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KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Nearly 15,000 pounds (6,795 kilograms) of marijuana have gone up in smoke in Jamaica.
The bonfire of seized drugs followed raids on marijuana-growing and trafficking operations on the Caribbean island launched since 2010.
Police say the majority of the marijuana was seized this year.
Authorities say they also destroyed about 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of hash oil during Saturday's burning operation at an undisclosed police site in the Kingston area.
Jamaica is the Caribbean region's largest producer and exporter of marijuana. Plants are grown mostly on mountain hillsides or hidden among other crops.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:ff97e815-3a96-40f8-9022-ba88c4cc5522> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kolotv.com/news/internationalnews/headlines/Up-In-Smoke--Seven-and-a-Half-Tons-of-Marijuana-Burned-in-Jamaica-163340116.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917053 | 152 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Monday 30th April 2012
An artist's prints of her beloved Staffordshire bull terrier are supporting the work of Battersea Dogs And Cats Home.
Brighton-based artist Kelly Sweeney created the prints of her Staffie Bentley, who died in 2010, to raise funds for the animal charity and challenge stereotypes surrounding the breed.
Kelly will be donating £75 from the sale of each print, costing £200, to help the charity, which reunites lost dogs and cats with owners or helps them find new homes.
Battersea Dogs And Cats Home's director of fundraising Liz Tait said: "Here at Battersea Dogs And Cats Home we are very grateful to Kelly and we hope her wonderful pieces of art will be really popular.
"They are a fitting tribute to her beloved Staffie Bentley and highlight what wonderful dogs Staffies are. The money Kelly helps raise for Battersea will be invaluable, as we care for an average of 160 Staffies at any one time, alongside 450 other animals, all needing food, dedicated care and veterinary treatment.
"We rely on generous supporters like Kelly to help us give each of these animals a second chance."
The artist, who rescued Bentley in 2002, is also using her work to support Battersea's Staffies Softer Than You Think campaign, which aims to highlight the gentle nature of the misunderstood breed.
The donations from Kelly's 50 limited-edition prints will help the charity care for and rehome the thousands of Staffies coming into the home every year.
The prints are available from http://www.culturelabel.com/shop/kelly-sweeney. | <urn:uuid:1077f4b2-984c-4af2-ba77-028fbdcf5f5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediatrust.org/newswirefeed/arts-staffie-3004-arts-staffie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91512 | 335 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Friends (allies? sweethearts? paramours? hot erotic lovers?) of the fossil fuel industry have done a hell of a good job shutting down official government observation of what it is they’re up to. Not as good as the industry would like, mind you, but a very, very good job in the eyes of those skeptical that their stewardship of the Earth is sincere. We’ve been sucking oil out of the ground for a century, so the two sides — the people extracting behind dark curtains and the people paid with tax money to politely ask if they might take a peek — have refined the points of friction to very specific points of debate.
Fracking, on the other hand, is fairly new. So fossil fuel companies are rushing forward, tossing cash into the boiler to build up speed, while their allies on Capitol Hill keep saying “woah woah woah not so fast” to regulators hopping from foot to foot, pointing after the frackers anxiously. From The Hill:
Congressional auditors conclude in new reports that the Environmental Protection Agency faces big hurdles overseeing a U.S. oil-and-gas drilling boom that’s creating “unknown” long-term health risks.
One of two Government Accountability Office reports made public Tuesday lays out “challenges” facing regulators amid the growth of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the development method that’s enabling major oil and natural-gas production increases. …
For instance, the report notes that it’s tough to inspect the large number of new well sites in Ohio, where the Utica shale play is attracting development, because EPA “generally does not receive information about new wells or their location.”
Yeah, sure. Why tell the EPA? Who made them the protectors of the environment, anyway? (Nixon.)
What’s increasingly happening is that the private sector is stepping in to fund research. Not the “private sector” meaning companies, of course — the private sector meaning nonprofits and foundations. From the Patriot-News:
Foundations from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh have provided more than $19 million for gas-drilling-related grants since 2009, according to an Associated Press review of charity data. The money has paid for scientific studies, films, radio programs, websites and even trout fishing groups that monitor water quality.
That’s led to expressions of gratitude from those who say state and federal governments aren’t doing enough on the issue but also protests from some in the gas-drilling industry, who claim there’s bias in the campaigns.
Of course they do.
The article highlights the Heinz Foundation, which has invested millions in research meant to determine the extent to which fracking affects water and air quality.
“[Heinz] Foundation support has been critical as we and others who study water have worked to understand how energy and water resources affect each other in southwestern Pennsylvania,” Carnegie Mellon University professor Jeanne VanBriesen wrote in an email.
R. John Dawes, executive director of the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, said Heinz funding “has been critical for citizen awareness and citizen input” on the gas-drilling issue.
But the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a leading industry group, criticized what it sees as a “record of bankrolling organizations and institutions opposed to the safe development of job-creating American natural gas.”
Sorry, Marcellus Shale Coalition. But I don’t think the Heinz Foundation is as influenced by your jobs rhetoric as a member of Congress might be.
Which is the overarching irony in this. Conservatives argue that the government should be reduced to nothing, its functions outsourced to the private sector. With fracking research, that’s (unfortunately) happening. So the critique is outsourced to the private sector as well. | <urn:uuid:7f92ceed-a1e7-4ac2-b497-b407fcefcac2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grist.org/news/fracking-oversight-with-regulators-hobbled-good-samaritans-step-in/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949946 | 813 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Monica Woodley | April 16th 2012 | @EG_Finance
Keeping an eye on the news of the financial world, this week I was struck by the number of often contradictory stories relating to financing. Governments everywhere are struggling to find the right balance between ensuring banks hold enough capital to be secure, while still being able to lend to people and businesses to help the economy expand. But in the UK, the government and regulators are sending out particularly mixed messages.
The government has been keen to push banks to lend, particularly to small businesses, last year even brokering a deal – called “Project Merlin” – in which banks agreed to increase their lending to SMEs.
At the same time, though, regulators have pushed banks to tighten lending requirements (ie, no more 100% mortgages) and hold more capital. Basel III will introduce higher capital requirements for banks at the international level and the European Union parliament is looking at how to implement the new rules here. But the UK wants the power to go beyond EU rules with even stricter capital requirements – to the point that David Cameron vetoed a new EU treaty in December in order to get his way.
Not surprising that the Bank of England reported in February that banks had fallen £1bn short of the agreed Project Merlin lending target.
The government also believes that more competition in banking will lead to greater lending, and that different models such as mutuals will promote more responsible banking. The sale of Lloyds branches to the Co-op would achieve both in one swoop. Lloyds has been forced by the EU Competition Commissioner to dispose of the branches by the end of the year (because its merger with HBOS at the height of the financial crisis created an uncompetitive monster). And a bigger Co-op would give a boost to mutualism.
Yet, in order to buy those Lloyds branches, the FSA will require the Co-op to fundamentally change its corporate structure and governance - to be more like a bank, less like a mutual and shift power from its democratically elected board to bankers.
With bank lending unlikely to increase any time soon, businesses are more reliant other sources of funding. But again, in the UK there are mixed messages. On one hand, the government says it supports non-bank financing such as peer-to-peer lending, community finance institutions (like local social enterprises and credit unions), asset leasing and invoice finance.
But on the other, the latest Finance Bill includes a measure under which venture capital trusts that invest in small companies could lose their tax benefits – although the UK can blame having to comply with European rules for this one.
Non-bank lending is woefully under-developed in the UK compared to other developed markets. Even its corporate bond market is behind that of other countries in Europe and in the US, in terms of private placement of debt.
Yes, regulators need to make sure UK banks are safe. But the government needs to realise they have a situation where businesses rely disproportionately on banks for their financing. If they are going to restrict banks’ ability to lend, they need to put their money where their mouths are and do more than just say they support alternative sources of funding. They need to actually create an environment where these alternatives can flourish - restricting them with the same rules imposed on banks as punishment for the financial crisis will help no one. | <urn:uuid:1c077dd6-83b7-448a-9e59-c6d7b68cd769> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.management-thinking.org/content/uk-must-find-financing-solution-economy-starved-funding | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968497 | 684 | 1.789063 | 2 |
I once caught the end of a program at about three in the morning where for some reason a man was interviewing a hindu holy man. I never did find the name of the program or the people being interviewed, so I can't really credit them properly, but the idea they were talking about stuck in my mind.
They had found a little broken face of an idol in the dust, and they were talking about it.
The holy man said, 'You see this hand' and held out his hand, pointing. 'I am pointing at something, but first you need to look at my hand, and then follow where it points to see what I am pointing at.'
The interviewer said, 'But what if I just keep on looking at your hand?'
'It does not matter. One day, you will look and you will see. God is not in a hurry.'
This idea, of a symbol or an idol pointing to an idea or god, made a lot of sense to me, so I write it here.
back to Religion and Philosophy
back to beccaelizabeth's main page
write me, beccaelizabeth | <urn:uuid:13686f19-d544-4c6a-bd4a-8f83c3609fa6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://webspace.webring.com/people/gb/beccaelizabeth/symbols.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976105 | 235 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Jensen-Healey History: The Jensen Motors company of England built about 10,000 Jensen-Healeys from 1972 to 1976, and the fastback Jensen GT was made in 1975. Donald Healey was the chairman of Jensen Motors at the time and Kiell Qvale was the majority stockholder of the Norcros Group, their parent company.
The Jensen brothers were building bodies for the Austin Motor Company. Healey was their engineer and was hoping to build a new car as an upgrade to the Austin-Healey 3000. The Jensens and Healey considered engines from Vauxhall, Ford and BMW but settled on a two liter Lotus 907 with dual overhead cams that produced about 144 brake horsepower. The engine was equipped with dual side-draft Zenith Stromberg carburetors and a four, then five-speed manual transmission.
When the oil crisis of the 1970s killed sales for the Jensen V8 Interceptor they did not have enough capital to keep the Jensen-Healey in production and went out of business in 1976.
Click on column names to sort listings - Jensen-Healey
Enter keywords (Ex: 1957 chevy door) or use filters to see what we have. | <urn:uuid:b7557d87-d91c-4bae-b069-97f9362a7a9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antiquecar.com/category/For-Sale/Foreign-Cars/Jensen-Healey.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95622 | 251 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Every county (except Kane) became more Republican between 1992 and 2008. Many became WAY more Republican.
In our last post, we looked at Utah’s continuing movement toward the GOP during the 2000s. Today, we’ll look to see which specific counties moved the most toward the GOP.
We calculated a partisanship score for each county by averaging together its presidential vote with its gubernatorial vote for every election since 1980. In 2008, we find that no county voted less than 57% Republican when its presidential and gubernatorial votes were averaged together in this manner.
Every county is a Republican county
That means there are no longer any Democratic-majority counties in Utah. That’s a change from 1992, when two counties gave a clear majority of their votes to Democrats (Carbon and Summit), and another four counties gave just shy of a majority (between 45 and 50%) of their votes to Democrats (Grand, Salt Lake, San Juan, and Tooele).
That was 1992. In 2008, no county voted less than 57% Republican. Put differently, no county gave more than 43% of its vote to Democrats.
Almost every county has moved right
Between 1992 and 2008, only Kane County decreased its share of Republican voters, dropping slightly from 81% Republican to 77% Republican. Every other county increased its share of Republican voters.
The most striking change was in Carbon County, which made a huge shift from voting only 34% Republican in 1992 to 61% in 2008. That’s a 27 percentage point shift.
Even Salt Lake County moved to the right. In fact, the county’s average Republican vote share in presidential and gubernatorial elections has increased from 54% in 1992 to 60% in 2008.
In the table below, I have listed GOP support in 1992 and 2008 for Utah’s 10 most populous counties. The table is sorted by the right-most column, which shows how many percentage points each county moved to the right between 1992 and 2008.
|County||1992 GOP||2008 GOP||Change|
The 10 biggest movements toward the GOP
Carbon County’s massive 27 point movement toward the GOP doesn’t show up in the preceding table, since Carbon County is not one of the 10 most populous counties. Carbon County’s change is especially striking given its history with mining and union sentiment. Many of the largest movements toward the GOP occurred in less populated places like Carbon County. In the table below, I list the ten largest partisan shifts in descending order. Most of these counties are among Utah’s least populated counties.
|County||1992 GOP||2008 GOP||Change|
Every county (except Kane) became more Republican between 1992 and 2008. Many became WAY more Republican. This rightward trend across the state has important implications for this year’s round of redistricting. The state’s GOP dominance is spread throughout the state, which will make it relatively easy for the legislature to draw four Republican-majority districts. This is especially true if the legislature blends urban and rural areas in each district, since rural areas have made some of the biggest shifts toward the GOP.
Now for a technical note. Our methodology assumes that 2008 was not an unusually Republican year in Utah when compared to other recent years. From looking at the statewide partisanship figures we posted yesterday, it appears that this assumption is sound. To double check, though, we also conducted a modified version of this analysis. Details are in the footnote at the end of this sentence.1
We’ve now written two posts on partisanship. Last time, we looked at the overall statewide trend toward the GOP. Today, we looked at the county-level trend. In our next post, we’ll look at how partisan shifts might affect Utah’s 75 state House districts.
This is part of a series of posts about redistricting in Utah. For an overview, read the introductory post. My talented research assistant, Robert Richards, contributed heavily to this series. | <urn:uuid:134dd605-8588-4b82-816d-48b4f73523cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://utahdatapoints.com/2011/06/which-counties-have-moved-most-to-the-right/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9329 | 824 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Click here for our Metal Caskets
Since the early 1900's, metal caskets have been probably the most popular choice. Metal caskets rose to their status as the most common type of casket just as the Industrial Revolution swept the Western World, and steel became the material of choice for thousands of consumer items. People flocked to metal caskets as soon as they became available because consumers wanted a longer-lasting, sturdier casket than the traditional light-weight wood could provide. By the time of World War I, most manufacturers had turned to making metal caskets exclusively.
Despite their popularity, metal caskets left the market for a few years during World War II, as steel was rationed world wide for military uses. But, as soon as metal became widely available for consumer uses again after the war, metal caskets quickly regained their popularity. By 1948, metal caskets, again, were just about the only choice available.
In recent years, metal caskets have started facing more competition from their hardwood casket cousins. Environmental concerns have prompted many consumers to choose the more easily degradable wood material instead. But, nevertheless, metal caskets continue to be the most popular type. The sturdier, longer-lasting material is a comfort for many loved-ones.
Metal caskets are made from a variety of metals. The most popular include bronze, copper and stainless steel. They can be made in a variety of thickness and weight. Bronze and copper metal caskets are often made from 32-ounce metal, and steel metal caskets can come in 16, 18, or 20 gauge metal.
Metal caskets are solidly welded to protect a body from all elements for many years. They are, typically, also very carefully crafted and painted using a sanding process that is very similar to that of painting cars. Metal caskets are also typically adorned with luxurious velvet lining designed to give the body a comfortable, long-lasting rest.
Since most metal caskets are designed to survive the elements for as long as possible, they typically come with a special locking system that makes the metal caskets difficult to open once it has been closed. Most of metal caskets have a special compartment on the side in which written records about the deceased person can be stored for possible later reference.
Metal caskets continue to be the most popular type of casket available. Their renowned durability proves, year after year, to be a great comfort to love-ones. It is important to note, however, that, metal caskets cannot be expected to protect a body from the elements entirely – or forever. That said metal caskets are certainly much more durable than even the sturdiest of their hard wood competitors. But, in recognition of the Bible's "dust to dust" tradition, many people today choose wood caskets over metal caskets. The important thing to consider in this discussion is that, today, -- unlike in previous generations – consumers have a good choice of two equally viable casket materials. And metal caskets are still quite popular.
See all your Metal Caskets choices
MEMORIALS.com: Your Premier Online Source for all your Funeral and Memorial needs. We live up to our name and reputation our staff is standing by to assist you, all products with No Sales Tax & Free Delivery. | <urn:uuid:7fd49fed-ad7e-4d23-a611-afd00b8dfaee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.memorials.com/Caskets-Metal-Caskets-information.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961305 | 703 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Photo: Child Abuse on Rise in Colombia
Child abuse continues to be a very serious wound in the Latin American country. According to the latest report carried out by ICBF, the Colombian Institute which deals with the protection of the family, in 2011 104,392 complaints were recorded, of which 39,500, about 40%, related to cases of abuse on boys and girls.
The numbers could be much higher, both because many cases are not reported and because there are cases of abuse that are culturally accepted. The ICBF statistics deal with reported cases, what are missing are those hidden thanks to the complicity of family members or other people outside the household. Compared to last year, however, complaints have increased due to greater awareness on behalf of the population. It has gone from 95,577 to 104,392.
The type of abuse recognized as the most common is that given by the negligence of adults who deprive children the attention they need. In 2011 there were 19,521 complaints of this form of abuse, followed by 17,795 complaints of child physical abuse, 1,827 for psychological abuse and 363 for abuse even during pregnancy. Regarding sexual abuse, out of 11,025 children abused, 4,796 are girls and 1,281 are boys, mostly between 7 and 12 years of age. The reported cases of sexual exploitation in 2011 have so far been 606, also, according to the ICBF figures, 507 children are involved in prostitution and 54 in pornography.
In the country there are 2,513 child workers, 392 who live on alms, 14,524 are under the Criminal Responsibility System for Adolescents, 878 are street children, 4,681 drug users, 1,352 are displaced. According to the chief of the movement for the protection of children in Latin America, the problem in Colombia and the world is more serious than it appears from the figures reported. | <urn:uuid:0c09a7c3-5337-45d6-ab9c-20b301abff32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/number-of-abused-exploited-children-in-colombia-increasing/11933/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968552 | 384 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Culture of Texas
|This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2012)|
The culture of Texas can be generally be described as a melting pot of "Southern" (Dixie) and "Southwestern" culture, with pockets of colonies of ethnic groups in many locations. These features can also be said to exist more strongly in some parts of the state than in others.
There are many popular events held in Texas celebrating cultures of Texans The annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the world's largest known rodeo. It is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. The Fort Worth Livestock Show and Rodeo lasts three weeks in late January and early February. It has many traditional rodeos, but also a cowboy rodeo, and a Mexican rodeo in recent years that both have large fan bases.
The big State Fair of Texas is held in Dallas each year between late September through mid to late October at Fair Park. The OU-Texas and the Grambling St-Prairie View A&M football games are played at the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park during the State Fair. The State Fair is known for its fried food, particularly the corndogs. The State Fair is also home to the Texas Star, the tallest Ferris wheel in North America, and Big Tex.
Texas has a vibrant live music scene in Austin boasting more music venues per capita than any other U.S. city, befitting the city's official slogan as The Live Music Capital of the World. Austin's music revolves around the many nightclubs on 6th Street and an annual film, music, and multimedia festival known as South by Southwest. The longest-running concert music program on American television, Austin City Limits, is videotaped at the University of Texas at Austin campus. Austin City Limits and Waterloo Records run the Austin City Limits Music Festival, an annual music and art festival held at Zilker Park in Austin .
Texas is known for its love of NFL football and is noted for the intensity with which people follow high school and NCAA football teams—often dominating over all else for the purposes of socializing and leisure. School districts in Texas are sometimes criticized for the amount of money spent on their sports programs and facilities. Such facilities and programs can garner a school attention, however. Texas is also home to two NFL teams, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Houston Texans.
Rodeo is the official sport of Texas.
Baseball is also very popular in Texas. In Major League Baseball, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are equally popular in the state (geographic wise), as North Texas, West Texas, and Panhandle residents are predominantly Rangers fans, while Southeast Texas, Central Texas, and South Texas are predominantly inhabited by Astros fans. Minor league baseball is also closely followed.
Other popular sports in Texas include golf (which can be played year-round because of the South's mild climate), basketball (the state has three NBA teams: the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, and Dallas Mavericks), fishing, and auto racing. Lacrosse, originally played by some of the indigenous tribes, is a visible sport and growing. Soccer is a popular participatory sport—especially among children—but as a spectator sport, it does not yet have a large following despite two Texan teams in Major League Soccer. Hockey has been a growing participatory sport in the Dallas/Fort Worth area since the Minnesota North Stars became the Dallas Stars in 1993. Minor league pro hockey has become quite popular in the last decade; Texas is home to eight of the Central Hockey League's seventeen teams. Texas is also home to the Houston Aeros and San Antonio Rampage of the American Hockey League and the Texas Wildcatters of the ECHL.
|This section requires expansion. (November 2010)|
See also | <urn:uuid:7fc10220-b692-4f51-8dd6-c1ef46451549> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Texas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970646 | 832 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Obama loses the shackles after coming out on gay marriage
It is a surprise to no one in the United States that Barack Obama supports gay marriage. The only thing that has raised eyebrows is how long it took the President to stumble towards a clear public affirmation of his position.
In an interview aired just a few hours ago, after three days of media and cajoling and speculation, Obama told ABC TV: "I've been going through an evolution on this issue. I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally.
At a certain point, I just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same-sex couples should be able to get married.
"At a certain point, I just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same-sex couples should be able to get married."
But when was that "certain point"? Gay marriage became a hot political topic for the President on Sunday morning when his VP, Joe Biden, committed the political sin of stating an honestly held point of view in clear terms during a Meet The Press interview. He believed, he said, gays had the right to marry.
While no one doubted that this was the President's view, Mr Obama had yet to come out and say it. For days his spokesman Jay Carney was left telling reporters that Mr Obama's view was "unchanged" or that it was "evolving".
Nonsense. The President had supported gay marriage in thought and deed for years and everyone knew it. He has been carefully signaling so to the gay community too. "I'm with you," the semaphore said, "just wait."
Obama's Justice Department had actively worked around the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Bill Clinton, that had defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The result was that the federal government had begun conferring the economic benefits of marriage to married gay couples where ever it could.
Obama had repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell, so that gays could openly serve in the military, and his Attorney-General had directed immigration officials to consider gay relationships in their decisions.
So why was the man who had built his reputation on being a conviction politician, a transformative figure, ducking the issue? And why was the most eloquent politician of his generation left hiding behind a spokesman mumbling about "evolving" positions?
That's not quite clear. It could have been that Obama planned to make a big deal of the announcement later in the campaign. (If that is the case Joe Biden blew two days of the campaign for his boss on Sunday – a future gay marriage announcement and the release of the campaign's first tranche of advertising, which was lost in the discussion of gay marriage on Monday.)
It could be that Obama didn't want to address the issue until after the election – this is, after all, the man who accidently told the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, ''This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility," in range of a hot mic.
And if he was going to come out, as it were, why did it take him three long days? Perhaps his team was busy counting the political cost.
On that score it is swings and roundabouts.
There has been a dramatic shift in public attitudes toward legalising gay marriage. In 2004, 43 per cent of the population thought it should be legal. Today, that figure is 52 per cent.
Obama risks alienating conservative voters in swing states like North Carolina (where a state constitutional ban on gay marriage passed with 60 per cent of voters on Tuesday) and Virginia. On the other hand, those voters knew where the President stood anyway.
He may antagonise some in the African-American community, which is far more resistant to gay marriage, but he is hardly going to lose their vote.
He can be certain of exciting his young urban base, the group that turned out for hope and change in 2008 and was crucial in securing him the presidency.
Perhaps most importantly, the revelation has freed him to speak with conviction on an issue that was not going to disappear.
And he is sure to have more fun at the fundraiser at George Clooney's place tonight.
The reading list
Obama decision casts Republicans as Reactionary writes former Bush staffer - NY Mag
Why gay people see themselves in Obama – Slate
Tough commissioner jails 14 of Balitmore’s finest – NYT
Nate Silver goes deep into the gay marriage poll impact – NYT
Latest AP general election poll; Obama 50, Romney 42
Latest Gallup Tracking; Obama 44, Romney 47
Real Clear Politics poll average; Obama 46.7, Romney 45.4
Conservative lobby revives the Mommy wars
There are 181 days until the election
Poll: The US President now backs gay marriage. Do you?
- I support gay civil unions, but not marriage
Total votes: 21487.
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These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate. | <urn:uuid:7af56f4b-8954-4d2d-a2fe-cd111bb2e035> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/blogs/altered-states/obama-loses-the-shackles-after-coming-out-on-gay-marriage-20120510-1ye1o.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982374 | 1,069 | 1.640625 | 2 |
All About You - “All About You” is a variety of workshops offering topics to assist you in defining your personal and educational goals. Groups will provide learning techniques and strategies to help you advocate for yourself while having an outlet to express your feelings.
The specific topics of workshops vary each semester. Some examples of possible topics include:
- How to handle stress
- Self-image and how it relates to you
- Acclimating and transitioning into the college experience
- How to accept and work through parental divorce
- Stigma on your college campus
- How to grieve while in school
- Relationships and how to work with them
- Substance abuse prevention and education
- Study skills and managing your time adequately
- How to work through negative feelings
- Dealing with depression and/or other unwanted feelings.
CLICK HERE FOR THE SPRING 2013 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Students who would like to discuss any of these topics individually may call (973) 328-5140. | <urn:uuid:a3799fc6-19d3-4134-9964-e32e86dc9196> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ccm.edu/studentLife/CampusServices/CounselingServices/WorkshopSeries.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92153 | 208 | 2.109375 | 2 |
|You are here: Cwm > Themes > Events > : 1972 and 1974 Miners' Strikes|
1972 and 1974 Miners' Strikes
The 1972 Miners' Strike was noticeable as it was the first time since 1926 that British miners had been on strike. It came about because of disagreements between the miners and the Government over pay; throughout Britain's industry there was a widespread hostility to the Tories' offers of pay. In the 1971 NUM Annual Conference, it was decided to ask for a 43% pay rise, at a time when the Tories' were offering around 7-8%. In late 1971, the miners voted to take industrial action if their pay demands were not met.
On the 5th January 1972, the National Executive Committee of the NUM rejected a small pay rise from the National Coal Board, who then 2 days later, withdrew all pay offers from the last 3 months. On the 9th January 1972, miners from all over Britain came out on strike. In South Wales, 135 pits were closed; 50 collieries and 85 private mines.
At first the miners picketed at coal power stations, but then it was decided to target all power stations, and also steelworks, ports, coal depots and other major coal users. In South Wales, dockers at Newport and Cardiff supported the miners by refusing to unload coal from ships. On the 21st January, the NUM decided to try to stop the movement of all fuel supplies. Miners from South Wales were involved in the pickets at the Saltley Marsh Coal Depot of the West Midlands Gas Board.
On the 9th February, a state of emergency was declared and 2 days later, the three day working week was introduced to save electricity. On the 19th February, after much negotiation, an agreement was reached between the National Executive Committee of the NUM and the Government. Picketing was called off, and on the 25th February, the miners accepted the offer in a ballot, returning to work on the 28th February.
The result of the strike was that the miners' wages became almost the highest amongst the working class. The strike also showed the country how important coal was to the country's economy.
By 1973 however, the miners had moved from first in the industrial wages league to eighteenth. The miners saw however, that the poor economic situation that the country was in could be used to their advantage. The Arab-Israeli War was causing oil prices to soar, and throughout the country, relations between the industrial unions and the Government were hostile as the Tories were attempting to introduce pay freezes and restraints to help the economy.
In late 1973, the miners once more voted to take industrial action if their pay demands were not meet. They were not, and so on the 9th February 1974, the miners came out on strike.
The Government refused to compromise on a 7% pay rise, and the situation lead to Edward Heath, the Prime Minister, to declare a state of emergency and introduce a three day working week. The General Election and the Industrial Relations Act meant that picketing and campaigning were low key compared with the 1972 strike. Edward Heath called a General Election for the 28th February believing that the country would be in sympathy with him, but the Conservatives were defeated. The Labour Government and the miners reached a deal shortly afterwards and the strike ended.
The new Secretary of State for Employment, Michael Foot, implemented the Pay Board Report which showed how miners' pay had dropped since 1972. As well as increases in pay, there were two other important results of the strike; the implementation of a scheme for compensation for pneumoconiosis sufferers, and a new superannuation scheme which commenced in 1975.
Source: 'The Fed', Hywel Francis and David Smith
Pitt Malcolm. The World On Our Backs. The Kent Miners and the 1972 Miners` Strike. (London, 1979).
All items listed in the further reading are available for consultation in either the South Wales Miners' Library or the Library and Information Centre, University of Wales Swansea. Click here to link to the library catalogue.
LINKS TO USEFUL WEBSITES:
Ymgyrchu! - Miners strikes 1972, 1974, 1984
Ymgyrchu! - NUM fact sheet on miners strike
Mining Memorabilia - Badges of the strike
|©University of Wales Swansea 2002| | <urn:uuid:031edad0-d8e7-41b6-adc2-a732c0795f75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agor.org.uk/cwm/themes/events/1972_1974_strikes.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978028 | 896 | 3.703125 | 4 |
"The national satellites which were unveiled today will be sent into space by Simorgh satellite carrier," Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi told reporters here in Tehran today, referring to two hi-tech satellites, namely 'Tolou' (Rise) and 'Mesbah' (Lantern), which are reportedly the new generation of Iran-made satellites.
He also declared that the country plans to send heavy satellites into higher altitudes in future.
Iran on Wednesday unveiled a new home-made satellite carrier capable of carrying 60-kilogram (132-pound) satellites 500 kilometers (310 miles) into orbit.
The satellite carrier named 'Simorgh' utilizes a new generation of liquid-fuel engines to put satellites in orbit.
The milk-bottle shaped rocket, emblazoned in blue with the words "Satellite Carrier Simorgh," is equipped to carry a 60-kilogram (132-pound) satellite 500 kilometers (310 miles) into orbit.
The 27-meter (90-foot) tall multi-stage rocket weighs 85 tons and its liquid fuel propulsion system has a thrust of up to 143 tons. The rocket uses a cluster of four engines each having a thrust of 32 tons plus a control engine with a thrust of 15 tons.
Experts believe that the engine could be used in future for carrying 700-kilogram (1540-pound) satellites 1000 kilometers (620 miles) into orbit.
Simorgh is different from Iran's first home-made satellite carrier Safir (Ambassador) - which carried Iran's Omid (Hope) satellite - both in length and diameter and has been designed to carry the new generation of Iranian satellites into the orbit.
Omid (hope) was Iran's first research satellite that was designed for gathering information and testing equipment. After orbiting for three months, Omid successfully completed its mission without any problems. It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks and reentered the earth's atmosphere on April 25.
Also, Iran in November announced that it is slated to launch another research satellite, the Mesbah 2, in 2011 as part of the country's efforts to own an independent space program.
Mesbah, which means "Lantern," has a lifespan of three years. It is equipped with a store and forward communications receiver that can gather information from various parts of the planet and transmit it back to the Earth.
Mesbah will weigh 63.5 kilograms, more than twice the mass of Omid, which was placed into orbit on the back of two carrier rockets last February.
The Iranian defense minister had also announced in December that Tehran had built a new hi-tech satellite named Tolou, adding that the satellite developed and produced by Iran's Electronics Industries Co. (SA Iran) was a bold step towards the country's active and permanent presence in the field of space. | <urn:uuid:a72c4194-1b42-4192-b9b4-4ae1082a38c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811141592 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954916 | 592 | 2.75 | 3 |
Released after five years in development on November 8, 1995, Stonekeep is one of those good old games from the good old days. Its roots go back to the original Wizardry Games that Robert Sirotech sold out of the back of his car in the days when all computer stores were individually owned and a small company did its own marketing and distribution that easily. These games were grid or step based games, where each space in the game was composed of a standard sized square grid that was 10 feet on a side loosely based on board games.
Within that ten foot square block in subsequent game offerings stood as many as ten adventurers and hundreds of monster antagonists. Of course in those days, monsters had to take their turn in turn-based combat sequences that could take hours, hours of figuring which weapon or spell would most easily beat the next one in line. Sonekeep reminds us of those bygone days, where stories ruled the game world and graphics were just a part of our greater imagination.
Characterizations: The dwarves, elves, fairies, and others are all beautifully done. Simply walk up to them and they start talking to you. Be careful though you could end up hitting someone and getting into a battle that you did not want, so it is wise to save prior to talking. An annoying interface blunder.
Interface: This is a very simple interface with full screen three-dimensional (3D) high-resolution graphics. The cursor is interactive and changes when it comes in contact with things. Swinging weapons and all access is with the mouse. An excellent automapping and autonotetaking system is also within the magic book you find on the first level of the castle early in the game. Each item found is identified and chronicled in the book which is divided by tabs into sections. An autotravel utility in the book would have been wonderful.
Combat: The real-time first-person perspective combat is great. When you pick up a weapon you see it on screen, and when you use it or throw it you will see it move. When dropped objects remain on the ground where they fell, including arrows, which are not destroyed by shooting into the enemy. Destroyed enemies disappear, which may disappoint some Doom players who are used to bodies littering the ground in the dungeons.
Cut scenes: Sometimes wonderful cut scenes replace the normal 3D action. For example a two headed troll in one of the earlier levels drops a rock on you when you fall into a pit. You climb on the rock to get out. All of this is done with seamless animation that is integrated into the story. Bravo!
Cheat: Take skull from inventory and hold it so that it is the cursor. Type left-shift, then f9. Drake’s hit points never drop below 1 after this point. Reset the cheat each time you boot the game or restore a saved game.
Voice actors and Musical score: But Stonekeep does not skimp on the graphics and sound department. Wahooka, a most dramatic and personality ridden character, and Fairy Players, who sing and dance a variety of performances, have to be seen to be believed. The voice actors are quite good, all parts are scripted to perfection and the humor is flawless.
Sound effects: Constant drippings and dungeon sounds echo creating an aura of suspense. You will literally be sitting on the edge of your seat.
Hint: In the first room save your game. Then go to the door out and move the door lever up and down three times. Go back around to the left and find the secret button on the wall. The button will open a secret cache with a magical dagger that is better than most of the weapons in the game.
PC Gamer, February, 1996, page 147, 77%
Byte This, Graphics 85%, Sound 89%, Gameplay 95%, Overall 89%
Levi Fanning, PC Gamer, volume 3, number 9, September, 1996, pg. 96, Strategy. | <urn:uuid:abaa2d0e-1390-4caa-ad6a-717eaa6703da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thecomputershow.com/computershow/archives/stonekeep.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959272 | 813 | 1.5 | 2 |
Many studies, clinical trials and field
testing have been made using UVC equipment, including many done in U.S. hospitals. We have attempted to compile as many as
we can here. We are identifying the sources for these when the information is available to us.U.S. Hospitals
In the 1930's, 40's and 50's many hospitals in the United
States used UV blood Irradiation to treat a variety of diseases. WILLIAM
CAMPBELL DOUGLASThe following data was taken from the book "Into The Light" by William Campbell Douglas, the most vocal proponent
of UV and alternative therapy in recent years. Here's Dr. Douglas' website, http://douglassreport.com/
The U.S. War and Navy Department and
UV Therapy treatments in the 1940's:
Harris Medical Resources' President Thomas Perez developed a non-invasive, sub-lingual device.
His website is under construction but the previous version of it included the following data which we have copied and pasted.
Their website is www.harrismed.com.
