text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Guitar Hero 5 Additional Strategies
You're prepared to play every position, and now you're looking for more info on the game. Whether you're playing with friends or by yourself, here are some tactics that should help you win more often than not.
|Tips on the Drums|
Always let your hits rebound! New drummers may occasionally hit the pads too stiffly to get a nice rebound, or they may leave the stick head pressed against the drum. The former will hurt you eventually, and the latter will work in the beginning, but not later on. In fact, when you're playing the roughest Expert songs, you might want to take advantage of another method: hitting the drum pad twice with one swing of the arm. That might sound impossible, but it's not, although it's definitely an advanced method that'll take time to learn. Specifically, it works like this: you'll hit the pad once and the stick will rebound, but your hand will still be heading downward, resulting in a second collision. When you feel like you've learned all there is to know, challenge yourself anew by trying to master this!
Practice with songs that use the blue and green pads! The vast majority of tracks in World Tour will have you striking the red pad and yellow cymbal. If you get too used to this—and just this—you may start sitting and holding the sticks in a way that doesn't work for more dynamic songs. Use numbers like "La Bamba" and "Go Your Own Way" to warm up to those oft-neglected notes.
Don't rely on one hand for four out of five pads! If you're right-handed, you might grow accustomed to using your left hand for only one thing: the red pad. Don't do this. It will prematurely tire out your good arm, and limit your ability to do rolls and travel across the pads. If you didn't perform the simple exercises written about in the Drums section, you may want to revisit them and try them out. Additionally, you should use your off hand on the center pad and both cymbals whenever possible. It pays to be versatile.
|Tips on the Guitar|
Cradle the neck with your palm! If you don't want your fretting hand to cramp up, remember that you should be supporting that part of the guitar with your palm. Pressing against it with your thumb or gripping it with your fingers isn't going to work forever, and will do more harm than good.
Don't apply too much pressure when you slide! Performing the green to red slide is considered a necessity, but if you rub your pointer along these frets too hard, it'll start to burn. After only a half hour or so of play, your finger will feel raw, and if you perpetually perform that way, you may develop a soreness that lasts long after the parties end. Support the guitar's neck properly and only apply as much pressure as necessary.
Use the whammy often on Star Power chords! Because the SP you've accumulated can be used by all your bandmates, it pays to be a team player. Take advantage of your unique ability to squeeze extra juice out of those SP chords. As a direct result of it, your performances will last longer and be more fun for everyone.
World Tour intends to deliver a fun-filled experience, but it does require more physical involvement than the usual game. Prepare accordingly! Much of this guide tells you how to ready yourself for a night of rockin'. Although you shouldn't ignore its advice, you must also remember that we aren't doctors. Just make sure to use common sense when you're deciding which instrument you want to play. For example, if you're not supposed to engage in demanding physical activity, don't play the drums. Likewise, if you just got over a cold, don't be the singer. If you have sensitive wrists, reinforce them with braces, and so on, so forth. Play smarter, not harder.
Every song is just a series of notes. You can find a way to break them down! If you're struggling to master a certain track, take a break, forget your frustration, and try to approach it with a fresh set of eyes. All of the songs within World Tour can be boiled down to basics. First, familiarize yourself with the tempo. Afterward, try to count how many notes you see in a measure. Is there a pattern that repeats every ten notes or so? Does the entire song consist of passages that travel from low to high notes, and then go back again? Are you going to be on the blue fret or pad for every vocal segment? There are many ways to decipher a track, and you should be able to devise one that works for you.
Take a break every now and then, even if it's a short one! Professional musicians normally take breaks between songs, whether during live performances or studio recordings. You should take a page out of their book and do the same. Get up every now and then, walk around a bit, and let yourself cool down. However, if you take a rather long break—such as an hour or more—you should prepare yourself all over again when you come back. Remember, it's better to be safe than sorry.
Keep these precautions in mind, do a little research of your own, then jump into the Guitar Hero experience and have fun!
|Give us feedback!||Back to Introduction...|
Professor Layton and the Last Specter
X360 Forza Motorsport 4
Wii Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny
NDS Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns
PS3 Dark Souls
PC Dark Souls (Prepare to Die Edition)
X360 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Web War Commander
PS3 Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3
X360 Trials Evolution | <urn:uuid:ac871d05-2016-4206-a787-c7f7ba17837d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/guitar-hero-5/guide/page_7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949675 | 1,206 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Lightning is visible through a silhouette of trees
Click on image for full size
Image Courtesy of University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Carlye Calvin
Thunder and Lightning
Lightning is the most spectacular element of a thunderstorm. In fact it is how thunderstorms got their name. Wait a minute, what does thunder have to do with lightning? Well, lightning causes thunder.
Lightning is a giant spark. A single stroke of lightning can heat the air around it to 30,000 degrees Celsius (54,000 degrees Fahrenheit)! This extreme heating causes the air to expand at an explosive rate. The expansion creates a shock wave that turns into a booming sound wave, better known as thunder. This explains why it has the name thunderstorm.
Thunder and lightning occur at roughly the same time, although you see the flash of lightning before you hear the thunder. This is because light travels much faster than sound.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
The Fall 2009 issue of The Earth Scientist
, which includes articles on student research into building design for earthquakes and a classroom lab on the composition of the Earth’s ancient atmosphere, is available in our online store
You might also be interested in:
Thunderstorms are one of the most thrilling and dangerous types of weather phenomena. Over 40,000 thunderstorms occur throughout the world each day. Thunderstorms form when very warm, moist air rises into...more
Lightning can take place in several different areas of a thunderstorm. Most lightning (about 80%) occurs within a single cloud and is called cloud-to-cloud lightning. Most of the other 20% of lightning...more
Cumulonimbus clouds belong to the Clouds with Vertical Growth group. They are generally known as thunderstorm clouds. A cumulonimbus cloud can grow up to 10km high. At this height, high winds will flatten...more
Below is a list of some weather conditions that call for an advisory, watch, or warning. Severe Thunderstorm Watch: A severe thunderstorm watch is issued when a thunderstorm with winds greater than 57...more
Everyone knows that lightning is very dangerous. But how much do you really know about lightning? Do you know how it really works? How many people are killed or injured each year? Where do most lightning...more
There are 19 large wildfires burning in the United States (as of June 13, 2002). Most of the fires are within western states such as California, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Alaska. Small natural...more
Tonenili, who is also known as the Water Sprinkler, is the Navaho God of Water. He is responsible for rain, sleet, and snow. He also causes thunder and lightning Tonenili is a very mischievous guy. He...more | <urn:uuid:2a555910-6e24-4302-b3ed-261b581b73a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tstorm/tstorm_lightning.html&nl=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935858 | 575 | 3.6875 | 4 |
GET ready for more scorching summer conditions, weather forecasters say.
That means high heat and high humidity, which poses a number of health and beauty challenges.
Follow our 10 tips to keep your cool and to look good.
1. Exercise early morning or late evening
Get up at 6am and get your morning walk or run done, or exercise after dinner.
Alternatively, choose a gym that is air-conditioned. Running at midday, in the high heat, is madness.
You are exposing your skin to extreme UV rays and risking heat exhaustion that can cause fatigue, headache, nausea and vomiting.
If this does happen to you, the National Safety Council recommends sitting or lying in the shade, drinking cool water, gently applying wet towels and calling for medical help if needed.
2. Go natural
Natural fibres, in your clothing and bedding, will help you feel cooler and sweat less.
Polyesters and other manmade textiles, unless they are sports fabrics designed to absorb sweat, will just make you hot and sticky.
Go for lighter colour clothes too, rather than dark shades that can absorb the heat.
3. Get a fan
Tossing and turning at night can deplete energy and looks.
Try using a fan in your bedroom to keep you cool.
It's a cheap and effective alternative to air-conditioning, which can dry skin out.
4. Eat lighter foods
Focus on multi-coloured, antioxidant-rich salads and ditch richer, or heavier dishes.
Pop fruit in the fridge and go for a cool treat in the heat of the day or evening.
5. Invest in a broad-brimmed hat you love
You'll be lowering your skin cancer risk and helping prevent premature aging.
It must have a broad brim though, none of these trendy little pork pie hats.
Try Bright Eyes or Sportsgirl in Lismore for great hats.
6. Melt-proof your make-up
Switch to waterproof formulas to keep make-up where it belongs.
7. Buy the best sun protection you can afford
Go for the highest factor you can find, and apply plenty of it.
Make sure it's a formula based on titanium dioxide or zinc, not chemicals.
Natio Tinted Moisturiser SPF 20, $18.95, combines the benefits of a moisturiser and broad-spectrum UVA/UVB sunscreen with a hint of foundation colour.
Don't forget about covering your arms and legs too with a high-factor sunblock.
8. Use an anti-frizz product on your hair
With so many great products on the market these days to deal with frizz, there's no reason to suffer from dry, flyaway hair, according to bhave's technical & creative director Neil Cleminson.
The worse thing you can do, in this heat, is blow dry or straighten already stressed hair without a protective product.
9. Drink up
You really need to keep your fluids up in the heat and that doesn't mean beer or wine, although a little is fine.
Chilled water, juice or even iced tea are good choices.
Drink before you get thirsty - keep a jug of water on your desk and fill your glass during the day.
10. Change your moisturiser
Try Nivea's Naturally Even Daily Moisturiser with SPF 15 to reduce shine and provide lasting moisture.
It also helps to reduce skin discolouration, while UV filters and vitamin E protect the skin from further pigmentation for healthy skin.
For men, Natio offers an Oil Free Moisturiser, $13.95. | <urn:uuid:f621ab2f-7451-4b0d-8b78-3416fbc329cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mydailynews.com.au/news/when-the-heat-is-on-beauty-health-lifestyle/1714148/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901567 | 764 | 1.765625 | 2 |
A new tax will be implemented soon which is the goods and services tax (GST). It is rumored that the GST will take place somewhere around mid 2011. A new change into Malaysia tax system.
To be honest, most Malaysians are still confused about the GST. Let me share some basic knowledge that we need to know when GST is implemented in Malaysia.
What is GST?
It is a tax that the buyer pays instead of the seller. Consumers still need to pay income tax as GST and income tax is totally different.
It is a consumption tax charged on imports and also value added to goods and services provided by a business to the end user.
It is a mark up price. Selling price = Cost of materials + profit charged to customers
How much will the GST be?
If our government never flip flop, it will be at 4%. It is set by the Finance Minister.
Difference between GST and Sales tax?
GST is a multi stage tax while sales tax is a one go tax. With GST, you won’t have cascading effect meaning you won’t need to pay tax which are not relevant.
What are the advantages of GST?
More efficient with more tax collected. The rate will be lower also because it is broad base. The tax will be collected from the very first transaction to the consumer. That is why it’s broad base.
Tax evasion will be harder and more income tax can be collected for the government. Good for the government but not good for the citizens.
Are you eligible to charge GST?
One year business which amounts to RM 500000 must register to charge GST. Busiess lesser then 500k can volunteer to charge GST and claim input tax credit.
GST on imports
Imported goods will be tax at the time of importation
Will there be GST on domestic products?
Yes. GST will be collected within one month for businesses supplying goods and services. Period taxable will be three or six months depending on the classification of the business by the GST authorities.
Not all goods and services will be charge GST. There is 3 categories for GST, Taxable, zero rated and exempt.
Taxable goods and services
Consumers will be charge 4%. If your business is registered to charge GST, the rate will be the same on the sale of the taxable goods and services and pay GST on its purchases.
End user will pay 0% GST. No tax will be charged on the item on the consumers. Will be able to claim a credit for any GST paid on the inputs.
Exempt goods and services
No tax will be charge to the consumer same as zero rated but will not be entitled to claim any input tax credit on purchases.
Will GST be a pain in the ass to the consumer?
GST is set at 4% while the current sales and service tax is much higher then the GST. So there will not be any significant rise on the increase on prices.
For goods with lesser sales and service tax, consumers have to pay slightly more with the GST at 4%.
GST might looks simple but consumers should understand it properly. Not only consumers but business people should not take GST lightly as they need to apply the GST to their business.
Failure to do so, will result in the loss of the set off or credit for input taxes suffered. Not only that, business might have to pay penalties for not following the law.
How effective the GST will be, only time will tell. I am sure there will be many loop holes for people to exploit it. Only time will tell. We shall see how efficient our government will be in implementing GST.
To be honest, we have very good rules and law but implementation is very poor by the authorities. I don’t put high hopes in GST as well. Hope they can prove me wrong! | <urn:uuid:a029c384-0717-434a-8a7b-f51521bdfbf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kampunginvestor.com/2010/03/understanding-gst-in-malaysia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949888 | 794 | 2.125 | 2 |
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to first thank Senator Jeffords for his service to Vermont and to our nation. He has worked for safer, smarter transportation, better health care options, and to protect our environment. He has served with distinction. He will be missed in this Committee and the Senate.
Mr. Chairman, now I want to thank you for providing us an opportunity today to prove to you that global warming is not a hoax—it is real. I saw a movie recently called Hoot. It’s a story about a boy and his friends who save a group of owls from losing their habitat. I liked Hoot because it tells the truth: the way we behave affects the world. For the last six years, the way the Bush administration has behaved towards the environment has negatively affected our world. Joined by Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, and others, the administration has misled Americans about the threats global warming poses to our communities, our country, and the continents.
The reason people are making movies and writing books focusing on the environment is because major changes in our environment—like global warming—are happening, and people want to know the truth. The truth is that global warming is no hoax. There is no conspiracy. What you hear, what you read, what you see, is reality. Global warming is melting our glaciers, leading to record temperatures, changing our weather, and changing the conditions of our oceans. The oil companies and other polluters have borrowed a page from the tobacco industry’s playbook: creating fake science in order to undermine real science.
But it’s time to focus on an inconvenient truth: global warming is real, caused by man, and the Bush administration has spent six years avoiding real action. The administration has declined to put mandatory caps on carbon emissions, opposed a significant improvement of CAFE standards, and refused to let California set tailpipe emissions standards on carbon dioxide for their cards. In the past year alone, politicians—not scientists—have kept NOAA’s and NASA’s experts from discussing and releasing their work on global warming. And when scientists can’t tell the public what they’ve learned, then we will have to rely on the media to uncover the truth.
The power of science is that it’s beholden to no one: it is not Democratic or Republican. I am hopeful that, in the aftermath of November’s elections, and with a new Congress, America ’s scientists will be able to tell their own story—and we can use their expert advice and help to reduce global warming.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | <urn:uuid:400205f0-944e-4a0a-89d9-7c69b2955d0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Statement&Statement_ID=e6d3c818-bf29-4b44-a922-b434093cb59d&IsTextOnly=False | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954739 | 542 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Antonio J. Barrette was a Canadian Quebecois politician.
1899 - Antonio J. Barrette was born May 26,in Joliette, Quebec, Canada.
Barrette was elected to the Quebec National Assembly as a member of the Union Nationale party.
1944-1960 - He served as Minister of Labour in the Cabinets of Maurice Duplessis and Paul Sauvé.
1960 - Barrette served as leader of the Union Nationale and premier of Quebec until the 22nd of June.
- Antonio J. Barrette resigned as both leader of the Union Nationale and member of the National Assembly on 15th of September.
1963-1966 - Barrette served as Canadian Ambassador to Greece.
1968 - Antonio J. Barrette died 15th of December in Montreal.
Page last updated: 6:36pm, 29 | <urn:uuid:aa0f94d3-8d4d-4022-bce5-83dfbc980ce1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.s9.com/Biography/Barrette-Antoine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977391 | 177 | 2.1875 | 2 |
MAYVILLE - Several Chautauqua County legislators plan to call on the county Industrial Development Agency to provide a jobs report in light of a recent report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
That report, released earlier this month, noted a lack of evidence linking tax breaks from statewide IDAs and job growth.
DiNapoli said as a result of significant tax breaks given to entice and retain local businesses, cities, towns and villages have missed out on millionS of property tax dollars.
In a news release, Minority Leader Lori Cornell, D-Jamestown, said she, Tom DeJoe, D-Brocton, and Paula DeJoy, D-Jamestown plan to ask Bill Daly, county IDA director, to provide an update to the legislature regarding job growth through the IDA.
A communication regarding the report was read out loud during May's legislature meeting.
"I believe the legislature should be doing everything in its power to focus on the economy and jobs," DeJoe said. "The people of Chautauqua County deserve a proactive local government that is doing everything possible to reverse our economic decline."
DeJoe said due to population and student decline, property taxes have increased and business has slowed or moved out of the county. As a result, job loss has been "significant."
"... And has been the prime factor of the migration of so many people, including students, out of our beautiful county," he said. "With no replacement factories and businesses, the net result: a declining population of adults and students, abandoned and decaying housing and buildings and higher property taxes."
Asked if he would be willing to provide the report to the legislature, Daly said, "Oh, Absolutely. We should do it once a year; an annual report is outstanding. We have a lot going on, on a yearly basis, so this would be great."
"Job retention is just one part of it," he added. "If anyone ever wanted to know what is going on, they can just ask. Our website has all the information as well as the auditor's report."
DeJoy noted county taxpayers deserve the "biggest bang for their buck" when it comes to incentives toward local business development. She alluded to the comptroller's report, which noted a "low percentage of jobs created versus jobs retained" relative to comparable counties.
According to DiNapoli, in 2010, the Chautauqua County IDA had 37 projects, totaling $398 million, with $11.7 million in gross tax exemptions and $11.2 million in payment in lieu of taxes.
The report indicates that 608 jobs were estimated to be created, with 4,012 jobs to be retained with an estimated net job change of 457.
In Cattaraugus County, 355 jobs were created in 2010 through its IDA, at total cost of $193 million; the report shows no cost per job gained and no total gross tax exemptions.
"I don't think there's anyone who would argue that jobs and taxes are the most pressing issues in Chautauqua County," Cornell said. "We are aware that we are losing many of our most talented people to other areas, our economic base is declining and family sustaining job opportunities are fewer. Strong economic development must include not only the retention of existent businesses, but the growth and attraction of new ones as well." | <urn:uuid:9889f108-ac7b-44ea-8b9e-ca7aac399129> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/572299/Legislators-ask-county-IDA-for-jobs-report.html?nav=5047 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97198 | 695 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The keynote address at the ASAN Nuclear Forum in Seoul, South Korea, as delivered on February 19, 2013.
I want to thank Dr. CHUNG Moo Joon, Dr. HAHM Chaibong and ASAN for putting together this conference and giving me the opportunity to speak this morning. I would like to take this time to tell you all about the good work of the MacArthur Foundation, all around the world. And perhaps someday I will.
But I think it is inevitable, with this audience, in this city, at this time, that I would instead address Northeast Asian Security; particularly the impact on the region of North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Let me begin by observing that we are very close to the 20th anniversary of the beginning of talks to address the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993. That crisis, you will recall, arose when the IAEA found the DPRK to be in violation of its safeguards commitments.
The Security Council then took action, and North Korea announced its intension to withdraw from the NPT. The rest, as they say, is history. But now, twenty years later, it is appropriate to begin by asking what has changed over the years, what's new, and what difference does it make?
I note first that many periods of crisis with North Korea have occurred over the last two decades. The United States has changed Presidents three times since then, and North Korea has changed leaders twice.
So, while there is a déjà vu about today's situation, there are obviously important differences as well.
One difference is that we have indeed "been here before", we now have experience with each other and, like experienced judo players, we know each other's moves and favorite throws.
There are the recurring threats of death and destruction from the North, followed by nuclear explosives and ballistic missile tests, and sometimes by dangerous and provocative military and naval actions.
For our part, we have predictably reacted by intensifying the sanctions regime against the North, increasing its isolation from the rest of the world and probably added to the hardships facing the North Korean people.
In between crises we have had periods of political engagement. The North has more than once committed to eventually giving up its nuclear weapons program. Political and economic contacts between South and North have increased, and the United States has engaged in diplomatic activity, at different times, involving different numbers of parties, from the bilateral at two, to a full house at six.
But before we conclude that "le plus sa change, le plus la meme chose," let us remember that 20 years ago North Korea had accumulated only a small amount of plutonium, had no uranium enrichment program, and had neither tested nor built any nuclear weapons. And its most sophisticated ballistic missile was the medium range No Dong.
Now, a fair estimate would be that North Korea has accumulated 20 to 40 kgs of plutonium, enough for up to 8 nuclear weapons, conducted three nuclear explosive tests, is increasing its fissile material stocks daily with a modern gas centrifuge enrichment program, and is headed for a robust nuclear weapons program mated to a ballistic missile capability of intermediate and eventually intercontinental range.
But what does all that mean?
First, I think however one characterizes the policy we have pursued over the last 20 years—engagement, containment, whatever—it has failed to reduce the threat posed by North Korea to the security of the region.
What is that threat?
Starkly put, it is that some incident or provocation from the North will result in a significant military or naval engagement on or near the Korean peninsula and, exacerbated by the presence of nuclear weapons in the North, it will lead to a larger conflict and the tragic loss of life on all sides.
The threat is also, of course, that nuclear weapons could be used in such a conflict.
Short of war, the threat is that the growing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs in the North will lead the governments of other countries in the region to reconsider their commitment to non-nuclear status and the non-proliferation regime will unravel, reducing the security of countries in the region and around the world.
The threat is also that, at any moment, North Korea will transfer some sensitive bit of nuclear weapons material or technology to a terrorist group or to a country known to sponsor terrorists. I note that this has already happened, referring here to the plutonium separation plant that North Korea built in Syria and which Israel destroyed by bombing before its completion six years ago.
This particular threat—nuclear terrorism—is the thing we worry about most in the United States. It is not your major concern, but it is one of ours. Right now, one analyst, Graham Allison of Harvard, argues that the North Korean nuclear test is sort of an announcement that "the store is open for business," that the North will sell HEU, nuclear weapons designs or even nuclear weapons to all comers. Not a happy thought if you live in one of America's cities.
I would ask you all to understand that for Americans this threat is far greater and unlike the threat that may someday be posed by North Korean nuclear weapons delivered by ballistic missiles. That threat may be met first by deterrence, the promise of retaliation against a strike, or even by mounting a defense by denial, a ballistic missile defense, which would shoot down an incoming missile.
But the terrorist threat—an improvised nuclear device, delivered anonymously and unconventionally by boat or truck across our long and unprotected borders—is one against which we have no certain deterrent or defensive response. This is why the threat of North Korean transfer is so serious from the American perspective.
The second thing that strikes me as true now is that the dominant, but mostly unspoken question of twenty years ago about North Korea, still plagues us today:
Does the North pursue a nuclear weapons program because it fears an attack from the South, an invasion aimed at regime change by the United States, in other words, because it wants a deterrent for defensive purposes?
Or, is the North actually unalterably committed to reunifying the peninsula by force, and intent on breaking the South's alliance with the United States by holding American cities hostage to a ballistic missile strike? Or, in other words, is the North's nuclear weapons program aimed at deterring the United States for offensive purposes?
Simply put, if the first characterization is correct, there is hope for diplomacy, hope that, over time, the right formula might be found for reducing tensions, de-fusing the nuclear issue and building trust among all parties.
But if the second proposition is more nearly correct, evolutionary change should not be expected, and perhaps the best that can be achieved is the constant avoidance of armed conflict, but with no genuine reduction in tensions.
Under the circumstances, I conclude now, as I did twenty years ago, that exploring the North Korean position, carefully testing the North to discern its intensions, engaging diplomatically to see if tensions can genuinely be reduced and a political settlement found is the best way to proceed. All, of course, while maintaining military readiness. We cannot afford to leave any doubt in the minds of those in the North about our determination and ability to meet and defeat any threat that they might present.
The third thing that seems clear to me then, if this is the route we decide to take, is that an exclusive focus in our diplomacy on the one thing that troubles us most, the North's nuclear weapons program, is not a productive way to proceed. This is the opposite of what I thought twenty years ago. Then, I thought we needed to limit our goal to stopping the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Now I am convinced that our engagement must be broad with the aim to address a range of political, economic, and security issues.
That said, we need to be clear that the end game must envision the North's abandonment of its nuclear weapons program. We need not, indeed should not, lead with this objective, but there can be no ambiguity about this being a feature of any political process structured to address all parties' concerns.
This approach resembles more closely the six-party diplomacy of 2007 than the bilateral approach that gave us the Agreed Framework in 1994. To some, this may suggest that for engagement to work, we should resurrect the six-party formulae. I am not so sure. I think at the core is the North Korean concern about survival of its political system. This suggests that Seoul, Washington and Beijing are the essential players, at least initially.
There are probably many reasons why the arrangements of 2007 came undone, but I suspect the failure to reach a clear understanding of how the nuclear issue would be resolved was critical to the failure. We should not repeat that mistake; there will be plenty of opportunities for us to make new ones.
Three more points need to be made in connection with any proposal to engage the North.
First, there is no basis for successfully dealing with the North absent a solid foundation for policy rooted in the US-ROK Alliance. The North will always look for ways to shake that foundation, but the national security of both our countries and the basis for a political settlement with the North that includes the elimination of nuclear weapons from the peninsula, assumes a strong alliance between Seoul and Washington. That has always been true and will remain so.
Second, China has a legitimate interest in how matters are resolved with North Korea, and can play an important role in shaping outcomes. Consulting with Beijing early in the development of a policy of political engagement will be critical to its success.
Other countries, Japan and Russia, for starters, would have to be included as well, of course, before any settlement was concluded.
And, finally, I cannot imagine a protracted engagement with North Korea—and if engagement is to succeed, it will be protracted—which fails to attract sufficient domestic political support in the United States and South Korea. In short, while our diplomacy may begin quietly, it must eventually be open, based on realistic assessments of our national security interests, and reflect neither naiveté nor wishful thinking. We are, after all, democracies.
Among the implications of this proposition is that restraint must be part of a negotiating process. Provocations from the North of the kind we have seen in the past must be understood as incompatible with negotiations, undercutting the domestic support essential to sustain diplomatic engagement.
When I was involved in negotiations with North Korea twenty years ago and visited Seoul for consultations with the government of President Kim Yum Sam, I was often asked by the press if I was pessimistic or optimistic about our chances for success. I never seemed to come up with a satisfactory answer. But if you asked me today, I would say neither word captures the attitude we need to strike. We should all be realists.
If it were to turn out that for now, at least, there is no way to address the North Korean nuclear program through negotiation, that as Pyongyang now claims, and critics of diplomacy have asserted for decades, the North will not give up its nuclear weapons program, then I would not favor the United States engaging in a broad negotiation with the North. Such as negotiation could only serve to legitimize the North's nuclear weapons status.
Sanctions, political containment and sustaining a strong deterrent and conventional military defense would seem to me to be more appropriate.
But, as a realist and a pragmatist, I want to test the proposition that there is no negotiated way to a nuclear weapons-free North Korea, before we simply act on that assumption. | <urn:uuid:9bd073ff-5d20-4dd2-bf8c-1ceb990462d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macfound.org/press/speeches/macarthur-president-robert-gallucci-addresses-asan-nuclear-forum/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963613 | 2,362 | 1.625 | 2 |
Molly Tarleton of Hannaford Supermarkets hands a veteran a free turkey.
Photo by Zan Strumfeld.
ALBANY COUNTY With turkeys quickly flying off grocery store shelves, one local law firm helped make Capital Region veterans and service members’ holiday shopping a little easier.
For the fourth year in a row, Tully Rinckey PLLC spent the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 20, handing out free turkeys for their “Turkeys for Veterans” program at 441 New Karner Road in Albany. Although the law firm usually pays for the turkeys, this year Hannaford Supermarkets decided to team up with the gift givers and donate 120 15-pound turkeys.
Veterans and service members merely needed to flash their military IDs, and then were handed a Hannaford shopping bag containing a turkey. The first 30 veterans that showed up also received a $15 Hannaford gift card.
About 60 turkeys were handed out within the first 20 minutes of the event.
“No veteran will be turned away. If we run out, we’ll go out and buy more,” said Greg T. Rinckey, managing partner of Tully Rinckey.
Both Rinckey and founding partner Matthew Tully are veterans, and Rinckey said this was a good way to help “give back to veterans we’ve served with in the past,” as well as the present.
“Everyone thinks of them on Veterans Day, but veterans should always be remembered. Matt and I have a special place in our hearts for them,” Rinckey said.
Tully was not at the event as he is taking a military leave of absence form the law firm. He was awarded the Purple Heart earlier this year after surviving a suicide bomber attack while serving in Afghanistan in August.
Veterans John and Kelly Bourdeau just moved to the area from Orlando, Fla., and heard about the free turkeys through a family member.
“This is a great thing, (especially) during the holiday season,” John Bourdeau said. “We certainly don’t expect folks to do this type of thing.” | <urn:uuid:dc57247b-a55c-447c-a4ff-45c3ae4ded16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spotlightnews.com/news/2012/nov/21/free-turkeys-make-thanksgiving-vets/?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960011 | 463 | 1.53125 | 2 |
We are taught to take the breadinto our bodiesas proof of Jesus's body...Suddenly, we are wedand I am just as surprised as youthat marriage has become our bread...Look. I don't know whatwould help me believethat we have become sacred...If that was Easterthen the church was fullas we stood against the wallpraying for an empty pew.If that was Easterthen I rose that morningin love with youthough I rise every morningfrom the water, more or lessin love with you.If that was Easterthen you were askedto be the Eucharistic minister.If that was Easterthen you surprised meby placing salmon on my tongue.Then I surprised youby swallowing it whole.Amen, amen, amen.
Source: One Stick Song, Pages: 80-81
Contributed by: Tsuya
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
A.E. Housman (1859 - 1936)
Source: A Shropshire Lad, 1896, no. 2, st. I
Contributed by: Zaady
Copyright © 2013 Gaiam, Inc. | <urn:uuid:d10fa2b4-deda-4ca0-8fec-a9ffa458a517> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/topics/easter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965509 | 256 | 1.507813 | 2 |
If you buy every item mentioned in "The Twelve Days of Christmas" you'll be set back $107,300 this year. That's a 6.1 percent jump from last year.
PNC Wealth Management tallied up the costs for its annual Christmas Price Index. The company says there are 364 total items across all the song's verses.
Thrifty shoppers may find some reasons for cheer. Six items haven't gone up in price: maids-a-milking, ladies dancing, lords-a-leaping, calling birds, turtle doves, and the partridge. The eight maids-a-milking still cost just $58 because the minimum wage hasn't risen.
The $15 partridge is the cheapest item, and swans the most expensive, at $1,000 each. | <urn:uuid:8d2fcbee-7db4-4fc6-8bf1-8034def44a3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tristatehomepage.com/fulltext-news/?nxd_id=564712 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927729 | 167 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Desired Outcomes: To enable students to combine research using the Internet with personal feelings to develop an individual artistic iconography (personal message) in a series of artworks.
Time: 2-3 hours (several computer sessions)
Number of students: Dependent on the amount of computers available.
Step 1: Background information
In pairs each student should briefly look at works by each of the four artists presented on this site.
Each member of the pair should choose a different artist, and together, the two students must explore and compare the different styles of the two artists, and the reasons for the specific styles.
In addition to these two artist, the pair should go onto the Internet and follow some of the suggested links to art sites where new, contemporary artworks are being displayed.
The pair should try and assess why a particular artist is creating a specific work, and should try and find as much symbolism in the works as possible. The students will now have information on the different styles and symbolism found in artists responding to a particular event of situation. This is the artist's iconography.
Step 5: Creating an original Iconography
Using this background information, in the same pairs the students should now try and develop a joint iconography between them and/or an iconography for each individual. The pair or the individual should do the following:
Each individual should now create an artwork based on their iconography. The work does not have to be big, and can simply consist of a stick-and-paste collage using interesting magazine images. The iconography of the student must be represented through symbolism. Each work should be displayed and if possible presented to the class or to a portion of it, where the symbolism is explained. The students can create a series of works, each dealing with a different part of their own iconography. Each can be in a different medium, and size variation can also form part of the iconography. | <urn:uuid:a2fda767-237e-4f34-8f7f-f386cfbc40e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/18799/teach6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926104 | 395 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Congress has delayed any significant action on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act until it returns from its summer recess after Labor Day.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, announced this week that his committee would not consider an NCLB bill next week, the last before lawmakers take their August break.
Instead of presenting a bill to his committee, Rep. Miller planned to give a speech July 30 at the National Press Club in Washington. In it, he was planning to tout the success of the 5½-year-old law and explain his priorities for reauthorizing it, said Tom Kiley, the congressman’s communications director. But Mr. Kiley declined to say how specific the chairman would be in the speech.
Rep. Miller had been preparing to introduce a bill to revise the NCLB law before Congress left town.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee had delayed consideration of its NCLB-renewal bill while lawmakers in that chamber worked on their plans to reauthorize the Higher Education Act and alter federal financial-aid programs for college students. . . .
Plan to attend and call Congressman Miller in the interim:
|Event Date:||July 30, 2007|
|Event Name:||No Child Left Behind|
|Event Type:||NPC Newsmaker|
|Sponsored by:||Newsmakers Committee|
|Event Location:||Zenger Room|
|Details:||Congressman George Miller, Chair, House Education|
& Labor Committee,will discuss "The Future of No
Child Left Behind"
U.S. Representative George Miller (D-CA) will
The National Press Club is on the 13th floor,
Contacts: for the National Press Club: Debra
Congressman Miller: Tom Kiley, House | <urn:uuid:7b203a80-bb58-48fe-84ba-79106adad355> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2007/07/miller-plans-fantasy-speech-on-nclb-for.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938336 | 391 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Fargo’s 1893 Fire
Tuesday, June 8, 2004
On this day in 1893, a huge portion of Fargo was smoldering after being burned to the ground. At 2:15 the previous afternoon, something took placed behind Herzman’s Dry Goods Store at 512 Front Street – or current-day Main Avenue.
According to a Fargo Forum special edition, the fire began when someone from the Little Gem Restaurant threw ashes out the back door, and the dry goods store caught fire. Another version states that Lily Herzman was burning cardboard packing cartons behind the store and that the flames spread to the building.
A 30-mile an hour wind whipped the fire quickly northward, taking everything in its path. At that time, almost every building in Fargo was made of wood, as were the sidewalks.
Almost all of the town’s 6000 resident lost their homes, and the downtown businesses were wiped out, including City Hall and most of its records.
There were a number of factors that contributed to the catastrophe. The nearest fire alarm box was several blocks away, and it required a key that, unfortunately, nobody could find. Ironically, a fire station was located right across the street from where the blaze began, but the men and trucks were out sprinkling streets to keep the dust down. By the time all three of Fargo’s fire companies arrived, the fire was out of control. It was a further irony that one of those companies – the Yerxa Hose Company – once held the world’s record in the fire-hose race. Fire fighters also came rushed from Moorhead, Casselton, Grand Forks and Wahpeton to help, but they were too late to stop the fire’s rapid advance.
In all, more than 160 acres were destroyed, including more than 31 blocks from the NP railway line to 5th Avenue north – and either side of Broadway from the Red River west to the open prairie. It was reported that 219 businesses, 140 homes and 6 _ miles of boardwalks were destroyed.
Concerns over fire issues had been voiced in the years leading up to the loss, and steps had been taken to limit the number of wooden buildings being erected. There’s also evidence that there had been controversy in the fire department, and that city officials had identified fire hazards and had tried various methods of correcting them prior to the fire.
After the catastrophe, city leaders adopted stricter building codes, and most reconstruction was done with bricks after that. The city council also appointed a city fire inspector, required stone or concrete sidewalks, and the fire department no longer sprinkled streets. The water system was improved, and one central fire station was built and outfitted with new fire fighting equipment.
Minutes from subsequent council meetings show that the city safe was still intact, and that on August 7th, S. S. Graham was paid $12 to force it open. The records and council minutes inside were charred and damaged, but someone was hired to transcribe them.
Four and a half months after the fire, John Mosher filed a claim with the city for $280 for fire-wagon horses that were destroyed, and on December 4th, 1893, the Rescue Hook and Ladder Company also submitted a bill for funeral expenses for fireman W. H. Johnson, who died of injuries. He was reportedly the only fatality of the fire.
Fargo immediately began to rebuild, and within a year, 246 new buildings were erected.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm | <urn:uuid:a42549a8-4fc6-425d-aa85-fc2c4542199a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prairiepublic.org/radio/dakota-datebook?post=5857 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986905 | 730 | 2.609375 | 3 |
A new study tell us what many serious parents already knew: children's academic problems usually start at home.
From yesterday's New York Times:
A new study by the Educational Testing Service — which develops and administers more than 50 million standardized tests annually, including the SAT — concludes that an awful lot of those low scores can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools. The study, “The Family: America’s Smallest School,” suggests that a lot of the failure has to do with what takes place in the home, the level of poverty and government’s inadequate support for programs that could make a difference, like high-quality day care and paid maternity leave.
The E.T.S. researchers took four variables that are beyond the control of schools: The percentage of children living with one parent; the percentage of eighth graders absent from school at least three times a month; the percentage of children 5 or younger whose parents read to them daily, and the percentage of eighth graders who watch five or more hours of TV a day. Using just those four variables, the researchers were able to predict each state’s results on the federal eighth-grade reading test with impressive accuracy.
“Together, these four factors account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states,” the report said. In other words, the states that had the lowest test scores tended to be those that had the highest percentages of children from single-parent families, eighth graders watching lots of TV and eighth graders absent a lot, and the lowest percentages of young children being read to regularly, regardless of what was going on in their schools.
I've long said that we unfairly slam teachers for poor academic results, when we're not giving them much to work with. Beyond too much of our education budget going to bureaucrats and other administrative costs, we give our teachers a crop of kids who probably get less attention than the family dog at home, and we expect the teachers to turn out a bunch of Bill Gates' and Zig Ziglars.
Of course, the Times predictably thinks the problem is "government’s inadequate support for programs that could make a difference, like high-quality day care and paid maternity leave."
Now granted, it's not as attractive as having someone else pay for the goods and services we use, but I have an idea that would be cheaper, better for the child, and better for society in the long run: how about having at least one parent stay home with the child, to nurture, guide, discipline and help educate that child?
I know. That'll take something else we as a society don't want to do: exercise caution and responsibility. And accepting responsibility for the consequences of our decisions.
That means we'll have to make better marriage choices (don't marry the lazy scumbag just because he has a cute smile, don't marry the self-absorbed bimbo just because she has a nice wiggle, don't marry the dirtbag who has violent tendencies even if he does have a good job, etc.) so that we increase our odds of staying married to the person we vowed to stay with until death.
