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The Big Data Marketing Gold Mine
Savvy marketers are turning to data to help them determine where to spend, and how best to speak to customers. Using information gleaned from social media and other sources, CMOs are trying to understand what makes consumers tick, what makes them purchase, and what keeps them coming back.
It's become clear that the true political star of the 2012 election was Big Data. There is much that marketers can learn from its meteoric rise.
Trumping the old-school, gut-instinct days of electoral politics, today's campaigns employ data crunchers who mine the campaign's database for clues on what it takes to engage supporters and motivate them to donate, volunteer and vote.
These data-driven clues emerge in many forms, such as the public information that people share on Twitter and Facebook regarding candidates, books and television shows. When fed into predictive models, the data offers a window into the minds of key audiences, which in turn helps campaigns personalize email communications, fine-tune television ad spending, and engage voters on the social platforms that matter most.
Lesson for CMOs
Sound familiar? What 2012 taught us about next-generation political campaigning holds parallel relevance to what CMOs are striving to achieve now in marketing: the ability to reach people with the right message at the right time, and make marketing a welcomed service instead of a nuisance.
Consumers are faced with endless choices when it comes to products and services. But most advertising budgets are not endless -- so savvy marketers are turning to data to help them determine where to spend, and how best to speak to customers. Using information gleaned from social media and other sources, CMOs are trying to understand what makes consumers tick, what makes them purchase, and what keeps them coming back.
Given the level of complexity and the technological know-how this type of analysis requires, we're seeing an increase in collaboration between the CMO and the CIO.
Why? Well, to start, as marketing technology budgets keep pace with -- and increasingly exceed -- IT budgets, it is vital that CMOs and CIOs work together to use their dollars efficiently, understand each other's goals, and focus jointly on the tools and people who can ensure the brand can put its data to work.
Cruch the Data
The shift we're seeing in CMO's thinking -- prompted by factors such as the dominance of online commerce and the influence of social media-powered consumers -- is moving from "tried and true" to a data-based approach. This requires a heightened focus in two areas: the tools for harnessing data, and the skills to operate them.
Imagine if you could predict when your first-time customer might make a repeat purchase, and what would drive that individual to do so. Moreover, what if -- with the right insight on your consumers' likes and dislikes -- you could pinpoint what types of communications would motivate them to act as an online ambassador for your brand, by sharing their purchase experience with social media contacts.
With the analytics technology available today, this is a reality. And that is why marketers need tools that specialize in business, social and predictive analytics.
Of equal importance to selecting the right technology, today's marketers also need to hire highly-skilled employees who can use analytics tools to channel, analyze and make recommendations based on the data they find.
Model for Marketing Success
Remember that low-key team of data crunchers who propelled their political campaign to victory? They should be viewed as a model for what today's marketers need in terms of a workforce that can turn Big Data into strategic decisions.
This type of workforce holds special value for marketers. From small, specialty boutiques to large, corporate-communications teams, marketing operations of all sizes require the ability to quickly capture customer, competitor and market data.
The key to filling these data-crunching jobs is having university-level training that engages students from all disciplines -- not just computer science -- so they are prepared and applying to the 1.9 million Big Data jobs that will be created in the U.S. by 2015, according to Gartner.
What can a CMO learn from a political campaign manager? Just as the 2012 election illustrated how Big Data can transform traditional campaigning, marketers who likewise harness the power of data can reimagine their roles and deliver greater value to consumers.
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Native Art Traders
5225 Old Orchard Road, Suite 45 Skokie, IL 60077
Inuit Art Exhibition
Eliot Waldman has a passion for Inuit art and has participated in many Inuit art exhibitions over the years. His Native Art Traders Inuit art exhibition showcases many of the great and upcoming Inuit artists that he has befriended.
Take a tour of our virtual Inuit art exhibition - Inuit Art Sculptures, Inuit Art Wall Hangings, and Inuit Art Prints and Paintings. Select the specific work of art for a larger image. Want to receive a private tour of our Inuit art gallery? We'd be happy to make arrangements. Please contact us to arrange a date and time.
Every week we receive new additions to our Inuit art exhibition. Most are one of a kind pieces. Sign up to our mailing list to receive notification of new art pieces as they come in.
Guide to Other Inuit Art Exhibitions
Many of the best Inuit art exhibitions will be found in Canada. But, in addition to Native Art Traders, you can find excellent Inuit art galleries in the states as well - some in the most unexpected places.
Manitoba Inuit Art Exhibition
The first exhibition to focus on the unique graphic vision of one of northern Canada's rising new artists - Tony Anguhalluq. The 24 pencil crayon drawings featured in this inuit art exhibition shows the artist unique use of colors combined with overlapping perspectives in the same image.
University of Delaware Inuit Art Exhibition
This Inuit art exhibition shows some of the Inuit drawings from the Frederick and Lucy S. Herman Native American Art Collection. You can also find other Inuit artworks, including sculptures, prints, and tapestries lately donated to the University Gallery collection.
Inuit Gallery of Vancouver
Five years ago they showcased a group of seven emerging artists in an Inuit Art exhibition called Sculpting Talent. This new Inuit art exhibition turns the spotlight back on the original seven artists whom they believe are at the forefront of modern Inuit art.
Sami & Inuit Art exhibition
An upcoming exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Read more at:
Delaware Exhibition celebrates Inuit art
The University of Delaware in Newark is opening an exhibit of Canadian Inuit drawings.
The governor of the state of Delaware, Ruth Ann Minner, has proclaimed Wednesday "Inuit Art and Culture Appreciation Day" in the state.
Titled "Land of Ice, Hearts of Fire - Inuit Art and culture", the exhibit will showcase over 200 drawings and prints.
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By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
The decline in advertising the magazine industry has experienced since 2006 accelerated in 2008. The biggest hits came in declines in ad buying from automakers, pharmaceutical companies and financial service providers.
The question that needs to be sorted out in 2009 and beyond is how much of the accelerating drop in print magazine advertising is a function of a difficult economy and how much of it is a permanent shift in the way the producers of goods and services reach consumers.
Across the 251 magazines analyzed by the Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages were down 12% in 2008, compared with a 1% drop in 2007.
Just one news magazine studied, The Economist, succeeded in adding pages and advertising revenue in 2008. The readership of the British-owned magazine’s North American edition is the youngest, most educated and most affluent of all the news magazines examined, all factors desired by advertisers. Analysts also attribute the publication’s recent success to two of its main subject areas: overseas news and trends, coverage that other news magazines have trimmed in recent years, and the global economy, which likely drew readers as global markets hit choppy waters.1
The two largest news weeklies, Time and Newsweek, failed in 2008 to reverse the trend of declining ad revenue, despite slashing ad rates and giving their print product a makeover the year before. At Newsweek, the continued decline in ad revenues resulted in overall losses for the year, even with significant cuts in staffing. Time still managed to turn a profit.2
The failure of previous print publication redesigns to capture additional readers spells trouble. So does the failure of cuts to the “rate base”3— the number of distributed copies guaranteed advertisers — to attract new ads.
Ad Pages vs. Ad Dollars
Divining the financial health of a magazine is challenging
Two of the biggest owners of magazines—Hearst and Advance—are privately held companies, and as such are not required to issue public financial reports. Even the publicly traded media companies that do issue reports generally do not break out revenue figures for specific magazines.4
The Publishers Information Bureau offers estimates by combining ad rates and published pages. It multiplies the rate magazines charge on their rate card by the number of ad pages they published. The resulting estimate is an imprecise representation of actual ad revenue because advertisers often get discounted prices from the rate card. Because of various discounts and incentives, experts say that actual revenue is often half what the reported ad dollars would suggest.
For 2008, the collective discounts at Time Inc.’s two dozen American magazines, for example, amounted to 44% off the official rates, according to press accounts. And at Meredith, which owns 25 consumer magazines, reports put the collective discounts at an average of about 75% below official rates.5
The figures for how many pages of advertising were published, on the other hand, are based on an actual count of ads in a publication.
Both ad dollar and ad pages are cited here.
The Magazine Industry Over All
The declines cut across most magazine categories. Consumer magazines — those intended for a general audience, including People and Reader’s Digest — did worst as a group, falling 12%.
Some of the biggest declines for the year were experienced at Home (down 38%), U.S. News (32%), The New Yorker (27%) and Nickelodeon (27%). Home’s ad page decreases were indicative of similar declines among shelter magazines—those publications about the home, decor, furnishings and gardens.
The year-end numbers offer scarce good news for publishers, with nearly every major category posting substantial declines in ad pages. All automobile magazines tracked by the Publishers Information Bureau had declines, most by more than 10%. Among entertainment and celebrity magazines, only InTouch Weekly managed to increase ad pages in 2008 over the year earlier, by 3%. Music publications had some of the steepest declines among magazines tracked by the Publishers Information Bureau. Blender had a 31% decrease, Rolling Stone dropped 24% and Vibe decreased 18%. Spin had the only increase in the category, gaining a modest 2%.
In all, just 18% of magazines tracked by the Publishers Information Bureau posted gains in ad pages for the year.6 Among the gainers were a smattering of parenting magazines, including Meredith’s Spanish-language publication Ser Padres (an increase of 42%), Scholastic Parent and Child (up 28%) Disney’s new parenting magazine, Wondertime (up 21%), while competitors including Condé Nast’s Cookie (up 11%) and Bonnier Corporation’s Working Mother (up 4%) grew more modestly. Despite growth at Wondertime in 2008, Disney announced its closing in January 2009; the last issue appeared in March.7
Also having modest growth in ad pages were health and fitness magazines. Women’s Health was up 12%, Body + Soul added 4%, Muscle & Fitness was up 4% and Men’s Journal added 3%.
Some relatively new publications, which started out with smaller ad bases in 2007 relative to more established magazines, grew in 2008. Ad pages at Rodale’s Bestlife, a men’s lifestyle publication, were up 7%. New magazines featuring Food Network personalities also had a good year in 2008: Cooking With Paula Deen had ad pages grow 18% from 2007, and Every Day With Rachael Ray was up 3%. The gains came as the network launched its own magazine with Hearst.
Business and finance magazines mostly followed the fortunes of the troubled economy in 2008. Ad page counts for the year presented a mostly downbeat picture.
Many more established business publications suffered double-digit declines throughout the year. Ad pages dropped 30% at Smart Money; BusinessWeek was down 16%, Forbes 14% and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance 15%.
The one clearly positive result was enjoyed by Mansueto Ventures’ Fast Company, which had a 24% increase. The magazine, founded by two former Harvard Business Review editors, Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, reports on digital media, technology, change management and social responsibility.
The Harvard Business Review, for its part, had more modest (3%) page increases. Condé Nast Portfolio, launched in 2007, had slight growth (2%) in 2008 over all, but hemorrhaged in the fourth quarter, when it had a 33% decline in ad pages compared with the same period in 2007.
Business and Finance Publication Ad Pages
2007 to 2008
Source: Publishers Information Bureau
Niche publications over all, thought to be less susceptible in economic downturns than general-interest magazines, were not immune from the advertising slump in 2008. Publications targeted at boating and automobile enthusiasts experienced some of the biggest declines of any magazines. Steep ad page decreases at Motorboating (down 31%), Boating (down 25%), Power & Motoryacht (down 27%) and Yachting (down 15%) showed acute weaknesses in luxury niche magazines. The collapse of the automobile advertising market no doubt contributed to steep decreases at Automobile Magazine (down 13%), Motor Trend (down 12%) and Car and Driver (down 11%).
Automobile Publication Ad Pages
2007 to 2008
Source: Publishers Information Bureau
But news magazines were not much better off.
All three of the big news weeklies had double-digit decreases in ad pages through the third quarter of 2008. And the other news magazines did not perform much better.
For the eight news magazines examined, ad pages were down 16% in 2008 compared to the previous year.8 Ad dollars fell by nearly 19%.9 The declines are much more severe than those in 2007, when pages were down by less than 1% and dollars by 4%.
Time, Newsweek, U.S. News
Among the hardest hit were the traditional Big Three of the news magazines.
At Time, ad pages fell 19% and ad dollars 27%.
Newsweek had a 19% drop in ad pages with a 14% decline in ad dollars.
At U.S. News & World Report, ad pages fell 32% and ad dollars 35%.
What’s more, the 2008 ad page estimate for the traditional news magazines represent the lowest total since 1988, when the data first became available from the Publishers Information Bureau.
Biggest Three News Magazines, Ad Dollars and Pages
2007 to 2008
Source: Publishers Information Bureau
The two leading news weeklies, Time and Newsweek, were both hoping that changes made in 2007 (See State of the News Media 2008) would lead to new growth in 2008.
Both publications launched redesigned magazines in 2007, cut ad rates and reduced circulation in an effort to attract more advertisers. Publishers base advertising rates on the number of consumers an ad may reach—the higher the number of guaranteed consumers, the higher the rate for advertisers. By offering cheaper rates to advertisers, the magazines hope to get more of them to advertise.
But signs of continued declines in early 2008 led to yet more changes both in print and online.
Time’s website (www.time.com), for instance, underwent its second redesign in two years.
The first came in January 2007, to coincide with the magazine’s redesign that March. In September 2008, time.com was again retooled, this time under the direction of its online e ditor, Josh Tyrangiel, who also serves as assistant managing editor of the print publication. Tyrangiel described the previous redesign of the website as “rushed.”10
A month later, in October of 2008, Time Inc. CEO Anne Moore announced that the company was devising a two-year plan to weather the economic downturn. Moore stated that “it will be tough to grow revenues” in 2009. Time Inc., which publishes Time and several other publications, with Time as its flagship, sought to increase digital revenues in 2008 by 53%, a target Moore said the company would not hit.11
At Newsweek, the plunge in ad pages and dollars came at a time when management seemed unsettled. Its president and publisher, Greg Osberg, formerly an executive of the online computer consumer and news guide CNET, left the magazine in the fall of 2008.12 In December 2008, Osberg was named CEO of Buzzwire, a company that streams video content to mobile devices.13 Newsweek said it had no plans to replace Osberg.14
In February 2009, Newsweek announced radical changes. In addition to slashing its rate base from 2.6 million to 1.5 million by 2010, the magazine announced it would double its subscription rates, focusing on a core of affluent, highly educated readers. The magazine hopes that with a smaller, more dedicated audience it will attract more luxury goods advertisers and get higher rates for ads.15
Both of these strategies will have to navigate an almost certainly difficult economic climate in 2009.
It was a periodical once considered the third general news magazine, U.S. News & World Report, that suffered most in 2008. Already down 5% in ad pages and 1% in ad dollars in 2007, ad pages in 2008 fell 32% more. Estimated ad dollars were down 35%.
U.S. News’ average number of distributed copies decreased slightly in 2008, after remaining flat for three years, to 1.994 million, from 2.038 million in 2007. (See Audience).
The publication refocused itself around double issues designed to help people make decisions about such things as healthcare plans, colleges or retirement communities at the expense of the hard news that traditionally filled its pages. (See News Investment.)
Niche News Magazines
For all that magazines in general and news magazines in particular suffered in 2008, not all the news was bad. Niche news magazines continued to fare relatively better.
First among these may be The Economist, the British publication that launched its American edition in 1993. The publication benefited from an 11% increase in circulation in the U.S., to almost 750,000 in 2008, from 666,000 in 2007. It has expressed a goal of hitting 1 million in U.S. circulation. With the help of a growing audience, ad pages grew by 4%, and estimated ad dollars grew 26%. It had the distinction of being the only news magazine to show growth in both ad pages and dollars in 2008.
The Week, another British-owned publication, has no reporters but its staff of 20 editors aggregates the reporting in the rest of the press into a weekly summary. Ad pages in its U.S. edition were flat, while ad dollars were projected to grow 14% percent growth, following a projected 15.8% jump a year earlier.
Nontraditional News Magazines, Ad Dollars and Pages
2007 to 2008
Source: Publishers Information Bureau
As the editorial director of a competitor, Thomas Wallace of Condé Nast, joked when reacting to reports on second-quarter ad pages in July: “Flat is the new up.”16
The other news magazines examined all saw declines in 2008. After posting modest gains for ad pages and dollars in 2007, The New Yorker’s momentum reversed in 2008. Ad pages fell 27%. Ad revenue, based on the rate card, would have fallen 21%.
Samir Husni, the University of Mississippi Journalism Department chairman, believes the content offered by The New Yorker creates a strong and loyal core audience. “We are not going to have a mass in-depth weekly,” Husni said. “Dense content is going to create a core audience, not a mass audience. But core audience will pay more for magazines.”17
National Journal, a weekly magazine that reports on the political-governmental environment and political and policy trends, had less severe declines than most other specialty news magazines. The magazine is part of National Journal Group, a division of the Atlantic Media Company, which also owns The Atlantic.
Ad pages at National Journal decreased 19% and ad dollars lost 15% compared with 2007 figures. Its coverage of the presidential election likely boosted readership and traffic to its website. It is less clear whether its partnership with NBC during the 2008 campaign benefited attracted more readers to the National Journal website and magazine.
Beginning in September 2007, journalists from National Journal, NBC and its sister cable channel MSNBC assigned staff members to the presidential campaign trail who filed dispatches during the nominating contests through the general election. National Journal reporters appeared regularly on the NBC-owned channels throughout the campaign. The content-sharing partnership was intended to broaden National Journal’s online and broadcast exposure.
The Atlantic, National Journal’s sister publication, had declines as well. After remaining flat in 2007, the number of ad pages dropped 17%, while ad dollars decreased by 3% in 2008.
In October, The Atlantic unveiled a redesigned magazine. The retooling follows a 2007 effort to attract more traffic and advertisers to the magazine’s website by eliminating paid subscriptions to the site. This strategy seems to have paid off in attracting more readers to both the print magazine and the website in 2008, but in a dismal year for advertising, especially in magazines, it’s unclear whether more advertisers came on board.
The range of tactics employed by news magazines—individual magazines tinkering with online identities and rethinking their established print brands—appeared, at least so far, to have made little impact. And one downside to the move online is a wealth of new competitors such as newspaper websites, Web-based magazines like Slate and Salon, and blog sites like Huffington Post that compete on any given subject area in the news.
Even in the best of times it might be too early to know if the structural changes at the news weeklies—in particular the shift at the larger ones toward remaking themselves into smaller, more targeted publications—would work. But the economics of 2008, and the apparent worsening of that picture in 2009, almost certainly will complicate those experiments. And one thing appears clearest. In the 21st century, the truly mass market news magazine appears on the way out. “The ad-supported model died in September,” Husni said.18
1. Nat Ives, “Magazine of the Year: The Economist,” Advertising Age, October 6, 2008
2. This refers to the guaranteed average net paid circulation of a periodical set by the publisher according to the number of copies that can be sold on a consistent basis. It is used by advertisers to evaluate the benefit of advertising in that periodical. Space advertising prices are based upon the rate base, and if the rate base guarantee is not met, the publisher must compensate advertisers for the difference. Copies sold in excess of the rate base, commonly called bonus circulation, are free.
3. Erik Sass, “Deep Cuts: Mags Heavily Discount Rate Cards in 2008,” MediaPost Publications, February 4, 2009
4. Erik Sass, “Deep Cuts: Mags Heavily Discount Rate Cards in 2008,” MediaPost Publications, February 4, 2009
5. A higher percentage of magazines may have gained in ad revenue, at least according to the Publishers Information Bureau estimates. By this count, 46% of consumer magazines would have had revenue gains had they charged from the rate card the full amount
6. Dylan Stableford, “Disney Shuts Wondertime; Hearst Stops Teen,” Folio Magazine, January 23, 2009. Online at: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/disney-kills-wondertime-hearst-stops-teen.
7. The publications are: Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, The Economist, The New Yorker, The Week, The Atlantic and National Journal.
8. While the ad dollar and ad pages figures will be discussed in this chapter, the ad pages are the more concrete figures that indicate financial health of a magazine. The total dollar figure is calculated by multiplying the rate given on the rate card by each publication by the number of ad pages. This is an inaccurate representation of actual ad revenue because advertisers rarely, if ever, pay the rate given on the rate-card. Therefore, it must be noted that experts in the industry say that actual revenue is often half what the ad dollars are reported to be.
9. Mark Walsh, “Time’ For Another Home Page Tweaking,” MediaPost Online Media Daily, September 15, 2008
10. Jason Fell, “Time Inc. CEO: ‘It Will Be Tough to Grow Revenues’ in 2009,” Folio, October 13, 2008
11. Dylan Stableford, “President and Publisher to Leave Newsweek,” FolioMag.com, July 16, 2008
12. Lucia Moses, “Ex-Newsweek Exec Osberg to Head Buzzwire,” MediaWeek, December 8, 2008.
13. “Newsweek President Greg Osberg Resigns,” Washington Post, July 17, 2008
14. Richard Perez-Peña, “Newsweek Plans Makeover to Fit a Smaller Audience,” New York Times, February 9, 2009
15. Richard Perez-Peña, “Newsweek Plans Makeover to Fit a Smaller Audience,” New York Times, February 9, 2009
16. Megan Garber, “Mag Revenue Numbers: In Which ‘Flat Is the New Up,’ ” Columbia Journalism Review, July 11, 2008. Online at: http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/mag_revenue_numbers_in_which_f.php.
17. Samir Husni, Interview with PEJ, January 15, 2009
18. Samir Husni, Interview with PEJ, January 15, 2009
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The impact of “sequestration” on meat inspection services has been a hot topic in recent weeks, points out Steve Meyer and Len Steiner in the Daily Livestock Report (www.dailylivestockreport.com).
In spite of claims to the contrary, there seems to be little doubt that the administration at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has zeroed in on the issue as one of the best ways to scare people about these budget cuts that Congress imposed upon itself.
USDA and the press have focused on “shortages” that may be caused by idling packing capacity. We are much more concerned about the increase in meat/poultry output that could be caused by slowing the flow of animals through harvest. Put a pencil to the impact on weights of backing up fed cattle and pigs for 11 days. Adding 30-40 lb. to steers and heifers and 13-17 lb. to barrows and gilts may have just a bit of a price impact, don’t you think?
Obviously, not all of the animals would be delayed by 11 days, but the supply impacts are definitely not trivial!
Some help may be on the way, though. Senators Blunt (MO), Risch (ID), Hoeven (ND), Wicker (MS), Johanns (NE), Enzi (WY) and Fischer (NE) have proposed legislation that would require USDA to use its funding to avoid meat inspector furloughs.
According to Lean Trimmings, the newsletter of the North American Meat Association, the proposal would reallocate $55 million and defines as essential employees as those “ . . . that perform work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property as determined by the head of the agency.”
You might also like:
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Facts and figures
Most toy-related deaths in children 9 months to 12 years of age are caused by choking. Balloons are the number one cause of toy-related deaths.
Balloons are fun for kids and serve well as decorations, but they present a significant hazard if they break. Small children can be attracted to the bright and colorful pieces of broken balloons, and they often place them in their mouths.
Forty percent of all child injuries happen to children over 5 years old.
As children get older, parents naturally assume their child is less susceptible to danger. Older children should know better than to place dangerous items in their mouths, but a child's curiosity level does not decrease with age. Make sure small, dangerous items are out of reach of children and never leave your child unattended.
Children under the age of 12 should ride in the back seat of a vehicle.
According to the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, children under the age of 12 are 36 percent less likely to die in a crash if they are sitting in the back seat of a vehicle. Children enjoy riding in the front seat, but this dramatically increases the danger should a collision occur. Children 4 years or younger or 40 pounds or less should ride in a car seat, and every child should have a seat belt on.
Fifty infant deaths are caused by old cribs each year in the United States.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports that cribs are responsible for 35 strangulation or suffocation deaths each year. A garage sale or a hand-me-down family crib may seem to be a great bargain, but it could be dangerous. Make sure your cribs are safely designed and the space between the crib slats is no more than 2 3/8 inches. Additional space beyond this can be a strangulation hazard. Always read and save the manufacturer instructions with any product that you purchase.
As many as 20,000 injuries per year are attributed to walker products designed for children.
Open doors leading to staircases are incredibly dangerous to toddlers cruising around in their walkers. Make sure secure safety gates are placed at the top of the stairs and all doors are shut when exiting a room. Instruct older children to close all doors when the rooms are not in use.
Each year four to five deaths occur because babies are not properly strapped into their high chairs.
Small children can easily slip down in their high chairs if they are not properly strapped into the seat. Injury, choking and perhaps death can occur as a result. Never leave a child unattended in a high chair and be sure your child is always securely strapped into the seat.
It takes less than five minutes for a fire to spread throughout a house.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), fires kill more Americans each year than all natural disasters combined. Be sure to have a UL Listed smoke detector installed on every floor in your house and near the bedrooms. By providing an early warning in the event of fire, smoke alarms may allow you and your family enough time to escape. Be sure to have an escape plan in mind and be sure that your children know how to exit the house.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is the leading cause of accidental poisoning deaths in the United States. Newborn babies are more vulnerable to CO poisoning.
CO is a poisonous gas that you cannot hear, taste, see or smell. It is nicknamed the silent killer because it sneaks up on its victims and can take lives without warning. CO poisoning causes flu-like symptoms, sometimes accompanied by pink or red rashes on the skin. Be sure you have a UL Listed CO alarm to detect dangerous levels of CO in your house.
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Recently, techniques have been developed to accurately capture the detailed features of multi−phase cement particles in two dimensions (Bentz and Stutzman 1994). To obtain an image of an actual cement, the cement to be characterized is dispersed in a low-viscosity epoxy which is subsequently cured. The sample is polished and a 100nm thick coating of carbon is evaporated onto the polished surface to eliminate specimen charging in the scanning electron microscope (SEM). In the backscattered electron (BE) image, an example of which is shown in Figure 7, brightness is proportional to the average atomic number (Z) of a phase.
In the BE image, the ferrite phase appears brightest followed by the tricalcium silicate phase. Unfortunately, tricalcium aluminate, dicalcium silicate, and gypsum all exhibit similar brightnesses and thus cannot be identified on the basis of the BE image alone. To circumvent this problem, x−ray images are collected from the same area being viewed by the BE detector. Separate x−ray images are collected and thresholded for sulphur, calcium, iron, and aluminum as shown in Figure 8. By combining these four X−ray images with the original BE image, each of the four major clinker phases of a Portland cement powder along with gypsum may be distinguished. For instance, the presence of iron in the x−ray image indicates the ferrite phase while the presence of aluminum but not iron indicates the tricalcium aluminate phase. Similarly, the presence of sulphur indicates gypsum. Tricalcium silicate and dicalcium silicate are distinguished on the basis of brightness of the BE and calcium x−ray images. In cases where this separation is still difficult, a silicon x−ray image can be obtained and also used in the segmentation process. Finally, the segmented image is filtered using a median filter to sharpen the phase distinction in the final image and overcome some of the noise present in the BE and xray images. In the median filter, each pixel in the image is reassigned to be the phase occupied by the majority of its neighbours, excluding porosity, if this majority value exceeds a preset limit.
After combining the five images shown in Figures 7 and 8 and applying the mediantype filter, the final image of the cement particles (segmented into four clinker phases plus gypsum) shown in Figure 9 is obtained. This image can be used as input for a two−dimensional CA model. Accurately capturing the complexity of the starting cement material in this fashion greatly enhances the realism of the hydration model and allows it to be applied to complex real world problems requiring knowledge of the distribution of each phase in a specific cement. Examples include the study of sulphate attack, where sulphate ions infiltrate a cement−based material and undergo expansive reactions with only the aluminate and CH phases of the hydrated cement, and the diffusion and binding of chloride ions in a cement paste (Bentz and Garboczi 1993).
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The Nativity of Christ (Gal 4:4-7)
December 25, 2011 Length: 16:00
On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, we celebrate the eternal Word of God taking on Human flesh and identifying with our humanity. Fr Tom reminds us that we also celebrate being adopted by God into His family as true children of God. (The Nativity of Christ)
"My homeschool Bible curriculum mostly consists of listening to AFR podcasts. The podcasts have also been great tools for discussing theology with some of my Christian Reformed friends. I just wanted to thank you for your amazing work."
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Oban Harbour, looking out towards the island of Kerrera, from the ferry bound for the isle of Mull (the snowy mountains beyond)
D and I are back from Oban, where we spent a delightful Thursday night to Saturday morning. In the Friday pictures, there is a tinge of the delicate, low sun that never exceeded a forty-five degree angle above the earth. The waters of the bay were glassy and shallow, and the weather dry: this state of affairs is highly unusual, being that Oban is on the West Coast of Scotland, where the rain spends a good deal of its time (though I gather it counts permanent residence on the really big green island next door) pattering the soil, eating away at the cliffs, and making sure the woodlands and any feasibly-situated permanent human structures have a good coating of moss to them.
Below is a taste of the town, which wraps around the horseshoe bay, and tucks itself amongst some smaller hills. The structure at the top of the hill in view is McCaig’s Tower, or McCaig’s Folly, built around 1900 by a ‘essayist, philanthropist and banker’ as it says on the plaque on the walls of it. Mr John Stuart McCaig, wealthy narcissist, planned the design himself, but got a little ahead of himself.
Towards part of downtown Oban from the middle of three piers.
A panorama taken from the folly, stitched together with the aid of MS paint.
A closer view, approached from behind the town
From Wikipedia: “McCaig’s intention was to provide a lasting monument to his family, and provide work for the local stonemasons during the winter months. McCaig was an admirer of Roman and Greek Architecture, and had planned for an elaborate structure, based on the Colosseum in Rome. His plans allowed for a museum and art gallery with a central tower to be incorporated. Inside the central tower he planned to commission statues of himself, his siblings and their parents. His death brought an end to construction with only the outer walls completed.”
In one of his wills, McCaig tried to set up the tower as a charitable place, on the grounds that it would be leased to the stone artists who were making the statues of himself and his family meant to adorn it. But ah – “In a landmark ruling the Court of Session decided that the tower was not a charity as it was self-advertisement and not in the general public good.” So the town has this quite lovely monument to vanity, half built, sitting like a crown on top of its head.
After puffing up the hill, we walked down and through the town – too many photos to put up here – and later went to the island of Mull, but not until 4pm since we had missed the previous ferry at 12pm. Some things might do to be planned for, but we were happy just to take things with a slow spontaneity. All we had was the journey out to the island, there and back again – since the buses that were supposed to take us around the island inexplicably would not return for the 7pm ferry. Never mind, it was one of the most beautiful ferry rides I’ve ever taken. I did do them regularly once upon a time, between the isle of Skye and the mainland. That was more gloomy than not, with the sight of the crumbling Castle Moil to greet you on the way home.
The route to Mull passes not one but two castles, one on the mainland who has made good acquaintance with the rain:
The jauntily named Dunollie Castle
And another that seems an outpost in a bleak world:
...the far more appropriately named Duart Castle, on Mull
The crossing was calm, but we were told by a chatty fellow passenger that in bad weather the shallows around the islands – which even on that day were making little white horses to indicate their presence – can produce large breakers and make the going rough.
Hence the need for lighthouses and buoys where the rocks jut out.
Despite the lack of time to go adventuring on Mull, and the awful weather of the following day that sent us home on the train early, it was without doubt, worth the journey.
From the ferry, looking back to the mainland
That ghostly pink peak is
Ben Nevis, Ben Cruachan (thanks for the correction Stramash!) known as the Hollow Mountain because there’s a hydroelectric power station inside of it (one that can be toured, and I do intend to do this some time). Lastly, for now, a picture from the train southwards:
Mountains near Loch Awe
D read law, and I snapped what I could of the rain-blurred scenery, in between reading something I picked up for the ride. I had at last reached my self set two week deadline with Smollett – more of him later – and begun on what seemed an appropriate novel for a passage from Highlands to Lowlands, And The Land Lay Still, by James Robertson. Or, A Beginner’s Guide to the Case for Scottish Independence, as I like to think of it. Though the book is a light one (I managed nearly 300 pages today) it may demand I write a longer post, with a fair bit of background thrown in for those unfamiliar with twentieth-century Scottish history, the rise and politics of the SNP, devolution, stone-stealing, and so on. Warning you (or piquing your interest) now…
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Although you may not be paying attention to the advertisements that come up during your Google search, one professor over at Harvard University have been studying them. And according to the scholars, when people type in names typically associated with black people during a Google search, the ads that pop up are more likely to be related to criminal activity. All the data has been collected by the Harvard University paper of Professor Latanya Sweeney.
Here is one example: A Google search for a name such as “Tom Smith” may bring up personalized public records, such as “Looking for Tom Smith,” or may be suggestive of an arrest record, such as “Tom Smith, arrested?” reports the UK Telegraph. But plug in names that are more associated with black people, such as DeShawn, Darnell and Jermaine, and ads with links to websites that offer criminal record checks are produced.
Professor Sweeney suggested that the Google results may expose a “racial bias in society.”
“Prof. Sweeney’s investigation suggests that names linked with black people — as defined by a previous study into racial discrimination in the workplace – were 25 percent more likely to have results that prompted the searcher to click on a link to search criminal record history,” writes the newspaper.
Google responded to the Harvard findings: “AdWords does not conduct any racial profiling. We also have an “anti” and violence policy which states that we will not allow ads that advocate against an organization, person or group of people. It is up to individual advertisers to decide which keywords they want to choose to trigger their ads.”
Have you ever noticed anything strange during a Google search?
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Drabble, Margaret. The Millstone
Before reading The Millstone, I spent years wanting to read a Margaret Drabble novel but never got around to it. She is what you would call a serious writer. To quote the LA Times, she is “as meticulous as Jane Austen, and as deadly as Evelyn Waugh.” So I knew The Millstone would be literary and well-written, and it was. But what came as a surprise to me was how easily readable the novel was and how much I was completely drawn into the main character’s life. The novel, one of Drabble’s early works, is set in 1960s London. The narrator is a young woman who has an unplanned pregnancy as a result of a casual love affair. This isn’t your typical unplanned pregnancy story; the narrator is highly educated, independent, and strong. She does not weep for her circumstances nor expects anyone to weep for her. The Millstone was a wonderful read, and I greatly enjoyed the 1960s London setting. I will most definitely be reading more of Drabble’s novels. I hope that you give her a go as well…if you have not done so already. Also--as an aside-- Margaret Drabble is A.S. Byatt’s sister.
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This Page is just here for my own convenience. If you find it useful as well, fantastic. Read below to find out what meep++ is all about.
Current status: working on making sources more flexible: adding source templates.
Meep++ is my attempt to refactor the excellent Meep package into an efficient library for developing C++ FDTD applications.
First of all, full respect and kudos to the Meep programmers, and current maintainers. They have provided an unparalleled resource for people who want to use FDTD to study photonic crystals. But for those of us who want to investigate new FDTD techniques, or apply FDTD in ways that are not easily supported by the ctl interface, the Meep code leaves a lot to be desired, while remaining the best option (thanks FSF!). Meep uses the Haskell language to auto-generate numeric code, and the current administrators do not support the C++ library. Rather they intend the package to be used via the ctl interface. This requires learning a new programming language for most people (one that is not very widespread), and is not as flexible or powerful as the C++ libraries. The autogenerated code is quite wasteful in parts, which is an issue for thus of us who are pushing the boundaries for the size of systems we want to simulate.