RESULTS BY DISEASE TREATED: These lab results show the effect of an ultra-violet light
therapy machine on a few patients. Please refer back for more posted results. | <urn:uuid:80d8e0f1-82cf-452a-9663-52edbb752feb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uvnamerica.com/id2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941833 | 271 | 2.75 | 3 |
Does your existing thermostat have a "fan only" position (i.e., system "off" but fan "on")? If so, I'd just use that. If it doesn't have that option, I'd pull the thermostat from the wall and see which wires it has hooked to it -- my thinking is that if your furnace will run in fan only position but your thermostat can't, you may be able just to change the thermostat and achieve what you're trying to achieve. If all that fails, you can probably wire in a switch to apply 24 volts AC (which is normally operating circuit control voltage) to make your furnace fan run on its own. And if THAT won't work, you can always flip off the gas pilot light on your furnace during the warmer months and then do whatever's needed to make your furnace fan cut on.
Basically what you're doing is a form of geothermal cooling -- the basement concrete slab is always going to be cold, and moving the warmer air around the house and getting it closer to the slab so the slab can absorb some of the heat (or, put differently, moving the air the slab has already cooled to the warmer parts of the house) is going to make things feel more comfortable. | <urn:uuid:40bb1993-3300-48be-b7d6-00058a7d1344> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?38053-turn-furnace-into-a-fan-for-summer-!&p=269530&viewfull=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959595 | 259 | 1.625 | 2 |
I have this graph, (please click on it)
From this graph I have 5 variables.
1) Country (various countries)
2) Gender (Male and female) - categorical
3) Education Level (Low, Mid and High) - categorical
4) Average Life Span - numerical
5) Standard Deviation - numerical
I am wondering what's a better representation of these data. i.e. the relationship between these 5 variables. Like what other graph can I use to show the 'main' message of the graph more simply?
I thought about doing a matrix plot, but plotting categorical variables against each other isn't ideal. Then I thought of doing a histrogram, splitted by the categories... but it will be massive as there are so many countries. I don't think taking the average in each category would be ideal, because then you use the 'country' variable.
What suggestions do you have? | <urn:uuid:37d3ccdd-804b-4c29-aba1-e042fe9e1654> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mathhelpforum.com/statistics/202812-improve-representation-data.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904824 | 195 | 1.929688 | 2 |
The development of the green energy sector could benefit householders attempting to switch gas tariffs to a more efficient deal.
However, the industry requires more skilled workers to deliver improved technology and build wind turbines, marine energy equipment and other renewable energy gear.
A spokeswoman for the Centre for Alternative Technology commented: "To bridge the yawning chasm the government needs to forge new research partnerships with trade unions, employers and regional development agencies to better understand the skills needed in a zero carbon economy.
"Resources need to be made available to those already in the workforce and to higher education institutions to finance the up-skilling of the work force."
The representative pointed out that an average six-week course to become a domestic green engineer can cost between £5,000 and £8,000, so grants should be made available to more people.
"There is no point announcing ten new offshore wind turbines if we haven't got the supply chain working and the people to build the turbines," she added.
If you want to find out more about your energy options and how you could save up to £453 in minutes, click here.
Share this story with your friends:- | <urn:uuid:a8656f53-f93c-4f03-ac80-15c2a29fc1b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energyhelpline.com/news1/fri/Domesticenergy/news/article/800675071 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952155 | 236 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The theme of military preparedness was typically manifested in one of three ways: in depictions of the history and implied lessons of the Russian Civil War; in models of pre-military training and war games; or by showcasing the Soviet Union’s current military might, sometimes in conjunction with children’s own direct participation, and usually with an emphasis on the continued need for vigilance and preparedness for future wars. In these different ways, the books were intended to foster in their young readers soldierly values, a love of things military, and a patriotism born of the need to defend the Soviet fatherland from capitalist and fascist aggression. To be sure, these books dealt with violent themes, but they did so in a way that made war fun.
The Civil War (1918-1921) that followed the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 in Petrograd had pitted the Bolsheviks (“Reds”) against a kaleidoscopic array of opponents: the “Whites,” headed by former Tsarist army officers; the “Greens,” peasant and Cossack bands that fought both Reds and Whites; and foreign “interventionists” seeking variously to suppress Bolshevism, to keep Russia fighting Germany in World War I, or to make territorial gains at the expense of the collapsed empire (these included Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Romania, Poland, the United States, and Japan). Along with the October coup, victory in the Civil War provided the foundational mythology of the Soviet state.
Too young to have experienced or remembered the Civil War, the first generations of Soviet children became the beneficiaries of its mythology. The war offered a wealth of material to explore and to imagine; its color-coded combatants lent themselves especially well to the genre of children’s literature. Grazhdanskaia Voina (The Civil War, Item 1) depicts the embattled Soviet republic as a red blot, neatly surrounded by the encroaching anti-Bolshevik forces; the text lists “our major enemies” in the East, West, South, and North. As this book was printed, the Soviet Union was embarking on a momentous campaign of forced-paced industrialization and collectivization, accompanied by a ratcheted-up rhetoric about capitalist encirclement and the possibility of a renewed foreign intervention. This ostensibly historical illustration thus served to prime its young readers (or preliterate viewers) to contemporary threats facing their motherland.
Konnaia Budennogo (Budyonny’s Cavalry, Item 2), a book about the legendary first Soviet cavalry, depicts three of the Bolsheviks’ Civil War opponents (the White Baron Wrangel’, the Ukrainian anarchist leader Nestor Makhno, and the Polish marshal Josef Pilsudski) with the accompanying rhyme by the avant-garde poet A. I. Vvedenskii: “Here before you / Is that famous trinity / That tried to impede / Our work and tranquility.” By casting the Bolsheviks’ opponents as an unholy trinity, the metaphor joined the Civil War to the contemporary antireligious campaign, while deploying the discredited religious imagery to make the old enemies appear even more distasteful. The choice of Josef Pilsudski was hardly incidental as well; now head of the Polish state, the aging marshal was seen as the spearhead of the western capitalist-imperialist menace. Like other books about the Civil War, Budyonny’s Cavalry offered a ready cast of heroes and villains; the latter were usually vanquished, but as the sequel demanded, they were seldom destroyed.
While some books helped their young readers to identify with the young Soviet state’s struggle for survival in a heroic past, others offered models and advice for applying their youthful energies in the present, in preparation for the future. Veselaia estafeta (The Jolly Relay, Item 3) illustrates how one can organize a team obstacle-course race for the youngest children [the “Little Octoberites” (Oktiabriata), the Soviet organization for seven- to nine-year-old schoolchildren]. While not explicitly martial (although the activities include shooting arrows at strung-up bottles accompanied by the militant slogan, “Down with drunkenness and absenteeism!”), the relay would prepare the Little Octoberites for greater challenges ahead. A similarly-organized book targeting older children, Kross: Beg s prepiatstviami (Cross: Race with Obstacles, Item 4), while broadly educational, featured some unequivocally military themes and slogans. The banner above the shooting range exhorts, “The Red Army Needs Good Marksmen!”
In their inescapable projection of forward movement and speed, these books resonated with another dominant theme of the First Five-Year Plan. Bud’ gotov k oborone. Voennaia igra v ochage (Be Ready for Defense: War Game at Camp, Item 5) offered younger children an alluring model of toy warfare, complete with deceptively simple instructions for constructing a castle, cannon, horses, and tents out of cardboard and plywood, and laced with a political message: a swastika flutters over the enemy fortress, also decorated with the flags of enemy nations (Poland, Finland, France, Romania, Latvia, and the United States). While the dearth of basic construction materials probably prevented such elaborate exercises from taking place very often, such books helped nourish children’s martial imagination and whet their appetites for the real thing.
In other books children observe, mimic, or even participate in the everyday life of the Soviet military. P. Novikov’s Voenno-lyzhnyi pokhod (The Military Ski Trip, 1931, not pictured) echoes the theme and layout of both The Jolly Relay and Novikov’s own later Cross. It presents military training in harsh winter conditions as fun, despite the soldiers’ freezing red faces and gloveless red hands (probably meant to match the ubiquitous red flags, but unintentionally accurate nonetheless). Nearby, a child on skis next to a snowman watches in awe from behind a wooden fence as the soldiers ski down the hill; further along the route, the children stand closer, one of them pointing out where the soldiers are going; and finally, they are skiing, improbably, alongside the soldiers; one boy drags his sled next to the smokescreen. Na kreisere (On the Cruiser, Item 6), although labeled “for the preschool age group,” depicts a troop of red-scarved Pionery (Young Pioneers, the Soviet organization for children aged ten to sixteen) visiting a cruiser. Rather than idly standing around, they soon take to helping the sailors scrub the deck. One lucky boy even gets to sit atop the imposing gun barrel while polishing it. Whether or not pioneer troops were actually invited onto Soviet cruisers, such illustrations invited children to revel in their country’s military might and to envision their own contributions.
As the decade of the 1930s wore on, the escalating perception of a menacing capitalist-imperialist-fascist encirclement (encouraged by domestic Soviet political developments, but also by the genuine rise of militarist polities abroad) found continued expression in Soviet children’s literature. Although offering a fanciful account of the armed conflict between Soviet and Chinese forces over the Chinese Far Eastern Railway in 1929, Osobaia Dal’nevostochnaia (The Special Far-Eastern, 1932, not pictured) was printed at a time of renewed tensions in the Asia following Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. By the time Oborona (Defense, Item 7) appeared in 1937, with poetry by Sergei Mikhalkov (the future author of the Soviet national anthem) and a print run of 100,300 (previous books had typically enjoyed substantial but smaller print runs of 50,000), the Soviet Union had positioned itself internationally as the leader of an anti-fascist popular front, and hundreds of Soviet military advisers, personnel, tanks, and planes were fighting (albeit secretively) on the side of the Republican government in the Spanish Civil War. Accordingly, the lyrics accompanying the picture of the planes read: “The planes will depart from the hangar / In flying formation aloft / And our best pilots / To bomb the fascists will fly.” Meanwhile, a murderous terror against “enemies of the people” (perceived opponents of the regime) had been unleashed inside the country, accompanied by a ubiquitous spy mania. This atmosphere engendered the development of a veritable cult of the Soviet border guard, who was usually accompanied by a trusty German shepherd, keeping vigilant watch on the frontier, as depicted on the first page of Defense. This spy mania created opportunities for children to distinguish themselves in the defense of the motherland, and the Soviet children’s press regularly carried reports of children who had helped unmask and detain a spy at the border. Yet even as Defense (and other books, such as Vladimir Aleksandrovich Tambi’s distinctive Voennye korabli (Warships, Item 8) and Tanki (Tanks, Item 9) celebrated the captivating technological wonders of the modern military, its front and back covers portrayed a cavalry charge that hearkened back to the martial romance of the Civil War.
by Andrey Shlyakhter
Items in Exhibition:
Items Discussed in Exhibition:
|1. Click on images to enlarge.| | <urn:uuid:54bf03d2-1ea9-43a5-a39a-13a5757be32c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/sovietchildrensbooks/militarypreparedness.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944299 | 2,003 | 3.296875 | 3 |
In CHRISTUS there is no east or west, but plenty of care nonetheless. The not-for-profit Catholic health care system operates about 350 medical facilities from its more than 40 hospitals, including general hospitals and long-term acute care facilities, to clinics and outpatient centers. It operates mostly in Louisiana and Texas, but also has facilities in Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri, and New Mexico, and in five states in Mexico. In addition to its acute care facilities, CHRISTUS Health runs medical groups, home health and hospice agencies, and senior living facilities. Specialized services include oncology, pediatrics, rehabilitation, and women's and children's health care.
Over the past several years CHRISTUS Health has engaged in cutting some of its operations and reining in costs to generate positive growth. In fiscal 2011 the health care system made modest gains, ending the year with a more than 2% operating margin (compared to 1.6% the previous year) with its net operating income coming in at just under $1 billion, up more than 40% from fiscal 2010.
CHRISTUS Health formed its CHRISTUS Continuing Care division in 2009 to advance the organization's plan to increase its non-acute care operations and house all of its non-acute care services. These services include home care, hospice, long-term care services, residential senior services, and its long-term acute care hospitals (many of which operate under the Dubuis brand name).
Another goal of CHRISTUS Health is to reduce overcrowding and such misuses as patients being seen for routine illnesses in its emergency rooms. To that end, and to make primary care a bit more accessible, the company has opened immediate care clinics in a number of Texas Wal-Mart stores. CHRISTUS Health has plans to expand the clinics into Wal-Marts in Louisiana.
Like many hospital companies the organization has struggled financially as a result of providing care (usually in the emergency room) for the indigent and for the growing ranks of uninsured, especially in the hard-hit economic environment of 2008 and 2009. During that period, the health care system's charity care (defined as unpaid services provided to the uninsured and indigent) was up nearly 35%.
As a result, CHRISTUS Health has had to sell some money-losing facilities, such as the St. Joseph Hospital in Houston, which it sold to Hospital Partners of America (HPA), a company that allows doctors to take an ownership stake in its hospitals.
It also sold the CHRISTUS Medical Group-Southwest Community Health Center in Houston to Legacy Community Health Services in 2010 because Legacy is designated as a federally qualified health center (FQHC) and can operate the clinic as such (meaning it is eligible for more public-sector funding). FQHCs are not-for-profit or public entity, community-owned health care providers serving low-income and medically underserved communities.
CHRISTUS Health has taken other steps to try to offset some costs of indigent care, including pushing for the establishment of hospital districts to pay for charity care costs in some of its markets.
The organization has been focused on growing its operations in Mexico where it operates about a dozen hospitals and clinics in six states. CHRISTUS Health's Mexico operations are a majority-owned partnership with Monterrey-based Muguerza. The organization's main Monterrey facility became the first Mexican hospital to win accreditation from the Joint Commission International, a unit of the organization that certifies US hospitals.
Because Mexican citizens overwhelmingly rely on public hospitals run by the national health care system, CHRISTUS Muguerza markets itself as a "medical tourism" destination, where Americans can go for cheaper and lower-hassle medical care. Services include acute and primary care, dental care, urgent care, and post-surgical rehabilitation.
CHRISTUS Health was formed through the 1999 merger of Incarnate Word Health System and Sisters of Charity Health System. Both systems have their roots in the religious order Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, founded when three French nuns arrived in Texas in 1866 to care for the poor and sick. – less | <urn:uuid:b2e73a0b-c555-4aba-90e0-39e6035c0b42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Christus-Health | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968324 | 846 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Re: Deepening Our Training
Too true - and yet, somehow the mind sharpens, can be sharpened. Thus, let us ask then: How does that happen? By use or by non-use? Does it happen outside of fear and pain or through a reconciliation of fear and pain? I'd say "by use," but by a particular kind of use - right use, and I'd say that fear and pain must be a part of training - that they are far from being antithetical to training. I'd say the easiest way to hone the mind by right use, and to make fear and pain a part of training (such that such exploration remains safe and productive), is to pair our minds with an already wizened mind. This would be where humility would again have to come in since here we are talking about the mentor-disciple relationship - a key tenet of traditional Budo training - and one would have to learn to defer the impulses brought on by things like fear and pain in order to risk a new way of being - a way of being that will in all likelihood make no sense initially since it is not speaking to the part of ourselves that we have most often listened to up until then. | <urn:uuid:0465cc5e-838b-4b90-a351-2d7fa5ad5b8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showpost.php?p=137998&postcount=9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977713 | 248 | 1.742188 | 2 |
An oncologist is a specialist in cancers; s/he must be a specialist not only in types of cancerous tumors, which can be found in any part of the body, but also in their diagnosis and recognition of their symptoms, knowledge of therapies available, use of palliative (or hospice) care for patients with terminal malignancies and ongoing community efforts to educate not only patients but their families and loved ones about the forms cancer may take.
Training in Oncology
It is said that no doctor made his/her decision to be a medical professional straight out of college; that decision came a lot earlier in their life, hopefully at least in high school or middle school. The prospective oncologist must first train to be a prospective doctor, and should have specialized, even in early school classes, in science and math (with particular emphasis on chemistry and biology) which s/he will maintain in advanced coursework in college and beyond.
After college, in which the prospective doctor should already be receiving training in an accredited pre-medical school, s/he moves on to medical school, where extensive study in ethics, patient care and advanced sciences is supplemented by a huge number of hours in hospital and facility internships (at least 4000 hours experience are needed to be successful as a medical candidate in todays job market, and residencies and previous experience are always the touchstones to a successful medical career, not only as a general practitioner but also a cancer specialist such as a medical oncologist.
The Career of Oncology
An oncologist career is characterized by extensive therapy with thousands of patients, with the specialist recognizing the natures of various tumors and prescribing treatments for them, whether the treatments be surgical (usually performed if there is a certainty that the tumor can be removed) or radiation treatments (used when the cancer has developed and spreada process known as metastasesand the tumor is inoperable by surgical means). The specialist determines not only the procedure but the extent of its duration (some radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments can extend as many as 30 sessions, a huge drain on a patients energies, unless the specialist determines the patient can withstand them).
The rest of an oncologist career, post-operatively (even with patients that s/he may not have personally treated) is of a palliative naturethat is, treatment that takes the cancer to a state of remission or treatments and support that will assist the patient in his/her final months, if remission is unlikely. The dual nature of palliative treatment means that it is emotionally difficult to maintain professionalism on an ongoing basis; it is at this point that many specialists feel they have hit a roadblock with their own feelings.The ethics of informing a patient, and his/her loved ones, of terminal illness and a given point of death is often more than many oncologists can continue on an ongoing basis; this is why they must, in addition to being trained in their specialty to the highest degree, also possess a great degree of sensitivity and communicative skills to successfully address these patient/doctor interactions.
Finally, there are areas of specialization within the career of oncology itself; a medical oncologist can decide to specialize in surgical cases (for removal of tumors), in medical cases (chemotherapy and drug regimens), in radiation cases (for radiotherapy), gynecological cases (female reproductive organ tumors) and pediatrics (treatment of children with cancer).A fairly new field of specialization is known as interventional oncology, in which the specialist treats cases where minimally invasive techniques are required in the treatment of early-stage tumors.
Also, the burden of emotional stress previously placed upon an oncologist (which see above) may be alleviated with recent legislation, as many hospitals are now mandated (where before it was voluntary) to include oncologists on surgical teams, so as to shift responsibility (and the attendant emotional burdens) onto several professional shoulders. | <urn:uuid:108f6b29-db1b-4205-aa6b-ce56e78e337d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartguy.com/index.asp?id=1112&c=Careers-In-Oncology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967124 | 808 | 2.921875 | 3 |
With every bad political “compromise” rammed down the throats of screaming Republicans in the House, America gets closer to bankruptcy.
The CBO has scored Tuesday’s borrow-from-our-children-and-spend-it-now bill: it includes $1 of spending cuts for every $10 of tax increases. Given that fewer than 2% of American households will be directly affected by the tax rate hikes, it’s good politics. But it’s terrible policy, because it locks in four years of massive spending increases under Obama and congressional Democrats as the new budget baseline.
As a recent congressional candidate, I sympathize with the 85 Republicans who voted for this monstrosity — up to a point. Obama skillfully backed them into a corner: approve this tax hike on a small number of constituents, or face the ire of a majority of voters whose taxes would go up if Congress went over the fiscal cliff.
That’s why the right decision was to vote no, even at the risk of losing the next election.
Going over the fiscal cliff would have raised taxes on all Americans. We are told it would have forced the Pentagon to furlough up to 800,000 civilian employees, cut unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid — and much more.
In other words, it would have caused real pain to a large number of people. But that may have been what Americans needed to wake up to the stark choices we’re facing.
We are on the verge of becoming like Greece. We are spending way beyond our means and instead of cutting spending, our elected officials, from President Obama on down, are hunting for accounting gimmicks to make it appear as if the numbers add up and we can continue just as before.
Until the Fed is compelled to raise interest rates, they may get away with it.
Last year, the federal government paid out $360 billion in interest payments on a federal debt that topped $16 trillion by the end of the fiscal year (Sept 30, 2012). That is roughly the same amount it paid in interest for FY 2005, when the debt was less than half today’s amount.
Imagine returning to 2005 interest rates. That would mean finding an additional $360 billion this year alone just to service the existing debt. That’s nearly half of all Social Security outlays for the year.
How long can the Fed hold interest rates at next to zero? Your guess is as good as mine. But I’m willing to bet the answer is: not forever. Probably not even through the end of 2013. | <urn:uuid:7865bdbe-62c8-4302-bcf1-031792948925> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-deal-is-good-politics-but-bad-policy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958228 | 534 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Tuesday 08 January 2013 Updated: 09/01 10:16
STUDENTS in Worcester have joined forces with Rotarians to help clothe new born babies and young orphans in two countries blighted by poverty.
Worcester Vigornia Rotary Club has teamed up with various groups and organisations including BTEC students at Worcester Sixth Form College and Worcester Community Trust to collect baby clothes which will be sent out to Romania and Moldova.
They are on the lookout for good quality, clean items that are suitable for children up to two years of age which will then be shipped out to the two countries to help clothe youngsters in orphanages and maternity units.
Perdiswell Young People’s Leisure Centre and Lyppard Grange Community Centre are among the other organisations that are also helping to collect donations.
Rachel Briggs, tutor at Worcester Sixth Form College, said: “The BTEC Child Care students have taken this Rotary project to their hearts. They have already collected bags of clothes from fellow students, friends and families and will continue collecting during January. The students know this project will make an enormous difference to the lives of young children who currently have very little appropriate clothing."
People can leave items of clothing at the following partner community centres up until January 25:
HORIZON Community Centre, Midland Road; King George V Community Centre, Brickfields; Lyppard Grange Community Centre;
Perdiswell Young Peoples Leisure Centre; Ronkswood Community Centre, Canterbury Road; St John’s Youth Centre; The Green Centres, Gresham Road; The Tolly Centre, Rose Avenue and Warndon Community Centre, Shap Drive
AN INJURED Worcester soldier's brave attempt to complete
WORCESTER staff are among more than 1,300 workers
DOZENS of cannabis plants have been seized by
POLICE have praised a pensioner in Fernhill Heath
THE case against a retired police officer charged with the ...
SEXUAL assaults were carried out on two teenage girls in ...
A SIXTH man has been arrested as part of the ... | <urn:uuid:4062100e-77e1-49a6-86eb-2511d9b07694> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worcesterstandard.co.uk/2013/01/11/news-Students-join-appeal-to-help-clothe-babies-born-into-poverty-59730.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948782 | 430 | 1.75 | 2 |
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Politics placed above value of human life
To the Times:
In the aftermath of the latest 9/11 attack, our priorities all seem political. Aside from reporting the deployment of 50 U.S. Marines to the area, the size which is more for show than for effect, the American media has devoted their pages to excoriating any and all information contrary to official positions. And those positions are sadly in sync with the tactics of damage control during this campaign season.
As a Vietnam veteran, my sense of déjà vu beckons my recall to days when the weekly totals of American lives lost were in the desensitized terms of, “light,” “medium” or “heavy” casualties. So with this disassociated caring as a reminder and a past precedence, this loss of four would dare be noticeable. And, this is the manner in which it’s been treated!
Remember when certain individuals chanted the refrain that Vietnam wasn’t worth one American life?” I can recall echoing that same sentiment about our two wars against terrorism. Well, what happened to that precious concern? Have we become indifferent to American loss of life based upon the fact that our military is a volunteer force? Has that factor eliminated our regard for life? If so, before spreading democracy around the world we better first check on our home product.
It seems to me that our entire reason for sacrifice has withered on our freedom vine. Today’s freedom efforts can be compared to that of dressing prison inmates with tuxedos yet having them remain in their cells.
For a struggling country to become truly free, that urge must spring from within the hearts of its countrymen. No foreign force, no matter how well-intentioned, can instill the required breathe of freedom. So, aside from fighting this war against terrorism, of which this term is no longer viable, this democracy pursuit is largely in theory only.
Forgive my quizzical nature but I am reminded of that Fort Hood ambush which claimed the lives of 13 American soldiers. Our president termed this betrayal “workplace violence.” Well, if that be the case, every American GI lost in combat can be similarly designated. I mean, isn’t combat the “workplace” for soldiers? This comparison brings focus upon this asinine and disinterested approach which has become so unjustly applied, to our losses.
Taken one step further, it now becomes necessary to minimize, or as in this case fabricate, when such unneeded loss presents an embarrassment. For over a week, the official position of the Obama administration has labeled a video as being the cause for the Libyan attack. Not so.
It’s unusual for such official deception to be so quickly uncovered. It took decades for the falsehood of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident to unravel.
Imagine this degree of ignorance perpetrated, or attempted to be perpetrated upon the American voter. Obama downplayed the entire episode, ala Fort Hood, as being a “spontaneous protest” caused by a video. As reports began to surface, largely from European outlets, it became known that this “spontaneity” incorporated the use of automatic weapons, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and mortars. Continued...
There is little doubt that this official position was in part taken so to not blemish Obama’s foreign affairs acumen during his re-election bid.
As time passes, inescapable traits or patterns emerge. Prior to his election in 2008, Amir Taheri, a journalist of Iraqi origins, reported in the New York Post that then-Sen. Obama suggested a postponing of a partial withdrawal of American troops till after the new administration took office. The implication is obvious.
Earlier this year, need we recount Obama’s patting of the Russian’s arm as he assured him that he would have “more flexibility” in his second term? Both off-the-cuff conversations presents the voter with an integrity check which comes up short.
Today, a president who is at odds with his own administration’s position is leading America. Press Secretary Jay Carney has now reversed course and admitted that yes, it was a terrorist attack which claimed four American lives while Obama continues on with his chant that all this ruckus was due to a video.
Based upon our long ago conditioning, four lives qualify for the “light” loss designation. However, we have reversed our long-ago treatments of those serving and returning from combat. Isn’t it also time to begin our revisit of upholding the sanctity of life? Or is that too religious?
Ormond Beach, Fla.
Location, ST | website.com
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Offers timely health advice for pets, behavioral tricks of the trade, follow-up success stories, and more. Updated regularly by ACDC's all-volunteer staff that includes long-time foster parents and pet owners who have years of experience.
Kent Davidson covers local politics, events, and goings-on in the borough of Media, PA. | <urn:uuid:ff339d67-796b-4baf-8936-f0ca6f437d93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://delcotimes.com/articles/2012/10/01/opinion/doc506a5dcc0391a235342491.txt?viewmode=default | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94828 | 1,473 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Personal flotation devices required — Penalty.
(1) No person may operate or permit the operation of a vessel on the waters of the state without a personal flotation device on board for each person on the vessel. Each personal flotation device shall be in serviceable condition, of an appropriate size, and readily accessible.
(2) Except as provided in RCW 79A.60.020, a violation of subsection (1) of this section is an infraction under chapter 7.84 RCW if the vessel is not carrying passengers for hire.
(3) A violation of subsection (1) of this section is a misdemeanor punishable under RCW 9.92.030, if the vessel is carrying passengers for hire.
(4) No person shall operate a vessel under nineteen feet in length on the waters of this state with a child twelve years old and under, unless the child is wearing a personal flotation device that meets or exceeds the United States coast guard approval standards of the appropriate size, while the vessel is underway. For the purposes of this section, a personal flotation device is not considered readily accessible for children twelve years old and under unless the device is worn by the child while the vessel is underway. The personal flotation device must be worn at all times by a child twelve years old and under whenever the vessel is underway and the child is on an open deck or open cockpit of the vessel. The following circumstances are excepted:
(a) While a child is below deck or in the cabin of a boat with an enclosed cabin;
(b) While a child is on a United States coast guard inspected passenger-carrying vessel operating on the navigable waters of the United States; or
(c) While on board a vessel at a time and place where no person would reasonably expect a danger of drowning to occur.
(5) Except as provided in RCW 79A.60.020, a violation of subsection (4) of this section is an infraction under chapter 7.84 RCW. Enforcement of subsection (4) of this section by law enforcement officers may be accomplished as a primary action, and need not be accompanied by the suspected violation of some other offense.
[2000 c 11 § 98; 1999 c 310 § 1; 1993 c 244 § 14; 1933 c 72 § 5; RRS § 9851-5. Formerly RCW 88.12.115 and 88.12.050.]
| Intent -- 1993 c 244: See note following RCW 79A.60.010.| | <urn:uuid:8f93e262-e422-446a-bd55-83a5515fb760> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=79A.60.160 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903123 | 521 | 1.609375 | 2 |
In the United States, sardines are most commonly found salted, smoked, or canned, either in oil, tomato sauce, or mustard sauce, or pickled. Throughout Central Africa, canned sardines are frequently cooked in stews.
The natural sweetness of fresh sardines pairs well with sharply flavored ingredients such as mustard or bitter greens. Canned sardines are good in sauces and salads. They can also be mashed and served on crackers or as a sandwich filling.
Sardines are delicious baked, sautéed, grilled, or in a sauce.
Place fresh fish in a baking dish. Drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt and lemon juice, or top with the sauce of your choice and bake at 425°F (218°C) for 10 minutes or until cooked through.
Rinse fish and blot dry. Lightly coat them with seasoned cornstarch or flour. Heat a small amount of oil in a large nonstick skillet, or spray the skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Sauté each side for 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Use a flexible spatula to turn the fish—be sure to turn them gently as they are fragile. Serve with a lemon wedge.
Rich and fatty, sardines are delicious hot off the grill. Toss the sardines in a dry rub of your favorite herbs and a little salt. Either place them on a lightly oiled grill topper or in a special basket designed for grilling small fish. Grill for 4 to 5 minutes over medium heat until done, turning the fish once. Serve with lemon or a fresh tomato salsa.
Sardines are also an essential ingredient in a special pasta sauce that is served to celebrate the feast of Saint Joseph.
Copyright © 2013 Aisle7. All rights reserved. Aisle7.com
The information presented in the Food Guide is for informational purposes only and was created by a team of US–registered dietitians and food experts. Consult your doctor, practitioner, and/or pharmacist for any health problem and before using any supplements, making dietary changes, or before making any changes in prescribed medications. Information expires June 2014. | <urn:uuid:785b0d7e-678c-4a10-87b7-ef07cc541e47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goodnnatural.com/healthnotes.htm?resource=%2Fassets%2Ffood-guide%2Fsardines%2Fpreparing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929365 | 452 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Brian Edward Rise
- King of Britain and focus of the legend started by Geoffrey
of Monmouth. Following medieval practice, he portrays Arthur
in contemporary terms but he places Arthur's reign shortly
after Britain's separation from the Roman Empire during
its final period in western Europe around 410 CE.
frames Arthur as a British messianic figure so common in
Late Roman antiquity- a "World-Restorer," or Restitutor
Orbis - the king who, binding the wounds of internal strife,
would defeat the barbarians and destroy all enemies reestablishing
peace and ushering in a golden age.
Europe and a collapsing empire never found its savior, a
recently Roman Britain does in Geoffrey's delightful fiction.
What's important is that his conception of an age of peace
based on a salvation from disintegration endures on down
through Malory and the romancers though they never touch
on the real problems of the period.
around 1136-38, the Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey
portrays a Britain in the throes of misfortune - barbarian
attacks, brutal power struggles and rank corruption in high
offices. King Vortigern, a usurper, extends an invitation
to the heathen Saxons to come and settle in Britain as mercenaries
like Roman emperors opened the doors to citizenship for
barbarians in exchange for military service.
Saxons, however, turn to marauding instead. Uther
Pendragon rises from the ensuing anarchy to kingship.
He seduces Ygerna, the duchess
of Cornwall, with magical aid from Merlin
and begets Arthur, legitimizing his succession by later
making the lady his Queen.
though still young, succeeds him and is a good leader. After
routing and confining the Saxons, he then turns to and defeats
the Picts, Scots and Irish. He then takes Guinevere
as queen and initiates his order of knighthood while peace
from all nations answer the call and Britain rises to an
unparalleled level of culture and wealth. Arthur holds his
magnificent court at Caerleon and subsequently conquers
demands from Rome drive him into Gaul again entrusting his
kingdom to his nephew, Mordred,
and the Queen. During Arthur's absence in battle, Mordred
revolts, forcing Arthur to return from the continent to
victorious, Arthur is mortally wounded and "carried off
to the Isle of Avalon for his
wounds to be attended to." Leaving his end in doubt, Geoffrey
continues the story no further. The date he provides, 542
CE, conflicts with his chronology and possibly reflects
a wrongful later amendment. Geoffrey is not known for his
historical responsibility, but he basically regards Arthur's
tale as a part of the fifth century due to the familial
relationships drawn and several corroborations with known
history such as references to Emperor Leo, a contemporary
of Arthur who reigned from 457-74.
stories, however, were in existence before Geoffrey in Celtic
lands. These people were descended from his fifth-century
Britons, a Celtic people themselves, who retained part of
Rome's legacy. Their inheritors, particularly in Wales,
created and embellished a saga of an Arthur who, as a hero
and warrior-prince who delayed the Saxon
influx before eventual defeat and assimilation.
Welsh poetry preserve the story in the tale Culwch ac Olwen
(c. 1100) and the triads, showing Arthur's preeminence in
Welsh literature (with numerous Welsh heroes attached to
his company) before Geoffrey's time.
while he doubtless drew inspiration from such tales, approximately
one-fifth of his work relies more specifically with two
Latin books from Wales attributing Arthur with a quasi-historicity.
ninth century Historia Brittonum, by the cleric Nennius,
provides a list of twelve battles won by Arthur over Octha,
a Saxon and son of Hengist, who, together with Horsa, was
one of the Saxon chieftains invited to Britain by Vortigern.
tenth century Annales Cambriae lists one battle, Badon (decidedly
real though there is no early evidence to connect Arthur
with it), and add that he fell at Camlann.
existence of these texts show that Geoffrey is not entirely
inventing but using earlier tradition by making Arthur the
leader of the Britons against the unruly Saxon settlers.
The Saxons did settle and eventually rebel akin to the way
Geoffrey romanticizes actual reality.
Britons alone became independent from Rome before the barbarian
invasions and resisted them when they occurred with success
though temporary. Welsh descendants handed down legends
bred during the period of resistance of heroes that fought
the eventual conquest by the Saxons.
such leader, Ambrosius, was definitely real. Arthur may
have been another and also real. Despite his wild exaggerations,
Geoffrey is increasing the image of a hero that conforms
to the accepted historical situation.
is, however, harder to proceed. There are no Welsh allusions
to Arthur that even closely approximate his timeframe and
while a few battles are possible on their own, they extend
his career over a very long time.
in the Welsh tradition is more legend than history for while
Arthur has never been explained away in a convincing manner
(i.e. as a Celtic deity), Celtic sources have only yielded
two pieces of positive, significant evidence for his existence.
first is his name - Arthur. The Welsh form of the Roman
Artorius, it is a convincing name for a fifth century Briton,
though still possibly the product of poetic invention.
seemingly of mythological origin, the second item is echoed
in European literature. The fact is that for a long time
Arthur was thought to be still alive either on the Isle
of Avalon or sleeping in a cave. The Bretons maintained,
echoed by the Cornish and Welsh, he would someday return.
tale of the sleeper in the cave is told of many other kings
and heroes and, at least in Europe, in every occurrence
the figure seems to have been an historical figure. Arthur
therefore exists by comparison.
the majority of Geoffrey's Arthurian account has no Welsh
basis. There are signs that he is working from some annal
of a "king of the Britons" who did head an invading army
in Gaul during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo I
on the Continent as Riothamus, a latinization of the British
"high king," this king is also apparently named Arthur in
a Breton text. He may in fact represent a part of Arthur's
historical origin and the King of legend may be a composite
figure much as is Merlin.
