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Fri December 21, 2012
On December 1st, a new law went into effect in North Carolina that makes it a misdemeanor for student to commit various online offenses against school employees. The law is the first of its kind in the US. Those in favor of the law say that it protects teachers from online attacks, and those against it say that it would take away students' right to free speech online. We'll talk about how the law came about, its ties to the CMS district, and what it means for students, teachers and administrators.
Ann Doss Helms - Education Reporter for the Charlotte Observer
Lisa Miller - Education Reporter for WFAE
Kenneth Lynch - Detective for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Police Department (he was hired in 2008 primarily to deal with Internet Related Issues)
Chris Brook - Legal Director for the ACLU-NC | <urn:uuid:66b158a7-1503-41af-a6a2-f8c418737137> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wfae.org/post/cyberbullying-law?ft=1&f=167702405,167950415,168003732,168057462,168183381,168333659,168394105,168441867,168514466,168595107,168611027,168795288,168893965,168951031,169073189 | 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 | 0.96102 | 174 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Double Speak of Drug Ads to Change
Following concerns around Vioxx and Celebrex, happy go lucky drug commercials are likely to end.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, just 18 percent of people believe the ads most of the time and an Ipsos-Insight study found 19 percent were prompted by an ad to call a doctor, down from 25 percent in 2002. The new direction drug ads take is unclear but some sense they will become more factual in terms of describing the disease and referring people to doctors as brands take the back seat.
Our sense is drug advertising is ridiculous in the first place. No one, other than a doctor, is in the position to make decisions on which drug is right for them. Promoting drugs to non-doctor consumers is pointless and just raises undue concern and questions. Other than aspirin and cold remedies, drug companies should limit their marketing to doctors - those able to make an informed decision of the appropriateness of the drug. The current explosion of drug ads is simply breeding a whole new generation of hypochondriacs. | <urn:uuid:bf8f5974-aaa0-4e9e-b11c-6d842d247f86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adrants.com/2005/02/double-speak-of-drug-ads-to-change.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957604 | 217 | 1.710938 | 2 |
LAMP Acquires Microfilm of 19th-Century Women’s Journals from BrazilDec 29 2009
LAMP (previously known as the Latin American Microform Project) has received microfilmed copies of several Brazilian women’s journals from the 19th century, which were microfilmed by Brazil’s Biblioteca Nacional. These seventeen reels contain such titles as Novo Correio de Modas (1852–54), O Sexo Feminino (1873–89), and A Mai de Familia (Jan 1879–Dec 1888). The collection will be available for interlibrary loan from CRL.
For more details, see the CRL catalog records for 19th-century women’s journals from Brazil. | <urn:uuid:7b0410e6-ef81-4df7-8d33-b9539a0c51f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crl.edu/news/6518 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948731 | 159 | 2.078125 | 2 |
In view of the fact that many organizations recognize the value of Reid training when considering an individual for advancement, and many agencies look at a potential employee's resume for an indication of Reid training, Certification in the Reid technique may become a significant factor in an individuals resume.
THE CRITERIA FOR CERTIFICATION
To achieve Certification in the Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation the candidate must fulfill the following requirements:
The candidate must have attended the Reid Technique of interviewing and Interrogation 3-day seminar or the Reid Technique of Investigative Interviewing for Child Abuse 3-day seminar.
The candidate must have attended the Advanced seminar on the Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation
The candidate must have a minimum of three years of investigative experience in the private, police or government sector.
The candidate must have at least one year of experience in conducting interviews and interrogations using the Reid Technique.
The candidate must be a current member of the Reid Institute.
The candidate must pass an extensive written and practical exam that demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the Reid Technique.
The candidate's supervisor must complete an evaluation form attesting to the candidate's interviewing and interrogation skills.
The Certification Examination
The Certification examination consists of both a written and a practical test. Questions for the written examination are drawn primarily from information presented at the Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation three-day seminar and the Reid Technique Advanced seminar. Other reference sources are "The Investigator Anthology" and "Criminal Interrogations and Confessions" textbooks.
During the practical exam the candidate will view a series of video taped responses to the Behavioral Questions and must identify whether the displayed behaviors are indicative of truth or deception. In addition, the candidate must identify the tactics demonstrated during video taped segments of suspect interrogations.
The Certification Exam is available to take online. The candidate must first meet all of the training and background requirements before applying to take the exam. The fee for the exam is $150. Candidates may re-attend both the 3-Day Reid seminar and the Advanced seminar, for free, once the examination fee has been paid.
It should be understood that "Certification in the Reid Technique" means the individual has demonstrated a basic understanding and ability to apply the essential principles of the Reid Technique. However, by certify an individual, John E. Reid & Associates is not guaranteeing that the Reid Technique was appropriately applied in a specific case.
Certification in the Reid Technique does not give the individual any rights to teach or offer instruction to others on any of the material covered in any Reid training program.
MAINTAINING CERTIFICATION IN
THE REID TECHNIQUE
To maintain Certification in the Reid Technique a CRT graduate must work towards professional development through continuing education. There is no re-certification fee if the CRT graduate maintains membership in the Reid Institute. If the CRT graduate does not maintain membership in the Reid Institute there is a $150 re-certification fee every three years.
If you are interested in applying for Certification in the Reid Technique or have any questions, you may call Mark Reid at 800-255-5747, extension 36. | <urn:uuid:6c3230f7-f7a5-4c43-ae7d-3462af641473> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reid.com/reid_institute/r_certification.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917659 | 650 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Hillary Clinton's Defeat: An Historic Triumph
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A front page story in today's New York Times wonders whether Hillary Clinton's flagging run for the presidency is "a historic if incomplete triumph or a depressing reminder of why few [women] pursue high office in the first place."
Let me quickly weigh in with an unequivocal vote for "historic if incomplete triumph." And the only thing I find depressing is that the answer is even in doubt.
I have regularly criticized Clinton over the course of her campaign (and long before it, starting with her vote to authorize the war), but there is no question that she has forever altered the way women running for president will be viewed from here on out. In the words of the Times, Clinton has established "a new marker for what a woman can accomplish in a campaign -- raising over $170 million, frequently winning more favorable reviews on debate performances than her male rivals, rallying older women, and persuading white male voters who were never expected to support her."
She has also forever demolished the question mark hovering over the issue many (wrongly, in my opinion) have felt would be a woman candidate's biggest weakness: the ability to be seen as a plausible commander-in-chief.
It is to her great credit that very shortly into the '08 race, when you saw Clinton on television, you didn't think, "Oh, there's the woman running for president." That is no small feat for a woman trying to break into a male-dominated arena. So the next time a woman -- or two or three -- runs for president, it won't be seen as a novelty act. Because Hillary certainly wasn't.
But the greatest triumph of Clinton's campaign -- a complete triumph -- is the example she has set for the next generation. And not just for young women; her dedication, perseverance, and indefatigable drive make her a role model for young men as well.
Much has been made of the generational divide in the Clinton-Obama battle, with older women rallying to Clinton and younger women drawn to Obama. But the impact of her candidacy transcends this division. I've seen this very clearly in the reaction of my oldest daughter.
She voted for the first time in this year's California primary, casting her ballot for Obama. Yet hardly a day passes without her speaking with admiration, almost awe, about Hillary Clinton -- how she manages to get up every morning, no matter how hard things get for her, and keep following her dream.
I've written a lot about fear and fearlessness, and how fearlessness is not the absence of fear -- it's the mastery of fear. It's all about getting up one more time than we fall down. Has any public figure embodied this more powerfully and compellingly than Hillary Clinton?
Last week I was in a hotel room in Las Vegas preparing to give a speech. Checking in for a political update, I turned on CNN and saw Wolf Blitzer interviewing Hillary. But instead of a debate on who is more electable in Appalachia, or a Talmudic discussion about Michigan and Florida, there was this incredibly human moment.
Blitzer asked Clinton about what it's been like having Chelsea on the trail campaigning with her. Clinton, choking up, replied: "Well, it's one of the most incredibly gratifying experiences of my life, as a person and as a mother. I get very emotional. She is an exceptional person, and she's worked so hard, and she's done such a good job that I'm just filled with pride every time I look at her."
And just as Hillary started tearing up, I realized I was too. This has been an election where, even more than usual, the personal and the political have been constantly overlapping. And my feelings as I watched that interview were no exception.
It was clear that the 17-month campaign had taken a toll on Clinton, but at the same time has been incredibly transformative. She famously announced after winning New Hampshire that she'd found her own voice. But, in fact, she has kept finding it and refinding it -- until now, finally, she seems to be more in touch with her own message, instead of the message Mark Penn's poll numbers told her to adopt.
And in doing so, she has redefined and taken over the Clinton brand. Forget welfare reform, free-trade uber alles, and third-way DLC-economics. Since hitting her stride in Ohio, Hillary has transformed the Clinton brand into one that represents working-class Americans. Because of this, she is the Clinton who will now be most relevant to the country's future.
I see Hillary returning to the Senate with a newfound sense of purpose -- and power. With the presidency no longer in her sights -- at least for now -- she could become a commanding progressive force in the Senate.
Campaigning in Pennsylvania in early April, Clinton compared herself to Philadelphia icon Rocky Balboa. "Let me tell you something," she said. "When it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up."
The comparison was meant to reinforce her image as a tireless warrior -- but it was more accurate and prescient than she intended. Because Rocky actually lost his initial fight with Apollo Creed. After 15 punishing and bloody rounds, he was satisfied just to have gone the distance.
"Ain't gonna be no rematch," says Creed amidst the post-fight pandemonium. To which Rocky replies: "Don't want one."
Even though Rocky didn't win, he was ultimately seen as a triumphant figure. And that's how Hillary will be seen too. Once the disappointment fades and the cuts and bruises heal, the lasting impression will be one of glory, accomplishment, and profound impact.
Hers will have been a game-changing defeat. | <urn:uuid:dac615ea-4b4d-4297-a3de-3db52070d826> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/story/85853/hillary_clinton's_defeat%3A_an_historic_triumph | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976066 | 1,206 | 1.648438 | 2 |
NEW DELHI: Over diagnosis, leading to unnecessary treatment involving chemotherapy and radiation, has been found to be a threat to the benefits of regular screening of women for breast cancer.
The first-ever large-scale review by an independent expert panel in the UK, where women between 50 and 70 years are screened every three years for breast cancer, has found that while it prevents around 1,300 deaths from the disease every year, it also results in around 4,000 women being over diagnosed, resulting in unnecessary anxiety and treatment.
The panel concluded, in the analysis published in the medical journal The Lancet, that for around 3.07 lakh women (in the 50-52 age bracket), who are invited to begin screening every year in UK, just over 1% will have an over-diagnosed cancer in the next 20 years.
Overall, they found that women who are invited to breast cancer screening have a relative risk of dying from breast cancer, which is 20% less than those who aren't invited.
The Indian Union health ministry, in a landmark step, recently has decided to start screening women above 30 years for breast cancer that is claiming 90,000 lives of the fairer sex annually.
The ministry has written to states to start screening for breast cancer, either through special organized camps or every woman who arrives at a community health centre (CHC).
By current estimates, one in 25 Indian women will develop breast cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that by 2020, one in eight urban Indian women will develop breast cancer. Worryingly, Indian women seek treatment very late - around 65% are already in stage 3 or 4 when diagnosed.
"For each woman, the choice is clear. On the positive side, screening confers a reduction in the risk of mortality of breast cancer because of early detection and treatment. On the negative side, is the knowledge that she has perhaps a 1% chance of having a cancer diagnosed and treated that would never have caused problems if she had not been screened," said the panel, led by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, from University College, London.
He added, "The reduction in risk of death from breast cancer screening corresponds to one breast cancer death prevented for every 235 women invited to screening, and one death averted for every 180 women who attend screening."
Lancet concludes, "The Panel's report, the best available systematic review, shows that the breast-screening programme extends lives and that, overall, the benefits outweigh the harms. Women need to have full and complete access to this latest evidence in order to make an informed choice about breast cancer screening."
Putting together benefit and over diagnosis, the panel estimated that for 10,000 women invited to screening from age 50 for 20 years, about 681 cancers will be found of which 129 will represent over diagnosis and 43 deaths from the disease can be prevented.
When breast cancer is detected by screening, it allows for earlier treatment and an improved prognosis. However, concerns have been raised over diagnosis - where screening identifies a tumour, which is consequently treated by surgery and often radiotherapy but which would have remained undetected for the rest of the woman's life without causing illness if it had not been detected by screening.
Breast cancer cases are surging in India. As against an estimated 48,170 women who died of breast cancer in 2007, the number breached the 50,000 mark in 2010. In the following year, the figure was put at 50,821. A landmark analysis of cancer cases in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore between 1982 and 2005 (24 years) by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had found that while cervical cancer cases — earlier the most common — dipped, in some cases by almost 50%, the incidence of breast cancer doubled.
While Bangalore saw breast cancer cases more than double since 1982 — 15.8 in a population of one lakh in 1982 to 32.2 in 2005 - Chennai recorded 33.5 new cases of breast cancer per one lakh women in 2005 against 18.4 in 1982. Delhi recorded 24.8 new cases of breast cancer a year per 100,000 women, which rose to 32.2 in 2005. Mumbai recorded 20.8 new cases of breast cancer per 100,000 population in 1982, which increased by almost 10% in 2005.
India's National Health Profile 2011 predicts that by 2020, breast cancer will overtake cervical cancer as the most common type of cancer among women in India.
A health ministry official said, "Breast cancer is most common among women in the 35-45 age group. We have asked states to start screening from 30 years itself. This way, a woman will get educated by the time she reaches the age when most are at risk of breast cancer and we could also detect young onset breast cancer cases early." | <urn:uuid:3d23bb5b-13e8-4c7a-93f6-c4f6204e1b6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-30/science/34816394_1_breast-cancer-relative-risk-lakh-women | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967156 | 993 | 3.015625 | 3 |
November 5, 2004
Voters can’t stop Mesa from hiking utility rates, a judge ruled Thursday. But the group that challenged the rate hikes says it isn’t giving up.
"They may have won this little legal skirmish, but they’re going to lose the battle, the war," said David Molina, a member of Stop Exploiting Taxpayers.
The call by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Yarnell means last summer’s City Council decision to raise water, sewer, trash and natural gas costs stays in place.
The rate increase adds an average of $57 to annual utility bills for customers who receive all four services.
Mesa, which has no property tax, has long put profits from its utility departments into its General Fund to help finance basic government services. City officials have said making fee increases subject to a referendum like the one pursued by Stop Exploiting Taxpayers could put the city’s bond rating and fiscal future in doubt.
"I’m pleased. We have a future," City Councilman Mike Whalen said about the ruling.
Councilwoman Janie Thom, who opposed the rate hike and helped gather the 4,538 petition signatures, said she’s disappointed by the ruling.
It doesn’t answer the central question of whether the rate hikes are an improper way to circumvent Mesa’s lack of a property tax, she said.
"I don’t feel it’s right for the city to use utility rates to replace a funding source the citizens have outlawed by amending the city charter," she said.
The city refused to send the petitions on to Maricopa County for certification after they were turned in in July.
The state constitution limits referendums to legislative acts. Utility rate-setting is an administrative act.
Yarnell’s opinion cited Wennerstrom v. City of Mesa, the same state Supreme Court case City Attorney Debbie Spinner used to back her claim that setting utility fees is not a legislative act but an administrative one, because of the rates’ temporary nature.
Yarnell also said there is no legal issue with the city using profits generated by its utility departments to pay for other city functions.
Stop Exploiting Taxpayers will consult attorneys before deciding whether to appeal, chairwoman Jan Hibbard said.
The group also has collected 4,000 signatures for a voter initiative headed for the March 2006 ballot. It would amend the city charter to require public approval for any future utility rate hikes. Initiatives make new law, rather than attempting to change laws or actions already taken, like a referendum.
Spinner said Thursday she has not yet seen the text of the initiative, but it’s possible that it could raise some of the same legal issues as the referendum.
The city’s decision to challenge the referendum was "arrogant," Molina said.
"Challenging the referendum on a legal basis is the only way they could thwart the will of the people, because they know if they go to the ballot, they lose," he said.
Mayor Keno Hawker said voters have recourse regarding utility fee hikes: "They can run council candidates who don’t want to use utility rates as a revenue source." | <urn:uuid:95f85008-5fad-4cf9-84a6-ac2ed2145016> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/mesa/article_d0b1572c-76f3-5917-b903-a2d81ae3cace.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95916 | 683 | 1.625 | 2 |
Atmospheric Sciences & Global Change Division
Staff Awards & Honors
Anthony Janetos Elected AAAS Fellow
Congratulations to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Dr. Anthony C. Janetos on being named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow. The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publishes the journal Science. The AAAS gives the distinction of Fellow to members who have made efforts toward advancing distinguished science applications. Janetos will be recognized in February 2007 at the Fellows Forum during the AAAS national meeting in Boston.
Janetos, Atmospheric Science and Global Change Division and Director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration with the University of Maryland, was recognized for his "distinguished contributions in ecology and biology of particular relevance to environmental policy."
He is known for his research on the technological, scientific, and economic causes and consequences of global change. He contributed to the UN-convened Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. He was an author of the IPCC's Special Report on Land-Use Change and Forestry, the Global Biodiversity Assessment, and was a coordinating lead author in the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.
Janetos has written and spoken widely to policy, business and scientific audiences on the need for scientific input and scientific assessment in the policymaking process and about the need to understand the scientific, environmental, economic and policy linkages among the major global environmental issues. He served on several national and international study teams, including working as a co-chair of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. He is currently a member of the National Research Council Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space. | <urn:uuid:0cb7d0c3-e74e-42b6-beb2-6d5d9469712c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?groupid=749&id=354 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940313 | 364 | 1.828125 | 2 |
January 31, 2012
Not everything in our collections is a letter or a telegram or a picture. We have lots of different resource types from school homework to calling cards to, a personal favorite, menus.
…Save the Nation from Ourselves!
January 26, 2012
An election year is upon us, as is the centennial celebration of the 1912 presidential elections, one of the most historic presidential races in American history.
Hero Told to Oversee!
January 24, 2012
Some wordplay on Roosevelt's name to catch a glimpse at an early 20th century pastime!
Talking Across the Ocean
January 18, 2012
January 18, 1903 was a cold, clear night at the Marconi station at Wellfleet, Massachusetts when Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first trans-Atlantic wireless radio message from Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward of Great Britain.
Preserving the Grand Canyon
January 11, 2012
On January 11, 1908, President Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to set aside over 800,000 acres of land in Arizona and declared the Grand Canyon a national monument.
The Man Vying for the Presidency...
January 09, 2012
In the 1904 election cycle, Lyman Abbott used the Outlook magazine to present a portrait of President Roosevelt.
Moxie: Vigor; Verve; Pep
January 05, 2012
Moxie was one of the companies who tried to harness Theodore Roosevelt's popularity to sell their products. However, they neglected to ask him before doing so. | <urn:uuid:94fb9c2d-4f67-44b0-afed-f08967be89d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Blog.aspx?year=2012&month=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919256 | 311 | 1.960938 | 2 |
St. Thomas More “speaks critically of certain clerics who deliberately refrain from warning a rich and powerful man of the peril his soul is in out of fear of angering him and on the false premise that admonitions will do him no good.”
-James Monti, The King’s Good Servant But God’s First 1997
"Some there are, indeed, who maintain that it is not opportune to boldly attack evil...These make it a matter of guesswork as to whether they are for the Church or against her, since on the one hand they give themselves out as professing the Catholic faith, and yet wish that the Church should allow certain opinions, at variance with her teaching, to be spread abroad with impunity."
-Pope Leo XIII, On Christians as Citizens 1890
On January 19th, 2011, The World Over with Raymond Arroyo’s aired an interview with New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan. To his credit Raymond Arroyo represented the concerns of many Catholics by asking the Archbishop about his pastoral position on discipline as it pertained to New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo. As most viewers know, Cuomo had long been an unapologetic advocate of abortion rights. In June of 2011, however, he took his public dissent from Catholic teaching to yet another level. The governor signed a bill making same-sex marriage legal in the state of New York. Cuomo, mind you, is a highly visible public figure who calls himself a “Catholic” and one who attends Mass from time to time. And so Raymond Arroyo asked where the governor of New York stood in relation to the Church. Archbishop Dolan answered by saying that there is quite a bit of latitude in dealing with such matters. Furthermore, the talks between him and Cuomo are on-going. But if there is any statement which summarizes Dolan's pastoral position in relation to wayward politicians, it is this: “Our job is to invite people in and try to patiently change hearts-- and not be throwing people out.” (New York Daily News June 17th 2011) I think it is fair to say that many U.S. bishops, especially in several of the archdioceses in the United States, concur with Archbishop Dolan.
Incidentally, the next day, on January 20th , the Catholic News Agency reported that “the Department of Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the administration would not expand a religious exemption for employers who object to its ‘preventative services’ mandate.” In other words, the Obama administration made it known that they would mandate that Catholic agencies, against their will, to provide abortifacients, contraception, sterilization etc. in their health care coverage. In fact, these Catholic agencies have until August of 2013 to comply with the Federal health care mandate. Archbishop Dolan did not mince words when he told the press what he thought of it. He said, “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” And a day earlier the Holy Father weighed in with these sobering words: “No one who looks at these issues realistically can ignore the genuine difficulties which the Church encounters at the present moment.” Indeed, Pope Benedict’s “Dictatorship of Relativism”” is on the march in America.
Asking Important Questions:
The question then becomes: Is this threat to religious liberty a political problem or is it a pastoral problem? I pose this question as a son of the Church, as one who loves the Catholic Church and as a spiritual son who wants the bishops, the watchmen of the flock, to succeed in their mission. To be sure, this is not a time for venting or complaining. Rather, it is a time in our nation’s history to have a serious discussion about the relationship between their pastoral practices and the political threats to religious liberty that are daily mounting.
With a filial reverence, therefore, can we ask if the reluctance on the part of the Catholic clergy to exercise fatherly discipline towards unfaithful Catholic politicians is an effective one? Furthermore, are not the current pastoral practices a departure from the pastoral standards of the Apostles, the Church Fathers and the Saints? And if the Catholic Church holds such exemplary pastors up as models to emulate, then why are we not doing as they did?
No doubt, the current pastoral practice of bishops of reaching out to wayward politicians in order to keep the communication lines open is inspired by honorable intentions. I do not doubt that Archbishop Timothy Dolan, for instance, seeks to change the hearts of unfaithful Catholic politicians by using this method. But many faithful sons and daughters of the Church question if this ongoing conversation between bishops and politicians behind closed doors is what our Lord said should be done.
Matthew 18: The Pastoral Mandate
Take for example the Gospel of Matthew. Shortly after our Lord confers the keys to the kingdom of heaven to St. Peter and the authority to bind and loose upon the Apostles, he gives the following pastoral mandate for those sinners who refuse acknowledge their authority:
“If your brother sins (against you), go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that 'every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” (18:15-17)
To begin with, it should be noted that elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus says we should forgive those who sin against us personally 70 x 7. On a personal and individual level we should forgive those who trespass against us unconditionally and indefinitely. This is for our spiritual benefit. But when we speak of the life and the integrity of the Church, such unrepentant sins, especially mortal sins, requires a different approach by pastors. In the former case we leave to God to deal with those who sinned against us. In the latter case bishops are commissioned by Christ to act on God’s behalf for the sake of the Church’s welfare and unity. The failure to publicly discipline those brothers who poise themselves as followers of Christ while obstinately defying the Church’s divine authority undermines both the mission and the unity of the Church. When sins and errors go unchecked, such as a persistent and obstinate refusal of obedience, it causes confusion among onlookers and it further creates division within the Mystical Body of Christ.
This is precisely why our Lord draws the line in the sand as it pertains to those brothers who do not listen to the Church. Jesus wants the elders of the Church to give the benefit of the doubt to those brothers who do get it wrong. So as to eliminate the possibility that ignorance is the cause of wrong doing, Our Lord says to have one brother correct the sinner; then two brothers if necessary. If the sinner does not listen to the two brothers who bear witness to the truth of the Gospel then Our Lord said bring him before the Church. If the sinner does not listen even to the Church then they, the elders of the Church (i.e. bishops, priests etc.), are no longer dealing with a person who is merely ignorant. Instead, what the Church has before her is an obstinate sinner who refuses to recognize her God-given authority. The disease of sin and error that was once thought to be benign has now proven to be malignant. As such, it has to be removed! This is why Jesus said that such a person be treated as a Gentile or a tax collector. In first-century Judaism Gentiles and tax collectors were treated as outsiders. Keep in mind that such a mandate coming from our Lord is borne out of love for the sinner and for the good of the Church.
Reinforcing the Pastoral Mandate:
This pastoral practice of removing the sinner from the Body of Christ is promulgated several times in the New Testament. St. Paul, in his letter to Titus, said, “After a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic, realizing that such a person is perverted and sinful and stands self-condemned.” (Titus 3:10-11) To the Corinthians he wrote at length about this pastoral necessity. Again, he said, “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people…But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral…not even to eat with such a person…God will judge those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from your midst.’” (I Corinthians 5:9, 11, 13)
St. John the Apostle, who wrote about the love of God more than any other New Testament writer, issued this pastoral mandate: “Anyone who is so ‘progressive’ as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works.” (II John versus 9-11) For St. John, refusing the admission of progressives into the house of God was totally consistent with the Christian love he preached about. In fact, keeping the obstinate sinner at bay until he repented was a necessary expression of that Christian love. And as for Jesus, did he change his mind or soften his position after he rose from the dead? Evidently not! In the book of Revelation, the Risen Lord had this to say to the church in Thyatira: “Yet I hold this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, who teaches and misleads my servants to play the harlot and to eat food sacrificed to idols.” (2:20) Jezebel was a queen of Israel who had introduced pagan practices to the religion of Yahweh. Notice that the Risen Lord took great offense to the church of Thyatira’s tolerance of such Jezebel-types.
Indeed, there are at least three reasons why the pastoral practice to exclude obstinate sinners from the communion of the Church was enjoined by our Lord and practiced by the Apostles, Church Fathers and the Saints.
First, the failure to reprove or exclude from the Church unrepentant sinners creates the public perception that mortal sin is compatible with the life of Christ. And worse yet, such failure is a disservice to the sinner himself. Politicians who publicly advocate for abortion rights and same-sex marriage with impunity naturally suffer from the mistaken belief that they are in communion with the Church and therefore in communion with God. In fact, there are many adversaries of the Gospel of Life who go to their deathbeds with this assumption. But as the parable of the wedding banquet suggests, the King has a dress code in heaven. And to be sure, those without a wedding garment will be asked to leave the table by the King. The question then becomes: When “Catholic” politicians enjoy full communion with the King’s Church, are they not made to believe that they can attend the heavenly banquet without a wedding garment? And are these current pastoral practices really preparing obstinate sinners for eternity?
The second reason for exclusion is this: Many bishops, again with good intentions, often engage in an ongoing conversation with wayward politicians behind closed doors. However, the unintended consequence is that mortal sin is perceived to be negotiable because of the high public profile politicians enjoy. It is because of unintended consequences like this that St. Paul instructed St. Timothy to reprimand the sinner publicly (cf. I Timothy 5:20). It is why Pope St. Gregory the Great said that private sins should be addressed privately and public sins should be dealt with publicly. Furthermore, it is why St. John the Apostle did not go behind closed doors to correct Diotrephes, a wayward brother. He said, “I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to dominate, does not acknowledge us. Therefore, if I come, I will draw attention to what he is doing, spreading evil nonsense about us.” (III John 9-10) “I will draw attention to what he is doing.” Today’s conventional wisdom in the Church is to avoid “drawing attention” to those who cause scandal. Again, this is yet another departure from the New Testament pastoral mandate.
The third reason is that when public sinners can sit next to faithful Catholics on your local church pew, when they can stand before the altar and receive the Eucharist, that is, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ (even after St. Paul’s warning about the dangers of receiving such a Sacred Gift unworthily) and when they enjoy the fellowship of Catholics and intermingle with them, it inevitably creates moral confusion. To say it another way, when there is no public distinction made by the bishops between obstinate sinners and repentant sinners- when there is no separation between them –then in the minds of Catholics and other onlookers, there cannot be but little distinction between error and truth, between sin and holiness, and between vice and virtue. Say what you will from the pulpit, say what you will in your pastoral letters and say what you will in the classroom, the ministry of preaching and teaching will be undermined by this indiscriminate mix of obstinate sinners and repentant sinners. And from this indiscriminate mix emerges a division within the Body of Christ, the Church. Why? Because sin and error divides! What is more, a consensus on the most important issues of life and death is much harder to come by.
The Connection to Religious Liberty:
On January 19th, Pope Benedict XVI lamented this cultural breakdown of moral consensus in America. He said, “At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good…Today that consensus has eroded…” Indeed, it has. But as the pope wrote elsewhere, the erosion of moral and spiritual consensus had its beginning in the Church which then rippled out into society. What happens to the Church, happens to America.
This is the precise point at which the failure to observe the New Testament pastoral mandate occasions or even hastens the erosion of religious liberty. The Church’s immune system in any given region begins to break down when it is flooded with the virus of error and the bateria of sin. When this happens such a system can no longer mount a sustainable defense against those very things which lend themselves to the decay of our culture and to the erosion of religious liberty. When the very politicians who advance the “Dictatorship of Relativism” and who aggressively deny religious liberty to the very Church they claim to love are allowed to walk through our church doors, then can we really expect to them to hearken to the complaints of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy? If our spiritual fathers do not discipline them as God the Father disciplines his children and as fathers of families are known to do, then can we expect these so-called Catholic politicians to reconsider their hostile actions? If some 54 percent of the Catholic voting bloc voted for President Obama in 2008- the very administration that reaffirmed on January 20th that we have a year to “figure out how to violate our conscience” –can we not admit that we have a pastoral problem on our hands and not just a political one?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it must be remembered by the Catholic laity that to carry out the New Testament pastoral mandate as the Apostles, Church Fathers and Saints did requires courage. But it also requires our support. As sons and daughters of the Church, our prayers, spiritual sacrifices and verbal support are most necessary. And when we notice a reluctance or trepidation on the part of our bishops, it is important to remember that they may face challenges that we can never fully appreciate or understand. The important thing is to lovingly hold out this pastoral mandate to them as a standard towards which we need to aspire once again. And once it is universally practiced by the watchmen of the Lord's House, it will soon be morning again.
Church Fathers on correction and exclusion
1. Bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine, said, “[I]f he [the sinner] should still deny the charge he must be confronted publicly with the other witnesses so as to be convicted not by one mouth alone, but by many. And when his guilt has thus been proved he must submit to such punishment as the superior, whose office it is to inflict penalties, may think fit to impose. Should he refuse to perform his penance, and has not departed of his own accord, he must be cast out of your society. Nor is such treatment cruel, but merciful, for many must not be suffered to perish by the pestilent example of one.” (The Rule of St. Augustine)
2. Pope St. Leo the Great told the bishops in the fifth century that "those who refuse to share in our discipline cannot share in our communion." (Letter IV)
3. Pope St. Gregory the Great said, “[T]he pastor who does not eradicate the evil which he observes, comes to that state which his negligence deserves, namely, not even to recognize the sins of his subjects.” (Pastoral Rule)
4. The following is a Benedictine motto: "Pruned...and it grows again!" | <urn:uuid:d442c170-1a0d-466a-b8ab-97b924e90a0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://catholic-skyview-tremblay.blogspot.com/2012/01/pastoral-dilemmas-politicians-and.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967781 | 3,708 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Patient lies-from half truths and deceptions to bold, blatant lies-are surprisingly common in today's hurried medical practices, doctors say. WSJ's Sumathi Reddy joins Lunch Break with a look at why we lie and what tips off doctors. Photo: Getty.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
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I was first introduced to Edmund S. Morgan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, by reading his short biography The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop last year as an assignment for class. I enjoyed his writing style so when I spotted American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America on the shelf of new books at my local library, I had a feeling it would be right up my alley.
The book consists of a collection of essays, many previously published, but a few new ones as well. Morgan’s goal in putting together this book was to focus on more ordinary people, so while there are chapters discussing Ben Franklin and George Washington, the majority of chapters focus on people who are probably less well known to the population at large.
Though there were times throughout the book that I was not sure I completely agreed with what was written, getting into that is not the purpose of this review. In most cases, I feel I would need to do further research before I was even sure I disagreed.
So the purpose of this review is to tell you that I highly recommend it. If you enjoy reading about the early history of our country then you will probably enjoy this book. It is relatively short and a fairly easy and quick read. If you want to read an interesting history book without feeling like you are giving up the next month or two of your life, then this book is for you.
While I enjoyed the whole book, chapter 2, “Dangerous Books,” and chapter 13, “The Power of Negative Thinking: Benjamin Franklin and George Washington,” were my favorites.
Chapter 2 discusses the impact reading various sources had on the Puritans and how reading them caused some people to question or alter their religious beliefs. Within the chapter, Morgan also discusses the larger impact reading can have, even in today’s world. He points out, rightly, that too often people believe that if others would just read this or that, then they will automatically be in agreement with whatever the first party wants everyone else to believe. He makes the point that as long as people have access to libraries and primary sources, however, they will be able to read not only the “good” but also the “bad.” Morgan says that “libraries will remain the nurseries of heresy,” but by doing so “they will, in fact, preserve that freedom which is a far more important part of our life than any ideology or orthodoxy . . .”
In order to preserve freedom, we must take the risk that a reader somewhere might become unduly influenced by a book espousing beliefs contrary to all we hold dear. In chapter 13, George Washington is quoted as writing, “I am persuaded the great mass of our Citizens require only to understand matters rightly, to form right decisions.” I am with G.W. on this one. Knowledge is power, and also dangerous, but we just have to trust in people to discern for themselves what is right. | <urn:uuid:4d452736-7a0b-454f-b2eb-305632b0f0b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spezzella.wordpress.com/tag/george-washington/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98213 | 625 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Role of Your Academic Advisor
Students should maintain regular contact with their academic advisors throughout their college career in conjunction with discussing their education with faculty members, program administrators, and academic division directors.
Academic advisors can also help students gain assistance from other NSU departments or other available resources. Students are encouraged to consult with an academic advisor if they believe their student rights have been violated, as well.
What Your Academic Advisor Can Do For You
- provide guidance on registration, dropping/withdrawing from classes
- provide information about prerequisites for courses, standardized and placement tests, and academic preparation for pursuit of professional degrees
- discuss career options | <urn:uuid:7fe7efa1-3f1e-47cc-af1a-cc4a70a495dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fcas.nova.edu/services/advising/curriculum.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957849 | 130 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Pregnancy Care at Northfield's Women's Health Center
70–85% of women experience some nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.
Symptoms usually peak by 7–12 weeks gestation, and usually subside by the end of the first trimester (12-15 weeks).
Early management of NVP can reduce escalation of symptoms.
NVP can often be managed by lifestyle and dietary alterations:
- Eat frequent small amounts: when your stomach is completely empty, you are more likely to experience nausea. Keep plain saltine crackers at your bedside, and eat a few before you get out of bed. Wait 15 minutes before getting up. Eating a bedtime snack with some protein component (milk, cheese, peanut butter) may lessen early morning nausea as well.
- Focus on carbohydrates and low fat foods. Rich, fatty foods may increase nausea. However, carbs are also digested quickly, so you should try to add small amounts of longer-lasting protein at several small meals throughout the day, especially in the evening.
- Eat whatever sounds good to you and whatever you can tolerate! Don’t worry about missing out on nutrients right now: NVP is self-limited in most cases, and the focus during this time should be on intake more than on what specific things you are eating.
- Throughout the day, sip small amounts of cold, clear or carbonated beverages. Avoid caffeine as this may cause stomach upset.
- Change positions slowly to avoid dizziness and nausea.
- Fresh air as needed may help with symptoms.
- Avoid offensive food and smells: these are often triggers for nausea.
- Sipping ginger ale or ginger tea, or taking ginger supplements may help some women.
- Avoid iron preparations, including prenatal vitamins. Try substituting children’s chewable vitamins, or simply take a few weeks off from prenatal vitamins and take a folic acid supplement instead (at least 400 mcg per day, unless otherwise recommended by your physician).
- Some women find Sea/Relief bands (which work by triggering inner wrist-accupressure points) helpful.
- If supportive measures fail, try Vitamin B6 12.5 mg (one half tablet) with Unisom 12.5 mg (one half tablet) in the morning with breakfast and with lunch, then Vitamin B6 25 mg (one tablet) and Unisom 25 mg (one tablet) at bedtime. These medications are safe and well-studied in pregnancy, and studies have found them effective in treating the symptoms of NVP. | <urn:uuid:4c594d2a-571c-4c2a-a7f7-39aa1cb80837> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northfieldhospital.org/womenshealthcenter/obstetrics/nausea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947022 | 525 | 1.921875 | 2 |
It is one of mankind’s most daring experiments – a quest to produce virtually limitless clean energy that, if successful, would revolutionise life on Earth by harnessing the explosive power of the sun.
The energy problems that already beset our species, and look certain to dominate the future, would be wiped out at a stroke. The pollution of fossil fuels would be a thing of the past. The oil beneath the Gulf of Mexico could remain, safely unmolested.
Such is the appeal of the idea that the greatest powers of the world, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, America and the nations of the European Union, have united to pursue the same stellar objective. Their aim is commercially viable nuclear fusion – deriving energy from crushing together the nuclei in atoms rather than splitting them, as is done currently in nuclear fission reactors.
“The fundamental critique of fusion,” he says, “is that it is 40 years away and always has been. We are continuing to put large quantities of money into something that may not deliver.”
But at Iter, which is due to be built in southern France, scientists insist commercial fusion is possible – and that when it is harnessed, the impact will be as revolutionary as promised.
“The challenges are extraordinary, but we want a pay-off at the end,” says David Campbell, deputy head of Iter’s Fusion, Science and Technology department. “I’m confident that Iter will emerge. From simple fuels like seawater, fusion produces huge amounts of energy with no long-lived radioactive by-products. In the long term, it could take over electricity generation.”
It is this prospect of “something for nothing” that, like the gold-producing alchemy of old, is beguiling. Energy from seawater – who wouldn’t invest?
The difference is that, unlike alchemy, nuclear fusion is a proven scientific fact. It has been happening, on a small scale, at a research centre outside Oxford since 1991.
I'm glad they're finally breaking ground. But I wish I didn't have to wait so long for this research facility to be up and operating.
Also, I wonder if the results that NIF achieves this year and next will have any bearing on Iter's construction or operation? | <urn:uuid:89eb0e4c-acd1-470c-97e6-bc27c020000f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://peakoil.com/forums/post1113186.html | 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 | 0.95065 | 485 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Bill would aid kin of 2 slain men
US Representative Stephen F. Lynch introduced legislation last week aimed at allowing two families to recover millions of dollars in damages from the government in connection with two murders allegedly involving James “Whitey’’ Bulger.
The families of Michael Donahue and Edward “Brian’’ Halloran were awarded $8.5 million in 2009 after a judge found the government liable for its handling of Bulger as an informant. At the time of the slayings, the FBI was protecting Bulger from prosecution for crimes because Bulger was acting as an important informant on rival organized crime figures in Boston.
According to previous Globe reports, Halloran was reportedly about to inform on Bulger in another slaying, but Bulger was tipped off by his FBI handlers. Donahue gave Halloran a ride home to Dorchester from a bar in May 1982, when both men were killed in a hail of gunfire.
The $8.5 million judgment against the government was overturned in February by a federal appeals court panel on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired by the time the families filed their claims in 2001. That decision was affirmed by the appellate court earlier this month.
Lynch is proposing to backdate his bill, so that the provision increasing the statute of limitations would be retroactive to include the Donahue and Halloran families, an unusual move, Lynch said in an interview yesterday, but one the House counsel said could be done.
“It’s creative, obviously, but I think it’s needed to help the families who have been denied justice in this case,’’ Lynch said.
Tommy Donahue, Michael’s youngest son, said in a telephone interview that his family “is very appreciative of Congressman Lynch’s efforts.’’
Lynch’s bill would also increase congressional oversight of the use of confidential informants by law enforcement agencies.
“While the use of confidential informants can be an effective crime-fighting tool, unfortunately we have also seen the practice abused, innocent people killed, falsely imprisoned, and families torn apart as a result,’’ Lynch said. “By enhancing congressional oversight, hopefully, the past will not be repeated.’’
Lynch’s bill would require federal law enforcement agencies to report to Congress semiannually on all serious crimes committed by confidential informants while under the supervision of those law enforcement agencies.
Federal law enforcement agencies would have to report information about crimes committed, but not names or identifying information of the informants.
Lynch said in an interview that increasing congressional oversight is needed in light of the cases of both Bulger and Mark Rossetti, the reputed Mafia capo used as an FBI informant despite his violent record and his being a suspect in six homicides.
“The similarities between [Bulger and Rossetti] are ridiculous,’’ said Lynch.