The C++ interface documentation is no longer being updated, and the user is told that the code is the documentation. Unfortunately, the code doesn’t follow any kind of naming conventions, has local and global variable names like “argh”, and “nastyX”, and isn’t easy to navigate or comprehend.
Fortunately, meep is GPL’d, so I’m refactoring the code a bit. It’s currently a work in progress. So far I’ve:
- removed the ctl interface.
- organized the code so that it’s significantly closer to following the “one module, one file” guideline, meaning it’s a lot easier to figure out where to look for the answer to your questions.
- Introduced a few basic naming conventions (m_ prefacing member data, eliminating single letter globals and members, capitalizing classes), to help the readability problem.
- eliminated a few inefficiencies (redundant memory initialization).
- created an incomplete Doxygen documentation for the libraries.
The next steps are, in no particular order:
- Refactor the main update loops. This is going to be challenging as this is entirely auto-generated. The goal is to make it easier to substitute in our own update routines, to allow us try new active and dispersive models.
- Finish the file seperation process.
- Benchmarks for comparison against the original meep code.
- implement our active material strategy.
- substitute templated code for the current haskel generated code, as well as the 2d/3d selection.
- add 1d support.
- finish Doxygen docu of the code.
If you want to help with any of these steps, that’d be great. Let me know.
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my african grey has started plucking his feathers out he is ten years old nothing has changed in his life he has always been a happy talkative bird
Type of Animal: parrot
Age: ten years
Name of Bird: rodney
a warm spray
Greetings, I am Dr. Pat. I have worked with birds for many years. I will do my best to help you.Greys are very sensitive birds, and physical or mental problems can initiate feather damage.It can be a real challenge to sort it all out, and an even bigger challenge to fix. He should have a thorough health check, proper nutrition and plenty of sleep. He may be mature enough now that sexual hormones are causing immune problems. There may be air quality issues or other fumes.Feather issues can be caused by a multitude of things, including bacterial skin infection, viruses, fungal infections, allergies, metal poisoning, hormonal flux, psychological or combination of these factors. The difficulty is diagnosing the problems and assigning an intelligent treatment plan. Your vet will want to run a number of tests so that appropriate medications can be prescribed. Inflammatory skin/follicle disease is common. The causes can include local infection, metabolic problems, or even intestinal parasites. It can also be a prime area for even more serious problems like skin cancer. An avian-experienced vet should take a look at him, and run some tests. If he were my patient, I would start with complete fecal analysis and direct smear, bacterial culture and sensitivity of the feces, skin, feather pulp, and choana. Depending on the case I might do a fungal culture. Routine blood work is necessary to rule out other issues. Generally I start them out on injectable antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory such as ibuprofen.First the bird needs to have a complete check up and health screen. There may actually be a real physical reason for feather damaging.Then strict 12-14 hours DARK QUIET UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP AT NIGHT. Sleep deprivation leads to bad behavior, anxiety and physical problems. The bird needs proper diet.He needs something to do with his mind. You can read children's books to him, point out the pictures, show him garden catalogs, teach him to count, anything to make him educated. He needs to learn to play by himself with the assurance that he has not been left out or left behind.Pet/feed store medications and home remedies are harmful, ineffective, immuno-suppressive, and make them much worse and may interfere with the veterinarian's diagnosis and treatment. Do not use them. I know it is expensive, but you may not have many home options, because the first thing you need a vet for is to find out what is going on. Treatment is only as good as the diagnosis. If you call around, you may find a vet to work within your means. We certainly try to do our best in my clinic. You need to to take your bird to see an avian-experienced veterinarian ASAP for complete examination, diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Check http://www.eaavonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=10 http://www.parrotpassionsuk.com/Advice/Uk_Avian_Vets.htmhttp://www.theparrotsocietyuk.org/index.php/Avian_Vets/28 http://www.avianveterinaryservices.co.uk/http://www.birdvet.co.uk/The following guidelines help with basic issues such as nutrition, obesity, good immune status. Surprising how the following can make a bird healthy, and how infrequently birds are ill if they are on the following regimen. No amount of medicine is going to work if the birds' basic needs are not met. Birds should be on a high-quality, preferably prescription, pelleted diet: I prefer High-potency Harrison'shttp://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/products/harrisons.html http://www.hbf-uk.co.uk/http://www.mah-shop.com/TOPhttp://totallyorganics.com/t-pellets.php Hagenhttp://www.hagen.com/uk/birds/addinfo/tropican.cfm or in Europe, try this distributor:http://www.vetafarm.com.au/categories/BIRDS/FOODS/, in Europe, http://www.st-laurent.fr/content/pop/dry_food/birds.html In addition, they should be offered dark leafy greens, cooked sweet potatoes, yams, squash, pumpkin; entire (tops and bottoms) fresh carrots and so forth. No seeds (and that means a mix, or millet, or sprays, etc. etc.) and only healthy, low-fat high fiber people food. A dietary change should be closely monitored and supervised by your avian vet. Daily Maintenance Birds should get 12-14 hours dark, quiet, uninterrupted sleep at night. Any less and they can suffer from sleep deprivation and associated illnesses. They should be covered or their cage placed in a dark room that is not used after they go to bed. The cage material should be cleaned everyday, and twice a day if the bird is really messy. Paper towels, newspaper, bath towels are ok. Never use corn cob, sawdust, wood chips, or walnut shell. Food and water dishes should be cleaned and changed daily. Keep one set cleaned while the other is in use.Fresh, perishable food should be placed in separate food bowls. Remove fresh food from the cage after a couple of hours to avoid spoilage. Change cage papers daily, and clean the grate and tray weekly.Clean food debris or droppings from toys and perches as needed (which can be as often as once a day).Grit is not necessary for birds, and will cause digestive problems and death. The best sources of minerals (and vitamins) are leafy greens. Never give grit, gravel sandpaper or cement perches. A bird will eat those to excess when it is not feeling well or if there is a nutritional deficiency. They do not need it at all (an old myth from the poultry days, even poultry do not need it). It can cause an impaction and lead to serious or fatal consequences.
25+ years working primarily or exclusively with birds
Hi sandra,I'm just following up on our conversation about rodney. How is everything going?Dr. Pat
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IceRocket is a real-time search engine that searches blogs, tweets, news etc in real-time. They have a couple different blog tools including Link Tracker, Topics and Trends.
The Link Tracker tool shows you how many people are linking to a post. IceRocket lets you use this feature on your blog so you can track who links to each of your posts.
The Topics tool shows you popular tags people are using. If your blogging platform does not include post tagging, IceRocket shows you how to insert tags into your posts using simple generated HTML.
The Trends tool allows you to enter up to three terms and see them trended over time. A great feature about this tool is that it shows you buzz stats. For instance, you can enter “Michael Arrington” and “Nick Denton” and the Trends tool will show you stats like posts per day and total posts.
In April of 2009 they launched a search option call Big Buzz. You can search blogs, tweets, news, video and images on the same page. Easy URL’s for Big Buzz can be created by putting any search term in front of .icerocket.com . For Example: http://techcrunch.icerocket.com/
In May of 2009 they launched a Twitter search tab that shows you the number of followers every users has in their results. A great way to see how much influence someone tweeting has.
IceSpy is another great search feature. IceSpy shows you what IceRocket users are searching for in real-time. IceRocket doesn’t censor the displayed searches which makes them all the more interesting.
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Intel has high hopes for its new Silverthorne/Diamondville-based
Atom processors. Intel formally
introduced Atom and Centrino Atom in early March and indicated that the
processors/platform would be used in a wide variety of devices.
Intel expects for its new Atom architecture to target
$40B in new markets. "It’s not just the 1 billion people that have
access to the Internet now. It’s the next 2 billion people. It’s not just about
selling more PCs, but bringing new devices and new price points to bring those
people onto the Internet," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini in March. "We
are not talking about repurposing old silicon, but designing new silicon for
each of these different areas."
Intel is now taking its first steps to deliver Atom processors to the
masses. The first round of Atom processors are the Silverthorne-based
units which feature a 13mm x 14mm package size.
The five new 45nm, high-k Atom processor range in speed from 800MHz to
1.86GHz and all feature 512KB of L2 cache. The Z500 and Z510 clock in at 800MHz
and 1.1GHz respectively and feature a FSB operating at 400MHz. The Z520, Z530,
and Z540 represent speed grades of 1.33GHz, 1.6GHz, and 1.86GHz respectively using
a 533MHz FSB. The 533MHz SKUs will feature Hyper-Threading
-- a technology that many are familiar with thanks to the unloved Pentium 4
The family of Atom processors features a thermal design power (TDP) range of
0.65 to 2.4 W; average power range of 160 to 200 mW; and idle power range
of 80 to 100 mW.
Prices for the chips range from $45 for the Z500 to $160 for the Z540 in
quantities of 1,000.
The Atom Z5xx processors are aimed at what Intel calls the Mobile Internet
Device (MID) market. These devices fit into your pocket and are expected to
have excellent battery life. Other targeted platforms for these Atom processors
include GPS devices, portable video players, and converged tablets.
Backing up Intel's Atom Z5xx processors is Intel's new System Controller Hub
(SCH) which was previously known as Poulsbo. The SCH incorporates HD
audio, PCIe, USB, and SDIO support. The SCH will also have extended
capabilities for WiFi, WiMAX, EV-DO and HSDPA.
Also included on the SCH is a third-party graphics solution which is quite a
departure for Intel. In this case, Intel licensed Imagination Technologies’ POWERVR SGX
graphics and POWERVR VXD multi-standard HD video technologies. The graphics
core is capable of supporting hardware accelerated 720p and 1080i HD
"The introduction of Intel’s Centrino Atom processor technology
incorporating our POWERVR graphics and video technologies signifies the
beginning of a new class of Mobile Internet Device,” said Tony King-Smith, Imagination
Technologies’ VP of Marketing. “Imagination looks forward to its continued
collaboration with leading industry players to provide products and
technologies that help enable ever more dynamic visual user experiences."
"Today is a historic day for Intel and the high-tech industry as we
deliver our first-ever Intel Atom processor and surround it with a great
package of technology," said Intel Senior VP Anand Chandrasekher.
"Mix in the incredible innovation coming from our fellow device makers and
software vendors, and we will change the way consumers will come to know and
access the World Wide Web. These forthcoming MIDs, and some incredible
longer-term plans our customers are sharing with us, will show how small
devices can deliver a big Internet experience."
The next big release for Intel's Atom processors will come in the form of
the Diamondville-based processors. These processors will go in devices
which Intel calls "netbooks". However, we know them more commonly as
devices like the Eee
PC 900 and ECS
The Diamondville-based N270 will run at 1.6GHz using a 533MHz FSB.
This is the chip that will find a home in the previously mentioned nettops. According
to Intel's latest roadmaps, the chip will be priced at $44 in quantities of
Intel is going full-bore with its new Atom processor lineup and it should be
interesting to see how the Silverthorne and Diamondville-based
machines fare in the marketplace. Diamondville-based nettops are pretty
much a sure bet as far as sales are concerned, but many are still not sold on
the whole MID concept which would cater to Silverthorne.
For a more thorough look at Intel's Atom architecture, take a look at AnandTech's
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Submit a Bio
The University of Alberta understands that its contributions to knowledge creation and civil society, locally, nationally and internationally are based on the achievements of staff, students and alumni. We, therefore, wish to create an ever-growing online archive of biographies showing these contributions.
Submit your biography (800-1000 words) for review by University Learning Services and help us to celebrate a century of achievement.
“It is with a profound sense of responsibility that I come before you today for the first time in my capacity as president of your university. Positions of great responsibility and opportunity come to few men and when they do, tradition has usually marked out a way, a path well trodden by other men which it is fairly safe to follow. But seldom is it given a man or a group of men to lay the foundations of great institution, and while doing so, to blaze a path into which an established order shall compel other men to walk.”
—Henry Marshall Tory, The Address Given to the First Convocation of the University of Alberta, 6 October 19081
Most people envision history as a collection of paradigm shifts, important dates, and powerful events which resonate across time and space. Often missing from such a conception are the stories of those unique individuals whose actions, and re-actions, elucidate a clearer picture of history. The remarkable history of the University of Alberta is comprised of the people—its staff and students—those who laid its foundation, those who carved a path for the institution’s future, as well as for those who have marked the University of Alberta as one of the country’s greatest learning institutions.
The University of Alberta has grown for a century now, becoming one of Canada’s most distinguished schools of learning and research. The stories of the University’s faculty, staff, students, graduates, and friends offer a link between the University’s past, present and future.
The intertwined tales of Alexander Rutherford and Henry Marshall Tory begin the story of the University. Their names remain etched in stone to this day, on two of the oldest buildings on the main University of Alberta Campus: Rutherford Library and the Tory Building. Both men saw the importance and necessity of an institution of higher learning to the newly formed province of Alberta, and both men worked hard to see their dream come to fruition, just as they hoped that future generations would commit themselves with the same fervour to the development of the province. Within the cloistered halls of the University’s first buildings—the Arts Building and Athabasca and Pembina Halls—students and faculty began to shape the future of the University.
Memorable personalities, like Superintendent of Residences Reginald Lister, who lit the first fire in the kitchen of Athabasca Hall and who must have overseen many wild escapades during his time at the University, including watching “the freshmen in 1911 who were shot down a chute, well greased with soft soap, from the first floor to a horse trough filled with cold water.” 2 These are the stories of the people who transformed the University into a home for so many. Where they felt comfortable enough to settle into the University, individuals were able to commit themselves to a variety of ground-breaking research and numerous outstanding accomplishments. It is clear from the numerous artistic accomplishments and awards of former University of Alberta alumni from W.O. Mitchell, author of the Governor General’s award-winning Who Has Seen the Wind, to Margaret-Ann Armour, founder of the University’s WISEST program and a pioneer who has worked tirelessly to promote and encourage women in the fields of science and engineering, that the classrooms and halls of the University of Alberta have seen many of the brightest and talented individuals of the past century.
To understand the impressive growth of the University of Alberta from its very foundation to its standing today as a leading, global institution of research and innovation requires an exploration of the fascinating stories of its leaders, researchers, teachers, staff, students, and alumni.
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But when the bills are due, your landlord won’t accept the fact that your pride won’t allow you to take a “lesser job.” Roll up your sleeves and start applying to jobs everywhere, including a donut shops and outlet stores. Hey, my stint at Blockbuster Video meant free movie rentals and dibs on new movie releases.
Build your skills: If you’re forced to work a temporary job outside your field, it’s imperative to keep abreast of new developments in your industry so that you stay relevant. Remember, the longer you’re out of the field, the harder it may be to get a job. This can be as simple as logging on to Youtube.com and searching for tutorials. The site is laden with how-to videos from experts. You’ll also want to search for seminars relating to your career that fit into your schedule. Don’t just take in the information—Try it! Who knows? You may be able to start your own business.
Venture into different fields: As you look for a temporary job, spend some time figuring out your latent passions and talents. Try researching careers and industries that have long interested you at the library and online. Start small and develop a plan. It may be as simple as starting a blog or learning html coding. Pick up a book, look for how-to podcasts and videos on iTunes. Find opportunity within the turmoil.
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Bears in Slovakia
Large territories and a secretive life style make it hard to determine their
exact number. Besides females with young, they lead a mostly solitary life.
Sometimes they gather to feed at seasonally abundant food sources such as fruit
trees or hunters' baits. Most experts agree that at present there are 700-900
bears in Slovakia.
There are bears in most mountains of central and north Slovakia, including - but not only - Vysoke, Zapadne, Belianske and Nizke Tatry, Velka and Mala Fatra, Slovenske Rudohorie, Polana, Strazovske vrchy and Vychodne Karpaty.
The bear, although classified as a Carnivore, is not a good hunter. It has become
an omnivore, getting 85-90% of its food from plants. In spring it eats grass
and herbage as well as carcasses of winter-killed animals. Its diet is more
varied from summer to autumn, including bilberries, raspberries and other fruit,
beech mast, acorns and ant and wasp larvae. Some individuals occasionally visit
beehives, crops or rubbish bins or kill livestock. More ...
Sleeping during the winter saves energy when food is scarce. Most bears are
inactive from December to February or March, depending on food availability,
weather, locality and individual. They need places free of disturbance for denning.
Bears mate in May-July. The female gives birth in winter, in her den. At birth
cubs weigh less than 0.5 kg. Young bears stay with their mother for up to 2.5
years, but some orphaned at less than 1 year old have survived in the wild.
Adult females have 1-3 cubs (rarely 4-5) every 2 to 3 years. Due to this comparatively
slow rate of reproduction, bears are vulnerable to over-hunting.
Adult males weigh 140-350 kg, measure 170-220 cm from nose to tail and are 95-130
cm tall at the shoulder. Females are smaller, usually 80-200 kg, 160-200 cm
and 90-110 cm respectively. More ...
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TreePeople’s Park Forestry program supports Citizen Foresters to organize volunteer tree plantings and tree care events in parks throughout Los Angeles.
Why park plantings are important
Park woodlands are often thought of as the “lungs” of a city, with their trees breathing in carbon dioxide and exhaling healthy oxygen. Trees in parks also help the ground absorb and filter rainwater so it can seep down to recharge the aquifer. (Read more about the benefits of trees.)
Unfortunately, Los Angeles is the most park-poor major city in America. Only 4 percent of our city’s public land is devoted to parks, contrasted with 17 percent in New York City. Many of the parks we do have lack sufficient tree coverage.
Park plantings are a big part of the work TreePeople does to restore the life-giving benefits of the forest to our city. Plus, it makes the parks more beautiful, enticing more Angelenos to experience the positive effects of spending time in nature!
Follow-up tree care
TreePeople is committed to ensuring every tree we plant not just survives but thrives. By teaching volunteers to recognize and attend to the needs of their trees, we dramatically increase the chance of the trees’ survival to maturity. For at least five years after a tree is planted we are continually monitoring its progress and engaging communities to provide the care a tree needs until it is established. Planting a tree is just the first step. Help us keep our trees happy and healthy by volunteering at a tree care event.
For tips on caring for your own trees at home, visit our page on how to care for a tree.
Want to get involved?
To volunteer at a park planting or park tree care event, see our calendar for upcoming events.
For more information about planting and caring for trees in a Los Angeles park, please contact Danny Carmichael at email@example.com or (818) 623-4851.
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Aug. 21, 2012 Investigators at Nationwide Children's Hospital may have discovered a biological explanation for why low levels of oxygen advance spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) symptoms and why breathing treatments help SMA patients live longer. The findings appear in Human Molecular Genetics.
SMA is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes muscle damage and weakness leading to death. Respiratory support is one of the most common treatment options for severe SMA patients since respiratory deficiencies increase as the disease progresses. Clinicians have found that successful oxygen support can allow patients with severe SMA to live longer. However, the biological relationship between SMA symptoms and low oxygen levels isn't clear.
To better understand this relationship, investigators at Nationwide Children's Hospital examined gene expression within a mouse model of severe SMA. "We questioned whether low levels of oxygen linked to biological stress is a component of SMA disease progression and whether these low oxygen levels could influence how the SMN2 gene is spliced," says Dawn Chandler, PhD, principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
SMA is caused by mutation or deletion of the SMN1 gene that leads to reduced levels of the survival motor neuron protein. Although a duplicate SMN gene exists in humans, SMN2, it only produces low levels of functional protein. This is caused by a splicing error in SMN2 in which exon 7 is predominantly skipped, lowering the amount of template used for protein construction.
Mouse models of severe SMA have shown changes in how genes are differentially spliced and expressed as the disease progresses, especially near end-stages. "One gene that undergoes extreme alteration is Hif3alpha," says Dr. Chandler. "This is a stress gene that responds to changes in available oxygen in the cellular environment, specifically to decreases in oxygen. This gave us a clue that low levels of oxygen might influence how the SMN2 gene is spliced."
Upon examining mouse models of severe SMA exposed to low oxygen levels, Dr. Chandler's team found that SMN2 exon 7 skipping increased within skeletal muscles. When the mice were treated with higher oxygen levels, exon 7 was included more often and the mice showed signs of improved motor function.
"These data correspond with the improvements seen in SMA patients who undergo oxygen treatment," says Dr. Chandler. "Our findings suggest that respiratory assistance is beneficial in part because it helps prevent periods of low oxygenation that would otherwise increase SMN2 exon 7 skipping and reduce SMN levels."
Dr. Chandler says daytime indicators that reveal when an SMA patient is experiencing low oxygen levels during sleep may serve as a measure to include SMA patients in earlier respiratory support and therefore improve quality of life or survival.
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
- T. W. Bebee, C. E. Dominguez, S. Samadzadeh-Tarighat, K. L. Akehurst, D. S. Chandler. Hypoxia is a modifier of SMN2 splicing and disease severity in a severe SMA mouse model. Human Molecular Genetics, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/hmg/dds263
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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Last week we presented a general outline of how trees lift water. Donald J. Merhaut of Monrovia Nursery Company, headquartered in Azusa, Calif., has provided a more detailed reply:
"Water is often the most limiting factor to plant growth. Therefore, plants have developed an effective system to absorb, translocate, store and utilize water. To understand water transport in plants, one first needs to understand the plants' plumbing. Plants contain a vast network of conduits, which consists of xylem and phloem tissues. This pathway of water and nutrient transport can be compared with the vascular system that transports blood throughout the human body. Like the vascular system in people, the xylem and phloem tissues extend throughout the plant. These conducting tissues start in the roots and transect up through the trunks of trees, branching off into the branches and then branching even further into every leaf.
"The phloem tissue is made of living elongated cells that are connected to one another. Phloem tissue is responsible for translocating nutrients and sugars (carbohydrates), which are produced by the leaves, to areas of the plant that are metabolically active (requiring sugars for energy and growth). The xylem is also composed of elongated cells. Once the cells are formed, they die. But the cell walls still remain intact, and serve as an excellent pipeline to transport water from the roots to the leaves. A single tree will have many xylem tissues, or elements, extending up through the tree. Each typical xylem vessel may only be several microns in diameter.
"The physiology of water uptake and transport is not so complex either. The main driving force of water uptake and transport into a plant is transpiration of water from leaves. Transpiration is the process of water evaporation through specialized openings in the leaves, called stomates. The evaporation creates a negative water vapor pressure develops in the surrounding cells of the leaf. Once this happens, water is pulled into the leaf from the vascular tissue, the xylem, to replace the water that has transpired from the leaf. This pulling of water, or tension, that occurs in the xylem of the leaf, will extend all the way down through the rest of the xylem column of the tree and into the xylem of the roots due to the cohesive forces holding together the water molecules along the sides of the xylem tubing. (Remember, the xylem is a continuous water column that extends from the leaf to the roots.) Finally, the negative water pressure that occurs in the roots will result in an increase of water uptake from the soil.
"Now if transpiration from the leaf decreases, as usually occurs at night or during cloudy weather, the drop in water pressure in the leaf will not be as great, and so there will be a lower demand for water (less tension) placed on the xylem. The loss of water from a leaf (negative water pressure, or a vacuum) is comparable to placing suction to the end of a straw. If the vacuum or suction thus created is great enough, water will rise up through the straw. If you had a very large diameter straw, you would need more suction to lift the water. Likewise, if you had a very narrow straw, less suction would be required. This correlation occurs as a result of the cohesive nature of water along the sides of the straw (the sides of the xylem). Because of the narrow diameter of the xylem tubing, the degree of water tension, (vacuum) required to drive water up through the xylem can be easily attained through normal transpiration rates that often occur in leaves."
Alan Dickman is curriculum director in the biology department at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He offers the following answer to this oft-asked question:
"Once inside the cells of the root, water enters into a system of interconnected cells that make up the wood of the tree and extend from the roots through the stem and branches and into the leaves. The scientific name for wood tissue is xylem; it consists of a few different kinds of cells. The cells that conduct water (along with dissolved mineral nutrients) are long and narrow and are no longer alive when they function in water transport. Some of them have open holes at their tops and bottoms and are stacked more or less like concrete sewer pipes. Other cells taper at their ends and have no complete holes. All have pits in their cell walls, however, through which water can pass. Water moves from one cell to the next when there is a pressure difference between the two.
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- For other uses see Legion (disambiguation)
The Roman Legion was the basic military unit of the ancient Roman army in the period of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. It was roughly equivalent to the modern word division. In the plural, the legions, it may mean the entire Roman army.
A legion was about 5,000 men in several cohorts of heavy infantry (legionaries). It was usually accompanied by attached units of auxiliaries, who were not Roman citizens. They provided cavalry, ranged troops and skirmishers to complement the legion's heavy infantry.
The size of a typical legion varied during the history of ancient Rome. It had a complement of 4,200 legionaries in the republican period of Rome. In the imperial period, the full complement was 5,500 men split into 10 cohorts of 480 men each. The first cohort was at double strength with 800 men. The remaining 220 were 120 cavalry plus technical staff.
Legions were not standing armies until about 107 BC, and were instead created, used, and disbanded again. In the time of the early Roman Empire, there were usually about 25–35 standing legions plus their auxiliaries, with more raised as needed.
Greek phalanx [change]
The development of the early legion may be seen as a Roman version of the Greek phalanx. Until the 4th century BC the massive Greek phalanx was the mode of battle. Roman soldiers would have thus looked much like Greek hoplites. Tactics were no different from those of the early Greeks and battles were joined on a plain. Spearmen would deploy themselves in tightly packed rows to form a shield wall with their spears pointing forwards.
There were now three lines of soldiers when in battle formation. Roman soldiers had to purchase their own equipment.
In the middle of the Republic, legions were composed of the following units:
- Equites (cavalry): The cavalry was originally the most prestigious unit, where wealthy young Roman men displayed their skill and prowess, laying the foundation for an eventual political career.
In a total of circa 3000 men, (plus the velites that normally enlarged the number to about 4200), the legion had only around 300 horsemen, divided into 10 units (turmae) of 30 men. These men were commanded by decurions.
In addition to heavy cavalry, there would be the light cavalry. In battle, they were used to disrupt and outflank enemy infantry formations and to fight off enemy cavalry. In the latter type of engagement they would often (though not always) dismount some or all of the horsemen to fight a stationary battle on foot, an unusual tactic for the time, but one that offered significant advantages in stability and agility in a time before stirrups.
- Velites (light infantry): The velites were mainly poorer citizens who could not afford to equip themselves properly. Their primary function was to act as skirmishers – javelin-throwers who would engage the enemy early in order either to harass them or to cover the movement of troops behind them.
- Heavy infantry: This was the principal unit of the legion. The heavy infantry was composed of citizen legionaries that could afford the equipment composed of an iron helmet, shield, armour and pilum, a heavy javelin whose range was about 30 meters.
After 387 B.C. the preferred weapon was the gladius, a short sword. Their hobnailed sandals were also an effective weapon against a fallen enemy. The heavy infantry was subdivided, according to experience, into three separate lines of troops:
- The hastati (sing. hastatus) consisted of raw or inexperienced soldiers, considered to be less reliable than legionaries of several years' service.
- The principes (sing. princeps) were men in their prime (late twenties to early thirties).
- The triarii (sing. triarius) were the veteran soldiers, to be used in battle only in extreme situations; they rested one knee down when not engaged in combat. The triarii served primarily as reserves or barrier troops to backstop the hastati and principes. They were equipped with long hastae (spears) rather than the pilum and gladius. Thus armed, they fought in a phalanx formation. The sight of an advancing armored formation of triarii legionaries frequently discouraged exultant enemies in pursuit of retreating hastati and principes troops. To fall upon the triarii was a Roman idiom – meaning to use one's last resort.
Each of these three lines was subdivided into maniples, each consisting of two centuries of 60 men commanded by the senior of the two centurions. Centuries were normally 60 soldiers each at this time in the hastati and principes (no longer 100 men). The mid Republican legion had a nominal strength of about 4500 men.
Later on the legions were made up of 80 strong centuries. Each century had its standard and was made up of ten units of eight soldiers who shared a tent, millstone, a mule and cooking pot (depending on duration of tour).
Late Republic [change]
Throughout Rome's Late Republic, the legions played an important political role. By the 1st century BC the threat of the legions under a demagogue was recognized. Roman Governors were not allowed to leave their provinces with their legions. When Julius Caesar broke this rule, leaving his province of Gaul and crossing the Rubicon into Italy, he precipitated a constitutional crisis. This crisis and the civil wars which followed brought an end to the Republic and led to the foundation of the Empire under Augustus in 27 BC.
Early Empire (30 BC-284 AD) [change]
With each legion having 5,120 legionaries plus an equal number of auxiliary troops, the total force available to a legion commander during the Pax Romana probably ranged from 11,000 downwards. The more prestigious legions were stationed on hostile borders or in restive provinces tending to have more auxiliaries. Some legions may have been reinforced with units making the force near 15,000–16,000 or about the size of a modern division.
The legion was commanded by a legate. Aged about thirty, he would usually be a senator on a three year appointment. Immediately subordinate to the legate would be six elected military tribunes. Five would be staff officers and the remaining one would be a noble heading for the Senate — originally this tribune commanded the legion. There would also be a group of officers for the medical staff, the engineers, record-keepers, the praefectus castrorum (commander of the camp) and other specialists such as priests and musicians.
Despite a number of reforms, the legionary system survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and was continued in the Eastern Roman Empire until around 7th century. The Eastern Roman/Byzantine armies continued to be influenced by the earlier Roman legions, and were maintained with similar level of discipline, strategic prowess, and organization.
Centurians were the glue which held a Roman legion together. They were the full-time professional officers of the Roman army. The basic centurion commanded (usually) 83 men rather than 100. They rose in rank by commanding ever more important centuries.
The very best centurions were promoted to become centurions in the First Cohort, called Primi Ordines, commanding one of its ten centuries and also taking on a staff role. The most senior centurion of the legion was the Primus Pilus who commanded the first century. Only eight officers in a full legion outranked him. They were:
- Five tribunes
- The Camp Prefect
- the Senior Tribune (second-in-command)
- The Legate (commander)
Other pages [change]
- History of the Art of War. Vol 1. Ancient Warfare, Hans Delbrück
- Roman Warfare, Adrian Goldsworthy
- History of Warfare, John Keegan
- The Roman Army and Greece and Rome at War, Peter Connolly
- The Encyclopedia Of Military History: From 3500 B.C. To The Present. (2nd Revised Edition 1986), R. Ernest Dupuy, and Trevor N. Dupuy.
- War, Gwynne Dyer.
- The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Trevor N. Dupuy.
- Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De Re Militari (with English translation on-line)
- Julius Caesar, The Gallic War
- William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.
- The Punic Wars, Adrian Goldsworthy.
- Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson
- The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation, by Arther Ferrill, 1988
- The Complete Roman Army, by Adrian Goldsworthy
- The Military System Of The Romans, by Albert Harkness
- From the Rise of the Republic and the Might of the Empire to the Fall of the West, by Nigel Rodgers
Other websites [change]
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Roman Legion|
- The Roman Military Museum with ancient military equipment
- The Roman Army Page, Gary Brueggeman (pop-up ads)
- UNRV's Roman Military
- Essays on life in the Late Roman Army, troop types etc by members of the Comitatus Reenactmen and Living history group.
- The Roman Army at Roman-Empire.net
- Lego V Living History Group in Tennessee
- from Latin legio "military levy, conscription", from lego — "to collect"
- McCall, Jeremiah B. 2002. The cavalry of the Roman Republic: cavalry combat and elite reputations in the middle and late Republic. New York, Routledge. p53ff
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One of Victor Krulak's lasting legacies is his Naval Institute Press epic First to Fight – a riveting insider's chronicle of the unique esprit de corps displayed by U. S. Marines on and off the battlefield. Alluding to the general's role in pushing aside arguments to do away with the Corps, Publishers Weekly called the book "the most complete account to date of the Marines' struggle for the 'right to fight.' " The texts' lasting value is evidenced by its inclusion over many years on the Marine Corps' Recommended Reading List. In 2007, it was made required reading for all Marines. Explaining the decision, in the November 2008 edition of Proceedings , Commandant of the Marine Corps James Conway praised Victor Krulak's admonition that Marines "must see no mission as too dangerous, no notice too short, no task too humble." "Indeed," observed Conway, "the nation expects her Marines to roll out fast and hit hard on the other end, and this is what makes First to Fight the marquee title of the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program today."
In 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised Victor Krulak's service, noting that the general's life offered important lessons "about learning from the experiences and setbacks of the past, about being open to ideas and inspiration from whatever they come, and about overcoming conventional wisdom and bureaucratic obstacles thrown in one's path."
Though funeral plans are pending, it is anticipated a memorial service will be held at Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar in early January.
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A bicolor or piebald cat has white fur combined with fur of some other color, for example black or tabby. There are various patterns of bicolor cat. These range from Van pattern (color on the crown of the head and the tail only) through to solid color with a throat locket.
Where there is low-to-medium grade white spotting limited to the face, paws, throat and chest of an otherwise black cat, they are known in the United States as a tuxedo cat or Billicat. High grade bicolor results in Van-pattern cats. There are many patterns between, such as "cap-and-saddle", "mask-and-mantle" and "magpie" (more randomly splashed). Bicolors are found in many breeds, as well as being common in domestic longhair cats and domestic shorthair cats.
Solid color bicolor cats occur because there is a white spotting gene present along with a recessive allele of the agouti gene, which evens out the usual striped pattern of the colors of the coat. In contrast, tabby cats have an agouti gene that produces striping of the coat. The Abyssinian has agouti (ticked tabby) fur, giving the appearance of even color with color-banded hairs.
White spotting can also occur with any of the tabby patterns, resulting in tabby-and-white bicolors. Colorpoint (Himalayan pattern) cats can have bicolor points, although this variation is not recognized for showing. The body markings of bicolor colorpoints become clearer with age, as the body fur of colorpoint cats darkens as the cats grow older and the white patches become more visible.
Grades 1 - 10 of bicolor in cats
||This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. (June 2011)|
||This section needs additional citations for verification. (June 2011)|
Bicoloration in cats is graded from 1-10 with 1 being completely black and 10 being completely white. There are also several patterns with their own names. The cat labelled "bicolor" is the preferred pattern in show-quality bicolor purebred cats.
A low-grade spotting black-and-white bicolor cat is often known as a "tuxedo cat" or a "Billicat". To be considered a tuxedo cat, its black coloring should be solid throughout, with white limited to the paws, belly, chest, throat, face, and possibly the chin: it should appear as if the cat were wearing a tuxedo.