Historia was widely copied (there are over 50 extant copies)
and it was hugely successful. Geoffrey's contemporary, Alfred
of Beverley, wrote that to admit ignorance of the book was
to regard it as a buffoon. But, while Geoffrey supplied
the foundation for the medieval romancers ("dames and damsels
looking on from the top of walls, for whose sake the courtly
knights make believe to be fighting"), he was far from their
stories flowed in from Breton minstrels and the like. The
Norman poet Wace's verse adaptation of the Historia, Roman
de Brut (dedicated to Eleanor of Aquitaine), adds features
that become a part of the legend, namely the Round Table
and bridges the work of the chroniclers with the later French
work of Chrétien de Troyes marks the beginning of the trend
away from tales of the King to the knights and ladies in
his court. The King becomes mainly a magnificent figurehead
and his court the launching point for the tales of Lancelot,
Gawain and others.
King's military actions are toned down as he becomes more
symbolic - an all-father, concerned with justice and noble
conduct and the embodiment of Christian and chivalric ideals
with an essential, undeniable dignity.
of the Countess Mariede Champagne (daughter of Eleanor and
first husband, Louis VII of France), de Troyes unified existing
Arthurian material into a new narrative verse form and grafted
more legends onto the saga, introducing with huge success
the tale of Sir Launcelot and his ill-fated love for his
Queen. Royal enthusiasm for the story was great.
II's grandson was named with the hope of crowning him Arthur
II someday (cut short by John in 1203). Queen Eleanor's
court in Poitiers (established in defiance of Henry in 1170)
was inspired by de Troyes most influential invention, the
concept of "courtly love," and Eleanor's patronage of troubadours
spread the idea to courts of Europe, where it met with similar
result of the idea of "romantic love" was a liberation of
upper class women from the status of objects of sex and
property and their exaltation as women. Far reaching was
the ensuing civilizing effect.
Welsh however, angered that the Normans had usurped their
legends as well as their lands, still whispered of the return
of their Arthur who would regain their former glory and
independence. To counter this subversion, Henry announced
that he had been given the secret to Arthur's grave by a
Welsh bard and he revealed that it lay between two stone
pillars at Glastonbury Abbey, hoping to disprove the King's
associated with the mystical Isle of Avalon (due to its
surrounding swamp), Glastonbury was the site of the monastery
founded by Joseph of Arimathea, where monks began excavating
the old abbey cemetery in 1190 under the order of the then-dead
Henry. Seven feet down, between the two "pyramids," was
uncovered a stone slab with a lead cross inscribed:
HIC JACET SEPULTUS INCLYTUS REX ARTURIUS IN INSULA AVALONIA
- HERE LIES INTERRED IN THE ISLE OF AVALON THE RENOWNED
was a wooden coffin hewn from an oak trunk in which lay
the skeleton of a tall man with blond hair and a damaged
skull. The remains were reinterred within a double room
within the abbey.
cross has been lost but an engraving of it in Camden's Britannia
(1607) reveals a lettering thought to predate the Norman
conquest, possibly placed on the grave in the 10th century
when the level of the cemetery was raised by St. Dunstan.
excavations of 1190 were confirmed in 1962 by archaeologists
digging at the original gravesite.
1278 Longshanks Edward I, along with his queen Eleanor,
had the second tomb opened. Eyewitness Adam of Domerham
wrote,"...in two caskets, painted with their pictures and
arms, were found separately the bones of the said king,
which were of great size, and those of Queen Guinevere,
which were of marvelous beauty."
relics were lost during the Reformation but, in 1931, the
empty tomb was discovered before the spot on which the high
altar had stood in the west choir.
legend as we know it today came about at the end of the
Wars of the Roses with the publication of Sir Thomas Malory's
Le Morte D'Arthur by William Caxton in 1485. Malory's masterful
story telling welds the various Arthurian tales together
in a chronological order, outlining the career of the king
from conception at Tintagel to his death at Camlann as if
a matter of history.
he tells the tales of the other knights, he returns the
focus to the king, each story contributing and building
up to the inevitable and tragic climax.
modern times, archaeology has attempted to provide tangible
evidence for Arthur without much luck though it has revealed
much about Iron Age Britain. While the present ruins of
Tintagel date from only 1145, evidence shows that it was
inhabited in Arthur's time.
of the prehistoric hill-fort at Cadbury (begun in 1966 under
Leslie Alcock) have yielded nothing definitively Arthurian
but it's association with Camelot was first recorded by
John Leland in 1542 who wrote, "At South Cadbyri standith
Camallate, sumtyme a famose toun or castelle. The people
can tell nothing thar but that they have hard say that Arture
much resortid to Camalat."
is, in fact, no shortage of sites associated with Arthur
in England and no other personage has been commemorated
in so many British place names. But while the adventures
of Arthur and his Knights are flung far and wide, Arthur
has only one birthplace, one home and one grave; Tintagel,
has proved habitation of these possible locations; Tintagel,
Cadbury, and Glastonbury. All are located in the west country
and it is here that the legend's origin took root.
truth will never be known but it is the legend that has
become important- down to modern fiction and film.
expert Geoffrey Ashe writes; Persisting through many presentations
of him, from the far-off Welsh to some modern ones, is the
perennial dream of a golden age. In this case it has the
added quality that Arthur still lives and will return, so
that the golden age will be reinstated. The appeal to the
imagination has the power to outlast literal belief. (The
Arthurian Handbook, 1988)
(see Sources), please visit
their site for much more! | <urn:uuid:e9176bc1-136e-46cf-b591-11d204b88ec8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://members.multimania.nl/Shades/demons/emarthur.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945859 | 2,961 | 2.96875 | 3 |
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Surgery| is only suitable for a small number of people with mesothelioma. The aim of surgery is usually to help with symptoms |and to control the disease rather than to cure it.
Operations are carried out by experienced chest surgeons who are part of a multidisciplinary team experienced in the treatment of mesothelioma. Sometimes surgery is combined with radiotherapy| or chemotherapy| treatments.
There are two different types of surgery that may occasionally be used:
This involves removing the tumour and part, or all, of the pleura and the lung tissue close to it. It is used to help stop the build-up of fluid in the lung and to help with breathlessness and pain. Pleurectomy can also help a collapsed lung to reinflate with air, which will help reduce breathlessness. For some people it may be possible to have a pleurectomy using keyhole surgery. With this type of surgery, only small openings are made instead of one large cut (incision).
Pleurectomy is only suitable for some people with mesothelioma. There are other treatments| that don’t involve major surgery, which can be used to control the build-up of fluid in the lung, breathlessness and pain.
EPP involves a major operation and is rarely done today. During the operation, the surgeon attempts to remove all or most of the tumour and the tissues around it. It involves removing the pleura, diaphragm, the lining of the heart (pericardium) and the whole lung on the affected side.
As EPP involves such major surgery, it’s very risky. More than half of all people who have this type of surgery have complications, and there’s no evidence that it helps people live longer. For these reasons, EPP is not currently recommended as a treatment for mesothelioma.
Surgery is rarely used to treat peritoneal mesothelioma. The aim of surgery is to remove the tumour from the wall of the tummy (abdomen) and from nearby organs. This treatment is usually used to help relieve symptoms.
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what are these?| | <urn:uuid:55f77a8e-8878-4900-bd3b-0d76eeae710e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertypes/Mesothelioma/Treatingmesothelioma/Surgery.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944563 | 587 | 2.421875 | 2 |
"A manifesto, forceful but fair, by a leading political economist who lays out a bold but solid program if Obama is elected. As current as the morning's newspaper, this book should be read by all activists-especially Barack Obama."
--James MacGregor Burns, author of Leadership
"Robert Kuttner has incisively captured the political moment, underscored by the deepening economic crisis. Lucidly and passionately, he lays out the hurdles facing an Obama presidency and challenges him to seize the moment and achieve greatness by redeeming the promise of America."
--Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post
"As Kuttner convincingly argues, a President Barack Obama will have a historic opportunity to radically transform America's direction -- but only if he rejects the tired "centrist" policies of the past and inspires its citizens to forge new progressive paths. Kuttner systematically lays out the case for why Obama should give full voice to a a robust progressive message at a time when the American people are suffering from years of conservative policy. "Obama's Challenge" is an enlightening road map for all Americans who hunger for a change in direction and priorities in America, and who hope Obama can be that agent of change."
--Markos Moulitsas, founder, DailyKos.com, author of Taking on the System and co-author of Crashing the Gate
"Bob Kuttner pulls off the all-but-impossible. He hits the high notes with artful precision, lifting expectations and articulating the steps that can make Barack Obama a great president--while setting forth a strong and highly readable call for comprehensive and essential economic change."
--John Sweeney, AFL-CIO President
To Be a Transformative President
Barack Obama approaches the Presidency at a critical moment in American history, facing simultaneous crises of war, the environment, health care, but most especially in the economy. If he is able to rise to the moment, he could join the ranks of a small handful of previous presidents who have been truly transformative, succeeding in fundamentally changing our economy, society, and democracy for the better.
But this will require imaginative and decisive action as Obama takes office, action bolder than he has promised during his campaign, and will be all the more difficult given the undertow of conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street that resists fundamental change. Decades of regressive politics and political gridlock have left America in its most precarious situation since the onset of the Great Depression. The collapse of the housing bubble continues, as does the financial meltdown it triggered; a revival of 1970s style stagflation threatens; incomes continue to lag behind inflation; our household and international debts pile higher; disastrous climate change looms; energy and food prices continue their escalation; and the ranks of un- and under-insured Americans grow as the health insurance system unravels.
Facing their own great challenges, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson rallied the American people to overcome deadlocked politics in order to achieve progressive transformations—abolishing slavery, transcending economic depression, and redeeming the promise of civil rights. In his own way, Ronald Reagan oversaw a grand shift in public attitudes and government direction. Each president used exceptional leadership to change the national mood, and then the national policy.
By appealing to what was most noble in the American spirit, these presidents energized movements for change, and in turn put pressure on themselves and on the Congress to move far beyond what was deemed conceivable. They generated accelerating momentum for far-reaching reforms that proved politically irresistible.
Solutions to our multiple challenges do exist, but they won’t be found in overly cautious or expedient quick fixes. With his exceptional skill at appealing to our better angels, Barack Obama could be the right leader at the right time to re-awaken America to the renewed promise of shared prosperity coupled with responsibility towards future generations and the international community with whom we share the Earth. Invoking America’s greatest leaders, Robert Kuttner explains how Obama must be a transformative president—or a failed one. | <urn:uuid:560baa1a-61e4-4cfb-958f-be687b706f71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.obamaschallenge.com/obamaschallenge.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915779 | 837 | 1.5 | 2 |
Success Measures was created in the late 1990s by leading community development practitioners as a means of holding themselves more accountable and gaining consensus about what was important to measure and what could be effectively measured. Their goal was to develop an outcome evaluation methodology that was:
- Credible, and
- Able to build organizational capacity while also advancing knowledge in the field
More than 300 community development practitioners, intermediaries, funders, researchers, and evaluators participated in the program’s development, working together to develop usable tools to evaluate actual outcomes, rather than just outputs or measures of performance. From these origins, Success Measures has evolved into a specialized, outcome evaluation resource for the community development field. Initially developed by the Development Leadership Network and the McAuley Institute, Success Measures has operated as a social enterprise at NeighborWorks America since 2004.
Success Measures is continually refining and streamlining its approach to building nonprofit and philanthropic capacity to carry out useful evaluation processes. Key to its consulting, training, and technical assistance efforts is its user-friendly, web-based data system—the Success Measures Data System (SMDS)—that includes a suite of 122 tested outcome indicators and 312 data collection tools, available in English and Spanish, that can be used alone or in combination to measure the results of community development and financial capability programs. SMDS helps users collect, manage, tabulate, and communicate evaluation results. Funders and intermediaries use SMDS to share custom evaluation frameworks, indicators, and data collection tools with grantees.
Success Measures has stayed true to its roots by being accessible, adaptable and collaborative, responding to the latest trends and issues in the field through development of new outcome indicators, data collection tool sets and state of the art software features.
Recent partnerships have become increasingly sophisticated, with a potential for scaling in response to increased demand from the field.
Since the program’s inception, Success Measures has:
- Supported more than 330 community based organizations and 28 of their funding and intermediary partners in 198 Localities in 48 states and Puerto Rico to evaluate a range of people and place based strategies
- Trained more than 1,000 community development professionals to conduct evaluations using Success Measures methods and tools
- Introduced 3,000 more nonprofit practitioners to outcome evaluation methods through workshops, presentations, and web conferences
- Expanded the number of shared outcome measures offered through the Success Measures Data System to more than 122 indicators and 312 tested data collection instruments that cover affordable housing, economic development, community building, financial capability, community stabilization, green housing and communities, and the value of services provided by intermediaries in the community development field. | <urn:uuid:c0338d8e-b4a9-4366-8e88-d0efb0832cb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.successmeasures.org/history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932208 | 533 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The Spanish bloodlands: Ángel Viñas, warrior historian
(Versión en castellano en Sin Permiso.) “There is not a single one among the conservative or neo-Francoist historians who does not manipulate or skew the historical evidence. They sell bold-faced lies. This sounds harsh, I know. But I have proven it time and again. In Spain, the myths propagated by Francoism have survived, conveniently freshened up, and are mobilized in today’s political conflicts. If the Spanish Civil War is still a source of controversy, it is due to the fact that the Right does not wish to stir up a bloody past that puts it in a deeply negative light. Just to give one example: one of Franco’s most sycophantic biographers is a member of the Royal Academy of History. As if it were the most normal thing in the world.”
Ángel Viñas is not afraid to say it like it is—and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly. One of the most prolific historians of the Spanish Civil War of the past two decades, Viñas has taken on enormous research projects and crossed swords with powerful adversaries. Still, since little of his work is available in English, Viñas is less well known outside Spain than his prominence in the field would appear to warrant. His energy seems boundless. Just in the last ten years, he has published or edited more than a dozen substantial books on the Spanish Civil War. These include a four-volume, 2,600-page history of the fate of the embattled Second Republic (2006-2009) which Helen Graham has called “magisterial,” and which Gabriel Jackson described in these pages as “without a doubt, the most detailed and fully documented archival studies of the international diplomatic and military reactions to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.” When, in 2011, the Spanish Royal Academy issued the first 25 volumes of its taxpayer-funded, controversial National Biographical Dictionary—whose text was riddled with errors and had never been properly vetted; the entry on Franco not once identified the generalissimo a dictator—it was Viñas who rallied a team of fellow historians to rapidly produce an alternative, more rigorous compilation. The 976-page counter-dictionary, entitled En el combate por la Historia (In the Battle for History), came out in April. This October, Dr. Viñas briefly interrupted the many projects piled up on his desk in Brussels—including new research on the bombing of Guernica and a Spanish re-issue of Herbert Southworth’s pathbreaking work—to speak with The Volunteer.
Historiography as battle, the historian as a warrior of truth: the image seems appropriate for the field of Spanish Civil War studies today and for Viñas’s work in particular. Born in 1941, Viñas thinks of himself as an old-fashioned historian. Throughout his career he has insisted on the need for rigorous research based on primary evidence from the time period. His main objective is clear-cut. He wants to find out what actually happened, why it happened, and explain it as clearly as he can to as wide an audience as possible. “To my mind,” Viñas says, “primary research is the only way to advance, to open new routes, point in new directions, and improve previous interpretations of the past. Primary research opens doors, it doesn’t close them. Of course it’s not the only way of writing history. Applying new paradigms can also yield new results. But I am an historian who likes to keep close to concrete realities, trying to find new answers to old questions.”
Viñas initially combined his research with a diplomatic career. He fell in love with the archives in the late 1960s, when as a young diplomat stationed in Bonn he was asked to write an article about Nazi financing of the Francoist war effort. “When I entered the archives of the Auswärtiges Amt (Ministry of Foreign Affairs),” he recalls, “I knew it was love at first sight.” This research project became Viñas’s doctoral thesis and first book, published in 1974 (La Alemania nazi y el 18 de julio). He next tackled the much-mystified episode of the “Moscow Gold”—the controversial transfer to the Soviet Union, by the Republican authorities, of part of the Spanish treasury. Viñas later worked on international relations, particularly the US-Franco alliance of the 1950s, spent twenty years working for the European Union, and five years as Ambassador to the United Nations in New York. He currently lives in Brussels. Happily so: “I am far from the Spanish din. Living here allows me to focus on writing—which I do ten or twelve hours a day, seven days a week.”
Viñas’s work makes for a refreshing read. He writes in straightforward, combative prose with little hedging. He is not afraid to introduce an occasional note of amused malice. In La conspiración del general Franco (2011), for instance, he scolds the well-known and prolific American historian Stanley Payne for his lack of rigor. Payne and Viñas have been butting heads for a while. In recent years, Payne has often spoken dismissively of academic Spanish historians while championing rightist “revisionist” amateurs like Pío Moa or César Vidal. It is interesting, Viñas points out, that Payne, who “has extended his protective mantle to include some real historiographic pornography,” has himself almost never used anything but secondary sources.
Indeed, the key strength of Viñas’s work is his extensive use of primary sources from a large number of Spanish and foreign archives. Equally important is his insistence that no aspect of the conflict can be explained without taking into account the complex international context of the war—a context determined by powerful interests that were political as much as economic. Reconstructing the intense diplomatic efforts preceding and immediately following the outbreak of the war, for instance, he leaves no doubt about the tremendous difference between the categorical refusal on the part of the Western powers to stand by the besieged Republic, and the almost immediate willingness of the Fascist and Nazi regimes to pledge military aid. Based on extensive evidence, Viñas explains that difference primarily as a function of perceived national and political interest.
The author’s own background and expertise as a civil servant and economist helps him understand his material, but it also shapes his focus. He is ultimately interested in what drives the decision makers: political and economic leaders, as well as diplomats and other go-betweens. Having lived political institutions from the inside, he has no illusions about the moral caliber of their motivations. Viñas is also exceptionally good at reconstructing flows of information: the way in which letters, reports, and personal conversations shaped leaders’ perception of what was going on in Spain. This allows him, for instance, over thirty pages in the second volume of his series on the Republic, to give an unusually nuanced assessment of Stalin’s views and decisions regarding Spain.
Viñas strongly believes that writing Spanish history is the job of Spanish historians. “The battle for the truth is one that has to be fought in Spain, by Spaniards. There’s nothing strange about that—it’s the norm in all modern nations. Look at France, England, or Germany.” To be sure, he acknowledges the important contributions to Spanish Civil War history by historians from outside of Spain. But their relative prominence in the postwar years was an anomaly, due to the severe restrictions that the Franco regime placed on Spanish historiography. Fortunately, the situation has long been normalized. “The most important advances are now coming from Spanish historians. This is no more than logical; after all, almost all the archives are in Spain, and are now almost all accessible. That said, it would be far from me to deny the contributions of non-Spanish historians. I appreciate their work enormously.”
Why then his critical attitude toward Payne? “I used to have the highest respect for Payne as an historian, and I used to be an avid reader of his works. In scholarly terms, my level of respect has shrunk. Payne doesn’t do archival research. And what we need at this point is precisely to found historical interpretations on primary evidence from the archives. But that is not the worst part. Although he still operates under the guise of scholarly rigor, Payne today is little more than a product and defender of a conservative view that insists, against all factual evidence, on blaming the Left and the reformist Republicans for the outbreak of the Civil War. From a scholarly point of view, Payne’s methodology and presuppositions are simply unfounded. And the protection he grants to the neo-Francoist clowns who call themselves historians, is quite frankly repulsive.”
Indeed, few things irritate Viñas more than “the nonsense that some authors continue to propagate as if time hadn’t passed”: the set of fundamentally mistaken ideas about the Spanish Civil War that, despite having long been proven baseless, have been around since the 1930s and stubbornly refuse to die. The notion, for instance, that the outbreak of the Civil War saved Spain from a descent into social revolution and a future as a Soviet satellite. Or the idea that the non-intervention policies of France, Britain, and the United States—their betrayal of the Second Spanish Republic, in a word—were driven by anything else than “a savage policy of protection of national self-interest, seasoned with ideological, political, and class connotations, and skewed by mistaken or prejudiced analyses of Spanish reality.”
“Francoist historiography, which still wields a tremendous influence on conservative historians of the Civil War, operates through a mechanism that I, along with Professor Alberto Reig Tapia, have called an exercise in projection. By this I mean that the Francoists consistently attribute the behavior of their own side to their political or military opponents. Thus, they frame the Republican reaction to the military rebellion as the outcome of a revolutionary project, while in reality it was a spontaneous outburst in response to a carefully planned military uprising greatly abetted by civilian supporters. They accuse the Republic of requesting foreign—that is, Soviet—assistance in order to impose a totalitarian state, while in truth it was the Monarchists who contracted war material from the Italians before the uprising. They talk about the creation of a Communist-controlled ‘popular Republic’ avant la lettre, while in reality it was the Right that spawned actually-existing Spanish fascism. They decry the massacre of patriotic Spaniards, when it was the military rebels who immediately began massacring their opponents. They denounce the supposed dependence of the Republic on Stalin, to distract from Franco’s much greater dependence on Hitler and Mussolini. We see the same mechanism at work in the case of the bombing of Guernica in April 1937. The destruction was long blamed on the ‘Bolshevized Basques’ or the ‘Asturian dynamite crews,’ but in reality the bombing was the result of direct orders issued by the command of the Army of the North to the Nazi Condor Legion.” All these assertions are founded on primary evidence painfully gleaned from Spanish and foreign archives.
Is it more difficult to be an historian of the Spanish Civil War than, say, of World War II or the Middle Ages? “Yes, it is. This has to do in the first place with the fact that it took so long for the archives to be opened up for research. It was only after the death of Franco that the freedom to do research and to write was consecrated. And then, as I have said, there is the problem of the ideological positions of Neo-Francoism, which continue to have an impact. To this day, an historian who disagrees with these positions is likely to be harangued by the Right. In the context of World War II that would be unthinkable. No one in their right mind would think of labeling as ‘anti-Nazi’ or ‘anti-Fascist’ the French, British, or American historians who have analyzed the workings of the Nazi and Fascist dictatorships.”
What does Viñas think of the grassroots initiatives around the “recovery of historical memory” that have sprung up all over Spain since the turn of the twentieth century? “The so-called memory movement is closely related with the collective effort to bring to light the hidden dimensions of the extremely harsh Francoist repression during the war and postwar period. These efforts are very important. What surprises me is that, despite all the work done, the majority of foreign historians still does not acknowledge the fact that Spain was part of what Timothy Snyder, in reference to Eastern Europe, calls the Bloodlands—the massive victimizing of civilians by powerful military and state structures—albeit under a different constellation and in a different part of Europe.” Fortunately, Paul Preston has brought the Spanish case to an English-speaking readership.
A year ago, Viñas retired from his position as full professor at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Still, he continues to mentor young historians. Among his disciples is Fernando Hernández Sánchez, with whom he wrote El desplome de la República (The Collapse of the Republic, 2010) and who went on to publish a pathbreaking history of the Spanish Communist Party during the Civil War (El partido comunista en la Guerra Civil Española, 2010). Observing the Spanish present from his northern Brussels perch, Viñas sees little reason for optimism. He is worried about his country. The future looks particularly bleak for the Spanish university and academic research. “The Francoist university was corrupt. It was a byproduct of the country’s power relations, which were oligarchic and, in the best of cases, paternalist. The situation since the transition to democracy has improved somewhat, although not enough. This is a serious failure on the part of the Socialist administrations and even more on the part of the conservative ones. It has been possible to do good work within the existing structures, and many have done so—although this at times has required a considerable dose of civic courage. Personally I have no right to brag because for professional reasons I was able to work outside of the university for twenty-five years. This allowed me to gain a certain distance and, above all, not depend financially on almost anyone. But I am extremely worried about the future of the Spanish university. Spanish conservatism has entered a regressive, if not reactionary phase, in both economic and ideological terms. The current, ultraconservative government is a genuine disaster. The situation reminds me, mutatis mutandis, of the ‘black two years’ of 1934-35. A whole generation of young researchers will be left in frustration.”
Sebastiaan Faber teaches Hispanic Studies at Oberlin College and chairs ALBA’s Board of Governors. | <urn:uuid:ddfc5e6d-2fe7-4e56-a737-0acdacc98ae1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albavolunteer.org/2013/01/the-spanish-bloodlands-angel-vinas-warrior-historian/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963861 | 3,188 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The United Nations Oral History Collection of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library consists of a series of interviews with eminent persons and serving and former staff members of United Nations recorded over many years. The interviews cover a wide range of major world events and issues.
The interviews shed light on the history of the founding of the Organization and its important role in conflict resolution since 1945. They also provide a wealth of information for scholars and the media to illuminate the activities of the United Nations during turbulent periods in world history for research and public awareness.
This site provides the audio files and transcripts of the interviews.
June 26, 2012 commemorates the 67th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter, the constituting instrument of the Organization. On this auspicious occasion, we spotlight Carlos P. Romulo, publisher, teacher, writer, diplomat and soldier, who, as head of the Philippine delegation to the San Francisco Conference in 1945, played a pivotal role in the initial drafting and subsequent signing of the Charter. In the interview, Gen. Romulo said, "Now what we envisioned in San Francisco was an organization that would be universal. That was one of the outstanding characteristics that we wanted for the new Organization to have, universality, and that was very well placed in the Charter, the universality of the Organization." Continue reading Gen. Romulo's interview… | <urn:uuid:4c86283d-42ea-4105-8e3c-d65108a13927> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unmultimedia.org/oralhistory/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941638 | 277 | 2.296875 | 2 |
POSTED: Monday, December 14, 2009 - 4:49pm
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - 3:25pm
New laws take the fun out of Denver's Toy Library...
It's a law that aims at protecting children and consumers from lead poisoning in toys, clothes and other everyday items.
However, it comes at a steep price for the Denver, Colorado's only toy library.
"We've collected a lot of toys over the years, 500 toys," said Kristel Deckx, a volunteer with the Denver Toy Library, "but most of them aren't safe because we don't have proof that they don't have lead in them."
Toys are on the list of items to check out along with books, movies and CDs at the Smiley Branch of Denver Public Libraries in the Highlands neighborhood.
For nearly 30 years, the toy library has provided educational instructional and creative toys suitable for infants up to age 8.
Volunteers disinfect and sterilize the toys when they are returned, ensuring they are both clean and safe for the next patron who chooses to check out a particular toy.
However, volunteers at the Denver Toy Library couldn't foresee another safety hazard: potential lead poisoning in toys manufactured prior to 2009.
Out of the Toy Library's 500 toys, nearly 400 had to be thrown out because of new federal safety laws regulating lead content, which went into effect in February.
"We want to have safe toys for kids to play with, but most of these toys were donated anytime between the 70s and the 90s," Deckx said. "There's no way for us to find out unless we get proper documentation from every company for every toy, and that was just not possible."
Only toys with documentation proving the toy has either been tested and meets safe lead level standards or has been manufactured after August 2009 can be put into the Toy Library's circulation, leaving the library with only about 130 toys on hand for the new year.
"It's a big project," Deckx said, "and we have a lot of toys to replace!" | <urn:uuid:e79b40bf-0222-44d5-9618-2ca4b0b06a68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktsm.com/print/node/3608 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975154 | 427 | 2.59375 | 3 |
By Christine Imming
United Way of Southwest Colorado
During the holiday season, many people feel moved to reach out to those in the community who are less fortunate. Inspired by the season of giving, special celebrations and gratitude for the good things in life, many give to others by volunteering their time or making a donation to an organization near and dear to their heart.
Some may choose to ring the bell next to a Salvation Army red kettle or donate money to a specific organization such as the American Red Cross. Others may buy presents for children whose names were chosen off a Project Merry Christmas tree.
I have even heard stories of people approaching complete strangers and handing them an envelope with a $10 bill inside with a holiday greeting written on the outside. People give freely during the months of November and December, and generosity is present everywhere.
As a community, we need to remember that ďneedĒ is illuminated during the holiday months but is ever present throughout the year. It has been unusually cold the last few weeks, and some people may not have a warm place to sleep. Some are hungry and donít have enough to eat.
Others may worry about how to pay their rent or child care after missing work because they had the flu or how increased heating bills will be paid to stay warm. These are just a few examples of what is happening every day in La Plata County.
Fortunately, there are amazing organizations ready to help any day of the year. Volunteers of America Durango Community Shelter provides a warm place to sleep during the freezing cold and below-zero nights. Manna Soup Kitchen provides hot meals daily, and Community Emergency Assistance Coalition meets weekly to consider applications for emergency financial assistance.
These agencies are just three of the 50 partner agencies United Way of Southwest Colorado supports through annual grants with money raised in La Plata, Archuleta, Montezuma and Dolores counties.
With monetary donations as well as volunteer time, United Way and other organizations continue to help those in need throughout the year, and without continued support, they would not be able to serve as many people.
I have a challenge for the La Plata County community; Let us continue giving throughout the year whenever inspiration strikes and see what effect we can have. Some may give back to others because once they were the recipient of a much-needed gift. Maybe itís because they believe in the work or mission of a particular organization.
Whatever the reason for giving, remember that people are in need every day, and your support does make a difference. Choose your favorite organization and write a check, donate items such as coats and blankets, or volunteer your time and continue the holiday generosity all year long.
Christine Imming is finance director of United Way of Southwest Colorado. | <urn:uuid:38f02d1d-05c5-48c7-bd76-d6c939a109db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20130122/COLUMNISTS06/130129903/1001/On-low-wages-barriers-to-betterment-are-many-- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970986 | 560 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Empire, as a noun, was value-free at the time the United States gained its independence. While its precise definition is elusive because of the problem of translation, it derived from the Latin imperium, which in English approximates the words rule and sovereignty. Hence its definition was functional or instrumental. Greeks used it to describe the relationship between the city-states that united to oppose the Persians (who also comprised an entity called an empire). But Athens exercised leadership over its fellow city-states; it did not really rule them.I am not trying to be difficult here, but I find this paragraph difficult to follow in a way that I rarely find (empirical) political science hard to understand. Why are we talking about imperium to describe the Athenians' relationship with the Delian League, when there are perfectly good words like hegemony to do that work instead? In what way was Athenian "leadership" different from Persian "rule"?
And why does the "Augustan" invention of bureaucracy (which, to readers of S.E. Finer's History of Government from the Earliest Times or, I don't know, Weber, would come as a surprise) that Zimmerman attributes to Michael Doyle's work two sentences later represent a phase change in "empire"? (Does that mean that we should call the "Augustan Threshold" the "Qin Revolution"?)
Some of my friends often claim they find historians hard to read because so many concepts are rendered informally or, worse, idiographically. I used to disagree with them. But the more I encounter academic historians seeking to make grand theoretical (or grand-theoretical) claims, the more I sympathize with their complaints. | <urn:uuid:b4ba341f-f26b-4d39-8c19-2eca2a73bb4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rpm47.blogspot.com/2012/01/definitions-matter-so-please-provide.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963375 | 349 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Ever wanted to make some music using your computer keyboard or sound effects for a video you are recording? The PC 73 Virtual Piano Keyboard is the utility you need to get! This amazing Piano utility not only lets you play a huge selection of virtual instruments using an on-screen piano but also maps the piano keys to your keyboard so you can play it like a traditional piano with letters and numbers mapped to each key.
Along with an Acoustic Grand Piano, there are dozens of different instrument types you can select by clicking on the purple box and selecting a different instrument.
Last, but not least, it can control a real piano through your midi compatible piano or keyboard.
I played Mary had a little lamb and got a round of applause from my co-workers. Try it yourself – the keyboard keys to hit when you have PC 73 Virtual Piano open are (leave out the -’s just hit the letters):
Y – T – R – T – Y – Y – Y – T – T – T – Y – I – I – Y – T – R – T – Y – Y – Y – Y – T – T – Y – T – R (Long) | <urn:uuid:05d8e1b0-7ed7-4b8d-af60-a1e0f613dae9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldstart.com/pc-virtual-piano-keyboard/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937583 | 241 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Tim Bray has an interesting post today about modes of communication and discourse. It seems to me that we’re currently in a kind of Cambrian Explosion, where having puttered around for the longest time, life forms are suddenly exploding, filling niches, copying each other, creating new predator-prey dynamics, and exploiting new food sources.
“The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation describes the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals in the fossil record, around 530 million years ago. This is accompanied by a major diversification of other organisms. Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, comprised of individual cells occasionally organised into colonies. In the following 70-80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude, and the diversity of life began to resemble today’s.”
Its the multifarious nature of the options available that makes me question this assertion of Tim’s:
“We observe empirically that humans have little trouble deciding whether any particular message is best suited to a phone call, an email, or a Twitter post. What might be going into those decisions?”
My problem with the statement is partly with the use of “we”. Who observes empirically? Tim? What is this “we”, white man?
I am not sure that we do have “little trouble” deciding which mode to use. Certainly when it comes to Twitter and del.icio.us I quite often go bipolar before deciding on one, or just post in both.
Meanwhile many of us use email as a default (was there actually a decision in the act, or just a fall back position) when in fact a blog post might be more appropriate and or useful. As a general rule, an email explaining something, which doesn’t divulge a trade secret or an individual or corporate identity, should be blogged, as well as emailed.
Do I call or send an SMS? The answer might simply depend on what keyboard I had at hand. Tim undoubtedly asks the right question: “What might be going into those decisions?”, but I think the “little trouble deciding” is probably the arthropod in the corner.
The complexity associated with this Cambrian Explosion in communications modes makes it harder for us to decide. We end up using brands to decide for us, rather than making a “rational decision”. We stick with Twitter though not because of the brand (after all Google, the most powerful brand on the planet right now, owns Twitter “competitor” Jaiku) but because that’s where our community is. When you’re swimming in a school, you don’t really want to wander off into unknown waters where you can’t chat to your peers, your fellow solver/seekers.
photo courtesy of kevinzim. | <urn:uuid:132af359-0630-44e6-9a4d-f86fd2577c24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/11/26/phone-call-email-twitter-a-cambrian-explosion-of-comms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936035 | 603 | 1.867188 | 2 |
A land of golden beaches, jagged mountains, rich safari plains and barren deserts; South Africa encompasses all these things. The teeming wildlife is as diverse and spectacular as the scenery, with everything from elusive leopards and plodding elephants to playful penguins.
South Africa's cities are also enormously varied, with hustling Johannesburg at its heart, and cosmopolitan Cape Town an enclave of European chic at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. In between you can lose yourself for days on safari in the bush or explore quaint isolated towns breaking up the arid Karoo wilderness. The hot and humid seaside fun of Durban with its even hotter curries is another sharp contrast to the scattering of sedate resorts lining the pretty south coast Garden Route.