Lynch also said disclosure that members of the Colombo crime family in New York were involved in kllings while working with the FBI shows that the FBI’s abuse of the new guidelines that emerged from hearings in 2003 about the Bulger fiasco is not limited to Boston.
Kevin Cullen of the Globe staff contributed to this report. John M. Guilfoil can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:ea5a60b2-0244-44ea-bf82-f3c61a6e10af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/10/18/bill_would_aid_kin_of_2_slain_men/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970578 | 703 | 1.867188 | 2 |
GAO Says Go After Wealthy Tax Deadbeats
Congress’ research arm is offering a cheap way for the Internal Revenue Service to collect more of the nation’s unpaid taxes — focus even more enforcement on wealthier taxpayers. A new Government Accountability Office analysis of the IRS’ efforts to collect unpaid taxes from citizens and small businesses in 2007 and 2008 found that exams focused on those with an income of $200,000 or more produced “significantly more” direct revenue per dollar of exam cost.
The government researchers concluded that by shifting about $124 million in enforcement resources away from lower-income returns to returns from individuals and small businesses showing income of $200,000 or more, the IRS could bring in about $1 billion more than the $5.5 billion it now collects with these resources.
The government already spends a disproportionate amount of its budget examining the nation’s higher earners. The IRS spent about 20% of the $1.6 billion a year it devoted in 2007 and 2008 on returns with income of more than $200,000, even though those returns accounted for only 3% of the total 136 million returns filed, according to the GAO report. | <urn:uuid:0c7995f2-51f1-4dfc-9b8f-a24d0dbabc0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.annuitythinktank.com/gao-says-go-after-wealthy-tax-deadbeats/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938286 | 243 | 1.773438 | 2 |
origin and roots of Sufism lie in the life and
practices of the Prophet of Islam and the Qur’an.
Sufism espouses a well-founded and thoroughgoing
interpretation of Islam, which focuses on love,
tolerance, worship of God, community development,
and personal development through self-discipline and
responsibility. A Sufi’s way of life is to love
and be of service to people, deserting the ego or
false self and all illusion so that one can reach
maturity and perfection, and finally reach Allah,
the True, the Real.
the Whirling Dervishes program we hope to bring to
you a hint of one of the remarkable ways of
achieving this: the way of Rumi, the great Muslim
mystic and poet.
Order of the Whirling Dervishes is one branch of the
vast Sufi tradition of Islam. The universal values
of love and service shared by all Sufis are very
much relevant to the social and political realities
of today, and this ritual, which is only performed
by the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, has come to
symbolize these values in the hearts and minds of
millions throughout the world.
The Fundamental Meaning of Sema
THE SEMA RITUAL began with the inspiration of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi (1207-1273) and was influenced by Turkish customs and culture.
It is scientifically recognized that the fundamental condition of our existence is to revolve. There is no being or object which does not revolve, because all beings are comprised of revolving electrons, protons, and neutrons in atoms. Everything revolves, and the human being lives by means of the revolution of these particles, by the revolution of the blood in his body, and by the revolution of the stages of his life, by his coming from the earth and his returning to it.
However, all of these revolutions are natural and unconscious. But the human being possesses a mind and an intelligence which distinguishes him from other beings. Thus the whirling dervish or semazen, intentionally and consciously participates in the shared revolution of other beings.
Contrary to popular belief, the semazen's goal is not to lose consciousness or to fall into a state of ecstasy. Instead, by revolving in harmony with all things in nature -- with the smallest cells and with the stars in the firmament -- the semazen testifies to the existence and the majesty of the Creator, thinks of Him, gives thanks to Him, and prays to Him. In so doing, the semazen confirms the words of the Qur'an (64:1): Whatever is in the skies or on earth invokes God.
An important characteristic of this seven-centuries-old ritual is that it unites the three fundamental components of human nature: the mind (as knowledge and thought), the heart (through the expression of feelings, poetry and music) and the body (by activating life, by the turning). These three elements are thoroughly joined both in theory and in practice as perhaps in no other ritual or system of thought.
The Sema ceremony represents the human being's spiritual journey, an ascent by means of intelligence and love to Perfection (Kemal). Turning toward the truth, he grows through love, transcends the ego, meets the truth, and arrives at Perfection. Then he returns from this spiritual journey as one who has reached maturity and completion, able to love and serve the whole of creation and all creatures without discriminating in regard to belief, class, or race.
In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen's camel's hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt represents the ego's shroud. By removing his black cloak, he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God's unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God's spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, "All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!"
The Ritual Dance or Sema
Mevlevi (also spelled as mawlawi) Ritual dance or sema consists of
several stages with different meanings:
first stage, Naat-i
is a eulogy to the Messenger of Islam and the all
Prophets before him, who represent love. To praise
them is to acknowledge and praise God Almighty Who
created and sent them to humanity as a mercy. This
eulogy is followed by a drumbeat (on the kudum)
symbolizing the divine command ‘Be’ for the
creation of the entire universe.
is followed by a Taksim,
an improvisation on the reed flute or ney.
expresses the divine breath, which gives life to
follows the Sultan Veled procession or Devr-i
Veled, accompanied by peshrev
music; this is a circular, anticlockwise, procession
three times around the turning space. The greetings
of the semazen,
or whirling dervishes, during the
procession represent the three stages of knowledge: ilm-al
yaqin (received knowledge, gained from others or
through study), ayn-al yaqin (knowing by
seeing or observing for oneself) and haqq-al
yakin (knowledge gained through direct
itself there are four selams,
or musical movements, each with a distinct rhythm.
At the beginning, during and close of each selam,
testify to God's existence, unity, majesty and
represents the human being's birth to truth through
feeling and mind. It represents his complete
acceptance of his condition as a creature created by
expresses the rapture of the human being witnessing
of creation in the face of God's greatness and
is the rapture of dissolving into love and the
sacrifice of the mind to love. It is complete
submission, unity, and the annihilation of self in
the Beloved. This is the state that is known as nirvana
in Buddhism and fana
fillah in Islam. The next stage in Islamic
belief is the state of servanthood represented by
the Prophet, who is called God's servant foremost
and subsequently His ‘Messenger.’ The aim of Sema
is not uncontrolled ecstasy and loss of
consciousness, but the realization of submission to
Selam, just as the Prophet ascends to the
spiritual Throne of Allah and then returns to his
task on earth, the whirling dervish,
after the ascent of his spiritual journey, returns
to his task, to his servanthood. He is a servant of
God, of His Books, of His Prophets, of His whole
is followed by a recitation from the Qur’an, the Sura
(Chapter) Mary on the miracle birth of Jesus and his
the end, by the salute, the dervish demonstrates
again the number ‘1’ in his appearance, arms
consciously and humbly crossed, and, by this, the
unity of God.
ceremony ends with a prayer for the peace of the
souls of all the Prophets and believers.
the completion of the Sema,
all the dervishes
retire silently to their rooms for meditation and
further remembrance of God.
Sema is a spiritual act, so please DO NOT
applaud while watching. You may kindly do so, if you
wish, after the dervishes have left the stage | <urn:uuid:b48bda3c-4066-4965-a5e1-c9eb1daaae81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whirlingdervishes.org/whirlingdervishes.htm | 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 | 0.941299 | 1,746 | 2.578125 | 3 |
A First Amendment Theory for Protecting Attorney Speech
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
August 31, 2010
In June 2010, the United States Supreme Court held that Congress could constitutionally prohibit attorneys from providing legal assistance and advice regarding lawful nonviolent conduct to groups that the Secretary of State has designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). The plaintiffs, Ralph Fertig and the Humanitarian Law Project, wished to assist two such FTOs invoke international human rights law, petition the United Nations and United States Congress, and peacefully resolve their disputes. The Supreme Court held that the statute clearly prohibited plaintiffs’ proposed activities, but did not violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment because the attorneys could still engage in “independent advocacy” of any message they wished to promote. Allegedly, the plaintiff attorneys’ First Amendment rights were not abridged because the law merely criminalized (with a potential fifteen-year prison sentence) their speaking “in coordination with or under the direction of” their proposed clientele.
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project underscores some of the distinctive problems associated with restrictions on attorney speech. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the Court’s opinion, as well as Justice Breyer’s impassioned dissent, there is not a workable First Amendment methodology for analyzing restrictions on attorney speech.
Indeed, many regulations on attorneys can be couched as restrictions on attorney speech because the work of an attorney is done primarily through oral and written communications. Attorneys – through their speech – play a key role in providing access to justice and the fair administration of the laws. They provide to clients speech that has the force of law and that is intended to invoke or avoid the power of government in securing individual or collective life, liberty, or property.
In this paper, I propose a new access-to-justice theory of the First Amendment to be used in examining the constitutionality of restrictions on attorney speech – regardless of the regulating entity. The access-to-justice theory proposes that where attorney speech is key to providing or ensuring access to justice or the fair administration of the laws, it needs special protection under the Free Speech Clause, akin to the core protection afforded political speech. The paper identifies four types of attorney speech that deserve this high level of protection, namely, (1) the power to invoke the law on a client’s behalf; (2) the provision of legal advice regarding proposed or past client conduct; (3) the ability to raise relevant and colorable arguments in court proceedings; and (4) the ability to preserve the Constitutional rights of others.
Traditional self-regulation of attorneys preserved, although imperfectly, the special role of attorneys in our justice system because, in theory, the judiciary as regulator understood the attorney’s role. By providing First Amendment protection to attorney speech that is essential to our justice system, the access-to-justice theory also safeguards the attorney’s essential role as self-regulation declines and regulation is imposed by national and intergovernmental entities, including legislative entities subject to majoritarian pressures.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 73
Keywords: Attorney Speech, First Amendment, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Access-to-Justice theory, Free Speechworking papers series
Date posted: September 1, 2010 ; Last revised: September 9, 2010
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Grants and Research Office
University of Wisconsin-Superior
Belknap and Catlin
P.O. Box 2000
Superior, WI 54880
Grants and Research Office
2004 McNair Scholars at UW-Superior
2004 McNair Scholars Program Research
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Donald W. Davidson, Natural Sciences Department
ABSTRACT: With current deforestation rates throughout the world, there is a need to lessen the demand on natural forests. They are important in biodiversity, climate regulation, aesthetics, education, and economy of the United States. Half of all timber harvested is used for construction of the new buildings causing forests to diminish every day.
To decrease the demand on forests, alternative building materials can be used in construction to take the place of wood. The focus on Wisconsin is based on the lack of research being done in areas that have climates with varying degrees of temperature, precipitation, and severe weather. With the states rich history of environmental progressivism, it is possible that the state government would support the use of alternative materials viable for the area.
Two materials were evaluated based on cost, viability, and environmental impact and both show promise for increased use. Straw bale constructions as well as a product called RASTRA are equally viable solutions Wisconsin can use to do its part in decreasing the demand on forests of the world.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Joel M. Sipress, Social Inquiry Department
ABSTRACT: Reconstruction is one of the most contested episodes in American history. As historians throughout the twentieth century altered their presentations of the era, American history textbook authors followed suit by adding many of the new elements the major historians brought to the discussion.
Time progressed and new insights emerged within the interpretations as post-World War II America left behind the "traditional" white supremacist renditions to adopt a more "democratic" interpretation and post-Civil Rights America eventually wrote black agency into the story. As modern day historians bring back to life the discussions of Reconstruction based on economic and class struggle originally proposed in the 1930's, the question remains whether the textbook authors of today will incorporate these discussions into their narratives.
Vivian A. Eichmueller
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Steven J. Rosenberg, Mathematics and Computer Science Deparment
ABSTRACT: We will start with special relativity and derive the velocity addition formula and the Lorentz Transformation in one spatial dimension, and we show that velocity addition yields a group law. We will then move into higher spatial dimensions and prove that relativistic velocity addition, although not a group operation yields a gyro group.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Chad Scott, Mathematics and Computer Science Department
ABSTRACT: For the differential equation y' = f(x,y), we find a family of correctors derived from 3-point quadrature. Further, we isolate the effectiveness of these correctors and pinpoint in one specific case which member of the family is the best corrector.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Nancy Minahan, Human Behavior, Justice and Diversity Department
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between normal dietary tryptophan and the behavior in individuals with Alzheimer's disease, and possibly other individuals with neurodegenerative disorders. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease and the individuals who care for them may benefit from experiencing less severe symptoms of irritability and depression. It is hypothesized that a negative correlation will exist between tryptophan levels in the diet and disruptive behaviors; high tryptophan is expected to lead to few disruptive behaviors.
Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Twining-Blue and Judy Dwyer, Human Behavior, Justice and Diversity Department
ABSTRACT: This study examines the current state of supportive services for youth in post-war Sarajevo. It has been nearly a decade since a violent siege tore through the city of Sarajevo. During wartime, children suffer greatly and are forced to bear the consequences of war for the rest of their lives. This research study was based on face-to-face interviews with workers who deliver supportive services for children, providing insight into the needs of youth in Sarajevo and the services they need.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michael Ball, Social Inquiry Department
ABSTRACT: Over the past years American schools have been subject to the most violent acts committed by children in American history. The type of violence and harassment seen at schools has become progressively worse. In this research paper, a theory called "wilding" is tested to see if it can help explain why American schools have become increasingly violent. Interviews with three school district superintendents were conducted to see if local schools of Northwest Wisconsin and Northeastern Minnesota have become more violent over the years, and what procedures and policies were implemented to curb the violence and harassment.
Copyright © The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
University of Wisconsin-Superior is an equal opportunity educator and employer | <urn:uuid:04b579b5-8035-47a2-9560-f95ffb52321c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uwsuper.edu/research/undergraduate/mcnair/2004-mcnair-scholars.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938312 | 1,019 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Training video shows effective accommodations for disabilities that include learning disabilities, attention deficits, autism spectrum disorders, and others that are not readily apparent.Real Connections: Making Distance Learning Accessible to Everyone
Training video for online faculty.
"Self-paced tutorial is to provide educators with introductory knowledge about learning disabilities and to offer practical, high-quality information and resources to enhance professional development in this area that will facilitate improved student achievement. The tutorial is offered in an accessible, online format and includes audio, transcript and self-check components that can be personalized for a wide variety of professional development activities and settings."
This presentation shares current efforts across the state of Iowa to prepare professionals to meet the needs of students with significant disabilities in the areas of literacy, language and communication.
For faculty and staff wishing to acquire or improve teaching skills, methodologies, and pedagogy in Assistive Computer Technology, Alternate Media and Web Accessibility.
Online Training and Webinars
Professional Growth Activities (PGA)
College Professional Development Days | <urn:uuid:69d7e452-e8a2-4f3d-92bd-826ca04a88fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foothill.edu/staff/development/pd_ada.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91241 | 207 | 2.515625 | 3 |
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota landowners who must allow oil companies to drill on their land should share in the profits, because energy exploration has brought them headaches while cutting them out of the bounty, a group of lawmakers said Friday.
Sen. John Andrist, R-Crosby, is advocating legislation that would set aside 8 percent of an oil well's regular royalty payments for property owners whose land is within the well's drilling area, but who do not own the mineral rights they need to claim a share of oil production revenues. A common drilling unit is 1,280 acres, or two square miles.
In western North Dakota, where oil production has boomed in recent years, farmers and ranchers often do not own the rights to produce oil, coal and other minerals beneath the surface of their land.
However, owners of mineral rights may insist on access to the surface of the land to allow developers to extract the oil or coal — even if the surface rights are owned by someone else.
North Dakota law already provides compensation for damage to land upon which an oil rig sits, but lawmakers told the North Dakota Senate's Natural Resources Committee on Friday that many landowners in the drilling area suffer property damage without compensation.
Andrist said dust from roads used by heavy trucks that haul oil, water and equipment settles onto nearby farm fields, cutting into crop yields. Dust-covered pasture land is less useful for fattening cattle, he said.
"I have no quarrel with mineral owners. I'm a free-market guy," Andrist said. "I just happen to believe that their right to harvest minerals should include some compensation for the guy that provides the door to get to those minerals."
The committee will review the bill before deciding whether to recommend what the full Senate should do with it, said the panel's chairman, Sen. Stanley Lyson, R-Williston.
Kristian Sorum, of Flaxton, a Burke County community in North Dakota's northwestern corner, said he has had to contend with oil development problems both on land that he owns and property that he rents for farming.
Trucks leave huge ruts in his fields, he has had part of a durum wheat crop mowed down, and oil workers who spray weed killers at the well site have not taken precautions that the spray will drift onto nearby crops, Sorum said.
"I'm not getting paid anything for damages to my crops," he said. "It's up to us to try to get those. I don't think it's fair that I have to be constantly working to try to get whole again. It is just very frustrating."
Todd Kranda, a lobbyist for the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the council found in a recent survey that most property owners have been able to negotiate satisfactory resolutions of damage claims.
Andrist's proposed law would reduce the income of royalty recipients and upset existing negotiated agreements between mineral rights owners and oil companies, Kranda said. He said the industry has taken pains to keep local residents abreast of industry doings by holding more than 20 "town hall" meetings.
"There is not a major problem that is trying to be addressed or solved by this legislation, in our opinion," Kranda said.
Ron Ness, president of the Petroleum Council, said a new North Dakota State University study of the oil industry's economic impact on the state estimated that producers paid $800 million in royalties to landowners in 2009.
North Dakota's Land Department, which manages more than 2.5 million acres of mineral rights, collected about $85 million in royalty payments last year, and $56.5 million in 2009, said Lance Gaebe, the state land commissioner. An 8 percent bite of last year's royalties would equal about $6.8 million.
Steve Pine, president of Great Northern Energy Inc., a Bismarck land services company, said the bill had no link between a landowner's alleged damage and the royalty payment he might receive.
"We call this the Robin Hood bill — taking from one party and giving it to another without just compensation," Pine said. "I don't know how you can do that."
Rep. Kenton Onstad, D-Parshall, said dissatisfaction between property owners and oil producers could not be left to fester.
"If we don't address the impacts that we're having right now," Onstad said, "I see a little land war brewing."
PHOTO: Kristian Sorum, who farms near Flaxton, N.D., in northwestern North Dakota, speaks on Friday, Jan. 14, 2011 at a North Dakota Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing on legislation that would require a percentage of an oil well's royalty payments to be paid to landowners who own property within the oil well's drilling space. Sorum says landowners often do not have the right to payments from oil production on their land, but they must put up with the problems caused by oil drilling. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel) | <urn:uuid:95d27e6b-8433-4c5c-94c9-8e835ddffcbf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/aan-nd-bill-would-pay-landowners-s-01172011,0,1623543.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972676 | 1,029 | 1.664063 | 2 |
FINGERS AND TOES
A well dressed, coiffed and plumed lady exhibits her hands. holding them out to demonstrate her nails, I suppose. She declines to show us her toes in this illustration.
Every lady in this land
Has twenty nails, upon each hand
Five, and twenty on hands and feet:
All this is true, without deceit. | <urn:uuid:49e7bce2-f643-40f8-a0bb-457413e30348> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gallery.oldbookart.com/main.php?g2_itemId=806&g2_imageViewsIndex=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931639 | 77 | 2.234375 | 2 |
For instance, boomers who are approaching their retirement age or have recently passed it now number some 78 million people. They are expected to become interested in relocating in their post-career lives, which will lead to more home sales nationwide as they not only move into new properties but sell their old ones. In addition, the children of baby boomers -- known as millennials or echo boomers -- may soon have the financial wherewithal to wade into the market for the first time in their lives, particularly as the older members of that generation gain stronger financial standing. There are roughly 62 million people in this age group nationwide, and it's believed that before the decade ends, they will make up between 75 and 80 percent of all homeowners under the age of 65.
And in particular, it's likely that as these potential buyers become interested in the market, they will turn to potentially less-expensive properties which are currently vacant, the report said. As those are scooped up, values will generally rise nationwide and therefore encourage more sellers to enter the market themselves, meeting demand. Overall, it's believed that by 2030, the national homeownership rate will climb to as much as 60 percent.
The national average home value is expected to continue improving in the next year or more at least, as low interest rates persist in pulling more buyers into the market. That in turn encourages competition for a small number of properties and lures prospective sellers into listing their properties for sale.
See more on Credit.com:
The First Thing to Do Before Buying a Home
10 Mistakes New Homebuyers Make
19 Confusing Mortgage Terms Deciphered
More on AOL Real Estate:
Find out how to calculate mortgage payments.
Find in your area.
Find foreclosures in your area.
See celebrity real estate.
Follow us on Twitter at @AOLRealEstate or connect with AOL Real Estate on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:133c24e1-9170-4a55-adb6-60c84343567c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/03/01/millennials-housing-market/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966634 | 392 | 1.976563 | 2 |
The joys of brotherhood include Harrison teaching Henry new things. Harrison teaches Henry new words almost daily, usually things like "truck" and "trains". It always melts my heart when I hear it.
Today I overheard another language lesson while Harrison and Henry were in the bathroom. Harrison was finishing up his bathroom duty while Henry was waiting for his bath. Harrison said "Henry, say junk."
Yep, joys of having boys.
To note-we have always called our body parts the appropriate names. "Junk" is a recent discovery and I believe it was learned from his father. | <urn:uuid:21789208-3155-4c46-bc37-40b779613922> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knucklesandwiches.blogspot.com/2012/12/brotherhood.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984014 | 124 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Great Britain's increasing "search and seizure" of American
merchant ships had ultimately led to the Embargo Act of 1808, outlawing trade
with Britain and its possessions. Widespread smuggling ensued along the
American and Canadian border, as until this time the Americans in the region
were enjoying a prosperous trade with Canada. The armed brig Oneida and a company of marines were sent to Sackets Harbor in 1809 to enforce the
During the Embargo, Jacob Brown was a well known smuggler who defied the
federal ban on trading with the British. In fact, a road in the area was
nicknamed "Brown's Smugglers Road." Some called him "Potash
Brown" for the potash he had slipped across the border. In his "day
job", however, Brown had been a school teacher and land speculator, and
founded the village of Brownville near Sackets Harbor.
When war broke out, New York Governor Daniel Tompkins commissioned Brown a
Brigadier-General, placing him in charge of the militia along the Northern
Border. While Brown had little formal military training, he had a keen mind and
an instinctive understanding of military strategy. Brown believed that by using
Sackets Harbor as a base for naval operations and Ogdensburgh as a base for
hit-and-run attacks on British convoys, he could weaken the British hold on
Upper and western Canada. One of Brown's first actions was to fortify the naval
base at Sackets Harbor, and to begin building fortifications at Ogdensburgh.
In Ogdensburgh, the American forces decided that since the old French Fort
La Presentation was in ruins, the American troops to be stationed at the village
needed better defenses. The Americans agreed to build a new fort, named Fort
Oswegatchie, between what is now Franklin and Elizabeth Streets on Riverside
Drive to defend the village. Brown urged the governor to strengthen the
Ogdensburgh garrison, convincing him to send Brown, and a Rifle Regiment under
the command of Captain Benjamin Forsyth, to Ogdensburgh where they could more
easily attack British shipping.
While they awaited completion of the new fort, Forsyth's forces were housed
in the old barracks and French Fort on what is now Lighthouse Point. While the
American troops began their campaign to harrass British shipping, Mr. Ramee, a
former engineer for French Emperor Napoleon, directed the construction of the
fort and gun emplacements. Throughout the fall of 1812, work continued on the
fort and cannon emplacements which would be used to ward off enemy attacks.
Unfortunately for the village of Ogdensburgh, by the winter of 1813 Fort
Oswegatchie was still unfinished, unmanned, and undefended. When the British
launched their invasion against the village, British troops landed on the
river's shore a short distance from the unfinished fort. With no American troops
or cannon to harrass their landing, the 500 British deployed through the village
up Franklin Street past the empty fort Oswegatchie into the village. With only
50 American militia defending the village, the British quickly overran the
community, dooming Brown's hope for the village as a base for harrassment of
The mission of Forsyth's First Regiment of Rifles was to provide protection
from the British for the surrounding areas, and to keep watch for military
movement on and along the St. Lawrence River.
While under orders not to commence hostilities against the British, early in
February 1813 Forsyth learned that the enemy had crossed the St. Lawrence River
onto American territory and abducted a number of Americans. They were being
held prisoner and allegedly were treated "with severity" at a local
jail in what is now Brockville Ontario (then called Elizabethtown). Suspecting
that the prisoners might be executed, Forsyth took it upon himself to consider
this adequate reason to take action against the enemy.
"In consequence of this intrusion of the enemy on our soil . . . I left
this place with a part of my rifle company and a party of volunteers for the
purpose of retaking the prisoners and chastising the insolent enemy," wrote
Forsyth. Covered by darkness at about 10:00 pm on the night of February 7,
1813, the party of 200 set out on the 28 mile round trip through ice, snow, and
bitter cold. Reaching Elizabethtown (now Brockville) at about 3:00 am, the
force surrounded the jail, demanded and were given the keys to the cells. Aside
from a single shot from a nearby window wounding one of Forsyth's men, no
resistance was offered. Forsyth freed the 53 prisoners, including one major,
three captains, three lieutenants and one surgeon's mate. He also took several
prominent Canadians hostage, and brought them back to Ogdensburgh, along with
134 muskets, twenty rifles, two casks of fixed ammunition, and some other
Even before this raid the British considered Benjamin Forsyth a sharp thorn
in their side, and a growing danger. His capture of Brockville galvanized the
American side of the border, and badly frightened the Canadian shore of the St.
Lawrence River. The Canadians saw him as the leader of a dangerous band of
maurauders willing to strike anywhere, at any time. The British also accused
Forsyth and his troops of being a pack of thieves who plundered what they
captured. Col. "Red George" MacDonnell saw Forsyth's presence in
Ogdensburg as particularly dangerous.
After Forsyth's raid on Brockville, MacDonnell grew even more angry when he
learned some of Forsyth's troops had also slipped across the ice and stolen
horses from a British farmer. Under a flag of truce, MacDonnell sent his men to
Ogdensburgh to ask for the horses return and the punishment of those
responsible. Forsyth's men denied they were responsible for the theft.
Forsyth ordered the British to return to the safety of Fort Wellington,
suggesting that he would gladly meet their commander, "Red George"
MacDonnell on the river's ice at the earliest opportunity. When MacDonnell
learned of the challenge, he promised himself to give Forsyth his wish.
A few days later, when the Governor General of Canada, Sir George Prevost,
visited Prescott on his way upriver to Kingston, MacDonnell urged him to grant
permission for an invasion of Ogdensburgh. Prevost, a more cautious sort, ruled
against such an attack, telling MacDonnell such a raid would be unwise.
MacDonnell advised Prevost that Forsyth by now probably knew that the Governor
General was in Prescott. Two British soldiers had deserted from Fort Wellington
and knew of Prevost's presence there. MacDonnell suggested to Prevost that
Forsyth and his rifles would probably not be able to resist the chance to
capture the British Governor General of Canada on his trip to Kingston.
Frightened by the idea, Prevost ordered a large force from Fort Wellington to
accompany him to Kingston. But he still would not authorize an attack on
Ogdensburgh. He would only agree to allow MacDonnell to parade his troops on
the ice to distract Forsyth's attention while he made his trip to Kingston. In
his written orders, Prevost told MacDonnell that he could only "attack
Ogdensburgh if the "imbecile conduct of your enemy should offer you an
opportunity for his destruction and that of the shipping, batteries and public
stores." But Prevost warned that he did not want MacDonnell taking any
action that would risk the transport of British supplies through Prescott on its
way to Upper Canada.
MacDonnell, still angered by Forsyth's insults, promised himself to get his
revenge. Rather than just parading his troops, he ordered a full scale attack.
On February 22, coincidentally George Washington's birthday, the British
forces, about 800 strong, launched their attack on Ogdensburgh. Colonel "Red
George" McDonnell, who had long argued that Ogdensburgh's American
stronghold and Major Benjamin Forsyth's Rifle Company posed a serious threat to
the British, had won permission from the British Governor General only to make a
demonstration on the ice. But seizing the opportunity, and stung by the
American attack on Brockville, and Forsyth's insults a few days before when
British officers had asked the American commander to keep his men from embarking
upon raids on the Canadian shore, MacDonnell ordered his men to attack.
Leading a force of 500 men, McDonnell marched upon the village of
Ogdensburgh while Captain Jenkins led a separate force of 300 who where supposed
to attack the Americans from the upstream side of what is now Lighthouse Point
Jenkins' force was originally intended to attack or cut off any retreat from
the fort if the Americans attempted to escape when MacDonnell's larger force
subdued the village, and then attacked the fort from the downstream side of the
point, across the Oswegatchie River's mouth.
British accounts claim that the Americans sighted the two British columns
marching across the ice, but wasted time because Forsyth refused to believe they
were attacking. The British claim Forsyth thought the British troops were only
drilling, a frequent practice on the ice.
Unfortunately for Jenkins, the American Rifle Regiment in the fort did
realize that his force was attacking. Jenkins force, when it was halfway across
the river, not too far from the American cannon at the fort, on the point, and
in other locations around the fort, opened up in full on the approaching British
troops. The first cannonade upset Jenkins only cannon, and killed the only two
artillery men with his force who knew how to fire it. Jenkins force marched on
in the face of the American fire, but when they approached the American shore,
they found the snow had drifted to the point that the British found themselves
wading to their middle. The soldiers were forced to get on the other side of
the drifts, on the exposed shore, where they were easy targets for Forsyth's
riflemen. Jenkins had originally intended to land farther from the fort and
move his force to a point where they could cut off any retreat, but instead,
already under fire, they were forced to directly assault the rifle regiment. As
they began their charge, Jenkins himself was felled by grapeshot which shattered
his left arm. He climbed to his feet, and seeing his men wavering in the face
of the American cannonade and rifle fire, "He was on his legs again in a
minute and seeing his men put out a little by his fall, alive to the influence
of example, or all sense of personal suffering or danger being lost in his ardor
to his duty, he shouted to them, 'Never mind me,' and ran on a few steps
farther, urging his men forward." The American fire then shattered his
right arm, and Jenkins fell again. This time he was unable to rise. His men,
after watching their commander fall, and after being exposed to heavy fire from
the American rifle and cannon shot, lost heart and began to flee before the
fire. They managed to carry the wounded Jenkins with them, but left their dead,
and some of their wounded behind as they ran back to the Canadian shore.
At the Canadian shore, Bishop MacDonnell, a clergyman, formed the men back
into units sent them back across to join Colonel MacDonnell's main force, which
had entered the thinly defended village, thanks largely to Jenkins attack, which
had drawn the bulk of the American fire and attention.
Meanwhile, Colonel "Red George" MacDonnell and his 500 men
attacked the lightly defended village. They made quick time as they marched up
from the river, up Caroline Street to Washington Street. When they reached the
corner of Caroline and Washington, they split into two groups. One group headed
down Washington Street past David Parish's mansion, and then headed up State
Street. The other group marched up Caroline, turning at Ford Street. Near the
corner of Ford and State Streets, some of MacDonnell's men came face to face
with an iron 12 pounder mounted on a wheel carriage which had been taken from
Burgoyne at Saratoga. The cannon had been a trophy from the Revolutionary War.
Captain Giles Kellogg of the Company of Artillery from Schoharie County
commanded the cannon. Kellogg and his men had been sent to Ogdensburgh in late
December to help protect and defend the inhabitants of the northern frontier.
Unfortunately, the Americans had expected the main attack to come from the west,
over the Oswegatchie River Bridge at the end of Ford Street. "Great was
their surprise when they turned and discovered 500 soldiers advancing" upon
them, one survivor of the attack later wrote. Kellogg had to spend precious
time turning their cannon around to face the enemy marching in formation up the
street toward them, wounding and killing some of the Ogdensburgh militia and
Kellogg's Artillery Company manning the cannon. As the British approached,
Kellogg fired his cannon, but the screw used to elevate the cannon broke after
the first shot, disabling it. With this cannon useless, Kellogg and his men
withdrew, heading over the bridge to join Captain Benjamin Forsyth's rifle
regiment a the fort on the west side of the Oswegatchie.
After the British captured Captain Giles Kellogg's artillery position, only
St. Lawrence County Sheriff Joseph York stood between the British forces and
their capture of Ogdensburgh. When Kellogg's men withdrew, Sheriff York and
his men stayed on to face McDonnell's onslaught alone. York and his men
occupied an artillery position located near the corner of State Street and Ford
Street. They manned a brass six pounder, mounted on a wheeled carriage. York
fired at the advancing British, as the invaders fired volleys at them. Two of
York's men, Joseph Kneeland and Mr. Hyde fell mortally wounded. The rest of
York's militia, seeing the cause was lost, turned and fled for their lives
before the withering volleys from the British muskets. York remained alone. A
survivor of the attack wrote that York "disdaining to leave his post at the
moment of danger, resolved to face the enemy alone. While he was engaged in
charging the guns, the soldiers approached with guns levelled, ready for the
order to fire." Then the captain of the British force raised his hand and
turning tto his company, said: "There stands too brave a man to shoot."
York was taken prisoner. The British gathered the cannon they found in the
village, bringing them to the east bank of the Oswegatchie River, near what is
now the U.S. Customs building where they were used to lay seige to Forsyth's
main force across the Oswegatchie at the old French fort.
The village now in hand, MacDonnell then turned his attention to the fort
where Forsyth and his rifles were busily repelling what was left of Jacobs
After its complete success, even Prevost had to praise the wisdom of the
attack. He was so pleased, in fact, he altered MacDonnell's official report to
make it appear that the attack was a direct result of Prevost's own orders to
retaliate for the Brockville raid.
Of course the British would not stand for this intrusion, and promptly
retaliated for Forsyth's raid. Major "Red" George Macdonnel of the
Glengarry Light Infantry choose to strike directly at Forsyth. On the morning
of February 22, 1813, 480 British and Canadian troops crossed the frozen St.
Lawrence River from Prescott to Ogdensburgh. In little more than an hour,
eleven field pieces and all the American ordinance, marine, commissariat and
quartermaster general's stores were taken by the Macdonnel's troops. They also
captured 70 prisoners, including four officers. They also burned two armed
schooners, the Niagara and the Dolphin, along with two large gunboats and the
barracks, while Forsyth and his rifle company retreated to Sackets Harbor increasing that
garrison's strength for the important battle that would take place there in the
Spring of 1813.
The British victory was short-lived, however, as the American forces
successfully defended the border at Sackets
Harbor. The war ended with the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve in 1814,
when the U.S. and Great Britain signed an accord calling for peace without
territorial concessions from either side. | <urn:uuid:aa71398c-28c9-409a-89fb-17d1140d386e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.1000islands.com/ogdensburg/war_1812/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972091 | 3,590 | 4.0625 | 4 |
All sera were also tested with IBL (Hamburg, Germany) and Wampole Laboratories (Cranbury, New Jersey) mumps virus immunoglobulin G (IgG) EIA kits according to the manufacturers' instructions. Both manufacturers' assays for mumps virus IgG are based on capturing virus-specific human IgG on a preparation of purified virus antigen (derived from the mumps virus Enders strain) immobilized on plastic wells. In the Wampole assay, sera are diluted 1:21, whereas for the IBL assay, sera are diluted 1:101. For both assays, following incubation with sera, wells were washed three times in phosphate-buffered saline and incubated with anti-human IgG conjugated to horseradish peroxidase. After being washed, wells were incubated with tetramethylbenzidine substrate solution. The reaction was stopped by addition of H2SO4. Plates were then read on an Emax precision microplate reader (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA) at 450 nm using a reference wavelength of 650 nm. All reagents used were provided with the EIA kits. Absorbance value cutoffs and interpretation of results were carried out according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Additional EIA testing was carried out on a subset of 10 serum samples with neutralization dilutions greater than or equal to 1:32 that were diluted in phosphate-buffered saline to achieve PRN dilutions of 1:4 and 1:8.
Among the 74 pre-vaccine era serum samples, 47 (64%) were seropositive by PRN (Table ). Of these 47 PRN-positive samples, 33 tested positive in the Wampole EIA and 32 tested positive in the IBL EIA. Thus, measured against the PRN assay, the sensitivities of the Wampole and IBL EIAs were 70% and 68%, respectively, translating to false-negative rates of 30% and 32%, respectively. That the EIAs apparently did not react with sera found to contain neutralizing antibody by PRN was intriguing, especially in view of the fact that the EIA is capable of detecting a broader spectrum of antibodies than virus neutralization assays (4
). One possible explanation for EIA false negativity may be that the EIA is relatively insensitive to low levels of antibody. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that the EIA false-negative rate dramatically decreases as the PRN titer increases (Fig. ). An explanation for the inability of the EIA to detect low levels of antibodies may lie with the fact that the initial serum dilution steps in the Wampole and IBL assays (1:21 and 1:101, respectively) are significantly greater than that of the PRN assay (1:4). Thus, one could postulate that the initial serum dilution step in the EIA was sufficiently high to dilute the low-PRN-titer sera to a dilution below the minimum detection capacity of the EIA. To test the hypothesis that low levels of virus antibody detectable by PRN are lost upon preparation for use in EIA, contributing to EIA false negativity, all 10 of the serum samples that had PRN titers greater than or equal to 1:32 were diluted to achieve PRN titers of 1:4 to 1:8. These diluted serum samples were then retested in the EIA tests. As shown in Table , postdilution, the majority of the serum samples tested negative in these assays (yet continued to be reactive in the PRN assay), i.e., 9 of the 10 samples that tested positive (when undiluted) in the Wampole EIA and 7 of the 10 samples that tested positive (when undiluted) in the IBL EIA tested negative. Thus, it appears that low levels of virus antibody detectable by PRN are lost during the dilution steps required in preparation for testing in EIA. Notably, EIA insensitivity to low levels of neutralizing antibody has also been reported for measles virus antibody (19
). This hypothesis alone does not account for all observed instances of EIA insensitivity, since some of the retested sera in the present study remained EIA positive despite dilution. This might indicate, at least for these samples, that nonneutralizing antibodies may exist in higher concentrations than neutralizing antibodies. Other factors that may contribute to negative EIA findings include the ability of the PRN assay to detect all classes of mumps virus-specific immunoglobulins (whereas the EIA kits measure only IgG antibodies) and loss of conformational epitopes in the EIA format. In addition, it should be pointed out that nonspecific reactivity has been reported in the PRN assay when concentrated serum, defined as having a dilution less than or equal to 1:4, was used (7
). Thus, an alternative explanation for some of the PRN assay-positive/EIA-negative results could be nonspecific virus neutralization in the PRN assay. Notably, however, of the 74 serum samples tested, only two (numbers 41 and 42) were PRN assay positive/EIA negative at a 1:4 dilution (the most concentrated dilution of serum used). Thus, should nonspecific reactivity occur in the PRN assay at a 1:4 dilution of serum, the effect on this study is negligible.
Results of PRN and EIA testing of 74 pre-vaccine era serum samples
Inverse relationship between the PRN titer cutoff for a positive response and the EIA false-negative rate.
Results of EIA testing of 10 serum samples possessing measurable PRN titers before and after dilution, indicating that the EIA may be relatively insensitive to low levels of antibody
In terms of EIA specificity, of the 27 serum samples testing negative by PRN assay, 26 were negative in the Wampole EIA and 25 were negative in the IBL EIA. Thus, relative to the PRN assay, the specificity of the Wampole EIA was 96% and that of the IBL EIA was 93%. This translates to Wampole and IBL EIA false-positive rates of 4% and 7%, respectively. These PRN assay-negative/EIA-positive sera, although deemed to represent EIA false positivity, may nonetheless contain nonneutralizing anti-mumps virus antibodies (12
). This is likely, since the preparations that coat the EIA plates are predominated by virus proteins containing numerous nonneutralizing mumps virus epitopes (14
). Perhaps the development of EIA plates coated with mumps proteins known to be associated with virus neutralization (e.g., HN and F proteins) may provide for a better bridge between the two assays. Another possible explanation for the EIA false-positive results could be the presence of antibody in these particular samples directed against other related viruses, resulting in a positive reaction by EIA but not sufficiently specific to result in virus neutralization. Indeed, a number of studies have found cross-reactivity to parainfluenza viruses 2 and 3 in mumps virus EIAs but not in mumps virus neutralization assays (4
In comparing the PRN assay results to the EIA results, one must also be mindful of inherent vagaries of any interassay comparison whose cause cannot be identified. This is most plainly evident in an inter-EIA comparison of the two kits used here. Although both the Wampole and IBL EIA kits are very similar in apparent design and use, e.g., employing similar preparations of the mumps virus Enders strain, similar procedures, and utilization of the same enzyme-substrate reaction, 8% (6/74) of the serum samples tested in both EIA kits yielded discordant results. Of note, the difference in sample dilution between these two assays (1:21 for Wampole and 1:101 for IBL) does not account for this discordance, since three of the six serum samples were Wampole positive/IBL negative and the other three were Wampole negative/IBL positive. Thus, some of the discordance in test results between the PRN assay and the EIA is probably attributable to intrinsic assay variability.
