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A number of recent tragedies illustrate just how quickly our lives can be turned upside down. First and foremost, we at Safeguard share our thoughts and prayers with all of the men, women, children and families that have been affected by recent events.
This timely message addresses an issue that most of us probably haven’t really thought about. As residents of the Desert Southwest being prepared to handle a catastrophe isn’t high on our priority list. While we are less likely to experience some of these recent disasters, planning for an unforeseen emergency is still an important consideration.
We thought it was important to share information on how to prepare for an unforeseen disaster. This includes having an emergency kit, putting together an emergency plan and communicating this information to family members. These are important tips that we hope you find helpful. You need to be ready should an emergency presents itself.
Should a disaster strike, you probably won’t have the time needed to put together a survival/emergency kit. It is recommended that you put together several emergency kits including; an Emergency Car Kit, a 72-Hour Emergency Kit and a Medical Kit and store them in easily accessible areas. A good 72-Hour Emergency Kit should include:
- First aid kit (click here to see American Red Cross suggestions)
- LED flashlight and extra batteries
- 3-day supply of water for each family member
- 3-day supply of food and snacks (nonperishable food items are suggested)
- Prescription medications (keep an eye on expiration dates)
- Maps of surrounding areas
- Waterproof bags, boxes or containers
- Wet towelettes and personal sanitary items
- Whistle to signal for help
- Matches or lighter in a waterproof container
- Cell phone with extra battery and charger
- Tools (wrench, pliers, hammer, can opener, etc.)
- Change of clothing (climate appropriate)
- Blankets and sleeping bag
- Cash in small bills and coins ($200 or more)
These are essentials when preparing an emergency kit. Depending on the types of emergencies you could encounter, you will want to pack additional supplies that match those needs.
You should also develop an emergency plan. This plan should take into consideration your location, situation and emergencies you could encounter. Share this plan with family members to ensure that everyone knows exactly what to do in an emergency. Your emergency plan should include a meeting location and plan for when everyone isn’t together, important phone numbers and an out-of-state contact. Equally important, inquire about emergency plans for both your child’s school and your work.
It’s important to have both an emergency kit and plan in case you are forced to evacuate your area quickly. Having an easily accessible and pre-made emergency kit and meet up location for family members can help in this process. Always try to have plenty of gas in your vehicle and know your local routes (as some may be blocked due to heavy raining, flooding and/or heavy traffic.
The first step is realizing that almost anything can happen at any time. Planning for the unexpected improves the chances that you and your family remain safe. While many of us don’t like to think about bad things happening, being prepared for when they do is smart. Follow these steps to make sure you are ready should the unexpected occur. Share these with friends and family members so that they are too.
Our number one mission at Safeguard is to help keep our customers safe. We encourage you to become independent and better prepared to stay safe during an emergency. | <urn:uuid:951ee1c3-5aab-4285-94d4-128e5375375c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://safeguardsecurityblog.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954847 | 736 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Awol Erizku, 24, is making a name for himself in the world of photography. Known for blending the Renaissance portrait style with modern subjects, Erizku has been featured in many articles and has recently had an exhibition at the Hasted Kraeutler gallery. Mr. Erizku has another exhibition on display at the Rivington Design House Gallery entitled “Thank You, Come Again!,” from July 19 to September 6, 2012.
by Ashton Cooper
July 19, 2012
“You can call Awol Erizku’s art history-inflected photographs whatever you want — just don’t call them ‘urban.’ ‘I hate when people label my work urban,’ he says. ‘Just because it’s African American subjects or people of color it’s not urban.’”
“His recent Renaissance-inspired portraits at Hasted Kraeutler replace the stiff aristocrats of centuries past with young New Yorkers wearing Louis Vuitton, Versace, and sometimes nothing at all. The pieces are poised and precisely lit while the subjects stand alone against a black background, boldly staring directly into the camera. Works like ‘Girl with a Bamboo Earring,’ ‘Boy Holding Grapes,’ and ‘Lady with a Pitbull’ take direct inspiration from Vermeer, Caravaggio, and Da Vinci.”
“Erizku was born in Ethiopia, but grew up in the Bronx. He started taking photographs seriously in college after an internship with David LaChappelle. In both his gallery work and on his very active Tumblr, Erikzu is working to insert a young black voice onto the white walls of the art world. ‘There are not that many colored people in the galleries that I went to or the museums that I went to,’ he said. ‘I was just like, ‘when I become an artist I have to put my two cents in this world.’’”
“Erizku updates his Tumblr, called ‘Thank You! Come Again,’ nearly every day. The Tumblr photos are more relaxed than his gallery work, foregoing perfect lighting and precise posture for silly, playful poses against a plain white wall. Everyone who visits his studio is photographed (including this reporter). The Tumblr photographs document Erizku’s extensive network of fashionable friends, people he calls ‘movers and shakers in the city.’ Street Etiquette style bloggers Joshua Kissi and Travis Gumbs, members of hip hop collective A$AP Mob, A$AP Rocky and A$AP Bari, and recently Mos Def have all made appearances.”
For the full Blouin Artinfo article, please visit: http://bit.ly/P3jaQ3
For more information on Awol Erizku, see his blog at: http://awolerizku.tumblr.com/. | <urn:uuid:41db1eeb-d317-41e0-b6ca-987881f413d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ddfr.tv/ethiopian-american-photographer-awol-erizku/5696 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943835 | 622 | 1.984375 | 2 |
This Apple patent application will make iPhonographers happyTaylor Martin - Member
Over the last few years smartphone camera technology has come a very long way. It is now to the point that some seriously impressive images can be taken with a pocketable smartphone. Each generation of smartphones is being fitted with better image sensing technology, and it's convincing a lot of people – serious photographers and tourists alike – to leave their dedicated cameras at home for the much more portable smartphone.
Quality is still far short of that of a DSLR or mirrorless camera; smartphone image sensors are still pinholes in comparison to those of dedicated cameras. And there's certainly room for improvement. But that doesn't stop average Joes, Janes and professional photographers from capturing some impressive shots with them.
I'm no professional photographer, by any means. Amateur would even be a stretch of a title. I do, however, like to dabble in photography for fun, from time to time. And, to date, some of the best shots I have captured have been taken with smartphones – either the HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy Note or iPhone 4S. (I took this one with my iPhone 4S the day it released.)
And things are only getting better. At Mobile World Congress, Nokia debuted and demoed their PureView technology on the PureView 808, a rather chunky, Symbian-powered phone equipped with a 41-megapixel shooter. It isn't exactly intended to take 41-megapixel photos, but it has a much larger sensor than your average smartphone camera and, essentially, can take some jaw-dropping stills.
But the iPhone 4S never ceases to prove that it isn't all about the sensor. Glass plays a major part, too, as does software. With a f/2.4 aperture and a backside illuminated, 8-megapixel sensor, it constantly impresses me by capturing some very impressive images.
Something else that continues to put DSLRs and mirrorless cameras in a league of their own, however, are interchangeable lenses. If you need a wider viewing angle, a wide angle lens can help bend the view to fit more in the picture. If you need to get up close and personal with your subject, pop a macro lens on and you can snap a crystal clear shot no more than a few centimeters away.
Of course, there are third-party companies who have created some interchangeable lenses for smartphones. I bought some for myself a few months ago, just to play around with. And I actually find myself still carrying them around and using them to this day. I have since ditched the individual lenses for an all-in-one olloclip (which I absolutely love). But carrying around a couple lenses in your tight jean pockets isn't exactly fun or efficient.
If Apple chooses to use technology included in a recent patent application, though, interchangeable lenses could be integrated right in (or on, actually) the phone itself.
Currently, the iPhone 4 and 4S back plates are relatively easily removable. With the right tools, the battery door can be removed in a matter of minutes. But Apple's patent application details how Apple could integrate at least two different lenses on a single back plate by making it easily removable. Simply pop the back panel off and rotate 180 degrees to use a separate lens.
To me, this seems like a novel idea. Though the lenses appear to lack adequate glass for significant or dramatic effects, such as fish eye, this would be a more efficient way of swapping out lenses and carrying them everywhere you go. Different lenses would be one or two to a back plate and would be much more fitting for pant pockets.
That said, Apple may be simply applying for a patent so no one else will use this idea. As Jon Fingas of Engadget notes, Apple isn't big on replaceable parts.
Either way, this sort of technology would have iPhonographers – yes, that's what they call themselves – drool a little bit. And I'm at least happy in knowing that, if Apple is to use this tech, they're staying away from the unibody design we've been seeing and hearing rumors of. One way or another, I hope this patent actually comes to fruition. What say you, readers? Do you hope this is only the beginning of interchangeable lenses? Or would you prefer something like this never happen? | <urn:uuid:c4554184-3d4d-4286-9588-74ed271c29cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phonedog.com/2012/06/14/this-apple-patent-application-will-make-iphonographers-happy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959826 | 897 | 1.804688 | 2 |
CHITTEM BARK PEELER—How is the instrument used in peeling chittem bark made?
To peel chittem bark, take an old buggy spring or some other iron and make a spud. The notch should be about one half inch long. This is to split the bark with, lengthwise of the tree. On the notch end, bevel it off like a chisel; this will run around the tree and part the bark from the tree. To dry, put the bark in the sun and let it stay there till it is dry. Do not let it get wet or it will turn black. To break it up, take about eleven boards, three inches wide and about three feet long, take a one fourth inch bit and bore a hole in each end of all; now lay them on the floor and take a bolt and put through one end of each. Next, saw about six pieces three inches long, one inch thick, and bore holes in each. Now take five of the long pieces over the bolt so you will have five on one side and six on the other; take every other one. You should take the smaller pieces and put between the long ones and run a bolt through, and make a handle any way you like. This is a home-made crusher and will break bark as good as a ten dollar one. Put the bark between the two sides and push down. Have a box that will hold about five bushels to attach the crusher to. The handle should be on the side with five hoards, Chittem is worth about five or six cents.
Harding, A.R.. 3001 Questions and Answers. Columbus, Oh: A.R. Harding, 1913.
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Order Online 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week, 365 Days a Year | <urn:uuid:79e6501a-a7e1-497c-9fd5-d795c4fd6290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huntingblades.com/chbape.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938832 | 416 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Proximity card reader unit with RS232 interface to connect to a host directly. There are two LEDs can be controlled by host. They can also be used to drive some other circuitry. A 9 to 12V DC supply is required to power the kit, which has a current consumption of less than 200mA. A 9VDC/300mA (2.1mm center positive) plug pack will do fine. Two RFID cards included in the kit.
Extra RFID Cards are available as SC03-20.
Or extra Key FOBS are available as 2RFIDTAGS
There is a 6-position dip switch for configure the operation of the unit.
In order to test the unit in interactive mode, you need a PC with a COM port running a dump terminal program, e.g. hyper terminal, tera term, etc. Then you need to setup the terminal according to the setting of the proximity card reader unit, i.e. communication speed and framing structure. For simplicity, we suggest to use one of the ASCII format, i.e. format 0, 1 or 2. After connecting the antenna, straight through RS232 cable and power supply to the unit, a character string ("RST" + LF + CR) will be sent to the host in order to notify the unit is just powered up and ready to operate. Whenever a proximity card is placed over the antenna, the card code will be sent to the host using the programmed speed and format. If the BEEP option is on, a beep sound can be heard. If the MODE option is on, the card code will be sent once to the host only until the card is moved away and returned again. While the MODE option is off, the card code will sent to the host continuously until the card is moved away. An input contacts is provided, if it is shorted, a character string ("PO" + LF + CR) will be sent to the host. While it is released, a character string ("PF" + LF + CR) will be sent to the host. In order to control the state of the RED led,Yellow led and the buzzer, the following commands can be used. To turn on the yellow led, sent two characters, ~R (0x7e, 0x52) to the unit. To turn off the yellow led, sent two characters, ~r (0x7e, 0x72) to the unit. To turn on the Red led, sent two characters, ~L (0x7e, 0x4C) to the unit. To turn off the red led, sent two characters, ~l (0x7e, 0x6c) to the unit. To turn on the buzzer, sent two characters, ~B (0x7e, 0x42) to the unit. To turn off the buzzer, sent two characters, ~b (0x7e, 0x62) to the unit. To just make a beep sound, sent two characters, ~0 (0x7e, 0x30) to the unit. To read back the states of the leds, buzzer and the input contacts, we can issue the query command by sending two characters, ~? (0x7e, 0x3f) to the unit. It will respond [S][s1][s2][s3][s4]+LF+CR, where S (0x53) represents status response; s1 is the state of the input contacts, H for shorted and L for opened; s2 is the state of the red led, H for lite and L for dim; s3 is the state of the yellow led, H for lite and L for dim; s4 is the state of the buzzer, H for sounding and L for silent.
The unit make use of an highly integrated module MS232 which is the heart of the unit providing all the functionalities. By adding small amounts of surrounding components, the complete proximity card reader unit is built. U1 is the regulator for the unit. U3 is used as the level shifter in order to interface to the RS232 link. By writing simple application software on the PC side, the unit can be used for attendance application, restricted access controlling, etc. | <urn:uuid:92d0622d-0336-4a09-b4eb-cd53e1ea6713> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=7&CFID=15185392&CFTOKEN=66947291 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90225 | 891 | 2.5625 | 3 |
[With our big MindJet Mind Manager 6 announcement today for attendees of BlawgThink, I thought I'd post my August 1999 article on mind maps. I've updated a few references and eliminated some links that no longer work, but this will give you my general approach to mind mapping and why I've used them for many years.]
AN INTRODUCTION TO MIND MAPPING
I wasn’t planning on it, but I started a spirited discussion thread on the TechnoLawyer list a month or so ago about mind mapping and mind mapping software. Portions of the thread can be read in the August/September 1999 issue of Law Office Computing.
Mind mapping, or radiant thinking as it is sometimes called, is a fairly new technique that allows you to both brainstorm and structure your thoughts using graphics, colors and words in a free-ranging map. It’s easier to see than to describe, so take a look at some examples at http://www.mindjet.com/us/download/map_library/index.php or http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/mind-maps-examples.htm.
My recommended starting point is Tony and Barry Buzan’s The Mind Map Book. Tony Buzan (http://www.buzan.co.uk) is the acknowledged authority on mind maps. Michael Gelb’s How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci is another interesting starting point as Gelb analogizes mind mapping to DaVinci’s notebooks which were replete with drawings and notes.
Mind maps are generally seen as an alternative to outlining. My third grade (or whenever) teacher who first taught us outlines put the whammy on me for outlines. I really don’t like using formal outlines and the association of outlining with law school exams is not a pleasant one. But, I did find myself pleasantly surprised by the Palm outliner, BrainForest, which prompted my role in the discussion thread.
The main criticism of outlines is that they force you to impose a rigid structure on your thoughts as you put them down on paper. They also get unwieldy as they become more complicated (hmm, here’s a point W.3.c.ii. ? I wonder what in the world point W.2 was). In general, outlines do not allow your ideas to flow.
Mind mapping lets you brainstorm and generate and connect ideas. More important, you can see new connections between ideas and make new connections. You can also take your mind map and turn it into a traditional outline later.
I’ve used mind maps regularly for several years. I like the process and the results. In fact, I have a whole notebook full of mind maps of articles, plans and ideas.
As a general matter, you take a piece of paper, turn it lengthwise, write your main idea in the center and make a related drawing. You then start to radiate ideas around the central image. For example, with an article like this one, I would start with the word “Mind Maps” and an image in the middle of the page and then surround it with other points I wanted to raise: “comparison to outlines,” “resources,” “Harhai article,” “PowerPoint lessons” and other points. I might draw little pictures with each point.
Then I’d move to each individual point and repeat the process. For example, for “comparison to outlines” I’d surround it with “third grade experience,” “law school exams,” “RIGID,” “unwieldy” and maybe a picture of a person with the flow of ideas out his head blocked by a dam called outline. You try to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper, without self-criticism. That can come later.
At some point, you reach a sense of “done” and you can then look at the tentative mind map. You might add some new points, draw arrows between points, number points or leave gaps for something you might add later. You might use highlighters or different colors of ink. In fairly short order, you have most of your ideas on the piece of paper and the structure that those ideas have may become much more apparent to you.
Contrast this to preparing an outline, where I tend to fuss over numbering schemes and can’t get past the notion that you must have at least 2 sub-points. What I learned, though, from the discussion thread and from using BrainForest on the Palm is that if you are willing to break the “rules,” outliners can give you a lot of flexibility because you can move points around and even do some brainstorming.
Unfortunately, outliners still don’t let you view your ideas and see the structure that may be present in your ideas as readily as mind maps do.
The downside of mind mapping (other than the difficulty of explaining it to a senior attorney and the more “rational” and traditional of your colleagues) is that that the best mind maps are like miniature works of art and you feel obligated to include drawings. If your elementary school teacher left you with the feeling that you didn’t have a single artistic bone in your body (don’t get me started on what my elementary school music teacher did to me with music), this can be daunting.
Enter the world of mind mapping software like Inspiration and MindManager. What if instead of drawing on big sheets of paper, you had a computer program that allowed you to select images (or draw them) and arrows, shapes, et al.? What if you could move parts of your map around and resize them automatically? The mind mapping programs let you mind map on your computer.
These programs can work either for creating a mind map or for “cleaning up” a mind map you’ve made on paper. There’s a certain tactile element to creating a mind map on paper that might get lost for some people if they tried to start with a blank screen rather than a piece of paper. [Note: Tablet PCs rock in connection with mind mapping.] Since mind maps are about promoting the flow of ideas, you want to focus on what works best for you. Some people also like to draw their own images and not pick among pre-fab images.
I’ve found the opposite to be true. One of my favorite parts of creating a PowerPoint presentation is the part where I sort through the clipart library to find an image that fits the points I’m making on the slide. Many times, once I make the selection of the image, I realize another point or two I want to make, change the order of points or realize what example or anecdote I want to use in that portion of the talk. It’s a fascinating element of the creative process and has brought home to me both that the visual element is a key part of the thought process and that the more senses that you can use in the creative process the better.
Mind mapping is one of a number of “thinking tools” that are becoming available to lawyers as technology slowly begins to give us tools that help us work the way we work rather than forcing us to work in ways that programs work. CaseMap (http://www.casesoft.com), to me, is another important legal “thinking tool.” Others have experimented with the Brain (http://www.thebrain.com) and Trellix. For a great introduction to legal thinking tools, take a look at Steve Harhai’s excellent article in the November/December issue of Law Practice Management magazine, a version of which is on the web at http://www.coloradofamilylaw.com/Articles/Thinking%20Tools%20(9-98).htm.
If you are interested in mind mapping, the definite starting point is Buzan’s The Mind Map Book. I’d try making a few mind maps and seeing if they work for you before jumping into a program. I assume that the choice of this type of program will be highly idiosyncratic and that there’s no one “best” program out there, but I wouldn?t expect the main features of the programs to be too different. Mind mapping is a fascinating and useful “thinking tool.”
Want to attend BlawgThink? Let me know.
Note: This article is one of a series of my previously-published articles that I’m making available for free on my website and incorporating into my blog. Other of my articles may be found in the Articles category archive on my blog.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) – The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! – Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. November 11 & 12 – LexThink BlawgThink – the legal blogger unconference. | <urn:uuid:6426a542-6873-4f09-915c-3b48f84db2cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://denniskennedy.com/blog/2005/10/introduction-to-mind-mapping-article/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939926 | 1,904 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Park highway under construction near Sulphur Works
Road crews are working to repair the road near Sulphur Works hydrothermal area. Road will be open, with one-way controlled traffic at Sulphur Works, during the Memorial Day weekend (5/24-5/27).
Your Dollars At Work
National park lands are not free. Protecting our natural and cultural heritage and providing a safe, enjoyable, and educational place to visit requires substantial funding. Although your taxes help offset the costs of operating special places like Lassen Volcanic National Park, they do not cover all of the costs. The number of visitors continues to climb due to the popularity of our national treasures, and the expenses to maintain and staff the parks rise each year. Government funding available for necessities such as road and building repairs, campground maintenance, visitor and resource protection and other services has not kept pace with demand. In an attempt to address this shortfall, Congress passed the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act, which helps spread some of the operating costs among the people who use the parks.
How does it work?
How are my fees used?
America’s Public Lands
Thank you for supporting your National Park.
Did You Know?
All four types of volcanoes found in the entire world are represented in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Volcanoes found in the park include shield (Prospect Peak), plug dome (Lassen Peak), Cinder Cone (Cinder Cone), and Composite (Brokeoff Volcano) volcanoes. More... | <urn:uuid:a8961f9b-84a0-4dc8-bbef-b6d35db7c3d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/lavo/parkmgmt/yourdollarsatwork.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927813 | 321 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Then Joseph went in and told Pharao, saying: My father and brethren, their sheep and their herds, and all that they possess, are come out of the land of Chanaan: and behold they stay in the land of Gessen.
Five men also the last of his brethren, he presented before the king:
And he asked them: What is your occupation? They answered: Re thy servants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers.
We are come to sojourn in thy land, because there is no grass for the flocks of thy servants, the famine being very grievous in the land of Chanaan: and we pray thee to give orders that we thy servants may be in the land of Gessen.
The king therefore said to Joseph: Thy father and thy brethren are come to thee.
The land of Egypt is before thee: make them dwell in the best place, and give them the land of Gessen. And if thou knowest that there are industrious men among them, make them rulers over my cattle.
After this Joseph brought in his to the king, and presented him before him: and he blessed him.
And being asked by him: How many are the days of the years of thy life?
He answered: The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few, and evil, and they are not come up to the days of the pilgrimage of my fathers.
And blessing the king, he went out.
But Joseph gave a possession to his father and his brethren in Egypt, in the best place of the land, in Ramesses, as Pharao had commanded.
And he nourished them, and all his father's house, allowing food to every one.
For in the whole world there was want of bread, and a famine had op- pressed the land: more especially of Egypt and Chanaan.
Out of which he gathered up all the money for the corn which they bought, and brought it into the king's treasure.
And when the buyers wanted money, all Egypt came to Joseph, saying: Give us bread: why should we die in thy presence, having now net money.
And he answered them: Bring your cattle, and for them I will give you food, if you have no money.
And when they had brought them, he gave them food in exchange for their horses, and sheep, and oxen, end asses and he maintained them that year for the exchange of their cattle.
And they came the second year, and said to him: We will not hide from our lord, how that our money is spent, and our cattle also are gone: neither art thou ignorant that we have nothing now left but our bodies and our lands.
Why therefore shall we die before thy eyes? we will be thins, both we and our lands: buy us to be the king's servants, and give us seed, lest for want of tillers the land be turned into a wilderness.
So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt, every man selling his possessions, because of the greatness of the famine. And he brought it into Pharao's hands:
And all its people from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof,
Except the land of the priests, which had been given them by the king: to whom also a certain allowance of food was given out of the public stores, and therefore they were not forced to sell their possessions.
Then Joseph said to the people : Be- hold as you see, both you and your lands belong to Pharao: take seed and sow the fields,
That you may have corn. The fifth part you shall give to the king: the other four you shall have for seed, and for food for your families and children.
And they answered: Our life is in thy hand: only let my lord look favourably upon us, and we will gladly serve the king.
From that time unto this day, in the whole land of Egypt, the fifth part is paid to the king, and it is become as a law, except the land of the priests, which was free from this covenant.
So Israel dwelt in Egypt, that is, in the land of Gessen, and possessed it: and grew, and was multiplied exceedingly.
And he lived in it seventeen years: and all the days of his life came to a hundred and forty-seven years.
And when he saw that the day of his death drew nigh, he called his son Joseph, and said to him: If I have found favour in thy sight, put thy hand under my thigh; and thou shalt shew me this kindness and truth, not to bury me in Egypt:
But I will sleep with my fathers, end thou shalt take me away out of this land, and bury me in the burying place of my ancestors. And Joseph answered him: I will do what thou hast commanded.
And he said: Swear then to me. And as he was swearing, Israel adored God, turning to the bed's head. | <urn:uuid:c31913a1-8190-446f-a0a7-ff2324ad9630> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.speedbibleverse.com/douay_rheims/B01C047.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980246 | 1,052 | 2.078125 | 2 |
An article that just recently came to my attention made me start to think a little bit about how we teach how to do the FAST scan. In a prior post, I discuss the RUQ and LUQ details – to ensure to not miss any amount of free fluid that should be seen on the FAST scan, keeping in mind it’s limitations. Then, I read this article in the EMJ online First from April 2012 that discusses a case of an ‘unusually’ positive FAST scan, but when reading about the injury and the location, I am not surprised about the location of free fluid development. Hind-sight is 20/20, but it highlights a few key concepts that should always be addressed: look for free fluid in the REGION on the RUQ and LUQ, not only between the liver/spleen and kidneys AND serial FAST scans for any patient where the mechanism suggests a risk for intra-abdominal injury (particularly if you are not going to CT the patient) – I do this frequently in the patients who come in drunk as all get-out where I cannot rely on my physical exam or the pediatric population where radiation would be best avoided if possible.
The case from the article: Continue reading | <urn:uuid:e263b86b-45e3-4614-b240-6ce67fbd9fe0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sonospot.wordpress.com/category/sonocases/sonochiefcomplaint/trauma/ | 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 | 0.937651 | 255 | 1.648438 | 2 |
LINDEN – In the aftermath of last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn., Law Explorer Post 629 in Linden is creating a forum where students can talk with other students in an attempt to try to better understand and come to terms with why this seemingly senseless act took place.
The project, currently entitled “What can be done to Prevent School Shootings: A Discussion by Students” involves interviewing other youth, ages 11 – 20, and video-taping their responses to a series of questions. Participants must have a talent/photo release form be signed by a parent. The responses will then be edited for time and will be used to create a video montage which will highlight the sentiment of the larger youth population on the issue.
Law Explorer Post 629 will be interviewing youth from Union County (ages 11 – 20) at the Linden Free Public Library on the third Floor in the Columbia Bank Room on the following dates and times:
- Thursday, March 14, from 5:30 – 7 p.m.
- Saturday, March 16, from 2 – 4:30 p.m.
- Wednesday, March 20, from 5:30– 7 p.m.
- Wednesday, March 27, from – 5:30 – 7 p.m.
The Explorers will present the completed video in a public forum. (The youth in the video will not be identified. Only their
image will be used as they respond to the questions). After presentation of the video, there will be a discussion by the Explorers identifying the possible causes of the large-scale school violence, how school violence can be prevented and how students themselves can make a difference.
For more information, contact Lucia E. Perpina, Esq., at 1-908-718-5877 or email@example.com | <urn:uuid:0ec79007-f6d7-4260-a78f-785b2192baa1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://njtoday.net/2013/03/13/youth-project-seeks-answers-to-preventing-future-school-shootings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927638 | 389 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Predatory Lending is a major contributor to the economic turmoil we are currently experiencing.
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
Scott Veerkamp / Predatory Lending (Franklin Township School Board Member.)
Please review this information from U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley regarding deceptive lending practices:
"Steering payments were made to brokers who enticed unsuspecting homeowners into deceptive and expensive mortgages. These secret bonus payments, often called Yield Spread Premiums, turned home mortgages into a SCAM."
The Center for Responsible Lending says YSP "steals equity from struggling families."
1. Scott collected nearly $10,000 on two separate mortgages using YSP and junk fees. 2. This is an average of $5,000 per loan. 3. The median value of the properties was $135,000. 4. Clearly, this type of lending represents a major ripoff for consumers.
All content © Copyright 2013, The Colorado Springs Independent
Website powered by Foundation | <urn:uuid:c8751466-e74f-4bfb-b613-ce17a5c26057> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/Profile?oid=1688613 | 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 | 0.932407 | 208 | 1.601563 | 2 |
It only took three million slaughtered Vietnamese, almost 58,000 Americans, Agent Orange, napalm, the destruction of Viet Nam's infrastructure, billions of American tax dollars, about 30 years of American intervention, and almost 20 years of economic sanctions. Viet Nam is now democratized and safe for corporate plunder. Are the profits worth it? Their probable answer might equate to the response that Madeleine Albright gave when asked about the 500,000 children who perished during the U.S. sanctions of Iraq: "We think the price is worth it."1
Three major oil companies existed from 1910 to 1914: (1) Rockefeller's Standard Oil with its many veiled subsidiaries; (2) BP (British-Persian Petroleum Company); (3) and Royal Dutch Shell. John D. Rockefeller "resolved to take over control of both the British-Persian Petroleum Company and Royal Dutch Shell."2 Standard Oil and BP began merging as early as 1961.3 Amoco (Standard) merged with BP in 1998. Standard took over BP's leases at Prudhoe Bay giving Standard control over production (suppression) in Alaska.4 Standard Oil has the U.S. monopoly under the names Exxon/Mobil, Chevron and BP.5 It is significant that Exxon/Mobil is still appealing the punitive damages resulting from the March 24, 1989 oil spill. They have fought it all the way to the "business-friendly" Supreme Court. It is due to be heard again in the spring of 2008. Twenty percent of the plaintiffs have died since the suit began. Justice Samuel Alito will recuse himself as he owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in Exxon stock.6
Standard Oil currently operates in: Africa, Argentina, Austria,
Australia, Benelux (Netherlands), Bermuda, Brazil, British
Columbia, the Canal Zone, Czech Republic, Chile, China, Columbia,
Ecuador, Egypt, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala,
Hungary, Iberia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea,
Mauritius*, some areas in the Middle East, Norway,
Paraguay, Poland, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovakia, Switzerland,
Thailand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The following countries
kicked Standard Oil out and nationalized their oil: Cuba (1960),
Algeria (1962), Bolivia (1942), Libya (1970), and Peru (1968).
Standard was in Venezuela from 1921-1943 and then sold their
interests to an affiliate. Standard was in Iran from
Despite everything that the Bush oil family has done, Standard is
not in Iraq yet - apparently the "insurgents" are still fighting
it. Now we know how the enemies are targeted.
