children's book titled The Flying Office: Aviation Goes to Work. This publication will be used in conjunction with the NBAA AvKids (Aviation for Kids) Program, which incorporates science, math, geography and language arts skills to help students in grades 2 through 5 understand aviation, particularly business aviation.
Authored by Cassandra J. Bosco and Robert A. Searles, and illustrated by Mike Perry, The Flying Office is designed to teach elementary-school children about business aviation, the uses of business aircraft and aviation careers. Colorful illustrations and photos show a range of business aviation scenes, which accompany engaging stories about how aviation helps businesses and everyday people. The book also includes an introduction to the forces of flight and the parts of an airplane, as well as a glossary of aviation terms.
Individual copies of The Flying Office are available at no charge to teachers and other interested parties. Multiple copies may be ordered at cost. A PDF version of the book also is available free of charge via download from the AvKids web site at www.avkids.com/speakerscenter/the_flying_office.pdf.
In addition to The Flying Office, the AvKids web site contains many creative activities for students, as well as resources for teachers and those interested in making career-day presentations at elementary schools, including the AvKids Activity Guide & Teachers Resource, an elementary-school classroom reference that incorporates science, math, geography and language arts skills to help students in grades 2 through 5 understand aviation, and the LitBase, a database of aviation-related children's books.
For more information about the AvKids Program or to obtain a copy of The Flying Office: Aviation Goes to Work, visit www.avkids.com or contact NBAA at (202) 783-9286 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
NBAA represents the aviation interests of more than 7,600 companies that own or operate general aviation aircraft as an aid to the conduct of their business, or are involved with business aviation. NBAA Member Companies earn annual revenues approaching $5 trillion — a number that is about half the gross domestic product — and employ more than 19 million people worldwide. The NBAA Annual Meeting & Convention is the world's largest display of civil aviation products and services.
Members of the media may receive NBAA Press Releases immediately via e-mail. To subscribe to the NBAA Press Release e-mail list, fill out and submit the online form found on the web at www.nbaa.org/news/pr/subscribe. | <urn:uuid:74d7c654-e3ce-409a-893d-c19faf7282f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbaa.org/news/pr/2004/20040308-014.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925334 | 586 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Honey bees are a favorite of mine. Videotaping these industrial wonders doing their thing in flowers of all types never ceases to amaze but less of them come around doing what they do best because of what we are doing to their world.
In almost every way, if one looks at how we produce food and generate energy at industrial levels, the processes are inherently destructive as seen by the following:
90% of the fish stocks in the ocean are being harvested at a rate too fast for the sea to replenish.
People and animals inPA are getting sick because of the environmental impact of fracking on their environment.
The Alberta Tar Sands project is the largest land operation in the world. It could grow to the size of New York before all the Bitumen is extracted from the earth.
The tar sands di bitis the dirtiest fuel on earth.
GMO corn is now banned in eight nations including Hungary, France and Mexico, but not in the US, due to the negetive impact it has had on the environment.
Beef and chicken are unofficially considered frankenfoods thanks to the extensive use of steroids, antibiotics and genetic manipulation to produce livestock able to grow bigger and faster in time frames not possible to achieve without the use of these methodologies. See Food Inc as reference.
In reality, Big Brother, formerly know as the Total Information Awareness program, has morped into prism, a bigger and better way to spy on us using ever faster tech imbued with AI and ultra fast connects to the web, allowing said environment (NSA) to spy on anyone using digital systems (smartphones, tablets, laptops etc., etc.) linked to the internet. A this point in time, Prism is Big Brother edition 2013 but we already knew that, right? To this end, BRT has posted numerous blurbs about this disquieting development for quite some time as seen in a post titledFace Off & Then Some discussing face recognition and the NSA's now completed project of building the most powerful surveillance environment known to man (Bluffdale, UT).
It gets creepier. With predicative analyticsan essential part of big data, the notion of having a digital facsimile of the pre-cogs of Minority Reportis not far off, something the NSA, among significant others, is avidly developing as this tech, supposedly, would not have the foibles of humanity as seen in Agatha,the most powerful of the three Pre-Cogs used by Pre-Crime, the special police force of the future circa 2054.
From 24/7 surveillance, courtesy of Prism, to the empty promise of energy independence from our beloved president, the incessant drumbeat of platitudes of newspeak issue forth from the corporate controlled press mimicing Minitrue, the political organ of Ingsoc, the party of Big Brother.
The Insoc logo (i.e. English Socialism) seen above, inadvertently shows how Democrats and Republicans go hand in hand when it comes to the really important things in life, i.e.1. Get elected 2. Stay in power by getting reelected and 3. Server the powers at be who enable the pols to stay in power by funneling money to their never ending campaigns for the sole purpose of getting reelected. With this in mind, some really smart wag stated, with true insight, that America is now a combination of 1984 and Brave New World with newspeak spouted by our politicians to explain away Iraq, Afghanistan, due process and energy independence while big media and the process food giants ply us with football, Cheese Doodles and machismo in the quise of huge trucks, beer and never ending patriotism.
Seen above is the stratification of society in 1984. Looks familiar doesn't it, especially when one substitutes the entities depicted with ones we are familiar with. i.e. The president, Congress/power elite, government workers and us rubes. Makes one think doesn't it?
Crossing the Rubiconpales in comparison to reaching the threshold of 400 parts per million of CO2, the greenhouse gas that will change a benign earth into something altogether different thanks to the continued and unfettered use of fossil fuels all over the world.
With no ice, sea level rise will be nearly 300 feet and...
Using isotope proxies to determine ocean temperatures indicate sea surface temperatures in the tropics as high as 35 °C (95 °F) and bottom water temperatures that are 10 °C (18 °F) higher than present day values. With these bottom water temperatures, temperatures in areas where deep-water forms near the poles are unable to be much cooler than the bottom water temperatures.
What makes matters worse is man's ever expanding population and pollution footprint as the Eocene, even though extremely hot, was pristine and teemed with life because we were not there, littering the planet with innumerable pollutants while plundering the place with unbridled greed and ferocity.
Continue the status quo is no longer viable. To continue to burn fossil fuels at the expense of developing alternative ways of generating energy is suicide but we already know about this as the President contemplates approving Keystone, the truly modern way to bring forth a new Eocene within our lifetimes instead of having to wait for it to happen within a few centuries.
Everyone HATES security, at least yours truly does. Has anyone ever forgotten a password? Don't ask but... two young guys have come up with something pretty cool. They built an app that eliminates this PITA in a heart beat. Enter Latch, the Swiss Army Knife able to save passwords. Today, it does Wordpress and iPhone, soon, it will do Android. | <urn:uuid:e3078a1c-ecd0-432a-9e5a-a4d0066e5a4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beyondrealtime.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94211 | 1,165 | 2.265625 | 2 |
John Convey, Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies fellow and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Chair in Education, was interviewed for a Jan. 4 “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” (PBS) segment about Catholic school education. See the transcript and video below.
Saving Catholic Schools
From: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
Date: Jan. 4, 2013
Correspondent: Bob Faw
BOB FAW, correspondent: This enrichment music class at St. Stephen Catholic School in New York City is part of a new experiment to help save Catholic schools.
In a Philadelphia suburb at Conwell-Egan Catholic High School, this too is part of the effort to keep Catholic schools open. Here students devise real solutions for real-world problems.
The new approaches are needed. For the last decade, 26 percent of Catholic schools have closed. Because of the recession, funding is down, the cost of running the schools is up, and enrollments have plummeted.
DR. JOHN CONVEY (Professor of Education, Catholic University): There has been a drop in enrollment, and over the last 30 or 40 years it’s over two million fewer students. From my point of view, it’s a crisis.
FAW: The situation is so dire, says the bishop in charge of the archdiocesan schools in Philadelphia, something entirely different—call it an educational “Hail, Mary”—was needed.
BISHOP MICHAEL FITZGERALD (Archdiocese of Philadelphia): We’re in this because our educational system was imploding. Enrollment-wise, finance-wise, something radical—radical surgery had to be done. We cannot do it the same old way.