The fact that pre-vaccine era sera were used adds additional significance to this study. Because the EIA technique was not available during the pre-vaccine era, most of our knowledge of EIA performance in evaluating mumps immune responses is based on testing of vaccinated populations. However, unlike even low-titer immune responses to natural infection, serological responses engendered by vaccination cannot be assumed to be protective. For example, despite EIA determinations of high seroconversion rates following vaccination with the Rubini vaccine strain (17
), this particular vaccine afforded virtually no protection against mumps disease (18
). Thus, for evaluating an assay's ability to provide information about protective immunity, use of sera from cases of natural infection may provide better bridging to efficacy endpoints. Using such sera, our data indicate that the PRN assay was a more sensitive and specific method of measuring serological responses to mumps virus than the EIA. | <urn:uuid:8c9728bc-b860-4e1d-83e1-8ca928a1217d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC1234049/?lang=en-ca | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945593 | 1,928 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Timbuktu — The UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on conflict, Jan Egeland, is travelling in the Sahel this week to draw attention to a region the UN says is experiencing the worst effects of climate change in the world. He is sharing his thoughts and experiences every day with IRIN. This is the third instalment, this time from northern Mali.
"There are so many climate sceptics out there, and I was pretty much one myself in terms of seeing evidence already when I started this trip, but I feel that after what I have seen today I am definitely changing my mind.
"A long day started with the phone ringing at 5.15am in my hotel room in Timbuktu, northern Mali, and already it was many degrees more than 30 outside.
"Yet again we loaded ourselves into far too long a convoy, but this time for a good reason; all of the local parliamentarians, local authorities and people representing nomadic communities wanted to join us as we travelled to the communities living at the heart of the Lake Faguibine area, which is one of the foremost symbols of climate change in the Sahel.
"We must have stopped 10 times on our way to the lake. The Niger River itself is shallower [than it used to be] and so does not fill the old waterways, which means much of the ancient region of Timbuktu is now bone dry all the way up to and including the huge Lake Faguibine. We saw people struggling to dig a new canal where the old water route from the Niger River had dried up because of a combination of climate change, environmental degradation and desertification.
"It was moving to meet so many people who all said 'this is a struggle of life and death for us', and how people are certain that if they only had reliable water sources they could again turn this parched region into Mali's bread basket. On the bed of the old lakes they still have a lot of agriculture, but of course it's only a matter of time before it all dries up, and then it's the end for all the nomadic and pastoral societies in this area.
"When we came to Lake Faguibine there was a big meeting with all of the community leaders there. One of them made a rousing appeal to me that I will always remember. He said: 'I am an orphan of this dead lake because I lived and flourished by the lake when it was a wonderful place for fishermen and farmers and pastoralists.' He turned out to be one of the foremost Touareg people of the region.
"What has happened here is basically equivalent in scale to the Lake District in England going dry after centuries - except in Mali hundreds of thousands of people's livelihoods depend on the lakes.
Turning the situation around
"So how much would it take to turn this situation around? Not much! With just a few machines they are already digging kilometres of new canal every year, and several villages have got their water back at least for a couple of months a year. The World Food Programme has opened up longer stretches using food for work programmes which put otherwise unemployed men to work digging and planting trees in exchange for food rations.
"The German government has supported this project, but few other international donors have. The whole Lake Faguibine restoration project can only keep going for a few more months without new resources. The message really goes now to the Copenhagen meeting at the end of the year.
"When all the world's leaders are there we must ask if we are really going to let life-saving projects like this, which are directly related to climate change, go unfunded. That would really be a moral failure; if climate change projects that already exist to help affected people go unfunded by those industrialised nations that caused climate change!
"All in all we were on the road with more than a dozen meetings and stops from 6am to 6pm. Tonight, we fly back to Bamako, then on to Niger tomorrow morning where we will see the President, then travel to another dried up lake: Lake Chad."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ] | <urn:uuid:7182c52e-2561-4077-a3e2-dc0fbc91f8ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/200806050699.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968112 | 863 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Story about Penguins Is Most Banned Book of Past Five Years
College Holds Annual Banned Books Read-In
September 28, 2011
Joyce Dozier reads from the controversial children's book, "And Tango Makes Three."
How can a true story about two penguins from New York City’s Central Park Zoo that fall in love, adopt a stray penguin egg and live happily ever after be the most controversial book of the past five years?
Simple. The 2005 children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, is a political football in the nation’s culture wars. It turns out that Roy and Silo are both male penguins.
Written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, And Tango Makes Three has been the most banned book of the past five years, according to the American Library Association.
While children in many American schools and communities are forbidden access to the illustrated storybook, Wilmington College’s Joyce Dozier, associate professor of criminal justice, wanted to make sure those attending the College’s annual Banned Books Read-in Sept. 28 were given that opportunity.
So, over the course of seven minutes, she read the story, And Tango Makes Three, and shared the illustrations.
For three hours on Sept. 28, Wilmington College students, faculty, staff and friends read in Watson Library from books that have been censored sometime or somewhere. The annual Banned Books Read-in was WC’s part of the National Library Association's “Banned Books Week.”
Bart Flaherty read from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, a recognized literary classic written in the mid-19th century that has been banned throughout the United States for a variety of reasons.
It was initially banned in New England because of Twain’s use of southern dialect. Also, it has been banned because of Huck’s “irreverence with regard to adults” and, most frequently, it’s been due to the pervasive use of the N-word. Flaherty lamented that a new edition is coming that uses the word “slave” instead of the N-word.
“I’m sure that Mark Twain would have been upset about this,” he said.
Event organizer Gloria Flaherty, emeritus professor of education, read from Suzanne Collins’ 2008 young adult, science fiction novel, The Hunger Games, while others read from The Diary of Anne Frank, a children’s discovery book called Where Did I Come From?, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Chris Crutcher’s Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.
Flaherty said many school boards have banned books but the “most pervasive” form of censorship in schools is self-censorship in which teachers simply do not use literature that someone might be deemed as controversial. | <urn:uuid:79af2a02-1dcd-4b31-be06-51f4a0843ae1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.wilmington.edu/news/Story-about-Penguins-Is-Most-Banned-Book-of-Past-Five-Years.cfm?grp_id=5570 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947016 | 625 | 2.140625 | 2 |
More crop success for scientists
05 March 2010
Award-winning Institute maintains lead in developing new crop
Scientists at Aberystwyth University are once again leading the way in developing new varieties of one of the UK’s most important crops. And they’ve even beaten the Tardis in the process!
The University’s Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) has had two new winter oat varieties placed on the definitive crop list recommended by the Home Grown Cereals Authority, the body that promotes the production, wholesomeness and marketing of UK grain.
There is increasing awareness of the value of oats both for human consumption and as a high value animal feed. Both varieties build on decades of success at IBERS and provide farmers, millers and feed compounders with oats that are more productive, resilient and easier to grow.
“We are delighted to see our work once again being recognised in this most authoritative list of crops,” said IBERS Director, Professor Wayne Powell.
“Even more important is that these new oat varieties will help make UK farmers more profitable and will benefit the environment.”
Winter oats developed at IBERS now account for 70% of the UK’s £2 million-a-year market in oat seeds. One variety, called Gerald, is the market leader, accounting for 45% of the total crop of winter oats.
This year, IBERS’ new varieties are the only winter oats to be added to the Recommended List. They join a long roll call of successful oat varieties from the innovative IBERS oat breeding programme that are marketed by Senova Ltd.
- Balado is a conventional husked variety of oat that offers a bumper crop for farmers – 5% more even than IBERS’ other well known winter oat, Tardis.
- Fusion has no husk and is called a ‘naked oat’. Aimed mainly at farm animals– it is a great energy source, particularly for poultry.
The Institute’s scientists were praised for successfully combining fundamental research on plant genetics with plant breeding techniques to develop commercially viable plant varieties that help meet the challenges of food, water and energy security, and environmental sustainability.“We are very pleased to see two more of our oat varieties being included on the recommended list,” said one of the research team, Athole Marshall. “We are continuing with the outstanding success of IBERS and its predecessors over more than 90 years.”
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ContactsDr Athole Marshall
Tel: 01970 823171 | <urn:uuid:f3da7d84-b8fc-40a9-927a-68fe6d949c81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aberystwyth.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2010/03/title-83934-en.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933646 | 547 | 2.453125 | 2 |
FAQ's for RI students
Q: What is the earliest age that the student could start a Driver Education Course?
A: At the age of 15 years and 10 months. We recommend that a student start the program as early
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Q: What is the earliest age that a student could obtain a Class D Learner's Permit?
A: Once they turn 16. A Rhode Island student must complete a 33 Hour Classroom Program before
He/She could go to the RI DMV to obtain a Learner's Permit, if under the age of 18.
Q: What is the earliest age that a student could obtain a Class D Driver's License?
A: Once they turn 16 1/2 and if they have completed all of the following criteria:
- A student must have had their Learner's Permit for 6 consecutive months without any infractions.
- A Parent must complete 50 hours of supervised driving with the student
- A student must pass a Driving Test at the DMV.
Q: Does Labonte's Auto School offer the 33 Hour Classroom program that Rhode Island students
need to complete before they can apply for their Permit?
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Mike Sahagian 401-405-7307 | <urn:uuid:5735afaa-d266-4b83-b2a1-5b54a91a25b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.labontesautoschool.com/faqri.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943031 | 564 | 1.554688 | 2 |
MS. REBECCA SHEIR
Another local community that owes its origins to a kind of train line is Kensington, Md. It was one of the first suburban communities to emerge after the Civil War. And as with many of our suburbs, its growth was directly related to the role of the military in our region. Jessica Gould spoke with local author and historian Paul Dickson about the connection between military might and the spread of suburbia.
MR. PAUL DICKSON
We're in the heart of Kensington, Md. and we're sitting in front of a spacious, beautiful, Victorian mansion, which was the home of a man name Brainard Warner who was actually the founder of Kensington, Md. in the 1870s, 1880s. Brainard Warner was a young man, came here from Pennsylvania when he was 15 years old when the Civil War broke out, which is a period of huge expansion for the city of Washington because troops came in from all over the country to populate the city and to defend the city.
MR. PAUL DICKSON
Brainard Warner enlisted as a private in the Army but then they realized he was sort of a financial genius so they put him in charge of some of the economy of the war. After the war, he decided he was going to become a financier and a builder of suburbs. The B&O had built the Metropolitan branch that enabled people to start using these suburbs, Chevy Chase, Kensington and Garrett Park as places to live.
MS. JESSICA GOULD
So I think we tend to think of suburbanization as a World War II phenomenon, a post World War II phenomenon. But it actually started way before that.
It actually starts in the Civil War but I think what happened here in World War I was fascinating. Many, many people had to come here to run the war. So after World War I, Arlington which has been booming because of the war workers, they decide to stay. So what does Arlington do? Arlington becomes, right after World War I, the fastest growing county in the country. And how do they support that? They build sewers, they have countywide water supply. They have a health system. They have a school system. You needed libraries. You needed newspapers. You know all this infrastructure to support them.
So how did World War II affect the growth of this area?
There was a slogan, every trigger, meaning person out there on the front lines with a gun, needed 25 typewriters to support that person. And then at the end of the war, comes the GI Bill and supported housing. So there's this huge, huge build up from 1940 to '50. D.C. goes up about 40 percent. The population grows. But where the real growth is in the suburbs. The suburbs are booming. Alexandria goes up in that same period, 84 percent. PG County goes up 117 percent. Arlington goes up 130 percent. Montgomery county goes up 95 percent.
Why did people move from the city to the suburbs during these various periods?
Housing was expensive. It was in short supply during the war. There was huge housing shortages. Even a place where I live in Garrett Park, these little houses called Chevy houses, they were built by veterans after World War I. You could buy the house for a couple hundred dollars down and when you bought the house, you had the option of paying also in your monthly payment for a Chevrolet automobile.
Paul Dickson, tell me a little bit about how the more recent conflicts have influenced the suburbs of Washington?
Once you want to run a huge military, you need a nerve center. You need a physicality, you need a place where the top generals or the top admirals or the top whoever can sit down in a meeting room and decide what's going to happen tomorrow. So the military was here right from the War of 1812 when the city was attacked, when the British burned Washington. Any major conflict or major change, you're going to see an increase in the size of Washington, D.C. Even a negative event like 9/11 brought more people here.
Paul Dickson is co-author of "On This Spot: Pinpointing the Past in Washington, D.C." He spoke with WAMU's Jessica Gould. And if you have thoughts you'd like to share about the militaries impact on Washington suburbs, we want to hear from you. You can reach us at email@example.com.
Time for a quick break. But when we get back, helping the needy in one of Washington's wealthiest suburbs.
MR. LANCE FLOWERS
I feel, in my position, I giving them basic needs and the basic needs is something that consists of shelter, food and water. And what we do here is provide that.
It's coming your way on "Metro Connection," here on WAMU 88.5.
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“Everything’s connected to everything else.”
As I was leaving the gym this morning, I had to think about the connection between the world of weights and treadmills inside, and the world outside.
To me, there isn’t much of a difference. It’s all about sweat, commitment and endurance. Every time I leave the fitness center, I feel lighter, stronger and more alive.
Working out is working out for me!
Some of my colleagues aren’t feeling it. Even though they don’t exercise, they sound like they’re trapped on a treadmill carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders. No matter what happens, they feel they have to keep on running the rat race.
These are people who live in constant fear that’s manifesting itself in many ways. They won’t leave home without a mobile device. They might text or check email while driving. Some will tell you they can’t afford to take a break. Others will take their home office or studio with them on the road or on vacation. Why?
Well, you never know, you know. Going to that remote B & B for some R & R might cost you clients. And once they’re gone, they’ll never come back, and that’s a fact.
GIVE ME A BREAK
Don’t build your career on fear.
Build a career on balance.
Even Go-d rested on the seventh day, so why would it be unwise to unwind and leave your work behind? Do you have boundary issues, perhaps?
When it comes to vacation, I don’t compromise. It’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity. That’s why I unplug.
And every time I go to the gym, it feels like a mini-vacation.
While I exercise, I completely disconnect from the rest of the world. I’m not thinking about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. Those are mind games anyway.
I do everything I can to leave my troubles and triumphs at the door and be in the moment.
You should try it. I dare you. It’s wonderful. It’s therapeutic.
Psychologists call being in the moment an “associated state” as opposed to a “dissociated state”. Being associated means being absorbed by and immersed in the present. It’s a state of deep and often joyous focus.
Hungarian psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the author of “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”) describes it as
the merging of action and awareness while we narrow our field of attention
In this state of mind, something funny happens. Our sense of time is completely distorted. Some people will even tell you that time stands still.
A SAFE DISTANCE
Being dissociated is the opposite. Instead of being in the moment, dissociated people distance themselves from it. They’re not in the experience. They are observers instead of partakers. Their distracted minds drift to what has been or what may be. They are not emotionally involved in whatever is happening.
When we’re in this state, we hear someone speak but we don’t really listen to what’s being said. Someone’s touching us lovingly while our mind takes us to tomorrow’s business meeting. “Not Now,” says the mother to her attention-seeking child as she stares at her smart phone.
It’s hard to focus and enjoy what we’re doing when we’re dissociated. When the appetizer is served, we think about the main course. When we’re eating our entrée, we wonder about what’s on the dessert tray. And time is always ticking.
THE MEANING IS IN THE CONTEXT
Of course no one is completely associated or dissociated in every situation all the time. Being associated is not necessarily better either. It depends on the context. Sometimes it is beneficial to be an uninvolved, unmoved observer. In order to analyze a situation it can be necessary to set feelings aside.
Emergency room doctors have to distance themselves from the emotional turmoil in order to do what they need to do. A funeral director can’t be overcome by grief every time he lays someone to rest. A therapist can’t be a patient’s best friend in order to be effective. A war photographer uses the lens of his camera to deal with the horrors of the battlefield.
At other times, it is essential to be associated. Athletes need to destroy distraction in order to run the race. Musicians become one with their instrument during a thrilling performance. Actors merge with their character as they experience and act out a whole range of emotions.
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
Association and dissociation also play an important role when we access memories. Do me a favor and think about something unpleasant that happened to you a short while ago. Don’t pick the most traumatizing experience of your life. Pick something minor that still has a bit of a charge.
If you’d like to close your eyes while doing this experiment, that’s okay. Some people see more with their eyes closed.
When you go back to that unpleasant situation now, what do you see, what do you hear and what do you feel? As you’re experiencing that moment now, are you in it, looking through your own eyes, or are you observing yourself in that situation? In other words: are you associated or dissociated? Notice the intensity of the feeling.
Okay, that’s enough. Step out of it and stretch a little.
By the way…. what did you have for dinner, yesterday? And what about breakfast?
Now I’d like you to think of a pleasant memory. Pick something fun; a moment that you’d like to relive… and as you go back that moment now, what do you see, what do you hear and what do you feel? Tell me, are you part of the experience, or is it as if you’re watching a movie of yourself?
If you’re dissociated, why not step into the scene and into your body and be part of the moment. It’s easy. You can do it. Notice how different that feels. If it feels better, why not hang out a bit longer before you come back.
If you are associated, step out of your body and look at yourself having fun as if you’re watching yourself on TV. What feels less intense? Being associated or dissociated? If you like, step back into your body and enjoy the moment a bit longer before you open your eyes again. Thanks for playing along!
What did you learn?
Most people tell me that an experience feels more intense when they’re associated, and that’s hardly surprising. If you wish to relive precious memories, association is the way to go because you’re literally in the moment and your body reacts accordingly.
Some people however, are also very good at recreating less than pleasant memories because they’re fully associated. Thus, traumatic experiences are relived again and again very vividly, and can torment a person who hasn’t yet learned to dissociate from them (this is often strengthened by traditional therapy asking the patient to go back to the most horrible situations as they’re fully associated).
Observing an unpleasant or even traumatic memory in a dissociated way, can make a person feel safer because he or she is more detached from the experience.
I have known people who were consistently very good at reliving pleasant memories in a dissociated way, and unpleasant ones while being associated. As you can imagine, they were not very happy campers.
So, what does this little thought experiment have to do with vacation and fitness, you might ask.
No matter how much we might love our work, I happen to believe that it is healthy to step away and dissociate ourselves from our professional activities if we wish to lead a balanced life.
Clients come and go, but family and friends will always be there and they deserve our full attention. Otherwise you might end up like Steve Jobs. One of the reasons he asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography is because, as Jobs revealed:
“I wanted my kids to know me.” (source)
You might be a brilliant individual, but to me that’s a rather sad statement, don’t you think?
“Do you want to know what your father was like? Why don’t you read the book? I heard it was so good, they’re going to turn it into a movie!”
That’s no way to go, so here’s what I suggest you do:
BE KIND. UNWIND.
Spend time with the people you love, and when you do, be in the moment. Give them your full attention. Look them in the eye. Truly listen. Hug them (if that’s your kind of thing). Tell them how much you appreciate them.
Resist the temptation to take out that iPhone and check messages every single hour of the day. Believe me, life will go on.
Get away from your familiar environment. If you stay home, you’ll be back at your computer before you know it. Distance creates distance.
And don’t just do it for others. Do it for yourself.
If you don’t take care of this house you live in you call your body, one day it will push the alarm button and make you pay attention. When that happens, it usually ain’t pretty. And since this is the only house you have, you better take good care of it. That’s one of the reasons I work out.
Take time to recharge your batteries and inspire others. Distance yourself from work and get closer to nature and to those who are dear to you.
Don’t tell me: “I’ll start tomorrow.” You know how that goes. Every day is yesterday’s tomorrow.
Today is just perfect!
Create new memories and associations.
When you start to make heartfelt changes in one area of your life, things in other areas will begin to change as well.
That’s just the way it works.
Whether you realize it or not, everything’s connected to everything else.
Paul Strikwerda ©nethervoice
Be sweet Please retweet!
PS This concludes my short series on health and well-being. In the next three weeks I will review some exceptional gear you’ve probably never heard of, starting with my microphone. | <urn:uuid:5904bd2a-4667-458b-adc6-1643d7874b08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nethervoice.com/2012/08/15/be-kind-unwind/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954414 | 2,286 | 1.515625 | 2 |
November 6, 2012 | 7
It takes a lot to bump the United States election out of the national spotlight one week before election day. Hurricane Sandy was that big, a direct blow to the most heavily populated region of the country. But all the attention going to the northeastern U.S. has a sad consequence: we’re overlooking the devastation Sandy caused in Haiti. This situation offers an ominous warning of what could happen if catastrophe were to affect the entire planet.
This story is very personal for me. I live in New York City, and I do research on global catastrophes. While my neighborhood (Harlem) never lost electricity, this past Thursday and Friday I ventured to the area of Lower Manhattan that did. The area was much quieter than normal – clearly many people had left town. Of the remaining local residents, some reported enjoying the simpler life of “camping at home” and candlelit bars, while others were sick of it and wanted things back to normal. I even saw one woman frantically trying to care for an elderly neighbor who had run out of food and lacked the strength to go outside without her building’s elevator. This is a difficult situation, but as I know from my research, it could have been a lot worse.
Meanwhile in Haiti, things may be worse. It seems sadly inevitable that we have the worst storm to hit the northeastern U.S. in a very long time, and it is disaster-stricken Haiti that may have been hit the hardest. At least 60 Haitians have died from Sandy. The U.S. has more deaths, but these are spread across a much larger affected population. Meanwhile Haiti may now have 200,000 homeless from Sandy, many of whom were still living in makeshift homes built following the 2010 earthquake. Its cholera outbreak could be worsened by the floods. But most worrisome is the large loss of crops. Haiti has an agriculture-oriented economy. The crop damage is prompting concerns about food shortages. For all the destruction in the U.S., it’s not at risk of running out of food.
Despite the dire situation in Haiti, U.S. aid efforts are concentrated on the U.S. side of the storm. A giant benefit concert was held for the American Red Cross. Other domestic aid charities have also reported a spike in donations, whereas international charities report receiving much less. It is quite reasonable for the U.S. to focus on helping its own country, but it is nonetheless unfortunate that this focus could leave Haitians to suffer.
Haiti should get the aid it needs. The U.S. should even be able to help. Yes, we have our own recovery to attend to, but we are a large and wealthy country, most of which was not hit by the storm. Even if the U.S. does not contribute, the rest of the world could, just as it did following the 2010 Haiti earthquake and every other major disaster of recent years. The propensity for countries to help each other out in times of great need – even when those countries are otherwise at odds – is among the most uplifting features of the international system.
But a global catastrophe could thwart the international assistance paradigm. Just as the U.S. is now less able to aid Haiti, a global-scale event could leave each country devastated and with nowhere to turn for help. Each country would have to attempt recovery on its own. Each region within a country may be left to its own devices. Without external assistance, the challenge of recovery would be much more difficult.
No hurricane, however large, will ever cause so great of a global catastrophe. But other events could . Some come from nature, including supervolcano eruptions and large asteroid impacts. But these events are relatively rare, happening no more often than once every 50,000 years. The most urgent come from human activity, including nuclear war and pandemics. Pandemics could come from nature or from bioengineering, but either type of pathogen would be spread by human trade and travel. The worst-case nuclear war and pandemic scenarios are plenty bad enough to prevent international and inter-regional aid. Other processes like climate change and biodiversity loss can cause global disruptions and help trigger global catastrophes.
In the event of a global catastrophe, each region could be left on its own. There would be no benefit concert, no international aid. If a region runs out of food supplies, its residents simply start dying. Rural Haiti may actually fare better than urban New York City, since Haitians are able to grow their own food. New York City without food supplies is a scary thought. A societal breakdown and collapse of law and order is possible, though also not inevitable. Research on the effects of resource scarcities on conflict and violence paints a mixed picture: sometimes scarcities bring more conflict, but not always . Either way, this sort of global catastrophe poses challenges that go far beyond those of Hurricane Sandy.
Fortunately, we do have tools we can use to rise to the challenges of global catastrophe. Building local self-sufficiency can be crucial if external aid becomes unavailable. Preparations like stockpiling food and water help people endure catastrophes of all sizes. Research on specific threats and cross-cutting issues can clarify what we’re up against and point to smarter opportunities to both prevent global catastrophes and recover from them if they occur. And experience with local catastrophes can often be extrapolated to the global scale, as is the case with Hurricane Sandy. As the recovery from Sandy proceeds, we should work towards building society’s resilience to both local and global catastrophes.
Bostrom, Nick and Milan Ćirković, 2008. Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nordås, Ragnhild and Nils Petter Gleditsch, 2007. Climate change and conflict. Political Geography, vol. 26, pages 627-638.
Photos: Seth Baum, and Chimen Lakay. | <urn:uuid:608615cf-51c7-42ed-bee9-1142c7dac0fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/11/06/hurricane-sandy-hints-at-the-perils-of-global-catastrophe/ | 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 | 0.961497 | 1,239 | 2.4375 | 2 |
in your employment practices you ignore 85 percent of the newly available
talent in this country, how are you going to be a great company? How are
you going to compete against companies that recruit from the country's
entire pool of talent? And so, if for no other reason than self-interest,
we ought to do more to maintain a diverse workforce."
and Chief Executive Officer, Lockheed Martin
Here is some
of the work the Global Alliance has accomplished to achieve its mission:
Highlights of Successful International Initiatives for Gender
Equity in the Science and Engineering Workforce will be published by Kluwer
Academic Publishers: The Netherlands. There are examples of best practices and
strategies worldwide that have been successful in increasing women’s participation
in science and engineering; however, only a few efforts have been made to share
these practices worldwide. This paper highlights both exemplary and promising
practices in research, programs, and policies in most regions of the world.
August 26-29, 2005 Seoul,
ICWES 13 The International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists,
is a dynamic international conference for women engineers, scientists and researchers
under the theme of "Women Engineers and Scientists: Main Force to Reshape the Future World".
It provides an opportunity for all participants to interact, exchange thoughts, ideas, and
information that are pertinent to the issues for women in these fields. The Global Alliance
gave a presentation.
June 12-14, 2005 in Baltimore,
CWIT The First International Symposium on Women and Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) took place in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Two
hundred and fifty participants representing six continents and 28 developing
and developed countries, including leaders from business, government, non-government agencies,
and education, gathered to explore concrete ways to increase girls' and women's participation
and leadership with Information and Communication Technology in order to effect economic, social,
and political change. Dr. Suzanne G. Brainard, co-director of the Global Alliance, moderated a panel.
Representation on the planning board of the 2008 World Engineer’s Convention.
World Engineering Convention, Women’s Forum Global Alliance hosted
Women’s Forum at the 2000 and 2004 World Engineers’ Conventions in collaboration
with local engineering societies.
-Shanghai, China November 2004.
-Hannover, Germany June 2000.
Beijing +10 meeting Global Alliance co-hosted an event to raise awareness of
women’s contribution to science and technology.
WFEO Capacity-building Representation on the board of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations
(WFEO) Capacity-building Committee and chair of subcommittee to standardize data collection
world-wide. Ongoing participation in WFEO Capacity building Committee 2008 World Engineering
Expert Panel Global Alliance sponsored an Expert Panel Meeting on Women
in Engineering and Science at UNESCO.
African Women in Engineering and Science
Development of a web-based information resource for women engineering societies in Egypt,
Mali, and Nigeria. Funded by the Engineering Information Foundation.
ICWES 12 Global Alliance sponsored a panel and other events at the 12th International
Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES 12), in July 2002.
IGEPT Ongoing joint U.S./Sweden research project focused on recruitment and retention
of women engineers in higher education and the workforce. The major topics of discussion were
the value and benefits of women in leadership positions and on the integration of gender
into the engineering design process and strategies for making infrastructural changes.
13-14 February 2002
in Boston, Massachusetts: The Global Alliance for Diversifying the Workforce
in Science and Engineering held a study group meeting to develop a joint United States/Sweden
initiative to improve gender equality in the engineering and technological workforce.
This meeting was held in conjunction with the annual AAAS conference. Approximately
forty representatives from Sweden and the United States attended the interactive panels
and discussions. The major topics of discussion were the value and benefits of women in
leadership positions and on the integration of gender into the engineering design process
and strategies for making infrastructural changes.
Representation on the INWES board.
1-6 July 2001
in Copenhagen, Denmark: GASAT
10 Conference: World Wide Wisdom- socially responsible and gender inclusive
Science and Technology was the tenth conference held by Gender And
Science And Technology (GASAT). GASAT Association, which is an international
association of people concerned with issues arising from interactions between
gender and science and technology. The goal of the tenth GASAT conference
was to examine how informal and indigenous scientific and technological
knowledge issues may be integrated in and made useful to formal education
within science and technology. The Global Alliance gave a presentation
at this conference.
2001 in Alexandria, VA: 2001
JOINT NAMEPA/WEPAN NATIONAL CONFERENCE: Co-Champions for Diversity in Engineering
explored ideas to increase the participation of women and minorities in
the field of engineering. Presentations and discussion groups discussed
collaborations between industry/education/government, research and evaluations
studies, factors affecting the under-representation of faculty and admission
and retention of students, international programs, and training materials.
The Global Alliance gave a presentation.
2001 in San Francisco, CA: The Global Alliance co-sponsored this year's
Women in Science meeting, titled "Advancing the Participation of Women
in Science, Engineering, and Technology in a Global Context." This meeting
focused on the recommendations of two reports on the participation of women
in science, one from CAWMSET
and the other from ETAN.
The annual Women in Science meeting was one of several events held that
day, in conjunction with the 2001 AWIS Annual Meeting.
2000 in Stockholm, Sweden: The Global Alliance shared its expertise
at the Building and
Sustaining Infrastructure for Gender-Empowered Partnerships in the Technological
fields (IGEPT 2000) held under the auspices of the County Governors
of Stockholm and Gavleborg. The goals of IGEPT 2000 were to discuss gender
perspectives and women action programs in the engineering and technical
fields; entrepreneurship, partnership and leadership; and, technology and
engineering education. In addition, the Global Alliance signed a formal
partnership agreement with the Ministry of Industry in Sweden. Read
the full report or
summary of the IGEPT 2000 meeting.
19-21 June 2000
in Hannover, Germany: The
Global Alliance co-hosted an international forum, "Women
in Engineering and Science" at the World
Engineers Convention during EXPO 2000. In partnership with the Women
in Engineering Profession Area of the German Association of Engineers (VDI),
this forum, held on 21 June 2000, focused on strategies and best practices
for recruitment and retention in science and engineering in higher education
institutions and advancement of women scientists and engineers in the workplace.
A formal letter of cooperation was also signed between the Global Alliance
and VDI. View the conference abstracts
and final report.
5-6 June 2000
in New York, NY: The
Global Alliance hosted a "Forum
on Women in Science and Technology" to complement the UN's Beijing
+5 Review Conference on progress made in Beijing. It highlighted the critical
role that women's involvement in S & T issues play in the twelve areas
of concern from Beijing. Report to be published.
21 Feb 2000
in Washington, DC:
The Global Alliance held a one-day working session In conjunction with
the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference
in an Uncertain Millennium," in February 2000. Organizations across
the world attended to share their perspectives on global diversity.
WA. Women & Minorities in Trade & Technology Forum. Sponsored
by the Seattle Host Organization for the World Trade Organization Ministerial
report available here.
July 1999: Brussels,
Belgium. "Women & Science: Networking the Networks." Hosted
by the European Commission, Directorate - General: Science, Research and
GASAT Ninth International Conference.
Budapest, Hungary. Collaborators of the Global Alliance participated in
the six-day World Conference on Science organized by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International
Council for Science. The major products, adopted by the conference included
two consensus documents, a Declaration
on Science and the Use of Scientific, Knowledge and Science Agenda-Framework
for Action, include strong statements about the commitment to encourage
more female participation in science and engineering fields. Dr. Shirley
Malcolm and Ms. Yolanda S. George summarize the statements regarding gender
in this paper.
Germany. A presentation on the Global Alliance was made at the Aachen Technical
University where presidents, deans and chairs of departments in engineering
were present. A very enthusiastic audience expressed its interest in the
Alliance and in increasing the participation of women students and faculty.
The University is particularly interested in technical assistance and training.
The Rector of the Danish Technical University hosted a two-day Global Alliance
working session with representatives from industry, education and professional
associations. With eight countries represented, the focus was on further
clarification of the meaning of diversity; an in-depth discussion of the
potential services of the Global Alliance; a proposal for the Alliance
to have a presence at conferences already scheduled; and a discussion about
the organizational structure of the Alliance. The outcomes of the meeting
included specific action steps for each organization to further explore
the possibilities of participation and the scheduling of another meeting
in Denmark at the end of September 1999. A working paper was produced.
Anaheim, California. An Inaugural Planning Conference for Diversifying
the Workforce in S&E was held in conjunction with the 1999 Annual AAAS
Meeting. The purpose of this meeting was to more formally shape the direction
and the future activities of the Global Alliance and to explore different
organizational structures. Professionals representing private foundations,
educational institutions, professional associations, industry and government
worldwide were invited.
Budapest, Hungary Participation at UNESCO/ICSU World Conference on Science.
South Africa. "Global Perspective" Women in Science & Technology
Conference of the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science & Technology.
Tremblant, Canada. Tackling the Engineering Resource Shortage Presentation.
Sponsored by the Engineering Information Foundation (EIF).
London, UK. Working Session at the Engineering Council in the United
Kingdom to begin to strategically address the global need for broader participation
of women in the science and engineering professions. The specific objectives
for this first meeting were to: identify appropriate programs and activities
that meet the needs of individual countries; identify creative strategies
for effecting systemic change; identify collaborative organizations; identify
other countries to invite; and identify specific types of collaborative
projects. The participants of the WEPAN/AAAS/AWIS Working Session concluded
that there was a critical need to learn more about successful recruitment
and retention strategies. The primary outcome of this meeting was a call
to establish a global alliance of organizations, identify best practices
in industry and education from different countries, and develop a plan
to sustain the Global Alliance. A working paper was produced.
Manila, Philippines. APEC Experts Meeting on Gender, Science, and
Paris, France. Establishing an International Coalition of Women in Science
and Engineering Organiztion. Sponsored by British Emmbassy in Paris.
Beijing, China. Fourth World Conference on Women.
never used the expression 'It's the right thing to do'. I think it's a
'70s expression. And doing this [diversifying the workforce] is no more
right than upgrading the facilities. [What Bell Atlantic needs most is]
more diversity of thinking. If everybody in the room is the same, you'll
have a lot fewer arguments and a lot worse answers." | <urn:uuid:b6c6a449-709f-4fa0-a732-26330c14c375> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalalliancesmet.org/accomp.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903547 | 2,541 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Dec 30, 2009
The article "State offering fresh rebates for solar panels" relates to the "Clean energy” clause in GB submission guidelines. Which say "Articles should be on the topics of gas prices, crude oil, clean energy, fuel efficient vehicles or related automotive articles."
More use of renewable energy help meet power demands which can translate to less use of oil, gas by the mass population and lowered demand can led to prices falling for OPEC oil and gas since people would be less dependent by using more alternatives like local natural gas solar, wind, tidal, hydrogen and more.
You can try to submit a story and look at the guidelines yourself. http://www.winnipeggasprices.com/Suggest-News-Article.aspx | <urn:uuid:ec3a71f7-e348-45de-b678-ac42790009c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagogasprices.com/Profile.aspx?member=filcut | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904445 | 156 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Can I Learn Biology Through SAT Subject Prep Book?
Hey, I plan on applying to college as a pre-med student, so of course I would like to take the Biology Subject Test. However, I did not take biology this year (my counselor messed up my schedule). So, unfortunately I will not be able to take a full year of AP Bio before I apply to college. Therefore, I was wondering is it possible to get a good (650+) grade on the AP Bio Subject Test by mainly studying a Biology Subject Test Prep book?
Also, which brand do you think is best in order to study for the Biology Subject Tests? | <urn:uuid:e36481bf-8287-4185-95c3-1d50cb25cb74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/1351960-can-i-learn-biology-through-sat-subject-prep-book.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968819 | 130 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Growing autoflowering plants indoors in Eastern Europe makes sense because long photoperiods are needed to counter the cold of winter, to maximise the plants’ vegetative growth before taking them outside in the spring.
Gnomo has made a name for itself throughout Europe as one of the classic autoflowering varieties because of its indoor performance.
The influence of our Mataró Blue predominates in this cross with rudelaris, creating a high-yield autoflowering plant with lots of flavour.
The best results are obtained with soil as the substrate and plant pots between 3.5 and 7 litres in volume when growing indoors, to optimise the crop space.
Outdoors a 10-litre pot will give excellent results. The plant is unaffected by over-fertilisation, so large quantities of fertiliser can be used.
The plant usually grows to a height of 25-80cm, although on rare occasions it may reach 1 metre or more.
As the variety has now been stabilised over the course of several generations, you can harvest it without problems within 8 weeks from seed. Planting in April will result in a small crop in midsummer — at least enough to keep you going until the harvest ends in September.
For the best results we recommend using high-pressure sodium (HPS) bulbs from the first transplant until germination. Using 400W/HPS lamps for 18 hours will assure optimal growth for an abundant harvest.
This variety has large flowers that tend to take on the electric-blue tone that is typical of Mataró Blue.
The flavour is similar to acidic fruits, with a strong high, as it has the highest psychoactivity of all the autoflowering varieties on the market.
Get ready for the blue gnomes to take you to their world of imagination. | <urn:uuid:2c7c54b8-0fe3-497a-b975-3f4509bf5b9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kannabia.es/en/productseeds/gnomo-auto | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93916 | 379 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Paracord, also known as parachute cord and 550 cord, is an extremely useful survival tool. Paracord is essentially nylon rope that has been intertwined to make it stronger. Standard 550 cord contains seven strands of nylon cord within it, and has a minimum breaking strenth of 550 pounds.
Today, I want to share with you my top ten favorite uses for paracord.
#10 Survival Bracelets – Wrapping paracord into a bracelet is lightweight and easy to carry on your wrist. Then you always have some in case of an emergency.
#9 Keychains and Lanyards - Paracord makes a cool lanyard or a knife fob. It can be tied into a monkey fist, or into a boondoggle easily.
#8 Shoelaces and Belts – You can use paracord to substitute for a belt in an emergency, or you could wrap it into a cool belt for everyday use. If you replace your shoelaces with paracord, then you will always have some on hand.
#7 Emergency Rappel Rope – Because paracord is strength tested to 550 pounds it is strong enough to hold a person’s weight. This would not necessarily be a comfortable way to rappel, but would work in an emergency.
#6 Knife and Tool Repair - Lets say the grip on your knife wears down. Paracord can be an excellent substitute to a slippery surface that has no grip. Some knives come with ready made paracord handles.
#5 Clothesline – You are stuck in the outdoors and don’t have a way to dry your wet clothes? Paracord is a great option. Just tie a line between two trees!
#4 Repairing Bags and Gear – Hole in your backpack or bag? Paracord can fix that too. You can split the strands inside down to use as thread to repair bags, and clothes.
#3 Animal Snares – Usually for an animal snare, you need a strong rope. Paracord is a great option.
#2 Fishing Line – Just separate the strands within the cord, and add a hook.
#1 Building A Shelter - The ultimate survival tool, for the ultimate survival need. Will hold up canvas, or pretty much any other material you would want to use to make a shelter. | <urn:uuid:18e6f9c4-505f-411f-acf9-f86748a391ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.survivalgearblog.com/top-ten-uses-for-paracord-550-cord/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929835 | 486 | 2.109375 | 2 |
CW’s post on the history of technology got me to thinking about the decline of one piece of technology that I’ve personally witnessed – film cameras.
Up until WWII, the camera world spoke German. Leica, Hassleblad, Rollei – names like those were on the lips of every serious photographer in the pre-war years, but Kodak would do for the budget conscious. The Japanese started making these cheapy-cheap cameras in the 50s as part of their recovery effort, because even before the War, photography was a national pastime. I remember my father reminiscing about the post-war cameras and how they’d laugh at the “clink” of the mechanisms.
But those cameras sold well to kids and budget-conscious novices. The Japanese are fanatical about attention to detail, and as they brought in revenue from those cheap cameras, their quality got better and better. Names such as Cannon, Mamiya and Pentax suddenly started appearing on the lips of serious photographers, and the medium format camera of the real pros was no longer a wholly German province anymore.
For fast results, of course, Polaroid ruled the roost (and still do for official documents), but those consumer Polaroid photographs degrade to a green blur over time. Still, for applications that required a fast print, Polaroid was the way to go. Today’s kids miss out on the smell of that paper as you peeled it away from the print – always a thrill to a little kid seeing his image slowly come into focus on the film.
Of course, in high school and college I knew nothing of medium and large format cameras - I was never much of a photographer, but my wife is an avid one. In graduate school, through her, I began to discover the world of the 35mm SLR and began to understand the lust for medium format that resided in every serious photographer’s heart.
In 1997, I entered business school. One of my teachers was an actual venture capitalist, and he had invested in a company that was promoting a new technology – digital cameras. Even in 1997 digital cameras were usually bulky and hard to use, with low resolution, But one set of early adopters drove the market – real estate agents. Instead of taking a Polaroid and making a photocopy, a digital image could be emailed to a prospective agent or buyer instantly. This was an instant hit with everyone who had been using Polaroids for similar applications. My teacher made a lot of money at it.