* I wrote about Mauritius in an article about Diego Garcia which was a part of Mauritius. In 1962, Standard Oil started marketing their oil at the same time that the U.S. government took an interest in Diego Garcia. The U.S. military deported all of the citizens. Diego Garcia is now home to a military/torture facility.
On February 24, 1907, the Dutch merged their very successful Koninklijke Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Petroleum-bronnen in NederlandschIndië (Royal Dutch Company for Exploration of Petroleum sources in the Netherlands Indies)8 with the Shell Transport and Trading Company, a British concern, to form Royal Dutch Shell. On June 24, 1911, the very competitive Royal Dutch Shell purchased the last independent oil producer - The Dordtsche Petroleum Mij giving Shell domination of the oil industry in Indonesia.9
The Duri and Minas oil fields, located in the central Sumatran basin, were discovered just prior to World War II by Caltex, a joint venture between the American companies Chevron and Texaco (Standard Oil). Production did not begin until the 1950s. By 1963 the Duri and Minas oil fields accounted for 50 percent of Indonesia's oil production. Things changed - Indonesia exercised greater control over its oil resources during the 1950s and 1960s by escalating the operations of government-owned oil companies. They also introduced a new contract - the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) which gave Indonesia more of the profits after the foreign oil companies recouped their exploration costs.10 However, oil company fascists frown upon such things. As a consequence, resource-rich Indonesia has been plagued by violence and political corruption.11
"Indonesia had proven oil reserves in 1990 equal to 5.14 billion barrels, with probable reserves of an additional 5.79 billion barrels." Throughout the area of the South China Sea archipelago, as of 1993 "there were sixty known basins with oil potential; only thirty-six basins had been explored and only fourteen were producing. The majority of unexplored areas were more than 200 meters beneath the surface of the sea."12
Imperialist France, encouraged by Royal Dutch Shell's early oil discoveries in Indonesia, hoped to find oil in Indochina and the many islands in the South China Sea including the Spratly and Paracel Islands. After extensive geographical mapping, France's Service des Mines, headquartered in Hanoi, found hydrocarbon seepages in a number of sandstone and limestone formations as early as 1920 in the Red River Valley, 75 miles northwest of Hanoi. In approximately 1935, a distinct petroleum odor emanated from the vicinity of Route 9, Viet Nam's principle east-west road at about the 17th parallel. Coincidently, this is the very same route that was so heavily guarded by the American-managed South Viet Nam government during America's war in Viet Nam. Five wells were drilled without finding "exploitable deposits" so the operation was abandoned.13
While Southeast Asia was still under France's ruling thumb, oil-hungry Japan invaded, occupied, and organized two drilling operations during World War II - one in southern Laos in 1944 and the other by the city of Qui Nhon on the South Vietnamese coast which included offshore drilling from pontoons. The Japanese, like other imperialists, occupied the archipelago to seize its rich natural resources. Drilling ceased in 1945, especially after the bombing of non-military targets in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which sent a very clear message.14
In 1954, the Borneo (Kalimantan) oil fields were opened.15 Shell Oil had been doing some exploratory drilling in Tunisia, Algeria, Nigeria, Trinidad and offshore in British Borneo between 1945 and 1955.
The Power Elite organized and control both The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the United Nations. They use the combined talents and resources of both organizations to identify, evaluate and measure the world's resources, including prime real estate, with the objective of confiscating, privatizing, manipulating, and suppressing them in order to control the masses and attain ever increasing power and wealth. The oil monopolist Rockefeller family purchased the land that the United Nations sits on.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), established in 1947, entered the oil exploration business. In 1957, ECAFE "organized a seminar in New Delhi on the development of petroleum resources."16 The U.N. sponsored the ECAFE Working Party of Senior Geologists who met in Bangkok in August 1966.17 ECAFE concluded that "rich undersea oil reserves" are a real possibility despite the unfavorable "geology on land." However, offshore drilling is expensive and technologically challenging. Therefore, the U.N. would have to turn that task over to experts - like Standard Oil.
To facilitate operations, "The Coordinating Committee for Offshore Prospecting in Asia (CCOP) was initiated in 1966 by China, Japan, Republic of Korea and the Philippines under the auspices of ECAFE (now ESCAP) and the United Nations. CCOP became an independent intergovernmental organization in 1987 based on the common understanding of its member countries and the aspirations of the United Nations (its controllers). The name was changed in 1994, but the acronym CCOP was retained. CCOP has during this period devoted itself to co-ordination of, and co-operation in, scientific activities related to coastal and offshore areas with respect to geological/geophysical surveys, regional map compilations, database development, and development of human resources and transfer of state of the art technology."18
CCOP developed a 99 page survey and Geological Map (second edition) [PDF file - 4.5 MB]
covering several countries, probably very similar to the resource
survey developed by geologist Herbert Hoover** in
the 1920s (mentioned in
part 7). The U.N. also produced the same kind of survey for the
trouble-ridden East Timor entitled Geology and Mineral Resources of
Timor-Leste (East Timor).19 East Timor has substantial oil and gas
resources.20 A committee report for Viet Nam was
created in 1967 and an actual geological survey began in 1968 with
two ships, explosives and a team of geologists. Explosives (mini
bombs?) were necessary to expose the salt dome structures signaling
oil deposits deep under the sea.21
** Hoover was instrumental in the resignation of General Smedley Butler USMC, America's Most Decorated General, who vociferously maintained that war is a racket to enrich big business. Hoover was present in Paris, France on May 30, 1919 for the organizational meetings of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Hoover attended the Paris Peace Conference with Bernard Baruch in 1919. While Secretary of Commerce, Hoover was responsible for The Radio Act of 1927 which placed the responsibility of licensing and regulating (censorship) radio stations in the hands of the federal government.
One of the goals of the CCOP was to stimulate the interest of oil companies - and according to their report: the top priority was Viet Nam and the Sunda Shelf adjoining that country, a very good reason to "save it from communism." Of great significance is the CCOP-coordinated reconnaissance seismic and magnetic profiling survey over the Sunda Shelf during the summer of 1969 covering the countries of Borneo (Kalimantan), Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Viet Nam - all in the South China Sea.22 Other countries have also developed seismic technology.23 "By the end of 1969, the entire Sunda Shelf are had been let out in oil concessions except for that off Viet Nam. The major oil companies had become very interested in the area, and were willing and prepared to overcome their nervousness over the unsettled political situation there."24 The political situation may have provided a huge distraction.
Project Magnet was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense's, Naval Oceanographic Office. By using aircraft from 1951 through 1994, the U.S. "derived aeromagnetic data which were collected world wide to aid the geomagnetic field modeling efforts" and to support "the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency's world magnetic modeling and charting program."25 Quite fortuitously, a new phase of Project Magnet (1974 to 1979) brought about the "establishment of national offshore data storage/retrieval centers and compilation of maps and geological syntheses of petroliferous basins."26 Data was now available for assessing geologic structures favorable for fossil fuel deposits. It was especially helpful in the flights over most of South Viet Nam. It would appear that the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) along with the CCOP were/are on the Rockefeller's vast payroll. Project Magnet was also used extensively in the Philippines for petroleum exploration. Scroll down and see chart.
"In 1987 CCOP became an independent intergovernmental organization, based in Bangkok, and in 1994 changed its name to the Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and South-East Asia. By 2004 it had 11 members: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam - and the support of 14 donor countries."27 As of 2007, they still maintain that office in Bangkok and publish reports.28
On July 3, 1973 fifteen companies united to form seven consortiums and submitted bids to the Republic of Viet Nam (South Viet Nam). Pecten Viet Nam (80% of Pecten is owned by a subsidiary of Shell Oil Company, which itself is wholly owned by Royal Dutch Shell - third-largest corporation in the world by revenues after ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart) joined with Cities Service, Mobil (now ExxonMobil), ESSO (Standard Oil) and Sunningdale (a group of Canadian firms) were awarded exploration rights on various blocks of Vietnam's continental shelf. However, the greatest potential for vast oil resources was in deeper waters - in the northern part of the Brunei-Saigon Basin. Three major oil companies - Cities Service, Mobil and ESSO obtained rights in those deeper waters.29 The initial arrangement between the oil companies and the government was the concession system which allowed the oil company to explore and produce petroleum in a specific area, determined by the state.30 The company paid the "host country compulsory taxes" at a fixed rate. The Saigon Administration had this concession system arrangement, which obviously favored the oil companies.31
The companies were required to begin exploration within three months and to start drilling the first well within a two year period of time. All the companies began their seismic studies immediately. However, only Pecten and Mobil began their drilling process before everything shut down in April 1975, ESSO and Sunningdale were to begin operations in the summer. "The first well was begun by Pecten on August 15, 1974, less than one year after the contract signing."32
By March 1975, significant progress had been made by Pecten. Mobil had made encouraging discoveries. By April 1975, everything stopped - due to the deteriorating military situation. Rigs were removed and personnel left.33
During a 1995 BBC TV documentary about the oil industry, the president of one of Standard Oil's spin-off companies said: "It was quite a coincidence that we finished our offshore oil survey on the very last day of the war, just as the last helicopter was leaving the roof of the embassy in Saigon."34
Oil companies from Norway, Britain, Holland, Russia, Germany and Australia won bids and started in their allotted areas. Interestingly, none of them hit oil. In contrast, Standard Oil's allotted area has vast oil reserves. I guess it pays to have the Pentagon and the Department of Defense in your pocket. Project Magnet and their "undersea seismic research appears to have paid off."35 Since the survey was conducted by the Navy, Standard Oil wasn't out any money - just the taxpayers!
- To be continued -
Deanna Spingola has been a quilt designer and is the author of two books. She has traveled extensively teaching and lecturing on her unique methods. She has always been an avid reader of non-fiction works designed to educate rather than entertain. She is active in family history research and lectures on that topic. Currently she is the director of the local Family History Center. She has a great interest in politics and the direction of current government policies, particularly as they relate to the Constitution. Deanna's Web Site
PERFECTIBILISTS: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati, by Terry Melanson
The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship, by Paul & Phillip Collins
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, by Abbe Barruel
Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith, by James H. Billington
America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones, by Antony C. Sutton | <urn:uuid:acfbc5d3-8dc2-4a53-81a7-24cb08d70402> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Power_Elite_8.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959883 | 3,278 | 2.109375 | 2 |
The Mandleshwar town resounded with the voices of 20,000 to 25,000 people (over 50% of them women) affected by the Maheshwar dam who marched through the town today, in defence of their rights despite the heavy rain, asking for rehabilitation and land, or scrapping of the dam. After marching through the main roads of Mandleshwar town, the oustees reached the Narmada River and after affirming and renewing their resolve to struggle against all odds, the people congregated in a huge public meeting at the local “Krishi Upaj mandi” in Mandleshwar.
Addressing the public meeting, leading activist Shri Alok Agarwal of Narmada Bachao Andolan said that the project promoters, Shri Maheshwar Hydro Power Corporation Ltd. and the State Government have completely failed to provide agricultural land and rehabilitation to the thousands of farmers, workers, kevats and kahars affected by the Maheshwar dam. They are also concealing the full impact of the submergence, and thousands of more families and their lands and houses are likely to be impacted by the submergence. As a consequence, on 23rd of April 2010 the MoEF suspended the construction of the dam for violation of conditions of the statutory environmental clearance under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. However even after 7 months after the project work was suspended, there is no progress in the work of rehabilitation and resettlement, which is why the sea of people gathered here today are challenging the authorities that they should immediately provide agricultural land and rehabilitation, or else cancel the dam. He said that today the entire Narmada Valley is immersed in a gigantic struggle to protect their fundamental and constitutional rights, and will do or die.
Ms. Chittaroopa Palit senior activist of Narmada Bachao andolan said that it the Maheshwar dam is not in public interest, and must be scrapped, as the statutory authority – Central Electricity Authority cleared the dam project as being techno-economically viable only at the capital cost of Rs. 1670 crores. However the project is now slated to cost over 3000 crore and is no longer techno-economically viable. She said that it is shocking that the Maheshwar project was permitted to be resumed after 1996, although all the State Government documents record that the project is now high cost and unviable. Palit said that the State must take responsibility for the pillage of public money to provide super profits to the S.Kumars company Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited and called on the State Government to cancel the suicidal Power Purchase Agreement under which hundreds of crores of rupees of the public money has to be given to the S.Kumar’s Company as payment for electricity every year for the next 35 years.
Shri Radhesham Patidar of Village Pathrad said that the State Government and the project authorities who are bound by the statutory environmental clearances have completely failed to comply with any of the conditions relating to the rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected people. He further said that the environmental clearance was only given on the condition that the villagers would be allotted agricultural land and properly rehabilitated. However, while substantially constructing the project, the authorities callously refused to provide agricultural land, and rehabilitation and resettlement measures. Even after suspension of work, no rehabilitation and resettlement has been provided. He said that it is time now that the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests should revoke the environmental clearance and direct the demolition of the dam, as they have done for the Lohari Nagpala Dam in the Ganga valley.
Oustees warn the State Government
Representatives of the Maheshwar dam oustees, Shri Bhagwan Birle, Shri Kalu Singh Mandaloi, Shri Jagdish Patidar, Shri DInesh Kewat, Kadwi Bai warned the State Gvernemnt and the authorities that the thousands of Maheshwar dam oustees would not rest until they obtain their rights. They also warned the State Government that instead of serving the vested interests of the private companies, the State Government must serve the interests of the oustees who are being asked to sacrifice their all and the public interest.
Thousands of hands rise in support
Representatives of Omkareshwar, Indira Sagar, Man, Upper Beda, Tawa and Bargi dams of the Narmada Valley were present in the gathering in large numbers in support of the Maheshwar dam oustees. Shri Arvind Kejriwal, Magsaysay Award Winner and Ex-Income Tax Commissioner said that large scale corruption in the entire country is today overwhelming the lives of the common man. This is being supported by the Company Raj, where the right of the citizens are being subordinated to the profit interests of companies. Everybody has to unite to struggle against this. Dr. Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Award Winner said that in a democracy it is only the united strength of the people which can help them to obtain their rights. People in the country have to forget and set aside differences of caste and religion. He said that people’s struggles from all over the country are standing in solidarity with the people of Maheshwar dam in their struggle.
Senior Gandhian activist and Advocate of the High Court, Shri Anil Trivedi from Indore said that those in power must understand that their arbitrary and anti-people action will not be tolerated. The presence of thousands of mothers and sisters in the struggle will surely bring victory to the struggle.
Leading activists from various people’s struggles in India came from long distances. Guliya Bai, oustee of Tawa dam and activist from Kisan Adivasi Sangathan and Samajvadi Jan Parishad, Shri Hakeem Bhai of Vargi Bandh Visthapit Sangh, Shri Prakash Karnik of Gandhi Sagar Bandh Visthapit Sangh, Shri Ram Avtar of Baghelkhand Adivasi Kisan Mukti Morcha, Shri Deepak from Abhivyakti, Maharashra, Shri Prashant from Right to Food Campaign, Shri Rajendra Mewara from Dalit Shakti Sangathan, Shri Harsingh from Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sangathan expressed their support to the ongoing struggle in the Maheshwar dam and the entire Narmada Valley.
Memorandum served on authorities
After the rally and the public meeting the oustees handed over to the Sub-Divisional Officer, Maheshwar, two memorandums in the name of Union Environment Minister, Shri Jairam Ramesh and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shri Shivraj Singh Chauhan. It was demanded in the memorandums that the Maheshwar project and Power Purchase Agreement must be scrapped and the environmental clearance revoked, since the Maheshwar project has become unviable and high cost and is unlikely to provide electricity to the common people of Madhya Pradesh, and because the authorities have refused to provide a minimum 2 hectares of irrigated land to landholders, adult sons and daughters and landless farmers, and because the impact of submergence is likely to be far larger than envisaged. They also demanded that the rehabilitation and the other offices of the project must be relocated to Mandleshwar outside the dam site, as the district administration had put prohibitory orders on the dam site to conceal the clandestine construction work at the dam site done by the project authorities in violation of statutory Orders. The oustees declared that they would continue to struggle with courage and determination to achieve the desired outcomes as they have done for the last 14 years.
Gulabchand, Bhagwan Birle, Radheshyam Patidar, Jagdishbhai
Narmada Bachao Andolan
2, Sai Nagar, Mata Chowk,
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh.
Telefax : 0733 – 2228418/2270014
E-mail : firstname.lastname@example.org
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- Fact Finding to Sonbhadra, UP to investigate into the matter of irregularities in the implementation of Forest Rights Act, 2006 | <urn:uuid:2e571379-ab27-48c0-930e-4ed016ca70ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://icrindia.org/2010/11/26/25000-maheshwar-dam-oustees-march-in-madleshwar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948939 | 1,771 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The closing costs of getting a mortgage have dropped.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Federal regulations are helping to significantly reduce the amount new homebuyers are paying come closing time.
The average cost of closing on a mortgage has fallen by 7.4% over the past year, according to a recent survey by Bankrate.com. At the end of June, a homebuyer looking to close on a $200,000 mortgage with 20% down paid an average of $3,754, $300 less than 12 months earlier.
Included in those costs are origination expenses, such as application fees and the cost of doing credit checks, and third-party fees, such as those paid for title searches and insurance.
The decline can be attributed to new regulations that require lenders to be more accurate when estimating closing costs for borrowers, said Greg McBride, Bankrate's senior financial analyst.
The regulation, which was put in place two years ago as part of the Real Estate Settlement Practices Act requires lenders to provide a "good faith estimate" of third-party fees that is within 10% of the actual amount the buyer will pay.
"The big drop in third-party fees indicates the lenders are doing a better job at estimating what the costs will be," said McBride.
The most expensive state for closing on a home was New York, where total origination fees and closing costs averaged more than $5,400 for a $200,000 mortgage, according to Bankrate. Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida also cost far more than the national average.
Missouri was the cheapest, with total borrowing costs averaging just over $3,000. Other states where closing costs remain low include Kansas, Colorado and Iowa, Bankrate said.
Even on a neighborhood level closing costs can vary significantly, said McBride. Borrowers can save money by getting at least three estimates and paying close attention to the total costs of obtaining a loan rather than getting seduced by low advertised interest rates.
"Borrowers don't want to get tunnel vision shopping for the best mortgage deal by only looking at the interest rate," he said. "Closing costs are a big line item and savings there can be quite significant."
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|Overnight Avg Rate||Latest||Change||Last Week|
|30 yr fixed||3.75%||3.66%|
|15 yr fixed||2.89%||2.79%|
|30 yr refi||3.74%||3.64%|
|15 yr refi||2.89%||2.79%|
Today's featured rates: | <urn:uuid:22f2d75e-968c-4143-b167-5fe934be0ddd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/06/real_estate/closing-costs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950235 | 601 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Behavior of the Honeybee
Much has been learned of the behavior of bees in recent history. LL Langstroth, sometimes referred to as the 'Father of Beekeeping', discovered the principle of the 'bee-space'.
He found that bees will usually fill gaps less than ¼ inch wide with propolis and larger than three eighths of an inch with comb. This had the effect of making the removal of combs built into frames very difficult.
In his 'Removable Frame Hive' he left precisely ¼ inch space between the ends of the frames and the sides of the hives, and between the top and bottom of frames in stacked boxes, the frames could be easily removed for inspection and of course extraction of the honey.
The Langstroth hive is used almost universally in America today. In fact in many states it is illegal to keep bees in anything other than a removable frame hive, to allow for inspection.
The thing everyone thinks about when talking about bees is the sting. Bees most often sting to defend the whole colony. If a bee is collecting pollen or nectar, going about its usual buzziness, it's unlike to sting anyone.
Most of their communication is through pheromones, but they also so a fascinating waggle dance which gives the other worker bees where to find a good source of forage. Pheremones are used within the hive to tell the workers what type of cells to make in their combs, when to defend the hive, even when to create a new honey bee queen.
When a colony swarms, they cluster on a branch or other convenient 'muster point'. The cluster is gathered together by the pheremones emitted by the queen bee, the swarm follows her to the new chosen location for the hive and the workers stand at the entrance with their head down, rear in the air, using their Nasonov pheromone gland to attract all the flying bees into their new home.
Click here to leave Behavior Page | <urn:uuid:d73e6163-ded1-4a1a-8291-5af93e5cdf9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bees-on-the-net.com/behavior.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958581 | 411 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Education partnerships: professional development education for tourism and hospitality employees
Breen, H 2010, Education partnerships: professional development education for tourism and hospitality employees, Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken, Germany. ISBN: 9783838366128.
Cooperative educational partnerships are innovative ventures where universities join with industry in a working relationship, sharing resources to develop and provide professional development education for staff. The distinguishing feature of these partnerships is that all partners contribute to the development, design and delivery of academic courses in the workplace. Yet very little research has been conducted into the role of professionalism developed by professional development education for industry employees. This book examines the conditions that contribute to building professionalism in staff through cooperative education partnerships between a university and its tourism and hospitality partners. The analysis reveals that providing this university-level education contributes to the development and enhancement of staff professionalism. Two aspects, a renewal of learning, and establishing a positive reputation, were found to be vitally important for advancing professionalism. This book is especially useful to industry associations, particularly in hospitality and tourism, who seek heightened staff professionalism. It is also useful for universities seeking long-term partnerships. Adjustment, adaptation, responsiveness and synergy were found to be important reciprocal concepts that underpin cooperative dynamics in these partnerships.
This document is currently not available here. | <urn:uuid:0261e54c-513e-4f1f-aec3-e4c02320371e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epubs.scu.edu.au/tourism_pubs/574/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943445 | 263 | 2.0625 | 2 |
My home in Ocean County was severely damaged in Hurricane Sandy. As if the destruction and cost of rebuilding aren't enough to worry about, let alone the lack of response from flood-insurance and homeowners-insurance companies, I quickly became aware of another huge potential problem.
Sandy's destruction to real and personal property qualifies for a "casualty loss" deduction under the tax code. However, the way the law is written now, the calculation of the amount of the casualty loss is determined by reducing such losses by 10 percent of taxpayers' adjusted gross income. This 10 percent reduction of the casualty loss may eliminate or substantially reduce the deduction so that the cost of the devastation provides no tax relief whatsoever.
After Katrina and other storms, Congress waived the 10 percent reduction for tax years 2008 through 2010. Weeks ago, I wrote to U.S. Reps. Jon Runyan, R-3rd, and Frank Lobiondo, R-2nd, along with Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, both D-N.J., requesting that they immediately get legislation enacted to give the taxpayers of New Jersey the same tax relief as given the victims of Katrina.
A bill to provide this tax relief - the "Hurricane Sandy Tax Relief Act of 2012" - was introduced but not acted on. Please write to your members of Congress and insist that they get this legislation passed for the people who elected them.
MARYROSE A. MANGAN | <urn:uuid:e00d6577-da6f-4cc9-b7b6-f42de4f6075f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/letters/storm-victims-need-change-in-tax-code/article_81d9149a-85c1-5111-a496-4ffd41f1ca40.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960656 | 300 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Games have never been the Mac's strong suit. The reasons for this are multitudinous and too lengthy to get into for the purpose of this article, but suffice it to say that it is so. However, there's been an interesting shift since January of this year - with the advent of the Mac App Store, games which started their lives on iOS have been trickling on to the Mac, too.
A casual check of the Mac App Store reveals that popular iOS titles have been converted to Mac OS X, including the ubiquitous Angry Birds - every bit as popular, it seems, in the Mac as it is on the iPhone, Android and every other platform it touches. Gameloft's equally ubiquitous Asphalt 6: Adrenaline is there also. There are other examples, as well.
The bulk of the games inventory on the Mac App Store comprises titles that were originally developed for the Mac or converted to the Mac and released before the Mac App Store debuted, but the backflow of titles from iOS to Mac OS X is unmistakable.
What's causing it?
A straw poll of developers indicate that the ease of converting apps from iOS to Mac OS X is one strong motivator. Because iOS and Mac OS X share common underpinnings, there isn't a radical amount of reengineering to rework titles for the Mac which originally designed to work on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads.
Although the tools have steadily improved over the past few years, that equation hasn't changed radically since the day that Apple first offered an API for iPhone app development - that's one reason why many early iOS developers were Mac developers.
Since then, however, the iOS ecosystem has filled out with tens of thousands of developers who had no previous experience creating software for Apple platforms, including some whose products are now in the Mac App Store.
Many developers - especially small independent ones with limited resources and personnel - don't want to go through the logistical hassle of marketing and publishing a game for the Mac (or going through the permutations of finding a publisher). So the Mac App Store gives them easy access to a growing legion of Mac users who want software for their new computers.
The Mac App Store is now standard issue, built right in to the Mac operating system with the release of Mac OS X 10.6.6 - a new icon on the Mac OS X Dock. And it'll be front and center with Mac OS X "Lion's" release later this year.
The downside, at least for the "hardcore" crowd, is that the games are, by and large, casual titles - not the sort of game that really sets the traditional gaming crowd's hearts aflutter. They're priced accordingly, with some as little as 99 cents (or free).
The Mac platform hasn't been a huge hit with the hardcore crowd for years, so chasing after hardcore gamers on the Mac is throwing good money after bad anyway. Besides, the hardcore PC gaming market has declined steadily as piracy and spiraling budgets have made more risk-averse publishers exit the PC or sidelined it in favor of consoles.
What's more, for each one of those hardcore types, there's a veritable legion of people who don't self-identify as gamers, but still want to play games. New Mac buyers. Professionals with MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Moms and dads. Grandparents. Students.
The Mac App Store has an added benefit for new Mac users - it's an Apple-sanctioned way to get software using the credentials they've already created for buying software and music through iTunes and the App Store. It isn't a third-party Web site using a payment system they've never heard of before. The risk to the buyer is low.
Ultimately, the Mac App Store isn't going to radically rejuvenate Mac gaming create a hardcore gaming market for the Mac out of whole cloth, but it does give iOS game developers and Mac OS X game developers alike an opportunity to reach a new, receptive audience - exactly the sort of empire-building success that the original iOS App Store contributed to. Just on a very different, much smaller scale. | <urn:uuid:6a8e9e51-35f6-4ab0-8f77-c4b480159a10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gamification/mac-games-get-a-shot-in-the-arm-from-ios/306 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963248 | 844 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Check out a nice concept which offers an innovative approach to the personal computer design. Recent innovations such as the iPad provide an exciting glimpse into the future of computers. Before looking forward toward future computer trends, let’s take a quick look back to gain a better appreciation of the evolution thus far. Do you remember when the first primitive computing machines occupied entire buildings? The massive machines from the mid-20th century consisted of row upon row of vacuum tubes and wires. You had to use stacks of punch cards to program these beasts. See how the future computer might look like. Enjoy. | <urn:uuid:894aae32-0b8e-4156-aedf-c1513aea89af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.looneypalace.com/possible-future-computer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932566 | 118 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Education in Swaziland is neither free nor compulsory. The Ministry of Education pays teacher salaries, while student fees and money raised from the community pay for costs such as building upkeep and teacher housing. In 1996, the net primary school enrollment rate was 90.8 percent, with gender parity at the primary level. In 1998, 80.5 percent of children reached grade 5. Primary school attendance rates were unavailable for Swaziland as of 2001. In 1996, 91.3 percent of the teachers were certified to teach according to national standards, and the pupil to teacher ratio was 33:9. In 1963 Waterford school was founded as southern Africa's first multiracial school. In 1981 Waterford Kamhlaba joined the UWC movement as the first and only United World College in Africa.
External links | <urn:uuid:1ef14f34-c2d3-4720-9424-42b3ef2fdec6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Swaziland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975837 | 162 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Maybe you've heard of Friendship Bread? Basically, it's a "starter" dough that one person feeds, according to a recipe, then uses some of the starter to bake their bread and passes the rest along to a "friend". That friend feeds the starter til it grows and ferments and becomes ready to use in baking; then takes a little of the starter and passes the rest to the next "friend" and so on, and so on. When I was in college we had one that made it's way around the whole campus and back again. Frankly, it can be fun - or it can be a pain (and NOT the french word for bread.)
My mom, in North Carolina, was given one of these cups of starter by my sister-in-law a few months ago. I got a phone call when my mom was worried about what to do with the rest of the starter she had fed.
[Read the following with a sweet ultra-southern accent] "Cathy, I don't have any friends that want to make this friendly bread, I can't give it back; that would be rude, and I've cooked just about as much of this, and in as many ways as my brain can come up with. I've frozen it, I've fried it, I've made it to muffins, and I'm just sick of my friend bread. There's nobody that wants mine."
My mom is a soft southern 76-year-old with a sing song accent, but I would describe her as either 3 years old or 99 years old. She lives alone and has for years and years. Lots of times she seems like she's MY kid; pouty with a little girl's tiny voice asking for a favor. Other times she seems like she's wise beyond time, but somehow barely hanging on because of this ailment or the other. A common phrase of hers is "well...with my horrible bad luck..." Now, before you think I'm just being mean about my mom, let me assure you; I love this lady with all my heart. She was a single Mom (Dad, not so great) in the 70's to my brother and me. She worked as many jobs as possible. She gave up her own bedroom in our 2 bedroom apt. so I could have my teenage room to myself while she slept on the fold-out couch. She was at every play, majorette parade, and show I ever performed in as a kid. She's also crazy as a salted June Bug, sometimes.
My mom still lives in the small little city she was born in and most of her friends have moved on (one way or the other). She is a child of the Depression and now lives on a fixed income of less than 12,000 dollars a YEAR. The idea of wasting anything, even a cup of starter dough is beyond sinful to her. And, let's face it; who could deal with that little pleading voice telling you that "nobody wants mine". So, I did what every good daughter would do; I told her to send it to me.