FAW: So the archdiocese has now given management of 21 of its schools, including Conwell-Egan and schools in the inner city, to a private foundation called Faith in the Future. It will help sell the schools to potential students and raise millions of dollars by appealing to alumni and wealthy donors, led by former chief of Cigna insurance Ed Hanway, who says the foundation can do what the archdiocese could not.
EDWARD HANWAY (Chairman, Faith in the Future Foundation): The resources of the archdiocese are extremely limited. We can bring resources to bear on certain issues that the archdiocese may not have been able to, For example, admissions management, outreach into the community, and building a formal, structured marketing plan for our schools.
FAW: The education at the schools run by the foundation will remain decidedly Catholic. This theology class for freshmen is still taught by a Franciscan brother. And, as always, students are required to go to mass throughout the year. In just one year here, because of the foundation’s new business model, this school, slated for closing not that long ago, has seen enrollment increase.
JANET DOLLARD (President, Conwell-Egan Catholic High School): We have more freedom, in a sense, in that initiatives that we have are now supported by the Faith in the Future Foundation. So it’s a matter of greater resources, greater leveraging of funds to acquire the resources that we need to be successful.
FAW: Other Catholic schools in large cities often can’t survive because of diminishing funds and rising costs. Gone are the days when nuns, who for a small stipend, did most of the teaching at Catholic schools. Many have been replaced with lay teachers.
CONVEY: Now when you have to pay a living wage to a lay teacher, that started that acceleration of the cost, and when that started to happen, the tuitions didn’t go up fast enough.
FAW: And subsidy funding to these schools from the parishes and archdiocese has dried up because of the recession and changing demographics. If a neighborhood gets poorer, there often isn’t enough money to keep the schools open.
CONVEY: It is an anguishing situation, because the church wants to serve the poor. The church has what it calls a preferential option for the poor, and when the church gets into a difficult situation in terms of financially they’re not able to provide for the poor, that’s very anguishing.
FAW: The Catholic mission of serving the poor is one of the values that the Faith in the Future Foundation is working to maintain. Ed Hanway says the foundation will delegate a portion of its money for scholarships and is supporting many Catholic schools in the inner city.
HANWAY: That’s a terrific opportunity for us to direct funds into those underserved communities where the poorest of the poor exist, and where our schools provide a terrific value for them.
Principal greeting students: Good morning. Good job, Max. Good job. Good morning.
FAW: The neighborhood of this New York City Catholic school was once poor.
Student: Good morning, Ms. Peck.
FAW: But as the area gentrified and principal Katherine Peck was brought in to run St. Stephen, it went from nearly closing to thriving. Inside, there are enrichment programs galore, like this French class…and violin recitals and classes.
Michael and Karen Carbone’s two children, Emily and Michael, attend St. Stephen School.
KAREN CARBONE: We looked at a lot of schools and this school was right up there with the independent schools, especially in terms of the extras and things that it was offering.
FAW: To attract more affluent parents, Katherine Peck offered what expensive independent schools offer, only at a much lower price. To do this she started an aggressive campaign to raise money and got the neighborhood involved.
KATHERINE PECK (Principal, St. Stephen Catholic School). Everything that we’ve done here has been based on the community and student interest, parent interest, and other stakeholders in the school, whether it be parishioners or donors to the school, and so we’ve gone out in the last three years and said, “What is it that you believe you would want in a school for your own child, and how can we make that happen here?”
KAREN CARBONE: To see the demise of Catholic schools has been something that has pained me for years. And the fact that this is doing an about-face, and we’re a part of that, and our children are a part of the school turning around is really—it’s special in a lot of ways for us.
Teacher in classroom: One, seven, three. Next.
FAW: Tuition at St. Stephen averages $6500 a year. Parents are more than willing to pay.
MICHAEL CARBONE: It’s just such a special place. The teachers, the curriculum, I think what we’re looking for was a place that was nurturing, but also a rigorous, rigorous academic program.
FAW: Parents love St. Stephen because of the values a Catholic education helps instill. L.E. Hartman-Ting and Dr. Leon Ting’s twins are in second grade.
L.E. HARTMAN-TING: The values here are, our children are—they’re kind, and being kind and talking about their spirituality are things that happen in the classroom. We have seen our kids evolve. They’re moral creatures, and it’s just so important to us.
FAW: While three-quarters of the students at St. Stephen and Conwell-Egan are Catholic, non-Catholics feel right at home.
LAMOTHE WAHAD (St. Stephen Student): They won’t judge you. Like let’s say I am Baptist. They won’t be, like, “Oh, you’re a Baptist.” They don’t care what religion you are.
FAW (to Emily Conte): Do you feel awkward in any way not being a Catholic? You go to mass, for example.
EMILY CONTE (Conwell-Egan Student): No, it’s just like when they eat the body of Christ, you just cross your arms, and they still, like, everybody accepts you anyways.
FAW: Success at St. Stephen has come at a price: diversity. The percentage of black and Hispanic students is lower now than before. If some grumble that St. Stephen isn’t exactly serving the poor, Katherine Peck begs to differ.
PECK: I don’t think the mission of Catholic schools is just to educate the poor. I think it’s to educate all students and to be tolerant of everyone and to serve a parish and a neighborhood, and before, we weren’t really serving the parishioners, and we weren’t serving the neighborhood. We were barely serving anyone with 156 students, whereas now, today we’re serving 261 students, and we are a neighborhood-based community school.
FAW: The question now is whether the private foundation approach here in Pennsylvania, or that enriched curriculum approach in New York City, are isolated examples or models that can be replicated in financially troubled Catholic schools around the country.
HANWAY: Can that be replicated? I think it can. But our key is let’s make it work here, and let’s learn how we can marry the notion of strong Catholic values, Catholic education, that Catholic identity with much more professional, business-oriented management of these schools.
FAW: At St. Stephen, Katherine Peck agrees there is no magic formula.
PECK: Every school has different needs, so the strategic plan that comes out of it is not a one-size-fits-all. For us, implementing enrichment programmings and changing the way we were teaching and our instruction was a great benefit to us. For another school, it might be having ESL programs and having parent workshops at night.
FAW: Whatever the approach, says Catholic University’s Convey, one ingredient is essential.
CONVEY: Leadership is absolutely critical in any kind of a private school to make sure that the school thrives. Sixty to seventy percent of those schools are at risk because they had a leadership problem at some point, and they’ve never recovered from it. So leadership is the absolute key.
FAW: Although enrollment at Conwell-Egan is growing, and St. Stephen no longer runs at a deficit, it is premature to call each experiment a complete success.
Students in classroom: Oh, it’s coming out, Bill. Oh, oh.
FAW: But these two schools, once perilously close to closing, do give reason for optimism. For now at least, the music has never seemed sweeter.
For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Bob Faw in New York. | <urn:uuid:0787a159-9a3e-46eb-8401-c0855937cdfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inthemedia.cua.edu/2013/convey-pbs.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963192 | 2,294 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Greenwashing is defined as “the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service” and every so often, even the savviest among us can occasionally get the wool pulled over our eyes. Even though there’s now a handy website called the Greenwashing Index that empowers hoodwinked consumers to blow the whistle on the worst offenders, the reality is that some companies are incredibly skilled and even underhanded regarding the way in which they create seemingly genuine eco-campaigns that in reality shroud the truth.
Here’s a sobering reminder that even well-intentioned planet-loving celebrities can succumb to major greenwashing, as apparently was the case when everyone from Sandra Bullock, Blake Lively and John Goodman to Emeril Lagasse, Dave Matthews and Lenny Kravitz appeared in the recent ‘Be The One” public service announcement promoting Gulf coast restoration. The cast of famous faces were simply trying to spread awareness and urge the public to sign a petition demanding that our government bankroll oil clean up efforts. Seems reasonable enough, right? Unfortunately, it turns out that the whole thing was the work of Shell oil-funded front organization America’s Wetland Foundation which was designed to take the heat off of big oil’s fiscal responsibility and instead convince consumers that the BP aftermath should be funded by our government…i.e. taxpayers.