But still, for serious, high resolution work, film ruled the day. The photography world was split over Fuji and Kodak film. The subject of choosing a film type for a given application took up a lot of space in photography magazines. It was generally accepted that Kodak had the better resolution and Fuji had the better color balance, but there was a bewildering array of film types for the professional and serious amateur. Kodak had dominated the American market until they let the chemists get in charge. Those technically-trained senior officers concentrated on further and further technical refinements in resolution that no one but a pro, and even then, only a pro blowing up to poster size, would appreciate. Fuji understood that for most 4 or 5 inch prints, and to most people snapping pictures of their kids, it’s the color that matters. And they had marketers in charge who understood the power of advertising. Fuji scooped Kodak for sponsorship of the 1984 Olympic Games, gaining huge share in the American market. After that, Kodak was playing catch-up, right on into the digital age. If there is ever an argument against the common technical worker’s whine that they do the real work and marketing adds no value, Kodak is it.
Film was still the serious medium of choice in 1999 when my wife and I moved to Tokyo. We were living in photography Mecca. In the US, we had to drive over an hour to find a photography store with a so-so collection of film. In Japan, I worked not far from Yodobashi Camera, the headquarters of the largest retail camera chain in Japan. My wife thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Any type of film she would read about in a book, magazine, or internet post could be found in the film department in the basement of the main store (Yodobashi has about 5 buildings in Shinjuku, all specializing in different things, there’s even a narrow, 6 story building dedicated only to watches).
My wife had a pretty good SLR in Japan (a Cannon), and I had a little Olympus digital for snapshots. I think we went through 2 or 3 of those Olympus cameras as the resolution kept getting better.
But film was still king. We’d go up to the 4th floor of the camera store to let my wife salivate over the huge selection of Hassleblad, Leica, Mamiya, and Pentax medium and large formats. Then she’d go get a sample of Kodak or Fuji’s latest and greatest film.
In the basement of the building where I worked, Pentax had a showroom, half of which was used as an art gallery. Famous Japanese photographers would get a Pentax camera for free and then go out to someplace exotic and take exquisite photographs that were shown in the gallery in large poster format. The camera and lenses used to take the pictures would always be center stage. The show rotated every 2 weeks, so my wife and I would go to lunch together, then peruse the gallery on my lunch break. Good times.
My wife took photography classes and perfected her craft. She took thousands upon thousands of pictures. In July and August, there are fireworks festivals pretty much every weekend somewhere in Tokyo or its environs. She took wonderful pictures of the fireworks on her film camera, while around us in the crowded venues thousands of Japanese were doing the same thing. We’d go early so she could pick our spot. We’d get a box of chicken strips from the KFC in our train station, grab a bunch of drinks from the convenience store, and head out to the park. Once there we had hours to kill, me reading and snacking on that perennial Japanese festival food, grilled squid on a stick, and she snacking on chicken and fiddling with her camera. She even bought a heavy-duty 35 mm SLR EOS system which could take multiple shots per second and had a 45 point focusing system that would track which object your eye was looking at in the field of view and focus on that.
When the pictures of the fireworks, or the castle, or the volcano (we’ve climbed Mt. Fuji twice) were done, we’d bring them back to Yodobashi for developing. Out in front of the main store, on the opposite side from the cameras, in front of the printers, Yodobashi had a kiosk for dropping off film (the kiosks are on the lower right in that photograph, you can't make them out, though). My wife was having none of that for her precious pictures, I was often sent to work with a couple of dozen rolls of film, so that I could climb to the top of the camera building to where the real photo developing center was, and drop off the film on my lunch break. The film drop-off counter only took up about a third of the floor space on that floor, the rest was dedicated to photo albums and their detritus – photo corners and various mounts.
The girls and ladies at the counter grew to recognize me. When I first arrived in Japan, they gave me a lot of the “上手ですね” (you're very skilled, aren't you?) that Japanese often give to foreigners who fill out forms in Kanji instead of English or Kana. Gradually I became just the American dude with all the film. Many of the ladies knew me by name, and Yamada-san always greeted me as soon as I cleared the last step and walked onto their floor.
We left Japan in 2001, but I go back two or three times a year. My wife kept a supply of film from Yodobashi in the freezer for the longest time. For the really good film types, she didn’t trust American developers, and would send me on my biannual pilgrimages with a couple of dozen new rolls for Yodobashi to develop. Even two years after we moved back to America, Yamada-san still knew my name.
Gradually, however, we switched over to digital. The resolution nearly caught up to film, my wife’s SLR came out in a really nice digital version, and developing that many pictures for one or two good shots on the roll is expensive. I was no longer sent to Japan to bring back film for the stash in the freezer.
Three years ago, I was in for a shock – the Pentax Forum was gone! A little piece of my personal history, and a big piece of the history of technology, was gone. Medium format film cameras no longer drew shoppers into the Pentax store, and they switched to selling over the internet. The store and gallery next door, however, was still going strong – a showroom and showcase for Epson printers.
I hadn’t been back to Yodobashi’s camera store in over two years when I went back just a few weeks ago. I’d told my friend Eric that I’d check out the tripods when I was there, and even though I think he already got a nice Slik from B&H, I thought I’d check to see if what I’d told him was still true – that while even Japanese cameras are more expensive in Japan than in the US, the accessories are often cheaper. Turns out that’s sort of still true, but you now have to be careful. Asia is not the bargain it once was (if Japan ever was).
But the prices on the tripods were not the big shock. I made a beeline for the camera section in the main store. There were the digital cameras on the first floor like they used to be. But I headed up the stairs for the film camera section. It was gone! There were plasma flatscreens for sale where the film counter used to be! There were printers in the basement where the film cases used to be, the refrigerated counters like an open dairy case of roll after roll of high grade film. No tripods either. I asked a clerk where the tripods were. He pointed me to a narrow building across the street that used to house digital camera accessories, not quite as small as the watch building, but pretty close.
And there I found the film cameras. A few tiny floors. One example each of film medium formats (some with digital backs) in a sad little 3 shelf display case on the third floor, along with some used medium format cameras, which Yodobashi never used to carry - they left the used market to Camera Doi across the road. Camera Doi is now completely gone from Shinjuku, I think.
The tripods took up one floor, making the camera selection on the other floors even tinier. And no film. No refrigerated cases. And saddest of all for me, no Yamada-san. The top floor had a tiny selection of photo albums, but no film drop off counter. I guess they do most of their film selling and developing through the internet now. Not enough people buy it in a store to make a big display economically feasible. There I was in the camera store that always débuted the best new Japanese cameras of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and now film cameras were an afterthought. The kiosk by the main store that used to have racks and racks of envelopes for you to drop your film into for developing still has kiosks. But they are photo printers that take smart media cards and give you a print on the spot.
This was made all the more surreal by the fact that the Yodobashi jingle was still playing over the outside loudspeakers, a jingle I suspect has not changed in 35 years, the one set to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic": 新宿駅西口の前 (Shinkjuku eki nishi guchi no ma-ei).
So in less than a decade, I can paint a picture of the demise of a technology, in the very country and the very city where it was popularized, from its dominant prime to a curiosity for hobbyists and old fogies who are having none of this digital revolution.
Most technologies die a much slower death. A number of farmers still plowed with horses up until the 1940s, including my own grandfather. Tractors and horses fed America side by side for decades. But the advantages of high-resolution digital were just too great. Instant gratification combined with resolutions that rival or even beat film, killed the old technology. At the moment, I don’t see anything replacing CCDs in the near term. And even then, the future will still be digital.
I wonder where Yamada-san landed. This being Japan, I pretty sure she’s working for Yodobashi in some capacity. I had a touch of nostalgia that night working my way back in a slightly inebriated fashion to the hotel though the electronics stores and izakayas of Nishi Shinjuku’s back alleys. But I’m not particularly sad about the decline of film. It was me, after all, who lugged all that film to the developer. ;-) | <urn:uuid:84878413-e913-4aa3-a8b9-f59be50eff81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://refugeesfromthecity.blogspot.com/2008/10/decline-and-fall.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978357 | 2,854 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Music and intelligence: A guide for the science-minded
© 2008-2013 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved
Is there is link between music and intelligence?
Yes, there is.
Forget the Mozart effect. The real action seems to occur when children learn to play musical instruments.
Music and intelligence: The effects of passive listening
The Mozart effect doesn’t cause lasting improvements in IQ
Everybody’s heard of the
-—the notion that you can increase your intelligence by listening to Mozart’s music.
Experiments have reported that people enjoyed brief improvements in their visual-spatial skills immediately after listening to a Mozart sonata (Rauscher et al 1993; Hetland 2000).
However, the results have been inconsistent, with some labs failing replicate the effect. It's also unclear if it was really the music that was responsible for the temporary enhancement of intelligence.
It's plausible that people improved their performance because listening to music elevated their mood and left them feeling more alert (Schellenberg 2005).
And whatever the cause, it seems unlikely that passive listening can make you smarter in the long-term.
In the experiments cited above, the effect did not appear to last more than 10-15 minutes.
So if you’re looking for a way to boost your child’s intelligence, the Mozart effect is a bust.
Music might help prime people for concentrating on spatial tasks, and there is evidence that
kids who listen to music while they draw produce more creative artwork.
But that’s about it.
Taking music lessons, though...that’s another matter entirely. Research indicates that music lessons changes the course of brain development. And there is evidence that musical training can have a small, beneficial effect on non-musical intellectual performance.
Music and intelligence:
How musical training shapes the brain
Brain scanning technologies have permitted neuroscientists to test ideas about the link between music and intelligence. And the results are clear:
Musicians have distinctively different brains.
Their brains react differently to sound. For instance, in one study, people who played musical instruments as children showed more robust brainstem responses to sound than did non-musicians (Skoe and Kraus 2012).
Other studies have reported that kids assigned to receive musical training developed distinctive neural responses to music and speech -- evidence of more intense information processing that was linked with improvements in the discrimination of pitch and the segmentation of speech (Moreno et al 2009; Chobert et al 2012; François et al 2012).
But it's not just a matter of differences in brain activity. There are also differences in brain volume.
If you examine the brain of a keyboard player, you’ll find that the region of the brain that controls finger movements is enlarged (Pascual-Leone 2001).
Moreover, brain scans of 9- to 11-year old children have revealed that those kids who play musical instruments have significantly more grey matter volume in both the sensorimotor cortex and the occipital lobes (Schlaug et al 2005).
In fact, musicians have significantly more grey matter in several brain regions (Schlaug et al 2005), and the effects of music lessons seem to increase with the intensity of training.
One study compared professional keyboard players with amateurs. Although both groups had music training, the professionals practiced twice as much. The professionals also had significantly more grey matter volume in a number of brain regions (Gaser and Schlaug 2003).
In the genes?
It's not simply a case of genetics—-i.e., that people with more grey matter volume are more likely to become musicians. Research suggests that the brains of non-musicians change in response to musical training.
In one study, non-musicians were assigned to perform a 5-finger exercise on the piano for two hours a day. Within five days, subjects showed evidence of re-wiring. The size of the area associated with finger movements had become larger and more active (Pascual-Leone 2001)
So it's reasonable to think that the brain grows in response to music training. Does these brain differences reflect differences in intelligence?
In the study of 9 to 11-year olds, musicians performed better on several tests than did their non-musical peers. They scored significantly higher on tests of vocabulary and finger tapping. They also exhibited a strong, but statistically non-significant, trend towards better spatial and math skills (Schlaug et al 2005).
And other studies reveal a variety of notable--and statistically significant--differences in test scores between musicians and non-musicians.
Music and intelligence:
Musicians perform better on cognitive tasks
People with music training often outperform their non-musical peers on cognitive tasks (Schellenberg 2006).
For instance, a study of 4 to 6-year olds found that musically-trained kids performed better on a test of working memory (Fujioka et al 2006).
Other research (Schellenberg 2006; Patel and Iverson 2007) indicates that musicians perform significantly better on tests of
• Spatial-temporal skills
• Math ability
• Reading skills
• Verbal memory
• Phonemic awareness
Musically-trained people also perform better on general intelligence tests.
In a cross-sectional study of Canadian school children, E. Glenn Schellenberg (2006) found that kids who took music lessons had slightly higher IQs. The effects were general, cutting across several different intellectual abilities (e.g., verbal, mathematical, and temporal-spatial). Music lessons were associated with abilities associated with fluid intelligence, such as
• Working memory
• Perceptual organization
• Processing speed
They were also associated with increased verbal comprehension and better high school grades.
These differences remained significant after controlling for a child’s age, nonmusical activities, family income, and parent’s education.
Finally, a new study of older adults--aged 65-80--found a correlation between childhood music training and cognitive performance. The more years a person had spent playing an instrument, the better he performed on tests of word recall, visual (nonverbal) memory, and cognitive flexibility (Hanna-Pladdy and Mackay 2011).
Why might music lessons enhance intelligence?
Musicians tend to be smarter than average, which suggests the possibility that music training enhances intelligence. How would that work?
E. Glenn Schellenberg and other researchers offer several possibilities (Schellenberg 2005; Shlaug et al 2005). Maybe music training boosts non-musical intellectual performance by honing skills of general importance.
For instance, students of music are required to
• focus attention for long periods of time
• decode a complex symbolic system (musical notation)
• translate the code into precise motor patterns
• recognize patterns of sound across time
• discriminate differences in pitch
• learn rules of pattern formation
• memorize long passages of music
• track and reproduce rhythms
• understand ratios and fractions (e.g., a quarter note is half as long as a half note)
• improvise within a set of musical rules
If children improve these skills, they might find their improvements transfer to other domains, like language and mathematics.
But there is also the “killjoy” hypothesis--the idea that music lessons are the effect, not the cause, of higher IQs.
Music and intelligence: Is the link driven merely by prior ability?
Whether or not music lessons enhance intelligence, one thing seems a sure bet. Part of link between music training and intelligence can be explained by the prior abilities of the musician.
Maybe parents with higher IQs are more likely to enroll their kids in music lessons. Or maybe kids with higher IQs are more likely to seek out and stick with music lessons because they find music training more rewarding (Schellenberg 2006). Either way, this could explain the correlation between music training and IQ.
So the crucial question is this: How can we rule out the idea that the link between music and intelligence is entirely determined by prior ability? What's needed are controlled experiments, randomly assigning kids with no prior music training to receive lessons.
Several studies have pursued this approach, and the results support the idea that music training contributes to cognitive enhancements.
Evidence that music training is the cause—not merely the effect—of higher IQ
One study randomly assigned 4-year olds to receive either weekly keyboard lessons or a control condition for 6-8 months. The kids who received music training performed better on a test of spatial skills (Rauscher et al 1997). These results were replicated by other research (Rauscher 2002).
Another experimental study randomly assigned 6-year-olds to receive one of four treatments during the school year:
• Keyboard lessons
• Vocal lessons
• Drama lessons
• No lessons
By the end of the school year, all participants experienced a small increase in IQ. However, the kids who received music lessons showed significantly more improvement than the other groups did (Schellenberg 2004).
These results support the idea that musical training causes a modest improvement in IQ. But, as E. Glenn Schellenberg points out, we don’t know long the effect will last and at least one music training experiment has failed to find a link between music and intelligence (Costa-Giomi 1999; Schellenberg 2006).
One problem, says Schellenberg, is that a lot of people drop out of these experiments before they are completed. More long-term studies should help clear thing up.
One such study is being conducted by Gottfried Schlaug and his colleagues at the Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.
These researchers are tracking the effects of music lessons--specifically, piano and violin lessons--on brain development and cognition.
Fifty kids, aged 5 to 7 years, began the study with no prior music training. Before starting music lessons, these kids were given brain scans and cognitive tests to establish baselines. Researchers are also following a control group, matched for age, socioeconomic status and verbal IQ.
Fifteen months into the study, the musically-trained kids showed greater improvement in finger motor skills and auditory discrimination skills.
Although there were no other behavioral differences between groups, the musicians also showed structural brain differences in
• regions linked with motor and auditory processing, and
• "various frontal areas, the left posterior peri-cingulate and a left middle occipital region" (Hyde et al 2009)
The trained kids were expected to show differences in motor and auditory processing centers. The other changes were unexpected, but may relate to the brain's need to integrate information from various modalities (visual, motor, auditory, et cetera).
Schlaug and colleagues will to track these kids for many years. For more information about their
continuing research on music and intelligence, check out their website.
to read about an experimental study that suggests 20 days of music training -- when combined with training for better executive function -- can enhance a child's self-control and verbal intelligence (Moreno et al 2011).
Music and intelligence: The bottom line
Nobody rules out the idea that genes may be responsible for much of the IQ advantage enjoyed by musicians. But researchers strongly suspect that music training is responsible for some of the effect. In the next few years, we may have definitive evidence on this point.
Meanwhile? I think there's good reason to offer music lessons to children in primary school. Cognitive benefits aside, we shouldn’t overlook the obvious: Music lessons are intrinsically rewarding. When kids learn to play a musical instrument, they are laying the groundwork for a lifetime’s appreciation of music.
You can help fuel your child's interest by sharing the world's best music with him. I've found a website,
where you can do this for free.
It's a catalog of over 4800 classical performances (many of them complete) that can be downloaded free and legally.
Best of all, the site is indexed by composer, performer, genres, and even instruments. So if your child wants to know what an oboe sounds like, you can quickly find and download Mozart's Quartet and Oboe for Strings in F major.
References: Music and intelligence
Chobert J, François C, Velay JL, and Besson M. 2012. Twelve Months of Active Musical Training in 8- to 10-Year-Old Children Enhances the Preattentive Processing of Syllabic Duration and Voice Onset Time. Cereb Cortex. 2012 Dec 12. [Epub ahead of print]
Costa-Giomi E. 1999. The effects of three years of piano instruction on children’s cognitive development. Journal of research in music education 47: 198-212.
François C, Chobert J, Besson M, and Schön D. 2012. Music Training for the Development of Speech Segmentation. Cereb Cortex. 2012 Jul 10. [Epub ahead of print]
Fujioka T, Ross B, Kakigi R, Pantev C, and Trainor LJ. 2006. One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. Brain. 129(Pt 10):2593-608
Gaser C and Schlaug G. 2003. Brain structures differ between musicians and nonmusicians. Journal of Neuroscience 23: 9240-9245.
Hanna-Pladdy B, Mackay A. 2011. The relation between instrumental musical activity and cognitive aging. Neuropsychology. 2011 Apr 4. [Epub ahead of print]
Hetland L. 2000. Listening to music enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: Evidence for the "Mozart effect." The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 34(3/4): 105--148.
Hyde KL, Lerch J, Norton A, Forgeard M, Winner E, Evans AC, Schlaug G. 2009. The effects of musical training on structural brain development: a longitudinal study. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1169:182-6.
Moreno S, Marques C, Santos A, Santos M, Castro SL, and Besson M. 2009. Musical training influences linguistic abilities in 8-year-old children: more evidence for brain plasticity. Cereb Cortex. 19(3):712-23.
Moreno, S., Bialystok, E., Barac, R., Schellenberg, E. G., Cepeda, N. J., & Chau, T. 2011. Short-term music training enhances verbal intelligence and executive function. Psychological Science. Epub 2011 Oct 3.
Pascual-Leone A. 2001. The Brain That Plays Music and Is Changed by It. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 930 (1): 315–329.
Patel AD and Iversen JR. 2007. The linguistic benefits of musical abilities. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11:369-372.
Rauscher FH, Shaw GL and Ky, KN. 1993. Music and spatial task performance. Nature 365: 611.
Rauscher FH, Shaw GL, Levine, LJ, Wright EL, Dennis WR, and Newcomb RL. 1997. Music training causes long-term enhancements of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning. Neurological Research 19: 2-8.
Rauscher FH. 2002. Mozart and the mind: Factual and fictional effects of musical enrichment. In J Aronson (ed), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors in education, pp. 267-278. San Diego: Academic Press.
Schellenberg EG. 2004. Music lessons enhance IQ. Psychological Science 15(8) 511-514.
Schellenberg EG. 2005. Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ. Journal of Educational Psychology 98(2): 457-468.
Schellenberg EG. 2006. Long-term positive associations between music lessons and IQ. Journal of Educational Psychology 98(2): 457-468.
Schellenberg EG. 2011. Examining the association between music lessons and intelligence. Br J Psychol. 102(3):283-302.
Schlaug G, Norton A, Overy K and Winner E. 2005. Effects of music training on the child’s brain and cognitive development. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1060: 219-230.
Skoe E and Kraus N. 2012. A little goes a long way: how the adult brain is shaped by musical training in childhood. J Neurosci. 32(34):11507-10.
Content last modified 5/13 | <urn:uuid:3f2e67ed-a302-4f59-bc09-f07226c0fc8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentingscience.com/music-and-intelligence.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91896 | 3,487 | 3.421875 | 3 |
We've been getting lots of cool photos of the halo around the moon. This is pretty common and it happens around the sun and the moon. When we have cirrus clouds pass in front of the moon or sun, this can happen. The cirrus clouds are made up of ice crystals and act like a prism and bend the moon or sunlight to form a halo.
Dave P sent in this picture | <urn:uuid:b0ace13e-0919-44fc-a96f-2f81c04836b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwltv.com/news/slideshows/Viewers-send-in-pics-of-halo-around-moon-187827641.html?gallery=y&c=y&ref=%2Fnews%2Fslideshows&img=0&c=y&c=y&c=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945328 | 83 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Pharma companies are increasingly recognizing the value of patient-support programs and the resources they provide that help patients manage their conditions in a more holistic and supportive way. This is particularly true with chronic diseases, where adherence and persistence remain significant problems. But how well are these patient-support programs performing?
An expansive study of current patient-support programs uncovered some surprising results, including the following:
• Out of 59 leading brands for chronic conditions, more than half don't even offer a patient-support program
• While few programs perform consistently well against all measurement criteria, several set “best practice” standards in specific areas
• All patient-support programs have substantial opportunities for improvement against best practices
The power of six: How the programs were rated
To evaluate the effectiveness of each patient-support program, MicroMass developed a set of six evaluation criteria based on an exhaustive review of secondary literature and third-party studies and guidelines. The study drew on behavioral science to predict the drivers of positive health outcomes, also looking to other industries to appreciate what drives consumer loyalty and perceptions.
The six evaluation categories are:
1. Health education principles
2. Treatment attitudes
3. Illness perceptions
4. Patient-healthcare provider relationships
5. Social/environmental factors
6. Marketing integration
For each of these categories, specific evaluation questions were developed and assigned a numeric value, permitting each program to be reviewed against responses to the questions on a 100-point scale.
The study next identified 13 chronic diseases and the 59 brands commonly used to treat them. Since many brands did not offer patient-support programs, the study ended up with 25 programs to evaluate.
Researchers registered for each program using two distinct patient profiles and systematically logged all materials received. To be as inclusive as possible, “patient-support programs” were defined as any support services associated with a brand that patients could register for online or via regular mail. Professional marketing materials associated with these brands were also examined, but behaviorists did not have access to patient resources developed for use and distribution through healthcare provider offices. For objectivity, programs developed by MicroMass were excluded.
Who's leading the way?
Those who create patient-support programs know the many challenges faced in bringing them to market. Behind the end product are many months of research, planning, conception, content development, design, medical-legal-regulatory reviews, production, programming and testing. Following this arduous process, the final program is rarely what was originally envisioned.
Despite these challenges, many brands are delivering thoughtful and valuable patient-support programs. The top six overall were Enbrel (Amgen/Pfizer), Betaseron (Bayer), Gleevec (Novartis), Januvia (Merck), Victoza (Novo Nordisk), and Rebif (EMD Serono). And while no one brand is delivering equally well across all six evaluation categories, some are doing especially well in individual categories. Here are three patient-support programs that stand out in this way:
Humalog “Small Steps” Eli Lilly & Co.
The health education principles dimension of the evaluation framework is about employing best-in-class approaches that ensure messages are understood by, relevant to, and engaging for patients. Examples of specific criteria within this dimension include developing content at appropriate health-literacy levels, application of learning styles, and delivery of targeted information. Humalog's Small Steps program received one of the highest scores in this dimension at 83%.
The materials within Small Steps use icons, photos and simple illustrations to reinforce important concepts like symptoms of low blood sugar and mealtime blood-sugar spikes. There is also an interactive “scratch-off” checklist in one of the direct-mail pieces that helps simplify key steps and encourages patients to establish positive patterns surrounding their mealtimes.
Rebif “MS LifeLines” EMD Serono
The social/environmental factors part of the framework involves reducing functional barriers (e.g., cost), increasing environmental support, and integrating treatment into patients' everyday lives. The Rebif “MS LifeLines program got a score of 86% in this category.
The program provides support directly to patients to help reduce cost and insurance barriers. But it goes the extra mile by surrounding patients with a virtual support team of reimbursement counselors, nurses and customer support specialists. Patients can call the MS LifeLines call center at any hour and speak to a live representative.
The program also offers patient-to-patient support, giving patients the option of being connected with a Patient Ambassador so that they can hear another patient's perspective on their condition.
Enbrel Support Amgen/Pfizer
The marketing integration dimension of the evaluation framework involves capitalizing on core principles to differentiate brands and deliver a satisfying customer experience. Criteria include program integration with brand identity, customer service, and follow-through. The Enbrel Support program rated highly (89%) in this category.
This program is clearly integrated into the Enbrel brand story as evidenced by the brand tagline: “Proven results. Ongoing support.” Even in the healthcare professional marketing messages, the patient-support offering is positioned as a key product attribute, and given nearly equal prominence as clinical messages. It also offers a superior customer experience. Its first direct-mail package to patients clearly explains how many mailings patients will receive and what topics are covered—a touch that tells patients that the program is committed to delivering the experience it has developed for them.
Where do we go from here?
All brands should look closely at patient support, but chronic disease brands have a greater need to invest now. For many conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, medication compliance and lifestyle changes are crucial to disease management—to the point that evidence-based guidelines call for an equal emphasis on prescription treatment and lifestyle behaviors such as diet and exercise.
Patient-support programs can play a key role in improving health outcomes, but to be successful, they need to consider and evaluate themselves against the six criteria identified. There are legitimate reasons to choose a less-than-holistic approach to building patient-support programs—restricted marketing budgets, predominantly prescriber-driven frameworks, and treated conditions that place less of a burden on patients to self-manage. But regardless of the variables, an opportunity remains for companies to improve health outcomes and drive brand value with effective patient-support offerings.
For a full report on this analysis, visit www.micromass.com/patientsupport.
Alyson Connor is partner and senior vice president of strategic and behavioral services, MicroMass Communications
Keys to developing patient-support initiatives:
Be truly patient-centric. Address the behavioral levers that have been proven to help patients succeed.
Deliver relevant messages. Of programs surveyed, 72% asked behavioral questions during enrollment, but few delivered messaging relevant to the responses.
Integrate patient-support offerings into your brand story. In your professional marketing materials, use your patient-support program to redefine “value” to the prescriber beyond efficacy and safety.
Deliver a thoughtful patient experience. Consider centralizing accountability for your program to experienced marketing partners adept at creating multi-strategy, multi-channel programs. This helps you provide a dynamic and engaging customer experience without technology hiccups. | <urn:uuid:5505dbef-d462-486c-bdd7-4a8e005e48c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mmm-online.com/whos-really-putting-patients-first/printarticle/213088/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931845 | 1,510 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has rejected suggestions of stepping down, while offering conditional talks with the opposition even as he accused Britain of planning to arm "terrorists" in the war-torn country.
In a rare interview with a UK newspaper, Assad accused the British government of "bullying" and of playing a "famously unconstructive role" in the region.
"We are ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition, but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists," 47-year-old Assad told The Sunday Times in a video-taped interview conducted at his Damascus residence, the Al-Muhajireen palace, last week.
The Syrian government had said it is ready for talks with its armed opponents earlier this week.
However, Syrian rebel leader Selim Idris said there could be no negotiations unless Assad stepped down and leaders of the army and security forces were put on trial.
Asked if he would consider stepping down to improve prospects of peace, Assad said, "If this argument is correct, then my departure will stop the fighting. Clearly this is absurd, and recent precedents in Libya, Yemen and Egypt [ Images ] bear witness to this."
The UN says that the raging civil war in Syria, which has been going on for nearly two years, has left nearly 70,000 dead and the West has been calling for Assad's resignation to kick-start a peace process.
British foreign secretary William Hague promised to increase support for the Syrian opposition, including equipment supplies and humanitarian assistance, as US secretary of state John Kerry announced 39 million pounds in funding for rebel forces last week.
The British government is currently bound by an EU arms embargo which European foreign ministers decided not to lift at a meeting in Brussels last month.
In a scathing attack, Assad claimed the West was sacrificing peace talks to push for an end to EU arms embargo, which would allow rebels to be armed.
Warning such a move would accelerate the road to war, the Syrian President rejected the possibility of help from Britain to end the conflict.
"We do not expect an arsonist to be a firefighter. To be frank, Britain has played a famously unconstructive role in our region on different issues for decades, some say for centuries. The problem with this government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlights this tradition of bullying and hegemony," Assad said.
"How can we ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarise the problem? How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists? This government is acting in a naive, confused and unrealistic manner," he said.
"If they want to play a role they have to change this, they have to act in a more reasonable and more responsible way," he told the Sunday Times.
Fighting continues between Syrian government forces and rebels across the country.
Opposition activists reported fierce clashes around the northern provincial capital of Raqqa and said dozens of people had been killed.
"Syria lies at the fault line geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So playing with this fault line will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East. Any intervention will not make these things better. It will only make them worse," Assad warned.
"Europe and the United States and others are going to pay the price sooner or later with the instability in this region. They do not foresee it," Assad said.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Sunday reacted to Assad's interview saying the Syrian leader was "delusional" for failing to see that the bloodshed in his country was his own doing.
Hague said that he would later announce more non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition and also refused to rule out arming them in the future.
Britain has been pushing to lift the EU ban on sale of arms to Syrian rebels. | <urn:uuid:d982a93d-cb52-468d-8b6e-d4c3f00c7b6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rediff.com/news/report/assad-accuses-uk-of-bullying-refuses-to-step-down/20130303.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975807 | 796 | 1.671875 | 2 |
CesarAspira Mirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter High School, IL, United States
JamieAspira Mirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter High School, IL, United States
EnriqueAspira Mirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter High School, IL, United States
OrlandoAspira Mirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter High School, IL, United States
19 & under
Peter ChenAspira Mirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter High School, IL, United States
Jacqueline SanchezMirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter School, IL, United States
Science & Technology > Technology
Ages 15 and up
Video / Sound
Teamwork is defined as, cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of people acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause. Within our website project we have four people working together: Cesar, Enrique, Orlando, and I. Our website project is based upon, technology over time. Our topic was chosen within my group, we decided that we wanted to do something different, something we can all learn from. We decided to be consistent with the amount of effort needed to be put into this project; my group and I agreed to work as one to get the project done on time.
The organization of this project was based upon a timeline. We talked as a group about the different items we wanted to show within our website and decided to divide our ideas equally into different pages; computers, cell phones, television, cars, music devices, cameras, airplanes, electricity control, VHS, DVD, transportation, and safety systems. The timeline helped to assign different pages to people within our group. We all got an equal amount of pages to complete within the website, we all started working right away, trying to visualize our actual website.
Each of my team members each bring something good into our group. Enrique for example, he’s a very positive team member, always brings the group together whenever we’re stressed out about something, and always keeps the group positive. Orlando on the other hand, brings very good ideas into the project. He has the ability to think outside the box and provide great ideas. Cesar contributes his great knowledge in computer programming. Coming down to me, Jamie, I consistently worry about the time and quality of our project overall. I make sure the work gets done, and make sure that work is divided equally among the group.
Overall, I strongly feel that each of us bring something to the group. I think that it’s always important to get the opportunity to work with new people. This allows you to share with people you don’t normally work with. Sometimes working with new people can be hard, but time helps make it better. This also gives the chance to learn more about one another and find other sides of people that aren’t normally seen before. I feel that this website project is very important to our semester grade, and I feel that all my group members think the same way. Therefore, we are all putting in our part to perform the best that we can in order to receive a fair grading upon the work that we perform.
Our group is all basically from the same backgroud but each have there own differences. We all attend the same school and liive in Chicago, but are all from different neighbnorhoods. Jamie lives in the west side of Chicago, while Orlando lives more south, Enrique lives in Humboldt Park, then we have Cesar who lives in Logan square. Jamie loves soccer, and finds it to be her favorite past time. Orlando loves the sport of baseball; he even plays in a league with his father as his coach. Enrique likes to play video games and is more layed back. Then, Cesar likes to mess with computers and other forms of technology. In this project Cesar took the role as leader, and since he has a passion for technology we titled our project “technology over time.” Our group name was N-tech, which basically described our project. Since we all go to a computer science charter school, we all already had a background in using computer projrams such as dreamweaver, flash, and fireworks so we used it to our advantage. Throughout our website are different images and animations that we created using both flash and fireworks. Then of corse the whole website was made using dreamweaver. Having allready known about these computer programs helped out with the making process of the site, but since the site had to be soo big, we had complications with connecting everything. Enrique was in charge of the toolbar. He enjoys using computers and messing around with different programs, but throughout the project had problems with making rollovers and connecting all the pages. But with the help of his fellow team mates and Coach Ms. Sanchez, he got it all to work out. Orlando has a gift in his writing abilities and used them to for the website. When ever we needed help with vocabulary and attreving information, he was the go to man. Then Jamie was basically like the glue of the group. She made sure all the deadlines were meet and finished. When ever Cesar was absent Jamie would take of as the group leader. She also made and fixed all the headlines for the pages on macromedia flash. In the end we finished the whole website but not after a huge headache because of all the deadlines that had to be meet. We are all glad that it worked out for the better at the end. | <urn:uuid:3f4fd287-cc7d-42bb-9bbf-d87076e61cc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkquest.org/pls/html/f?p=52300:100:1798004858543659::::P100_TEAM_ID:447244613 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968577 | 1,129 | 1.984375 | 2 |
PARIS.- For his first solo exhibition in Paris, François Curlet, an expert at détournement, reveals a distanced worldview that challenges the clichés of the day. Advertising slogans, human interest stories, or everyday objects give way to a subtle poetry, both existential and demotic. Out of this arises a system built on paradoxes in which like the Fugu fish so highly valued in Japan a delicious dish can become a deadly poison. The visitor fluctuates between lighthearted intellectual pleasure and a latent seriousness that could manifest itself at any moment.
Between joyful skepticism and cynical laughter
«Fugu,» a monographic exhibition devoted to the artist François Curlet (b. 1967, lives and works in Brussels), presents at the Palais de Tokyo an extensive selection of pieces from the period between 1985 and 2012. Since the end of the 1980s, the artist has been developing a body of work in which the material world is dismantled, disturbed, and distorted through the poetry of the day to day. By having recourse to the artifact as much as to philosophy, the artist is developing a strategy in which free associations are transformed into allegories, and the mind is seized by surprising dialogs of forms that set the power of imagination in motion and permanently reinvent our natural and material environment. From the existential to the trivial, François Curlets fields of interest seem to have no limits, no one territory. Encouraging critical thinking, his work is open to reinvention and surprise, using a vocabulary as close to joyful skepticism as it is to cynical laughter.
Objects pushed to borderline states
Atomic as it is, his work does not obey any algorithm, and each piece seems to proceed from its own theorem instead, while François Curlet searches within each object for its possible «radioactive» qualities. Micro-history, human interest stories, historic events, political news, advertising slogans, social anecdotes, derivative work, and puns are fertile ground for the artists work. Hallucinatory vision of things, the work of François Curlet cultivates such borderline states, where the object fluctuates between many fictions and realities, pleasure and poison, just like the eponymous fish, Fugu. In the wake of artists such as Erik Satie, George Brecht, Jef Geys, John Knight or the film Mon oncle dAmérique (1979) by Alain Resnais, François Curlet creates a universe in which humor is also used to unravel social protocol.
Selection of works in the exhibition
Bunker pour six oeufs, 2011
Something between a sarcophagus and a nest, a tomb and a shelter, the Bunker pour six oeufs [Bunker for Six Eggs] toys humorously with the odd and the ambiguous. Between security paranoia and the obsessive will to conserve, these eggs, as reproducible as they are fragile, are both imprisoned and protected by their concrete armature. Borrowing from the iconography of war, the work suggests the vacuousness of our behavior and the permanent search for refuge and security, when «everyone wants to make their nest, whether inheriting, in debt, or furtively, like the cuckoo.
Chanter lEnfer, 2010
In 2010, François Curlet visited Father Andras Pandys apartment in Brussels, a psychological Bermudas triangle where the serial killer committed six murders and afterwards dissolved his victims corpses in acid. The artist returned from this journey into the macabre with a number of relics, everything from curtains to coat racks, objects still carrying the aura of these dramatic events. The objects were turned into birdhouses and keels, like so many altars inviting the viewer to question the power of matter as a transmitter of evil.
Rorschach Saloon, 1999
This decompression chamber, entitled Rorschach Saloon, is a passageway. The swinging doors in the shape of Rorschach test inkblots open onto a liminal space, inviting the viewer to explore the realms of consciousness and knowledge. Vodka and whiskey, symbolizing the two blocks of the Cold War, are tools left for the visitor to use to attain another state of consciousness. He must then take sides and choose which of these two alcohols he prefers in order to gain access to one of the teachings produced by indoctrination.
A reversal system and a role-playing game, this piece, entitled Vitrine, toys with the viewer. The tables have turned as the saying goes, as the viewer finds himself distorted by the object hes observing. Using reversal and situation comedy, Vitrine places the viewer at its center, trapped by his exposed body, enlarged and transformed by the materials. Pointing to questions about the relationships between the body, perception and power, François Curlet gives the artwork the ability to transform.
Jonathan Livingstone, 2010-2012
Inspired by the now classic dramatic comedy by Hal Ashby, Harold and Maude (1971), the film Jonathan Livingstone portrays a character driving around in his Type E Jaguar that has been turned into a hearse. The driver, wandering through open countryside, seems lost, even as the situation fluctuates between the pleasure of speed and a potentially fatal accident. This ambivalent, Russian-roulette game of life and death is made bearable because it is legitimized by the trophy-like car.
An order given by a machine, Moonwalk suggests the possible triggering of Michael Jacksons classic walk in a passer-by. The work can be seen as a store sign, a traffic sign or light signal, as it redirects advertising and urban furniture codes. Playing as it does with functional equipment and the poetry of everyday life, the machine is also a despot whose messages find themselves somewhere between the pragmatic order and space travel. François Curlet has dreamed up an educational device meant to prepare the people for future walks on the moon.
Maquettes pour architectures fainéantes, 2005-2006
Maquettes pour architectures fainéantes [Models for lazy architectures] is a project study made by François Curlet in view of creating a cabin or interior space formed by the natural drippings of poured concrete. Gravity and the own weight of concrete determine the generic shape of mans shelter. This lazy architecture bending to the laws of nature create for the individual a space determined by the physical characteristics inherent in the material.
Moteur, an industrial object reduced to its mere structure belongs, as an artwork, to the tradition of Duchamps readymade. This elementary tool of the industrial era, made of finely woven wicker, was produced by a workshop of blind craftsmen. The hands weaving the object are reminiscent of industrial assembly lines, while the worker is compared to a blind and servile cog in the production cycle. Stripped of its mechanical characteristics, this motor, lying on a plinth, only signals the vacuity of its state.
Western (E.A tricolore italien), 2005-2012
I am a clandestine traveler moving across the land, a projectile. Referring to the evolution of the history of the American classic Western genre towards the Italian Spaghetti Westerns, François Curlet characterizes his practice as Spaghetti Conceptual Arte. Freeing himself of the orthodox definition of conceptual art, his work, however, appropriates some of its codes (the importance of the idea, of developing a line of logic) in order to de-territorializemuch like the spaghetti doesand imagine new scenarios for creating. | <urn:uuid:7a370a54-aa11-4a0e-843d-cd62f080e0b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=61105&int_modo=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934337 | 1,535 | 1.539063 | 2 |
How to Eat Before and After a Workout
By Marty Munson
Photo Credit: Getty
Q: On the days when I work out in the morning, do I need to eat something before or after?
A: Both. Have about 100 calories at least 15 minutes before your workout (try a banana or half of an energy bar). Then have a good breakfast afterward, making sure you get protein, carbs, and fat. (Good combos: fruit and cottage cheese; toast and peanut butter; protein-rich cereal with milk.) The key is not to eat more than usual, but to redistribute more calories to the early part of the day. | <urn:uuid:d0e063bb-4e76-4efe-90e0-3f0d0cc847d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marieclaire.com/health-fitness/advice/workout-food?click=rel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917095 | 133 | 1.75 | 2 |
Your dollars at work: The impact of the funds you have raised
Peter Mac is helping to improve our understanding of how cancers work and why they develop, to find better ways to target them and treat patients. Your participation in The Ride to Conquer Cancer will help to ensure the sustainability of this groundbreaking work.