And--provided we're not talking about abuse--if, despite foresight and good judgement we still end up married to a jerk or jerkess, we may need to suck it up and stay with an unpleasant husband/wife for the sake of the children. I know, it isn't fun and it isn't nice, but remember: the adults had a choice about the mess they got into, the children didn't.
For those concerned about loss of income, yes, it'll probably mean sacrifice and less family income. But it's not impossible. My parents did it. My family is doing it (we have an old vehicle with a bazillion miles on it, and make other financial sacrifices). Many other families are doing it. We've faced the reality that we can't have our cake and eat it, too. If we want our children to do well, we have to take responsibility for that ourselves.
Sacrifices are necessary. But aren't our children worth it?
HT to the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. | <urn:uuid:38f71c54-4197-4e8a-8430-fc31f1ed100b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dakotavoice.blogspot.com/2007/12/stunning-education-discovery-childrens.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977045 | 870 | 2.203125 | 2 |
- Campus Life
This course focuses on developing understanding of adult learning and the implications for professional practice. Regardless of role and formal job description, all institutional leaders must interact with adults, and an understanding of the developmental tasks of personal and career cycles is essential. Knowing how to motivate individuals, support them through times of change, and encourage risks that lead to positive transformation will be studied. Course content is designed to stimulate thinking about how to promote growth and transformation in one's own life and with others.
This course focuses on developing an understanding of the effects of organizational and managerial practices on individual self-fulfillment and systems effectiveness. Foundational theories of organizational development will be covered, as will theories of organizational change. Students will be introduced to action-research methods in organizational development.
This course focuses on micro-level topics related to individual and interpersonal processes within an organization, including how individual behaviors, cognitions and perceptions are affected by organizational context, structure, culture, and values. Study of the critical skills needed by managers to support their ability to lead and work effectively in teams as well as to know when teams are not the best way to reach organizational goals is included. In spite of ongoing reliance on teams, many organizations do not create conditions to develop and support high performing teams. This course is designed to develop and hone the team management and membership skills of students. In particular, it focuses on helping students understand how to avoid or manage typical team "traps" that lead to ineffectiveness.
This course explores scholarly literature and research related to leading organizations through change and sustaining renewal efforts. Application of theories related to leading organizations, organizational change, creative leadership, renewal, and sustaining change will be emphasized.
This course includes the study of ethical issues in a variety of counseling settings and includes the moral and legal bases for ethical codes and guidelines for human service professionals. The counseling relationship and ethical and professional conduct, standards, and practices are considered. Issues related to client/counselor conflict and societal, legal and cultural values are included. The course will include a focus on methods and strategies for recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas.
This course includes studies of career development theory and research and the application of these in a counseling. Theoretical and operational foundations of career counseling, career decision-making, and career development, including assessment and intervention, as well as various career decision-making processes, are included. The relationship between career development and a range of life factors is considered. Practical skills for helping individuals consider career choice and lifestyle options are included.
This course explores two vibrant and emerging fields: Positive Psychology and Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS). One basic premise of positive psychology is that human flourishing - a life rich in purpose, relationships, and enjoyment - will not result simply by curing pathology but requires building and capitalizing on human strengths and capacities. Topics of study include happiness, positive emotions, resilience, creativity, finding meaning, and optimism. POS investigates collective and emergent processes of optimal functioning, at the levels of individuals in organizations, groups in organizations, and organizations as a whole. POS is premised on the belief that enabling human flourishing in organizations involves unlocking or building potential resources, capabilities and capacities in people, groups and systems. The focus on generative dynamics leads researchers to consider the role of positive emotions, positive meaning, and positive relationships, among other mechanisms as keys to explaining human and collective flourishing.
the theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry, an approach to organizational change that emphasizes identifying and building on the good things that already exist in the system. The emerging field of Positive Organizational Scholarship is studied as well.
This course focuses on strategic issues and choices in acquiring, developing, motivating, managing and retaining a workforce, from the perspective of a general manager, or non-HR manager. Topics include employment law, job design and analysis, performance management, HR planning, staffing, training and development, compensation and incentive and employee/labor relations.
This course explores the topic of ethics in the professional domain. Students will be exposed to theories of ethical practice on both the individual and institutional levels. There will be opportunities to consider ethical dilemmas that one may face as a practitioner, as well as chances to reflect on one's own ethical code and values.
This course focuses on the study of theory and practice of appraisal, including issues of reliability and validity; evaluation procedures and test administration, as well as clinical and practical aspects of individual and educational testing and clinical diagnosis; integration and interpretation of data from a variety of appraisal procedures; report writing; and the professional communication of appraisal results. It includes legal, ethical and social/cultural issues related to the appropriate use of major instruments for evaluating intelligence, aptitude, achievement, personality and neurological conditions; and computer-managed and computer-assisted methods.
This course includes studies of major theories, approaches and procedures in counseling and psychotherapy, their historical-cultural developmental contexts, and their applications and practice. Students will be exposed to an overview of current and emerging approaches to psychological counseling, including psychodynamic, existentialhumanistic, transpersonal, cognitive-behavioral, and systems approaches. Emphasis is on both theory and practical applications of the various approaches.
This course includes advanced studies of theoretical approaches to and key concepts of group counseling and their practical applications. It focuses on the elements of group dynamics and process; group counseling methods; strategies and skills; historical and cultural contexts in which models were developed; leadership styles and practicalities of creating and leading groups. | <urn:uuid:a453b671-3b66-4630-9dc1-87d13000352f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aic.edu/academics/aes/cd?pid=IID | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946823 | 1,116 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Stark: What should the Baseball Hall of Fame be?
From SABR member Jayson Stark at ESPN.com on January 9, 2013:
The votes are in. The earth is still rumbling. Now let's try to digest the magnitude of what just happened here:
A man who hit 762 home runs wasn't elected to the Hall of Fame.
A pitcher who won seven Cy Young Awards wasn't elected to the Hall of Fame.
A man who hit 609 home runs only got 12.5 percent of the vote.
A catcher who made 12 All-Star teams missed election by 98 votes.
It boggles the mind. Doesn't it? We were just presented the most star-studded Hall of Fame ballot in maybe 75 years. And NOBODY got elected?
It's enough to make you wonder: What kind of Hall of Fame are we building here?
In the wake of this stunning election, it's time for all of us to ponder that question. What is the Hall of Fame? What should it be? What is it supposed to be?
Read the full article here: http://espn.go.com/mlb/hof13/story/_/id/8826383/what-mlb-hall-fame-be
This page was last updated January 9, 2013 at 3:08 pm MST. | <urn:uuid:cf228bd4-9d15-44f7-b5f1-b76a80512da4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sabr.org/latest/stark-what-should-baseball-hall-fame-be | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965783 | 287 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Jan Tschichold has, since his death in 1974, acquired the stature of a typographer's typographer. Though a pioneer throughout his life, he has come to represent the best kind of entrenched conservatism: the unfailingly thoughtful good taste that may be used to locate the central nerve of a fine tradition. He was in the thick of it, always, at ceaseless war against ugliness, ignorance, and "self-expression". He was an authority.
Swiss by luck and disposition, Tschichold came out of a Leipzig family with inclinations to design. His father was an accomplished sign-painter, and the son could thus practise calligraphy early and often. Lettering is anyway among the first arts we teach a child, whether well or poorly, and no-one who is literate will forget the sensuous joy that first came from studying the form of the large print in children's books: the descending g like a wobbly pair of spectacles; the j like a fish-hook; the s like a snake; the f perhaps a seahorse; the b your pregnant mother. To be entranced by such letters is to knock at the door of the libraries of the world, and throughout his life Tschichold was an ever-hungry reader-which is true of most typographers and of few art directors.
His horror of "self-expression" was a horror of illiteracy: that the designer of pages should presume to stand in the writer's way, and make irritating gestures while the reader is trying to see what the writer is saying. It is the typographer's craft to be in perfect harmony with the material he is setting, attentive to minute questions of line, spacing, shape, and style, so the reader need never be distracted. Great skill is required to maintain that harmony; the requisite degree and kind of anonymity does not come easily to anyone; whereas "self-expression" can be achieved by any drunkard.
Arriving into manhood at the high tide of Modernism in the mid-twenties (or whatever we are to call that huge surge of international creativity that lifted all arts between the world wars), Tschichold was immediately an informed and uncompromising exponent. At the age of twenty-three he filled a special number of a German trade journal with a "manual of elementary typography", introducing the work of El Lissitsky and others to the broad audience of practical printers. He was in the vanguard of a formidable troop of artist-typographers, chiefly Dutch and German, changing the face of art as much as print: Lissitsky, Theo van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, H. N. Werkman, Piet Zwart, Herbert Bayer; all playful, all deeply serious. They and their contemporaries in many fields were trying to effect a collision between fine art and the machine age, by smashing through the aesthetic euphemism of the nineteenth century, and embracing new technology. We have tired of their successes, and they have gone out of style.
Tschichold's book Die Neue Typographie (1928) remains the standard exposition of the asymmetric, sans-serif principles that we have come to associate with the Bauhaus, though he never attended that school, and later returned towards symmetry and serifs. (An English translation, The New Typography, was reissued by the University of California Press, in 1993; a facsimile of the original was reprinted by Verlag Brinkmann & Bose, in 1987.)
His life's work thereafter was to harness the spirit that Modernism had freed: to bring discipline to its excesses, and establish continuity with the finest lettering that could be found, from Roman gravestones forward. He studied widely, contributing monographs and journal articles on subjects as various as Chinese poetry papers and stamping blocks, typography in Japanese, Spanish lettering models of the sixteenth century, the development of scientific symbols, Renaissance ratios and proportions, Ben Nicholson's reliefs-together with useful commentaries on many specific typefaces and their designers. When commissioned to design an edition, it was in Tschichold's nature to study the author so intently that he found himself writing literary criticism, too: for instance on Laurence Sterne's adored persona, Yorick.
His move to Basel in Switzerland, and then to Berzona, near Locarno, where he lived the balance of his life, took him out of the traffic of the printing trade, and helped grant him leisure to think in a house whose walls were lined with books (and with a work table before almost every window). It did not begin as a voluntary journey. The Nazis had come to power in 1933, and Tschichold was among the first artists they were to honour with an accusation of Kulturbolschevismus. The local party scum agreed that he exhibited a peculiarly unGerman typography, and so deprived him of his livelihood as a teacher in Munich's Meisterschule für Deutschlands Buchdrucker. Paradoxically, the Nazi propagandists learned much about the dramatic possibilities of graphic art from the artists they exiled, and, noticing this, Tschichold began to recoil from what he had helped to invent.
He wrote with precision and élan in English as well as German, but the mass of his considerable writings are in German only, and except for his several major books had been hard to find even in that language till now the Berlin house of Brinkmann & Bose has brought them out in two utterly worthy volumes. Entitled Schriften 1925-1974, they provide a solid reference text and bibliography, exquisitely set, printed, and bound as if under the direction of Tschichold's ghost. In the cosmopolitan German custom, the several articles written originally in English are reprinted thus, without translation, faultlessly checked and proofread. How I wish we in Anglo-Saxony could return such compliments!
Tschichold's biggest commission was from Allen Lane for Penguin Books, in 1946. He was asked to redesign the whole series of paperbacks, and spent three years in London meticulously revolutionizing each aspect of their production in turn. Most people who have done any sort of work in English-language publishing have encountered Tschichold through his much-xeroxed "Penguin Composition Rules", and verily, any typographer without them in his files may be safely accused of nescience. This six-page house manifesto called for closely word-spaced type, avoidance of holes or wide spaces, generous leading (spacing between lines), light punctuation, a subtle decorative use of letter-spaced small capitals to mark chapters, old-style numerals (with ascenders and descenders), understated headings and folia, and everywhere a tense symmetry. The delectably refined, neo-classical readability of Penguin paperbacks (later wrapped in Germano Facetti's gorgeous art covers) had much to do with the success of the firm in putting a huge selection of good literature into the mass market. Penguins got read, became addictive, and a whole post-war generation was raised to expect higher typographical standards than their parents had put up with. We (I incidentally belong to that generation between the War Heroes and the post-articulate Generation X) may even have read more than our parents because of these attractive, disposable books; for try reading the previous generation's Everymans in bulk and you will soon go cross-eyed.
The "Penguin Composition Rules" appeared on the threshold of the photo-typesetting age, and in many ways Tschichold's mature work anticipates the lightness and smoothness of touch that became attainable as printing detached itself from the cumbersome metal of the linotype machines. By the late fifties, the direction of technological change was clear, new and better methods were emerging, and designers were no longer catching up-as architects and industrial designers in the twenties had been catching-up with nineteenth-century inventions-but now thinking ahead. In our own time, the sophisticated clarity of Apple/Macintosh computer graphics owes much, unacknowledged, to Tschichold's mind and aesthetic: transplanted and Americanized.
Yet we have much to learn, and always relearn, for humans are apt to forget the basics. Now as then, tawdriness and indifference condemn most commercial printing, and while some of our advertising and pictorial graphics are superb, most are cheap, cute, and showy unless dead. Our periodical press is in the worst way. Popular magazines today are assembled at phenomenal expense but with absolute contempt for the needs of a reader: columns of narrow, small, mechanically kerned (letter-spaced) text squished against gaudy pictures and repulsive ads, criss-crossed by redundant sloping lines and then whammed with ingots of lead in the form of reversed (black) quote panels. There are rude page jumps, space-wasting witless poster-sized headlines, glossy paperstock that shines in your eyes-and everywhere the desperate narcissism of art directors trying to draw attention to their tedious insecurities.
The fact that millions of people have become de facto typesetters through their word processors promises much for good and ill. The good is that they are made slightly aware of what typesetting involves, and over time become more discerning consumers-just as natural habitats tend to get saved after people take a casual interest in ornithology. The bad is that the opportunities for "self-expression" have meanwhile been almost infinitely enlarged.
It is therefore to our contemporary art director that such a useful pointed manual as The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design should be presented. He (or she, as the case will often be) must be sat down with the book and forced to read it through, at gunpoint if necessary. The book is frequently entertaining, in a dry, unAmerican way that may drift irretrievably over the art director's head. But it is the hortative tone that the over-emancipated reader will more likely misidentify as pedantry. Tschichold, grand master of his craft, enjoyed laying down the law, almost as much as he enjoyed contradicting himself. He is not beneath declaring an axiom then reversing it in the next paragraph-in full cognizance of what he is doing. In this way he resembles a Carlyle or Ruskin (or Whitman for that matter), and may claim the same extenuation: his line-of-sight is constantly shifting, he describes one aspect of the truth at a time. What you must never do in one situation, you must always do in another; pay attention and you won't get lost. And while some of his injunctions are mere personal prejudice, the personal prejudices of so wise and accomplished a master should never be merely ignored.
So many of those prejudices bring joy to my heart. For instance, one of the essays in The Form of the Book is on dustjackets, and he explains that after you have bought a book and taken it home you must throw the dustjacket away. It is only packaging-protection from sunlight in the shop window and from browsers who "cannot trust their hands to be clean"-and it is a moral error on the part of the book designer to make a dustjacket so attractive and indispensable that you may want to keep it. Protecting it in a plastic sleeve-the jacket around a jacket that may be seen in public libraries and on "modern first editions" in pretentious "antiquarian" bookshops-is a depravity beyond polite contemplation. On the other hand, the book designer is within his rights to surround a very good dignified learned book with a screaming vulgar dustjacket to help sales, because that is what packaging is for. Since childhood I have instinctively discarded dustjackets (and coupons from magazines) and always thought there should be a branch of the police to make others do likewise.
In the main, Tschichold's knowledge of typography was founded on characteristics of the universe that are essentially unalterable, and he is seldom truly eccentric. While beauty is various and unpredictable, it is not, really, in the eye of the beholder. The fact that it can be communicated from one mind to another reveals a certain amount of common human aesthetic hard-wiring. Tschichold took an especial interest in laws of proportion, and helped to popularize the geometrical ratios that make for an attractive depth of page, agreeable margins, and appropriate type areas. The Golden Section is the most famous of many fascinating, irrational (in the strict sense) numbers that may be used as ratios to construct proportions that arrest the human eye by their "rightness"; each is also written into nature (in, e.g., the design of sea shells). The square roots of prime numbers such as two, three, and five, and the height by the base of a regular pentagon, yield other such proportions. When we say, "God is in the details," we may use these for our proof.
Similarly, Tschichold strikes a universal gong in his abhorrence of Whore's Children and Cobbler's Apprentices. These are the German expressions for what in English we call the widow (short line dangling at end of paragraph) and orphan (last line of paragraph at top of next page) respectively. Both should be remorselessly hunted down and killed, if at all possible, for they eat away the crucial rectangle of the page. Tschichold gives useful advice in The Form of the Book and elsewhere, but unlike most art directors, never recommends asking an author to solve his problem by removing or adding words or phrases. For whether or not that author is dead, the text is always sacred. If it were not it would hardly be worth the effort of fine typesetting.
Hartley & Marks, publishers with offices in Point Roberts, Washington, and Vancouver, are to be praised for putting a couple of typographical classics back into circulation in North America, using appropriate typefaces (in Tschichold's book, his most famous and enchanting face, called Sablon), proper stitch binding, and fine laid paper, though in soft covers only (not quite an indictable offence: at least the books are bindable). Another of their efforts, Geoffrey Dowding's Finer Points in the Spacing & Arrangement of Type, is a short, practical treatise from the sixties, elegant in a more workmanlike way, which, being a reference book more purely, should have been smaller and handier, but ah well. Both books have charming introductions, Dowding's by Crispin Elsted and Tschichold's by Robert Bringhurst; Bringhurst's introduction is also informative.
The prospective disciple of Tschichold should immediately obtain (while stocks last!) the master's Treasury of Alphabets & Lettering, recently reissued in paper covers by the British art publisher, Lund Humphries, and newly introduced by Ben Rosen. Translated from the German edition of 1965, this large-format compendium is a visual survey of the Western typographical tradition, in 176 magnificently assembled plates, preceded by nine short essays and followed by concise, eye-opening notes on the plates individually. The product of many decades of Tschichold's trials and experience, the book is a kind of Orbis Sensualium Pictus of typography. David Warren
(Books in Canada) -- Books in Canada | <urn:uuid:21b56ec0-80bc-4fe0-b7d0-c99ec060b0f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.ca/Form-Book-Formula-Jan-Tschichold/dp/0881791164 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965281 | 3,255 | 2.15625 | 2 |
The economist John Maynard Keynes once explained that the free market rested on “the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone”.
The book chain Dymocks might not be wicked but there’s something a little coy about its current campaign for the parallel importation of books into Australia. Parallel importation would allow booksellers to import overseas editions, irrespective of whether they’d already been published in Australia. It’s a measure resisted by most authors and all Australian publishers, who fear that exposure to open market will wipe out the local industry. Interestingly, parallel importation’s also opposed — and for similar reasons — by the Australian Booksellers Association as well as by the majority of its individual members.
Dymocks presumably calculates that its size will provide a competitive advantage when it comes to dumping discounted or remaindered overseas books on the Australian market. But that’s not the kind of argument that carries much public weight. So when former NSW Premier Bob Carr writes on parallel importation for the Oz, he doesn’t say: look, I’m on the board of Dymocks, and this proposal will make me and my mates a lot of money. Instead, he explains that Adam Smith’s invisible hand, protector of readers the world over, will rest its sainted palm on working class kids and transform them into lovers of literature.
Now in the midst of a GFC, most people feel less than confident about entrusting the cultural development of their children to the same free market that just destroyed their retirement, and so despite the best efforts of Dymocks and Mr Carr, there’s been little public enthusiasm for parallel importation: of the 268 submissions received by the Productivity Commission, some 260 opposed the idea.
Hence Dymocks’ latest wheeze. If you are a member what Dymocks calls its Booklover’s Loyalty Program, you would have recently received an email explaining: “We need your help to bring you cheaper books.”
Goodness, you might say. How do I get those cheaper books?
“The Australian Government, through the Productivity Commission, is reviewing the restrictive laws that unnecessarily inflate the price of books. The current laws stop Australian Booksellers importing books other than through the Australian subsidiaries or agents of overseas publishers. This may sound reasonable but it prevents copyright-protected books from being imported from the most competitive market, usually the United States or the UK, whichever is the cheapest when ordering. The current law stops us buying books at the lowest price to put in our stores for you to buy. […]
“Dymocks and the Coalition for Cheaper Books believe Australian booklovers deserve better. Dymocks believes that lower prices will enable more Australians to read more and as a consequence Australian literacy levels will improve. Dymocks believes that the Australian book industry should be driven by the Australian book buyer and not the local subsidiaries and agents of overseas publishers.”
The email concludes by suggesting that, if booklovers don’t want greedy foreigners preventing dinkum firms like Dymocks from educating Aussie battlers, they should sign up on a petition in support of the Coalition for Cheaper Books.
And who, pray tell, is in this coalition? Well, naturally it’s an alliance of firms long known for their association with fine writing … K-Mart, Target and Big W (no, really!).
PR insiders call the creation of phony grass roots campaign “astroturfing” — it’s the technique that led Philip Morris to fund the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (where “sound science” was defined as anything that proved the healthful effects of tobacco). One wonders how many Booklovers signed up on a Loyalty Program thinking they’d be used to promote the business interests of K-Mart.
It might be appropriate to mention here that it’s far from certain parallel importation would actually reduce prices. Henry Rosenbloom, from the small publisher Scribe, argues convincingly that it wouldn’t, while the draft produced by the Productivity Commission itself acknowledges substantial uncertainty on the question.
To be fair, Dymocks might protest that its opponents have equally pecuniary motives for defending the status quo. Books are simultaneously artifacts of culture and saleable commodities, which means aesthetics and economics invariably get hopelessly tangled. But you can oppose a free market in publishing without signing on to every jot and tittle of the current arrangements.
Indeed, instead of these tired debates about parallel importation, it would be nice to hear some new arguments about how to foster literary culture. Last week, Scotland’s Sunday Herald – like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Independent on Sunday and the Daily Telegraph before it – abolished its book section. The steady erosion of literary journalism is merely one indication of the difficult environment literary publishing faces in the years to come. It’s great that we’re going to get super fast broadband but, in the twenty-first century, Gutenberg’s invention could also do with some love. | <urn:uuid:b55c3a8a-69e0-4e63-86eb-cfaddb62e320> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/04/09/dymocks-throwing-the-book-at-parallel-importing/ | 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 | 0.940719 | 1,085 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Director Discusses:
“The foundation of medicine is friendship, conversation and hope.”
Public radio periodically provides me with poignant snatches of wisdom, some deeply profound, usually from unexpected sources. While listening to “Morning Edition” on NPR on a recent Sunday (Liane Hansen’s last broadcast, her devoted fans may recall), I couldn’t pull myself away from the words of a self-described “country doctor,” who in culling from his years of experience tending to the people of Belfast, Maine, offered insightful reflections on America’s healthcare. His list of “Hippocratic aphorisms” offers important messages on the relationship between medicine, hope, and human nature. At first glance his list does not appear to offer anything particularly earth-shattering, but his statements radiate truths about preventing and treating depressive illness. With enormous gratitude to Dr. David Loxtercamp, I wanted to reflect upon a select few of his adages:
The most common condition we treat is unhappiness.
Depression and bipolar together are among the most common diseases, affecting more than one in five of us during our lifetimes and bearing responsibility for immense human suffering. These mood disorders are so entwined with all bodily systems that no branch of medicine can afford not to consider the contributions of brain function, mood regulation, and complex human nature as essential partners in everyday healthcare and wellbeing. Widespread screening for earlier detection should be a “must.”
Risk factors are not disease.
While healthcare providers look for clues to determine who might be most at risk for illness, such factors are guidelines, not destinies. We know that a complex mix of circumstances contribute to a person’s wellbeing and that wellness falls along a continuum. Risk factors do not portend certain disease development; they do not automatically presage pessimism. Rather, they are part of the variation that makes us gloriously human while serving as head start warning signs that may help many of us avert troublesome stresses and actually begin to prevent mood disorders. This is a goal for “Personalized Health Care.”
To fix a problem is easy, to sit with another suffering is hard.
Those who are battling through depressive episodes sorely need the support of loved ones. Such support is not always easy for family and friends to sustain. When battling depression, this aphorism perhaps should be modified from “sitting” to walking, talking, sharing, holding hands, and being active. Exercise and its effects on our brain’s neurotrophins are potentially powerful contributors to improvement.
Doctors expect too much from data and not enough from conversation.
Health professionals must rely on various measures and examinations to gauge wellness, explaining why the Depression Center is working so hard to develop personalized biomarkers (lab tests) for depression and bipolar disorder. Insightful information also depends upon the intimate, one-on-one dialogues between provider and the individual seeking recovery.
Patients cannot see outside their pain, we cannot see in, relationship is the only bridge between.
The suffering individual uniquely experiences the depth of depression’s impact, its pain, and its temporary stifling of inspirations and passions. This limits healthcare providers somewhat in their ability to help individuals feel better, no matter the root cause of their illness, but it makes it all the more essential that they treat people with dignity and respect their sense of purpose, and, of the utmost importance, listen to and validate their concerns – this is the only way to build relationships that create healing.
[Key parts of] the foundation of medicine [are] friendship, conversation and hope.
Indeed! Knowledge heals, but works much better when accompanied by these wonderful companions.
Dr. David Loxtercamp, a family doctor in Belfast, Maine, and the author of "A Measure of My Days: The Journal of a Country Doctor." Listen to his May 29 interview on “Morning Edition,” or read the transcript here.
John F. Greden, M.D.
Read other messages from our director. | <urn:uuid:370a348c-d0ea-4a0f-840c-68681e495ce6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.depressioncenter.org/news-and-publications/director/foundation_of_medicine.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946593 | 846 | 2.0625 | 2 |
George Eliot is the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880), who was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity.
She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure that her works were taken seriously. Female authors published freely under their own names, but Eliot wanted to ensure that she was not seen as merely a writer of romances. An additional factor may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes. | <urn:uuid:d3046d33-389c-4d85-82f0-c59b9214a3ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quotationsbook.com/quote/35012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987213 | 137 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The holiday season can be stressful, but no one expects to be served with a subpoena under the mistletoe. Click through the slideshow to read about seven lawsuits related to Rudolph, Christmas trees, menorahs and more.
Six inmates in the Maricopa County, Ariz. penitentiary system accused the sheriff’s office of spreading too much holiday cheer. Each inmate alleged that being forced to listen to the music constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment and is a violation of their rights.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio believes that playing songs such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “Feliz Navidad” for 12 hours every day can help lift the spirits of more than 8,000 inmates and jail staff members in the third-largest jail system in the U.S. Arpaio noted that his musical selections are multiethnic, culturally diverse and represent many religions. A press release issued by Arpaio announcing the court’s decision to allow the music to be played compared those six inmates to the Grinch.
Another Christmas Story
Zack Ward played bully Scut Farkus in the 1983 film A Christmas Story. National Entertainment Collectibles Assn. contacted him in 2006 to license his likeness for the production of an action figure based on the Farkus character. Ward alleged the company also created a board game without his permission and is suing to recoup royalty-related damages.
He took National Entertainment to federal court in July 2012 to resolve the initial issue and then amended his complaint in August 2012 to include a claim of fraudulent concealment of evidence when he learned a 2009 calendar that also included his image. Ward alleges National Entertainment withheld evidence to disrupt litigation and damaged him by forcing him to rely on an incomplete record. The firm maintains that his allegations are baseless and intends to fight them. The case is thus far unresolved.
A similar suit, Ward v. Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. et al., was filed in August 2011. Lawsuits regarding likenesses in film and television merchandising are becoming increasingly rare, as newer contracts include stipulations that limit actors’ rights to their names, voices or likenesses in connection with merchandise sales.
Needs More Menorah
The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport created a holiday display in December 2006, which included 14 Christmas trees. Chabad-Lubavitch, a Jewish Orthodox group, asked for a menorah to be included in the display, but the request quickly gave way to threats of a lawsuit. Airport officials decided it was easier to remove the display altogether, rather than try to appease every religious group.
A Chabad-Lubavitch spokesperson said it never requested removal of the trees, but rather asked the airport to make room for other groups to be represented in accordance with the law. The display, which consisted of “holiday trees,” lights and snowflakes, was previously revised to be what the director of the airport deemed “secular.” The lawsuit, which was never filed, cited a 1989 decision by the U. S. Supreme Court to uphold the dual display of menorahs and Christmas trees in public spaces as protected under the First Amendment.
Travelers Fuming Over Tree Fire
A Christmas tree fire in 2009 in Dauphin County, Pa., caused $3.4 million in damages to the Founder’s Hall rotunda of Milton Hershey School, a private k-12 boarding school. Travelers and Hershey Trust Co. filed a suit against Designs Unlimited Interior Landscapes Inc., alleging shoddy workmanship that caused a 25-foot-tall artificial evergreen to burst into flames. No one was injured.
Milton Hershey claims that it sustained $105,000 in uninsured losses in addition to millions Travelers spent on cleanup. The tree had 5,000 lights installed and connected to a three-outlet electrical adapter, which was overloaded and set the velvet skirt and packages underneath the tree on fire.
Designs Unlimited contests the suit is unfounded because the overloaded adapter was supplied by school officials. It added the Taiwanese light manufacturer, the companies that service the building’s fire alarm, sprinkler, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and Home Depot, who sold the lights, to the suit as defendants.
Clerk Decries Kwanzaa Celebration
Christ Thomas, a probate court clerk in Shelby, Tenn. filed a complaint in December of 2007 regarding a Kwanzaa celebration to be hosted by County Commissioner Henri Brooks. “The reason I filed the lawsuit is because of the discrimination against Christians, Jews and other faiths by allowing the Kwanzaa celebration to happen,” Thomas said. He claimed the proposed celebration is a spiritual alternative to Christmas and is therefore in violation of First Amendment rights and county property regulations.
Brooks has hosted the first night of Kwanzaa for 12 years prior to the suit and maintains that the celebration is not religious. According to www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org, “Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday. It is not an alternative to people's religion or faith but a common ground of African culture.” County Atty. Brian Kuhn said he did not believe Kwanzaa was religious, and Mayor Wharton did not plan to stop the event. In the future, requests for events will have to be submitted to the mayor’s office for review.
An Ontario woman got drunk at an office Christmas party in 1994 and proceeded to drive home in a snowstorm, crashing her car. She sued her employer, Sutton Group Reality, for allowing her to drive, despite offers of a company cab ride or accommodations if she handed over her keys.
In a decision that will no doubt put future party plans on the rocks, the judge awarded her more than $300,000 in damages and interest, a quarter of the accident damages, which were assessed at $1.2 million. The reduction in awarded amount was due to what the judge called the plaintiff’s “own fault in the matter,” but reminded Sutton Group that it is the duty of employers to monitor the alcohol consumption of employees and company functions.
Here are some tips for avoiding office party disasters from a survey by The Creative Group:
- Consider your 'plus one' carefully. When a celebration is for employees only, it's a definite faux pas to bring a date. Also, if your significant other is a wild card at parties, it's probably best to go solo.
- Ditch the Santa suit. It's OK to be festive, but don't wear anything too outrageous or revealing. Find out what the dress code is and keep to it.
- Stick to your limit. If alcohol is served, drink in moderation and don't pressure others who choose to abstain.
- Avoid sharing TMI. It's natural to let your guard down during casual get-togethers, but there's no reason to start divulging secrets. Keep the conversation upbeat and avoid cringe-worthy topics.
- Don't play paparazzi. It's fun to take photos at group events, but refrain from posting embarrassing pictures of your coworkers on social media. If you want to share photos, be sure to get permission from your work team first.
Season of Giving (and Taking)
Country group Alabama’s popular 1982 holiday song, “Christmas in Dixie,” is the subject of a lawsuit within the Sony Music label. Allan Caswell wrote the song “On the Inside” recorded by Lynne Hamilton, which became a chart-topper in Australia in 1979, and claims that “Christmas in Dixie” contains a similar, if not identical, melody.
Caswell sued Sony ATV in 2009, alleging that he did not collect the proper royalty payments from Alabama for usage of parts of his song. Complicating matters, Caswell and Alabama are both signed to Sony labels. He isn’t claiming plagiarism—he simply wants to be compensated for his publisher reusing his work. Litigation is still pending. | <urn:uuid:4886093b-7c91-41a5-aefc-8bb25d327071> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidecounsel.com/2012/12/26/7-unhappy-holiday-lawsuits?t=department-management&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96349 | 1,688 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Would you rather be hated or be despised? They are not synonymous. Hate is often an amalgam of other emotions — such as loathing, wrath, fear and envy. To be despised, on the other hand, is to have other people feel contempt and condescension towards you.
You might invite contempt for your faults. If they were serious enough to be sins — and if your actions adversely affected the lives of others — you might even be despised. People might look down on you condescendingly, perhaps even with a certain degree of pity, as one might for a weakling, a coward, a fool, a degenerate, or a person bereft of moral compass. What’s key here is that they would feel morally superior to you. Many a politician has been despised for this reason.
If, on the other hand, you lived a life of goodness and virtue, some people would like and admire you. But other people would — out of fear, envy and feelings of inferiority — hate you. Socrates, for example, was feared for the power of his unsettling questions, for questions can cause a person to fall into self-doubt. And Socrates was envied for the life he led. After all, a life spent in the pursuit of truth is a blessed life. Consequently, the Athenians hated Socrates enough to condemn him to death.
It is, therefore, the case that you are despised for your sins, but hated for your virtues. As with people, so it is with nations, which leads to our tale of America’s recent transformation under President Obama’s foreign policy…
High Noon for America
There is no truer account of America’s destiny among the nations than the Western, High Noon (1952). In that iconographic film, the freed convict, Frank Miller, arrives in town, on the noon train, with the intention of killing Sheriff Will Kane. In a particularly telling scene, the puerile deputy sheriff, Harvey Pell, tries to convince Sheriff Kane to leave town, supposedly out of concern for Will’s safety. Harvey even saddles Will’s horse for him. But when Will decides to remain in town to face Frank Miller, Harvey violently attempts to force him to leave.
What is the real reason why Harvey is so eager to have Sheriff Kane leave town? Harvey is cowardly, but he would like people to believe otherwise. The townspeople see through Harvey and his girlfriend mocks him for not being a man, unlike Sherriff Kane, whom she admires. Kane, who is truly heroic, is making Harvey look weak and pusillanimous. Indeed, Sherriff Kane is making most of the townspeople look like cowards.
It is also clear that many people in town would be only too glad to see Sheriff Kane gone and to have the villainous Frank Miller run the town. The spiritually weak welcome dictators, for dictators — and demagogues too — promise to take care of their material needs, and to give their shabby lives meaning and direction.
Correspondingly, the spiritually weak hate those who possess goodness, courage, and honor, for it castes into bas-relief their own wretched lives. And they hate them all the more vehemently when they offer them the heavenly gift of freedom, for freedom can only be a torment to a demon-possessed soul. For one thing, newfound freedom requires remorse over the wretched life one has been living, coupled with an anxious venturing into an unknown terrain. Apropos is Kierkegaard’s notion of “dread of the good.” (That’s right, rather than dreading that which is bad or evil, we can according to the perceptive Kierkegaard, dread what is good!) In any case, High Noon, is not just about a western town. It is about America among the nations. One might say that it’s always high noon for America.
America is sometimes despised for its supposed imperialism, but other nations that have actually been imperialistic — such as England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Russia, Japan, China, and Germany — have never been hated with the degree of venom reserved for Americans. There is a reason for this: While America may be despised for her sins, she is truly hated for her virtues. Like the Jews, Americans are held to an impossibly high moral standard, for the American spirit has, at its core, an idealism unparalleled among the nations. That is why there is a parallel between antisemitism and anti-Americanism.
America’s efforts to promote human rights, democracy, law, and liberty, are invariably viewed with cynicism by her foes who — with the jaundiced and paranoid eyes endemic to conspiracy theorists — claim that they see only self-interest, concluding that American foreign policy is all really about oil, wealth, and hegemony.
Like any nation, America has its economic and political interests. How could she not? But what is maddening to many foreigners, as well as to those on the political left, is that a supposedly idealistic nation should have any economic and political interests. These cynics are akin to spoiled adolescents, who angrily accuse their struggling parents of not being the angels they childishly demand them to be.
It is, therefore, understandable that the Americans often find themselves criticized by the miserable refuse that can be found in every nation of the world, by those forever in flight from themselves and from God. What the world needs now is exorcists, i.e., those skilled in casting out demons.
Unfortunate Addendum: No Longer Hated, but Now Despised
Recent changes in American foreign policy have been transforming America’s role in the world. Our meddling in the affairs of a tiny democracy, Honduras, is a telltale sign of bad things to come. The effort of the Obama administration to reinstate Honduras’ deposed leftist leader and would be dictator, Manuel Zelaya is, indeed, a national disgrace. So is President Obama’s betrayal of America’s allies, such as Israel, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, President Obama has befriended the brutal thug of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and pursued a policy of appeasement towards aggressor nations, such as Iran and Russia.
President Reagan stated that “The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation.” If we continue to support dictators, that last best hope will be but a sad memory. When America ceases to stand for liberty, her days as a nation will be numbered, for there are too many enemies that wish to destroy her. It is no exaggeration that the ship of state is foundering and in serious peril.
It is a major foreign policy objective, of President Obama, that America not be hated. No more shall we be viewed as the “ugly Americans.” That is why, in his first months of office, he traveled around the world apologizing for our nation’s history. If President Obama succeeds with his foreign policy objectives, America will — having lost her status as both a superpower and beacon for freedom — no longer be envied, feared and hated. Instead, America will be intensely despised, both by her enemies and by her former friends, whom she betrayed. Yes, this transformative presidency has transformed hatred into contempt. It will increasingly imperil the security and freedom of America and the world. | <urn:uuid:3d902b77-bbc0-4ebf-ac38-22c3a2d8c004> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.deeperquestions.com/blog/the-new-ugly-americans-from-being-hated-to-being-despised/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96805 | 1,536 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Here's an alarm clock that clicks on your favorite music, vibrates your pillow, removes your sheets and makes your coffee. Brian Wagner and his mechanical engineering teammates at Colorado State University (Matthew Cuff, Ryan Seeboth and Steve Schmitt) devised the perfect wake-up machine. The alarm uses a keypad and six LEDs to indicate depressed buttons or command functions that determine the sensory mix to wake you up and ease you into your day. The temperature gauge can be connected to a heater or fan to activate the perfect wake-up temperature.