Those with a ‘benefit of the doubt’ frame of mind might be tempted to believe the following claim posted on Shell’s website just two years ago by their president Marvin Odum – that “respect for the environment is integral to how we conduct our business….Shell is proud to help preserve and protect this unique environmental treasure (the Louisiana coastal area) for citizens today and generations to come” – if it weren’t for the current oil spill mess that we’re facing. According to various eco-sleuths, Shell isn’t the only corporation hiding behind America’s Wetland Foundation — add BP, Chevron, Citgo and ExxonMobil to the sludgy mix.
Wisely, Sandra Bullock has just pulled her support of the murky campaign until this whole tangled mess can be verified with hard cold facts, but it’s all incredibly suspicious and more than a few well respected media outlets are crying foul play. Do any of us need another good reason why we should be riding our bikes or hoofing it on a full time basis?
Via Fail Drill | <urn:uuid:9f7df9ef-f942-43e8-a71d-9fd65a052b95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecorazzi.com/2010/07/29/sandra-bullock-pulls-out-of-gulf-greenwashing-campaign/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947907 | 523 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Volume 10, Issue 4 (December 1987)
Parameter Sensitivity of Hydraulic Conductivity Testing Procedure
A methodology is presented that allows researchers to identify which parameters have the largest effect on key parameter(s), and thereby a priori direct investigations to concentrate on the most important area(s) of concern. Laboratory testing is often used in research to establish the effect of one or more parameters on one or more other parameters of concern. Because laboratory testing often is costly as well as time consuming, the number of tests in the laboratory necessarily must be limited. Therefore the effect of only a few parameters, sometimes only one, can be investigated. The choice of parameters to be studied is often made somewhat arbitrarily, and risks exist that the effect of an important parameter is overlooked.
The features of a ruggedness test are explained and its use is illustrated. A series of hydraulic conductivity tests are documented. Seven different parameters are varied in a total of eight tests to study their effects on the hydraulic conductivity. From the results it was possible to identify a select subset of parameters which have the greatest effect on the hydraulic conductivity: water content, lift thickness, and backpressure. Interaction between any two of these parameters, however, may produce confounding effects on the third. The method proved to be very effective and is suggested for application in other areas of investigation. | <urn:uuid:41bd3ae5-c93e-4e6f-b45b-85e64e36d582> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/JOURNALS/GEOTECH/PAGES/GTJ10549J.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931364 | 272 | 2.421875 | 2 |
When I wrote the last post from waste to scarce, I didn’t know, some people are experimenting to manufacture “renewable petroleum” with help of some bacterias, that eat waste and excrete petrol. Interesting!! Ahh!!
Crude oil and so petrol is just few molecular stages removed from acids normally excreted by yeast E coli during fermentation!! Amazing!!
According to Dr. Greg Pal (From LS9 companies, doing R & D on renewable petroleum “To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.” Sound like science fiction.. No? (Courtesy : http://www.nextnature.net/2008/12/bacteria-that-eat-waste-shit-petrol/)
This renewable petroleum is also called Oil 2.0. Dr. Pal claims that it is not only renewable but also carbon negative- meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.
Using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.
Only constraint, not allowing this product to come in market, is space. Space required for production machine to meet today’s demand of petroleum is just unmanageable, when free land is also a scarce resource.
Another company working on similar product is Amyris Biotechnologies. According to it, “the main alternative to petroleum, ethanol (a type of alcohol), is fraught with problems. It can’t be pumped through current infrastructure because it tends to corrode pipelines. And according to University of Minnesota economist Jason Hill, even if all the corn grown in the U.S. were converted to ethanol, it would replace only some 12 percent of the 146 billion gallons of gasoline we use every year. Cellulosic ethanol—fuel produced from the cellulosic matter contained in plant stalks and stems rather than from seeds—would solve that problem, but the technology to produce it on a large scale is still a way off. Plus, ethanol simply isn’t as energy dense as petroleum-based fuels.”
So, friends, lot of promising products are getting ready to bring us out from problems, arising due to scarcity of petroleum. Cheer up now!! | <urn:uuid:376c332a-5850-4af1-8f15-e736f6d9cc49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nomorepetrol.com/57-renewable-petroleum/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943805 | 531 | 2.875 | 3 |
Recently I had the opportunity to spend time with schoolchildren engaging in two activities I believe have the ability to positively change their lives forever.
Last week, I got to read to first-graders at Oklahoma City’s new Cesar Chavez Elementary School. This week, I walked to school with elementary students at Millwood’s prekindergarten through 8th-grade school.
Reading and exercise are two key areas that have enormous benefits for children. What a difference it would make in the lives of children if parents or other caring adults would turn off the TV and take the time to first read a book with them and then take them outside for some exercise and fresh air.
We know in Oklahoma children are not getting enough of either activity. But we have the chance to change that.
Let me share a little of my own experience.
In the second grade, I was struggling a bit. My dad had been promoted several times and we’d moved around, and I was delayed in reading. My second grade teacher, Jane Foresman, made a special effort to work with me. She stayed with me during recess. She not only taught me how to read, she also gave me a love for books.
The self-confidence she gave me was immeasurable. I’m forever grateful for her influence.
As the mother of two very active, athletic sons, I also know how important exercise is in the life of a child.
This week at Millwood, I had the opportunity to visit with Gary Cox, director of the Oklahoma City County Health Department. We discussed studies that show that just the simple activity of walking to school can help reduce childhood obesity and help improve energy and focus in young brains.
So this week, I challenge you: pick a favorite book and read it with a child. Then go out and skate, run, walk, bike, jump rope, swim or any of the other physical activity you might enjoy. I promise the benefit you will see will be worth the effort. | <urn:uuid:e7e57959-ffca-463e-9743-514920230c97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ok.gov/sde/newsblog/2011-10-07/reading-and-exercise-%E2%80%93-two-keys-healthy-children | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980736 | 418 | 2.0625 | 2 |
The top of a spring pendulum (red circle) is moved to and fro - for example by hand; this motion is assumed as harmonic, which means that it is possible to describe the motion by a cosine function. The oscillations of the spring pendulum caused in this way are called forced oscillations.
The "Reset" button brings the spring pendulum to its initial position. You can start or stop and continue the simulation with the other button. If you choose the option "Slow motion", the movement will be five times slower. The spring constant, the mass, the constant of attenuation and the angular frequency of the exciting oscillation can be changed within certain limits. In addition you can select one of three diagrams by using the appropriate radio buttons:
On the whole you can see three different types of behaviour:
If the exciter's frequency is very small (this means that the top of the spring pendulum is moved very slowly), the pendulum will oscillate nearly synchronously with the exciter and nearly with the same amplitude.
If the exciter's frequency agrees with the characteristic frequency of the spring pendulum, the oscillations of the pendulum will build up more and more (resonance); in this case the oscillations are delayed about one fourth of the oscillation period compared with the exciter.
If the exciter's frequency is very high, the resonator will oscillate only with a very small amplitude and nearly the opposite phase.
If the constant of attenuation (the friction) is very small, the transient states will be important too; therefore you have to wait some time in this case to notice the mentioned types of behaviour.
This applet is based on formulas which look rather complicate. If you don't like mathematics, you should click here under no circumstances.
© Walter Fendt, September 9, 1998
Last modification: January 18, 2003 | <urn:uuid:3cade3a9-5d8b-46ba-b734-b2e4901cfcd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tutor-homework.com/Applets_Physics/ph14e/resonance.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931081 | 389 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Consumers are about to get a clearer look at just how many calories they're getting in a bottle of Coke, a bag of Fritos or a handful of Oreo cookies.
Coca-Cola and Pepsico are following the lead of Kraft Foods to retool information on labels of popular products to include details about the nutritional content of entire packages, not just per serving.
The changes, made voluntarily, are in response to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration effort to make Americans amid an obesity epidemic more aware of calories.