Money raised through your participation in The Ride will help impact the lives of hundreds of thousands, as Peter Mac shares the outcomes of its work and its expertise with its patients as well as with healthcare organisations and research institutes across Australia, and around the world.
Here are a handful of examples of critical research, made possible through the generosity of Peter Mac supporters. Your support will help drive breakthroughs such as these.
Better research at work:
With the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, it makes sense for Australia to have a focus on finding better treatments for malignant melanoma. Melanoma is the deadliest type of skin cancer, and takes the lives of around 48,000 people each year world-wide. One in 18 Australians will develop a melanoma in their lifetime.
Following the discovery of BRAF, a rogue gene mutation that is responsible for melanoma occurring in about 50 per cent of patients, Peter Mac led the Australian arm of the global Phase 1 trial into a new, highly selective drug called PLX4032. This drug targets and destroys BRAF, thereby preventing melanoma from spreading. Results for patients taking part in the clinical trial have been striking.
Eighty-one percent of melanoma patients (with the BRAF mutation) on the trial showed a significant reduction of their tumours. These results led the New England Journal of Medicine to dub the trial the ‘poster child for personalised cancer medicine’. The Phase 1 trial has now been extended to consolidate early findings with equally promising results. The trial is the tip of the iceberg for the future of cancer therapeutics and demonstrates the new frontier of tailoring drugs to the genetic profile of cancer.
Six to seven per cent of other cancers contain a BRAF mutation, which means this ‘smart drug’ could have implications for other cancers, too.
‘This is the beginning of a new era in the way we’re treating cancer - understanding what goes wrong in the cancer cell, what genes are changed and actively turning off genes that are malfunctioning will help us achieve better outcomes and better survival rates for people with cancer. ’ Associate Professor Grant McArthur
Better treatment at work:
Peter Mac has established the first academic robotic cancer surgery program in Victoria’s public health system.
The da Vinci Surgical System© is an advanced surgical platform which allows surgeons to perform complex tasks inside the body through tiny incisions by using a 3D magnified viewing system and advanced robotic instruments.
The system, which costs $3 million per machine, is a laparoscopic surgical robot that helps provide surgeons with added precision, additional control and visualisation.
Surgeons operate at the site of the problem, rather than at the end of laparoscopic instruments, through several small incisions about the size of a 10 cent piece. This allows much more complex surgery to be performed while enabling patients the benefit of tiny scars, reduced blood loss, shorter hospital stay, less risk of infection and faster recovery, when compared to open surgery or conventional laparoscopic (‘keyhole’) surgery. The average length of hospital stay after open surgery radical prostatectomy is 5-7 days, whereas 90 per cent of patients are discharged the day after a robotic-assisted procedure.
The Academic Robotic Cancer Surgery Program at Peter Mac also aims to offer training and research opportunities to other health professionals in this field, and to develop a model that can be replicated across the wider public health system.
‘Robotic-assisted surgery holds great promise for the future treatment of many cancer patients and the burden of cancer costs on the health economy.’ Associate Professor Declan Murphy.
Better care at work:
We’re constantly looking for innovative ways to make life easier for our patients. One very new project underway is the development of a mobile phone application that will prompt patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML), to take their medication, remotely monitor their adherence to medication, enable them to report side-effects and access counselling from a trained nurse wherever they are.
The need for this application arose because of the particularly unpleasant side-effects one particular drug Imatinib has for CML patients, which can result in reluctance to adhering to the prescribed daily dose. Imatinib reduces the risk of CML developing into a fatal phase called a “blast phase”. Not taking this medication can compromise a patient’s survival.
Our supportive care research team has worked with a number of universities to develop the software which will soon be trialled with some of our patients. This pioneering idea utilising new technology is just one of many ways Peter Mac aspires to ensure the well- being of its patients is continually advancing.
The best people at work:
One of the big questions facing patients newly diagnosed with cancer is whether their disease has spread to other parts of the body. Cancer spreads by metastasis, the process where cancer cells circulate into the bloodstream and lymphatic system, then grow in normal tissues elsewhere. Once cancer spreads, it can be particularly difficult to treat - and metastatic disease is the most common cause of death from cancer.
We now know that one of the key factors in the spread of cancer is that tumours develop their own blood supply and lymphatic vessels. This process, called tumour angiogenesis, is critical for cancerous tumours to grow and spread.
It results in a network of blood vessels that supply nutrients and oxygen to the tumour cells and lymphatic vessels. This knowledge has led to the concept that being able to interfere with the process of angiogenesis - by using certain drugs to inhibit particular molecules that fuel tumour blood supplies, may be able to stop tumour growth.
Peter Mac was excited to welcome two world-leading researchers in the field of angiogenesis to set up a new program in its Cancer Research Division. Associate professors’ Steven Stacker and Marc Achen and their team joined the organisation to develop their work alongside Peter Mac researchers and clinicians. Their move to Peter Mac was supported by an insightful philanthropic gift which was used to acquire vital equipment needed to develop the new laboratory space.
Associate professors’ Stacker and Achen’s focus is to understand and map the growth factors secreted by tumour cells and the receptors on blood and lymphatic vessels, particularly those that facilitate cancer spread through the lymphatic system. Their long-term goal is to trial novel drugs that may inhibit angiogenesis safely and effectively.
‘Our move to Peter Mac has created great opportunities to combine our basic research program in tumour angiogenesis with the work of other researchers and clinicians in cancer biology. In the future we hope this will lead to advances in how we diagnose and treat many types of cancer.’ Associate Professor Steven Stacker | <urn:uuid:0ac7101b-b90f-4fed-8399-6323a47a7dc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ml12.conquercancer.org.au/site/PageServer?pagename=ml12_dollarsatwork&JServSessionIdr004=q2ltf5lzv2.app244b | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939263 | 1,459 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Discovering How Hot Colter's Hell Really Was in Yellowstone, Wyoming
When John Colter returned to his fellow trappers in 1808 with tales of exploding geysers, bubbling mud pots and boiling springs smelling of sulfur, most people thought he was crazy. Once called Colter’s Hell, the geothermally rich area is now known as Yellowstone National Park. Colter was the first white man to see Yellowstone Lake, the largest high-elevation lake in North America. The hot springs he found around the lake are still active today—with temperatures up to 252 degrees F. And the lake’s bottom holds the same geysers, hot springs, and deep canyons found throughout the park. While in the area, drop in at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, an historic inn with 1920s ambiance, for a very refined meal. Then sit in the sun room’s wicker chairs overlooking the lake while being serenaded by a string quartet—something Colter could only dream of indulging in. | <urn:uuid:c3504da8-b4db-4900-a95c-fe981dce7b0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://openplac.es/trips/yellowstone-lake-in-yellowstone-national-park-wy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94905 | 215 | 2.46875 | 2 |
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Valley Public Radio Staff
Fri July 13, 2012
What's It Mean That Romney Was CEO, Anyway?
Originally published on Mon July 16, 2012 6:47 am
Mitt Romney faces new scrutiny over his time at the helm of Bain Capital, the private equity shop he ran from 1984 until — well, that's exactly the question.
The political fight of the moment is just when Romney stopped running Bain Capital, which specialized in buying troubled companies and turning them around.
The Republican presidential candidate (and presumed party nominee) has long said he left in February 1999. But a Boston Globe report this week pointed to regulatory filings showing him as the company's chairman and chief executive into 2002.
What does it mean that these documents listed him as the company's top executive? From a technical standpoint, a lot — but from a practical standpoint, maybe not as much as it first seems.
First, the background.
For years, Romney and his campaign have said he left Bain to run the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 1999. But on Thursday, the Boston Globe ran a detailed article describing how Bain Capital, in regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, continued to list Romney as its chairman and chief executive for another three years. (Others had published similar, less detailed reports before, but with less impact.)
Since the Globe article came out, debate has swirled. Romney's campaign maintains that Romney was not running the company, and besides was busy running the Olympics. The Obama campaign and its supporters argue that the filings show Romney remained in charge for longer than he has acknowledged, and thus is responsible for more of Bain's practices during that period.
Bain is a privately held company ("closely held" in financial-speak, to differentiate it from private-sector but publicly traded companies), so its reporting requirements are different than, say, General Electric's. The company doesn't have to file documents with the SEC to tell the investing public who's running the company and how much they're paid, for example, or how much money the company made last quarter.
Instead, the regulatory documents in question were filed by Bain Capital because it owned significant chunks of companies that were publicly traded. One filing from the summer of 2000, for example, shows that a fund ultimately controlled by Bain Capital owned almost 33 percent of juice-and-granola-bar company Odwalla Inc (now a unit of Coca-Cola).
That document includes this sentence, after detailing the relationship between the particular fund that owned the Odwalla shares and Bain Capital itself:
"Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital and thus is the controlling person of Bain Capital."
Other filings make similar statements about Romney's position with Bain Capital during the years he was running the Olympics.
So what does it mean that the documents in question listed Romney as chairman and CEO? On the one hand, it's pretty clear-cut: SEC disclosures are supposed to be accurate.
"If you knowingly make a false statement in a regulatory filing, it's a crime," says John Olson, a securities attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and founding partner of the firm's Washington office.
That said, several securities lawyers we spoke with (most of whom didn't want to comment publicly on a political topic) noted that these filings are often put together by some pretty junior employees. It's conceivable that someone copied and pasted from a previous filing and forgot to update some parts. But barring that, if someone is named as chief executive in an SEC filing, he or she should be CEO.
Exactly what a CEO does, however, is a more open question. Companies, especially private ones like Bain, have considerable flexibility to define just what their various executive officers do, within the broad bounds of state incorporation laws and their own bylaws. CEOs can go on leave as well, though companies typically designate another executive to fill in on an interim basis when that happens.
CEOs also don't necessarily run every element of their companies. Warren Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, but he famously leaves its divisions largely in the hands of his lieutenants: Berkshire Hathaway bought the Burlington Northern railroad in 2009, but few would argue that Buffett operates a railroad.
For Olson's part, even though he expects to vote for President Obama and generally contributes to Democrats, he sees the question of Romney's tenure at Bain as at least a little overblown.
"It's a bit of a leap from saying he's the CEO of the management company to saying he made the decision about laying people off," Olson says.
That leaves the final question: Is the CEO responsible for the actions of different units of his company, whether or not he's making day-to-day decisions? That's more open to interpretation. | <urn:uuid:38d89eba-a7cd-43e8-b43d-e309f50267e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kvpr.org/post/whats-it-mean-romney-was-ceo-anyway | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976388 | 1,084 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The beloved children's book "The Kissing Hand" reads beautifully about the separation anxiety between a mother and child on their first day of school. "I'll Love You Forever" sweetly chronicles the love between a mother and child throughout a life time. And now, there's "Maggie Goes on a Diet" feeding kids the idea of dieting. Really?
Are we at this point now? Telling children their lives will be better and they'll have more friends if they are thin? According to a local doctor, that's the message he got out of the controversial new children's book being slammed by critics. But, he was also quick to add, it's a good conversation starter about a subject that needs to be talked about: childhood obesity.
As a mother, this kills me. Politicians whine America's children are fat, and yet we cut P.E. from the curriculum. First Lady Michelle Obama is criticized for her "Let's Move" campaign aimed at bringing fresh good to school cafeterias, because "she has no right to tell us what to eat." Kids are steadily getting type one diabetes now due to obesity, and yet fast food is often the only affordable choice to our middle and lower income families. And now, we're supposed to lull them off to sleep with a bedtime story about dieting as a child.
I haven't read the book, just exerpts. It's not on book store shelves until October...but you have to admit, the premise is some serious food for thought. Watch my interview with a local doctor for more to chew on. | <urn:uuid:f1466a87-ebe7-48b6-86bd-ccb3866c20cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.herald-mail.com/topic/kswb-hardly-light-reading-a-dieting-book-for-kids-20110825,0,5002326.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973938 | 330 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Great news today for all Texas voters. A U.S. Federal District Court found that the Texas voter photo identification law violates Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. National League President Elisabeth MacNamara remarked, "The importance of this case cannot be overstated: It is a landmark decision for voting rights in America and helps ensure America’s elections treat all citizens equally, and are free, fair and accessible.”
Read our full statement on the decision below.
THREE-JUDGE PANEL STRIKES DOWN VOTER PHOTO ID LAW IN TEXAS
Court agrees with League of Women Voters and Department of Justice
Voter Photo ID is discriminatory
Today, a U.S. Federal District Court has agreed with the League of Women Voters and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that the Texas voter photo identification law violates Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, in that the law does have a discriminatory effect. The federal three-judge panel rejected the state of Texas’ arguments seeking to overturn a Department of Justice decision to deny pre-clearance of Texas’ photo voter ID law. The League of Women Voters of Texas (LWVTX) joined the lawsuit in support of the DOJ decision.
“The importance of this case cannot be overstated: It is a landmark decision for voting rights in America,” said Elisabeth MacNamara, President of the League of Women Voters of the U.S. (LWVUS). The League in Texas and other states around the country will continue to fight against these restrictive voting laws. This decision helps us ensure America’s elections treat all citizens equally, and are free, fair and accessible.”
“We are thrilled with today’s decision. The court has upheld our most basic and fundamental right by siding with common sense and this decision will help ensure that the world’s leading democracy provides for equality at the voting booth,” stated Linda Krefting, President of the League of Women Voters of Texas.
This marks another voting rights victory for the League and its partners in recent months. The groups have been successful in helping to block implementation of voter suppression laws in numerous states nationwide.
“Time and again these laws have been found to be illegal. These new restrictive voting laws should not be enacted in any state. We cannot allow politicians to manipulate election laws for their own personal gain. It is time for us to move beyond the rhetoric and work to pass new laws that will ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote can vote and will have their vote counted without any barriers. Nothing less than protecting America’s great democracy is at stake,” concluded MacNamara.
It is widely anticipated that today’s decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. | <urn:uuid:6ac6491e-bc07-4e14-988b-030971050d12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lwv.org/blog/texas-voter-photo-id-law-struck-down | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946617 | 587 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Learning how to meditate and breathe is one of the best things you can do for your heart. Being heart-centered is a healthy way of living. You CAN learn how to relax your body, slow your mind, open your heart, relieve stress, and enter a meditative state.
On this website I give you the best information available to explore your heart with meditation, with science and technology tools, and with spirituality.
Your heart is so much more than just a pump to circulate your blood. It is that, plus much more.
Your heart is multi-dimensional and contains the essence of who you are. Your past, your present and your future are contained within your heart.
Tap into the creative energy and love within your heart and use that to solve your greatest challenges.
Connect with the rhythm of your heartbeat and you connect with the rhythm of life.
The heart attracts its desire. Deep within you lies a purpose to your life. As you learn how to meditate you will allow your heart to be your best friend and guide.
Bring your mind into harmony with your heart and experience your full potential.
Every heart has a purpose. Every heart has intelligence. Every heart has an electromagnetic field. Every heart beats out a rhythm.
We are all deeply connected with each other through the heart and this is great news. Feelings of separation or isolation come from a wounded heart.
Heart Meditation will take you to new levels of heart health, emotional stability, and heart consciousness.
You can learn how to heal your emotional heart, inspire your spiritual heart and energize your physical heart through the simple practices taught on this website.
Learning how to meditate will take you furthest along the path but you can benefit greatly just from thinking about your heart and giving it the loving attention and respect it craves.
Heart-based practices bring balance and clarity to your mind. You shift your awareness to your heart and go within so that you can connect with your most authentic self.
What will you find by going within?
Joy, guidance, emotion, energy, compassion, and courage.
Concentrating on your heart begins the process of healing the heart, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
The heart plays a central and vital role in all aspects of your life.
Simply putting attention on your heart is healthful and easy to do. And learning how to breathe consciously is one of the best relaxation techniques there is.
As your heart rhythms become more rhythmic and smooth, you feel relaxed and your emotions become more positive. This is called Heart Coherence.
A coherent heartbeat is a healthy heartbeat.
When your heart beats coherently, it is relaxed, it has better rhythm and is more powerful than a stressed heart.
As your heart opens and softens through breathing and meditation practices you connect more deeply with your emotional body. This intimacy is very important for heart health.
Learning how to breathe and how to meditate is healthful and easy to do. Take care of your heart and it will take care of you. | <urn:uuid:6ad3190d-976e-48bc-88fa-fb6ebd9ab90d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthy-heart-meditation.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929781 | 622 | 1.820313 | 2 |
What is AFHA?
For centuries, the forests of the Appalachian Mountains have sustained local settlers, provided raw materials for America's economic expansion, and inspired visitors. The Appalachian Forest Heritage Area (AFHA) tells the story of this forest legacy and the mountain people who forged it.
The AFHA attracts visitors to discover the rich forest heritage of the highlands of West Virginia and western Maryland. Visitors explore thematic trails leading them to recreation, learning, entertainment, and appreciation experiences targeted to their own interests.
Communities benefit from the AFHA in several ways. Economic markets increase for local events and attractions, tourist services, forest industry products and the arts. Communities grow stronger through local participation and regional networking. The entire region works with a shared approach to use, conservation, and appreciation of our multi-faceted forest.
The Appalachian Forest Heritage Area (AFHA) is a regional, grassroots effort to integrate central Appalachian forest history, culture, natural history, products, and forestry management into a heritage tourism initiative to promote rural community development. Initially supported by a 4-year grant from USDA to West Virginia University (WVU) Division of Forestry and Extension Service, the effort is now implemented by a non-profit organization based on stakeholder partnerships. The goal is to create a sustainable Heritage Area based on forest heritage. Existing and potential forest-based historic sites, artisans, manufacturers, and working forests are being developed into a network of attractions providing high-quality products, programs, educational experiences, events, and visitor services.
Tourism is the third largest retail industry in America. Heritage tourism represents a promising strategy for economic diversification rooted in local traditions. The AFHA has a rich, complex history of timber harvesting, forest management and forest products. Major strides in forest health, productivity, management, and wood utilization have contributed to a vibrant natural resource-based economy and culture. Many visitors have little appreciation for the links among forestry practices, rural traditions, and sustainable economies.
To the degree that rural communities and local industries take pride in their traditions and stewardship, the long-term sustainability of West Virginia and western Maryland’s forest-dependent communities is more secure. Forest-related heritage tourism can fulfill the need for public education, thus contributing to an understanding of “good forestry.” Heritage tourism also fosters economic development consistent with local traditions and available resources.
Mission and Goals
The AFHA mission is to work locally to conserve, develop, interpret, and promote a regional network of forest-based resources and experiences in the highlands of West Virginia and Maryland for the enjoyment and appreciation of residents and visitors in order to enhance economic and community development.
The four primary goals are to:
- Develop a regional Heritage Area based on forest heritage, including National Heritage Area designation.
- Develop and promote a cohesive regional network of forest heritage tourism destinations.
- Strengthen small businesses, communities, and grassroots organizations; foster local economic development; and build regional partnerships.
- Provide interpretation of a broad range of forest themes.
- AFHA values partnerships and communication across geographic lines and interest areas, seeking diverse and open participation with balanced representation of all partners in decision making, access to resources, and presentation.
- AFHA seeks to provide education and interpretation for a broad range of local and visitor audiences, presenting messages in entertaining formats with scholarly accuracy, balanced presentation of differing viewpoints, and respect for the complexity of the issues.
- AFHA values showing the working forest as an active force in
the region's present and
future, including making connections between the natural resources of the forest, people's livelihoods that are dependent on the forest, and the products from the forest that the whole country uses.
- AFHA values education and interpretation on issues regarding long-term sustainability for the forest that respects needs and concerns of forestry and forest products industries, of economic and social needs of forest communities, and for health and biodiversity of the forest ecosystems.
- AFHA utilizes cultural / heritage / nature tourism as a means to bring economic benefits to the AFHA communities in a well-thought-out and balanced way that respects community values. Encouraging visitor respect of local standards and privacy, and targeting promotion to those sites and communities who wish to invite visitation, are among the tools that will be used to manage tourism impact.
- All participation in AFHA programs or projects will be strictly voluntary. No resident, property owner, business, organization, or community will be considered a partner, nor will they be included in or bound by any agreements of the AFHA, heritage area designation, or the management plan, unless they specifically choose to participate.
- AFHA is not a land management organization, and has no land management agenda. Designation of AFHA as a National Heritage Area will have no impact on private property within the area. AFHA has no power or authority, nor will it ever accept any such authority, to regulate, zone, or control private property use. AFHA cannot use federal funds to purchase land. | <urn:uuid:f59d9a56-33c8-43f1-8574-05fe5e45fbb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.appalachianforest.us/about.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915341 | 1,026 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Newport News shipyard marks 125th anniversary
At 1:25 this afternoon, the Newport News shipyard blew a ceremonial whistle marking its founding 125 years ago, on Jan. 28, 1886. It kicked off a year-long celebration at the local shipyard, which is owned (for now) by Northrop Grumman Corp.
The company posted an interesting photo slide show on its website, showing photos of the shipyard from the early planning stages to today. It's worth checking out -- if you've got just a few minutes.
Yard General Manager Matt Mulherin released a video to employees today, which also can be found on Northrop's website: http://www.sb.northropgrumman.com/shipbuilders/125years/
Here's a transcript of his speech:
As Newport News shipbuilders, we are part of a long and distinguished heritage that began 125
years ago today – on January 28, 1886 – when Collis P. Huntington founded the Chesapeake
Dry Dock and Construction Company, which later became Newport News Shipbuilding.
Huntington’s objective was to start a shipyard in a good location with room to grow.
He described Newport News as the best location in the world – at the “gateway of the sea” with
an abundant workforce ready to be trained as shipbuilders.
Huntington’s vision for the shipyard was to provide first-class quality in all aspects of the
business and to earn a reputation for building the best ships in the world.
Since signing the contract in 1890 for our first hull, the tugboat Dorothy, we’ve built more than
800 ships for the Navy and non-defense customers.
Ships with legendary names like Kearsarge, Ranger, Enterprise, Los Angeles, and United
States – just to name a few.
These ships, like the generations of Newport News shipbuilders who built them, are part of our
They’ve served our country in times of peace and in times of war.
And with the advent of nuclear power, our people have transformed the U.S. Navy’s submarine
and carrier fleet into the most formidable force on the planet.
Throughout the year, we’ll be highlighting and celebrating our 125 years of history.
As we start today, please take a moment to think about all those shipbuilders who have come
Think about their pioneering spirit that helped grow our shipyard into the highly respected
business it is today – the business Collis P. Huntington envisioned.
And think about how we can build upon their legacy by continuing to provide first-class quality in all that we do, so that 125 years from now, we will still have the reputation for simply building the best ships in the world. | <urn:uuid:b68cf3ae-eec4-4241-988d-d5997b0c4a6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weblogs.dailypress.com/news/local/shipsandportsblog/2011/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942747 | 580 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Note to parents from group leader Billy Planer:
On Friday we made the magnificent ride up the coast. We stopped at the Hearst Castle to see how the rich and famous lived. We had a wonderful Shabbat service/discussion in Big Sur and rolled into San Francisco rather late on Friday night.
Today (Saturday) we roamed all over the city. We started in Berkeley where we met with a young man who just graduated college. He has started an organization to promote activism in young people and is planning a million youth march next summer. His youth and story really appealed to the teens and he is an inspiration. After an unexpected subway ride into Oakland instead of San Francisco, we went on a bay cruise boat ride around the city, Alcatraz and Golden Gate Bridge. We did miss our tour of Alcatraz because of we took the wrong subway earlier but everyone was happy that the boat company allowed us to go on the bay cruise instead of just losing our money.
Then we walked and walked and walked and walked some more. We joined all the tourists in Fisherman’s Wharf where we had some sourdough bread and then to Ghirardelli Square for some chocolate. We then walked to the North Beach and to the first paperback bookstore in America and home of the Beatniks, City Lights Books. We met with a brave and inspirational man named Leon Veal. Leon is 52 and learned to read at the age of 45. He had been socially promoted throughout school and finally someone taught him to read. He pleaded with the teens to get involved and make a difference. That each life they changed or helped would benefit humanity. We also discussed the impact of illiteracy and how a country of so much could have such a big problem. We then hiked to Lombard Street to see the most crooked street in America. A great Italian dinner was had in North Beach.
Tomorrow (Sunday) we are headed to the Castro District to discuss the war on AIDS with the members of ACTUP. After that we are discussing the world economy and trade issues with members of the Free Trade Association. These are the people who protest the World Bank meetings every year. We will then walk around Haight Ashbury and then head to the airport where we will begin our journey back to the East by flying to Chicago. | <urn:uuid:ef9d2f2d-29bc-4e41-b923-6b0c4a6ceb91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.etgar.org/2003/07/san-francisco/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975657 | 474 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The First Prank Phone Call – 1884!
Published May 23, 2012
Tags: Alexander Graham Bell, funeral home, funny, history, humor, practical joke, Prank Phone Call, Price Albert in a can, Providence, refrigerator running, Rhode Island, technology, telephone, tomfoolery, undertaker
NetworkWorld presented this little nugget -
Unless it turns out that Alexander Graham Bell didn’t really want to see Watson – that he was just goofing on the guy – then the first documented prank phone call would appear to have occurred about eight years after that famous 1876 exchange … and at the expense of an undertaker in Providence, R.I.
Read more HERE | <urn:uuid:4919c616-c86a-45e1-9e21-3f6b9b7585c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dummr.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/the-first-prank-phone-call-1884/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919977 | 145 | 1.632813 | 2 |
November 17, 1862: Reached the Neighborhood of Fredericksburg
Raining in the morning, we resumed our march early and at 2 O’c P.M. reached the neighborhood of Fredericksburg when we halted, and Companies A., G., and I., of our Regt. were sent out to the left on a reconnaissance, which proving satisfactory, we started back. Met our Brigade and three Batteries, where we situated to the left. We marched up a hill in five columns. Our Regt. had to climb an almost perpendicular hill. We had not formed in line of battle when we were order[ed] to another place before we were finally formed. Pettits battery opened on a Rebel battery, which he soon forced to leave in double quick time. They sent a few shell[s] at us which busted near to us but done no injury. the firing commenced at 3 1/2 O’clock. after it was over our Brigade took possession of the town of Falmouth. the 2nd Del. encamped just outside of the town, and in sight of Fredericksburg. We marched about 15 miles today, our rout[e] lay through a country about on a par with the balance of the route from Warrenton.
General Burnside’s Army of the Potomac arrived at Stafford Heights (across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, Virginia), where they stayed for nearly a week, waiting for pontoons and boats to arrive to help the troops cross the Rappahannock so that they could enter Fredericksburg. Waiting for the pontoons to arrive gave General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia time to move more Confederate soldiers into the region to better defend Fredericksburg.
Source: National Park Service Battle of Fredericksburg History | <urn:uuid:13041b3c-f3bd-4d20-b67f-be56331241cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cyrusforwood.blogs.delaware.gov/2012/11/17/reached-fredericksburg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95999 | 373 | 2.1875 | 2 |
September 10, 2004
"It is both a pity and a sign of the times that the libraries do not have recordings of both conventions for the civic review," writes Andrea Antulov in yesterday's Letters to the Editor section of the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. "I urge your readers to demand they ensure citizens have plentiful and easy access to historial, journalistic and civic records. After all, that was the purpose of libraries' creation, to ensure a literate, informed citizenship without regard to social class in order to protect democracy." WILLblog couldn't agree more, and Ms. Antulov's point aligns with a project we've been working on. We think things like convention speeches belong in the public domain, and anyone who wants to hear, view, or read transcripts of them should be able to freely and without hassle. The Internet could be that public library, and I know not everyone has access to the online universe at their homes, schools, and offices. But they do have access to the Internet at the physical library. So what's the problem? Simply this: Content like convention speeches on the Internet is "owned" and controlled by those who put it on their web sites. Whereas you as a citizen have a right to experience media coverage of the convention via television networks (if they bother to air it), and of course your local NPR station WILL-AM, you don't have a right to the audio and video records of these events. They're not in the local library, as Ms. Antulov attests. Here is a partial solution: NPR has all the convention speeches archived in RealAudio on the NPR web site. I spent a frustrating 15 minutes this morning tracking down all of the different pages that link to all of the content. (Maybe my search skills need work, but...) So here are the URLs that get you all the convention speeches: Republican National Convention: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3877883 (Day One) http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3882508 (Day Two) http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3885136 (Day Three) http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3887311 (Day Four) Democratic National Convention: http://www.npr.org/politics/convention2004/dnc_schedule.html (All four days) All audio is encoded in RealAudio streaming format, meaning that without, ahem, special tools you can't download and save the audio. It's part of the public record, but the audio files aren't in the public domain. Some of us would like to change that. I suspect NPR would be more willing to contribute to that effort than, say, CNN which actually charges the online audience for streaming content. But for the Internet to fulfill its potential to serve the interests of citizenship and democracy, we must view it more as a public library than as a gated community. And keep stocking the shelves.
Comments: Post a Comment | <urn:uuid:0cd8d07b-7e80-41bc-9b2b-73a7ad3a49e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://will-am-fm-tv.blogspot.com/2004/09/internet-libraries-and-public-record.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943558 | 653 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Blending Asymmetric and Symmetric Multiprocessing with a Single OS on ARM11 MPCore
ARM11 MPCore is an excellent multicore processor, appropriate for both SMP and AMP. Many embedded system designs already use the AMP model, either on chip or off chips, so unforeseen design challenges are limited for software developers using AMP model with MPCore. On the other hand, the increasingly demanding applications require more and more CPU power, and the utilization of SMP is soon to become a necessity. However, SMP brings new design issues along with its advantages. The first half of this article is dedicated to discussing the issues and pros and cons of AMP/SMP, including throughput, concurrency, real-time determinism, reuse of existing software, programming model, and debug/analysis. The later half introduces eSOL's eT-Kernel Multi-Core Edition RTOS and eBinder tools, and how the issues can be put under control with its unique blending technology. | <urn:uuid:a65d0f8a-0189-4328-946d-32350a27e7ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techonline.com/electrical-engineers/education-training/tech-papers/4129106/Blending-Asymmetric-and-Symmetric-Multiprocessing-with-a-Single-OS-on-ARM11-MPCore | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901449 | 209 | 2.078125 | 2 |
By Kathryn Doyle
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For nearsighted children in Denmark, vision deteriorated faster when days were shortest and more slowly during the summer months, according to a new study looking into whether daylight may slow kids' vision loss.
"Most likely it is the light exposure that causes the reduced myopia progression during periods with longer days," said lead author Dr. Dongmei Cui, an ophthalmologist at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.
Cui and his colleagues analyzed data from a clinical trial that included more than 200 children aged 8 to 14 years old with myopia, or nearsightedness, in Denmark - where day length ranges from seven hours in winter to almost 18 hours in summer.
Researchers looked at changes both in the children's ability to see and in the shape of their eyes.
Over the six months with the least daylight, nearsightedness progressed by 0.32 diopters (a measurement of the optical power of a lens and the increment used in eyeglasses prescriptions). In comparison, children's vision deteriorated by 0.28 diopters over the sunniest months.
As the length of the eyeball increases from front to back, nearsightedness tends to get worse. During the winter, eye length in the study participants increased by an average of .18 millimeters, compared to .14 mm over the summer, according to results published in the journal Ophthalmology.
The researchers did not analyze how much time the children spent outside, just how much they probably did based on the season. Danish children spend much more time outdoors in summer, and very little in winter, when temperatures hover around freezing for four months, according to Cui.
Almost a third of Americans have myopia, which usually appears in childhood and worsens as the eye grows and keeps changing shape until age 20. Sometimes the eye is too long, or the cornea is too curved, so distant objects appear blurry.
Past research on nearsightedness in children in the U.S. found the condition deteriorated more during the six months of the school year and less during the six months that include summer, Cui and his colleagues note. But another study in Singapore, where days are about the same length all year, found no seasonal difference in the progression of nearsightedness.
However, Cui says his team's findings are the first to link nearsightedness progression with hours of available daylight.
Even when the sky is overcast, light from the sun is much more intense than indoor light, he told Reuters Health in an email.
The idea that daylight might protect children from worsening nearsightedness is a relatively new theory, said professor Jeffrey Cooper of the College of Optometry at the State University of New York in Manhattan.
Studies in mammals and birds have found that light exposure plays a role in the development of the eye, and that animals reared from a young age with frequent exposure to high intensity light may be somewhat protected from myopia. No similar effect has been seen with light exposure in adulthood.
The new study's results can't prove that daylight causes vision loss to slow down, Cooper said. "There is no evidence that increasing outside exposure will actually reduce the progression of myopia," Cooper, who was not involved in the work, told Reuters Health in an email.
But it could be a long time before a rigorous trial can prove the connection, and in the meantime it won't hurt to encourage children at risk for nearsightedness to spend some time outdoors, he added.
Cui also thinks parents should take advantage of sunnier seasons and send their children outside to play. Winters in Northern Europe don't offer much sun for kids, "but close to the equator the day is long enough and it could have a significant effect to spend more time outdoors," Cui said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/WVQZUI Ophthalmology, online February 4, 2013. | <urn:uuid:6ba7eb7d-a623-466b-8ee9-b9823e2428e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wncy.com/news/articles/2013/feb/11/nearsighted-kids-may-get-worse-in-winter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961383 | 813 | 2.875 | 3 |
The nonprofit sector gets shortchanged, underfunded, and sometimes undone by the broken system of government contracting and payments to nonprofits. So concludes two companion studies: An Urban Institute survey of some 3,500 nonprofit human service providers examining how they are faring—in many cases, suffering—with government contracts in 2009, and a report from the National Council of Nonprofits on the system of government contracting that NCN calls “an archaic, cobbled-together, patchwork arrangement” that has undone the nation’s social safety net. Both Urban and the NCN explain that the losers in the “nation’s long-ignored and severely broken system of government contracting are the communities that are supposed to be served by nonprofits and the taxpayers who end up footing the bill for the waste and inefficiency of government’s contracting with human services nonprofits.
The lead author of the Urban Institute study, Human Service Nonprofits and Government Collaboration,Elizabeth Boris, presented a series of headlines from the Urban study Thursday at a press briefing at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.:
- Some 33,000 human services nonprofits have government contracts, typically an average of six per group.
- In three out of five of these human services nonprofits, government funding is the largest source of funding.
- The total amount of money going to human service nonprofits in 2009 was roughly $100 billion through some 200,000 contracts and grants – roughly 65 percent of the funding to nonprofits in this sector.
- Two-thirds of survey respondents reported that government contract payments fall short of covering the full cost of service delivery.
- Half of respondents said that government changes to existing contracts and grants were a problem and roughly the same proportion complained about government late payments.
- Three-fourths of respondents complained that the complexity and time requirement for reporting and even the application process were too complex and time consuming.
Boris said that the government contracting and payment problems of human services nonprofits added to the problems caused by the recession. Groups found themselves hard-pressed to find banks willing to give them loans or extend letters of credit while government agencies delayed approving contracts and cutting checks. Finding themselves faced with a “double whammy” of government contract and payment shortfalls plus reductions in charitable and philanthropic giving, nonprofits froze or reduced salaries, drew on reserves, and laid off employees. Groups with late payment problems were more likely than others to have ended 2009 with an operating deficit.
Tim Delaney, NCN’s president and CEO, also presented at the event. His companion report, Costs, Complexification, and Crisis: Government’s Human Services Contracting ‘System’ Hurts Everyone, is a call to arms that lays out some of the specific government practices that state-level associations discovered that caused problems:
- States use different practices to determine how much overhead they take off the top on federal pass-through grant programs. For example, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, in one program in Wisconsin nonprofits could be reimbursed for up to 14 percent of the contract amount for overhead costs, but Louisiana nonprofits were capped at 9.4 percent, and Maryland nonprofits got nothing, because the state kept all of the overhead money for itself.
- Three out of five human services nonprofits reported that they were required to raise at least 25 percent in matching funds to get government contracts and, 27 percent had to raise on average half the contract amounts in matching funds to qualify for a contract.
- Some contracts impose unfunded mandates, such as in Connecticut where vendors are required to get costly proprietary data encryption software for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices that use state data.
- Two out of every five nonprofits report that governments paid them late at least once in 2009. Significant amounts of money are owed by some state governments on their contracts with nonprofits; for instance, Illinois owed more than half a billion dollars to more than 2,000 nonprofits for the first six months of 2010.
- Contract processing is delayed in some states, particularly those states whose legislatures (such as New York’s) seem unable to find a way of adopting a budget, much less adopting one within a legislatively mandated timeframe.
The NCN message appears to hinge on four points, (1) people should realize just how much of government relies on nonprofits to “get their work done,” (2) it isn’t just nonprofits that are hurt by late contracts and payments, but also taxpayers not getting the value of services they are paying for, (3) other nonprofits are hurt when government disadvantages human service contractors, because foundations and charitable donors end up not giving to the arts and other issues as they divert funds to help human service providers fill gaps; and (4) the problem of late payments, underfunded services, and delayed contracts is wide spread and getting worse as the contracting process becomes increasingly “complexified,” to use the word Delaney coined.
Specifically, Delaney called for the enactment of the Nonprofit Sector Community Solutions Act introduced by Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) that would create a venue for government and nonprofits to come to the table to work out these problems. He suggested that nonprofits put this issue in front of the candidates in the 37 states where gubernatorial elections are being held and ask them what they plan to do to fix the government/nonprofit contracting process. Delaney also sounded a “just say no” admonition, telling nonprofits that they should tell government agencies that they will not take or sign government contracts with built-in structural or financial elements that disadvantage nonprofits. This may be easier said than done but it’s a good aspiration.
What happens next? It’s one thing to outline the problem, but another to gin up a coherent message for a mobilized nonprofit sector to bring to the attention of government policy makers. We would hazard a guess that the National Council of Nonprofits and its state association members face a number of difficult hurdles.
Lots and lots of units of government: As an experienced player in the nonprofit sector at the state level (where he was a former deputy attorney general), Delaney acknowledged that there is no one magic bullet solution to the constellation of problems identified in the Urban Institute and National Council of Nonprofits reports. The complexification Delaney bemoans is obvious in the structure of American government. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States (PDF), in addition to the 50 state governments, there are 3,033 county governments, 19,492 municipal governments, 16,519 township or town governments, 13,051 school districts, and 37,381 special districts—a total of approximately 90,000 units of government for nonprofit service providers to navigate. Making the environment even more complex is 15 federal cabinet-level departments, dozens of independent and quasi-independent agencies, and multiple funding programs with their own cultures and procedures. Boris, of the Urban Institute, called for “systems that work better . . . [with] standardization, less complexity, [and] forms that work across agencies rather than each program having its own audits.” Increased standardization along with Delaney’s call for “document vaults,” where all relevant documents on nonprofit contractors can be stored for multiple agencies to access and review, might reduce the burden not just on nonprofit contractors, but on the units of local and state government in particular that find the monitoring process to be as troubling for them as their grantees.
Misidentifying the problem: During his presentation in Washington on Thursday, Delaney was astute enough to twice credit government agency staff who do their best in partnership with nonprofits “to find ways of making this broken system work,” avoiding the demonization of government as the root of the problem. Nonetheless, some observers and some nonprofits might come away from these reports with an impression of government-as-the-enemy versus a pristine, mission-driven nonprofit sector trying to get a around a resistant government bureaucracy to function. Government agencies are frequently trying to carry out program requirements and mandates that are imposed on them by the legislators who create programs—yet fail to fund them. Add to that the current state budget crisis, with hundreds of billions of budget deficits in FY2010 pending and more anticipated in FY2011, nonprofits face governmental agencies doing their own juggling acts to deal with their and their grantees’ and vendors’ accountability. Given that much of local government (and state government) finance is federal pass-through funds, some solutions might be best addressed at the federal level, such as standardizing how much overhead, if any, states and localities are permitted to lop off the top from their government contracts. But it is all too obvious that some of the states with the worst contracting and payment snafus are choking on structural deficits that have not receded despite the pronouncements that the Great Recession has ended.
He who has the gold makes the rules: Like the long debates in the nonprofit sector around self-regulation, the problem of fixing the broken governmental contracting and payment system doesn’t bring all nonprofits to the table on equal footing. There is the problem that the bigger nonprofit contractors could work on systemic fixes that benefit them, but not the bulk of smaller or newer groups that would like to access government grants and contracts. While public charities with government contracts may all have 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, there are differences among nonprofit contractors by size and sophistication. Hopefully, entities such as the National Council of Nonprofits will work to ensure that the larger, wealthier nonprofit contractors don’t work out fixes to this broken system that disadvantage smaller or newer potential competitors.
The outcomes game: Also at the briefing in Washington, Georgetown University professor Stephen Rathgeb Smith suggested that human services contractors might rethink and perhaps reinvent themselves along the lines of the Harlem Children’s Zone, which was once a traditional government-funded service provider called Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families. Smith acknowledged that not every human services nonprofit is led by someone of the caliber of HCZ’s Geoffrey Canada nor given resources by the likes of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to undergo an organizational transformation like it did, but he suggested that nonprofits might be able to argue the overhead issue by shifting the analysis to a “cost per outcome” basis rather than debating overhead and indirect rates. Smith pointed out the importance of measuring outcomes and the involvement of external players such as other nonprofit and corporate partners who could pressure government for changes. All well and good, but HCZ benefitted by hundreds of millions of dollars from foundations and from individual donors (such as hedge fund director Stanley Druckenmiller) for use in sophisticated evaluation studies and organizational change processes, resources that the smaller human services groups can never hope to see.