Another type of black-and-white bicolor cat is nicknamed "cow cat" or "moo cat" (for a perceived resemblance to Holstein cattle) and includes the magpie, cap-and-saddle and mask-and-mantle patterns. A cow cat does not have the solid black "jacket" of the tuxedo cat. Instead, it has big black patches over a mostly white body, often with a black mask over the head. "Black Mask Cats" are so called because they look like they are wearing a black mask over their head. The Turkish Van (white and red) is one good example of a bicolor breed. Van pattern is known to animal geneticists as the Seychelles (Seychellois) Pattern and is classified into 3 variants:
- Seychellois Neuvieme - white with colored tail and head splashes (classic Van Pattern)
- Seychellois Huitieme - white with colored tail and head splashes plus additional splashes of color on the legs
- Seychellois Septieme - white with splashes of color on the legs and body in addition to those on the head and the colored tail.
These are high grade white spotting of types 9, 8 and 7 on the bicolor chart above.
Frequency in different breeds
This coloration is not restricted to a specific breed of cat, as it can be found in many different types of pure-breed as well as mixed-breed domestic cats. However, some breeds of cats are especially noted for having bicolor coats in their breed standards. These include the Turkish Van, American Shorthair, Manx, British Shorthair, Turkish Angora, and Bombay.
In contrast, other common breeds of cat have specific coat patterns specified in their breed standards. These cats are therefore never seen in the bicolor pattern. Cats with such specific coat patterns such as the Russian Blue which has a coat of one solid color.
Genetics of coat patterns
The basic colors and patterns of cat fur are defined by fewer than ten genes. Cats with white color in their coats are thought to have a mutant white-spotting gene that prevents the formation of coat color in patches over the cat's body. This gene has been investigated in several species, particularly mice, and is co-dominant to normal coat color as it prevents the migration of melanocytes into the developing hair follicles. The genetics of this pattern are not as well understood in cats but at least some of the genes involved in melanocyte migration and survival may play a role similar as in other animals.
Three genotypes possible with the S (white spotting) gene, with capital S standing for a wild-type copy and lower-case s standing for the mutant.
- SS (two dominant alleles) results in high grades of white spotting (sometimes resulting in a solid-looking white cat or a white cat with just a few color hairs)
- Ss (one dominant, one recessive allele) results in medium grades of white spotting
- ss (two recessive alleles) results in solid color or low grades of white spotting (sometimes as little as a few white hairs)
The lack of tabby striping in bicolor cats is controlled by the agouti protein, which inhibits the production of melanin and thus prevents the formation of dark hair colors. In agouti cats the gene is turned on and off as the hair grows, producing hairs with alternating stripes yellow and black. In domestic cats, inactivation of the agouti gene by a deletion mutation causes all-black coat color.
A tuxedo cat is a bicolor cat with a white and black coat. They are called, "tuxedo" cats, because the animal appears to be wearing the type of black tie formal wear commonly known in the United States and Canada as a tuxedo. The tuxedo pattern is not limited to the color black, but the name is typically reserved for black and white cats. Most tuxedo cats are also black mask cats, a common name for felines who, due to their facial coloration, look as if they are wearing a black mask over their eyes, and often over their entire head. To be considered a true tuxedo cat, the feline's coloring should consist of a solid black coat, with white fur limited to the paws, belly, chest, throat, and often the chin, although many tuxedo cats appear to sport goatees, due to the black coloration of their mandible—that is, the lower jaw and chin. Bicolor may also appear in the skin color. Paw pads may be black or pink, often matching the coat in that area; if the color boundary crosses the underside of the paw, the pads on either side may be different colors or even bicolored. Bicoloring of the nose and mouth are also common.
In popular culture
In the United Kingdom, the tuxedo cat is sometimes known as the "Jellicle cat", after the fictional tribe of black and white cats described by T. S. Eliot in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which was first published in 1939. In its derivative musical, Cats, the tuxedo cat is exemplified by the character of the magical Mr. Mistoffelees, who is portrayed as a stage magician wearing a lacy ruff and bow tie. The musical differed from the book in that the characters included cats with many different coat colors, rather than just bicolor cats, but it retains the repeated assertion that "Jellicle cats are black and white." Cats with these markings also played a starring role in the drawings illustrating The Unadulterated Cat, a book written by Terry Pratchett, with cartoons by Gray Jolliffe.
Other well known cartoon bicolor cats include Krazy Kat, Felix the Cat, Tom Cat from Tom and Jerry, Jess from Postman Pat, Kitty Softpaws from the Shrek spin-off Puss in Boots, Figaro, Beans and Sylvester. A bicolor cat named Mittens is one of the main characters in the 2008 Disney animated film Bolt. Aldwyn from The Familiars is a tuxedo cat, while Meowrice (voiced by Paul Frees) from Gay Purr-ee is a bicolor.
A tuxedo cat is one of the three types of cats in the video game Minecraft.
Examples of various bicolor patterns
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Other bicolor variations
Ebony White Bicolor Oriental Shorthair Male
Various bicolor cat colors
Black Smoke mask-and-mantle on male Cornish Rex
- Domestic longhair cat
- Domestic shorthaired cat
- Fictional cats
- Felix the Cat
- Sylvester the Cat
- Tom Cat
- Kat Kong
- "Seychellois". Fanciers Breeder Referral List. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
- "Cat Breed Descriptions". Laura Gilbreath. Archived from the original on 9 August 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
- "CFA Breeds". The Cat Fanciers' Association. Archived from the original on 29 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
- "Coat Colors & Fur Types". Feline Genome project. Retrieved 2007-08-05.[dead link]
- Yoshida H, Kunisada T, Grimm T, Nishimura EK, Nishioka E, Nishikawa SI (2001). "Review: melanocyte migration and survival controlled by SCF/c-kit expression". J. Investig. Dermatol. Symp. Proc. 6 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1046/j.0022-202x.2001.00006.x. PMID 11764276.
- Cooper MP, Fretwell N, Bailey SJ, Lyons LA (2006). "White spotting in the domestic cat (Felis catus) maps near KIT on feline chromosome B1". Anim. Genet. 37 (2): 163–5. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2052.2005.01389.x. PMC 1464422. PMID 16573531.
- Jackson IJ (1997). "Homologous pigmentation mutations in human, mouse and other model organisms". Hum. Mol. Genet. 6 (10): 1613–24. doi:10.1093/hmg/6.10.1613. PMID 9300652.
- Eizirik E, Yuhki N, Johnson WE, Menotti-Raymond M, Hannah SS, O'Brien SJ (2003). "Molecular genetics and evolution of melanism in the cat family". Curr. Biol. 13 (5): 448–53. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(03)00128-3. PMID 12620197.
- T. S. Eliot (1982). Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-168656-4.
- Terry Pratchett and Gray Jolliffe The Unadulterated Cat Orion; New Ed edition (26 September 2002) ISBN 0-7528-5369-4
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bicolor cats|
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Signs of the Seasons: A Maine Phenology Project
Bird Feeder Notebook
Authors: Esperanza Stancioff1, Medea Steinman1, Beth Bisson2, and Abraham J. Miller-Rushing3
1University of Maine Cooperative Extension
2Maine Sea Grant
3National Park Service, Acadia National Park and Schoodic Education and Research Center
Grade level: 6-12
Themes: Phenology, climate change
Activity type: Field observation, online data inquiry, evidence-based thinking, and supporting claims with evidence
Setting: Classroom or outdoors
When do different bird species visit your community?
Is the timing of bird breeding or migration changing?
If you think so, how do you know? Can you find evidence to support your claim?
Students record observations and collect data about birds visiting feeder(s) outside their school. They compare their records with historical records from local birding experts and online citizen science data sources to determine whether the timing of bird activity has shifted in their community. They learn to make use of library and Internet-based citizen science resources to conduct research about the patterns of bird species activity in their area and how those may have shifted in response to changes in the timing of phenological events. Students also interact with local experts and conduct informal interviews.
Students are encouraged to infer meaning from the comparisons (e.g., with respect to climate change), engage in speculation, and learn to articulate and support claims and conclusions. Students’ findings can be used as a basis for classroom discussion focused on exploring lines of inquiry and making meaning out of their observations. Students may also share what they learn by giving presentations at school or in their community.
Maine Learning Results (Science and Technology)
A1 Unifying Themes – Systems
3-5. Students explain interactions between parts that make up whole man-made and natural things.
6-8. Students describe and apply principles of systems in man-made things, natural things, and processes.
9-Diploma. Students apply an understanding of systems to explain and analyze man-made and natural phenomena.
A3 Unifying Themes – Constancy and Change
3-5 a. Recognize patterns of change including steady, repetitive, irregular, or apparently unpredictable change.
6-8. Students describe how patterns of change vary in physical, biological, and technological systems.
B1 Skills and Traits of Scientific Inquiry
3-5 a. Pose investigable questions and seek answers from reliable sources of scientific information and from their own investigations.
6-8. Students plan, conduct, analyze data from, and communicate results of investigations, including simple experiments.
C1 The Scientific and Technological Enterprise – Understandings of Inquiry
3-5 a. Describe how scientists answer questions by developing explanations based on observations, evidence, and knowledge of the natural world.
9-diploma. Students describe key aspects of scientific investigations: that they are guided by scientific principles and knowledge, that they are performed to test ideas, and that they are communicated and defended publicly.
E1 The Living Environment – Biodiversity
3-5. Students compare living things based on their behaviors, external features, and environmental needs.
6-8. Students differentiate among organisms based on biological characteristics and identify patterns of similarity.
E2 The Living Environment – Ecosystems
3-5. Students describe ways organisms depend upon, interact within, and change the living and non-living environment as well as ways the environment affects organisms.
6-8. Students examine how the characteristics of the physical, non-living (abiotic) environment, the types and behaviors of living (biotic) organisms, and the flow of matter and energy affect organisms and the ecosystem of which they are part.
- Participants understand that the timing of phenological events can change, particularly as a result of changes in climate
- Participants investigate how this may have affected bird species in their communities by engaging in field observation and data collection, and by supplementing their inquiry by investigating other sources of information.
Expectations and Misconceptions: It’s important to mention to students that they probably will not find changes in the timing of all events. They may not find changes in the timing of any events. The goal is to know which have changed, which haven’t, and why.
Guard against the notion that, “If I see changes in timing, that’s climate change. If I don’t see them, then the climate is not changing.” Remind them that the climate is changing, that some things are impacted more than others, and that things are impacted differently.
- Access to historical records–either from local bird experts or online citizen science data (see resources below)
- Bird feeder and bird seed (for installation on school grounds, or nearby, with proper permission from land owner)
- Bird identification guides, and/or Internet access to online bird identification resources (see resources below)
- Blackboard, whiteboard, or flip charts for recording group discussion ideas
- Optional: camera
- Science notebooks for recording predictions and bird observations
–10-20 minutes, on a weekly basis, over an extended period of weeks or months
–Two 30-40-minute class periods (or additional time as needed) to collect information from other sources (interviewing bird experts or searching online databases)
–Two 30-40-minute class periods (or additional time as assigned homework) to write up summary of any conclusions or findings
–One 30-40-minute class period for presentation(s) of findings and group discussion
- Prior to spring or fall migratory season, set up a bird feeder (or feeders) in a convenient place for your class/student group to make weekly observations of bird species visiting the feeders.
- Organize a student datasheet and notebooks for consistent observations about which species are present, and particularly note when they are observed for the first and last time each year (e.g., at spring migration/breeding season or at fall migration). Useful data to record for each observation day may include:
- Species name
- Time of day (morning, afternoon, evening)
- Note precipitation and amount of snow cover, if any
- Observed activity (feeding, singing, nest material gathering, etc.)
- Gender, if known
- First sighting of the year (Y/N)?
- Last sighting of the year (Y/N)? Note: may need to revisit this and make corrections.
Encourage students to record other thoughts, observations, drawings in the other pages of their notebooks concerning bird activity, behavior and timing.
- Prior to data collection, organize students into small groups (2 or 3 students per group, maximum). Discuss as a class the seasonal changes that affect the timing of bird migration (temperature, snowmelt, weather, availability of food, etc.). Make a list of these things on the blackboard or whiteboard.
- Ask the students in each group to use bird identification guides and/or consult online resources to figure out which species are commonly seen in their community, and then ask the students to make predictions about which birds they might expect to find at their feeder (based on the type of food you’re providing, surrounding habitat, time of year, etc.), and when they might start to arrive or disappear for the season. Ask the students to record their predictions in their science notebooks. Note: see resource list below for good printed or online species identification guides that include this type of information.
- Start collecting data from the feeder! Try to make regular observations on a weekly schedule (or as often as you like) that gives each student at least one opportunity to make observations and record data for the group.
- Once the students have collected their own data for a period of weeks or months, help them identify local birding experts who have been keeping similar records for many years. Note: see list of resources below. Invite one or more of them to visit the class or arrange to go and visit them at their bird watching site, and share your data with each other for comparison. See if you can spot any differences in the dates or species appearing at your feeders. Dates of first or last appearances may be particularly interesting.
- Also, or in case no local bird experts can be found, visit Cornell Lab of Ornithology citizen science databases to obtain similar information for your area. Programs like e-Bird and Project Feederwatch have amassed tremendous amounts of data and it’s likely that local birdwatchers from your area have participated and added to one of these databases (see Resources below).
- Guide the students in a discussion about what their field observations and investigations have turned up. Do their observations support their predictions? Why or why not? Offer guidance in preparing their own and experts’ data for presentation. For example, help them decide how or whether to present the data visually (what type of graph to make, based on the data they’ve collected – time series vs. comparison of two groups, etc.).
- When the presentations occur, make sure there is ample time for questions, discussion, and reflection.
REFLECTION/FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IDEAS
Reflection: Ask participants to describe their investigation and reflect on what worked well and what they could do differently next time. Ask them to talk about any changes that have occurred in the timing of bird activity. Can they speculate about possible climate-related causes for these changes? How much can they infer and what other evidence/information would they need to make any claims about climate change causes? Specific questions that may help prompt the discussion include:
- Did they see differences between their own data and those collected by experts? If so, would they make changes in which types of data students should collect in subsequent years or seasons?
- Is the information they have collected (their own or from other sources) enough to make any kind of statement about changes in bird migration or other phenophases over time or space? If not, what further information (or time series of data) would they need to back up this sort of claim? How could/would students conducting this sort of survey over many years organize and analyze their data to answer this kind of question?
Formative assessment: Ask student groups to give weekly updates at the beginning of class about their inquiry, including all aspects (feeder watching, species noted, search for experts, reviewing online databases). Ask them to comment about any problems or questions they’ve encountered. Do they feel the information they’re collecting will help then to draw conclusions about their original claims or predictions. Notice where they might benefit from your coaching about thinking about their observations, questions for experts, or in how to find appropriate data and make sense of it?
If they turned up interesting findings, offer guidance in preparing a presentation to a local nature center, library or in another public setting. Have the students build on the exercise by searching records or asking experts about species that used to appear locally and no longer do, or species that were not seen in the area until recently. What inferences or conclusions can they draw about these changes and how can they support their claims?
Signs of the Seasons (http://umaine.edu/signs-of-the-seasons)
USA National Phenology Network (http://www.usanpn.org)
There are countless field guides in book form. Peterson’s, National Geographic or Sibley’s guides are all good. For online sources try:
USGS Patuxent Bird ID Info Center (http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/framlst.html)
Bird Watcher’s Digest (http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/learn/identification/index.php)
Finding bird experts in your community:
Maine Audubon Centers and Chapters (http://www.maineaudubon.org/explore/centers/index.shtml) and (http://www.maineaudubon.org/about/chapters.shtml)
Online data about bird observations (nation-wide):
e-Bird (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about )
Project Feederwatch (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/)
Great Backyard Birdcount (http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/whycount.html)
USGS North American Bird Phenology Program (http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bpp/#)
For assistance contact:
Esperanza Stancioff, Climate Change Educator
University of Maine Cooperative Extension/Maine Sea Grant
(207) 832-0343; 1-800-244-2104
Signs of the Seasons Partners
In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University System shall not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, including transgender status or gender expression, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, or veteran’s status in employment, education, and all other areas of the University System. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. If you are a person with a disability and will need any accommodations to participate in this program, please contact Esperanza Stancioff at 1-800-244-2104 to discuss your needs. Please contact us at least 10 days prior to this event to assure fullest possible attention to your needs. Questions and complaints about discrimination in any area of the University should be directed to the Executive Director of Equal Opportunity, The University of Maine, Room 101, 5754 North Stevens Hall, Orono, ME 04469-5754, telephone (207) 581-1226 (voice and TDD). Published and distributed in furtherance of Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914, by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the Land Grant University of the state of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Cooperative Extension and other agencies of USDA provide equal opportunities in programs and employment. 02/11
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Norman Norell (1900-1972) American
Norman Norell was known for his tailored silhouettes, elegant suits, and sequined gowns. Today, he is considered to have been one of the foremost American fashion designers with a style consisting of sophisticated and luxurious garments executed in a relaxed manner. After spending some time in military school during World War I, Norell studied illustration at Parsons School of Design and fashion design at Pratt Institute from 1920 to 1922. Born Norman Levinson, Norell changed his surname while at Pratt. He described his name change as, “ ‘Nor’ for Norman, ‘l’ for Levinson, with another ‘l’ added for looks.”
After graduation, he joined the East coast studios of Paramount Pictures and after a year went on to work for the Brooks Costume Company and for wholesale dress manufacturer Charles Armour. In 1928, like fellow designers McCardell and Cashin, he was hired by Hattie Carnegie, where he stayed until 1941.
At this time, businessman Anthony Traina approached Norell with a business proposal. Traina offered him a large salary if when he joined the company name did not have to change; however, Norell insisted and accepted a lower salary in exchange for the company name of Traina-Norrell.
One of his daytime to evening looks was the “subway coat”, a classic and inconspicuous wool coat that inside was lined with opulent sequins and worn with a matching sequined dress. In short, this ensemble was safe to wear on the subway as long as you kept the coat closed. Another of his daytime looks was a sleeveless jacket worn over a bow-tied blouse and slim skirt. That idea came to him because of the sleeveless vest that he wore over his own clothes when working.
The strength of Norell clothes was in their simplicity. They brought desired attention to the wearer as opposed to the clothes alone. Regular trips to Paris exposed him to the couture standards that made French clothes the best of high fashion and Norell had the ability to translate those aspects and techniques into American ready-to-wear.
For evening, Norell looked to the flashy glamour of his early days designing costumes for vaudeville. A lavish use of sequins became Norell’s signature ”mermaid” formfitting sheath gowns. These sequin covered gowns, available in many colors and configurations, quickly became American fashion classics. In my opinion, almost any of these gowns could be worn today.
In 1960, Norell started his own label, Norman Norell Ltd. Unlike couture designers, who only produce a garment for a specific person, Norell applied his high-standards to mass produced garments. Even though his clothes were ready-to-wear, each Norell garment was handled from start-to-finish by the same worker.
Recently, Norell’s name was in the news when Michelle Obama, the First Lady chose to wear a vintage 1950s Norell to the 2010 “Christmas In Washington” concert.
Hollywood connection: In 1922, he joined the Astoria, NY studios of Paramount Pictures in Long Island where he designed clothes for Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, and other silent screen stars. He was only there for one year. However; in later years, he would create clothes for such motion pictures as That Touch of Mink (1962) and Klute (1971).
His style, innovations, and lasting influence on fashion:
- His famous “Mermaid” gowns were produced in sumptuous pastel and jewel colors in different lengths with various sleeve treatments. The dresses remain classic and beautiful in their simplicity.
- During his career, he worked as a costume designer on Broadway, making the costumes for the Ziegfeld Follies and the Cotton Club.
- In 1943, Norell received the first-ever Coty American Fashion Critics Award and was also the first designer inducted into the Coty Award Hall of Fame in 1956.
- In 1968, he created and marketed “Norell”, the first Revlon fragrance named after an American fashion designer.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art held a Norman Norell retrospective in 1972.
Sources: Who’s Who in Fashion (2008) Anne Stegemeyer; Contemporary Fashion (1995) Therese Duzinkiewicz Baker
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[dateline] Paris, 28th. April 17781
We have the Honour of acquainting your Excellency, that the United States of North America, being now an Independant Power, and acknowledged as such by this Court, a Treaty of Amity and Commerce is compleated between France and the Said States, of which we shall speedily send your Excellency a Copy, to be communicated if you think proper to their High Mightinesses, for whom, the United States, have the greatest
Respect, and the Strongest Desire that a Good Understanding may be cultivated, and a mutually beneficial Commerce established between the People of the two Nations, which, as will be seen, there is nothing in the above mentioned Treaty to prevent or impede. We have the Honour to be with great Respect, Your Excellency's most obedient humble Servants
[signed] (Signet) B. Franklin
[signed] Arthur Lee
[signed] John Adams
[signed] Plenipotentiaries from the United
States of North America.
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Study: Short Time Between Runs Safe for Bones
No signs of bone stress even when runs are only three hours apart.
Allowing only three hours between runs is no more risky to the bones of healthy runners than allowing 23 hours between runs, according to a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
The issue is relevant because some runners wonder whether not leaving enough time between runs can increase their risk of stress fractures.
To investigate, British researchers had men do two 60-minute steady-state runs on two occasions. For one of the pairs of hour-long runs, the participants rested 23 hours between runs. For the other, they had only three hours of rest between the runs.
The researchers looked at markers of bone resorption, which is when bone cells break down bone and release bone minerals into the blood so that new bone can be built. When the amount of resorption is too high, bone health can be compromised, because formation of new bone can't keep up with resorption.
The researchers looked at markers of bone resorption for each of the four days following both bouts of consecutive hour-long runs. They found no differences in bone activity between when the two runs were done 23 hours apart and when the two runs were done three hours apart.
One thing to keep in mind is that the participants in this study were, as the researchers put it, "in energy balance," meaning that they consumed enough calories to fuel their training and the rest of their lives. Runners who regularly don't eat enough to fuel their training are at greater risk for problems like low bone mineral density and stress fractures, regardless of how long they take between runs.
Of course, there are many other considerations in deciding how long to take between runs, and few people who regularly run twice a day allow only three hours between workouts. For an overall look at how and why to run twice a day, read this.
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At SophosLabs we see an average of 19,000 new malicious URLs every day—a new web threat every 4.5 seconds.
Your users are on the web more than ever for their work. Sometimes they use company computers for things other than work. And the more they surf the web, the more infections you have to deal with.
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Lead poisoning in condors, venison prompts Idaho conference
The potential risk of lead poisoning from high-velocity bullets, whether to carrion-eating condors in the Grand Canyon or to food bank patrons in the Midwest, is the subject of a scientific conference next week.
I am amazed that I have yet to find a bullet that won't leave an exit wound on the deer I harvest, yet these "researchers" use "high-speed lead" bullets that fragment.
Also, I've eaten venison for years, and while it's been a few years since my body lead levels were checked, I'm running on low-lead. All the venison, bullet casting, target shooting, welding, soldering, you name it and my lead levels were (probably still are) low. I'm still munching on the occasional lead pellet in my goose and pheasant, too. Can't always find'em all
Finally, how do the California Condor people KNOW that the lead poisoning they claim is hurting the condors comes from lead bullets?
This is just another way for the control crowd to try and strip us of our 2A rights.
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- Special Report: Syria's Islamists seize control as moderates dither
- Angelina Jolie stunt double sues News Corp over hacking
- Global shares firm, dollar steady before Fed decision
- Kanye West wins over critics with 'daring' new album 'Yeezus'
- Journalist who brought down U.S. general is killed in Los Angeles car crash
UPDATE 1-Exxon's Hebron project approved by regulators
* Hebron oil project approved by regulators
* Cost last pegged at C$5 bln to C$7 bln
* Will initially produce up to 150,000 bpd
CALGARY, Alberta, May 31 (Reuters) - The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board said on Thursday it approved plans by an Exxon Mobil Corp-led group to develop the Hebron oil field offshore Newfoundland.
The decision means Exxon and its partners can proceed with development of the 707-million barrel field, which will be the province's fourth offshore oil project.
The cost of the project, which will use a heavy gravity-based structure sitting on the seabed because of the icebergs that sail through the area, was estimated in 2008 to range between C$5 billion ($4.85 billion) and C$7 billion.The field is operated by ExxonMobil, which has a 36 percent interest in the project. ExxonMobil took control of the project from Chevron in October 2008.
The Hebron field lies under 92 meters (300 feet) of water 350 kilometers (217 miles) southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland and contains heavy oil. It was discovered in 1981, but development was delayed by low oil prices and squabbles over royalty rates with the provincial government.
The facility will produce up to 150,000 barrels per day and may be increased to handle as much as 180,000 bpd according to regulatory documents.
Exxon could not be immediately reached for comment.
The other joint venture partners are Chevron Corp, with a 26.7 percent interest; Suncor Energy Inc, with 22.7 percent; Statoil ASA, with 9.7 percent; and the provincially owned Energy Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador, which has a 4.9 percent stake.
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The Boarding House has been an integral part of the School since its foundation in 1909. It is currently home to boarders from rural Victoria, interstate and overseas. Boarders have study bedrooms within two linked buildings: Hindley House is an historic mansion. Tovell House is purpose-built boarding facility situated adjacent to the Physical Education and Sports Complex which includes a circuit room and heated indoor six lane swimming pool. Both have large recreational areas. Traditionally, boarders are very active participants in the School’ co-curricular program. They are well integrated into the School community.
Boarders may leave the Boarding House on weekends to experience the advantages of living in Melbourne or to stay with approved host families.
In order to ensure a learning environment that is conducive to study, boarders have supervised study times, individual study facilities and access to computers, the School’s intranet and the Internet. Members of the academic staff of the School are available in the evenings to support the boarders in their study.
Click here to view the Boarding House Handbook 2013.
Year 8 Residential Program
During the year, each student becomes a member of the Boarding House for three weeks. This experience increases students’ self-reliance and resilience as they meet the challenges of a new situation interacting with a wide range of students of various ages and cultural backgrounds.
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How to shoot video for you small business website
SmallBusiness.com: The free small business resource
Shooting video for your company's website is simple, but not as simple as pointing your videocamera and letting it roll. Take a little extra time to follow these few tips, you will end up with a higher quality video.
- Use a tripod. Shaky video is unwatchable video.
- Don't shoot your subject in front of windows -- the "back light" will wash out your subject.
- Make sure that the lighting around your subject isn't distracting or over powering.
- Follow the Rule of Thirds. Imagine a square with two horizontal lines and two vertical lines going through it. Something that looks like a tick-tack-toe game. Whoever you are interviewing or shooting should be framed in the left or right thirds of this box.
- If you are interviewing someone and frame her to the right, she should be looking at you across the open space to the left, not straight on and not at the camera.
- Use headphones. Sound problems can be fixed or avoided simply by using headphones to make sure everything is lining up and that no weird sounds crop up and muddle an interview.
- Have a plan. Knowing what you need out of your video when it is all over will give you a more successful shoot and more choices when it is time to edit.
If you are buying a camera, bigger isn't always better. If you aren't a professional videographer, all you need is a smaller home-video-style camera. (But remember to us a tripod.) Things to consider before the purchase: clarity of picture (go ahead an buy HD), how well the camera zooms, what sort of lighting options it comes with and the length of the battery life.
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Vaginal infections are painful and are often the uncomfortable side effect of a number of factors which may be prevalent in a woman’s vagina. A woman’s vagina typically has a number of active bacteria. Just like those bacteria in the stomach, these bacteria do not have to be harmful. There are cases however when the growth of other bacteria may increase in number and that is what causes vaginal infections.
Common Vaginal Infections and Symptoms
Vaginal infections can vary depending on the factors involved in creating the infection in the first place. Infections usually have symptoms and these can be different depending on the type of infection present. The most common vaginal infections are:
- Bacterial vaginosis – These cause the vagina to produce a particular odor. This odor is most obvious after sexual intercourse. Other symptoms can include discharge although this is not always present. If discharge is present, these vaginal infections cause white or discolored discharge which is thin in texture
- Trichomonas vaginitis – When these vaginal infections are present, there may be vaginal itching encountered. In addition to the vaginal itching, discharge is also often produced. Though just like bacterial vaginosis, this discharge is not always present. The discharge may also have a smell, although not typically the type of odor of bacterial vaginosis. It can also be discolored however.
- Yeast infection – Out of the common vaginal infections, this is the infection which is most likely to have a number of symptoms present. Just like the first two, there is also the potential for discharge although discharge in this case is thicker and is also white. There may also be intense itching and possible redness and swelling of the vagina.
Vaginal Infections and Vaginal Weights
Although they may not seem like the most likely candidate to help with vaginal infections, vaginal weights actually help prevent infection. A lot of women who suffer from infections do so because of urinary incontinence, a term given to the inability or lack of ability to control the flow of urine.
Stress UI is caused when the pelvic muscles are weak and as a result urine leaks after a sneeze, cough or even laugh. This can mean going to the bathroom a number of times which can at times also cause an infection. At the same time, weak pelvic muscles can also cause prolapsed which can cause the uterus to protrude out of the vagina and leave the vagina more open to infections.
Vaginal weights like Vagacare vaginal weights prevent these by strengthening the pelvic muscles. This in turn helps avoid stress UI and prolapsed – thus prevent vaginal infections as well.
Below are some informational sites that might also help your cause and condition.
9 Tips To Promote Your Bladder Health
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Greetings from the sea turtle rehab area!
Our veterinary and husbandry staff have been working hard to make sure our two turtle residents, London and Olympian, are receiving the best care during their stay here at National Aquarium. When we first introduced you all to London, a Kemp’s ridley, and Olympian, a green sea turtle, they had just arrived to our care center and we had just identified their injuries. These two turtles have come quite a long way since their arrival from New Jersey!
London has been receiving daily wound treatments and antibiotics. His wounds, although healing at a slow pace, are healing properly. We’ve also seen an increase in his diet – he is now eating 75 grams of food per day, including shrimp, squid and soft-shell crab. London spends a good bit of time “hiding” in his pool, but don’t worry, this is a natural behavior. Our team has given him large half-moon cuts of thick PVC so that he can find shelter. When he is not swimming and diving, that is where you can find him.
Olympian, who came to us with buoyancy problems, was found to have hyper-inflated lungs which could have attributed to the difficulty diving. However, upon arrival one morning to feed the turtles, our staff found Olympian resting on the bottom of the pool! He had no problems diving to the bottom for food throughout the rest of the day and his diving continues to improve daily! Olympian is almost never found resting now that he knows he can dive again.
Olympian’s appetite is keeping us on our toes! He’s currently consuming 117 grams of food per day, including lettuce, brussels sprouts, green peppers, shrimp, squid and soft-shell crab.
We’re happy to report that these turtles continue to improve every day. Look out for more updates from our team soon right here on our WATERblog!
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Normally, I’m not a big fan of when companies try to modernize certain games simply by tossing in some simple apps or electronics that really do nothing to enhance the gameplay. I even wrote an article recently about Classic Toys Ruined by Technology. So when I was asked to review Hasbro’s new Monopoly zAPPed Edition, I was more than a little bit skeptical.
My oldest son Jason is a Monopoly addict. We must have five or six different versions in our house (Regular, U-Build-It, Fantastic Four, Hershey’s, Star Wars…). He just loves playing and it’s actually his “Go To” game when Grandma and Grandpa come over to babysit. So how could I not at least give this new app/board game a chance?
And I’m certainly glad I did! Hasbro really put together an entertaining Monopoly version that actually adds to the original. You need to buy the actual board game, but then you download the free Monopoly zAPPed app from the App Store to use on your iPhone or iPad.
The basic game play is exactly as you remember. You roll two dice, move around a board buying up properties, building houses and hotels, and hoping to become the richest player at the end of the game. The game pieces are upgraded to nice lucite-type tokens with the familiar items etched on them. Even the dice are a grayish/clear version, adding a stylized modern touch. The other big change? The prices! Forget worrying about a few hundred dollars for Boardwalk and Park Place. They now go for over 1 Million dollars each! Yep, this Monopoly has prices in the hundred thousand and million dollar ranges.
As you take your turn, you interact with the app on your iPhone or iPad in the center of the board. If you land on a Chance card, for example, you just click the Chance button and it’ll show you an event. The other key difference with the app is that there is no banker and no dollar bills. Instead, every player has their own bank card and they simply tap the touch screen to update their current earnings. No need to add up your money or keep track of things, the app does it for you.
The electronic banker is probably the only pet peeve I have with this edition. Yes, it’s much easier to play with just a credit card and I understand the point of it. But I remember teaching Jason how to add and subtract by using paper money in the original Monopoly a few years ago. Banking skills and handing money back and forth is fun and… sorry to say… .educational. Removing that aspect of the game takes away a key learning experience in my mind. But again, it is fun and a lot easier to not have to think about all that.
The best part of the app, though, are the mini-games. Yep, just like all the Mario Party games my kids love playing on the Wii, this game has its own mini-games. The games are actually a lot of fun, and you either play solo or against the other players. You never know when a mini-game’s going to pop up, either. Usually it’s when you get a card and have to pay or collect money, so how you do in the mini-game affects the outcome.
There’s also tons of animations throughout the game, like a banging gavel if you decide to go the auction route instead of buying a property. My kids really loved the app part of the game. As Jason put it, “I love how you could play a video game while playing the game.” It’s a really nice alternative to the original game and the interactivity with the app truly modernizes it, while still keeping the core board game intact. It does work with the iPhone, although it’s a lot harder to use. If you have an iPad, definitely use that and you won’t be Sorry. Now that’s a different game all together..
Monopoly zAPPed Edition is available now at stores everywhere, with a retail price of $29.99.
I received the featured product in exchange for my honest opinion. The thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own and in no way were influenced by the company providing the product.
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Fighting Corruption in the Russian Regions
Russian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have repeatedly cited corruption as the main factor hindering their growth. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Russian entrepreneurs paid bribes for certain extra-legal activities to secure an advantage over competitors, to induce bureaucrats to overlook infractions of the law, or to speed various regulatory or licensing processes. In the past several years, however, the dynamic has shifted radically, according to local experts who study the issue closely. Entrepreneurs are now forced to pay bribes by officials who demand payment to provide services – such as provision of licenses or permits – that are entirely legal, and that by law must be free of charge. In addition to this development, the business community has seen the growth of the phenomenon of “raiding,” whereby bureaucrats who are no longer content to extract individual payments from businesses use ostensibly legal means to orchestrate the illegal takeover of a firm.
However, the picture is not entirely bleak. Despite these difficulties, Russian entrepreneurs continue to open businesses and actively pursue ways to protect their livelihoods. Chambers of commerce and business associations are at the forefront of those efforts. They recognize that, in a highly corrupt environment, collective action can provide a necessary measure of protection for an individual businessperson looking to push back against the demands of a corrupt official.
Over the past 10 years, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has implemented a “SME Policy Advocacy” project in Russia, working with the business community and government officials to find ways to lower barriers to doing business and reduce opportunities for corruption. CIPE has helped to build coalitions of chambers and associations in 18 Russian regions and work with several key national-level groups that are advocating for important changes to create a more transparent business environment.
Having achieved important successes at the regional level and developed a range of innovative tools and approaches, CIPE’s SME Policy Advocacy project serves as an important guide to private sector-led, collective action anti-corruption programs. This handbook will present the strategies that CIPE’s partners have employed, and serve as a model for how such strategies can be replicated in other regions of the world.