Using three (four?) PICs, a keyboard encoder, a 555, and four digital potentiometers when only the PIC16F747 would do is not a good design. I suspect everything on the "Light Dimmer Circuit" sheet could also be incorporated into the one PIC16F747.
We looked at a number of sources to determine this year's greenest cars, from KBB to automotive trade magazines to environmental organizations. These 14 cars emerged as being great at either stretching fuel or reducing carbon footprint.
Healthcare might seem to be an unlikely target application for the Internet of Things technology, but recent developments show small ways that big-data is going to make an impact on patient care moving into the future.
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is | <urn:uuid:3a0cc7c6-b45d-4e30-a77d-f7ec0c2439d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=228541 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928107 | 394 | 1.796875 | 2 |
In the online training world, numerous software platforms and applications have made it possible to build very specific course topics. The phenomenon is called micro-learning, and it’s driving a revolutionary shift in corporate and academic e-learning. How can you build your own courses using these new tools and techniques?
If you only have one tool…
Whenever I trek into the backcountry, I always have my Leatherman multi-tool (It’s one of my ten essentials).
We all pretty much know what these are: it’s basically a folding knife with a bunch of other handy little items folded into the housing.
Mine has a serrated knife, a file, screwdrivers, needlenose pliers, a flint, bottle opener, scissors, and the housing itself is a ruler. It includes a leather sheath with a belt-strap, although I tend to carry it in the pack.
It comes in handy in almost any situation, like when I need to cut up some kindling, rig up a bear bag, or repair a torn backpack. I’ve used it for those things and more. All of these tools separately would weigh a ton, but together they weigh less than a pound. It’s a very effective little device.
It got me wondering: Continue reading
For a few minutes, the kids wave, the crowd cheers, and parents beam. Then the pros take the field, the announcer says “wasn’t that nice”, and the people at home see more beer ads.
For several months, the townspeople talk about it in the barber shops, then everything goes back to the way it was.
That’s how I felt reading An Apology to Content Marketers by Shel Israel over at Forbes Magazine. For a few minutes, it felt like content marketing was getting some respect in front of a wider audience.
They’ve got desktop document tools, a social media site, a video hosting service, a mobile device platform, a creepily in-depth global mapping tool, and will probably deliver the first flying car before long.
Back here on Earth, we’re seeing some incredible advances in learning technology, with online course providers and MOOCs popping up, as well as specialized software for building, delivering, and storing online course materials.
And Google has jammed its colorful thumb deep into that pie, too, with Google Course Builder.
I’ve also been to Washington, DC, and did plenty of walking around. Probably 3 whole miles.
What I’ve never done is run the 700+ miles between these two places. If I were to try, I’d give myself a few months, maybe a year.
Gary Allen will run that whole distance in two weeks. Starting on January 7, he will leave the summit of Cadillac Mountain at 6AM. He will cover 50 miles a day, until reaching Washington, DC just in time for the Presidential inauguration on the 21st. | <urn:uuid:14949df9-586a-4590-961a-e43e8e2eb8ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myleftone.com/2013/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947436 | 621 | 1.984375 | 2 |
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To reason earnestly with someone in an effort to dissuade or correct; remonstrate. See Synonyms at object.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To reason earnestly with a person against something that he intends to do or has done: followed by with before the person, by upon or on before the thing.
- Synonyms Expostulate with, Reprove, Rebuke, Reprimand, etc. See censure, and list under remonstrate.
- To discuss; examine into; reason about.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of his conduct, representing the wrong he has done or intends, and urging him to make redress or to desist; to remonstrate; -- followed by
- v. obsolete To discuss; to examine.
- v. reason with (somebody) for the purpose of dissuasion
- First attested circa 16th century, from Latin expostulatus, past participle of expostulo, "demand or claim," from ex- + postulo, "demand". (Wiktionary)
- Latin expostulāre, expostulāt- : ex-, intensive pref.; see ex- + postulāre, to demand; see prek- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
“Only if he had that kind of expostulate during football games.”
“The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate.”
“It was in vain to expostulate with the palefaced Spectre who directed our course, I found myself surrounded by a hubbub of voices, and trunks of old clothes, (you know I am always busy in that way in my sleep) and the roar of the Sea-beach, mingled with loud discharges of immense Artillery place'd on Cliffs over our heads.”
“Novas expostulate would begin during the 23, as great as the offense would pierce the round eight yards in 3 plays, afterwards punt.”
“Receiving the round initial in the third quarter, the Rams would put together the 10-play, 61-yard expostulate immoderate 5 mins as great as finishing it off with the 6-yard TD pass from Stefkovich to So, TE, Joe Migliarese (Blue Bell, Pa.) to tighten the measure to twenty-nine twenty-eight TU.”
“With Nova starting upon the own 23, Whi! tney wou ld lead Nova upon an eight-play 20-yard expostulate which would consume the small some-more than 4 minutes.”
“The expostulate would case with 4th & fourteen from the VU 43, as great as Nova would punt the round behind to UNH.”
“Do we know anyone with a automobile who could expostulate me down there? we mean, it's not which far of a drive ....”
“I wish to be social, especially upon this beautiful sleet white day in Houston, so we hope Geek Gathering is still starting upon as good as my husband wants to expostulate the family.”
“RB, Tremayne Dameron (King George, Va.) would top off the expostulate with the 5-yard TD run pushing the Tiger lead to 13 0 with some-more than 11 mins superfluous in the 1st quarter.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘expostulate’.
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
Discombobulate-enkindled 'ulate' words.
Words which - with a modicum of tolerance in pronunciation - sound like ways of cooking eggs.
Out of this world via the "X-express".
This is a mix of new words I've read studying for the GRE verbal and words I use normally. I also check back on these words if I don't use them often enough.
Looking for tweets for expostulate. | <urn:uuid:14f18427-9794-41f5-94d8-dbe7b578d46c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/expostulate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947588 | 952 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Accounting and Finance
The Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Accounting & Finance gives students the opportunity to acquire the in–depth knowledge of Accounting & Finance and the range of skills they need to embark on a successful career in accounting or in the finance area, a professional qualification or postgraduate study. Read More
The aims of Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Accountancy programme are to provide:
- A structure that provide graduates with a thorough grounding in accounting and the concepts that underlay it.
- A structure that allows students to develop a broad and detailed understanding of the requirements of financial reporting, auditing, taxation and finance, including the broader regulatory, social and legal framework, and an understanding of current issues
- A programme designed to develop students’ conceptual understanding and technical competence in managerial accounting, and an understanding of current issues
- A programme designed to promote an appropriate awareness of information technology and competence in its use | <urn:uuid:4b767009-03f9-4df8-8545-cc4c3240f8b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linton.edu.my/en/programme-offered/accounting-finance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930342 | 189 | 2.09375 | 2 |
ALBANY, Ga. — When Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman marched his troops from Chattanooga, Tenn., into Georgia in May of 1864, he made an ominous promise to President Abraham Lincoln.
“I will make Georgia howl,” Sherman famously declared.
The Civil War’s most infamous general kept his word, leaving in his wake the howls of Georgians who watched helplessly as their homes and properties were destroyed, their livestock and valuables taken, and the infrastructure of their cities left in ruins.
Sherman’s utter destruction of Atlanta and his subsequent 300-mile March to the Sea at Savannah resulted in, by the general’s own estimate, $100 million in damages (an amount equal to $1.38 billion in 2010 dollars) and rendered 300 miles of railroad tracks useless. Sherman’s troops seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules and 13,000 head of cattle during their deadly march and left hundreds of thousands of pristine Georgia acres in ashes.
As the country reflects this year on the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Civil War’s opening volleys, few names are as passionately discussed — especially in Georgia — as the general who laid waste to so much of the state. He is revered as a military genius in the North, celebrated as a tactician whose strategy brought a swift end to the bloody conflict.
Southerners, though, revile Sherman as a war criminal, a man whose barbaric tactics were last used in the Dark Ages and later copied by Nazis in their quest to conquer the world.
“I consider Sherman to be a war criminal of the most vile type,” James King, commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization’s Albany Camp 141, said. “Statements made by Sherman indicate that he had no regard for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and no respect for civil rights and liberties of Southern civilians.
“Sherman and his 75,000 Union troops exhibited a total lack of character and morals, and were no more than common criminals as they burned, plundered, stole, destroyed, murdered, tortured and raped their way across Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah and then to South Carolina, where their conduct appears even more heinous, inexcusable and vile.”
Such sentiment is common across the South, especially among those who celebrate the service of their Confederate ancestors as members of the SCV. There are some, however, who take a more neutral stance.
“People’s take on Sherman tends to depend on their perspective,” said Villa Rica history professor Ernest Blevins, whose relatives fought on both sides during the conflict and who is one of a small number of was descendents with dual memberships in the national Sons of Confederate Veterans and Sons of Union Veterans organizations.
“The truth is, he was doing his job, and unfortunately for the South, he did it well. Books I’ve read suggest his strategy was to break civilian morale in the South and thus break the Confederacy. That’s exactly what he did. How people perceive that strategy depends on whether they were on the winning or losing side.”
Confederate Commanding Gen. Robert E. Lee was among the noted detractors on the losing side.
“No greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetuation of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country,” he wrote.
By contrast, Lee offered: “We make war only on armed men, and we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies and offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth.”
No matter one’s take on Sherman’s strategy, none will deny its effectiveness.
The man whose name is anathema in Georgia, graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1840 and was teaching military science at what is now Louisiana State University when Southern states seceded from the Union. He left for a Union commission and commanded a brigade in the first major battle of the war at Bull Run, Va. He later led a division at Shiloh.
Sherman subsequently laid waste to lands in Louisiana and Mississippi before planning his siege of Georgia through what was known as the “scorched earth” principle. His supply line in Chattanooga was being challenged by Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood, though, so he detached two of the armies under his command — to be led by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas — to deal with Hood while he marched his remaining forces of 62,000 into Atlanta.
From May to September of 1864, Sherman and his troops devastated Georgia’s current capital, at the time a strategic rail center in the South. A month later, as he prepared to continue his destruction in a march from Atlanta to Savannah, he looked back on what had been a teeming city.
“Behind us lay Atlanta, smoldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in the air, and hanging like a pall over the ruined city,” Sherman wrote in his “Memoirs.”
With no regular supplies to rely on, Sherman and his men “lived off the land,” taking food, livestock and valuables from the homes and plantations that stood in their path. In addition to the 22,000 head of livestock, military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones estimate Sherman and his army confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, in addition to other stores.
But there is evidence Union officers turned their heads as their men took non-martial valuables and inflicted damage on many of the civilians and slaves they encountered. Brent Wilburn, whose ancestors owned a plantation near Savannah, said a story of such atrocities has been handed down through the generations in his family.
“My aunt has letters that describe what took place, but I’ve heard those stories all my life,” Wilburn said. “Evidently my family members who lived on the plantation fled to the Okefenokee Swamp and either hid or took their family silver with them to keep it out of the hands of Yankee soldiers. Their slaves stayed behind.
“There was apparently some sort of rivalry among the slaves who worked the fields and the ones who worked inside, so the lower slaves in the pecking order told the Yankee soldiers one of the inside slaves knew where the family’s silver was hidden. She either did not know or would not tell the soldiers, and they broke her fingers in an effort to get her to talk.”
Sherman and his troops left Atlanta on Nov. 15, 1864, and arrived in Savannah on Dec. 21. He received supplies from the U.S. Navy and was joined by Gen. William Hazen for the Battle of Fort McAllister outside Savannah. The Union troops captured the installation in 15 minutes.
Sherman notes in his memoirs the ominous message he sent to Confederate Gen. William Hardee: “I am justified in demanding the surrender of the city of Savannah ... and shall wait a reasonable time for your answer before opening with heavy ordnance,” he wrote. “Should you entertain the proposition, I am prepared to grant liberal terms to the inhabitants and garrison; but should I be forced to resort to assault ... I shall then feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army ...”
Hood did not surrender. Instead he and his men used the time allotted to escape, so Sherman and his troops marched into Savannah unchallenged. The Union general sent the following telegram to Lincoln on Christmas Eve: “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.”
Emboldened by his success in Georgia, Sherman and his troops headed north for the Carolinas, covering a 450-mile swath in an astounding 50 days. Along the way the Union troops continued their scorched earth strategy, and by the time they met up with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia, the war was all but over.
“People tend to look at what Sherman and other generals did, and they look too closely at the details,” said Charles Lunsford, who for more than a decade traveled the national lecture circuit as a spokesman for the SCV. “They tend to forget that these men’s actions came at the behest of President Lincoln. He sent orders to completely destroy the South, to loot it, to plunder it, to burn it.
“After the South was destroyed, the government made laws designed to keep the South poor, to keep it from rising. And it worked. It was the 1950s before our region started to recover. The thing Northerners don’t seem to want to talk about is that Lincoln and his generals acted in a way to put down the very thing we celebrate on the 4th of July. Lincoln did the same thing George III tried in the Revolutionary War, only he succeeded.”
Lunsford said Northern historians have downplayed the criminal actions of both Sherman and Lincoln.
“The treatment of Southerners by the Northern troops is the 500-pound gorilla that’s an embarrassment to Northern writers,” he said. “It’s always been easy for me to debate them or college professors from the North because all their talking points come from sycophants who won’t acknowledge that Lincoln was the only U.S. president guilty of coup d’etat.
“He was a war criminal who eventually got what he deserved. Northern writers seem to forget the Declaration of Independence and work overtime to beatify their assassinated president. History was oppressed and propagandized for more than 100 years.”
King, like so many other Southerners, agrees with Lunsford’s assessment.
“Sherman, Sheridan, Lincoln, Hunter, Butler and other Union politicians and military officers should be tried posthumously as war criminals and their dastardly deeds made known to Americans,” he said. “It is my opinion that the Southern states should be paid reparations by the federal government and a public admission and apology for war crimes should be forthcoming.” | <urn:uuid:8db3ef38-726c-4853-9b15-77ba2786daff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2011/oct/23/shermans-march-turned-tide-war/?sports | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976124 | 2,192 | 2.78125 | 3 |
AED Legal Analysis for Alabama
State: Alabama pick another state
AEDs are required in every public school, grades K to 12. “Expected users” must receive CPR/AED training by the person or entity who acquires the AED, although no specific number of “expected users” is spelled out. Local emergency medical services must be notified of AEDs location and the acquirer’s AED program must be supervised by a medical doctor or “medical authority”. Good Samaritan protection extends to the AED acquirer or provider if the device is properly maintained and CPR/AED training is provided. Immunity from civil liablility extends to an AED user (trained or not) who exercises ordinary care.
CPR Classes in Alabama
We make every attempt to ensure the accuracy of our research regarding automated external defibrillator (AED) unit laws in each state across the country, however, with laws varying from state-to-state and even on a local basis, as you might imagine, staying abreast of constant changes is a very challenging process. As such, it's important to note that our findings should be used for informational purposes only and that any specific AED laws or AED requirements for your AED program should be developed between you and your legal counsel. If you have any suggestions, information, or tips on new or pending AED unit legislation that you feel might help improve our AED requirement pages, please contact us to let us know! By spreading knowledge about how to build and manage legally compliant AED programs, we hope to improve survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest. | <urn:uuid:0a06d0f6-4ad2-4952-84a4-e705bdf665e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlineoversight.com/aed_laws/state/AL | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935108 | 339 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Solutions | Hazardous Waste and Industrial Services | Solvent and Metal Recovery
Solvent and Metal Recovery
The vacuum distillation process is able to refine all types of organic solvents up to their original purity and return back to the same customer for re-use.
The distillation plant comprises of both batch and continuous process systems that enable purification and recycling of contaminated solvents. The plant has six single-drum distillation systems and two vacuum tank distillation systems to process up to 9000 tons of waste per year.
Veoliais also able to provide customized distillation service to the customers.
The customized distillation system is able to distill different types of solvents simultaneously to meet the specific needs of the customers. The residue resulting from the solvent recycling will be incinerated accordingly.
The solvent recycling system has a capacity of 900 tons per month.
Veolia is equipped with metal recovery systems, mainly for copper and nickel. The electrolytic metal recovery systems have the capacity to process more than 30 tons of pure metal and up to 2000 tons of metal oxide is produced via precipitation method annually. | <urn:uuid:947761ed-c664-46e0-98f7-9be88b9dacab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.veolia-es.sg/solvent.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934535 | 228 | 2.0625 | 2 |
President Obama's inauguration speech indeed gives pause to many of the centrist voters who are responsible for his re-election ("Agenda Gives Centrists Pause," U.S. News, Jan. 23). Our support for him and many Democratic candidates was largely in recognition that the conservative Republicans in the last Congress have been even more unwilling to compromise on the key issues than the president. By recently agreeing to extend the debt limit, conservative House Republicans are finally recognizing that compromise will be necessary to reduce the deficit and regain support from centrists.
President Obama and liberal congressional Democrats will be wise to understand that their success in the last election wasn't because the centrists have suddenly become liberals. We would rather support centrist candidates, but unfortunately there are fewer centrist choices in either party. In their absence we will continue to support the opponents of those least willing to compromise. This is not a ringing endorsement for most of the goals the president set out in his inaugural address, well intended though they may be.
The support of centrists could easily and quickly swing back to the Republicans if the president and liberal Democratic leaders assume the same intransigent and inflexible attitude toward compromise that cost the Republicans so dearly in the last election.
American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance
A version of this article appeared January 30, 2013, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Compromise Must Swing Both Ways. | <urn:uuid:30158b83-34b4-4aca-8d25-157f7a321eac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578262293996498074.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLEThirdBucket | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960313 | 294 | 1.53125 | 2 |
International Food Coming to Campus - First Lunch Will Help Haitian Relief
January 26, 2010—
It’s called Khana Khazana in Hindi. Or Alimentación del Tesoro in Spanish. 食品寶藏 in Chinese; Продовольственная сокровищ in Russian; and Food Treasure in English. But Khana Khazana by any other name is coming to lunch at Michigan Tech, beginning this Friday, Jan. 29. And the proceeds will benefit Haitian relief.
A project proposed by international students Sahil Thakkar and Safayat Alam and enthusiastically adopted by Eric Karvonen, executive chef, and Matt Lean, associate director of retail dining for Dining Services at Michigan Tech, Khana Khazana will be an international food booth in the Memorial Union Commons. Student chefs from various countries will cook, and every Friday, the booth will offer a different international menu.
A full meal, including drink, will cost $6. Dishes also will be available a la carte.
All proceeds beyond expenses for the first lunch—approximately $3 per plate—will be donated to Haitian relief, according to Lean.
Some of the international meals will focus on a single ethnic cuisine. Others will combine foods from various countries.
“Eating is an adventure, and more and more people want to eat more diverse foods,” said Karvonen. He said he believes Michigan Tech is one of the first universities to offer a regular ethnic menu in its main campus dining facility, cooked by students from the countries represented.
The third International Food Festival in November was such a success, followed by an international food tasting in the MUB in early December, that “this is the next logical step,” said Bob Wenc, the International Club advisor from International Programs and Services.
“There are limited opportunities to eat authentic ethnic food in the Houghton area, and people are hungry for this,” said Thakkar, publicity chair of the International Club and an enthusiastic Indian cook.
An undergraduate in electrical engineering technology from India, Thakkar will cook the first Khana Khazana meal: egg bhurji, featuring eggs, onions, tomatoes and spices, served with bread; mixed spice veggie pulav with vegetables and rice; Sahil’s fruit salad, which includes mangoes, apples, bananas and blueberries; and chai (Indian spiced tea). Other international students will cook on future Fridays. Dining Services hopes to see students cooking ethnic specialties from all over the world.
“The success of Khana Khazana all depends on the students,” said Lean, “If they become excited and involved, they will support the booth, and I believe others will too, from Michigan Tech and the surrounding community.”
Khana Khazana and other food services at Michigan Tech are open to the public as well as the campus community.
Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public research university developing new technologies and preparing students to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world. Michigan Tech offers more than 130 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in engineering; forest resources; computing; technology; business; economics; natural, physical and environmental sciences; arts; humanities; and social sciences. | <urn:uuid:ae39fadc-0418-46d8-b8fe-4ebe0da692b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2010/january/story22219.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919215 | 708 | 1.5 | 2 |
MOUNT VERNON — 21st-century technology is invading local school districts. One example is an electronic, interactive whiteboard that makes typical dry-erase boards, as educational tools, about as obsolete as slate blackboards and chalk.
Some districts, such as Centerburg, have units which are portable and shared among classrooms. Other schools, such as East Knox Middle School, have wall-mounted units which remain in the specific classroom.
Electronic whiteboards typically consist of a projector which displays computer video output onto what is, in essence, a very large computer touch screen. Digital writing implements can be used like traditional whiteboard markers, and, depending on the accompanying software, the lessons can be sound-enhanced and tailored to match individual student learning styles. The multimedia aspect enables teachers to relatively easily enrich their standard lessons and pull in relevant information from the Internet.
Jeff Lavin, Knox County Career Center principal, said that although a few of the lab teachers use interactive whiteboards regularly, they are used mainly in the academic classrooms at KCCC. He said the whiteboards provide teachers with an efficient way to deliver notes and other information.
“The lessons — slides of notes and voice recordings — can be saved and accessed later by students,” Lavin explained. “Students gain experience with using the technology when giving presentations and speeches.”
That interactive nature of whiteboard technology is what makes it such a valuable educational tool, according to Don Foos, teacher of middle school math, science and history at The Alternative Center. The Alternative Center uses the SmartBoard brand of interactive whiteboards.
“During a history lesson,” he said, “you can put video clips of relevant materials up on the screen and show those just when you’re talking. You can also, on the spur of the moment, access reference materials. There have been a number of times when we’ve been talking about something and I’ll just type it up on the computer and there’s a [video] clip of that topic.
“For math, there are manipulatives specially designed for SmartBoards. With those, the teacher can interact with the kids. They can come up and actually use the manipulatives in a way you cannot do with overheads. There’s a whole bunch of resources on line that are specifically designed for SmartBoard — any subject you can imagine. There’s more and more specifically designed to have the kids interact with it. So they can come up and play review games and stuff. It’s kind of cool.”
One of the big points of whiteboards, Foos said, is that capability for student interaction.
“They can come up and touch things,” he said. “It’s good for teachers because you can face the kids, and you can show them [the material], especially online. But they can also come up and do it as well. That gets them moving and active. Any time you get kids moving and active and feeling they are doing something positive; they’re more geared up and more tuned in [to the lesson].”
Although interactive whiteboards do not exactly pay for themselves, there are some financial benefits to using the technology.
“They are able to save paper costs and those sorts of soft costs because we can do a lot more on the whiteboards and have to do less with worksheets,” said John Marschhausen, East Knox superintendent. “They can also replace workbooks in some instances, because kids can go up to the whiteboards and work there. Another thing that helped offset costs in our case is that with the whiteboards and projectors, we didn’t do TVs and DVDs and VCRs.
“In the case of our new middle school, the [SmartBoard] projectors replace the TV; they replace the old pull-down screen. Because our computers are our tuners and our DVD players, we are actually also saving money. We used to subscribe to United Streaming and to some other video sources. Now we just use YouTube and a lot of the free news services. In addition to the paper and the worksheets and the workbooks, they can save some costs that way, too.
“There are a lot of hidden benefits to using interactive technology,” Marschhausen continued. “Everything you write up there can now be saved in a Word document or a PowerPoint or a PDF file and sent to whoever you want to send it to or saved for whatever purpose.
“It used to be that teachers would have kids sign the class rules,” he added. “This way, the kids go up and sign on the whiteboard that they understand the class rules and the teachers can save that on a file. The other thing it can do is, if a student is absent, you can save everything that’s written on your SmartBoard and e-mail it to the student as an attachment. So, even if there was a class activity where classmates were going up and writing things up there, the teacher can save the class work and send it to absent students.” | <urn:uuid:7d3843c3-f032-4b0e-8d26-072abbb092c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/10/01/09/hi-tech-equipment-invades-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952527 | 1,079 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Let us begin with best wishes to all of my readers in this New Year of 2013.
After the election,
this writer was very disappointed when he heard the same old rhetoric, issues and political dogma once again emerge as the dominate manner of political discourse.
Further, regardless of who they voted for, a large number of voters were not happy with choices they had to select from for President and other offices. These choices were forced upon them by the Establishment of both major parties.
Liberty died a little bit more this year as both major political parties decided to abandon the Rule of Law and resurrect the political philosophy known as the Divine Right of Kings.
- In the Republican party, we saw the GOP Establishment stack the
rules committee to pass rules that make grassroots participation even
- In the Democratic Party, we saw the Democrat Establishment blatantly
lie about the outcome of a vote regarding the mention of God and
Jerusalem in their platform.
These two Un-American acts by both major political parties demonstrated to Americans of every political stripe that our political parties no longer represent us but rather manage us like livestock. When their duplicity fails, they resort to the philosophy of “Might makes Right”.
With so much money and power aligned against WE THE PEOPLE, it is difficult to know where to start. But start somewhere we must.
This writer has concluded that WE THE PEOPLE must take on the role in framing the issues of future elections instead of allowing the 2 major parties and the press to do so.
Further, WE THE PEOPLE must……
To Continue reading for free, please click here -> http://t.co/4QeE6JlN
Those were my thoughts.
Thank you, my fellow citizens, for taking your valuable time to read and reflect upon what is written here.
Please join with me in mutually pledging to each other and our fellow citizens our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to our mutual endeavors of restoring liberty and economic opportunity to WE THE PEOPLE as our Founding Fathers envisioned and intended. [Last Paragraph, Declaration of Independence http://bit.ly/ruPE7z ]
This article is written with the same intentions as Thomas Paine http://ushistory.org/paine. I seek no leadership role. I seek only to help the American People find their own way using their own “Common Sense” http://amzn.to/kbRuar
Tell My Politician http://goo.gl/1FWfz
Keep Fighting the Good Fight!
WE THE PEOPLE TAR #WETHEPEOPLETAR
Lawless America #LawlessAmerica
Justice in Minnesota #JIM
Bring Home the Politicians #BHTP
Get out of our House #GOOOH
Critical Thinking Notice – This author advises you as no politician would dare. Exercise Critical Thinking (http://bit.ly/ubI6ve) in determining the truthfulness of anything you read or hear. Do not
passively accept nor believe anything anyone tells you, including this author… unless and until you verify it yourself with sources you trust and could actively defend your perspective to anyone who might debate you to the contrary of your perspective. | <urn:uuid:11faafe2-c478-4b51-8aa2-d1b8db22b91e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://my.firedoglake.com/donmashakthecynicalpatriot/tag/resolution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945913 | 657 | 1.773438 | 2 |
I am increasingly finding a disturbing trend in my practice: more of my patients are being diagnosed with osteopenia and osteoporosis. What’s even more troubling is that many of these patients don’t fit the classic stereotype of the elderly, fragile woman. I have seen osteoporosis in young mothers and in young men!
According to epidemiological studies, 24 million Americans are diagnosed with osteoporosis. Of these, the majority are women over 45 years of age.
Osteoporosis is an important cause of morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) in the Western World.
This month’s newsletter focuses on Osteoporosis. We’ll discuss common risk factors and the naturopathic approach to treatment.
What is Osteoporosis?:
Osteoporosis is a progressive disease in which bones become more porous, brittle and breakable. It is characterized by a decreased bone mineral density (bones become more porous) and also by a deterioration of the micro-architectural structure (protein collagen matrix) of bone. Very often, in conventional treatment, the focus is on increasing bone mineral density without regard for the matrix structure. For treatment to be effective, both must be addressed.
Bones are Ever-Changing:
Our bones are constantly undergoing a process of change known as remodeling. Old and damaged bone is broken down (bone resorption) and replaced by new, health bone tissue (bone formation). Stress placed on our bones causes the remodeling process to intensify (that’s why we see the bones of a pitcher’s throwing arm become stronger and thicker over time).
Bones grow more dense and thick until peak bone mass is attained- generally in our early twenties.
The rate of bone formation keeps up with bone resorption until our late thirties or early forties at which point the balance shifts towards more bone breakdown versus less new bone formation.
Bone loss in women is accelerated at menopause because of the decline in estrogen and other hormones.
Genetics, exercise, nutrition, and other lifestyle factors play a very important role in how healthy our bones become, and remain throughout life.
Who is at Risk?
Many of the risk factors for osteoporosis are outside of our control. For example, advanced age, menopause (biological or surgical), being a woman, being Caucasian or Asian (in the US), having a genetic predisposition.
That being said, many lifestyle choices can contribute to a reduction in bone mass:
· Smoking (alters metabolism and may contribute to earlier menopause)
· High alcohol intake (decreases calcium and magnesium absorption and increases excretion in the urine)
· High caffeine intake (increases calcium excretion)
· Salt consumption (increases calcium excretion, especially in a salt-sensitive individual)
· Soft drinks (contain phosphoric acid which leaches calcium from the bones and increases its excretion through the urine)
· Sugar consumption (hinders calcium absorption and increases excretion)
· Lack of exercise (“use it or loose it!”)
· Lack of sunshine exposure (Vitamin D is critical for absorption of calcium)
· Diets low in protein and micronutrients
· Acidic diets (more on this below)
Many medication also increase bone loss. These include anticoagulants, anticonvulsants, anti-anxiety medication, aromatase inhibitors, steroids, diuretics, immunosuppressant drugs, antacids, and kidney dialysis solutions.
Many diseases which affect nutrient intake, absorption can contribute to osteoporosis. These include anorexia and bulimia, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, hypochlorhydria (low stomach acid).
So, what can you do about it?
Of course, as always, prevention is key. This requires a focus on healthy nutrition, sunlight exposure, and exercise throughout life.
That being said, when a patient comes to me with a diagnosis (usually through a bone density DEXA scan) of osteoporosis or osteopenia, I ask a very important question: WHY? Often in the medical world, we focus on the treatment of the symptom and do not seek the underlying cause. I use both intensive questioning and lab tests to determine what factors affect my particular patient’s bone health. Is the patient undernourished? Is there a particular nutrient deficiency? Is there an underlying medical condition? Many medical doctors test bone density once every one to two years (DEXA scans only pick up this type of long-range change in bone density) and neglect to do further testing. I like to get a baseline measure of bone turnover (either blood or urine testing) and then follow up every three months to see whether treatment is effective.
What is the treatment?
As always, naturopathic treatment is unique to the individual but, in all cases, the following apply:
Just as with a home remodeling job, two key elements are needed to remodel bones effectively:
Quality materials (and by this, I mean the nutritional elements required to form bone) AND
Effective labor (and by this, I mean exercise- which triggers the bone formation cells to get to work).
Many nutrients are required for optimal bone integrity. These include:
· Calcium: of course. (More about dairy as a source of calcium below).
· Vitamin D: without this vitamin, calcium cannot be absorbed. Vitamin D maintains a healthy balance between calcium and phosphorus to build and maintain healthy bones.
· Vitamin K: is required for the production of osteocalcin, a protein found in the bone which is essential for structural integrity of the bone.
· Magnesium: must be balanced with calcium in order for bones (and muscles and nerves) to function properly.
· Phosphorus: must be maintained in proper balance with calcium. Most often, North Americans have too much phosphorus in which case, calcium is leached from other parts of the body to maintain balance of the two minerals.
· Protein: is essential for making the collagen matrix of bone. That being said, excessive amounts of protein (especially animal protein) cause an increased excretion of calcium in the urine and result in leaching of calcium from the bones to buffer the acidic breakdown of protein. Protein metabolism also increases phosphorus.
· Other vitamins which play a role in healthy bone formation and maintenance: Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6.
· Other minerals which play a role: Boron, silicon, zinc, copper, strontium.
Dietary and Lifestyle Interventions for Osteoporosis (and Optimal Health in General):
· Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables (at least 9 servings a day): potassium, magnesium, Vitamin C, Vitamin A and beta carotene, Vitamin K are all associated with higher bone mass. Also, a plant-based diet decreases acidity in the body and thereby decreases the calcium leached from bones to buffer the blood.
· Get enough calcium: soymilk, tofu, sesame seeds, black-eyed peas, blackstrap molasses, poppy seeds, almonds, figs, fish (with bones and skin), dark leafy vegetables, and (maybe) some low fat dairy products. (See my previous newsletter on Calcium).
· Get enough Vitamin D: 10-20 minutes of sun exposure or supplementation. (See my previous newsletter on Vitamin D).
· Ensure intake of healthy fats and decrease intake of saturated fats.
· Limit caffeine, salt, sugar and alcohol.
· Decrease acidity in the diet (see below).
· Aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week.
High Acid Diet- perhaps the missing link?
Despite the fact that we, in the Western world, consume an abundance of dairy products, the age-adjusted incidence rates of hip fractures is many times higher in affluent developed countries than in Africa and Asia.
Here is a quote from the World Health Organization Report on Osteoporosis:
“The paradox (that hip fracture rates are higher in developed countries where calcium intake is higher than in developing countries where calcium intake is lower) clearly calls for an explanation. To date, the accumulated data indicate that the adverse effect of protein, in particular animal (but not vegetable) protein, might outweigh the positive effect of calcium intake on calcium balance.”
Recent research suggests that eating a diet high in animal proteins and grains and low in fruits and vegetables can increase calcium loss in the urine. According to some controversial research, a diet high in animal products actually leaches calcium from the bones. Dairy is considered an animal protein. There is some very compelling research focused on a preference for non-dairy sources of calcium. For example, a 2005 study by Lanou in the respected medical journal Pediatrics concluded the following: “Scant evidence supports nutrition guidelines focused specifically on increasing milk or other dairy product intake for promoting child and adolescent bone mineralization”. At any rate, as I tell all of my patients, do decrease animal products in general and do rely more heavily on a plant-based diet.
If you have been diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis, you should have further lab testing to determine what factors may be at play. Ask your doctor about follow up testing every three months to see if treatment is working for you.
If you are going to take a supplement to build bone strength, choose one which has a complete complement of nutrients needed to strengthen bone.
Make certain that you incorporate highly nutrient dense foods and decrease the acidity of your diet.
Exercise is an absolute requirement for bone health and optimal health in general.
So, Lets Bone Up America!
Please Note: This information is for educational purposes only. Consultation with a licensed health care practitioner is recommended for anyone suffering from a health ailment.
If you have any questions, or would like to schedule an appointment, please feel free to contact Dr. Leat Kuzniar, ND at 201-757-5558 or, through email at firstname.lastname@example.org.
For more information, or to read previous editions of our newsletter, please visit us on the web at www.njnaturopath.com | <urn:uuid:40c29e02-29fb-4ecc-8aec-131ed48e2a14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.altmd.com/Specialists/Dr-Leat-Kuzniar-ND-LLC/Blog | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904197 | 2,145 | 2.390625 | 2 |
- googly eyes
- pasta shapes
- bottle tops
- cut up pipe cleaners
- lots of glitter!
C. immediately talked about monsters and making them have “lots and lots and lots and lots of eyes” so she set to work! Pop tipped out all the glitter everywhere and had a wonderful time running her hands through it and flinging it e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e!
Here are some of Cakie’s finished very-super-scary monsters!
And without even realising it, Pop’s monster is fantastic! She stuck in as many eyes as her little fingers could grasp and push, with a couple of well-placed bits of pasta!
A good amount of squishing and squeezing occurred, brilliant for developing those tiny hand muscles, essential for writing.
I think this is my favourite one. C said “Mummy, this one’s saying ‘Peekaboo!’” Love it.
And we had a go at learning how to roll the dough using two flat hands on top, which is quite a skill of dexterity. C practised over and over and ended up making this fantastic stand up monster!
- fine motor skills: using a malleable material to pull, pinch, roll, flatten, mold, form, squeeze, squash to strengthen small hand muscles
- creativity: creating representations of real life or imaginary things using another medium, experimenting with combining materials
- literacy: developing language and storytelling through imaginary play
- maths: counting out cup fulls to follow simple instructions/ recipes, discussing and comparing lengths and thicknesses | <urn:uuid:d17e2e14-afdd-401e-a989-3fdbc3ccdf34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theimaginationtree.com/2011/10/monster-dough.html?showComment=1318440288364 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945495 | 349 | 2.796875 | 3 |
His Master's Voice
I believe, from having read about his preoccupations, that Lem considered himself a philosopher first and a writer second. His stories were vehicles for his ideas.
In novels such as Fiasco or The Investigation or even Solaris, Lem explores the concept that we never be able to truly understand that which is alien. We may be able to make our interpretations and they may even acquire their own sense of consistency but never will they be more than fables, stories we tell ourselves, like huddled animals around a campfire.
An example, and also a personal favorite, is Lem's metaphysical take on the detective story. A bizarre series of murders has everyone puzzled. They occur simultaneously across the country and bring into play recurring elements: bodies missing from graveyards, suggestive trails, murder scenes with hints of the supernatural. But (and this is key) there are never any witnesses. The simplest explanation occurs to the reader immediately: Corpses are rising from their graves and going on murderous rampages. But this is a supernatural explanation and so unsuitable. Instead, the detectives propose a solution which involves outrageous coincidences: sleep-walking truck drivers, mistaken identities, a rube-goldbergian series of events which do not seem probable in the lifetime of this universe. But, the explanation does not rely on the supernatural and so it is accepted as the only plausible one.
These narratives extend back to how we understand ourselves. In His Masters Voice, the hero Hogarth has read multiple biographies of himself and realizes they are all insufficient. He sets out to write his own tale:
"With sufficient imagination a man could write a whole series of versions of his life; it would form a union of sets in which the facts would be the only elements in common. People, even intelligent people, who are young, and therefore inexperienced and naïve, see only cynicism in such a possibility. They are mistaken, because the problem is not moral but cognitive."
The story of His Masters Voice is that a strange message has been recieved from a distant galaxy and a team of scientists set out to decipher it. In the Universe of Lem the message is yet again another fact about the world which must undergo interpetation and squeezed of meaning. Even if the message is deciphered, how do we know that that mirrors the original intent? Predictably, the story is less about the contents of the message itself than about the debates about its decipherment.
To me, Lem was at his best when he was exploring undiluted ideas, as he manages to do both in A Perfect Vacuum and in The Cyberiad. The former book, Borgesian in character, is a series of reviews of imaginary books. In his review of "De Impossibilitate Vitae and Prognoscendi" Lem writes (as an example of his dedication to this task):
Professor Kouska has written a work which demonstrates that the following relationship of mutual exclusion obtains: either the theory of probability, on which stands natural history, is false to its very foundations, or the world of living things, with man at its head, does not exist. In the second volume, the Professor argues that if prognostication, or futurology, is ever to become a reality and not an empty illusion, not a conscious or unconscious deception, then that discipline cannot avail itself of the calculus of probability but demands the implementation of an altogether different reckoning—namely, to quote Kouska, “theory, based on antipodal axioms, of the distribution of ensembles in actual fact unparalleled in the space-time continuum of higher-order events.” (The quotation also serves to show that the reading of the work, in the theoretical sections, does present certain difficulties.)