Subtly pernicious policies: Everyone involved in presenting the results of these studies was careful to note that these problems were not the creation of the Obama Administration, the Bush Administration, or others, but rather the problem dates back many years. All true, and there is much to be learned from the efforts of nonprofits over the years who have long fought for changes in governmental cost accounting and auditing, particularly those fighting issues at the federal level as seen in changes in federal contract auditing and in the application of OMB Circulars A-110, A-122, and A-133, but some current trends are very troubling. Boris acknowledged that she was surprised to learn the proportions of human services nonprofits that were required to put up significant amounts of matching funds to be given the responsibility of delivering government-funded services. Delaney asked whether defense contractors have to put up matching funds for the honor of producing the latest military hardware on Department of Defense contracts. But no one pointed out that the Obama Administration has made a practice of requiring potential nonprofit grantees to ante up significant matching dollars in order to participate in flagship programs, notably the Social Innovation Fund, the Promise Neighborhoods program, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Many nonprofits are not even trying to apply for new federal programs because of their inability to vault over the matching funds hurdle. The only nonprofits that can come to the table for such programs are those with significant assets of their own or access to major funding partners like foundations. The challenge that the nonprofit sector faces here is not simply the question of the historic, structural contracting and payment impediments nonprofits face with government, but emerging policies that effectively cut out many smaller nonprofits from playing service delivery roles in the future.
Oddly, Urban’s study looked at the nonprofits’ experience with government contracts in 2009, the first year of the federal stimulus program (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), which delivered $275 billion in federal grants and contracts (plus$224 billion in entitlement payments), a significant part of which went to nonprofits in the form of Community Services Block Grants, community health centers funding, weatherization funding, homeless services, community development financing, and other programs with strong nonprofit program delivery track records. Urban didn’t examine nonprofits for whether the flow of stimulus funding made the contracting and payment process better or worse for human services nonprofits, but most nonprofits know that the stimulus program not only changed the rules of the game, but made nonprofits meet new standards of program productivity in shorter periods of time with little government support and often confused governmental direction. According to Boris, 31 percent of nonprofit survey respondents said that their contracting relationship with government was worse in 2009 than before. Now that many stimulus funded nonprofits face a funding precipice in 2010 as stimulus funding expires, the fix that the National Council of Nonprofits is calling for couldn’t be more timely and necessary.
Update: Boris originally said 64 percent of respondents said their contracting relationship with government was worse in 2009. She updated that figure this morning to 31 percent. | <urn:uuid:665f615f-208f-4317-9bac-f6b657eacd73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6316 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956904 | 2,824 | 1.765625 | 2 |
An official from Nautilus Minerals has stated that the company is committed to an open and transparent approach to its Solwara 1 deep sea mining project in Papua New Guinea.
According to Radio New Zealand International, this Canadian-based company has a twenty-year license to mine the Bismarck Sea for copper and gold.
This is the world’s first major deep sea mining project.
The company has already encountered strong local opposition because of the unknown impacts of mining the seabed.
Stephen Rogers, CEO of Nautilus Minerals, stated: “And what I would say to the people of Papua New Guinea is that we’ve got a very well-engineered system, we’ve used world leading practice. We’ve brought in technologies from the mining industry and the deep water oil and gas industry that allow us to bring this material to the surface. It’s going to be done safely.”
He added that the project has a closed system of mineral extraction and will therefore decrease the impact on surface waters.
Subsea World News Staff, August 27, 2012; Image: Nautilus Minerals | <urn:uuid:d6357482-27f6-4746-83d0-f6317022cd19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://subseaworldnews.com/2012/08/27/nautilus-minerals-committed-to-open-approach-to-solwara-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939072 | 240 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Join an ACLU Student Alliance in Wisconsin
ACLU Student Alliances (ACLUSA) are high school, college or law school clubs that promote civil liberties on their campus. The ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation works with students who want to form clubs in the name of the ACLU or in coalition with other civil rights and human rights organizations. We provide leadership development, updates on current ACLU issues, and education on how the Constitution protects all people.
ACLUSAs have organized Know Your Rights workshops, sponsored Banned Books Week events, hosted civil liberties themed film screenings and volunteered to register voters. Just as the ACLU works every day to protect our rights, student ACLU members understand that young people are the next generation of vigilant defenders of liberty.
The College Student Alliances all have an established leadership structure, connect with one another, and work with state staff. All have hosted public events and training opportunities. Student Alliances are all on-campus groups recognized by their respective campus as an official club or group.
- ACLU Student Alliance at UW-Green Bay
- ACLU Student Alliance at UW-Milwaukee
- ACLU Student Alliance at UW-Madison
- ACLU Student Alliance at Lawrence University (AC[LU]²)
- ACLU Student Alliance at Alverno College
While the ACLU state staff provides workshops for youth at many other community organizations, nonprofits, and high schools, below are our established student alliances. They all meet after school. There is weekly staff involvement with the Milwaukee groups, funded through the Public Art Student Alliance (PASA) program.
- ACLU Student Alliance at Rufus King (Milwaukee)
- ACLU Student Alliance at COA on Garfield Ave. (at their CLC in Milwaukee)
- ACLU Student Alliance at North Division High School (at their Boys & Girls club in Milwaukee)
- ACLU Student Alliance at Alliance High School (Milwaukee)
- ACLU Student Alliance at Madison East (Madison)
- ACLU Student Alliance at True Skool (Milwaukee)
If you are interested in starting a student alliance at your college or high school, please email us or call our Youth and Programs Department at 414-272-4032 x 223. | <urn:uuid:7435691f-86e1-4d12-870d-4e7253c3c013> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aclu-wi.org/get-involved/student-alliances | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94021 | 442 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Aero group started the semester off by first doing a study of previous years DBF aircraft. Collecting specs from every DBF aircraft we could find, trends were developed to get first level numbers on our aircraft.
From there using various book methods and XFLR5 the model was furthered developed. This eventually lead to having the basic numbers for airfoil, chord, span, and with help from the structures group a first weight estimate. With all the basics determined the only part left was the fuselage construction and aircraft layout. For this a full 3D model was developed.
Aero has also been leading the effort to design an MDO code to help optimize our design and future designs. | <urn:uuid:9b2f14a2-a152-49dc-9f7b-2c186b73acce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ukdbf.blogspot.com/2010/01/aero-progress-fall-09.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975714 | 143 | 2.140625 | 2 |
President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his stimulus package to building a new green-based economy rich in renewable energy and strategies to cut carbon. But despite the price tag, not one green job yet exists. It comes down to a problem of etymology. No one can yet agree on what a green job actually is. The working definition paints a broad stroke: a job that's good for the economy while simultaneously healing the earth. But that leaves lots open to interpretation—natural gas is technically a cleaner fuel than crude oil, but it's still unsustainable—making it difficult, if not impossible, to measure whether eco-based jobs are being created and whether, as the administration has claimed, they're the saviors of a sagging economy.
In large part, the very idea behind a green job ensures there will never be a full definition, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics agreed in April to start measuring data on them. (Critics, in response, quickly suspected that the BLS, an agency supposed to measure objective data, could soon help carry water for an administration eager to show the stimulus is working.) Several environmental advocates polled by NEWSWEEK defined green jobs the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously defined obscenity: I'll know it when I see it.
The man beginning to field questions on whether Obama's green-jobs strategy is working is Van Jones, who started an environmental nonprofit called Green for All before joining the administration in March. Now, a senior adviser for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Jones is tasked with leading the administration's crusade for a green-based economy. On the road in Indiana, Jones spoke to NEWSWEEK's Daniel Stone. Excerpts:
Why are we still without an objective definition of a green job?
Well, we still don't have a unified definition, and that's not unusual in a democracy. It takes a while for all the states and the federal government to come to some agreement. But the Department of Labor is working on it very diligently. Fundamentally, it's getting there, but we haven't crossed the finish line yet.
A huge chunk of the stimulus went toward renewable energy and creating these green jobs. Can you point to any returns?
One of the great things is that we get to see these success stories as they begin to happen. Right now I'm in Indiana, and there's a conference for weatherization workers. Usually there are about 700 people at it; today there are 3,200 people and a good chunk of them are newly trained weatherization workers, going out and cutting energy bills. I'm looking at a lot of people who are fired up and ready to go. You're also starting to see employers making different decisions because of the stimulus package. You have companies like Siemens, [which] announced a couple months ago that it's going to be building a turbine plant, hiring hundreds of workers just because they recognize the [government's] commitment to clean energy.
At this point is the only feedback anecdotal?
Yes, we have a lot of anecdotal evidence because the concrete numbers aren't ready. But we can point to places like Kansas City, Mo., where weatherization dollars are being used in creative ways to help retrofit a neighborhood and influence mass transit. Once the stimulus starts working, you see the shift among entrepreneurs and private industry. We're excited to see the level of interest that we're seeing. We know there's tremendous private-sector interest. The last part of the economy to freeze was the green part. There was still growth in the solar and wind industries up until the last quarter of last year. And it looks like the first sector to unthaw will be the green parts.
The package was sold on reviving the economy. But there seems to be a numbers problem with the notion of green jobs. The president has said more than 4 million jobs, yet that number is far less than we've already lost.
It's not a numbers problem, it's all angle. The recovery package was $787 billion, but the green part was about $60 billion. Still, the green part is playing a central role in the recovery but is part of a much bigger effort. It's also important for people to know that when you're talking about people putting up a turbine, you're exactly right, it doesn't take many people to put one in the ground. But it does take a lot of people to manufacture one. We're talking 8,000 manufactured parts, as much steel as 26 cars. When you talk about tapping our full resource of wind, we need to make a whole bunch of those. If you want to have the jobs of tomorrow, we've got to start making the product of tomorrow. One of the biggest multi-billion-dollar plays we can make is clean energy.
Still, it doesn't take that many people to run a wind turbine plant, right?
We need to get into a position where you're manufacturing those wind turbines and you're putting them up and you're maintaining them. You're also manufacturing and deploying solar technology and biofuels and advanced geothermal. Now you can see how that creates ripple effects. The same thing is true for the energy-efficiency side. Look at a home: you have the worker putting in insulation. Where did she buy that insulation? Maybe she's putting in a new boiler and furnace, but where did she get them? Who made them? There are ripple effects. You're stimulating local small businesses, and you're saving people money they were spending on their utility bill.
There are plenty of skeptics that say you can't save the economy and the earth at the same time. You can have investment incentives and cut taxes to spur growth and you can enact blunt carbon-cutting measures, but when you do the two simultaneously, it dilutes both efforts.
Are you OK?
I was just chocking on that false choice [Laughs]. That's clearly a false choice. That's like saying, "Who do you love more, your kids or your grandkids?" You either care about your kids so you grow the economy but do it in a way that's polluting. Or you care about your grandkids so you're going to stop polluting and stall the economy and starve your kids. False choice! You can enhance your economic performance by enhancing your environmental performance. Certainly it's true in the energy sector. The wastefulness of the way we used to do things has to be taken into account.
True, but isn't it hard to convince people of that when nothing of this scale has ever been done before?
Look, every time we heard these arguments, they've been wrong. Back when we debated the first Clean Air Act, we heard that if we tried to do anything to clean the air up, it would destroy the economy. But in fact, the minute the rules were clear, U.S. business outperformed anyone in terms of driving costs down. The economy actually got better. At some point, history should matter. We always overshoot our expectation once the rules are clear and you unleash innovation. | <urn:uuid:6316285f-f599-4138-8187-5397d54f2151> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/27/what-green-jobs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970875 | 1,447 | 2.625 | 3 |
Remember those infamous Mac versus PC television spots that cast the PC as a virus and malware magnet? You remember the ones: Actor Justin Long personified the Mac, and always spoke in smug, superior tones to comedian John Hodgman, who represented the perpetually perplexed, problem-plagued, and patch-prone PC. The ad campaign was a devastatingly effective one, and helped define Microsoft Windows -- and Windows Vista in particular -- as a buggy OS for socially inept losers.
The ads were often technically inaccurate and unfair, but they went unchallenged by Microsoft for so long that many less-informed viewers bought the line that the Mac was invulnerable to viruses. In political parlance, Apple defined Microsoft long before the slumbering marketing department in Redmond even realized that long-term damage was being done.
Since the heyday of the Mac vs PC campaign, things have changed. Windows 7 is arguably one of the most hardened and regularly updated OSes available, and now Apple and the Macintosh are in the headlines for fighting off malware and patching vulnerable software.
Apple Updates OS 10.5 with 'Flashback' Removal Kit
One of the biggest security stories to emerge this year was the arrival of the 'Flashback' malware, which initially appeared in late 2011. Designed to take advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities in Java for the Mac, the flashback spread quickly through thousands of largely undefended Mac computers. Russian security vendor Dr.WEB did some recent analysis of the Flashback botnet and revealed that more than 650,000 Macs were potentially infected with the malware.
Flashback is noteworthy because it heralds the collapse of the specious argument that the Mac has always been inherently superior to Windows PCs when it came to being resistant to viruses. Flashback proves that the Mac can be just as vulnerable as the PC when malware and virus authors focus their efforts on it, and the attitude of many Mac users -- who mistakenly believe that the Mac simply doesn't get malware or viruses -- has probably helped Flashback have a larger impact that it should have.
Let's be honest: The Mac's alleged resistance to malware and viruses has always had more to do with the fact that Windows PCs presented a much larger (and more economical) target for virus and malware writers than the comparatively miniscule installed base of Apple computers. With Apple selling more Macs than ever before, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that we'll probably start seeing more Mac viruses and malware in the future. If you have a friend or colleague that still believes that the Mac is immune to viruses or malware, please show them this article.
In order to combat the spread of Flashback, Apple has issued security updates for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and OS X 10.5 Leopard, and released a Flashback removal tool that helps users remove Flashback from their systems if they've been infected.Quicktime for Windows Patched
In somewhat related news, Apple also released an update for their popular QuickTime software to update it to version 7.2.2. A posting on the Apple security website states that the update was meant to fix a QuickTime vulnerability that could be exploited by users "visiting a maliciously crafted website" that could remotely install code that could "lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution."
Have you had to deal with Flashback removal for Macs in your IT environment? Share your thoughts by adding a comment to this blog post or contributing to the discussion on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:1cf643c8-6737-4118-96c0-62b75baa30d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windowsitpro.com/blog/apple-ships-flashback-malware-removal-tool-os-x-105-patches-quicktime-windows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953674 | 719 | 2.140625 | 2 |
today mine electronic databases from their home computers, seek reference
help by sending e-mails to librarians, and launch World Wide Web-based tutorials.
They want information quickly: online, in full text, at their fingertips.
Faculty and scholars, likewise, enjoy immediate access to hundreds of online
academic journals and databases and can search the contents of full-text articles
With so much information available electronicallyat the click of a button, from the comfortable environment of a home, office, or residence hallwho needs the library? Why do libraries matter?
E. Thorin is Ruth Lilly Dean of the University Libraries at Indiana
First, libraries are important as placesas environments that support learning. Its true that the ways students and faculty obtain their information are changing. Technology has a powerful influence, and perhaps nowhere on the Indiana University campuses is the nexus between students, faculty, and information technology more visible than in the libraries. But its also true that academic research libraries are changing to meet user expectations. Libraries are no longer simply warehouses of information that provide access to great printed troves of human knowledge. In todays fast-paced technological environment, libraries are places for students and faculty to collaborate, to find face-to-face guidance from expert librarians, and to conduct interdisciplinary research using both print and electronic resources.
In this definition of the library
as a place, some of the libraries in the IU system shine; some have far to
go. The University Library on the IUPUI
campus, for example, is a showcase. Regional campus libraries such as
the one in South Bend prove their value to the community every day. And in
Bloomington, we have developed a plan to renovate the thirty-year-old Main
Library to meet the expectations of todays users. The
Main Library, which President Brand announced last year will be named
for Herman B Wells, will become an invigorated learning center that fully
integrates technology; traditional library resources such as books and journals;
and librarians, the experts who help make sense of all these resources.
As a prelude to the renovation
(the first phase of which was included in the universitys capital priority
request to the state for the 20012003 biennium), the IU Bloomington
Libraries are working to create an Information Commons in the Main Library,
in partnership with other university departments such as University Information
Technology Services. We know that such partnerships work: the area of the
Main Library that serves primarily undergraduates and offers university services
such as writing workshops, computer clusters, and career advising logged more
than 1 million visits last year.
Recasting the image of the people
who work in libraries is central to defining a library as a place in which
users find help. Erase the antiquated picture of librarians shushing students
in book-lined reading rooms. Librarians today are information providers at
the forefront of the Internet revolutiondeveloping and organizing electronic
resources, teaching students and faculty how to use them, and filtering the
data smog that results from the endless flow of information on
the World Wide Weball while continuing to provide and organize the books
and journals that are the backbone of a research institution.
Second, books remain
the primary commodity. Despite
their growth, electronic resources will never replace the knowledge already
captured in books for centuries. Consider the numbers: IUBs collection
of more than 6 million bound volumes ranks thirteenth in size among North
American research libraries. IUB boasts a collection of more than 7 million
manuscripts, 600,000 maps, 160,000 sound recordings, and 3,000 historical
films. Its collections include 12-foot shipbuilding blueprints, oil paintings,
handwritten correspondence, multivolume reference works, and books in more
than 200 languages. Students and faculty rely heavily on these resources for
their instruction and scholarship.
Preserving this collection is
of paramount importance, and thats why the IU Libraries are building
an Auxiliary Library Facility. Now under construction on the Bloomington campus,
this facility will serve two purposes: It will house nearly 1.8 million volumes
and relieve the severe overcrowding of books in the Bloomington campus libraries,
and it will include a state-of-the-art preservation laboratory to ensure that
we can continue to care for the universitys collections.
Increasingly, those collections
also include digital materialsat considerable expense to the libraries.
Just as students and faculty rely on the IU Libraries to provide books and
journals, they also rely on the libraries to provide the intellectual content
available through technology: the databases, electronic journals and indices,
online catalogs, digital audio recordings, and instructional Web pages that
make their study and research more fruitful. Whether in the libraries, residence
halls, off-campus homes, offices, or classrooms, students and faculty know
they can access the information they need, when they need it. But without
this rich intellectual content, the technological infrastructureof which
Indiana University is justifiably proudloses its value.
In this issue, youll learn a bit more about the Indiana University Libraries: the people who work there and use library resources, and the issues and projects important to them. I invite your comments as we prepare the IU Libraries for the challenges ahead. | <urn:uuid:f3a801a8-4108-41ea-8954-d4b829fe1f7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v23n3/p03.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923689 | 1,116 | 2.640625 | 3 |
You are here
As stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.2.42), bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra ca: devotional service is so powerful that one who performs devotional service is immediately freed from all sinful desires. All desires within this material world are sinful because material desire means sense gratification, which always involves action that is more or less sinful. Pure bhakti, however, is anyābhilāṣitā-śūnya; in other words, it is free from material desires, which result from karma and jñāna. One who is situated in devotional service no longer has material desires, and therefore he is beyond sinful life. Material desires should be completely stopped. Otherwise, although one’s austerities, penances and charity may free one from sin for the time being, one’s desires will reappear because his heart is impure. Thus he will act sinfully and suffer. | <urn:uuid:c6942557-827a-4f36-9338-ac9be5c2dce4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vedabase.com/en/sb/6/2/17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914148 | 220 | 1.578125 | 2 |
|General Statistics - Help Card
Average Hits per Day - Number of successful hits divided by the total number of days in the log. |
Average Page Views per Day - Number of page views divided by the total number of days in the log.
Average Page Views per Unique Visitor - Number of page views divided by the total number of unique visitors.
Average Visits per Day - Number of visits divided by the total number of days in the log.
Average Visit Length - Average of non-zero length visits in the log.
Document Views - Number of hits to pages that are considered documents--not dynamic pages or forms--as defined by the system administrator.
Hit - A single action on the Web server as it appears in the log file. A visitor downloading a single file is logged as a single hit, while a visitor requesting a Web page including two images registers as three hits on the server; one hit is the request for the .html page, and two additional hits are requests for the downloaded image files. While the volume of hits is an indicator of Web server traffic, it is not an accurate reflection of how many pages are being looked at.
Hits: Entire Site (Successful) - Number of hits that had a "success" status code.
Hits: Home Page - Number of times the home page (as defined in the profile) was viewed.
International Visits - Percentage of visitors defined as "international" in Domain Options.
Home Page Hits - Number of times your home page was visited.
Median Visit Length - Median of non-zero length visits in the log. Half the visit lengths are longer than the median, and half are shorter. This number is often closer to the "typical" visit length than the average visit length. Numbers that are wildly atypical can skew the average, but will not skew the median so much.
Page - Any document, dynamic page, or form. Documents are user-defined in Options, but typically include all static content, such as complete html pages. Dynamic pages are created with variables and do not exist anywhere in a static form. Forms are scripted pages which get information from a visitor and pass it back to the server.
Page Views - Hits to files designated as pages. Supporting graphics and other non-page files are not counted.
Page Views: Document Views - Hits to pages that are defined as documents. This entry excludes hits to dynamic pages and forms.
Unique Visitors- Individuals who visited your site during the report period. If someone visits more than once, they are counted only the first time they visit.
Visits - Number of times a visitor came to your site. If a visitor is idle longer than the idle-time limit, WebTrends assumes the visit was voluntarily terminated. If the visitor continues to browse your site after they reach the idle-time limit, a new visit is counted. The default idle-time limit is thirty minutes.
Visits from Spiders - Number of visits from any site classified as a spider.
Visits from Your Country - Percentage of visits from your country. The name of your country and the country code are shown. Your system administrator configures the selection for your country.
Visits of Unknown Origin - Percentage of visitors from an origin that could not be determined.
Visits Referred by Search Engines - Number of visits that began with a referral from any site classified as a search engine.
Visitors Who Visited More Than Once - Number of individual visitors who appear more than once in the log file. Individuals can be tracked by IP addresses, domain names, and cookies. Cookies provide the most accurate count.
Visitors Who Visited Once - Number of individual visitors who appear only once in the log file. Individuals can be tracked by IP addresses, domain names, and cookies. Cookies provide the most accurate count.
The General Statistics page provides an overview of your Web site's performance and visitor behavior and can help you determine which chapters will be most valuable to you.|
Log records for the last second in the log file are not included in this analysis. There is no way to tell if information for that second is complete until the log records following it become available. The data for the last second will be included when the next analysis is run and additional data is available. | <urn:uuid:dab8ae3c-6d16-4e27-bb84-f875a231d338> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.p2ric.org/About/P2RIC3Q05/DEFAULT_01_b.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925761 | 883 | 2.5625 | 3 |
UPDATE: Tigard Police said the boil water advisory was lifted Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. and tap water was safe to drink and use as normal.
TIGARD, Ore. – Residents in much of Tigard, plus Durham, King City and Bull Mountain were told to boil their water on Wednesday after tests for E. coli came up positive.
Tigard police say customers in the Tigard Water Service Area need to boil all of their water to kill bacteria that could be present.
Tap water that will be used for drinking, food prep, brushing teeth, washing dishes or making ice should be heated to a full boil for at least one minute. That will kill the bacteria found during testing, police said.
Any ice or beverages made with water after Sunday, November 18 should be thrown out.
Two routine water samples collected Monday first turned up the possible contamination. Follow-up samples taken on Tuesday also tested positive for E. coli and coliform, city officials said.
The tests show that the water may be contaminated with human or animal waste.
"It's just bad timing, especially when you have family," said Angela Kingery. "You don't want to be skirting around it."
While the tests showed E. coli was present, the specific strain isn’t clear. City officials said the strains associated with serious illness are rarely found in water supplies.
"We have a toddler and a baby so we're just going to make sure that they have safe water to drink, and we have a bottle washing station," said Kingery.
It’s not clear how the bacteria got in the water.
Crews began flushing the water system on Wednesday morning. Once it’s flushed, the water will be tested again, police said.
The city plans to get those results on Thursday morning. They will notify customers when it’s safe to stop boiling water.
"We're worried about the showering, we are worried about bathing the toddlers, so that's the part I'm worried about," Kingery said.
Tualatin Valley Water District customers, including the cities of Tualatin and Bridgeport, are not part of the boil water notice.
City of Tigard website | <urn:uuid:b72594a6-5077-4abd-b6b1-d09e3c0ea773> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.katu.com/news/medicalalert/Tigard-residents-told-to-boil-water-after-positive-E-coli-test-180402951.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968546 | 463 | 2.125 | 2 |
What do you do when you're basically a giant welfare state whose stability depends on keeping the money tap open, yet your population is set to double and your electricity consumption to triple by 2032?
If you're Saudi Arabia, the answer is build renewable energy as fast as you can. The first volley is a goal of 5 gigawatts of solar power by 2020. That's an enormous amount of generating capacity to build in just 9 years — fully a third of Germany's entire installed base.
The idea is that replacing the country's current energy mix with renewables will free up those fossil fuels for sale abroad, so the country doesn't go bankrupt in the process of attempting to grow its way out of potential upheaval. Can you imagine a country so rich in oil they burn it to make electricity? And yet that's how more than half of Saudi Arabia's electricity is produced. (The rest is natural gas.)
It's a logical plan — the country's a desert, after all, so why not cover it in solar? — but there's no guarantee it will ultimately succeed. For starters, one of the reasons its electricity consumption will triple by 2032 is that the country is running out of water. Indeed, in 2012, Saudi Arabia will build the world's largest solar-powered desalination plant in the city of Al-Khafji. So the country’s new solar power capacity might all get dumped into making sure everyone doesn’t dehydrate to death. | <urn:uuid:e6e269dc-cc2e-4f30-b424-3ff0e9ebdba3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grist.org/list/2011-05-10-saudi-arabia-scrambling-to-get-off-own-oil-build-5-gigawatts-of/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954611 | 300 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Patient Safety and Simulation Initiatives
Simulation is utilized to implement patient safety initiatives. A Moderate Sedation Course is taught using a simulation exercise that highlights pitfalls and rescue techniques for patients undergoing moderate sedation. Nursing utilizes simulation exercises to demonstrate potential errors with IV pump management and other high-risk areas for medical error.
As a highlight of UF education week, teams of residents and nurses from across the institution compete against one another in high fidelity hybrid simulation scenarios emphasizing teamwork and communication skills.
Resuscitation and Crisis Resource Management
The UFCOM-Jacksonville emergency medicine residency program and the UF Health Jacksonville emergency nursing staff perform quarterly resuscitation training events aimed at junior physicians and nurses new to the resuscitation area. Heavy emphasis is placed on crisis resource management and teamwork and communication skill training, along with critical patient care case management and just-in-time training for new procedures, equipment, and algorithms. Debriefing allows the moderators to focus on critical events and provide feedback based on goals and objectives created for each scenario.
In addition, the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) nursing staff and cardiothoracic surgery train with post-op scenarios that require immediate action and coordinated team response. Both nursing and physician leadership contribute to the scenario development and debriefing.
The emergency medicine residency program at the UFCOM-Jacksonville utilizes CSESaR for both presentation and simulation experiences as part of the program's didactic curriculum. The training is aimed at incorporating all six core competencies. Faculty, Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) fellows, residents, and medical students participate regularly in simulation exercises. In addition, EM nursing participate in team training exercises. Lecture, case-based, and educational gaming/interactive presentations comprise approximately 67% of the scheduled, synchronous educational presentations with much of this performed in CSESaR. Simulation exercises that correlate with these educational activities account for the other 33% of the curriculum. Adult and pediatric simulations occur with resident involvement utilizing high-fidelity simulation, role-play, standardized patients, and hybrid simulations. Task trainers and cadaveric labs are used for procedural competency training. The residency regularly collaborates with hospice educators and chaplains for “delivery of bad news” training. Mass casualty incident training provides residents exposure to disaster training in a full size emergency department. Goals, objectives, and debriefing evaluations are available electronically. The events and debriefings are captured and stored on CSESaR's B-line recording solution for future review.
All internal medicine residents participate in on going training within CSESaR as part of their morning report curriculum at least twice monthly. Brief cases are prepared by the chief residents and individual residents are selected for participation and assigned various roles. Code team training is provided for first and second year residents utilizing high fidelity simulators with video debriefing. The residents also train on task trainers for central lines, lumbar puncture and intubations. The simulation education curriculum gives faculty a venue for evaluating and providing directed feedback in several of the core competencies, including patient care, medical knowledge, communication, practice based learning, and professionalism.
The neurology residents are involved in simulation training in a number of areas. The residents and stroke/cerebrovascular disease fellow participate in “breaking bad news” simulations. During these events, training and competency in interpersonal and communication skills (ICS) and systems-based practice (SBP) are provided and assessed. Scenario based simulations with trained actors as patients and caregivers are utilized with real patient care scenarios. Residents receive immediate feedback on the core competencies of professionalism, ISC and SBP skills from faculty evaluators. The simulation training is gradually expanding due to positive resident feedback and the success of the initial programs.
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Faculty-directed obstetrics training incorporates both resident and medical student education. Residents at all levels of training are confronted with challenging birthing scenarios that enhance understanding and retention. Specific infrequently performed but high-risk procedures are routinely taught so that providers are able to master critical techniques that impact outcomes in the delivery room.
Residents also utilize task trainers and cadavers to advance skills in laparoscopic surgery techniques. Due to the nationally recognized advanced simulation education currently in place, CSESaR has been chosen as an initial American Congress of Obsetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) simulation training site.
Orthopaedic surgery utilizes simulation workshops to address educational objectives in areas of training such as spine anatomy and techniques. The workshops are designed to train and evaluate performance in the core competencies. Using cadaveric stations and supplemental “sawbones” stations, multiple scenarios including percutaneous vertebral biopsy and kyphoplasty, anterior and posterior cervical instrumentation, dissection of anatomy and exposure for laminectomy and bone graft harvest, performance of laminectomy, and lumbar pedicle screw instrumentation are performed. Evaluations of resident performance in PGY specific tasks recorded in the simulation center are included in resident learning portfolios.
The department has performed educational research in regard to the competency of “practice based learning” to find most effective ways to train complex techniques. The conclusion showed that mentored education produces less technical errors and improved scores on knowledge base testing.
Several core surgical courses and skill labs are supported by the simulation center.
These courses include the Fundamental Critical Care Support Course, a two-day comprehensive course addressing fundamental management principles for the first 24 hours of critical care. All surgical residents take this course yearly in addition to respiratory therapists, nurses, physician extenders and other interested department housestaff.
The Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) training is also administered and partly supported through CSESaR. FLS is a comprehensive web-based education module that includes a hands-on skills training component and assessment tool designed to teach the physiology, fundamental knowledge, and technical skills required in basic laparoscopic surgery. The FLS Test measures cognitive knowledge, case/problem management skills and manual dexterity. All surgical residents participate in this required yearly training. The FLS program content has been endorsed by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and is a joint educational offering of SAGES and ACS. We are the only center in NE Florida to offer this.
CSESaR further provides support and resources for the American College of Surgeons/Association of Program Directors Surgery Surgical Skills Curriculum that is presented as an ongoing surgical resident training course. The curriculum has been carefully structured and designed by content experts to enhance resident training through reproducible simulations, with verification of proficiency before operative experience.
School for the Medical Arts
The UF Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research (CSESaR) is currently involved in the “School for the Medical Arts” (SoMA). With $24.8M in funding from the Duval County School System and the U.S. Department of Education, SoMA will become a grade 6 to 12, full high school Magnet program in the U.S. with a medical focus. With the funding, new structures will be built at the site and the enrollment at the school will be doubled. The importance of this for simulation is the role CSESaR played in getting this grant and the role it expects play in the program.
The program includes substantial simulation training at CSESaR—traditional hands-on simulation, as well as cutting-edge virtual reality and hybrid scenarios. It is expected that students will graduate from high school with basic life support certification (BLS) and associate nursing credentials. The vision is that this program will encourage these young students to enter college with the ultimate goal of seeking advanced medical degrees.
This is not intended to be just a local CSESaR effort. CSESaR will encourage cooperative efforts among medical schools and simulation centers in the U.S. and around the world to support similar efforts.
Disaster Medical Assistant Team (DMAT) | <urn:uuid:1c3090bc-b571-431c-854b-4bb61e8bcfee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hscj.ufl.edu/csesar/projects.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936734 | 1,654 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Alabama segregation vote stirs memories of Wallace
Onetime segregationist governor George Wallace once explained to me the distinction many Southerners make between a racist and a segregationist — a mind-set that may help explain why Alabama voters recently failed to remove some Jim Crow language from the state's constitution.
"A racist hates people because of their color or religion or ethnic background," he told me in 1991. "A segregationist is one who really thought it (forced racial separation) was in the interest of both races."
In this view, racial segregation is an act of caring, not an expression of racial hatred.
That may have been the thinking of a good number of voters in the state that calls itself the "Heart of Dixie" when they went to the polls Nov. 2. In addition to naming their choice for president, they were asked to decide whether a section of the state's behemoth constitution that mandates racial segregation in public schools should be stripped from the document.
The wording is chilling: "Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race." The repeal provision, called Amendment 2, also would have removed from the constitution language that says the state's schoolchildren do not have a right to a public education.
The amendment was defeated by 1,850 votes out of the more than 1.38 million cast. The results of a statewide recount are expected this week. Supporters of the repeal effort worry that the measure's defeat will send the wrong message.
Nevermind that the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education case long ago rendered the Alabama constitution's Jim Crow language null and void. Supporters of Amendment 2 wanted voters to send an unambiguous message to the world beyond the state's borders. They wanted to erase the stain that the segregation clause has on Alabama's efforts to get beyond its racist past.
"I don't believe that this vote demonstrates that our people are racist, but it does show that some of them are vulnerable to organized confusion and political demagoguery and fear," says Lenora Pate, a Democrat who co-chairs a bipartisan panel created by Gov. Bob Riley to overhaul the state's constitution. Pate says that the document has been amended more than 750 times since 1901.
Fears of a state tax hike
Opponents of Amendment 2 include Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the state's Supreme Court who was ousted after his fight to display the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse.
He is believed to be eyeing a run for statewide office. He argues that removing the clause, which says schoolchildren have no right to a publicly funded education, would open the way for a judge to order an increase of state taxes to improve the education system.
Although Riley, a Republican, and other supporters of Amendment 2 say the removal of that clause would create no such opening, voters appear to have rejected it. The awaited recount is expected to sustain that decision.
For too many Alabama voters, rejecting a constitutional amendment that would remove segregationist language from their state's constitution probably falls far short of racist behavior. Like Wallace, who died in 1998, they no doubt see a big distinction between the overt act of racism and the more subtle actions of segregationists. And when confronted with a choice between cleansing segregationist language from their state's constitution and risking a tax increase, and doing nothing about that ugly blot and fending off a feared tax hike, Alabama voters opted for the latter.
Pate believes that those who voted against Amendment 2 were misled by people who had good reason to know the case against it was bogus. She says that while the election results are disappointing, the intentions of most of those voters were not hateful.
I'm not so sure.
"You see, a lot of these people who appeared to folks like you to hate folks really were doing it politically, to be elected," Wallace said of the race-baiting behavior of the Southern politicians of his day.
In other words, they were followers — not the leaders — of the voters they sought to serve.
DeWayne Wickham writes weekly for USA TODAY. | <urn:uuid:dbcb9e0a-2094-4567-94bc-62a0458fb219> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/wickham/2004-12-06-wickham_x.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976661 | 860 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Just a few weeks ago, Midwesterners were reveling in temperatures way too high for March. Now, chilly spring days have returned, and the cold snap is raising fears for crops around the Great Lakes.
That’s particularly the case in northern Michigan, which is known as Cherryland. Agriculture experts warned during the warm spell that there could be damage in the case of freezing temperatures, and that looks entirely possible.
“Every time we have temperatures in the 20s from here on out, there will be crop damage,” Phil Korson, president of the Cherry Marketing Institute, told the Associated Press.
Korson, whose group is funded by cherry growers, said this year’s tart cherry crop will be in danger throughout this month, when cold nights are usual.
Trees developed blossoms during a weeklong heat wave in mid-March, when temperatures topped 80 degrees five days in a row and remained mostly above 60 at night. Continue reading | <urn:uuid:64a0c344-24c6-4fb1-900f-5177d42a6652> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.changinggears.info/tag/cold-snap/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956115 | 201 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Boston College Arts Festival
April 25-27, 2013
Every year during springtime, Boston College holds a free festival lasting several days, showcasing the talents and works of over a thousand artists, of both students and faculty members. All aspects of art—visual, performance, and literary arts—each have their place in the festival for everyone to enjoy and experience. Art demonstrations and exhibits, musical performances, theater and dance numbers, literary readings, films, are all included. The intent of the 3-day event is to allow the fruits of artistic labor of the Boston College community to be appreciated by everyone. The stage is set at the O’Neil Plaza each spring.
Now in its 14th year, the festival will be held on April 25-27, 2013, on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Events start at 12 noon and will go all the way to 11:00 pm in the evening. Every hour features different theater, music and dance events. Art exhibits for all sorts of visual masterpieces are all over miscellaneous venues. There are also literary readings and featured films throughout the day. Think of it as sort of a theme park of artistic experiences. Everywhere you go, there's something going on that will likely leave you with a sense of wonder or, at the very least, be entertaining. There is always something being created—whether it's a high note from an opera singer, the stroke of a paint brush on a canvas, the sound of dancers clapping and snapping, or even a small child's piece of chalk, scraping against the O'Neil Plaza’s pavement forming yet another masterpiece.
One noteworthy part of the festival is the fact that there are activities that children can participate in. This really makes for an inexpensive (free) and unique alternative to the usual kids' educational and enjoyment routine. There are arts and crafts, where activities vary from year to year. Past activities have included creating masks, making tambourines, cookie decorating, etc. There are also activities where kids are guided by art professors and students, such as ceramics or pottery, scene painting, sidewalk murals, and even jewelry making for older students. There is also the children's theater, story hour and the unique instrument petting zoo hosted by the Boston College Band.
The dance events are always fun to watch—with a whole array of dance styles featured by the students. They perform tap-dancing, hip-hop, Asian cultural dances, Latin, ballroom, and many others styles. Musical performances are just as diverse, featuring big band jazz, A Cappella groups, solo classical performances, chorale numbers, opera, and song writing exhibitions. There is also an awarding ceremony to recognize the distinguished members of the students, faculty and alumni.
Boston College was founded in 1863 after its charter was approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, though the school had already started to operate even before then. It's the second Jesuit institution of higher learning in the state, and the first in the Boston area. Today, it has over 13,000 students and is considered a "Research University" by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education—meaning there is high level of research activity in the University's nine schools offering bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees.
Contact Information & Address:
Boston College Arts Festival
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Nearest MBTA: Boston College Stop (Green Line B-Tram) | <urn:uuid:3dc2e8cb-e297-4f96-a4cf-0dc2f8a7d498> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.celebrateboston.com/boston-college-arts-festival.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960733 | 713 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm
If you haven't yet been to Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm you really can't imagine what you are missing. visitors say over and over again. On arrival: " I was recommended to come by a friend". "The children insisted that we come back again" and, on departure: "What a magical place you have here". "Don't commercialise it." "Please don't change it."
Families can walk round this working livestock farm using the fenced paths and walkways which follow the river bank, the edge of the lake and meander between the paddocks containing sheep, cattle, pigs, goats, alpacas and poultry together with any youngsters that they may have produced. All the Baylham House animals are friendly and can be fed with the free bag of animal food that every child is given on arrival. Some of the Kune Kune Maori pigs will sit down when told and open their mouths waiting for food to be dropped in.
When the legs begin to tire and the need for rest and refreshment starts to become significant, a stroll back to the Visitors' Centre will find a bowl of home-made soup, a ploughman's lunch, a Suffolk clotted cream tea or a slice of home-made cake ready and waiting to revive the spirit.
The disabled visitor is well catered for with the majority of the walkways being wheelchair friendly. A disabled toilet can be found in the Visitors' Centre which has a disabled badge parking area right outside the door.
Standard admission prices 2013 prices: Adult £6.00 Concession £5.00 Child £3.00.
Discounts Group: 50p off each entry for groups of 15 or more paying visitors. Season tickets at a cost of four times the normal entry price will give unlimited access to the farm for 12 months.
Children under 4 admitted free.
|Season Dates||Opening Hours|
|Notes||February 16th to September 8th, Open Tuesday to Sunday and bank holiday Mondays
September 9th to October 24th, Open Friday to Sunday
October 25th to November 3rd, Open every day
Open on December weekends, 7th & 8th, 14th & 15th, 21st & 22nd
Daily opening times: Open: 10am, Close: 5pm
ContactMr Richard Storer
email a friend
VenueBaylham House Rare Breeds Farm
Mill Lane, Baylham, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP6 8LG
Map reference: TM 112527 Lat: 52.13227 Long: 1.08504
Signed off the B1113 between Needham Market and Great Blakenham. Marked on OS maps. OS ref TM114526. Post Code IP6 8LG.