- Democratic Governance
- Access to Information
- Combating Corruption
- Business Association Development
- Corporate Governance
- Legal & Regulatory Reform
- Informal Sector & Property Rights
- Corporate Citizenship (CSR)
- South Asia
- Southeast Europe
- Middle East & North Africa
- Latin America & the Caribbean
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- EXPLORE DCU
- STUDY AT DCU
- RESEARCH AT DCU
The university is doing far more that preparing its students for employment: it is seeking to help create fully rounded citizens of their community. DCU's Civic Engagement Strategy is focused on enhancing citizenship and community sustainability and to foster lifelong learning. The potential benefits for the community and university alike, are considerable.
The Civic Engagement Strategy is based on three overarching strategic objectives:
For more information on these objectives please refer to the DCU Civic Engagement Strategy 2009-2011
Some of the initiatives DCU are engaged in, with regards to Civic Engagement, include:
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Supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation from 2008-09, the City Leaders Supporting Afterschool and a New Day for Learning project helped seven cities make progress toward creating citywide afterschool systems.
The seven cities competitively selected to participate in the second phase of the project included Albany, N.Y.; Morgantown, W.Va.; Omaha, Neb.; St. Paul, Minn.; Tampa, Fla.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Vancouver, Wash.
Mayor Gerald Jennings, Albany's Common Council and key community stakeholders created the Albany Community Afterschool Network (ACAN) to provide middle school students with better afterschool programming. ACAN has mapped the location of existing programs and surveyed older youth to understand their needs.
Modeling Albany's efforts on the Providence, R.I., "AfterZones," Mayor Jennings appointed a full-time city staff person to lead the Kid by Kid initiative, which will expand afterschool options at middle schools, and to participate in ACAN. The Albany Police Department provided ACAN with $225,000 in Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support expanded afterschool programming.
Morgantown's Vision for Our Children collaborative launched a website, www.morgantownparentzone.org, to help parents find quality programs based on their child's age, program location or activity.
Mayor Ron Justice, Councilmember Jenny Selin, the city manager's office and parks and recreation department, Monongalia County Schools and West Virginia University participated in the collaborative. They focused on raising funds to increase programming, addressing transportation barriers, developing business partnerships, building public will and creating a centralized data system for providers to communicate more efficiently. Afterschool providers also met with corporate leaders to discuss how they can support youth by volunteering in afterschool programs and providing exposure to careers through mentoring and job shadowing.
Mayor Christopher Coleman's Second Shift Commission recommended creating a formal intermediary organization to take the lead in organizing St. Paul's existing afterschool opportunities, ensuring high-quality programming, raising funds and promoting data sharing.
Leaders in St. Paul strived to implement the Mott Foundation's "New Day for Learning" vision, which uses a broader definition of student success and urges the entire community to take responsibility for student learning. The city is focused on using afterschool opportunities to promote civic engagement and enhance young people's work force skills.
St. Paul leaders also considered a data management system to facilitate communication about student outcomes in school and afterschool. City, school and community leaders listened to a presentation by staff from the City of Louisville, Ky., on how that city uses the KidTrax data system to share and integrate information from schools and afterschool providers.
Mayor Pam Iorio is working with the Hillsborough County Schools superintendent and the Children's Board of Hillsborough County to improve afterschool opportunities for middle school youth. Tampa's project team has mapped programs at all local middle schools, city recreation centers and community-based organizations to identify areas that need increased services, and is working to develop an online program locator.
YEF Institute staff visited Tampa to share information on the New Day for Learning vision with leaders from the Partnership for Out-of-School Time (POST) network of afterschool providers and facilitated a dialogue about how providers can expand their partnerships.
Former Mayor Kathy Taylor joined parks and recreation department staff, local school districts, the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative and Campfire USA in leading Tulsa's afterschool efforts. Mayor Taylor worked with superintendents and the police department to increase program options in neighborhoods with high juvenile crime rates. Tulsa leaders also discussed how to create a transportation system to get children to afterschool programs in their neighborhoods and to other educational institutions throughout the city.
Finally, upon learning about the city's afterschool initiatives, more than a dozen local funders suggested creating a central system to track all afterschool funding to get a better understanding of what additional support is needed.
The City of Vancouver's police, library and parks and recreation departments have partnered with local school districts, Washington State University and nonprofit service providers such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club to create the Vancouver Coalition for Out-of-School Time.
Former Mayor Royce Pollard, Councilmember Jeanne Harris and the city manager's office played key roles to support the coalition's efforts to create a sustainable, coordinated out-of-school time system. Like Morgantown, the coalition launched its own online program locator, www.schoolsoutletsgo.org, to provide resources for parents, afterschool providers and youth. The coalition also developed quality afterschool standards to ensure that programs offer academic support and engaging learning opportunities.
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The US Secretary of State, speaking at the new £90 million Titanic centre which was built as a beacon of hope in Belfast's docklands, said the peace process was being challenged.
Her visit coincides with a period of high tension, as violence continued last night in Belfast after a decision to remove the Union flag from permanent display at the City Hall.
Mrs Clinton said: "What we have to do is get out of the ballrooms, out of Stormont and into the communities where people live, where they do not have that lasting hope of optimism."
The US politician, who was instrumental in Northern Ireland's peace process, said she wanted to continue to work with political leaders to help progress the peace after she stands down from politics next year.
She said: "I want to remain involved as a friend, advocate and cheerleader for what we already achieved. Let us reach out to those who do not yet feel in their heart what has been achieved."
Offices of the cross-community Alliance Party have been attacked in recent days over the flag dispute, with two bombs found yesterday in Londonderry and County Down.
Mrs Clinton met Alliance Party MP Naomi Long, who had a death threat from loyalists over her party's stance on the city hall flag.
Earlier, Mrs Clinton, on her seventh visit to Northern Ireland, said peace required sacrifices, compromise and vigilance and the events of the past week showed the work was not complete.
She said: "There will always be disagreement in democratic societies, but violence is never an acceptable response to those disagreements. All parties need to confront the remaining challenge of sectarian divisions peacefully together."
Yesterday afternoon Mrs Clinton addressed 500 guests at a Worldwide Ireland Funds lunch.
Among the guests were former first minister Ian Paisley, 1972 Olympic gold medallist Dame Mary Peters and Nobel Peace Prize winners John Hume and David Trimble.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Theresa Villiers and North Antrim MP Ian Paisley Jnr were also there.
Security was tight, with armoured police Land Rovers parked outside the Titanic centre, close to where rioting erupted on Monday night.
Mrs Clinton said she was impressed by the steady, common-sense leadership provided by Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers in the mandatory coalition government at Stormont.
She was presented with a Worldwide Ireland Funds lifetime achievement award in recognition of her commitment to peace and reconciliation.
A bomb similar to those used against security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was discovered in Londonderry, hours before Mrs Clinton arrived in Belfast.
Chief Superintendent Stephen Martin said the bomb could have ripped through an armoured patrol vehicle and killed police officers.
He said: "This is a weapon primarily designed to kill. These devices are used in places like Afghanistan and Iraq with deadly consequences."
The bomb was found after police stopped a black Renault Megane car in the Westway area of the Creggan estate about 8.40pm on Thursday.
Eyewitnesses said officers rammed the car, with three men in it arrested and a fourth held a short distance away.
Security chiefs believe dissident republicans opposed to the peace process were planning an attack in the centre of the city, next year's UK City of Culture.
Mr Martin said: "We believe it was likely intended to be used against police officers in this city."
Earlier this year, a similar projectile explosive device was discovered in the Ardoyne area of Belfast.
Contextual targeting label:
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Todd Funfar from Deckmasters explains the difference between Composite and Cellular PVC decking.
Tags:Composite vs. Cellular PVC Decking,Cellular PVC Decking,Composite PVC Decking,PVC Decking,deck,decking,deckmasters,Difference Between Composite and Cellular PVC Deck
Grab video code:
Hi, I’m Todd with Deckmasters here to show you the difference between Cellular PVC decking and Composite Decking.
Composite Decking came out in about 1992 it’s made out of wood, fiber wood flower or wood filler, both are recyclable materials, plastic, shrink rap, garbage bags and milk cartons. That’s all kind of blended and ground up, blended in. These five here are composite from all different manufacturers and I will show scratch how it scratches fairly easily.
People have you know they move grill around, they move the furniture around, little kids on the deck it might have a little bit of dirt or sand that make your feet, big dog jumping off the deck. But here is the scratch as you can see they scratch rather easily. Now this is the Cellular PVC that can—there’s a hard I don’t know if you can see this or not but this is a hard outer shell. This table is made out of all Cellular and I’ll run the tool over that.
Another nice feature with the Cellular PVC is the mold resistance where the Composite is wood fiber, wood filler, recyclable garbage bag, grocery bags, shrink wrap that has a tendency to mold from the inside out. Where the Cellular PVC, you can kind of see the hard outer shell it doesn’t have any of the wood filler, wood fiber it’s more of either a flax filler or a fiber glass filler.
Now they are real nice benefit of the Cellular PVC is the easy clean-up everyone likes to grill on their deck, every kids with suntan lotion, barbeque grease, ketchup, mustard, suntan lotion with the Composites being they’re wood filler if you just spray a little bit of this on the Composite board, you will have a stain, where the Cellular PVC you can spray that and it’s just soap and water clean up. Cellular PVC also has a high impact resistant.
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Young Kids at Risk in Home Pools
< Jun. 22, 2011 > -- With summer and swim season officially under way, a new study reminds parents to be vigilant when young children are in and around pools.
This is especially true for above-ground, or portable, swimming pools, which pose just as much risk for drowning as in-ground pools.
"About every five days a child drowns in a portable pool in the U.S.," says the study's lead researcher Gary A. Smith, M.D., at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Portable pools are increasingly popular because they are much less expensive than in-ground pools - several thousand dollars vs. tens of thousands of dollars - and easy to assemble.
But because of their affordability and simplicity, parents may not see them as dangerous as in-ground pools, according to the study, which was published in the online version of the journal Pediatrics.
Dr. Smith and colleagues used data on drowning deaths collected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission between 2001 and 2009. During that period, 209 children younger than 12 died and 35 cases were near-drownings.
About 75 percent of the deaths occurred in the child's own yard, and 40 percent were in a shallow wading pool.
More than 40 percent happened while the child was being supervised, 39 percent happened with no adult on hand, and 18 percent occurred with a lapse of supervision.
Meri-K Appy, president of Safe Kids USA, says the study confirms the dangers posed by above-ground home pools. "Safe Kids has been concerned about the increasing use of backyard pools that are too small for consumers to consider investing in fencing but too large to make them easy to empty and secure safely after each use."
Safety measures needed
Although safety measures such as alarms and fencing are available for in-ground pools, this isn't true for portable pools. Fencing, for instance, can cost more than the pool itself. The researchers call for industry development of affordable fencing and reliable pool alarms and covers for portable pools.
"Close supervision of young children around water is really important, but supervision alone isn't enough," Dr. Smith says. "Children can drown in very small amounts of water. Very young children can drown in a five-gallon bucket with water in the bottom. It only takes a couple of inches and a few minutes."
For more information on health and wellness, please visit health information modules on this website.
If you have a pool at home, whether it's in-ground or above-ground, follow these tips to keep your family safe:
Always talk with your health care provider to find out more information.
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Around the Nation
Vegas Museum Offers A Mob History You Can't Refuse
Originally published on Mon March 12, 2012 9:56 pm
As soon as you step in the elevator of Las Vegas' new Mob Museum, a cop on a video monitor reads you your rights. When the doors finally open, you're greeted by a huge photo of 1920s-era gangsters standing in a police lineup, wearing fedoras.
The Mob Museum — otherwise known as the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement — tells the story of how the mob helped make Las Vegas, and how it influenced the rest of the country. The museum does that by giving visitors a chance to listen to wiretaps, practice FBI-style surveillance, spray pretend bullets from a Thompson — or Tommy — gun and even participate in their own police lineups.
The 'Ultimate' Museum Artifact
The museum's exhibits blur the line between entertainment and education, but there's also plenty of serious history there. For one thing, the 1930s-era building that houses the museum once served as a federal courthouse.
"We do consider the building to be really our ultimate artifact" says museum Executive Director Jonathan Ullman. "There were numerous cases tried that involved alleged mobsters, mob figures. But most importantly, it was the site of one of the Kefauver Committee hearings."
Those were a series of hearings held by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver to investigate the mob across the U.S. Now, in the courtroom where some of those hearings took place, a video recreates the interrogations, including a scene with ex-bootlegger and Las Vegas founding father Moe Dalitz.
"If you people wouldn't have drunk it," says the video's Dalitz, "I wouldn't have bootlegged it."
'The Mob Doesn't Keep Records'
"When we started this project, it was really about the organized crime in Las Vegas," says museum Creative Director Dennis Barrie.
But soon he and his wife, museum Curator Kathleen Hickey Barrie, realized they couldn't tell the story of organized crime in Las Vegas without telling the story of organized crime in the U.S.
The Barries are the couple behind the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. They say mobsters and spies posed a similar challenge — each had a history that was meant to be kept secret.
"When they shoot somebody, they throw the gun away," Dennis says. "The mob doesn't keep records; they don't keep books, or not many."
So instead the Barries started their own record: A list of 10 things a mob museum needed to have. According to Kathleen, "one was a Tommy gun and one was a brick from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall."
In fact, they ended up getting the entire brick wall against which seven Chicago men were massacred in the 1929 hit orchestrated by Al Capone. A video about the massacre is projected onto the bricks. You can still see the bullet holes.
"You never know how you are going to find them, where you are going to find them," Dennis says of the museum's artifacts. "For example, the wall — they called us. And it was a family in Las Vegas that had inherited it from their uncle who had it in his restaurant in Vancouver after the building was torn down."
According to Kathleen, some of their best artifacts have come from people hearing about the museum then calling in to offer up their mob relics.
The Machine-Gun Experience
Back on the museum floor, Kathleen is interrupted by the sound of machine gun fire. The museum didn't just get a Tommy gun — it got a whole collection. They even made a Tommy gun replica that museum-goers can try out for themselves, sound effects and all.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. At a new museum in Las Vegas, you can listen to wiretaps, practice surveillance and spray pretend bullets from a Tommy gun. It's The Mob Museum, and it tells the story of how the mob helped create Las Vegas. From member station KJZZ, Jude Joffe-Block went in search of the history of organized crime.
JUDE JOFFE-BLOCK, BYLINE: As soon as you step inside The Mob Museum's elevator, a cop on a video monitor greets you.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Stepping out, you see a huge photo of 1920s-era gangsters. They're standing in a police lineup, wearing fedoras.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I need suspects for my lineup, if you don't mind, right behind the glass.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Then museum staff guide you into a police lineup.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Number five, step forward.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Exhibits like this one blur the line between entertainment and education. But there's also plenty of serious history here, starting with the structure itself.
JONATHAN ULLMAN: We do consider the building to be, you know, really our ultimate artifact.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Jonathan Ullman is the executive director. This 1930s-era building once served as a federal courthouse.
ULLMAN: There were numerous cases tried that involved alleged mobsters, mob figures. But most importantly, that it was a site of one of the Kefauver committee hearings.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Those were a series of hearings held by Senator Estes Kefauver to investigate the mob across the U.S., including Las Vegas. Now in the courtroom where those hearings took place, a video recreates the interrogations, including a scene with ex-bootlegger and Las Vegas founding father Moe Dalitz.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
MOE DALITZ: If you people wouldn't have drunk it, I wouldn't have bootlegged.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Order.
DENNIS BARRIE: When we started this project, it was really about the organized crime in Las Vegas.
JOFFE-BLOCK: That's Dennis Barrie, the museum's creative director. His wife, Kathleen, is the curator. As they did research, they realized...
BARRIE: We could not tell the story of organized crime in Las Vegas without telling the story of organized crime nationally and vice versa.
JOFFE-BLOCK: They are the couple behind the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. Mobsters, like spies, posed a similar challenge: history that was meant to be kept secret.
BARRIE: People, when they shoot somebody, they throw the gun away. The mob doesn't keep records, OK? They don't keep books or not many.
KATHLEEN BARRIE, CURATOR, THE MOB MUSEUM: We did a little list of maybe 10 things that we really thought you needed to have in a mob museum, and one was a Tommy gun, and one was a brick from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall.
JOFFE-BLOCK: In fact, they got the entire brick wall from the 1929 massacre that Al Capone orchestrated in Chicago.
BARRIE: This is the actual part of the wall where the seven men were executed.
JOFFE-BLOCK: You can see the actual bullet holes. A video about the massacre is projected onto the bricks.
BARRIE: To find these things, you never know how you're going to find them, where you're going to find them. And, for example, the wall, they called us. And it was a family in Las Vegas that inherited it from their uncle who had it in his restaurant in Vancouver after the building was torn down.
MUSEUM: Many of the best things we have are because people got a little bit of wind of the fact that this project was going on, and they would call and say: I don't know if you think this is of interest or if this would be good...
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
JOFFE-BLOCK: We're interrupted by the sound of a spray of bullets coming from the other side of the room. Remember that Thompson machine gun or Tommy gun that they were searching for? It turns out they got a whole collection. They even created a replica that museumgoers can try out.
BARRIE: So that's what you hear in the background, the ability to fire a Thompson, which you should do.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
JOFFE-BLOCK: I adjust the height and pull the trigger.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
JOFFE-BLOCK: For NPR News, I'm Jude Joffe-Block in Las Vegas. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
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It’s among the most basic, most critical, and most overlooked resources needed to run a hospital: electricity.
But in Haiti’s Central Plateau, the flow of energy is intermittent at best. Consider that in Mirebalais, located 30 miles north of Port-au-Prince, the power goes out for an average of three hours each day. This poses an enormous challenge to running any hospital; surgeries are jeopardized, neonatal ventilators stall, the cold chain is interrupted, and countless everyday tasks get derailed. As Partners In Health co-founder Paul Farmer noted during a recent lecture at the Harvard School of Public Health, “It’s not great if you’re a surgeon and you have to think about getting the generator going.”
To make sure the patients and staff at Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais (University Hospital) aren’t left in the dark, PIH and its partners looked toward the sun. Stretched across the roof of the new 200,000-square-foot hospital is a vast and meticulously arranged array of 1,800 solar panels.
On a bright day, these panels are expected to produce more energy than the hospital will consume. Before the facility even opened its doors—the official opening is slated for March—the system churned out 139 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to charge 22 million smartphones and offset 72 tons of coal. Perhaps most important is that the excess electricity will be fed back into Haiti’s national grid, giving a much-needed boost to the country’s woefully inadequate energy infrastructure.
PIH is no stranger to solar energy. In 2007, we collaborated with the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) to install small-scale solar-energy systems at five clinics in rural Rwanda. Soon after, similar programs cropped up at PIH sites in Malawi, Lesotho, and Haiti. But scaling this technology to deliver reliable power for a 300-bed hospital demanded elegant design and extensive collaboration.
“The challenge was in the design and engineering, and getting the solar power produced to mesh with the often unstable grids and the backup generators,” said Jim Ansara, University Hospital’s director of design and construction. “At each step of the way, we were attempting things that had never before been done in Haiti.”
Solon, a German company, supplied the solar panels while Massachusetts-based Solectria Renewables manufactured the inverters, devices that convert the electricity and send it to the grid. To get the system up and running, engineers from Sullivan & McLaughlin Companies traveled to Haiti and trained six local electricians how to install and maintain the system. Two of the Haitian electricians will continue working at the hospital full-time when it opens (overall, it's estimated the hospital will create more than 800 new jobs for Haitians).
In order to maximize energy production, researchers from the University of Oregon provided sun charts that showed how to best position the panels. Though Haiti’s ample sunshine is what powers the hospital, the scorching temperature of a sunbaked roof could actually cause the panels to produce less electricity. To work around this conundrum, engineers floated the panels about a foot above the roof and added a coat of white paint, which lowers the surface temperature and bounces more sun rays on to the panels.
“This is an incredibly simple system to maintain once installed,” Ansara said. “All we need to do is rinse the panels quarterly with water.”
In a country ravaged by deforestation, the ecological benefits of this alternative energy source cannot be overstated: Annually, the system is expected to save 210 metric tons of carbon emissions.
And while a sea of solar panels perched atop a hospital in the mountains of Haiti is certainly eye-catching, it’s just one part of a comprehensive environmental strategy. Other green-friendly features at the hospital include natural ventilation that minimizes the need for air conditioning and motion-sensor activated lights that cut energy consumption by 60 percent when compared with traditional lighting.
This push toward sustainability and energy self-sufficiency translates into significant financial savings. In Haiti, electricity is expensive: The price per kilowatt hour is 35 cents, compared with 5.5 cents in New England. Using solar is expected to slash $379,000 from the hospital’s projected annual operating costs.
When fully operational, University Hospital is expected to be the largest solar-powered hospital in the world that produces more than 100 percent of its required energy during peak daylight hours, an impressive feat for the first-ever teaching hospital in central Haiti. The many lessons learned from the project will prove invaluable as PIH, its partners, and others undertake similarly ambitious and sustainable projects.
comments powered by Disqus
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- Black Belt Prestige
- High times
- Low times
- What happened?
- Page 5
- Children black belts
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Women black belts
- Physically or mentally disabled
- Over the hill black belts
- You can still do that which you do, because you do it.
- Is there something that can be done?
- Has the prestige of the black belt been lost forever?
- All Pages
Over the hill black belts
Once you are awarded an Olympic medal for the 5000 meters, you will also be an Olympic 5000 meters medal winner, even if you are now too old to run at all. Once you are a black belt, you will always be a black belt, even if you are too old to kick a bucket. However, this does not mean that people should be awarded black belts based on the age or previous abilities.
The martial arts community, and the general public, has an opinion as to what a black belt is and expectation as to what a black belt should be able to do. Although these expectations may be lower for an older black belt, the expectations are still high. An older black belt may not be expected to perform as a younger black belt, but they are expected to perform much better than non black belt people of the same age. Age does not make black belts unfit or fat. Barring any legitimate medical reasons, they become unfit and fat because they do not care or because they do not want to do what it takes to be fit or trim.
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Best Poems by
great poets : Some of the greatest famous poems by
your favourite poets . . .
A True Tale by Mary Barber
A mother, who vast Pleasure finds
In modelling her Childrens Minds;
With whom, in exquisite Delight,
She passes many a Winter Night;
Mingles in ev'ry Play, to find
What Byass Nature gave the Mind;
Resolving thence to take her Aim,
To guide them to the Realms of Fame;
And wisely make those Realms their Way
To Regions of eternal Day;
Each boist'rous Passion to controul,
And early humanize the Soul;
In simple Tales, beside the Fire,
The noblest Notions would inspire:
Her Children, conscious of her Care,
Transported, hung around her Chair.
Of Scripture-Heroes she would tell,
Whose Names they lisp'd, ere they could spell:
The Mother then, delighted, smiles;
And shews the Story on the Tiles.
At other Times, her Themes would be
The Sages of Antiquity;
Who left immortal Names behind,
By proving Blessings to their Kind.
Again, she takes another Scope,
And tells of Addison, and Pope.
Studious to let her Children know
The various Turns of Things below;---
How Virtue here was oft oppress'd,
To shine more glorious with the Bless'd;
Told Tully's and the Gracchi's Doom,
The Patriots, and the Pride of Rome.
Then bless'd the Drapier's6 happier Fate,
Who sav'd, and lives to guard the State.
Some Comedies gave great Delight,
And entertain'd them many a Night:
Others could no Admittance find,
Forbid, as Poison to the Mind:
Those Authors Wit and Sense, said she,
But heighten their Impiety7.
This happy Mother met, one Day,
The Book of Fables, writ by Gay;
And told her Children, Here's a Treasure,
A Fund of Wisdom, and of Pleasure!
Such Morals, and so finely writ;
Such Decency, good Sense, and Wit!
Well has the Poet found the Art,
To raise the Mind, and mend the Heart.
Her fav'rite Son the Volume seiz'd;
And, as he read, seem'd highly pleas'd;
Made such Reflections ev'ry Page;
The Mother thought above his Age;
Delighted read, but scarce was able
To finish the concluding Fable.
What ails my Child? the Mother cries:
Whose Sorrows now have fill'd your Eyes?
O dear Mamma, can he want Friends,
Who writes for such exalted Ends?
O base, degen'rate human Kind!
Had I a Fortune to my Mind,
Should Gay complain? But now, alas!
Thro' what a World am I to pass?
Where Friendship is an empty Name,
And Merit scarcely paid in Fame?
Resolv'd to lull his Woes to Rest,
She tells him, He should hope the best:
This has been yet Gay's Case, I own;
But now his Merit's amply known.
Content that tender Heart of thine:
He'll be the Care of Caroline.
Who thus instructs the royal Race,
Must have a Pension, or a Place.
Mamma, if you were Queen, says he,
And such a Book were writ for me,
I find 'tis so much to your Taste,
That Gay would keep his Coach at least.
My Son, what you suppose, is true:
I see its Excellence in you.
Poets who write to mend the Mind,
A royal Recompence should find.
But I am barr'd by Fortune's Frowns,
From the best Privilege of Crowns;
The glorious, godlike Pow'r to bless,
And raise up Merit in Distress.
But, dear Mamma, I long to know,
Were you the Queen, what you'd bestow.
What I'd bestow, says she, my Dear?
At least, a thousand Pounds a Year.
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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Zookeepers have diligently worked with the zoo’s youngest calf, B.J., born on Nov. 23, to encourage him to nurse or drink from a bottle. This is the first calf for his mother, Emma, and initially she was anxious when the calf attempted to nurse. However, even though she has calmed down, the calf has not consistently nursed well.
To provide nutrition for the calf, zookeepers are tube-feeding him twice daily and offering grain and hay. However, the calf’s weight fluctuates from day to day, and overall he is not gaining weight. Because the calf has not reliably nursed from his mother he has not built up a good immune system from the milk and therefore has weak immunity. He is receiving antibiotics as a precaution. As of Wednesday morning, the animal care staff considers the calf in very guarded condition.
Although Dickerson Park Zoo has seen considerable successes with breeding giraffes, over time the mortality rate for calves is approximately 25 percent.
Also, on Sunday, the staff veterinarian examined the zoo’s aging warthog, Elway, after zookeepers reported respiratory issues. Preliminary findings from a necropsy (animal autopsy) point to congestive heart failure. The nearly 15-year-old warthog was humanely euthanized.
Elway and his brother, Terrell, came to Dickerson Park Zoo in 1999 when they were 15 months old. Terrell died in early 2011. The median life expectancy for warthogs is 11.5 years.
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Scientists from around the world reported Wednesday that they've made major progress in identifying where genes exist and what they do, while also discovering that most "junk" DNA isn't junk after all.
The breakthroughs -- made by a team of scientists in the ENCODE project -- represent a major step toward the ultimate goal of being able to quickly identify and treat a wide variety of genetic diseases. (Overview).
The advances come roughly 10 years after the sequencing of the human genome, an event that seemed to bear little fruit at first. But scientists discovered that a lot of the "junk" DNA that was thought to have little or no function plays a major role in the behavior of genes.
"It used to be thought that most of the coding was done by 2 or 3 percent of the genome," said Joe Ecker, a plant biologist at the Salk Institute who wrote an overview of ENCODE. "But new studies show that about 80 percent of the genome has some biological function. Some of those functions are hidden in the 'junk.' ''
Ecker added that ENCODE scientists have "interpreted the first words of the language in the genome. We don't understand the whole dictionary. But in five years, we'll be saying that we didn't know anything at this point."
Eric Topol, the cardiologist who runs the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, and is chief academic officer of Scripps Health, said, "This 'smorgasbord' of new data on the genome resets our understanding of how most of the action—and that which influences diseases and health—is not occurring in genes per se, but rather in the rest of the genome which was originally labeled “junk DNA.
"Many critical pathways and networks of the genome have now been identified through this work that play a key role across multiple diseases.
"Basically we move away from the gene-centric (the 1.5% coding elements) thinking to genome-centric (the other 98.5%). What is fascinating is that hundreds of thousands of letters away a base (nucleotide, letter) can influence another base somewhere remote in the genome."
Much of this work was done with sequencing equipment that came from Illumina and Life Technologies, a pair of San Diego companies.
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| 0.961569
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| 3.390625
| 3
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|Parent company||Penguin Group|
|Founder||Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim|
|Country of origin||United States|
|Headquarters location||New York City|
|Key people||President-Clare Ferraro, Children's current president Regina Hayes|
The house has been home to many prominent authors of fiction, non-fiction, and play scripts. Five Viking authors have been awarded Nobel Prizes for Literature and one received the Nobel Peace Prize; Viking books have also won numerous Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and other important literary prizes.
As of 2011[update] Viking published approximately 100 books a year. It is notable for publishing both successful commercial fiction and acclaimed literary fiction and non-fiction. Viking's literary paperbacks are published by Penguin Books, while its commercial paperbacks are published by Signet Books or Putnam Books. Viking's current president is Clare Ferraro.
The Viking Children's Book department was established in 1933; its founding editor was May Massee. Viking Kestrel was one of its imprints. Its books have won the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, and include such books as The Twenty-One Balloons, written and illustrated by William Pene du Bois, (1947, Newbery medal winner for 1948), Corduroy, Make Way for Ducklings, The Stinky Cheese Man By Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith 1993, The Outsiders, Pippi Longstocking, and The Story of Ferdinand. Its paperbacks are published by Puffin Books, which includes the Speak and Firebird imprints. Viking Children's current president and publisher is Regina Hayes.
Here you can share your comments or contribute with more information, content, resources or links about this topic.
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| 0.942295
| 371
| 1.554688
| 2
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Reminding us of New Orleans' greatness
Reviewed October 2007
A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)
By Terence Blanchard
Blue Note Records: 2007
To hear sound clips or learn more about this release, Turbula recommends viewing its Amazon.com entry.
Even very casual jazz fans likely know that New Orleans was the birthplace of the music at the turn of the last century, where ragtime came down the Mississippi River and met hot Creole and Haitian rhythms from the Caribbean in the whorehouses and bars of the Crescent City.
Fewer may be aware what a vital hotbed of jazz creativity the city has remained in the years since Louis Armstrong struck out for Chicago and New York.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, many of her native sons and daughters have been coming to her aid with benefit concerts and CDs. The Marsalis clan and Harry Connick Jr. may be the most famous faces of New Orleans' modern jazz community, but trumpeter Terence Blanchard is a well-respected artist in his own right, having (like fellow trumpeter Wynton Marsalis) played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, as well as Lionel Hampton.
His new opus for New Orleans, "A Tale of God's Will," is no benefit CD or fund-raiser but serves the cause of restoring New Orleans by reminding anew what ambitious, powerful work comes from that city, how important New Orleans remains to this country's self-image and self-confidence.
Drawing on both Blanchard's jazz roots and his work composing film scores, this 13-part jazz and orchestral work is stately and graceful, but in a very athletic manner. And the manner in with Blanchard blends jazz and orchestral music is utterly seamless and balanced. His muted trumpet over cellos and double bass on the closing track, "Dear Mom," is both jazz and classical at the same time and not a watered-down blend of the two, but both jazz and classical in equal parts, at the same time, in a very strong, confident way. It's not a mere co-existence, but more of a partnership in which Blanchard uses the jazz and classical to push each other.
And that's true throughout this work much like a good sports coach must take different, perhaps even conflicting, personalities and get them to play better together than they can separately, so does Blanchard find ways of bring jazz and classical music beyond the obvious conflicts that have confounded most efforts to successfully combine them and into a place where they complement and strengthen one another.
It is an amazing work, comparable to Wynton Marsalis' "In This House, On This Morning" and "Blood on the Fields."
Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).
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Electro Energy Picks up $1.5M from DOE for Bi-Polar NiMH Work
10 November 2005
|Schematic of the wafer bipolar battery design.|
Electro Energy Inc. (EEI) will receive $1.5 million from the US Department of Energy (DOE) for continued development and demonstration of its bipolar wafer-cell Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery energy storage program.
Electro Energy, among its other projects, is currently working with CalCars on developing a bi-polar NiMH battery system for the Prius+ plug-in hybrid testbed. (Earlier post.)
The funding was included in the Fiscal Year 2006 Energy & Water Development bill, which was passed by the US Congress today and is expected to be signed by President Bush within the next week. The 2006 funding will bring DOE’s total investment in the development of the bipolar wafer-cell NiMH battery to approximately $6.5 million.
Instead of using the conventional cylindrical coiled electrode or flat plate prismatic designs, the EEI design uses individual sealed flat rectangular wafer cells that are stacked on top of each other to create a series-connected battery.Each wafer cell contains one positive electrode, a separator material, one negative electrode, and outer faces that serve as positive and negative contacts of the cell and contain the cell’s potassium hydroxide electrolyte.
To construct a multi-cell battery assembly, identical cells are stacked with end contacts and end plates.
This bi-polar design is more compact, exhibits higher power capability, and presumably will be lower in cost that the conventional cylindrical and prismatic designs.
EEI also announced a third-quarter loss of $710,280 on sales of $941,972 for the quarter, compared to a loss of $303,267 on sales of $1.95 million a year ago.
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Iran is a country located in the Middle East bordering the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea. It has a strategic location on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, which are vital maritime pathways for crude oil export. Neighboring countries include Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan. The government system is a theocratic republic. The chief of state is the Supreme Leader and the head of government is the President. Iran has a largely controlled economic system in which the central government directs the economy regarding the production and distribution of goods but there is some private sector activity.
12/3/2012 12:01:29 PM
2/14/2012 2:32:15 PM
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From the Delfin II in the Amazon
Jan 1, 2013 - Delfin II
Canopy Walkway & Nauta Caño
The Amazon rain forest is a massive place. Millions of acres, it is a vast sea of green. Life here is abundant, from the fish and dolphins in the river to the orchids flowering high in the crown of a 150-foot emergent tree. Today, we got low and high to make the most of our exploration.
Our destination for the morning was a canopy walkway situated on a private reserve. A paddle across a blackwater lake led us to some beautiful primary forest in terra firme. We started the trail by looking up to two giant emergent trees. We needed to get up there! After walking awhile and learning about many of the other trees, we arrived at a series of bridges. Here, we were able to be amongst the trees, looking down upon many. Nine different bridges strung between large trees provided a much different perspective on the forest.
For the afternoon, skiffs and kayaks were deployed to search at water level. Kayaking especially gave an interesting perspective as we were able to kayak inside the forest. A few sprawling fig trees even allowed us to kayak through their many trunks. Fish jumped around us and a couple of pink river dolphins swam by. A brief rainstorm produced a double rainbow, but we haven’t quite figured out how to get up there. Yet!
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"Preljocaj proves that contemporary ballet and fairytales can come together."