Abundant wildlife is South Africa's major attraction, with the world-famous Kruger National Park delivering uniquely African sights, sounds, smells and memories. At the top end of the scale are luxurious world-class lodges with private butlers and game rangers who practically deliver the animals to your door. Travellers with more normal salaries can stay in the numerous ‘tented villages’ with tents permanently pitched on a raised wooden platform near communal facilities.
If the landscape sounds diverse, wait until you meet the people. South Africa boasts 11 official languages, mostly drawn from its indigenous population, while the colonialist legacy stirred Afrikaners, English and Indians into the mix. That blend has created a wonderful array of food, music and culture that offers something for everyone.
It’s affectionately known as the Rainbow Nation, although the bright racially harmonious future it once represented has been tarnished by yet another form of diversity – the vast and increasing economic gap between rich and poor. On the drive in from most airports the roads are flanked by shanty towns, often with communal toilets and electricity pilfered from the overhead power lines. The legacy of Apartheid, or racial segregation, is still hugely evident, and a visit to Johannesburg’s moving Apartheid museum and a tour of a vibrant township like Soweto are cultural highlights.
In stark contrast, the city centres are glowingly modern with bold new architecture interspersed between colonial buildings of the past. Cape Town has been chosen as the World Design Capital for 2014, heralding a year-long programme of design-focused events, while iconic Table Mountain has been named one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature, despite being extremely old.
On the political and economic side, the country has lost its way since the glory days presided over by near-saint Nelson Mandela. Yet there’s an underlying spirit of optimism and a can-do attitude that will save South Africa from sliding too far down the rainbow. The 2010 World Cup proved what the country can achieve when everybody pulls together, and left a legacy of improved transport, accommodation and sports facilities that benefit visitors and locals alike. As for the image of crime, it’s an urban legend that a car has been invented that shoots out flames to toast approaching hijackers but visitors should follow the usual precautions about safety. Just don’t let paranoia sap your enjoyment. A streetwise sense of humour keeps South African hearts beating faster and instils a delightfully warped sense of achievement from living on the edge. | <urn:uuid:066d813c-d337-4190-b1c1-6a103255fac3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldtravelguide.net/south-africa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932816 | 675 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Doctors have discovered a way for professional football players to see how much damage their brains have suffered through a bruising career before it’s too late, according to a new study.
UCLA researchers led a team of scientists that used a chemical marker called FDDNP to measure the degree of brain damage in five retired football players. That marker latches onto the tau proteins that build up in the brain when someone suffers from Alzheimer’s or other cognitive impairments like chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Doctors can then perform a routine positron emission tomography (PET) scan to see those chemical markers, highlighting how many tau proteins there are and where they end up.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as CTE, is caused by repeated head trauma. In the case of football players, CTE can be brought on by helmet-to-helmet collisions and hard tackles. The condition can lead to memory loss, depression, suicidal behavior and dementia, among other symptoms.
Over the last few years, doctors and football players have become particularly concerned about the risk for CTE among athletes. Players who have had three or more concussions are three times more likely to be diagnosed with depression and five times more likely to show mild cognitive impairment, said Dr. Gary Small, UCLA’s Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging and lead author of the new study. Retired NFL players have a higher-than-average risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a 2012 study of 3,400 retired players by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In addition, a study last year of former San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau’s brain showed that he was suffering from CTE when he killed himself in May.
“Early detection of tau proteins may help us to understand what is happening sooner in the brains of these injured athletes,” he said. “Our findings may also guide us in developing strategies and interventions to protect those with early symptoms, rather than try to repair damage once it becomes extensive.”
Doctors realized that tau proteins played a role in CTE after they were discovered during autopsies in the brains of players who had the disease. Until then, scientists had only used the FDDNP markers to track them in Alzheimer’s patients. Small and his colleagues wondered whether the marker could also be useful for studying the brains of retired football players, he said.
The team recruited five former NFL players who were at least 45 years old — a quarterback, a linebacker, a guard, a center and a defensive lineman. Each of the players went through a battery of tests, including exams measuring their degree of depression and cognitive ability.
On the whole, the players were more depressed and showed more cognitive loss, such as a loss of short-term memory, than other men of comparable age, education and stature, researchers found. The tau proteins seen in the five volunteers were located in the same areas of the brain as they were in the brains of deceased players who had CTE.
“My hope is that this study will allow us to diagnose conditions much easier, learn which interventions are the best and have a better understanding on how to improve our equipment and the rules to make the game as safe as possible,” said study volunteer Wayne Clark, who was a quarterback in the NFL for five seasons.
Though Clark had more tau proteins in his brain than some of the others, he was the only one who did not show symptoms of CTE. That led researchers to suggest genetics also play a role in the progression of the disease, Small said.
Clark said his results have made him consider working out more and changing his diet, two lifestyle changes that have been shown to help keep the brain healthy and active.
Small said the NFL Players Assn. is looking into how it can help fund further research.
The study was funded by the Brain Injury Research Institute, the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation Fund for Alzheimer’s Disease Research and the Ahmanson Foundation and the Parlow-Solomon Professorship.
Return to the Science Now blog. | <urn:uuid:acf860d9-617d-46e5-8975-c5095c1865ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwch.com/news/healthwatch/la-sci-sn-cte-concussion-nfl-proteins-20130122,0,3335456.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981671 | 846 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Discover How to Heal Yourself Naturally!
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This book is a comprehensive yet concise and easy-to-read guide that explores the many different components of alternative medicine, and how they can help you.
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Here is just some of what you will learn by reading this amazing ebook:
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Get it now before promotion ends! | <urn:uuid:85d94401-c890-4e0f-be98-f073148cea63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iappfind.com/app/379174873 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942508 | 637 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Remember to enter Amazon via the VDARE.com link and we get a commission on any purchases you make—at no cost to you!
National Data | Feds Shrug At Employer-Sponsored Immigration Fraud
What a coincidence. A strikingly similar failure of government agencies to co-operate in the immigration area was found by a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study. The GAO presented its study to the U.S. Senate with the forbidding if functional title "Data Sharing and Analysis May Enhance Tax Compliance and Improve Immigration Eligibility Decisions." [PDF]
The problem: temporary guest workers and "employment-based preference" immigrants sponsored by employers. These classes enable employers to import high-tech specialists (H-1bs), professionals, seasonal workers, and other workers with skills deemed "unavailable in the United States." (Unavailable, that is, at the price these employers want to pay).
An astounding six hundred and fifty-six thousand temporary guest workers or trainees entered the U.S. in 2002—the year after 9/11, if you recall. (The data system used to tally temporary guest workers and trainees records each entry separately, so individuals who enter more than once during the course of the year are counted more than once. But, for perspective, almost 200,000 new H-1b visas were issued in 2002). Another 175,000 individuals received Green Cards i.e. became permanent U.S. residents. [Table 1.]
This figure for permanent residents includes spouses and children, and thus will likely soon result in more "Anchor Babies."
Within the Department of Homeland Security, the agency entrusted with vetting foreign-born workers and their sponsors is the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). When GAO auditors examined a sample of businesses applying to CIS to sponsor immigrant workers over the 1997 to 2004 period, this is what they found:
- 16 percent (67,949 of the 413,723 businesses sampled) did not file tax returns
- 5 percent (19,972 businesses) were unknown to the IRS
- 4.6 percent (18,942 businesses) had unpaid tax assessments at the time of application
According to the IRS, these sponsors may not be required to file for a variety of reasons, including insufficient income. But non-filing does cast doubt as to whether a business meets the financial viability (ability to pay wages) and the legitimacy (proof of existence) tests for sponsoring an immigrant. And, of course, non-filers may simply be frauds.
Tax delinquents and businesses that are completely unknown to the IRS, needless to say, are obvious candidates for both tax and immigration fraud.
If they exist at all.
Because, according to immigration agency testimony to Congress, many sponsoring businesses have long been known to be bogus. Some are immigration entrepreneurs operating out of post office boxes, private homes, or apartments. Such "companies" often act as employment agencies, petitioning for foreign workers and then trying to place them with fee-paying employers. These scams are perpetrated both with and without the foreign worker's advance knowledge. (Lincoln Kahn detailed one such fraud in VDARE.COM on May 1st.]
This problem is not confined to small businesses. The GAO study found one company sponsored more than 600 workers from 1997 to 2004 but is currently delinquent on 12 tax returns for $8 million, and failed to file 3 income tax returns.
Overall, the unpaid tax assessments of immigrant sponsors totaled $5.6 billion, according to GAO.
Foreign-born workers themselves must meet certain criteria in order to qualify for immigrant status. In testing for "good moral character," for example, CIS asks applicants whether they have ever been imprisoned or failed to file a tax return. Obviously, this is critically important if a temporary worker is applying for permanent status—or if illegal immigrants are amnestied. Yet no IRS data is made available to CIS to corroborate the applicant's response.
Nor is IRS data made available to corroborate the sponsoring employers' bona fides.
Federal law currently forbids such an exchange on the grounds of taxpayer confidentiality. There are precedents for sharing data, however. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has had an extensive data sharing program with IRS for 30 years, using tax data to verify beneficiary earnings and eligibility.
[Number fans click here for tables.] | <urn:uuid:9e0d5bf5-d85d-419c-906d-8fdbd2d61e77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vdare.com/articles/national-data-by-edwin-s-rubenstein-280 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954591 | 908 | 1.640625 | 2 |
A friend turned me on to The Believer magazine, which is now my bus and train reading. In the February issue, there’s a fascinating series of essays by transgender author T Cooper on different aspects of his transformation from female to male: unsent letters he wrote to his parents explaining his decision, personality changes he has gone through since his transformation, elements of womanhood that one would think he’d understand considering his past but doesn’t. But one essay, on the subject of his frustration at the “slip-ups” people still make regarding his gender such as accidentally referring to him as a “she,” suggests his frustration at not having his identity acknowledged and respected has surpassed his empathy for human error. It’s ironically the one closed-minded part of an otherwise illuminating, and entertaining, treatise.
Of course, his frustration is understandable, and so is his pain. But I’m not sure his impatience with people who slip-up, and his dismissal of them as somehow lazy or dismissive themselves, is fair. It got me thinking about how I “group” people in my mind, what the most basic thing about them I remember and associate with them is. What are the characteristics that, no matter how the signals they deliberately send change over time, identify them to me?
This analogy might not immediately be apparent, but the essay reminded me of the way I think of words: how I group them, how I remember them, how they affect me. Sometimes when I’m trying and failing to remember a word that is “on the tip of my tongue,” the closest attributes of the word itself that I can remember might be the number of syllables, or the rhythm of it, or perhaps whether it was Germanic, Latin or Greek in origin. If I remember speaking it aloud to myself, randomly throwing in a few rough breathing marks for fun and imitating a recording I once listened to of The Iliad recited in a dialect believed to be similar to Old Ionic, I know the word was Greek. If I recall intentionally mispronouncing it in an Italian accent, I’ll know it is from Latin. If it sounds sexy or romantic, I’ll know it’s Frenchified Latin. If it’s phlegmy and uncouth, it must be German.
But more palpable than my memories of the attributes of the word itself, are my memories of how I felt when I first encountered the word. I can remember whether I was happy or sad, in love, depressed, feeling accomplished and smug, or put-upon and useless. I can remember if I was eating at the moment, and if so, whether it was sweet or savory, and how I felt as I was eating, if I was just grazing or eating until I was full, or ate too much and felt sick. Or maybe I was just having a coffee and felt the acid tenderize my stomach as I first read or heard that word.
That’s another thing I can remember even if I can’t remember the word itself: I know if I heard the word on TV or read it in a book. If it was from the television I can remember whether it was on a news or commentary show or in a movie or serial. If it was news and commentary, I can remember if I agreed with the person who used the word, and if it was a serial, whether I had a crush on the character who used it. If it was in a book, I can remember if it was fiction or non-fiction, and if fiction, which voice spoke the word aloud in my mind’s ear: if the narrator was female, regardless of the cultural origin of the book, it was my own, as I pride myself on being good with dialects. If male, the voice belonged to Jeremy Irons, naturally. If it was non-fiction I can remember whether it was British or American, or a translation. I can remember if I learned the word in conversation, and whether that conversation was in America or Europe, and if in America, on what coast, and if on the west coast, whether it was with a friend from high school, the theatre, or the opera, and if in New York, at Saks or some other job, over drinks or lunch or shouted at a noisy party. I can remember my status relative to the person who used the word, if it was a boss or a teacher, or a colleague, or a nuisance—did I feel intimidated, worried, delighted, or annoyed when I heard this word? Do I associate the word with satisfaction (words I learn while happy) or frustration (words I learn while trying to distract myself from unhappiness)? I can remember that, if not the word.
The clues are ghosts, and ghosts of ghosts, not of the thing itself, but of who I was at the moment of reception. It’s why, whenever I hear or read the word “assuage” I recall myself, if ever so faintly, as an 18 year old crushing on a teacher, or why “parameter” triggers a surge of disdain: I remember my father, in our Oldsmobile some time in the ‘80’s, complaining about the clichés of the day, the trendy words he was so tired of hearing, such as people droning on about the “parameters” of something when they just wanted a fancy word for “limit.” “Diminute” makes me think of London, Shakespeare, a Kensal Rise flat filled with books and art, good friends, Turkish rugs, grass and red wine. This is because, having heard my teacher Ben use the word several times in class, I asked him one night at his home, where I spent my best English evenings, why he didn’t just say “diminish” (the answer is that “diminish” is a reflexive verb, and “diminute,” an obscure active one, or less obscure adjective). With “pervasive” I’m back in Santa Fe on a warm dry autumn night under a sky the color of rust, reading my classmate Chris’s freshmen biology essay, astonished at the brilliant 16 year-old’s ability to interpret the sodden innards of our dissected cat, and wondering if I’d ever be able to hold my own with such scholars. The sentence itself wasn’t too spectacular, something about how the arterial system of the cat was “not quite pervasive,” but I recall that mix of admiration and apprehension perfectly, for it revisits me every time I use, hear, or read that word. “Abstruse” places me back as a breathless stagehand over ten years ago, working a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (in which the word appears), always over-sugared, over-caffeinated, and hungry from eating dinner too early before the marathon play. The fricative “s” escapes the plosive “b,” breaks the tab “t” and gushes out through “ru” and suddenly the coca-cola is spumy in my empty stomach, its sugars caustic on my teeth.
These peripheral experiences that I recall with every word, or instead of the word, if it eludes me, only mean that more than the literal or technical definition of a word, I remember how I felt at my initial encounter with it.
I’ve realized, however, that out of all this mnemonic detritus my experience attaches to a word the most basic thing I project onto it is gender. I can remember if it was a male or female who spoke it or wrote it when I noticed it. If it was a man, I remember which category I had placed him in: guide and mentor, friend and equal, romantic interest, romantic interest and friend and equal, romantic interest and mentor, or pest. If the speaker of the word was female, I remember if she was a mentor, a friend and equal, or if I felt threatened by her or confident that I threatened her, or if she was a friend I felt threatened by or towards whom I was careful not to act threateningly. But ridding the word of my collateral experience, it remains, to me, male or female. “Atavistic,” “frisson,” and “palimpsest” are all male, because I encountered them reading Martin Amis, A. A. Gill, and Will Self respectively. Female words are “Effulgence” (Wharton), “tautology” (another great Gill, my former classmate Karina), and “limn” (Fuck You, Michiko Kakutani). “Droll” is female (mother) and “subsume” is male (Michael Schneider). “Judicious” is female, and “histrionic” is male. The gender I associate with a word has only to do with the gender of the person from whom I first learned the word, however long ago, regardless of the actual definition, etymology, connotations, or the gender, if any, with which the word is usually associated. “Histrionic” is a word I usually hear used, justly or unjustly, in connection to femaleness (or to me specifically, totally without basis). But my first hit of it came from a male drama teacher, so male it stays.
Of course I’m not really talking about words, I’m talking about myself, and the associations I make that make no sense of anything but my own experience. However disparate my experience is from the truth about something, it provides a deeper meaning for me than the objective truth about that thing. And gender, somehow, is the most basic element of that experience. I wonder if it is so for other people as well. If I’m alone in a room, and my back is turned to the door and someone else walks in, I can tell if that person is a man or woman. And it’s not from some obvious “signal” like the sound of high heels on floorboard or the smell of perfume. It’s visceral and I can’t justify with evidence, but I’m almost always right.
Cooper analogizes the slip-ups people make regarding his gender with a slip-up no sane or sensitive person would make in two hypothetical examples, of the whoring buddy now settled and the basketball partner now paralyzed. But the activities one enjoys with a person, however regularly, and for however long, are not nearly as identifying as that person’s gender. The two examples Cooper uses are a false equivalency because it is much more natural to dissociate a person from the hobbies you shared with them than it is to suddenly start thinking of them in a whole different gender. Yes, one should acknowledge dresses and cherry lipstick as signals of how a person prefers to be regarded, but in the moment of a “slip-up,” one is guided by something deeper than the part of one’s brain that acknowledges and interprets signals, before that part of the brain can catch the mistake and correct it. I had a friend while living in Europe, a male who had made the transition to female long before I ever knew her. She did not tell me of the change she had made at all. I heard about it from a mutual friend but didn’t think much of it, since I’m from San Francisco and don’t find such stories to be too exotic. I would have known anyway, as her past maleness was unmistakable–again, not because of any signal I can put words to—I’ve known women who were taller, broader-shouldered, slimmer-hipped, deeper-voiced, had more, er, manly facial features, and wore less makeup on them. No, there was just something “male” about her, and, months into our friendship I slipped up once while ordering in a restaurant and referred to her as a “he.” I was mortified, of course, and hope I did not make her feel like shit, as T Cooper describes such gaffs as affecting him. But I also can’t quite agree that this slip-up is on the level of accidentally inviting a man in a wheelchair to play basketball. Hobbies and the accidents we suffer do not occupy space in the same atavistic chamber of our psyches as gender. I can understand “how abnegating it would be to have the world decide that you are something you are not” but a slip-up is not a decision, and cannot be resented in the same way.
Cooper and other people who have undergone gender transformation say they did it to honor what they know to be the truth about themselves. “…to be trans is to feel the truth so acutely you can’t fake it. It is to be so consumed with the truth of who you are that you are willing to risk everything to inhabit it.” But it is unreasonable to expect the world you live in not only to acknowledge that truth (that is indeed reasonable) but feel that truth as acutely, as unmistakably as you do, and to be offended when the signals you labor to exhibit are no match for what millions of years have hardwired into us. I read a study recently that told me I am likely to behave more protectively of myself around men when I am ovulating than when I am in the less fertile phase of my cycle; I will avoid sketchy areas, I will dress less provocatively, I will subconsciously regard men as potential rapists and try not to act as if I’m “asking for it,” in a biological mechanism designed to cope with my greater attractiveness during that time. My body wants to be impregnated and so subtly enhances the signals of my fertility, but it also wants to minimize the chances of the “wrong” male taking advantage (i.e. it wants a baby-daddy and not a rapist). Of course this is offensive. As a level-headed woman I prefer to think that I gauge my safety from situation to situation rationally, based on observations and crime statistics and the like. I also resent the implication that the hormones sloshing around in me will soak my deductive powers so thoroughly that on some primordial level I think any dweeb on the street is a threat to me in my fecundity. Who knows if the study itself will stick, but it says something about people and gender. Our reactions to maleness and femaleness are beyond what our conscious selves can grasp. It is what makes people like T Cooper know, in their deepest selves, what they are, despite all the contrary signals with which nature has assembled them. But it is also why (I suspect) it is unlikely that trans people will ever feel understood and acknowledged as totally as they understand and acknowledge the truth about themselves, whatever level of enlightenment our culture achieves. Not everyone ascribes a gender to words as I do (but, ahem, many cultures do), but everyone comprehends and reacts to gender, in ways that may be partly societal, but primarily evolutionary. Millions of years have taught us to recognize and react to gender. It is asking a lot of people that they not only reject, but forget. | <urn:uuid:d2f9325a-fac8-4d1f-8470-c2fd6660668f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://larissaarcher.com/2011/03/03/word-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973176 | 3,267 | 2.109375 | 2 |
|Plot Summary of Getting It Right|
|"Getting It Right
William F. Buckley Jr.
Regnery, 2003, 310 pp. (including notes)
There is no question that the 1960s were a time of great political ferment, especially on college campuses. Given all that has been written and shown about the sixties' generation and their infatuation with left wing politics, it is easy to forget the less publicized ferment on the right during this period. The conservative ideas of smaller government, lower taxes, personal responsibility and self reliance, which are common today, are the direct result of ideas and forces that incubated on the right in the 1960s.
While conservative ideas today appear as a coherent whole they were once numerous strains of seemingly discrete ideas. Rather than trying to write a straight historical account of the various individuals and groups with their often conflicting ideas and agendas, Buckley has presented this as a novel and tells the story through the eyes of two young college graduates, Woodroe Raynor and Leonora Goldstein. However, unlike some recent television docudramas which indiscriminately blend fact and fiction and pass all of it off as the truth, Buckley clearly separates the fact and fiction and even goes so far as to provide four pages listing his sources for each chapter. With the exception of the two protagonists and a few minor supporting characters, the people, places and events in this book are true.
Raynor, a Mormon from Utah, upon graduating from high school is sent to the Austrian village of Andau on the Hungarian border in 1956 to do his obligatory year of missionary work. While there he witnesses the flood of refugees fleeing the Soviet army as it crushes that year's ill fated Hungarian uprising. Following his return to the U.S. and completing college, Raynor is hired by the newly formed John Birch Society and we get to see the rise of that organization and the anti-communist movement in general through his eyes.
Goldstein, on the other hand is raised by her widowed mother on anti-communism and self reliance. While on a ship from Gdansk , Poland to visit relatives in New York, Leonora Goldstein's parents find themselves refugees when Hitler's armies invade Poland. Shortly after her birth, Leonora's father, a longshoreman, was killed in a fight when a pro-communist faction of the union sought to take control of the local union. Introduced to the works of Ayn Rand while in college, Leonora meets Ayn Rand and is hired as a part time research assistant and file clerk.
While the defeat of communism and the restoration of self reliance became hallmarks of the modern conservative movement, groups like the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand's Collective and the like were too inward looking and their leaders too authoritarian to succeed in a free society. Woodroe and Leonora meet early in the book and their growing political maturity parallels their growing love. In the book Woodroe and Leonora distill the core values of the conservative movement but cast aside the the dogmatism and paranoia so closely associated with many of the groups on the right in the 1960s. It was this distilling of true values from the clutter of narrow and often conflicting ideas which ultimately led to the strong conservative political movement we have today.
Buckley has done a remarkable job in pulling together the various groups, individuals and strains of conservative thought in this period and presenting it as a coherent and interesting story.
Chuck Nugent, Resident Scholar
|Review Analysis of Getting It Right|
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PUBLIC OPINION > Disney Won't Combat Obesity With Its Junk Food Ban
SodaHead TV 2012/06/07 13:00:00
Disney is launching an initiative that will ban junk food commercials from appearing during their children's programming by 2015. They announced that all food and beverages advertised on the Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Radio Disney, and Disney.com must meet certain standards to air. We asked the public if this initiative could help fight childhood obesity.
It's a nice thought, but not many people think it will make a difference. And not many people think it's something Disney should be worried about, either. The Top Opinion read, "It's the parents responsibility what their kids eat no one else's." Even those who said it could help were typically underwhelmed, saying things like, "It couldn't hurt," or, "Every little bit helps."
Reluctance on the Right
Even though Disney is a private corporation imposing its own rules on itself, conservative respondents were much less likely than any other demographic to say their junk food commercial ban will help fight obesity. It could be that they're just bothered by the fact that Disney is potentially forfeiting profits for standards set by the government, even if the government isn't enforcing it.
Smokers Are Skeptical
Smokers were also much less enthusiastic about the ban than most demographics. It must have something to do with health -- smoking, like eating junk food, is obviously unhealthy, so maybe they're sympathetic. But it's not like smokers are worried Disney will stop advertising cigarettes on Channel Disney.
Athletes Aren't Convinced
Strangely enough, the healthiest weight class (athletic) was least likely to say Disney can help fight obesity. It wasn't by much, only about 5% to 6% less than any other weight class, but we found it odd that healthier voters shrugged off Disney's shift toward health-conscious eating. Maybe they're suggesting a healthy lifestyle takes a lot more than new commercials.
If you'd like to vote on this question, dig deeper into the demographics, or engage in existing discussion about the topic, visit our poll about Disney's junk food commercial ban. We'd love to hear from you!
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More Hot Questions | <urn:uuid:fd051486-d67a-4885-aed8-aef499fd806d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sodahead.com/entertainment/public-opinion-disney-wont-combat-obesity-with-its-junk-food-ban/question-2709145/?page=1&postId=86149529 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97128 | 471 | 1.882813 | 2 |
The Reablement care Service will respect the right of the client to have choice and control and to exercise their rights to take risks and receive support in maintaining independence and dignity.
The Reablement care service respects the right of the client to have full discussion in any area of the care service provided to them with which they are not satisfied or wish to make a complaint. Clients' comments or complaints will be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated in a sensitive, professional manner in accordance with the Council's complaints procedure.
Clients must be informed of their rights to make complaints and this procedure must be explained to them.
Clients must have detailed information regarding the service offered and how it will be delivered. The information should include details of the costs of the service to the user and assistance given in obtaining access to help with this through the Benefits System and other sources.
In accordance with the NHS and Community Care Act (1990), users must be involved in the comprehensive assessment of their needs and on-going assessments, led by the Commissioning teams.
Reablement care staff must ensure that the aims of the service are put into practice when providing care to people in their own homes. A positive, flexible and sensitive approach must be adopted.
Reablement care staff have the right to adequate briefing concerning duties with specific clients. This should include up to date information on the needs of the client and the services they are expected to provide for the client. Reablement care staff are expected to attend regular meetings and training courses, receive supervision and receive the opportunity to obtain a vocational qualification or specialist training. | <urn:uuid:2171624a-a63a-4427-a83c-da9735c9acf4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/index.jsp?articleid=10513&backid=9985 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96077 | 323 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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Acceleration and Forces
Newton's Three Laws
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Issac Newton's Three Laws
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Issac Newton, a 17th-18th century English physicist and mathematician (also the guy who had an apple hit his head supposedly), stated three laws that basically describe the statics and dynamics of objects.
Statics is the study of forces on an object at rest.
Dynamics is the study of how forces affect the motion of a body.
Newton's First Law of Motion (Law of Inertia):
Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform speed in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces acting on it.
What does that mean?
It means that if I throw a ball it will keep on going at the same velocity (speed and direction) unless a force of some kind changes it.
Usually there is air friction that pushes against the ball.
Also, gravity changes its direction by making it fall down.
Finally, the ball stops when it hits the ground.
Therefore, air friction, gravity, and the resistance of the ground are forces.
Newton's Second Law of Motion:
The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and is inversely proportional to its mass. The direction of the acceleration is in the direction of the applied net force.
It is a simple idea actually.
If you push a cart, it will accelerate in the direction you are pushing.
Also, it will accelerate faster if you push it harder (greater force).
So if you push it towards the school, you are accelerating it towards the school.
This is pretty much common sense.
You don't expect that if you push a cart east that the acceleration will be to the north.
It just would not make much sense.
Newton's Third Law of Motion (Law of Action-Reaction):
Whenever one object exerts a force on a second object, the second exerts an equal and opposite force on the first.
This is also a pretty simple idea.
Let's imagine that one ball is moving in a straight line toward another ball and collides with it.
The moving ball exerts a force on the ball at rest, which accelerates.
However, the ball at rest exerts the same magnitude of force in the opposite direction on the moving ball, decelerating it (perhaps even making it reverse direction). | <urn:uuid:dda35c7e-8d1c-46ee-b377-d1e7283508d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/16600/beginner/newton.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924351 | 551 | 4.03125 | 4 |
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Journal of Creative Behavior
The Journal of Creative Behavior is our quarterly academic journal citing the most current research in creative thinking. For nearly four decades JCB has been the benchmark scientific periodical in the field. It provides up to date cutting-edge ideas about creativity in education, psychology, business, arts and more.
Welcome message from our Editor:
It is with much excitement — and a small amount of trepidation — that I approach the task of serving as editor of The Journal of Creative Behavior. Both feelings stem from the same source: under the stellar leadership of my gifted and dedicated predecessor, Dean Keith Simonton, JCB has become the premier outlet for the best work in the enormously diverse field of creativity. Each issue is chock full of the finest work the field has to offer. The journal is stimulating to read, and it will be even more exhilarating to help shape its future issues. My great hope — and this is where the trepidation comes in — is that I will be able to help the journal continue its progress and consistently leap the high bar that Dean has set.
Creativity is one of those interesting fields that mirrors the very topic it studies. Just as creativity is complex and multifaceted, so too are the approaches to its study. There are case study, historiometric, laboratory, statistical, meta-analytic, and philosophical approaches. There are studies concerned with social, developmental, personality, motivational, emotional, cognitive and neurophysiological factors. There are emphases on extraordinary creativity, as might be shown by noted artists, composers, scientists or inventors, and on more normative aspects of creativity inherent in how ordinary people solve the problems of everyday life, form, modify, combine and manipulate their concepts, use language in creative ways, and innovate for its own sake. There are basic research approaches directed at increasing our theoretical understanding of the phenomena, and more applied approaches examining the manifestation and enhancement of creativity in business, educational, scientific, social policy and decision-making settings in the real world. This is not an exhaustive list, but does help to point out the richness of the field.
My intent is to have JCB continue to serve as a mirror of creativity and of the field itself. All approaches are welcome. Outside of relevance to the topic of creativity, the sole criterion for publication in the journal is and should be the quality of the work. The journal is in the enviable position of receiving more submissions than it can publish, and so it is possible to choose only the very best.
I look forward to working with the energetic staff at the Creative Education Foundation, the members of a diverse and illustrious editorial board, and all the future authors to help keep JCB at the forefront of serious investigation into creativity.
Thomas B. Ward, Editor | <urn:uuid:083cde58-26d5-49e1-98a8-7c99aa191853> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/what-we-do/journal-of-creative-behavior | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945558 | 572 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Yet Another Senate Vote to Advance the KXL – and Yet Again It Fails
Five days ago the Senate defeated a measure aimed at requiring the Keystone XL to move forward…and today the vote was repeated. The Senate just can’t stop voting on the issue…how many defeats are needed? The repeat vote was part of a broader package of issues promoted by Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) who sought to win approval for constructing the KXL, to expand offshore oil and gas leasing, to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, and to allow oil shale and tar sands leasing, among other provisions. Fortunately the measure failed 41-57.
The Keystone XL struggle isn’t going away…and neither are its opponents.
This morning before the Senate vote, Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute released a new report: The Impact of Tar Sands Pipeline Spills on Employment and the Economy. This is clearly a must-read for all legislators. The report reminds us: “The largest tar sands oil spill in theU.S. occurred on theKalamazooRiver inMichigan in 2010. This spill affected the health of hundreds of residents, displaced residents, hurt businesses, and caused a loss of jobs. The Kalamazoo spill is the most expensive tar sands pipeline oil spill in U.S. history, with overall costs estimated at $725 million.”
Why risk more of the same?
The time for investing in renewable energy has never been greater. | <urn:uuid:77e88878-5a00-43c9-9916-3f2d537de5f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.greenamerica.org/2012/03/13/yet-another-senate-vote-to-advance-the-kxl-and-yet-again-it-fails/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ea0388e61b | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948688 | 311 | 1.773438 | 2 |
. "Appendix C: Programs Highlighted During the Workshop." Enhancing Professional Development for Teachers: Potential Uses of Information Technology, Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007.
Started in 1988, this site consists of a large nonprofit global network that enables teachers and young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to collaborate on projects that both enhance learning and make a difference in the world.
The Teacher-to-Teacher Initiative, a program offered through the U.S. Department of Education, was designed by teachers for teachers in order to provide technical support, professional development opportunities, and recognition for teachers of all content areas and grade levels.
This site is dedicated to sharing the newer and emerging “learning tools” of science education—tools such as real-time data collection, simulations, inquiry based lessons, interactive web lessons, micro-worlds, and imaging, among others, which can help make teaching science an exciting and engaging endeavor.
Concept to Classroom features a series self-paced workshops covering a wide variety of hot topics in education. Some of the workshops are based in theory, some are based in methodology, and all of the workshops include tips and strategies for making classrooms work.
PBS TeacherLine offers professional development courses to individual PreK-12 teachers and districts. Its specially trained, certified facilitators lead over 100 standards-based courses that include mathematics, reading/language arts, science, instructional technology, and instructional strategies. Coursework can cover a complete sequence of study or address a specific requirement, depending on a teacher’s or a district’s needs.
EdTech Leaders Online based at Education Development Center provides capacity building online training for states and school districts to establish their own online professional development programs, offering online instructor and course developer training, a catalogue of 50 online workshops in the range of K-12 subject areas and grade levels, and a national forum for trained online specialists. | <urn:uuid:f075824b-a09b-41a3-9510-8d5de2e5d8c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11995&page=63 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930208 | 402 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Published August 30, 2011
An 8-year-old girl born two years after her father died is not entitled to his Social Security benefits, a federal appeals court ruled this week, reversing a lower court's decision in a case that could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Brynn Beeler was born through in-vitro fertilization using sperm from Patti Beeler's late husband, Bruce, who died of leukemia at age 37.
Beeler filed for Social Security survivor benefits for her daughter shortly after Brynn's birth in April 2003. But the federal government said Brynn did not qualify for the benefits based upon its interpretation of an Iowa law written before technology was available to allow genetic material to be preserved.
Beeler challenged the government's decision, and a federal judge ruled in 2009 that Brynn could receive the benefits that would have meant more than $150,000 could be stashed away for her college education.
But the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the federal government's interpretation of the law is "reasonable" and that the law does not entitle Brynn to benefits.
That Iowa law, which was changed this year, allowed inheritance rights for heirs who are "begotten before the intestate's death but born thereafter." It didn't cover children conceived after a biological parent's death.
"The death of Bruce Beeler at a relatively young age before he and Pattie Beeler could conceive children is profoundly sad," the court wrote in its opinion. "But whether the granting of child's insurance benefits" to Brynn "would further the purposes of the Social Security Act is debatable."
The court noted that the purpose of the Social Security Act is to help children who lost support after the unexpected death of a parent.
After getting married in 2001, Bruce Beeler was diagnosed with leukemia that required chemotherapy. He banked his sperm before beginning the treatments because chemotherapy can cause sterility.
Beeler's case led Iowa to change its law this year to allow children conceived up to two years after a parent dies to receive inheritance rights and Social Security benefits. But the law isn't retroactive so it doesn't apply to the Beeler case.
The use of assisted reproductive technology is growing even though it accounts for only 1 percent of all births in the U.S.