By Public Transport:
No 88 or 87 bus from Ipswich. Get off at Baylham. Nearest railway station is Needham Market. Then take an 88 or 87 bus to Baylham.
Parking : free
Accessible by Public Transport : 2 miles (3.2 kms) from Needham Market station
The majority of farm paths are wheelchair friendly.
Also at this venue
Events at this venue
|Sat 16 Feb 2013 - Sun 8 Sep 2013||Lambing at Half Term|
|Sun 2 Jun 2013||The Naked Sheep Festival| | <urn:uuid:b69643da-d979-4fe6-8a57-84b4bbed749b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visiteastofengland.com/2for1/family-attractions/Ipswich-Baylham-House-Rare-Breeds-Farm/details/?dms=13&soc=3512&feature=1&venue=0221310 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922023 | 698 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A truce agreement was reached after nine days of Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip, during which Israel assassinated many key leaders from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad armed groups. As part of the truce, Israel agreed to stop all hostilities against Gaza, by air or sea or land, and refrain from targeting any individuals. Palestinians agreed to stop all operations from Gaza against Israel, including shelling at bordering areas. Egypt got the guarantee from all parties to respect the agreement and refrain from violating it, and they will all refer to Egypt, the sponsor of the agreement.
The Israeli political and media circles considered that Israel failed to achieve its goals in Gaza, and that the excess of power cannot guarantee the safety of Israel, neither did the assassinations and air strikes.
The results of the military operations revealed the following:
1- The targeted airstrikes with F-16 planes and Apache helicopters, highlighted Israel’s strategic monitoring of the targets by drones.
2- Despite the destructive missile platforms, especially Fajr 5 which can reach key cities in the south and center of Israel, in addition to Grad and Cornet anti-tanks platforms, Hamas reached strategic targets, 80 kilometers away from Gaza. This endangered, for the first time, industrial Israeli cities and military compounds.
3- The strategic reserve of middle range missiles exceeded 1500 missiles, which destabilized the strategic balance and incited Israel to destroy them.
On the other hand, Hamas used new rockets to attack settlements and Israeli locations around Gaza and conveyed a strategic message of its ability to create a counterbalance, by being able to reach key vital targets, such as in Ashdod and Tel Aviv, as well as a compound for the military intelligence in the southern region.
And Hamas rockets halted classes in schools and universities which exerted pressure over Netanyahu to stop the operations against the will of Shin Bet, Israel's controversial domestic security service, which was suggesting a wider-range operation.
The Lebanese army increased its patrols while Hezbollah forbid Palestinian groups from firing rockets from south Lebanon and took other measures around the Palestinian camp of Ain-El-Heloui to stop the repercussions of Gaza war.
The results of the Gaza war were as follows:
1- The Israeli prime minister fell under the pressure from right wing parties about the importance of dealing firmly with the threats of the resistance organizations in Gaza and Lebanon.
2- The urgency of developing the highly expensive Iron Dome, and the need for additional funds to deploy more missiles, and the urgency to develop the “hets” missile with American support.
The Israeli operation against Gaza was endorsed by U.S. support to Israel’s right to self-defense which will affect the position of Obama’s new administration towards the truce.
The Gaza violence put in question Egypt’s role and commitment towards the Strip, especially that Hamas is asked for confidence-building measures with Egyptian support in the absence of any real guarantees within the agreement.
And in spite of Egypt’s calls for peace, it took preventive measures near the border and moved additional forces to that area.
In evaluating the results of the Israeli operation against Gaza we note the following:
The resistance organizations were seeking to restore the balance of terror, through rockets that target key residential conglomerations. But Israeli hostilities succeeded in diminishing the arsenal of rockets, especially from Islamic Jihad, as many strategic warehouses were destroyed while 1200 rockets were fired against Israel out of an estimated 2000, in addition to assassinating key military leaders in Hamas and Jihad.
The resistance proved to be able to manufacture locally mid-term rockets, which abolishes the efforts of monitoring smuggling routes.
This operation will certainly lead to more American pressure on Egypt to border control and stop the smuggling of weapons.
But the truce lacks any tangible steps after the confidence-building measures, while giving Egypt the responsibility of following up its implementation.
And it is unlikely that tangible steps will be taken to achieve Palestinian reconciliation in spite of the call from Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to adopt a national political program based on resistance, while the Palestinian Authority’s priority is to get an observer status at the United Nations.
But most comments from Israeli security circles didn’t look optimistic about the extent of the ceasefire, adding that Hamas will decide when to violate it.
And they see that their biggest achievements were the protection of the Iron Dome, assassinating Hamas military leader Ahmad Al-Jaabari, hitting 1400 targets and destroying government buildings in Gaza. They also succeeded in winning international support to legitimize their acts and Egypt’s commitment to stop arm smuggling and guarantee the agreement. Israel’s success was also in getting the Muslim Brotherhood government to be mediators, and Hamas’ pledge to stop targeting Israel.
On the flip side, the results were as follows: Hamas’ ability to target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Hamas’ ability to go on fighting in spite of Al-Jaabari assassination, Israel’s refraining from launching a land invasion, with Hamas claiming that it deterred Israel from making this move. | <urn:uuid:a2f0b27b-986a-4b60-a1cb-c2ffaa28bc5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/11/24/251437.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954758 | 1,033 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Want some shocking news? The Wall Street Journal reports that, “Many job seekers have long suspected their online employment applications disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again … (and) their fears may not be far off the mark.”
I know; you are probably stunned and surprised that lots of people apply for jobs online and never hear anything back about it. Who knew?
The Journal also published another story (proving that dumb stuff comes in pairs) titled No More Résumés Some Firms Say that uses anecdotal evidence from three companies (yes, 3 is not a misprint) to declare that, “(businesses) are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates’ suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether.”
This makes me wonder: what’s wrong with the good, old résumé?
Big shock: recruiters are overwhelmed
Here’s more of what The Journal had to say about this newly discovered issue of online résumés getting ignored en masse:
Recruiters and hiring managers are overwhelmed by the volume of résumés pouring in, thanks to the weak job market and new tools that let applicants apply for a job with as little as one mouse click. The professional networking website LinkedIn recently introduced an “apply now” button on its job postings that sends the data in a job seeker’s profile directly to a potential employer.
While job boards and networking websites help companies broadcast openings to a wide audience, potentially increasing the chance the perfect candidate will reply, the resulting flood of applications tends to include a lot of duds. Most recruiters report that at least 50% of job hunters don’t possess the basic qualifications for the jobs they are pursuing.”
I can’t recall when I first encountered the Internet effect when it came to people applying for jobs online, but I’m pretty sure it was back around the year 2000 when Monster was still the Monster Board and people were still somewhat surprised to find that posting job ads online was akin to washing someone off with a fire hose.
For The Wall Street Journal to report in 2012 that “recruiters and hiring managers are overwhelmed by the volume of résumés pouring in,” well, that’s sort of like saying that the economy has been a bit slow the last few years, or that there’s some unrest in the Middle East.
Is the traditional résumé going away?
Yes, it’s easy for any and every Tom, Dick, and Harriet out there to apply online for a job regardless of their lack of qualifications. Limiting that has been an ongoing struggle for job boards and employers big and small, and frankly, we’re hardly better at limiting the flood today than we were back in 2000 or whenever online applications took off.
So, while I scratch my head at The Wall Street Journal suddenly discovering this issue, I’m much more troubled at their reporting that the traditional résumé is going the way of the Dodo. Here’s more about that:
Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates’ suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether. …
A résumé doesn’t provide much depth about a candidate, says Christina Cacioppo, an associate at Union Square Ventures who blogs about the hiring process on the company’s website and was herself hired after she compiled a profile comprising her personal blog, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, and links to social-media sites Delicious and Dopplr, which showed places where she had traveled.”
Ok, I get that traditional résumés are old school — boring, old technology, one directional, often poorly done — but they haven’t lasted as long as they have by accident. They work, even in our technology crazy times, because of one simple thing: they allow a hiring manager or recruiter to get a quick, brief snapshot of an applicant.
Why résumés still work
It may not be the best view they get, but it is one they can get quickly and easily with little muss or fuss. Give me an hour and a two-foot pile of résumés, and I’ll give you the Top 5 or 10 candidates in that stack. Yes, I still want to see their social media presence, but I can thumb through and scan that résumé pile pretty quickly — and a lot faster than I could track down and eyeball all of their LinkedIn profiles or Facebook pages.
It’s frankly silly and somewhat dishonest for The Wall Street Journal to take what three companies do and give the impression that it is the big new trend. Yes, a résumé isn’t the perfect way to evaluate a job candidate, but it’s a good start that is easy to access and understand, especially for your technology challenged CEO.
Oh, and by the way, that same WSJ story about the expected death of the résumé noted this way down in paragraph 16:
At most companies, résumés are still the first step of the recruiting process, even at supposedly nontraditional places like Google Inc., which hired about 7,000 people in 2011, after receiving some 2 million résumés. Google has an army of “hundreds” of recruiters who actually read every one, says Todd Carlisle, the technology firm’s director of staffing.”
Imagine that. Google still uses old school résumés. I wonder if that has anything to do with how they’re doing?
Targeting “unemployed need not apply” ads
Of course, there’s more than The Wall Street Journal beating up on résumés in the news this week. Here are other HR and workplace-related items you may have missed. This is TLNT’s weekly round-up of news, trends, and insights from the world of HR and talent management. I do it so you don’t have to.
- California targets discrimination against the unemployed. There has been a lot of debate over job ads and policies that specifically say that “unemployed need not apply,” and now California has jumped into the discussion with a law targeting the practice. According to the Sacramento Bee, “New Jersey has passed a law banning such advertisements, federal legislation is pending, and a newly proposed California bill, Assembly Bill 1450, would prohibit discriminating against the jobless in hiring. ”It’s the same as excluding a particular religion or minority group – it’s wrong,” said Assemblyman Michael Allen, a Santa Rosa Democrat, who is the author of AB 1450.”
- Are layoffs making Cargill more “nimble?” Agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. has been laying off a lot of people — nearly 2,000 by the last count — and that’s because the company thinks it needs to be more “nimble.” As the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports, “(An) ongoing increase in competition is a factor. The old order of the commodity business … has been supplanted by a more dynamic playing field,” according to Cargill chief operating officer David MacLennan ”It’s a new world with competitors who are very agile.” And, part of that need to get more nimble has to do with Cargill’s culture. CEO Greg Page wrote in an email to employees about the layoffs: “We also need to change certain aspects of our culture — the drive for perfection, the need for consensus, process for the sake of process — that slow us down, ultimately costing us time, expense and sales.”
- Tacking outdated rules and laws that hinder businesses. You hear lots of talk about how regulations hinder businesses and job growth, but Colorado seems to be one of the few states to be making a serious effort to do something about it. The Denver Post reports that, “From outdated rules dictating how events are held along the sides of state highways to delays in processing air-quality permits, Gov. John Hickenlooper says his administration is zeroing in on government red tape. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, (has) released a report outlining hundreds of rules that are being reviewed — and in some cases repealed — as a result of a “Pits and Peeves” listening tour around the state with businesses and citizens…”Before you turn around and put your hands out to voters and say you want more resources,” the governor said recently, “you better be able to demonstrate that you’re running your ship as efficiently as it can be run.”
- The HR problem from hell? Firing ThunderBug. How would you like to be the HR pro who had to deal with this? The Tampa Bay Times says that, “ThunderBug has been fired. The final offense? Inappropriate use of Silly String. The Tampa Bay Lightning mascot sprayed a Boston Bruins fan at a Jan. 17 hockey game. The fan took offense and pushed ThunderBug down. Thousands saw it on YouTube. The team did not condone ThunderBug’s actions.” | <urn:uuid:1b47fd58-58ef-49d3-9590-b5d8cd78971d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tlnt.com/2012/01/27/weekly-wrap-why-do-we-beat-up-on-the-poor-old-resume/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949654 | 1,983 | 1.570313 | 2 |
A proof-of-concept has been developed and is available at:
The goals of the rewrite are to make a component that is:
- Easy to extend
- Easy to create and use custom implementations
In evaluating architectures, two principal ideas rose as potential solutions:
- Finite State Machine (FSM)
- Event-driven model
The reasons an FSM were considered were several. First, the front controller defines several distinct states already: routing, dispatching, and emitting the response; errors are also a distinct state, though currently muddled into the rest of the architecture. (You could potentially add "bootstrapping" to that list.) However, in current ZF iterations, there's no easy way to transition between or skip states; e.g., if an exception is detected, an entire iteration of the dispatch loop is executed; if a redirect is made, you have to either complete the remainder of the dispatch loop or call "exit" (a horrible hack).
A Finite State Machine largely solves these problems. If you need to go to another state, you simply goto it. That said, there are some limitations to goto: it only works with labels defined in the current scope; you cannot call goto from an invoked method, for instance. One way to mitigate this is to keep track of state in an object.
At this point, an event driven model makes sense. In this case, a token, the event, is passed to all invoked methods. This allows those methods to alter the event state such that when the process returns to the invoking method, the state may be checked and control dispatched to the appropriate state accordingly.
To make the concept more powerful, if each state allows for one or more topics to which listeners may subscribe, complex chains of actions may be created easily. Using Phly_PubSub (to be proposed to ZF as well), this also allows us to check the event state after each subscriber completes to determine if we need to transition to a new state – allowing the subscribers to help determine execution flow.
Each subscriber is passed one argument and one argument only: the Event. As such, the event now becomes a repository/service locator. In the proposed MVC implementation, it holds the request and response objects, the pubsub provider (so additional subscribers may be registered at any time), and the state; it can potentially hold anything, however, as it extends ArrayObject.
Basic operation is something like this:
The actual workings are slightly more complex, but the ideas hold.
The ramifications of this architecture are intriguing:
- There's no need to use any ZF classes with the front controller (other than the event, event manager (pubsub), and front controller); you can potentially create your own structure and callbacks to use.
- If interfaces are provided, they simply provide a hook into the default use case we choose to provide.
- Developers could potentially override the FrontController and provide their own application states, providing for custom workflows.
The proposed MVC does aim to provide a default work flow for the front controller. This work flow will include:
- Request object
This object will simply provide access to the current environment, much as Zend_Controller_Request does already. The primary differences will be that injection into the various "superglobal" accessors will be built in.
- Response object
This object will be a container for response-related items, including headers, values related to rendering, and potentially cookies. The primary interface method will be sendOutput(), which will be used to serialize the various items into output. Serialization will primarily be done via Renderers.
- Renderer object
A Renderer will take response values and determine what to do with them. The default use case will be to use Zend_View + Zend_Layout to produce content.
- Router object
Pulls the response from the event, and then decomposes that into key/value pairs to inject in the request.
- Dispatcher object
Determines how to dispatch the request. The default use case will be to determine the module, controller, and action from the request object, and then simply instantiate and invoke the appropriate class; potentially, however, you could use any logic you like, including simply providing closures.
- Action controllers
These will work basically the same as they do currently, with a few exceptions.
First, the only necessary method will be __invoke(), and it should accept an Event object. From there, how it matches the action to functionality is up to the developer.
The base ActionController class will provide some standard functionality surrounding this, and will attempt to invoke *Action() methods, just as Zend_Controller_Action does currently. Additionally, it will add logic to __call() to automatically delegate to action delegates and action helpers.
- ErrorHandler object
Receives errors and updates the event state.
- Front controller plugins would no longer need to rely on an abstract; you * would simply subscribe individual plugin classes/instances or closures with the appropriate topic in the pubsub provider,
- The action helper broker can be injected into the Event, and the action controller can then pull it from there. This helps eliminate the singleton factory it currently implements.
- The view object becomes subservient to the renderer, which is subservient to the response. This will require potentially more scaffolding during bootstrap and/or when determining what renderer to utilize. standard mvc.response.pre plugins could alleviate the situation.
- Even though a default imlementation will be provided, the possibility exists for multiple implementations – and for community-led implementations for specific purposes.
- Potentially huge performance gains, particularly if you attach pubsub callbacks on-demand based on the application flow.
In an action, _getParam() doesn't provide any filtering of superglobals, which can lead to potential security issues if you do not filter the data within your action controllers.
One suggestion is to allow attaching filters/validators to the request object, and only allowing direct access to superglobal values via getRaw*() methods – essentially a poka yoke.
Some proposed changes:
Reinstate the noRouteAction() (or something similar) as an empty method (throwing an exception) in the action controller. __call() would then detect method calls ending in 'Action' and call this method.
By itself, this does not represent a BC break; __call() would simply proxy to this method, which would throw the same exception as currently thrown in __call(). Overriding the method would be similar to overriding __call() in current versions.
__call() would be modified to determine if a method call is a helper name, and, if so, invoke it. __get() would be added, and would do similarly, only it would return the helper directly. This would make calls to helpers much simpler, and make them mimic the behavior of view helpers more directly - leading to better consistency in the framework in general and MVC layer in particular.
As an example,
would simply become:
As an example showing property access:
This would be a slight BC break - but only for developers overriding __call(), and then the BC issues would be limited in scope. $_helper would continue to be registered, so all previous calls to helpers would work. When overriding __call(), you simply wouldn't be able to call helpers as controller methods, since the logic to proxy to the helper broker would not be present. | <urn:uuid:47895406-9946-4e6b-893e-f53b14b32eaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://framework.zend.com/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=18219428 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917128 | 1,559 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Angioplasty is a procedure done to open a partially blocked blood vessel so that blood can flow through it more easily. It is most often done on arteries that deliver blood to the heart (coronary arteries) when they are narrowed by plaque buildup (atherosclerosis) or blood clots.
During the angioplasty procedure, a thin flexible tube (catheter) is inserted through an artery in the groin, arm, or wrist and is carefully guided into the artery that is narrowed. After the tube reaches the narrowed artery, a small balloon at the end of the tube is inflated. The balloon may remain inflated for a short time. The pressure from the inflated balloon presses fat and calcium deposits (plaque) against the wall of the artery to improve blood flow.
After the fat and calcium buildup is compressed, a small, expandable wire-mesh tube called a stent is sometimes inserted into the artery to hold it open. The artery is less likely to get narrow again (restenosis) after angioplasty with stenting than after angioplasty alone.
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One of my pet peeves about Oregon is that it rations health care to the poor in its Medicaid program. I believe that rationing is merely a polite term for discriminating against the people who need health care the most. Be that as it may, the way the program works is that a list of more than 700 treatments is listed with the number covered depending on available finances. Thus, if there are 740 possible treatments, one year the coverage might extend to the first 640.
In practice, this meant that politics become deeply enmeshed in the process (for example coverage of late stage AIDS but not some curative treatments for late stage cancers). And of course, assisted suicide was listed as palliative care and given such a low number that it would always
be covered. This meant that a Medicaid patient who needed a double organ transplant a few years ago was not covered for the procedure, but if this had led to his wanting assisted suicide, it would have been paid for. (The man received private donations for the transplants, but died before he could have them.) Also, from the beginning the number of covered services has shrunk steadily.This report
claims that the great experiment in health care rationing is failing. From "the unraveling" in the abstract: "Only about 24,000 enrollees remain in the state's Medicaid-expansion program, and it has been closed to new enrollment since 2004. Oregon's uninsurance rate has climbed to 17 percent--virtually the same level that prevailed in Oregon before OHP began operation in 1994. Moreover, no state general funds are used to pay for OHP Standard (now financed entirely from provider taxes and beneficiary premiums), a staggering retreat for a state that had been a national leader in expanding coverage for the uninsured."
We are frequently told that the states are the test tubes for the nation. That was why the Feds permitted Medicaid to be rationed in Oregon. The abstract tries mightily to avoid this aspect of the failure, but this facet was a primary reason why the rationing plan was allowed in the first place. I hope we learn the lesson and find other ways than health care rationing to expand access to health care. | <urn:uuid:79b1b794-1d42-468f-bdf9-5ce7b6ec0456> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/327758/health-care-rationing-unraveling-oregon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979401 | 448 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Every three years we are required to report to Parliament on the progress that society is making in relation to equality, human rights and good relations. 'How fair is Britain?' is the report of our first Triennial Review.
‘How fair is Britain?” highlights several challenges which explicitly refer to disabled people:
- Disabled people are less likely to have confidence in the criminal justice system. Read the Legal and physical security summary.
- Young disabled people are twice as likely as their non-disabled peers to be caring regularly for other children or adults. Read the Care and support summary.
- Only eight per cent of boys in England with special educational needs (SEN) who are eligible for free school meals obtain five good GCSEs, including English and Mathematics, compared to 61 per cent of children without SEN.
- And nearly three-quarters of permanent exclusions in England involve pupils with SEN, while four-fifths of disabled young people in England said they had been bullied. Read the Education summary.
Find out more about 'How fair is Britain?' and browse the online summary edition.
< Back to the International Day of Disabled Persons 2010 | <urn:uuid:b57f9b20-712c-45a8-b3bf-101d908d8a6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-celebrations/international-day-of-disabled-persons-2010/specific-challenges-from-how-fair-is-britain/?colr=yellow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955791 | 236 | 3.421875 | 3 |
to the Canadian Information pages
A massive dome of Precambrian rock dominates the Canadian landscape. Called the Canadian Shield, it lies at or near the surface of the Earth. Shaped somewhat like a giant inverted saucer, it sweeps from the Amundsen Gulf southward and eastward across the top of the Prairie Provinces, around Hudson Bay to the Atlantic Ocean, encompassing most of Ontario and Quebec and all of Labrador. The sedimentary rocks that make up the remainder of the country's surface and near surface rest on this ancient base, though it may be necessary to penetrate deeply into the Earth to find it.
In the Paleozoic era (570 million to 225 million years ago) and later in the Mesozoic era (225 million to 65 million years ago), ancient seas invaded the depressed areas of the Canadian Shield and gradually formed layer upon layer of sediment. In the course of millions of years, these layers were solidified, then uplifted and broken by tremendous geologic forces. Tiny marine life trapped in the sediment formed oil and natural gas deposits that gathered in the folds of the rock. Giant dinosaurs also were covered, and they too became part of the rock layers.
Some rock was melted and re-formed, and some molten rock invaded the massive cracks in the Earth's crust, where slowly it cooled and formed massive deposits of minerals. Wind and water and glacial ice wore away the rock, laying down the particles in valleys and depressions, where over the centuries living organisms have turned it into soil.
Canada may be divided into several natural regions based upon geologic history. The easternmost is the Appalachian Region, which includes the Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. This region is a northern extension of the Appalachian Mountains of the United States and, like them, is an area of lakes, rivers, and tree-clad hills. Deposits of coal, gypsum, and other nonmetallic minerals as well as metallic ores may be found in the region. Offshore in the Atlantic Ocean the frigid waters of the Labrador Current, rich in the tiny organisms upon which larger ocean life feeds, meet the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream. The resulting conditions and the presence of the continental shelf have led to the formation of one of the world's most bountiful fishing areas, the Grand Banks.
In the Arctic archipelago, the frozen islands of the Canadian north, mountains similar to the Appalachians are found. Named the Innuitian Mountains after the northern indigenous people, they are largely unexplored because of the hostile climate. Thus little is known of their economic potential.
Westward from the Atlantic, sandwiched between the Canadian Shield and the Appalachians, lies the region known as the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands. Here the Mesozoic limestones, sandstones, and shales are overlain by glacial drift, the sediments left when glacial lakes drained away 11,000 years ago. This region's Point Pelee on the Ontario shore of Lake Erie, the most southerly part of Canada, is farther south than the northern boundary of California. The richness of its soils and the presence of abundant building materials have helped make this region the most populated in Canada and the center of the country's economic activity.
The projection of the Canadian Shield known as the Frontenac Axis slices the St. Lawrence Lowlands in two to form the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondack Mountains in the United States. Here the ancient granites of Precambrian rock rise above the surrounding sedimentary materials and mark the beginning of the vast expanse of barren rock, forest, muskeg swamps (grassy bogs), and beautiful lakes that are characteristic of the shield. Covering nearly 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers), this region accounts for almost half of Canada's land area. Here are found most of the major mining activities and the evergreen forests that provide for Canada's huge forest products industry. The flow of water in numerous rivers is the source of hydroelectric power for the cities of the lowlands and for export to the United States.
In a wide belt between the Canadian Shield and the western mountains, stretching from the border with the United States to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, is the region known as the Interior Plains and Lowlands. Thick, almost horizontal layers of sedimentary rock form a low, rolling landscape that rises gradually to the west. Cereal-growing areas of the eastern and central part of the region give way, as the land rises, to the cattle ranches of the west and the forests of the north. The sedimentary rock layers in Alberta yield petroleum, natural gas, and coal; in Saskatchewan they yield potash.
Two other lowland areas border the shield: the Hudson Bay Lowlands and the Arctic Lowlands of the archipelago. In both the underlying sedimentary rocks are similar to those found bordering the lower Great Lakes in southern Ontario. As is also the case in the south, deposits of salt and hydrocarbons have been found, but the inhospitable climate has kept Canadians from exploiting them.
A huge section of the mountainous spine of the Western Hemisphere forms the Cordillera, or Canadian Rocky Mountains, the last natural region of Canada. Monstrous geologic forces buckled and folded ancient sediments to form these chains of mountains that run roughly parallel to the Pacific shore. Rising from the interior plains and forming the Continental Divide, the Rockies were a formidable barrier to the westward expansion of the nation and continue to present problems. Only three natural passes exist--Yellowhead, Kicking Horse, and Crowsnest--and it is through these that the produce of the prairies must pass to reach the markets of the Pacific rim. Further west, the Columbia and Skeena mountains, the interior plateaus, and the deep gorges of the Fraser and Thompson rivers also have made travel difficult through the years. Finally, the massive Coast Mountains plunge into the Pacific, forming sheer walls and a deeply indented, fjordlike coast. Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, projections of another fold of the Earth's crust, form the Island Mountains. In the St. Elias Mountains in the Yukon Territory to the north, Canada's highest point--Mount Logan--soars nearly 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) above sea level. It is almost on the border of Alaska. The Cordillera contains Canada's wettest place--Estevan Point on Vancouver Island--with more than 120 inches (300 centimeters) of precipitation each year, and one of its driest regions--the plateau in south-central British Columbia near Kamloops. Minerals and forest products and the abundant harvests of farms, rivers, and ocean make this region important to Canada.
Rivers and Lakes
More than 8 percent of Canada's area is covered by water, and this is still the key to the prosperity of the nation. All its major cities and towns are located on a main river or lake.
Two main watersheds, or ridges that account for differences in the direction of water drainage, divide Canada. The first and most significant of these is the barrier formed by the Rocky Mountains, which separates the westward flow of water from the eastward flow. A less noticeable but important watershed is a ridge of high land that more or less follows the 49th parallel of latitude from the Rockies to the head of the Great Lakes; it separates the waters flowing northward to the Arctic Ocean or Hudson Bay from those flowing eastward toward the Atlantic Ocean or southward to the Gulf of Mexico.
In the west the Fraser and Thompson rivers drain the southern half of British Columbia and pour their waters into the Strait of Georgia (between Vancouver Island and the mainland) and the Pacific Ocean. On the other side of the Continental Divide the Mackenzie River, Canada's longest, drains the waters from the Peace and Slave rivers, Lake Athabasca, and Great Slave Lake, emptying them into the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean.
The North and South Saskatchewan rivers carry water from the Rockies to Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg. Together with the flow from the Red and Assiniboine rivers in southern Manitoba, these waters flow northeastward through the Nelson River to Hudson Bay. Numerous rivers from Manitoba, northern Ontario, and northwestern Quebec also flow into Hudson Bay and James Bay. Almost all other rivers in Canada flow into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River system and then into the Atlantic Ocean.
In all the world there is no collection of fresh water to equal the Great Lakes. From Duluth, Minn., in the United States, they stretch in unbroken line through the St. Lawrence to Belle Isle, Newfoundland, a distance of more than 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers). Canada shares all of the lakes with the United States except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely within the United States. These huge lakes have long played a major role in westward expansion and economic growth. They have eased the flow of raw materials, agricultural products, and finished goods to and from markets all over the world and have greatly enriched the two nations that share them.
In a land as vast as Canada, it is natural to find a great variety of climate. Although overall the country is cool, there are some remarkable differences from region to region. The Atlantic provinces and the lowland region of Ontario and Quebec have a cool continental climate characterized by hot summers and bitter cold winters. But the closeness of the ocean noticeably moderates the climate in the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland so that summers are cooler and winters not so severe.
Throughout the whole region precipitation is even and moderate all year. In the region roughly corresponding to the Canadian Shield, there is a cold continental climate, with long, severely cold winters and short, hot summers. The southern parts of the three Prairie Provinces have significantly less rain and snow than their northern sections, and this controls what can be done with the land. In the Rockies there are a number of climates, depending on elevation and position on the slopes.
The Pacific coastal areas get great amounts of rain and snow, particularly in the winter when the winds blow mostly directly onshore and are forced upward by the mountain wall. Yet the provincial capital of British Columbia, Victoria, is attractive to many people because of its dry climate and mild winters. Summers on the Pacific coast are mild.
Finally, the frigid Arctic archipelago and the shores of the Arctic Ocean make up the Arctic climatic zone. Since this region lies entirely within the Arctic Circle, periods of daylight and darkness last six months, the ground is permanently frozen, and summers are brief and cool.
Plant life varies with land type and climate. By far the most abundant form is boreal, or northern, forest, which accounts for four fifths of the nation's forested area. Indeed, this band of tree growth, which covers the southern portion of the Canadian Shield and which stretches uninterrupted from the border with Alaska to the Atlantic coast, is second in size only to the boreal forests of Russia. Since deciduous trees, or those that shed their leaves, cannot survive in a climate where the average January temperature is below -0.4o F (-18o C), the boreal forest is made up almost entirely of coniferous, or evergreen, trees. These forests are the mainstay of Canada's pulp and paper and forest products industries.
South of the boreal forest in northwestern Ontario, and again from central Ontario to the Maritime, or Atlantic, Provinces, lies a belt of mixed coniferous and deciduous forest. In southern Ontario are small wooded areas that are the remains of what was the only completely deciduous forest in Canada.
To the south of the boreal forest in the Prairie Provinces is an area generally too dry to support the growth of dense forest. Gradually the landscape changes from a parkland with scattered tree stands to an area of long grass and then to the dry short grass region of Alberta and Saskatchewan just north of the United States border. This region of deep rich soils and short hot summers accounts for three quarters of Canada's agricultural land. Westward the Rockies' jumble of mountains and plateaus and complex climatic mixture yields Canada's greatest variety of vegetation. Cacti and sagebrush, grasslands and coniferous forest, and the majestic stands of Douglas fir trees on the Coast Mountains are all part of British Columbia's natural heritage.
Northward from the boreal forests lies a transitional zone of scattered stunted coniferous forest and muskeg swamp. This subarctic region, called taiga, yields to the tundra, where it is too cold for trees of any kind to survive. This is the land of lichens and mosses, plants that, like those in warm deserts, must follow a cycle of a short period of growth, followed by a long period of dormancy. This is Canada's most fragile environment and one that has engaged the attention and energies of a number of groups concerned that commercial exploitation of the Arctic resources may cause serious and irreparable damage.
Canada has always had a great variety of wild animals. Most of the world's woodland caribou, grizzly bears, mountain sheep, wolves, and wolverines live in Canada. But many native species were severely reduced by uncontrolled hunting and the destruction of animal habitats by human settlement. Wood bison, once on the prairies in vast numbers, now can only be found in protected parklands. Passenger pigeons, which once darkened the skies of the St. Lawrence Lowlands, became extinct early in the 20th century. Harp seals, inhabitants of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are not endangered but have become the focus of worldwide attention. This is because of the manner in which day-old pups are clubbed to death in great numbers by hunters.
The waters of Canada's continental shelf teem with fishes. In the Pacific the cold waters of the California Current mix with the warmer Alaska Current, resulting in perfect conditions for feeding grounds for fishes and, therefore, for an active fishing industry. Particularly valuable are the salmon that spawn in the many rivers and streams of the Coast Mountains and later migrate to the open sea to feed and to mature. Herring as well are attracted to the area and account for a large portion of the fishes caught. In the Atlantic cod is by far the most important species caught in the open sea, while lobsters and shellfish are the main catch of fishermen closer to shore. | <urn:uuid:96dd350f-c816-459c-bd36-f86ca3f64cd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cyber-north.com/canada/naturalenvironment.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93845 | 2,984 | 4 | 4 |
Bob Ippolito explains how to solve concurrent update conflicts with Statebox, an open source library for automatic conflict resolution, running on top of Riak.
Bob Ippolito is CTO and cofounder of Mochi Media, (now a subsidiary of Shanda Games) and creator of Mochi Web. Bob started using Erlang in 2006 to prototype an ad server, and it quickly became the de facto platform for building servers at Mochi. Bob's open source contributions to the Erlang community include mochiweb, statebox, egeoip and kvc.
Software is changing the world; QCon aims to empower software development by facilitating the spread of knowledge and innovation in the enterprise software development community; to achieve this, QCon is organized as a practitioner-driven conference designed for people influencing innovation in their teams: team leads, architects, project managers, engineering directors. | <urn:uuid:eb42c174-1d4c-4335-b056-3c1672fd2f59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Eventually-Consistent-HTTP-with-Statebox-and-Riak | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925227 | 183 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Daniel Rosas almost gave up. The US credit crisis had ravaged the construction industry in Durham, North Carolina, and the undocumented worker from Pahuatlán in the Mexican state of Puebla was barely able to send a dollar home all summer.
Then in November, just as he was about to cut his losses and head home, his wife Alma Delia Aguilar got a call. He said things were starting to get better again, she said. That there was work. By January, Rosas was regularly wiring her cash again.
With the US suffering a devastating recession last year, remittances sent home by migrants to their relatives in Latin America and the Caribbean plunged as much as 15% in 2009, the worst ever recorded decline, sinking families across the region into hardship.
Now, as the US economy starts to recover, the main international institutions monitoring the flows say the declines are moderating and are predicting remittance levels will remain flat at just under $60 billion or even see a single digit increase in 2010.
Youre not seeing these huge drops from month to month, says Greg Watson, a remittance specialist at the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of the IDB group. We think were seeing the bottoming out of the drops, and well probably see a small growth this year.
In and around Pahuatlán, a lush coffee-growing town cradled between mountains in Mexicos Sierra Madre, anecdotal evidence seems to bear out the data.
The economy here revolves almost exclusively around money sent home by migrants living in Durham, NC. Just a few months ago, say locals, the mood in town was universally bleak. But while some households and businesses say things are still getting worse, a significant few are now noticing an improvement.
In San Pablito, an outpost of Pahuatlán scattered across a steep mountainside, part-time mayor and butcher Jose Santiago Lopez says some families who cut out meat altogether during the worst of the crisis are now adding it to their menus, albeit once a week.
Pahuatláns cement vendor says sales are still terrible people arent resuming their home improvements yet. But the small clothes boutique across the street, on the other hand, has noticed customers venturing in again.
Owing to different methodologies, total Latin American remittance estimates vary wildly among the main monitoring institutions the MIF, the World Bank, the UNs International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Washington DC think-tank the Inter-American Dialogue even though they are mostly in agreement over the wider trends.
While the 2009 decline was dramatic, experts have been encouraged by the relative resilience of remittance flows during the credit crunch.
There was never a global crisis before, says Dilip Ratha, the lead remittance expert at the World Bank. We knew that if there was a financial crisis or natural disaster in a country that receives a large amount of remittances, then post crisis remittances go up, he says. What we didnt know was what happens in a synchronized global crisis, especially one that begins in the major destination countries. Remittances do not fall as much as private capital flows do.
That stability has a lot to do with the depth of the commitment migrant workers have to their relatives back home, says the MIFs Watson, citing a study last year that showed a quarter of unemployed migrants in the US were still sending money back proof that spending on remittances was not discretionary.
Its not like, I have $200 dollars left at the end of the month, Im going to send it to my grandma, says Watson. If Im unemployed, Im going to tap my savings. Im going to pick up odd jobs. If Im already employed, Im going to take a second job. Im going to cut back on my own expenditure. The reason for the migration is sending money home, so thats the first payment that goes out the door, not the last.
It will likely be a long time until Pahuatlán, and thousands of places like it dependent on migrant cash across Latin America and the Caribbean, have real reason to celebrate. Most economists say that with the US economic outlook uncertain, it could be years before remittances to the region rebound to 2008 levels, and some say it may be premature to talk about growth at all.
Robert Meins, a remittance specialist at IFAD in Rome, points out for example, that Mexico, Latin Americas largest collector of remittances by far, received only $1.32 billion in January according to the latest central bank figures nearly a 16 % drop year-on-year and the countrys lowest monthly dollar total since February 2004.
The number of downside risks outnumber the upside risks, he says. There has been no major change in US immigration policy, the economy isnt getting better, and the construction sector has seen a drop in how badly its declining, but it hasnt improved significantly. With those risks in mind, experts in the field are busy chasing strategies and new technology that can make remittances cheaper to send, make them go further when they arrive at their destination, and hopefully turn them into a catalyst for development.
The science of remittance economics is barely a decade old, but from the outset, experts who cut their teeth in Latin America have been at the forefront. One of the pioneers, Nicaragua-born economist Manuel Orozco, first began studying the phenomenon in the mid-1990s, looking at the impact of migrant money sent to Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. All were then either mired in brutal civil wars or just emerging from them.
Before the advent of remittance transfer companies such as Western Union, money was sent back through human mules, bank wires that took three weeks, and later, money orders. Data was at best hard to come by.
There was almost nothing available, says Orozco, who works for the Inter-American Dialogue. We started by looking at official statistics on migrants and on remittances, then realized very quickly that there was no correspondence between the two.
By conducting groundbreaking surveys in sender and receiver countries and helping central banks improve the way they collect data themselves, Orozco and his peers have alerted governments to the sheer size of these flows, and private-sector players looking for investment opportunities are also taking notice.
The market is widely seen as the key motor for harnessing the development power of remittances, but while global institutions like Citibank are playing a major role, development economists see small local banks and microfinance institutions as their natural partners.
The wisdom of linking microfinance institutions to remittances became clear in the aftermath of Haitis devastating earthquake. Coordinated by the MIF, the US Treasury, State Department and US armed forces, which helped with cash drops, Haitian microfinance institution Fonkoze was able to deliver life-or-death remittances to 34 remote villages within days of the disaster, while the countrys banking system lay literally in ruins.
While less dramatic, economists believe microfinance institutions increasing use of remittance flows to bring people into the banking system for the first time could have an even more profound long-term effect on regional poverty reduction. Studies show that if people put their money in bank accounts, instead of stuffing it in their mattresses, they manage it better and spend it more wisely. Institutional saving protects peoples nest eggs from thieves and inflation and opens the door to credit.
Research has also shown a strong correlation between receiving remittances and saving money, and the IDB in particular has been instrumental in backing projects linking the two. In just one example, IDB-backed microfinance project Apoyo Integral in El Salvador is taking remittance flows into consideration in a home-grown credit-scoring system that has enabled people to take out $2.3 million in loans for small businesses.
If youre smart and you build the right incentives, you can convert remittances into deposits, says Martin Holtmann, chief of microfinance at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, which has a quarter of its $1.3 billion total investment in microfinance, working in Latin America.
Converting remittances into savings is a particularly good idea for microfinance institutions as it reduces their exchange rate risk by weaning them off foreign currency financing. You can make money, you provide additional services, which your customers like, and you stabilize your funding base, Holtmann says.
Local large to medium-sized banks as well as US titans are embracing the idea. Financiera El Comercio, Paraguays largest financial institution, for example, kicked off a programme in December giving financial education to about 10,000 remittance receivers. By mid-February it had brought in 900 new customers and their savings, largely made up of remittances sent from Spain.
It opens a new market for us, says Carlos Heisecke, president of Financiera El Comercio. Its a social service, but it has to be sustainable and it has to make money.
A remittance pioneer among the big US banks, Citigroup uses the Swift payment system to channel remittances for a low $5 fee from the Citi accounts of Ecuadorean migrants in the US, straight into their relatives accounts in its local partner banks Banco Solidario and Banco Bolivariano.
Often in neighbourhoods with significant immigrant communities, you see someone taking cash out of an ATM and crossing the street to wire money home, says Robert Annibale, head of microfinance at Citi. In contrast, for example, where Citi has forged partnerships with Ecuadorian banks, sending remittances directly through us brings down the cost to the sender, who is a banking client of ours.
Not all is rosy. While average sending commission fees, for example, have come down in the region from more than 10% to just over 6% in just five years, many experts say they could still come down a lot more compared to other regions, and that technological innovation like mobile phone transfers is also lagging other parts of the world.