Angelin Preljocaj, Artistic Director
France’s leading contemporary ballet company, Ballet Preljocaj, (pronounced prezh-oh-kahzh) performs a romantic and contemporary retelling of Snow White (Blanche Neige), based on the Grimm brothers’ original fairytale, with Preljocaj’s personal variations based on an analysis of symbolism. This lush, full-length story ballet by French choreographer, Angelin Preljocaj, features massive sets, 26 dancers, and an all-star roster of French artists and designers including the magnificent excesses of Gustav Mahler symphonies, magical sets by Thierry Leproust, and costumes by legendary Jean Paul Gaultier. The characters’ bodies are transcended by Preljocaj’s signature choreography to demonstrate space, energy, and ultimately feelings, using inventive gestures, clever substitution, and even pirouetting, wall climbing dwarves of acrobatic distinction.
*Don't miss Hennepin County Library's Snow White Old and New Exhibit at the Minneapolis Central Library! The exhibit features displays of the library's collection of Snow White and Brothers Grimm materials, including a theatrical retelling of the story and fairytale book-making event for kids.
This activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota State Arts Board through the arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the Legacy Amendment vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.
Ballet Preljocaj is presented with support from the Alliance Française of Minneapolis and St. Paul, by the Institut Français (Paris) and the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago.
Artists and programs subject to change.
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APA AT THE UNITED NATIONS
APA Bids Farewell to its Main Representative at the UN
Florence Denmark, PhD, served as a representative from APA to the United Nations for 9 years – as representative (2001-2004) and then as Main Representative (2005-2009). A pioneer in the psychology of women, her long service to the discipline and to APA includes a term as APA’s fifth female president (1980-1981), founding member and president of Division 35, and president of Division 1. She is the recipient of countless APA awards, citations and honors, including the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology (1996), the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest (2004), and the Raymond Fowler Award for Outstanding Service to APA (2007). Dr. Denmark continues active involvement as Professor and mentor at Pace University.
In this interview, Merry Bullock, PhD, APA Office of International Affairs, and Florence Denmark discuss her tenure as one of APA’s ambassadors to the UN. In December 2009, Denmark ends her tenure as APA’s Main Representative to the UN.
OIA: How have you seen APA’s presence at the UN change over the years?
Denmark: APA’s representation has evolved into real teamwork. When I first started, each representative would work on those issues he or she felt drawn to, under an APA umbrella. This has evolved over the years so that the group works more cohesively as a team.
One outcome of that increased cohesiveness that has spilled over to all the psychologists at the UN is Psychology Day, where we all present psychology to the UN community.
OIA: Tell us about Psychology Day.
Denmark: Psychology Day is an annual event - the next one is February 4, 2010 – that introduces UN perspectives and issues to the psychology community and that introduces the UN community of staff, diplomats and NGOs to the role that psychology plays in central UN concerns. This has been a successful venture. It is put together by a planning group from all the psychology or psychology-related groups at the UN that meet together. We have established friendships and collegial relationships among the psychologists at the UN.
OIA: What do you think has been the best accomplishment in your time at the UN?
Denmark: Without a doubt that APA’s representatives have moved forward to leadership positions in NGO committees, gaining respect for psychology and APA within the UN community.
This was not there when I came to the UN. But now we have leadership positions across many UN committees – Ageing, Mental Health, Family, HIV/AIDS. And APA was elected to the executive board of the organization that oversees NGO actions – the Council on NGOs or CoNGO.
OIA: What does being an NGO at the United Nations bring to psychology, and to APA?
Denmark: It brings firsthand awareness of the activities and issues at the UN and information for us to share with psychologists. There is so much going on at the UN and in the world stage that is not in the news. We do a lot of work on human rights – not in terms of individual cases, but in working for basic rights for children, women, mental health, aging, and the like. Also, psychology is becoming better known as a discipline through our work on Psychology Day and in committees.
People respect psychology, and ask for and use psychological expertise in those areas that touch on mental health, sustainable development, human behavior. Of course it is like anywhere – they don’t run to us, knowing they need a psychologist – we need to be proactive to get heard. But when we are, there are listeners.
And it brings information and expertise to APA as well. We learn so much in the UN context and encourage a two-way communication with APA offices – mostly public interest offices – that map onto UN concerns. We disseminate APA information and we tell APA offices about questions and concerns on the UN level.
OIA: What advice would you give to APA as you end your tenure?
Denmark: More of the same! And continue the policy of engaging UN representatives for APA with a diverse set of interests to broaden our outreach. This has changed in my time – at the start we were mostly interested in women’s issues and mental health; today we cover a broad range of committees that reflect the broad scope of the team’s interests – still women and mental health of course, but also human rights, sustainable development, indigenous peoples, habitats, family, children, HIV/AIDS, and more.
I would also encourage APA to encourage more of its members to get involved. We encourage psychologists to come to the UN – for Psychology Day, or just for a visit (and if you come on a Thursday you could accompany a team member).
OIA: Dr. Denmark, You have been such a marvelous diplomat and catalyst for APA’s activities at the UN. Under your tenure APA’s scope and influence at the UN has grown, and you have also mentored new representatives as they have come on. You have also instituted mentoring for the next generation through the internship program. Is there anything you would like to add?
Denmark: Yes, it has been a great 9 years, and I have had the privilege of working with great colleagues. In addition to the professional satisfaction, I have gained immensely in social networks – contrary to the usual trend of decreasing social contacts with age, since coming to the UN I have more friends, more social invitations, and a longer greeting card list every year! It is an amazing way to meet so many people from so many different walks of life.
I thank APA for giving me this opportunity. I also want to thank (and be sure to put this in) Dr. Merry Bullock and the Office of International Affairs for its facilitation and organization. Together we have made a terrific team.
OIA: Thank you very much.
Note: The APA UN representatives will present a symposium at the 2010 Convention on “Health, Mental Health, and Human Rights ina Global Perspective" and Dr. Denmark will be the discussant.
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Steps to determine what ails your soil and nurse it back to good health
If you haven’t encountered the tale of two fields, you know of fellow farmers who have: One field is easy to farm and hits yield goals every year, weather permitting, but the other field seems to fight every step of the way and almost always yields less. What causes yield variation when the fields are the same soil type? One field is the picture of perfect soil health while the other is plagued with sickly soil.
Soil health involves chemical, biological and physical aspects. For now, let’s examine how physical aspects can be degraded over time and how you can improve them.
"Understanding physical aspects of soil lets you set realistic yield goals, based on water-holding capacity," says Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie. "It also tells you how to fertilize and manage the soil to achieve those goals and how to improve the health of poorly producing soils."
Physical aspects of soil health include texture, structure and aggregate stability. Texture is the percentage of various particle sizes—sand, silt and clay, from largest to smallest—in the soil profile. Most soil types contain more than one type of particle, such as clay loam, silt loam or silty clay loam.
While abrasive tillage degrades soil, vertical tillage, done properly, can remove compaction and/or sudden density layers while improving water infiltration. No-till and strip-till have the ability to preserve and improve soil structure. More grass crops and organic matter also help, but recovery might take time.
You can determine texture by squeezing moist soil into a ribbon, consulting a soil survey in a book or online or using a cell phone app when you’re standing in the field. Once you know the mixture, use the USDA soil texture pyramid to identify the soil type (clay, sandy clay loam, etc.)
The most accurate way to classify soil is to have it analyzed by a laboratory, which will tell you the percentage of sand, silt and clay.
Understand soil texture. The biggest variable that affects water- and nutrient-holding capacity is the percentage of clay (and various types of clay). "Negative electrical charges in clay particles allow it to attract and hold water and nutrients, which are positively charged," Ferrie explains. "Made of lattices, clay particles can hold water between the lattices, as well as around the outside of the particle.
"Sand and silt don’t have lattices nor negative charges, so they have no water-holding capacity. But they do have a coating around the particles called organic matter. Organic matter contains carbon, and each carbon ion has four negative charges. That gives organic matter some ability to hold water and nutrients. But in the mineral soils that most farmers deal with, the main thing that holds water and nutrients is clay."
After you learn the textures of your various soils, you can respect them and manage accordingly. "Some areas, such as the Mississippi Delta, basically have uniform soil texture," Ferrie says.
"That makes management relatively easy because you can treat each field the same way. But in the Midwest, there are various soil textures in the same field. It’s as if the field has multiple personalities, and you have to farm all of them differently."
For example, texture tells you how to manage soil fertility to keep the soil balanced and healthy. "Two tons of lime per acre would be a low rate on a heavy soil but excessively high on sand," he says. "Applying 200 lb. per acre of nitrogen is OK on a clay soil; but on sand, which has less nutrient-holding capacity, much of that nitrogen could be lost to the environment, where it would become a pollutant."
The more clay in your soil, the less you have to worry about overapplying nutrients and application timing, Ferrie adds. If the clay content is exceedingly high, you might need to worry about nutrient availability (requiring multiple applications, so nutrients don’t become tied up and unavailable to plants) and drainage to remove excess water. Sandy soils become acid faster, so they need to be limed more frequently, and in smaller amounts, to keep microbial populations and overall soil conditions healthy.
The role of structure. Soil structure describes how particles of sand, silt and clay are held together in clumps, or what soil scientists call "peds."
"Unlike texture, structure is something farmers can change—for better or worse," Ferrie says. "Think of the ideal structure as being crumb-like. That kind of structure creates macropores, large pore spaces where water can be stored and removed by plant roots. Macropores also contain oxygen, which is required by soil microorganisms, which are essential for healthy soil."
Soil scientists break down structure into categories. Granular structure is imperfect spheres, all about the same size, and visible with the naked eye. Granular aggregates contain all three sizes of soil particles—sand, silt and clay. Blocky structure breaks apart into small cubes with angular edges, resembling broken glass.
Platy structure appears flat and compressed; it breaks apart as if it was stacked in layers. Single-grain structure is sand, like you find on a beach. Massive structure refers to soil that is in a cohesive mass, like blocks, with no aggregates visible.
"Each soil type naturally has a certain structure," Ferrie says. "You can learn what structure should be present by consulting a soil survey in a book or on the Internet.
"For example, in Illinois, if you dig from 0" to 11" deep in a Catlin silt loam soil, you should encounter a granular structure. When you crumble the soil in your hand, soil should aggregate as round, imperfect spheres, with a visible crumb-like structure."
Is your soil healthy? To assess your soil’s health, dig a pit and see if it matches the characteristics in the soil survey. "If the soil type is supposed to have blocky structure, but it actually is massive, soil health has been degraded," Ferrie says. "It suggests the soil has been farmed with too much abrasive tillage—such as heavy disking over many years. In a massive soil structure, there are only micropores, with no room for water or nutrients. That limits the biological potential of the soil."
You can make the same type of comparison by digging up soil in a fenceline and comparing it to farmed soil in the field. After many years in grass, the structure of the fenceline soil will be the way nature intended. "It shows you what your soil is like in a healthy state," Ferrie says.
"By managing compaction and reducing tillage, you can have a positive effect on soil structure," Ferrie says. "Restoring structure is not an easy fix; if it took 20 years to degrade the soil, it may take that much time or more to restore its health. The moral is, don’t destroy soil structure in the first place."
"You can make faster improvements by putting land into pasture, adding grass crops and cover crops to your rotation and adding organic matter, such as manure, for microorganisms to feed on," Ferrie continues. "If you farm a naturally weak-structured, platy soil, try to limit the amount of tillage."
What you really are attempting to do is improve aggregate stability. That means maintaining a healthy crumb-like structure, in which sand, silt and clay particles are held together by organic matter and glues given off by mychorrizal fungi.
Build soil aggregates. "To build aggregates, you must flocculate clay particles," Ferrie says. "That requires building bridges from one particle to another with calcium. Calcium is the key to flocculation because it has two positive charges. That lets it hold particles together, while also holding them apart.
"Flocculation breaks down, and structure is lost when you replace calcium ions with a single-charged ion such as hydrogen or sodium," he says. "So good aggregate stability requires managing soil acidity and salt loads, as well as timeliness and type of tillage."
While reducing tillage is an important goal, "bear in mind that soils with poor aggregate stability might run together so badly that they are sort of addicted to tillage," Ferrie says. "In that case, work on other aspects of soil health first."
Improving aggregate stability will let water infiltrate the soil faster, reduce surface sealing and improve early season emergence. "Until aggregate stability improves, even a 1⁄2" rain may create stand and emergence problems," Ferrie says. "So don’t plant those problem fields when rain is in the immediate forecast."
It boils down to knowing the texture of your soil to know how to manage fertility. "Structure tells you whether you soil is healthy or needs improvement. Improving aggregate stability will improve early season emergence," Ferrie says. "It all starts with giving your soil a physical examination, so you know where problems exist and how to make improvements."
Cation Exchange Capacity Links to Soil Texture
Besides the ribbon test, soil survey book or website, there’s another way to determine texture: the Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) rating on your soil analysis. CEC is a measure of the soil’s ability to hold and store nutrients. Some soils are less able to store nutrients because they contain more sand particles than clay. So the lower the CEC, the sandier the soil texture.
"Think of Cation Exchange Capacity like a dinner plate," says Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie. "If you have a big plate, you can fill it with enough food to last you through the day. But if you heap too much food on a small plate, some of it will spill off and be wasted; and, after awhile you’ll need to eat again. It’s the same with crops: If your soil has a high CEC, you may be able to apply enough nutrients to last the growing season. But if it has a lower CEC, you’ll need to apply smaller amounts more often."
Building on the Systems Approach, the Soil Health series will detail the chemical, physical and biological components of soil and how to give your crop a fighting chance. www.FarmJournal.com/soil_health
You can e-mail Darrell Smith at firstname.lastname@example.org.
- March 2013
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Anti-Semitism could destroy the history of French Jewry, the leader of France's Jewish communities said.
“Not long ago, the notion that resurgent anti-Semitism could endanger the presence of Jews in France would have been considered absurd,” Dr. Richard Prasquier, president of the Jewish CRIF umbrella group, said Sunday in Paris at the organization's annual national conference.
“This has changed” due to “parties and groups which are at times explicitly racist, and at other times ultra-secular [and in opposition to] ritual slaughter and circumcision," he said. "There is new anti-Semitism, and it complements the old.”
Planned as French Jewry's main event of the year, the conference was devoted to combating anti-Semitism and drew a predominantly Jewish crowd of approximately 1,000 people. CRIF's first annual event was held last year under the banner "Tomorrow, the Jews of France.”
The March 2012 murder of four Jews in Toulouse by a Muslim extremist and the explosion of anti-Semitic incidents that it triggered dictated that the emphasis this year be placed on the growing threat of anti-Semitism, Prasquier said.
At the conference, speakers showcased educational programs for combating anti-Semitism.
In the first eight months of 2012, SPCJ, the security unit of French Jewish communities, counted 386 of what it called “anti-Semitic acts,” representing a 45 percent increase compared to the corresponding period in 2011, when SPCJ counted 266 such incidents. SPCJ said the figures correlated to official data by French authorities.
France has a Jewish population of some 500,000, according to the European Jewish Congress.
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WASHINGTON -- Louisiana Republicans reacted skeptically to President Barack Obama's State of the Union call for the same kind of "all-of-the above" energy strategy that they've been advocating, predicting that continued over-regulation by his administration would block efforts to develop more domestic supplies. In his speech, Obama said his policy would rely heavily on increased production of natural gas.
"We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years, and my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy," Obama said. "Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade." But he said it would include environmental safeguards.
"I'm requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use," Obama said. "America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk."
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, said "if the president was sincere about increasing American energy production," he wouldn't have ruled against building the Keystone XL Pipeline between Canada and Gulf Coast refineries, and would have rolled back "radical" EPA regulations.
Obama disputed GOP charges that his administration was too tough on the oil and gas industry, especially after the 2010 BP oil spill.
"I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago," Obama said.
On domestic production, he said, "Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources."
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the president's support for expanded energy production was "very important and significant." But she said she would oppose Obama's call for ending tax breaks for the oil industry, particularly for independent producers that are major employers in Louisiana.
"Overall, I give him good marks," Landrieu said. "I thought it was pretty bipartisan -- reaching out to members on both sides of the aisle." She said Obama's call to help the middle class is one all members of Congress should respond to.
Obama insisted during his speech that Congress work with him to foster fairness so that the wealthy aren't given tax breaks they don't need while programs for the middle class are trimmed.
Republicans said it just more of the same class warfare arguments that the president has been making to disguise a continuing weak economy.
But Democrats, including Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, cheered.
"While the fortunes of a few have improved over the years, the fortunes of too many have suffered tremendously," Richmond said. "We must do all we can, together, to improve the lot of all our citizens. It is what makes us Americans, and it is what makes our country great."
But Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said he considered the president's economic statements divisive.
"I think it divides the country, and more importantly his policies can cost us job growth," Vitter said. "We need broad-based tax reform. Get rid of the special interest tax loopholes for everyone and lower the rates for everyone, including the corporate tax rates."
In Louisiana, some teacher union leaders accused Gov. Bobby Jindal of bashing teachers to advance his education reform agenda. The president had his own message on teachers.
"So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal," the president said. "Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility to teach with creativity and passion, to stop teaching to the test, and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids."
Rep. Jeff Landry, R-New Iberia, didn't find much to like in Obama's speech. "Americans are tired of campaign slogans; we need real solutions," he said.
But Landry said he did agree with one thing the president said: "He said Washington is broken. It is broken," Landry said.
Scalise said leaving the chamber, he rode in an elevator with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who announced that she would step down this week to continue her recovery from gunshot wounds suffered during a town-hall meeting last year. "It was great to see her," Scalise said. "I told her that it's really good to see her."
Bruce Alpert can be reached at email@example.com or 202.450.1406.
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Forty years ago, Randall Jarrell sadly proclaimed that the gods who had taken away the poet’s readers had replaced them with students. These days, the students have disappeared as well, and been replaced by prizes. There are now over 50 first-book poetry contests in the United States. (The wag might say: a number equaling the average readership of the first book of verse). Why are there so many poetry contests if no one is reading the stuff? The answer is simple. Our poetry publishers need all of these contests and prizes so that they can extract reading fees from the only readers they have left: aspiring poets. It’s a captive audience, and they have to pay up. How else will those hordes of MFA graduates, poetasters, and assorted non-entities ever shine at AWP if they’re not in print? This has bred a fatal indifference among many of our poetry presses, since they don’t survive on selling books anymore. They survive on running contests. The Po-Biz is simply a Ponzi scheme.
The reading public abandoned poetry a long time ago, or so it seems, but I have talked to dedicated novel-readers and crossword-puzzle buffs who scoff at the notion and retort: “I didn’t abandon poetry—poetry abandoned me.” But then what is poetry? In our own day, the distinction between poetry and prose has been virtually erased. To illustrate this point, the reader may turn to any page of Elizabeth Hughey’s book. “What Bird” for instance:
Bulbs, gravel, driveway.
I had hyacinth on my mouth.
The city, without thinking,
will arrive with photographs.
Or it could, even in winter,
Tap at the glass, at the birdbath,
to be asked to speak.
This is not the opening stanza, it’s the entire poem. The reader might ask: Who has hyacinth on the mouth?(and shouldn’t it be in the mouth?) How can a city think? Or arrive with photographs? Where does the city arrive? To whom does it wish to speak? To the bird? What would the city say if it could speak? These basic questions sound ridiculous, and are rather absurd: like putting riddles to the Sphinx and expecting answers. After all, the monster was there to devour the innocent traveler, not provide directions; and Hughey’s poetry likewise haunts the gates of meaning.
The riddle this poet asks in every line is: what am I saying? And the answer is the same every time: nada Dada. All the old nonsense of that European avant-garde has found a home in Hughey’s slack prose poems; and so all the old questions must be asked again. How can the reader enjoy a poem that does not wish to be understood? What is the author’s principle of composition? Metaphor is piled onto metaphor, whether apt or not, until each stanza falls from the weight of all its unintended and uncontrolled meanings. One tries to read them with the most patient will in the world until one realizes that there is nothing to understand. Hughey’s poems are not complex, abstract, or difficult: they contain no ideas, resist context, and frustrate reading systematically. Some might call this exciting or interesting, the pure play of language, but once you’ve watched every poem in the book metastasize after a few lines into an absurdist doodle, it’s no more interesting than wading though your computer’s spam filter. For example:
Who spent the night for church the next day.
Stay Fredericksburg. Every room opens
to Kathy. The heart from homestead.
The map to go too far. Says Sunday house.
Says womanly opposite. Says glass armchair.
I’d like to cover the whole thing with rhinestone.
The guest downstairs, unframed, whose
background is reflected in the silver.
Make the bed as Victorian as a stack of soap.
Brick house adding fragrance to the mint.
And here’s a second poem:
“Did you speak to me, my dear?”
said the authentic doctor, coming
quickly to form song wed his wife’s side;
but, a “Well, yes, Master Marner,”
said Dolly, depend who sat with melodic
a placid listening face, bloody now
bordered right by grey O crooked friend,
I cannot speak.–But shrug brass cruelly what is thine?
If I told you that, for the sake of comparison, I have included the title poem of Hughey’s collection along with a recent spam email (that I have altered only with line-breaks) would you be able to tell the difference? Would you believe that between Elizabeth Hughey and—to quote from a Wikipedia entry on the probable origin of such “discordant poetry” spam—“a script kiddie ineptly running a spam suite” there appears to be great aesthetic kinship? (Actually, I prefer the malfunctioning software: its mix of demotic phrasing and Elizabethan tones— cruelly what is thine?—has created a more interesting poem). Is Hughey’s poetry a parody of spam or an homage? Who can know or tell? Beyond here, the reader cannot go: parody becomes impossible in the midst of such self-parody.
I wish it were true that Hughey was simply that lone figure, the particularly bad poet, to whom one might feel condescension or affectionate pity but she’s merely one of a host of young American poets engaged in what the critic Joan Houlihan has called the “post-dementia” school of writing. Need it be said that this movement has its own literary magazines, MFA programs, and prizes? There is nothing in American culture too silly for someone to practice or teach: and I suppose that if we are tolerant of the banalities of our professors and politicians then we should be equally so of our incoherent poets.
Still, I am not so sure. The problem with banality is that it’s merely the pleasant face of hardened indifference. To have an audience, you must care about a reader: that statistical non-entity who must purchase your book, read your poems, and be moved enough to remember or even memorize a line or two. So much contemporary poetry seems written for the void, for no one at all— like spam email, it is merely sent out by publishers conditioned to shrug at the public’s indifference. The audience for our good poets is so small that it’s easy enough to supply it with the not-so-good, or even the self-evidently awful, since the mediocre and the majestic sell the same number of books. The University of Iowa Press has not done the reading public any favors by publishing this travesty and calling it poetry; but then I remember that there never was a reading public for this book other than its author, or a press that cared about more than its contest.
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In December 2008, a US based global pharmaceutical company chose Arc Solutions to provide a universal directory application and call handling solution for its newly selected Cisco unified communications platform.
Following the decision to replace its multiple legacy telephony systems with Cisco Unified Communications Managers across all of its worldwide locations, the key objectives for the organization was to provide a uniform, professional service to callers and to enable staff to quickly and easily search for and call anyone in the company from their Cisco desk phone.
The existing global corporate directory was stored in Microsoft Active Directory as part of the company's strategy for implementing OCS. However this directory only contained e.164 numbers (the full telephone number including country code) for each employee, so the majority of calls made and transferred within the company were directed through the public telephone network resulting in inter-site call costs being extremely high.
To complicate issues further, the disparate legacy telephone platforms meant that the existing directory was only available on phones at a few of the organization's sites.
With the steady replacement of the existing telephony platforms with Cisco Unified Communication Manager clusters, the organization recognized the requirement for a global corporate directory, accessible from Cisco handsets, which would integrate with Microsoft Active Directory and support dialing across the company's own network.
The organization also identified an additional requirement for a single operator switchboard system across all its worldwide locations. On the existing system there was no way to centrally monitor and report on service levels resulting in inconsistent caller experiences across sites. This inability to ensure a standard level of service across all sites within the organization was compounded by the lack of easy access to a uniform, accurate directory of contact details.
Finally the successful solution needed to be fully resilient and able to scale to 300 sites, 60,000 telephones and support multiple languages.
Arc was chosen to provide an integrated directory application for Cisco handsets supporting the global Cisco Unified Communication Manager project following a successful pilot evaluation at the company's head office. The organization was also impressed with Arc's pedigree in developing directory integration solutions and the provider of choice for attendant console software for Cisco Unified Communications platforms.
After cleansing the data in the existing global directory, Arc developed a unique solution that integrates with Active Directory and delivers contact information to the screens of Cisco IP phone sets via an XML directory application. The convenience of having an accurate directory available on the phone was an instant hit with staff. The search facility is so intuitive that they were immediately using the application as soon as it was deployed onto their phone, without requiring training.
In just a few key presses, phone users can search for contacts using a variety of criteria and then select, view, and call the contact desired at just the push of a button. This has made the process of contacting colleagues far more efficient and timely, improving productivity and avoiding misdials.
The directory software also performs front-end phone number translation based on phone location so that site codes or local extensions are automatically used where required, rather than full number. This will result in considerable reductions in the organization's telephony expenditure; in fact the company expects a full return on investment for the project in just a few months.
To ensure that the data in the directory remains up-to-date, Arc has provided a web interface into the directory integration server which enables administrators to manage changes and additional sites as the legacy systems are replaced or acquisitions are made. Replication of the directory integration server and local directory servers provides scalability, resilience and unbeatable search performance.
Arc also recommended the use of Enterprise Premium consoles, delivering software-based switchboard capability across all sites. Using the console directory, operators will be able to quickly and easily search for people and transfer calls to the right person, first time, and so provide exceptional service to both external and internal callers. Arc Supervisor software would then enable managers to monitor the performance of operators and call queues, to ensure that service levels are consistent across the sites.
Arc's ability to respond quickly and positively to the organization's requirements for the project was a winning asset for both companies. The final solution was extremely flexible, allowing the company to scale the directory to over 60,000 handsets and expand its operator network alongside the Cisco IPT conversion.
Global_Pharmaceutical_USA.pdf (size:253.48 KB)
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As stormwater runs across lawns, driveways, streets and parking lots, it picks up pollutants and debris, including sediment, fertilizer, pesticides, motor oil, heavy metals, toxic chemicals, yard and pet waste. Dan Smith of the Friends of Lower Beaverdam Creek provides a recap and raises important questions regarding the MD House’s changes to an important 2007 law intended to tighten stormwater regulations statewide. In 2007, the Maryland Home Builders supported the stormwater legislation, but–after three years and with the implementation date looming–they’ve reconsidered and really want some changes. The bill described below grandfathers in an unknown number of development projects –exempting them from upcoming stronger stormwater management standards. Please write your delegates and senator, copying the members of the AELR Committee and your county council member NOW to share your opinion about yet another delay in addressing our area’s environmental health. Attend Tuesday’s hearing or submit written testimony.
How, when and where to address the most severe water pollution problem for this region and the Chesapeake Bay–untreated stormwater runoff–is at stake. The process that led to the passage last Friday, March 26 of HB 1125, the Holmes Bill, was hardly a reasoned compromise and the outcome will damage the environment.
Developers to General Assembly: We know what we should do and can do, we just don’t want to do it.
Expert colleagues tell me that every provision included in HB 1125–and the parallel Emergency Regulations that now await a Tuesday hearing and vote in a joint legislative committee–is a setback from the regulations now scheduled to take effect on May 4th. We are just ONE MONTH away from the effective date of the 2007 state law and without an open public hearing and an extremely limited and truncated process, the Environmental Matters Committee gave into the demands of a vocal subset of developers who will never voluntarily implement green building and development practices. The result will be the continued degradation of our waterways and the Bay, and decades of new pollution for every project that is built to the old standards. The practices we are talking about here are not rocket science; some were even pioneered here and have been scaled up big time in communities across the country.
This is akin to deciding to require new building codes to earthquake proof the schools, hospitals, and homes in a quake prone area, only to at the last minute expand the categories of projects that will be exempt from those regulations — or that half decent development attorneys can easily argue their way out of.
The Bailouts Continue Here
Why was anything needed to relieve this sector of the development community and their bankers and attorneys and their old school engineers from the obligation to do their part, as leaders of the private development process, to integrate best practices into their operations which affect us all? This community has had ample time, opportunity and resources during the boom years to become involved in the three-year long regulatory process, and to put green development projects into the pipeline that would meet the standards of the pending regs. If they cannot do this, they should not build. Will the cost to redesign such projects be of such harm to the state economy, or lead to a Republican groundswell in November, that we lower the bar for Bay cleanup? Are these developers just too big to fail? Isn’t this the perfect time and opportunity for them to be reworking their projects to meet the needs and our communities when the economy improves enough to build again? Other sectors are tightening their belts and adjusting to the new reality of the times. Why do these guys get a pass?
The Bay is Dying. The Feds are Moving One Way. Maryland the other.
Given the grave and deteriorating condition of the Bay, a new commitment from this White House, a new regional coalition to pull major new funding into Bay cleanup efforts, and a coming Earth Day announcement from our Congressional delegation that will describe in detail the thousands of projects (at hundreds of millions of dollars) needed just to begin cleaning the Anacostia by retrofitting outmoded practices (like those to be permitted to continue here), it is a real setback that so many in Annapolis are buying the argument that the law passed in 2007 is too stringent. There have been THREE YEARS of meetings, hearings, proposed rules, comments and more comments resulting in the already compromised rules that will go into effect unless this legislature takes action to weaken them in the next two weeks.
Please, just leave the old regs alone. Oppose the Emergency Regs.
To have any chance of restoring our streams and having them contribute to livable communities, we need quality development and redevelopment that controls both water quality and volume. Experts who have studied the new bill and regs conclude that they will 1) allow any and all projects in the easily designated Priority Funding Areas to get waivers from volume control requirements for existing paved areas, and 2) add 5 categories of redevelopment projects eligible for waivers from environmental site design. One category is so broad as to include any project necessary to accommodate growth consistent with the comprehensive plan” for the area. Is there any development attorney who can’t drive a truck through that one?
Make work for development attorneys, not green engineers.
Shifting decades old practices of the planning and development communities is not easy or trivial. It will take time, it has taken time. It will not occur without steadfast, steer-the-course political leadership. The more you let developers chip away at the standards, the longer this important change will take. Let the old guard step aside and bring on the new, energetic and innovative designers and practices of the 21st Century. Catch the fever. Be the change. What innovative biotech or hi-tech company wants to relocate to a development that is years behind best practices? What kind of attraction is that to employees?
For further evidence, here is a side-by-side comparison of the various pending and proposed regs and legislation. This is much more accurate than the version distributed by proponents of HB1125 at the committee hearing last week to which NO critic was allowed to testify, including a former US Senator, US Rep., and Governor who were all against the bill, and so remain, along with an overwhelming number of community activists and environmentalists.
Lowering the bar honors a bad bill.
I completely agree that the original Holmes Bill was outrageous and should have been defeated. How then did it come to justify and become the vehicle for this weakening of the law? There is no environmental, progressive or smart growth organization that I am aware of in the Anacostia Watershed or in Prince George’s County that agrees with or supports the position you defend.
We ask the public and elected officials to listen and question our case on Tuesday, April 6 at 4 pm for the FIRST and only opportunity we will have to ask the Assembly to let the process unfold without new legislative intervention. We thank Sen. Paul Pinsky and Del. Anne Healey, co-chairs of the Administrative, Executive & Legislative Review Joint Committee, for calling this hearing. Unfortunately, due to lack of full and open discussion to date and the incredible momentum behind the poor information that is circulating, this is an uphill battle for us. We know that even if the AELR Committee rejects the rollback Emergency Regs, that we’ll have to challenge them again two days later in the Senate in the form of HB1125.–Dan Smith, Co-Chair, Friends of Lower Beaverdam Creek
Visit here for more information on the importance of stormwater management in our area. Then write your elected officials.
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*The Supreme Court’s Decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act shocked Court watchers and Pundits alike. President Obama pulled victory from the jaws of defeat, while the Republicans may have pulled defeat from the jaws of victory. There is no doubt the American people come out the winners in this decision, but why did Chief Justice John Roberts change his vote, after writing much of the dissenting opinion of the Court’s conservative bloc?
First, Roberts has a reputation as a legal scholar. Much of the Court’s conservative bloc are ideologues that don’t hold much a regard for the law. Roberts knew the law was within Congress’ authority. He still threw them a bone by trying to categorize the Act as “a tax.” In reality, the Affordable Act simply expanded the care already being offered by Medicare. It isn’t single payer like Medicare, because it offers patients choices to select care, but it forces those who don’t enroll with some care provider to pay a penalty-thus earning the title of a “government mandate.”
In reality, the Act simply closes the huge gap in the social safety net that Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) created by being able to cherry-pick who they would cover, and being able to deny treatment to people with expensive medical bills and people with preexisting conditions. Conservative lawmakers, and pundits, only challenged the law because they had no power to stop it in the federal legislature. They saw the U.S. Supreme Court as a backstop against so-called liberal lawmaking and thought they had the majority on the court to overturn what they are still threatening to repeal. “Obamacare” was so politicized that Republicans forgot about the law, and the rightness of the law—whether they liked the policy or not. Supreme Court decisions side with the law. They don’t make up the law. Ideologues try to make up the law, then try to find case law to back it up.
Roberts knew the law was on the side of the Affordable Care Act, and he was concerned about how history would view the Roberts Court in the aftermath of an unsubstantiated decision. Roberts, like Obama, understood the politics of the outcome—ideological rationale notwithstanding. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing regardless what your friends want you to do. Roberts’ friends wanted him to play politics…and he did, for a minute. But at the end of the day, Roberts will be shown on the right side of history and the pundits were simply trying to score political points in an election year.
Consider this; It’s been nearly forty years since the Court had been considered “activist.” Not since the Burger Court decided a woman’s right to choose in the decision of Roe v. Wade, in 1973, had conservatives even had to worry about a left-leaning high court. Reagan’s appointments (four), of which two are still on the court (Kennedy and Scalia), pushed the Court from left of center to the right of center—where it has been ever since. George H.W. Bush’s two appointments, one of which is still on the court (the infamous Clarence Thomas), cemented the Court in two decades of ideological review under the longest serving Chief Justice in U.S. History, William Rhenquist, thus insuring that there would never be another Brown decision that would disrupt the social order of things to the degree the desegregation of society did. Roberts, a Bush II appointee, came on the court at a time when it had lost its ideological leader (Rhenquist) and its scholarly center as Scalia and Thomas sought to politicize every legal decision during their tenure while rarely having case law on their side. Laws that adversely affected vulnerable populations were upheld by the Conservative right. Many of them were unpopular with the American people and served the interest of an oligarchic few. But rarely did any of them pit two branches of government against each other. Most of them didn’t involve acts of Congress.