Labels on many products that include multiple servings, such as 20-ounce soft drinks, now provide information for a single serving. Consumers are left to figure out on their own how many calories, carbohydrates and so forth are in the whole bottle, can or bag.
"Many times, people probably don't bother to do the math," said Beverly Hernandez, clinical nutrition manager at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta.
Chris Rosenbloom, associate professor of nutrition at Georgia State University, said many consumers don't even realize a 20-ounce bottle of Coke or Pepsi amounts to 2 1/2 servings. "They just assume that it is a single serving," she said.
Overeating has grown into a huge problem in the United States, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating that 64 percent of Americans are overweight and 30 percent are obese. Improving food labels could help cut into the problem, advocates say.
Do the math
The label on a 20-ounce bottle of Coke Classic shows 100 calories per 8-ounce serving, among other details.
Beginning next year, Coke plans to relabel the 20-ounce bottles to add statistics for the entire package, highlighting 240 calories. The amount isn't exactly 2 1/2 times greater because of the FDA's guidelines on rounding.
"The information has always been on the bottle," said Coke spokeswoman Susan McDermott. "This is just a way for people to make it easier."
Kraft started the trend recently, when the giant food and beverage company announced it will revamp labels on packages that offer two to four servings.
Coke followed suit with a similar announcement. Starting later this year, the company's line of regular soft drinks will feature new labels on bottles that contain more than one serving but often are consumed all at once: 20-ounce bottles, 16.9-ounce bottles, 16-ounce bottles and 13.2-ounce bottles.
There won't be changes on bigger packages, such as 24-ounce and 2-liter bottles.
After Coke's announcement, Pepsico said it plans in 2005 to change labels on an array of products, from Pepsi-Cola and Mountain Dew to Frito-Lay chips.
"We're committed to giving consumers the information they need," said Pepsi spokesman Dave DeCecco.
Michael Jacobson, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest activist group, welcomed the changes.
"Twenty-ounce bottles of Coke are really single servings," he said. "There aren't many people who buy a 20-ounce bottle and get out a few cups."
Many food and beverage companies are concerned about highly publicized concerns over obesity and its impact on sales. Analyst Andrew Conway, of Credit Suisse First Boston, doesn't think the labeling changes will hurt the companies' bottom lines.
"Honesty is always the best policy," he said.
With big, influential companies like Coke and Pepsico on board, it's likely that more manufacturers will follow.
"I think a lot of the big companies are going to show some responsibility with this issue," Georgia State's Rosenbloom said. "They'd rather do it voluntarily than have the government tell them what to do."
Whether the change will make a difference in obesity is a matter of conjecture.
"Will it change consumer behavior? I don't know," Rosenbloom said. "I'd like to think that it would." | <urn:uuid:2655c331-5178-417e-9235-59b44dd0d1bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-10-24/features/0410240491_1_food-labels-bottles-coke-classic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960479 | 812 | 2.1875 | 2 |
The Scales of Justice in Love and Work
This month's column will discuss the powerful Saturn-Pluto square in effect now and its appearance in popular culture. The once-a-year Sun-Neptune conjunction, with its potential for transcendent and mystical experience harmonizes with Venus' move into her exalted status in Pisces, but Valentine's energy can also be intense with the Mercury-Mars opposition. In honor of Valentine's Day, I will briefly mention the complex and important archetype of Juno, the karmic partner, who I will be writing about next month.
Saturn-Pluto and Undercover Boss
After this year's Super Bowl, CBS aired a fascinating show which perfectly captures the Saturn-Pluto square occurring in the sky all year. Here is the premise for the reality series Undercover Boss, from the website:
"Each week a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their company. While working alongside their employees, they will see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their company run."
Until 2012, Saturn travels through Libra, its sign of exaltation. Libra's symbol is the scales of justice. Libra asks us to consider the needs of others first, to harmonize our motivations, action, and energies with the state of those around us. Saturn is exalted in Libra because the symbols of Saturn -- employment, social roles, the structures of society -- all function much more efficiently and gracefully when an egalitarian approach is used to mediate an appropriate course of action. Ideally, all perspectives are highly valued and considered equally important.
Pluto, in an exact square with Saturn right now, is unveiling the hidden dimensions of the Capricorn archetype -- Who are these executives running the world? What drives them? How will their humanity seep through the professional mask? What is truly successful in our management of resources? Pluto in Capricorn asks how do we function most efficiently as a society, as a business, as a collective? Where are the inequalities in the power structures? How does hierarchy often ignore the needs of the average person, the actual laborer?
The tense Saturn-Pluto square can function as our conscience, irritating and frustrating us. We feel that something is wrong and needs to change. We perceive duality quite obviously under this transit, and many people will project their inner demons onto an enemy out there. This is the individual human choice. The executives of these corporations are choosing to lift their self-imposed veil. Perhaps their motivations are only to discover a means to a more efficiently running corporation. I imagine the motivations are more complex than this. In any case, these Saturn-Capricornian executive archetypes are choosing to descend into Pluto's underworld. This is their version of a shamanic experience, dismembering their shielded identity, essentially becoming more human in the process. The potential reconciliation of boss-employee, of the haves and have nots, of first and third world is tremendous under this Saturn-Pluto square. As we all persist through this Saturn-Pluto transit, we are invited to surrender into our own personal underworld, the caverns of the unconscious, and let go of that which no longer serves us. This transit can definitely promote a fear vibration, and we may see more people freaking out in chaotic outbursts. Transmuting this dark shadow, shamanic, cathartic practices that support release and regeneration will help us navigate the inner friction clawing its way to the surface.
Valentine Venus and New Moon Community
The week before and after Valentine's Day, the Sun makes its once a year transit over the conjunction of Chiron and Neptune at 25 degrees. Aquarius, just before he moves into Pisces. But on Saturday night, the Moon goddess saunters in to cozy up with the Sun for the New Moon on this potent quintuple conjunction, also involving Venus. We should be setting our intentions deeply into our Aquarian tribes of kindred souls. We have an opportunity to receive potent visions these next few weeks on what a healing, sustainable community feels like. With this new moon, we should allow this dialogue to circulate as the cosmic energy supports the band of revolutionary mystics seeding earth's new paradigm.
Valentines weekend and the week following Valentine's Day are ideal times for visionary spiritual journeys. Each year, these two weeks amplify our ability to receive spirit's message, to channel, download, and become a conduit for divine love and transcendent art. The artist will awaken in proportion to their capacity to meditate and listen. With Chiron in the mix, the potential for healing vibrations to be channeled is even more pronounced. Sound healing events, art parties, and nurturing, unifying tribal gatherings will be blessed by this transit.
With the veils so thin, we should be giving attention to our dreams and be present to the prophecies and synchronicities bubbling up all around us. What is the cosmic message we are receiving at this time? The only downside is that we may feel foggy during this passage as well, since Neptune dissolves boundaries and blurs realities. With Venus moving into Pisces, the potential for tantric bliss and divine reflection is awakened with our beloveds, but we may lose the ability to discriminate our emotions from another's. Sensitivity and tel-empathy increase in the coming month, so we should be extra direct with our communications to avoid confusion, as well as shield ourselves from negative energies easily absorbed in our environment. Giving ourselves through some kind of service and allowing our ambitions to quiet their grip on us so our spirituality can evolve are the best ways to work with the inflowing energy.
This Valentine's weekend should be one of the most passionate on record as Mercury opposes Mars, compelling us to highly dramatic conversation. We should use our words to inspire positive and motivating communication and be careful of hot tempers. The "hot" factor should get real juicy on Sunday the 14th as the Moon in Pisces dances with the lush combination of the moist planets, Venus and Jupiter in Pisces. The impulse to intoxicate and indulge will be overwhelming, so surround yourself with beloved(s) and channel this conjunction with the blossomed heart chakra. Make sure a hot tub is prepped and get ready for a stream-of-consciousness that could inspire us with visions and increased faith towards this summer's approaching transformational breakthroughs.