Latin America is a shining light, says Meins of IFAD. It is my pleasure to watch what happened in Latin America happen in Africa as well, where they are beginning to realize how important these flows are to their economies.
The ease of having money directly deposited has been a major pull for thousands to open their first ever bank accounts here.
Customer Fabiola López, a 21-year-old indigenous Otomí and single mother, used to keep the money her parents wired her from Durham in an envelope. She always spent it too quickly and on occasions lost it altogether. The good thing about saving is that you keep your money safe and you get interest too, she says. Now, even though her parents have sent her less cash because of the crisis, through better management of her finances shes been able to save enough to begin building the familys first flushing toilet, ready for when they eventually return. Soon she will ask the bank for a micro-loan to help her buy materials for her small traditional jewellery-making business.
Through its Envíos Confianza programme, AMUCSS, a Mexican non-governmental microfinance umbrella group, intermediates between US wire merchants such as Western Union and 141 rural points of payment throughout the country. Customers of their local microbank receive the remittances, saving them a costly bus journey, fraught with the danger of robbery, to the nearest large town.
Enviós Confianza national director Angel Lopez is a rising star in Mexicos commercial bank system. He moved into remittance microfinance hoping to make a greater social impact. Visiting Lopez in the hillside hamlet of Xochimilco outside Pahuatlan, he reflected on why he loves his job. Before I used to spend all day selling people financial products they didnt need, he says. Now I get to give people products that can change their lives. | <urn:uuid:4f7904be-03a8-45cf-9918-1041eda703f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emergingmarkets.org/Article/2449484/Americas/REMITTANCES-Keeping-the-faith.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962558 | 2,493 | 1.734375 | 2 |
[Footnote 1: H.A.L. Fisher, The Republican Tradition in Europe, p. 193.]
Many of these risings were doomed to failure, but between 1848 and 1871 the alien governments in the Italian peninsula were abolished, making way for a unitary government, in the form of a constitutional monarchy, which embraces with small exceptions the whole of the Italian population of Europe. In 1871, after three successful wars in seven years against Denmark, Austria, and France, a Federal Government was established in Germany, with the kingdom of Prussia as its leading State and the King of Prussia as its monarch, with the title of German Emperor. This was a step forward, though the new Germany was neither a unitary nor a constitutional State. The Austrian territories have also come in for their share of the general ferment, and Francis Joseph came to the throne in 1848 amid the uprisings of his subject peoples; but these were successfully tided over, though the Hungarian portion of the Austrian dominion achieved national recognition and institutions in 1867.
After 1871 the national movement moved farther east. In 1878 Roumania and Serbia, both national States, were declared sovereign powers independent of Turkey; Bulgaria achieved its recognition as a principality; and Montenegro, a small mountain community, which had never submitted to the Turks, increased its territory and became a recognised European State. In 1908 and 1910 Bulgaria and Montenegro became kingdoms like their neighbours; and in 1913, after the two Balkan Wars, all the five Balkan States—Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro—obtained accession of territory, and the principality of Albania was constituted out of the Albanian portion of the old Turkish dominion. Finally, in quite another region of Europe, Norway, which had been joined in an anomalous union with Sweden since 1814, satisfied her national aspirations unopposed by becoming an independent Constitutional Monarchy in 1905. | <urn:uuid:ff2ca426-0fd4-4842-8cb2-ff5d363ef836> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/10668/44.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979705 | 397 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Georgia has two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have proved difficult for the tiny state, with a population of just over 4.5 million, to cope with.2 During the twentieth century sporadic outbreaks of serous violence between the ethnic groups and the Georgians had occurred in these two regions. The origins of the Abkhazian people are unknown, although the Abkhaz language is a Caucasian one. Their religion makes it hard to place their origins because some are Eastern Orthodox and others are Sunni Muslim. The Ossetians are an Iranic people although they are mainly Christian. The national language is known as Ossetic but virtually all Ossetians speak Russian. When Georgia briefly gained independence from Tsarist Russia in the confusion of the Russian revolution, the ethnic minorities were given special status and Abkhazia was granted autonomy. However, faced with Bolshevik rule, Georgian nationalism grew and the minorities once again were threatened. The Russian Bolsheviks easily exploited the tense situation in Georgia, associating the national Georgian government with the rival Mensheviks. Between the years 1918-1920 a number of bloody uprisings occurred in South Ossetia between the Ossetians and the Georgian National Guard. The Russian Bolsheviks supported the Ossetian separatists. During these battles it is estimated that approximately 5,000 people were killed. Controversy remains over the conflict, as Ossetians claim that Georgia was pursuing a strategy of ethnic cleansing in the Ossetia region, an accusation Georgia stringently denies. By 1921 the Ossetians were aiding the Red Army, which was advancing into Georgia to reincorporate the country back in to Russian domain. Although Ossetia was granted Autonomous Region status and Abkhazia became an Autonomous Republic, policies were put in place by the Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, Lavrentii Beria, to "Georgianise" the residents; for example, all ethnic language schools were closed down in the regions, thus fuelling further anger amongst the minorities. This was at a time when other SSR's were having their language and alphabets "Cyrillicized."
Throughout the Cold War ethnic relations in Georgia remained fragile, but it was at the collapse of the Soviet Union that they deteriorated. The ethnic minorities in Georgia were becoming more alienated as Georgian nationalism grew at the prospect of independence and the end of Russian dominance. The abolition of the South Ossetian autonomous region by the Georgian government in December 1990 was justified by the Ossetians' "settler status." The Georgian government asserted that Ossetians only began to arrive in Georgia in the nineteenth century and that they were illegally granted an autonomous region by the Bolsheviks in 1922 as a reward for their anti-Georgian activity during the civil war of 1918-1921. In 1990 the Georgian President, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, called on South Ossetians to return to their "real" homeland in neighbouring North Ossetia in Russia.3 Little evidence supported the claim that South Ossetians didn't belong in Georgia, which appeared to be a move to further quash any minority rights. There were several sporadic outbreaks of violence between Ossetians and Georgian authorities that year, and in 1991 these tensions escalated into a war lasting until 1992, leaving an estimated 3,000 people dead with many more injured and displaced.
As South Ossetia has turned increasingly towards its counterpart North Ossetia in Russia for support, Georgia has turned to the West. This has intensified since the 2003 election of President Mikhail Saakashvili, who has sought to forge closer ties with the United States and NATO. President Saakashvili has been outspoken and clear in his determination that Abkhazia and South Ossetia will always remain part of Georgia and their independence will never be granted nor recognised. Georgia has had its military budget boosted by funds from the United States and its military has been trained by US forces, which has greatly concerned the minorities. The two world powers thus have a stake in Georgia: with Russian support for South Ossetia against Western support for Georgia, there is a distinct risk that a relatively small disputed territory will fuel international political conflict. Currently it is doubtful that the South Ossetian issue will be resolved any time soon. It has been an area of conflict for over a century and for the foreseeable future that seems unlikely to change.
Abkhazia, too, has seen its share of violence with the ethnic Abkhaz pitted against the Georgians. Although Abkhazia had been granted autonomy status in 1931, Georgian was made the official language of the region in the 1930s, and many Georgians were resettled there to dilute the Abkhaz population, although this only increased tensions. Because of these measures, by 1991 only a fifth of the population of Abkhazia were ethnic Abkhaz, the remainder being made up mostly by Georgians.4 During 1992 and 1993 conflict between the two was particularly brutal, and this time Georgian forces accused the Abkhazians of genocide against the Georgian population. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) officially declared that the Abkhazian forces and their allies pursued a strategy of ethnic cleansing. In many conflicts however, atrocities were committed by both sides. The Abkhazians were supported by large numbers of volunteers from Chechnya and the North Caucasus. Georgia claims that Russia also lent its support to Abkhazia, another factor which is disputed today. During this brief but horrific conflict tens of thousands of people were killed and around a quarter of a million Georgians fled from Abkhazia, of whom a significant number perished in the difficult terrain and cold weather.
Abkhazia adopted its own constitution in 1994 and declared independence officially in 1999, although this has not been recognised by any other country, which has made its declaration effectively meaningless. United Nations and Russian peacekeepers remain in the area, although the peace is a fragile one with sporadic shootings and kidnappings. There seems to be no end in sight to this situation as Abkhazia has also turned towards Moscow for support, while Georgia has vowed to never recognise the region as independent. Another stalemate has been reached.
Go To Moldova and Transdniestr
List of Visuals
- Map of Georgia
- Map of South Ossetia
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia
- Zviad Gamsakhurdia, First President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
- Map of Abkhazia
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
- The OSCE Mission to Georgia's unarmed Military Monitors in the Georgian-Abkhaz area
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe | <urn:uuid:a579d6d6-0fe9-429c-b89d-d953015d62ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/breakaway/review2.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970801 | 1,398 | 3.84375 | 4 |
HIDE THE DECLINE
December 14, 2009
Posted by: David Lungren David_Lungren@epw.senate.gov
EPW POLICY BEAT: ‘HIDE THE DECLINE’
It is the iconic email of Climategate. Phil Jones, one of the world’s top climate scientists, discussed a “trick” he used to “hide the decline.” It has sparked hermeneutical warfare, with some, including President Obama’s Science Adviser, Dr. John Holdren, claiming the “trick” merely means “a clever way to tackle a problem.” Others think it’s “a crafty or underhanded device.” Below, in our review of the emails released as part of Climategate, the Holdren interpretation becomes more difficult to justify.
Our friends in the majority on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming are siding with Dr. Holdren. Though we are not taking sides—the EPW minority is conducting an investigation into Climategate—we question whether the trick, as the majority staff wrote in a recent report, was simply a straightforward “technique” to “combine direct thermometer readings with non-thermometer data, in this case from tree rings, to complete a full picture of temperature history.”
The problem with this interpretation is that it overlooks the context in which the “trick-to-hide-the-decline” statement was made. The context was this. In 1999, several scientists preparing for the third climate report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—including Phil Jones, former head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), and author of the infamous email—were concerned about a proxy temperature reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere showing declining temperatures in the late 20th century. They were concerned, because the decline threatened to “dilute” the message that 20th Century temperatures were unprecedented in the last 1,000 years.
Authored by Keith Briffa of the CRU, the decline began after 1960. How did Briffa come up with a decline? Reliable thermometer data go back only to 1880, so scientists use ‘proxy data’ (tree rings, ice cores, boreholes, etc.) to reconstruct annual temperatures over long periods (i.e., 1000 years). In this case, Briffa relied on tree rings, which showed a sharp and steady decline in temperature after 1960. This seemed to conflict with actual temperature readings that showed a steep rise. This discrepancy, according to one scientist, was “awkward.”
Indeed it was. According to Steve McIntyre, the Canadian mathematician who debunked Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” temperature graph, several IPCC lead authors met in Arusha, Tanzania from September 1-3, 1999. There they discussed the Briffa decline. Briffa’s graph was, according to Michael Mann’s email, a “problem”:
"Keith’s series…differs in large part in exactly the opposite direction that Phil’s does from ours. This is the problem we all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably consensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series (Mann email, 9-22-99)."
After it was determined that the IPCC would include a proxy diagram in its Third Assessment Report, IPCC author Chris Folland wrote in an email that Briffa’s decline “somewhat contradicts the multi-proxy curve and dilutes the message rather significantly…This is probably the most important issue to resolve in Chapter 2 at present (Folland, 9-22-99).”
The message apparently was very clearly delivered, as Briffa himself recounted. “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data…,’” he wrote (Briffa 9-22-99). Here is the email from Briffa in full:
"I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don't have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter. For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate."
Mann was nervous that skeptics would have a “field day” with the Briffa decline and that “he’d hate to be the one” to give them “fodder.” As Mann wrote:
"We would need to put in a few words in this regard. Otherwise, the skeptics have a field day casting doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates. The best approach here is for us to circulate a paper addressing all the above points. I'll do this as soon as possible. I don't think that doubt is scientifically justified, and I'd hate to be the one to have to give it fodder! (Mann, 9-22-99)"
Yet, fodder was exactly what they got. But what, exactly, was the “trick”? As the Daily Mail reports, “All [Jones] had to do was cut off Briffa’s inconvenient data at the point where the decline started, in 1961, and replace it with actual temperature readings, which showed an increase.” Below is the graph that was eventually included in the IPCC’s 2001 science assessment. And it shows that Jones’s trick was successful: Briffa’s line in green is cutoff and obscured by the other lines. (Courtesy of McIntyre at http://climateaudit.org/)
This "trick" is, to say the least, somewhat controversial. According to Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at London's Oriental and African Studies, "Any scientist ought to know that you just can't mix and match proxy and actual data. They're apples and oranges. Yet, that's exactly what [Jones] did."
More investigation of Climategate is needed. The context surrounding the "trick" to "hide the decline" does, however, present a convincing challenge to those who believe it to be without guile. It appears to show several scientists eager to present a particular viewpoint-that anthropogenic emissions are largely responsible for global warming-even when the data showed something different. | <urn:uuid:60b80ea6-22c1-4442-bcc8-d6522f0892e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=8F16552A-802A-23AD-465F-8858BEB85AC2&IsTextOnly=False | 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 | 0.955965 | 1,559 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Pune has been witness to a number of incidents in 2012. As this ever growing city enters the next year, the aim before us would be to control crime against women, maintain communal harmony and fight terror.
Better policing can only be achieved if there is better communication between the citizens and the police. This communication becomes even more crucial when we attempt to curb crime against women. Through our social security cell and the women’s grievance redressal cell, we have been keeping a track of the offences against women. In the coming year, we plan to fast-track the prosecution of the cases of crimes against women.
Instructions have also been issued to police stations that as far as possible the cases of crimes against women should be probed by women officers. We believe women officers would be able to handle these cases in a more efficient manner with better understanding. We will also see that these offences are looked at with a priority. A better conviction rate would definitely create a sense of safety. The inspectors in charge of individual police stations have been told that preventive action should be initiated without any hesitation against the person troubling a woman.
Maintaining communal harmony can only be achieved if there is healthy communication among communities. We believe that right from a constable to the highest officer, all have a major role to play to ensure that this inter-community dialogue continues. Even in the fight with terror outfits, we feel our priority is strengthening the intelligence network through better contact with citizens, who are our real sources of information.
Traffic problems are also on our list of priorities. With the number of vehicles getting added every year, traffic problem will not be solved soon. We are planning some long term solutions, along with better traffic management on a daily basis.
Gulabrao Pol is the Commissioner of Police, Pune | <urn:uuid:5900e054-ec68-4f97-ac45-d3d49e500370> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/1052765/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96947 | 369 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Mr. BELNICK: What did it really mean to say that a channel that you
had insisted and thought would be used now only for intelligence
was going to be a channel that would be used for both intelligence
Secretary SHULTZ: I meant that the battle to get intelligence separated
from policy and control over the policy was very much in
play and the Director of Central Intelligence wanted to keep himself
very heavily involved in this policy which he had been involved
in apparently all along. That's what it meant. To me that's what it
Mr. BELNICK: Mr. Secretary, did it indicate to you that State had
not-that your belief that State had now been- given control over
the policy towards-Iran might not, in fact, be the case, and that, in
fact, nothing had changed?
Secretary SHULTZ: Well, a lot had changed by this time. It wasn't
that nothing had changed, but as you well know, or maybe you
don't-you are not a Washingtonian-nothing ever gets settled in
this town. You have to keep fighting, every inch of the way.
Mr. BELNICK: But at least on that point, it occurred to you that
what might not have changed was that State was still not firmly in
the driver's seat when it came to Iran policy?
Secretary SHULTZ: Well, I felt that we were in the driver's seat
all right. On the other hand, obviously Director Casey had managed
to go, after having agreed to something, and not calling-he
didn't call John Whitehead back and say John, you know we
agreed on that, but I think we ought to change it. He went to basically
to the President and got it changed, and used a rather, I
think, deceptive way of letting us find out that it had been
Mr. BELNICK: It occurred to you in connection with that and with
the revelation about the nine-point accord that the deception that
you feared had been in progress before was continuing even after
Secretary SHULTZ: Well, I was worried about it. Of course, I got
back after this message went out, and I was sitting in Washington
when the meeting that Mr. Cave and Mr. Dunbar had with the Iranian
took place. I was in Washington then. And still, you know,
trying to struggle, keep track of all this.
Mr. BELNICK: But nobody had told you as they informed you that
State could now take over the policy, and ground rules would be
developed, that there was still a proposal on the table to sell arms
to Iran and on top of that, to release terrorist prisoners, to prepare
for possible intervention in a war, to undertake opposition to the
Government of Iraq, nobody had informed the Secretary of State of
Secretary SHULTZ: Nobody had informed me of this so-called 9-
point agenda. But as far as I was concerned, our policy was clear.
No more arms sales under these circumstances.
Mr. BELNICK: As you testified earlier, and will be gone into later,
you reported your discovery to the President On December 14, and
based on his reaction, you felt that now at last you had gotten
Secretary SHULTZ: The President was stunned, and he was furious,
as I have said before, and this just had a big impact on him.
He had no idea of this at all, I am sure.
Mr. BELNICK: At that point, Mr. Secretary, the argument which
had begun in 1985 was finally over?
Secretary SHULTZ: I hope so.
Mr. BELNICK: So do 1. | <urn:uuid:3c070aa2-77f9-44df-b1b4-bf1673628d75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/transcripts/gs-5.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989088 | 789 | 1.601563 | 2 |
NEWS: May 18, 2004
Bird’s Eye View of the News
Atila Sinke Guimarăes
POPE’S APPROVAL FOR THE FATIMA INTERFAITH SHRINE – John Paul II recently gave the religious authorities of Fatima a marble fragment of the tomb of St. Peter in Rome to be used in the new Holy Trinity Basilica that has been under construction since February 1994. The rector of the sanctuary is Msgr. Luciano Guerra. The new basilica will seat 9,000 people, making it the largest covered building in Portugal and one of the biggest Catholic churches in the world. It is scheduled to open in 2007, and is projected to cost close to $50 million, to be paid for by the offerings of pilgrims (The Tablet, March 27, 2004, p. 29).
There is no doubt about it, it's the very same inter-confessional shrine that was announced some months ago and had raised so much indignation among the Catholic faithful (see articles). Recently Msgr. Luciano Guerra himself confirmed that this new church will in fact be used for inter-religious purposes (“Controversy at Shrine Hasn’t Affected Construction,” Zenit, May 13, 2004).
Therefore, after the wave of indignation that has rolled over the Catholic world about the installation of a pan-religious shrine in Fatima, we have the final decision coming from Rome. With this symbolic gesture, John Paul II publicly takes a side in the controversy and in unspoken words gives his order: “Go ahead with the pan-religious shrine! It is what I want.” He is not only encouraging the Fatima authorities, but also obviously intends to close the door on the topic, sending the message to Catholics that the issue would no longer be open to discussion.
It is indisputably a good lesson for those naďve conservatives who often say that John Paul II is not aware of what the Vatican and other high Prelates are doing in his name. No one can deny that this time he is carrying out the progressivist agenda.
LA COSA NOSTRA I – The reader might remember that last June ex-Governor Frank Keating accused Bishops of acting like members of la Cosa Nostra – the code-name of the Italian Mafia. This was after 60 Bishops, including all the Californian Prelates, refused to collaborate with National Review Board (NRB), of which he was the chairman. The NRB had been created to investigate the sex abuse scandal in all the American Dioceses, present an objective picture of the situation, and propose the appropriate remedy. The mentioned Bishops balked at giving the necessary information about their Dioceses.
Several months before, in April 2003, Cardinal Roger Mahony had already tried to shut down the NRB by writing to the American Prelates calling for the NRB to conclude its study. After Keating’s strong statement opposing the maneuver, Mahony declared to the press, “I don’t know how he can continue to have the support of the Bishops” (Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2003). Pressured by the other NRB members, on June 16 Keating sent a letter to the head of the Conference of American Bishops, Bishop Wilton Gregory, presenting his resignation. It was hastily accepted, and a new NRB chairman was chosen, Anne Burke, an upstanding Illinois Court of Appeal Judge.
Disillusioned, Frank Keating resigned
At the time of his resignation, I thought: Keating is an honest man and he obviously hit the mark with his metaphor. It's my opinion the NRB members were manipulated by the Bishops to pressure him to resign. The victor was Mahony. Now the Bishops will try to use the NRB as a tool to achieve their aims. Let’s wait and see if this lady will recognize what is going on and see through their plans for her and the other 12 NRB members.
LA COSA NOSTRA II – The NRB accomplished the first step of its mission on February 27, 2004. That day there were three important statements released simultaneously about the situation of the clergy in the United States. First, the John Jay report, i.e., the statistics of the company hired to investigate the status of the clerical sex scandal; second, the conclusions of the NBR. Among other things its members recommended an annual audit process be established in all the Dioceses, with a new investigation to begin in 2004; and third, the statement by Bishop Gregory, who decreed that clerical sex abuse scandal was over and had become “history.”
Some important lacunae were apparent in both the John Jay report and the NRB conclusions, as Dr. Marian Horvat pointed out in a timely article (click here).
However, the breaking news came May 11, when, in an interview with the Chicago Sun Times, Judge Anne Burke made available to the press private correspondence among Bishops regarding the proposals of the NRB. She also disclosed correspondence between her and various members of the American Hierarchy. Such documents can be viewed at National Catholic Reporter online.
The correspondence clearly indicates that many Bishops were considering shelving or delaying some of the NRB’s key recommendations, such as the second round of audits designed to measure diocesan compliance with child-protection policies. She reached the conclusion that the NRB had been manipulated by the Bishops. “In short, we were manipulated,” she stated in a March 30 letter to Bishop Gregory.
The picture that emerges from these letters together with the previous known data can be succinctly summarized.
National Review Board member Robert Bennett and Chairman Anne Burke - manipulated by the Bishops
America, May 3, 2004
• Unable to calm the public indignation or heal the consequences of the clergy sex abuse scandal, the Bishops created the NRB to give the impression that they would submit to the impartial judgment of this organ.
Here are some samples of the correspondence:
• With this, Catholic public opinion was led to believe that the Bishops were repentant for the acts of pedophilia and cover-ups and willing to subject themselves to impartial supervision. The NRB also believed this and thought that it would exert the role of an independent moral supervisor. However, a month after the statistics were released and the NRB conclusions made public (February 27), Burke learned that about three dozen Cardinals and Bishops had been exchanging correspondence that rebuffed the measures proposed by NRB to heal the pedophile crisis and denied its assumed role. Most of such correspondence was hidden from her, probably so that she would continue to think that the NRB would supervise the Bishops.
• Burke went to the February 27 press conference without knowing that the rug was being pulled from under her feet. She presented the NRB conclusions and gave the impression to the public that a healing process was underway supervised by the NRB.
• After that, the picture changed, that is, the correspondence came to light revealing that the Bishops did not intend to give NRB the authority everyone presumed it had.
• Realizing this, Burke wrote a letter to some Bishops (March 29) asking what were their real intentions, which produced among the Prelates new strong reactions against the role of the NRB.
• On March 30 she wrote to Bishop Gregory, the creator of the NRB, a final letter of complaint which concluded that the board had been manipulated.
• On May 11, she announced to the press that she will resign from the NRB in June.
• On February 2 Cardinal Edward Egan of New York wrote to Bishop Gregory: “We write to report that the undersigned Bishops …. are not in favor of extending these efforts until the matter has been discussed by all of the Bishops …. at their general meeting in November.”
In short, as soon as the Bishops had used the National Review Board as a front to clean up their image before Catholic public opinion, they put it aside like a squeezed orange of no more use to them.
• In mid-February, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Archbishop John Myers of Newark, Archbishop Elden Curtis of Omaha, and the conservative Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Nebraska likewise affirmed that they were “opposed to any extension of the national audit regarding the sexual abuse of minors by clergy until all the Bishops …. have an opportunity to discuss this matter in executive session at our meeting in November 2004.”
• On February 12, more than a dozen Bishops from Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania declared themselves “troubled” to see that the NRB and the Office for Children Protection “appear to be expanding their competence, responsibilities, activities and studies in a dynamic autonomy.”
Conservatives like Archbishop Chaput, above, and Bishop Bruskewitz join the front line against the NRB, and thus favor the cover-up
Our Sunday Visitor,May 2, 2004
• On April 2, conservative Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput was still more aggressive. In a response to Burke’s March 29 letter of inquiry about the Prelates’ intentions, he stated that she had assumed “the worst motives on the part of the Bishops …. Your language is designed to offend and contains implicit threats that are …. inappropriate for anyone of your professional stature.”
Chaput also questioned the need for the annual audits advised by the NRB. According to him, the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children “nowhere requires an annual national audit.” He then attacked the competence of the lay organ: “It is not the NRB’s duty to interpret the Charter. The NRB is an important advisory body at the service of the Bishops. It does not and cannot have supervisory authority.”
This seems to be the dishonest procedure that Justice Anne Burke was referring to when she stated that the 13 members of the NRB had been manipulated. It’s my opinion that she is right. After another year, she and the other members of the lay panel came to realize that Frank Keating was right when he qualified part of the American Hierarchy as acting like la Cosa Nostra. Analogous ploys like the one used by Mahony last year to put out Keating are being brought into play now by a large group of Bishops, including some “holy” conservatives. It could be called la Cosa Nostra II.
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©2002-2013 Tradition in Action, Inc. All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:998eb4c8-fdd4-4059-b695-4a19681c5ac4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/052bev5-18-2004.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977623 | 2,227 | 1.648438 | 2 |
'Lone wolf' terror threat to Britain
BRITISH terrorists returning from international conflict zones are posing a growing “lone wolf” threat to the UK, a think tank has warned.
Around 50 home-grown extremists fighting with Somali group Al Shabaab could return over the next few years, the Royal United Services Institute said.
And it believes they could be followed by other fighters coming back from similar hotspots including Yemen and Nigeria.
So called “lone wolf” terrorists act on their own making it harder for the security services to track them.
Coupled with the release of convicted terrorists jailed in Britain, the RUSI is warning of "a perfect storm of combined threats coming together in the near future".
RUSI analyst Valentina Soria told the BBC: “There is very little which could justify complacency in the way we perceive the future threat from jihadist terrorism to the UK.
“Although actual capabilities may have deteriorated, the intention to conduct large-scale attacks on British soil remains."
The report also warned the security services would be subject to cuts once this summer’s London Olympic are over. | <urn:uuid:35f1e97e-36d0-41b3-9b7b-82b7f77d69be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4113106/British-terror-news-Lone-wolf-terror-threat-to-UK.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946513 | 241 | 1.578125 | 2 |
After years of global warming and climate change fear mongering by eco-groups and their gullible media and partisan political accomplices, science and economics are more and more often proving the “climate skeptics” right. Government climate regulations and rich subsidies promoting fanciful climate controls are proving to be unnecessary government meddling and spending with serious negative economic impacts.
Here are some recent challenges to the sanctimonious climate campaigns:
• For Pres. Obama’s second term, three of his key cabinet climate campaigners are resigning – Lisa Jackson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator; Ken Salazar, U.S. Dept. of the Interior Secretary and Stephen Chu, U.S. Dept. of Energy Secretary;
• The New York Times newspaper has closed its “environmental news desk” that reported daily on environmental issues;
• U.S. Courts have overturned the EPA bio-fuels mandates;
• Established under 2005 Kyoto Protocol initiatives, carbon cap-and-trade markets have reached a two-year low performance in the European Union (EU);
• Contrary to constant warmist predictions, record frigid snowfalls have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere in recent years;
• With Arctic ice retreating, polar bear populations have steadily increased over the last 40 years;
• Long one of the most radical voices for action against climate change, NASA’s James Hansen has conceded that global temperatures have been steady (not risen) over the last decade;
• The longstanding climate hysteric and United Nations (UN), IPCC Head Rajendra Pachauri acknowledges the global warming has been at a “standstill” in recent decades;
• With failing global interest in climate change regulations limiting greenhouse gases, 190 nations represented in the latest UN global warming climate summit in Doha, Qatar failed to negotiate a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol expiration in 2012;
• Early adopters of the Kyoto Protocol global warming initiatives in the EU have been tangled in economic austerity for years. And, their rush to green renewable energies has caused an “energy austerity” as their slip back into economic recession.
Progressive climate control activism, myopic renewable energy mandates and their partisan political opportunists have willingly placed global prosperity at risk. Such risks would be irresponsible during good economic times, and contributory negligence in today’s struggling global economies.
Subscribe free to this Column by clicking the blue-highlighted +Subscribe line below author's title. | <urn:uuid:735a6651-14e5-4b5a-85de-15b8323b26e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/2013-challenges-for-climate-campaigners?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911943 | 507 | 1.859375 | 2 |
According to Jennifer Whiting, our relation to our future selves is like that to our friends. But this view is subject to a particularly clear form of the self-sacrifice objection. For suppose that I can rescue a stranger from a bear, but I foresee that in doing so I will acquire fatal wounds that will cause death within a few hours. If I had no conflicting duties, e.g., to my children, this would be a heroic and laudable thing to do. But if Whiting is right, then it seems this action is analogous to sacrificing the life of a friend for that of a stranger, without having asked the friend, since the future self who will die in a few hours is like a friend. But it's surely wrong to sacrifice the life of a friend, without special permission, to save a stranger.
Objection: The future self has the same values as I do, and hence if it were the case that I am such that I would choose to die for the stranger, I can assume that he, too, would choose to die for the stranger.
Response: There are several problems with this objection. First, the relevant future self is the one who is going to be dying from the fatal wounds. Can I really be sure that at that time there will be no regrets, but consent? Second, this answer assumes that anybody with the same values as me would have chosen the same thing. But that assumption is plausibly false. I have certain values which imply that it would be a fine thing to give up my life for the stranger. But it is not certain that each time I would act on those values. It could well be that I would only sometimes choose to act on those values. But that fact would not affect the permissibility of acting on the values. Third, consider this. What if in fact I do not love my future self as much as I love myself? Plausibly, the self-sacrifice would still be permissible. But in that case, it cannot be presumed that my future self would choose to have himself be sacrificed—for, presumably, he loves himself more than I love him. Fourth, when it comes to sacrificing the life of a friend to save a stranger, more than merely knowing that the friend has values that make the sacrifice likely is needed. The choice has to be made by the friend. | <urn:uuid:7ec969b0-663f-42f7-836f-84fd0c0e8698> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976442 | 481 | 2.265625 | 2 |
(1) 1991 Census counts are adjusted as necessary to enable direct comparisons between 1991 and 1996.
(2) Includes all private dwellings occupied by usual residents as well as those occupied by temporary and/or foreign residents.
(3) Region contains incompletely enumerated Indian Reserves.
C = City
DM = District Municipality
IGD = Indian Governmental District
R = Indian Reserve
SE = Indian Settlement
SRD = Subdivision of Regional District
T = Town
VL = Village
Source: 1996 + 1991 Census, Statistics Canada
Prepared by: BC Stats, Ministry of Labour, Citizens' Services and Open Government | <urn:uuid:46be0d3c-460d-4753-a980-b00de478fa46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/Census/1996Census/PopulationHousing/MunbyRD.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918359 | 131 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Owners and HR managers in small businesses are realizing in greater numbers that cost-effective solutions for health insurance are increasingly becoming a must. Over 90 percent of the small businesses surveyed by the National Small Business Association say they believe that offering health insurance gives them a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining top talent. But with shrinking profits, an unstable economy, and rising costs of traditional health care plans, it’s becoming more difficult for small business owners to achieve this objective. Concerned employers are searching for innovative ways to keep their employees happy while allowing them to control and manage their health care costs. They’ve found an effective solution in Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs).
What is a Health Reimbursement Arrangement?
A Health Reimbursement Arrangement, sometimes referred to as a medical reimbursement account or Health Reimbursement Account, is an employer-funded consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) that enables both small business employers and their employees to save on the cost of medical care. What’s more, because dollars set aside for employees to pay for their health care expenses are pre-tax dollars, HRA plans offer tax advantages to a small business.
Why is it called a “consumer-driven health plan” (CDHP)?
A CDHP allows covered members to use an HRA to pay health care expenses directly, and control how their health care dollars are spent. Consumer-directed health plans, like the Health Reimbursement Arrangement, encourage participants to actively manage their health costs, choose their health care providers, and improve their health. The “consumer” controls how his health care monies are spent. For example, he may decide to choose a generic medication over a name-brand drug or go to an urgent care center instead of a hospital emergency room for a non-life-threatening health issue. An HRA is also ideal for covering items that are not typically covered by insurance, such as teeth whitening, hair removal, cosmetic surgery, nutritional supplements, health club dues, weight loss programs, and a host of other medical and dental expenses excluded from insurance according to the IRS.
How is a HRA different from a traditional health plan from a small business standpoint?
Insurance premiums are extremely high for a traditional low-deductible health care plan, so offering an HRA instead of a traditional health plan provides significant cost savings for the small business owner. Once a small business transitions from a traditional health insurance plan to an HRA or HRA in combination with a high deductible plan, the savings can be used to fund HRA accounts.
What are the advantages of a HRA?
A Health Reimbursement Account combines the cost-saving health insurance benefits small business employers need with the protection and flexibility that employees want. HRAs are a popular strategy small businesses use to provide their employees with health care benefit options, without increasing their out-of-pocket exposure or their expenses. Funds placed in the HRA are pre-tax dollars and qualified claims reimbursements are tax-deductible for the employer. Employers also know their maximum health care benefit expense, which helps with budgeting and forecasting. Because accumulated funds in an HRA are controlled by the employer and typically retained upon employee termination, accumulated HRA funds may also be an employee retention incentive.
On the employee side, employer HRA contributions are excluded from employees’ gross income and employer-paid, qualified medical expense reimbursements are tax free up to a certain maximum coverage amount. Additionally, employees become smarter shoppers and spenders when it comes to health care services. A Health Reimbursement Account can make it easier for the employee to pay for individual and family health insurance, be more proactive with preventative health care, and cover medical or dental expenses not covered by insurance.
What’s the bottom line?
Small business health care insurance costs may be escalating, but you can still lower costs while offering your employees health care coverage through a Health Reimbursement Arrangement.
Read on to get more information about Intuit’s HRA offerings (the Intuit Health Debit Card), and check out this video, wherein one HRA user talks about how it’s working for him. | <urn:uuid:68228fe3-c912-4fe7-9a56-b554486bbb07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.intuit.com/employees/health-reimbursement-arrangement-hra-vs-traditional-health-insurance-video/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949003 | 878 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Fewer than one in 10 parents can identify the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes, figures have suggested.
Just 9% of parents know that excessive thirst, extreme tiredness, frequent urinating and unexplained weight loss are all symptoms of the condition, according to a survey conducted on behalf of Diabetes UK.
The charity said that a lack of understanding about the condition is one of the reasons that a quarter of children with Type 1 diabetes are only diagnosed once they are seriously ill.
It has launched an awareness campaign to help parents spot the "4 Ts" which are symptoms of the condition - toilet, thirsty, tired and thinner.
Barbara Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said: "The symptoms of Type 1 diabetes are so obvious and pronounced that there is no reason why every child with the condition cannot be diagnosed straight away.
"But the stark reality is that a quarter of children with Type 1 diabetes become seriously unwell before being diagnosed and we need to bring this appalling situation to an end. I fear that unless there is a big increase in awareness of symptoms, we will continue to see hundreds of children a year become seriously ill completely needlessly.
"We need to get the message across that if you have a child or if you work with children, you need to make it your business to know the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes. We hope the 4 Ts will make them easier to remember and so help ensure children with the condition get diagnosed at the right time."
Former X Factor contestant Amelia Lily, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was three years old, is backing the campaign.
She said: "I feel very strongly that every parent and carer needs to know about Diabetes UK's 4 Ts campaign. My symptoms included drinking a lot more than normal and going to the toilet a lot. I was very lucky as my nana realised what was wrong with me because my uncle had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 14.
"It's so important that anyone who looks after children - not just parents but teachers, carers and other family members - knows how to spot the signs of diabetes. So many children are still getting really poorly before they are diagnosed and I want to help put a stop to that." | <urn:uuid:96f9d836-c26a-40bc-b9a5-51231ecff1ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wirralnews.co.uk/wirral-news/uk-world-news/2012/11/14/diabetes-awareness-campaign-begins-80491-32229091/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977755 | 455 | 2.1875 | 2 |
A news report reveals that 3 commuter airplanes were about to collide in midair near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Tuesday, and a possible tragedy was fortunately avoided in matter of seconds (scroll down for video report).
The Washington Post (WP) revealed that three US Airways jet aircrafts with 192 passengers aboard approached too much raising the risk of imminent midair collision at about 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday. The incident was confirmed by federal authorities, FAA and US Airways which opened an investigations into what might have caused such a situation.
According to The Post, two outgoing jets received clearance from the traffic controllers who apparently sent them into the direction of an inbound airplane.
Moreover the newspaper quotes also a communications between a pilot and an air traffic controller:“Are you with me?” the tower controller asked the incoming pilot, checking to see whether he was tuned to her radio frequency. When the pilot confirmed, she demanded him to make a steept turn to the south to avert the other 2 jets.
“We were cleared [for landing] at the river there,” the pilot said after breaking off the approach northwest of the airport. “What happened?”
After a pause, the controller said, “Stand by, we’re trying to figure this out.”
As she directed him to make a loop around the airport for a second landing attempt the pilot cautioned: “We really don’t have enough fuel here for this. We have to get on the ground pretty quick.”
In the end all passenger jets arrived safely at their destinations.
Video: Three US Airways passenger jets narrowly averted mid-air collision at Washington Airport | <urn:uuid:3e1fc716-24e9-46af-9afc-408fb7c7515c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxcrawl.com/2012/08/02/video-3-us-airways-planes-avoid-midair-crash-in-split-second-at-dc-airport/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970282 | 349 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown at sacred-texts.com
jos 18:1THE TABERNACLE SET UP AT SHILOH. (Jos 18:1)
the whole congregation . . . assembled together at Shiloh--The main body of the Israelites had been diminished by the separation of the three tribes, Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh into their respective allotments; and the country having been in a great measure subdued, the camp was removed to Shiloh (now Seilun). It was twenty or twenty-five miles north of Jerusalem, twelve north of Beth-el, and ten south of Shechem, and embosomed in a rugged and romantic glen. This sequestered spot in the heart of the country might have been recommended by the dictates of convenience. There the allotment of the territory could be most conveniently made, north, south, east, and west, to the different tribes. But "the tabernacle of the congregation was also set up there," and its removal therefore must have been made or sanctioned by divine intimation (Deu 12:11). It remained in Shiloh for more than three hundred years (Sa1 4:1-11).
jos 18:2THE REMAINDER OF THE LAND DESCRIBED. (Jos 18:2-9)
there remained . . . seven tribes, which had not yet received their inheritance--The selection of Shiloh for the seat of worship, together with the consequent removal of the camp thither, had necessarily interrupted the casting of lots, which was commenced by fixing localities for the tribes of Judah and Joseph. Various causes led to a long delay in resuming it. The satisfaction of the people with their change to so pleasant and fertile a district, their preference of a nomad life, a love of ease, and reluctance to renew the war, seem to have made them indifferent to the possession of a settled inheritance. But Joshua was too much alive to the duty laid on him by the Lord to let matters continue in that state; and accordingly, since a general conquest of the land had been made, he resolved to proceed immediately with the lot, believing that when each tribe should receive its inheritance, a new motive would arise to lead them to exert themselves in securing the full possession.
jos 18:3How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you--This reproof conveys an impression that the seven tribes were dilatory to a criminal extent.
jos 18:4Give out from among you three men for each tribe--Though the lot determined the part of the country where each tribe was to be located, it could not determine the extent of territory which might be required; and the dissatisfaction of the children of Joseph with the alleged smallness of their possession gave reason to fear that complaints might arise from other quarters, unless precautions were taken to make a proper distribution of the land. For this purpose a commission was given to twenty-one persons--three chosen from each of the seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance, to make an accurate survey of the country.
jos 18:9The men went and passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book--dividing the land according to its value, and the worth of the cities which it contained, into seven equal portions. This was no light task to undertake. It required learning and intelligence which they or their instructors had, in all probability, brought with them out of Egypt. Accordingly, JOSEPHUS says that the survey was performed by men expert in geometry. And, in fact, the circumstantial account which is given of the boundaries of each tribe and its situation, well proves it to have been the work of no mean or incompetent hands.
jos 18:10DIVIDED BY LOT. (Jos 18:10)
Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord--before the tabernacle, where the divine presence was manifested, and which associated with the lot the idea of divine sanction.
jos 18:11the lot of . . . Benjamin came up--It has been supposed that there were two urns or vessels, from which the lots were drawn: one containing the names of the tribes, the other containing those of the seven portions; and that the two were drawn out simultaneously.
the coast of their lot came forth between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph--Thus the prophecy of Moses respecting the inheritance of Benjamin was remarkably accomplished. (See on Deu 33:12). | <urn:uuid:bcd20e79-f548-4611-90bb-87223bbb5404> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/jfb/jos018.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976004 | 991 | 2.59375 | 3 |