There is one review devoted to an actual work: A review of the very book itself. The reviewer did not like it.
In The Cyberiad, Lem employs two constructor-robots in the far future who, through humor and stories, explore the ideas of the limits of technology and the endpoints of our own evolution. In one tale, the robots embark on a visit to the most advanced civilization in the galaxy who have reached the Highest Possible Level of Development (HPLD) but find only dissapointment from creatures who at first ignore them then instruct them that technological sophistication and wealth have still not brought resolutions to the basic problem of happiness.
Although I placed him as a writer, second, that is not an attempt to discredit his writing. As one critic observed in 1983, "If [Stanislaw Lem] isn't considered for a Nobel Prize by the end of the century, it will be because someone told the judges that he writes science fiction," Apparently, someone told one of the judges. In any case, the century is over. And in any case, such an award would be posthumous. Stanislaw Lem died two days ago.
Listen to the MP3 of "Polish Science Fiction Legend Stanislaw Lem is Dead" | <urn:uuid:e92f4f2a-5dd1-4cf0-a855-df050390537f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://banubula.blogspot.com/2006/03/blog-post_28.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966502 | 1,035 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Running for president in the bicentennial year of 1976, Jimmy Carter -- peanut farmer, born-again Christian, and one-term governor -- played the role of Washington outsider to perfection. But his approach was more than a campaign strategy. The new president intended to govern the same way, and to carry that out he brought a whole team of outsiders to the White House, collectively nicknamed the "Georgia Mafia."
"You dance with the ones that bring you," comments journalist John A. Farrell on Carter's approach to staffing. "They were a very close-knit band of brothers. They did not have a lot in common with the national political party, they did not have a lot in common with the Congress. And they were pretty cocky guys as well."
Georgians With Connections
Most of the key positions in the executive branch were staffed by Georgians who had some connection to Carter: budget director Bert Lance; communications director Gerald Rafshoon; domestic policy advisor Stuart Eizenstat; Attorney General Griffin Bell; appointments secretary Phil Wise; Congressional liaison Frank Moore; White House counsel Robert Lipshutz. The closer one came to Carter's inner circle, the longer and deeper the connection. At the core were Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, and de facto chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan.
Loyalty -- and Inexperience
In a profile of Jordan and Powell for Rolling Stone magazine, Joe Klein wrote, "They had been plucked by Carter from towns in the Georgia backwoods no more than forty miles from Plains, and programmed for total loyalty to Jimmy. He had taken up all their adult lives. There were no other allegiances possible... or even fathomable." Besides loyalty, the young pair brought to their jobs intelligence, irreverent humor, hard work -- and absolutely no experience in national government.
Jody Powell had grown up in rural Vienna, Georgia, the son of a farmer and a high school teacher. "He was the All-American boy: the smartest, cleverest, best-looking, most popular kid in school," wrote Klein. Like many other promising southern boys, his future boss included, Powell earned an appointment to one of the elite military academies. He was on his way to becoming an Air Force pilot when he was expelled in his final year for cheating on a history exam. "After getting kicked out for cheating," Powell later joked, "politics seemed like the next best thing."
Powell finished his degree at Georgia State in Atlanta, tried his hand at insurance, then ended up as a graduate student in political science at Emory University. In 1969, he sent a paper on southern populism to Jimmy Carter, then in the midst of a four-year campaign for governor. He soon found himself sharing hotel rooms and countless hours on the road with Carter as his driver and political handyman, and a strong bond formed between the two men. When Carter won the governorship Powell became his press secretary, a role he would play for the next ten years. During the 1976 campaign and in the White House, Powell earned a reputation with reporters for his sharp sense of humor and fierce loyalty to Carter.
Compared to Powell, Hamilton Jordan was a city boy, born and raised in the town of Albany, Georgia. Schoolmates remembered him more for his affable personality than for his performance in the classroom or on the athletic field. He grew up in a political family -- his classmates voted him most likely to become governor some day -- and remained proud of his southern heritage, even when the civil rights movement came to Albany in 1961 in the person of Martin Luther King Jr. After graduating from the University of Georgia, he spent six months in Vietnam before being sent home with black water fever; his tour of duty was long enough for him to conclude "there was no escaping the fact that the war was wrong." Back home in Albany in 1966, hating his job at a bank, Jordan started volunteering for gubernatorial hopeful Jimmy Carter. Though Carter lost, he had found a natural political talent in the twenty-four year old. Four years later, with Jordan managing the campaign, the outcome was different.
"After Jimmy became governor and Hamilton was his executive secretary, Hamilton was like the dog who chased the car and caught it. He didn't know what to do," commented one Atlanta reporter. Jordan found his stride, though, when Governor Carter set his sights on the White House. Beginning with a remarkably astute 72-page memo in November 1972, he was the primary architect of one of the most brilliant campaigns in American political history.
Once in the White House, Jordan again struggled to find a balance between policy and politics. Time magazine captured the confusion over his role when it observed, "He is everywhere because of his access to the president. He is nowhere because he has no line of responsibility and can put himself in or take himself out as he -- and the president -- want." Admittedly a poor administrator, and with Carter intent on running his own White House, Jordan did not officially become chief of staff until a major reorganization in the summer of 1979, after the Carter administration was already in big trouble.
"Each is a funnel to the president: Jody from the outside, the media; Hamilton from the inside, the staff," wrote Klein, neatly summing up their White House roles.
Powell and Jordan were also, as Time magazine noted, "the living image of [the administration's] down-home style." This laid-back aura had been an asset during the campaign, making the straight-laced, born-again Carter more appealing to young liberals. "They all had shaggy hair, they were known for partying late at night," remembers historian Douglas Brinkley. "There was a kind of youth culture around the stern father figure of Jimmy Carter, which slowly started winning over advocates to his campaign." But this style didn't play as well in a city governed by strict, though unwritten rules. "They clashed with the Washington social scene, [the] more sophisticated Georgetown dinner party crowd that wanted to get their hooks into the new president," says Brinkley. "And here you had these Georgians who were quite happy going around in blue jeans and going to Willie Nelson concerts. They did not fit into the Georgetown scene at all."
Conflicts With Congress
This refusal to play by the rules of Washington also contributed to the Carter administration's difficult relationship with Congress. Jordan and Frank Moore, in particular, feuded with leading Democrats like House Speaker Tip O’Neill from the start. Unreturned phone calls, insults (both real and imagined), and an unwillingness to trade political favors soured many on Capitol Hill and tangibly affected the president's ability to push through his ambitious agenda.
"There was an innocence, and an arrogance, about the idea that you could run the country with your Atlanta statehouse team -- you just couldn't," concludes historian Roger Wilkins. "Every president brings his people, but most presidents bring people who are seasoned people who really understand Washington and know how to move around the city. That just wasn't true of Jimmy Carter. You hate to say it, but it was often, it seemed, very amateurish."
My American Experience
Who was your favorite 20th-century American president? Was it FDR? Kennedy? Reagan? Or one of the other 14 men who helped usher the United Sates through the 1900s? Who do you think was the most influential? | <urn:uuid:d5a48801-2cbf-48b0-b427-0f5875fd838d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/georgia-mafia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985231 | 1,522 | 1.953125 | 2 |
I've long thought that life expectancy statistics were odd. Encyclopedias treat nation's life expectancies as numbers on par with square mileage. But in reality, doesn't this require a bunch of assumptions about future health developments?
At least according to Wikipedia, demographers "solve" this problem by completely ignoring it. So-called "life expectancy at birth" numbers are mechanically calculated based on current deaths:
Life expectancy is by definition an arithmetic mean. It can be calculated also by integrating the survival curve from ages 0 to infinite (the ultimate age, sometimes called 'omega'). For an extinct cohort (all people born in year 1850, for example), of course, it can simply be calculated by averaging the ages at death.
Note that no allowance has been made in this calculation for expected changes in life expectancy in the future. Usually when life expectancy figures are quoted, they have been calculated like this with no allowance for expected future changes. This means that quoted life expectancy figures are not generally appropriate for calculating how long any given individual of a particular age is expected to live, as they effectively assume that current death rates will be "frozen" and not change in the future. Instead, life expectancy figures can be thought of as a useful statistic to summarise the current health status of a population. (emphasis added)
Bottom line: Unless you think that health won't improve in the future, official statistics are selling your longevity short. Plan accordingly! | <urn:uuid:491f5e58-5295-4f18-ba6e-31492a341244> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/06/expect_to_live.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958473 | 296 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Author: John H. Livingston
John Henry Livingston was born in 1746 near Poughkeepsie,
New York. After his education he graduated from Yale College
with a Bachelor of Arts in 1762. He earned a Doctorate of
Theology from the University of Utrecht and was ordained into
the ministry in 1770. Subsequent to his return from the Netherlands,
Livingston served as a pastor to the Reformed Church in New
York City. In 1810 he became to be the fourth President of
Queen's College (now Rutgers University) serving from 1810
until his death in 1825.
The Dutch Reformed Church (in Dutch: Nederlandse Hervormde
Kerk) was one of many branches of churches coming out of the
Protestant Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century.
In the following book of the Church God's name is used several
Book: Digitalized by Google.
Page 114 and 115
God's name is also written on page 49, 162,
167, 256, 269, 270, 280, 355 and 461. | <urn:uuid:3abbfea1-84e1-4847-9e6e-c157755b2eba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.divine-name.info/books/1814_2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962671 | 232 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Housing accounts for 20% of total US energy use with heating a cooling consuming a whopping 44% of residential energy use.
Home Energy Audits or Home Energy Assessments can help pinpoint energy problems in your home and offer you fixes that will save you energy and money. These professionals should provide you with analysis of your home, a list of items that need fixing, the cost to fix them, and the estimated cost savings.
We recently had a Home Energy Audit done, to comply with the Energy Upgrade California Rebate Program. Being environmentally conscious, we wanted to ensure everything in to save energy.
SDI Energy Audit November 2011
We had to choose a contractor that was on the approved list for Energy Upgrade California. SDI of Burlingame, California was selected because they seemed pretty thorough, knew about the rebates, and were priced reasonably at $500.
The company was pretty thorough with their energy audit and performed the following tests:
- We provided statistics regarding our home, including one year of PG&E bills
- They photographed and mapped out the entire house
- We voiced our concerns over problem areas and upgrade interests
- They identified all air vents and sealed them to perform duct pressure test. This checks to see how much our ducts leak by blowing air into the return
- Gas and carbon monoxide leak tests – appliances, water heater, heater, stove. This actually found a leak by the water heater and the heater, which PG&E fixed for free.
- They performed a 64 point combustion safety test
- Combustion gas test with all fans turned on, doors set to worst case, they attempted to find whether gases or carbon monoxide was being emitted by our gas burning appliances. This test found that some of our stove top burners were emitting carbon monoxide. We had them check by a pro.
- They checked the walls, attic, and floorboards for insulation
- They used a pressure and flow gauge to measure how much air was flowing in and out of the home
- Blower test – with all windows closed, fans off, they checked how leaky our home was
- Crawl space inspection. Checking for insulation, noting whether rodents were present, and looking for plumbing penetrations
- Checking the amount of air exchanges our receives. Adequate fresh air is important
In the end, they offered some useful suggestions including additional insulation and weather stripping. We were interested in replacing our 20 year old central gas forced air furnace, so they went back to analyze the costs and benefits of doing so. In contrast to an energy audit the previous year, SDI did not have equipment to look inside walls like a borascope. The criteria that they used was similar. Our home performed better than expected, probably due to all the changes we have made over the years.
Recurve Energy Audit 2010
Previously we had an energy audit performed by Recurve.
They where formerly known as Sustainable spaces. We had a 50% off coupon which made the decision to use them easier. Their normal price is $750. We feel that the price should be a lot cheaper or free considering they want to sell you items. Before the audit, we sent them the last years gas and power bills.
They had a team of people mapping out the layout of the house with laser measuring equipment, this generates information for their energy internal modeling software.
Recurve used a borascope to look inside our walls and check for insulation.
They ventured deep into our crawlspace to check out our heating and ventilation.
This found many interesting holes in our floor like this one. Every wire or cable that is run helps turn your floor into Swiss cheese.
A Fluke Thermal Imager was used to look at our walls and ceiling for insulation and possible heat leaks using infrared technology. It is hard to rip up walls to add insulation but they make it clear that future remodels should incorporate more insulation. A $50 Black & Decker Thermal Leak Detector can help you pinpoint air leaks the DIY way.
Air vents were covered during their air blower tests.
Checking airflow at the vents with a balometer.
Checking heating equipment, operation, make, model.
Recessed light fixtures can be a source of heat loss.
Air blower test with conduct in this special apparatus in our front door.
A couple days after the odd results were sent over to us. They detailed where energy was being lost in our home. The energy audit then suggested how to mitigate these problems.
This report examined our heating equipment and made some recommendations. They found some broken air vents, and asbestos in heating boots. Our home was relatively well sealed resulting in less air changes than suggested.
In the end, we found the home energy audit to be useful in analyzing our home’s energy profile. Recurve focused mostly on our heating – HVAC needs. The firm made several recommendations, many of which were very pricey. No return on investment information was provided. Clearly they make their money on repairs not on doing the audit itself. They should have provided some basic information on how to save energy and how things tie into our solar power system. We had several drafty areas that did not receive the analysis we asked for.
We tried to contact them for some followup work and they never returned our emails.
Here are some certifications to look for in a firm:
RESNET or Residential Energy Services Network certification means the firm has been trained and demonstrated technical proficiency.
BPI or Building Performance Institute Accredited companies have completed rigorous training, administered by a network of affiliates, in home performance evaluation focusing on this house-as-a-system concept.
Be sure to read our article: Ways to Save Energy, Money on your energy bill | <urn:uuid:cc82b068-f2cf-467c-8ac4-c7097dd2c737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.easyecoblog.com/tag/insulation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969045 | 1,186 | 2.328125 | 2 |
A standard and almost necessary accompaniment to most Mexican food is salsa. Salsa (meaning “sauce” in Spanish) comes in many different ways, the most common being chopped tomatoes, onions and chile. Growing up with a Hispanic mom from Tucson, we had salsa with meals several times a week – with steak and pinto beans, tacos, tostadas, over green beans. My job, even as a little girl, was to make the salsa for our meals. Usually I used canned tomatoes and canned ortega chiles. Now with the prepared salsas so good and easily available, I typically save my salsa making for fresh salsas, including this fresh tomato salsa. “Salsa Fresca” or “Pico de Gallo”, as this salsa is often called, is easy to make, especially because it requires no cooking. Just be careful when handling the chilies.
Fresh Tomato Salsa Recipe
- 2-3 medium sized fresh tomatoes (from 1 lb to 1 1/2 lb), stems removed, finely diced
- 1/2 red onion, finely diced
- 1 jalapeño chili pepper (stems, ribs, seeds removed), finely diced
- 1 serano chili pepper (stems, ribs, seeds removed), finely diced
- Juice of one lime
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Optional: oregano and or cumin to taste
1 Start with chopping up 2 medium sized fresh tomatoes. Prepare the chilies. Be very careful while handling these hot peppers. If you can, avoid touching them with your hands. Use a fork to cut up the chilies over a small plate, or use a paper towel to protect your hands. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and hot water after handling and avoid touching your eyes for several hours. Set aside some of the seeds from the peppers. If the salsa isn't hot enough, you can add a few for heat.
2 Combine all of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Taste. If the chilies make the salsa too hot, add some more chopped tomato. If not hot enough, carefully add a few of the seeds from the chilies, or add some ground cumin.
Let sit for an hour for the flavors to combine.
Makes approximately 3-4 cups.
Serve with chips, tortillas, tacos, burritos, tostadas, quesadillas, pinto or black beans. | <urn:uuid:ffa9284b-348b-4911-a1f5-282b4c72bb7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/fresh_tomato_salsa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900829 | 518 | 1.757813 | 2 |
This year's West Nile virus outbreak is marching toward the record books, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting some 3,100 cases and more than 130 deaths in the United States. The mosquito-borne virus, now found in 48 states, can result in flu-like symptoms, meningitis, and encephalitis. With new funding of $1.4 million dollars from the National Science Foundation, Cary disease ecologist Shannon LaDeau is headed back to the trenches, literally, to untangle the environmental factors that magnify West Nile virus' spread.
LaDeau and colleagues have spent two years in Baltimore, monitoring mosquito populations and assessing landscape features to better understand conditions that lead to West Nile outbreaks, including what citizens and municipalities can do to combat the virus' spread. "The outbreak in Dallas may have arisen from a perfect storm of conditions that support high mosquito populations and bird-mosquito interactions, including warmer winters and severe rain events," notes LaDeau. Other Texas cities didn't see the same high rate of cases, which highlights how influential the local environment can be in the transmission of this disease.
Over the next four years, LaDeau will work with a team of ecologists, geographers, and public health experts to understand where mosquito populations thrive in urban and suburban settings, how human activity and landscape change affect mosquitoes, and what education efforts might lead to stronger mosquito-control strategies in urban areas.
"You wouldn't think that a pile of tires in an abandoned lot and a ceramic birdbath in a tidy backyard have much in common. But we're finding that human-created landscape features that favor standing water are linked to seasonal patterns of mosquito emergence," says LaDeau. She and her colleagues think that mosquito populations get a boost from overwintering in abandoned buildings and breeding in pools of water that form in exposed garbage during early spring.
In the summer, when these unintended pools dry up, LaDeau finds that adult mosquito populations rise in areas where residents place intentional water-retaining containers, such as planters or fountains, in their yards. In Baltimore, where urban areas are losing residents and gaining abandoned buildings, there is great need for citizens and the city to tackle mosquito control together.
"Baltimore has seen the arrival of the invasive tiger mosquito, a really nasty human biter," says LaDeau. Her team is exploring the coupled dynamics between humans and mosquitoes, and investigating whether urban decay might be both a cause and result of pest exposure. "The more people get bitten in urban neighborhoods, the less they want to be outdoors, and we hypothesize that these residents are less likely to use and care for outdoor spaces, thus allowing more habitat to develop for mosquitoes," explains LaDeau.
Her new grant will focus on developing public education strategies. The role that individual residents can play in controlling mosquito populations in urban areas is more important than most realize. Partnering with the city and with local nonprofits such as Parks & People Foundation, LaDeau will enlist the help of student and citizen scientists, both to gather and disperse information. | <urn:uuid:494f63c4-de6f-41b6-9224-79132cae2e3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caryinstitute.org/newsroom/urban-conditions-magnify-west-nile-virus?page=0%252C1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954378 | 627 | 3.5625 | 4 |
| ||Every year, tens of thousands of acres in the Niger’s Inner Delta are flooded during the wet season. As the water level shifts, a succession of cattle breeders, fishermen, and farmers respectively travel over the same land by foot, pirogue, and cart. The area is used to grow red rice, a traditional form of floating rice native to this part of Mali, but also millet, sorghum, and corn. One million people live in the delta, which in this Sahelian region struck by frequent droughts, seems a land of plenty. But in a country struggling for alimentary self-sufficiency, and in which 80 percent of the population subsists on farming, the temptation is strong to develop the delta as an area of intensive cultivation of rice and export crops to the detriment of other food production and natural environments.
Visit the YAB Gallery for books and signed prints | <urn:uuid:7f372d57-a5a1-45e5-a65e-e38918637110> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yannarthusbertrand2.org/index.php?option=com_datsogallery&Itemid=27&func=detail&catid=110&id=2324&p=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948719 | 187 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Four years ago, Craig Jung of St. Louis Green and Laurna Godwin of Vector Communications joined forces and asked Wal-Mart to participate in a Holiday Light Recycling Drive. To date the program has collected 86,000 pounds of unwanted holiday lights, which were then recycled and sent back to manufacturers to be used in new products. With over 500 collection sites, the partnership hopes to double last year's success. According to St. Louis Green founder, Craig Jung, "Our goal this year is 128,000 pounds, that's four tractor trailer loads diverted from landfills." In addition to diverting thousands of pounds of waste from our landfills, the program also helps feed the hungry. A portion of proceeds from the drive is donated to Operation Food Search, helping those less fortunate to have a happier holiday season.
This year, the drive has expanded to include Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, Cape Girardeau, and the Metro East area of Illinois. The collection sites, including the 98 participating Wal-Mart locations, can be found at http://stlouisgreen.com. Lights can be dropped off at the Wal-Mart locations through December 30th, and all other locations through January 13th.
Earlier this year, the drive received two statewide awards. The Missouri Recycling Association honored both St. Louis Green and Wal-Mart with its Outstanding Collection Program award. In addition, the Missouri Waste Control Coalition gave the retailer and non-profit organization its Outstanding Achievement award for Environmental Stewardship.
How the Program Works
It’s easy to participate. Companies, schools, churches and other organizations can complement their sustainability programs by simply requesting a bin to be delivered to their location and then letting people know that they can bring in their old lights to be recycled. Then St. Louis Green will pick-up the lights and recycle them. It’s that simple!
Join the Drive! If you would like to collect lights at your place of business, school, or other type of location please email your contact information to firstname.lastname@example.org
For more information about the program or to request a bin, email Erin at email@example.com
Together we can make this the greenest holiday season yet! | <urn:uuid:1fad08ee-bc92-4692-b273-b5e23de037c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arnold.patch.com/blog_posts/st-louis-greens-2012-holiday-light-recycling-drive-is-underway | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94655 | 469 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Trojan Horse of the PLC-Lobby: FprEN 50561-1
by Karl Fischer, DJ5IL
Friedenstr. 42, 75173 Pforzheim, Germany
Download the original paper
The mains grid is neither intended nor suitable for broadband data transmission. Although PLC (Powerline Communication) is able to disturb radio services and to render a valuable natural resource useless, the PLC-Lobby and the European Commission try to push through this unfit-for-purpose and superfluous technology against technical reason and by circumventing sound standards...
CISPR is the Special International Committee on Radio Interference of the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC with central office in Geneva. It is concerned with the development of standards regarding electromagnetic interference. Disturbance limits for Power Line Telecommunications (PLT) systems are defined by the standard CISPR 22 and its European equivalent EN 55022 entitled "Information technology equipment - Radio disturbance characteristics - Limits and methods of measurement". The third edition of CISPR 22 has been published in the European Union in 1998 as EN 55022:1998, it prescribes limits above 30 MHz for radiated disturbance and between 0.15 and 30 MHz for conducted disturbance at the mains ports and conducted common mode disturbance at telecommunication ports.
The mains grid is neither intended nor suitable for broadband data transmission, because due to its inherent asymmetries it radiates electromagnetic energy like a transmitting antenna, causing interference to radio services. Therefore in 1998 it was not assumed that the mains grid would be used in such technically unfit manner. There was no PLC, which in a single connector - the power plug - combines the functionality of a mains port and of a telecommunication port. That's why in the Standard's formulations that combination had not been envisaged and this fact has been and still is exploited - although inadmissible in the future - by the PLC industry, which applies interpretation tricks so that the prescribed limits are often grossly exceeded.
For class B devices (in-house use) the limit for disturbances at the mains ports between 5 and 30 MHz is 50 dBμV (dB microvolts - voltage relative to 1 microvolt)(AV - Average), to be measured between phase and ground as well as between neutral and ground. In compliance with this limit at most twice this voltage is possible between phase and neutral, that is 6 dB more, and so this standard limits the signal voltage fed into the mains grid by a PLC modem to 56 dBμV(AV).
One interpretation trick of the PLC industry is to simply ignore the measurement at the mains port - with the justification that it is "not only" a mains port. Another trick is to apply the 10% LAN utilization also for the measurement of the disturbance at the mains port, which actually is only allowed for the measurement of disturbance at the telecommunication port - with the justification that it is "also" a telecommunication port. The result is that the disturbance amplitudes in "Quasi Peak" measurement are only slightly lower, but in the alternatively possible "Average" measurement they are substantially lower than when correctly measured. There is even a published tutorial for this trick.[i]
Shortly before the revised and clarified version EN 55022:2006 was due to come into force and to supersede the 1998 version in 2009, the PLC Lobby successfully tried to prevent this through 5 members of the European Parliament. In April 2009 they addressed a parliamentary request to the European Commission in which they raised the objection that a new testing flowchart which appears in this edition and which, it was felt, forced the PLC manufacturers to apply a conducted emission test which the PLC industry claims it did not have to do under the previous 1998 edition, would "throw into jeopardy the future of powerline communications (PLC) technologies by imposing artificially low electromagnetic emissions limits that will make it impossible to place PLC equipment on the EU market from October 2009". And therefore they thought it would be appropriate for the time being to retain the existing version.
The Vice-President of the European Commission at that time, Günter Verheugen, replies to Caroline Lucas MEP, in a letter dated 21 April 2009 that only "relatively few problems" had occured due to PLC and further states: "PLC technology does not interfere into military services since they typically do not operate in areas where there is a risk of interference. Emergency services now use advanced digital radio technologies to communicate. Shortwave broadcast reception has further been substituted by internet radio". And he replies to the 5 MEPs on 12 June 2009 that the European Commission would "consult Member States and stakeholders in the context of the EMC Directive Working Party of 30 June 2009 on the consequences of the current situation. One of the possible options would be to maintain the 1998 standard for a longer period, pending the final adoption of the new emerging network standards that will be compatible with powerline communications networks. Another option would be to amend the 2006 version in a way to avoid that its limits unduly hamper PLC."
The aforementioned flowchart for selecting test method is in "Annex C" on p.54 of EN 55022:2006. It explicitly describes the "Mains" port as one possible type of telecommunication port which has to be tested in PLC devices according to the test methods given in 9.3 for compliance with the limits given in tables 1 and 2 for mains ports. This aspect of the flowchart has been maintained by the creator of this standard CISPR/I also in the face of strong pressure from the PLC industry in order to put a stop to those interpretation tricks. It shows that CISPR/I regard it as imperative that the established limits for the mains ports should be applied, regardless of whatever their additional function is. And this approach has a solid technical foundation, because their emissions standards exist to protect the radio spectrum. It is a valuable and irreplaceable natural resource, like air and water, but its true value is only really appreciated when it is no longer available. These emissions standards with their test methods and limits are based on a rigorous, well documented approach and many decades of experience in real-world prevention of radio interference.[ii]
The Standard EN 55022:1998 was drafted before the question was raised of whether a PLC mains connection should be treated as a telecommunications port. It has no flowchart and does not explicitly state that a telecommunications port could be a mains type. However, it applies without qualification limits for conducted disturbance at the mains terminals - and these are exactly the same limits as are referred to in a Commission's document as "too low to be complied with by today’s PLC technologies". There is absolutely no difference as far as the mains terminals are concerned between EN 55022:1998 and EN 55022:2006. Any manufacturer whose equipment breaches the limits for the mains port disturbance voltage in tables 1 or 2 of EN 55022:1998 and yet has declared unqualified compliance to that standard has done so ignoring the standard.
And though the Working Party made clear that there really is no difference between EN 55022:1998 and EN 55022:2006, the European Commission nevertheless reserved their position and in August 2009 - in order to sponsor the PLC industry and against the advice of their own EMC Working Party - postponed the date of cessation of EN 55022:1998 to 1 October 2011.
By the way, Günter Verheugen founded his own lobby-enterprise, the European Experience Company, in 2010 together with his former head of cabinet Petra Erler. It is a consulting firm which advises companies particularly at EU-level and provides strategies for the relations with European institutions. The European Experience Company denies any lobbying, but it offers the excellent connections of the ex-Commissioner Günter Verheugen with the EU and its policy give rise to other assumptions. Today the former German top-man is not allowed to have contacts to authorities in Brussels - as a political consultant Verheugen is under surveillance by the EU.
Another attempt of the PLC-Lobby to water down the disturbance limits started in 2005. A Project Team was established under the pretext to produce an amendment to CISPR 22 to cover special requirements for PLT equipment. The first Committee Draft was released in February 2008 as CISPR/I/257/CD. However, the comments of 23 IEC member's National Committees (NCs) and the European Broadcasting Union showed insufficient support for the selected approach as only 6 NCs supported the draft: Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Interestingly the major European PLT technology providers, developers and manufacturers resided in 5 of these 6 countries. 8 NCs strongly opposed the draft - Australia, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, South Africa, Sweden and the United States of America - and some well-founded comments revealed its true purpose: to camouflage an intended 18 dB relaxation of the present PLT disturbance limits by introducing a revised method of measurement with an estimated Longitudinal Conversion Loss (LCL) of 24 dB in contrast to 6 dB in the old Standard. My investigations revealed that this Project Team was dominated by the PLC-Lobby. But because no consensus could be reached, the Chairman stopped the project on 26 February 2010.
EN 55022:2006 is the current standard, it superseded the old EN 55022:1998 on 1 October 2011. This standard now prevents any interpretation tricks by the PLC industry and the EU has expressly confirmed that it also applies to PLC devices. Devices which claim compliance with the old standard - many PLC modems actually do not comply - are allowed to remain on the market for not more than 3 years after 1 October 2011. But new products on the market are bound to comply with EN 55022:2006 already now.
So it is no wonder that the European Commission in the interest of the PLC-Lobby once again tries to undermine the disturbance limits for PLC devices and to get rid of the strict EN 55022:2006. Therefore in 2010 it reminded the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation CENELEC on the previously issued mandate M313 to prepare a draft for a new standard. But the attempts of the joint Working Group of ETSI and CENELEC, which was formed as a result of this mandate, to draft a standard failed because the interests of PLC-Lobby and Radio Services proved impossible to reconcile. In this letter CENELEC is urged to draft a modified version of EN 55022:2006 which only applies to PLC devices and it is made clear that "a prompt outcome to the standardisation process would be highly appreciated by the Commission". The undersigned Pedro Ortún Silván at that time was Director of the division "New Approach Industries" within the "General Directorate Enterprise and Industry" of the European Commission. Until November 2009 his boss was Günter Verheugen...
The first draft prEN 50561 for this standard comes from a Working Group which again is dominated by the PLC-Lobby. Only 10 of 31 NCs voted in favour of it; the rest either opposed or abstained. CENELEC then embarked on a review of the draft at the Commission's request and so the little changed second draft FprEN 50561-1 emerged, which is now put to the final vote by the NCs until 2 November 2012 - though the EMC consultant employed by the European Commission and CENELEC put forward that this standard does not meet the EMC Directive's essential requirements. CENELEC has decided to discount the expert's view...
Compared with EN 55022:2006, FprEN 50561-1 would in no single respect improve but in many respects even seriously degrade the protection of radio services from harmful interference - only PLC would benefit from this standard. Here are the key items of criticism:
The current standard EN 55022:2006 anywhere between 5 and 30 MHz limits the voltage fed into the mains grid by a PLC modem to 56 dBμV. Many PLC modems on the market do not comply with this limit, but they have to do so not later than by 1 October 2014, and for new devices the interpretation tricks described are not possible. Anyone supporting this draft helps the PLC-Lobby and the European Commission to legalize these violations of disturbance limits in the future, because FprEN 50561-1 plans a limit of 95 dBμV and thus an increase by some 40 dB corresponding to a power factor of 10,000. This tremendous increase in power is also dangerous because it potentiates the risk that non-linear components produce harmonics and intermodulation products which fall within the "excluded frequency ranges".
Neither EN 55022:2006 nor FprEN 50561-1 prescribe limits for radiated disturbances below 30 MHz and the limits of both standards for conducted disturbances at the mains ports are identical between 150 kHz and 30 MHz. But contrary to the current standard EN 55022:2006 without stipulated frequency notches, FprEN 502561 would permit these limits between 1.6065 MHz and 30 MHz even within the "excluded frequency ranges" and even higher levels far above these limits outside of these ranges. Lines 204-207 of the draft state that when user data is being transmitted by the PLC port the disturbances from the PLC port may exceed the limits of Table 1 at frequencies between 1.6065 MHz and 30 MHz - and these are exactly the limits of EN 55022:2006 - provided that only within the "excluded frequency ranges" given in Table A.1 - which are the Amateur Radio and Aeronautical mobile bands - the level of the transmitted signals shall comply with the disturbance limits. Therefore the term "excluded frequency ranges" is a wilful deceit because it only means that these frequency ranges are excluded from the otherwise granted violation of limits but not from the emission of disturbances in general - There are no really excluded frequency ranges! Across the whole Shortwave spectrum the allowed disturbance emissions would be at least exactly as high as according to the current EN 55022:2006, but within many frequency ranges they would be even higher. But because - though not stipulated by the current EN 55022:2006 - notching of the Amateur Radio bands already became a de-facto-standard for most manufacturers of chip-sets for PLC modems with typical notch-depths of about -35 dB, according to this draft about 35 dB or 6 S-Units higher disturbance levels would be allowed within the Amateur Radio bands. In other words: Both the Amateur Radio and the Broadcasting bands would not profit from this standard, not even if the de-facto-standard of notching of the Amateur Radio bands would be nonexistent, because the current EN 55022:2006 limits the disturbances across the whole Shortwave to a value which according to the draft applies only to the notches. This draft allows, across the whole Shortwave spectrum, about 35 to 45 dB higher disturbance levels than EN 55022:2006, with the additional de-facto-standard of notching of the Amateur Radio bands. Within the Amateur Radio bands this means 35 dB or 6 S-Units higher disturbance levels, cumulative effects by multiple PLC installations not even considered. Based on my practical experiences with numerous PLC installations in the vicinity of my own Amateur Radio station, I can say that such disturbance levels make Amateur Radio definitely impossible!
According to this draft there is no stipulated suspension of disturbances when no user data is transmitted, because lines 211-213 state: "Without user data transmission, the unsymmetrical disturbances from the PLC port shall comply with the disturbance limits given in Table 1 between 150 kHz and 30 MHz..."
The planned "Dynamic Power Control" measures the "symmetrical mode insertion loss" of the mains grid and the higher the losses the higher is the injected power. But because these losses mainly consist of electromagnetic radiation loss, the higher the radiation from the mains grid and thus the disturbance potential the higher is the injected power. This method of power control is profitable solely for PLC, but from the viewpoint of radio services it even potentiates the disturbances and therefore it is counterproductive!
EN 55022 was written by experts in order to protect the radio spectrum - whereas FprEN 50561-1 was written by the industry in order to be able to sell PLC devices. Actually there is no necessity whatsoever for a new standard - the real purpose of this draft standard is to raise the existing well-considered limits for disturbance power levels up to 10,000-fold and to flood the European market with PLC devices. If it is approved, it will render the valuable natural resource Shortwave completely useless for the Amateur Radio service and nearly useless for the Broadcasting service. FprEN 50561-1 undermines the liability to protect Radio Services from harmful interference - which all members of the International Telecommunication Union accepted by commitment to the "Radio Regulations" of the ITU, because they prescribe:
"S15.12 § 8 Administrations shall take all practicable and necessary steps to ensure that the operation of electrical apparatus or installations of any kind, including power and telecommunication distribution networks, but excluding equipment used for industrial, scientific and medical applications, does not cause harmful interference to a radiocommunication service and, in particular, to a radionavigation or any other safety service operating in accordance with the provisions of these Regulations."
The Broadcasting service on the especially valuable Shortwave offers with very simple means, access to latest information from around the world, which are often not delayed, censored, or only with higher efforts, available through other media. But PLC disturbs the Shortwave in particular, and so every administration sponsoring PLC infringes the European Convention on Human Rights because Article 10 reads:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
PLC is not a radio application and under the EMC-Directive it is on equal terms with any other electronic device concerning disturbances, and even so this technology is sponsored by the European Commission against technical reason as I have pointed out. If this standard would be approved, other manufacturers of electronic equipment could appeal to it and claim the same excessive limits. FprEN 50561-1 and the EMC-Directive together are like legalizing commerce with hard drugs and forbidding their use at the same time - this absurd combination is exemplary for the neoliberal and lobby-driven policy of the European Commission. The second part of this paper entitled Doomed to Fail: FprEN 50561-1 will prove that this draft standard is unnecessary and inadmissible...
[i] Hensen, C. : "CISPR 22 Compliance Test of Power-Line Transmission Systems", Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Power-Line Communications and its Applications (ISPLC), Athens, Greece, March 27-29, 2002.
[ii] CISPR 16-4-4 "Statistics of complaints and a model for the calculation of limits for the protection of radio services" contains in Annex A values of the mains decoupling factor which were determined by measurements in real mains grids in the 1960s. It is deemed that these mains decoupling factors are still valid and representative.
Page updated: 9th December 2012
What is PLT?
Why the fuss?
What can I do?
Shame on you!
WTA | FOIA | Truth & Lies | Adjournment Debate | FAQ | Privacy & Cookies
Guest author DJ5IL: The Trojan Horse of the PLC-Lobby: FprEN50561-1 | Doomed to Fail: FprEN50561-1 | <urn:uuid:94731e0a-17b6-4c5b-83bc-d33a506b55bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ban-plt.co.uk/DJ5IL/trojan-horse.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938816 | 4,073 | 2 | 2 |
An increased reliance on large lenders rather than local banks has stripped local officials of much of their ability to determine whether a waterfront property owner along the St. Lawrence River needs to obtain flood insurance.
Timothy C. Tuttle, town of Oswegatchie code enforcement officer, said the policy in the past was, as long as the project was visibly three feet above the water, [flood insurance] wasnt an issue. Now all of a sudden it is.
Larger banks offering waterfront property mortgages cannot physically send someone to look at the land, meaning more home buyers seeking loans from these banks are being forced to follow a longstanding rule requiring flood insurance if they are located in a floodplain.
Mr. Tuttle said that now, if your property touches water, you got to get flood insurance.
Richard D. Jacobs of Jacobs Land Surveying in Ogdensburg said he thinks a lack of understanding is behind the increasing numbers of people who have had to get flood insurance.
In the last two months Ive done eight or nine flood certificates [along the St. Lawrence River], Mr. Jacobs said. Up until a couple years ago I had never done one on the river. Its been a significant increase.
The finance companies havent looked at the St. Lawrence River as a major flood area before now, said Mr. Tuttle, who added that the river only fluctuates by several feet every year.
Mr. Jacobs said he recently surveyed a property where a woman was required to get flood insurance for a home that was 20 feet above the rivers high water mark.