I live in Southern California. I visit Mom about every 3 months and my amazingly wonderful brother lives near her and is constantly helping. I'm often searching for ways that I can be of service since I'm the one who "left" town. So, in my mind, I just wanted to fix the emotional. I didn't need to knead bread, ya know? Mom seemed convinced that this AMISH FRIENDSHIP bread was a "secret starter dough". She almost whispered it, "If it stops, nobody knows how to make it again. It started with those Amish people many years ago." To be honest, I probably half listened. I was just bent on fixing the problem. "Oh, yeah that's cool, so just send it to me and I'll make a loaf and that way I can be a part of your Amish Friendship bread thing, too. Is that good?" As I do constantly, I waited to hear how I, wonderful me, had solved all her worry and NOW she was happy. But, her worry became about how to get it to the Post Office, it can't go but 24 hours before the next recipe step, and how she just couldn't pay for that. "No problem, Mom, whatever it is - and how bad can it be - I'll just send you the money back, right away." And that was that. It did make her excited that I would be participating. She started giving me ideas of how she added chocolate chips to it, how important it was to massage the plastic bag of starter exactly as the recipe stated. She was really into the idea. It was great. She would send me a cup of starter, over-night-it, as soon as it got to the sharing point of the recipe again.
A week later, I had just completed a giant project that had me working every day, my youngest son was on school break and my husband had a rare day off; we were taking a holiday at a nice hotel. I was sitting by the pool sipping a Pina Colada, taking in the sun and pretending this was my everyday life. I was in a zone. My cell phone rang and it was Mom. "Cathy, honey, I hope this was okay - I just left the Fed-Ex place and sent off your Amish Starter, but honey it was a lot. Are you sure that was okay, it will make a lot of loaves, but still and all - your brother said you were crazy, but I told him you said to do it, so honey, I did...and it was 84 Dollars."
I spit my half-chewed rum soaked pineapple out of my mouth. 84 DOLLARS? For bread? I could hear her child-like panic that somehow she had done something wrong and worse it had to do with money. "Well, I thought that was a lot, but I figured you knew what you said, did I mess up?" I knew it wasn't her fault, she just did what I so "cooly" told her to do. My brother was right; I was crazy. I tried to pass off my shock by calling it mild surprise at the delivery rates our country is charging these days, yada, yada, yada.
So, story mostly over except this extra salt in the wound. If you google - "Amish Friendship Bread" - you will find hundreds of starter recipes just like the one I paid 84 Dollars to use. When I got the bag and read through the daily instructions I got a giant laugh. After 10 days of massaging and feeding the starter the recipe for the bread began. One of the ingredients was powdered Vanilla Pudding, like from a box? I'm not sure, but I doubt the age old traditions of the Amish actually included boxed Vanilla Pudding Mix. I left that part out; forever destroying the secret Amish starter.
I have to admit, this made an amazingly moist caramel bread. It had that sweetness that comes only with fermenting and maybe a little bit of humble pie.
Starter Recipe given is one that I've tweaked from many sources to give you one that is simple and fun to start your own Friendship Bread.
AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD STARTER:
1 TBL. dry active yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup warm milk
In a non-metallic bowl; sprinkle yeast over 1 cup of warm water (110F). Stir to dissolve yeast and wait about 5 minutes til frothy.
Add sugar, flour and warm milk. Stir to combine, then pour mixture into a sturdy ziplock bag and keep at room temp. for 10 days while you follow these directions.
Days 1,2,3,4 - Release pressure in bag and massage ingredients in bag.
Day 5 - Add 1 cup each of flour, sugar and milk. Close bag, massage and hold again.
Days 6,7,8,9 - Release pressure in bag and massage ingredients.
Day 10 - Add 1 cup each of flour, sugar and milk. Massage ingredients and pour into a non-metallic bowl.
Use 1 cup of batter for making your own 2 loaves of bread. You will have about 3 cups of batter left (2 to share and 1 to keep for your next 10 days/ or 3 to share).
AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD
1 cup of starter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt
*optional: pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg/ caramel chips, choc.chips, nuts, raisins
**optional: 1 small box of vanilla pudding
Mix together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
In another bowl - beat eggs with oil, vanilla and starter, then add in the dry ingredient mix and optionals.
Pour batter into 2 well buttered loaf pans (or you may choose muffin tins). Bake at 325F for 1 hour (muffins require less time.)
Don't forget to give the recipes and instructions when you share your Friendship Bread. This makes a very fun gift for the holidays. | <urn:uuid:d565809b-3ad3-4f25-bb3d-9fbf54646713> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.showfoodchef.com/2009/11/8400-friendship-bread.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981855 | 1,945 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Presentation of the Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro, 2005)
Heritage in the broad sense
Cultural heritage is constantly being redefined by human activity and so cannot remain static. The defining goal of the Framework Convention is to broaden and decompartmentalise the concept of heritage. Cultural heritage is a group of resources inherited from the past which people regard, irrespective of who owns them, as a reflection and expression of their own constantly evolving values, beliefs, knowledge and traditions. It includes all aspects of the environment resulting from the interaction between people and places through time.
"Europe's common heritage" and "heritage communities"
The Framework Convention requires the parties to recognise Europe’s common heritage - the cultural heritage, which is both an asset and a source of collective memory, and a shared intellectual heritage based on universally accepted values deriving from Europe’s often troubled past and proposing a kind of "European ideal" when it comes to the organisation of society.
The concept of “heritage community”, introduced for the first time by the Framework Convention, is based on the recognition of a particular heritage and a commitment to promote it. A heritage community may result from a shared interest in a subject - an “archaeological community” for example - or have a geographical basis, be linked to a language or religion or stem from other humanist values. By definition, a heritage community will be transnational and multi-dimensional, making no reference to ethnic groups or other fixed communities.
The right to cultural heritage
The Convention’s approach is ground-breaking in that its starting point is not the object to be protected, i.e. heritage, but the people who benefit from it, namely all citizens, taken “alone or collectively”. This entails individual and collective responsibilities towards that heritage. The exercise of the right to heritage is guaranteed by the political commitments of states, but is also restricted where it conflicts with private interests. Cultural heritage is an asset which must be preserved because it is a potential source of personal and collective development.
Heritage’s contribution to society
The Convention is innovative because it gears heritage policies to the needs of society, human progress and quality of life. It advocates intercultural dialogue and debates about heritage − for example, where there is controversy about the interpretation of historic sites regarded as sacred by several religions. It calls for the sustainable use of heritage resources and heritage development for economic purposes, encouraging local inhabitants to feel an affinity with their region so as to attract tourism and new activities, while ensuring that economic use does not threaten the cultural heritage itself.
Shared responsibilities and public participation
The integrated approach to cultural heritage management should be taken to mean integration between different levels of public authorities (local, regional and national), including transfrontier co-operation, and also between different policy sectors and domains. The Convention recommends encouraging the public to become more involved in the heritage development process and emphasises the importance of public discussion in setting national priorities for cultural heritage and its sustainable use.
Heritage in a knowledge society
Broadening knowledge is another important focus of the Convention. There are self-evident links between cultural heritage and teaching of the arts, architecture, archaeology, civil engineering, environmental, social and political studies and spatial and economic planning, as well as links with the organisation of tourism and leisure. So heritage must be catered for in subjects where it may not be expected to appear such as languages and law. To improve access to heritage still further, the Convention requires the parties to make more widespread use of digital technologies (securing diversity of language in digital materials and a balance between free digital access and the proper payment of creators or owners of digital materials).
Monitoring the Convention and co-operation
The process of monitoring the Convention is closely linked with the co-operation activities to be established between the parties and is handled by an intergovernmental committee. Co-operation includes a shared system of publicly available information, exchanges of good practices and multilateral and transfrontier co-operation activities.
Complementarity with other international treaties
What makes the Convention unique is that it looks at heritage as a whole, dealing with its various physical and intangible aspects, in line with the chosen approach of a “right to heritage” which makes no distinction between the various components of heritage. It differs in this respect from the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), which deals only with the intangible cultural heritage.
The Convention is concerned mainly with the values attached to heritage and attempts to establish criteria for the proper use of existing heritage assets. It also differs in this respect from the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO, 2005), which aims to promote contemporary creativity, not heritage. | <urn:uuid:f35f03d0-28c9-4336-b808-3040668b1662> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/heritage/identities/faro_pres_EN.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93272 | 987 | 3.65625 | 4 |
These are the unassailable, unavoidable and uncontrollable actions that will make you seriously question your child’s sense. But she is a child, and what she does is mostly senseless. And these are the things all children do, have done since time immemorial, and will continue to do until the end of time.
These “things kids just do” can be wholly maddening. But you are powerless to stop them. So stop trying.
For example: If there is a lit candle anywhere near a small child, that small child will seek it out and immediately extinguish it. A child physically cannot let a flame remain burning. They must blow it out. They have no other choice.
It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you will say something in front of your child that you shouldn’t say in front of a child. You may make five thousand other comments within earshot of your child, but they will only be able to repeat that single unsavory comment. And they will repeat it word for word, usually in front of someone like their teacher or your mother.
If you ask a child to dress herself, she is bound to dress in something inappropriate. Since you’ve asked her to do something and she has actually followed through with doing it, you cannot make her change. That’s how children get sent to preschool wearing an 18-month-old’s tie-dyed sundress, rain boots and a leopard print beret, and to a nice restaurant in a Tinkerbelle pajama top and a tutu.
Once a child asks “Why?”, they cannot stop asking “Why?” You will explain yourself until you’re blue in the face and they will still punctuate the end of the conversation with, “Why?”
Children will say random and awkward things while standing in line at the Post Office or another crowded public place. Example: “Mom, thanks for teaching me how to wipe my butt.”
A small child cannot fathom why she shouldn’t lie on her stomach in the driveway and slurp snowmelt out of a puddle like a dog.
If a toddler figures out how to open a container, the contents of said container are destined for the floor. Immediately.
To a child, the inside of the refrigerator is a mysterious otherworld. When you open the door to a refrigerator, a child can see that gleaming, otherworldly light from a room away. She will have scrunched her entire body inside the fridge before you have a chance to shut the door.
A child will always put stickers where they don’t belong. There is no home in America that houses a child and does not also have stickers stuck to toilets, leather couches, front windows and antique furniture.
Children will also always scribble on the wall.
Children will also always torment cats.
And lastly, a child rarely remembers to wear underwear. So if she dresses herself in a skirt, remember to check for panties before she goes to gymnastics class. | <urn:uuid:29b58064-e014-4f39-a94c-26372a6b191f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.watchnewspapers.com/pages/full_story/push?article--RAISING+ELLE-Why+Kids+Blow+Out+Lit+Candles+and+Other+Parenting+Mysteries%20&id=18113307&instance=commentary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955467 | 649 | 1.929688 | 2 |
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Here is something neat I found out.
Say you are writing an application and one of the requirements is to allow File System search. You could always start using loops and such. I thought to myself why not do it in LINQ? I played around with it and in fact it is not so hard.
Lets see how it is done. Here is method that allows finding a specific file name in side a directory.
Basically we Query the FileInfo which is returned from the GetFiles() method and compare the file name.
Here is another example for using a Query for the file extension, it is very much the same except for the condition:
Of course this is only usable for one directory but you can easily expand it and make it recursive. I bet you are as lazy as I am so here is something
Nice isn’t it? If I have a bug Please Comment.
Copyright © 2012 Dev102.com
Breeze : Designed by Amit Raz and Nitzan Kupererd | <urn:uuid:8e5db1fa-7d78-435a-b944-3011775df557> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dev102.com/2008/07/15/how-to-search-the-file-system-using-linq-queries/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937066 | 229 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The global economic slowdown takes an adverse effect on local UK employment. The number of the unemployed reaches its peak in 17 years, the highest rate of unemployment in the country. According to the Office for National Statistics, an astounding 2.57 million UK’s were not employed in the months of June to August and a total of 1 million youth are unemployed while 114,000 people are added to the list of the unemployed in the current quarter with a jump of 8.1% increase. This is the highest unemployment rate so far since 1996. But the worse is yet to come, according to economists.
As the total number of unemployed people rose by 114,000 during the quarter, the unemployment rate reached 8.1%, the highest since 1996. The most affected age group of this unemployment rage is the young ones with ages 16 to 24 years old. Youth unemployment rate reaches 21.3%, which is twice the rate for UK unemployment as a whole. This is also the highest unemployment rate for the youth since 1992.
Part time workers also feel the effect of the economic recession with only 175,000 part time workers to date. With the government also cutting on employment, the public sector employment rate went down to 111,000 over the April to May period. The people do rely on the government to open slot for employment but was not enough to make a significant effect while the private sector provided 41,000 jobs . | <urn:uuid:7d27a266-3547-46f7-8bb2-9645ed8d9995> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fallenscoop.com/63033/uk-unemployment-crawls-up-the-highest-in-17-years | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968161 | 286 | 2.421875 | 2 |
The Ninth Circuit handed down its decision in Fair Housing Council v. Roommate.com last week. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski authored the 8-3 en banc opinion upholding the three-judge panel’s finding that Roomate.com is not shielded from liability under the Communications Decency Act because the design of the website renders Roommate.com an information content provider (aka an author) rather than a publisher. The site’s required drop-down menus where users must specify answers to questions about sex, sexual orientation and presence of children offend anti-discrimination laws, says the majority. The Website’s search facilities enable users to search based on the same criteria. The court found that Roommate is not entitled to CDA immunity for the operation of its search system either, because it “directs emails to subscribers according to discriminatory criteria. By contrast, the dissent argues that providing drop-down menus should not be deemed to constitute “creating” or “developing” information.
The holding of the case centers around the design -- drop-down menus instead of free-form questions -- not the content of the Website. According to the court, it “designed its system to use allegedly unlawful criteria so as to limit the results of each search, and to force users to participate in its discriminatory process. In other words, Councils allege that Roommate’s search is designed to make it more difficult or impossible for individuals with certain protected characteristics to find housing—something the law prohibits."
Naturally, reading the opinion, I was struck by the similarities to the Grokster and other peer-to-peer file sharing cases where the finding of indirect copyright liability turns on the design of the communications protocols, which induced others to infringe, or the P10 cases and Arribasoft cases where the technological architecture is crucial to determining if the technology itself was fair use or aided and abetted infringement. Two years ago, the Sixth Circuit in Stewart v. Blackwell held that: the use of punch card and other outdated voting technologies that fail to provide notification and confirmation of a vote to the voter in certain Ohio districts but not in others led to “statistically significant disparities between the levels of residual voting among African-American and non-African American voters." The court recognized that the choice of technology can mean the difference between the right to vote and disenfranchisement.
Yet despite this recent attention to technology design in the jurisprudence of cyber- and IP law, the discipline has, for the most part, taken little interest in design projects. Though the law is centrally concerned with the regulation of social relationships that create the conditions for freedom of expression and human flourishing, technology design has largely been regarded as the purview of computer scientists, engineers and interface designers.
In the digital age, legal rules and legal doctrine, however, are not enough to protect civil liberties. The rights and freedoms of free speech are protected by software code as much as by legal code. We have seen that the copyright act itself is powerless to protect the user's right to read in the face of strong digital rights management technology. We have seen the constitutional rights to privacy and freedom of association eroded by new surveillance technologies. Yet the solutions we invent to these problems primarily focus on legal strategies. What laws can we pass to regulate the design of technology? How should judge’s rule to safeguard fair use freedoms? We turn the question of technology design, into one of legal analysis.
Cyberlaw has become co-opted and domesticated by traditional methods of legal inquiry, focused on the solutions offered by legal institutions.
Cyberlaw should meld the design of East Coast Code and West Coast Code. Instead of asking only how legal doctrines apply to new technological environments, we could be asking ourselves how legal principles might inform how we design those technological environments. As lawyers, we need to get into the business of doing design.
Law regulates construction yet lawyers do not need to learn engineering. We regulate food without becoming chefs. So why do lawyers need to learn and practice design?
First, I’m not sure that we don’t need to practice the epicurean and engineering arts more to serve clients better. On my first day in practice as a telecommunications lawyer, the partner in charge gave me two textbooks to read and learn about spin and yaw and transmission frequencies. But with the short shorts available to us in law school, self-evidently we cannot teach all subjects. Still - we should be teaching the importance of knowing and understanding how law does and does not condition behavior in other industries, whatever they might be.
Second, when we teach through cases rather than interfaces, we avoid the complex questions (and answers) at the intersection between computer science and law, between legal code and software code, between statutory construction and engineering. We are not giving students the toolkit to solve problems -- our highest and best use according to Brest and Krieger and the ABA. If code is law, lawyers need to start designing code.
Third, law school is professional school that is intended to teach future members of the profession a set of skills that serve the normative goals of social justice and democratic values. To complement the existing toolkit of lawyers. I'm not suggesting an interdisciplinary approach, whereby law taught with or informed by some computer science (“law and....”). Rather, I am suggesting that the professional training of cyber lawyers and the scholarly pursuits of cyberlaw academics should involve a central preoccupation with the design of technology. There is a critical media literacy as well as a critical media ability that we lack.
Fourth, if we are, indeed, interested in the pursuit of social justice -- and this is why tech design is different from engineering or cooking -- then lawyers and law schools need to be in the “business” of designing and architecting tools informed by these values. It is the technological intermediaries that are the strongest forces shaping expression in the digital age. The design of the interfaces determine what we and cannot do or say online.There are well-known exceptions but, for the most part, the new frontier of cyberlaw is tamed by the old conventions of the legal academy.
Fifth, the best offense against an IP maximalist agenda is a good offense. The content owners are seeking to control our use of intellectual property, not only through lobbying and litigation, but through technological strategies. We need to focus our efforts -- as some do -- on developing counter-measures, alternative technologies that promote freedom.
Sixth, lawyers like coders think in terms of procedure. We are used to devising rules for social behavior and translating them into the text of legal code. First you file a complaint then an answer then a reply and then a motion to dismiss. This is not much different from coders who also devise a set of steps and then implement their work in software that controls and constrains some actions while enabling others. Our professional rhetoric is merely two different dialects of the same language.
Seventh, there are opportunities emerging to use technology to participate in the work of governance. By domesticating cyberlaw and limiting it to only a certain set of skills, we forego the opportunity to develop technologies for democracy. If we leave it to the techies, we risk the opportunity to inform their design with our values. If we do it by ourselves, however, we run the risk of not knowing all the options available to us. | <urn:uuid:c0b11575-ec18-4139-833c-736012559628> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cairns.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/if-code-is-law.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943455 | 1,532 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Jam drop biscuits recipe
- ¾ cup butter
- ½ cup raw sugar
- 1¼ cup wholemeal flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup nuts, chopped
- ¼ cup full-cream milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- ½ cup jam of your choice
Preheat oven to 180°C. Butter two large baking sheets and set aside. In a large mixing bowl using a fork, combine the butter and sugar until there are no lumps.
In one bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and nuts and in another bowl, mix together the milk and vanilla essence. Add 1/3 of the flour mix to the butter and sugar and combine. Add 1/3 of the milk mixture and then alternate until all ingredients have been combined to resemble a dough.
Using your hands, roll small balls of mixture into the size of a walnut and place on the baking sheet, leaving enough space for the biscuit to spread as it cooks.
Using your finger, press gently on each ball and then fill each one with about a teaspoon of jam.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and cool completely on a wire rack before serving.
- Be sure to cool these biscuits completely before serving! Although they’re really tempting, the jam is SO hot and will burn your mouth and continue to burn it very badly as its so sticky.
- These biscuits are just as good as if you were using plain flour and white sugar.
- You can easily alter the recipe to use caster sugar instead of raw sugar and white flour instead of wholemeal flour but I feel this version is much better all around.
This recipe was created by Kristine Duran-Thiessen for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder | <urn:uuid:f5ae891e-8a6c-45c8-bfe2-c0c68e07d134> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kidspot.co.nz/recipes-for+1104+45+Biscuits-and-cookies+Jam-drop-biscuits.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917947 | 366 | 1.515625 | 2 |
It's the kind of sweaty summer day when you might expect tempers to be short. Even so, though, the scene on a park bench in northern New Jersey strikes bystanders as a bit odd. A young woman with fiery red hair leans over her hapless boyfriend, screaming in his face.
"Nate, stop ignoring me!," she implores, just inches from his face. He all but ignores her.
"You're not even…" She pauses and moves her face even closer to his. "Hello Hello!" she screams. At times her rage boils over to physical abuse: she pulls the young man's hair, slaps the side of his head, and beats him with a rolled-up newspaper.
Fortunately, the troubling scene isn't real. The abusive woman and her boyfriend are actors, hired by "Primetime" for a hidden camera experiment.
On previous shows, "Primetime" has staged scenes of abuse in which the man is the aggressor, and the woman is the victim. And in these situations, passersby -- men and women -- often stepped up and intervened. So producers were curious. What would happen if the tables were turned, and the man was suddenly the victim? Would people be just as willing to come to his defense?
This staged scenario happens more often in real life than you may think. According to Colgate University psychology professor Carrie Keating, women abusing, even assaulting their male partners "is a big problem in this country."
"There are some data that suggest that women actually hit more than men do," says Keating. "Men create more damage, but women hit more than men do."
A report prepared for the Centers for Disease Control estimates that each year there are over 800,000 serious cases of men being physically abused by women. But the actual figures are believed to be much higher, since many men are often too embarrassed to admit being the victim of abuse by a woman.
Even professional athletes, with their macho reputations, have alleged abuse. In 2002, Major League pitcher Chuck Finley's wife, actress Tawny Kitaen, was arrested and jailed after he accused her of pummeling him, causing bruises and abrasions. She pleaded not guilty, and charges were dropped after she agreed to attend anger management classes.
Verbal and physical abuse of men by women might be an acknowledged problem, but will people try to stop it when "Primetime"'s hidden cameras are rolling?
One after another, passersby witnessed the abusive scene… and kept right on going.
Mathilda was one of those bystanders. She says she didn't think the man was in any physical danger, and could probably take care of himself. "I didn't immediately think to protect the man at all," she said. "It didn't look like any harm was being done."
The reaction of another woman, Lynda, was stunning. As our actress continued to heap abuse on her make-believe boyfriend, she walked by the scene and pumped her fist in a show of sisterly solidarity.
"Good for you. You Go, Girl!" is how Lynda recalls her reaction.
"I was thinking he probably did something really bad," she said. "Maybe she caught him cheating or something like that and [it] made her lose it and slap him in the face. I reacted like, 'Yes. Woman power.'"
This type of reaction didn't come as a surprise to Keating. Observers often excuse their "own lack of response by denigrating the victim and making up stories that he really deserved the punishment he was receiving," Keating says. | <urn:uuid:94b57698-06ec-4f32-9815-37c716a796ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2741047&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989012 | 745 | 1.875 | 2 |
SIDSnet Project described
(On 24 April, during the 6th meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development, the Alliance of Small Island States and UNDP's Sustainable Development Networking Programme hosted a demonstration of the new SIDSnet, a Web site dedicated to "building virtual global communities on island issues from the Barbados Plan of Action." Readers are encouraged to visit the Web site at http://chacmool.sdnp.undp.org/ and to read over this reprint of the background sheet that was distributed at the time.)
Small Island Developing States Network (SIDSnet)
1. The Action Plan of the Regional Technical Meeting for the Atlantic / Caribbean / Mediterranean preparatory to the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS, Barbados - May 1994) made the following recommendations on Information Management:
In view of the vast primordial importance of information and the volume which already exists in regional and international organizations and institutions, which represent great value in time and experience in the different areas of sustainable development, efforts must be made to tap these databases and avoid the duplication of studies and wastage of scarce resources. The following actions should be taken:
improve the availability of existing information in databases in regional and international organizations and institutions by indexing relevant information for SIDS under a new index entry for SIDS; and
promote and facilitate inter-island exchange of information on experiences, research and development in the area of sustainable development between the SIDS.
2. A 1994 case study and a follow-up in 1996 further emphasized the importance of information exchange between SIDS. The 1996 report highlighted the rapid development (since 1994) with Internet connectivity of participating SIDS.
3. In March 1997, the SDNP and TCDC unit of UNDP jointly funded a full-time coordinator to develop the Pilot SIDSnet programme currently based in New York. SDNP and TCDC agreed that an oversight committee would be appointed from AOSIS, the regional bureaus, SDNP and TCDC to guide the SIDSnet pilot project.
4. May 10, 1997, the oversight committee from AOSIS and other UNDP organizations approved a proposal for SIDSnet that included the development of a global SIDSnet internet networking site, SIDSnet news wire and a plan for pilot connectivity projects in six SIDS to ensure all SIDS can eventually participate in global SIDSnet. This was later endorsed by AOSIS.
5. October 6, 1997, A special SIDSnet presentation outlining SIDSnet activities for the next 18 months was made to an AOSIS plenary meeting in New York. AOSIS has committed to assist in securing additional funding to ensure that SIDSnet meets its objectives.
6 SIDSnet Activities
6.1 SIDSnet Global Network
The new SIDSnet is an Internet based network and will include WWW calendars, forums, web directories and access to important SIDS databases. The SIDSnet network will enable the TCDC SIDS experts and institutions databases to be updated online and will provide tools for other relevant databases to be accessed and updated by SIDS stakeholders worldwide. The network will allow users with only e-mail accounts to actively participate in all discussions/features. Regional and local stakeholders (e.g. UWI, CARICAD, CCA) will manage all aspects of the network.
Hewlett Packard has agreed to develop the SIDSnet Global Network and the SIDS News Wire. Work on these projects began February 17 and will deliver 90% of the features required on completion of phase 1 by 13 March 1998. This will enable us to begin training and implementation of SIDSnet at a regional and national level in April 1998.
The network will initially focus on 3 chapters of the Barbados Plan of Action: Coastal and Marine Resources, Energy and Sustainable Tourism. Eventually all the issues from the POA will be included and hosted on SIDSnet.
6.2 SIDS News Wire
The Internet based news wire submission and distribution. This will be developed together with the Global SIDS Network in item #6.l. This will enable relevant sustainable development press releases to reach stakeholders in all the SIDS via email or WWW access. Regional news services will be invited to participate in disseminating island news throughout the SIDS. Management of regional submissions will remain with the major regional/national stakeholders.
Hewlett Packard has agreed to develop the SIDSnet Global Network and the SIDS News Wire. Work on these projects began February 17 and will deliver 90% of the features required on completion o f phase 1 by 13 March 1998. This will enable us to begin training and implementation of SIDSnet at a regional and national level in April 1998.
SIDSnet is working with the UNDP SDNP to ensure that all SIDS will have a minimum of e-mail access by December 1998. Joint ventures with a local telecom or ISP will enhance long term sustainability in small island markets.
To date, SIDSnet is working with the Pacific Islands Internet Project to enable connectivity in 3-4. In the Caribbean, SDNP projects in Jamaica and Guyana and the Dominican Republic are near completion and a Haiti SDNP underway. The islands around Africa will include projects in Sao Tome and Principe and Cape Verde which will begin in 1998. National network programmes are underway in Papua New Guinea and Trinidad that will ensure that internet based information and national databases will be available to government, private sector and schools nationwide.
Regional meeting will be held with key stakeholders to determine regional needs and to discuss the most relevant approach for implementation of the SIDSnet global network in their regions.
National 2-day workshops promoting SIDSnet, teaching web publishing skills and providing general Internet overviews will be held in 30 SIDS. This will exclude developed SIDS and focus on assisting those SIDS that require additional assistance.
6.5. SIDSnet Utilities Fund
A fund to assist critical organizations in the SIDS to jump-start their participation in SIDSnet. Funding will be for small items such as a modem or 12 months Internet account.
6.6. SIDSnet Inter-island Specialists
Initiating cross-regional interaction between SIDS organizations is essential for the SIDSnet vision to materialize. SIDSnet will provide independent funding to jump-start such interaction and support similar activities by Capacity 21 enabling a SIDS expert (from another SIDS region) to address a relevant regional SIDS seminar in a different region.
6.7. SIDSnet Hosting/Mirror - Currently available
Web pages serve as a vital information outlet for SIDSnet stakeholders. Access to these locally hosted pages are limited by the small bandwidth (size of Internet link) available to many SIDS. SIDSnet will provide mirroring and hosting of websites on a faster Internet link in the USA.
If you are interested in participating in the SIDSnet Project, please contact;
Fax: +1 212 9066952 | <urn:uuid:5fd04e41-e5cb-4265-9e15-ff2d8f4c1f2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ramsar.org/cda/en/ramsar-news-archives-1998-sidsnet-project/main/ramsar/1-26-45-91%5E17501_4000_0__ | 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 | 0.900623 | 1,446 | 2.328125 | 2 |
by Shaun Chamberlin on November 20th, 2012
The right to access land matters, in a fundamental way. It is a place to live, a source for food, for water, for fuel, and for sustenance of almost every kind. And land management also has profound impacts on our ecosystems and environment, and thus on our well-being and our collective future. So it matters deeply that while UK supermarkets and housing estates find permission to build easy to come by, those who wish to use land to explore truly sustainable living are blocked and frustrated at every turn.
It is this sorry state of affairs that has given birth to the “Reclaim the Fields” movement and activist groups like Grow Heathrow and the Diggers 2012. Inspired by the example of Gerrard Winstanley’s 17th Century Diggers, these peaceful, practical radicals have moved onto disused UK land in order to cultivate it, build dwellings and live in common “by the sweat of our brow”.
In other words, they have asserted their right to simply exist on nature’s bounty, seeking neither permission from anyone nor dominion over anyone; a right that they believe people should still share with the other animals. A right, indeed, that was enshrined in UK law in the 1217 Charter of the Forest. More recently, however, the strange young notion of owning exclusive rights to land has pushed back hard (as this excellent article documents). Thus, as they fully expected – and as happened to their forebears – the Diggers 2012′s crops have been torn up and they themselves have been hassled, moved on and in some cases arrested.
It might seem, then, that the efforts of these determined folk are being successfully repelled by ‘the system’, were it not for two crucial considerations – that they have history on their side, and that there is an enormous army surging at their backs.