In 2009, the latest year statistics are available, 60,190 babies were born using assisted reproductive technology -- double the amount from a decade ago, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Iowa became the 12th state to recognize the biological relationships of children conceived posthumously. The others are California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
Other states grant inheritance rights to children born after one parent dies only if conceived naturally. And although the Social Security Administration oversees the benefits, it defers to states when determining parentage and children's inheritance rights. | <urn:uuid:5c39367b-5774-433c-bcae-69500d9abb84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/30/iowa-girl-born-after-fathers-death-not-entitled-to-benefits-appeals-court-rules/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968516 | 621 | 1.703125 | 2 |
August 30, 2004
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — At the AIDS Vaccine 2004 conference, August 30–September 1 in Lausanne, a partnership led by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) presented interim safety and immune response data from human clinical trials of two AIDS vaccine candidates, named DNA.HIVA and MVA.HIVA. The candidates are designed to elicit a cell-mediated immune response to prevent HIV infection and AIDS.
The partnership includes the University of Oxford/UK Medical Research Council, the University of Nairobi/Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative and the Uganda Virus Research Institute. The partners have been working since 1998 to develop DNA.HIVA and MVA.HIVA.
The interim data, from 205 volunteers in clinical trials in Kenya, Uganda and the United Kingdom, show that DNA.HIVA and MVA.HIVA are generally safe and well tolerated. However, the candidates’ ability to elicit an anti-HIV cell-mediated immune response is poor, using currently accepted measures of immune response. The candidates elicited responses in, at most, a quarter of volunteers who received them, and the responses were not long-lasting.
The data fall short of expectations, and they show that the promise manifest in preclinical studies of DNA.HIVA and MVA.HIVA has not held up in humans.
Over the next six to nine months, IAVI will complete a small number of clinical trials that have already started of DNA.HIVA and MVA.HIVA, in order to learn as much as possible from the candidates. Unless there are new immune response data that are dramatically different, IAVI will not develop the candidates further, and will focus on its other research and development projects.
IAVI manages a portfolio of AIDS vaccine research and development projects, prioritizing vaccine concepts and candidates given the latest science.
About IAVI: IAVI (www.iavi.org) is a global not-for-profit organization working to accelerate the development of a vaccine to prevent HIV infection and AIDS. Founded in 1996 and operational in 23 countries, IAVI and its network of collaborators research and develop vaccine candidates. IAVI also works to assure that a vaccine will be accessible to everyone who needs it. IAVI’s major financial supporters include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Rockefeller, Sloan and Starr foundations; the World Bank; BD (Becton, Dickinson & Co.); the European Union; and the governments of Canada, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. | <urn:uuid:dbbc1192-678d-4937-be9a-324c0209de15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iavi.org/Information-Center/Press-Releases/Pages/Statement-on-DNA-HIV-A-and-MVA-HIV-A-AIDS-vaccine-candidates.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940295 | 549 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Tiger on The Loose in South Africa
The petroleum company ESSO has suggested that motorists put the tiger in their tanks, unlike the case where a private entrepreneur lost his pet tiger on the way to the local veterinarian.
Thousands of school children stayed at home after parents heard the early morning news that 18 month old Panjo, the tiger had escaped from its owner’s one-tone pick up truck (commonly referred to as a bakkie, by the locals) while it was being taken to the local veterinarian for its annual shots. The children joked that the reason the tiger wasn’t spotted was simply because tigers aren’t spotted- they are striped. Husbands started locking up their wives and placing chastity belts on them when they heard that ” The Tiger ” was loose, implying high infidelity golfer Tiger Woods. But on a more serious note, the quest for the 145kg beast, owned by Portuguese South African Rose Fernandes (who also has other wild pets), reportedly included helicopters, wildlife experts, game veterinarians, police, hound dogs and at least 10,000 farmers in the Groblesdaal and Delmas region, near the town of Springs in Gauteng province, south Africa. But never fear, as the terrified lost tiger is reportedly used to humans and would most likely just want a leg of chicken or something yummy. The owner says the hand-reared domesticated tiger behaves like a pet dog. yet the animal is certainly old and skilled enough to avoid being captured in the tall grassy savanna terrain of the area. | <urn:uuid:9901ba31-7814-404e-9199-ce3fac1b13c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsflavor.com/world/africa/tiger-on-the-loose-in-south-africa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972828 | 326 | 1.78125 | 2 |
One thing we can do to improve workplace communications immediately is add to every employee’s job description the need to help others express themselves, even those with whom they disagree.
By doing this we would be making that skill a crucial requirement in getting ahead, as important in some settings as technical competence, high intelligence or personal connections.
Every performance review should consider whether the reviewed employee encourages others to express their viewpoints and ideas, and whether he or she is patient when others speak and listens attentively to what they say, however haltingly they may do so.
Subject to regular reviews by managers, most would improve their skills in helping others to speak up. They would begin to recognize their failings in this regard not only in their interaction at work but at home and other social settings.
Devoting a small portion of each review to the importance of helping associates express themselves will pay dividends in group understanding and creativity. | <urn:uuid:53c4abb7-d15e-48cc-b23d-6d01e4885a57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.karrass.com/blog/we-should-be-open-to-everyones-perspective/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971963 | 184 | 2.078125 | 2 |
It’s possible: Making the most of linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV responses
09 June 2011
Linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV is of critical importance. Worldwide more than 80% of HIV infections are sexually transmitted. In addition, sexual and reproductive ill health and HIV are fueled by similar causes such as poverty, limited access to services, lack of correct information, gender inequality and social marginalization.
On 8 June, during a side event at this week’s General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York, the question of how exactly such linkages can be strengthened was explored. The event was sponsored by UNAIDS, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
The highly interactive session looked at the issue through the prism of five key thematic areas: cost-effectiveness and cost savings of linkages; prevention of mother to child transmission though a sexual and reproductive health platform; comprehensive sexuality education for young people; ending gender-based violence; and human rights of people living with HIV.
In his opening remarks, Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, UNFPA Executive Director, explained how the integration of sexual and reproductive health and HIV services makes ‘people-sense’. These services include testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, support for fertility decisions, and access to condoms, contraception and correct information. He went on to emphasize wider policy and human rights implications.
“Linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV goes beyond integrating health services,” he said. “It demands from us that we fortify the human rights platform–ending stigma, violence and discrimination.”
Human rights and the right to health were said to be at the core of greater integration of services. A broader human rights agenda can also be promoted that goes beyond service delivery and tackles legal reforms, such as those relating to the right to information and freedom from violence, abuse and coercion.
Sharing ideas and experience
The participants shared ideas and experiences of how those working in the fields of HIV and sexual and reproductive health have combined their efforts to make interventions more effective in creative and innovative ways, including strategies to strengthen treatment as a prevention option.
It was stressed that mother- and child-centred care can improve both sexual and reproductive health and HIV outcomes. For many women, pregnancy is the first point of access in the health system and they can benefit from a range of interventions, including HIV prevention and treatment integrated into routine maternal health care; family planning; and preventing and managing sexually transmitted infections and gender-based violence.
The discussion also showed that when comprehensive sexuality education is effectively implemented on a national scale, there is potential for cost saving from averting HIV infections, other STIs and unintended pregnancies.
Participants examined how men can benefit from greater integration. For instance, in countries where voluntary male circumcision is being implemented for HIV prevention, the number of men accessing other sexual and reproductive services, such as prevention of mother-to-child transmission and treatment of STIs, has increased.
The meeting closed with agreement that linking sexual and reproductive health and the HIV response, especially in a climate of austerity, is a gateway to strengthening both the human rights agenda and health systems. | <urn:uuid:e41c3508-252d-4c45-92c7-2edacd50a975> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2011/june/20110609csrh/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945115 | 694 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Reclaiming the Higher Ground on Marriage
- Saturday, April 26, 2003
Our nation is threatened by a high divorce rate, a rise in cohabitation, an increase in out-of-wedlock births, a decline in the marriage rate, and a diminishing interest and readiness in marrying, especially among young people.
With three-quarters of marriages performed by clergy, churches are uniquely positioned not only to call America to a stronger commitment to this holy union but also to provide practical ministries and influence in reversing the course of our culture.
The institution of marriage—the covenantal union of a man and woman—has served for all of history as the bedrock of society. The marriage of one man and one woman is the fount out of which flow the critical values that sustain and benefit societies.
Sociological evidence indicates when marriages fail, families are weakened; and when families are weakened, society as a whole feels the impact.* It was not happenstance that the first institution established by God was marriage.
Marriage, the Church and Civil Government
God ordained three institutions in human society to enable individuals to fulfill their God-given purposes: marriage (the family), the church, and civil government. Each of these institutions is indispensable in our society, and each makes certain unique contributions to society. If any of these institutions are impaired, society will suffer in some very specific ways. If the church is undermined, people will have a reduced opportunity to hear the counsel of God; if the government is undermined, the people are not protected from predatory evil; and if the institution of marriage is undermined, families suffer, with the weakest and most defenseless among us—the children—suffering the most grievously. If any of these three institutions seek to dominate the legitimate sphere of the other, or surrenders its proper sphere of influence, society’s very foundations are imperiled.
The family is a particularly important institution. A family established on the marriage between a man and a woman provides for the cultivation of vital personal attributes—compassion, cooperation, and commitment—in ways that other relationships do not. Sadly, many marriages in our day fail in significant ways to develop and model these characteristics among husbands, wives, or children. By their very nature, broken marriages and counterfeit alternative relationships such as cohabitation and same-sex unions fail to impact and benefit society in the manifold ways that society is blessed by intact, committed heterosexual marriages.
While marriages between men and women are the primary source of society’s bedrock values, this critically important institution is under a mighty assault today. Divorce, substance abuse, domestic violence, negligence in fulfilling family responsibilities, and a myriad of other failings occur too often in marriages. Such failings occur with equal frequency among churchgoers and non-churchgoers. Consequently, in our day the very foundation of society is threatened. For without the purest forms of compassion, mercy, cooperation, commitment, and sacrifice flowing out of strong marriages, there are seriously reduced prospects for the endurance and expansion of a just and civil society.
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Listen to Your Favorite Pastors
Add Crosswalk.com content to your siteBrowse available content | <urn:uuid:f9f710a8-28bf-45f7-92fe-8c5500d58a37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crosswalk.com/family/marriage/reclaiming-the-higher-ground-on-marriage-1197214.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94409 | 665 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Shifts Within the Evangelical Community
Each week, Spanish-language services draw about 1,100 worshippers to the 20,000-member Willow Creek Church in the Chicagoland area. Many are undocumented immigrants, a group also credited with helping grow the church’s care center—which provides everything from basic needs such as groceries, shelter and education to employment guidance and legal consultation—into a full-service enterprise serving 17,000.
In the past decade, there has been growing interest in human rights and other social justice issues among evangelical communities, a shift which large evangelical organizations have both influenced and supported. In 2004, the National Association of Evangelicals publicly called its constituents to greater civic engagement. Hispanic evangelical groups spoke out for immigration reform in 2006. In 2007, two Christian evangelical organizations—Sojourners and Evangelicals for Social Action— collaborated to create Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. In 2009, the National Association of Evangelicals wrote a formal resolution for reform. | <urn:uuid:1a183715-734f-4304-a83f-49fff9188dff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sojo.net/press/shifts-within-evangelical-community?quicktabs_top_stories_this_week=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938735 | 198 | 2.25 | 2 |
9)This idea came from Deanna Jump. This is called "Don't Sink the Ship." You will need a cookie sheet and 4 pirate ship cutouts (printed on cardstock) with magnets attached to the back. When you are teaching a lesson or reading a story and a child is talking while you are talking or causing some type of disruption, quietly remove one ship without saying a word. If someone complains out loud to the person who cost the class the ship, quietly take another ship off. When you are finished with the lesson, if at least one ship is left, sing a fun Dr. Jean song or do a fun chant.
8)This idea also came from Deanna Jump. Have carpet bags for your students when they go to the carpet for a lesson. Use the extra large zip-loc bags or a similar type bag. Suggested items for the bag include a marker, a pencil, a wipe board, and a journal or spiral notebook. When you are completing a graphic organizer or chart, have your students do it with you to help keep them engaged when its not their turn.
Another item you might add to the bag are clipboards. An easy way to make cheap clipboards is to use a piece of heavy cardboard and a chip clip. Just attach the chip clip to the top of the cardboard.
7)This idea came from Lisa Maddox-Vinson. Bring water, reading, and retelling into your classroom. After reading frog and/or pond stories, put this water reading area together. Use a round blue vinyl tablecloth for the water. Add some frog hats for retelling props. Place several copies of books about frogs and/or other pond animals. Add stuffed animals or additional hats for story retelling.
Here are a few of my own ideas....
You can find the instructions for making these simple frog baseball hats from Crafts By Amanda.
a few of my favorite frog and pond books....
Check out these cute frog masks at Amy's Gifts
I found this felt retelling set on Etsy.
Here is a list of frog read alouds you can download. More frog ideas here.
6)This idea came from Dr. Juanita Coply. When we teach young children to estimate, we should teach them to do so in a range. As adults, we do not usually estimate things to an exact number and we should consider this when teaching young children to estimate. Here is an example:
Estimation - All About Ten (PreK and Kindergarten)
1. Select a bag of “junk.”
2. Work with a partner.
3. Predict if your partner will grab MORE than 10 items in one handful.. FEWER than 10 items in one handful…. Or EXACTLY 10 items in one handful.
4. Grab the objects. Count the number and check your predictions.
Estimation – What’s in the Bag? (Kindergarten)
1. Predict if there are MORE than 20 items, FEWER than 20 items or EXACTLY 20 items in the bag.
2. Use two ten frames to check your work.
Estimation – What’s in the Bags? (1st grade)
1. Predict if there are MORE than 50 items or FEWER than 50 items in the bag.
2. Use two ten frames to check your work.
3. Predict if there are MORE than 100 items or FEWER than 100 items in the second group of bags.
4. Use a 100 chart to check your answer OR make groups of ten.
5)This idea came from Deanna Jump. When creating schema charts with your class, make sure that every student realizes their thinking is valuable. First, give students a strong model. Except all of their ideas and write them on post-it notes to add to the chart. As new learning occurs, move ideas that were incorrect to the misconceptions box. For more information about schema charts, read Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning and Teaching With Intention.
4)This idea came from Tom Glynn. Use Animoto to create slide shows of your students. Go to Animoto to get started. It's free and easy!!
I put this video together of pictures I took over the week. It is just a quick example for you to look at.
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
3)This idea came from Dr. Nicole Andrews. Research has shown that having more advanced spatial skills is linked to better mathematics achievement, especially for females. A recent longitudinal study found that spatial skills in kindergarten were stronger predictors of ninth grade math school achievement than fourth grade math scores. Spatial ability includes mental rotation, spatial visualization, and spatial perception. Meaning....students need to engage in lots of activities that help them to see what something would look like if it was rotated, see something and then replicate it, and read maps and be able to navigate space (hide something, give them a map, and see if they can find it).
Block play is STILL IMPORTANT!! You need the block center and lots of activities that involve building things, making maps, and experimenting with perspective in your classroom.
I have lots more to share on this, but I am saving it for a post on its own. In the post, I will share specific lessons for increasing a child's spatial abilities.
2)These ideas came from Brooke Perry. Check out Brooke's CAMT post. She has a download of her presentation "Making Every Minute Count Using Literature to Teach Math". You will find TONS of great math connections to literature in Brooke's download.
1)This idea came from Donna Glynn. Donna has TONS of great math activities for teaching number sense, addition, subtraction, odd and even, etc. Here are a few pictures I took from Donna's session, but she has so many more games and activities than what I have pictures of. You can find all of these activities and many more from her TPT store.
A few that I really liked were Building Numbers, Bump, Clear the Board, Cookie Jar Greater Than Less Than, Double Dice, Find the Sums, High and Low, Odd and Even, Roll and Record, Show the Value, Tally to 100, and Yatzee.
It was a GREAT week!! I have LOTS of FUN ideas and lessons to share with teachers and students now!! I can't wait!!
The true highlight of my week though.... was finally getting to meet Deanna!! | <urn:uuid:23ca1fef-7990-4db5-a2d8-fe516191b46e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://larremoreteachertips.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-top-ten-favorite-ideas-from-week.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940583 | 1,350 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Breast Reconstruction Surgery - Part III - Perforator Flap Reconstruction
Posted Jan 16 2009 8:52am
The ideal breast reconstruction technique is one which allows reconstruction of a “natural”, warm, soft breast with the least impact on the patient’s body. While breast reconstruction with stem cells may not be too far off, until it becomes a reality we are limited to using the patient’s own tissue to achieve these goals. As discussed in the previous posts in this breast reconstruction series, until fairly recently the only “tissue reconstruction” options involved sacrificing muscle. This made recovery from the surgery difficult and painful, not to mention the risk of long-term muscle function loss and weakness.
Perforator flap techniques use skin and fat from various parts of the body. All muscles are preserved. Since no muscle is sacrificed recovery is much easier and muscle strength and function are preserved long-term. The downside to these procedures is that they are technically much more demanding than other breast reconstruction techniques and require microsurgical expertise. For this reason they are not offered by many plastic surgeons and patients must be prepared to travel when choosing these procedures.
The DIEP flap is the latest evolution of the TRAM flap (discussed in Part II) and represents today's gold standard in breast reconstruction. The DIEP flap procedure is similar to the TRAM flap but only requires the removal of skin and fat. NO MUSCLE is sacrificed. The blood vessels required to keep the tissue alive lay just beneath the abdominal muscle. Therefore, a small incision is made in the abdominal muscle in order to dissect the vessels and microsurgery is required to reattach the blood vessels to the chest area.
Even though an incision is made in the abdominal muscle NO abdominal muscle is removed or transferred to the breast in the DIEP flap procedure. As a result, patients do not have to sacrifice their abdominal strength and they experience less pain and a much quicker recovery. The risk of abdominal bulging and hernia is also very small.
The DIEP flap was first described in the early 1990's but has remained much less popular than the TRAM flap among plastic surgeons, presumably because of the increased complexity and difficulty of the procedure compared to the TRAM.
So the advantages of the DIEP flap are multiple: it uses living tissue to recreate a breast that often looks and feels like a normal breast; abdominal strength is not affected; the risk of bulging or hernias is significantly reduced; and, like the TRAM flap, the patient benefits from a simultaneous “tummy-tuck”.
The DIEP flap is a very technically demanding operation but the benefits are tremendous for the patient, especially when performed at the same time as a skin-sparing mastectomy.
The SIEA flap procedure is very similar to the DIEP flap procedure. The main difference between the SIEA and DIEP is the artery used for blood flow supply to the reconstructed breast. The SIEA arteries are generally found in the fatty tissue just below skin.
As in the DIEP the SIEA flap reconstruction does not sacrifice the abdominal muscle and only uses the patient's skin and fat to reconstruct the breast. While the SIEA flap procedure is similar to the DIEP it is used less frequently since less than 20% of patients have the anatomy required to allow this procedure.
Women who do not have an adequate amount of abdominal tissue for reconstruction may be eligible for the GAP flap . This procedure uses excess skin and fat from the gluteal or buttock region. Fat and skin from either the upper or lower buttock region can be used and microsurgically transplanted to the chest.
Once again, no muscle is sacrificed. Incisions can generally be hidden by most underwear. If a patient requires a bilateral reconstruction with GAP flaps most surgeons prefer to only perform one side at a time. It is important to discuss this possibility with your surgeon.
Advantages of the GAP flap include: a scar that is generally hidden with underwear or swimsuits, and no loss of muscle function or strength.
Other Breast Reconstruction Options:
TUG (Transverse Upper Gracilis) Flap
Like the GAP flap, the TUG flap is an option in cases where there is not enough lower abdominal tissue to reconstruct the breast(s). The TUG procedure uses the upper part of the inner thigh; skin, fat and a small amount of muscle are disconnected and transferred to the chest to create the new breast. The patient benefits from a simultaneous inner thigh lift. Once again, this procedure is not widely available due to its complexity and need for microsurgical expertise.
It is important to realize that whichever method of reconstruction is used, the vast majority of women will require 2 or even 3 procedures for the optimal cosmetic result. Each procedure is typically separated by several weeks. The entire reconstructive process, regardless of the method of reconstruction, can therefore take several months to complete. However, breast reconstruction does NOT typically complicate or delay cancer treatment such as chemotherapy.
With all this in mind and also remembering the superior cosmetic results associated with immediate breast reconstruction (reconstruction performed at the same time as mastectomy), it is recommended that women discuss their reconstructive options with a plastic surgeon specializing in breast reconstruction before undergoing mastectomy whenever possible. | <urn:uuid:1094db26-e90e-4e5d-af85-77723651367e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wellsphere.com/breast-cancer-article/breast-reconstruction-surgery-part-iii-perforator-flap-reconstruction/918767 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944466 | 1,093 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail
- Site Contact: (276) 531-8528 email@example.com
- Site Access: Daily, sunrise-sunset; admission free
- Visit Website
Site MLP02: Poplar Gap Park/Sunset Hollow
Elevation: 2061 ft, Poplar Gap Park is a multi-use park that offers picnic areas, restrooms, playgrounds, and ballfields. The surrounding woodlands are typically second-growth timber and provide habitat for a diversity of wildlife. Though spring and summer migration are probably most productive for finding a large variety of neotropical bird species, a good number of warblers are present during the breeding season. Listen for the serenades of yellow-throated, Kentucky, black-throated green and hooded warblers. Within the park, you are likely to spy black-and-white warbler, eastern bluebird, and indigo bunting. The stretch of road along Rt. 604 from Poplar Gap Park, traveling southwest towards SR 83, is called Sunset Hollow. The areas surrounding the road offer examples of both second-growth forests and reclaimed strip mines, with a fair amount of clear open areas. There are several pull-offs along this road from where nature enthusiasts may pause for better views. Bird diversity may escalate to produce eastern meadowlark, red-winged blackbird, and orchard oriole. These reclaimed strip mines provide habitat at an early stage of succession suitable for species such as golden-winged warbler, which is known to breed in the area.
From the intersection of Rt. 680 and US 460, turn right onto US 460 West and follow it for 9.0 miles to the intersection with SR 83. Turn right, continuing on US 460 West/SR 83 East for 1.8 miles to Rt. 617. Turn left onto Rt. 617 and follow it for approximately 3.0 miles to Rt. 604. Poplar Gap Park is directly across Rt. 604. | <urn:uuid:88da9ce2-df28-4b8d-9fab-29c73ed4426a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/vbwt/site.asp?trail=2&loop=MLP&site=MLP02 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926324 | 425 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Can You See Orion?
The interactive animation below shows you what the constellation Orion might look like.
You can adjust the darkness of the sky by moving the top slider back and forth. Move it to the right (towards the tent) to see Orion in a dark sky, the way it might look if you were out camping far away from any lights. Move the slider to the left (towards the streetlight) to see how Orion might look from a city where there are many lights around. "Magnitude" is a term astronomers use to describe how bright stars are. Stars with a magnitude that is low, like 1 or 2, are quite bright. Stars with higher number magnitudes, like 4 or 5, are dimmer. The dimmest stars that most people can see with their naked eye are around magnitude 6. The slider shows the "magnitude limit" of the dimmest stars you could see with different amounts ambient light.
The bottom slider, on top of the spinning globe, lets you change where you are on Earth. Move it up and down to see how Orion might look from different latitudes.
If you can't see the animation below, or it doesn't seem to be working right, you may need to get the latest Flash player plugin for your computer.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
The Fall 2009 issue of The Earth Scientist
, which includes articles on student research into building design for earthquakes and a classroom lab on the composition of the Earth’s ancient atmosphere, is available in our online store
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Tiara 2900By Jack Hornor
Revised by BoatUS editors in October 2012
In 1968 my roommate bought a brand new SS170V model Slickcraft runabout. I can still picture it today sitting there with its huge 6 cylinder, 100 Hp Mercury outboard engine next to my 14' Sea Sprite with a 40 Hp Johnson. I must admit I was impressed and envious of my friend's new boat. At the time, I supposed the name Slickcraft been chosen to emphasize the boat's sharp clean lines and glossy, unblemished finish. It wasn't until later; when I learned the company was founded and owned by Leon Slikkers put two and two together and made proper sense of the name. Even at this early point in my career, it was clear Slickcraft had set the benchmark for quality of construction and finish of fiberglass boats. They literally and figuratively outshined the competition.
|Principal Dimensions & Specifications|
|Measurements should be considered approximate and the manufacturer’s specifications may be relied upon. Bow & stern appendages are generally excluded.|
|Length Overall||30’ 9"|
|Maximum Beam||11’ 4"|
|Maximum Draft||2’ 8"|
|Fuel Capacity||200 Gallons|
|Water Capacity||30 Gallons|
|Speed Range||35 Mph|
Mr. Slikkers sold Slickcraft in the early 1970s and founded S-2 Yachts Incorporated, the parent company of Tiara Yachts. Early on, S-2 was known more for sailboat than powerboat production, but in 1977, they introduced their first Tiara Yacht model, the 2500. Tiara now offer models to 50' and continues to build some of the best constructed and finest finished fishing boats and family cruisers. The Tiara 2900, currently the smallest model offered, was introduced in 1994.
The Tiara 2900 is marketed as a dual purpose cruising and fishing boat although, with its large open cockpit and limited cabin space, I think the design tends to favor the fisherman a slight bit more than the cruiser. The style of 2900 is what is commonly referred to as an open bridgedeck or express cruiser. It features cabin accommodations forward followed by the bridge or helm positioned over the engines and an after cockpit for fishing, entertaining or relaxing. The bridge and cockpit are "open" with the exception of canvas tops and enclosures supported by collapsible frames.
The sheer of the 2900 is reversed meaning that, if you draw a straight line from the bow to the stern, along the sheer the edge rises above rather than falls below the straightedge. Functionally this provides more space in the center of the boat where accommodations and machinery are located. Freeboard forward is quite low and the cabin trunk rather high which tends to give the boat a bit of a top-heavy appearance. To my eye, these features are not very aesthetically pleasing but they are most prominent when the boat is viewed in profile at eye level. Fortunately, boats are most often viewed from something of an oblique angle and seldom directly at eye level.
The hull of the Tiara 2900 is constructed with a gel-coated surface followed by a layer of fiberglass mat and vinylester resin to prevent osmotic blistering. The bottom is laid up with a solid fiberglass laminate. The hull sides and decks utilize a balsa wood core between fiberglass laminates for weight reduction and stiffness. The deck and hull are joined with adhesive and stainless steel screws. My practical side tells me that adhesives used today are strong enough to hold this boat together even if all the screws were to be removed. But, my traditional side would still like to see nuts bolts and washers used to secure the hull to deck joint on a boat of this quality.
To their credit the builders have used bulkheads that are watertight between the hull and cabin soles to divide the boat into three separate compartments. No doubt, this will add an extra measure of security and survivability should any compartment suffer damage.
Transverse and longitudinal stiffeners and motor mounts are laminated plywood encased in fiberglass. There are drain holes to allow water to drain from the compartments formed by these installations, which are my only serious cause for concern for the method of construction. The holes are not sealed to prevent water from getting into the plywood and even a small amount of water can quickly damage and weaken this system. I strongly recommend sealing any holes. The cost to have this done should be under $1,000 and is money well spent if it avoids a serious structural problem in the future.
The Tiara 2900's cockpit is over 6' long, nearly 10' wide and 29" deep. It provides plenty of space for anglers. The bridge deck is raised approximately 6" from the cockpit deck and features two back seats as standard equipment with the helm on the starboard side. Several optional seating configurations have been offered including a curved portside companion seat, a wet bar and icemaker behind the helm seat and a fold out lounge seat at the after end of the cockpit.
The helm is very well laid out with plenty of room for added equipment. The console is hinged at the base and opens to allow access for service and installation of equipment.
To make it easier to get in and out of the 29" deep cockpit there are steeps molded into the liner along both sides of the cockpit. Side decks are wide enough for secure footing and there is a welded stainless steel rail around the foredeck extending along the side decks nearly to the cockpit. The rail is 28" high at the bow and 26" along the side decks back to the windshield. This is well above the knee height of the average adult and offers a secure feeling and convenient handhold not commonly found on other boats.
The side, cockpit and forward decks all have a deep, diamond-pattern molded non-skid surface that provides very secure footing. There are 10" stainless steel mooring cleats forward, mid-ship and aft securely fastened with stainless steel bolts.
One of the more sportfisherman-like features of the 2900 is a starboard transom door for landing that big rockfish in the cockpit. The door is well done and opens inboard, as it should but, truth is, this is an expensive feature that I would guess is seldom used by most owners. I would prefer the builder to offer this as an option and include a few more useful features for fisherman such as fish boxes, a saltwater wash down pump and rod holders as standard features.
The standard model lacks a live-bait well, fish storage boxes or even rod holders. Optional flush mounted boxes that fit into deck hatches are available from Tiara for about $1,000. Live-bait wells are available from any number of after market providers from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. The serious fisherman may want to consider the addition of outriggers at an added cost of about $2,200 (2002 estimate).
The Tiara 2900 is almost evenly divided between cabin space and open cockpit. A fisherman will likely consider the accommodations downright luxurious while a cruiser will find them a little short on privacy. This probably means it's just about right for its dual-purpose intent.
There is a single cabin with a berth forward set at an angle slightly off centerline. The dinette is along the starboard side and also converts to a berth. Their length is adequate but both berths are about 44" wide at their narrowest point, which makes them a bit tight for two adults. Along the port side is a small galley fitted with a single burner stove, microwave oven, stainless steel sink and a front-loading AC/DC refrigerator mounted under the galley counter. The head is aft along the port side and there is a manual toilet with 20-gallon waste holding tank. There is a hot and cold-water shower, a 30-gallon fresh water tank and an additional 6-gallon water heater. This is a small supply but common for this size boat.
The Tiara 2900 makes excellent use of a limited amount of space. There is a small hanging locker between the galley and forward berth and ample storage space below seats and berths. There should be no difficulty for weekend and short cruising for two or weekends for four if privacy is not a concern.
The entire bridgedeck of the Tiara 2900 is raised hydraulically to reveal the engine compartment below. The opening is only about twenty inches and can be a bit of a tight squeeze. Once inside there is enough room to get around both sides of both engines for service.
Until the 2004 model year, the standard engine installation was the 250 Hp, fresh-water-cooled Crusader gasoline engine or an optional 225 Hp GM diesel. With the introduction of the 1995 model year, larger 320 Hp Crusader gas engines were offered as an option and beginning with the 1998 model year the GM diesel option was replaced by a 250 hp Cummins.
With the standard engines the Tiara 2900 will cruise at about 20 Knots with a top speed of about 28 knots. Larger gas engines will add about 4 knots to both. I haven't had a chance to operate a boat with the diesel engine option although; I would expect it to cruise at about the same speed as with the larger gas engines with a little less top end performance.
For the coastal fisherman, particularly those along the Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and south Shore of Long Island, who routinely run 60 miles or more offshore on fishing trips, the 200 gallon fuel capacity of the Tiara 2900 is on the short side. By comparison the Luhrs 290 and Grady White 300 both have 300 gallon fuel capacity and the Black Fin 29 and Black Watch 30 have about 250 gallon capacity each. At cruising speed and allowing for a 10% fuel reserve, the range is about 250 miles with gas engines. Put the pedal to the metal and the range drops to well below 200 miles. Tiara does not offer optional increased capacity and adding extra tanks is not a very practical solution.
The Tiara 2900 has a 19-degree deadrise at the transom, which makes for a smooth ride and good handling. Hydraulic steering is standard. The boats I have operated require nearly six turns of the wheel from hard over in one direction to hard over in the other and I feel the steering is a little sluggish. Freeboard forward is low which can result is a wet ride particularly in short choppy seas. Hydraulic trim tabs are standard equipment as are electric windshield wipers both of which you are likely to make good use of from time to time.
Like with his Slickcraft models of the 1960s, with the Tiara 2900 and other Tiara models Leon Slikkers continues to set benchmarks for high quality construction and finish. There is however a price to be paid for an upscale boat built to this higher level of quality. If your only interest is in fishing there are likely less expensive alternatives that will do the job quite nicely. But if you're looking for a boat to do a little fishing, a little entertaining in style and an occasional short cruise the extra cost of the Tiara 2900 is money well spent.
Naval architect Jack Hornor is the principal surveyor and designer for Marine Survey & Design, Co., based in Annapolis, MD. He is on the board of directors of the American Boat and Yacht Council, the National Association of Marine Surveyors, and the Society of Boat and Yacht Designers. He and his wife sail their 42-foot Catalina, Legacy, based on Maryland's Eastern Shore. | <urn:uuid:7688bd75-83cc-41d2-9877-46a01f8b90fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boatus.com/boatreviews/power/tiara2900.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956733 | 2,425 | 1.554688 | 2 |
New river museum to host grand opening this month
by Associated Press
Published: August 8,2012
VICKSBURG — The Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District will hold the grand opening ceremony of the Lower Mississippi River Museum and Riverfront Interpretive Site (LMRM) Aug. 24 at 9 a.m.
The LMRM is located in downtown Vicksburg at 910 Washington Street at the Washington and Jackson Streets intersection. The museum provides a glimpse at life along the river — examining both the risks and benefits of living so close to the water. The museum has an orientation theater, classroom space and an assortment of interactive and educational displays for all ages.
The museum also features tours aboard the Motor Vessel Mississippi IV. This tugboat was in use from the 1960s until 1993 when it was finally retired. Visitors will get a feel for life aboard the vessel through interactive displays, a variety of historical items and a boat simulator in the pilothouse.
The grand opening ceremony includes several guest speakers and a ribbon cutting to open the museum to the public. Parking and a shuttle will be available at the Grand Station and City parking garages on Mulberry Street. Additional details will be announced one week prior to the date.
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BILL IS BETTER
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (5/25/06) -- When the US Senate today passed its version of “comprehensive immigration reform,” Senators from both sides of the aisle claimed that despite the enormous controversy it has generated, passing a bill with flaws was better than passing no bill at all. Outside the beltway and its coterie of lobbyists, however, a groundswell of community groups now argue that Congress would do better to pass no bill than a bill that reconciles the proposal just passed by the Senate, and that passed last December in the House of Representatives.
In a statement condemning the Hagel-Martinez compromise, S 2611, the proposal that just passed on Thursday, a national group of immigrant rights advocates convened by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights argued Wednesday that “the rush to reach a bipartisan accord on immigration legislation has led to a compromise that would create deep divisions within the immigrant community and leave millions of undocumented immigrants in the shadows.”
“The current Senate bill,” said Sheila Chung, of the San Francisco Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, “does not reflect the immigration reform called for by millions of immigrant communities marching the streets.”
The United States is currently home to over 12 million people without immigration documents, which makes them and their families subject to deportation, and vulnerable to exploitation at work. Nevertheless, the groups point to provisions of the Senate bill, which they say will make immigrants much worse off than they are even at present. Those include:
-- Under the Hagel-Martinez legalization plan, undocumented immigrants with less than two years in the US (about a million people) would be immediately subject to deportation. Those with two to five years would also have to leave the country, and could apply to reenter through some currently unknown process. The ability of border stations to handle the applications of the 3-4 million people involved is extremely doubtful, given the current years-long backlog in normal visa applications.