If the St. Lawrence River raises 20 feet, the whole city of Ogdensburg would be under water, he said. The chances of the St. Lawrence River flooding to the level that it floods the houses we are getting flood certificates for is pretty crazy. If youre going to raise the water 12 to 15 feet Noah better get his arc ready because thats a lot of rain.
Gloria Prince, a flood insurance specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said new lending processes have meant that old laws are getting enforced with less room for deviation.
There has not been any change in requirements, said Ms. Prince.
People who get federally backed home financing have always been required to get flood insurance if their property is in a floodplain, said Ms. Prince.
Mr. Jacobs said in the past homeowners were typically dealing with local banks which could send someone to see the property for themselves or deal with trusted local officials who knew the area and could deem the insurance requirement unnecessary.
Ms. Prince said there are cases where a piece of property may be in the floodplain but may actually be high up enough that it would not flood.
In the past [property owners] may have contacted the local official, said Ms. Prince, adding that it was then up to local banks to decide if they would require the insurance.
In todays lending tree, this lender picks up the mortgage application in, say, California, and the first thing they see is, oh this property touches water? They need flood insurance, Mr. Jacobs said.
Mr. Jacobs said the fact that more homebuyers are turning to banks from different parts of the state or country has made it more difficult for property owners who may previously not have worried about flood insurance.
Technically [banks] are supposed to require a Letter of Map Amendment, said Ms. Prince. It would officially remove it from the floodplain. | <urn:uuid:e65460e7-9dd3-451e-a840-8cdc45bae8bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ogd.com/article/20121202/ADV01/712029936 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972253 | 713 | 1.726563 | 2 |
:: WHO Mortality Database: Tables
On this web site, the World Health Organization provides data on registered deaths by
From national vital registration systems
The data available on this web site comprise deaths registered in national vital registration systems, with underlying cause of death as coded by the relevant national authority. Underlying cause of death is defined as "the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury" in accordance with the rules of the International Classification of Diseases.
Historical data from 1979
The mortality data were previously published in the World Health Statistics Annual and the 1996 edition was the last one to appear in printed form. Since then the new data supplied by Member States have been made available online As the demand for information increases, the mortality data with the cause of death coded using the ICD 9th and 10th Revision are now being made available on this site. The tables online follow the same format as that of the previous updates but contain historical data as from 1979 to 2002. This major increase in the number of countries-years available on line will certainly meet the needs of scientists, researchers and public health policy makers. Mortality rates by sex, age group and cause are presented for countries with a population of 500,000 or more. Rates are not computed for data with very low coverage.
Comparability through the use of ICD
Comparability of cause of death data has been made possible world-wide through the development and revisions of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). The ICD10th revision was adopted in 1990 by the World Health Assembly and came into effect as from 1993. The number of countries submitting their underlying causes of death data to WHO using ICD10th revision has increased from 4 in 1995 to 75 in 2003 and there are still around 40countries reporting data using the 9th revision of ICD. Only countries reporting data properly coded according to the revisions of the ICD are included in the Tables of this web site.
Problems in accuracy of records
Although the International Classification of Diseases is intended to provide a standard way of recording underlying cause of death, comparison of cause of death data over time and across countries should be undertaken with caution. Several new features and changes from ICD9 to ICD10 have great impact on the interpretation of the statistical data. The implications of these changes in ICD10 should be taken into account when making trend comparisons and estimates for causes of death. ICD10 is more detailed with about 10 000 conditions for classifying causes of death compared to around 5 100 in ICD9. The rules for selecting the underlying cause of death have been re-evaluated and sometimes changed.
Accuracy in diagnosing causes of death still varies from one country to another. In addition the process of coding underlying causes of death involves some extent of misattribution or miscoding even in countries where causes are assigned by medically qualified staff. Main reasons are incorrect or systematic biases in diagnosis, incorrect or incomplete death certificates, misinterpretation of ICD rules for selection of the underlying cause, and variations in the use of coding categories for unknown and ill-defined causes.
:: WHO Mortality Database: Tables
Completeness and coverage of death registration data
Considerable differences exist in the degree of completeness of the vital registration data submitted by countries. In some countries, the vital registration data system covers only a part of the country (for example urban areas, or some provinces only). In some other countries, although the vital registration data system covers the whole country, not all deaths are registered.
Each Member State reports population data along with their mortality data, for the population covered by the death registration system. Where this is a subset of the national population, the data is labelled accordingly in the WHO Mortality Database, e.g. Brazil (North and North-east) or Paraguay (reporting areas). However, the completeness of death registration may also be less than 100% for the specified registration population. For Member States with incomplete vital registration systems, demographic techniques have been used by WHO to estimate the level of completeness of death recording for the specified population to allow the calculation of mortality rates. These population data are provided along with the deaths data. The proportion of all deaths which are registered in the population covered by the vital registration system for a country (referred to as completeness) has been estimated by WHO for the latest available year and is given in a table available on this website
Note that vital registration data may be 100% complete for the population covered, but not include full coverage of deaths in the country. The overall level of coverage for the latest available year for each country is also listed in a separate table. Coverage is calculated by dividing the total deaths reported for a country-year from the vital registration system by the total estimated deaths for that year for the national population. The national population estimates used are those of the UN Population Division 2002 revision. Best estimates of mortality rates by age and sex, adjusted for incompleteness and incomplete coverage, are applied to the national population data to obtain total estimated deaths. WHO estimated coverage for a Member State may be less than 100% due to incompleteness of registration, or to coverage of only some parts of the national population, or to differences between the vital registration population and the UN estimated de-facto population.
Death registration coverage and cross-national differences in coding practices, particularly in the use of codes for ill-defined and unknown causes, must be taken into account to validly compare mortality rates for specific causes across countries. Additionally, where coverage is less than 100%, the cause of death distribution for the uncovered population may differ from that of the covered population.
:: WHO Mortality Database: Tables
Updating the database and Querying about the database
Member states submit data
WHO contacts Member States directly on a routine basis to obtain latest cause of death data from their vital registration sources. Data submitted by Member states become part of WHO's unique historical data base on causes of death, which contains data as far back as 1950. Computerization of data at country level and electronic transmission to WHO have considerably improved the timeliness of information received.
From print to the web
WHO started the publication of cause of death statistics in 1948 in the annual editions of the Annual Epidemiological and Vital Statistics. The 1962 and subsequent editions were renamed as the World Health Statistics Annual. The 1996 edition was the last to appear in printed form. With the advent of new technology, mortality statistics have been provided on this Web site since July 2000 and include all data received since the 1996 edition of the World Health Statistics Annual. The current update features for the first time all the historical data as from 1979 to 2002 using ICD 9th and ICD 10th revision in the usual friendly user format. Regular updates to the WHO mortality database will be undertaken as data are received from Member States to ensure that the latest data are available.
Two classes of data: Country-reported and WHO estimate
The two classes of mortality information available on the WHO web site may be distinguished as follows. a) Mortality registration data reported by Member States (as described above) b) WHO estimated mortality data for 2000, 2001 and 2002 WHO itself uses the historical data from the mortality data base as a basis to derive WHO estimates of deaths by cause as published in Annex Tables to the World Health Report. More detailed tables for WHO estimates of total deaths by cause, age and sex for WHO regions and subregions may be downloaded from the website. (Insert link to the Burden of Disease web site) These estimates are sets of population age-specific mortality rates or numbers that are adjusted to make them comparable across populations. Comparability requires in addition the use of the same measurement scale (in this case classification of underlying cause). Adjustments with regard to incomplete coverage are made. Particular attention is also being paid to the problems of miscoding mainly for cardiovascular diseases, cancer, injuries and general ill-defined categories. Correction algorithms to resolve these miscoding problems have been developed and applied (Discussion Paper 54) (insert link to Burden of Disease web site). Trend data from countries with good vital registration system serve as a basis for validating projected estimates. WHO estimated mortality data is primarily intended for use by policy makers and analysts. As an international organization, information published by the WHO is frequently used for benchmarking, for advocacy of particular policies, for monitoring achievements towards internationally accepted goals and targets and to guide technical strategies and responses.
Most queries on the reported data can be answered on the basis of the data from this web site and from the yearly publication of data for earlier years in the World Health Statistics Annual. This publication can be consulted at most major libraries throughout the world. | <urn:uuid:d4e77016-cf84-4a8e-b07d-d75b9ea4bb7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.who.int/healthinfo/cod/en/print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936478 | 1,788 | 3.453125 | 3 |
"Horses Fall Victim to Hard Times and Dry Times on the Range"
"AZTEC, N.M. — The land is parched, the fields are withering and thousands of the nation’s horses are being left to fend for themselves on the dried range, abandoned by people who can no longer afford to feed them."
"They have been dropping dead in the Navajo reservation in the Southwest, where neighbors are battling neighbors and livestock for water, an inherently scant resource on tribal land. They have been found stumbling through state parks in Missouri, in backyards and along country roads in Illinois, and among ranch herds in Texas where they do not belong.
Some are taken to rescue farms or foster homes — lifelines that are also buckling under the pressure of the nation’s worst drought in half a century, which has pushed the price of grain and hay needed to feed the animals beyond the reach of many families already struggling in the tight economy.
And still the drought rages on. The most recent federal assessment is that parts of at least 33 states, mostly in the West and the Midwest, are experiencing drought conditions that are severe or worse. It is affecting 87 percent of the land dedicated to growing corn, 63 percent of the land for hay and 72 percent of the land used for cattle."
SEE ALSO:Source: NY Times, 08/20/2012 | <urn:uuid:f340c649-b9da-4fdb-b681-20ee031c0a8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sej.org/headlines/horses-fall-victim-hard-times-and-dry-times-range | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954871 | 282 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Building Jews, not buildings
Eli Rubinstein got it right in “Can education alone save the Jewish People?” (Dec. 8). Our ongoing struggle to ensure that Jewish education is available in our community and is supported by donors and by communal leaders is meaningless unless that education and learning leads to real action and to practice. Merely educating our children and the next generation about our traditions, our history and our customs without making a personal commitment to follow and to do will not secure our future. Building buildings or institutions, and providing teachers to teach in them, is not the essence; building Jews is, and that requires translating that education into personal practice.
* * *
Extremist haredi behaviour
While I respect the right of Israel’s haredi Jewish community to observe Judaism as they see fit, with all its traditions and observances, I do not support the actions of that segment of Judaism trying to impose their views on secular Jews throughout Israel (“Netanyahu vows to end extremist haredi behaviour”; “Segregation in Beit Shemesh causes uproar,” Jan. 5). Calling Israeli police and soldiers Nazis and dressing up children with outfits and Stars of David reminiscent of Holocaust times are an insult to those who perished at the hands of Nazi Germany as well as the fortunate Jews who survived. The rioting haredi Jews forget that Israel is a true democracy where the rights of other co-religionists and those of other religions must be respected. Their attacks on secular and less observant Jews are no better than what is being witnessed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Muslim fundamentalists in Egypt. The right to practise religious orthodoxy is not analogous to the intolerant practice of sharia law in Muslim countries.
* * *
CJC needed a facelift, not burial
As a volunteer for the Canadian Jewish Congress National Archives for more than 25 years, I catalogued and sorted thousands of files. (“Legitimacy questions continue to plague CIJA,” Dec. 22). Among them were CJC’s plenary files. Every Jewish organization in Canada had the right to send a delegation to a CJC plenary, which took place every two or three years. The delegates cast their ballots to elect the officers of the CJC. Somebody please tell me, who elected the people of Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs? Who gave these people the right to make a power grab and kill the CJC? I grant, the CJC needed a facelift, and it would have so happened down the road, but not a burial.
Quoted in the article is an e-mail written by CIJA CEO Shimon Fogel. It states: “However, understanding of Congress and its legacy drops off very dramatically with the under-45 demographic within our community, who cannot relate to the name [or] the legacy (e.g., most don’t even remember the USSR or Soviet Jewry).” The continuous daily stream of researchers to the CJC archives, however, shows a strong awareness of the past accomplishments of the CJC.
CIJA will have a difficult task to match the past accomplishments of CJC. The great leaders of the CJC of yesteryear left their everlasting imprint on the Jewish community of Canada. CIJA will have some catching up to do. So far, they have not even reached the starting line.
St. Laurent, Que.
* * *
Signs’ message is chauvinistic
UJA Federation of Greater Toronto has received a notice from the city of Vaughan that its signs are a problem (“UJA signs violate Vaughan bylaws,” Dec. 8). Although the complaint is only about the wording of the signs – “Jewish Toronto Lives Here” – since Vaughan is not Toronto, I, like letter-writer Bert Raphael (Nov. 24), cannot see the purpose of these signs put up by the federation around the GTA. UJA campaign director Steven Shulman says that they have been put up “simply to create awareness of what federation does.” I think this is far too costly a way to achieve this, especially since Vaughan city council may want a $24,000 fee for allowing the signs. Also, the message on the signs, which pinpoint Jewishly themed buildings or locations, appears to be unnecessarily chauvinistic. | <urn:uuid:ee49848b-342d-45c0-89db-35a59bc40f16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cjnews.com/news/letters/building-jews-not-buildings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951167 | 908 | 1.625 | 2 |
The PEG approach is a simple valuation tool, popularized by Peter Lynch and The Motley Fool among many others.
Here is how Lynch puts it in One Up on Wall Street:
"The p/e ratio of any company that's fairly priced will equal its growth rate."
In other words,
P/E = G
where P/E is the stock's P/E ratio, and G is its earnings growth rate.
It looks simple and elegant, like a finance version of E = mc2, but watch out - this formula is strictly a rule of thumb, not a valid financial "law".
(If you aren't convinced, just notice that the two sides of the formula have different units: you're comparing a fraction with a percent, meaning that a factor of 100 has magically appeared on one side only.)
So how accurate is this rule of thumb?
It's certainly way off for at least some cases; for example, it implies that a company with zero growth should sell for a P/E of 0.
But for normal values of growth stocks, this formula works surprisingly well.
This calculator lets you compare the PEG approximation with the "correct" results from the cash flows calculator for different rates of "G":
The assumptions are (1) a discount rate of 11%; (2) the growth rate you specify will be maintained for five years, after which growth will flatten out to zero.
If you do use this (or any other) valuation technique, remember to use it the way Lynch suggests:
first find a company whose prospects seem attractive to you, and then use the techniques to make sure the price is reasonably attractive as well.
One way people misuse PEG and get themselves into trouble is by taking earnings from two successive years off of an annual report, and using them to calculate the earnings growth rate:
Each year's earnings is a highly refined number, potentially including significant non-recurring items.
That means the change between these two numbers can be very different from what you really want, namely,
a conservative estimate for earnings growth that can be sustained over the next five years or more.
Finally, note that properly speaking the PEG ratio is defined as (P/E) / G.
So the quote and formula from the top of the page are equivalent to saying that if a company is fairly priced, its PEG ratio ought to equal 1.0.
about us | | <urn:uuid:ea4040c4-58fc-40b6-8b8b-fd0b9f5e5337> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moneychimp.com/articles/valuation/peg.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950294 | 504 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Seize the Day, Seize the Seas
In the musical piece, "The Creation" by Haydn, he has a piece that puts the creation of whales into a musical masterpiece. He puts the eeriness of the ocean, the movement of whales, and the impression we get from learning about whales into musical notes.
I was visiting my sister and her husband in Massachusetts, and they brought me whale watching; something I had never done before, but always wanted to experience. We drove to Gloucester and boarded the boat for our hour long journey into the open water. In the time we were on the boat, we saw many whales and found ourselves running from port side to starboard side to get another glimpse of these amazing creatures.
On the journey back to the city, we passed many other tour boats, fisherman, and people out on personal boats. We passed this boat, and I noticed a large number of seagulls following this boat. I had never seen anything like it before, and as I took a moment to admire the beauty of my surroundings, I snapped this photograph. The contrast between the color of the ocean, and the blue sky mesmerizes me.
I would suggest whale watching to any fellow traveler. They have whale watching in many different cities (across the pond as well) and is anything but a dull experience. It may not be skydiving or hiking up a mountain, but it is definitely an experience not easily forgotten. The scent of the ocean, the warmth of the beaming sun, and the opportunity to see a different species is truly amazing. Thank you Afar! | <urn:uuid:dbe25e62-ed6b-40f5-b59f-84c712ca46b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afar.com/highlights/seize-the-day-seize-the-seas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970486 | 329 | 1.609375 | 2 |
batmanmg wrote:the only reason we can't point to the fourth dimension is that our bodies cannot produce a force in the fourth dimension becuase no part of our body exists in the fourth dimension...
also becuase you cant face in that direction so the photons cant hit your eyes.
Now, this is actually a very interesting area of speculation...
Imagine a 2D being, say in a roughly hexagonal shape, moving around on the plane. Suppose that this plane actually resides on a table of a 3D being, although the hexagon has no way of directly knowing this. Now, light in the 3D room actually would
reach the hexagon: in fact, at every point of its body, both inside and outside. Of course, it doesn't know the real nature of this "background radiation", which appears simply as an inherent property of 2D space.
Now, suppose that one day this 2D being somehow guesses at what is really going on. How would it detect 3D light? It could build a 2D array of cells that are stimulated by this external source, and wire them in such a way that a 3D image could be captured (i.e., 2D projections of objects in 3D space). From the hexagon's point of view, the array of cells cannot possibly capture any image, at least, not any light within the 2D world itself. The only way light can reach cells surrounded by other cells is if it came from outside the 2D plane.
So, in a way, if
a 4D world really exists out there, and if
our 3D space were actually an open surface in 4D space, then theoretically it is possible to build a 3D block of detectors, which, if they can somehow be made sensitive to 4D light, could capture 4D images (i.e., 3D projections of objects in 4D space). Of course, we would have no way to directly manipulate any 4D objects seen in this way, and only a very limited way of orienting the "camera", so this would be a completely passive vision. But still, it is certainly possible, at least in theory.
Of course, all bets are off as to whether our 3D space is really an open space lying on a 4D surface somewhere... it may be that, if 4D space exists at all, we may simply be "sandwiched" between two solid 4D layers (which explains why we only ever perceive 3 macroscopic dimensions), and thus have no way to look very far into 4D space (and there is nothing interesting to look at either, just a blank wall on either side that we can't see through). | <urn:uuid:58c4767c-3628-4a2c-bf09-485737402160> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://teamikaria.com/hddb/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11424 | 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 | 0.963605 | 556 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Acts of the Apostles 14:6-18
Prokeimenon. Mode 3.
Luke 1: 46-48
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Verse: For he has regarded the humility of his servant.
IN THOSE DAYS, the apostles fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country; and there they preached the gospel. Now at Lystra there was a man sitting, who could not use his feet; he was a cripple from birth, who had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking; and Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, "Stand upright on your feet." And he sprang up and walked. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, "The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!" Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, because he was the chief speaker, they called Hermes. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the people. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out among the multitude, crying, "Men, why are you doing this? We also are men, of like nature with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways; yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness." With these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.
Additional Readings for Today:
Daily Readings via Email
Would you like to receive these daily readings via email? Sign up here.
The English text of the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles is based on the Revised Standard Version from "The Apostolos" by Holy Cross Press, Brookline, MA.
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is copyrighted 1946, 1952, 1971, and 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and used by permission. | <urn:uuid:1a3ecd0d-d690-48b3-bb11-54752cbdfcb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goarch.org/chapel/lectionary_view?type=E&code=15&event=0&date=5/9/2012 | 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 | 0.972244 | 514 | 1.78125 | 2 |
On this day, Feb. 20, 1974, Atlanta Constitution Editor Reg Murphy was kidnapped by a man claiming to be a member of the American Revolutionary Army.
William Williams told Murphy that he had 300,000 gallons of heating oil that he wanted to donate to charity. Murphy agreed to be picked up by Williams. Murphy climbed into the car and was greeted with a gun. Murphy was bound, blindfolded and forced into the trunk. He was taken to Williams’ house and forced to tape ransom messages, then driven around the city for nearly two days.
Williams, who called himself Colonel One, called the newspaper from a pay phone, claiming to represent a right-wing militia group and demanding $700,000. The paper delivered the money, and Murphy was released.
Murphy, with wrists still deadened from the bindings, banged out a 4,000-word first-person story. Williams and his wife, Betty, were swiftly caught at home with the ransom money. Williams spent nine years in prison.
Murphy is the former president of the National Geographic Society, publisher of the Baltimore Sun, and editor and publisher of The San Francisco Examiner. | <urn:uuid:e807c10a-91c3-4e0a-bc4a-1e1687b8fb8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/crime-history-atlanta-editor-kidnapped/article/103942 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982219 | 237 | 1.890625 | 2 |
CULTURE OCTOBER 13, 2010
by Yoko Kawaguchi
Yale University Press, 336 pp., $43.95
A few years ago, in her best-selling book, Sex Secrets of an American Geisha: How to Attract, Satisfy, and Keep Your Man Positively Sexual, the Korean-American writer Py Kim Conant offered a piece of advice for female readers in search of a husband: find your inner geisha. The doll-like child-woman wrapped in her silk kimono and broad tight obi, with her scarlet lips, plucked and penciled-in eyebrows, white make-up, black, lacquered hair, and exotic sexual technique, provides many lessons for (in Conant’s words) “American women who want to be married soon, to their good men.”
Conant’s how-to book is not discussed in Yoko Kawaguchi’s exhaustive history of the East-meets-West romance, whose apotheosis is, of course, Puccini’s magnificent opera. But it would surely enrage Kawaguchi who, growing up in America, was “greatly irritated” by stereotypes of the geisha as mincingly passive and sexually voracious. She wrote this book to show that the “dream women that haunt the western imagination” reveal more about the West’s neuroses than about the geisha—and Asian women in general—and that the geisha “reflects changing western anxieties regarding female sexuality in general.” So far, so good. Except that this book did not arise merely from a grudge. It is, in fact, one of a gazillion children of Orientalism, Edward Said’s study of how Europeans misrepresented the East in literature and art to justify colonizing the region.
One problem with the book is its scope. Whereas Orientalism limited itself to nineteenth-century Western writers and artists representing the Other, Kawaguchi includes Western fantasies, historical accounts, music videos, plays, photographs, death masks, and real women. Kawaguchi never met a geisha she didn’t like. And yet for all the book’s inclusiveness, there are some odd omissions. Lafcadio Hearn, who found the geisha “charming” and “mischievous,” is barely mentioned. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Ruth Benedict’s scholarly book which attempted to explain Japan to America after World War II (it got a recent cameo on Mad Men), is not in the index.
Butterfly’s Sisters is obsessed with how Western reformers, writers, and artists confuse prostitutes and geishas. The first sections of the book outline how this confusion arose. Initially male entertainers, geishas became an all-female profession in eighteenth-century Imperial Japan, where they were tea house hostesses, proficient in the traditional arts of singing and dancing as well as in conversation and letter-writing. Sometimes the female geishas worked in brothels, amusing customers waiting for prostitutes. Sold into slavery as children, they lived alongside prostitutes in the pleasure quarters walled off from the rest of the city. And some geisha may have actually been prostitutes.
But the conflation of geishas with prostitutes began in earnest when Commodore Perry opened Japan in 1850, and European and American reformers became obsessed with the geisha’s morality and sexuality: was she synonymous with chastity, or did a sexually depraved Amazon lurk beneath those kimono folds? Many Westerners suspected the latter, because Japanese women laughed about sex, men and women bathed together apparently without shame, and the government regulated brothels when it should have banned them.
As Kawaguchi recounts, if reformers could not decide whether Japanese women were virtuous or louche, writers and artists could not discern whether they were beautiful or ugly, a meme for the eternal feminine or a hideous dissembler using feminine wiles to seduce guileless European and American men. Indeed, some of the romantic writers’ attitudes towards Japanese women are cringe-inducing. In his enormously popular picaresque travel narrative, Madame Chrysanthéme, which appeared in 1887, Pierre Loti writes that without her kimono, her shoes, her make-up, her hair, the Japanese woman was “nothing but a diminutive yellow being, with crooked legs…” (Kawaguchi points out that Loti’s real entanglements with Japanese women were far more complicated.) Degas, on the other hand, used the shamelessness of naked Japanese women in woodcuts to inspire his own unsentimental portraits of the female nude.
Kawaguchi is best when using history to explore what literature, with all its attention to narrative and character, misses. She is at her worst when she tries too hard to condemn Western intellectuals. Apparently Edmond de Goncourt, who along with Rodin and Aubrey Beardsley collected Japanese porn, or shunga, misread an image of a female abalone diver having sex with a pair of octopi as being about “the fury of these copulations,” because he could not read the calligraphy the artist conveniently provided for him around the figures. “Dialogue can no more be dispensed with in reading a shunga picture than it can be when reading a Rowlandson or Gillray cartoon,” Kawaguchi writes. Fair enough; but to chastise someone for not reading the captions when looking at human-sea creature pornography is like chewing out people who buy Playboy for the pictures.
By the end of the nineteenth century, European writers drifted from an obsession with geishas’ morality and sexuality to the tragic liaisons between them and Western men, the most important example of which is Madame Butterfly. The stories Kawaguchi tells about how in real life it was European and American men who demanded Butterfly-type liaisons (as opposed to Japanese women entrapping them) are unsettling. Many of the proto-Butterflies who became romantically and sexually involved with these men were ostracized and then abandoned. If children appeared, they did not stay in Japan.
Kawaguchi’s most memorable chapter traces the lives of the geishas who emigrated to Europe and America during this era and became actresses, muses to Manet, Picasso, and Rodin, and inspiration for a new non-naturalistic dramatic idiom. Sadayakko landed in San Francisco with her husband and their theatre troupe in 1899 and became one of the first female actors to perform kabuki—albeit a Westernized form. Acclaimed for the visceral way she killed herself on stage, and for the contrast between the violence of that act and the sweetness of her face, Sadayakko (and the other famous ex-geisha turned actress Hanako) was imitated by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Loie Fuller, and was acclaimed by Andre Gidé, and other intellectuals, artists, and critics who saw in such “Japanese” performances a universal language that might release theater from naturalism’s restrictions. Brecht and Artaud continued to look East for inspiration for their theories.
Then Kawaguchi gets to World War II and Hollywood and pop music. The occupation of Japan turned the West’s fantasy about the geisha both more violent and more servile. As American servicemen demanded Japanese prostitutes in 1945, Western potboilers and Hollywood movies represented the geisha and Japan as either savages or simps—as in Elliot Chaze’ The Stainless Steel Kimono, or The Teahouse of the August Moon, which was a novel and a play before the movie version starred Marlon Brando in a yellow-face verging on camp. In the stifling era before Betty Friedan, these moldy works portray the Japanese as shameless about sex, and they re-introduce Americans to the eternally sexually available “Babysan.”
The most recent resurgence of the geisha obsession began in the go-go 1980s, the same decade that Susan Faludi’s Backlash arraigned for the reaction against feminism. Kawaguchi borrows from Faludi, suggesting that the studies by Liza Dalby and Lesley Downer, Arthur Golden’s thoroughly researched mega-bestseller Memoirs of a Geisha, Fatal Attraction, and Madonna and Kylie Minogue videos, are all documents of Orientalism. Some of these works push the message that geishas can make men happy where the E.R.A. and burning bras have failed. But since the 1960s, Hollywood and pop stars have “juxtaposed the geisha with strong American women” she writes.
It is understandable that Kawaguchi is bothered by the idea of the geisha as the self-effacing Asian woman who is nevertheless a model female. But this assumption leads her to cast any Western writer or pop artist interested in the geisha as an exploiter afflicted with “yellow fever.” She concedes that Golden, whose book was not well-received in Japan, is a novelist, not a historian, but then she accuses him of glamorizing the geisha. “He increases the shock value of his story by setting the action back in the pre-war and immediate post-war period, when abuses were common,” she writes, as though it were uncommon for writers to seek the most dramatic setting for their stories. Madonna’s video “Nothing Really Matters,” where the Material Girl, dressed in a skin-tight vinyl kimono, dances surrounded by Asian automatons in whiteface, shows for Kawaguchi that “Asians, as though ignorant of the meaning of love, yet again have to be taught about love, this time by Madonna.”
Kawaguchi celebrates the long-running Broadway play M. Butterfly by the Asian-American writer David Henry Hwang. Like the opera that inspired it, M. Butterfly is based on a striking real story, that of a French diplomat who preferred to believe that his lover of several decades was a female Chinese opera star rather than accept another reality—during the Cultural Revolution, a male spy was exploiting him for state secrets. But to describe the plot this way is just to scratch the surface. Sure, the diplomat believed the boy was a girl because his awkwardness with aggressive Western women, his search for the ideal feminine, and perhaps even his own ambiguity about sex drew him to an Asian woman whom he imagined as demure. But beyond all that he longed for “enchanted space,” the elusive area accessible to anyone in love. Kawaguchi describes Hwang’s play as an inversion of the Butterfly Myth made possible because of the writer’s outsider status: “The white man becomes the victim of his fantasy of the victimized oriental woman.”
There is a more important moral to be gleaned here. M. Butterfly is a dazzling piece of theater neither because it is written by an Asian American nor because it turns the Butterfly Myth on its head. It is dazzling because it is beautifully written, and because it is not ultimately about “the Butterfly Myth” any more than Hedda Gabler is about Norway: the play’s true subject is the lengths we go to shield ourselves from the true identity of our beloveds. The Teahouse of the August Moon, by contrast, is a literal-minded period piece spewing out clichés about Asians.
The failure to make such distinctions sharply enough ultimately sinks this book. Kawaguchi sometimes seems on the verge of offering a more nuanced analysis of the geisha, but turns back to a politically correct conclusion: that Western writers and artists will always imagine geishas as prostitutes. But there are also passages of genuine insight. In one of the rare moments when Kawaguchi describes what the geisha is, as opposed to how the West sees her, she concludes that to be a geisha is to excel at “a profession which places more emphasis on being pleasant to and pleasing others rather than the importance of being independent-minded and assertive.” No matter our gender or ethnicity, selflessness is a quality we all long for, whose absence brings us pain; we seek it everywhere, but especially outside of ourselves.
Rachel Shteir is the author of three books, including The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, forthcoming in 2011. | <urn:uuid:e6aa9568-a882-4a1a-adc1-3d95e2140154> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/the-call-service | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956442 | 2,626 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Follow the 10 Commandments of Marriage
- Thursday, September 11, 2003
God designed marriage. And if you follow His plan for it, your marriage can grow and thrive. Applying God’s biblical principles to your marriage can help you discover His love for you and your spouse, and give you both more love for Him and each other.
Here are 10 “commandments” you can follow to have a thriving marriage:
1. Thou Shalt Not Be a Selfish Pig. Consider the needs of your spouse before your own. Seek out ways to give to your spouse. Be patient with your spouse and understand that neither of you is perfect. Gently and kindly respond to irritation. Be honest and vulnerable with your own thoughts and feelings, and make time to genuinely listen to your spouse to try to understand his or her thoughts and feelings. Ask your spouse, “What says ‘I love you’ to you?” and act on that information. Discuss your individual priorities in areas such as work, children, friends, church, money, and vacations, then work out the differences so you can work together toward the same goals. Commit to act in loving ways toward your spouse even if you don’t currently feel the emotion of being in love, and watch as love rekindles after you act in love. Keep dating each other.
2. Thou Shalt Cut the Apron Strings. Let your spouse take your mother’s or father’s place as the preeminent person in your life. Decide to create your own new family without undue influence from your family of origin. Try to work out conflicts with your spouse just between the two of you, and if you need to seek outside counsel, don’t turn to each other’s parents first. Don’t accept financial gifts from your parents or in-laws. Leave your past in the past by refusing to think or talk about old boyfriends or girlfriends, dwell on mistakes that God has forgiven, or frequently discuss special events or experiences that occurred before you met your spouse. Build a “one flesh” connection with your spouse that makes you together in your hearts even when you are physically apart.
3. Thou Shalt Continually Communicate. Make regular discussions about things that matter to each of you a habit and top priority. Don’t let busy schedules, children, television, or fear of conflict keep you from communicating. Regularly speak affirming words to each other, and use positive tones of voice, facial expressions, and body language. Be direct; tell your spouse exactly what you want to say instead of merely hinting at it. But always remember to be tactful while speaking forthrightly. Consider how your spouse is best wired to give and receive messages: Is he or she an auditory, visual, or feelings person?
4. Thou Shalt Make Conflict Thy Ally. Know that it’s normal for married couples to have conflict, and that every married couple can expect to encounter it. Understand that when conflict is handled poorly, it can damage your marriage, but when it’s handled wisely, it can actually lead to greater intimacy. Use your anger constructively instead of destructively. Focus on the problem rather than the person. Stick to the facts, and don’t set out to deliberately hurt your spouse. Don’t discuss your private conflicts in front of others, such as family members, friends, or business associates. Don’t make threats during an argument. Don’t let small conflicts fester and eventually become big ones. Don’t make generalizations. Don’t withhold sex to punish your spouse, or use it as a reward to manipulate him or her. Pray about your conflicts and listen for God’s responses. Seek to clearly understand both yourself and your spouse. Confess your sins. Forgive your spouse and accept his or her forgiveness.
Recently on Marriage
Have something to say about this article? Leave your comment via Facebook below!
Listen to Your Favorite Pastors
Add Crosswalk.com content to your siteBrowse available content | <urn:uuid:2f0feec2-bd61-4641-a9bf-e90ef2e286ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crosswalk.com/family/marriage/follow-the-10-commandments-of-marriage-1219527.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950538 | 853 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Camp Teach & Learn
In May, immediately following commencement, the CTL sponsors several days of intensive teaching development opportunities meant to build upon other programs and to introduce new initiatives: Camp Teach & Learn.
Inaugurated in 2005, these seminars contributed to the successful establishment of Connecticut College's First-Year Seminar Program. Camp Teach & Learn has continued annually with a variety of workshops and collaborations.
Faculty are offered the opportunity to participate in a variety of workshops — ranging from a day to a week —that address issues such as teaching critical thinking skills, designing effective presentations for students, using technology to enhance student learning, diversity and learning, advising first-year students, teaching information literacy skills, using writing to enhance student learning, and oral communication in the classroom.
Email Michael Reder firstname.lastname@example.org
Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching & Learning
New London, CT 06320 | <urn:uuid:0e66ae56-6e14-4ebd-8e48-fc3e0641d3c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conncoll.edu/offices/center-for-teaching--learning/ctl-programs/camp-teach--learn/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913881 | 190 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A rite of passage
In agricultural societies, as in many traditions around the world, life is not separated from death. It is a very interesting and in so many ways a very healthy view of death, which westerners find so difficult. Most Americans are scared of death and don't even want to talk about aging.
The return of the deads
The Celts believed that when people died, they went to a land of eternal youth and happiness called Tir nan Og. They did not have the concept of heaven and hell that the Christian church later brought into the land. The dead were sometimes believed to be dwelling with the Fairy Folk, who lived in the humerous mounds or sidhe (pron. "shee") that dotted the Irish and Scottish countryside.
Samhain was the new year to the Celts. This was the time when the "veil between the worlds" was at its thinnest, and the living could communicate with their beloved dead in Tir nan Og. In addition to the fairies, many humans were abroad on this night, causing mischief. since this night belonged neither to one year or the other, Celtic folk believed that chaos reigned and the people would engage in "horseplay and practical jokes". This served also as a final outlet for high spirits before the gloom of winter set in.
A modern catharsis
Man is also is sometimes govern by his bad instincts, stealing, killing or doing whatever harm. One of the best ways, one that has worked for thousands of years, is to express them harmlessly by acting them out in pretense or in play. This recognition of the worst in us seems to lessen its power. The ancient Greeks called this catharsis.
Our worst selves must be recognized in order to be controlled. Now, more than ever, we need to fill our streets with ghosts and goblins, lurid skeletons and other horrifying incarnations of evil.
The quintessential symbols of Halloween fall into three major categories. Symbols of death include graveyards, ghosts, skeletons, haunted houses. Symbols of evil and misfortune are witches, goblins, black cats. Symbols of harvest are pumpkins, scarecrows, corn shocks and candy corn.
The first two categories tap deep, irresolvable, pan-human dilemmas. Ways of dealing with and symbolizing death and evil are represented in some of the earliest archaeological remains of human ritual activity. One traditional means of facing the reality of death is to view it as a transition and to continue a relationship with the dead. | <urn:uuid:b6d2817a-213e-4539-812a-606dafc806f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://halloween.monstrous.com/halloween_meaning.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974312 | 521 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Homeowners often inquire about what kinds of fruiting plants they can grow that require minimal care yet produce an abundant harvest. Blueberries are frequently recommended because they are easy to grow, require minimal maintenance, and are relatively free of any major pests. They are one of the few fruit crops in production today that are native to Georgia. The plants have a multitude of uses in the landscape: they can be grown as a hedge to screen out unsightly views, to line driveways and side yards, and to serve as a barrier. Most importantly, blueberry plants provide delicious fruit that have many culinary uses.
There are three types of blueberries grown in Georgia: northern highbush, southern highbush and rabbiteye. The southern highbush and northern highbush blueberries require higher levels of maintenance, are grown commercially and are not recommended for the homeowner in the Atlanta area. Rabbiteye blueberries are the most adaptable, productive and pest-free of the three types of blueberries. Early season varieties of rabbiteye blueberries include "Climax," "Alapaha," and "Premier," midseason varieties include "Brightwell," "Austin," and "Powderblue," and late season varieties include "Delite," and "Baldwin." Blueberries are not self-fruitful. This means they require the planting of a minimum of two different varieties in order for the plants to pollinate and set fruit.
Blueberries need at least six to eight hours of sun a day. They require moist but well-drained soils with the addition of organic matter such as peat moss, compost, or manure.
Consider having your soil tested for its pH and nutrients content through Gwinnett County Extension for pH and fertility. The plants grow best in acidic soils with a pH of 4.0 to 5.3. If the soil pH is above this range, apply wettable sulfur (90 percent sulfur) or ammonium sulfate to the soil. Do not apply fertilizer immediately after planting. Fertilizer should be applied four weeks after planting, and in the following years after new growth begins in March. Apply 2 ounces of an all-purpose fertilizer such as 12-4-8, 10-10-10, or an azalea fertilizer to each plant. Refertilize again in May and July. Spread the fertilizer evenly beneath the plants. Apply three inches of pine bark or pine straw mulch around them.
Blueberries produce their fruit from buds on 1-year-old wood, so they should be pruned enough to encourage the production of vigorous new growth each year. For the first five years after planting, minimal pruning will be required. Remove the low spreading branches and those growing through the center of the bush, especially weak and older branches. After a few years of growth, if the plants become too large for ease of harvest, remove one-third of the older stems during the dormant season to improve light and air penetration.