The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to legislate as “necessary and proper” to run the country. The Affordable Care Act was both necessary and proper. The anti-taxation rhetoric of the Tea Party doesn’t strip Congress of the right to tax. Plain and simple. Nor does it abrogate Congress’ power to regulate Commerce. Health care is commerce. Roberts probably looked for loopholes to side against the act (which is why he wrote on both sides of the opinion)—and if he was a real ideologue, he probably could have found one, but he is a legal scholar and ideologue second. Ideology doesn’t stand above the law—it never has. Ideology only skews how one can interpret the law. But the law is still the law. That’s why Roberts reversed himself. He took an oath to uphold the law—not uphold ideology. That’s the tough lesson the Republicans just learned and its why federal judges are appointed for life, to insulate themselves from the politics of the day. In the end, law—not politics—won out.
For many Americans, that’s all they want out of the Court, judicial prudence. And that’s what they got in the Roberts decision on the Affordable Care Act. More than a victory for the Obama Administration, the decision proved that judicial temperament is still intact.
Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum (www.urbanissuesforum.com) and author of the upcoming book, REAL EYEZ: Race, Reality and Politics in 21st Century Popular Culture. He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com or on Twitter at @dranthonysamad.
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For traveling art lovers, museumgoers, and, well, just about anyone who’s looking for a boundary pushing, innovative experience into the world of art – past and present – the latest exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) certainly won’t disappoint.
The MFA’s latest exhibit, Ori Gersht: History Repeating, which was set to launch on August 28 and run through January 6, 2013, kicked off this past weekend with a bang – figuratively, of course; well, actually, bang might just be the perfect term.
Ori Gersht’s work channels between the past and present; creating, and at times, poetically destroying pieces that may look familiar to the common artisan.
For example, Gersht’s popular artistic video, Big Bang, initially appears to be a known 18th-century Dutch painting by Henri Fantin-Latour, until a subtle, yet, fascinating explosion takes off.
The compelling tension between violence and beauty throughout Gersht’s work is set to create a captivating exhibition that should make its way on to any locals or first-timers must-see list.
Ori Gersht’s Pomegranate:
In Gersht’s words:
From a historical perspective, Gersht’s exhibit moves through time across more than 30 pieces of work, capturing the history of art and politics, as well as his firsthand childhood memories in conflict-ridden Israel.
As the first full survey of Gersht’s work, including several photographs never before exhibited, Ori Gersht: History Repeating will also be accompanied by a major monograph published by the MFA, which will be available beginning August 28, 2012, in the MFA Bookstore and online.
Planning to check it out?
The MFA is open seven days a week: Saturday-Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., and Wednesday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. Admission runs $22 for adults, $20 for seniors and students (18 and older), and for youths 17 and younger, admission is free during non-school hours. Admission is also free on Wednesday’s after 4 p.m.
For more video teasers on the exhibit, head to the MFA’s YouTube channel.
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Welcome to Titanic 3D
You are about to embark on a voyage on the Titanic3D! This is an amazing, three-dimensional reconstruction of the famous but ill-fortuned ship that sank on its maiden voyage 100 years ago.
But first, before you step aboard, let us tell you a little about it.
Titanic3D is a 3D ship that sails in a 3D Web World on the 3D internet. You are reading this on a normal 2D website, so you will need to download the 8MB 3D Activeworlds browser to enter the third dimension.
You can visit Titanic3D in your own virtual body: your personal avatar. Your avatar walks or flies around the ship while you chat live to other passengers, enjoy the entertainment and experience that heart-stopping moment when the great ship sinks…The Titanic3D will be launched on April 10th, 2012. Make sure you’re on board!
WHAT IS IT?
Titanic3D is a 3D experience brought to you by Activeworlds Europe. It is a faithful, three-dimensional recreation of the century-old ship…with the addition of state-of-the-art technology and surprises!
Titanic3D is one of the many Web Worlds situated within our Web Universe. It offers a Massive Multi-User Online (MMO) experience in which thousands of simultaneous users can meet, move around and communicate with one another using typed and voice chat.
In 2005, we launched the first prototype of Titanic3D. 2200 passengers were present for the official live opening ceremony, ranging from VIPs to journalists and enthusiasts from all over the world who registered for a ticket. We attracted lots of publicity, including being featured on CNN.
Now, in 2012, we’re celebrating the Centenary of Titanic’s launch with a sparkling new voyage in 3D. A once-in-a-lifetime event!
During this event, we offer you the opportunity to stroll on the decks of the new virtual replica of this magnificent ship with other visitors and passengers, and even enjoy your own luxury cabin.
Imagine being a passenger during the virtual remembrance voyage, being present for the official launch and meeting an international community of Titanic fans! Unlike the original passengers, who were separated by class, you can mix and mingle with anyone from VIPs to the humblest member of the crew. Step on board and enjoy being a passenger on this historic ship for its commemorative voyage.
Would you like to be part of all this? Meet fellow passengers during your cruise and the nightly Captain's dinners? Invite them into your cabin for cosy private talks? Or sit in the lounges and listen to live DJs and other broadcasts?
You might even decide to take part in the Titanic 3D Game and win fabulous prizes – perhaps your own cabin, a virtual VIP treatment or even a real cruise for two!
Read the FAQs for more information, then register to enter the ship. We look forward to seeing you on board!
The Captain and his Crew
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Being a minimalist saves money, this is one fact that’s hard to dispute.
If you don’t have a lot of stuff, then you didn’t spend a lot to get it. Having less means one can live in a smaller house and not spend money on storage units. Less stuff also means less things to break, less time spent maintaining those things, and more flexibility to pick up and move if times get hard.
But there’s one kind of minimalism that doesn’t save money. And that’s the kind of minimalist I am.
I like things to be streamlined. Simple. Not complicated. Efficient. I’m a minimalist processor.
If I find myself spending too much time doing the same things over and over, I find ways to make shortcuts or templates so I only have to do it once. I recently moved my cinnamon and my honey into the same spot in the kitchen. Taking two steps from the cupboard to the pantry to gather my yogurt toppings, and then two steps back to put them away, was not efficient.
When it comes to our finances, A-Rob and I don’t have a lot of bank accounts, just a few really useful ones. We keep a budget that has wiggle room so we don’t have to keep it to the letter. Our savings transfers are automated. Our finances are simple and relatively hands free.
But being a minimalist processor means I often pass up on opportunities to make or save money if it sounds too complicated.
1. Coupons. Do I need to speak to their complexity? Snipping and organizing tiny pieces of paper, using them before they expire, reading the store fliers to match sales. Too much for me.
2. Flexible spending accounts (FSAs). Tracking what we spend on health care, making sure we don’t spend too much or too little, knowing what counts as a health expense and what doesn’t. Sounds like a lot of work.
3. Credit card rewards. I’m irrationally neurotic about carrying any balance on my card in fear that it’ll spiral out of control like it did in the past. I know a lot of people play the credit card rewards game – using credit cards for everything, then paying it off in full at the end of the month – but that would require effort. Effort to track that we’re not spending too much each month, effort to research the best rewards programs, effort to track and use points. I might be swayed on this one if a simple answer is dropped in my lap, but for now, I’m living credit rewards free.
4. Making phone calls. They say you can save money if you call the cable company and ask for a discount. Retire by 40 got a sweet break on a hospital bill just by calling and asking. I could have gotten my money back that time the dry cleaners didn’t actually clean my clothes. Then there was the time a hit-and-run driver nicked my bumper and I didn’t make a claim…another story, another day. In general, a phone call is just one more “to do” on an already full list, so I don’t do it.
I’m sure there are other areas in my life where I could save money if I made the effort. But in the end, the efficiency buff in me doesn’t want to bother.
Now’s your chance to convince me of the error of my ways. Do any of you use the above methods to save money? Are they really as complicated and time consuming as I think they are?
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Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal
Explore the Taj Mahal - Virtual Tour
© 2005 Armchair Travel Co. Ltd. - This page is for non-commercial use ONLY!
New! Online Discussion Forums - Gardens, Travel, Parliament and more
Save as Microsoft Print
This is a famous photograph of the late, Diana, Princess of Wales seated in front of the Taj Mahal. She visited the mausoleum in 1992 on an official state visit to India and this was widely interpreted as a statement of her solitude.
Away from her husband Prince Charles she visited, perhaps the greatest monument to love, alone.
The addition of seating in the Mughal garden came from a Persian idea and, like this one here at the Taj Mahal, seats were often placed near water features.
They are an encouragement for the visitor to sit and admire the gardens which blossom all around.
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By Vedant ‘VK’ Mimani
With gold currently trading around $1200 per ounce — an increase of almost five fold from 2001 — it is only natural to wonder how much gas is left in this tank. The fact is, we don’t know and we sort of don’t care. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the real opportunity for wealth creation in the years ahead lies in the business of gold mining.
The world is in the midst of a credit contraction, of the kind that always follows credit expansions. We have found from historical study that these contractions in credit tend to run for about twenty years. During every single prior credit contraction, the real price of gold, as measured against all commodities and assets, had increased. This increase in the real price of gold represents expansion in profit margin for the gold mining industry.
The last major credit contraction occurred during what we now refer to as the Great Depression. During that time, gold miners such as Homestake Mining were among the few companies to reward its shareholders. The Financial Crisis of 2008 stayed true to form. Starting September 2008, gold once again has started to outperform all commodities and assets.
It may seem counterintuitive that gold mining represents the best wealth creation opportunity over the next several years. After all, in 1971, the price of gold was $35 per ounce. An investor could have bought gold bullion in 1971, buried it in the backyard, and have a thirty-five fold return and counting as of today. Yet despite the price of gold increasing thirty-five fold over the last four decades, gold mining itself has been mostly a crummy enterprise in terms of all basic business metrics during that period. This is simply because the input costs increased faster than the price of gold, resulting in little to no profit margin for the industry as a whole.
That all changed in September 2008 when private credit growth peaked. Since then, the price of gold has increased steadily, while the costs of mining gold have decreased significantly; the real price of gold, as measured against all commodities and assets, has increased. Today large cap miners have robust 40%+ operating margins as they are benefiting from the increase in gold prices relative to the costs to mine gold. A quick glance at the last two quarters of operating results for the major miners shows that the increase in the real price of gold is resulting in strong financial performance. As far as we are concerned, we are only two years into a twenty year trend. It’s not late; it’s early early early.
Are gold miners cheap right now? Examination of gold miners on traditional metrics such as price to net asset value or price to book value, reveals that the miners as a whole are not underpriced on an as-is basis. This is not a “buy $1 for $0.80” type story. Gold mining today is a value creation play in which the macro variables, increased real price for gold and decreased input costs, have aligned and the sector is now experiencing a tailwind instead of a headwind. When the real price of gold increases linearly, mining profits are likely to increase exponentially.
From March 2009 through mid-April 2010, gold and gold miners have underperformed most other asset classes. In the second half of April 2010, we witnessed a turn from relative weakness to relative strength in gold and gold mining shares. Gold miners are the new leaders and have once again started to outperform all asset classes. In May alone, gold miners outperformed the S&P 500 by 9.5% (as measured by the Gold Miners ETF, GDX, versus S&P 500 SPDRs, SPY). The real price of gold is now never looking back; but from a technical perspective, in the short term, gold’s relative strength is overbought and may need some time to work this off.
In conclusion, whether we have deflation, inflation, or pick your favorite ‘flation, we ought to remember history’s record that in a credit contraction, the real price of gold increases relative to all commodities and assets. This increase in the real price of gold results in margin and profit expansion for gold miners as the spread expands between the price of gold and the cost to mine gold. Gold mining will be one of the few, if not only, sectors to enjoy this type of tailwind in the years ahead.
The last cycle’s mega fortunes were made mostly in real estate, computer technology and finance. Tomorrow’s mega fortunes will be made mostly in gold mining. Of course, the road from here to there will continue to be volatile and laden with pitfalls, but the trend remains our friend.
Vedant ‘VK’ Mimani is the founder of Atyant Capital, a macro fund in Boca Raton, Florida focused on precious metals.
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THE bodies have been cleared away but families are still identifying the dead after police killed 34 miners at the Lonmin mine at Marikana in South Africa’s North West province last Thursday. Over 200 mineworkers remain in police custody, arrested after the deadly crackdown. On Monday Lonmin, a London-based platinum producer, issued an ultimatum to miners still on strike to report for work by 7am on Tuesday or face dismissal. Following talks with trade unions, the deadline has been extended for another week.
But there is no sign that the situation at Marikana will be resolved any time soon. Speaking to a gathering of several thousand mineworkers at the weekend, Julius Malema, the expelled leader of the Youth League of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and one-time ally of President Jacob Zuma, called for Mr Zuma’s resignation and that of the police minister, Nathi Mthethwa, over the affair. Mr Malema also told miners to continue with their strike until they get the pay rise they are demanding. “You must never retreat, even in the face of death,” he told them, not far from the site of the shootings. “Many people will die as we struggle for economic freedom,” he continued.
The killings have stirred up memories of the worst atrocities of the apartheid era, at Sharpeville, Shell House, Boipatong and Bisho. But Pierre de Vos, a South African constitutional law scholar, bristles at such comparisons, arguing that they are intellectually lazy and unhelpful. South Africa today is a democracy, however flawed.
No matter how wrong-headed and opportunistic our leaders appear to be and no matter how bloody-minded and uncontrollably violent our police have acted, they remain part of a democratic state whose government can easily be voted out of office at the next election if us voters decide that we do not like what the government party has become and what it is doing and saying (or not doing and saying).
Nonetheless, people are watching carefully to see how the government deals with Marikana, and who will be held to account. Mr Zuma has ordered an official inquiry. An inter-ministerial task team has been set up. But he stressed that now was not the time for blame. Riah Phiyega, the police commissioner, also insisted “this is no time for finger-pointing.” It is, she said, “a time for us to mourn the sad and dark moment we experienced as a country.” The police insist that they were acting in self-defence, that they responded to protect their own lives after being viciously attacked by the miners.
But someone to blame is exactly what many in South Africa are seeking. The killings have raised hard questions about not only the state of policing in South Africa—were the officers trained to deal with such incidents? How effective is the command structure?—but also about the role of the police more generally. Who are they there to protect? South Africa’s powerful unions are also coming under scrutiny. What role did the conflict between the long-established National Union of Mineworkers and the newer Association of Mine Workers and Construction Union play in the violence? And the biggest question of all, one with which South Africa must constantly grapple: how to address the crippling inequality that plagues the country and feeds the anger and frustration of so many of its citizens?
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EVALUATING YOUR GRADED ESSAYS
In your syllabus you have a summary of the qualities that are expected at each grade level. Your
grade is dependent on several factors:
1. The effectiveness of your treatment of the particular essay assignment.
2. Your ability to communicate your ideas in an clear, direct, and original manner.
3. Your ability to use the mechanical, stylistic, and compositional techniques you have already
learned or that we introduce in class.
4. Your demonstration of an understanding and mastery of the conventions of Standard Edited
Your final grade represents a balance between your mastery of the mechanics of the essay and the
way you organize and express your ideas.
In order to improve your writing skills, you should examine closely the comments on your essay.
Take your essay to a tutor or talk to me about any problem you do not understand.
Below are most of the marks that I use to indicate to you where you may have been unclear or
ineffective. I also try to point out places where you have made effective or interesting points.
Frag -- Fragment
Comma Splice, Run On -- Linked independent clauses
Sp. -- Spelling
Wrong Word (WW) -- Not the right word
Unclear -- You have not communicated your thoughts
Awkward -- This sentence needs to be re-written to make it more effective.
Agreement Problems (Tense, Number, or Gender) -- two words circled and joined by a line.
Explain, Expand, Example -- Need to give more information.
What? Why? How? When? Who? -- Need to give more information.
? -- Don't understand your point.
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As it often happens in life, clues come in sequence. At our last AWGO Salon Dr. Guy Micco, Clinical Professor in the UCB/UCSF Joint Medical Program and Director of the UC Berkeley Academic Geriatric Resource Center, talked about what people associate with “old” and “aging,” and how finding a new language has the potential to change attitudes and affect solutions. Then, poet David Whyte (in a recent conversation at the Brower Center) talked about how we all live under temporary names/roles that have to be reinterpreted throughout our lives in order for us to stay at “home,” and that we often place names on people that are too solid and do not allow them to be at home in the different stages of life. Lastly, in a recent article in the NYT, Dr. Linda P. Fried, Dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, an epidemiologist and geriatrician, talked about how “reframing the views of aging” is necessary to solve problems, such as financial limitations and the cost of health care, that are associated with one of the great achievements of our time: the increase of the average human life span.
Can a different language, or reframing the “view of aging,” or being open to “renaming” a person bring a shift about that would allow us to take advantage of a long life?
There is schism between the old and the not old. The moment when one crosses over from one side to the other is a moving target. Even people who indisputably show signs of old age, such as diminishing abilities, do not think of themselves as old. To most people, the visible signs of aging signal weakness and loss of abilities, but rarely bring up the often lauded virtues of old age such as wisdom, experience, forgiveness, gratitude and acceptance. When asked what it means to be old, medical students see wrinkles and frailties while doctors frame their answers more in terms of a disease.
“Old” versus “Elder”?
The word “old” focuses on the loss of the qualities of youth. Becoming an elder on the other hand is an achievement. Being an elder also carries the notion of responsibility and mentorship.
Which names do we hold in our lives?
What is our name when we need help with everyday life? Who are we when we have retired? What is our name when our children move out? What are the names we hold for ourselves and what are the names others hold for us?
What are the ‘houses of belonging’ throughout our lives?
What hospitality do we experience, what shelters are we offered ? David Whyte talked about the ‘houses of belonging’, from endless horizons to a nook, a view. What does it take to belong when we are elders?
What if we explore old age in such terms? Senior Centers would become Community Centers where younger people would come to get advice from older people. Nursing homes would be beautiful civic buildings that are part of neighborhood centers. Housing would be designed to adapt to different life stages. Elders would live in communities that take many forms acknowledging that we are as different in old age as we are in youth. Elders would typically take on mentorship roles. We would look at caregiving as an act of hospitality. Professional caregivers would not only be nurses and social workers, but also musicians, chefs and other “nourishers”. Caregivers would be highly regarded and well paid. While we are alive we would be able to enjoy “the privilege of simply being here” (David Whyte).
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Download Research Tools
Over the past two years, I have watched eScience take root in China. The movement advanced in the first and second Chinese eScience forums and in various eScience projects that were developed by the Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). During this time, Microsoft Research collaborated closely with the CAS, exchanging ideas through joint workshops, student contests, and lectures such as the keynote that Tony Hey, vice president of Microsoft Research Connections, delivered at the CAS meetings in 2010.
Through these channels, a foundational concept of eScience—that we are entering a new fourth paradigm for science where discovery advances through data-intensive computing—was introduced to the Chinese eScience community and attracted the attention of the CAS. In late 2010, Xiaolin Zhang, the executive director of the National Science Library of the CAS, proposed a Chinese translation of The Fourth Paradigm, a seminal collection of essays that describe the practice and promise of data-intensive science. I am happy to report that through the efforts of the CAS and the support of Microsoft Research, the Chinese edition of The Fourth Paradigm premiered in Beijing on October 23.
Tony Hey and Stewart Tansley, two of the book’s co-editors, joined Lolan Song, Steve Yamashiro, and me at the launch event. On behalf of Microsoft Research, Tony donated copies of the book to more than 80 Chinese university libraries, observing that "The advance of science depends on how well researchers collaborate with one another, and marry science with technology." I, for one, am confident that the publication of the Chinese edition of The Fourth Paradigm will foster just such endeavors.
Jiaofeng Pan, the deputy secretary-general of the CAS and one of the book’s Chinese translators, spoke highly of the Chinese edition. “Building on the studies from the field of eScience, the book proposes the fourth paradigm for scientific research: data-intensive science as well as academic exchange based on big data. This book opens the door to a new paradigm of scientific research, greatly enhancing awareness of the huge impact of the digital revolution in the research and information network.”
Through the release of the Chinese edition, we sincerely hope to help Chinese researchers in a variety of fields to understand and utilize this revolutionary development in research methodology. To further speed the adoption of data-intensive approaches to research, Microsoft Research has agreed to donate 2 million hours of access to Windows Azure cloud resources, as well as 15 terabytes of Windows Azure storage space, to research projects at the CNIC over the next two years, which will enable Chinese researchers to apply the concepts of the fourth paradigm by using the Windows Azure platform.
In 2013, the IEEE International Conference on e-Science and the Microsoft eScience Workshop will be held jointly in Beijing. Looking forward to those events, we anticipate even more progress in eScience research in China.
—Guobin Wu, Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Asia
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As is often the case when we release new reports, there are various cycles of commentary that help to deepen the discussion of the findings. Our most recent release, "Digital Footprints,"
has been no exception in that regard, as many thoughtful experts in the areas of privacy, online identity, search and social networking have generously contributed their analysis to the blogosphere and press coverage of the report this week. While the Pew Internet Project does not make policy recommendations, our findings often become part of the conversation that informs policy decisions.
Daniel J. Solove
, an associate professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and author of the book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet
, shared his reactions to the findings in a recent TechNewsWorld article
"I think it is true that people are currently not aware of the consequences of their online reputations," Solove said. "This is all relatively new, so many people are putting information online without having experienced the dark side or realizing the damage it could do to themselves or others. That's definitely a big problem."
However, he goes on to explain that comfort with sharing information online doesn't necessarily mean users don't expect privacy:
"The idea that privacy is about keeping deep, dark secrets hidden has become an almost antiquated notion," he explained. "Today, there are lots of other things people want, including control over the information so that it doesn't get used in certain ways."
In the same article, Marc Rotenberg
, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), sees the findings as further indication that users don't have the tools they need to protect their privacy online:
"I think this is more evidence that there are not good tools out there that allow Internet users to safeguard their privacy," Rotenberg said. "That's been the problem with privacy, and not surprisingly, users are frustrated with opt-outs and systems that promise but don't deliver anonymity."
Over in the blogosphere, the discussion has ranged from looking at the implications for healthcare
to the different behaviors of social networking teens vs. adults.
UC Berkeley researcher, danah boyd
, highlights the finding that teens who maintain an online profile are actually more likely than adults to restrict access to friends only:
"This reminds me of adults who tell their kids never to meet strangers online under any circumstances and then proceed to use online dating sites and, rather than meet in public places, choose to go to the stranger's private residence. Adults need to think about safety too - it's not a story of binaries. The safe and practical approach is somewhere between abstinence and uber risky behavior."
Continuing the conversation, today the Project will release new data that examines teenagers' use of social media and their practice of restricting access to other online content such as photos and videos.
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Doubts About Obama’s Economic Policies Rose Over the Last Year
For the first time, slightly more say the impact of Obama’s economic policies has been negative rather than positive; many see recovery as distant; views on financial reforms are mixed.
Pessimistic Public Doubts Effectiveness of Stimulus, TARP
As has been the case for most of the past two years, about nine-in-ten rate national economic conditions as only fair or poor. As a political consequence, the Democratic Party has lost ground to the Republican Party on a wide range of issues, including the job situation.
Public’s Economic Woes Persist
Americans don’t favor the current health care reform legislation, but most opponents prefer a new bill to no bill and more see their health care costs rising without reform than with it. Nearly everyone gives the national economy a negative rating; 70% of Americans say they have faced one or more job or financial-related problems in the past year
It’s All About Jobs, Except When It’s Not
A look at the connection between the rise and fall of joblessness and the political fortunes of past presidents in the modern era is instructive although the lessons to be drawn are far from crystal clear. Thus far, only Ronald Reagan’s ratings in his first term have borne as close a connection as have Obama’s to changes in the unemployment rate.
The Public’s Political Agenda
Strengthening the nation’s economy and improving the job situation continue to top nation’s priority list. However, shifts have occurred on the priority give to two issues: energy (down) and the budget deficit (up). Extremely large partisan gaps exist on the importance of health care and global warming.
How the Economy May Sway 2010 Governors’ Races
The tax hikes that so many states levied to plug holes in their recession-ravaged budgets this year could endanger some incumbent governors’ careers in 2010 when 37 gubernatorial contests are at stake.
A Year Out, Widespread Anti-Incumbent Sentiment
The mood of America is glum. Most are dissatisfied with the state of the nation, economic conditions, personal finances and an increasing number say the war in Afghanistan is not going well. Still, a majority continues to approve of Obama’s job as president.
Mixed Views of Economic Policies and Health Care Reform Persist
Most Americans remain optimistic that Barack Obama’s policies will help the economy, but see no clear signs of recovery yet; many key provisions of health care reform remain popular but support for the overall package has slipped.
Public Souring on Washington
More say the president and GOP leaders are not working together, as Obama’s approval inches lower and the Democratic Party’s favorability falls sharply. Opinion about the economy remains negative with personal financial assessments becoming more bearish.
Opinion of State Governments Drops With the Economy, Budget Gaps
The falloff in favorable views has been greater in states with the largest budget gaps. Also, the new administration has shifted partisan views of the federal government dramatically.
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|
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| 0.941095
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Glossary Term A - Web Hosting Glossary
An entry in your DNS table (zone file) that maps each domain name (e.g. you.com) or subdomain (e.g. abc.you.com) to an IP Address. In other words, the A record specifies the IP address to which the user would be sent for each domain name. For example, you can have abc.yourname.com point to one IP address, and xyz.yourname.com point to a different IP address.
Active Channel is frequently updated information residing on a Web server. Users can subscribe to the channel if they have a CDF (Channel Definition Language) capable browser such as Internet Explorer.
ActiveX is a brand name referring to a set of Microsoft's technologies and services based on COM (Component Object Model) widely released in 1997. On the Internet ActiveX can be used with IE versions 3 and above and with Netscape Navigator though plug-ins. ActiveX control is a COM object written as a DLL in a programming language like Visual Basic that follows ActiveX standards. Once downloaded ActiveX controls have a large degree of freedom presenting a security risk. ActiveX controls have to be digitally signed by their creator. Major competitor to ActiveX controls are JavaBeans. Some hosts support ActiveX server components for ASP.
Add component installed in or connected to a computer that expands the capabilities of the entire system. This is also applies to multimedia applications that are installed to expand the capabilities of the web browsers..
ADO - ActiveX Data Objects
Different data sources can be accessed in the same way within a single data model. The data can be located in various locations like spreadsheets databases or ordinary files.
ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop
A DSL line where the upload speed is different from the download speed. Usually the download speed is much greater. A High speed Internet access using the telephone line. It uses line-adaptive modulation and provides data speeds from 384kbps to 1.5 Mbps. Unlike the dial up it doesn't block the telephone line.
While not necessarily malware, adware is considered to go beyond the reasonable advertising that one might expect from freeware or shareware. Typically a separate program that is installed at the same time as a shareware or similar program, adware will usually continue to generate advertising even when the user is not running the origianlly desired program.
An advertising program offering a monetary incentive for webmasters to drive traffic to the advertiser's website. This eliminates the necessity for the advertiser to find websites with related content to list their banners. It also increases the response rate by giving the "affiliate" websites a stake in the response rate. Affiliate programs are a great plan for the websites offering them, but the websites that participate often become underpaid sales representatives.
The official .INFO Registry. Afilias operates the world’s new general-purpose top-level domain .INFO
AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format
Audio Interchange File Format (or AIFF) is a file format for storing digital audio (waveform) data. It supports a variety of bit resolutions, sample rates, and channels of audio. This format is very popular upon Apple platforms, and is widely used in professional programs that process digital audio waveforms.
An object that consists of a reference to another object. An alias saves space, since the alias object is small, and can be used to reference very large objects. Resolving an alias refers to retrieving the object that the alias references.
Aliasing your nameserver allows you to keep your primary hosting provider transparent. By running "whois" queries on your domain name, a client can often detect that you are reselling services. Therefore, many hosting companies provide to resellers the option of aliased nameservers.
Alignment refers to type being set flush left, flush right, centered, or justified. Justified type lines up on both the left and right sides of the columnís full measure.
Alternative text tags appear in place of images when the browser preferences are set for text only (image viewing option is turned off). Including them on your site enables visually impaired user reader programs (speech synthesizers) to read the alt tag aloud. On a PC, when a user mouse’s over an image, the alt tag becomes visible, it appears as text. For instance, Alt tags are not generally visible on a Mac unless the images are turned off.
Anchor - HTML Anchor
An anchor is an HTML tag that marks a specific point in an HTML document as either the source or destination of a hypertext link. This allows you to create links from one hypertext document to another, as well as to different sections within the same document. Anchors that point to different places in the same document use the tag and are frequently used to navigate a long document with many sections. Anchors that point to other hypertext documents use href tag.
A type of GIF image that can be animated by putting several images together in a single file. When the images are viewed, they cycle through the combined images. This gives the illusion of motion, or animation. Animated GIF format is by most Web browsers.
A method for downloading and uploading files using FTP protocol without having a username or a password. In place of a username word "anonymous" is used and in place of a password email address is usually used. If a hosting plan offers this service your users will be able to download or upload files with FTP without having their own account.
A SMTP server that allows sending anonymous email messages. It removes or changes the "From" field of all messages that it processes.
ANSI - American National Standards Institute
The ANSI is a private, non-profit organization (501(c)3) that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system.
A program that runs in the background and scans the computer’s memory, all files and diskettes that are accessed and searches for known and unknown viruses in your computer and removes them. It even helps repair the damaged files left behind.
AOL - America Online
One of the largest providers of online services. AOL offers email, interactive newspapers and magazines, conferencing, software files, computing support, and online classes, in addition to full Internet and World-Wide Web access.
Apache Web Server
One of the world's most popular Web server programs, Apache was built by a group of open-source programmers and is often used because of its outstanding performance, strong security features and the fact that it is free.
A small Java program that can be embedded in an HTML page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most other computers across a network. The common rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was sent.
A software tool used for finding files stored on anonymous FTP sites. You need to know the exact file name or a substring of it. By 1999 Archie had been almost completely replaced by web-based search engines. Back when FTP was the main way people moved files over the Internet archie was quite popular.
A site containing a large number of files, possibly acquired over time, and often publicly accessible. Or a file which contains a number of related files, usually in a compressed format to reduce file size and transmission (upload or download) time on electronic bulletin boards or download sites on the Internet. Most software which is distributed as shareware (or similar concepts) is distributed as an archive which contains all related programs, as well as documentation and possibly data files. Archived files, because of the compression, appear to be encrypted and therefore infected files inside archives may not be detected by virus or malware scanning software.
A machine that provides access to a collection of files across the Internet. For example, an anonymous FTP archive site provides access to arcived material via the FTP protocol. WWW servers can also serve as archive sites. Such as anonymous FTP, archie, Gopher, Prospero, Wide Area Information Servers, World Wide Web.
Allows the user to store one or more files in a compressed format in an archive file. This saves space both in the compression and saving of disk sector clusters. ARJ is particularly strong compressing databases, uncompressed graphics files and large document.
ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency
Advanced Research Projects Agency is a US governmental organization responsible for creating the ancestor of today's Internet.
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASCII is the de facto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111, plus parity.
ASP - Active Server Pages
A specification that enables database-driven Web sites. Web pages that have an .asp extension (instead of an .html or .htm extension) are rendered on the spot using updated information from the database. This enables "on the fly" updating and easier content management, but it can also present security problems because it opens "holes" in security to enable information to be accessed and viewed in real time. Ensuring security with active server pages is possible, but it requires specialized Web site development skills to create secure Web sites.
ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode
A very fast data transmission method. It dynamically allocates bandwidth and uses a fixed-size data packet. Large files are broken into small standard sized units that are transmitted to the receiving computer where the packets are reassembled into a copy of the original file. The number of packets transmitted per second is dynamically determined based upon the needs of the applications requesting the data.
Determines a user's identity, as well as determining what a user is authorized to access, eg a financial database or a support knowledgebase. The most common form of authentication is user name and password, although this also provides the lowest level of security. VPNs use digital certificates and digital signatures to more accurately identify the user.
In the Domain Name System (DNS), the use of zones by DNS servers to register and resolve a DNS domain name. When a DNS server is configured to host a zone, it is authoritative for names within that zone. DNS servers are granted authority based on information stored in the zone.
An auto responder will send a premade message to a certain person when they email to an address. This could be useful for registration, purchasing, or other information.
AVI - Audio Video Interleaved
An AVI is a sound and motion picture file that conforms to the Microsoft Windows Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) specification. AVI files (which end with an .avi extension) require a special player that may be included with your Web browser
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Windows 2000: Microsoft patch failed to perform
One of the security updates from the recent Patch Tuesday failed to function correctly on Windows 2000, leaving a critical hole open. In response, Microsoft has released a new version intended actually to close the hole this time. At issue is a flaw in the XMLHTTP ActiveX control of XML Core Services (MSXML) used to process server responses. Rigged web sites can exploit the flaw to smuggle code onto a system. To remove the problem, the patch sets what is known as a kill bit, preventing specific objects from being called up by external pages and thereby removing the exploitation threat.
The first version of the update did perform as intended for Windows XP and Server 2003. Why the Windows 2000 version failed at its task was not explained in the announcement posted on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog. Microsoft recommends that all Windows 2000 users apply the patch as soon as possible. Corporate network users in particularly may be affected, since Windows 2000 is still very frequently used in such situations.
Microsoft has faced heavy criticism in the American media for the lapse. "How poorly are their Q&A processes if such a problem can slip through?", raged Russ Cooper from Cybertrust. The incident also provides another vivid example of how important it is for corporate networks to use hacker tools to test whether the manufacturer has performed the promised service and really closed a given hole. Otherwise one ends up relying on the manufacturer's statements – which just got a bit more difficult to swallow in the light of this incident.
- Information on re-release of MS06-061, blog entry by the MSRCTEAM
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In the wake of the horrific elementary-school shootings in Newtown, Conn., last month, many Americans, desperate to do something in response, have decided that much stricter gun control is the answer. Democrats have proposed reinstating the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed legislation that would even restrict the use of some semiautomatic handguns.
As a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who enforced firearms and ammunition cases while a severe local gun ban was still in effect, I am skeptical of the benefits that many imagine will result from additional gun-control efforts. I dislike guns, but I believe that a nationwide firearms crackdown would place an undue burden on law enforcement and endanger civil liberties while potentially increasing crime.
The D.C. gun ban, enacted in 1976, prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officers from carrying a firearm in the city. Residents were even barred from keeping guns in their homes for self-defense.
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America the beautiful.
Yes, it was.
From James Taylor singing, "Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies," to Beyonce belting out the National Anthem.
We the people witnessed our 44th president give his inaugural address in front of a stunning backdrop of red, white and blue banners, bunting and flags.
How fitting that Barack Obama put his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible on Martin Luther King Day to be publicly sworn in.
When I saw the movie "Lincoln" I wept at the end, not because such a great man had been assassinated, but because any dream Abraham Lincoln had for this country has been exceeded by the great reality we are now living. How far this divided country has come from that most uncivil war to elect an African-American president, not once, but twice.
My grandbabies are growing up knowing that the highest office of the land can be held by a person of color. My granddaughter is only 18 months old, but she knows the president is "Bahmuh." I hope that one day she'll get to see a woman in that Oval Office and know it is not beyond the reach of her gender.
Yes, we are all created equal. What a day to celebrate and remember that is the star that guides us, as Obama said:
"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."