Juno -- Your Soul Contracts
When it comes to relationships in astrology, we often hear about Venus. She represents the highest version of the feminine. But there is a relationship archetype that I have begun focusing on more in my readings, my research, and the study of my own chart -- her name is Juno, and she is what many astrologers refer to as the symbol of the marriage partner. In most of your significant relationships, you can bet that Juno makes a strong appearance, and she has a lot to say! I wish to share my findings on Juno with you all in a special feature next month. And I will be speaking about her and Venus in Denver on the 16th of February. If you would like an audio copy of the lecture, please let me know. They are available on sliding scale. And stay tuned to the voice of the cosmos!
Image by Dominic's pics, courtesy of Creative Commons license. | <urn:uuid:6054bbab-c543-4502-8c9e-0733a2df8342> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realitysandwich.com/scales_justice_love_and_work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944832 | 1,539 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approved several draft amendments for spotted seatrout regulations on Thursday that would open recreational harvest year-round and expand commercial fishing opportunities.
The FWC has managed spotted seatrout for more than 20 years to help rebuild overfished populations. A 2010 stock assessment of spotted seatrout in Florida indicated that the annual management goals for spotted seatrout are consistently being exceeded across the state.
As a result, the FWC is proposing to increase fishing opportunities for spotted seatrout in Florida. The proposal would open current recreational closed months by removing the current February closure in North Florida (Flagler through Nassau counties and Pasco through Escambia counties) and the November-through-December closure in South Florida (Volusia through Pinellas counties), allowing spotted seatrout to be harvested year-round in all areas of Florida.
In addition, Commissioners asked staff to look into increasing the recreational bag limit in the Northeast Region, increasing the commercial fishing season from three months to five months, allowing sale of seatrout inventory for 30 days after the commercial season closes, and creating a vessel limit of 150 seatrout when two licensed commercial fishermen are on board.
A final public hearing on the proposed spotted seatrout rules will occur during the November FWC meeting in Key Largo.
More information regarding the FWC’s spotted seatrout draft rule is available in the online agenda at www.MyFWC.com/Commission. A final public hearing on these rule proposals will take place at the FWC’s meeting in November. | <urn:uuid:e7419933-458a-4be4-bab5-e12b1375e9f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportfishingmag.com/news/fwc-proposes-expanding-spotted-seatrout-fishing?quicktabs_most_popular=2&quicktabs_community_side_bar=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960141 | 331 | 1.664063 | 2 |
View Full Version : Pattern for diagonal lines in a scarf please?
04-14-2007, 10:04 AM
Just to save me having to think and think :-) Does anyone have a pattern on hand that will allow me to knit a scarf say in stockinette (any other stitch but cable would be fine) but will give me diagonal 'concave' lines or troughs through that? There may be some stitches through that but I'd like the majority of the diagonal line to be like a trough.
Thanks in anticipation.
04-14-2007, 10:13 AM
:?? Do you have a picture of what you have in mind...?
04-14-2007, 10:23 AM
No. Is my description too vague? I sat fiddling one night in front of the TV and began the basic idea. Perhaps I need to achieve the 'look' I want and then graph it or come back and explain the sort of knit style and see if someone may have a pattern that way. But I certainly want the troughs to be 'lower' if possible that the rest of the knitting. Perhaps I need to garter stitch and then have the diagonals as 'knit' sections. I think that would achieve the basic 'look' but I'm just not mad keen on garter necessarily. Depends on the yarn. I doubt a change in needle size alone would achieve it.
04-14-2007, 10:51 AM
I think you can get what you want by doing alternating bands of stockinette stitch and reverse stockinette stitch, but I'm stuck on the diagonal, unless you do it as a diagonal knit. Maybe something like this... http://www.magknits.com/warm05/patterns/rib.htm or this - http://artyarns.com/newsite/html/E114.htm
A few years ago I knitted a scarf using stockinette and reverse stockinette and it had an undulated effect. Mine was just knitted straight across, not diagonal. I think for a diagonal, I would alternate the stockinette and reverse stockinette within the row and move the pattern over by one stitch in each row, eg., k5, p5. k5, p5 on the first row. The second row, p1, k5, p5, k5, p4, etc. I don't know how experienced you are, but if you are fairly new to knitting, I think this would be easier than increasing and deceasing at the ends and keeping in pattern.
Does this make sense?
04-14-2007, 06:48 PM
maybe you'd like my pattern?
It has diagonal stripes.
04-14-2007, 07:56 PM
Hi ladies. Thanks for the tips. You know the 'fur on the bias' is the closest one to what I have in my head.
Hummingbird, that's a pretty pattern and I'd actually welcome it but in this case I want what cmk is calling the undulating effect. I'm working to finish an item now and then will try that patterning cmk on a couple of different yarn types and see if I can achieve the effect.
04-14-2007, 08:07 PM
I just CO the "A Scart Askew" from Magknits. It's for my brother for Christmas. Maybe this is what you are looking for.
04-14-2007, 08:56 PM
Hi Jill, I put that into a google search and didn't come up with anything.
The fur on a bias one..the second image link offered by suzeeq is the look I'm after - I called it troughs but perhaps hills and valleys might be a better way to describe.
04-14-2007, 09:37 PM
This (http://www.magknits.com/Mar07/patterns/askew.htm)is the one that Jill is talking about... you could just make the furrows in it wider.
04-14-2007, 10:37 PM
five_six. Thank you so much. Looks exactly what I need with, as you say, a slightly extended furrow.. | <urn:uuid:781023aa-dce6-4da8-9a0f-a93c1aba43da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knittinghelp.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-57126.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938588 | 883 | 1.765625 | 2 |
October 23, 2012 in America's Collapse, Economic Deception, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Hope and Change, Obama's America 2016, Political Deception, Politics, President Obama, Propaganda by carlos
Journalists come to Obama’s aid after Romney’s ‘apology tour’ attack
By Brent Baker Published October 23, 2012 FoxNews.com
“The high point of that debate for Romney is when he devastatingly leveled the charge of Obama going around the world on ‘an apology tour,’” columnist Charles Krauthammer asserted on the Fox News Channel following Monday night’s third presidential debate.
But what Krauthammer saw as so powerful for Mitt Romney, the mainstream outlets tried to discredit based on the flimsy reasoning that Obama didn’t actually say the word “apologize.” News media “fact-checkers” just can’t accept the characterization that President Barack Obama ever went on anything like “an apology tour” and they were quick to “correct” Romney for daring to make the charge. Obama knew he had journalists as allies and so responded to Romney by contending “every fact-checker and every reporter who’s looked at it, Governor, has said this is not true.” But the Dictionary.com definition of apology is “a written or spoken expression of one’s regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another.” Krauthammer, a contributor to Special Report with Bret Baier, humorously dismissed the journalists’ defense of Obama as “about as weak an answer you can get.” He proceeded to paraphrase Romney’s response in the which the GOP presidential candidate quoted Obama “saying that we ‘dictate’ to other nations and Romney said we do not dictate to other nations, we liberate them.” Romney’s retort left Obama “utterly speechless,” Krauthammer observed. ABC and CNN stepped up to speak for the President. Minutes after the Boca Raton debate, ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos queried: “Any glaring misstatements by either candidate?” Jonathan Karl zeroed in on Romney for claiming “the President went on an apology tour when he became President.” Karl told viewers “we’ve looked at all those speeches in those first foreign trips” and insisted: “The President didn’t apologize for America. He did acknowledge some mistakes that the United States had made, but there’s no way you could really call it ‘an apology tour.’” CNN outright called the characterization “False,” plastering that on screen next to John Berman who acknowledged “when the President took office, he did travel to several countries talking about American foreign policy.” Berman cited one Obama quote which Romney had recounted, how in France Obama “said America has ‘shown arrogance’ and had ‘been dismissive, even derisive.’” Yet Berman, who apparently doesn’t understand the concept of a metaphor, refused to acknowledge that constitutes apologizing for America, maintaining it’s false because Obama never specifically uttered “apologize.” “In none of these speeches,” Berman asserted, “none of them in Europe or the Middle East or here at home – did President Obama use the world apology or say he’s sorry.” So, “our verdict here is it is false to call the President’s speeches ‘an apology tour’ even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy. He issued no apologies.” There’s hardly a shortage, however, of examples of Obama chastising past U.S. foreign policy, so many so that just five months into Obama’s term the Heritage Foundation was able to produce a “Top 10 Apologies” list, starting with the speech in France which Berman quoted. Among the instances cited by Heritage’s Nile Gardiner and Morgan Lorraine Roach: – At a Summit of the Americas, Obama regretted how “at times we sought to dictate our terms.” In an op-ed about policy toward the America’s, Obama declared: “Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors.” – Speaking to the Turkish parliament, Obama rationalized: “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history.” – Addressing CIA employees about an administration report which castigated the use of enhanced interrogation techniques against terrorist suspects, the President urged: “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes.” - In a speech, Obama denounced the techniques used in the war on terror: “Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us – Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists, and citizens – fell silent.” – In that same address at the National Archives, he went into full apology mode over Guantanamo: “There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against Al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law.” Obama’s got extra ammunition going into the election knowing the press corps will do their best to disarm potent attacks on topics where Obama is vulnerable amongst swing state voters. Brent Baker is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center where he oversees the NewsBusters blog. He’s on Twitter as BrentHBaker. | <urn:uuid:8f7cd196-1257-403e-b4f7-c03085a9dadb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://massteaparty.org/2012/10/obama-apology-tour-revisited-see-video-do-you-remember-this/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954449 | 1,247 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The author of Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? discusses the Shakespeare authorship question.