Blueberries, if planted and maintained properly, are a relatively easy fruit to grow. A great opportunity to purchase blueberries and some other excellent plants is through the 2012 Annual Gwinnett County Extension Plant Sale. Go to the extension website at www.gwinnettextension.org to download the order form or call the Gwinnett County Extension office for a form to be mailed to you. The deadline for ordering is Friday. The order pick-up day will be March 29 from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds.
Timothy Daly, MS, Agricultural and Natural Resource Extension Agent, Gwinnett County Extension. Tim may be contacted by phone at 678-377-4010 or by email at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:9540e09c-14bc-4e90-81a4-3491264c5798> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/2012/mar/09/daly-blueberries-are-care-free-and-fun-to-grow/?living | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957998 | 781 | 3 | 3 |
More than 1,500 New Yorkers gathered today in Manhattan to mourn the death of a 32 year-old gay man, who was shot down on Friday just blocks away from the historic Stonewall Inn in an apparent act of anti-gay bias.
Minnesota Based Online GLBTQ High School to Start Classes in January
According to the Pioneer Press in the Twin Cities, a new online high school will make it easier for GLBTQ students feel comfortable while working towards their diploma. The GLBTQ Online High School will open its doors in January 2010, becoming the first institution of its kind.
Up until this point there have been online high schools and brick and mortar GLBTQ high schools, but never an online school explicitly for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth.
The GLBTQ Online High School is based out of Maplewood, MN, and the idea was executed by David Glick, Minnesota’s first online coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Education. Glick created it after he saw that there was a need to reach out to young GLBTQ people who live in places where there are not a lot of other GLBTQ people to relate to or who live in a potentially hostile environment where they are not accepted.
Critics of the school say that it would further isolate teens who may already be at risk. Glick, however, believes otherwise. He said, “We may not bring people closer physically — but we will in every other way. We want to make them feel more confident about who they are.”
Curriculum at the school includes courses that meet national criteria, but also includes lesson plans that help to abolish negative messages about GLBTQ people. The school will also include courses that use online communication tools and highlight GLBTQ people in history, a subject matter that is glaringly absent from most public school education.
People of any sexual orientation can enroll, and there are programs in place to help teens come out to their families before applying. The school has already started accepting applications.
It's encouraging to see more educational options like this one that offer a safe leanring space for GLBTQ students. GLAAD will continue to monitor media coverage about the GLBTQ Online High School. | <urn:uuid:90b0c3ab-d3d7-48c1-b5fb-35b0a74a43fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glaad.org/2009/08/05/minnesota-based-online-glbtq-high-school-to-start-classes-in-january | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969674 | 460 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Smoking the cigarette taken from a beautiful varnished box, Udzuki spoke, showing in a gloomy smile shcherbatye dark
зубы:Япония - the unfortunate country, I Japanese - the unfortunate people. It seems, since the basis of empire we were
got involved in any international squabble what only was started on distance less than thousand miles from us. We only also
did not have fight with neighbours or with each other! We will put, - has grumbled Mitoja. - the history of any people Is that
more or less. Take Europe...
Any other people put before itself a definite purpose and achieved it. One aspired to national association, others dethroned
despots, the third struggled against overseas oppression, sank in blood and heated others, but they did it with belief and
passion, and we, Japanese... Two millenia we were at war among themselves or tried ottjagat at the nearest neighbours an
earth slice, and, notice, to us always got for it, and strong got... And all for this purpose only to mount upon to itself a neck of
irresponsible adventurers like TodzE. (TodzE - one of the main Japanese military criminals, played the big role in razvjazyvanii
wars on Pacific ocean. It is executed on a sentence of the International tribunal in 1948.) Well, the Udzuii-dignity... - Mitoja
has cautiously filled tiny cups green sake. - I would tell that you today is too pessimistic are adjusted. Be consoled. After all
and other people cannot brag of that fruits of sweat and blood of their fathers are more sweet. I do not see the big difference
between us and them. If who has achieved something efficient, so it, of course, Russian.
Yes, it has carried.
They have kept silent, prihlebyvaja a strong drink.
Probably, you also are right, the Mitoja-dignity, - has again exorcised Udzuki. - And I complain about sad destiny of the
Japanese people only because itself I belong to it. To probably, other people it is not easier... And now such time that all
mankind is doomed to immense sufferings if it does not think again, will not cease to play with nuclear fire. But the child cries
most loudly. And from outside, of course, it is visible that in Japan it is unsuccessful. Anything defined! - Udzuki has
contemptiously sniffed. - Americans pull in the party, socialists - in the, industrialists - in the. The people have yearned, has
broken, have got tired... Necessarily you start to think, whether there is no true that communists speak.
Mitoja has shaken головой:Нет, communists not for us. Though even at you many visible people sympathise with
communists. Take Ojama. And Jamava Gihej - know, the known biologist, - it after all has entered the Japanese Communist
Party. Probably, he considers that only communists offer let heavy, but a certain exit from this ugly position in which our
country has come to be. I do not know.
By the way, - Udzuki has told, - somehow I have got to talking with fishermen of "the Happy Dragon", and they have told to
me about the life. I have found out a curious thing. It appears, many of our fishermen, especially youth, are employed on
fishing schooners at all for the sake of earnings.
Here is how? Earnings for a season are too small - eight, at most ten thousand yens. | <urn:uuid:55273baa-2a9e-4c32-a035-741df09a6ea7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.californiasuffragecentennial.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957093 | 794 | 1.9375 | 2 |
“I haven’t moved past the childhood days of my life when it comes to the artwork,” observes Winfred Rembert. “Most of the things I do now are just memories from a young guy, a teenager, you know, growing up in Cuthbert, Georgia.” As he speaks, Rembert is headed back to Cuthbert. He’s bringing a film crew with him, because now, as puts it, he’s “somebody.”
That somebody, you see early in All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert, is certainly a product of his childhood days. The film—which screens at Maysles Cinema on 11 July, followed by a Q&A with Rembert and director Vivian Ducat and—traces how he has survived, by telling his stories in his art. At once harrowing and heartening, these stories are represented in particularly vivid form: Rembert’s paintings are actually not made with paint, but with bright dyes he applies to leather canvases. The images show cotton fields and chain gangs, baptisms and lynchings, images of the US South during the 1960s, a world where, he recalls his great aunt telling him, “You don’t make waves, you know, you can’t change a thing. White people do what they want to do, how they want to do, and you can’t do nothing about it.” Now, in his art, he’s doing something.
See PopMatters‘s review. | <urn:uuid:9d69711a-808b-45da-bdc1-4ea29a99da23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/160851-all-me-the-life-and-times-of-winfred-rembert-at-maysles-cinema/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965034 | 340 | 1.828125 | 2 |
TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant | Photo courtesy of Tennessee Valley Authority
Nuclear power has reliably and economically contributed almost 20% of electrical generation in the United States over the past two decades. It remains the single largest contributor (more than 70%) of non-greenhouse-gas-emitting electric power generation in the United States.
Small modular reactors can also be made in factories and transported to sites where they would be ready to “plug and play” upon arrival, reducing both capital costs and construction times. The smaller size also makes these reactors ideal for small electric grids and for locations that cannot support large reactors, offering utilities the flexibility to scale production as demand changes.
The existing U.S. nuclear fleet has a remarkable safety and performance record. Extending the operating lifetimes of current plants beyond 60 years and, where possible, making further improvements in their productivity will generate early benefits from research, development, and demonstration investments in nuclear power.
As a result of ARC research, nuclear energy will continue to provide clean, affordable, and secure energy while supporting the administration’s greenhouse gas reduction goals by introducing advanced designs into new energy and industrial markets. DOE will pursue RD&D on both advanced thermal and fast neutron spectrum systems.
For over 50 years the Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies have been deeply involved in space research and exploration. Currently, the Office of Space and Defense Power Systems supplies Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and national security applications for missions that are beyond the capabilities of fuel cells, solar power and battery power supplies. | <urn:uuid:98360904-dc42-4631-8c34-7463569de66f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926073 | 332 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Now the sons of Issachar were, Tola, and Puah, Jashub, and Shimrom, four.
And the sons of Tola; Uzzi, and Rephaiah, and Jeriel, and Jahmai, and Jibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their father's house, to wit, of Tola: they were valiant men of might in their generations; whose number was in the days of David two and twenty thousand and six hundred.
And the sons of Uzzi; Izrahiah: and the sons of Izrahiah; Michael, and Obadiah, and Joel, Ishiah, five: all of them chief men.
And with them, by their generations, after the house of their fathers, were bands of soldiers for war, six and thirty thousand men: for they had many wives and sons.
And their brethren among all the families of Issachar were valiant men of might, reckoned in all by their genealogies fourscore and seven thousand.
The sons of Benjamin; Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three.
And the sons of Bela; Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri, five; heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valor; and were reckoned by their genealogies twenty and two thousand and thirty and four.
And the sons of Becher; Zemira, and Joash, and Eliezer, and Elioenai, and Omri, and Jerimoth, and Abiah, and Anathoth, and Alameth. All these are the sons of Becher.
And the number of them, after their genealogy by their generations, heads of the house of their fathers, mighty men of valor, was twenty thousand and two hundred.
The sons also of Jediael; Bilhan: and the sons of Bilhan; Jeush, and Benjamin, and Ehud, and Chenaanah, and Zethan, and Tharshish, and Ahishahar.
All these the sons of Jediael, by the heads of their fathers, mighty men of valor, were seventeen thousand and two hundred soldiers, fit to go out for war and battle.
Shuppim also, and Huppim, the children of Ir, and Hushim, the sons of Aher.
The sons of Naphtali; Jahziel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shallum, the sons of Bilhah.
The sons of Manasseh; Ashriel, whom she bare: (but his concubine the Aramitess bare Machir the father of Gilead:
And Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister's name was Maachah;) and the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had daughters.
And Maachah the wife of Machir bare a son, and she called his name Peresh; and the name of his brother was Sheresh; and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.
And the sons of Ulam; Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh.
And his sister Hammoleketh bare Ishod, and Abiezer, and Mahalah.
And the sons of Shemidah were, Ahian, and Shechem, and Likhi, and Aniam.
And the sons of Ephraim; Shuthelah, and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eladah his son, and Tahath his son,
And Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle.
And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him.
And when he went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house.
(And his daughter was Sherah, who built Bethhoron the nether, and the upper, and Uzzensherah.)
And Rephah was his son, also Resheph, and Telah his son, and Tahan his son.
Laadan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son.
Non his son, Jehoshuah his son.
And their possessions and habitations were, Bethel and the towns thereof, and eastward Naaran, and westward Gezer, with the towns thereof; Shechem also and the towns thereof, unto Gaza and the towns thereof:
And by the borders of the children of Manasseh, Bethshean and her towns, Taanach and her towns, Megiddo and her towns, Dor and her towns. In these dwelt the children of Joseph the son of Israel.
The sons of Asher; Imnah, and Isuah, and Ishuai, and Beriah, and Serah their sister.
And the sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel, who is the father of Birzavith.
And Heber begat Japhlet, and Shomer, and Hotham, and Shua their sister.
And the sons of Japhlet; Pasach, and Bimhal, and Ashvath. These are the children of Japhlet.
And the sons of Shamer; Ahi, and Rohgah, Jehubbah, and Aram.
And the sons of his brother Helem; Zophah, and Imna, and Shelesh, and Amal.
The sons of Zophah; Suah, and Harnepher, and Shual, and Beri, and Imrah,
Bezer, and Hod, and Shamma, and Shilshah, and Ithran, and Beera.
And the sons of Jether; Jephunneh, and Pispah, and Ara.
And the sons of Ulla; Arah, and Haniel, and Rezia.
All these were the children of Asher, heads of their father's house, choice and mighty men of valor, chief of the princes. And the number throughout the genealogy of them that were apt to the war and to battle was twenty and six thousand men.
Public Domain Software by www.johnhurt.com | <urn:uuid:bdfddfe1-b5ab-4bb6-88c3-638fa833ad9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://htmlbible.com/kjv20/B13C007.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976214 | 1,391 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The essential amino acid L-Tryptophan helps support relaxation, restful sleep, and feeling better. It plays a part in the synthesis of both melatonin and serotonin, hormones involved with mood and stress response. L-Tryptophan also supports immune functions because it is the body's precursor to the kynurenines that regulate immunity. If needed, L-Tryptophan converts to niacin in the body, which supports circulation, a healthy nervous system, the metabolism of food, and the production of hydrochloric acid for the digestive system. Source Naturals L-TRYPOTOPHAN is extremely pure and is regularly tested to ensure the highest standards of quality. | <urn:uuid:b51fa983-f106-4254-b277-7f5fa631a18b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vitacost.com/source-naturals-l-tryptophan-500-mg-120-capsules/?pd_section=pr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926783 | 143 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/npcourie/public_html/libraries/joomla/database/database/mysql.php on line 383
Ellerbee’s unconventional way of dealing with artists comes from his mother who taught him and his two brothers and five sisters survival techniques and from mimicking Motown founder Barry Gordy’s work ethic.
“My background is in fashion, but I always wanted to have a learning institution where people who look like me could come and get what Berry Gordy put out in the 60s—education, stimulation, knowledge of how to exist in this music business.
“My mother believed in me when no one else did and I had an appreciation for what she taught me. I never knew we were poor,” Ellerbee said. “My mother did what she had to do to get the family to move forward. She did what she had to do and I am not mad at her.”
He’d always had a fondness for drawing, sketching and sewing. Ellerbee began selling women’s clothing during his early teenage years. At the age of 16 he began modeling and raised enough money to go to Paris where he stayed for two and a half years before returning stateside and graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
After graduating, Ellerbee began selling his wares, which consisted of prom dresses and one-of-a-kind clothing, in high-end department stores like Lord and Taylor.
Ellerbee’s foray into music began when he was blessed with the opportunity to meet four-time Grammy winner James Mtume who wrote the hits “Juicy Fruit,” “Never Knew Love Like This Before” and “Killing Me Softly.” Ellerbee met Mtume through his wife who was a designer and would frequently attend Ellerbee’s fashion shows.
He ended up working for the couple, designing Mtume’s album cover and ultimately managing him.
Mtume had a production deal with Sony Music and Ellerbee got the chance to manage some of Mtume’s artists. That led to Ellerbee scoring the major motion picture, “Native Son” which had Oprah Winfrey in it.
Ellerbee has noticed a lot of changes in the entertainment business during his 40 years in its trenches.
“I’ve seen the demise of the industry. We had numerous record companies and we had a Black music division and we don’t have all of that anymore,” Ellerbee said. “Now there are a lot of independent record companies out there for young people trying to get record deals. African-American music is heading back to real music with real singers. There’s a whole lot of money to be made in this business, you just need to know how to play the game.”
Ellerbee is currently working on a reality television show for VH-1 which will tell the ins and outs of the often fickle music business.
“It will be an entertaining show that will serve as an educational tool to show people what happens in the music business and what it takes to stay in this business,” Ellerbee said.
When he’s not talking about the new reality show, Ellerbee can be found working at Double XXposure.
“I work seven days a week. I do everything at Double XXposure. I don’t have a business manager. I write my own checks. I sign my own checks. I wind up doing everything from marketing to crisis management. My company is like a supermarket where you can go down the aisle and select the information and the expertise that you want,” Ellerbee said.
(For more information on Ellerbee or Double XXposure visit www.doublexxnyc.com.)
- << Prev
Digital Daily Signup
Sign up now for the New Pittsburgh Courier Digital Daily newsletter! | <urn:uuid:6a394ee4-f832-48c8-9444-29f7f8e76e53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php/entertainment/9623-media-guru-angelo-ellerbee?showall=&start=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970738 | 846 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Isabel has a passion for contemporary and bold design expression of landscapes where culture, identity, architecture, engineering, and poetry form unique concepts within the urban context of her work. She is an accomplished design initiator with a consistent eye toward collaboration and integration of art and allied disciplines. Her role in the Think-Tank is Designer—imagining a bold landscape strategy for the center and its waters edge through a European lens of urban landscape design.
Isabel is a principal and landscape architect with Sasaki Associates. She has led the design of high profile projects all around the world on award-winning urban, academic, cultural, and hospitality landscape projects in the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Her work includes large urban scale public landscapes, plazas, botanical gardens, waterfront developments, art installations, and the design of sculpture parks. She inspires a love of beauty—understanding that beautiful spaces are successful spaces people want to be in and care for.
Blaine combines a passion for the craft of making things with a design activist’s zeal for championing the culture of the commons. He’s worked for more than a dozen years in the urban context as a landscape architect, maker, and advocate while bridging the disciplines of design, engineering, and the social sciences to make space for experimentation and play. His role in the Think-Tank is Maker—strategizing and prototyping things, places, and experiences at the center.
Blaine is a principal and co-founder of Rebar’s Art and Design Studio, a hybrid practice in the Mission that combines design thinking with the artist’s eye. Projects like Park(ing) Day and the Panhandle Bandshell demonstrate Rebar’s belief that the human environment—public spaces in particular—should be infused with ecological knowledge, resilient to changing social conditions, responsive to creative impulses, and filled with opportunities for benevolence, conviviality, and delight.
Gina brings to each project a passion for the process of making vibrant landscape spaces—from the conceptual design to the details of implementation—with a particular focus on the life and use of urban, public environments and waterfront developments within the United States. Her role in the Think-Tank is Urbanist—imagining, engaging, and orchestrating landscape strategies for the center and its waters edge.
Gina is a principal and landscape architect with Sasaki Associates, and serves as the Chair of Sasaki’s Urban Studio—an energized and interdisciplinary group of practitioners solely dedicated to the improvement of quality of life in American cities through rigorous planning, exceptional design, and strong community partnerships. Her work in this realm encompasses a wide range of scales and project types—from public parks and plazas to large scale landscape planning and waterfront projects. She loves the complexities that come with designing for urban life—including community engagement, use and abuse of public space, and environmental dynamics.
Jeffrey has extensive experience working with cities, developers, and regional governments fostering economic development while improving quality of life through smart transportation investments. He uses direct community involvement to ensure long term success and feasibility. His expertise covers four key areas: planning for urban infill and new towns, transit-oriented development, regional transit planning, and multimodal planning. His role in the Think-Tank is Mover—enabling a holistic approach to mobility systems in and around the center.
Jeffrey is a Principal at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting, a practice distinguished by its commitment to planning transportation systems and mobility improvements that help build vibrant, sustainable communities. A fully multi-modal approach, drawn from the real world experiences of industry specialists, is a hallmark of every Nelson\Nygaard project. Covering all modes of transportation, Nelson\Nygaard specializes in planning, operations, and implementation.
Douglas advances new models of public and private space anchored in compelling visions of the emerging urban condition. An engaged member of the SF design community, he is an adjunct professor at the CCA as well as the former Chair and current Executive Committee member of the SFMOMA’s Architecture + Design Forum. His experience includes residential, educational, commercial, civic, and hospitality building and renovation projects, as well as exhibition design, product design, furniture, and custom lighting fixtures. His role in the Think-Tank is Architect—imagining adaptive strategies for the center’s vertical fabric as well as the deployment of temporary programs.
Douglas is the founder and principal of envelope A+D, an award-winning collaborative design firm made up of deep listeners, critical thinkers, thoughtful interpreters, and prolific generators of ideas. They seek to create an immersive architecture that alters people’s relationships to each other and heightens awareness by intelligently disrupting the normative condition.
Kristina has consulted on ecological design for large urban projects, bringing an emphasis on the special circumstances of coastal cities and water infrastructure systems. Kristina uses her knowledge of ecology to develop innovations that support biodiversity and human health, and combines these insights with her design skills to propose aesthetic experiences that help people adapt to climate change. Her role in the Think-Tank is Ecologist—exploring ways of increasing the ecological performance of the site and its aquatic edge.
Kristina recently joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley after leading the Department of Landscape Architecture at Virginia and holding regular faculty positions at the University of Washington and MIT. Her professional practice focuses on the integration of water and water-related systems such as riverfront parks, stormwater management, sea-level rise strategies, and urban water and infrastructural systems.
Anya has developed her expertise in sustainable food and business management with over a decade of hands-on experience including leading the California Farm-to-School Initiative; launching the California Buy Fresh, Buy Local Campaign; directing Slow Food Nation; founding Live Culture Co.; spearheading Eat Real, a series of annual events that engage hundreds of thousands of Americans in sustainable agriculture and DIY food-making; launching the Food Craft Institute; and most recently, Belcampo. Her role in the Think-Tank is Advocate—furthering the potential of sustainable food businesses to find a home and thrive at the center.
Anya recently became the CEO of Belcampo where she leads a group of innovative agricultural companies seeking to make good food the old fashioned way on a larger scale than ever before. Belcampo owns and manages agricultural ventures across the globe—each sharing a commitment to sustainably-managed land, the principles of organic agriculture and a focus on delicious, authentic foods.
Inspired by the creativity and sense of community found in Asian night markets while living in Japan, Matt has played an integral role in the street food movement in the Bay Area, first through his successful ramen cart, Tabe Ramen, and later as the founder of Off the Grid, an organization dedicated to creating shared experiences through street vendor gatherings. His role in the Think-Tank is Purveyor—harnessing the power of a unique food experience to connect the center community.
Off the Grid began with the simple idea that grouping street food vendors together creates an experience that connects communities. Since then, Off the Grid has developed urban markets that activate underutilized spaces. Currently, Off the Grid operates 18 weekly markets in the greater Bay Area, and works with more than 100 vendors weekly.
Jay worked both at the NYC office of SOM—gaining early experience on an urban scale—and as an architect for the San Francisco Architectural Heritage. He has applied his thoughtful and deliberate approach to the restoration of historic buildings to projects throughout California and has touched nearly every important historical renovation project in San Francisco. Jay’s role in the Think-Tank is Restorer—bringing his years of experience working with historic sites in the San Francisco bay area to our team.
Page & Turnbull is interested in the intersection between the built surroundings we have inherited and the way we live now. Their mission is to imagine change within historic environments through design, research, and technology. The firm was established in 1973 to provide architectural and conservation services for historic buildings, resources, and civic areas. They were one of the first architecture firms in California to dedicate their practice to historic preservation and are among the longest-practicing such firms in the country.
Andrew Wood has worked in the performing arts industry for over twenty years. As founder of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, he coordinates multiple Bay Area non-profit organizations and artists to produce an annual series of events that comprise the festival. Andrew has worked with many world class international artists and their equally brilliant local counterparts for the festival. His role in the Think-Tank is Presenter—bringing an understanding of the performing arts and their role in the center’s future.
SFIAF celebrates the arts through an annual gathering that brings together a global community of artists and audiences. The organization produces innovative projects focused on increasing human awareness and understanding, with an emphasis on collaboration between Bay Area and international artists. Prior to creating SFIAF, Andrew was the Director of ODC Theater, worked with presenting organizations for Life on the Water and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and served as an artist manager.
Ben Davis runs two SF-based graphic design and communication firms—Words Pictures Ideas and I Shot Him Because I Loved Him—driven respectively by the mission statements: “Do Good. Have Fun. Learn. Make a Living.” and “Changing Hearts, Minds and Habits.” Ben’s role in the Think-Tank is Communicator—connecting the vision to the broader psychological, social, and cultural fabric that envelops Fort Mason Center.
Founded in 1995, Words Pictures Ideas is a creative agency based in San Francisco that works on amazing social and civic projects, providing solid advice and inspiring ideas and powerful design which typically result in a creative outreach online or in print. Over the past half-decade, the small, passion-driven firm has named and created the visual identities for more than $15 billion in civic and private mega-projects.
Stacy Kozakavich’s professional and academic background is in historical archaeology with a specialization in nineteenth and early twentieth-century communities, sites, artifacts, and documents. Through her extensive work in research, archaeological survey, and excavations, she’s been reminded history isn’t just about famous people and places, but about, around, and for all of us. Her role in the Think-Tank is Archeologist—excavating a broader understanding of the fort and its context.
Currently a Project Assistant at the Observatory Library Exhibit at the Prelinger Library, Stacy provides archival research and consultation as well as layout and design for reproductions and displays. She has served as a project consultant for cultural resource management throughout the Bay Area and taught various university-level courses in American material culture, introductory archaeology, historical archaeology, and archaeological field methods.
Dominic Willsdon has curated cultural and educational programs and projects for 12 years in the field of contemporary art at both the Tate Modern and at SFMOMA. The work has primarily been concerned with the possibilities offered by different forms of public space for live, collective, cultural encounters. It has included talks, screenings, performances, educational projects, and artist commissions and has occupied interior and exterior museum sites and site-specific projects. His role in the Think-Tank is Curator—integrating an understanding of the visual arts into the vision.
Dominic is currently one of the two lead curators for a series of citywide projects which SFMOMA will present during 2013-15. For the past five years, his teaching has comprised two courses: the history of the concept of the public, and the historical and theoretical relationships between education and architecture. | <urn:uuid:5de914cc-e4ce-4a50-b549-a0f590148893> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stormingthefort.com/team/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939277 | 2,418 | 1.5 | 2 |
Capital Gains Tax: Annual Exempt Amount for 2012/13 £10,600 (subject to Finance Bill 2012 receiving Royal Assent), not £11,200
There has been some confusion over the expected Capital Gains Tax Annual Exempt Amount (AEA) for 2012/13. For those members who are understandably confused by the two amounts being bandied around, here is the answer, which is all down to the necessary Parliamentary process.
In 2011, it was announced that the AEA for 2012-13 would be kept at the same level as for 2011-12 ie £10,600. In addition, in line with the Government’s decision to move the underlying indexation assumption for all direct taxes to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI), it was announced that the AEA will rise in line with CPI from 2013-14.
Legislation is included in the Finance Bill 2012 to effect these changes (see clause 34). Table B of the Overview of Tax Legislation and Rates (issued on 21 March 2012) reflects the proposed change in the Finance Bill and therefore shows the AEA for 2012/13 as £10,600.
However, under the existing legislation, TCGA 1992 section 3(4), HM Treasury is required to issue an order before each tax year setting out the AEA for that year. Accordingly HM Treasury made an order on 20 March 2012 setting out the AEA for 2012-13 - see SI 881/2012 The Capital Gains Tax (Annual Exempt Amount) Order 2012 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/881/introduction/made. Under current legislation the AEA is arrived at by increasing the AEA for 2011-12 in line with inflation as measured by RPI. Therefore the Order states that the exempt amount for 2012/13 is £11,200, unless Parliament otherwise determines.
The content of the Order will be superseded by the proposed legislative changes in the Finance Bill once the Bill receives Royal Assent, effectively leaving the AEA as £10,600.
2 April 2012 | <urn:uuid:0c92a176-dd56-48a8-b25b-f146c8bccc69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tax.org.uk/tax-policy/newsdesk/2012/CGT_AEA_10600 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949157 | 440 | 1.640625 | 2 |
For members of Wittenberg University’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams, one practice each November stands out from the seemingly endless string of workout sessions associated with the sport. It is a day to build camaraderie through an hour-long competition against teammates, and it is a day to reflect on a cause bigger than any opponent the Tigers face each year.
During the team’s annual Hour of Power Relay, the Tigers join hundreds of other college, high school and club teams across the country to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. The team’s Nov. 13 practice marked the sixth straight year that Wittenberg participated in the event, which was started in 2005 at Carleton College after Ted Mullin, a member of the men’s swimming and diving team, died of a rare soft-tissue cancer called sarcoma.
All money raised each year goes to the Ted Mullin Fund for Pediatric Sarcoma Research at the University of Chicago. The amount of good will and team unity cannot be measured, however, evidence that service to others offers the greatest rewards.
“This event is very meaningful to each team member in different ways,” said Jane Tsivitse, class of 2013 from Wyoming, Ohio, who organized the 2012 Wittenberg Hour of Power Relay with Ward McNulty, class of 2013 from Glencoe, Ill. “It’s great that we can come together for an opportunity like this. It’s easy to lose sight of what is really important. This provides us with a much-needed sense of perspective.”
In 2010, Bob Rafferty ’02 and Ross Ballinger ’06 compiled an Hour of Power Relay video, featuring the Tiger swimming and diving teams.
Perspective is sometimes difficult to find in the world of college athletics. Through the innovative Tiger GAME Plan initiative, Wittenberg student-athletes have numerous such opportunities, through community engagement and activism, global awareness and an emphasis on academic and athletic achievement.
The Hour of Power Relay consists of a sprint relay in which team members take turns swimming 50-yard lengths of each different stroke. The team is divided into six lanes of eight to nine team members each, mixing the men’s and women’s teams together and including the members who compete only as divers during meets.
Prior to diving into the pool, team members huddled to reflect upon their experience, with several mentioning personal connections to cancer, including family losses and survivor stories as well. It provides an important time for team members to come together and reflect.
For more information about the Hour of Power Relay and the Ted Mullin Fund for Pediatric Sarcoma Research, visit Carleton’s website at: http://go.carleton.edu/HourOfPower. To make a contribution to Wittenberg’s Hour of Power fundraiser, contact Head Coach Natalie Koukis at (937) 327-6446 or via e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Members of the 2012-13 Wittenberg swimming and diving teams took time out from a recent practice to pledge their commitment to ending sexual violence.
Recently, team members took time out from their training to adopt a different cause, taking a pledge not to “condone or remain silent about sexual violence.” Team members made a video showing their vow to confront this important issue, which studies indicate is a significant problem on college campuses across the country.
The team members’ initiative to not only support the cause of combating sexual violence but taking a public stand against it speaks volumes about Wittenberg’s mission to develop the whole mind, body and spirit.
The Tiger men’s swimming and diving team has posted a 5-2 dual meet record through the first half of the 2012-13 season, capped by a strong third-place finish in the annual DePauw Invitational Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. The Tiger women check in at 6-1 in duals at the midway point of the campaign. The opening half of the season was punctuated by a thrilling first-place finish in the DePauw Invitational as the Tigers edged the host team by one point. Follow the Tigers all season long via http://www.wittenbergtigers.com.
Story By: Ryan Maurer
Photos By: Erin Pence | <urn:uuid:500d7ba8-4865-4b64-a184-af7723d2f371> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www9.wittenberg.edu/swimming/2012/12/03/the-power-of-service/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948069 | 921 | 1.679688 | 2 |
FORT WAYNE – The Thurgood Marshall Leadership Academy board heard a report Tuesday from the Indiana Charter School Board about its accountability system for charter schools.
Claire Fiddian-Green, the state boards director, spoke to the local charter schools board after visiting the school. The state board authorizes the schools charter.
Fiddian-Green said at least one visit will occur each year, with the possibility of additional visits. An evaluation will also take place when a charter is up for renewal, which for Marshall Academy is after five years. At that time, the state charter school board would grant a five-year renewal, grant a short-term extension, or revoke the charter.
Fiddian-Green said with the increase in the number of charter school authorizers in Indiana, a greater emphasis has been placed on accountability. Recent legislation has increased the number of organizations authorized to grant charters, which include the state charter school board and more four-year colleges and universities.
The state charter school board approved its accountability system more than a year ago, and a grant it received allowed it to examine the system more closely last summer and make changes.
Accountability is incorporated in the charter agreements the board approves, Fiddian-Green said.
With the help of the grant, the state charter school board made some minor revisions to its system to reflect recent changes in accountability for all public schools, including the state Department of Educations A-F grading accountability system, she said.
The board will receive a follow-up report based on Fiddian-Greens visit. | <urn:uuid:f3899deb-f7f7-4fed-aaf0-cd99fa372ffb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jg.net/article/20130220/LOCAL04/302209931/1002/LOCAL | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960376 | 324 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Welcome to the web page of the "Research Term on Real Harmonic Analysis and Applications to PDE", one of the main activities of the special year "New Trends in Harmonic Analysis at ICMAT".
Modern harmonic analysis is a very active field of research that places itself in a fundamental position within the mathematical sciences. Harmonic analysis has many different branches and turn out to be fundamental in the understanding of several problems in the fields of partial differential equations and geometry. In this trimester we shall be focus on the real counterpart of harmonic analysis as well as the applications to PDE that arise from them. The main purpose is to bring together researchers in these fields, from the more prestigious experts to young researchers as post-docs and graduate students.
The organization of the trimester will be as follows. There will 4 Mini-courses on Modern Harmonic Analysis delivered by the prestigious researchers S. Hofmann, T. Hytönen, A. McIntosh and A. Volberg. These short courses will have some introductory lectures containing the general background of the topic and will conclude with the last developments and challenges in the corresponding areas. These lectures are intended primarily for young graduate and post-graduate students or for mathematicians in other areas who want to become acquainted with the field.
The last week of May we will hold the workshop "Harmonic Analysis, PDEs and Geometry: A joint Workshop of the ANR-Harmonic Analysis at its boundaries and the ICMAT-Severo Ochoa" where 25 speakers will present lectures on their own research topics. We will also run short-talk sessions for other participants wishing to present a contribution.
More than 40 researchers have agreed to participate in the trimester. Each of them will deliver specialized lectures on their topics. A limited number of grants will be given to PhD students wishing to participate in the research term to partially cover some of the local expenses. Special talks delivered by young people will be also scheduled.
We hope that you will find in these pages all the information that you need as a potential participant, and we look forward to seeing you in Madrid.
The Organizing Committee | <urn:uuid:5dcdca7b-d51c-49e2-8299-bef9125ff445> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icmat.es/NTHA/RT-HAPDE/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937968 | 437 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The Northern Ireland Place-Name Project
The Northern Ireland Place-Name Project, established in 1987, researches the origin and meaning of the place-names of Northern Ireland. It is the only centre for the study of Gaelic place-names in the United Kingdom, with parallels in the Institute for Name-Studies in the University of Nottingham in England, and the Archif Melville Richards Place-Name Database in the University of Bangor, North Wales. The Northern Ireland Place-Name Project grew out of the work of the voluntary Ulster Place-Name Society established in 1952, and supports the aim of the Scottish Place-Name Society to achieve a similar centre for the study of place-names in Scotland. Within Ireland, the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project co-operates with colleagues in Dublin in the Placenames Branch of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, and in the Locus project on historical Irish place-names in University College Cork.
The place-names of Northern Ireland include those of 6 counties, 60-plus barony and district names, 269 parishes, 9,600 townlands and at least 20,000 ‘other’ names, in the languages of Irish Gaelic, English and Scots, with a few names in Latin or Old Norse. The gazetteer compiled by the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project is still growing, with current additions including both traditional names of fields and modern streets. There has always been a strong ‘community relations’ aspect to the work, since everyone lives in a place, and attachment to the place one calls home is a reality far closer than the name's language or community of origin.
Over the past 20 years the unit, which depends on funding from outside the university, has grown to include the following aspects of place-name research, although not all have been funded at any one time.
Computer database and gazetteer
The database is based on a gazetteer of geographic names of Northern Ireland, which was compiled by the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project from map and other sources. The gazetteer is linked with three further tables: historical references to and spellings of the names, linguistic elements occurring in the names, and a bibliography of sources for and writings about local place-names and their language. Since the restoration in 2004 of townlands to the official database of Northern Ireland addresses (Pointer: www.pointer-ni.gov.uk), work on the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project database has been supported by the Ordnance Survey for Northern Ireland. Completing explanations of the townland names in the database became the pilot project of the Culture and Heritage programme under MOSAIC, the digital Geographic Information Strategy for Northern Ireland. Between 2005 and 2008 the place-name information was displayed online linked to the address database (then on Pointer: www.pointer-ni.gov.uk). However in 2007, in the Review of Public Administration, the Ordnance Survey for Northern Ireland was moved from the Dept of Culture Arts and Leisure (DCAL) and merged into Land and Property Services in the Dept of Finance and Personnel. Funding for the heritage project had to cease, but Land and Property Services have prepared and are committed to maintaining online a new web database Placenames NI, currently being tested for launch. This will display the full gazetteer plus historical evidence for townland names, including written histories of the townland names of Co. Down. However, further funding is required to complete the explanations of townland names and analysis of further name-sets, and to make all the data available online.
Library and Archive for local place-name research
The Northern Ireland Place-Name Projects intends, with sufficient funding, to gather all published books, maps and articles relevant to local place-name research, as well as transcripts and field notes etc by Project staff; and also copies of other private research, such as the paper archive of Deirdre Flanagan lodged with us by her family (donations gratefully received).
The Northern Ireland Place-Name Project archive includes:
Annotated paper maps for Northern Ireland:
6-inch, 1-inch, townland index / Local Government District (LGD), 1:50,000, 1:10,000.
Audio fieldwork tapes and phonetic transcripts of place-names for some areas.
Photographs of places (showing topography, archaeology etc.) and place-name signage.
Collections on local personal and family names (forming part of many place-names).
Newspaper cuttings about name issues.
Some of this material is digitised but it has not [yet] been integrated with the database.
The archive also includes some sources on place-names in the Ulster border counties.
Series the Place-names of Northern Ireland: 1992-2004, currently 8 of a planned 30-40 volumes (approximately 6 per county)
Articles and book chapters on place-names (especially the UPNS journal Ainm)
Bilingual mapping (with OSNI)
Townland lists (with Northern Ireland councils)
Exhibition and introduction to local place-names Celebrating Ulster’s Townlands
Dictionary of Ulster place-names (now in its second edition)
Other place-name volumes, such as Lough Neagh Places (illus) published in 2007 (ISBN 0 85385 909 6). Click here for full list of publications.
Many people contact the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project with place-name and associated family name enquiries by post, phone, or e-mail. The Project can provide location, information on and original-language versions of existing place-names, and also suggest new names appropriate to an area. There is a charge to institutions, while individual researchers are asked to share some of their own knowledge with the Project in exchange. The Project regularly supplies information on the place-names of archaeological sites to Built Heritage in DoENI Environment and Heritage Services. It also supplies Irish spellings of local place-names to the Office of the First Minister (OFMDFM) at Stormont, and to many of the local councils, which have the power to ratify them for use in postal addresses, maps and signage. In 2004 Foras na Gaeilge funded additional researchers to provide Irish-language forms of addresses for areas where a concentration of Irish-speakers is attested by the Census, and this work is ongoing. See: www.ulsterplacenames.org
Lectures and talks
School and community outreach
Project members regularly give talks and comment on various aspects of names to local historical societies, community groups and schools, as well as the media. The Project also took part in the successful campaign for the retention of townland names in the Northern Ireland address system. Since 1999 the touring exhibition and booklet Celebrating Ulster’s Townlands has provided a general illustrated introduction to the study of local townland names. In 2003 an art competition Townlands in Art attracted entries from many primary schools for an exhibition in Queen’s University, reminding children of their local identity. In return the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project has learned a great deal from recording the unwritten place-name knowledge of local inhabitants, both traditional pronunciation of mapped place-names such as townlands, and the existence of further names such as townland divisions and fields. The Northern Ireland Place-Name Project also runs seminars to encourage groups and individuals working to promote and preserve the place-name heritage of their own area.