-- S 2611, like HR 4437 passed by the House in December, would ramp up the enforcement of employer sanctions. This provision of current law makes it a crime for undocumented people to hold a job, and is used frequently by employers to retaliate against workers who try to enforce labor standards or join unions. The Social Security Administration would become immigration police, forcing all workers to carry a new national ID card, and would require employers to fire anyone who’s documents they question. The current Basic Pilot program, which moves in this direction, has shown the SSA database to be rife with errors.
-- The Senate bill expands current guest worker programs and establishes new ones, allowing employers to recruit workers outside the country on temporary visas. These new contract workers would be vulnerable to employer pressure, since their visa status would be dependant on their employment. Further, as the AFL-CIO’s Ana Avendaño points out, “this turns jobs which are now held by permanent employees with rights and benefits into jobs filled by temporary, contract employees. It basically takes the jobs of millions of people out of the protections of the New Deal, won by workers decades ago.” The labor federation points out that if currently undocumented workers and new immigrants were given permanent residence status instead of temporary visas, they would be able to exercise their rights as workers and community residents.
-- S 2611 “vastly increases detention and deportation, and further militarizes the border,” according to the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The Halliburton Corporation has already been given a US contract for construction of immigrant detention facilities near the border with Mexico, and proposals have been made for reopening closed military bases to house deportees and detainees. The bill, which makes document fraud an aggravated felony and grounds for deportation, would result in the criminalization of the millions of immigrant workers who have had to provide false Social Security cards to employers in order to get hired.
Stan Mark, AALDEF director, warned before passage of S 2611 that “the upsurge in the mass movement will redefine this debate well into the elections if Congress passes their so called "compromise" of comprehensive immigration reform.” He calls instead for eliminating current laws penalizing lack of legal status, especially employer sanctions. “The political climate of the debate,” the AALDEF leader says, “has converted this immigration bill into a Trojan horse into which lawmakers have crammed anti-immigrant and undemocratic policies.”
The NNIRR declaration, a similar set of principles enumerated by AALDEF, and other programs put forward by groups outside Washington, all emphasize the need for positive, pro-immigrant alternatives. They include immediate legal status for the undocumented, easier family reunification and elimination of the backlog in processing visa applications, no expansion of guest worker programs, ending the indefinite detention of immigrants, restoring due process to immigration proceedings, and, instead of the new walls Congress wants to build, ending the militarization of the US border with Mexico.
Since the Senate has approved a bill far removed from these principles, and the House passed an enforcement-only HR 4437 even more hostile to immigrants, immigrant rights advocates believe killing all current proposals is their only option.
That might in fact be the outcome of efforts to reconcile the House and Senate bills, since the most conservative House Republicans oppose any legal status for the undocumented. “It is possible that a reconciliation between HR 4437 and S 2611 will not happen in the conference committee,” speculates Evelyn Sanchez of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. “Should this happen, we will have time to continue pushing for real and fair comprehensive immigration reform. If HR 4437 and S 2611 are successfully reconciled, and the President signs the bill into law, then we have the task of overturning that law.”
This is a grim scenario, but despite it, advocates are unwilling to give up. “It's been done before.” she says.
PEACE & JUSTICE
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Special Project: TRANSNATIONAL WORKING COMMUNITIES
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photographs and stories by David Bacon © 1990-1999
website by DigIt Designs © 1999 | <urn:uuid:161e79bc-28b2-4fc1-885f-fbfee3ee6d09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dbacon.igc.org/Imgrants/2006nobill.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950784 | 1,325 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Scientist Steven Rose, investigative journalist Andy Rowell and science communicator Connie St louis discuss how we can reclaim science in the fight for social justice. In the current edition of Red Pepper co-editor Emma Hughes explores the corporate co-option of science. In this podcast our roundtable of experts expand on the themes raised in the article to think about what a more democratic model of scientific innovation might look like.
Playing time: 45 minutes
This is an audio collabortation between Red Pepper and New Left Project.
It was produced and edited by Sean Griffiths.
Confronting the Climate Crisis: Graham Petersen interview On Saturday 8 June the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group is holding a conference bringing together climate scientists, trade unionists and environmental activists. Red Pepper's environment editor Kara Moses speaks to Graham Petersen, UCU environment and Greener Jobs Alliance co-ordinator
Tapping the resistance in Greece A combination of opposing privatisation and putting forward practical alternatives is helping water campaigners mount an effective challenge to austerity in Greece. Hilary Wainwright reports
The seven faces of Michael Gove Mike Peters looks at how the Tory education secretary uses the words and ideas of the left to win support for his policies
The Brighton pay dispute: the union view GMB union organiser Rob Macey puts the workers' side of the argument
The pay dispute at Brighton council: a Green view Davy Jones, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown, gives his view of a dispute that has caused huge debate among Green Party members in the city and across the country | <urn:uuid:cedc2182-f812-405d-8af3-96e350bb0a94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redpepper.org.uk/audio-red-pepper-science-roundtable/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909595 | 320 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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Get ready for the theater experience of a lifetime — at least it was for me when I saw “War Horse” at Lincoln Center in New York City in February. The show won five Tony Awards including Best Play, and deservedly so. A special Tony Award was given to Handspring Puppet Company for their integral work on the production.
The National Theatre’s epic “War Horse” will make its Philadelphia premiere Nov. 20 through Dec. 2 at the Academy of Music, kicking off the 2012-13 Broadway Season presented by The Kimmel Center and The Shubert Organization. The play is based on Michael Morpurgo’s novel, “War Horse,” which was also the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s feature film of the same name.
Of the hundreds of theater productions I have seen, none affected me like “War Horse.” It is visually and emotionally stunning. At the heart of its magic are the magnificent life-size horses created by the Handspring Puppet Company. It is uncanny how lifelike these animals are. Though there are three actors operating each one, they quickly almost disappear as the essence of the horses captivates the audience.
For me, the “magic” is even more personal. My father, Russ Robinson, was a puppeteer. His marionettes were a major part of my childhood and I loved watching him bring his “Pixies” to life. Throughout the show, I kept thinking how much he would have loved it, how much this next generation of puppets would have thrilled and inspired him, as it is thrilling and inspiring thousands of others.
This is much more than a giant extravagant puppet show. It is a poignant play about a pivotal time in history, the First World War, and the people on both sides who lived it. Many will be familiar with the story due to the recent movie of the same name. For those who are not, it is based on Morpurgo’s book about a young man, Albert Narracott, who raises a young horse, Joey, and the incredible bond that develops between them. When Joey is drafted to serve as a cavalry horse in World War I, Albert is devastated and eventually joins the army to search for his horse. It is the story of family ties and rivalries, the horror of war, and humanity at its best and worst.
The non-equine characters are also memorable. Although they are fictional, you believe that they had been real. The complexity of the characters is another key to the success of this play which can be attributed to Nick Stafford’s adaptation the novel. Much like real life, there is a lot of “gray” in the people and situations portrayed. The Good versus Evil is set aside as people are seen through the eyes of a horse who knows nothing about nations and borders.
The storyline is tied together and moved forward by a series of haunting folk melodies, sung with passion and poignance.
Completing the package are some at times subtle, and at times dramatic, lighting and sound effects. Eerie backlighting and staccato gunfire for the war scenes creates the essence and scope of battle on a very minimalist stage.
This is ground-breaking, provocative theater that will leave a lasting impression on anyone who sees it.
Tickets for “War Horse,” starting at $25, are on sale now. Tickets can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org/broadway, at the Kimmel Center box office, Broad and Spruce streets (open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) or at the Academy of Music box office, Broad & Locust streets. (open during performances only). Groups of 10 or more will receive discounts for select performances by calling 215-790-5883 or 866-276-2947. Performances include: Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m.; Friday & Saturday evenings at 8 p.m.; Sunday evenings at 6:30 p.m.; matinees Saturdays at 2 p.m. and Sundays at 1 p.m., with an additional weekday matinee on Thursday, Nov. 29, at 2 p.m. No performances are scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 22, Thanksgiving Day.
“War Horse” is part of the 2012-2013 Broadway Season presented by The Kimmel Center and The Shubert Organization with productions at the Academy of Music, Forrest Theatre and Merriam Theater. Season ticket packages are available by calling 215-893-1955 or online at kimmelcenter.org/broadway1213.
In addition to “War Horse,” the new 2012-13 Broadway Season includes: “Million Dollar Quartet” (Dec. 11 – 16); “Jekyll & Hyde” (Dec. 26 – 30), both at the Forrest Theatre; “Catch me If You Can” (Jan. 15 – 20); “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” (Feb. 26 – March 3); “The Addams Family” (March 19 – 24) and “Sister Act” (April 2 – 7), all at the Academy of Music. The new season will also feature additional shows including: “Les Miserables” (Jan. 2 – 13) at the Academy of Music; “Cirque Éloize’s” (Dec. 26 – 30), Green Day’s “American Idiot” (Feb. 12 – 17); “Blue Man Group (March 5 – 10), “Rock of Ages” (June 14 – 16), all at the Merriam Theater; and the return of “Wicked” (June 26 – Aug. 4) for an extended summer engagement at the Academy of Music. | <urn:uuid:eb394df4-2303-44ff-b214-c4ff9455729b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20121115/ENTERTAINMENT04/121119625/-war-horse-charges-into-philadelphia-nov-20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953892 | 1,230 | 1.585938 | 2 |
BACK | ATELIER BOW-WOW (Tokyo)
For Building Asia Brick by Brick Photo by Hiroko Matsubara
House without oku (depth) Oku is a deep inside, or a back of behind. Normally, in the Japanese architecture of residential space, an inner space is recessed and not connected to circulation, and an outer space is exterior and open to connections. However, the house without oku inverts the correlation between interior and exterior using two nested boxes and tubes that connect both inner and outer boxes. One enters the inner box first through a tube, and then progresses "deeper" into the outer box. With the outer box connected to the outside through openings, the definite oku does not exist.
ABOUT ATELIER BOW-WOW
Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima founded Tokyo-based firm Atelier Bow-Wow in 1992. The pair's interests range from urban research to architectural design and public art. Their research is epitomized by the publications Pet Architecture Guidebook and Made in Tokyo. The practice has designed over 20 detached houses such as Gae House and House & Atelier Bow-Wow. Recent projects such as Hanamidori Cultural Centre mark an expansion towards a larger scale. They have exhibited artwork at major international biennials. Monographs include Bow-Wow from Post Bubble City (2006) and the catalog Graphic Anatomy-Atelier Bow-Wow (2007), for their second solo exhibition, held in Tokyo. | <urn:uuid:06ee7122-8f5e-4f57-80d5-6c5baabd9949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peoplesarchitecture.org/brickbybrick/bow_wow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929795 | 315 | 2.1875 | 2 |
St James church in the Armenian sector is dedicated to the two James: James "the Great", one of the apostles of Jesus and the brother of John, and James "the Less", the brother of Jesus and the first bishop of the Christian community in Jerusalem.
According to Armenian tradition, their church was built at the site where James the great was killed by King Herod Agrippa I in 44AD (Acts 12:2): "And he killed James the brother of John with the sword".
At the times of Jesus the area was part of the "upper city", located on the western side of Jerusalem.
During the 6th C a Byzantine church was built here. It was destroyed after the Persian and Arab conquest in the 7th C.
The church, dated to the 11th C, was built over the ruins of the Byzantine church. After the Crusaders' departure in the 13th C the church was first controlled by the Georgian monks, and later by the Armenians. It became the base of the Armenian leadership in the Holy Land - the Patriarchate.
During the 17th C the entrance of the church was blocked on the south side, and was changed to the western side as it is to date.
The site is open to the public in limited hours.
The site is located inside the old city walls and 100M north-west to Zion gate, along the external wall.
The photo below shows a view of the Armenian orthodox Patriarchate road, in the section known as the Armenian Quarter in the western side of the old city.
Click on the photos to view in higher resolution...
A view of the street, where the Armenian museum is located.
The entrance to the church is located along the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate road, between the Zion gate and the Jaffa gate.
On top of the entrance is an Arabic inscription dated to 1488, guaranteeing safety to the St. James Armenian Convent in Jerusalem.
The entrance to the church is seen below. This is the western side, which was opened in the 17th C.
A detail of the paintings, ceramics and art works around the entrance.
One of the decorated windows are seen below. The Armenian art is based on a mix of metal, stone and glazed ceramics.
A detail of the icons above the entrance is seen below.
A call to the Friday prayer is seen below, using a wooden hammer and a plate of wood.
The interior of the church is seen below.
The Atrium, the open court before the church, is decorated with stone crosses and inscriptions seen embedded in the wall facing the entrance to the church. These are called "Katshkerim"
A detail of one of the inscribed stones is seen below.
Another stone cross is seen below.
On the side of the court is a tombstone and a ceramics painting.
The traditional Armenian art is based on stone and metal, as seen in the design of one of the doors below.
The Armenians keep a large number of illuminated manuscripts in the library. Over 4,000 rare manuscripts, some of them from the 13th C.
The photo below shows the entrance to the library. Below the ancient painting are decorations of blue ceramics, which are produced in Jerusalem by Armenian craftsmen. See more information on Armenian blue Ceramics.
Inside the library is the beautiful Church of St Toros, seen below, also decorated by these beautiful glazed ceramics.
The photos below show the central courtyard.
The original facade of the church during the Crusaders period was through these three arches, located on the southern side. It was closed in the 17th C. The church, seen behind the center arch, is built from a single dome and is dated to the Crusaders period - the end of the 11th C.
Below - a view of the western side of the court, where the Armenian health center is located (on the right side).
Another view of the western side of the court yard. The style is typical Armenian: the design is a combination of geometric forms of metal, and stone.
Inside an inner court is an old grape vine branch, as seen below. Although there is no a special interest in this location, it was worthy to add the photo in this collection.
According to Armenian tradition, their church was built at the site where James "the Great" was killed by King Herod Agrippa I in 44AD (Acts 12:2):
"Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword".
Other Armenian sites in BibleWalks: | <urn:uuid:bc3bd287-2817-4b39-a73d-660c6161637a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biblewalks.com/Sites/StJames.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97896 | 970 | 2.734375 | 3 |
How People Use Wild Plants
How People Use Wild Plants
How many ways can you think of that you used plants today?
What did you have for breakfast? Did you eat any bread, cereal,
jelly, orange juice or oatmeal? You wouldn't have milk without grass
for the cow to eat. Look around the room. Can you find five things
that are made of wood?
People have always depended on plants for food and shelter. In old times, people depended on plants for almost everything they did. The earliest people in the Ozarks, the Indians, used plants for lots of things.
Although there are lots of plants that are good medicine and good to eat, never pick or eat a plant by yourself unless you're sure what it is. There are many plants in the forest that are poisonous and can make you VERY sick or VERY itchy. The best way to learn about plants is to look at them with a teacher or parent who knows about what plants are safe to eat.
Mayapple Podophyllum peltatum
This plant is found in woods all over North America. It is easy to find because it grows in big groups. In late spring it will bloom with a single white flower in the middle of its leaf. Used by Native Americans for treating cancer, deafness and liver disorders. It was used by early settlers for treatment of liver, bladder, headache and worms. Today part of the root is used to treat cancer.
Mullein Verbascum Thapsus (ver-BASK-um thap-SUS)
You will often see this plant along the roadsides or in fields. When it is two years old, the mullein plant shoots up a long stalk of yellow flowers. This flower stalk can be over eight feet tall. The oil from these flowers was used traditionally to treat earache and coughs. The mullein plant has big, soft leaves that can be used as toilet paper in an emergency!
Goldenseal Hydrastis canadensis
goldenseal got its name because of its roots are a bright yellow color.
These roots are a powerful medicine for treating infections. Native Americans
used the herb as a yellow dye for clothing and for treating respiratory
allergies and inflammatory conditions. Because this plant is such good
medicine, too many people have picked it out of the forests, and now it
is a rare plant.
Pale purple coneflower Echinacea pallida
Ginseng Panaxquinquefolium L.(PAN-ax qwin-KUH-fole-ee-um)
American ginseng occurs only in damp rich woods like those found here in the Ozarks. People have over- harvested it from the forests and now there is very little left. Many Native American people used this plant in many ways. The Creek Indians used it for shortness of breath. The Penobscots used it to increase fertility in women. The Meskakis used it as a love potion. The Cherokees used the root for headache and cramps. The Menominees used it as a strengthener of mental powers. Today, the root is widely used for increasing energy and metabolism as well as stabilizing blood sugar and blood pressure.
|Written for the Atlas by Jessica Crandall.| | <urn:uuid:6112c390-3009-47e3-addc-ed9cd07bdd43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.watersheds.org/nature/people.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955044 | 687 | 3.078125 | 3 |
There’s an old stereotype about woman bosses, which is that they can be really mean, and for some reason women are often the ones to perpetuate this story about female leaders. Personally, I don’t think this is particularly more common – or more important – than male bully bosses. Jerks are jerks and it doesn’t matter what gender they are. I don’t believe that looking for reasons and excuses that somehow explain and try to justify their behavior is a good use of time.
But What If You’re Stuck With One?
Working for, or with, tough people is – tough. You can feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to decide if you are being victimized, complicit or backsliding on your career stuck under someone’s thumb. Working for a toxic boss can really make you feel helpless and like you’re in a no-win situation. And the worst part is that you know others are watching and may be assessing your potential based on how you handle the situation. Learn to handle it well!
Here are some strategies to help you out. The most important thing to do is to notice what’s happening and make conscious choices about how you’ll act. Unconscious reactions are the most effective technique a bully boss has for keeping you off balance.
First, make sure you’re not enjoying and contributing to the fight. Are you part of the problem? Have you caught the virus? Are you being too sensitive? Are you being part of the bully brigade – even unconsciously? Ask the question in the mirror and decide for yourself what to do. If the answer is yes, don’t waste time beating yourself up, just resolve not to play that game anymore. When the boss reaches out, give yourself a moment to compose yourself (walk the long way to their office, breath deeply before returning their call etc.) and start to explore other behaviors and responses when they pick up the phone.
Second, take a hard look at yourself and whether you’re projecting your stuff on them. This can be particularly challenging if your boss is the same gender as you. Does she remind you of a parent or sibling you’re still struggling with? Is she just doing her job with a little less sensitivity than you’d like? Is she fighting dragons you’ve never fought and can’t appreciate? Do you need to find someone to blame and because she’s not a “sister” and confidant, she seems blamable? If you’ve never been in her shoes, considering stepping back and assuming that she must have something to teach you and become determined to figure out what it is. That will help you reorient yourself to her and ignore BS behavior in order to find the nuggets of wisdom and perspective you can learn from her experience.
Third, establish emotional distance. This can be really, really, really, really hard, But honestly, it’s a skill that will come in handy the rest of your career. It’s almost impossible to learn this working for a nice boss, so if you find yourself working for a meanie, buckle down and learn to do it (and then practice it on other meanies in your life). How to do this? Just KNOW that whatever crap she’s yelling at you or whatever passive aggressive behavior you’re tripping over is NOT ABOUT YOU. This can be pretty hard to believe, but practice imagining what else it might be if it’s not about you. If she embarrasses you in front of your team, imagine what mania might be in her head that makes her do that to protect herself from a debilitating fear that you will all see that she isn’t ____ enough. This doesn’t make it right, but if it really isn’t about you (and it’s not if she’s being emotionally abusive) then if you’re getting upset, then you’re the one making it about you. Imagine other people looking at you wondering how you’ll react and know that if you react, then they might believe that your boss is right. But if you don’t react, they can literally SEE that it’s about her. Also, learn release techniques to get rid of anger, fear and guilt, which threaten to build up and stick to you when you’re with people trying to make you feel angry, afraid and guilty.
Fourth, if you find yourself working for a bully boss, you should ask yourself what you’re getting out of the situation and whether it’s worth it to you to stay there. If you think I’m being too extreme to suggest that quitting is the first option, actually, I’m not. You should always ask yourself this, even if you’re working for a great boss. Quite often we undermine our careers by staying too long and when we’re comfortable, or bolting too fast if it’s tough, but offering good growth. If you’re working in a culture that puts up with mean girls (or boys), you’re quite possibly compromising your integrity and values by surviving in that environment, not standing up for yourself often enough, looking the other way when others get screwed, participating in the gossip and undermining behavior so the boss thinks you’re “on her side”, and in the process you’re becoming more like her. If you are getting something out of it – a career experience, expertise or connections – make your decision to stay consciously for those reasons. However do a double check on how you’re acting while you’re there. When you’re complicit in creating or maintaining in a toxic culture, you are often burning bridges you can’t see. By contrast, when you choose to act in integrity in a toxic environment when others behave immaturely, you’re building bridges, some of which will help get you out of there when the time comes.
Fifth, don’t succumb to fear as the reason to stay. When I was working for bully bosses I figured I was gaining experience (I was!), bosses were all like this (they weren’t!) and I didn’t deserve any better (I did!). Then one day I decided I did deserve better. I was accosted by debilitating anxiety as I prepared to leave, discomfort I’d never get another job, fear I’d get a bad name – anxiety, sleepless nights, the whole shebang. But finally I decided it just wasn’t worth it to stay. I just hated myself for putting up with mean bosses too much. And you know what? Once I made that decision (well, twice I had to learn this lesson actually), I started working for good people, people who valued me, people who helped me because they were good people. I wished I’d had the guts to quit long ago. If fear is what holds you there, let it go, know you deserve better and you’ll soon learn that you do.
Sixth, don’t bitch, whine or complain about the boss, whiner and complainer who’s making your life miserable. It’s one way you catch the virus.
You’ll notice a pattern in the strategies above that will help you find your personal power, which is that you need to stop reacting and believe that you have choices in how to respond and react to your terrible boss. Put your resume together. Look at job postings. Network with people that might know about other jobs. Take the time to sketch out your dream job. Make your “top 10 list” for things you’d do right away if you got laid off or quit.
This can be tough, but if you give yourself the option to consider leaving the job, you will immediately start to feel better and more in control (this is strategy #7!). You’ll begin to perceive new options. See them and use them. Even if you don’t end up leaving, know and act as though you have the choice and you’ll be in a stronger position to manage the difficult relationships. And you do have a choice, always. Choice is power and the moment you start making more choices is the moment you become more powerful.
Have a Kindle? Follow This Blog! | <urn:uuid:d256388e-b947-4307-a2b1-45f24718b3fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inpowerwomen.com/7-ways-to-survive-a-bully-boss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958977 | 1,757 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Hubert Sumlin 1931–2011
The music world lost another blues guitar legend this week with the passing of Hubert Sumlin. Born in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1931, Sumlin played and recorded with some of the best, and gained great acclaim as the guitarist behind the mighty Howlin’ Wolf during the 1950s and ‘60s. Guitarist Bob Margolin writes in his biography of Sumlin, “Listen to ‘Built For Comfort,’ ‘Shake For Me,’ ‘300 Pounds of Joy,’ ‘Louise,’ ‘Goin’ Down Slow,’ ‘Killing Floor,’ and ‘Wang Dang Doodle.’ How did this grinning genius come up with these original, emotional, Hell-to-Heaven guitar parts? Fortunately, we don’t need to know to enjoy them.”
In 2008, Hubert was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame by The Blues Foundation, and was the winner of The Blues Music Award for Best Tradition Artist of the Year.
My good buddy Bill LaValley was backstage with Hubert before a show here at the State Theater a few years ago and fondly remembers him... Hubert wasn’t feeling well at all that evening, he could hardly walk. But according to Bill, when it came time to take the stage, it was as if a dark cloak had been lifted. Sumlin stood up and headed for the stage with a spring in his step and the blues in his heart. He played that night (and always) as if his life depended on it.
Hubert so loved his music and contributed much—he’s another who will be sorely missed.
Here’s a great clip of “Little Hubert” tearin’ it up with Sunnyland Slim in 1964. That’s Willie Dixon on bass and Clifton James on drums. Sonny Boy Williamson introduces them...
I Know You | <urn:uuid:7c1c1c4c-b5de-45db-8bbd-e2f62b0ea2f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kpl.gov/music/blog/Default.aspx?id=33571 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940232 | 416 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Harpoon and Our Environment
Here at Harpoon we have an ongoing commitment to being a good neighbor. To us that includes making sure we are using our natural resources responsibly and making environmentally sound decisions. We have an obligation to our community – today and in the future – to do what we can to make our breweries in Boston, MA and Windsor, VT more sustainable and earth friendly. We were very proud and honored to be recognized by Mayor Thomas Menino with the Boston Green Business Award in the spring of 2012.
Below is a summary of our current sustainable practices here at Harpoon. The Harpoon Sustainability Committee is made up of Harpoon staff from different departments committed to identifying and executing green initiatives at both breweries. Check back often, as we anticipate this list will continue to grow.
Current Sustainable Practices at Harpoon
- Installing Cogen system at the brewery, to be up and running in early 2013
- Recycle paper, glass bottles, cardboard from packaging
- Provide local farmers with our spent grain for animal feed – not landfill!
- Treat brewery wastewater on-site
- Installed movement-sensing lights to save electricity in brewery
- Installed Freeaire keg cooler system in both breweries
- Wort cooling water returns to hot tank for future use
- Recapture condensate from kettle to save on heating hot water
- Installing new, more energy-efficient chiller; process-monitoring of fermenter temperatures
- Identifying ways of using less cleaning and sanitizing chemicals by reusing solution where possible
- We encourage brewery employees and visitors to ride their bikes to the brewery!
- We use “Water Monsters” at our sporting events to eliminate bottled water | <urn:uuid:7389e57a-ea3f-4f77-a2e8-4e9988b069cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/about/environment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934093 | 354 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Two weekends ago, after putting it off for so long, I paid a visit the Museo Evita in Palermo. For only 15 pesos you get a nice little Evita postcard (see left) and…. well, that’s it. Oh and you get to walk around the museum.
My fascination with Eva Perón began in 1996 when the movie Evita, starring Madonna, was released in theatres. Like many people I was moved by the story of a young peasant girl who moves to the big city, overcomes adversity and changes the social landscape of her nation.
If we’re to believe the legend, Evita took from the rich and gave to the poor. While she was at it, she took a little from the rich for herself.
Not much in Argentina has changed. The current president has created a welfare state where 50 per cent of the population receives government subsidies of about 1,800 pesos a month. Most president’s focus on job creation, but this way she’s guaranteed half the population’s vote come election time. She received 54 per cent in 2011. She advocates a socialist life for everyone but herself. Since becoming president, Cristina’s net worth has exponentially increased while the average Argentine struggles to afford a loaf of bread. Corruption in Argentina has changed little from when Eve Perón was alive.
Anyway, the museum. There was plenty of fashion on display, and videos of Evita’s many passionate speeches from the Casa Rosada. It was definitely worth the admission. The building itself was purchased by the María Eva Duarte de Perón Social Aid Foundation in 1948 and there are many photographs on display of Argentina’s famous first lady posing with her descamisados.
Unfortunately I got an aura migraine while I was there and couldn’t enjoy the world-renowned restaurant on the ground floor. Oh well… if I look on the bright side at least I saved a couple of pesos!
Check out the museum, you’ll enjoy it I’m sure. | <urn:uuid:a4cc551f-6cc8-4c02-92c6-ebe7572489a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://francocignelli.com/tag/eve-peron/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96575 | 432 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Reid Park Zoo is a small 17 acre zoo found in the city of Tucson, Arizona. While it is extremely small compared to other zoos found in the United States this zoo has just about everything that a visitor would want to see. It is home to about 500 animals including all the big named ones like elephants, rhinoceros, polar bears, lions, and tigers. Not knowing much about this zoo or for that matter even hearing about it until I was in the Tucson area I was shocked to see how nice it was. The only reservations that I had for it was the fact that this zoo has a polar bear and with the extreme heat during the summer I imagine the energy costs of keeping the pool cold or their indoor air-conditioned space must be staggering.
The Tucson Zoo’s latest exhibit is an impressive 7 acre African-elephant exhibit that is home to five elephants including two juvenile brothers, a five year old named Punga and his baby brother Sundzu. Unfortunately for me I was visiting about a week before its grand opening in March of 2012. So, all I could see was the elephants from a distance as they were getting acclimated to their new home. It is enjoyable to see a zoo increase its size and build new habitats for its animals.
The Reid Park Zoo is divided into three sections or continents. They are South America, Asia, and Africa. The zoo also has a large conservation and learning center next to their aviary and flamingo pond, which I am sure comes in handy during school field trips. What I liked about this zoo was size of their exhibits. Just about every animal there, from their otters to their anteaters, had a lot of space. The Reid Park Zoo planners were very intelligent with the design and scope of their exhibits. The only area which was a tad bit on the small size in my opinion was their polar bear exhibit, but that is just being picky on my part.
While there were no “wow” exhibits everything was nice and it was a fun visit. What especially made my visit worth while was seeing the three lion cubs. It is not an every day event to see cubs at a zoo so to me it was worth the admission price. Another thing that struck me at the zoo was the number of peacocks and peahens that this zoo is home to. I also liked the large giraffe and rhino yard, and the otter area was very nice. It is always fun to see them play and swim around. The only real disappointment for me was not seeing the polar bear who had chosen to be out of sight at the time that I was there.
Besides the 17 acres of exhibits the Reid Park Zoo also has a train, an interactive wet play area, which I am sure comes in handy during the summer months in Arizona, hands-on exhibit area in their learning center, and the opportunity to feed giraffes. If you are looking for a zoo that has the right mix of animals and does not take all-day to go through then this is the zoo to see. I highly recommend going, I had a wonderful time at this zoo and with the opening of Expedition Tanzania I am sure it is an even better experience. If you decide to go I would recommend going in the fall or spring, but if you are there during the hot summer months I would go as soon as they open the doors.
The Reid Park Zoo
Located at 1030 South Randolph Way, Tucson
Hours of Operation September through May 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and June through August 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Cost as of this Posting Adults aged 15 to 61 $7.00 Seniors 62 and over $5.00 Children 2 to 14 are $3.00
For more information visit their website at http://www.tucsonzoo.org/ | <urn:uuid:8b9d0069-aa2c-4500-b565-41d62eb4e28a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plainadventure.com/2012/05/29/reid-park-zoo-tucson/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989668 | 807 | 1.523438 | 2 |
|The Fat Lady|
1960s or earlier
Gryffindor Tower door guard
The Fat Lady is a portrait, who guards the entrance to Gryffindor Tower at Hogwarts Castle. She asks for passwords before she lets anyone in, then swings her picture backward so that students could enter through a portrait hole. She is a very fat woman in a pink silk dress but as her personality changes, she becomes an opera singer in a Roman toga with a wreath on her head.
Life at Hogwarts
It is unknown when or how she died, but it was by some time in the 1960s at the very latest, and then she began guarding the Gryffindor Common Room. It is also unknown who or what guarded the common room before her. The Fat Lady is a dutiful guardian to the Gryffindor Tower, only granting entrance to those who produce the correct password. She had, however, been known for reprimanding students when they returned late, annoyed that they woke her up from her sleep. She had been known to move about occasionally and had a friend, Violet, who visited her, especially during such holidays as Christmas break. The two drank together frequently, once consuming several vats of wine that were in a picture of some drunk monks.
When Molly Weasley was still a student, she returned to Gryffindor Tower at 4 a.m. in the morning after taking a late night stroll with her then boyfriend (now husband), Arthur Weasley, and they both got a telling-off from the Fat Lady.
In 1993 the Fat Lady's portrait was ruined by Sirius Black and pulled off the wall, although Argus Filch, the caretaker, restored her. She was temporarily replaced by Sir Cadogan, but after he was fired she returned to her original location, with security trolls stationed in the hallway to prevent further vandalism.
When Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were called by Hermione Granger to go to the kitchen, the Fat Lady was annoyed that she had to open the door just after they planned to not use it. Later that year, after the Yule Ball ended, the Fat Lady and Violet were both drunk, and Harry Potter had some trouble getting her to open the door. Again, when Harry tried to enter the tower, the Fat Lady was asleep, and he had to shout the password to wake her up, much to her irritation.
Once, when Harry Potter returned late and woke her up, she refused to let him in, claiming that the password changed overnight. When Harry ran off to see Dumbledore regarding Slughorn's memory, she called after him and admitted that she was just kidding, though Harry proceeded to Dumbledore's office anyway.
Later that year, when Dumbledore was murdered by Severus Snape, the Fat Lady was in sorrow, and she allowed Harry to enter the Tower without the password, while she cried. She presumably continued to carry out her same role after the war.
Known passwords used to enter the Gryffindor Common Room
- Abstinence (1996-97)
- Balderdash (1994-95)
- Banana Fritters (1994-95)
- Baubles (1994-95)
- Caput Draconis (Latin for "dragon's head") (1991-92)
- Dilligrout (1992-93)
- Fairy Lights
- Flibbertigibbet (1992-93)
- Fortuna Major (Latin for "greater fortune") (1993-94)
- Mimbulus Mimbletonia (The only one that Neville Longbottom was able to remember) (1995-96)
- Pig Snout (1991-92)
- Quid Agis? (Latin for "How are you?")
- Scurvy Cur (1993-94)
- Tapeworm (1996-97)
- Wattlebird (1992-93)
Behind the scenes
- In the film adaptation, of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Fat Lady is played by Elizabeth Spriggs. She is shown with black hair and a pink silk dress and she doesn't seem to have much personality. Oddly, this version of her is not particularly fat. Her portrait is located at the end of a corridor somewhere in the castle, but its location is never specified. The Fat Lady as portrayed by Spriggs moves only when approached by a student and very little at that. She also asks for the password, ensuring more effective concealment of the common room. In the first film, given the Fat Lady's dress and background, she seems to have lived in the sixteenth century Europe. The Spriggs version of the Fat Lady's portrait is also used in the video game adaptations of Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets.
- In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, she is played by Dawn French, who portrays the character with a more humourous side, such as giving her a bad singing voice (possibly from the saying "the fat lady sings"). This iteration of her is much, much fatter than the previous one. She is much louder and more flamboyant and would be obvious to any passing members of other houses, who would also be able to hear Gryffindor students as they gave her the password, which this version of the portrait is reluctant to listen to. By this time, her portrait has been moved to the seventh floor of the Grand Staircase Tower. The portrait is shown to swing backwards rather than forwards in this film as well. In the third film, given the Fat Lady's dress and background, she seems to have lived during the Classical period.
- In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is suggested that the Fat Lady's portrait may actually be a hidden passageway or shortcut. This is because the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory is shown to be located in a small tower at the corner of the Paved Courtyard close to the Clock Tower and it is presumed the Fat Lady's portrait remains located in the Grand Staircase.
- In the video game versions of the fifth and sixth films, characters do not give the Fat Lady a password, as she simply opens to admit them on recognising them.
- It can also be noted that although the location of the portrait changes in the films, the shape of the actual Gryffindor Common Room remains the same.
- The Fat Lady is a playable character in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7, in which she, despite being opaque and not floating like ghosts, only has ghostly abilities (like scaring other characters).