Q: When and why did the controversy over who wrote Shakespeare’s plays arise?
A: Until I began researching my book the answer I would have given (based on the standard authorities, who agree on this) was 1785, when James Wilmot first claimed that Francis Bacon was the true author of the plays. But I eventually discovered that the document on which this claim was based is a forgery—so can say with some confidence that the controversy is more recent than that, dating back no further than the 1840s.
Q: How has the Internet given this longstanding controversy new life?
A: By the 1970s the authorship controversy was on life-support—and the anti-Stratfordians admitted as much. But the Internet, a breeding ground for all sorts of theories, including conspiracy theories, has breathed new life into the movement. Wikipedia provides a level playing field (and, more recently, a bitter battleground for opposing sides). If you look into the controversy online you’ll discover that anti-Stratfordians are way ahead of mainstream scholars in promoting their cause.
Q: Who are some of the very famous proponents of the notion that Shakespeare is not the author of the plays attributed to him?
A: The controversy has attracted some leading thinkers and artists. Among the most prominent have been Sigmund Freud, Helen Keller, Henry James, and Mark Twain. Among more recent advocates are Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Stevens, leading actors Mark Rylance and Sir Derek Jacobi, and film director Roland Emmerich.
Q: Who are the leading candidates proposed as the true authors of Shakespeare’s work?
A: For the first 70 years of the controversy the leading candidate was Sir Francis Bacon. Since the 1920s the Earl of Oxford has had the most support, though Christopher Marlowe is currently rising in popularity. But there are over 50 others, all with avid supporters, many with websites promoting their cause. And a new candidate surfaces every year or so.
Q: What are the major arguments against Shakespeare being the author of the plays?
A: First, that there’s not a lot of evidence about Shakespeare’s life, education, and learning, and even less evidence linking him directly to the plays. If you look at all this from a modern perspective, it certainly looks suspicious. Which leads to the second major argument, also grounded in a modern perspective: that there must have been some kind of conspiracy to cover-up the true authorship of the plays. There’s a third argument, and, not surprisingly, this too is grounded in how we think about writing today: if we assume that the plays are autobiographical (and even leading Shakespeare professors concede as much) then the life we find in the works corresponds a lot more closely to those of rival candidates than it does to the life of Shakespeare of Stratford.
Q: How do you and other defenders of Shakespeare’s authorship answer these arguments?
A: I spend the last quarter of the book setting out the evidence, and to my mind it’s pretty conclusive. There’s plenty of evidence that can be found in the printed texts of his plays, small details that confirm that only a man of the theater could have written these plays. And then there’s further confirmation, overwhelming really, provided by other Elizabethan poets, dramatists, and historians—all of whom of whom knew Shakespeare and whose recollections indicate that the man from Stratford did indeed write the plays. | <urn:uuid:4d6cfee3-9d3c-46d4-8278-a037b716fa1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=3464 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961449 | 746 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 5:50 PMWebmaster Level: Intermediate
Google uses numerous sources to find new webpages, from links we find on the web to submitted URLs. We aim to discover new pages quickly so that users can find new content in Google search results soon after they go live. We recently launched a feature that uses RSS and Atom feeds for the discovery of new webpages.
RSS/Atom feeds have been very popular in recent years as a mechanism for content publication. They allow readers to check for new content from publishers. Using feeds for discovery allows us to get these new pages into our index more quickly than traditional crawling methods. We may use many potential sources to access updates from feeds including Reader, notification services, or direct crawls of feeds. Going forward, we might also explore mechanisms such as PubSubHubbub to identify updated items.
In order for us to use your RSS/Atom feeds for discovery, it's important that crawling these files is not disallowed by your robots.txt. To find out if Googlebot can crawl your feeds and find your pages as fast as possible, test your feed URLs with the robots.txt tester in Google Webmaster Tools. | <urn:uuid:7f6a82c8-f953-482b-92db-d0bf5d2b1f63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/using-rssatom-feeds-to-discover-new.html?showComment=1257262353664 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935177 | 246 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life
is a 1976
book by Marxist economists Samuel Bowles
and Herbert Gintis
. Widely considered a groundbreaking work in sociology of education
, it argues the ‘correspondence principle’ explains how the internal organisation of schools corresponds to the internal organisation of the capitalist
workforce in its structures, norms, and values. For example, the hierarchy system in schools reflects the structure of the labour market
, with the head teacher as the managing director, pupils fall lower down in the hierarchy. Wearing uniforms, and discipline is promoted as it would be in the workplace. Education provides knowledge of how to interact in the workplace and gives direct preparation for entry into the labour market.
They also believe work casts a ‘long shadow’ in education – education is used by the bourgeoisie
to control the workforce. From their point of view schools reproduce existing inequalities and they reject the notion that there are equal opportunities for all. In this way they argue that education justifies and explains social inequality.
The book is now considered the key text for the Marxist theory of sociology of education.
Bowles and Gintis have been criticised-
- Brown and Lauder (1991) argue that Bowles and Gintis have simplified the correspondence between education and the labour market. They go on further to state that there are changes in the...... | <urn:uuid:41fcc9fc-181f-4ce0-ac92-341199706ff4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pages.rediff.com/schooling-in-capitalist-america--educational-reform-and-the-contradictions-of-economic-life/1016719 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932035 | 290 | 2.84375 | 3 |
This morning there is more news on the oil spill I referenced yesterday in Loose Feathers. The discharged fuel oil is not confined to San Francisco Bay, but has oozed out along the Pacific coast. The extent of the spill may be partly due to the slow response of the Coast Guard.
Rescuers are trying to help injured birds before they succumb to poisoning or hypothermia.
The biologist was one of dozens of volunteers who fanned out Friday to try to protect sensitive wetlands threatened by a creeping mass of fuel oil that poured out of the container ship Cosco Busan when it hit the Bay Bridge on Wednesday.The Oiled Wildlife Care Network put out a call for birders to check less-traveled parts of the Bay Area and report oiled birds. See Creek Running North and Born Again Bird Watcher for details.
A giant, luminescent plume moved north along the coast all day, depositing foul-smelling sludge on beaches from Fort Baker in the Marin Headlands to Stinson Beach. The coastal inlets along the headlands were a disaster area, with ooze staining the rocks and sand. Dozens of birds were covered with the stuff, including a red-tailed hawk found in the hills above Sausalito that apparently had attacked an oiled seabird. ...