Liaison with colleague organisations
Through membership and participation in the conferences and discussion groups of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, and the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project contributes to the development of onomastic study throughout the world.
The connection of Queen’s University with place-name study is of long standing. John O’Donovan who investigated Irish names for the 1830s Ordnance Survey of Ireland was the first professor of Celtic in Queen’s. The place-name scholars Sean mac Airt and Deirdre Flanagan also worked here, and were founder members in 1952 of the voluntary Ulster Place-Name Society (UPNS) which is still closely connected with Irish and Celtic at Queen’s. More recently, under Arts and Humanities Research Board funding, the Project was directed from 1999-2004 by Dr Nollaig Ó Muraíle, who was a place-name officer for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland for twenty years before joining Queen’s in 1995. The Project fits well in Irish and Celtic Studies because almost all the older place-names in Northern Ireland were coined in the Irish language. However they have been affected by transmission in English spelling, alongside the many names coined in English and Scots. | <urn:uuid:6e8ff36b-e891-43f4-b9c2-a967d1d426e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofModernLanguages/Research/ResearchProjects/NorthernIrelandPlace-NameProject/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940985 | 1,818 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Ash borer in Muskingum County
More science stories
- Medical examiner: 24 dead in Oklahoma twister
- Heart transplant giving climatologist Lonnie Thompson a second chance
- Pesticide makers seek cause of bee deaths
- Pesticide makers seek answers as bee losses sting agriculture
- Researchers train bees to sniff out land mines
- Asteroid’s close pass no danger to Earth
Local Stories from ThisWeek
- Gahanna mayor: Let’s cancel fireworks, Freedom Festival
- Commissioner appeals for crime patrol's expansion
- Apartments planned at site near industrial park
- McDorman moving ahead with car museum plans
The voracious emerald ash borer has been confirmed in Muskingum County in eastern Ohio.
The insect, which is blamed in the death of millions of ash trees in a number of states, now has been found in 59 Ohio counties.
The Muskingum infestation was discovered in landscaping outside a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Zanesville, said Brett Gates, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
In April, the wood-boring beetle was found in Columbiana and Guernsey counties. Officials are urging residents there to help keep the dark green beetle from spreading by purchasing and burning only local firewood and being careful when transporting firewood.
The stakes are high, because North American ash trees are nearly 100 percent susceptible to ash borers.
Borer larvae, which likely came to the United States in wooden crates shipped from China, kill the trees by creating tunnels beneath the bark in the soft wood that supplies the trees with water and nutrients.
They’ve been blamed for wiping out tens of millions of ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Quebec, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Left untreated, trees infested with emerald ash borers typically die within five years. Adult ash borers typically fly from May through September. | <urn:uuid:e229674e-b7a1-4adf-ac7d-bf75b24d4b05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/05/26/ash-borer-in-muskingum-county.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913031 | 414 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Do you want to do your part in reducing the federal deficit? Would you be willing to do away with dollar bills in exchange for coins?
When asked similar questions recently, the response was lukewarm by 1,000 people polled by Pulse Research officials for a Rasmussen Report Poll. Only 21 percent favored it, 59 percent were against and 20 percent were ambivalent.
What's the big deal with switching?
According to officials with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, it was estimated $143 million would be saved per year by making the move, or $4.4 billion over a 30-year period. The savings occur by not having to reprint new currency each year (on average 3.2 billion $1 bills are removed from circulation every year). It is estimated coins will last 35 years in circulation, while a paper bill remains in circulation between two to four years.
When the same group who were polled with the original question were told of the potential savings to the government, 61 percent said they favored the use of dollar coins, 24 percent were opposed and 15 percent still were undecided.
Historically, Americans seem resistant to changing. The most recent attempt by the U.S. Mint to encourage dollar coin use was with the production of presidential coins over the past five years. The mint produced about 2.4 billion coins, most of which are in storage today. Production on them was suspended a year ago.
If we ever hope to reduce the federal deficit, it is going to take the participation of everyone. While the savings here are minimal compared to other measures, each of us has to start somewhere.
It seems like a reasonable request that we all could participate in, and taking ownership of the problem is half the battle of realizing a problem exists. | <urn:uuid:d0cff68a-2566-4541-b29c-3938cc3d63d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thealpenanews.com/page/content.detail/id/523738/Editorial--Change-to-dollar-coins-makes-sense.html?nav=5002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981446 | 359 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Since July 2010, Portland State University has been one of a small handful of hosts for Toyota's Prius Plug-In Demonstration Project. That project ended last Friday, April 6th when Oregon's fleet of 10 test vehicles was officially returned to Toyota's Parts Distribution Center for transport back to Toyota's headquarters in Torrance, CA.
The Prius Plug-in Demo vehicles were similar to conventional Prius gas-electric hybrids, except these had been built with a lithium battery that provided up to 14-miles of all-electric driving. The pilot project quickly revealed that this additional battery electric mode, in combination with the vehicles 51 mpg EPA rating, could lead to some dramatic "blended" mileage numbers - frequently in the 75-80 mile range sometimes rising as high as 135 mpg when the car was routinely charged during daily commute and errand segments.
During the 21-month project, the vehicles were assigned for 1-2 month test periods to dozens of drivers - retirees, students, commuters, homemakers, and workers - in Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene, Ashland, and Redmond. The vehicles also regularly appeared at auto shows, conferences, county fairs, and the commissioning of EV charge stations.
In their last work assignment, the vehicles participated in a simple but interesting study conducted with employees at Intel and CH2M Hill. Titled "A Plug-In Hybrid vs. Your Car: A Comparative MPG Study," the study set out to capture the fuel economy improvements afforded by plug-in hybrid technology over the gas powered car that the subject owned and normally drove each day. Results from this study are expected in late May from PSU's Office of Research & Strategic Partnerships and could be very timely as gas hovers in the $4.50 per gallon range.
Toyota began selling a consumer version of the Prius Plug-in in early 2012. | <urn:uuid:63fe3967-809c-4ef9-99f1-fe38ff3dd87e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pdx.edu/cemn/news/prius-plug-demo-project-concludes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965502 | 389 | 1.945313 | 2 |
White House Isn't Everything
By Alan Pell Crawford
George Will on Sunday offered sage counsel, no doubt unwelcome, to supporters of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum: Vote for whomever you want but don’t expect much of that vote, and if your real interest is limiting the power of President Obama, consider other ways to achieve that goal.
Doubtful that Romney or Santorum can win in November, Will fears that Republicans are setting themselves up for debilitating disappointment. They might also damage their own larger cause by nominating either man. Their selection might well “subtract from the long-term project of making conservatism intellectually coherent and politically palatable.”
Republicans would be better served, Will argues, by working to retain control of the House and win control of the Senate. If the GOP can do that, the majorities they enjoy in committees
will serve as fine-mesh filters, removing President Obama’s initiatives from the stream of legislation. Then Republicans can concentrate on what should be the essential conservative project of restoring something like constitutional equipoise between the legislative and executive branches.
Even under a lame-duck president, a Republican Senate will be able to
put sand in the gears of an overbearing and overreaching executive branch. This could restore something resembling the rule of law, as distinct from government by fiats issuing from unaccountable administrative agencies exercising excessive discretion.
While conservative Republicans need not be indifferent to their party’s nominee, Will reminds them, “the presidency is not everything.”
Democrats, who not so long ago reeled aghast the power wielded by Obama’s predecessor, should take heed, too. So should all Americans who care about influencing politics. We might all use whatever resources at our disposal to elect a Congress we can support, rather than fretting about the White House.
Most people simply don’t get much bang for their buck giving to presidential candidates. “Your money will make a much bigger difference in practically every other type of election,” blogger Jonathan Bernstein, a liberal himself, points out:
If you’re a typical donor of the $25, $100, or even $5,000 variety, your money is just a drop in the ocean of the hundreds of millions of dollars that both sides are going to spend on the presidential election. But more importantly, what we know about voter behavior suggests that money is least important in presidential (general) elections. Money matters more in nomination fights—where the candidates share a party label—than in general elections, where most voters will use the party label as a powerful cue. Moreover, voters will pay less attention to information they hear through paid advertising when there is plenty of other information available, as is the case with high-profile presidential elections. Add it all up, and your money just matters more—a lot more—in lower profile contests. | <urn:uuid:6fbd3676-dd36-4383-a933-6e8a9b58d7ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://samadamsalliance.org/2012white-house-isn39t-everything | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937423 | 591 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Alaska -- The Ghost Soldiers
In the late 1990s, servicemen stationed on Alaska's Adak Island reported seeing strange apparitions. In one incident, a Marine on guard duty was shocked to see two lines of 1940s-era Japanese soldiers marching toward the island's Toothpick Bridge. This was not just a glance or a brief hallucination. The Marine watched the ghost soldiers march all the way up to the bridge, something that took several minutes before they finally faded away. | <urn:uuid:b9784613-8393-4f9e-94d3-d1f4925e2618> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trutv.com/conspiracy/paranormal/unnatural-phenomenon/gallery.html?curPhoto=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967952 | 97 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Also known as continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII)
Insulin pump therapy should be offered as a treatment to people with Type 1 diabetes as part of a cohesive and comprehensive diabetes service. Insulin pumps could also have a role to play in the treatment of some people with Type 2 diabetes, but further research is required to identify the clinical and cost effectiveness of the use of insulin pump therapy in people with Type 2 diabetes. Anecdotal evidence has also shown the potential benefits of insulin pump therapy for people with cystic fibrosis related diabetes and those who have undergone pancreatic surgery.
The appropriate use of insulin pump therapy should be determined by the clinical need and suitability of the person and their personal choice. An appropriately trained team of healthcare professionals should be available to initiate and supervise treatment. Access to insulin pump therapy should not be on the basis of where a person lives or ability to pay. Revised guidance for insulin pump therapy was issued in July 2008 by NICE. The guidance is relevant to all four nations of the UK, and the DHSSPS in Northern Ireland recommended the revised Insulin Pumps Guidance when certain criteria are met, through a Circular in June 2009. In Scotland implementation guidance is not currently available; however, recently published SIGN Guidance on the Management of Diabetes provides recommendations based on an assessment of current evidence on insulin pump therapy.
While insulin pump therapy is not the only treatment option for insulin delivery available, it is an increasingly popular treatment option and will be the choice for some people with diabetes. It offers significant benefit over Multiple Daily Injections (MDI) for some in terms of diabetes management and quality of life. Published evidence also shows the benefit of insulin pump therapy for those prone to frequent hypoglycaemia, elevated HbA1c, or significant variability in day-to-day blood glucose levels.
Insulin pump therapy has been recognised for its potential benefits as a treatment option among children and young people. Factors such as increased sensitivity to insulin, smaller size, irregular lifestyle and the need for smaller doses of insulin make insulin pump therapy a useful treatment option in very young children. Owing to hormonal and psychosocial changes, adolescence too is a period where young people may experience difficulties with blood glucose control and where insulin pump therapy can be of benefit.
Whereas the NICE guidance is a step forward in increasing the accessibility of insulin pump therapy for adults and children with Type 1 diabetes, not enough credence has been given to the quality of life benefits, such as increased lifestyle flexibility associated with insulin pump therapy. The NICE recommendation has set limits on those who would be eligible for a pump.
The guidance should still be locally implemented in a uniform manner in order to put an end to the existing UK postcode lottery. The following problems have been identified by people with diabetes, demonstrating the variability in access to insulin pump therapy:
- Difficulties being assessed
- Difficulties in accessing funding for the pump/consumables
- Difficulties in accessing experienced specialist teams for clinical support
- Hesitance by some healthcare teams to consider insulin pump therapy as a treatment option as they have concerns about the technology and /or their ability to support individuals on this type of therapy.
Implementation Criteria – solutions to the existing post code lottery
- Pump therapy is an alternative insulin delivery option and awareness of its potential as a treatment option should be raised amongst healthcare professionals and people with Type 1 diabetes alike.
- Transparent, consistent and equitable protocols should be in place in all localities covering:
– awareness raising, assessment, referral, choice of insulin pump, support during initiation, follow-up, ongoing support including out of hours, education, supply of consumables (and associated necessary equipment such as blood glucose testing strips), discontinuation, staff training and competencies.
- Audit of insulin pump therapy services should include the implementation of these protocols. In England, the National Diabetes Support Team working group report on Insulin Pump Therapy contains further detail surrounding implementation. The general service specification for delivering a pump service includes a minimum team comprising a physician with an interest in diabetes, diabetes specialist nurse and dietician. This is also reflected in the NICE guidance recommendations.
- Funding for pumps and consumables should be available when criteria are met. In England and Wales it is mandatory to fund technologies approved by NICE. In Scotland implementation guidance is not currently available although local plans are being developed.
- The development of local pump centres, with appropriate infrastructure, staff, education and training, is essential to meet the growing demand for this therapy. Local arrangements must be put in place to support this. Whilst this expertise is developing, the aim should be to provide insulin pump services as locally as possible whilst still maintaining an appropriate level of expertise. Shared care arrangements with diabetes centres with specialist expertise may be available and should be encouraged to ensure provision until appropriate local implementation is possible.
- Training in flexible insulin therapy and insulin pump therapy should be a key part of ongoing learning and should form part of the curriculum for diabetes specialist healthcare professionals. This is because a competent healthcare professional team must be initiating, providing education, training, and on going support to people with diabetes using insulin pumps. As this should be part of ongoing care for people with diabetes, it should not be provided by insulin pump manufacturers. The healthcare professional team will also need to provide support and education to other healthcare professionals who provide care to an insulin pump user. The ultimate goal is that all diabetes specialist teams should be competent and have capacity to provide pump therapy.
- Resource allocation should be able to support those already using insulin pumps to continue, whilst also supporting new starters. Service planners will need to ensure service specifications for pump services include resource for services initiating and supporting people on pumps. NICE has developed a commissioning guide to assist with the commissioning and implementation of NICE guidance, where relevant to national commissioning processes.
- The NHS Technology Adoption Centre has produced a How To Why To guide to support the implementation of insulin pump therapy. The guide identifies some of the barriers to the implementation of pump therapy and how these have been overcome at a local level. The guide can be used to help inform the implementation of insulin pump therapy.
- Teams delivering pump therapy services should establish databases to support quality assurance, adverse events reporting and national audit. Standardised curricula should be developed for the training of specialists in pump therapy. NICE have developed a tool to support the audit process.
- Decisions about treatment alterations should be made between the healthcare professional, the individual, and their carer. Service providers/ commissioners must respect these decisions. Young people between the ages of 12 and 18 years who are doing well on insulin pump therapy and who have not previously had a trial of MDI should not be arbitrarily required to undergo this trial between the ages of 12–18 years or when they are transferred to adult services. Where an individual moves area they should be able to continue their treatment. Moving area alone should not be a reason for re-assessment of suitability for insulin pump therapy. Local areas will need to ensure they fund and support insulin pump users that have moved to their area. The insulin pump should move with the individual.
- Healthcare organisations must replace an insulin pump once the guarantee expires regardless of whether the pump continues to function.
- People with diabetes have reported being asked to insure their insulin pump themselves, despite the insulin pump being the property of the NHS. Diabetes UK believes this is an unfair burden that should not fall to the individual with diabetes and/or their carers. The NHS and pump suppliers should work towards resolution of this issue.
People with diabetes in partnership with their healthcare professional must be the ones to decide if insulin pump therapy is an appropriate treatment option in line with NICE guidance. This decision must be respected by those planning and arranging services. It is fundamental they endorse the agreed plan of the person with diabetes and their healthcare professional. As demand for this therapy increases, particularly in line with NICE guidance, it is imperative that training, and the development of competence in insulin pump therapy is the norm for diabetes specialist team members. This should assist in tackling an implementation postcode lottery.
Download the full position statement (PDF, 125KB).
Full NICE Guidance www.nice.nhs.uk.
The advocacy group improving access to pump therapy, INPUT. www.input.me.uk
Insulin Pumpers UK is an internet based discussion group. www.insulin-pumpers.org.uk
Pump management for professionals (PUMP). www.insulin-pump.info | <urn:uuid:fa1174b0-2428-4f5b-9f38-aded35c456cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetes.org.uk/pumps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941241 | 1,754 | 2.546875 | 3 |
It started in 2009 when Daniel Ray Carter, a deputy sheriff in Hampton, Va., pushed the little thumbs up button on his Facebook page. Carter's problem: He "liked" his boss's political opponent and he claims he was fired because of it.
Carter and five of his coworkers were subsequently released of their duties in the Hampton, Va. Sheriff's office after his boss won re-election. Sheriff B.J. Roberts says Carter's release was not politically motivated. Carter challenged his firing in court and the issue has created a whole new debate: Is pushing the "like" button on Facebook an act of free speech protected by the First Amendment?
A US District Court Judge initially ruled against Carter and in favor of the sheriff, explaining in a summary judgment that "liking" something on Facebook is not free speech because there is no actual statement of speech for the record. Carter challenged the ruling and this week, Facebook and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) weighed in on the issue, filing amicus briefs in the 4th US Court of Appeals defending Carter.
The ACLU and Facebook argue that hitting the "like" button on Facebook is analogous to other forms of political expression, such as wearing a campaign button on a shirt, or posting a campaign sign on your front lawn. The ACLU warns of the slippery slope that a ruling upholding the firing could have on other actions on social media, such as retweeting a post on Twitter.
The case highlights anew the complications that come along with crafting an organisation's social media policy. | <urn:uuid:89f4f7ed-d6e6-47e0-9669-5d210666b369> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/?newsid=3375480&pagtype=allchandate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97161 | 313 | 2.078125 | 2 |
June 12, 2012
The cats are out of the bag. For the first time at the National Zoo, fishing cats, an endangered species vanishing from riverbanks in their native India and Southeast Asia, have successfully bred and produced young. On May 18, seven-year-old Electra delivered two kittens between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. in her den. But the steps leading up to their births were not simple—of the 32 fishing cats in the North America Species Survival Plan, a program that aids in the survival of endangered species in zoos and aquariums, only 27 of them are considered reproductively viable.
“Many months of behavior watch, introductions and research allowed us to get to this point,” said Zoo Director Dennis Kelly according to a National Zoo press release. “It’s very rewarding that our efforts have paid off. The future of their wild cousins hangs in the balance, so it’s imperative that we do all we can to ensure their survival.”
Only one other facility accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has successfully bred fishing cats since 2009 and the National Zoo hopes that its kittens will help crack the breeding code for the swiftly-declining species. Wild populations of the cats have decreased by 50 percent in the past 18 years, prompting the International Union for Conservation of Nature to change the species’ status from vulnerable to endangered.
The Zoo’s three cats are participating in a multi-institutional study that examines different introduction techniques for a potential breeding pair by looking at stress and reproductive hormones to determine if different strategies or individual personalities spell success or failure. Before, the father, 2-year-old Lek arrived at the Zoo in January 2011, the AZA’s Species Survival Plan for fishing cats planned on pairing Electra with another male using a set of criteria for breeding compatibility. But despite meeting these requirements based on the genetic makeup and social needs of the individuals, the other male and Electra weren’t interested in each other. When keepers introduced Lek to Electra, however, the cats seemed to hit it off, showing “signs of affection;” in fishing cats, that includes grooming and nuzzling. Their kittens will become valuable breeders because their genes are not well represented in the captive population.
But don’t worry, all of this media coverage won’t interfere with the family’s bonding time—the keepers are monitoring the mother and her offspring through a closed-circuit camera. Though the kittens will not make their public debut until later this summer, Zoo visitors can see their father Lek on the Asia Trail just in time for his first Father’s Day on June 17.
Get get enough of the cute? Check out more images of the National Zoo’s fishing cat kittens on Flickr.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week. | <urn:uuid:9dee41bf-3e85-4672-aaa5-eaea01eb6e04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2012/06/newborn-fishing-cats-at-the-national-zoo-may-help-crack-breeding-code/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944634 | 616 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Five years ago today, modern-day explorer Edmund Hillary died. Steve Goldstein wrote of his amazing life. Originally published January 2008 on Obit-Mag.com.
Sir Edmund Hillary
, whose mighty heart finally failed him January 11, 2008 at age 88, always maintained that good works, not Everest, defined him.
“My life is not so much stepping on top of a peak that has never been stepped on before, or traveling to the South Pole,” he said in a 1989 interview, “but, rather more, the building of schools and medical clinics for the very worthy people of the Himalayas.”
Fair dinkum, mate, as they say in the Antipodes. Yet it might be argued that Hillary’s greatest achievement lies in refusing to allow the scaling of the world’s highest peak to bring him low. Far from being crushed by the weight of such a monumental first, Hillary flourished and embellished the physical mastery of a mountain with a life well lived at sea level.
Sardar Tenzing Norgay of Nepal and Edmund P. Hillary of New Zealand, left, show the kit they wore when conquering the world's highest peak, the Mount Everest, on May 29, at the British Embassy in Katmandu, capital of Nepal, in this June 26, 1953 file photo. (AP Photo, File)
It could have been a curse. The former beekeeper was 33 when he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay attained Everest, and he continued his ascent through life. Contrast this with Captain Merriwether Lewis, protégé of Thomas Jefferson and leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition. After an 8,000-mile journey of discovery, Lewis, who had been struggling with depression and drinking heavily, died of gunshot wounds – possibly self-inflicted – at a Tennessee tavern called Grinder’s Stand. He was 35.
Or Charles Augustus Lindbergh. “Lucky Lindy” was 25 when he soloed nonstop across the Atlantic in 1927 in the Spirit of St. Louis. The subsequent kidnapping and tragic death of his infant son was followed by his controversial role as a leading isolationist -- whom critics accused of paranoia and anti-Semitism -- during the run-up to World War II. These events tended to overshadow his groundbreaking work in aviation.
Ultimately, Lindbergh fled the crowds that adored him, living the last years of his life in an isolated part of the-then isolated Hawaiian island of Maui.
Hillary didn’t succumb. The remainder of his life – a half-century more – didn’t sully his achievement. Though he rejected the hero’s mantle, he was embraced as such in a world less than a decade removed from war, even more warmly in the United States, where boom times were darkened by the Korean conflict and McCarthyism’s heavy shadow.
In this time of darkness, Hillary was a beacon of effacement: a modest man known to friend and stranger as Sir Ed, willing to welcome the awestruck into his Auckland home. A dutiful son who could write to his mother of his achievement that “I may not have produced much joy or happiness in the world, but at least I’ve helped make the Hillary name a bit more famous.”
But Hillary’s milestone had another, less sanguine, effect. In conquering an unconquerable, he closed the door on one of the labyrinths of the imagination. This mountain had swallowed Mallory! Could anyone survive above 29,000 feet? He had dispelled those mysteries.
With one of the world’s secret places gone – two men lived to tell the tale – Hillary ushered in a new age of exploration. Sputnik made space the new frontier, and Hillary’s heirs had the right stuff to walk on the moon in 1969. The moon! With rockets and space-age submersibles, we ventured beyond known boundaries. Latterly, we have the advent of space tourism, an experience obtained only by the Midases among us.
As for Everest, well, mountain and myth were soon brought down to size. In 1993, 40 persons summited on a single day with reports of a queue forming to surmount the fearsome 40-foot rockface now known as the Hillary Step. Though the peak continued to claim lives, the experience could be bought, and Everest, atop every zillionaire’s Bucket List, created its own sense of entitlement. Writer Jon Krakauer memorably recounted the fates of several converging expeditions, with wealthy amateurs being hauled up the mountain, and the tragedy that ensued.
Attaining Everest is not what it used to be, and the achievement seemingly has to be enhanced by some extra fillip of hubris: sightlessness, speed, the absence of one or more limbs. Adding insult to these injuries was the innocent who strapped on skis and reduced the perilous descent to a lengthy slalom.
Fifty-five years on, where are the world’s secrets? A decade ago, a group of world-class paddlers attempted to run the remote and terrifying Tsangpo River from Tibet, dreaming of the likes of Hillary, John Wesley Powell, Francis Chichester and other explorers. The expedition ended in death for some and disillusionment for all. For the most part, though, the secrets are gone. The age of exploration transformed into stunts.
Hillary would never have recognized Everest -- or his adventuring -- as a stunt, The only thing he shared with his successors was a strong competitive streak. A few years after his climbing superlative, he joined a team trekking across Antarctica via the South Pole, something that Ernest Shackleton had failed to do early in the century. Dissatisfied with the methodical pace dictated by expedition leader Vivian Fuchs, an Englishman, Hillary took a small team on a 400-mile dash to the pole in bad weather and over unstable snow bridges. He beat Fuchs by two weeks, then radioed back that given the weather conditions perhaps Fuchs should go home and Hillary would continue alone with his team.
New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary makes a speech during the 50th Anniversary of Scott Base celebration, Scott Base, Antarctica, Saturday, January 20, 2007. The celebration marked 50 years of New Zealand presence at Scott Base and the start of a 50-year co-operative relationship with the United States on the ice in Antarctic science and logistics. (AP Photo/NZPA,Wayne Drought)
Fuchs ordered Hillary to wait and ultimately the two finished the trek together. The forgiving Fuchs said he could not blame Hillary for his mad dash. “It would have been like turning back from the south summit of Everest,” the Brit said.
Would Hillary have turned back from Everest had he known the follies that would follow? Unlikely. But even Sir Ed realized that his own sense of wonder had been diminished, his “dream” could not be duplicated. “Well, we’ve knocked the bastard off,” he said on his return, acknowledging the loss of something grand. It suited to his nature to resist the mythology.
Far more than heroic adventure, Edmund Percival Hillary defined a time when the world was young, when all the boundaries had not been breached, when to stand atop the roof of the planet was akin to standing on the moon, and when all of that could leave us breathless and dumbstruck. Imagining. Just imagining.
Click Here for More from Obit-Mag.com | <urn:uuid:4e5fe825-829b-4ede-a3a0-5934790a5535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://obits.mlive.com/obituaries/annarbor/obit-report-article.aspx?t=imagining%20everest&id=1206 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971592 | 1,576 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Going Green in the Classroom
Educating a new generation for a sustainable future.
At Mount Mary, students are encouraged to broaden their horizons when considering living lightly on the earth. Environmental awareness is promoted in classes such as Environmental Science and Contemporary Environmental Issues. Minors in Environmental Studies are also offered within the Anthropology and Sociology departments.
Students can get first-hand experience in sustainability, eco-friendliness, green-design, organic farming and more in Study Abroad programs offered throughout the year. These educational journeys take place in Costa Rica, Scandinavia and other areas of the world.
Did you know?
Classes in the Health Sciences reduce biohazard waste within the classroom by limiting the number of dissections each semester.
Art and Design Division
Fashion: Fashion students presented their annual designer fashion show, "Redux" in May of 2009 in Kostka Theater. Parting ways with the traditional process of design, "Redux" demonstrated that tomorrow's style is about conservation and restoration. This revived manner of designing inspired students to create unique garments that best suit changing lifestyles and economies.
All of the show's designs were completed during the 2008-2009 academic year by 49 student designers majoring in Fashion Design. The designers drew inspiration from the past, while looking into the future – some used the knitting machine and worked in leather while others printed their own fabrics.
Interior Design:The Interior Design program offers Sustainable Design instruction that addresses historical, ethical, and global perspectives on environmental and sustainable issues. The program also encourages certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Interior Design Students created and displayed sustainable furniture designs at a special event held in Milwaukee in 2009 at Design Within Reach. In addition to presenting works from 18 student portfolios featuring photography, ceramics and an assortment of interior design projects, the event included "SustainTABLE CHAIRity," a silent auction of reclaimed furniture pieces produced by the students. Proceeds from the event benefitted student scholarships and local charities.
Leadership for Social Justice
Designed as a model that can be used by other institutions, the Leadership for Social Justice Seminar was developed to provide the context of leadership and social justice for students to see their subsequent professional preparation and to equip students with the communication and critical thinking skills necessary for leadership in a culturally diverse environment.
"Leadership for Social Justice" requires student participation in an Ecological Footprint exercise. The Ecological Footprint quiz estimates the amount of land and ocean area required to sustain an individual's consumption patterns and absorb waste in an annual year. Following completion of the quiz, students participate in a rite of response that provides an opportunity for reflection and personal response to their quiz results.
Social Sciences and Related Disciplines Division
Mount Mary College's Social Sciences and Related Disciplines Division offers several opportunities for students to explore and become involved in environmental and sustainability issues including
- The United Nation's Millennium Development Goals are also studied and discussed in this course. Issues surrounding adequate food and nutrition, education and social equality on a global level are discussed. Students' personal responsibility in awareness and participation in the solution are stressed. Ultimately students are left with increased awareness of their individual place in ecosystem.
- "State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World" published by the Worldwatch Institute is required reading for students in an introductory social sciences course. The book examines policy changes needed to combat climate change and explores the economic benefits that could flow from the transition, including the potential to create new industries and jobs in rich and poor countries alike.
- Another sociology course, "Global Conflicts and Social Transformation" analyzes resource conflicts, broad global environmental issues and how nations are trying (or not) to deal with the issues. "Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment," by James Speth is required reading for this course. Speth was one of the co-founders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and founder and President of the World Resources Institute.
Students gain global perspective on what various nations have tried, what's been managed and what environmental issues have been difficult to solve.
- Faculty attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December of 2009 in Copenhagen. The COP15 conference is the fifteenth Conference of the Parties under the United Nations' Climate Change Convention. This meeting parallels the Kyoto meeting that produced the Kyoto Protocol.
Students were required to read about the conference and track media coverage during and after the conference.
- Students taking sociology classes this fall will be collecting data on campus environmental strategies. They will assess how the College is managing its current environmental initiatives and will make recommendations for improvements and enhancements.
Graduate Program in Education
The Mount Mary College Graduate Program in Education partners with the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (MTEC), a non-profit teacher preparation and professional development center, to offer a Masters of Arts in Education degree. The goal of this partnership is to provide urban teachers with professional development experiences that connect theory and practice in ways that will positively impact the learning of students in K-12 schools.
Drawing on resources available through MTEC's Center for Sustainability coursework in this program challenges educators to examine ways in which environmental, economic, and educational issues are affecting and will affect K-12 schools. Teachers design and implement curricular projects to involve their students and their schools in sustainability initiatives. | <urn:uuid:310af227-3f73-4fb6-a72f-b64c324f60b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mtmary.edu/sustainability/academics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946719 | 1,090 | 2.796875 | 3 |
- About CEI
- Support CEI
July 17, 2008
Having largely lost the intellectual debate on cancer (although their spurious claims still adversely affect policy), anti-chemical activists have decided to add more tools to their arsenal. Among their most powerful tools is the claim that chemicals are causing widespread problems by disrupting the endocrine systems of humans and wildlife. Accordingly, activists argue that we should ban or heavily regulate various chemicals, particularly pesticide products, on the basis of assertions that such chemicals may have an endocrine-related effect.
Endocrine systems in both humans and animals consist of a series of glands that secrete hormones and send messages throughout the body. Working in conjunction with the nervous system, these messages trigger various responses, such as growth, maturation of reproductive systems, and contractions during pregnancy. Foreign chemicals can disrupt proper functioning of the endocrine system and lead to health problems. Environmentalists refer to such external chemicals as endocrine disrupters, but others use more neutral terms because not all effects are negative or substantial. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) calls them endocrine modulators, which is the term used in the subsequent discussion. The National Research Council calls them “hormonally active agents.”
The endocrine disrupter alarm tactic focuses primarily on synthetic chemicals. Allegedly, because we have used and continue to use man-made chemicals—particularly a class of chemicals called organochlorines, such as DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)—the public and wildlife are widely suffering with everything from infertility and cancer to neurological disorders and developmental problems. But before rushing to ban and regulate all man-made chemicals, policymakers should review some facts. | <urn:uuid:12db4e79-25ce-42a6-ae14-eecec7c7cefa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cei.org/studies-other-studies/endocrine-disrupters | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948901 | 368 | 2.875 | 3 |
Food & Farm News
» October 13, 2010 «
You'll likely be seeing more advertisements and promotions for pistachios in the future, as farmers and marketers gear up to sell larger crops. Pistachio trees planted the last few years are reaching crop-bearing age, and most will come into full production within the next seven years. Pistachio marketers say they'll be promoting the nuts to American consumers, and add that they also expect to increase exports to nations such as China and India.
Rising worldwide demand has benefited raisin farmers and marketers. The U.S. Agriculture Department says worldwide raisin supplies have tightened, in part because of a sharp drop in production in Turkey. That leads to added demand from the nations that are the top foreign buyers of California raisins. A growers' organization announced last week that farmers will earn the highest raisin prices in 20 years.
Shoppers may find more California-grown sweet corn on the market this fall. The state's farmers increased their plantings of sweet corn by 13 percent, compared to the same time a year ago. Crop forecasters say the corn appears to be in good condition thanks to favorable weather during the growing season. California farmers also increased plantings of tomatoes and cantaloupes for fall harvest.
There may be fewer pears on the market this season than there were last year, but forecasters say supplies will still be plentiful. Most pears come from three states—Washington, California and Oregon—and the cool, wet spring in the West could knock overall pear production down 11 percent from last year. But last year was a big crop, and a report says analysts expect plenty of pears to be available for both domestic and export markets.Top | <urn:uuid:2601f318-6229-4475-8c94-9526a994f960> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cfbf.com/news/FoodAndFarmNews.cfm?FFNID=1199 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960819 | 353 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Current State - Current Sports
Most Active Stories
Mon July 6, 2009
Michigan launches new job program
By Mark Bashore, WKAR News
LANSING, MI – For decades, Michigan's community colleges have been centers of vocational education. Now, during a debilitating recession, a collaborative new program promises to expand that role. Participants, which include Lansing Community College, say the Michigan New Jobs Training Program could breathe life into the state's shattered manufacturing economy. But as WKAR's Mark Bashore reports, planners want to avoid the problems of a similar Iowa program.
AUDIO: Mike Sinclair works alongside a 60-ton plastic molding machine, inside a cavernous manufacturing plant in Charlotte. About every 50 seconds, he peels off another carefully sculpted plastic product. WJG Plastics' owner and President Bill Grice, explains.
"The product Mike is actually producing here is a brand new job for an industrial consumer product, it's a filter holder, it's a brand new tool for us...he's developing it," Grice says.
Unlike tens of thousands of plastic pieces produced here in recent years, this one is not headed to General Motors or Chrysler. Grice says it's become essential to make products for other businesses.
"The ups and downs...if you don't have other business to back fill, you'll find yourself so dependent on automotive that if you have a hiccup in automotive, you'll basically strain your business," Grice says.
This filter holder will be installed in a home air conditioning unit. Grice says diversification into consumer products and medical sectors will enable his company to hire over 100 new workers over the next five years. That means finding workers with particular skills. He thinks the Michigan New Jobs Training Program can help.
The new law allows employers to team up with community colleges to train new workers on the college's dime. The process begins with new hires. Then, with money raised through bonding or other means, the college teaches them specific job skills. Half of the worker's state withholding taxes are then used to pay back the college.
But Michigan's initiative was modeled on an Iowa program that's under a cloud. In May, that state's auditor released a report alleging that 15,000 projected jobs were never created. Iowa assistant auditor Tami Kusian says long-term job tracking is at the heart of the problem.
"You don't know whether those jobs were created for one week, one month, one year or longer," Kusian says. "It's a point in time and that point in time is usually at the completion of the training."
Iowa college officials still insist the program is a success. But the state is tightening up accountability and record-keeping. Kusian says Michigan could probably avoid the same confusion with basic oversight and data tracking.
Unlike Iowa, Michigan's program doesn't require employers to maintain fixed numbers of long-term jobs. Its more modest goal is simply to teach new employees marketable skills. Mike Hansen is the Executive Director of the Michigan Community College Association. In the end, he says, planners didn't want to dictate future employment decisions to companies.
"Just because we've trained 20 new welders should not prohibit and prevent the company from becoming more efficient in other ways and other parts of their program," Hansen says.
And he says planners felt sticking to strict job targets would trigger more red tape and bureaucracy.
Hansen admits another challenge is getting what he calls the "legs of the stool" to improve collaboration. That's a triad of economic developers working to attract business to the state, workforce trainers and community colleges. He says these key players don't always work in sync, even in the same area. Dave Hollister agrees. The former Lansing Mayor heads the economic development organization "Prima Civitas:"
"He clearly has a point," Hollister says. "In the new economy, collaboration is the bottom line, and finding new ways of doing business."
Planners say the program requires coordination of these key players, and couldl in the end---accelerate collaboration.
As they diversify their products, manufacturers like Charlotte's WJG are slowly reshaping Michigan's economic landscape. Community college officials appear eager to play a greater role in that process. A coordinated, well-monitored job-training effort could shape key features of that landscape. | <urn:uuid:86438b3f-cb38-4adf-b14c-353610a79b00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wkar.org/post/michigan-launches-new-job-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959248 | 897 | 2.046875 | 2 |
‘Scope of Urdu Language in Pakistan’ INTRODUCTION Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, was created around the 1600’s in Central Asia. The word ‘Urdu’ comes from the Turkish word ‘ordu’ meaning ‘camp’ or ‘army’. It was used as a unifying communication tool between the Muslim soldiers during their conquest of Ancient and Eastern Persia. These soldiers were of Persian, Arab, or Turkish descent. The majority of the soldiers, however, were of Persian origin. This directly affected the language…See More
ma nay apna study prgram change krna hai
main ny mail send ki tu mje reply aya
You can apply for change of study program in the next semester i.e. spring 2011 (subject to eligibility) through an email to…"
VUDESK is social networking website created for the students of Virtual University of Pakistan with an aim of providing educational support in terms of subject oriented material such as Assignment,GDB,Quizes Solutions and of course a light entertainment. Video Profile
We have Big Member Community Contributing and Getting Knowledge.Our Main Purpose Here.
to our all Valuable Members at one platform.Beside VU Help we are also providing every possible youth entertainment. |Best Choice.Easy Service.High Value| Our Profile
Our Community has also Live TV Transmission to facilitate the students for enhancing their skills as well as to take opportunity for doing something they love to do,Check Below Link To Know all about our upcoming transmission and Programs Radio Asia Live [VUDESK Radio] EziLive TV | <urn:uuid:93a937f5-2281-4217-b724-625e0f90176d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vudesk.com/profile/Irum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938348 | 342 | 2.703125 | 3 |
User:National Institute sandbox 13aEdit This Page
From FamilySearch Wiki
The original content for this article was contributed by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies in June 2012. It is an excerpt from their course Canadian:Immigration Records by Patricia McGregor, PLCGS. The Institute offers over 200 comprehensive genealogy courses for a fee ($).