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game) (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Mentioned only)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Building the Magical World (Appears in portrait(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Characters of the Magical World (Appears in portrait(s))
- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Appears in portrait(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Appears in portrait(s))
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (First appearance)
- Harry Potter LEGO Sets (Appears in portrait(s))
- Harry Potter Trading Card Game (Appears in portrait(s)) | <urn:uuid:eb73c175-c6a9-4cb2-8b0f-54be8b2df332> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Fat_Lady?diff=prev&oldid=732430 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966271 | 1,764 | 1.75 | 2 |
As Manager of Humane Education at the Arizona Humane Society in Phoenix, Dr. Kris Haley uses the Six Pillars of Character to teach kids about having empathy and compassion for animals – and each other. We love hearing about new applications for CHARACTER COUNTS!, so we asked Dr. Haley a few questions.
Posts Tagged ‘Arizona’
With the recent shooting in Arizona, unfolding chaos in Egypt, and other violent events all over the news, many of us find ourselves having to talk to our children about these issues. Ideally, we’d like to shield younger children from exposure to violence in the news, but that doesn’t always work. So what’s a parent or teacher to do?
Check out all of these articles from local newspapers and websites about National CC! Week 2010 festivities around the country. | <urn:uuid:3bef0600-630b-41af-a30e-d84b69f1a8f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://charactercounts.org/chron/tag/arizona/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936557 | 171 | 2.40625 | 2 |
About Away Day
What is an Away day ?
The Away Day is a creative way for having all team members in your organisation, or a whole department, project or sales team to meet and address real work challenges or celebrate their success in a different way. It takes place off-site and away from the participants' regular office surroundings, usually for a whole day or sometimes a weekend. In a nutshell it’s (Combined Business and Pleasure).
Away day purpose
The intention is to allow the group meeting to be stress free and creative, educational and very enjoyable in every sense, a task that would be hard to achieve in the usual work environment. The day is designed to help decompress and achieve better team relations, and implement educational qualities in an entertaining approach, in addition to training is to increase work values such as ( Trust, Collaboration, and Ethics).
Away day benefits:
- Unwinding from the stresses of the Job.
- Getting to know your team from a different light.
- Learning work skills while having fun.
- Acquiring Training and knowledge in the process.
- Team building, Trust Building and problem solving.
- Boosting Team Moralities.
- Enjoying being active and exercising.
- Enjoying Ice Breaker games and activities.
- Being together with your team on a new amazing experience.
- Strengthen and enhance good communication among team members. | <urn:uuid:025fba90-9df4-4829-9c1b-9bd123b3882a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lutfisdc.com/away_day/about.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926148 | 293 | 2.28125 | 2 |
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Hooverville: Shantytown of Seattle's Great Depression
HistoryLink.org Essay 741
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During the fall and winter of 1931 and 1932, unemployed workers established Seattle’s "Hooverville," a shantytown named in sarcastic honor of U.S. President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), on whose beat the Great Depression began. In October 1931, an unemployed lumberjack by the name of Jesse Jackson and 20 others started building shacks on vacant land owned by the Port of Seattle located a few blocks south of Pioneer Square.
Within a few days, they built 50 shanties. After the squatters were brought to the attention of the City of Seattle, the Seattle Health Department posted notices on every shack to vacate within one week. Seven days later the Seattle Police arrived with cans of kerosene and burned down the shacks.
The squatters immediately rebuilt. About a month later the city burned down the shacks once again. This time the residents burrowed into the ground and constructed roofs made of tin or steel. The city relented and allowed them to stay on the condition that they adhere to safety and sanitary rules.
The Mayor of Hooverville
The man named Jesse Jackson became the liaison between Hooverville residents and City Hall and local businesses. He was the most public Hooverville resident and people began to call him the Mayor of Hooverville. He stated:
"I am just a simple person, living among simple people, whose status in life is the same as theirs, trying to do the best I know how to administer in my poor way to their wants. The men often seek my advice and bring their troubles to me. I advise them the best I can on many questions. I am often able to prevent many little rows that might develop into big ones" (Schmid, p. 291).
Home of the Homeless
The residents named the shantytown Hooverville in sarcastic honor of President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), on whose beat the Great Depression began. It was the former location of Skinner and Eddy Shipyard Plant 2 that closed in 1920. A census taken during March 1934 counted 632 men and seven women living in 479 shanties. Their ages ranged from 15 to 73. Included were 292 Caucasians foreign born, 186 Caucasians born in the United States, 120 Filipinos, 29 Negroes (African Americans), three Costa Ricans, two Mexicans, two Indians, two Eskimos, and one Chilean. Hooverville remained in existence till the end of the Great Depression.
Jesse Jackson, “The Story of Seattle’s Hooverville,” in Calvin F. Schmid, Social Trends in Seattle (Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 1944), 286-287.
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Released: June 4, 2010
One-in-Seven New U.S. Marriages is Interracial or Interethnic
A record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from each other, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
That figure is an estimated six times the intermarriage2 rate among newlyweds in 1960 and more than double the rate in 1980.
This dramatic increase has been driven in part by the weakening of longstanding cultural taboos against intermarriage and in part by a large, multi-decade wave of immigrants from Latin America and Asia.
In 1961, the year Barack Obama’s parents were married, less than one in 1,000 new marriages in the United States was, like theirs, the pairing of a black person and a white person, according to Pew Research estimates. By 1980, that share had risen to about one in 150 new marriages. By 2008, it had risen to one-in-sixty.
Pairings: Even with that sharp increase, however, black-white couplings represented only about one-in-nine of the approximately 280,000 new interracial or interethnic marriages in 2008.
White-Hispanic couples accounted for about four-in-ten (41%) of such new marriages; white-Asian couples made up 15%; and white-black couples made up 11%.
The remaining third consisted of marriages in which each spouse was a member of a different minority group or in which at least one spouse self-identified as being American Indian or of mixed or multiple races.
Race, Ethnicity and Immigration: Of the 3.8 million adults who married in 2008, 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 31% of Asians married someone whose race or ethnicity was different from their own.
For whites these shares are more than double what they had been in 1980 and for blacks they are nearly triple. For Hispanics and Asians, by contrast, these rates are little changed from 1980. High levels of Hispanic and Asian immigration over the past several decades helped drive both seemingly contradictory trends.
For whites and blacks, the new immigrants and (increasingly) their now grown U.S.-born children have enlarged the pool of potential partners for marrying outside one’s own racial or ethnic group. But for Hispanics and Asians, the ongoing immigration wave has greatly enlarged the pool of potential partners for in-group marrying.
Gender: Among blacks and Asians, there are stark differences by gender in the tendency to marry outside their own racial group. Some 22% of all black male newlyweds in 2008 married outside their race, compared with just 9% of black female newlyweds. Among Asians, the gender pattern runs the opposite way. Some 40% of Asian female newlyweds in 2008 married outside their race, compared with just 20% of Asian male newlyweds.
Among whites and Hispanics, by contrast, there are no gender differences in intermarriage rates. About 9% of both male and female white newlyweds in 2008 married a nonwhite spouse, and about a quarter of both male and female Hispanic newlyweds in 2008 married someone who is not Hispanic.
States and Regions: Intermarriage in the United States tilts West. About one-in-five (22%) of all newlyweds in Western states married someone of a different race or ethnicity in 2008, compared with 13% in the South and Northeast and 11% in the Midwest. All nine states with out-marriage rates of 20% or more in 2008 are situated west of the Mississippi River: Hawaii (48%); Nevada (28%); Oregon (24%); Oklahoma (23%); California (22%); New Mexico (22%); Colorado (21%); Arizona (21%); and Washington (20%). (See Appendix III for a fifty state table).
Regional out-marriage patterns vary in othe
r ways. For example, blacks who live in the West are three times as likely to out-marry as are blacks who live in the South and twice as likely as blacks in the Northeast or Midwest.
Among Hispanics, by contrast, the highest rate of out-marriage is in the Midwest (41%) reflecting a general tendency for out-marriage rates to be higher among smaller groups. As for Asians, relatively few live in the South, but those who do are more likely to out-marry (37%) than are those who live in other regions.
The nation’s most populous state, California, presents the following anomaly: in 2008, white (20%) and black (36%) newlyweds were more likely to out-marry than were Hispanics (18%).
In all other states where data are available for these groups, the reverse was true-Hispanic newlyweds out-married at higher rates than did whites or blacks. (See appendix for states and regional table or click here for an interactive map)
Education: Marrying out is more common among adults who attended college than among those who did not, but these differences are not large. Of all newlyweds in 2008, 15.5% of those who attended college married outside their race or ethnicity, compared with 13.5% of those who completed high school and 11.0% of those who did not complete high school.
Nativity Status: Marrying out is much more common among native-born adults than among immigrants. Native-born Hispanics are more than three times as likely as the foreign born to marry a non-Hispanic.
The disparity among native- and foreign-born Asians is not as great, but it is still significant; native-born Asian-Americans are nearly twice as likely as those who are foreign born to marry a non-Asian.
Here again, there are sharp gender differences. Among Asian men, the native born are nearly four times as likely as the foreign born to marry out. Among Asian women, the native born are only about 50% more likely than the foreign born to marry a non-Asian.
All Current Marriages: Another way to measure trends in intermarriage is to look at the full universe of all currently married adults (regardless of when they married).
In 2008, a record 8% of currently married adults had a spouse of a different race or ethnicity. In 1980, this figure was 3.2%.
Age Patterns: In the currently married population, intermarriage is strongly correlated with age. Some 13% of all currently married adults ages 25 or younger have married out. That share declines in a linear fashion as the age of the married adult rises. Among married adults ages 75 and older, just 3% have married out.
Among newlyweds in 2008, however, the relationship of intermarriage and age is not as strong. The intermarriage rate is around 15 % for newlyweds under age 50 (the vast majority of all newly weds). Rates decline among newlyweds over age 50.
The Fading of a Taboo: Today’s attitudes and behaviors regarding intermarriage represent a sharp break from the not-too-distant past. For most of this nation’s history, a majority of states had anti-miscegenation laws that made it illegal for whites and nonwhites to marry. Many states repealed these laws after World War II, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 had the effect of declaring unconstitutional anti-miscegenation laws in the 15 states where they were still on the books.
However, attitudinal and behavioral change did not come overnight. As of 1987 — two decades after the Supreme Court ruling — just 48% of the public said it was “OK for whites and blacks to date each other.” By 2009, that share had grown to 83%. Acceptance has risen among all age cohorts, but it is highest among young adults. Among adults ages 18 to 32, 93% approve; among adults ages 64 and older, 68% approve.3
As for attitudes about interracial marriage, a 2009 Pew Research survey posed that question in explicitly personal terms: “How do you think you would react if a member of your family told you they were going to marry a [white American/African-American/Hispanic-American/Asian-American]? Would you be fine with it, would it bother you but you would come to accept it, or would you not be able to accept it?”
Survey respondents were asked about all major racial and ethic groups except their own. Overall, 63% said it would be fine with them if a family member married “out” to all three other major racial and ethnic groups tested in the survey, and 80% said they would be fine with a new member of their family who came from at least one of the “out” groups.
The survey found that acceptance of out-marriage to whites (81%) is somewhat higher than is acceptance of out-marriage to Asians (75%), Hispanics (73%) or blacks (66%). The survey also showed the flip side of the same coin: Black respondents are somewhat more accepting of all forms of intermarriage than are white or Hispanic respondents. More than seven-in-ten blacks (72%) say it would be fine with them if a family member chose to marry someone who was white, Hispanic or Asian. By contrast, 61% of whites and 63% of Hispanics say they would be fine with a family member marrying someone from any of the other groups.
These racial gaps in acceptance have narrowed in the past decade. Compared with responses to the same questions in 2001, whites have grown somewhat more accepting of interracial marriage and blacks somewhat less.
All in the Family: About a third (35%) of all adults say they have an immediate family member or close relative who is married to someone of a different race, according to a newly released Pew Research Center survey finding. Whites are less likely than nonwhites to say this (29% versus 50%), and those ages 50 and over are less likely to say this than those under age 50 (26% versus 41%). Also, 44% of adults living in the West say a family member is in an interracial marriage, compared with 38% of those in the South, 31% in the Northeast and 25% in the Midwest.
Read the full report for more details.
- See Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Independents Take Center Stage in Obama Era: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2009,” May 21, 2009 ↩ | <urn:uuid:64a10de8-5d00-47fb-9b6d-ee343ebd09c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/06/04/marrying-out/2/?setDevice=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976054 | 2,189 | 2.546875 | 3 |
My latest column over at The Week presents the argument that today’s electoral losses are the inevitable byproduct of conservatives having first lost the culture.
Some will, no doubt, see this as an indictment of conservatives who somehow failed to rise to the challenge. (In fairness, part of my argument is that winning elections in the 80s, 90s and 2000s probably fooled conservatives into believing everything was hunky-dory.)
But my purpose is not to disparage cultural conservatives who dedicated their lives to defending traditional American values.
In fact, the truth is that conservatives were indeed “standing athwart history yelling Stop!”
To be sure, many of the changes of the early 60s — civil rights, for example — were incredibly positive. But many of the developments that began in the mid-to-late 60s were corrosive. Some of the changes — globalization, the birth control pill, etc. — appear philosophically neutral, but had a profound impact on changing the culture (for more on this, see my notes on chapter 2 of Ross Douthat’s “Bad Religion.”).
As James T. Patterson’s new book, “The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed America,” recounts, the changes that took place in the latter half of the decade were nothing short of remarkable. During a recent conversation with Patterson (listen to it here), the author and historian argued these changes were a predictable, if ironic, byproduct of the peace and prosperity ushered in by previous generations.
Patterson called the phenomenon, ”a revolution of rising expectations.”
Often these rising expectations involve a move away from traditional values. This, of course, is not an entirely new observation. As John Wesley said, “[W]herever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.” | <urn:uuid:f14f2a00-896e-4071-bd8e-b8e89789861a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/03/on-losing-the-culture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958275 | 391 | 2.046875 | 2 |
WASHINGTON, D.C.-In July, a federal appeals court upheld President Bush's executive order banning the practice of favoring union bids in the awarding of federal contracts.
By concluding that the president acted within his constitutional authority in issuing the order, the three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia greatly increased the chances of success for federal privatization efforts.
By requiring that federal contracts go to bidders based on nothing but the merits of their bids, the president accomplished two major goals: 1) Assured that jobs contracted out by the federal government to private entities will garner the most value for the least tax money; and 2) provided bidders on federal contracts who use union labor with an economic incentive to come up with bids that are as competitive as those from non-union bidders.
As might be expected, the president of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, Edward C. Sullivan, disagreed with the decision, calling it a major setback for unionized employees. Other groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Right to Work Foundation, hailed the decision as right under the circumstances.
"President Bush's common sense executive order helps ensure open competition in the U.S. construction industry," Ken Adams, chairman of the American Builders' Association, told Fox News. | <urn:uuid:145a9476-ea7c-4221-9d36-46e68e38c25e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mackinac.org/4749 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958752 | 281 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The Redhead who Electrified the Australian Stage
Australia has a controversial redhead as its leader. Just on a century ago it was a redhead on stage, with a famous wicked wink, who set tongues wagging. Leann Richards reports on the scandalous life and times of Daisy Jerome.
In 1913 fashions and attitudes were changing quickly. Early that year suffragettes marched in the US and later the shocking Argentine tango was introduced to western society. It reached Australia in late 1913 and almost simultaneously, a young music hall artist called Daisy Jerome arrived in the country.
When Daisy landed in Adelaide that year she was dripping with jewels and carried a scent of the scandalous. The American born, but English raised, comedienne was a small woman of slight build with a head topped with a mop of long carroty red hair. She had a sparkling, wicked sense of humour and a vibrant manner.
According to census records she was born Daisy Witkowski in 1886 in New York. According to Daisy, she was brought up in a multilingual household, which had been visited by Abraham Lincoln, McKinley and Roosevelt. Her father suffered a financial disaster and when she was six the family moved to England.
There she played the Palace and toured the provinces with a comedic singing and quick-change turn. She acted in pantomime in Manchester and toured the continent. Her performances were slightly cheeky, but very popular. The contrast between the slightly built, dainty Daisy and the content of her songs was a major part of her appeal.
Daisy was a feisty product of a system, which required toughness, cunning, and an independent spirit. She had deserted her first husband, Mr Fowler, a year after their marriage to live with a Mr Allen. During the divorce proceedings, Mr Fowler suggested that the presence of his mother-in-law had destroyed the marriage.
In 1910 Daisy sued a journalist for libel. The reporter accused Daisy of performing encores when the audience had made no request for them. Daisy maintained that this damaged her professional reputation. The proceedings were farcical. Daisy’s song, ‘ A little pat of butter’, a ditty of dubious meaning which included a disparaging verse about Neville Chamberlain, was ridiculed by the defence and Daisy was reduced to tears in the witness box. However, she won the case and was awarded the grand sum of a farthing for her trouble.
It was this unconventional vibrant personality that arrived in Australia in the scandalous year of 1913. Her bright red hair and aura of naughtiness made her a focus of press attention during her three-year tour. She was under contract to J C Williamson and earning the large sum of 150 pounds a week.
Her first appearance was in Sydney as one of the stars of Australia’s first revue, Come Over Here. The critics panned the show, however Sydney’s reviewers enjoyed Daisy’s part in the show. The contrast between her delicate ladylike frame and the raucous vulgarity of her comic songs presented in a hoarse sensual voice shocked audiences, and journalists firmly declared that Daisy was ‘an acquired taste.’ Daisy agreed with this assessment. She later said that the audiences were cold. It may have been her bright red hair, the quick changes of costume or the famous wicked wink that shocked them. However, she eventually charmed the sceptics and by the time the show arrived in Melbourne, she was warmly welcomed and christened with the nickname ‘The electric spark.’
Her red hair was a source of gossip and speculation. Daisy assured audiences and press that it was her natural colour, but few believed her. It was such a source of controversy that a comedian Jack Cannot used it as a gag.
In Melbourne, he informed Daisy that a gentleman had taken offence to her hair. Daisy was indignant, but the Australian comedian declared that the offended gentleman would visit her that night.
The comedian then rang the local fire brigade and spoke to the superintendent. He told him that there was a grave risk of fire during Miss Daisy Jerome’s turn on stage that night. Superintendent Lee was worried and agreed to visit the theatre to assess the fire risk. Upon meeting Daisy, Mr Lee immediately sensed the problem and the joke. ‘I agree, there is a danger of fire,’ he said ‘The scenery should be fireproofed at once.’
Red hair was a source of superstition and had long been associated with bad tempers and scandalous sexuality. When combined with a theatrical profession and a music hall background it was even more outrageous. Daisy’s stage persona capitalised on the evil reputation of red heads, but she also sought to maintain some respectability by insisting her carrot top was natural, not dyed.
After her contract with Williamson lapsed, Daisy was offered another large contract for vaudeville by another producer. This gave Daisy the opportunity to showcase the naughty songs that were her specialty.
In Brisbane in October 1914 she sang, ‘When you go to the seaside’ and two of her signature tunes, ‘Row Row Row’ and the pro-female ‘The Press, the Pulpit and the Petticoat’. The last compared the powers of the media and the church to the power of women, with women declared the most important and influential.
Daisy was a modern lady and held opinions which were regarded as unconventional. In Adelaide in 1914 she told an interviewer, ‘I refuse to regulate my acts to accepted rules of conduct.’
Independent minded, Daisy was happy to pay for herself rather than rely on a man. She thought the fact that she earned more than most men meant that she should pay her own ‘whack.’ Her statements to the press were unusual for the period, but Daisy’s popularity with audiences did not fail and she had a successful tour of the major cities of Australia and New Zealand.
Daisy also toured regional centres of Australia and visited mining towns in Queensland and New South Wales. In Brisbane she performed for visitors and for prisoners, and everywhere she participated in benefits for the war effort.
Daisy left Australia in 1916 but returned in 1922 for another successful and dramatic tour. There was a scandalous court case involving missing jewels and a new husband with an exotic French name. She stayed unconventional and cheeky, but her style faded from popularity with the advent of film and shortly afterwards she disappeared into the shadows of history.
See more articles by Leann Richards at www.hat-archive.com
Visit Leann's blog www.hat-archive.blogspot.com/
Originally published in the May / June 2012 print edition of Stage Whispers. | <urn:uuid:492a2158-f22a-435b-9491-b0e0f32f7716> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stagewhispers.com.au/history/redhead-who-electrified-australian-stage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983741 | 1,386 | 2.203125 | 2 |
By Peter Klubek, Graduate Student Intern at the Museum’s Clarence B. Hanson, Jr. Library
Peter Klubek is an artist, instructor, and budding librarian from Illinois who interned at the Museum this spring as part of his coursework at the University of Southern Mississippi. Below is the final entry from the blog he kept while working at the Museum.
It has been a wonderful semester. I learned much about the creation of archives and the day-to-day operation of an art library. I have enjoyed my time at the Hanson Library and will remember this experience fondly.
Through my coursework I had read about archival organization and description, but it is one thing to read about it, and quite another to experience it first hand. When I first arrived and started to go through the boxes, it was fascinating to discover what I would find next. The documents, correspondence, ephemeral items, and exhibition catalogs all told a different story but added up to reveal the complete history of the Birmingham Museum of Art. Prior to this experience, I have never lived in Birmingham, or indeed Alabama. But reflection on working with this archive has given me an understanding of this organization and how it fits within the greater community of the city of Birmingham. From the struggles of the Birmingham Art Association in the early 20th century to create an art museum, through the current challenges of updating the museum website in the 21st, this institution would not thrive without the people providing an energy and a life source. People are at the core of libraries, museums, and archives, and it is this human factor that has the greatest significance in communicating history and intellectual development. | <urn:uuid:7a177cab-df5b-41b7-8da6-ed45dc9dbfa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artsbma.org/about/current-news/item/365-people-are-at-the-core-an-interns-experience | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957466 | 340 | 1.53125 | 2 |
By Jaime Bramble Schell, Philadelphia Museum of Art
While Dancing around the Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp doesn’t officially open until October 30 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, September 5 is also key date for the much-anticipated exhibition. It is the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Cage (American, 1912-1992), an artist whose art and life were inextricably interwoven with the four other avant-garde artists whose interactions and collaborations in the 1950s and 1960s exerted a powerful and lasting impact on future generations.
Cage, often regarded as one of the most influential artists of the last century, was a pioneer in electronic music, indeterminate (or chance-based) music, and a key figure in the emergence of Fluxus and Happenings in the visual arts. A tireless innovator, he invented the “prepared piano” by inserting miscellaneous objects on the strings and hammers of his piano, taking the instrument into a completely new sound world. Throughout his career, Cage surprised audiences by expanding the very idea of what a musical experience could be. With 4’33″, perhaps his most infamous piece, the performer remains silent for the duration of the performance, creating a sonic environment in which composer-intended sounds are replaced by the unassuming beauty of the concert hall’s ambient noises.
To mark the centenary, the work and legacy of John Cage is being celebrated in festivals all over the world, from London to Sydney. Philadelphia will be no exception: in conjunction with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bowerbird will present Beyond Silence: The Music of John Cage, a festival celebrating his radical output, at the time of Dancing around the Bride. Events will take place in the Museum galleries and throughout the city. One of these events will be presented as part of Art After 5, the Museum’s Friday evening concert series.
Cage is no stranger to Philadelphia Museum of Art audiences. In the summer of 1995, three years after his death, we presented Rolywholyover: A Circus for Museum by John Cage. It was one of the last large-scale projects that he conceived, a constantly changing array of art, performances, film screenings, readings, and programs. Much of the show’s installation was randomly determined by computer, and rearranged daily so that viewers could never have the same experience twice. It broke with tradition, just like Cage did. So, too, will the installation of Dancing around the Bride, conceived collaboratively with contemporary artist Philippe Parreno, whose past works include one created in direct homage to both Cage and Rauschenberg.
Dancing around the Bride will be the first exhibition to chart the catalytic effect of the five artists together, via paintings, sculptures, stage sets, musical notations, choreographic notes, performance, and programming. While their activity across artistic disciplines ignited the art world 50 years ago, the exhibition brings this critical moment back to life, representing the performative context for which the well-known works of visual art were created.. And the timing couldn’t be more appropriate—not only is 2012 Cage’s centenary, it is also the 125th anniversary of Duchamp’s birth and the centenary of his celebrated 1912 paintings Bride and Nude Descending a Staircase, no. 2, featured prominently in the exhibition.
Cage was fascinated by Duchamp long before they met. They were fellow travelers in a way, each intrigued by the relationship of chance to art and life. In this spirit, we invite the public to engage in the moment and take away from the show whatever they ‘chance’ to discover. | <urn:uuid:d83be949-ca47-4098-841b-e409e6c1feab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knightarts.org/community/philadelphia/dancing-around-the-bride-and-the-cage-centenary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960194 | 775 | 2.078125 | 2 |
TEL AVIV, Israel, July 19 (UPI) -- Israeli researchers say cigarette cravings may be more a result of habit rather than addiction.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University suggest their study finding may help explain why nicotine patches and gum are often ineffective but psychologically based smoking cessation programs can be successful.
The study, published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, concluded the intensity of cravings for cigarettes has more to do with psychosocial elements of smoking than with the physiological effects of nicotine.
"These findings might not be popular with advocates of the nicotine addiction theory, because they undermine the physiological role of nicotine and emphasize mind over matter when it comes to smoking," Dr. Reuvan Dar, the study leader, said in a statement.
Dar and colleagues monitored the craving levels of flight attendants -- both women and men -- during a long flight of 10-13 hours, as well as shorter two-hop trips where each leg lasted 3-5 hours. They found flight duration had no significant impact on craving levels. In fact, craving levels at the end of each short flight were higher than those at the end of the long flight, the study determined.
|Additional Health News Stories|
WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) --General Motors said it would recall 231,000 model year 2006-07 vehicles due to a short in the driver's door that could spontaneously cause a fire. | <urn:uuid:d4220fe5-8fac-4127-8354-8dec215c3545> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/07/19/Smoking-More-habit-than-addiction/UPI-15191279518686/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95993 | 285 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Gallery: Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Rest of the Most Valuable Movie Posters
Here is the spring-cleaning inspiration that you were not searching the Internet for: the A.P. reports that a miscellaneous stack of movie posters that had been tucked away in someone’s attic for 80 years is set to sell at auction for an estimated $250,000 later this month. Last year, an anonymous buyer paid about $30,000 for the antique artwork, which turned out to be 33 one-sheets adhered together by wallpaper glue, at a Pennsylvania country auction. When an auction house carefully peeled apart the ephemera earlier this year, workers discovered extremely rare original posters, the most valuable of which is an advertisement for the 1931 horror film Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, which will have a starting bid of $200,000. Before you begin scouring your own attic, basement, or crawl space for similar cinematic treasures, however, make sure you know what you should be looking for—listed handily below.
Once owned by Nicolas Cage, this restored one-sheet for the silent film starring Lon Chaney Sr. sold for $155,350 in 2008. Like the rest of the movie posters deemed most valuable by collectors, this Phantom of the Opera original dates from 1925 to 1935. | <urn:uuid:55c56146-4661-4c26-a304-76bc38f73336> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2012/03/dracula-frankenstein-most-valuable-movie-posters | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944024 | 267 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Park Hill Educators, Police Sharing Ideas about Protecting Kids
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Almost 2,200 American kids are reported missing every day, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a non-profit group that tracks and assists with the rescue of abducted children.
In Platte County, educators and police are searching for new ways to protect kids from “stranger danger,” after a recent string of incidents in their community.
On Tuesday, administrators from the Park Hill School District met with local law enforcement members. A working lunch was used to share ideas about how educators and police can work together to keep children safe.
The Park Hill School District has seen four potential child abductions within the past year, including a near-abduction from November 12th, when a man grabbed a 13-year old girl at a Riverside bus stop and tried to drag her into the woods nearby.
A good Samaritan saw the whole thing, yelled at the man, and the would-be abductor ran away.
“We’re hoping to come up with ideas,” said Nicole Kirby, Park Hill Schools spokesperson. “We’re looking for some proactive steps that we can use to make sure our kids are safer out there when they’re waiting at bus stops and out in the community.”
Dan Watts isn’t only a Kansas City Missouri Police officer – he’s also a father of two kids. His department deals firsthand with ‘stranger danger’ incidents, and he says working together will only help everyone involved.
“The children are the reason we’re here,” Watts said. “Our goal today is to make sure we do all we can do, and brainstorm and see if we can come up with something we’re missing.”
Police say parents can play the biggest role in preventing child abductions, even while kids are away from home and attending school during the day. Teaching the little ones to remove themselves from threatening situations is the best start, according to Watts.
“You can’t do enough to prevent this kind of stuff,” Watts added. “There are bad people out there who want to do bad things. We do all we can to address that.” | <urn:uuid:b9edcfd5-0b2b-44a7-bfde-123d0aef1112> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fox4kc.com/2012/11/27/park-hill-educators-police-sharing-ideas-about-protecting-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954989 | 483 | 2.375 | 2 |
This magnificent creation is the work of Katie Boyette. You can see more of her imaginative work in wool here:http://caffaknitted.typepad.com.
Katie has long been infatuated with Anne Boleyn. She says on her website:
“Knitting Anne was really fun. I’ve always been fascinated with her tragic story. Creating a detachable head turned out to be quite a challenge. After 2 hours at Lowes Hardware, my husband and I finally constructed a mechanism consisting of custom fit plumbing fixtures, and a system of magnets. Sometimes my husband is surprisingly useful”.
Strangely enough Hilary Mantel conjures up a knitted Anne in her Booker prize- winning Wolf Hall. Anne has just heard that Henry Percy’s wife is planning to petition for a divorce citing Percy’s pre-contract with Anne as the cause. Cromwell has been summoned to Whitehall to calm the Queen down. He has been told that Anne is breaking up furniture and smashing windows in her fury.
“He has never witnessed, or quite believed in, Lady Anne’s uncontrolled outbursts of temper. When he is admitted she is pacing, her hands clasped and she looks small and tense, as if someone has knitted her and drawn the stitches too tight. Three ladies – Jane Rochford, Mary Shelton, Mary Boleyn are following with their eyes. A small carpet, which perhaps ought to be on the wall, is crumpled on the floor. Jane Rochford says, ‘We have swept up the broken glass.’”
There are many types of genius in. Some conjure with wool, others with words. | <urn:uuid:705b072c-14d7-43cb-8917-c3a0427f2070> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boleynfestival.co.uk/alternative-anne-boleyn/knitted-anne/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967877 | 357 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The Solarve Bus: Sanyo’s clean, green solar-powered machine
We all know Japan is second only to Singapore when it comes to keeping things clean, so it’s little surprise to see the country’s captains of industry come up with a futuristic vehicle called the Solarve Bus (a contraction of "Solar Vehicle") that’s sparkly both inside and out.
Sanyo and Ryobi teamed up to outfit (Japanese) the standard road-going bus with solar panels on the outside to generate power and some nifty air scrubbers in the cabin for the passengers to enjoy cleaner air.
While the solar cells currently only power the Solarve Bus's interior lighting, Sanyo’s prowess in the field of photovoltaics is such that it probably won't be long before some of that solar energy is used as a driving force for the whole bus. Aspirations aside, the Solarve Bus is the world’s first to use solar power in this way, thereby reducing fuel that would otherwise be burned to power the electrical systems.
As for the air purifiers, the oddly named Eneloop Air Fresher (Japanese) units deployed inside the bus are similar to those we saw recently in a Hollywood theater in that they are supposed to virtually eliminate all manner of airborne nasties. Sanyo says they filter out 99 percent of viruses, bacteria and general filth from the Solarve Bus's cabin air, making it that much harder for coughs and sneezes to spread diseases. | <urn:uuid:e8cc322d-d55c-4bc4-ae29-552e98be72c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/life/solarve-bus-get-your-motor-running-sanyos-solar-powered-bus-236370 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944906 | 319 | 2.34375 | 2 |
ConocoPhillips: The anti-Exxon
The Texas-based oil company breaks with the other U.S. majors to support mandatory national regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, reports Fortune's Marc Gunther.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Here's yet another sign that the debate over climate change has shifted decisively: ConocoPhillips today becomes the first U.S.-based oil company to support mandatory national regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
In so doing, ConocoPhillips breaks ranks with the two biggest U.S. oil companies - ExxonMobil (Charts) and Chevron (Charts) - as well as with the Bush administration. With revenues of $188 billion in 2006, ConocoPhillips (Charts) operates in 40 nations around the world from its headquarters in Bush country - Houston, Texas.
James J. Mulva, the chairman and chief executive of ConocoPhillips, announced the change at a meeting with reporters in Washington, where congressional hearings or industry forums on climate issues are happening almost daily. It's become almost impossible for big companies to stay out of the fray.
Mulva said no particular event caused ConocoPhillips to step forward. "We believe that the science is quite compelling," he said. "Human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to climate change. Now is the time we need a national mandated framework to deal with climate change."
He didn't endorse a specific regulatory regime. But ConocoPhillips has become the second major oil company - after BP America, a unit of British-based BP (Charts) - to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an alliance of big companies and environmental organizations that support federal action to achieve "significant reductions" in greenhouse gas emissions caused by burning fossil fuels.
Other members of the coalition include GE (Charts), Dupont (Charts) and four big green groups - the World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
Unlike BP, which has tried to recast itself as a company that goes "beyond petroleum" by touting its (mostly small) investments in renewable energy, ConocoPhillips makes all of its money - about $15.5 billion last year - from producing, refining and selling oil, gas and petrochemicals.
That isn't likely to change anytime soon, Mulva said: "The old Conoco and the old Phillips have been oil companies for many, many years. We expect to be an oil company for a long time. Whatever we can produce, we sell. And our refineries are running at the max."
He did say that ConocoPhillips' investment in alternative and renewable energy would grow from about $100 million in 2006 to about $150 million this year. But the company defines alternatives broadly, to include the process of extracting oil from the sands of western Canada as well as efforts to develop cellulosic ethanol.
Last year, ConocoPhillips began producing renewable diesel fuel from vegetable oil and animal fats at a refinery in Ireland.
ConocoPhillips is such a newcomer to the climate debate that it has yet to even calculate its own carbon footprint. The company says it will set public targets for reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions later this year.
Low-key and publicity-shy, Mulva quietly acknowledged that regulation of carbon dioxide will impose added costs on the oil industry, and on consumers who buy gasoline, heating oil or natural gas.
Higher prices, he said, may be necessary to induce Americans to become more efficient users of energy. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world's population but consumes about 25 percent of the world's oil production.
After the press event, Mulva told me that he'd reflected personally on the issue of climate change for about a year or so; he travels about 180 days a year, and has heard government officials, environmental groups and scientists sounding alarms over the issue.
William K. Reilly, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a member of ConocoPhillips' board, was among those urging the company to act.
Now, Mulva said, there's no time to waste.
"Voluntary programs are not going to meet the challenge of climate change," Mulva said. "The longer we wait - two or five years or more from now - it won't be mitigation, it will be adaptation."
Yes, that's the CEO of a Texas-based oil company talking. | <urn:uuid:231a79d0-abec-4af1-95f6-3130b346bc52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/10/news/companies/pluggedin_gunther_conocophillips.fortune/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961289 | 931 | 2.046875 | 2 |
At AAR Corp., one of the world’s leading aviation support companies, Corporate Safety Director Bob Taylor knows the importance of having a HAZMAT safety plan for accidental spills.