As we look around the world, we see them, from the likes of the 1.5m strong Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil and the vast international peasant’s movement La Via Campesina, to the tens of thousands of Greek families deserting the cities to return to any land they can access and the immense – and successful – land rights march across India earlier this year.
Meanwhile, closer to home, I see increasing numbers of my friends disillusioned and marginalised from the mainstream economy – ripped off by the banks, burdened with huge debts and struggling to find decent employment. As the inherently unsustainable financial economy continues to unravel, the people of England are not yet reaping the desperate consequences to the extent that those of Greece or India are, but it is growing even here, and it will come heavily home to this dark heart of the financial empire soon enough. For many, ‘austerity’ is already biting hard.
Naturally, in such circumstances, we seek alternatives. Yet while some might wish to follow the example of those Greek families and earn a simple, honest life “by the sweat of our brow”, rather than working frantically to earn ‘a living’ while paying off the debts incurred by a corrupt financial system, they are simply not being permitted to do so.
New laws are being passed absurdly criminalising the likes of squatting and trespass (even against the wishes of the police forces), meaning that the police are being forced to step in on behalf of landowners. Meanwhile, planning policy reform makes it ever easier for corporations – and harder for families – to control land, leaving the courts obliged to prosecute those who wish to work to heal disused, neglected land instead of relying on state handouts to survive the vagaries of the employment market. The glaring injustice that has mobilised mass movements in the likes of Brazil and India is becoming ever more apparent here.
Thus I see the tide of history at the backs of the Diggers 2012, with their direct action the vanguard of an inevitable UK movement to reclaim the land under our feet from the 1% – or 0.06% – who would call it theirs.
Yet, as with all influential movements for change in society, the activists cannot achieve much alone. Their direct action and willingness to put their bodies on the line powerfully expresses and demonstrates the ever-swelling public pressure, but if that pressure is to lead to a better society, rather than simply widespread frustration and anger, we also need positive lifestyle examples for law-abiding citizens to follow, complemented by the slow work of developing alternative legal and organisational forms that allow land to meet the pressing needs of the people.
This is why this year I agreed to become a director of an organisation called the Ecological Land Co-operative, which exists to overcome the two great barriers to land for those wishing to establish ecological businesses and smallholdings – soaring land prices and simple legal permission.
We are now on the brink of making our first area of land available, and my article in the latest edition of Permaculture Magazine (out now and highly recommended) explains how that has been done, as well as outlining the seven year journey to reach this point – with assistance from some of the leading experts on land reform – and our plans for the future. The photo at the top of this blog post shows that very piece of land; twenty-two acres in South-West England.
Crowdfunding and community financing have also allowed us to work on a pair of research reports. The first – Small Is Successful – examined existing land-based businesses of 10 acres or less and evidenced the economically viable and highly sustainable nature of the livelihoods they provide, without any need for the subsidies on which large farms so often rely. The Research Council UK showcased this as one of a hundred pieces of UK research ‘that will have a profound effect on our future’, and we have also presented our message at the House of Commons, to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Agroecology.
Our second research project has just begun; we are collaborating with others to produce a resource establishing both the current state of ecological farming in the UK – providing a single point of information on who is doing what and where, what acreages, to what markets, etc – and the current state of research into such agriculture.
I see this work as supporting and strengthening the wider movement to reclaim land from the ecologically destructive, market-driven mainstream of conventional land use. Or, if that sounds a little grand, perhaps I can borrow from one who speaks more plainly? In the words of a U.S. farmer quoted in Colin Tudge‘s So Shall We Reap:
“I just want to farm well. I don’t want to compete with anybody.”
In this world of frantic capitalism, there is a radical thought if ever I heard one.
It is a thought that inspires me. I feel more and more that the people the world needs most right now are not campaigners or activists, but such people who simply wish to live in relationship with a piece of land in a healing, productive and ecologically nurturing way. There is no shortage of them, and we should be making it as easy as possible for them to access land, without forcing them to launch political campaigns or planning permission battles in order to do so.
Perhaps that vast and diverse movement – from La Via Campesina and the Diggers 2012 to the Eco Land Co-op – in truth has but one simple aim. To safeguard the quiet dignity of that farmer, and the billions like him.
From the manifesto of The Land magazine:
“…Rarely will you hear someone with access to a microphone mouth the word “land”.
That is because economists define wealth and justice in terms of access to the market. Politicians echo the economists because the more dependent that people become upon the market, the more securely they can be roped into the fiscal and political hierarchy. Access to land is not simply a threat to landowning élites — it is a threat to the religion of unlimited economic growth and the power structure that depends upon it.
The market (however attractive it may appear) is built on promises: the only source of wealth is the earth. Anyone who has land has access to energy, water, nourishment, shelter, healing, wisdom, ancestors and a grave.
…Yet the earth is more than a tool cupboard, for although the earth gives, it dictates its terms; and its terms alter from place to place. So it is that agriculture begets human culture; and cultural diversity, like biological diversity, flowers in obedience to the conditions that the earth imposes. The first and inevitable effect of the global market is to uproot and destroy land-based human cultures. The final and inevitable achievement of a rootless global market will be to destroy itself.
In a shrunken world, taxed to keep the wheels of industry accelerating, land and its resources are increasingly contested. Seven billion people compete to acquire land for a variety of conflicting uses: land for food, for water, for energy, for timber, for carbon sinks, for housing, for wildlife, for recreation, for investment. The politics of land — who owns it, who controls it and who has access to it — is more important than ever, though you might not think so from a superficial reading of government policy and the media.
…Rome fell; the Soviet Empire collapsed; the stars and stripes are fading in the west. Nothing is forever in history, except geography. Capitalism is a confidence trick, a dazzling edifice built on paper promises. It may stand longer than some of us anticipate, but when it crumbles, the land will remain.” | <urn:uuid:e23e63a2-74cd-4f7e-9b9d-20860a8dadcc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.darkoptimism.org/2012/11/20/the-right-to-land/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955411 | 1,987 | 2.296875 | 2 |
ickens reworks his own childhood once again as a first-person narrative in Great Expectations, his thirteenth novel but only his second use of this highly subjective narrative point-of-view — the first being David Copperfield (1849-50), which encorporates the autobiographical fragment that Dickens never published. Unlike his earlier picaresque young heroes such as Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit, Pip (more properly, Philip Pirrip) and David are fully-developed, 'round' characters. Just as a child would, Dickens divides his settings and characters in both novels into the categories of “secure" and “threatening." But Dickens continues to prize distinctiveness in the drawing of the supporting characters. Uniqueness of identity in both major and minor characters makes the relatively 'flat' hero and heroine seem normal by comparison to such odd ducks as Orlick and Wemmick. As in the earlier, looser works such as The Pickwick Papers (1837) Dickens uses natural dialogue to reveal character subtly and indirectly.
Critics such as biographer Fred Kaplan have repeatedly pointed out that Pip and David are portraits of the novelist as a young man, something that the similarity in the initials of the novelist hero of the 1851 novel suggest. The futile love affair with Estella — bright, and distant, and cold as the stars for which he has named her — reflects young Dickens' own hopeless infatuation with a banker's daughter, Maria Beadnell. Significantly, in the original ending Dickens did not reward Pip for his struggles by arranging the traditional happy ending for the lovers.
In his novels Dickens sees the chief problem in life as being people's failing to understand one another clearly, to see the emotional and spiritual reality beneath the surface. This problem is reflected in such matters as the harshness of employers, the disinterestedness of government, the biases of the penal and justice systems--in short, the sheer inhumanity of British social institutions. “What is a gentleman, what is true gentility?" are the questions Dickens poses his reader in Great Expectations . He shows the development of Pip from an innocent, unsophisticated orphan to a pseudo- aristocrat and snob tinged by the taint of the prison house. The desire of the animalistic and brutal Orlick for personal vengeance reflects what Dickens sees as the fearful revolutionary potentialities of the masses so well exemplified by that tigress Madame Defarge in his previous novel in All the Year Round, A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Estella, cold and distant as the stars that hold the mysteries of our fates, makes Pip painfully aware of his humble condition and motivates him to strive to be something better, worthier of her love (which she can never bestow). Perhaps both learn their social-climbing at Satis House, and then demonstrate that they have unlearned those childhood lessons in the final scene there, in the revised ending that novelist Sir Edward G. D. Bulwer-Lytton and Dickens's mistress, Ellen Ternan (perhaps a model for Estella) preferred.
Wholesale trade was finally considered genteel in the second half of the nineteenth century--as is the case with the proud, haughty Miss Havisham, a brewery heiress who fancies herself an aristocrat. Pip begins with iron chains at Joe's forge but yearns for golden chains, those which also bind Miss Havisham to her past and her thirst for vengeance. At the close of Ch. 19 Pip changes clothes (an act symbolic of his changing class) and leaves his true friends, Biddy and Joe, for the vain and superficial society of London. Like Martin Chuzzlewit in the 1843 picaresque novel, Pip leaves the unspoiled countryside for a city of filth, crime, and oppression. However, Pip becomes a gentleman only in the true sense when he learns from the mouth of his benefactor the actual source of his great expectations; he proves his fundamental humanity by deciding to assist Magwitch, his great-hearted fairy- godfather who is to Pip what Miss Havisham is to Estella. Abel Magwitch, victim of the aristocratic and depraved Compeyson (Cain?), is Dickens' s indictment of nineteenth-century British society's callous disregard for the welfare of the lower orders. From him Pip unlearns the lessons of Miss Havisham, Jaggers, and Wemmick; once again he values people for what they are rather than for their 'portable property' and pocketbooks. The central plot-- with its secrets that Magwitch is responsible for Pip's fortune and that he is Estella's father--is obscured by surprisingly few digressions; the book's action is tight and well-knit, owing in part perhaps to its weekly as opposed to Dickens's usual monthly serial structure. Like its weekly-serialised brethren, Hard Times (1854) and A Tale of _____. (1859), the 1861 novel has fewer characters and little subplotting. Expectations and exploitation are its organizing and unifying motiffs.
And, like its weekly-serialised brethren, Great Expectations lacks both the exuberance and melodrama of Dickens' s earlier, picaresque works. Rigorously maintaining the first-person point-of-view (rather than his avuncular, Fieldingesque point of view of so evident in earlier works such as Martin Chuzzlewit), Dickens deftly suggests a small boy's perspective in the childhood section by limiting himself strictly to what a child would see and feel. The opening is especially effective in this regard, as the convict turns both Pip and his small world of marshes and dykes upside-down.The scene between the two fellow- victims (Magwitch, a victim of legal and social injustice, an escapee from the hulks; Pip, an orphan only temporarily free of the dictatorship of his sister when he visits his parents' grave) is sensational and dramatic because of the strongly-sensed undercurrent of violence and menace below the humorous, initially- tranquil surface. Magwitch presents Pip with a moral and physical dilemma. Joe, Mrs. Joe, and Biddy present him with a choice of adult characters to emulate. Uncle (in effect, step-father) Joe and Mrs. Joe's Uncle Pumblechook, artisan and merchant, present Pip with value choices. Joe is animated by the doctrine of love, Miss Havisham by that of hate. Matthew and Herbert Pocket repeat the selfless kindness and companionship of Biddy and Joe. These characters constitute Pip's social environment: we note that, although an orphan, Pip has no shortage of step-fathers and step- mothers.
Through them Pip must learn how to achieve human happiness. Through them Dickens shows how from infancy the individual is oppressed, moulded, and channelled into his adult identity: “The Child is father of the Man" (Wordsworth). Satis House and London are a complementary microcosm and macrocosm. Dickens's symbols generally and of the world-as- prison metaphor in particular involve mud, dust, gardens, seeds, the courts, and the river. He contrasts the purity of the Thames in the marsh country, at its mouth, with its pollution and corruption in the metropolis. Dickens' s ability to build suspense through adapting the devices of the late eighteenth-century's Gothic novel (the eerie setting, the child or young woman in danger, the evil and deformed monster, the plausive and villainous aristocrat, the nightmare, and so on) has served as a model for later novelists. Dickens uses the persecution and exploitation of children and the theatricality of funerals to build pathos.
However, Dickens is best remembered, perhaps, for his ability to create humour out of farce, nonsense, lampoon, slapstick, and satire, using such stock types as the drunk, the eccentric, the ham actor, the buffoon, the paltroon, the hypocrite, the mercenary physician and his accomplice, the undertaker, and such subjects as education, child abuse and neglect, and keeping up with the Joneses. In “On Some Aspects of the Comic in Great Expectations “ ( Victorian Newsletter 42, Fall 1972) Henri Talon proposes that the style of humour in this novel differs from that of Dickens's earlier works in that here humour is an aspect of the first-person perspective:
The detachment that comic observation demands comes not only of the lapse of time but of the maturity and inner poise that the narrator has achieved at the time he is writing. Because he has out-grown his past errors he can speak about them. First and foremost, Pip's humorous self-portrait evinces his belated self-knowledge. He was ridiculous because of his illusions and comparative self-ignorance (6-7).
Last modified 31 July 2004 | <urn:uuid:9f76719d-9119-492b-9529-a5c339de85fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/ge/pva10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958271 | 1,844 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The Nazca Lines
Unique geoglyphs drawn in the Peruvian desert, the Nazca Lines are truly fascinating. People often draw similarities between these designs and the so-called crop circles that are found at farms and fields throughout the world. One of the differences, however, is that the geoglyphs in the Nazca desert are enormous, with straight lines that often continue for hundreds of kilometers. And, unlike the crop circles, everyone knows who made them!
Viewed from the air, these Nazca Lines are an incredible site to behold, featuring huge geometric shapes, animal figures, spirals, and seemingly abstract masterpieces. Though these geoglyphs may appear mystical, they were actually made by removing layers of blackened volcanic rock from the desert and exposing the yellowish-tan soil underneath. By removing the rocks, these early artists were able to create their desired design.
Scientists believe that the Nazcans were able to accomplish those long, straight-as-an-arrow lines with the help of 2 stakes and some string, as well as several willing helpers. And while many have hypothesized as to the reason for the geoglyphs, no one truly knows why they were created.
The only way to appreciate the Nazca Lines is to fly over them. A trip to the local airport in the morning hours will present you with myriad opportunities to catch an inexpensive sightseeing flight. | <urn:uuid:3b5ae365-c58b-41e8-bb40-baaa21312c62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.perutravelguide.co.uk/nazca-lines.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975617 | 287 | 3.609375 | 4 |
These resources provides guidelines for using punctuation in your writing.
Last Edited: 2013-03-22 07:15:28
Although punctuation marks are small, punctuation takes on significant tasks: separating ideas, relating ideas to one another, clarifying meanings, and indicating changes from one voice to another. Without proper punctuation, readers can get confused and frustrated rather quickly. The following is a brief guide to all the puncutation types you will encounter in English and activities designed to give you practice with each of them.
In formal and semi-formal English writing, the sentence is the smallest complete textual unit. Aside from titles, anything less than a sentence (lacking an explicit or implicit noun or an explicit or implicit verb) is not acceptable. Most sentences in English end with periods (.), while question sentences end with question marks (?), and sentences indicating very strong emotions or voice end with exclamation marks (!):
- Doris is working in accounting these days.
- (You) Bring these papers to the notary.
- (Management class begins at) 9:30 in the morning.
- What’s the minimum page length for the final paper?
- I won a full scholarship!
Questions and exclamations tend to be shorter than other sentences. Although there are no hard and fast rules to follow for sentence length, it is a good idea to keep them from becoming “run-on” sentences. If you do not limit the length, you risk confusing your audience. If a sentence you have written is getting overly long (which is probably the case if there are a lot of other punctuation marks in the sentence, or a lot of information with no punctuation at all), break it down into smaller idea units and insert periods for each:
Without Correct Punctuation
Chiyoko is doing the presentation tomorrow, it will cover Reconstruction following the American Civil War, there were so many topics that we covered in the Civil War chapter that I don’t know how she was able to choose just one, and the presentation has to be less than twenty minutes!
With Correct Punctuation
Chiyoko is doing the presentation tomorrow. It will cover Reconstruction following the American Civil War. There were so many topics that we covered in the Civil War chapter that I don’t know how she was able to choose just one. The presentation has to be less than twenty minutes! | <urn:uuid:41bfea88-7578-4b3e-81e2-34d221d6cdbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/977/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938138 | 498 | 3.765625 | 4 |
According to Statistics Finland's statistics on the population structure, there were 255,912 persons aged 80 and over in Finland's population at the end of 2010. The number has grown five-fold over the last 40 years. The clear majority of those aged 80 and over were women, as the number of men was 81,205 and that of women 174,707.
Number of persons aged 80 and over in Finland's population in 1900–2010
At the end of 2010, the official total population of Finland was 5,375,276, of whom 2,638,416 were men and 2,736,860 women. In the course of 2010, Finland’s population grew by 23,849 persons. For the fourth successive year migration gain from abroad contributed more to the increase of population than natural growth.
During 2010, the number of persons aged 65 and over in the population increased by good 30,000 persons and totalled 941,041 at the end of 2010. The largest age cohort in Finland’s population was persons born in 1948 (82,048 persons). Persons over 100 years of age numbered 622, of whom 93 were men and 529 women.
A total of 248,135 foreign nationals lived in Finland at the end of 2010. The majority of those born abroad (65 per cent) were born in Europe. Next came those born in Asia (20 per cent) and Africa (nine per cent). Seventeen per cent of those born abroad speak Finnish as their native language.
Persons born abroad living in Finland at the end of 2010 by continent of birth
Of the population of Finland 4,857,903 persons (90.4%) spoke Finnish, 291,153 persons (5.4%) Swedish and 1,832 persons (0.03%) Sami as their native language. Persons with a native language other than Finnish, Swedish or Sami numbered 224,388, or 4.2 per cent of the population. The largest foreign-language groups spoke Russian (54,559 persons), Estonian (28,493 persons), Somali (12,985 persons), English (12,855 persons) and Arabic (10,415 persons).
At the end of 2010, the number of Finnish citizens permanently resident in Finland was 5,207,322, of whom 97,338 had been born abroad. Foreign citizens resident in Finland numbered 167,954, or 3.1 per cent of the population.
At the end of 2010, 54,912 persons living in Finland had another nationality in addition to Finnish citizenship. The largest dual nationality groups were citizens of Russia (15,348), Sweden (5,275) and the United States (3,220). In statistics these persons are classified as Finnish citizens.
The number of regions decreased by one as the regions of Itä-Uusimaa and Uusimaa were united. During 2010 the population increased in 10 and decreased in nine regions. In absolute numbers the population grew most in the regions of Uusimaa, by 14,767 persons, and Pirkanmaa, by 3,487 persons. In relative terms the population grew most in the regions of Åland and Uusimaa, by 1.0 per cent.
In absolute numbers the population decreased most in the regions of Etelä-Savo, by 900 persons, and Kainuu, by 561 persons. In relative terms the population decreased most in the regions of Kainuu, by 0.7 per cent and Etelä-Savo, by 0.6 per cent.
Six municipal mergers took effect as of the beginning of 2011, in consequence of which the number of municipalities in Finland decreased by six. There are now 336 municipalities in Finland. During 2010, the population grew in 137 and diminished in 197 municipalities.
Helsinki had the biggest absolute increase in population, 5,199 persons, followed by Espoo (3,640 persons) and Oulu (2,538 persons). Pieksämäki had the biggest absolute decrease in population (282 persons), followed by Jämsä (258 persons) and Kauhava (237 persons). In 2010, the population of Vantaa was the fourth municipality to exceed the 200,000 mark.
The demographic dependency ratio, that is, the number of under 15 and over 65-year-olds per 100 working age persons was 51.6 at the end of 2010. Examined by area, the demographic dependency ratio was highest in the regions of Etelä-Savo, 59.5, and South Ostrobothnia, 58.5.
The demographic dependency ratio was lowest in the regions of Uusimaa (44.9) and Pirkanmaa (51.1). Examined by municipality, the demographic dependency ratio was highest in Luhanka, 91.0, Kivijärvi, 84.1, and Multia, 80.9, and lowest in Helsinki, 39.9, Tampere, 42.4, and Oulu, 42.5.
Source: Population Structure 2010, Statistics Finland
Inquiries: Markus Rapo (09) 1734 3238, firstname.lastname@example.org
Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma
Publication in pdf-format (15 pages 391.9 kB)
Tables in databases | <urn:uuid:694b822e-8fe6-4ba9-8a05-9971b143fe3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2010/vaerak_2010_2011-03-18_tie_001_en.html?tulosta | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946699 | 1,111 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Keeping low-income communities stable
Just when poor people and communities of color need more stable, affordable housing, the Obama administration has chosen a pilot program that could turn the public housing system into a volatile private venture of shifting ownership and management structures.
The most irresponsible part of the Rental Assistance Demonstration pilot program, which would allow public housing agencies and private multi-family housing owners to use public and private funds to make capital repairs, is that it exposes public housing to the risks associated with the private market — including foreclosure, bankruptcy and default. It does this by allowing public housing to access private debt and equity, and shift into a mixed-financing model, which has proven historically to be unstable for low-income families.Continue Reading
While there are signs the economy is beginning to recover — Wall Street is thriving — the economic crisis continues in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Foreclosure rates in communities of color are three times those in predominately white areas. People of color are 45 percent of all renters nationwide, more than twice their respective share of homeowners. The unemployment rate for blacks is almost double that of whites, at 14.1 percent. The rate for Latinos similarly remains in double digits, at 10.7 percent. Decades of systematic disinvestment and exploitation, including predatory lending, inadequate investment in services like schools or hospitals and lack of financial support for the public housing system, led us to this point.
Despite these stunning statistics, the Obama administration is experimenting with our public housing system – the only source of stable and permanently affordable housing for more than 2 million families, mostly people of color. RAD, approved by Congress in late 2011, will award long-term rental assistance contracts to about 60,000 housing units that can then be leveraged to access public and private funds.
Our new research on RAD’s likely impact — conducted by Human Impact Partners, a health and equity research organization; Advancement Project, a next generation civil rights organization, and the Housing Justice Movement of the National People’s Action, a network of grass-roots organizations — is the first study to examine a federal housing policy’s effect on the health of public housing residents. Unfortunately, our study, released Wednesday, reveals that RAD is likely to influence residents’ health negatively.
In addition to opening funding and management opportunities to private sources, the RAD program emphasizes mobility, by giving vouchers to residents instead of doing more to keep them in stabilized housing. This will likely result in fewer public housing units actually being available to house our lowest-income people. Because of this, we found that the program is more likely to tear community’s apart — decreasing residents’ sense of social cohesion and support.
Get reporter alerts
Liz Ryan Murray | <urn:uuid:39cb2c32-bf03-4666-81ec-e0fd42cde1fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74285.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944853 | 561 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Although they have been limited in number for many years, exchanges with Colombia have been meaningful from a qualitative standpoint and are currently being intensified. The FMSH supported a project on women, violence, and sports. It also organized in Paris, with the collaboration of Beatriz Nates (University of Caldas in Manizales and holder of the Antonio Nariño Chair of Colombian Studies at the IHEAL), a highly successful study day on Colombia.
Since 2003, the FMSH has been hosting a young team, the Colombia of Today group, which, with the FMSH’s help, organized an international colloquium on “crops with illicit uses in the Andean region.” Following the FMSH’s preliminary commitment, other partnerships were forged with UNESCO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the EHESS, and the Greens.
GAC regularly organizes conferences with members of civil society, politicians, and researchers working on analyzing and resolving problems specific to the Andean countries.
In addition, Colombia could serve as a springboard for becoming involved with other Andean countries, like Bolivia. The evolution of the political situation in this country presents an obvious interest for the social and human sciences in terms of their immediate relationship with this country’s development.
Starting in late 2007, the FMSH will fill the UNESCO chair on “Human Rights and Violence: Government and Governance” where it will collaborate with the Externado de Colombia University in Bogotá, the Pintoficia Católica of Rio de Janeiro, the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos in Brazil, and the University Carlos III in Madrid. | <urn:uuid:2df55c8a-ed9e-42b4-b2b8-0b99ef339689> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.msh-paris.fr/en/research/geographical-areas/latin-america/colombia-cooperation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924483 | 347 | 1.875 | 2 |
(CNN) -- Does the Internet need more rules? Does it need any rules at all?
Based on the comments to our story "Meet the Rules of the Internet," the judgment is decidedly mixed.
The story explained the origin of the Internet's "rules," originally a set of guidelines/inside jokes spawned by a variety of sources, including the Internet collective Anonymous, the site Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan's Christopher Poole.
As with many Internet memes, however, the concept quickly spread to the mainstream to the point where it's now fairly routine to run across references to "Rule 34" in blog posts and comment strings.
Some CNN commenters, however, weren't going to have any rules under any circumstances.
"The only rule of the Internet is that there are absolutely no rules," said Sal, among others.
Other commenters mentioned one of the best-known Internet observations, Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Some wondered why it wasn't included.
We agree: Godwin's Law should definitely be a part of any set of Internet rules. (Personally, I blame my editor for its exclusion: Frankly, the guy is a ...)
With that out of the way, here are 10 more nominations for the list of Internet rules. Ignore them at your peril.
• As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. (Godwin's Law)
• You cannot unsee anything Rules 34-36 apply to. (suggested by Josh Weikel)
• The cake is a lie. (suggested by DragonWife; originated in the video game "Portal")
• Comment boards tend not to extend the discussion in a productive manner. (suggested by Simps0n)
• If a new version of anything comes out, half the Internet will hate it because they changed it too much, and the other half will hate it because they didn't change it enough. (suggested by chewie402)
• For trolls: When in doubt -- or when you just don't know -- go hostile. (suggested by Matt in KY)
• Don't be a d**k. (Wheaton's Law, suggested by freddosaurusRex)
• The girl you met online may actually be a guy. (suggested by Krehator; this is a variation of the classic New Yorker cartoon caption "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.")
• If anything you see upsets you, it is your problem, not the poster's. (suggested by readerman)
• Keep it simple. Odds are, most people reading this are stoned. (suggested by Jeffrey John Albrecht)
Thanks for playing. You can have your Internet back now. | <urn:uuid:35c37aba-d8a5-4c26-8ce3-0029cf9287f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/18/tech/web/more-internet-rules/index.html?hpt=hp_mid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948736 | 591 | 1.710938 | 2 |
With an improving economy, a shortage of listed homes and low interest rates, many people are eager to buy. Sellers, in turn, are raising prices.
Here's how the housing market is playing out in Orange County and elsewhere:
• Homes for sale are scarce. In early January, Orange County hit an 8 1/2-year low of 3,161 homes for sale, according to ReportsOnHousing.
• Real estate investors are absorbing many homes on the market. They often rent them out. "All these buyers are sucking up the inventory,'' says Jeff Stokes of Coldwell Banker Previews International in Newport Beach. "The investors buying homes now is (at) the highest I have seen in my 28 years in real estate. There seems to be a feeding frenzy in certain sub-markets, especially the lower end.''
• Home prices and sales soared in 2012. They reached the highest points since the housing bubble burst, DataQuick Information Systems reported. The median price of Orange County homes hit $470,000 in December, the highest median since June 2008. "Buyers on the fence were drawn back into the housing game by amazingly low mortgage rates, a brighter jobs outlook and, in some cases, a renewed sense of urgency," said DataQuick President John Walsh.
• Nationwide, home prices increased more than 8 percent year-over-year in December. Irvine-based data firm CoreLogic said the gain was the largest since May 2006.
• In January, Orange County had a 9 percent year-over-year increase in home values. That's according to a national housing market analysis by John Burns Real Estate Consulting in Irvine. | <urn:uuid:1ce4075d-b459-4417-8783-8c08a0e1254b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocregister.com/articles/homes-495296-year-low.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969441 | 339 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Web site: http://pbskids.org/sid/
Episode description: While surfing the Internet on the computer with his Mom, Sid finds a funny picture showing that the moon is made of green, glowing, cheese! Sid thinks this is amazing, and when he goes to school, he relays his newfound moon information to his friends, who are equally enthralled. When they tell Susie what they learned, Susie explains not everything you find on the computer is true!
Rating: [TV-Y] (All Children)
Series Information: Sid the Science Kid
No Upcoming Airdates.
- KET: Monday, April 29 at 11:30 am EDT
- KET: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 11:30 am EST
- KET: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 11:30 am EST
- KET: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 11:30 am EDT
- KET2: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 1:30 pm EDT
First aired: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 (excluding any air dates prior to June 1999)
Official web site: http://pbskids.org/sid/ | <urn:uuid:cab5e491-4d3a-462a-ac5a-9d4b0ea878ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ket.org/tvschedules/episode.php?nola=SISK++000224&cd=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938375 | 246 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Submitted by Paul Rickard, Coordinator of the Pink Project for the Cowichan Bay Improvement Society (2008-2009)
Early in 2007, the Cowichan Bay Improvement Association decided to develop a Pink Salmon Net Pen Project to bring some fishing back to Cowichan Bay. Graeme Bull, a Marine Harvest employee who lives and works in Port Hardy, is also a member of the sport fishing community. He had heard about our project and our need for some equipment and gave us a call. Graeme got a welder up in Port Hardy to work on a surplus Marine Harvest 20 foot by 20 foot cage. Graeme also located a net at a local hatchery. We paid the welding costs, the cost of the net and had both items transported down to Cowichan. Without Graeme’s help, I don’t think we would have been able to start up so well. In Cowichan Bay, we soon met Garth and Doris Riggins who have their live aboard moored almost beside the net pen site at the Bluenose Marina. Garth and Doris operate Marine Harvest’s Freshwater Farms hatchery. We knew almost nothing about feeding, checking on fish health, and measuring dissolved oxygen. With their help and supervision, we soon became “experts” (well almost). Because we need help to feed these young fish, the community pitched in, keeping a logbook of feeding up to date. At the end of the day, Doris and Garth would check the book, and always do the last evening feeding for us, every day! This year Garth gave me updates on the growth of the fish, and kept checking the dissolved oxygen levels at the end of the five week project when we were concerned about net fouling. This is truly a community project, with parents and children coming down to watch and feed the fry, along with the fairly large live aboard community in Cowichan Bay, who really adopted our fish. Garth, Doris and Graeme have made a particularly valuable addition to our project, and are clearly part of our Cowichan Community.