United Empire Loyalists
- “Losers in a bitter civil war, these exiled Americans were as diverse ethnoculturally as they were in their faith, their livelihoodand their economic status. To understand and accept these facts is a basic first step toward grasping the elusive Canadian identity.” (Magee 1984, 13)
At the time of the American Revolution there were only about 123,000 people in all of Canada, excluding Indians.
Nova Scotia (including New Brunswick) had less than 20,000 inhabitants. Quebec which at that time included Ontario had a population of about 90,000. In fact, other than a few people living at military posts such as Detroit, there were no large settlements west of Montreal.
Although the numbers vary from author to author, approximately 45-50,000 Loyalists left the 13 Colonies for British North America. Of the 35,000 who gathered at New York City, most were sent by ship to the Maritimes. It’s not difficult to imagine the challenges of the officials in Halifax when they were faced with an influx of close to double what was already there.
- “In both the Maritimes and Quebec hard pressed officials, with only primitive administrative structures and limited funds suddenly found themselves swamped with new and daunting responsibilities: supplying this flash flood of humanity with food, clothing, tools, seed, temporary accommodation and later land on which to erect permanent dwellings; deciding who settled where and settling numerous land grant squabbles.” (Knowles 1992, 19)
Three governors were in charge of organizing transport: Sir Guy Carleton in New York City as commander-in-chief was charged with evacuating loyalists to Canada or Nova Scotia; Governor Frederick Haldimand at Quebec City and Governor John Parr at Halifax were to carry out the orders of the British government to accommodate those refugees who could not return home.
Governor Haldimand decided to purchase Indian lands and ordered the investigation of lands above the rapids of the St. Lawrence River. Some thought was given to establishing settlements in Cape Breton, the east coast (Gaspé to Mirimichi) and lands between Montreal and Vermont. Other than the lands between Montreal and Vermont where many Loyalists settled in the Eastern Townships, these locations were discarded as possibilities for large scale settlement because many felt the majority of Loyalists would have difficulty adapting to a way of life dependent on fishing.
In the summer of 1776, John Johnson led a group of over 300 loyalists north to Montreal to join the British troops. He raised a regiment called the King’s Royal Regiment and led several raids against the Americans. The Quebec Loyalists, mostly soldiers and their families, settled along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River near the garrison towns of Sorel, Fort St-Jean and Chambly. Some went east to Gaspé and over 7,000 went west to settle along the north shores of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario.
John Butler also led a group of loyalists to Canada at the beginning of the revolution. The Governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton stationed him at Fort Niagara. The loyalists recruited by Butler became known as Butler’s Rangers.
Haldimand was concerned about settling large numbers of Loyalists, mostly English speaking and predominantly Protestant in the French areas of Quebec. Different languages, culture and religion could cause tensions. There was also concern about settling numbers of Americans too close to the border. Should later hostilities develop between the two countries where would their loyalties lie?
When we look at the different types of settlers who came we can begin to think about the various records they may have created. However, Patricia Kennedy in her article, “The Loyalists, their Baggage and Baggage Handlers” reminds us: “...we must consider that records were created by persons who were concerned first and foremost with their own interests, not ours.” (1984, 75)
So, there is not one single definitive ‘Loyalist List’ that we can consult. We have to use some of that genealogical detective work to build the story of our Loyalist ancestors.
The flow of Loyalists occurred over a number of years. Some left early, beginning in 1775 when resistance in the colonies along the Atlantic coast to new British policies developed into open rebellion. The movement grew and the exodus continued even after the peace treaty was signed in 1783 and until the end of the century. Not all came north, some went to the West Indies and Bermuda, and some went to Britain. Those who arrived between 1791 and 1815 were known as “Late Loyalists” and generally left the United States for economic rather than political reasons.
Free land grants were promised by the British government as well as compensation for loss of property. Food, tools and other supplies with which to begin a new life were also promised.
- “Some made this decision willingly, immediately and inevitably. Others were driven to it after that heart-searching and travail of spirit which only a civil war can bring. Some sprang quickly to arms to support the Crown, others did so when forced to take a stand one way or the other, while still others tried to the last to stay in the shadows. The Tories, as their enemies contemptuously dubbed them, or the Loyalists as they proudly called themselves, were to be found in every level of society, from the wealthy merchant to the struggling backwoods farmer and in every colony from the province of Maine to the recently established settlements in Georgia.” (Craig 1972, 2-3)
In October 1783 the government purchased land from the Mississauga Indians covering territory from Cataraqui to the Trent River and in May 1784 the government acquired land west of Niagara and at the head of Lake Ontario under an agreement that would also allow land for a home for Six Nations Indians. The Six Nations Confederacy lost their land to the Americans and Chief Joseph Brant had petitioned the British for assistance.
The land was surveyed and made available to the Loyalists and soldiers being demobilized in British North America. Lands were to be allotted to settlers according to status and rank. For example, heads of families received 100 acres plus an additional 50 acres for each family member. A single man received 50 acres, non commissioned officers 200 acres, privates 100 acres plus 50 more for each family member. Promises to officers ranged from 1000 acres for field officers, to 700 acres for captains, to 500 acres for subalterns and warrant officers. In July 1783, King George III decreed that Loyalists should be given land. After 1789, sons of Loyalists were granted 80 hectares when they reached the age of 18; a daughter received her 80 hectares when she married.
The Loyalists were a varied group comprised of English, Highland Scots, Germans and native-born Americans. Among the Loyalist regiments were the Butlers Rangers, The King’s Royal Regiment of New York and The Loyal Rangers. Some Loyalists were British and Hessian soldiers who joined the Loyalist Corps during the war. For the men who enlisted and fought, many of their families congregated in refugee camps along the St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal. Although both Loyalists and discharged soldiers received free land grants, only the Loyalists were exempt from fees and had the privilege of their children’s eligibility for free land and the use of the U.E. initials after their names.
The mass evacuation from New York included 3000 free Blacks who settled in the Shelburne and Birchtown areas of Nova Scotia. In 1792, 1200 Loyalist Blacks left Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone. TheBook of Negroes is a hand-written list of black passengers who left New York in 1783. The following details about the ledger are taken from the Black Loyalist website (Dec 2007) where there is a list of names taken from the book:
It gives a name, age, physical description, and status (slave or free) for each passenger, and often an owner’s name and place of residence. Three copies of the Book of Negroes exist: one in England, at the Public Records Office, Kew; one in the United States, at the National Archives, Washington; and one in Canada, at the Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax. Knowledge of the Black Loyalists begins with this list, made by British and American inspectors.
Fourteen thousand civilian and military Loyalists went to the St. John River Valley in 1783 and six hundred Loyalists went to Île St. Jean (Prince Edward Island). Many later moved on from there.
- “In the short term, the Loyalists not only transformed Nova Scotia and brought into existence New Brunswick, they also precipitated the division of Quebec into Lower Canada and Upper Canada (Ontario).” (Knowles 1992, 25)
In order to receive the promised assistance, claimants had to satisfy the British government that they (or their parents) had in some manner supported or upheld the royal cause.
Many books have been written which contain lists of Loyalists’ names. Most of these have been developed through analysis of a variety of “official” documents such as:
- Petitions for land - Upper and Lower Canada land grants—the Loyalist would have to state he had been a soldier or in some way supported the British.
- Sons and daughters of Loyalists were allowed to apply for free land grants—those petitions will state who their father was.
- Loyalist claims for losses—many indicate where in the 13 Colonies they lived.
- Muster Rolls
- bullets Rations lists
- Upper Canada District Rolls
Cataraqui Loyalist Rations List
List of Loyalists Victualled at the 1st Township north of Cataraqui, 1 July-31 Aug, 1786. Library and Archives Canada. RG 19, Vol. 4447, File Folder 2, cover page.
List of Loyalists Victualled at the 1st Township north of Cataraqui, 1 July-31 Aug, 1786. Library and Archives Canada. RG 19, Vol. 4447, File Folder 2, part of page 1.
Upper Canada Land Petition
Hannah Gode Land Petition. Upper Canada Land Petitions, 1797. Series G, Vol. 203a, Bundle 3, #64, Library and Archives Canada. Microfilm C-2028.
“Loyalism was more than a population movement of displaced Americans, massive though that was. It was also the transference of a body of ideas, attitudes, beliefs and forms of political and social behaviour which must have had some connection with the subsequent configuration of provincial and national cultures, at least among English speaking Canadians.” (Wise 1984, x)
The website for the Atlantic Canada Portal contains a long list of Loyalist resources: books, theses and articles. Although most pertain to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick there are others which address Ontario Loyalists or loyalism in more general terms.
The Genealogy and Family History of the Library and Archives Canada provides information on various Loyalist sources they hold from British Military and Naval Records to Land Petitions to Loyalist Lists
The United Empire Loyalist Association was established in 1896. One of their objectives was to preserve Loyalist records. Their website provides information about the many branches and membership requirements.
RootsWeb also has a UELMailing List:
Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course Canadian: Immigration Records offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at email@example.com
We welcome updates and additions to this Wiki page.
- This page was last modified on 1 May 2013, at 02:11.
- This page has been accessed 157 times.
New to the Research Wiki?
In the FamilySearch Research Wiki, you can learn how to do genealogical research or share your knowledge with others.Learn More | <urn:uuid:408c40fb-a00d-4aa2-8a5a-957ce12246f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/User:National_Institute_sandbox_13a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968729 | 2,574 | 3.625 | 4 |
Most Parents Think Social Media Not a Bad Thing: Survey
Latest Healthy Kids News
THURSDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) -- A new survey finds that an overwhelming majority of parents think social media isn't necessarily a bad thing for their children.
Eighty-three percent of the parents questioned said the benefits are either equal to or outweigh the risks, according to Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics of Kansas City, Mo., which commissioned the survey.
The survey also finds that:
The online survey, conducted in June, included a national sample of 728 parents.
-- Randy Dotinga
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, press release, Aug. 16, 2012
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:3947afc1-9355-48a1-b5d5-f77939581935> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=161501 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911139 | 174 | 2.125 | 2 |
1884 Drew Pocket Map of Florida
Description: An extremely scarce and important map of Florida drawn by Horace Drew in 1884. This highly uncommon map, the earliest known example of which was issued in 1867, is considered to be the only pocket map of Florida actually printed in Florida. The first edition of this map was printed by Columbus Drew from his offices in Jacksonville Florida and subsequently updated in an unknown number of editions into the 1880s. This example was printed by Horace Drew, son and successor to Columbus. It reflects the rapid and hopeful development of Florida through the middle and late 19 century, with numerous railways, roads, and canals noted.
Of particular note is the Lucie Canal, shown here leading from Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic. This canal was part of a plan, supported by Drew, to drain the Everglades via a series of well placed water channels. Fortunately the Lucie canal was never built and the unique Everglades biosphere has been preserved for us to enjoy today.
Also of interest is the extensive notation in the lower left quadrant regarding the Florida Land Survey. Even in the late 19th century much of Florida remained federally administrated Public Land. It was the work of the Florida Land Survey, upon which this map is based, to plat out the land for sale to settlers. Drew's notations explain the process and how do identify land available for purchase. Drew additionally notes the sites of various important battles during the Seminole Wars.
Considered the Holy Grail of 19th century Florida cartography, this map is a must for any serious collection focusing on the American Southeast. Dated and copyrighted, "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1884 by Horace Drew, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington."
Date: 1884 (dated)
References: Rumsey, 5190.001 (1870 edition). Fitzgerald, 167 (1874 edition). Phillips, (maps) 285 (1874 edition). Library of Congress, Map Division, G3931.P3 1874 .D7 RR 195. Baxter, J. M., Tequesta - An Annotated Checklist of Florida Maps, p. 115.
Cartographer: Columbus Drew (1820 - 1891) was a Florida physician, politician, writer, bookseller, publisher and printer active in the mid to late 19th century. Drew acquired a degree in medicine from Washington University in Baltimore before relocating to Florida to establish a practice in Jacksonville. Drew quickly became a leading citizen and, being an ardent Union Man, held the post of state Comptroller during the post Civil War Reconstruction. Drew was a leading figure in the development of Florida following the Civil War. His influence impacted the course and development of state railways, canals, drainage projects, and other civil world. Cartographically he is best known for the publication of his "New Map of the State of Florida", which, through numerous editions and revisions, chronicles the history and development of the state during a critical period. This map is now extremely scarce in any edition. Columbus Drew passed his publishing company to his son, Horace Drew, who continued to publish an update Drew's important map. The Drew family became leading citizens in Jacksonville and today their historic Victorian home enjoys landmark status. Click here for a list of maps by the Horace and Columbus Drew.
Size: Printed area measures 25 in height x 26 inches in width (63.5 x 66.04 centimeters)
Condition: Very good. Minor discolorations along original fold lines. Professionally removed from binder (included) and flattened.
Code: Florida-drew-1884 (to order by phone call: 646-320-8650)
© Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, Kevin Brown, 19/6/2013 | <urn:uuid:8f55e79a-7bdf-4431-bcc0-460f1f9a0f39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geographicus.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD2&Store_Code=AntiqueMaps&Product_Code=Florida-drew-1884 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952602 | 786 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Is There Racial Discrimination at the Polls? Voters' Experience in the 2008 Election
In 1965, the United States Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act to end discrimination against black voters at the polls in Southern states and throughout the nation. The Act prohibited the use of “tests” and other devices used to prevent people from voting. At issue was not the content of tests themselves but the wide latitude available to those charged with registering and authenticating voters. Poll workers and election officers applied literacy tests, poll taxes, and other mechanisms differentially to voters according to race, resulting in extremely low rates of voter registration and participation among blacks and Hispanics.
Forty years after the Voting Rights Act went into effect, concerns about discriminatory treatment and differential consequences of election administration practice have returned. General polling place operations are alleged to be much worse in areas where large numbers of minorities vote, yielding long lines. Procedures for maintaining registration lists are thought to make it more likely that there will be an improper purge of minority voters, leading to more problems with registration on Election Day. And, voter identification requirements, which states have strengthened considerably since 2000, are alleged to be applied more frequently and strictly to Black and Hispanic voters than to Whites.
This paper examines the experiences of voters expressed in two surveys, the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey and a 2008 survey conducted by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project with support of the Pew Foundation. Both surveys were conducted over the Internet by YouGov. The CCES has a sample of 32,800 respondents, and the VTP-Pew Survey has a sample of 12,000 respondents. In addition to the Internet component, the VTP-Pew survey contains a separate phone sample used to validate the surveys. Additional information about these surveys is available at the websites of the CCES | <urn:uuid:aa13a16b-5338-48bc-a50d-8f9a9732ae25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vote.caltech.edu/node/241%23attachments | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943441 | 363 | 2.65625 | 3 |
EU Bans Sale of Animal Tested Cosmetics
Every cosmetic sold in the European Union will now be "cruelty-free" meaning the products have not been tested on animals. Nation of Change
After a "long-fought" campaign, The European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE) came up victorious as the coalition banned the sale of animal tested cosmetics in all countries within the European Union.
The ban, which will go into effect on March 11, also makes it illegal to use animals to test final cosmetic products or any of the products' ingredients from "high-end cosmetic manufacturers to drugstore brands."
A similar ban does not exist in the US, but all of the brands we feature on Really Natural are not tested on animals. If they are, we will definitely call them out on it and let you know.
There is no reason animals should be harmed so humans can adorn themselves with makeup. If a cosmetic includes ingredients that are potentially harmful and require testing on live subjects, then it shouldn't be put on your skin anyways. There are plenty of safe, natural cosmetics available, like those from Dr. Hauschka
Image: License Some rights reserved by laverrue
Read More in: Beauty
Share this Article with others:
Came straight to this page? Visit Really Natural for all the latest news.
Posted by Jennifer Lance at February 21, 2013 1:08 AM | <urn:uuid:341077a1-9a66-4589-8b18-533f58b5deaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reallynatural.com/archives/beauty/eu_bans_sale_of_animal_tested.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923199 | 292 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Cartwright Act Lawyers
What Is the Cartwright Act?
The general anti-trust law for the state of California is the Cartwright Act. Under this law it is illegal for two or more people or businesses to act together in order to:
- Restrict trade
- Reduce production
- Increase prices
- Reduce competition
- Fix prices
- Agree not to sell a particular commodity
- Agree not to deal in the goods of a competitor
- Tie contracts (where a buyer seeking one product or service must also buy a second product or service tied to the original product or service)
What Are the Penalties for Violating the Cartwright Act?
Under the Cartwright Act, any unreasonable restraint on competition is a violation of anti-trust law on its face. Violators of the California Cartwright Act can be prosecuted criminally. Punishments include fines and imprisonment. Additionally, a court may order injunctive relief, and order a violator to cease all illegal activity. Injured parties may also recover attorney's fees.
Do I Need a Lawyer for my Cartwright Act Problem?
Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 11-07-2011 04:23 PM PST | <urn:uuid:f928842d-7964-4636-acbe-f6dfe277c1d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/cartwright-act-lawyers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928483 | 253 | 2.015625 | 2 |
With June gloom behind us, the dog days of summer are fast approaching… After all the graduations, the rush of summer weddings and getting the kids off to camp, the long, warm days ahead lend themselves to outdoor activities and the overall experience of having more time to spend with loved ones; friends, family and well… pets.
Though perhaps the easiest relationships we might have are with our pets, they are also some of the most important. Our pets play a huge role in our lives and fill our hearts with almost inexplicable joy. Their pictures fill our scrapbooks, our screensavers, our wallets and cell phones. We blog about them, video tape them, talk about them — sharing stories about their all-too cute antics with anyone who’s willing to listen and we shop for them too! The love we receive in return from our pets is pure, unadulterated and simply habit forming. Because of this we, no doubt, fit them into our summer plans and activities.
Unfortunately summertime poses several threats for pets or animals not as pampered and well cared for as our own. Dogs left on tight leashes or in hot cars, cats that have not been neutered and multiply without a healthy environment to live in and horses that are overworked in the sun are just a few of the serious issues that face some of these innocent creatures.
Our featured nonprofit, ASPCA, is one of the leading nonprofit groups who take on the responsibility of being the voice for these mistreated animals. Founded in 1866 as the first humane organization in the Western Hemisphere, the group was formed to alleviate the injustices animals faced then, and they continue to battle cruelty today. Whether it’s saving a pet that has been accidentally poisoned, fighting to pass humane laws, rescuing animals from abuse or sharing resources with shelters across the country, ASPCA works toward the day in which no animal will live in pain or fear.
So this summer shop for all your camping gear, wedding gifts, BBQ tools, airplane tickets and other fun summertime stuff through www.nonprofitshoppingmall.com and support ASPCA. Check back soon to see our July retail blogs, featuring specialty pet products for those of you who just can’t help but pamper your special animals.
Also, make sure to stop by the ASPCA (www.aspca.org) website to learn all about how to be humane to animals, how to get involved with community programs and ways to teach your children or classroom about animal rights. Last but not least, before you take the mutts for a W-A-L-K… here is the ASPCA hot weather guide to keep your beloveds safe and healthy all summer long!
Hot Weather Tips:
(For a kid’s version of the following summer guide go to: http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=kids_ri_petshotweather)
In summertime, living isn’t always easy for our animal friends. Dogs and cats can suffer from the same problems that humans do, such as overheating, dehydration and even sunburn. By taking some simple precautions, you can celebrate the season and keep your pets happy and healthy.
- A visit to the veterinarian for a spring or early summer check-up is a must; add to that a test for heartworm, if your dog isn’t on year-round preventive medication. Do parasites bug your animal companions? Ask your doctor to recommend a safe, effective flea and tick control program.
- Never leave your pet alone in a vehicle—hyperthermia can be fatal. Even with the windows open, a parked automobile can quickly become a furnace in no time. Parking in the shade offers little protection, as the sun shifts during the day.
- Always carry a gallon thermos filled with cold, fresh water when traveling with your pet.
- The right time for playtime is in the cool of the early morning or evening, but never after a meal or when the weather is humid.
- Street smarts: When the temperature is very high, don’t let your dog stand on hot asphalt. His or her body can heat up quickly, and sensitive paw pads can burn. Keep walks during these times to a minimum.
- A day at the beach is a no-no, unless you can guarantee a shady spot and plenty of fresh water for your companion. Salty dogs should be rinsed off after a dip in the ocean.
- Provide fresh water and plenty of shade for animals kept outdoors; a properly constructed doghouse serves best. Bring your dog or cat inside during the heat of the day to rest in a cool part of the house.
- Be especially sensitive to older and overweight animals in hot weather. Brachycephalic or snub-nosed dogs such as bulldogs, pugs, Boston terriers, Lhasa apsos and shih tzus, as well as those with heart or lung diseases, should be kept cool in air-conditioned rooms as much as possible.
- When walking your dog, steer clear of areas that you suspect have been sprayed with insecticides or other chemicals. And please be alert for coolant or other automotive fluid leaking from your vehicle. Animals are attracted to the sweet taste, and ingesting just a small amount can be fatal. Call your veterinarian or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435 if you suspect that your animal has been poisoned.
- Good grooming can stave off summer skin problems, especially for dogs with heavy coats. Shaving the hair to a one-inch length—never down to the skin, please, which robs Rover of protection from the sun—helps prevent overheating. Cats should be brushed often.
- Do not apply any sunscreen or insect repellent product to your pet that is not labeled specifically for use on animals. Ingestion of sunscreen products can result in drooling, diarrhea, excessive thirst and lethargy. The misuse of insect repellent that contains DEET can lead to neurological problems.
- Having a backyard barbecue? Always keep matches, lighter fluid, citronella candles and insect coils out of pets’ reach.
- Please make sure that there are no open, unscreened windows or doors in your home through which animals can fall or jump.
- Stay alert for signs of overheating in pets, which include excessive panting and drooling and mild weakness, along with an elevated body temperature.
For a lot of families, summertime means swimming time. If your pooch will be joining you on your adventures, be it lakeside, oceanside or poolside, please read our following tips:
- Do not leave pets unsupervised around a pool.
- Not all dogs are good swimmers; so if water sports are a big part of your family, please introduce your pets to water gradually.
- Make sure all pets wear flotation devices on boats.
- Try not to let your dog drink pool water, which contains chlorine and other chemicals that could cause GI upset.
Help us honor the ASPCA and its work with a fun little ‘pin-up’ activity — come by our myspace page at: http://www.myspace.com/nonprofitshoppingmall and post your cutest pet pictures on our interactive cork board. Thanks for stopping by and a big summertime ‘cheers’ from our family of happy pets: Tinkerbell, Joe-Joe, Wayah, Jack, Oliver, Nibbles, and Blaze! | <urn:uuid:1c8dacbe-e72d-4bb3-8e4a-6477922f7d9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nonprofitshoppingmall.com/blog/category/wildlife-conservation-animals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933627 | 1,574 | 1.875 | 2 |
William Manchester, the American writer who died on Tuesday aged 82, turned out volumes of biography and history largely concerned with the challenges of power; as Dr Johnson remarked of Milton's Paradise Lost, no one ever complained they were too short.
Manchester achieved world celebrity with his Death of a President (1967), about John F Kennedy. He had, however, already published, among other books, A Rockefeller Family Portrait (1959). Later came The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1958 (1968); American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1979); and the first two volumes, Visions of Glory 1874-1932 (1983) and The Caged Lion 1932-1940 (1988), of a proposed trilogy on Winston Churchill.
In the history corner, weighing in at four-and-a-half pounds and 1,397 pages, was The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972 (1975).
For Manchester, biography involved lengthy disquisitions on the prevailing social conditions and political background; conversely, the main themes of his history were supported by an avalanche of anecdote and detail. Yet if the resulting tomes seem over-written, they are rarely dull.
Perhaps Manchester's greatest achievement was Goodbye, Darkness (1981), an account of the Pacific War, in which he had fought as a young Marine. No one has better caught the horror of combat. Manchester had been a gangling, sickly youth, who had always funked fights at school. Now he found himself embroiled in the brutal fighting at Okinawa, where he was twice wounded and once given up for dead.
In a particularly memorable passage Manchester described the first time he killed a man, a Japanese sharp-shooter whom he had trapped in a shack. "He was a robin-fat, moon-faced, roly-poly little man...squeezed into a uniform that was much too tight.
"Unlike me, he was wearing a tin hat, dressed to kill. But I was quite safe from him. His Arisaka rifle was strapped in a sniper's harness. ... My first shot had missed him, but the second caught him dead-on in the femoral artery. His left thigh blossomed, swiftly turning to mush.
"Mutely he looked down at it. He dipped a hand in it and listlessly smeared his cheek red. His shoulders gave a little spasmodic jerk, as though someone had whacked him on the back; then he emitted a tremendous, raspy fart, slumped down, and died. I kept firing, wasting government property...
"I began to tremble, and next to shake all over. I sobbed, in a voice still grainy with fear, 'Im sorry.' Then I threw up all over myself...At the same time I noticed another odour; I had urinated in my skivvies... I remember wondering dumbly: Is this what they mean by 'conspicuous gallantry?' "
It was certainly what they meant by "a good war". After recovering from his wounds Manchester was discharged with the Navy Cross, the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. His military ancestors, who had fought under George Washington, would have been gratified.
William Manchester was born on April 1 1922 at Attleboro, Massachusetts, the state to which his forebears had emigrated from England in the 17th century. His father was a social worker; William, though, showed academic precocity, occupying himself on his infant sickbed by perusing the works of Ruskin, Macaulay and Carlyle.
The family moved to Springfield, where William attended the Classical High School before moving on to read History at the University of Massachusetts. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the apparently weedy youth showed his mettle by volunteering for the Marines, stuffing himself with bananas and yoghurts in order to reach the required weight.
Returning from the Pacific war, Manchester went to the University of Missouri, where he wrote a master's thesis on the literary criticism of the great essayist and journalist H L Mencken, who worked for the Baltimore Sun. As a result of his contacts with Mencken, Manchester too joined the Sun, for which he became a much-travelled foreign correspondent.
He found time, however, to write Disturber of the Peace (1951), a biography of Mencken, who had become at once his mentor and his hero. Between 1953 and 1961 he also wrote four novels, which all showed his fascination with power, whether in politics or academe. At this time he was living in Connecticut at Wesleyan University, which provided a base for promising writers.
Manchester had met John F Kennedy during the war, when they were both recovering from their wounds. In 1962 he brought out Portrait of a President: John F Kennedy in Profile, a study described by one critic as "adoring". After Kennedy's assassination, therefore, Jacqueline Kennedy looked no further than Manchester for an author to provide an account of the tragedy.
But negotiations which began with gushing expressions of mutual respect soon turned nasty. The Kennedy clan seem to have feared that Manchester would transcribe rather too accurately the contempt expressed by Mrs Kennedy for her husband's successor as President, Lyndon Johnson.
The contention did not prevent Manchester from signing a contract with Look magazine in August 1966, which brought $665,000 for the world serial rights. Jacqueline Kennedy cast aspersions on Manchester's commercial motives; when, however, the book became a bestseller, the Kennedy Memorial Library profited vastly from Manchester's generosity.
The New York Times described Death of a President as "a massive, articulately organised and utterly compelling compilation of the most extraordinary amount of data". But not all the critics were impressed. Alistair Cooke, for example, wrote of the "gifted infantilism" of Manchester's idealised view of the Kennedy presidency.
Manchester's biography of Churchill, by contrast, was interesting for some of the more unflattering details of the great man's career and personality. Manchester's analysis of his financial affairs is especially compelling. Though Churchill earned huge sums from his writing in the 1930s, he habitually spent far more, so that his return to office in 1939 constituted not merely the salvation of his country, but a welcome relief from his creditors.
William Manchester married, in 1948, Julia Marshall, who died in 1998. They had a son, christened John Kennedy, and two daughters. | <urn:uuid:8801815f-502e-4ef4-9fdd-44bc7a467ee9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1463459/William-Manchester.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97937 | 1,341 | 2.0625 | 2 |
New York, NY, December 23, 2009 – Although public opinion in the United States on physician-assisted suicide is evenly divided, about half of states have either defeated bills to legalize assisted suicide or have passed laws explicitly banning it and only two states (Oregon and Washington) have legalized it. In this environment, A Disability Perspective on the Issue of Physician-Assisted Suicide, a special issue of Disability and Health Journal: The Official Journal of the American Association on Health and Disability, published by Elsevier, examines the issues related to assisted suicide and disability, the legal considerations and the Oregon and Washington experiences.
Journal editors Suzanne McDermott, PhD, USC School of Medicine, Columbia, SC, and Margaret A. Turk, MD, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, have assembled six articles from disability advocates and scholars who oppose assisted suicide and thereby add important insights and background information to the debate.
Investigators from the Oregon Health and Science University examine the nature, form and impact of the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (DWD) on Oregonians with disabilities as reported in the peer-reviewed literature and data obtained from the Oregon Department of Human Services, Public Health Division (OPHD). The OPHD reports that in the 11 years since the DWD statute was enacted, 401 persons have died using DWD. The article also presents focus group data from people with disabilities regarding their opinions of the Death With Dignity Act and its impact.
Marilyn Golden and Tyler Zoanni, both disability rights advocates, present an overview of policy arguments against legalization of assisted suicide and provide the reader with a thorough coverage of the opposition view of assisted suicide. This is followed by an article by Carol Gill, PhD that provides an analysis of the media portrayal of the disability rights activists and their position on assisted suicide.
Diane Coleman, JD, the attorney representing Not Dead Yet, one of the oldest and most constant opponents of assisted suicide, provides an overview of the fight against legalization of assisted suicide at the Supreme Court and the arguments and information used to oppose passage of laws legalizing assisted suicide.
Gloria Krahn, PhD, the Director of the Disability and Health Team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides a chronicle of the Disability Section of the American Public Health Association's debate on the issue of physician-assisted dying and her personal reflections on lessons learned.
The issue concludes with an article by Kirk Allison, PhD, MS, from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Allison considers the implications of assisted suicide from a population perspective, a concept central to the public health debate. He also raises some semantic issues that have presented themselves during this debate.
Writing in the Editorial, Professor Suzanne McDermott states, "Almost all people at the end of life can be included in the definition of 'disability.' Thus, the practice of assisted suicide results in death for people with disabilities. People with disabilities have been recognized as a health disparity group (included in Healthy People 2010); they experience substantial discrimination in society, and yet they can live extremely high-quality lives."
"I encourage you to read this important issue of Disability and Health Journal with an open mind…" continues Professor McDermott, "There will be many states in the next decade that introduce or consider the introduction of laws to legalize assisted suicide. The issues are complex and the evidence is not robust…We know there is another side to the debate, and this volume does not present the proponents' arguments, which have been presented in other journals. We thought it necessary to focus on the unique perspective to the disability community." | <urn:uuid:f7ed7296-6b7c-40eb-b0ec-f3ba0541a0f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencecodex.com/physicianassisted_suicide_a_perspective_from_advocates_for_people_with_disability | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947554 | 726 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The field of ornamental horticulture is a broad collection of professions, including positions in nursery management, landscape horticulture, floriculture and turfgrass management. The value of plant production and allied industrial goods and services has increased. The estimated value of wholesale nursery stocks in the 1970's was near $400 million (Davidson, 1981). The assessed value of all greenhouse produced plants increased to nearly one billion dollars in 1977 (Nelson,1978). A few years later, the retail market value of all nursery products was valued at 3.4 billion dollars (Lederer, 1981).
horticulture, ornamental, employability | <urn:uuid:9e96b81a-6471-4d8e-8abd-5a9adfc22e45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nactateachers.org/vol-32-num-2-jun-1988/1053-horticulture-businessmen-and-teachers-opinions-relative-to-peripheral-supporting-courses.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924993 | 129 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 20, the 20th day of 2009 with 345 to follow.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Mercury, Saturn and Mars. The evening stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include Harold Gray, creator of the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie," in 1894; comedian George Burns in 1896; Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1906; Italian film director Federico Fellini and actor DeForest Kelley, both in 1920; country singer Otis "Slim" Whitman in 1924 (age 85); actress Patricia Neal in 1926 (age 83); astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, in 1930 (age 79); comic Arte Johnson in 1929 (age 80); director David Lynch in 1946 (age 63); TV host Bill Maher ("Politically Incorrect") in 1956 (age 53); and actor Lorenzo Lamas in 1958 (age 51).
On this date in history:
In 1265, Britain's House of Commons, which became a model for parliamentary bodies, met for the first time.
In 1783, U.S. and British representatives signed a preliminary "Cessation of Hostilities," which ended the fighting in the Revolutionary War.
In 1892, the first officially recognized basketball game was played at the YMCA gym in Springfield, Mass.
In 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to four terms in office, was inaugurated to his final term. He died three months later and was succeeded by Vice President Harry Truman.
In 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began his presidency with inauguration ceremonies on the newly renovated east front of the Capitol.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States. That same day, 52 American hostages were released by Iran after 444 days in captivity.
In 1990, at least 62 civilians were killed and more than 200 wounded when the Soviet army stormed into Baku to end what Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called fratricidal killing between Muslim Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians.
In 1993, Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd president of the United States.
Also in 1993, Oscar-winning actress Audrey Hepburn died of cancer at her home in Switzerland. She was 63.
In 1995, the United States announced it was easing the trade embargo in effect against North Korea since the Korean War.
Also in 1995, a strike-shortened National Hockey League season opened with teams playing a 48-game schedule instead of the usual 84.
In 1996, Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority with 88 percent of the vote.
In 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton was inaugurated for his second term in office.
Also in 1997, millionaire Steve Fossett landed in northern India after a record-setting bid to become the first person to circle the globe in a hot air balloon.
In 2001, George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States.
Also in 2001, just hours before leaving office, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued 176 pardons -- a number of them controversial.
In 2003, Britain said it was sending 26,000 troops to the Persian Gulf for possible deployment to Iraq but France said it wouldn't support a U.N. resolution for military action.
In 2005, George Bush was sworn in for his second term as U.S. president.
In 2006, Lawrence Franklin, a former U.S. State Department analyst and Iran expert, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for passing classified information to Israel and two pro-Israeli lobbyists.
In 2007, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., became the first former first lady to seek the U.S. presidency when she entered the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Also in 2007, ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro was "fighting for his life," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in a speech in Brazil.
In 2008, Israeli Cabinet ministers called for the death of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who claimed to have the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon.
A thought for the day: Henry David Thoreau wrote, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
|Additional Odd News Stories|
BURBANK, Calif., May 24 (UPI) --Baz Luhrmann's big-screen adaptation of the classic novel, "The Great Gatsby," has crossed the $100 million mark at the North American box office.
TORONTO, May 25 (UPI) --A Canadian man has been charged with sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Toronto more than 20 years ago.
NEW YORK, May 24 (UPI) --U.S. stock indexes closed mixed on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing just above break-even on the New York Stock Exchange. | <urn:uuid:4c53282b-fa3c-47b7-b234-c4586bb900bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/01/20/The-almanac/UPI-97061232440200/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969353 | 1,060 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Brain mapping project wins $1.29 billion from European Union
- From: AP
- January 28, 2013
TWO science projects - one to map the human brain, the other to explore the extraordinary properties of the carbon-based material graphene - have been declared the winners of an EU technologies contest.
mBoth projects will receive up to €1 billion ($1.29 billion) over the next 10 years.
The projects were selected from four finalists that been chosen from 26 proposals.
"European's position as a knowledge superpower depends on thinking the unthinkable and exploiting the best ideas," European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said. "This multi-billion competition rewards home-grown scientific breakthroughs and shows that when we are ambitious we can develop the best research in Europe."
The Human Brain Project will use supercomputers to create the most detailed model of the human brain to date, then simulate drugs and treatments for neurological diseases and related ailments.
"The pharmaceutical industry won't do this, computing companies won't do this - there's too much fundamental science," said Henry Markram, a professor of neuroscience at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne in Switzerland, earlier this year. "This is one project which absolutely needs public funding."
The other project will investigate the possible uses of graphene, the thinnest known material, which conducts electricity far better than copper, is at least 100 times stronger than steel, and has unique optical properties. Important future uses include the development of fast, flexible and strong consumer electronics, bendable personal communication devises, lighter airplanes and artificial retinas.
The project will be led by Prof. Jari Kinaret of the Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden.
Each of the projects - called "flagships" by the contest organizers - will receive up to €54 million ($70 million) from the European Commission, with the rest of the money coming from national governments and other sources.
"There will be careful monitoring during the lifetime of the projects so that the flagships continue to be an efficient use of taxpayers' money," the commission said in a statement. | <urn:uuid:26c6074b-1ead-492a-81ca-2a4967608358> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.com.au/world-news/project-to-map-human-brain-wins-129-billion-from-european-union/story-fndir2ev-1226563828167?from=public_rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933063 | 439 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
The island of Delos (Greek: Δήλος, Dhilos), isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. As a cult centre Delos had an importance that its natural resources could never have offered. As Leto, searching for a birthing-place for Apollo, addressed the island:
- "`Delos, if you would be willing to be the abode of my son Phoebus Apollo and make him a rich temple --; for no other will touch you, as you will find: and I think you will never be rich in oxen and sheep, nor bear vintage nor yet produce plants abundantly. But if you have the temple of far-shooting Apollo, all men will bring you hecatombs and gather here, and incessant savour of rich sacrifice will always arise, and you will feed those who dwell in you from the hand of strangers; for truly your own soil is not rich."
- —Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo
Inhabited since the 3rd millennium BC, between 900 BC and AD 100, sacred Delos was a major cult centre, and a natural meeting-ground for the Delian League, which was first founded in 478 BC. In 166 BC Delos was given by the Romans to the Athenian city-state, but in modern times it has become uninhabited. It is currently only used for archeology and tourism— "you will feed those who dwell in you from the hand of strangers".
Landmarks on the island include:
- The Agora of the Competaliasts
- The Temple of the Delians, a classic example of the Doric order, where a pen-and-wash reconstruction of the temple is illustrated.
- The Minoan Fountain
- Terrace of the Lions
- The Stoivadeion
- Temple of Isis
- The Temple of Hera
- The House of Dionysos
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | <urn:uuid:0213444e-57d5-489d-99db-38d3b77c8f07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Delos | 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 | 0.935526 | 470 | 3.109375 | 3 |