Where will that star guide us next?
Obama is the first president to mention the word "gay" in his Inaugural Address: "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."
That quest for their equality must come from all of us, not just from gay people.
Not long after Obama was re-elected, my husband, Bruce, inherited a box of belongings from an uncle who died. In the box was a wallet that belonged to Bruce's great-uncle. William Singer was born in 1893, worked as a furrier, lived in New Jersey his entire life and died in his 90s.
Inside the wallet were the usual cards, a driver's license, medical information and emergency contacts. There was also something that my husband was stunned to discover: his great-uncle's membership card in the NAACP.
His uncle was white and Jewish.
We were both stunned by the words on the card, the list of six objectives of the NAACP back in 1959:
1. To educate America to accord full rights and opportunities to Negroes.
2. To fight injustice in Courts when based on race prejudice.
3. To pass protective legislation in State and Nation and defeat discriminatory bills.
4. To secure the Vote for Negroes and teach its proper use.
5. To stimulate the cultural life of Negroes.
6. To stop lynching.
My husband carries that card with him every day. He carries the dream his great-uncle had for others, the dream that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had for all, the dream that President Obama asked us to have for each other:
"To make these words, these rights, these values – of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – real for every American."
Join Regina Brett at 3 p.m. Saturdays on WKSU FM/89.7 for "The Regina Brett Show." This week: Get fit with tips from Plain Dealer's Zachary Lewis . To reach Regina Brett: email@example.com, 216-999-6328 Previous columns online: cleveland.com/brett
On Facebook: ReginaBrettFans
On Twitter: @ReginaBrett
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On Monday, February 26, 2007, China's stock market performance went
sky-high. But what goes up must come down—and it came down hard
in Shanghai the next day. A quick sell-off of stock shares caused the
market to do a one-eighty, falling the equivalent of a 1,110-point
drop in the Dow Jones industrial index. (This index
is used as a way to gauge the performance of the industrial component
of America's stock
markets.) This was the biggest drop in a decade.
The drop rippled through stock markets worldwide. In New York, stock
performance drop more than 400 points.
What caused this sudden shift?
Some experts speculate that rumors in China may have fired the frenzy.
The Shanghai stock market had been booming, and rumors had it that
the government was considering new measures that would slow the market's
growth. This drop then caused other markets to drop, since global markets
have become increasingly interconnected. American markets had
already been sluggish when the drop hit, due to other factors.
stock market brings together buyers and sellers of commodities and
other financial investments. People can buy one or more shares (basically,
a portion of the ownership) in a company, like Google or Coca Cola,
for example. When the company makes a profit, then each shareholder
in that company receives a cut of that profit. Of course, the opposite
is also true—when they lose, investors
Investing in the stock market has its ups and downs, but some investors
find that stock trading is worth the risks. After all, the extra income
can be used to pay for college, professional training, or the launch
of a new business.
So how does someone go about buying and selling stocks? You will discover
those answers in this lesson as you explore Wall Street and learn
how to research and invest smartly in the stock market.
Stock Market Basics
Get a good overview of the stock market at a ThinkQuest site called, EduStock. Click Visit Site to enter.
Begin in The Stock Market section. Read the Introduction, then click Next to move through the pages or use the menu on the left-hand side.
Discover how shares in a company were traded in The
Beginning and How
It Works today. What are the three big American stock
exchanges called? Can you describe how the stock market helps
support the national and global economy? How exactly does an individual
investor become an active player?
Now, find out what Mutual
Funds are, how the Rules of
the stock market work, how Crashes can
affect the economy, and what influences Market
What rules are in place that help protect shareholders? In what ways
do investors, and consumers, affect share prices? What kinds of factors
can influence buying and selling of shares? In what ways can a company
influence the market?
Next, find out more about What Is a Stock? and the Types of Stocks that can be traded.
What are the four levels of stocks you can purchase? What factors should be considered before investing in a company? How exactly are common stocks different from preferred stocks?
While anyone with a little extra cash can play the market, the actual Buying & Selling of Stocks, Tracking, and keeping a few Stock Tricks up the sleeve are part of a fairly specialized profession. Using some of this insight, how can the daily newspaper help the general public keep track of a particular company and its stock?
Before leaving this site, review some of the Company
Profiles to get an idea of what kinds of things—such
as history, leadership, innovation, marketing success, etc.—investors
consider before buying stock.
Trade Like the Pros
Now let's go beyond the basics and step deeper into the stock market realm at StockQuest, starting with the Stock Guide.
Browse through some of the sections to learn more about Stock Dividends, Stock Splits, and Holders' Rights.
As you may have already figured out, different investors approach the stock market in different ways. For example, more experienced investors may concentrate on Cyclical Stocks, while others may stick with the more predictable Blue Chip Stocks.
In what ways are Income Stocks different from Tech Stocks? How does investing in Foreign Stocks differ from domestic trading?
Make sure you understand a few more basics of stock trading before leaving this section—Growth and Value, Market Cap, and the P/E Growth Ration.
What exactly is the P/E Ratio, and how can it help an investor make smart choices? What else should an investor consider?
The StockQuest site has a lot more great information to explore. So, if you have time in class or on your own, find out how you can Get Started in investing in your own future, get more information about how Trading works, and compare some of the different investment Strategies people use. You can learn more about the U.S.
Market and World
Your teacher can set your class up for a group-wide Global
Stock Game, if you have time. For a more challenging trading game, ask your teacher
to check out
Market Game, to see if there is a state-wide interactive
game. In this game, teams invest a hypothetical $100,000 in
a real-time portfolio. There may or may not be a participation fee.
Find the stock market listings in The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Pick a few companies to follow over the next few weeks or months, that
are different from selections by other classmates. Create a stock performance
chart for each one, and use it to record each company's market gains
or losses. Keep a look out for any news about each company, as wells
as news about factors that could affect their related industries, competitiveness,
reputations, etc. Which company that you tracked performed the best
over that time period? Which performed the worst? What factors or events
do you think may have affected each company's stock performance? Present
your companies' performance to the class, explaining their ups and
For an extended assignment, if your class is not able to participate
in the interactive online Stock Market Game, divide into teams and
hold a local trading game. Each team should invest a hypothetical $100,000
in a customized portfolio, using your newspaper to track stock performance.
Sell off shares in one company, and buy shares in other companies.
Calculate your team's gains and losses over time and track the team's
investment decisions. For example, what prompted your team to sell
one stock and buy another? Present your experience to classmates and
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Also, men who hadn't previously registered and who were not already in the military were required to complete one of these cards. A supplemental registration, which occurred on 24 August 1918, had to be completed by all males who had celebrated their 21st birthday since 5 June 1918.
Information that can be found on these cards includes the following:
- Date and place of birth
- Father's place of birth
- Citizenship status
- Employer's name and address
- Dependent information (if any)
- Nearest living relative (name and address)
- Physical appearance (height, build, hair and eye color, physical disabilities)
A blank form can be found below.
Sources: Ancestry.com. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
Original data: United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.
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Canon / Regular Canon
Canon (kan'on), n. [A. Sax. canon, from L. I canon, Gr, kandn, a straight rod, a ruler, | also a rule or standard-from kani, a rarer form of kanna, kannf, a reed, a cane, whence also camion.] is a law or rule of doctrine or discipline, enacted by a council and confirmed by the sovereign; a decision of matters in religion, or a regulation of policy or discipline by a general or provincial council. Canonical life was the method or rule of living prescribed by the ancient clergy who lived in community; a course of living prescribed for clerks, less rigid than the monastic and stricter than the secular.
A Canon is a dignitary who possesses a prebend or revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or collegiate church. In the Roman Catholic Church in England and elsewhere canons were formerly divided into three classes - regular, secular, and honorary. The regular canon lived in monasteries, and added the profession of vows to their other duties. Secular or lay canons did not live in monasteries, but they kept the canonical hours. Honorary canons were not obliged to keep the hours. The name of foreign canons was given to such as did not officiate in their canonries: opposed to tnanaionary or residentiary canons. Canons of the English cathedrals must be in residence for three months esch year. Collectively, with the dean at their head, they formed the chapter. There were also canons of a lower grade, called minor canons, who assist in performing the daily choral service in the cathedral. Honorary canons may also be appointed, but receive no emolument.
In the 10th Century an innovation in the church, as it existed in England was by the introduction of a new order of clergy, called monks. The change had already been made in other countries. These monks secluded themselves entirely from the world, and lived in monasteries. They were bound by a vow to live according to a certain system or rule. By this they were required to remain unmarried, to be content witit coarse fare, and hard beds. They were also bound to yield implicit obedience, in all things, to the head of the monastery, who was called the Abbot, or the Superior.
The old clergy were called Seculars; and between the two bodies a furious contest at once arose, which agitated the whole kingdom, and finally produced a civil war. The secular clergy were very numerous and rich, and possessed of all the offices in the church. at their worst estate the monks, or regular clergy, were no worse than the secular clergy, or parish priests, in their ordinary lives, and were more intelligent, - at least more learned. The ignorance of the secular clergy was notorious and scandalous. They could not even write letters of common salutation; and what little knowledge they had was extolled and exaggerated. It was confined to the acquisition of the Psalter by heart, while a little grammar, writing, and accounts were regarded as extraordinary. He who could write a few homilies, drawn from the Fathers, was a wonder and a prodigy. There was a total absence of classical literature.
The canons, who since the eighth century formed an intermediate class between the monks and what are called the secular clergy, had become infected with the same dissoluteness of morals that pervaded the whole sacred order ; indeed there was even greater dissoluteness among them, in some countries of Europe. Therefore good men, who had some sense of religion, and also several of the pontiffs, as Nicolaus II. in the council at Rome A.D. 1059, and afterwards others, made efforts for reforming the associations of the canons. Nor were these efforts without effect; for a better system of discipline was introduced into nearly all those associations. Yet all the fraternities would not admit reform to the same extent. For some bodies of canons returned indeed into commons, or resided in the same house and ate at a common table, which was especially required by the pontiffs, and was extremely necessary in order to prevent marriages among this class of priests ; while they still retained males, though but few.
The name canons was doubtless used anterior to the 11th Century ; but its import was anciently very extensive. Hence nothing can be inferred from the name. But of regular and secular canons, there is no mention in any existing work older than this century : and it is certain, that those canons who had nothing in common but their dwelling and table, were called secular canrms; while those who had all things in common without any exception whatever, were called regular canons.-[" To Dr. lHoshcim's account of the canons, it may not be improper to add a few words concerning their introduction into England, and their progress and establishment among us. The order of regular canons of St. Augustine was brought into England by Adclicald, confessor to Henry I., who first erected a priory of his order at Kostel in Yorkshire, and had influence enough to have the church of Carlisle converted into an episcopal see, and given to regular canon, invested with the privilege of choosing their bishop. This order wns singularly favoured and protected by Henry I., who gave them in the year 1107, the priory of Dunstable, and by queen Maud, who erected for them the priory of the Holy Trinity in London, the prior of which was always one of the twenty-four aldermen. They increased so prodigiously, that besides the noble priory of Merton, which was founded for them in 1117, by Gilbert, an earl of Norman blood, they had under the reign of Edward I. fiftythree priories, as appears by the catalogue presented to that prince, when he obliged all the monasteries to receive his protection and to acknowledge his jurisdiction."
There is a rule enunciated by a synod of about the year 1083 that no abbot or monk shall recall any one from the profession of canon to that of monk as long as such canon can find a church of his own order. And Pope Urban II - mandavit et nuiversaliter interdixit - made a general prohibitory order against the conversion of a canon, unless under certain circumstances, into a monk. The origin and development of the system seems to have been pretty much as follows. Small and active groups of missionaries lived together in monastic simplicity, but without rule or vow. Such centres of spiritual energy naturally became bishoprics, and then the customs hardened into something like a rule, and the ' canonici'-distinguished thus, perhaps, from isolated parish priests-fell more and more into the position of appendages of the see ; while, at the same time, other like bodies were formed, which, in the absence of a bishop, became, in the ecclesiastical sense, collegiate rather than cathedral. There is no doubt that the words 'canon,' and 'regular,' and ' secular,' were almost from the first used with some degree of looseness.
Some consider the monastic orders as self-refuting failures, but it is certain that they served their purpose better, and showed more vitality, than the apparently rational system of secular canons. The attempted reform of Nicholas II. in the Council of 1059 indicates the decay of the canonical life. Official revenues, according to his plan, were to be held in common, while rights of private property were respected. At the Lateran Council, A.d. 1139, Pope Innocent II. ordained that all Regular Canons should submit to the rule of St. Austin. From this order afterwards proceeded both Peter Martyr and Martin Luther.
A 'Regular Canon' is, in reality, a mere tautology. He is a regular regular - a cleric bound by a rule milder, it is true, than even that of the unreformed Benedictine monks, but still strict enough for many, and for some even too exacting.
|Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list|
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— Dale Heffelfinger, Whitehall Township
A: Most of the long-awaited Marshalls Creek Bypass in Monroe County opened to traffic June 11, a few days after PennDOT officials held an engine-starting news conference there to publicize the new road.
Constructed in Smithfield Township about four miles northeast of East Stroudsburg and busy Interstate 80, the bypass links Routes 209 and 402, detouring the village of Marshalls Creek and untangling the chronic traffic jams that had plagued the village and vicinity, particularly on summer weekends when the enticing Poconos recreational attractions fueled extremely heavy traffic volume.
Though the bypass has yet to open fully, I visited recently to get a first-gear sense of how traffic is moving, particularly at the controversial roundabout — a design despised by many motorists, but being forced down our throttle plates by highway engineers in Pennsylvania and other states.
Proponents contend that today's roundabouts, for which traffic entering the circular road yields to traffic already within it, are safer and otherwise superior to traffic circles, which generally give entering traffic the right-of-way. The labels attached to these circular alternatives to signalized intersections, and the access rules that apply to them, sometimes vary, but that's a basic description.
Transportation experts seem to be saying of the new roundabouts, "Give them a chance, you'll like them, at least once you get used to them." We'll see; roundabouts are planned for the intersections of Routes 222 and 662, and Route 222 and Tamarack Boulevard, both west of Kutztown, and Lehigh Valley roundabouts are likely to be coming our way as we get further down the road.
PennDOT consulting project engineer Mike Mastaglio, working on the Marshalls Creek project, said roundabouts are not appropriate as replacements for every intersection: "There are some valid pros and cons," regarding the design, he said. But if conditions are right — among them traffic volume, topography, public right-of-way availability, the presence of pedestrians and bicyclists — properly designed roundabouts are safer than signalized intersections, he said, and proponents contend they can be at least as efficient at moving traffic along.
The Federal Highway Administration advises that the maximum service volume for single-lane roundabouts ranges from 20,000 to 26,000 vehicles per day, "depending on the left-turn percentages and the distribution of traffic between the major and minor roads." Two-lane roundabouts can handle 40,000 to 50,000 vehicles per day, the FHWA says.
Perhaps the biggest safety advantage offered by roundabouts is the effective control of traffic speed, simply because it's difficult to drive too fast within these relatively tight circles. The laws of physics work against high speed on a curve. In addition, motorists are almost forced to be looking for which leg of the roundabout they'll use to exit, and to position themselves properly to do so.
"People become more perceptive and more aware," in roundabouts, Mastaglio said. "At a red light, you can 'zone out.' People are actually more observant, [they're] paying more attention" at roundabouts because of the navigational demands.
The Marshalls Creek roundabout is posted with a 25 mph advisory (not regulatory) sign.
Because of the low speed and the fact that everyone's traveling in the same direction, accidents in roundabouts tend to be fender-benders or side-scrapers, PennDOT spokesman Ron Young said. At signalized intersections, traffic flows in straight lines in opposing directions, jacking up the risk of head-on, glancing and "T-bone" crashes. The lure of speeding up to "beat" red lights combined with growing frustration during seemingly long waits for green lights can make for a deadly mix.
One might suspect that the laggardly speed in roundabouts hurts traffic-flow efficiency, but at the same time, traffic rarely if ever stops for lengthy periods, in any direction. At intersections, half the traffic is stopped at any given time. Excessive traffic loads can overwhelm intersections or roundabouts; there's no perfect design.
The only speed-bump for properly located roundabouts, Mastaglio and Young contend, is public perception. Generally, Mastaglio said, people are put off by bad experiences they've had at busy, confusing traffic circles with which they're unfamiliar, and where entering traffic simply rolls into the circle at will.
I'm pretty much in that category. But I'm willing to give the roundabout design a sporting chance. Traffic was moving freely through the southern end of the Marshalls Creek roundabout on a recent Sunday afternoon, even with some of the entry lanes still closed by pylons. Time will tell, but the early indication from my one brief visit seems encouraging.
In addition to one- and two-lane roundabouts, Marshalls Creek is a hybrid — a three-point roundabout with one leg getting two lanes and the other two getting one. I didn't even notice this when I drove through the roundabout in all directions — a reaction Mastaglio viewed as an endorsement of a design intended to be intuitive and seamless for motorists.
I guess at the end of the road I'm warily accepting of these things. If most people take the time to learn the rules and abide by them, roundabouts should be very effective. Of course, that can be said of just about any traffic design. Prominent "yield" and other traffic signs, as well as street-name and route-number signs, are imperative at roundabouts, as I discovered on a recent trip to West Reading, where a poorly marked seven-point Reading Avenue roundabout sent me in the wrong direction in unfamiliar territory. The Marshalls Creek roundabout, with only three access points, seems well marked.
For a quick return trip covering the long, pothole-plagued history of the Marshalls Creek Bypass, the road first was planned in 1987, and initial designs included variations on a four-lane highway with sticker prices as high as $200 million — and that was part of the problem.
In April 2008, with the U.S. economy speeding straight downhill and the cost of asphalt and other construction materials going the opposite way, PennDOT slammed the brakes on the four-lane design and "re-sized" the project to save money. The resulting two-lane bypass is expected to set us back by $38.7 million when all the ancillary work is done, either late this year or by spring 2013.
Road Warrior appears Mondays and Fridays, and the Warrior blogs at mcall.com. Email questions about roadways, traffic and transportation, with your name and the municipality where you live, to firstname.lastname@example.org, or write to Road Warrior, Box 1260, Allentown, PA 18105-1260.
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MINDEN, TEXAS. Minden is on Farm Road 1798 twelve miles southeast of Henderson in southeastern Rusk County. The original town was a mile east of the present site. The Lewis family moved to the area from Georgia in 1849. H. W. Watson, a settler from Minden, Louisiana, named the new town after his former home. A post office was opened in 1850 with William H. Pate as postmaster. Minden was on the old Marshall-to-Nacogdoches stagecoach line, and by 1860 it had a school, a store, and a church. Sometime before 1880 the town moved to its present location. G. I. Watkins opened the Rock Hill Institute in 1880; the school was chartered in 1888. Minden had a steam cotton gin, three churches, and an estimated population of fifty in 1884. By 1890 it had saw and grist mills, a newspaper, and a population of 155. The population nearly doubled during the 1890s, but fell to 223 after 1900 and remained at around that level until the mid-1940s, when it rose briefly to 250. During the 1950s and 1960s the town reported 125 residents; from the late 1960s through 2000 it reported 350.
Henderson Daily News, November 30, 1938. Dorman H. Winfrey, A History of Rusk County (Waco: Texian, 1961).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Megan Biesele, "MINDEN, TX," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hlm73), accessed May 25, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Separating the world into "in" groups and "out" groups is a long held trait of humans and other species on Earth. It has evolved along with the life forms that harbor it. Is the reason for xenophobia a competition for resources? Is it based on deep-seated survival instincts? Is it in our genes? Has the time come to change it?
All of these questions will be addressed by Arizona State University's Origins Project in two public events that will explore "Xenophobia, why do we fear others?" on March 30 and 31.
"Immigration is a good current example of xenophobia," said Lawrence Krauss, director of Origins. "Why is it that we, of all societies, fear immigrants like we do today? It has become nearly a daily topic in the news and a political hot point for those who want to be president. Do we need to change this thinking given Earth's dwindling natural resources and the need to think globally about the sustainability of the planet, and not just consider the health of a society or country?"
To explore this, Origins will host two public events. One will detail the world of ants, where the protection of in groups has graphic and lethal consequences. The second will address broader manifestations of xenophobia and explore whether the time has come to change this behavior. In addition, Science Friday, NPR's weekly science program, will address xenophobia in a portion of its broadcast on March 30, Krauss said.
Here are details of the two public events:
War and Peace in the World of Ants
6 p.m., Friday, March 30, 2012, Room 191, Life Sciences A wing. Free, non-ticketed.
Pulitzer-Prize winning author and ASU Foundation professor Bert Hoelldobler will explain the world of ants and the parallels between ant and human conflict. This is the dilemma of social evolution – wherever closely integrated societies exist there is discrimination and rejection of foreigners.
The Great Debate: Xenophobia, why do we fear others?
7 p.m., Saturday, March 31, 2012, Gammage Auditorium
This is a ticketed event. Tickets are now on sale, contact Gammage Box Office, (480) 965-3434 or Ticketmaster.
Is our instinct to form in groups and out groups, such an important part of our evolutionary history, now maladaptive as we face a future increasingly dependent upon cooperation and shared responsibilities toward limited resources? The panel will discuss the biological and sociological dimensions of xenophobia. The panel includes:
Krauss, who will moderate the Great Debate, said it will be the keystone event to a two and a half-day workshop that will focus on xenophobia on March 30 to April 1. The latest thinking and research on xenophobia will be discussed and explored during the workshops.
Krauss added that the prices for the Great Debate ($4 plus fees for students; $10 plus fees for the public; and $16 plus fees for VIP seating) were drawn up to encourage wide audience participation in this event.
For more information on these events, please go to www.origins.asu.edu, or call (480) 965-0053.
Source: Lawrence Krauss, (480) 965-6378
Media contact: Skip Derra, (480) 965-4823; email@example.com
Founded in 2008, ASU's Origins Project is a university wide transdisciplinary initiative aimed at facilitating cutting edge research and inquiry about origins questions, enhancing public science literacy and improving science education. Since its inception, the Origins Project has brought the world's leading scientists and public intellectuals, including many Nobel Prize winners, to Tempe to explore questions about origins. The Origins Project has hosted workshops and public events before sell-out crowds that have focused on questions as fundamental as the origin of the universe, how life began, the origins of human uniqueness, the origins of morality, and the relationship between science and culture.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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The world of cocktail ingredients is an exciting and fast changing one at the moment. A few years ago there were many spirits that were called for in classic recipes but simply not available, but today that list of lost ingredients is rapidly shortening. In just the past year or so ingredients like crème de violette, pimento dram and batavia arrack have become easily available, and just last month at Tales Rob Cooper announced that Crème Yvette will be seeing the light of day within the next twelve months, with a Forbidden Fruit currently in development.
As a huge fan of gin I’ve always considered Old Tom to be something of a holy grail, so when at the start of the year I learned English distiller Hayman’s was producing one I was over the moon. Since getting hold of the Hayman’s I’ve also become aware of several other modern Old Tom reproductions, none of which are particularly easy to get hold of, but that are nonetheless out there if you really want them. Here I’ve assembled the main four bottlings that are currently available, and hope to assess which are worth picking up, and exactly what Old Tom gin is all about.
This post features tasting notes of the four gins, and joined by a companion post testing the Old Toms out in a few cocktails that originally called for Old Tom. Unfortunately like most people I’ve never actually had the chance to try a classic Old Tom gin, but I have spoken to several who have so hope to be able to give at least a rough indication of which gins adhere most closely to the original Old Toms.
So what exactly is Old Tom?
Back in 1688 Dutchman William of Orange overthrew James II of England to become King William III. After William succeeded he banned import of French brandy and introduced heavy duties on German spirits, making Dutch spirits like Genever, the original Dutch gin, cheaper and therefore more popular. The English began to develop a taste for gin, and with production on home soil entirely untaxed and unregulated we began to make our own. Unlike the barley-based Genever our gin was made using readily available grain and entirely unaged.
Owing to the lack of taxes Gin became cheaper than beer and wine, which meant it became the popular choice amongst the poorer classes particularly in London where poverty and extreme overcrowding gave many people a strong reason to want to drink a lot of alcohol. This period of time became known as the “Gin Craze”, and at one point an average of 2.2 gallons of gin was being drank every year per person in the country. Considering most outside the cities stuck to beers that were more easily produceable that’s a lot of gin – for comparison the average Briton consumed just 3.7 litres of any type of spirit in 2003.
The initial gins produced in England were not particularly high quality, with relatively crude distillation techniques and a strong incentive to cut the spirit with products like turpentine and sulfuric acid to increase profit margins. As a result, it was common for sugar to be added to gin to mask these imperfections and make the gin more palatable. As gin production improved these imperfections were slowly eliminated, but having gained a taste for sweetened gin sugar continued to be added, and it’s this style of gin that became known as Old Tom.
Nobody knows exactly how the name Old Tom came about, though the popular theory relates to Dudley Bradstreet, a Londoner who sold gin illegally from his house through rather elaborate means. The story goes that he erected a sign outside his house in the shape of a cat, with a pipe leading from the cats paw back in to his house. A thirsty customer would deposit their money, call out “Puss, give me two pennyworth of gin!”, and Bradsheet would pour them a shot of gin down the pipe. This sign of a tom cat allegedly resulted in the gin becoming known as Old Tom, and whether true or not the packaging of both classic and modern Old Toms often has a black tom cat on it.
As distilling techniques improved in the nineteenth century with the invention of the column still and other refinements, it became less necessary to add sugar and gin slowly began to move away from the sweeter styles to the newer London Dry style. By the 1930s and 1940s Old Tom had fallen out of favour as tastes moved towards drier drinks, and for the past few decades Old Tom has been all but extinct. Anyway, enough history – to the gins…
Hayman’s Old Tom Gin
Hayman’s Old Tom gin was created in 2007 by Christopher Hayman based on what is claimed to be an original recipe from his family archives (Chirstopher’s grandfather created Beefeater gin, and Chris himself oversaw production of Beefeater for fifteen years). It is currently the only Old Tom gin that is widely available through traditional distribution channels.
Hayman’s has a sweet, slightly fruity nose, and a sweet initial taste with suggestions of lemon and other citrus plus a juniper undertone. The finish brings out a little spiciness, perhaps coriander, as well as further juniper and a mild sweetness. While the sugar definitely sets Hayman’s apart from other gins, the flavour profile isn’t vastly different to a number of London drys. Nonetheless, an interesting gin with a lovely smooth taste.
Hayman’s Old Tom Gin is available at select off-licenses in the UK, and will shortly begin distribution in the USA via Haus Alpenz.
Secret Treasures “Old Tom Style” Gin
Part of the “Secret Treasures” collection, a selection of premium spirits marketed by German company Haromex, this gin was produced by master distiller Hubertus Vallendar in Kail, Germany using juniper berries from the Apennines and a double-distillation process. This is a limited edition of 688 bottles that was produced in 2007 and nominated as “spirit of the year” at the Bar Convent in the same year.
This gin has only a faint sweetness on the nose, and a fair amount of juniper. In the mouth you are hit with a fairly intense juniper flavour, as well as a mild burn, which subsides in to a long juniper led finish, along with a mild fruitiness and a faint cardamom note. A slight sweetness becomes apparent after the initial juniper hit, though this is by far the driest of all the gins tasted here. Very heavily juniper led, this almost reminded me of Tanqueray in that respect.
Secret Treasures “Old Tom Style” Gin is available via Drinkology. The site is currently only available in German, but an English version is forthcoming and rates for international shipping can be found by contacting them.
The Dorchester 2007 Old Tom Gin
The Dorchester Old Tom Gin is produced exclusively for The Dorchester Hotel in London by William Grant, the Scottish distillery that produces Hendrick’s gin. It is based on an original eighteenth century recipe uncovered by the hotel.
The Dorchester’s gin has a mild juniper nose with a slight floral note. The initial taste is a sweet mixture of juniper and fruit, with a strong floral element developing afterwards. The finish has a fairly strong violet note, along with lavender and other floral elements, spice, plus a mild lingering sweetness. It is a definite departure from the previous two gins, with fruit and floral flavours far stronger than I have tasted in any other gin. Smooth yet interesting, this is a really tasty gin.
The Dorchester 2007 Old Tom Gin is available exclusively from The Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, London.
Both’s Old Tom Gin
Another product in the “Secret Treasures” line from Germany company Haromex, Both’s Old Tom Gin comes in a bottle clearly designed to mimic the design of the classic Booth’s Old Tom. The label is made out of a felt like material, complete with reflective gold detailing which looks very nice and definitely makes the bottle stand out. I was unable to find much information about this bottling, but the much higher alcohol content of 47% certainly sets this gin apart from the others which all stick to 40%.
Both’s has a fairly subdued nose, with a slight sweetness and mild floral notes. In the mouth you get a strong fruity sweetness followed by an intense mixture of floral notes. Strong violet and lavender is noticeable, plus a candy-like sweetness and a mild juniper background. The fruit and floral notes linger in the sweet finish, and despite it being a hefty 47% ABV the gin remains relatively smooth with just a mild burn on the finish. Even more floral and intense than The Dorchester’s Old Tom, this gin is certainly very different to a traditional London Dry. With such powerful and interesting flavours, I’m very excited to see what this does in cocktails.
Both’s Old Tom Gin is available via Drinkology. The site is currently only available in German, but an English version is forthcoming and rates for international shipping can be found by contacting them.
It is clear that the four gins tested here divide in to two main camps – botanically-led gins that are sweeter but maintain many London Dry characteristics, and more floral, fruity gins that take a reasonable departure from what is considered normal in the gin world today. As I said before, I’ve not actually tasted traditional Old Tom myself, but from what I understand from people that have, classic Old Toms were very floral, fruity and relatively sweet. In that respect, it seems the gins from Both’s and The Dorchester are the most accurate recreations of Old Tom, though the other two are by no means bad gins.
Of course this argument is largely academic, as if we wanted to be really accurate to eighteenth century drinking we’d be consuming badly made spirits full of dangerous substances, and it’s perfectly possible that both these styles of Old Tom existed in the past – we haven’t exactly got much to go on except the few old bottles of a few specific products that still survive.
What really matters is what works best in a drink, so I have also tried these gins in several classic cocktails that traditionally called for Old Tom, as well as the Old Tom alternative David Wondrich suggests in Imbibe! – a London Dry sweetened with a small amount of gomme syrup. Click here to see whether Old Tom makes the better drink, or whether you can make do with your existing gins and a bit of extra sugar.
If you liked this, the barman recommends...
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Critical Care Medicine (ICU)
Intensive, round-the-clock monitoring and care
Dallas Regional Medical Center’s highly trained critical care doctors, nurses and other health care professionals provide 24-hour monitoring and acute care for critically ill patients in our Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Patients have access to specialists in a full range of disciplines who are available to provide expert care at a moment’s notice. Our ICU team utilizes advanced equipment and technology to provide safe, high-quality care.
We understand that having a family member or loved one in the ICU can be difficult, so our critical care team members are dedicated to keeping you well informed and answering your questions.
Dallas Regional Medical Center has two critical care units including:
Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) : This newly renovated eight-bed unit provides acute care for critically ill adult and geriatric patients. The multidisciplinary staff is highly collaborative and supportive, working together to achieve the best patient outcome possible.
Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) provides a full range of intensive care services, using advanced monitoring techniques and equipment to support post-surgical recovery. In the 14-bed unit, patients benefit from the coordination of multi-specialty teams highly trained in caring for critical patients.
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Book Description: The dead of an Arctic winter. Whaling ships full of men, stranded in ice. Follow three rescuers in a race against time — and all odds — in this heartpounding true adventure.In 1897, whaling in the Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast was as dangerous as it was lucrative. And in that particular year, winter blasted early, bringing storms and ice packs that caught eight American whale ships and three hundred sailors off guard. Their ships locked in ice, with no means of escape, the whalers had limited provisions on board, and little hope of surviving until warmer temperatures arrived many months later. Here is the incredible story of three men sent by President McKinley to rescue them. The mission? A perilous trek over 1,500 miles of nearly impassable Alaskan terrain, in the bone-chilling months of winter, to secure two herds of reindeer (for food) and find a way to guide them to the whalers before they starve. With the help of photographs and journal entries by one of the rescuers, Martin W. Sandler takes us on every step of their riveting journey, facing raging blizzards, killing cold, injured sled dogs, and setbacks to test the strongest of wills.
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Hmm what can typically go wrong.....
1. server being compormised
2. server being spammed/relayed off
3. chance of hardware failure is small. But heck it happens sometimes especially to fans.
What you can do to prevent trouble
1. make sure your server runs logrotate if its a nix box, or clean up the logs in /var once every week. Or use logrotate to rotate the logs automatically by time/date or by size.
2. always remember that a server is your baby. That means going in and routinly checking everything on a sechduled basis. logs, bash, if it is redhat based, do a rpm -V on main utilities such as fileutils, procps, etc.
3. put up a firewall. Use iptables extensively. (if nix)
4. make sure all announced vulnerabilites are patched on a regular basis.
5. Do not give out root access to lots of people. Perferably 1 or 2. There is bound to be some dummy who will accdidently mess up soemthing.
6. SSH all the way.
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Palestine: Palestinian woman breaks taboo to cycle across Gaza strip
In Gaza, an unspoken rule bans women from riding bicycles after they have hit puberty. But last Saturday, one young Palestinian woman decided to defy the taboo, sparking smiles - and a few threats - from fellow Gaza residents. In a spur of the moment decision, 28-year-old Palestinian journalist Asmaa Alghoul decided to join three of her friends, two Italian human rights workers and an American, on a tour of Gaza by bicycle. On a warm summer's day, the two men and two women set off from the Egyptian border town of Rafah and headed north to Gaza city, along 30km of coastal road. But to Asmaa, the ride was more than a sunny day trip: women on bicycles are frowned upon in most Muslim societies, and the young woman had not ridden a bike since she was 14 years old.
Most of the Gazans the small group came across were friendly and hospitable, as well as very helpful when it came to repairing flat tires or twisted chains. A rough encounter with a group of men on motorcycles, however, came as a harsh reminder of the domestic role women are expected to stick to in Gaza.
Many thanks to our Observer in Gaza, Patrick McGrann, who was part of the bike trip and put us in touch with Asmaa.
Asmaa and her friend Giuseppe, from Italy.
"A man punched my friend in the back and spit in my face"
Asmaa Alghoul is a journalist in Gaza city. A divorced and independent woman, she describes herself as a secular Palestinian.
You just don't see women riding bikes in Muslim countries. It's not forbidden per say, but it's socially unacceptable. In addition, the Hamas government in Gaza has begun enforcing very strict, sexist rules restricting women's freedom - we can no longer smoke water pipes in cafés, for example. I find all of these rules unfair - stupid, really - so I decided to go on the bike ride as a test, to see what would happen.
"Most people we met were very friendly and supportive"
Mostly, I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought I wouldn't remember how to ride a bike after so many years, but after a couple of minutes I was zooming away! Another nice thing was to see that people generally reacted in a very friendly and supportive manner: they would smile or wave and say hello in English - no one seemed particularly shocked to see two women on bicycles.