Rodeo Beach, a popular surfing spot and a favorite location during the winter for a duck known as the surf scoter, was particularly hard hit by the spill. But the plume did not stop there. The slick washed what National Park Service officials called "bowling-ball-size globules" onto Muir Beach, and oil was reported as far north as Red Rock Beach, next to Stinson Beach.
Chris Powell, the spokeswoman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, said the Coast Guard and National Park Service staff were determining what areas are in the most danger and which sensitive habitat is in need of protection.
"The lagoons at Rodeo and Muir beaches are considered highly sensitive areas," Powell said. The Coast Guard labeled Rodeo Beach in particular as a "high-priority area." | <urn:uuid:e84fea78-6081-44bb-93dc-80e409ba3e80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dendroica.blogspot.com/2007/11/oil-spill-in-california.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965325 | 438 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Arriving in Dawson
"Men, on arrival here, have suddenly found out the unlimited opportunities for getting suddenly rich will not be reached no matter how great their capacity for enduring work and hardships."
~ Alfred McMichael, Stampeder, 1898.
~ Detail from The Klondike Nugget, June 23, 1898.
Most stampeders felt disappointed when they reached Dawson. Local miners had claimed all the gold-bearing creeks up to a year earlier.
Without gold "for the taking," late arrivals milled about town. Many went home. Some found jobs in and around Dawson. People made good wages working another miner’s claim, or in saloons, hotels, and other support positions. Others looked for gold on nearby creeks but rarely found any.
The irony of the gold rush was that after risking their lives and fortunes on the journey, most stampeders never struck it rich.
Disappointed stampeders lived in their boats while deciding what to do. 1898.
~ Detail from Hegg 612.
Many people sold their outfits before heading home. 1898. Photographer Unknown.
The Klondike Nugget
The UW Libraries has a complete run, 1898-1903, of the publisher's copy of The Klondike Nugget, an American owned and operated Canadian newspaper located in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, during the Klondike Gold Rush. The Nugget, unlike many other gold rush frontier newspapers, was multidimensional, so that in addition to boilerplate, it astutely covered mining, political, and social events. The beginning of a frontier community, development of municipal government, interrelationship between local and federal politics, social and cultural events, and eccentric characters such as Diamond Tooth Gertie and Captain Jack Crawford, are documented. The Nugget represents an American view of Canadian politics and life seen through the eyes of its Seattle publisher.
The microfiche index includes the entire run of the newspaper. Over 28,000 citations provide the researcher access to a multiplicity of Library of Congress subject headings, personal and corporate names, and geographic locations. A separate business index is appended at the end of the Nugget index. | <urn:uuid:40bc9283-5bd2-4c5e-a9b6-bfed461f1d89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/collections/exhibits/klondike/case1112 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950724 | 450 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Even as residents continue to line up to apply for gun and carry/conceal permits, the county’s law enforcement chiefs are lining their sights on mental health issues that they say are the far bigger problem when it comes to tragedies like those that have occurred in Newtown, Aurora and other parts of the country.
As many as 60 residents a week are currently applying for permits, so many, in fact, that the Sheriff’s Department has had to cut back on times when they will actually hand them out. Now, those seeking applications — or checking on permits — must come in the office Tuesday,Wednesday or Thursday, from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., to get them. None will be handed out or accepted on Mondays and Fridays, according to Sgt. Robbie Carter.
Residents have been flocking to get their permits ever since word broke that President Barack Obama was trying to get new gun control laws passed through Congress. It hasn’t happened yet, but locals aren’t taking any chances.
Sheriff Jimmy Thornton and Clinton Police Chief Jay Tilley see no problem with law-abiding citizens getting their permits or owning guns. In fact, they see mental health issues as the area that needs tackling first, long before the government tries to tamper with what both call already good laws.
“Certainly we’ve got to make sure we don’t put guns in the hands of individuals with a prison record or mental health issues, but I think the laws we currently have take care of that,” said Thornton. “We need due diligence through background checks, and I think a really good job is being done with that. But we are missing the point, if we’re looking at banning guns.”
Thornton said it is the rapidly rising mental health issues that exist in Sampson and “everywhere else,” that are being left to fester and are often the driving force behind many crimes that occur, including mass murders like those that have taken places at schools and movie theaters of late.
“There’s a lot of mental illness out there,” Thornton attested. “We deal with it every day, and I know what I’m talking about. Our numbers right here in this county are high, and I’m certain it’s that way across the nation. It’s difficult for people to get the help they need today, and that needs to change.”
Tilley agrees. “We’ve got great folks working in mental health fields here; they just don’t have enough resources to deal with the problems that exist. And something needs to be done about those problems. I think they are escalating and there’s really no solution in sight.”
Thornton believes the existing process for permitting those who want guns is an effective one. “A thorough job is done on background checks in my opinion. I’m not aware of any loopholes that exist. There may be, and if there are, they need to be eliminated, but it’s usually not those who have a permit that commit the kind of mass murders we are talking about.”
Those with any kind of blemish on their record, the sheriff pointed out, aren’t given a permit; it’s as simple as that.
“Really, you’ve got to be squeaky clean to get a carry/conceal permit. If you have any kind of criminal history, a pattern of mental illness, those kinds of things will show up when we do the checks.”
But Thornton and Tilley said it’s usually not those who go through the proper channels that end up with guns and then use those guns to commit crimes.
“I’m not sure there’s an answer to keeping them out of the hands of criminals,” Tilley admitted. “Usually the weapons they have in their possession are stolen or they get it from a family member.”
Thornton said it was rare for anyone to come to his department to get a permit if they’ve have a bad record. “You just don’t see that. It’s rare to have someone come in that’s got even the slightest blemish on their record because they know it would automatically disqualify them.”
“It’s not legal gun owners that are usually the problem,” the sheriff stressed. “It’s the criminal element out there that is getting their hands on weapons, and, of course, those with mental issues, addictions, those kind of things that have access to weapons as well.”
And putting the spotlight on those mental health issues needs to be a top priority, not taking guns out of the hands of residents, the two top law enforcement officers stress.
While both Thornton and Tilley acknowledge that guns in the wrong hands cause problems, they say that’s the easy target for a much larger problem.
“Guns are the obvious problem,” the police chief said, “because a gun is used to do heinous acts, but is it the root of the problem? I really don’t think so, not alone, anyway. When you delve into it, you see that mental health is always at the top of the list and then, of course, how they got the weapon. And most of the time, the how is that the circumvent the law in some way.”
Mental health issues, the two said, run the gamut and include issues that arise from those addicted to alcohol, drugs or, in many cases, both.
“Over time, we’ve seen less and less money set aside to deal with mental health issues,” Thornton said. “We used to have mental health centers in every county, now we have regional ones. The folks that work in this area do a great job, but limited funds means limited care, it’s just that simple. You can only do what you have the money to do.”
Thornton said the very nature of drug and alcohol addiction makes it difficult for the habits to be kicked without avenues for extended assistance, something not readily available any more.
“Look, you can have someone committed and before the paper work is done, they can be out again,” Tilley said.
Thornton agrees. “On a voluntary commitment, a person is lucky to be there three days. You don’t cure someone in three days.”
With 20-25 percent of all cases handled by the Sheriff’s Department stemming from some type of mental health issue, Thornton said, it’s a good sign that there’s a serious problem.
“It’s a telling sign and one that we don’t need to keep ignoring,” Thornton said.
While both admit there is no easy solution to the mental health problems that exists, Thornton and Tilley said it is time for the issue to be closely scrutinized.
“It should be given the attention that guns are given, if not more so. The thing is, it costs a lot of money to treat people … but in my estimation it’s worth every dime. It can fix a lot of problems, but then again, do we ever deal with the true problem,” Thornton said. “We don’t; we usually just deal with the symptoms.” | <urn:uuid:3ac5c4eb-1505-4464-bc51-41f77af7324b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clintonnc.com/view/full_story/21749386/article-The-gun-control-debate?instance=popular | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967062 | 1,577 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Scout hopes service project is shining example
In a bid for Eagle, Esser makes hydrants stand out
Greendale - Mike Esser's Eagle Scout project is a fine reflection of his dedication to serve the community.