“When you are working with aircraft, time and safety are top priorities. If you have an organized plan and the best recovery equipment, you will be able to save time, money and comply with EPA regulations if an accidental spill occurs,” Taylor says.
In fact, the United States Environmental Protection Agency suggests that all companies have a HAZMAT plan in case of such spill emergencies. In its 2001 report on economic incentives, the EPA stated that, “Liability is an important incentive mechanism, one that is seeing increasing use in environmental policy.”
Increasing enforcement of environmental codes forces businesses to find more effective and efficient ways of recovering and tracking the hazardous waste they generate.
The US Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) allows for civil penalties up to $25,000 per day and criminal penalties as high as $50,000 per day for each RCRA violation.
Creating and managing a spill management plan necessarily involves:
- Identifying potential spill locations
- Providing accessible response and recovery equipment and supplies
- A worker alert system and evacuation plan
- Thorough response training of designated personnel and documenting and reporting spill events Nearly every industry in the United States uses hazardous materials in some way.
What are Hazardous Materials?
According to hazmatlaw.com, the following materials are considered to be hazardous:
- Common chemical compounds, such as butane and methanol;
- Most fuels, including gasoline, kerosene, propane and diesel fuel;
- Industrial and consumer products, such as aerosols, paints, adhesives, cleaning solutions and pesticides;
- Certain infectious substances, biological agents, medical cultures, diagnostic specimens and regulated medical waste;
- Hazardous waste and reportable quantities of CERCLA hazardous substances;
- Certain elemental materials, such as lithium and mercury;
- Radioactive articles;
- A wide spectrum of manufactured articles, such as internal combustion engines, airbag inflators, fuses, first aid kits and certain plastic molding compounds;
- Edible items, such as flavoring extracts and certain spirits
Typically, most spills of these and other hazardous materials have had to be recovered manually with the use of absorbents, such as loose materials (think kitty litter) and spill control pillows or pads.
The Problem with Absorbents
Using absorbents to recover hazardous spills is not only time consuming and labor intensive, but also creates more hazardous waste which has to be disposed of in special hazardous materials landfills.
In the past, it has been tempting for businesses to ignore laws governing the disposal of hazardous waste due to the high disposal cost of contaminated absorbents.
For example, a 50-gallon oil spill cleaned up with absorbents would require disposal of about four 55-gallon drums of hazardous waste at the disposal cost of $350 to $500 per drum. Such an adsorbent-based clean up would not only cost about $2,000, but could also cost thousands from shutting down operations long enough to contain the spill.
Additionally, once a hazardous liquid is recovered by absorbent material, it cannot be recycled. Essentially, the use of absorbents is creating even more hazardous waste to be disposed in landfills or incinerated.
The New Solution
Now, high-powered industrial-rated vacuum systems are replacing the old manual absorbents for a safer, more effective and less costly option for spill recovery.
These systems are solving the spill recovery problems faced by managers by providing fast and safe recovery of hazardous materials including strong acids.
These new industrial-powered vacuum systems are saving time, money and contributing to environmental compliance. | <urn:uuid:bba03245-90f6-41cb-bf4e-cbbe3a78639d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aviationpros.com/article/10382417/a-new-era-of-spill-recovery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935911 | 787 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Italy: Lampedusa shipwreck a grim reminder of EU's failure to protect migrants at risk
|Publication Date||7 September 2012|
|Cite as||Amnesty International, Italy: Lampedusa shipwreck a grim reminder of EU's failure to protect migrants at risk, 7 September 2012, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50bdc8f82.html [accessed 19 June 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
The sinking of a boat carrying migrants towards the southern Italian island of Lampedusa underscores why European Union governments need to do more to rescue and assist destitute people who arrive on its shores, Amnesty International said.
Since the boat sank early on Friday morning, Italian and NATO authorities have rescued more than 50 migrants from the Mediterranean Sea, but at least one person reportedly died and dozens remain missing.
Last year some 1,500 people lost their lives attempting to reach Europe, many via Lampedusa a key gateway to Europe that lies 80 km north of Tunisia amid a mass movement of asylum-seekers and other migrants from North Africa and beyond.
"Once again, the waters around the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa have played host to a tragedy, highlighting that the number of people dying on Europe's doorstep is still increasing," said Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office.
"The EU is failing these migrants European countries must make concerted efforts to prevent deaths at sea by stepping up capacity and coordination for search and rescue operations.
"While the number of migrants arriving at Lampedusa has ebbed since a peak during unrest across North Africa last year, this latest shipwreck shows that authorities need to remain vigilant and ready to assist large groups of people potentially including many asylum-seekers and refugees in vessels that are often overcrowded and unseaworthy."
In a separate incident off the western coast of Turkey on Thursday, more than 50 migrants reportedly drowned about half of them children after the boat carrying them capsized. Another 45 of those on board said to be Iraqis, Syrians and Palestinians heading for the EU managed to swim to shore, officials said.
During 2011, numerous tragedies involving migrant boats headed to EU countries via Lampedusa led to international scrutiny of the response by Italian and other authorities.
In March 2012, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) published the findings of an investigation into an incident a year earlier where a boat in distress was left drifting in the Mediterranean Sea for two weeks. There were only nine survivors out of 72 migrants on board who included two babies and people from Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
The PACE investigation decried a "catalogue of failures" by Libyan, Maltese, Italian and NATO authorities that contributed to the deaths.
In some other cases, those in need of rescue found themselves victims of "push-back" operations that violated their human rights. Many were sent to meet an uncertain fate in countries like Libya under former ruler Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi which had a history of detaining and torturing migrants.
In April this year, Italy's government signed another agreement with the new Libyan leadership to continue cooperation on preventing the arrival of migrants departing from the North African country it is still not safe in Libya for migrants, particularly those from sub-Saharan countries.
Activists from 20 countries gathered on Lampedusa in July 2012 to highlight the suffering of the many thousands of migrants who arrive there in overcrowded boats.
They joined with some of the island's 6,000 residents to call on EU authorities to reverse European migration policy and do more to receive and assist migrants rather than channelling resources into blocking their entry and sending them back to face uncertain fates and possible human rights violations.
"We're still calling on authorities across the EU to respect and protect the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers both within Europe and along its borders," said Beger.
Launched earlier this year, Amnesty International's "When you don't exist" campaign aims to improve the protection of human rights for migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers across Europe. | <urn:uuid:d3fe0472-8380-4d10-8821-e8a5100945e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=country&category=&publisher=&type=&coi=ITA&rid=4562d8b62&docid=50bdc8f82&skip=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953413 | 898 | 2.265625 | 2 |
- Historic Sites
The First Hurrah
Presidential candidates stayed above the battle until William Jennings Bryan stumped the nation in 1896; they’ve been in the thick of it ever since
April/may 1980 | Volume 31, Issue 3
The most important organizational components of the campaign were the Bryan and Free Silver clubs, which had sprung up in communities across the land to work for his election. Many of them had little or no connection with the local Democratic party, which often was in the hands of the alientated sound-money Democrats. “We have to depend largely upon clubs to carry this election,” Bryan declared in a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, “to offset the club that employers hold over their employees. ” Local clubs existed in rich variety, particularly in the ethnic neighborhoods of the great cities, where they proved invaluable for distributing campaign buttons, placards, and pamphlets, and for corralling immigrant voters. In Chicago, for example, Silver clubs, Bryan clubs, the Democratic and Silver clubs of Cook County, the Cook County Democratic Marching Club, and the Negro Free Silver club all turned out when Bryan came through.
The dominant motif of the Republican campaign was that Bryan was an outsider, a threat to the Establishment. Businessmen feared that his victory would bring economic collapse. Businesses advised their employees that their work would cease if Bryan won. In Worcester, Massachusetts, Bryan spoke beside a huge underwear manufacturing plant -on whose wall was spread a giant portrait of McKinley with the American flag as background; alongside it was the red standard of anarchy bearing Bryan’s picture.
Sometimes factory workers would listen in silence to Bryan, suppressing any desire to applaud for fear of spotters stationed by their employers in the crowd. Depositors were informed that if Bryan won, their banks would fail, insurance companies advised policyholders that they would be unable to fulfill their obligations, and investment houses predicted a shattering collapse in the value of securities. “It was a reign of terror in industrial communities,” recalled Josephus Daniels, editor of the Raleigh, North Carolina, News Observer , who toiled and counseled in Bryan’s campaign, “the like of which never was seen before in this country.”
Pushing unflaggingly through the West, South, and East, Bryan toiled to reassure the doubters and spread the gospel of free silver. Though that issue appealed enormously to rural audiences, it did not stir labor leaders and union memberships, or the immigrant colonies, or the general body of urban voters. Handicapped by technical obscurities, the silver issue lacked bread-and-butter appeal outside rural America. In fact, labor and city people were apprehensive that a silver policy would prove inflationary and reduce the buying power of existing wage scales. In the later stages of his campaign, particularly in Eastern cities, Bryan downplayed silver and stressed two issues of wide appeal to city workers- government by injunction and the progressive income tax.
Weakened by a cold, Bryan finished out the campaign with a 344-mile journey through Nebraska, chiefly to aid the congressional tickets. He reluctantly ended his marathon speaking early on election morning at Creighton Hall in Omaha. The campaign over, fatigue suddenly overwhelmed him, and at 6:30 P.M. he went to bed. A telegraph apparatus had been installed in his home, and the operators handed incoming election bulletins to Mary, who brought the major ones to her husband. From her expression he immediately knew the worst. By 11:00 P.M. he acknowledged defeat.
Though his electoral-college defeat was overwhelming, 271 to 176, the popular vote was respectably close, McKinley receiving 7,107,822 to Bryan’s 6,511,073, or 50.88 per cent for McKinley and 46.77 for Bryan. Why did he lose? Bryan believed that he had been victimized by gross electoral irregularities. Others believed that a sensational and manipulated rise in wheat prices in the campaign’s closing weeks cost Bryan the major wheat-growing states. In the longer view of history, the 1896 election was a watershed one, regrouping the supporters of both major parties for the future. Bryan had hoped to align farmers, city workers, and small businessmen within Democratic ranks. He failed, and the Republicans drew new support from all kinds of economic and social classes, so that for the first time the aggregate Republican vote in urban areas nearly matched that in rural sectors. This realignment would endure until 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt effected another grand reshuffling of voters’ allegiances.
In 1900 Bryan again ran against McKinley and again he lost, this time by a greater margin. Bryan’s campaign was similar to his 1896 race in method, organization, and the obstacles encountered—the bogeyman image and McKinley’s lopsided financial advantage. Early on, Bryan had heeded counsel to wage a stay-at-home campaign, but before many days, seeing that his race was going nowhere, he set out on the campaign trail with his old gargantuan vigor, attracting huge audiences, capturing their enthusiasm, but not their votes. Eight years later he tried again, this time against Theodore Roosevelt’s anointed successor, William Howard Taft. Again, Bryan announced his commitment to a stay-at-home plan, again succumbed to the fever of hard campaigning, and again he lost. | <urn:uuid:3db1e5fe-2006-4728-b24f-c14e04aa4492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/first-hurrah?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973169 | 1,117 | 2.78125 | 3 |
|Fort Calendar||Fort Blogs||
Fort Trumbull (1777-1910) - First built as a First System coastal fort established in 1777 at New London, New London County, Connecticut. Named after then Govenor Jonathan Trumbull. Turned over to the Treasury Department in 1910.
The First System fort was built between 1775 and 1777 as an earth and stone fortification completely exposed from the land side. Benedict Arnold and a British fleet easily captured Fort Trumbull in September 1781 during the Revolutionary War.
In 1812 the old First System fort was leveled and replaced with a much stronger Second System fortification with land side protection. This new fort was able to keep the British Fleet offshore for the remainder of the War of 1812. This fort deteriorate after the war and was torn down in 1839 to make way for a new Third System fort. The new Third System fortification was built between 1839 and 1852 as a five-sided, four-bastion coastal defense fort. The fort was built under the supervision of Army engineer George W. Cullum who later served as superintendent of the United States Military Academy.
Fort Trumbull was designated as a subpost of Fort H.G. Wright on 31 Mar 1906 and later served as the headquarters of the Long Island Sound Endicott Period coastal defenses until it was turned over to the Treasury Department on 15 Oct 1910. The Treasury Department used the post first as an academy for their Revenue Cutter Service and then as the Coast Guard Academy (1915-1932).
Fort Trumbull became the Merchant Marine Officers Training School (1939–1946).
After the war Fort Trumbull became the site of the Naval Underwater Sound Laboratory (1950 to 1990). The post has been operated as a state park since 2000.
Part of Fort Trumbull State Park, New London, New London County, Connecticut.
Location: Fort Trumbull State Park, New London, New London County, Connecticut.
Maps & Images Lat: 41.3437094 Long: -72.0931317
- Roberts, Robert B., Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States, Macmillan, New York, 1988, 10th printing, ISBN 0-02-926880-X, page 124-125
- Fort Trumbull State Park
- U.S. Senate - Fort Turnbull
- North American Forts - Fort Turnbull
- Wikipedia - Fort Trumbull
Fort Trumbull Picture Gallery
Click on the picture to see a larger version. Contribute additional pictures - the more the better! | <urn:uuid:cc9f8d26-440e-4a83-965b-b446a83f0703> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fortwiki.com/Fort_Trumbull | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927429 | 549 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Are Dividends From a Company Stock Reinvested Taxable?
Original post by W D Adkins of Demand Media
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) defines dividends as distributions of property. For stocks, dividends are most often in the form of a cash payment. Many companies offer stockholders the option of reinvesting dividends to purchase additional shares of stock instead of receiving a cash payment. As far as the IRS is concerned, however, a dividend is a dividend and is taxable income.
For many companies, dividends are the preferred method of sharing profits with stockholders. When you sign up for a dividend reinvestment plan, you agree to accept dividends in the form of additional shares. The number of shares you receive depends on the fair market value of the stock on the date the dividend is distributed. For example, if the stock is trading at $50 per share and you would have received $1,000 as a cash dividend, that amount is reinvested to pay for 20 additional shares.
Dividend income is considered earned income, not capital gains. This is the case whether you are paid the dividend in cash or choose to reinvest the money. For reinvested dividends, you have to report the fair market value of the shares you receive on the day they are issued to you. Reinvested dividends are taxed as ordinary income at your marginal tax rate (the highest tax rate any of your income is subject to).
Unlike cash dividends, reinvested dividends change the cost basis of the stock you own in a company. Cost basis, or tax basis, is your total investment amount. For example, if you paid $10,000 for 200 shares plus a $100 in broker’s commissions and other fees, your cost basis is $10,100. If you reinvest dividends worth $1,000 for an additional 20 shares, you end up with a cost basis of $11,100 and a total of 220 shares.
Using a dividend reinvestment program to add to the shares you hold in a company has a couple of advantages. You purchase additional shares on a regular basis. In addition, many companies issue the additional shares with no additional fees. This eliminates broker's commissions and other transaction costs. Keep track of the shares you are issued, their value and the dates for tax purposes.
- IRS.gov: How Are Reinvested Dividends Reported on My Tax Return?
- Charles Schwab; Calculate the Cost Before You Sell; Rende Spiegelman, C.P.A., C.F.F.
About the Author
W D Adkins has been writing professionally for two years. His writing interests include education, business and finance. Adkins is a doctoral student with Masters Degrees in history and sociology from Georgia State University. He is also a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. | <urn:uuid:925f8dd2-b54c-4064-b8cb-7d332d486acf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiki.fool.com/Are_Dividends_From_a_Company_Stock_Reinvested_Taxable%3F?source=edddlftxt0860001 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947729 | 576 | 1.984375 | 2 |
It is a Jewish custom to partake of cheese during the festival of Chanukah.1 This is to commemorate the Jewish heroine, Yehudis, who during the Syrian-Greek occupation of Eretz Yisroel plied a highly ranked enemy officer with rich cheese and wine and during the tyrant’s drunken stupor, she decapitated this hapless official. After losing their leader, the enemy troops fled in panic.2
Cheese is a very historical food, found on Egyptian tomb murals and depicted in ancient cave etchings. Despite its ancient heritage, it is interesting to note that cheese is only mentioned three times in all of Tanach – twice regarding Dovid HaMelech3, and only once using its common name, gevinah, in Iyov (Job)4.
Cheese, however, is the subject of much rabbinic discussion. Following a rabbinic edict, Chazal forbade the consumption of cheese produced by a Gentile.5 There are several concerns that prompted the rabbis to forbid this, including the suspicion that the cheese might be smeared with non-kosher fats or that non-kosher milk was used in making the cheese. However, the accepted reason is because non-kosher rennet (more on this later) was utilized by Gentiles to produce cheese.
This ban was even extended as an across the board prohibition to Gentile-produced cheese utilizing herbs and flowers.6 Rabbinic bans such as this can only be overturned if a later body of rabbis best the earlier group in scholarship and number. Unfortunately, as Torah knowledge weakens with every generation, overturning this prohibition is next to impossible even as circumstances change and it is no longer common to utilize non-kosher additives to produce cheese.7 Even if one relies on the leniency of consuming non-Cholov Yisroel milk, there are no loopholes for Gentile cheese.8
The rabbinic ban on Gentile cheese is not as far reaching as it originally appears. One first must decide on the definition of cheese prohibited by the ban.
The History of Cheese
Popular lore has it that cheese was discovered early in human history by a traveler who fashioned a saddlebag from the lining of a calf stomach which he filled with milk for his journey. Arriving at his destination, he discovered that the bag was instead filled with a lumpy, white foodstuff. He had no idea that the enzymes in the lining, plus the agitation during travel, caused the milk to convert to cheese. This is because milk is actually a delicately balanced emulsion, which is a water solution with tiny globules of protein, fat, minerals and lactose, suspended within by different chemical bonds. The enzymes in a calf’s stomach help it digest its mother’s milk by breaking down the milk into different components.
When calf rennet is introduced to milk it becomes prone to spoilage, as different airborne bacteria will quickly begin to produce acidic byproducts. One way to avoid spoilage is to introduce desired bacteria before the rennet is added to begin the milk breakdown, or by curdling (adding salt to the curds or soaking the cheese blocks in brine), which will then crowd out any harmful bacteria that can take hold. Sometimes an acid such as vinegar is used to curdle milk as well. The rennet mostly serves as a coagulator, which causes the curd (the proteins in the cheese) to clump together trapping desired fats in those particles. The resulting liquid, or whey, byproduct is a common dairy bakery ingredient.
As an aside, while Gentile cheese is not kosher, the whey resulting from the curdling can in fact be kosher, provided that the cheese is produced at an acceptably low temperature as not to affect the kosher status of the whey. The cheese industry has even switched to starter cultures that prefer lower temperature so that the whey can be used in kosher products.
Some cheeses, such as ricotta, cream cheese9, and farmer cheese only contain vinegar or starter cultures and as such were never included in the rabbinic ban since the concern was a rennet based coagulation which these cheeses do not possess. Cottage cheese, which does contain rennet, is also not covered by the ban according to accepted sources, since the function of the rennet is only to speed up the curdling and not because of the coagulation attributes.10 Today, cheeses originally produced with calf rennet are now largely produced with microbial enzymes, which serve the same purpose, but of course they are still subject to the rabbinic ban on Gentile cheese.
An apparent question that might occur to the reader is, “Why isn’t kosher calf rennet prohibited since it results in a mixture of milk and meat, which is a Biblical prohibition?” While some authorities go about tackling this issue by insisting the rennet to be completely dried out as to render it no longer meat11, many authorities frown on this solution12. In fact, before the introduction of microbial rennet, the only acceptable method of producing cheese, aside from herbs, was to use partly digested milk found in the stomach of a calf after being properly slaughtered.13 As the timing of the slaughter must have had to be soon after the calf had eaten and this substitute rennet was prone to spoilage. It is fortunate that today modern kosher cheese is produced with microbial rennet, which presents no kashrus issues.
or those who are not intimately familiar with the cheese production process, it is hard to appreciate how much effort is required to produce kosher cheese. As many kashrus authorities require that a Jewish person actually add the rennet to milk (as opposed to a Jew merely observing a Gentile add rennet to ensure Cholov Yisroel)14, a mashgiach must be at the cheese facility around the clock. Cheese factories operate almost 24 hours per day, because 10 pounds of milk (one gallon of milk weighs about 8.6 lb – the industry standard weight) is required to produce just one pound of cheese! A new batch of cheese is produced approximately every hour and the mashgiach is called upon to add the rennet with every new batch.15 Rabbonim take this position because the rabbinic ban is all encompassing. Even if you know that only kosher rennet is used, it might seem that a Jew watching the process is enough to satisfy the ban against Gentile cheese, but only action by a Jew (i.e. adding the rennet) will suffice. It stands to reason that he does not get more than one hour of sleep at any given time. In fact, since these facilities are often located in farm country, a drive of several hours from the nearest Jewish community, the mashgiach must live on the grounds of the plant, usually in a trailer, for weeklong shifts. Many cheese facilities even operate on Shabbos and Yom Tov, so for these times we rely on poskim who do not require the mashgiach to actually add the rennet himself.16
Try to imagine that the mashgiach must somehow find time for davening, preparing and eating meals, personal hygiene, laundry, etc. during these less than one-hour breaks. He also has to monitor the ingredients, labels, etc. If the plant also produces non-kosher cheese, the mashgiach needs to monitor the packing, slicing, salting, and sampling of every cheese product to ensure that no kosher cheese comes into contact with non-kosher cheese or non-kosher equipment. In addition, the mashgiach has to be courteous and professional to all of the employees at the facility, despite his requirement to be almost superhuman, juggling so many responsibilities.
Some cheese plants have a computerized system that adds the rennet to cheese batches. A mashgiach assigned to such a facility naturally has an easier workload, as he can program the computer system in the morning to add the rennet at proper intervals and in the proper amounts to avoid plant employees supplementing the rennet being added by the computer.
Producing Cholov Yisroel cheese provides an additional challenge. First, the equipment in the plant must be cleaned and kashered correctly to the desired temperature. Then, in addition to procuring Cholov Yisroel milk for the cheese production, the starting cultures themselves must have been grown on a Cholov Yisroel media. These cultures can be obtained by growing four subsequent generations of cultures that were originally produced on non-Cholov Yisroel media.17 As these cultures are acquired from culture libraries supplying specialized blends of microbes designed to impart specific traits in the cheese, producing Cholov Yisroel (and kosher for Passover) versions also require a mashgiach present during culture production. The silver lining to this is that Cholov Yisroel cheese production is more accommodating to the mashgiach in terms of Shabbos and Yom Tov.
A second aspect of cheese is the requirement to wait six hours after ingesting certain cheeses before eating meat, while most dairy products require a much shorter wait.18
Cheese that has been aged six months or become wormy (incidentally, as long as these worms never left the cheese, they may be consumed)19, according to many authorities, are treated the same as waiting from meat to dairy.20 Fortunately, most kosher cheeses are not aged that long.
Before the existence of microbes was discovered, producing cheese was an act of constant trial and error, largely depending on atmospheric conditions to cure the cheese, which required long periods of time. Today, with our advanced understanding of microbiology, we are able to collate the precise desired microbes and add them, thus cutting down on the time required to process cheese.
For instance, Muenster cheese is not aged at all, since aging adds sharpness to cheese and a mild cheese would be detrimentally affected. Even Swiss cheese, which requires some aging to form the “eyes” (holes in the cheese) is not aged longer than four months, since prolonged aging dries out cheese causing cheese blocks to crack. However, many sharp cheddars and Parmesan cheeses are aged six months or longer. Regarding Parmesan, there are those who drop the six-hour rule if the cheese has been cooked or baked, so Parmesan on a salad would require a six-hour wait, while Eggplant Parmesan would not.21
While we don’t know exactly which cheese Yehudis supplied to the Greek general, consuming any sort of cheese satisfies this Chanukah custom (though I don’t think sour cream on latkes passes muster). This Chanukah, may we merit revealed miracles and celebrate salvation in our times.
1. Shulchan Oruch, Orach Chaim 670, Siman Beis, Rama.
2. Mishna Bruriah, sham, ois 10.
3. Shmuel I, 17:18 and Shmuel II, 17:29.
4. Iyov, 10:10.
5. Masechtas Avodah Zara 77, Daf 29b.
6. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah 115:2.
7. Beis Yosef on Tur, Yoreh Deah 115.
8. Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah, Siman 38..
9. Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah, Siman 50.
10. Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2, Siman 48.
11. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 87, Rama sif 12.
12. Shach ois 33.
13. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 87, Rama sif 10.
14. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 115:1.
15. Shach, ois 20.
16. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 115:1.
17. Shulchan Oruch HaRav, Orach Chaim, Siman 132:10.
18. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 89:2.
19. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 84, Rama.
20. Shulchan Oruch, Yoreh Deah, Siman 89, Taz, ois 4.
21. Yad Yehudah, Hilchos Basar V’Chalav, Siman 89:30. | <urn:uuid:b1330dc3-7acf-49d2-9634-66e9dee5e58e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kosherspirit.com/Article.asp?Issue=18&Article=231 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956123 | 2,664 | 3 | 3 |
Philosophy of AR >
Animal Testing - Index >
Financial Times (London, England)
September 23, 2005
A small dose of our own medicine
ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL TESTING: 'Human microdosing'
offers a way to produce more accurate data about
without experiments on animals
By ROBERT MATTHEWS
In the bitter debate over animal experiments, science often loses out to
stunts. Anti-vivisection campaigners seized the headlines last month after
the owners of a farm breeding guinea pigs for research abandoned the
business after the remains of one of their relatives were stolen from a
That same week, pro-vivisectionists went on the media offensive with a
petition backing animal research signed by more than 500 UK scientists and
doctors - including three Nobel prizewinners.
This month the US listing of Huntingdon Life Sciences, the animal testing
company, was postponed by the New York Stock Exchange. The company has been
the target of a long-standing, often violent, campaign against its
activities in the UK; and extremists had threatened US institutions involved
in the listing.
Such events create an impression of a straight fight between cool-headed
seekers-after-truth and activists convinced that guinea pigs have souls. In
reality, many campaigners concede that animal research has led to important
breakthroughs such as transplant surgery and therapies for premature babies.
At the same time, many scientists admit to being concerned about the lack of
systematic evidence for the reliability of insights based on animal testing.
And many, if not most, would prefer to use alternatives - if they were
The view that there is no alternative to using animals is becoming harder to
sustain. For while it attracts little media attention, research into
alternatives is soaring, with impressive results. In the very week that the
guinea pig farm and pro-vivisection petition were making headlines, hundreds
of scientists gathered in Berlin for the 5th World Congress on the use of
alternatives to animals in the life sciences.
The focus was on the so-called "3Rs": refinement, reduction and replacement
of animals in research. Researchers described progress towards these goals,
using techniques ranging from computer modelling of how compounds behave in
living organisms to "in vitro" studies of the response of cell cultures to
compounds. The predictive value of such techniques can be high. A review by
researchers in the Netherlands published in the current issue of the journal
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology reports hit rates of 70-90 per cent
for some forms of harmful Âreaction.
Although the reliability of animal testing has never been assessed
systematically, regulatory bodies remain chary about accepting alternatives.
One exception is a technique now attracting huge interest among researchers,
pharmaceutical companies and anti-vivisectionists: human microdosing.
Advocates for replacing animals insist that tests on animals can never be as
reliable as those on humans. Yet a key problem facing alternatives such as
cell cultures is that while they may use human tissue, they do not detect
"whole body" effects, which can be crucial.
Tests on animals have long been seen as the only way of gauging these
whole-body effects. But there is a middle way: exposing humans to the
compound, but at levels too low to cause health effects. This is the basic
idea behind human microdosing, now being investigated by a number of
companies. The current front-runner is Xceleron, a company spun out from the
University of York in 1997 to turn human microdosing into a commercial
The core technology is long-established. A proposed new drug is first
"labelled" using an isotope of carbon, and then injected into volunteers at
levels typically about 100 times lower than the proposed medical dosage.
How the body responds to the drug - for example, its conversion of the
original drug into other molecules, and how long they stay in the body - is
then studied by measuring the level of radioactivity in blood and waste
products. As only microdose levels of the drug are used, the radiation dose
is so low that sophisticated equipment is required to detect it.
The result is a technique that - in principle - produces a host of
whole-body data about a new drug safely, reliably and without using animals.
As with any proposed alternative to animal testing, however, human
microdosing has faced questions about its predictive value. For example, do
results obtained at very low doses reflect reality at much higher
To answer these, Xceleron has recently taken part in an independent trial to
test the ability of microdosing to predict the behaviour of five drugs, each
with idiosyncrasies that had tripped up animal tests. Despite the difficulty
of the test, the results from the microdosing studies showed a 70 per cent
correspondence with those from full-dose studies. The technique has received
a further boost from regulatory bodies, including the US Food and Drug
Administration, which have signalled their willingness to accept human
Several pharmaceutical companies have now begun their own studies of
microdosing. Speedel, a Basel-based company specialising in therapies for
cardiovascular disease, has used microdosing to identify promising candidate
compounds and plans to move into clinical trials later this year. Radiant
Research of Seattle, which conducts clinical trials for many big
pharmaceutical companies, has just completed its first study of the
technique, and expects clients to start requesting microdosing tests within
the next 12 months.
The big pharmaceutical companies will be watching the outcome of such
studies very closely. They are spending 10 times more in real terms on
research and development than in the early 1980s, yet the number of new
drugs winning approval has remained essentially static.
The failure of much-vaunted genetic medicine to convert into effective drugs
has prompted the FDA to warn drugs companies to focus less on blue-sky ideas
and more on hard practicalities. With its potential to speed up drug
development and cut the risk of nasty shocks during clinical trials,
microdosing may be just the tonic that big pharma needs.
Its impact on the use of animals in testing remains to be seen. Toxic
effects often reveal themselves only at relatively high dose levels, and
animal testing may still be needed to find these - at least for the time
being. Even so, the signs are that microdosing may bring about reductions in
the use of animals that no amount of sick stunts by activists could ever
The writer is visiting reader in science at Aston University, Birmingham | <urn:uuid:6f505d2a-4632-4dca-be39-535edd58dc57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Animal%20Testing/Industry_Science/testing_alts_2005.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935971 | 1,415 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Creating a Website that Works
By Kimberlie Clare-Campbell
Planning Your Website
One way to ensure your website achieves it's purpose is to have a plan for your website.
What do you want your website to do for you?
What is your websites focus?
Is your websites focus to:
- Promote your business online to prospective customers (like an online advert, brochure or flyer).
- Seek new customer enquiries.
- Seek customer feedback and interaction regarding your product or services.
- Keep current/new customers up-to-date with promotions/events.
- Create online sales or commissions.
Without a direction or goal your website could become another piece of flotsam and jetsam floating around in cyberspace with no-one finding it.
85% of websites are never seen by people searching the web for a similar product or service.
Your website is an investment in your business and it should support the marketing and sales goals you have set. With the right design and content your website can become your businesses best and most complete marketing tool. Your advertising or your press releases may be missed, but your website is always available. Recent studies show that 7 out of 10 people who are planning on making a purchase or organising travel itinerary search the internet for information before they make their decisions.
Once you know what you want to achieve with your website you can look at how your visitors will find your website and how they will interact with it.
What do you know about your customer?
- Who are your target customers?
- What geographical location do you want to target?
- What keywords will they think of to help them find a product or service that your business offers?
- What do they want to know about your business?
- What do you want them to know about your business?
- How will they contact you?
The design of your website needs to meet the needs of your potential customer. Remember you are not creating a website for the fun of it; you are creating a website to provide information, a product or service to your potential customer.
Your next step towards creating a website that works is creating a captivating first impression.
Copyright © Kimberlie Clare-Campbell 2010
If you are planning a website or if you are reviewing your existing website you may also like to read these articles:
- Does Your Business Need a Website?
- Assessing the effectiveness of your website.
- SEO (search engine optimisation) what is it and tips on using it in your website.
- Creating postive first impressions with your website..
- Why some websites work and how to ensure your website is one of them.
- How to use Social Media to promote your business
All too hard? At Catalyst for Growth we make it easy for you to have a website that achieves your goals because we build websites that work. Click here to read more about our website design service.
To read more of inspirational articles, return to the Articles Index | <urn:uuid:6695861a-37b5-42e0-a742-1614c8b30dd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catalystforgrowth.com.au/articles/websites-that-work.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936513 | 618 | 2.0625 | 2 |
WaterWallג„¢ is a revolutionary end-to-end water security management system, designed to give decision-makers and water security operators an unprecedented level of decision-making confidence in the event of a water crisis. From prevention and detection to intelligent response and recovery through automatic procedure scenarios, WaterWallג„¢ dramatically improves the speed, reliability and quality of responses vital to successful water security management.
An important part of the WaterWall is something called the BlueBox which is an Event Detection System (EDS). In WWS’s web site there is no information of how this EDS works. Fortunately, I attended a one day conference about SCADA systems held by Lead Control. It turns out that Lead is the developer of the BlueBox module. From bit and pieces of information I’m able to give you the basic algorithm running it all. Please note that this is my understanding of the algorithm and may not truly reflect it in detail.
For the explanation I will be using data sets from the CANARY distribution which is the EPA’s event detection software. The data set includes a time series of six parameters: Cl2, PH, Temperature, Turbidity, TOC and Conductivity.
Step 1 – Normalization
Since every measured parameter has its own units and range all of the readings have to normalized. There are more than one way to normalize data so I have selected to normalize each data set using its mean and standard deviation to obtain a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. This is done for the selected moving time window. As we steps through each new time step, the oldest data point is removed from the window, the most recent data point is added to the window and the data in the new window is normalized again to create a new mean and standard deviation.
Step 2 – Calculate points distance
At each point in time we have a set of the six parameters. Each of these sets represents a point in a six dimensional space (like x, y and z in three dimensions). The Euclidean distance between each point to all of the others may be calculated.
Step 3 – Plot the frequency curve of the distances
Once we have the distances calculated we can easily plot its frequency curve as shown in the following figure:
Step 4 – wait for the next reading
Now we are ready for the next data set to come from the SCADA system. Once a new set of the six parameters arrives we move the history window one time step ahead and calculate the distance of the new point to the points in the history window. And again we plot the distances frequencies on top of the previous curve:
Since the point is “normal”, its frequency distribution is “normal”, meaning its similar to the history distribution. But when an event is detected the new distribution may look like so:
It is clear that the new point’s distance frequency is “far” from the normal distribution. Hence, an event.
The algorithm described here is very simple and that is its beauty. I have written its implementation in about an hour but in order to make it an online module a lot of work is needed. Once developed it may be able to do a number of things:
- identify abnormal behavior.
- identify normal but unusual behavior.
- identify a parameter that is causing the abnormal behavior.
- the system may function with one or more parameters missing. | <urn:uuid:aa40e8fd-4748-4b62-a5c5-1200ec356165> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.water-simulation.com/wsp/2009/08/08/bluebox-event-detection-system-under-the-hood/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917057 | 707 | 2.3125 | 2 |