More photos available at http://www.marineharvestcanada.com/sustainability_protecting_wild_fish.php | <urn:uuid:5960abfd-7ab1-4c50-acc5-fb30077871a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marineharvestcanada.com/blog/tag/grame-bull/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95854 | 464 | 1.929688 | 2 |
|Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1831) by
Table of Contents
|Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, first published in London in 1818, is a novel infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. It was also a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. Many distinguished authors, such as Brian Aldiss, claim that it is the very first science fiction novel.— Excerpted from Frankenstein on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
one or more chapters are available in a spoken word format.
- Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
- To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
- From darkness to promote me?—
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Inconvenient Truths and Self-Serving Myths About Geronimo
Richard Slotkin, author of Gunfighter Nation, defines myths as traditional stories utilized to sum up and assign meaning to our history. Mythologist Joseph Campbell, author of The Power of Myth and The Hero With a Thousand Faces, asserts that while most myths contain a hero and a villain, often they are both the same. Both are described as having a distinct set of values and a clear agenda. All of that (and more) applies to the man named Goyathlay but mythologized around the world as Geronimo.
Throughout history, men and women have risen to mythological prominence as heroes and villains through the aggrandizing of their deeds and abilities. As a result, men as divergent as Abraham Lincoln, Jesse James and Rasputin, and women as dissimilar as Mother Teresa, Marie Antoinette and Pocahontas are pop-culture icons. Mythologizing is a staple of our culture, of our very nature. But what happens when a person’s celebrated name is appropriated, not for monetary gain, but as a means of co-opting that person’s character, personality traits, reputation or identity for personal embellishment or power?
The recent use of the name of Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo in the mission that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden has raised eyebrows and controversy. Critics complain that naming Osama bin Laden was inappropriate, because it made the Indian leader synonymic with a hated enemy of the United States. As the headline for a story by journalist Mary Papenfuss pointed out: “Osama was no Geronimo. One was a terrorist; the other was a fearless protector of tribal lands.” Some defenders of the code name claim its use was an honor—a term of respect for the Apache hero’s expertise, strength and determination as a warrior.
Jeff Houser, however, reminds us that there are more important aspects to this controversy than the debate over the propriety of co-opting Geronimo’s name. As the chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, Houser is far more concerned about Geronimo’s legendary struggle for Apache rights than his reputation. “The government viewed Apaches as enemies, but the U.S. also had a trust responsibility to look after the tribe’s interests, yet they made them prisoners of war, withholding their freedom for 28 years,” he says. “The government made many promises to the Apache people which they failed to keep. I am more concerned about them honoring those agreements than honoring the man.”
Cherokee actor Wes Studi, who portrayed the Apache leader in the 1993 film, Geronimo: An American Legend, says he had preconceived notions about Geronimo before he took on the role. “I saw him as a great warrior who fought valiantly for his people against all odds, but as time went on I got a clearer picture of him through his relatives. I began to realize that much of what I knew of him was myth. He was a complicated person; a real person with real strengths and real weaknesses.”
What Geronimo Can Do For You
Some argue that the appropriation of Geronimo’s name is the act of a dominant culture over a champion of a less influential culture for the purpose of self-empowerment, that it is some kind of “social exocannibalism.” Exocannibalism is a term anthropologists used to describe the actions of an antagonist who eats a part of their enemy (heart, brain, blood, etc.) in order to absorb that rival’s powers and abilities. By metaphorically consuming the persona of a formidable enemy, social exocannibals attempt to absorb the opponent’s strength, courage, vitality, prestige, and skills—qualities they desire to have themselves.
Perhaps the most bizarre manifestation of this theory comes from the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale University, which has long been rumored to be in possession of Geronimo’s skull. The rumor gained some validity in 2005 when historian Marc Wortman discovered a 1918 letter that claimed Bonesman Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush, had robbed Geronimo’s grave at Fort Sill and stolen his skull and other artifacts. The letter claimed that Bush had sent the objects back to “the Tomb,” the society’s Connecticut clubhouse, for display.
But Houser doesn’t believe the society has the remains of the Apache leader—the matter has been investigated twice, and a 2009 lawsuit brought by Geronimo’s relatives seeking to force the society to return the remains if they have them was ultimately dismissed. “I hold the claim as doubtful, and it doesn’t do any good to speculate about it,” he says. But he does understand the power of social exocannibalism, fact or legend. He says Apaches believe that disturbing a grave can have negative consequences. “Geronimo’s peers claimed he possessed a great deal of personal power. Grave robbers steal their victim’s power by dehumanizing them.”
Why They Yell ‘Geronimo!’
The answer’s not “social exocannibalism,” but it’s close.
Private Aubrey Eberhardt, of the U.S. Army’s Parachute Test Platoon, claimed it was admiration for Geronimo’s celebrated bravery and mystical power that inspired him to yell his name for the first time as he parachuted out of a plane at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1940. Having watched Paramount’s 1939 Western Geronimo the night before his jump, he summoned the courage of the Apache leader by yelling out his name as he leapt from the plane. His fellow paratroopers followed suit, and soon an official sanction of the practice followed. During World War II, the popular paratrooper’s song, “Down From Heaven” described the act of calling out Geronimo’s name as an expression of bravery and courage:
It’s a gory road to glory,
But we’re ready—here we go
Shout “GERONIMO! GERONIMO!”
In 1941, Major William Miley of the 501st Parachute Infantry Battalion, sought out Geronimo’s relatives and asked and received their permission to display his name on the unit’s insignia worn on their dress uniforms.
Geronimo’s mythic status was a natural by-product of his incredible notoriety. Houser says he was an iconic figure long before his death and a popular focus of the media even back then: “There are hundreds of photographs of him, but how many are there of Cochise or Mangus Colorado?”
Studi believes that much of Geronimo’s fame was the result of his clashes with the American military. “I think the government iconized him more than anyone else. To stop hostilities in the Southwest, concessions were made on both sides. The military considered him a proficient opponent that they weren’t able to defeat—a foe worthy of their persistence.” Houser adds that Geronimo’s prowess on the battlefield was so impressive that his tactics were taught at West Point, further enhancing his mystique.
After World War II, Hollywood Westerns and TV shows intensified the western myth of Cowboys and Indians, yet Geronimo seemed to have faded from public memory until the bin Laden mission put him the headlines once again. Consequently, he was often regarded as little more than a caricature. Many young people have no idea that he was a real person, and those who do know of him have little understanding of the life he led or challenges he faced.
A Man Called Goyathlay
He was born in 1829 in Mexico Territory in present-day New Mexico and given the name Goyathlay. A Bedonkohe Apache by birth and grandson of Maco, he was a member of the nomadic Nedni band of the Chiricahua Apaches. Although their reason for doing so is unclear, Mexican soldiers who fought against him referred to him as “Geronimo.”
Goyathlay, a skillful warrior, led the last Indian force to formally submit to the United States. A shrewd and commanding leader, his daring exploits, elusive maneuvers and seemingly miraculous powers of endurance and escape elevated him to legendary status among Indians and non-Indians alike. Joseph Runningfox, Pueblo, who portrayed the Apache warrior in a 1993 made-for-TV movie, Geronimo, says he was a man like any other, with strengths, faults and idiosyncrasies. “He was a family man who provided for his family and was content in that way of living. Then one day, survival called him to the purpose of defense and he took his place,” says Runningfox, who says he was struck in his research for the role by how deeply Geronimo was affected by losses he experienced. His mother, wife, and three young children were killed by Mexican troops in 1858. To understand his motivations, Runningfox says he had to “drop into that sorrow.” He did so by visiting the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. “I met the Apache people. I looked in their eyes, and what grabbed me was the way they all were affected by that loss.”
After decades of war with the Mexicans, several extraordinary escapes and continued resistance against the Americans, Goyathlay surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles in 1886. He and 450 Apache men, women and children were transported to Florida for confinement at Forts Pickens and Marion. Eight years later they were relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Geronimo and his family pursued ranching.
The Yin, the Yang—and Those Buttons
Houser says there is a lot of ambivalence about Geronimo. To many of his people he personified Apache values: loyalty, determination, courage and aggressiveness. To non-Indians at the turn of the last century, however, he was a constant threat to their continued occupation of the region.
In 1904, he appeared at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, where he was exalted as a cult hero. Although billed as the last of the fierce warriors, hateful and resistant to progress, he spoke graciously of the experience in his memoirs. “I saw many interesting things [at the fair] and learned much of the white people. They are a very kind and peaceful people.” [It should be noted that when he said this he was a prisoner of war, and had good reasons to not provoke his captors.]
During the fair he posed for pictures, sold and autographed postcards. Houser says he was much more modern than most of his peers, and that he enjoyed the attention he received. A man of his time in many ways, he also enjoyed making money and demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the snarky jibe of his famous contemporary, P.T. Barnum, who once said, “Every crowd has a silver lining.” Studi recalls a story he was told while working on his film. “On his way to Florida, he wore an army coat that he had acquired. Wherever the train stopped and people crowded around to get a glimpse of him, he would sell the buttons off the coat as souvenirs. Then he would sew more on to sell to the next crowd.”
On March 4, 1905, Geronimo rode on horseback in full regalia with venerated leaders of five other Indian nations in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade. They were Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, Ute Chief Buckskin Charlie, Oglala Lakota Chief American Horse, Blackfeet Chief Little Plume, and the Brulé Lakota Chief Hollow Horn Bear. Note that Geronimo was the only man in that group who was not a chief. Roosevelt and his entourage beamed as the men passed by.
Presidential advisor Woodworth Clum objected to Geronimo’s inclusion, referring to him as “the greatest single-handed murderer in American history.” Roosevelt explained that he simply “wanted to give the people a good show.” More likely, however, the president wanted to boast of the success of Col. Richard Henry Pratt in his efforts to Americanize Indians, as marching with these legendary leaders were 350 uniformed cadets from Pratt’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
While still considered a prisoner of war and forbidden to return to his cherished homeland, Geronimo died on February 17, 1909. He reportedly left behind a savings account with $10,000 in it, a small fortune in those days, which suggests that he was able to negotiate his way as skillfully in white corporate America as he had on the battlefield.
Everyone Needs an Epitaph
Since his passing, the elements of miracle and mystery that swirled around Goyathlay created the legend of Geronimo. Through that transformation he became a hero of great stature to some and a bloodthirsty villain to others. Although the reality of the man lies somewhere in between those two, as Studi points out, “Everyone needs heroes and villains.” | <urn:uuid:46f177cf-fe61-4562-a076-76b867f6295f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/inconvenient-truths-and-self-serving-myths-about-geronimo-38525 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980592 | 2,821 | 3.109375 | 3 |
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Evidence abounds that many schools don't consider technology central to their core mission.
Mobile technologies such as cell phones, digital music players, and handheld gaming devices are by and large banned from America's K-12 schools. While the number of desktops and laptops is rising, there's still a dearth of computers in the classroom.
Even where the computer-to-student ratio is high, there's hardly enough IT staff to ensure that the PCs run smoothly. On average, there's a single IT staff member per 800 students, teachers, and administrators in U.S. public school districts, compared with one IT staff person per every 11 users in business. And business IT folks earn about 50% more than their counterparts in K-12 education.
It's not hard to see why technology isn't given greater prominence. The curriculum in U.S. schools today traces its roots to the 19th century. In 1892, at Harvard College, the Committee of Ten promulgated a curriculum that American schools needed to enact in order to prepare students to attend Harvard College. You don't need 21st century computing technologies to teach a 19th century curriculum.
Of course, teachers, administrators, and districts have made important changes to the curriculum's content since 1892. Still, U.S. K-12 schools are still shackled to the fact-focused, information-transmission pedagogy of that 1892 curriculum, as Roger Schank explains in his excellent analysis of America's educational system, Making Minds Less Well Educated Than Our Own, published in 2004 by LEA Publishers.
An emphasis on memorization made sense in earlier times—say, when printed materials were scarce. But now that a Google (GOOG) search delivers vast storehouses of information in seconds, a fact-focused, memorization-based curriculum is no longer appropriate.
The good news is that at long last, change is a-comin' to K-12. Recently, the call for teaching 21st century skills and content in K-12 has gained considerable momentum and acceptance. Problem-solving, communication, and teamwork are examples of 21st century skills; a deep, integrated model of key science processes, for example, is 21st century content. To learn such 21st century content and skills, students must use 21st century information and communication technology.
But simply issuing a computer to a student isn't enough to guarantee its effective use. Following on the pioneering one-laptop-per-student initiatives in Maine in 2002 and Henrico County, Va., in 2001, districts across the country rolled out pilot laptop projects with the expectation that putting modern computing into a young person's hands would dramatically change education. But as The New York Times noted in its May 2007 article, "Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops," schools were spending their budgets on computer maintenance and had little left over to purchase educationally specific software and training to help teachers integrate the laptops into their existing curriculum. Generally speaking, the computers devolved into glorified typewriters and interfaces to Google.
We have learned from the past; this next round with computing technologies promises to be different. A new generation of computing technologies—mobile, handheld, low-cost—is emerging. Students are already bringing these technologies to school; we just need to allow the kids to bring them out of hiding and use them in their classroom for curricular purposes. Schools can then use their limited funds for educational software and teachers' professional development.
For example, rather than spending a bundle on building a sophisticated wireless infrastructure and another bundle on maintaining it, a school could make use of cell-phone computers and the telecoms' existing wireless infrastructure for Internet access. Besides connectivity at school, the students would then have wireless access to the Internet at home—which significantly helps the poor who don't otherwise have wireless access at home. Schools outsource cafeteria services and bus services; why shouldn't they outsource networking services, too? And don't worry: The telecoms have excellent firewalls that will protect your children when they are online.
One computer per student isn't enough. Schools should emphasize the notion of "continuous, seamless use." The focus on providing a 1-to-1 ratio of laptops to students should be shifted to how students use technology. The State Education Technology Directors Assn. just published a vision statement that reflects this idea: "Ensure that technology tools and resources are used continuously and seamlessly for instruction, collaboration, and assessment."
Mobile technologies define the youth of today. First, adults brought laptops into schools for the children; the children were not impressed. Today, the children themselves are bringing their technology into schools. Educators simply need to lighten up and wise up—and use the student-provided technologies to further the educational mission of the school. Our youth are already comfortable and successful with these mobile technologies; not using them at school wastes resources and causes a disconnect. Students now say they have to "power down their brains" when they come to school. Let the kids be themselves and stay powered on when they enter the school door with their mobile devices.
But wait, there's more! These mobile technologies may enable schools to leapfrog hurdles they are currently facing and jump-start the revitalization of education that everyone—parents, educators, business and union leaders, academics, and President-elect Barack Obama—is calling for. Some say the way to school improvement is through teacher improvement, and there are myriad strategies for addressing that goal. Others want to move to online education and essentially do away with teachers. In the end, some hybrid form of education will undoubtedly arise. But until then, while those and other camps work out their issues, our children, especially those from poor urban and rural districts, are losing out.
So here's the plan: On his first day in office, President Obama changes the rules so that E-Rate, the federal program that allocates money to provide Internet connections to schools and public libraries, can pay a telecom for the cellular data plan to support students doing schoolwork on their handheld computers. The telecom drops its cellular data rate from $60 per month per device to a federally mandated $6 monthly per device. Don't shed tears for the telecoms. They'll make up the difference by collecting fees from families of the millions of schoolchildren now using the cell-phone voice plans. In the meantime, the schools are required to commit, from their own funds, 30% of the cost of the technology, paid for by E-Rate, to be used for professional development and educational software purchases. Literally overnight, America's schools can move into the 21st century.
After World War II, Congress passed the G.I. Bill that paid for educating America's soldiers, which in turn fueled an unprecedented spurt of productivity unmatched anywhere in the world. America's public education system was the vehicle then, and can be the vehicle now, to revitalize and rebuild a great America. The means for doing so have emerged and are within our control; we must mobilize our schools—pun intended—now!
Norris is Regents Professor at the College of Information, Library Science, & Technology at the University of North Texas. Her research and teaching emphasize the integration of learning technologies more effectively into classrooms. Soloway is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Computer Science & Engineering Dept. at the University of Michigan. Over the past 25 years, Soloway has explored ways to use emerging technologies to empower children to enjoy learning. Norris is a co-founder and chief education architect at GoKnow, an Ann Arbor (Mich.)-based provider of educational resources for mobile computing in K-12 classrooms. Soloway is a co-founder and the chief strategy officer at GoKnow. | <urn:uuid:445a6d75-b195-4310-8f92-4fa5b7f73754> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2009/tc20090114_741903.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958007 | 1,603 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The NYT has a follow-up on Charlie Savage’s earlier article about all the gun safety provisions lying dormant at DOJ. It describes the gaps in the background check system due to states not sharing their data with the federal government.
Nearly two decades after lawmakers began requiring background checks for gun buyers, significant gaps in the F.B.I.’s database of criminal and mental health records allow thousands of people to buy firearms every year who should be barred from doing so.
The database is incomplete because many states have not provided federal authorities with comprehensive records of people involuntarily committed or otherwise ruled mentally ill. Records are also spotty for several other categories of prohibited buyers, including those who have tested positive for illegal drugs or have a history of domestic violence.
In the past I’ve drawn a comparison between our country’s treatment of terrorists and gun nuts, arguing that it has prioritized the less urgent threat.
But this background check database raises interesting comparisons with DHS’ Secure Communities, particularly the effort to ensure that any undocumented person arrested for a crime gets deported. Like terrorism, Secure Communities has hit a point of diminishing returns. As with terrorism, Secure Communities is built to allow for false positives.
Nevertheless, the government has prioritized getting that database completely functioning, with participation from every state.
While the law also allowed the Justice Department to withhold some general law enforcement grant money from states that did not submit their records to the system, the department has not imposed any such penalties, the G.A.O. found.
Not so with gun buyers, apparently.
And the comparison here offers one other lesson. One reason for the delay in data-sharing from the states is the difficulty in implementing an appeals process.
After the Virginia Tech shooting, Congress enacted a law designed to improve the background check system, including directing federal agencies to share relevant data with the F.B.I. and setting up a special grant program to encourage states to share more information with the federal government. But only states that also set up a system for people to petition to get their gun purchasing rights restored were eligible under the law — a key concession to the National Rifle Association — which proved to be an extra hurdle many states have not yet overcome.
Frankly, ensuring people have due process is one of the least offensive things the NRA does (would that they championed the civil rights of felons more generally).
If we demand this for gun ownership, why don’t we demand it for far more damaging terrorism and deportation data mining? | <urn:uuid:94e67632-5f33-407e-95b2-96b03bd14b87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emptywheel.net/category/fusion-centers/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946642 | 519 | 1.820313 | 2 |
China’s seasonal politics
A small example is that the state council of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) stipulates that young people aged between 14 and 28 can enjoy a half-day holiday every 4 May: “youth day”. In practice, few Chinese can afford to leave school or work on this day, which commemorates the momentous student protests against the provisions related to China in the Versailles peace agreement of 1919. Today, the occasion little celebrated; as indeed is another seasonal occasion every 1 May, “labour day”.
It’s true that that labour day (1 May), youth day (4 May) and women’s day (8 March) have been recognised as national holidays since soon after the foundation of the “new China” in 1949. But the political associations of these “new holidays” in a new era of boisterous capitalism mean that the authorities are anxious to downplay them. Alongside them, more traditional Chinese holidays – such as tomb-sweeping day (5 April), the dragon-boat festival and the moon festival (15 August) – have emerged to become more extravagantly celebrated.
The labour question
The state is obliged to go through the motions. China’s president Hu Jintao, on the eve of labour day on 1 May 2010, praised Chinese working people as “the most reliable class basis for the party” and described workers as “the unquestionable leading class of Chinese socialism”. An interesting response comes from Ding Xueliang, a sociology professor teaching in Hong Kong. He says that many Chinese working people would be dumbfounded to hear that they are a “leading class”; and that to tell Chinese peasants that the republic is made of a “peasant-worker alliance” (as the state also declares) amounts almost to a political joke.
In the west, “May day” was inspired by the events of 1886 in Chicago and elsewhere in the United States, when a great strike won the right after a hard and bloody struggle to an eight-hour working day. 120 years later, China passed a “labour-contract law” which gives workers rights of guaranteed payment and working-breaks. But in practice, for many Chinese workers – both white- and blue-collar –an eight-hour working day and associated benefits remain a dream (see Kerry Brown, “China: inside strain, outside spleen”, 10 March 2010).
In many western countries there is no official public holiday on 1 May, but it is an occasion when trade unions and leftwing groups march in the streets to affirm working people’s solidarity. By contrast, Ding Xueliang says that the People’s Republic of China is one of the few countries in the world where workers are not allowed to celebrate this day on their own initiative.
The memory of youth
The protests of 4 May 1919, provoked by the humiliating treatment of China at Versailles, featured a march by thousands of Beijing students from Tiananmen Square. On the way some of the their number broke in to the home of then treasury minister Cao Rulin – whom they blamed for selling Chinese interests to an encroaching Japan – and burned it down (see Jeffrey N Wasserstrom, “China’s anniversary tempest”, 25 February 2009).
Some revisionist historians in China regard the house-burning affair in 1919 as a stain on the “patriotic” movement. But however the movement is assessed, it is clear that the republican government of the day lacked the kind of powerful police force or anti-riot capacities now possessed by the Communist Party. Even the warlord-politicians who ruled China were not able to impose martial law and use the army to crush students, as happened in Tinanamen Square seventy years later.
The party reveres the 1919 movement as an embodiment of the so-called “May 4 spirit”: a combination of liberty, science and democracy. Its official propaganda sees this spirit as a weapon against imperialism and feudalism, and the movement itself as a pioneer in awakening the Chinese working class to play an important part in Chinese politics.
But “democracy” is nowadays a political taboo in China – and a word to be filtered by the internet-police (see Johnny Ryan & Stefan Halper, “Google vs China: capitalist model, virtual wall”, 22 January 2010). Ding Xueliang says that the scientific aspect of the May movement is acceptable, but the democracy part has since 1989 become a problem for the authorities. The suspicion of democracy makes it very difficult for officials who deal with young people and students to appear logically consistent in their propaganda work.
The traditional revived
Since 2008, other annual occasions – tomb-sweeping day, the dragon-boat festival, the moon festival – have become national holidays in China. The changes to Chinese national holidays in recent years indicate a tendency to neglect – even phase out – those associated since 1949 with class and revolution; and to place more emphasis on those that seem rooted in older Chinese traditions and shared ancestry (especially the imagine common descent of Han Chinese from the emperors Yan and Huang). The influence of overseas Chinese, and those in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has (says Ding Xueliang) played a big part in these revived celebrations.
But to reserve national days for traditional Chinese holidays carries some dangers, and has incurred criticism. Zhang Yiyi, a writer in Hunan province, condemns the conversion of tomb-sweeping day into a national holiday on two grounds: it originates in an imperial ceremony, thus making it a regressive superstition; and it represents the imposition of a Han Chinese holiday upon non-Chinese minorities, thus making it an act of disrespect.
The moon festival, spring festival, tomb-sweeping day and the dragon-boat festival are heralded as the four cardinal Chinese festivals. All of them are now national holidays throughout China, though most are foreign to non-Chinese minority cultures. The moon festival (15 August) is for Chinese a day for family reunion; but it reminds many Mongols of the history of Chinese rebellion against the (Mongolian) Yuan dynasty. Indeed, legend has it that Chinese rebels used moon-cakes to pass a secret massage “to kill Tartars [Mongols] on 15 August”.
In China, revolution and class are giving way to capitalism and “tradition”. The most seriously celebrated Chinese national holidays are now all Han Chinese in origin. This brings questions of ethnic sensitivity come into play. True, Han Chinese form the overwhelming majority of the population; and Ding Xueliang says that installing a national holiday with a non-Chinese minority origin would require a very complicated legislative procedure. The Chinese state already has enough problems in adapting the calendar and keeping the people in line.
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Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsh, [1857-78], at sacred-texts.com
When the corn brought from Egypt was all consumed, as the famine still continued, Jacob called upon his sons to go down and fetch a little corn (little in proportion to their need).
Judah then declared, that they would not go there again unless their father sent Benjamin with them; for the man (Joseph) had solemnly protested (העד העד) that they should not see his face without their youngest brother. Judah undertook the consultation with his father about Benjamin's going, because Reuben, the eldest son, had already been refused, and Levi, who followed Reuben and Simeon, had forfeited his father's confidence through his treachery to the Shechemites (Gen 34).
To the father's reproachful question, why they had dealt so ill with him, as to tell the man that they had a brother, Judah replied: "The man asked after us and our kinsmen: Is your father yet alive? have ye a brother? And we answered him in conformity (פּי על as in Exo 34:27, etc.) with these words (i.e., with his questions). Could we know, then, that he would say, Bring your brother down?" Joseph had not made direct inquiries, indeed, about their father and their brother; but by his accusation that they were spies, he had compelled them to give an exact account of their family relationships. So that Judah, when repeating the main points of the interview, could very justly give them in the form just mentioned.
He then repeated the only condition on which they would go to Egypt again, referring to the death by famine which threatened them, their father, and their children, and promising that he would himself be surety for the youth (הנּער, Benjamin was twenty-three years old), and saying, that if he did not restore him, he would bear the blame (חטא to be guilty of a sin and stone for it, as in Kg1 1:21) his whole life long. He then concluded with the deciding words, "for if we had not delayed, surely we should already have returned a second time."
And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds: After this, the old man gave way to what could not be avoided, and let Benjamin go. But that nothing might be wanting on his part, which could contribute to the success of the journey, he suggested that they should take a present for the man, and that they should also take the money which was brought back in their sacks, in addition to what was necessary for the corn they were to purchase; and he then commended them to the mercy of Almighty God. "If it must be so, yet do this (אפוא belongs to the imperative, although it precedes it here, cf. Gen 27:37): take of the prize (the most choice productions) of the land-a little balm and a little honey (דּבשׁ the Arabian dibs, either new honey from bees, or more probably honey from grapes, - a thick syrup boiled from sweet grapes, which is still carried every year from Hebron to Egypt), gum-dragon and myrrh (vid., Gen 37:25), pictachio nuts and almonds." בּטנים, which are not mentioned anywhere else, are, according to the Samar. vers., the fruit of the pistacia vera, a tree resembling the terebinth, - long angular nuts of the size of hazel-nuts, with an oily kernel of a pleasant flavour; it does not thrive in Palestine now, but the nuts are imported from Aleppo.
"And take second (i.e., more) money (משׁנה כּסף is different from משׁנה־כּסף doubling of the money = double money, Gen 43:15) in your hand; and the money that returned in your sacks take with you again; perhaps it is a mistake," i.e., was put in your sacks by mistake.
Thus Israel let his sons go with the blessing, "God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may liberate to you your other brother (Simeon) and Benjamin;" and with this resigned submission to the will of God, "And I, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved," i.e., if I am to lose my children, let it be so! For this mode of expression, cf. Est 4:16 and Kg2 7:4. שׁכּלתּי with the pausal a, answering to the feelings of the speaker, which is frequently used for o; e.g., טרף for יטרף, Gen 49:27.
When the brethren appeared before Joseph, he ordered his steward to take them into the house, and prepare a dinner for them and for him. טבה the original form of the imperative for טבח. But the brethren were alarmed, thinking that they were taken into the house because of the money which returned the first time (השּׁב which came back, they could not imagine how), that he might take them unawares (lit., roll upon them), and fall upon them, and keep them as salves, along with their asses. For the purpose of averting what they dreaded, they approached (Gen 43:19) the steward and told him, "at the door of the house," before they entered therefore, how, at the first purchase of corn, on opening their sacks, they found the money that had been paid, "every one's money in the mouth of his sack, our money according to its weight," i.e., in full, and had now brought it back, together with some more money to buy corn, and they did not know who had put their money in their sacks (Gen 43:20-22). The steward, who was initiated into Joseph's plans, replied in a pacifying tone, "Peace be to you (לכם שׁלום is not a form of salutation here, but of encouragement, as in Jdg 6:23): fear not; your God and the God of your father has given you a treasure in your sacks; your money came to me;" and at the same time, to banish all their fear, he brought Simeon out to them. He then conducted them into Joseph's house, and received them in Oriental fashion as the guests of his lord. But, previous to Joseph's arrival, they arranged the present which they had brought with them, as they heard that they were to dine with him.
When Joseph came home, they handed him the present with the most reverential obeisance.
Joseph first of all inquired after their own and their father's health (שׁלום first as substantive, then as adjective = שׁלם Gen 33:18), whether he was still living; which they answered with thanks in the affirmative, making the deepest bow. His eyes then fell upon Benjamin, the brother by his own mother, and he asked whether this was their youngest brother; but without waiting for their reply, he exclaimed, "God be gracious to thee, my son!" יחנך for יחנך as in Isa 30:19 (cf. Ewald, 251d). He addressed him as "my son," in tender and, as it were, paternal affection, and with special regard to his youth. Benjamin was 16 years younger than Joseph, and was quite an infant when Joseph was sold.
And "his (Joseph's) bowels did yearn" (נכמרוּ lit., were compressed, from the force of love to his brother), so that he was obliged to seek (a place) as quickly as possible to weep, and went into the chamber, that he might give vent to his feelings in tears; after which, he washed his face and came out again, and, putting constraint upon himself, ordered the dinner to be brought in.