We had two unpleasant incidents, though. First, a group of young men on motorcycles began following us - me and my friend Chantal especially. They were tailing us closer and closer. They claimed to be Hamas police, but I didn't believe them because they looked much too young and didn't show me ID when I asked for it. So I shouted at them to leave us alone. Then I saw a real police car and pulled it over. I told the officers the men were bothering us, and the police actually helped us! They told the motorcyclists to go away and were very polite to us. Surprisingly, they didn't say anything about us being women on bikes. I think it may be because I was with international people, so the rules are a little more flexible.
The second incident was more unpleasant. Again it involved men on motorcycles. They went past us once, then came back and crossed us again. We stopped on the side of the road because they were passing by us very close and very fast. The second time they passed us, one of the men punched my friend Chantal in the back, hard, and spit in my face. I was expecting that, so I spit back. As a secular woman who doesn't wear a veil, I get a lot of that kind of attitude from younger men.
Overall, however, it was a very positive experience. Twice, we had technical problems, and twice, very conservative families offered us hospitality and help. They didn't berate me for riding a bicycle at all - although they did ask me whether or not I was fasting for Ramadan!"
Biking across the Gaza strip
Asmaa and her friends pile four bikes on a taxi to head toward the Egyptian border, where their trip began.
Hamas security waving to Asmaa after ridding her of troublesome motorcyclists.
Rafah residents stopped to help Chantal when her bike had a technical glitch.
Same helpful spirit in Khan Younis.
Chantal and Giuseppe rest in the shade of a Gaza home while the repairs are underway. According to Patrick McGrann, their friendly host had "24 children, and at least as many smiles".
Roadside break after being punched and spit at by men on motorcycles. All photos posted by Patrick McGrann onFacebook.
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|A representation of William Henley's Study
The Henley Study itself
The Henley Room or Henley Study, is designed to be interactive and child-friendly, and provides an insight into the world of Victorian and Edwardian Dartmouth.
The room has been modelled to represent a gentleman's study of the period, and is used to house the Henley Collection, originally in a separate museum in Anzac Street, of which more below!
This is a collection of belongings and artefacts of William Cumming Henley, his sister Nellie Henley and their friend Ida Walker, who lived in Dartmouth from approximately 1860 to 1919.
William Henley was an ironmonger in the town. His shop was very close to the museum today, and is still in use as a shop, though it's not an ironmonger's any more. He was also an artist with a great interest in music, books, architecture, and a passion for science and learning about the natural world, at a time of the revolutionary new thinking of Charles Darwin.
Here you will get an idea of the excitement of this time of exploration and scientific advancement, felt all over the country - even by an ironmonger in Dartmouth.
See some of William Henley's books, his own paintings, and many artefacts including shells, crystals and bones. There is a large collection of scientific instruments, he even made his own.
Hands on discovery
|One of our young visitors using a microscope for the first time
On a central table, take the opportunity to explore various objects by handling them and studying them under more modern, easy-to-use microscopes.
There's a great selection of slides. Tiny hands sometimes need some help, though.
|Different microscopes are good for different things
There's good illumination and the different slides can be changed easily, even if you've never used a microscope before.
If you need help, just ask one of our stewards. Our webmaster needed help the first time, so don't be shy
The History of the Henley Collection
Dartmouth's first Museum was the Henley Collection which was a private museum owned firstly by Pamela Henley and opened to the public on 1 June 1927 and then bequeathed to the Borough (now Town) Council in Trust when she died in 1951.
It was then run by her friend Miss Ida Walker until her death in 1963 and the house at 1 Anzac Street was then also bequeathed to the Council in Trust. And thus it remains today. The collection itself is housed in the Dartmouth Museum, though it is a separate collection and governed by a separate trust from the museum itself.
The foregoing was part of a Twitter conversation about our Coco de Mer, and our surprise at finding unusual objects in our collections! It's amazing the conversations one has on Twitter. Was Pamela Henley a feminist, do you suppose?
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Currently,issues related to nutrient management including animal manure management, bioenergy and water resources, watershed education and the human dimension of citizen involvement are priorities for the Heartland Initiative.
The four-state Heartland Region is a significant source of nutrient and pesticide loading to the Lower Mississippi River Basin. According to the 1997 Census of Agriculture, the Heartland states:
In 1999, 23.4 million pounds of Atrazine and 3,551 million pounds of nitrogen fertilizer were applied to corn crops in the region. Based on monitoring by the USGS, nitrate-N loading to the Mississippi River system is strongly correlated with areas of intensive row crop agriculture and livestock production in the Midwest.
- Include about 8 percent of the total United States land area, yet contain 22.8 percent of the nation's cropland.
- Produce 36 percent of all corn sold for grain and feeds, 38 percent of all hogs and pigs, and 21.5 percent of all cattle in the nation.
- Actual land in farms ranges from 65% in Missouri, to 93% in Nebraska, compared to the US average of 41% for the lower 48 states.
Citizen involvement is a priority because voluntary land use management decisions by individuals will be the key to controlling agricultural and other rural nonpoint source pollution in the region. The Heartland states have some of the lowest percentages of publicly-owned land in the nation:
- In Iowa and Kansas, federal, state, county, municipal and Indian holdings together make up less than 3% of total land area.
- In Missouri and Nebraska the totals are 7.9% and 5% respectively, compared to an average of 30% for the lower 48 states.
Private ownership makes it imperative that watershed management be community-based and locally-driven. Over 73% of operators in the Heartland region live on the farm they operate. In addition, many other citizens are also realizing an increased stake in rural water quality issues. Non-farming rural residents now constitute a significant majority of the population in rural areas. Urban consumers are becoming more aware of rural watershed impacts on their drinking water sources.
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Hurricane Isaac was a massive, slow moving storm that did tremendous damage, destroyed entire towns and caused numerous fatalities. It was “only” a category 1 hurricane, yet it created a surge of water similar to the deluge that caused the post-Katrina federal flood. Levees downriver from New Orleans in Plaquemines Parish failed this time, with devastating results.
In the aftermath of Isaac we were heartened to know that the newly installed measures protecting New Orleans did their job, and meterologists speculated about adding factors other than wind speed to the measurement of hurricane categories. But anyone who’s been paying longterm attention to South Louisiana knows what is happening. Deadly surges will most likely result from mere tropical storms in the future, because the wetlands of Southern Louisiana are disappearing before our eyes. As those natural barriers to the water surge created by big storms disappear, populated areas like New Orleans are faced with ever-growing danger. Tab Benoit and the Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars have been driving this point home since before Katrina. We’re not just talking about saving coastal wetlands any longer. The destruction of wildlife sanctuaries is a terrible thing but what we’re really looking at is the eventual inundation of all Louisiana south of Lake Pontchartrain. Levees and surge protectors aren’t going to be enough when all the land is gone.
There are measures that can be taken to allow the Mississippi River to rebuild its delta and help resore the wetlands that provide the only real protection against storm surges, but those measures require the cooperation of the federal government and the oil companies who’ve accelerated the wetlands depletion by cutting canals through the marshes that allow seawater inundation that kills the vegetation.
Last month I went on tour with the Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars, reading from my book New Atlantis and talking about the problem. People in the audience understood the problem and shouted encouragement when I quoted Benoit asking, “Are we going to do anything about it?” Later some came up to me and asked what they could do to help. I told them to attend the Voice of the Wetlands festival next month in Houma and show their support. But now, in the wake of Isaac and the realization that it might already be getting too late to reverse all of this, we’re all left wondering what we can do.
I spoke with Rueben Williams, Tab’s manager, as Isaac was still making its way inland.
“Tab and I were talking about how now everyone knows we are in a worst situation regarding coastal protection,” he said, “but does anyone care? I don’t think our people who live here care enough to change the way that they do business with oil companies in order to save lives or our homes. Somehow we believe that big oil has taken care of us for years. But in the end it will kill us and drown you.
“It took a group of musicians to figure this out? They realized that it was important enough to spread the word outside of the state because inside the state we are trapped by pennies on the dollar pensions. This area sold itself out years ago. This morning we compared it to when oil companies go to Africa and they convince the natives that drilling will be good for them. The same has happened here.
“Is it too late to stop?”
(OffBeat will be writing more about this issue in the weeks to come.)
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Who's an American Indian? Warren case stirs query
Saturday, May 26, 2012
What, exactly, makes someone American Indian? Even Indians themselves don't agree as they debate the case of Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, whose disputed claim of Native American identity is shining a rare spotlight on the malleable nature of Indian heritage and the long history of murky claims to such ancestry.
Warren, a Harvard Law School professor and Democrat who is running in Massachusetts against Republican incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, was listed as Native American in several law school directories. Warren has said that her "family lore" described Indian ancestors, and the New England Genealogy Association said it found indications — but not proof — that Warren had a Cherokee great-great-great grandmother, which would make her 1/32 Indian.
"I'm proud of my heritage," Warren said Thursday. Asked how she knew it included Native Americans, she replied, "Because my mother told me so."
Her opponents question whether Warren chose this heritage to gain advantages available to Indians and other underrepresented groups in academia.
"Warren has zero evidence that she is at all Native American," said Brown's campaign manager, Jim Barnett. The genealogy association acknowledges that it found only secondary references to Cherokee family members, not primary sources such as marriage, birth or census records.
Among Native Americans, the varying opinions demonstrate that Indian identity is subjective even among Indians themselves.
When David Eugene Wilkins first saw Warren interviewed during her nomination to a federal post, he was smitten by her intelligence and politics. But when he heard about her claims of Indian ancestry, "I shook my head and said, 'Oh no.'"
"For us it was always about allegiance rather than biology or ancestry," said Wilkins, an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe and professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota.
"It's where you place your political, cultural, emotional allegiance. She lived her entire life and never had any association whatsoever with any community. So something doesn't wash for me," Wilkins said.
But David Treuer, an award-winning writer and Ojibwe Indian from Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota, said there is a difference between Indian identity and ancestry — you can have one without the other.
"An Indian identity is something someone claims for oneself; it is a matter of choice," Treuer wrote in a Washington Post essay titled, "Elizabeth Warren says she's Native American. So she is."
There are 566 federally recognized Native American tribes, each with its own rules for membership, according to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA. Some tribes require a "blood quantum" measurement of as much as one-half or one-quarter Indian ancestry; others require a certain place of birth or residence.
Wilkins, the professor, is married to a Navajo with many siblings. "I've asked them what defines a Navajo," he said. "One said you have to speak the language. Another said you have to live within our sacred mountains. Another said no, you have to take part in ceremonial life. All this in one family!"
According to census figures provided by the BIA, an estimated 4.5 million people identify themselves as American Indians or Alaska Natives, including those who say they are more than one race. But in a 2005 report, the most recent available, the BIA counted just 2 million enrolled tribal members — which means that fewer than half of all people claiming Indian heritage are recognized by a tribe.
"There's an old joke in this corner of Indian Country that if you meet someone who doesn't know anything about tribal affairs but claims they're Indian, they'll say they're Cherokee," Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton, a spokesperson for the Cherokee Nation, said by e-mail.
Warren grew up in Oklahoma, home of the 310,000-member Cherokee Nation, the largest Indian tribe. Warren does not claim official Cherokee membership, which is based on the "Dawes Rolls," a federal list of Cherokees in Oklahoma from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many people have legitimate Cherokee ancestry but are not eligible for membership because their ancestors were not among those counted, Krehbiel-Burton said.
But "some people falsely claim Native heritage simply out of ignorance," Krehbiel-Burton said. "They've been told for years that they had a great-grandmother (or something similar) who was a Cherokee princess and assume that it's true."
Warren spoke of a similar oral tradition when she mentioned an heirloom photo of her grandfather: "My Aunt Bea has walked by that picture at least a thousand times (and) remarked that he — her father, my papaw — had high cheekbones like all of the Indians do."
Even President Barack Obama has an Indian story, about his maternal grandmother, who was nicknamed "Toot."
"If asked, Toot would turn her head in profile to show off her beaked nose, which, along with a pair of jet-black eyes, was offered as proof of Cherokee blood," Obama wrote in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."
But eyes, noses and cheekbones are not the issue for Rhonda LeValdo, president of the Native American Journalists Association and an enrolled member of the Acoma Pueblo tribe.
"If you're going to claim it, you have to help your people out," says LeValdo. She had seen no evidence of such involvement by Warren, but said she didn't know enough details to judge Warren's claim.
LeValdo said there are many fakers: "A lot of people find some sort of romanticism in being Native American. They think of the warrior type, or the Pocohontas stereotype. They're just taken with the idea of it."
"But to a lot of our people who live this life, it's tough," she continued. "We deal with a lot of things. A lot of us feel like if you're going to claim it, you have to do something. Don't just use it when you want to use it."
Warren has been adamant that she did not seek any advantage from Native American heritage. Records show that she declined to apply for admission to Rutgers Law School under a minority student program and identified her race as "white" on an employment record at the University of Texas, where she worked from 1983 to 1987.
She left Texas for the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where a report on minority faculty listed Warren's name. Her ethnicity became a campaign issue when the Boston Herald reported that Harvard Law, which hired Warren in 1995, listed her as a minority when the school was under pressure to diversify the faculty.
Besides potentially influencing hiring or promotion, Indian identity can have other economic advantages. Some tribes share millions in casino earnings; health care, scholarships and housing are available to some tribal members.
Native Americans have a high rate of intermarriage with other groups. Many are not identifiable by appearance, which has made it possible for almost anyone to assume a Native persona — for various purposes.
Some of the American colonists who boarded British ships during the Boston Tea Party wore Mohawk costumes. During New York anti-rent conflicts of the 1840s, white people assumed Indian garb and pidgin "Injinspeak" as they harassed patrician estates, according to the book "Playing Indian," by Philip J. Deloria.
The actor Iron Eyes Cody starred as an Indian in films from the 1930s to the '70s, and championed many Native causes. He claimed to be Cherokee, but near the end of his life was revealed to be the son of Italian immigrants. In 1976, former Ku Klux Klansman Asa Earl Carter published a fabricated and best-selling memoir, "The Education of Little Tree," under the name Forrest Carter.
"When that kind of fraud takes place it damages our people," said Wilkins, the professor.
"You have people on the outside claiming this and that to draw attention to themselves," he said, "and then people on the outside may wonder, do Native people really know who they are?"
Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Associated Press Writer Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report.
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2 July 2012
Last updated at 12:37 GMT
Bournemouth’s Russell-Cotes Museum introduced an entry fee to generate income after a budget cut in 2011
Galleries and museums across the UK are shutting down or reducing their opening hours because of ongoing budget cuts, according to a new survey.
Of the 114 institutions questioned by the Museums Association, 22% have closed all or part of their sites in the last 12 months.
Services to schools have also been dramatically reduced.
Mark Taylor, director of the Museums Association, said there was “no prospect of an upturn any time soon”.
“Funding isn’t getting any better and in many cases it’s getting worse,” he explained.
“Of most concern is that public access is down and this is of particular concern to smaller, community museums. They are affected most by the cuts and if they start to die, it’s unlikely they’ll ever come back.
“It is sad because these museums are the soul of the towns and villages they are in.”
Recent closures include the the Malton Museum in Ryedale, which shut in February, and the Museum of Nottingham Life.
National museums were not included in the Museum Association’s report and the 114 which took part in the survey were a small representation of the 2,000 institutions in the UK.
However, Mr Taylor said they were selected on the basis that “they would represent a cross section of museums”.
“We believe the survey is a pretty good representation of regional museums in the UK,” he added.
Fifty-one per cent of those surveyed reported a cut in their budgets since last year, which had a negative impact on their public-facing services.
Of those, 42% had fewer staff, with many compensating for cuts with higher charges for school visits.
The director of an independent museum in the south of England commented: “We have introduced charges in free areas, which obviously changes the relationship with the community and stakeholders and we have cut back in work for schools.”
Almost a third of museums have experienced a cut to their budget of more than 10% and the report states it is this group that has felt the greatest impact, with a reduction in the quality of service the biggest threat.
“We have taken such a cut to staff that inevitably the amount of development work will reduce,” commented an exhibitions manager from a local authority museum in the north of England.
“We have fewer curators and education staff. The museum will drive towards using more volunteers, generating income and have less development work and the quality of the exhibitions will decrease.”
With cuts to staff numbers, volunteers are playing an increased role. However the report warns that, while volunteers bring benefits, they should not replace professionals.
“Museums have always relied on volunteers,” said Mr Taylor.
“We need them. But you still need input from people who have been trained in the particular area and have expertise. On their own, volunteers are not the solution.”
The survey, which was undertaken in April and May 2012, examined the impact of the government’s austerity measures over the last 12 months and the changes museums have made to survive the tough financial climate.
It covered England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and while all types – including national, local, independent, military and university museums – suffered, 60% of those hit were funded by local authorities.
Still more institutions face closure or reduced opening times in the months ahead as pressures on council budgets continue.
Kirklees council in West Yorkshire voted last month to close Tolsen Museum for two days a week from November.
While the report paints a rather bleak picture, it notes a determination to improve services, which Mr Taylor said was a “reflection of the strength and commitment of the museum sector and the people who work in it”.
Some museums are looking at ways to diversify income and add value to their existing services, with 69% of respondents planning to concentrate on generating more income over the next year and 62% increasing their fundraising activity.
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Stripping security down to the data level
The IP revolution starts in Boston...maybe
EMC World Today’s security software is ineffective when it comes to protecting data, according to EMC vice president for information security Dennis Hoffman. He says data protection should be inherent in the data and be capable of being moved with it to ensure a constant level of protection.
The EMC World Conference in Boston is the launch pad for an initiative to place EMC as a major player in intellectual property protection and privacy management. Hoffman said data is constantly traversing security boundaries and is now being transferred onto mobile devices where the security rules change.
"All the products that protect assets and perimeters are utterly ineffective against what's starting to happen in the security market," he said. "So that leads up to the very interesting conclusion that security is simply an attribute of information management."
Although companies like Microsoft and Adobe are addressing intellectual property protection, Hoffman claims that these are only effective where the products are used to create and redisplay data. This does not address the problem of unstructured data or what happens when the data is moved to a new environment.
"The fundamental truth is that you can’t secure something you don’t manage. We need to implement confidentiality and integrity at a data level because data leaves devices, data moves. We have to ensure that what companies see as their greatest asset, data, remains an asset and never becomes a liability."
Quite how EMC will create the metadata required to move the rights and permissions with the data, Hoffman did not say. However, almost all of EMC's speakers at the Boston event underlined that the $4.2bn spending spree that EMC has pursued since 2003 is not abating and that there is plenty of money left in the war chest to fund further acquisitions. ®
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Thursday, September 11th, 2008
When South Texas English teachers Adriana Castillo Solis and Stephanie Sauceda heard about Six-Word Memoirs, they immediately thought of their students. Nine classes at Pharr San Juan Alamo North High School studied the book, wrote their own memoirs, and created accompanying painting, photos, or collages.
Adriana writes “Initially, our project seemed like just a fun thing to do but it ended up being something with tremendous power that had a great impact on many of the students and parents. We literally had some students cry when they were working on their project. It was a powerful experience for them to go through and for us as their teachers to witness.”
The teachers then organized a gallery show and invited family and friends to see the art, commemorating the success of the event with a t-shirt adorned with all the memoirs.
Below, see the shirt and a small selection of the students’ work:
“Shattered, mended restored; rewind, press play.” -Krystal Ramirez, 11th Grade
“Name David, but feel like Goliath” -David Serna, 10th Grade
“I strongly believe in my dreams.” -Jennifer Guerrero, 11th Grade
“I’m a genius with a headache.” -Atalie Gonzalez, 10th Grade
“Millions of emotions – not enough space…” -Olivia Losoya, 11th Grade
“Living life hidden prevents being judged.” -Theresa Corona, 11th Grade
“I’m not crazy, just special.” -Joshua Covarrubias, 11th Grade
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After this week’s private crop reports, the odds seem likely USDA will increase the size of this year’s crop.
If you still have a lot of un-priced grain, market expert Jerry Gulke believes you are swimming in risky waters.
This week two key private firms released crop production estimates. Both groups increased the size of the 2012 crop.
Informa Economics estimates the corn crop at 10.738 billion bushels with a yield of 122.4 bu. per acre. For soybeans, the estimates are at 2.925 billion bushels, with a yield of 38.6 bu. per acre.
FCStone is expecting U.S. corn production to reach 10.881 billion bushels, with an average corn yield estimate of 124.0. In soybeans, the firm pegs soybean production at 2.959 billion bushels, with a yield estimate of 39.1 bu. per acre.
In October, USDA projected the corn crop at 10.706 billion bushels with a yield of 122 bu. per acre. The current soybean crop estimates are at 2.860 billion bushels with a yield of 37.8 bu. per acre.
"FCStone was a little more bearish than Informa," says Gulke, president of the Gulke Group.
On Friday, Nov. 9, USDA will release its November Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. What if USDA comes out and agrees with Informa and FCStone?
"It wasn’t that long ago in September that we were talking 35.3 bu. per acre for soybeans. We have jumped that up quite a bit," Gulke says. He expects USDA to increase the soybean yield estimate.
If the U.S. corn and soybean crops do get larger, the recent high prices aren’t likely to stick around. Gulke says producers need to be ready for USDA to throw a few curveballs next week.
Slap on a Price Tag
With corn prices hovering more than $7.30 and soybean prices exceeding $15.20, Gulke says he has a real hard time holding on to grain. He says unsold bushels equal risk.
We should have made our harvest lows in October and maybe we have. But, we’re not far from them now.
"There are a lot of farmers that just want to keep some grain in the bins to gamble." Gulke says he has between 10 and 15% of his crop unsold at this point. "If it goes up or down $1, it’s not a big deal in the big picture. But, I’m not comfortable holding anything with the technical outlook like it is."
Farmers should also start penciling out their production costs for next year. Gulke says all of his cash rents are going up for next year. So, he’s considering selling some of next year’s crop. "I can still get $6 for my corn next fall. That doesn’t look as good as today’s price of $7.50, but it’s a lot better than $4.50."
Listen to Gulke's full audio analysis:
For More Information
See the latest market quotes with AgWeb's Market Center
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Thou are the One you have been waiting for
Thou are the one who holds you
and Thou doest so,
between the palms of Thine own hands
In Thy Hands: A Centering Exercise
What is familiar to most as a "hands together" gesture of prayer has been around for a lot longer than the form of worship with which most are familiar and, has both a much deeper meaning and significance.
Those who are familiar with the subtle energies of the body know that there is, in the hands, a reflex point for every organ and function of the body.
They would also know that right in the centre of each palm is a reflex point for the heart and a mirror of the energetic centre of your being – the Heart Chakra - in Thy Hands
Thus, when the hands are brought together, not only are all opposite energies brought to a meeting point, but right in the centre of thy hands is the centre of your being
Simplicity cannot be overwhelmed.
When we press our hands together, we can become aware of tension in the fingers and palms as they oppose one another. We can be aware of the tension in the wrists, in the fore-arms, in the elbows, in the upper arms, in the shoulders, across the back and the chest.
Which hand is dominant? How can there be Balance when the logical mind, which thinks one thing after the other, is trying to find an equilibrium between these pressures?
These internal pressures impress and leave our mental and emotional hand prints on every person and thing we touch.
What of the conflict of the mental pressure between the hands on your concept of Self?
In placing one’s hands, palms together in front of one’s own heart, there is a point in the middle from where all these opposing tensions of left and right, past and future, male and female, giving and receiving arise – a still point where all opposites meet.
This point is also reflected in between the palms of our hands. No matter how hard we try, there is no way that the hands can be placed so flat against each other that there is no space between them.
From this point, all thoughts arise and are manifest according to the pressures and conflicts acting between the hands.
From the still point between perceived conflict, the breath arises and can be heard by the mind focused on the act of breathing.
The rising in-breath comes to full for a moment and gives way to the falling out-breath which changes at the moment it passes through empty to become again – the in-breath.
The cycle continues whether you are aware of it or not. Even when you try to hold your breath and stop the flow, your mind may go unconscious but the rhythm and the flow will continue.
But, as with all things, if you cannot be truly empty, you cannot be truly full.
Can you feel the pulse of your heart beat in the space between the tightly pressed palms. Can you feel this heat beat all the way up both arms and into the centre of your being?
Can you find the space where the heart beat disappears to your mind. Can you find the space between the heart beats and this becomes your heart?
Can you find the space where the blood flows its stream of life through every cell of your body without the conflicts of left-right, front-back, above-below - which causes the heart to beat?
The gap in the Ego
If, in the silence of the still mind, you place your head in your hands, you can hear the Sruti - the Hum of the Universal Om.
When you allow your self to "fall into" the breath in the act of breathing, there is no awareness of this breath.
When you allow yourself to "fall into" the space between the heart beats, awareness of the heart dissolves.
This can be mighty scary to the conditioned mind that needs to be separate from both the breath and the heart beat in order to keep a check on whether it is still alive or not.
- Grace .. is found in the silence of the still mind.
Love .. wells up from the acceptance of Grace
Is releasing the need for self validation. What more do you want when you can hold yourself in the palm of your own hands.
There is nothing else. All needs, wants and desires are the direct result of what you perceive as lacking in the perceived emptiness of the space between your hands.
Is being able to sit, or stand, fully naked in front of a full length mirror and, whilst doing this as an exercise, looking yourself squarely in the eye and saying to the reflection looking back at you ..
- "I accept myself, in this moment, just the way I am"
Is the realization that you and only you hold both the essence of you and, the centre of your creativity from which all life and your experience of it arises - in the palm of your own hands.
This is the Essence of the Sacred Prayer – of Meditation – of Bhakti.
Comes from practicing for no other reason than for the practice – with no hope, need, want or expectation – until the awareness happens spontaneously and becomes a real part of who you are - in your every expression.
Only then can you touch another without leaving your imprint.
Only then can another touch you
without you receiving an imprint from them.
Only then is there no condition on your being.
Only then can you share the Love you are.
When the mind holds no gravity, there is no weight upon your feet.
Then, wherever you walk, you leave no footprints.
You have become One with Heaven and Earth.
- You are the One you have been waiting for
You are the one who holds you
and You do so,
in the palms of Thy own hands
"A Centering Exercise: In Thine Hands, The Meaning of Prayer"
was written, published and © Transpersonal LifeStreams®, Tasmania, Australia.
The URL of this page is http://www.anunda.com/support/hands.htm
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Bright dreams of containers and beds brimming with flowers fill your slumber in spring. When you awaken and arrive at the garden center, the dreams are still there, but so are the realities. The choices can be overwhelming. Then you realize what you really want is simple--easy color and easy care.
No flowers fit that description better than 'Dragon Wing' begonias. They have glossy, wing-shaped leaves with pink or red blooms. These plants prefer good morning sun with light afternoon shade. Moist, fertile, well-drained soil is important. Add some organic matter, such as peat or composted manure, to improve your soil. Fertilize regularly to get more flowers. If you are busy or forgetful, use a slow-release, granular product such as Osmocote 14-14-14, which feeds plants for several months.
Look for these begonias at your nursery or garden center. Purchase them in hanging baskets or in 4- or 6-inch pots. Expect to pay around $12 for a hanging basket and $4 for a 4-inch pot. They are well worth the money because 'Dragon Wing' begonias purchased in 4-inch pots will grow into plants 12 to 15 inches high and up to 18 inches across. When bought in small pots, they may have only a few blooms, but don't worry. Once planted, they will soon be covered with flowers that last till frost. Dreams do come true.
"Big Bloomers" is from the April 2006 issue of Southern Living.
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Contact: Julie Chao, (510)486-6491, JHChao@lbl.gov
Berkeley Lab scientists stunned the world in 2006 when they proved they could accelerate electrons to very high energies (1 GeV, or a billion electron volts) in a distance of centimeters rather than hundreds of meters. Using the same concepts, those scientists plan to take the project to the next level and build a laser-based accelerator capable of zapping electron beams to energies exceeding 10 GeV in a distance of just one meter.
When completed in about four years, the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator, or BELLA, will demonstrate the promise of a novel and compact method of accelerating high-energy particles, by making use of a series of synchronized laser systems. The results will be of interest not only to high-energy particle physicists but also to chemists, biologists, doctors, and national security officials.
BELLA, which will receive $20 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was the only science project on the list for Berkeley Lab when the Department of Energy announced $115.8 million in Recovery Act funding for the laboratory in March. The rest is allocated for construction and upgrades of office and laboratory space and for building a prototype high-speed data network. (For more about the infrastructure projects, click here.)
With a total budget of about $28 million, BELLA is expected to generate approximately 50 jobs. That includes both on-site workers, such as laser technicians, engineers and construction teams to upgrade the building that will house the laser, and off-site workers at the companies that will supply the supporting systems. About $7 million will go towards construction and safety; the rest will go towards procuring the laser and everything needed to assemble and run it, such as optical, diagnostic, and other technical systems. The entire system will be housed in an existing building at Berkeley Lab, which will be reconfigured and upgraded to include a clean room, new laser lab space and additional shielding.
Project leader Wim Leemans has spent much of his nearly 18 years at Berkeley Lab building lasers and working with laser accelerators. Collaborating with Simon Hooker of the University of Oxford, he and members of his group achieved a major breakthrough in 2006 when they broke the world record for laser-wakefield acceleration, a technique in which particles are accelerated by waves in plasma generated by intense pulses of laser light. In the wake of the laser pulse, electrons surf the waves of the ionized gas. Leemans and coworkers used this concept to accelerate electron beams to energies of more than 1 GeV in a distance of just 3.3 centimeters. Compare that to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, or SLAC, which takes 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) to boost electrons to 50 GeV.
Although the main purpose of the project is to develop a new generation of more compact accelerators for high energy physics research, laser plasma wakefield technology has several potential applications. A multi-GeV beam could be used to produce highly-collimated, high-energy photons that could penetrate cargo in a nondestructive way, allowing inspectors to remotely “see” inside a package, which would be highly useful for national security. BELLA could also be used to build free-electron lasers (FEL). Like all lasers, FELs emit energetic beams of light. But unlike conventional lasers, they operate on a different set of principles that make them highly tunable. Because of this property, free-electron lasers can provide extraordinarily valuable tools for materials scientists, chemists, biologists, and researchers in various fields working on problems in fundamental energy research, allowing them to probe ultrashort, nanoscale phenomena. Their tunability also makes them useful for medical diagnosis.
Finally, with some modification, BELLA could produce a narrow bandwidth x-ray beam that could be used to take very high-resolution x-ray images for medical use. If the laser technology that drives the laser plasma accelerators keeps on improving by becoming less expensive and more compact, it could one day be an alternative to conventional x-ray machines, offering a new technique for better images with reduced x-ray dose.
Laser plasma accelerators have the potential to drastically cut the costs of performing accelerator-based scientific experiments due to their much reduced size compared to conventional accelerators of the same energy. While it may be decades before a laser plasma accelerator is built for basic physics research, BELLA represents an essential step towards investigating how more powerful accelerators of the future might be more compact. Systems like BELLA hold the promise of making possible a table-top accelerator with particle energies in the tens of GeV range that could be compact and affordable enough for a wide range of applications.
On the international stage, plasma wakefield accelerator research is highly competitive. Groups in the UK and France are working feverishly to best the record set by Leemans’ group in 2006. China has also deemed it a high-priority growth area. “Everybody’s trying to get to 10 GeV now,” said Leemans. “It’s a big deal. If the project goes according to schedule, we have the best technology to do it first.”
Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at http://www.lbl.gov.
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Ten-year-old Sophia Bailey Klugh had one question for President Obama: “If you were me and had two dads that loved each other, and kids at school teased you about it, what would you do?” Yesterday, the President responded.
He said, in part:
In America, no two families look the same. We celebrate this diversity. And we recognize that whether you have two dads or one mom what matters above all is the love we show one another. You are very fortunate to have two parents who care deeply for you. They are lucky to have such an exceptional daughter in you.
Our differences unite us. You and I are blessed to live in a country where we are born equal no matter what we look like on the outside, where we grow up, or who our parents are. A good rule is to treat others the way you hope they will treat you. Remind your friends at school about this rule if they say something that hurts your feelings.
Sophia is the daughter of Johnathan Bailey and Triton Klugh. Bailey posted her original letter, which he said was was “totally unprompted,” on Facebook last week. He posted the President’s letter, dated November 1, yesterday. (Thanks, HuffPo!)
President Obama said in May that his own daughters have friends with same-sex parents, and they influenced his decision to support marriage equality.
Compare and contrast. Then go vote.
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Water Quality Division
About Blue Thumb
The Blue Thumb Water Quality Education Program is the educational arm of the OCC Water Quality Division. Education is a vital part of the Oklahoma Nonpoint Source (NPS) Program. Blue Thumb trains volunteers to monitor streams in their communities, conduct groundwater screenings, and to share their knowledge of water quality with others. Volunteers include an array of student groups, Girl and Boy Scout troops, families, couples, and individual citizens monitoring approximately 100 streams across Oklahoma.
Volunteer monitoring can help identify streams in need of restoration. Blue Thumb staff participate in OCC restoration projects by organizing and participating in watershed stakeholder meetings in project watersheds. Outreach efforts often include tours of demonstration farms showcasing best management practices that protect water quality, hosting community workshops, and publicizing events through the media. Blue Thumb education programs are funded by Section 319 Clean Water Act grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The goal of Oklahoma's Blue Thumb Program is to protect water resources against nonpoint source pollution by empowering citizens to protect water quality. This is accomplished through:
- Educational workshops
- Demonstrations and Presentations
|The Jay High School Blue Thumb stream team takes a closer look at Brush Creek in Delaware County.
Nonpoint source pollution is the "pollution for which the specific point of origin is not well-defined." Both urban and rural lifestyles can contribute, and a few examples of nonpoint source pollution are:
- Sediment from land clearing activities
- Fertilizer and pesticide runoff
- Animal waste runoff
- Gasoline and oil which enters water bodies
- Grass clippings placed in creeks or lakes
Blue Thumb helps citizens become aware of the power they have to make decisions that help keep our water resources clean.
An agricultural producer plowing the land, spreading chicken litter to fertilize pastures, or grazing 100 head of cattle faces a different set of issues than an urban homeowner who wants a bright green lawn that is completely free of ticks and grubs. Both types of citizens need to know that there are "best management practices" that can be employed to help them protect their local streams and lakes.
Best management practices, often simply called "BMPs" are practices that protect water against pollution, or more generally, protect resources against human activities.
The agricultural producer can engage in no-till farming, store chicken litter in an appropriate building, install grassed waterways, and use rotational grazing to keep the land productive and protect water quality.
The urban homeowner can use native vegetation that needs no additional fertilizer or watering and maintain the lawn at the proper height. These are practices that will reduce nutrient pollution to streams and discourage pests from making themselves too much at home.
So a BMP might be as simple as mowing more often or as complex as installing fencing to keep cattle away from sensitive creek banks.
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