Esser, a 16-year-old junior at Thomas More High School, spent a good part of this past summer leading an effort to place reflective tape on all 650 fire hydrants throughout the village.
The dark green hydrants could not be easily spotted in the dark before the tape was applied.
Talk led to project
Esser said he had no idea what project he would end up taking on when he walked into the police station to interview Police Chief Bob Malasuk six months ago.
"We talked about all kinds of things such as safety concerns around Southridge and the high school," Esser said. "I told him I was looking for a project to do for my merit badge. I never expected to get an answer."
Knowing there was a need to better identify the hydrants, the chief connected Esser to Public Works Director Mark Uecker.
"When I first heard of the need, I thought it was interesting," Esser said. "I did not know much about the hydrants."
He got a thorough education when Uecker helped him reproduce a map of the hydrant sites throughout the village. From there, Esser said, he began organizing four other Scouts and soliciting transportation from adults who could take them to each of the hydrants.
"We had to wait a little while (because) the tape was on order," Esser said. "We worked through June and July because Mr. Uecker wanted to get everything done by August."
Esser said he learned a lot from the project.
"I had never been to the water building before," he said. "I did not know that Mr. Uecker had a staff, and I really didn't know anything about all the hydrants in Greendale. Some of them were very hidden. The maps were helpful, but they were not exact, so we had to search for those."
Work to be done
While the physical part of the project is complete, Esser now has to write a full report about his experience, and provide photographic documentation. The report will be reviewed and, if accepted, Esser will have earned his merit badge.
"I definitely had a great time," he said. "It was a good leadership experience. I think everyone should go into Scouting, because it teaches life skills, including how to deal with people and how to relate and be polite."
Esser's work was a benefit to the community.
"We really needed to do something about those hydrants, because they are so hard to see," Uecker said. "We got the idea of the tape from New Berlin. We just needed some help in getting it done. It's nice to see young people step forward and volunteer."
Esser's father, also named Mike, said he has watched his son and others grow through Scouting.
"When I was young, I only went through Cub Scouts," the elder Esser said. "Now I am involved in my son's Scouting activities. These kids mature right in front of your eyes. It's cool that he was able to do something for the community he lives in. A lot of times Scouting helps in other areas and towns, but this time it's nice he could do something for Greendale."
Young Esser's grandfather, a Muskego resident, even helped.
"We have a lot of Scouts in our family," Michael Derdzinski said, noting his own Scouting days were interrupted by World War II.
"We lived and raised our family in Greendale so I was happy to help drive the kids around to all the hydrants. This teaches them civic responsibility. It was fun to be part of it."
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- Man threatens to become violent if blood-alcohol test conducted
- Greendale police arrest man for 22nd offense of shoplifting
- Greendale's valedictorians honored at ceremony
- Police Report: June 18
- Police Report: June 11
- Greendale, Milwaukee County come to agreement on bike trail lawsuit
- Temporary principal had short, but vision-filled tenure
- Police Report: June 4
- Greendale's Kirstan Brodie aces ACT
- Police Report: May 21 | <urn:uuid:e8d769c8-bd5b-4035-baae-00f8eb9ead82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greendalenow.com/news/178991501.html?_escaped_fragment_=page=1%26viewAll=0%26sort=oldestfirst%26pageSize=50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985947 | 959 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Carol Award: Suspense/Thriller: Finalist: Medical Error
Title: Medical Error
Author: Richard L. Mabry
Publisher: Abingdon Press (Barbara Scott, Editor)
Reviewed by: Darlo Gemeinhardt
Drug Warning! Be sure you have taken all your medications before you read Richard L. Mabry’s latest medical suspense, especially your blood pressure medicine, you’ll need it.
Gripping descriptions transport you into the medical world, making you feel as if you are in the operating room.
Mabry captures my attention from the first line, “Eric Hatley’s last day alive began routinely enough” to the heart-stopping conclusion and the crisis plaguing Dr. Anna McIntyre’s life: the death of a patient, an identity theft, and a positive HIV test with her name on it. Things couldn’t get any worse, or could they?
Mabry is not only a skilled surgeon but also a skilled writer. He carefully builds the plot one layer at a time, weaving in Christian themes so unobtrusively that you hardly notice they’re there. This would be a good book to give to your non-Christian friends.
Gripping descriptions transport you into the medical world, making you feel as if you are in the operating room. It’s obvious the writer knows what he’s writing about, yet the language never gets so technical that you feel lost or patronized.
There are a few clichés, but hey, I like them. What’s important is the relevance of the theme for today’s reader—identity theft. By following the daily routine of the character Dr. Anna McIntyre, we see how easily our own identity could be stolen. We get a glimpse of our own carelessness with our wallets, checkbooks, and even our mail. We see the need to be careful to protect our own identity. I recommend you secure a copy today. It won’t be an error on your part.
Buy this book | <urn:uuid:0bdbf34a-8ae2-49f8-a62c-ce194b0a40db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.acfw.com/ezine/article/carol_award_suspense_thriller_finalist20111/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916661 | 439 | 1.632813 | 2 |
At the Oracle OpenWorld event, the database giant revealed some details about its Java roadmap. Oracle unsurprisingly wants to continue improving Java Enterprise Edition, but the company also highlighted its commitment to improving client-side Web support and mobile application development with JavaFX.
The Java programming language plays an important role in facilitating third-party mobile application development, but the standard J2ME stack is increasingly being displaced on smartphones by custom frameworks or native toolkits because it doesn't enable developers to create competitive user experiences. Java has long since lost to Flash for client-side Web development for similar reasons.
JavaFX was an important part of Sun's strategy for fighting back and restoring Java's client-side relevance, but it was poorly communicated and weakly executed. Oracle is pulling the pieces together and attempting to revitalize JavaFX with the hope of making it fulfill its original potential. One of the major goals is to boost JavaFX performance and integrate it more seamlessly with the standard Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Hardware-accelerated rendering and heavy ARM optimization will make it a better fit for mobile environments.
When Sun launched JavaFX, the company also introduced a specialized scripting language called JavaFX Script. Due to some poor branding practices by Sun, there was a lot of confusion among third-party developers, who often conflated the language and the framework. The scripting language had some nice, Python-inspired features and a declarative syntax for describing user interfaces, but it proved to be too slow, it insulated application developers too much from more powerful Java features, and it never really gained much popularity.
"We are very excited about the upcoming enhancements to JavaFX, which will enable it to become the premier environment for rich client applications," said Oracle's Java Client Group director Nandini Ramani in a statement. "With new Java APIs, Java developers will be able to incorporate powerful JavaFX capabilities into their applications with greater ease. New hardware-accelerated graphics and HTML rendering capabilities will unlock possibilities and enable a new wave of innovative applications."
The coming overhaul could bring some welcome improvements for Java developers, but there are still some major challenges. The biggest problem is still fragmentation. It's not really clear how many J2ME-enabled devices can properly run JavaFX applications. As far as I know, it doesn't even work on Blackberry handsets, for example. Until it is more broadly supported and there is a clearer picture of where it will work and where it won't work, it's unlikely to be embraced by developers.
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In this talk, Dr. Doris A. Taylor will discuss the discovery and application of new knowledge and technologies to improve patient care and to prevent cardiovascular disease. She will share how building new cell- and organ-based solutions for severe diseases could affect millions of patients who suffer from or who are at risk for these diseases. Taylor is working to “engineer” cardiac muscle, valves and vasculature, with many of these technologies now progressing to first-in-human use trials.
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- Class of 2013: What Starts Here Changes the World (Seriously) May 13, 2013 | <urn:uuid:804261f2-7b9a-4535-8bb4-2fa50376c725> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utexas.edu/news/tag/vasculature/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923733 | 147 | 2.125 | 2 |