Separate tables were prepared for him, for his brethren, and for the Egyptians who dined with them. This was required by the Egyptian spirit of caste, which neither allowed Joseph, as minister of state and a member of the priestly order, to eat along with Egyptians who were below him, nor the latter along with the Hebrews as foreigners. "They cannot (i.e., may not) eat (cf. Deu 12:17; Deu 16:5; Deu 17:15). For this was an abomination to the Egyptians." The Hebrews and others, for example, slaughtered and ate animals, even female animals, which were regarded by the Egyptians as sacred; so that, according to Herod. ii. 41, no Egyptian would use the knife, or fork, or saucepan of a Greek, nor would any eat of the flesh of a clean animal which had been cut up with a Grecian knife (cf. Exo 8:22).
The brothers sat in front of Joseph, "the first-born according to his birthright, and the smallest (youngest) according to his smallness (youth);" i.e., the places were arranged for them according to their ages, so that they looked at one another with astonishment, since this arrangement necessarily impressed them with the idea that this great man had been supernaturally enlightened as to their family affairs. To do them honour, they brought (ישּׂא, Ges. 137, 3) them dishes from Joseph, i.e., from his table; and to show especial honour to Benjamin, his portion was five times larger than that of any of the others (ידות lit., hands, grasps, as in Gen 47:24; Kg2 11:7). The custom is met with elsewhere of showing respect to distinguished guests by giving them the largest and best pieces (Sa1 9:23-24; Homer, Il. 7, 321; 8, 162, etc.), by double portions (e.g., the kings among the Spartans, Herod. 6, 57), and even by fourfold portions in the case of the Archons among the Cretans (Heraclid. polit., 3). But among the Egyptians the number 5 appears to have been preferred to any other (cf. Gen 41:34; Gen 45:22; Gen 47:2, Gen 47:24; Isa 19:18). By this partiality Joseph intended, with a view to his further plans, to draw out his brethren to show their real feelings towards Benjamin, that he might see whether they would envy and hate him on account of this distinction, as they had formerly envied him his long coat with sleeves, and hated him because he was his father's favourite (Gen 37:3-4). This honourable treatment and entertainment banished all their anxiety and fear. "They drank, and drank largely with him," i.e., they were perfectly satisfied with what they ate and drank; not, they were intoxicated (cf. Hag 1:9). | <urn:uuid:f85a0961-d899-4bc5-bada-16f80d3af53e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/kad/gen043.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986234 | 2,445 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The history of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia is immensely fascinating. People from around the globe, people with widely varying interests, long have been attracted to this story, curious to learn more. The fact that you are reading this page is a sign that you are one of those inquisitive people.
Founded in 1995, the North American Araucanian Royalist Society (NAARS) is the world's leading source of reliable, objective, English-language information about the history of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia and the current operations of the Royal House of Araucania and Patagonia. While there are other groups interested in the kingdom, some groups have an ideological ax to grind and others have old scores to settle.
In contrast, the NAARS prides itself on being independent and nonpartisan. We gather all manner of information about the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia and the Royal House of Araucania and Patagonia. Much of this information comes from difficult-to-locate historical resources in a variety of languages. Other information comes from regular contact with key members of the Royal House of Araucania and Patagonia. And some information even comes from sworn enemies of the Kingdom and the Royal House.
Having gathered this wide range of information, the NAARS then translates documents into English and makes them available through its 1) archive, 2) website, and 3) journal. Regarding matters which are controversial or contested, we simple publish the best information we have and allow our discerning readers to draw their own conclusions.
The entire content of this site – all text and all photographs – are under copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission.
Photo: Prince Philippe of Araucania next to a bust of King Orelie-Antoine, at the Museum of Art and Archeology of Perigord in Perigueux, France. Photo taken 1996 by Daniel Paul Morrison. | <urn:uuid:b0159ba8-a647-47cb-8432-fd83764d170e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steelcrown.org/home | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920211 | 398 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Farmworkers strikes in South Africa, a loud condemnation of the use of food crops to make ethanol from a food industry leader and confusion on Kenya's political scene - all stories in today's African papers...
Farm strikes in South Africa's Western Cape are losing momentum because of the mixed messages workers have been receiving, according to the Food and Allied Workers Union general secretary Katishi Masemola.
The story is on the front page of this morning's Johannesburg-based financial paper, BusinessDay. Masemola says he wants a mandate to suspend or even lift the strike completely in some areas. Other unions claim workers want to continue with the strike until they get a definite answer from farmers on the new minimum daily wage.
Workers are demanding an increase in their minimum daily wage from the rand equivalent of six euros to about 13 euros.
There's bad news in BusinessDay for anyone who thinks ethanol is the answer to the fuel crisis.
Biofuel output from agricultural commodities has contributed to surging world food prices in the past decade, according to the Nestlé chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe.
World food prices tracked by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation have more than doubled in the past 10 years, while the US price of maize - a raw material for ethanol - has more than tripled.
Blaming the escalation of the price of some food products on speculation was "completely wrong" and politicians have failed to consider the link with energy markets, Brabeck-Letmathe said at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture in Berlin Sunday. "It is really unbelievable that when we have insufficient food in our world that we give it to cars.
"Financial speculation is not responsible for the increase in food prices, it's responsible for the volatility of food prices, but not the initial increase."
Mr Brabeck-Letmathe described making biofuels from food crops as "nonsense".
Some mining companies operating in South Africa are behaving recklessly, according to African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, quoted in BusinessDay.
The mining sector is on the brink of major disinvestment, which would lead to huge job losses.
The ANC summoned mining industry bosses to a meeting last week, in the wake of the announcement of changes to Anglo American Platinum's business in South Africa, including the loss of 14,000 jobs.
The party and the government have threatened to withdraw the mining rights of companies considering pulling out of money-losing operations. These rights would be auctioned off to interested buyers.
There's a lot of confusion on the Kenyan political scene this morning, according to both The Standard and The Daily Nation.
Dossier: Africa Cup of Nations 2013
Today is the deadline for filing party nomination lists with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, exactly 45 days before the 4 March polls.
According to the Nation, the National Alliance was on Sunday night locked in a meeting aimed at resolving no fewer than170 disputes arising from the nominations conducted last Friday.
The Orange Democratic Movement has also established a panel to look into the complaints raised by several would-be candidates.
In Kisumu, violence erupted after gubernatorial aspirant Jack Ranguma's supporters took to the streets following reports that Prime Minister Raila Odinga's sister, Ruth Adhiambo Odinga, had been given the ODM ticket.
The Standard gives the story pride of place, under the headline "Aspirants scramble for party tickets". The small print explains that Sunday was marked by sporadic violence, street protests, the destruction of property and confrontations among supporters over party nomination tickets in many parts of the country.
Worst hit by the wrangles were Prime Minister Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement and William Ruto's United Republican Party.
In a separate story in The Standard, Eagle Coalition presidential aspirant Peter Kenneth has called on Kenyans to learn from the nomination chaos being witnessed in some parties, as they prepare for March elections.
Kenneth said politics should not be just for personal convenience but should help to move the country forward.
According to regional paper The East African, the political tensions that have built up in President Yoweri Museveni's ruling party over the past month have seen the Ugandan leader weather probably the toughest 30 days of his long presidency.
At the National Resistance Movement's review of the party's manifesto earlier this month, one rebel MP told president Museveni to reinstate term limits, fold his tent and leave.
In reply, President Museveni warned that the army would take over "if the confusion in parliament persists."
Museveni's chairmanship of the East African Community also faces a legitimacy test as two years of troubled domestic politics spill over into the regional bloc.
One member of the East African Legislative Assembly says he is going to petition the assembly at its next sitting, which opened in Bujumbura yesterday, to declare Museveni's recent actions in Uganda as incompatible with his status as the bloc's chairman. | <urn:uuid:78ba7d6c-e7e4-4fb8-bf02-2c79cd28bb4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/201301230670.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95649 | 1,031 | 1.5 | 2 |
The cassette tape was a popular medium back in the 80s and early 90s, and served as one of the main platforms for distributing music. Today, the cassette is all but living as other types of media have taken over since then. However, researchers have developed a prototype that is able to store 35TB of data onto a single cassette tape.
Researchers from both Fuji Film and IBM were able to take a cassette tape that measures about 4 inches x 4 inches x 1 inch and stuff 35TB of data into it onto the magnetic tape that has been coated in particles of barium ferrite. News Scientist refers to this as “a new wave of ultra-dense tape drives.”
However, don’t expect these high-density casette tapes to reach your local store, though. They’ll be made with servers in mind, and would only be available to large companies who have huge server farms, like Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. Plus, these tapes are currently only being developed for the $43 million IBM computer that will run the upcoming Square Kilometre Array telescope (SKA).
The SKA, which will be the world’s largest radio telescope once it’s complete in 2024, will be able to push out a petabyte of data per day (approximately 1 million gigabytes). Obviously, this would be a huge task for today’s paltry hard drives, and the researchers are working to shrink the new cassette tape system even further, by attempting to squeeze in 100 terabytes per cassette.
[via New Scientist]
Image via Flickr | <urn:uuid:1c27a494-83cf-4cab-9406-eeb96c9bf9a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slashgear.com/cassette-tape-prototype-able-to-store-35-terabytes-of-data-22253058/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959323 | 329 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Beauty and the Beast
Jiyeon, Beast , Eunjung, Hyomin, Luna, Hyorin, Nicole,
Park Jiyeon ( Jiyeon ) was an orphan since she was born. When she turned 16, she decided to leave her
orphanage and go live on her own. She wanted to attend Seoul High school since she was 5. Seoul known
for being the most famous and rich school in Korea. She got in thanks to the help of Beast's Father.
After that, her world was turned upside down when she meets the flower boys in school, Beast.
As days past by, Jiyeon was struggling with the rent money. She found a job, little did she know, she
had to take care of 6 arrogant boys. So basically, It's about highschool students learning how to trust and eventually falls in love. There's many obticles in their way, but they manage to over come it. The story first takes place in highschool and then college.
Beast are 6 stubborn brothers with different mothers. All their mothers has passed away, leaving them in the care of their dad
and their stepmom. They all decided to keep their mother's last name. They are the flower boys of the
school. Girls literally drool over them. What will happen when a specific girl stumbles into their lives.
What's going to happen? Stay tune. :D
Park Jiyeon ( 16 years old )
- 16 years old
- cute, smart, loud, stubborn, kind, athlectic
- looks cold at first but once you get to know her, you'll see her bright personality
- poor and an orphan
Soon she will know the meaning of love. what is love? Why hasn't she ever felt it before?
She thought that in this world, no one loves her. Wondering why her parents doesn't want her.
Lee Kikwang ( 16 years old )
- trust people to easily, stubborn, playful, athletic, multi talented
- Rich , second to youngest brother, One of the kingkas in Beast
Has his heart broken by his first love. He thought that he would
never love again until a girl stepped into his life ( Park Jiyeon )
Will he be able to trust her, or get his heart broken once again?
Will he win her heart?
Yong Junhyung (17 years old )
- stubborn, arrogant, lazy, bosy, athletic
- rich, oldest middle brother, One of the kingkas in beast
Currently taken by Hara. He's a hard person to get along with,
the only people that can tame him is his brothers. But then, there
has to be a stubborn girl who step into his life ( Park Jiyeon )
Someone that can match to his level.
Yang Yoseob (17 years old )
- cute, nice, caring, can be arrogant and stubborn, athletic
- rich, youngest middle brother, One of the kingkas in beast
He has a really kind and sweet personality. loves doing aegyo
All the girls in school adore him. He loves candy more than
anything else, but then he meets someone much sweeter
( Park Jiyeon ).
- stubborn, arrogant, perverted, bosy, playful, athletic
- rich, The oldest brother. One of the kingkas in Beast
He has girls drooling over him. He has two rules.
Date but wont we in a relationship. Like but not love.
, Jang hyunseung (17)
- childess, clueless, stubborn, lazy, awkward, athletic
- Rich, Second to oldest brother, One of the kingkas in Beast
He is not a very bright person. Things he say can make you hit
him sometimes, but he's very sweet. He has a crush on Hyomin
but is too shy to tell her. He could only admire from a far
Son dongwoon (16 year old)
- The cute maknae, sweet, charming, stubborn , athletic
- Rich, the youngest brother, One of the kingkas in Beast
He wins all the ladies with his charm and his sweet talk.
But when it comes to his crush Eunjung, he has nothing to say.
What he doesn't know is that she likes him since 5th grade.
Ham Eunjung (16 years old)
- cute, playful, athletic, clever, wise, caring
- she's like a mother to Jiyeon and Hyomin
- Rich girl, Has a kind heart, Jiyeon and hyomin
She has a crush on Dongwoon since 5th grade, but
thinks that he doesn't know that she exists
Park Hyomin ( 17 years old )
- caring, mature, smart, funny, kind, cute,
- Rich, Bestfirends with Jiyeon and Eunjung
She is a very funny person. When she gets mad, be expecting the
worst from her. She likes hyunseung but thinks he dosn't like her back,
so she moved on.
HI! THIS IS MY FIRST STORY. HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT. SUBSCRIBE AND COMMENT IS YOU LIKE :D
Sorry is there's any spelling or other errors
^ Back to Top | <urn:uuid:673c1ce8-8864-4832-9556-7aada5976885> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/238086/beauty-and-the-beast-beast-eunjung-hyomin-hyorin-jiyeon-luna-nicole | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971234 | 1,127 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Federation-Cardassian War was a conflict between the United Federation of Planets and the Cardassian Union that began in 2355. The period from that year until 2359 was considered to be the height of the conflict. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual)
Although fighting ended in 2366 when a ceasefire was agreed between the two powers, the state of war wasn't formally ended until 2370 with the signing of the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2370. (Last Unicorn RPG: Ship Recognition Manual, Volume 1: The Ships of Starfleet).
|This article is a stub. You can help our database by fixing it.|
The Federation-Cardassian War was a conflicts between the United Federation of Planets and the Cardassian Union that started in the middle of the 24th century. A cease-fire was reached by 2363, though skirmishes continued until 2366 and a more permanent treaty was signed in 2367. (Star Trek: Pendragon, VOY: "Dreadnaught")
In 2370, a final treaty was signed by the two sides, establishing a demilitarized zone between the two parties, creating a new border and clarifying ownership of planets such as Dorvan V. (TNG: "Journey's End") The Miltoans were involved in this process. (Star Trek: The Cantabrian Expeditions)
Though unfailingly supportive of the peace process, Ambassador Savin th'Vayhr strenuously opposed certain terms of the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2370. In a formal address to the Federation Council, he disavowed the abandonment of Federation colonists and called the treaty "a shameful display of political convenience and self-interest." (Star Trek: Pendragon "The Distant Fire")
The Maquis were created by disgruntled Starfleet officers, crewmen and Federation civilians who felt "sold out" by the Federation with the treaty and the creation of the DMZ.
Despite the truce, tensions still remained high between the two powers after the signing of the treaty. Three years later the Federation and Cardassians would be at war again, taking different sides in the Dominion War.
|First Federation-Klingon War | Four Years War | Federation-Cardassian War | Federation-Tholian War | Federation-Tzenkethi War | Federation-Dominion Cold War | Second Federation-Klingon War | Dominion War | Federation-Alliance War|
|Andromedan War (Star Fleet Battles) | Doomsday War (New Voyages) | Federation Civil War (Pendragon) | Federation-Gorn Conflict (Pendragon) | Federation-Romulan War (Pioneer) | Four Powers War (Star Fleet Battles) | General War (Star Fleet Battles) | Kelvan War (Orion Press)| | <urn:uuid:26ec17d0-6324-4de3-a330-28b1640238e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://misc.thefullwiki.org/Federation-Cardassian_War | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929224 | 583 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Earlier this week Supreme Court justices signaled that they might uphold key provisions of Arizona’s immigration law, S.B. 1070, which would essentially turn police into immigration agents.
Businesses in the state are fearful that if the Supreme Court upholds the law it would have adverse effects. Many farmers in the state and around the country depend on immigrant workers harvest their crops, a job that most Americans won’t do. If the draconian law is allowed to stand, these farmers may face a shortage of workers. While a number of migrant workers have immigration attorneys get them work visas, a large number are undocumented.
Without enough workers, farmers would be forced to let some of their crops ruin, which could drive up the costs of produce. This happened last year in Georgia when Vidalia onion farmers faced a shortage of field hands. They attempted to use labor from local prisons and non-immigrant workers, but this was unsuccessful.
But farmers are the only ones feeling the pressure; other businesses fear that enactment of S.B. 1070 would cause more boycotts and shrink the labor force. The law may cause legal immigrants and those, who have not obtained legal documents through an immigration lawyer, flee the state.
Todd Landfried, executive director of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform told Bloomberg, “When S.B. 1070 first went into effect in 2010, we saw a significant drop in sales-tax revenues and an increase in the unemployment rate. There’s no reason to think this won’t happen again of the law goes into effect.”
Central to the debate of S.B. 1070 is the clause, nicknamed “papers please,” which would give police the right to detain any person suspected of being an immigrant who cannot produce legal documents.
Though illegal immigration from Mexico has declined significantly, there are still many undocumented immigrants in the country. For these individuals deportation looms, but by retaining an immigration lawyer they may be able to get the necessary visas, which would allow to live and work without fear. | <urn:uuid:2a60bd0f-6896-45f3-be66-d6e40793544f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.transworldnews.com/1064216/a74525/arizona-businesses-fear-approval-of-immigration-law | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965491 | 415 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Home > Topics > Discipline > Wrightslaw Game Plan: How to Deal with Discipline & Behavior Problems
My son, who has a learning disability, is in trouble at school. It seems that one boy brought a bottle of root beer to school and shared it with my son and another boy. The student who brought the bottle to school mentioned that root beer may contain alcohol.
After hearing that root beer may contain alcohol, my son notified school officials during lunch, about two hours after this incident.
During the investigation, it was alleged that my son had a drink of root beer. The school expelled all three boys. The school is now trying to expel the boys for an entire semester.
We requested a Manifestation hearing and appeal. Because of this, my son has remained in school.
I read your notes in the discipline section of USC 1415 which seems to say that the school cannot punish my son as they plan to do.
I have consulted with an attorney who has experience with other types of special education law, but not with discipline. Can you cite cases or other administrative findings that support your comments? If I have solid information to take to the school heaing, I may be able to put an end to this episode.
This incident occurred less than two weeks after my son entered high school. For any student, such severe punishment is uncalled for. For a child with serious learning disabilities, this type of "discipline" may cause him to drop out and end his chances for an education.
Zero Tolerance Policies: Defining Deviancy Down
The situation you describe is absurd and can have tragic consequences for children like your son. Recently, Pam read an article by former New York Senator Daniel Moynihan about "defining deviancy down." The concept applies to the "zero tolerance" policies that many school administrators have embraced.
Schools administrators are supposed to maintain a safe school environment - and keep guns out of schools. Because they have "defined deviancy down," they are suspending and expel kids for bringing plastic knives in lunchboxes, water pistols in backpacks, tiny toy guns from gumball machines - and for drinking root beer.
Weapons and Illegal Drugs
your son bring a weapon to school? No.
Bringing a weapon or illegal drugs to school is the basis for placing a child in an alternative placement for up to 45 days. During the 45 day alternative placement, schools must continue to provide the IDEA child with a free appropriate education. The law is clear about this.
is a hot topic. In the discipline
article you read, I added comments to the "plain language" of the
Caselaw About Discipline
In 1988, the U. S. Supreme Court issued a strong decision on behalf of children with disabilities who were being suspended and expelled from school in Honig v. Doe, 484 U. S. 305 (1988). I suggest that you download and read this article - it will help you advocate for your son.
Game Plan for Discpline Problems with School
You need to learn about your child's legal rights. You also need to learn how to persuade others to see your position and want to help.
1. Get a copy of our book, Wrightslaw: Special Education Law. The book includes a more comprehensive discussion of discipline issues. Wrightslaw: Special Education Law also includes a casebook of decisions from the U. S. Supreme Court, including Honig v. Doe. You may want to order two copies - one for yourself and one for your attorney.
2. Get an independent evaluation of your son by a private sector expert - child psychologist. (Ask around to see who has a good reputation for doing quality evaluations on kids.)
son have other problems, i.e., ADHD? Is the school teaching your son the
skills he will need as an adult?
3. Get a copy of How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence. The book is not about arguing but about persuading others to see your point. This book will help you tell your son's story so people want to help. The book is available in our Advocacy Bookstore.
4. Our new book, From Emotions to Advocacy, will teach you how to deal with the school - how to write letters, make your case at meetings, and deal with your personal emotions which is probably the most difficult task of all!
5. Try to find a copy of "Discipline in the School" by Eric Hartwig and Gary Ruesch, was published in 1994 by LRP Publications. This the best book I've read about this area of law and will be very helpful to you and your attorney. The chapter on "Positive Educational Alternatives to Traditional Discipline" begins with this statement:
"Regrettably, the strongest force against developing alternatives to traditional discipline is inertia, since everything that is done now is based on what was done in the past."
(We wanted to add "Discipline in the School" to the Advocate's Bookstore but it seems to be out of print.) If you call LRP (800-341-7874), they may have a few extra copies available. | <urn:uuid:95bcc553-97ff-4264-a234-4aeb06e8b7c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/discipl.plan.expulsion.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963128 | 1,066 | 2.609375 | 3 |
A few months back, economists were openly debating whether fast-growing Turkey should be elevated into the elite club of ‘BRIC’ economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China — that are slated to dominate global growth over the next decades.
Aside from the fact that it would have made the acronym less catchy (think BRICT or TRIBC) investor concerns over Turkey’s rapidly widening current account deficit and Middle East turmoil conspired to put that debate on ice. But Turkey is considered a key player in the second-tier of emerging economic powerhouses: referred to by the lesser known, and, alas, more forgettable acronym CIVETS.
New polls show Hungary’s ruling party losing support among voters for the first time since its landslide victory in general elections in April. The number of those who now oppose the party has risen after the government’s decision to confiscate, in effect, people’s private pension fund savings, worth some $14.6 billion, or 10% of the country’s GDP.
If elections were held this Sunday, 32% of the voters “wouldn’t vote by any means” for the Fidesz party, up from 21% in November, online news agency Index said, citing results from a survey conducted this month by pollster Median.
The share of those who said “things are going in the wrong direction in Hungary” has risen to 48% from 39% last month. Those satisfied with the government’s work shrank to below the majority threshold for the first time since the spring elections; to 45% from 51% in November.
Emerging Europe Real Time provides sharp analysis and insight into what’s making news in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the expertise of our reporters in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, the site provides an inside track on economics, politics and business in this emerging part of the European continent.
Check out the main contributors to the blog and their bios here. | <urn:uuid:50d5da2c-9e76-4d3d-aedd-978d7609137c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/tag/index/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95538 | 418 | 1.53125 | 2 |
CADUSII (Lat.; Gk. Kadoúsioi), an Iranian tribe settled between the Caspian and the Black seas according to Stephan of Byzantium and on the southwestern shore of the Caspian and south of the Araxes (Aras) between the Albani in the north and the Mardi in the east according to Strabo (11.6.1; 7.1), i.e., in the mountainous northern part of Media around the Parachoatras Range (cf. Ptolemy, 6.2.2: an enumeration of place names; and 5). It is mentioned together with the Gelae (Pliny, Natural History 6.46, erroneously refers to the “Gaeli, whom the Greeks called Cadusii”), Amardi, Vitii, Anariacae, and others (Strabo, 11.7.1; 8.8) and is characterized as a numerous, migratory, and predatory people (ibid., 11.13.3); Strabo notes also (ibid., 11.13.4) that Marcus Antonius, on his expedition against the Parthians, found the Cadusii to be excellent javelin throwers and foot soldiers, thus agreeing with Xenophon (Cyropaedia 5.2.25), who calls them most warlike. The hypothesis that they were a non-Iranian, maybe even a Turkish or Tartar people, seems to have been spun out of an identification with the Anariacae, who are mentioned by Strabo and others along with the Cadusii, and based on an etymology of that tribe’s name as “un-Aryan.”
The Cadusii are nowhere mentioned in Old Iranian sources, so that we do not know the original form of their name or to which satrapy they belonged (probably Media, at times maybe Hyrcania). There is also no evidence available from elsewhere in the ancient Near East, as König’s identification with the Qa-du-ma-a-a (in fact, the equivalent of Old Pers. Mačiya-; see Schmidt) is materially and linguistically incorrect (cf. Eilers, p. 201 n. 2).
The Cadusii are said to have been conquered by the legendary Assyrian king Ninus (Ctesias, apud Diodorus, 2.2.3, in Jacoby, Fragmente, frag. no. 1, par. 2.3). Obviously they were able to keep their independence during the time of Median rule and are even said to have defeated the Medes under king Artaeus, when a Persian named Parsondas (the brother-in-law of their leader) had forced them into war with the Medes, from whom he himself had previously fled (Ctesias, apud Diodorus, 2.33.1-5, in Jacoby, Fragmente, frag. no. 5 par. 33.1-5). The Cadusii had thus never been subject to the Median kings, and it was only Cyrus to whom they are said to have submitted voluntarily (ibid., par. 33.6; cf. Xenophon, Cyropaedia 5.3.22ff.; 4.15-23; 7.5.51; 8.3.18; Nicolaus Damascenus, in Jacoby, Fragmente, frag. no. 66). When he was dying this king made his younger son Tanaoxares satrap of the Medes, Armenians, and Cadusii, according to Xenophon (Cyropaedia 8.7.11).
The Cadusii seem to have had continual troubles with the Achaemenid central government: We know of a revolt about 405 b.c., around the end of Darius II’s reign, which lasted until Cyrus’ rebellion (though at Cunaxa, in 401, they fought on the king’s side under a certain Artagerses; cf. Plutarch, Artoxerxes 9.1), and of several others. In particular there is evidence of an expedition against the Cadusii by Artaxerxes II during the great satrapal revolts around 380 b.c.; this expedition was a complete fiasco, and only diplomatic negotiations by the satrap Tiribazus made a retreat possible, with the king himself marching on foot (Diodorus, 15.8.5; 10.1; Plutarch, Artoxerxes 24-25; etc.).
Darius III is said to have been made satrap of Armenia after having defeated a rebellious Cadusian in one-on-one combat during an expedition against that tribe in the first years of Artaxerxes III’s reign (Diodorus, 17.6.1). The Cadusian contingent fought together with Medes and other Northerners (Arrian, Anabasis 3.8.4; 11.3; 19.3f.; Diodorus, 17.59.5; Curtius Rufus, 4.12.12) in the army of Darius III advancing toward the Macedonians near Arbela/Gaugamela, though the exact composition of that army is given differently in the sources.
For the classical sources any current edition may be consulted (Teubner, Loeb, Oxford). Studies: F. W. König, Älteste Geschichte der Meder und Perser, Leipzig, 1934, p. 51.
G. Meier, “Kadousioi,” in Pauly-Wissowa, Suppl. VII, 1940, cols. 316-17.
A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago, 1948, p. 401 and elsewhere.
E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis III, Chicago, 1970, p. 109.
R. Syme, “The Cadusii in History and Fiction,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 108, 1988, pp. 137-50.
W. Eilers, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 38, 1935, cols. 201-13.
Originally Published: December 15, 1990
Last Updated: December 15, 1990
This article is available in print.
Vol. IV, Fasc. 6, p. 612 | <urn:uuid:ed5b6a36-d3e8-4537-aa89-089ace321f38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cadusii-lat | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928602 | 1,350 | 2.9375 | 3 |
In my last tutorial, 'A Better Login System', a few people commented on how they would like to see a tutorial on password recovery, which is something you don't always see in user access tutorials. The tutorial I am bringing you today will deal with just that. Using mySQLi, we will learn to recover unencrypted and (one-way) encrypted passwords.
They give you what you'll need to set up the database for the user information and the PHP code you'll need to connect to it and fetch the user's information. The script then generates an email with a custom link that will take the user to a page asking them to answer a security question before they can continue. | <urn:uuid:b4d9cb75-8554-4987-a265-6d4636a39463> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phpdeveloper.org/tag/recovery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957905 | 140 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A reader, Elina, wrote this response to my posting Indigenize Yourself!:
“How lucky for you to have become Indigenous without ever having to have experienced colonization, racism, etc. How miraculous for you to have received “the seed of an indigenous, native intelligence within me`,`without having been part of an Indigenous family. “I believe that day I became the first of those in my English and Danish lineage to set foot in the sacred topography of the New World, receiving the seed of an indigenous, native intelligence within me.“ – yes, I`m sure your English and Danish ancestors were more interested in “receiving“ other things – the land itself, resources, etc – laying the ground for their future generations to have the good fortune to eventually be able to miraculously `receive` the knowledge and understanding you are getting in life. I`m not sure if you realize how exploitative and ignorant this post comes off as.”
This is a well-deserved accusation of potential cultural exploitation and arrogance on my part. Yes, I am walking a fine line in claiming that, even for the ancestors of Euro-Americans, our indigenous souls can still be reclaimed. Perhaps it is right to accuse me of hubris.
There is no denying the grievous history of exploitation and genocide, rampant destruction and arrogant blindness that has followed in the wake of the Western European drive to subjugate the natural world and the Earth’s inhabitants. As I watch my daughter blossom as a little girl, everyday I worry about the inheritance she will receive from such short-sighted folly.
At the same time, I would challenge Elina’s assumption that I, and other descendents of European immigrants, have never tasted the consequences of colonization and racism. As a child left in a children’s shelter at age nine, I experienced the penal system first hand, and growing up in juvenile halls, foster homes, and on the streets learned what it meant to be colonized in my soul. I was intended to be on the margin, a criminal, a remnant — and the system was prepared to deal with what it had manufactured in me. A lot of profit stood to be made by my degradation, and folks were lining up to feed on my and other children’s souls. If this isn’t colonization, I don’t know what is.
I want to suggest, therefore, that some Euro-Americans may understand the consequences of systematized oppression, and can renounce the power that such systems bestow.
But this still leaves the issue of whether a descendent of a cultural group that produced the Nazis can reclaim his or her indigenous self.
There are two answers to this question, I think.
The first has to do with our most recent work, to uncover the overlooked indigenous consciousness right at the origin of the literature of Western civilization — in Homer’s Odyssey. Our forthcoming book, The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience, works hard to show how indigenous, shamanic ways of healing and prophecy are not foreign to the West, and how the native way of viewing the world—that is, understanding our cosmos as living, sentient, and interconnected—can be found hidden throughout Western literature.
Indeed, I believe that the Odyssey, emerging precisely at the rupture between modern and primal consciousness, represents a window into the lost native mind of the Western world. In this way, the Odyssey as well as Tolkien’s work can be seen as an awakening and healing song to return us to our native minds and bring our disconnected souls back into harmony with the living cosmos.
As Martín Prechtel has asked,
Are most of the allegorized, dramatized, literalized, sanitized, boring, overly historified rituals and written stories, only jealously guarded fragments of a pushed-aside indigenous intactness which all people, in this increasingly displaced world, have hidden somewhere in their bones as an unremembered legacy in which an intact living story still waits to come into view?
I believe the answer to Prechtel is yes. Stories, true stories, can re-member our lost indigenous intactness. In terms of the over-arching human trajectory, 98% of our existence as homo-sapiens has been indigenous. The European break with that indigenous intactness is a brief spell, that I believe we can recuperate from.
My second answer to Elina has to do with how communities hold their identity. Werner Sollors, in Beyond Ethnicity, articulates two ways of imagining communities: those based on strict genetic descent, and the other based on volition and choice. The first is a closed social group, which one must be born into to be a member of. The second is open, and welcomes those who share its interests, passions, convictions, or faith. And, of course, there are the degrees between. Communities, such as indigenous ones, that involve deeply committed life-ways naturally give a long trial period of initiation and apprenticeship to those who feel called to join. I believe that indigenosity is something learned, is a cultural inheritance, not a genetic one. I would therefore suggest that there is no genetic, biological barrier separating any human being upon this planet from indigenous consciousness.
Perhaps Elina is right. Perhaps my words smack of hubris, of conceit, and I am espousing an arrogant cultural appropriation of life-ways that are not native to my people.
But I hope not. For my child’s future, for all our children’s futures and the lives of all beings on this planet, I pray not. | <urn:uuid:2ba7ad20-2997-48a4-a04c-b2c7c2af6400> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roamingthemind.com/have-euro-americans-any-right-to-lay-claim-to-indigenosity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958636 | 1,174 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Cold weather tricks
The drop in temperature provided many with the opportunity to conduct some unusual experiments.
Several readers sent in submissions to CNN's iReport where they demonstrated the effects of the weather by tossing boiling water into the air and watching as the mist particles froze in midair.
A reporter with CNN affiliate KVLY in Fargo-Grand Forks, North Dakota, used a frozen banana to hammer a nail. It worked.
Others took soaking wet T-shirts, draped them on hangers and watched as the cold air quickly froze them stiff.
Chicago firefighters hosing down a burning warehouse blaze ended up encasing the building in inches of ice.
The cold weather was good news for those who sell hot coffee for a living.
"On days like this, coffee sells. Bagels don't," said Sami Akramia, a 41-year-old food cart worker bundled up in Midtown Manhattan as the temperature dropped to 4 degrees Wednesday.
National Weather Service forecasters say they expect the cold weather to last throughout the week and urged caution. The frigid weather can have deadly consequences.
Authorities say exposure to subfreezing temperatures left at least three people dead in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois.
"Those people who work outside have to be careful," said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. "We feel the wind chill, and so do pets. You need to find some place indoors and out of the wind for them."
In New York and New Jersey, homes destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in places such as New Dorp, Staten Island, and Far Rockaway, Queens, lacked basic utilities needed to restore heat.
In the northern Maine town of Presque Isle, temperatures hung around 24 below Fahrenheit. And in Grand Forks, North Dakota, residents bundled up to stave off a potentially deadly wind chill that hovered even lower, around 33 below.
"The biggest thing is staying out of the wind. That's what kills you," said Michael Lannen, who works at a Menards hardware store in Grand Forks.
"It seems we get one of these kinds of weeks every year, so everyone is just trying to bundle up and stay indoors." | <urn:uuid:bc4d5e7a-3987-4fe7-97e0-163aa1b2e036> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Cold-a-constant-blast-in-the-face-for-many/-/1637132/18259248/-/item/1/-/xxjc3cz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943248 | 446 | 2.3125 | 2 |
[From Oracle Journal
Nowadays, most of the web sites use MySQL database to maintain and store their records. However, the need to change the hosting of the web site arises when the user wants to shift to some other server. To do so, the user also needs to transfer the MySQL database from one server to another.
The article continues at | <urn:uuid:a4f497d1-de8e-4728-9ad4-0f4fae63d893> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.databasejournal.com/news/article.php/3855856/MySQL-Database-Corruption-Post-Collation-Issues.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915332 | 71 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Tragedy in Alaska: Letter from Prince William Sound
NWF's president shares his outrage after the <i>Exxon Valdez</i> spill
Jay D. Hair, President, NWF
CORDOVA, ALASKA, APRIL 10, 1989—As I write this, I am in the town near the spot where the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on the rocky shoals of Prince William Sound on March 24, bleeding crude oil into one of the most pristine and delicate ecosystems in the world. I wish I could bring you some good news about the recovery of these polluted waters and oil-covered shorelines, but unfortunately, the problems have only begun.
Rage is the best word I can think of to describe what I feel as I see countless miles of oil-soaked beaches, dead birds and sea otters. One sea otter had struggled a hundred yards away from the beach and died in a pool of bloody, oil-filled excrement, its lips frozen in a curl of agony. Thick crude oil encircles dozens of islands with a wide belt of slim, trapping wild animals that pathetically try to break free. Most of them don’t make it.
Prince William Sound has become ground zero for an environmental Hiroshima.
It is the worst environmental disaster in American history. The futures of thousands of local residents who are dependent on the natural resources of the sound for their livelihoods have been seriously jeopardized. In our lifetimes, Prince William Sound will never again be what it was on March 23, 1989.
We have to keep asking "why" and demanding answers to some pressing questions: Why did the oil industry consortium, operating out of the Port of Valdez, cut back on its oil spill clean-up resources in recent years? Why did Exxon take so long to begin to clean-up operations?
We will never fully reverse the calamity that has left in its wake: oil-soaked sea birds, slimy beaches, dead sea otters, limp, poisoned fish and ravaged habitat.
We cannot give adequate solace to the grief and despair of the people of Prince William Sound. The financial losses of those families whose livelihoods depend on healthy sport and commercial fisheries or the incredible scenic beauty can never be completely compensated. Because of incompetence and corporate greed, their lives have been changed forever.
But we can demand that Exxon be held accountable. What Exxon has done—and failed to do—in this case is outrageous. Exxon corporate officials must be held responsible for the Prince William Sound cleanup and for assuring future oil tanker safety and crew competency. They must return Prince William Sound to its pristine condition—no matter how long it takes or how much it costs.
We cannot allow Exxon to shift the blame for this disaster to the ship’s crew or captain, or to the State of Alaska or the Coast Guard. Exxon's corporate decisions and policies could have prevented or at least lessened the catastrophe in Prince William Sound by assuring, among other things, that a captain with a reported history of drinking would not be in charge of a supertanker, that crews would be routinely tested and their backgrounds checked periodically, that safety measures and equipment were adequate, and that spill contingency plans were well developed, tested and shown to be as effective as promised.
It is absolutely essential that we recommit to assuring better safeguards against oil spills. Single-hulled supertankers like the Exxon Valdez that carry a million barrels of oil must be prohibited from operating in the United States territorial waters. The risks to the marine environment are simply not worth whatever the economic benefits maybe to big oil companies. The rules for vessel crews, navigational controls and tanker safety obviously must be strengthened and rigorously enforced. Contingency plans for spills appear to be virtually worthless. They must now be reviewed carefully, amended and routinely tested by government officials in unannounced drills.
In addition, Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Supply Company should be required to pay for a new, joint federal-state government Regional Response Team, to be located in Valdez, with all of the equipment and staff necessary to respond immediately and effectively to an oil spill of any magnitude.
The National Wildlife Federation also recommends the creation of a strike force of environmental and safety experts with broad authority and expertise to investigate all major chemical and oil accidents.
So far, Exxon's response has been both pathetic and self-serving. The company launched a $1.8 million public relations campaign to try to save its image with more than 100 newspaper ads across the nation carrying an "apology to the American people." But I would like to know just how sorry Exxon really is.
Since 1977, when the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline opened, Exxon has reported profits of $49 billion. Is Exxon sorry enough to pay for full damages from the spill? And by that I mean more than just the federal government's "market values" of $15.00 apiece for seals and $7.88 apiece for puffins, pelicans, loons and cormorants. These rules are absurd. And the National Wildlife Federation has gone to court to get them changed.
Is Exxon sorry enough to establish an independently administered fund to offer zero-interest loans with no strings attached to fishermen and other Alaskans who may lose their livelihoods as a result of the spill?
Is Exxon sorry enough to establish an independent multi-billion-dollar Prince William Sound trust fund to ensure that the environment is restored, that the economic livelihood of fishing communities is maintained and that the young people of the region are guaranteed scholarships for job training or college education?
Is Exxon sorry enough to donate at least $150 million immediately, with no strings attached, to permit independent scientific assessment of damages and begin local clean-up actions where Exxon is not acting? Just how sorry is Exxon?
Of course, part of the problem at Prince William Sound can be traced back to Washington, D.C. Congress, which approved the Valdez oil terminal, must share some of the responsibility for this terrible mishap, as must the government agencies that failed to establish or enforce adequate vessel safety requirements or to assure sufficient preparation for cleanup. Congress should schedule field hearings as soon as possible in places like Cordova that are totally dependent on the sound for their livelihood. And President Bush should establish immediately an independent White House commission on the Prince William Sound oil disaster.
Finally, it is now time to update and streamline the current legal patchwork of oil spill legislation which has been languishing in Congress. And it is time to establish a National Energy Policy. The horrendous Exxon Valdez oil tragedy, mounting evidence that the worldwide warming phenomenon is real and here to stay, and the continuing problems of unhealthful air should be reasons enough to establish such a policy. Our official National Energy Policy to date, however, has been to bury our heads in the sand while we continue to be the world's worst energy wasters. Ultimately, we all must recognize that there are consequences of our unyielding demand for cheap oil. We cannot disregard the environmental, geopolitical and other impacts of this demand simply because today our gas tanks are full and lines at the pumps are short.
We should establish a National Energy Policy to urgently pursue energy conservation and renewable sources of energy. Until we have decided where our own energy supertanker is headed, we should not commit ourselves to a treacherous course of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Alaska's Bristol Bay. A relatively short "fix" of oil is simply not worth despoilation of the wilderness and wildlife resources.
No, we do not accept Exxon's apology. But Exxon is not the only one on trial in the aftermath of this tragic error. We are all on trial. And this is not a misdemeanor. It is an environmental felony. If we continue down this destructive path, guzzling gas and ignoring the need for a National Energy Policy, the penalty will be far greater than a fine or jail. The penalty will be enormous and irreversible damage to our planet. | <urn:uuid:36852d1f-e89d-4488-9d2f-65ac5429619d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/1989/Letter-From-Prince-William-Sound.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953199 | 1,645 | 2.421875 | 2 |
By John M. Gonzales, CHCF Center for Health Reporting
Fred Bauermeister is executive director of the Free Clinic of Simi Valley, a health care provider to undocumented immigrants for years. (Lauren Whaley/CHCF Center for Health Reporting)
Clinic director Fred Bauermeister has watched them pass through his doors for decades: chronically ill, uninsured men, women and children, who have delayed medical care because they are in the country illegally.
Now, immigration reform may bring health benefits to millions of formerly undocumented people — although there may still be a years-long wait after they attain legal residency.
But first — the immigration reform piece: a bandwagon of endorsements last week by Congressional Republicans have aligned with vows by President Obama and Senate Democrats to establish comprehensive immigration reform. A road to citizenship for people who entered the country illegally seems more assured by the day, but what is less clear is how the health care landscape of California, and the nation, would also change.
Would California’s estimated 2.5 million undocumented immigrants become eligible for health benefits? How would an already burdened health care system absorb them? Continue reading
San Jose resident Ayary Diaz (L) says she can finally work to help support her family because of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Last year the Obama administration passed a law allowing some undocumented immigrants to apply for work permits. As part of our occasional series called “What’s Your Story?” San Jose resident Ayary Diaz talks about how Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is opening doors to opportunities she says she never thought she’d have. We post it here, since there is an intersection between Diaz’ immigration status and her health. The following is a transcript of her first-person radio story.
For 24 years I’ve been forced to live in the shadows because of a choice that was never mine.
I’m an ‘illegal.’ My parents brought me here from Mexico when I was five, and I have been living — undocumented — in the United States ever since. I have two amazing children and a loving fiance but my road has been hard.
I can finally come out of the shadows, stop hiding who I am, and shine in a country that I’ve always considered my home.
When I graduated from high school, I hoped to go to college like my peers. But I needed a Social Security number to apply and, most importantly, to get financial aid. I didn’t have one and began to think that I would have the same poor and unproductive life I’d seen my parents live.
But in 2001, a new California law changed things. Undocumented students could apply to college as California residents if they had graduated high school and had been continuously living in the States for several years. So I went to Foothill Community College and then San Francisco State. It took me eight years, working countless hours as a minimum wage server while going to school fulltime to pay for my tuition in cash. But I had my degree, in international business, the first in my family. | <urn:uuid:b3026ab0-871d-495e-b74b-4185efb6f103> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.kqed.org/stateofhealth/tag/immigration-reform/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974268 | 644 | 1.734375 | 2 |
An analogue Neil Turok dreams of a quantum life. (Courtesy: Perimeter Institute)
By Hamish Johnston
Years ago when I lived in Canada I used to love listening to a CBC radio programme called Ideas, which devotes one hour to the in-depth discussion of a concept, event or idea. Incredibly, there are five episodes a week and the show has been running for 47 years – and still hasn’t run out of ideas!
Recently, the programme’s host Paul Kennedy was at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario to chat with its director, the mathematical physicist Neil Turok.
Turok has just written a book called The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos, which is based on his series of Massey Lectures that form part of the Ideas schedule (if you are in the UK, think Reith Lectures).
You can watch Kennedy and Turok talk about the book here – and find out why he thinks we can look forward to living a quantum life.
And stay tuned for a review of The Universe Within in our upcoming Christmas books special. | <urn:uuid:cc1db2c6-9708-4e3d-a892-0c9e0ea06bb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.physicsworld.com/2012/10/10/neil-turok-looks-forward-to-li/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937832 | 234 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Project 1: The Role of Energy Efficiency and Demand Management in Network Planning
Theme: Our Energy Networks
This study is to consider the network investment currently being planned by the energy industry, the planned national trajectory for reducing emissions, and the opportunity to both reduce the required investment and reduce emissions through energy efficiency improvements, load shifting and distributed generation.
The study will look at best practices for demand management globally and the rationale for making demand management the preferred investment option for the energy supply industry, including examination of the risks of investing in stranded assets and the cost/benefits of demand management compared to current supply investments. The conclusion would set out any recommended changes to the regulation of the Australian electricity supply industry.
Project 2: A benchmarking study of current sectoral energy performance
Theme: Our Energy Use
This study will build on partial and/or ageing studies previously undertaken for particular sectors, and examine the relative energy efficiency of each of our industries compared to other developed countries. In doing this, it would analyse the scale of the opportunity to save energy by moving to global best practice energy efficiency in each sector. This will lead to recommendations on how to make this transition within the next 5-10 years, and the adequacy of current data and information.
This study will also act as a benchmark that can be updated and reported upon over time, and against which future comparisons can be made and improvements can be assessed.
Project 3: Smart grid technologies
Theme: Our Energy Networks
This study will consider the costs and opportunities presented by a rapid transition to an intelligent grid, which has the ability to optimise energy use geographically and temporally according to network constraints. It would consider the current compatibility of the Australian grid with smart grid technology, and recommend the means by which take-up of smarter grid technologies can be accelerated, with reference to:
- regulatory changes and grid features required to support increased consumer interaction and smart appliances
- how best to structure tariffs to promote energy efficiency and encourage consumers to modify usage patterns
- cost/benefit analysis of a national smart grid taking into consideration the saving from reduced downtime of the grid, automated fault analysis and self-healing, and improved power quality
- cost/benefit analysis of the advantages of a smart grid when facilitating the connection of renewable and decentralised energy sources.
Project 4: The framing of energy use choices
Theme: Our Energy Culture
Rapid uptake of energy efficiency will require policies that understand the market barriers and non-market or behavioural barriers that are faced. Typically the focus of energy efficiency policy has been in overcoming market failures, though it is well understood that non price barriers and behavioural aspects are strong determinants of energy choices. For example, social norms, habits, morality, formal and informal authority, non-monetary incentives, community expectations, and the context in which choices are presented, all shape choices and social behaviour in various ways. They are also highly influential in determining outcomes.
Energy efficiency actions informed by a stronger understanding of realistic human behaviours and decision-making will potentially lead to new approaches that are more successful at supporting transformational changes in energy efficiency uptake. | <urn:uuid:7901d849-bfdc-41fa-995d-e51ea3e625fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.a2se.org.au/activities/research/research-projects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929435 | 630 | 2.375 | 2 |
- Lead-organizer: World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
- 13:30 - 15:00
- Date: 15 Jun 2012
- Room: P3-2
Sustainable Development - Perspectives of the World Meteorological Organization
- 2022012.06.15 Programme.doc
- 2031° - 2012.06.15 GFCS_Rio.ppt
- 2041° - 2012.06.15 GFCS_Rio.ppt
Presentation Elina Palm
- 2053° - Jarl.pptx
Presentation Jarl Krausing
- 2064° - CBEW IFRC initiatives 2012.ppt
- 2075° - DR Carlos Dora.ppt
Presentation Carlos Dora
Contributing to the greening of economies and poverty alleviation
Organizing partnersWorld Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
United Nations Convention to Combat Desrtification (UNCCD)
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)
World Health Organization (WHO)
IntroductionGlobal efforts towards green economies and addressing poverty are sensitive to weather and climate variability and change. Development targets are at risk as food production, food security, disaster risk reduction, health epidemics, access to water, energy, tourism, etc., in many countries are dominated by weather and climate. Use of scientifically sound climate services can support better climate risk management, and in taking advantage of climate opportunities to increase productivity and promote sustainable development.
There is a significant gap between needs for climate services and their current provision, particularly in least developed and developing countries. Present capabilities to provide climate services do not exploit all we know about climate, and are not delivering their full potential benefits. This event, organized by the World Meteorological Organization and partner UN agencies will provide information on the contribution of the Global Framework for Climate Services in support of greening of economies and poverty reduction
Detailed programmeContributing to the greening of economies and poverty alleviation through the Implementation of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)
Global efforts towards greening of economies and addressing poverty are sensitive to weather and climate variability and change. Development targets are at risk as food production, food security, disaster risk reduction, health epidemics, access to water, energy, tourism, etc., in many countries are dominated by weather and climate. Use of scientifically sound climate services can support better climate risk management, and in taking advantage of climate opportunities to increase productivity and promote sustainable development.
The need to provide the world and decision-makers with science-based information on how to effectively manage risks associated with the climate and how to make informed decisions that include climate and climate change information and data, led the Third World Climate Conference-3 (Geneva, 2009), to call for the establishment of a Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS). Since then, the World Meteorological Organization with UN partner agencies has been leading the development of a detailed Implementation Plan for the Framework expected to be considered by an extraordinary session of a World Meteorological Congress, bringing together its 198 Member States in October 2012. The Framework is a UN lead partnership that will coordinate global initiatives building on existing efforts of various stakeholders to ensure the provision of climate services that are focused on meeting the requirements of users to provide the greatest benefits from the current climate knowledge.
The Framework is based on the philosophy that efficient management of the climatic risks today is the foundation for managing the climatic risks of tomorrow, which are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude as a consequence of climate change induced by humankind. The Framework will focus in the short term, on the provision of climate services for water, agriculture and food security, health and disaster risk reduction. However, availability of climate services will also benefit other climate sensitive sectors simultaneously. It will do so by building on five critical components:
User Interface - which will provide ways for climate service users and providers to interact and improve the effectiveness of the Framework and its climate services and facilitate improved climate literacy and better understand of each other needs through engaging in systematic interaction and genuine dialogue;
Climate Service Information System - intended to produce and distribute climate data and information according to the needs of users and to agreed standards from the global to the national levels; Observations and Monitoring - to support strengthening of the network of observing stations needed to provide the data required to underpin accurate climate services; to monitor critical, and develop agreements and standards for generating and exchanging necessary climate data;
Research, Modeling and Prediction - to expand the research basis to gain further understanding of the climate system and its impacts to support services development and provision and harness science capabilities and results to meet the needs of users of climate services; and
Capacity Building - to support the systematic development of the institutions, infrastructure and human resources needed for effective climate services.
Concretely, the Framework will provide for example:
? Longer lead-times for enhanced flood and drought management due to the incorporation of seasonal forecasting into early warning systems;
? Increased yields and better agricultural management through the use of seasonal outlooks by farmers world wide;
? Enhanced and sustained generation of environmentally friendly energy (solar, wind, hydro) through appropriate design, planning and maintenance of the infrastructure based on long term climate information;
? Broader information basis for ecologically sound adaptation measures through the identification and support of climate resilient ecosystem services (i.e. expansion of wetlands for flood mitigation or conservation of forest for ground water quality preservation
Given the complexity and challenges of naturally occurring climate variability, it is beyond the capacity of any single country or institution to build such a service on its own. Accordingly, the Framework will be based on a long-term cooperative arrangement supported by the entire UN system as well as other organizations. Partnerships across geographical, political and disciplinary boundaries will be essential. The Framework will build on, and strengthen, existing local, national, regional and global networks for climate observation, monitoring, research and modelling as well as operational structures and service programmes.
Speakers from UN and international agencies will highlight current initiatives that demonstrate the benefits of using climate services in support of better planning and decision making across key areas for sustainable development. | <urn:uuid:26f375c7-34e1-4384-9c4f-3b200d46c2d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.php?page=view&nr=77&type=1000&menu=126 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914156 | 1,263 | 2.5 | 2 |
* The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives.
* An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
* The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.
* If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
* Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
* Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
* Be the change you want to see in the world.
* Just as the body cannot exist without blood, so the soul needs the matchless and pure strength of faith.
* Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
* I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent
* Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love. | <urn:uuid:2468ac43-3fb7-4d04-9c6d-43a55e4b5f1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://omaymen.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/mahatma-gandhi-quotes-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971414 | 241 | 1.59375 | 2 |
All About Merchant Account Services
Today most bank card transactions are sent electronically to merchant processing banks for authorization, capture and deposit. Various methods are in place presenting a credit card sale to “the system.” In all circumstances either the full magnetic strip is read by a swipe via a cc terminal/reader, a computer chip is read, or the bank card data is manually entered into a card terminal, a pc or website. The initial methods, submitting bank card slips to a merchant processing bank by mail, or by accessing an automatic Response Unit (ARU) by telephone, are still employed today but have longtime overshadowed by electronics. These early methods used two-part forms as well as a manual device for mechanically imprinting the embossed card number information onto the forms.
Credit card terminal
A credit card terminal is a stand-alone component of electronic equipment which allows a merchant to swipe or key-enter a credit card’s information as well as other information needed to process a credit card transaction. A credit card terminal is actually a dedicated item of equipment that only processes cards though it is typical for related transactions including gift cards and check verification to also be performed. A card terminal typically is required to be connected to a power supply and connected with a phone line line. However, some terminals can be powered by batteries and communicate via the internet or through a mobile phone data network. Whenever a card is processed (either swiped using the magnetic stripe reader or keyed-in on the keypad), it contacts the network to make sure that if the credit card would be authorized. The transaction is then stored within the machine till the polling window is opened. The device will either upload the electronic funds straight to the merchant bank, or a polling service provider will dial in to collect, process then submit the data to their merchant bank. The most used credit card terminals normally include a modem, keypad, printer, magnetic stripe reader, power source and storage device. They have had the same basic design since the 1980s. Just as with computers, there is a wide range of memory capacities along with other features like built-in printers and debit card pinpads that affect the manufacturing cost of a credit card terminal.
Automated Response Unit (ARU)
An ARU (also referred to as a voice authorization, capture and deposit) allows the manual keyed entry and subsequent authorization of a credit card over the cellular or land-line telephone. With this method a merchant typically imprints their customer’s card using an imprinter to generate a customer receipt and merchant copy, then process the transaction instantaneously on the telephone
Payment gateway or Terminal
A payment gateway is the e-commerce service that authorizes payments for e-businesses web based retailers. It’s the equivalent of a a physical POS (point-of-sale) terminal found in retail locations A merchant payment processing account provider is often a separate company from a payment gateway. Some processing account providers have their own internal payment gateways but the majority of companies use third party payment gateways. The gateway commonly has 2 components: a) the virtual terminal which will enable a merchant to securely login and type in card numbers or b) have the website’s shopping-cart communicate with the gateway via an API to allow for real time processing through the merchant’s website.
Level 2 or Level 3 Processing – Purchasing Cards
Visa and Mastercard have created a specialized form of bank card used primarily by government departments and businesses. Increasingly, corporations and government agencies are relying upon this form of payment to compensate their companies and suppliers. Businesses benefit by receiving their funds quickly and by winning competitive bids and government contracts where purchasing cards are classified as the required method of payment. The down-side, however, often is the increased expenses associated with receiving these payments. These costs will often be much higher than accepting a basic typical credit card.
The perfect solution is is the fact that some businesses may be eligible for a solutions to process these transactions that allow them to pay lower fees if they can supply additional information, called “level 2 or level 3 data”. For instance, if government transactions are higher than $5,000, businesses can significantly reduce their transaction costs by including “level 2 or level 3 data” in regards to the purchase in conjunction with each transaction. A example of level 2 or level 3 data is an acquisition order number associated with the transaction that the card is going to be paying. This info is passed on to the purchaser in order that it can be very often much easier to reconcile the transaction. If all the required information is not collected and passed on throughout the transaction, the merchant can have surcharges added to the basic fees or be forced in to a non qualified transaction category.
Merchant Account Marketing
Merchant accounts are marketed to merchants by two basic methods: either directly by means of the processor or sponsoring bank, or by a certified agent for the bank as well as directly registered with both Visa and MasterCard as an official ISO/MSP (Independent Selling Organization / Member Provider). Marketing info is by credit card issuers like Visa and MasterCard, and therefore are enforced by various rules and fines.A number of the largest processors also partner with warehouse clubs to market a merchant account to their business members.
Marketing by Banks
A bank that includes a merchant processing relationship with Visa and Mastercard, better known as a member bank, can issue merchant credit card accounts directly to merchants. To reduce risk, some banks limit approval to merchants in its geographical area, those that have a physical retail storefront, or those that have been in business for two years or longer.
Marketing by Independent Sales Organization (ISO)/MSPs
To offer a merchant account, an ISO(independent sales organization)/MSP(merchant service provider) is required to be sponsored by a member bank. This sponsorship requires that the financial institution verify the financial stability and suitability of the company that will be marketing on its behalf. The ISO/MSP must also pay a fee in order to become registered with Visa and Mastercard and must comply with regulations in the way they may market a merchant account additionally , the usage of copyrights of Visa and Mastercard. One way to verify if the ISO/MSP is in compliance is usually to check internet site or any other marketing material for a disclosure “company is a registered ISO/MSP of bank, town, state. FDIC insured”. This disclosure is required by both Visa and Mastercard can easily result in a fine of up to $25,000 if it is not clearly visible.
Rates and fees
A merchant processing account contains a assortment of fees, some periodic, others charged on a per-item or percentage basis. Some fees are set by the card processing provider, though the greater part of the per-item and percentage fees are passed through the card processing provider to the cc issuing bank as stated by a listed schedule of rates called interchange fees, which are set by Visa and Mastercard. Interchange fees vary dependant on card type additionally , the circumstances of the transaction. For example, if a transaction is actually created by swiping a card through a bank card terminal it will be in a much different category than if this were keyed in manually.
The discount rate comprises a good number of dues, fees, assessments, network charges and mark-ups merchants are needed to cover the cost of accepting credit and debit cards, the number one which without a doubt will be the Interchange fee. Each bank or ISO/MLS has real costs in addition to the wholesale interchange fees, and helps to create net profit adding a mark-up to all the fees mentioned above. There are a selection of price models banks and ISOs/MLSs use to bill merchants for its services rendered. Below are more popular price models:
The 3-Tier Pricing is a very popular pricing method additionally the simplest system for the majority of merchants, although the brand new 6-Tier Pricing is gaining in popularity. By using 3-Tier Pricing, the processing account provider groups the transactions into 3 groups ( tiers) and assigns a rate to each tier based on a criterion established for every tier.
First Tier – Qualified Rate
The qualified rate is the percentage rate a merchant will be charged every time they accept an average personal credit card and process itin a manner understood to be “standard” by their processing account provider employing an approved bank card processing solution. Normally , this is rock bottom rate a merchant will incur when accepting a credit card. The qualified rate is also the rate commonly quoted to the merchant after they inquire about pricing. The qualified rate is created in accordance with the way a merchant is likely to be accepting most of their cards. As an example ,, for an internet merchant, the internet interchange categories is to be looked as Qualified, while for the physical retailer only transactions swiped through or read by their terminal in the ordinary manner is actually defined as Qualified.
Second Tier – Mid-qualified Rate
Also known as a partially qualified rate, the mid-qualified rate is the pct rate a merchant are going to be charged whenever they accept credit cards that does not qualify for the lowest rate ( the qualified rate ). This certainly does happen for a couple of reasons for example:
An individual cc is keyed in to a credit card terminal as a substitute for being swiped
A special sort of credit card is employed like a rewards card or business card
A mid-qualified cost structure higher than a qualified rate. Many of the transactions that will be usually grouped under the Mid-Qualified Tier could cost the provider more in interchange costs, so the processing account providers do make a markup on these rates.
The application of “rewards cards” is often as high as 40% of transactions. Therefore it is essential that the financial impact of this fee be understood. So therefore, merchants will be charged the qualified plus the mid qualified rate. Example) If your qualified rate is 1.5% and the mid qualified rate is 1 %, your effective rate would be 2.5 %.
Tier 3 – Non-Qualified Rate
The non-qualified rates are usually the biggest percentage rate a merchant is to be charged should they accept a card. In many instances all transactions that aren’t qualified or mid-qualified will fall to that rate. This will likely happen for a number of reasons as in:
An individual bank card is keyed in to a cc terminal as an alternative to being swiped and address verification hasn’t been performed
A uniqueversion of cc is utilized like a business card and all required fields aren’t going to be entered
A merchant doesn’t settle their daily batch within the allotted time frame, usually past 48 hours from time of authorization.
A non-qualified rate could in fact be significantly greater than a qualified rate and may even cost the provider good deal more in interchange costs, so your processing account providers do make a markup on these rates.
In consequence of the Wal-Mart Settlement as well as to compete against PIN-based debit cards, Visa and Mastercard lowered the interchange rates for debit cards well below those for a credit card. Some providers can pass on the lower expense of this type of card instantly to merchants. Consequently, the three tiers programs have added 2 varieties for debit cards that are processed with out a PIN or making use of a PIN for a total of 6 rate classifications.
Interchange Plus Pricing
Some providers offer merchant card account services priced by using an “interchange plus” basis. These accounts are based on the “interchange” tables published by both Visa Visa Interchange and MasterCard MasterCard Interchange. Such type of pricing creates a discount rate by building interchange rates, fees, assessments, markups and other costs.
A bill back generally relatively recent price model in conjunction with a variation on interchange plus pricing. It consists of some variations though the basic concept is that the merchant pays interchange on the statement that the transactions took place and then pay all other fees, like dues, fees and assessments, etc for the next month’s statement. It will take a substantial amount of time for them to research the actual cost per transaction utilizing the bill back system. Some merchants feel this method of pricing may be very misleading.
Other Rates & Fees
The Authorization fee ( actually an authorization request fee ) is charged each time a transaction is submitted to the card-issuing bank to be authorized. The fee applies whether or not the request is accepted and approved. Note it is not similar to Transaction fee or Per Item fee.
The statement fee is known as a monthly fee associated with the monthly statement that is delivered to the merchant at the conclusion of every monthly processing cycle. This statement shows the amount of processing was done by the merchant during the month and what fees were incurred subsequently.
Often times, the statement fee hasn’t been directly linked with “paper” statements but alternatively general overhead. Consequently , a provider wouldn’t waive this fee if the merchant chose to opt for a “paperless” statement.
Minimum Monthly Fee
The monthly minimum fee can be a method to ensure that merchants pay a minimum amount in fees every month to cover costs by way of provider continue to keep the account also to create minimal profits. Where a merchant’s qualified fees tend not to equal or exceed the monthly minimum they shall be charged up to the monthly minimum in order to meet their minimum fee requirements.
Example: A merchant has signed a legal contract along with a $15.00 monthly minimum fee. If all the fees for the most recent month of processing total only $10.00, this merchant will be charged an additional $10.00 to $25.00 ( depending ont their monthly minumum ) to meet their monthly minimum requirements. Sometimes there are actually fees may possibly be charged that are not an element of the monthly minimum, for example statement fees. It is actually industry standard to charge a monthly minimum.
A batch fee (also called batchout header fee) are typically charged to any merchant whenever the merchant “settles” their terminal. Settling a terminal, better known as “batching”, is when a merchant sends their completed transactions for the day to their acquiring bank for payment. Some providers perform this automatically. It is important to close the batch every 24 hours or else a higher rate will undoubtedly be assessed by Visa or Mastercard.
Customer Sevice Fees
merchant service charge (also known as a maintenance fee) can be charged by some providers to pay for expense of customer care.
The Annual fee is actually charged by some providers to pay for costs of maintaining the merchant’s account. Sometimes these fees can certainly be quarterly. The fee are typically from $69-$699.
Early Termination fee
The early termination fee can be charged by some providers if a merchant ends the contract ahead of the end of their contract term. While contract terms of 1-3 years , some providers have terms of up to 5yrs accompanied by a 12 months prior notice to cancel or that the fee are going to be assessed. Some providers also assess all statement fees and monthly minimums remaining when the contract is terminated. Some providers are also able to assess a “lost profit” paid upon an assumption of profits they concluded they would have earned for the full term of their contract.
Chargeback’s can be the largest risk that’s presented to banks and providers. This is simply not to become confused with reimbursement, which is simply a merchant refunding a transaction. In the Visa and Mastercard rules, the merchant’s processing bank is 100% liable for all of the transactionsthat the merchant performs. This can leave the provider open to huge amounts of money of potential losses if the merchant operates in an illegal or risky manner and generates many chargebacks. The providers pass this cost onto the merchant, however if the merchant is fraudulent or simply has not got the actual cash, the provider must pay all of the costs to make a card holder whole. The chargeback risk can be the largest part taken into consideration during the contract application and underwriting process. Some banks are much more stringent than others when assessing a merchant’s chargeback risk.
If a merchant encounters a chargeback they may be assessed a fee by their acquiring bank. A possible chargeback is presented on behalf of a card holder’s bank to their merchant’s charge card processing bank. A reason code is established by the card issuer to correctly identify the kind of potential chargeback depending on the card holder’s complaint. The most common complaint is the factthat the card holder is not able to recall the transaction. Usually, these potential chargebacks are corrected whenever the merchant’s processing bank sends over additional information in regard to the transaction. Some providers charge a fee for this particular service, known as a “Retrieval Request”. A chargeback can also be related to a fraud or similar dispute that the card holder is claiming to the merchant. This fee can be charged by some providers whether the chargeback is a winner or otherwise and isn’t dependent upon the sum of the chargeback.
Currently both Visa and Mastercard require all merchants to maintain no more than one percent (1%) of dollar volume processed to be chargebacks. If the percentage goes above, there are fines starting at $5000 – $25,000 to the merchant’s processing bank and ultimately forwarded to the merchant.
In most cases, a chargeback will surely cost the merchant the chargeback fee, typically $15-$30, along with the cost of the transaction and the amount processed.
Or call TOLL FREE: 1-800-974-1557 | <urn:uuid:6ad7230c-a216-49bd-b526-4398fd4f44cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hrmerchant.ws/merchant-account-faq/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950402 | 3,653 | 2.375 | 2 |
Archive for '2011'
Eric Holder stated "when it comes to race we are a nation of cowards" That is because when someone stands up to the absurdity of race politics they are often labeled a raciest. Many have drank from the poisonous well of identity politics. Don't be fooled, these are not the needed marches and civil rights battles of the 60s, but a cry to protect power and an advantage.
The line in the sand has been drawn at public safety and it is partly our fault. We as a service have failed to educate our elected leaders and the public. We had our heads in the sand believing tactics and our mission was enough to carry the day. We were wrong! By not marketing our service we allowed the public and our leaders to believe that while our calling is noble it only required a weak mind and strong back.
Our job is complicated and the skills, knowledge and abilities needed go beyond fires. EMS, Haz-Mat, threats from abroad, and everything that comes with answering any call for help within minutes. Did I mention the ability for reading comprehension. Whether a MSDS sheet, saw manual or new standard operating procedure reading and understanding is critical.
We have seen a intrusion into public safety that we don't see with other professions. The Bar exam, M Cats, SATs and others all have adverse impact on them, however they do not face the same scrutiny. In our profession there are no due overs and when on an alarm there is no time to double check or look something up. We act and have to make almost perfect decisions based off imperfect information. So why the call to dumb down the fire department? The actions of the justice department are deplorable and persist despite legal presidents and the need for sound public policy.
While there was a time that this country was off course this is not the country I know. I grew up in a nation of possibilities, where I was taught you must rise and fall based on your own merit. That individual initiative would be rewarded and we would be judged fairly based on the rule of law and our commitment to our communities.
Your heritage, or sex, or the color of your skin does not make you a better firefighter.
Achievement is neither limited nor determined by one's race or politics, but is determined by one's skills, knowledge, abilities, dedication, commitment and character.
Firefighting is not a job that can be handed out without regard for merit or qualifications.
While equal opportunity must be guaranteed for all, it does not guarantee equal outcome.
The point is, merit matters. We cannot use statistics to choose our firefighters and leaders. We must all be vigilant, get involved and participate.
OSHA & NFPA, laws and standards and how they apply to the fire service?
Fire Service & negligence, who is responsible?
legal questions from the front line
Pull up a chair, June's show was the best one yet!
Special Guest Dave Statter
Part 1. We cover flashover training the pros and cons along with tactics to address flashover.
Always keep the mind that many of the warning signs of flashover may be masked by dark smoke:
Fire Propagation down the wall
and the most reliable, high heat
While most were taught not to play water on smoke. If you believe flashover in coming on it is alright to hit the smoke to allow you to hit the seat of fire or back out. It all goes back to training, training and training.
Part 2 Dave Statter interview that all officers and firefighters should listen to!
Dave covers reputation equity and your departments credibility.
Facebook and twitter friend or foe is covered and getting the story out first, right and behind you. If you haven't thought about crises management you are stetting your self up for failure.
Dave is the fire services top guy for crises management. So pull up a chair grab a beer!
Remember if you are having a political issue in your department and you would like to bring an elected leader on the show give us a call: Frank Ricci 203-285-4907
STATter911 Communications, LLC
(202) 487 5678
Fax- (703) 533 9125
6312 Seven Corners Center #252
Falls Church, Virginia 22044-2409
Some things we will address:
How to advocate for a bill.
We will conduct a mock phone call to a local, state or federal elected official.
Two bills we will address,
Social Security issue, that mandates all professional firefighter will have to pay into SS regardless of their collective bargaining agreements.
The Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act which would promote the development of a 20 MHz nationwide, interoperable, public safety broadband network.
The fire coordination triangle and staffing. Standards for paid and volunteer firefighters.
And the last segment will be Tactical Question of the day. The hosts will field any question about fire ground tactics from a caller.
Below is from the IAFF we will post issues concerning volunteers as well. If you have never called your state or federal elected official before do not fret. It is easy and only takes a second. Place the call it will be usually answered by a staff rep. Simple state your position and say thank you. It won't be confrontational. They are always polite even if they are not aligned with your position.
This is disturbing there is not an elected official who will not tell you the social security is a broken system. What is hard to believe is that three Republicans Tom Coburn (OK), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Mike Crapo (ID) have signed on to this. The Republicans have long favored a private way out of Social Security. Our pensions is viable option to this government provided safety net. To have firefighters and cops now prop up a failed system is insanity! We must call and be heard on this vital issue!!!!!!!!!
Contact Senator Dick Durbin - tell him not to support any proposal that mandates Social Security participation for fire fighters or that taxes employer-sponsored health care
As part of the plan to cut $4 trillion from the nation's deficit over the next 10 years is a proposal to remove the tax exemption for employer-provided health care and establish mandatory Social Security for new state employees. These recommendations, if implemented, will significantly increase the taxes IAFF members pay.
This deficit reduction plan was introduced by six U.S. senators, known as the Gang of Six: Democrats Dick Durbin (IL), Kent Conrad (ND) and Mark Warner (VA) and Republicans Tom Coburn (OK), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Mike Crapo (ID). The recommendations are based on a plan by the Deficit Reduction Commission, co-chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) and Erskine Bowles, Chief of Staff to President Clinton.
This Gang of Six is focused on reforming Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and rewriting the U.S Tax Code.
Removing the tax exemption for employer-provided health care will raise taxes on health care benefits, slapping fire fighters with thousands of dollars in additional taxes. Under current law, health care benefits provided by employers to their employees are not counted as taxable income.
Removing the exemption will also force employees to accept greater cost-sharing in the form of higher deductibles and larger copayments and coinsurance.
For example, if the value of your employer-sponsored health care is $10,000 per year and you fall in the 25 percent tax bracket, removing the exemptions will require you to pay an additional $2,500 in federal taxes and, in many places, increase state taxes as well.
Under the Gang of Six's proposal, mandatory Social Security for new state employees will require employers to pay their share of the Social Security tax - 6.2 percent of payroll - placing a financial strain on cash-strapped municipalities. Many jurisdictions cannot afford to pay Social Security taxesand make contributions to your pension plan. This proposal will doom your defined benefit pension plans.
More than 70 percent of the nation’s fire fighters do not participate in the Social Security system. Requiring Social Security coverage of all state and local government employees will completely undermine your pension plans.
Forcing fire fighters into the Social Security system will amount to reducing your take-home pay by 6.2 percent. Can you afford that loss of income?
Contact Senator Dick Durbin - tell him not to support any proposal that mandates Social Security participation for fire fighters or that taxes employer-sponsored health care.
Call, write, email or twitter Senator Durbin's office today:
Washington Office: (202)-224-2152
District Office: (217) 492-4062
Twitter: @SenatorDurbin; http://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin | <urn:uuid:0f8731e8-2b8f-4eb7-a4f5-af68917530dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fireengineering.com/blogs/blognetwork/frank-ricci/2011.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942754 | 1,816 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Republican Party's attempts to defund Planned Parenthood threaten "women's basic access to health care" and imperil them financially, said Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards on Wednesday's edition of NOW with Alex Wagner.
"For women, access to health care is an economic issue," said Richards. "It's an affordability issue, it's a matter of being able to plan their families, stay in school, be a productive member of society as employees. "
Women typically have a harder time finding affordable health insurance than men, exacerbating the economic disparity created by widespread pay discrimination. Citing the National Women's Law Center, the New York Times reports "90 percent of the best-selling health plans charge women more than men."
Planned Parenthood helps bridge that gap by providing inexpensive women's health services to low-income women. According to a February post by Ezra Klein, 75 percent of Planned Parenthood users "have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line." Furthermore, abortion services are only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's activities; the majority of what their clinics do are things like STD testing, cancer screening, and other forms of preventative care.
In February, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission instated a new rule barring Planned Parenthood clinics in the state from receiving funds from the TexasWomen's HealthProgram. The rule also prevents Planned Parenthood clinics from receiving federal matching funds. Planned Parenthood is currently challenging the rule in federal court.
Texas isn't the only state embroiled in a fight to defund Planned Parenthood. Numerous state legislatures have debated measures to defund the organization, most recently Pennsylvania. On the federal level, Mitt Romney has expressed his desire to "get rid" of it entirely.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Cecile Richards as the president of Planned Parenthood. She is actually president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Planned Parenthood for America's advocacy arm. | <urn:uuid:e7f8bb19-9bba-453f-b90e-0161ecc2643a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leanforward.msnbc.com/_news/2012/06/13/12203944-planned-parenthood-head-womens-basic-access-to-health-care-under-threat-nationwide?lite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957787 | 385 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Protection of Personal Data
Chapter Eleven concerns the regulation of personal data processing as a fetter on the liberty to publish. As this Chapter discusses, in Europe, the human right to respect for privacy, and its special relationship with the right to freedom of expression, provides the foundation for data protection regulation. The Chapter looks at the application of the EU Data Protection Directive to the media, including the journalistic purposes exception as well as the entrenchment of the right to protection of personal data in major EU treaties. It also examines various methods used to ensure that personal data sourced in Europe remains subject to the Directive's standards. Chapter Eleven then discusses the origins of European data protection rules in the Council of Europe. It finally examines the array of international initiatives aimed at the development of common global principles and equivalent practices for data protection, while preserving the international flow of data.
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian. | <urn:uuid:8302be60-1de2-4ae4-bad4-aba8ce6ca347> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198268550.001.0001/acprof-9780198268550-chapter-12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905925 | 232 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Update 5/18: The interview time has been moved to 6:00am ET on Thursday 5/19, and can be seen on youtube.com/pbsnewshour.
UPDATE 5/13: Pending the launch of STS-134 on May 16 at 8:56am ET, this interview will be conducted on Thursday May 19 at 7:24am ET. Check here for more info.
UPDATE 4/29: NASA has scrubbed the launch attempt today due to a technical problem. We'll provide an update here on the live streamed launch and live interview, and you can follow NASA updates here.
On Friday, April 29, the crew of STS-134 will launch into space for the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour and we want to give you the chance to connect with them. On May 2, NASA Commander Mark Kelly and his crew will take your questions live from space on YouTube. PBS NewsHour will live stream the interview from its YouTube channel with veteran space reporter Miles O’Brien curating and asking your questions to the crew.
Starting today, you can visit www.youtube.com/pbsnewshour to submit a video or written question for the crew of STS-134 to be used in the live interview and vote for your favorite questions. You can also submit questions on Twitter with the hashtag #utalk2nasa. Don’t be shy—if you’re most curious about how to prepare for a spacewalk or wondering if the astronauts have a speech prepared for an extra-terrestrial encounter, this is your chance to find out. Here’s a video from PBS and Miles O’Brien to inspire you:
A few suggestions before submitting your questions:
- Video questions are preferred, and should be a max of 20 seconds long
- Speak clearly and film in a place with minimal background noise. Keep the camera as still as possible and ask the question directly to the camera
- Look through NASA videos on YouTube about STS-134 to learn more about the mission and crew
You have until Saturday April 30 at midnight ET to submit your questions. The top ranked questions will be used in the live interview on Monday, May 2 at 2:15pm ET / 11:15am PT.
To get the full experience of STS-134, you can also watch a live stream of the shuttle launch on Friday April 29 starting at 3:47pm ET at www.youtube.com/pbsnewshour. Both the launch and the interview will be available for archived viewing.
Houston, we’re ready for lift-off.
Ginny Hunt, Public Sector Program Manager, recently watched “STS-134: Legacy of Endeavour.” | <urn:uuid:07fa8710-b963-47ea-bb30-5adbfa826bff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://youtube-global.blogspot.sg/2011/04/live-from-space-you-talk-to-commander.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913601 | 571 | 1.632813 | 2 |
2012 is a very exciting year for Four Oaks Bank. It is the year of their Centennial. The bank plans to celebrate the milestone throughout the year with various events. Part of the Bank’s celebration is a traveling historical exhibit which will be on display in each of the Bank’s locations during this year.
The exhibit includes many artifacts from the bank, including the original deposit ledger begun on June 1, 1912, and the original Bank seal used on the first stock certificates issued by the bank. It also features an early coin dispenser and many other items of interest.
Also on display will be reproductions of many important documents, including the original application for incorporation, the Certificate Of Incorporation from the Secretary Of State’s Office, and one of the first stock certificates, which was issued to the Bank’s original Cashier.
The exhibit will be on display in the Bank’s Fuquay-Varina office, located at 325 N. Judd Parkway NE, from Aug. 20 through Aug. 31.
“We hope that our customers and neighbors will enjoy this display of items from our origin a century ago,” says Ayden R. Lee, Jr., Chairman, CEO and President of Four Oaks Bank. “We are proud of our heritage and look forward to celebrating our first 100 years with our customers and our neighbors.” | <urn:uuid:34571e2c-a3a6-4973-a08a-4cddb850660c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fuquay-varinaindependent.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Four+Oaks+Bank+celebrates+centennial+with+traveling+exhibit%20&id=19883322 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958672 | 284 | 1.5 | 2 |
BOOKS APRIL 9, 1984
By Athol Fugard
Edited by Mary Benson
(Knopf, 240pp., $14.95)
These Notebooks are the record of eighteen years of Athol Fugard’s creative life, covering a period from the early 1960s, when he tried his hand at a novel, gave it up, and decided, “I am a playwright,” to the late 1970s, when he had established himself as a playwright of international stature. They trace the impact of day-to-day events upon him, the slow process by which kernels of truth crystallize from memories, and the sometimes halting and painful growth of his plays out of these kernels. As a record of the inner experiences of a self-aware and articulate creative consciousness, they are of absorbing interest, and we should be grateful to Fugard and his editor, Mary Benson, for making them public.
The Notebooks are, however, more than this. They are also the autobiography of a man of intelligence and conscience who chose to remain in South Africa at a time when many fellow writers were opting for (or being forced into) exile. This choice meant, among other things, that Fugard would live among those juxtaposed scenes of placid comfort and desperate poverty that belong to present-day South Africa, and so continually be brought face to face with the question of his relationship with a ruling order characterized by a remarkably loveless attitude toward its subjects (or some of them), an attitude of lovelessness that sometimes extends to atrocious callousness. Fugard’s pleasure in the beauty of South Africa, and particularly of the eastern Cape coast where he lives—a pleasure which he communicates in passages of glitteringly precise description of its sights and sounds and smells—is therefore repeatedly subverted by “the nausea brought on by reading the newspapers,” by bouts of “dumb and despairing rage at what we are doing.” This revulsion leads in turn to doubts about the value of his art, which seems to be founded on material privilege, to be personal in its nature, to be only ambivalently committed to tangible political goals. The question of how to commit himself without losing his identity as an artist becomes a central preoccupation of the notebook entries of the mid1960s. “The horror of what this government and its policies have done to people ... has built up such an abyss of hatred that at times . . . I [have] been quite prepared to take the jump and destroy—but, so far, . . . the company of executioners remains loathesome,” he writes in 1968. “I can’t think of any moral dilemma more crucifying than this one.”
Yet fidelity to his subject matter—which we may broadly define as the attempts of people to retain their self-respect in a degraded social order—makes him suspicious of an art yoked too closely to a political program. In Boesman and Lena, he asserts, what engages him is the “metaphysical” predicament of the couple rather than a “political [or] social” one. He reserves his judgment on Sizive Bansi is Dead because he feels that it “[walks] the tightrope between poetry and propaganda.”
THE ROUTE he follows out of his crisis of conscience is to take upon himself (following Sartre) the task of bearing witness. “The truth [must] be told, . . . I must not bear false witness.” “My life has been given its order: love the little grey bushes”—by which he means, love the insignificant, the forgotten, the unloved. Against a system whose own degradation he measures by the degradations it imposes on others (at one point he goes further and suggests that the ultimate and unwitting victims of a regime of degradation are its perpetrators), Fugard opposes an ethic of love. “South Africa’s tragedy is the small, meagre portions of love in the hearts of the men who walk this beautiful land.” “People must be loved.” “I love man for his carnality, his mortality. It is a hard love—a big love—and I must still grow.” “What is Beauty? The result of love. The ugliness of the unloved thing.”
This program of witness and love is carried out from a position which Fugard explicitly—at least in the early 1960s—identifies with that of Camus’s Stranger, or Outsider. He records a “climacteric” in his life: sitting in a courtroom witnessing the processes of South African law, he realizes that what is taking place before him has little to do with justice, that (more significantly) all human law has its origin in a position of compromise; his own position, he decides, must henceforth be founded on a rejection of compromise, and therefore on a rejection of the moral claims of the law. Although the outsider status that he hereby assumes comes under considerable stress as pressure mounts upon him from the left to engage himself politically (or rather, since Fugard’s art is an engaged art, to allow the terms of his engagement to be determined for him by the political struggle), he never really deserts it, partly because it allows him the autonomy he needs as a writer, partly because it gives definition to his persistent sense of himself as “not ‘really’ belonging, of being a ‘stranger,’ ” no matter how much he sometimes wishes to become a “subscriber.”
DURING 1962 and 1963 Fugard in fact undertook a systematic reading of Camus, and the formative influence of Camus on his own thought is clear. “Would be happy to spend the next ten years deepening my understanding and appreciation of this man,” he writes. “Overwhelmed by Camus.” The stance of what he calls “Heroic Pessimism,” by which he characterizes his own work, comes to him from this reading, as well as such injunctions to himself as “Live prepared for death.”
But Camus is only the chief in a long roll of intellectual influences charted in the Notebooks. From his cottage at Schoenmakerskop, Fugard kept well abreast of intellectual currents: there are notes on Faulkner and Kazantzakis and Robbe-Grillet, Brecht and Genet, Pound and Lowell and Pasternak, Jung and Laing and the Zen thinkers, all of whom can be shown either to have helped him define his own position or to have pointed him in new directions.
The most absorbing pages of the Notebooks are those in which Fugard explores the currents of his own creativity and the genesis and unfolding of his plays. “I’ve always known that in my writing it is the dark troubled sea [of the unconscious], of which I know nothing, save its presence, that [has] carried me,” he writes. Later he contemplates a project of writing a notebook parallel to one of his plays in which he hopes to trace every stage of its creation—a project, in other words, for a more systematic version of the Notebooks we have—and then wryly dismisses it for its “naïveté”: he is too much “adrift” in the “deep and dark currents” of his creative unconscious, he realizes, to be able to chart their This confidence in his own unconscious processes leads to an untroubled acceptance of periods in his creative life that appear from the outside to be infertile, as well as to a certain intellectual passivity.
“Nothing, ever, in my life seems to stem from my asking a question and needing an answer. My consciousness of self and the world around me is, most times, the best times, . . . as smooth and solid as the sea tonight . . . . I don’t think I live negatively—the impulse to write is a vigorous, affirmative one, but it never has its origins in the need for answers.
“So often the paradox in writing: discover your beginning when you reach the end.”
Insofar as the Notebooks make clear a method or pattern in Fugard’s playwriting, it is one of worrying for months and sometimes years at a subject, often a subject suggested by a real-life encounter, until the image, the kernel out of which the play will eventually grow, emerges with “a life of its own, a truth bigger than itself.” Much of the book is devoted to recording the quest for these images of “truth . . . [which] when it comes, flashes back like lightning, through all that [has] preceded it.”
Of his poetics, Fugard writes: “I strive quite consciously and deliberately for ambiguity of expression . . . . My whole temperament inclines me to be very unequivocal indeed. That is not difficult—but it would be at the cost of truth.” “Darkness is . . . an essential help to the truly poetic image.” Made in 1969-70, these statements serve to remind us of how strenuously Fugard has striven to deploy the poetics of Modemism over a field that might seem to belong only to Social Realism; this deployment, when it is successfully achieved, is what gives his work its uniqueness.
Out of his orientation toward the hidden and irrational comes the succinct and powerful formulation by which in 1976 he characterizes his art: “A man must have a Secret, and as a result of that an Act which takes others by surprise.”
There is less about theater, and about Fugard’s experience in theater in Britain and the United States, than admirers of his plays might expect. The main reason is that the Notebooks were written in South Africa during spells of privacy; gaps in the chronology mark his absences abroad. But the Notebooks do record the excitement and disappointments of his work with black theater groups in the Port Elizabeth townships, thoughts on the staging of his plays, records of conversations with the actors John Kani and Yvonne Bryceland, and comments on the nature of theater that illuminate his own creative practice. Thus: “One of the reasons . . . why I write for the stage . . . [is] the Carnal Reality of the actor in space and time. Only a fraction of my truth is in the words.”
WE MUST presume that Fugard did some editing of his own before he passed the notebooks over to Mary Benson in 1979. Nevertheless, there remains much that is autobiographical in a personal way—criticism of his own “self-indulgence, self-pity, romanticism,” of his evasive and confused treatment of the beggars who haunt all good liberals, of his “incurable inability to say ‘No,’ ” of the “anarchistic, destructive core to [his] being.” There are dark intervals when he records “almost total loss of all sense of value,” or, on the last page of the Notebooks, “inner agony . . . death in life . . . the total extinction of my creativity . . . I have feared for my sanity.” There are also glimpses of Fugard poring for hours over rock pools, experiencing the “electric, orgiastic” pleasures of spearfishing, angling along the coast. (“Zen and the art of angling. Every cast a cast into your soul.”)
Mary Benson has supplemented the Notebooks with several pages of useful notes and a glossary of South African terms. By and large these are adequate, though Benson is mistaken in thinking that the Afrikaans verb moer has anything to do with murder. There also seem to have been misreadings of Fugard’s text. Eliot did not write a poem called “The Rack,” nor is it likely that Fugard called Beckett and Ionesco “absurdities.”
One is hardly entitled to criticize a writer for what he has chosen to write or not write about in his private notebooks. Nevertheless, there are points at which one wishes Fugard had pushed his thinking an inch or two further. The notion of the natural dignity of all life, most of all human life, is a keystone of Fugard’s thought. At the heart of the evil of white Herrschaft in South Africa, in Fugard’s view, is its desire not only to use the black man as a tool for its own material gain, but to strip him of all dignity in the process. The ruling order has thus literally become an order of degradation: no black man finds a place in society till he has passed the rite of being “taught a lesson” and abased. I have no quarrel with such an analysis, as far as it goes. But Fugard, not an Afrikaner, is close enough to the Afrikaner to know that the humiliation of the weak by the strong has been a characteristic practice of the Afrikaner within his own culture, a practice underpinned by a perhaps perverted reading of Scripture which gives inordinate emphasis to authority and its converse, abasement. The humbling of children by parents, of students by teachers, and generally of the younger by the older (the uninitiated by the initiated)—humbling that does not cease till face has been lost—is part of the life experience of most Afrikaners, and is kept alive, against liberalizing counterforces, by such institutions as the armed forces, which reach into most white households. There are many authoritarian societies on earth, but Afrikanerdom strikes one as a society in which castration is allotted a particularly blatant role. Fugard knows the castrating urge behind South African baasskap, knows that the castrated, the unloved, usually takes his place at the forefront of the castrators. Does he guess, too, that in probing the apparently peripheral phenomenon of humiliation he is coming close to the heart of the beast? It would be interesting to know.
From the fact that the Notebooks begin to tail off after 1973 we may infer that Fugard’s impulse to keep this form of diary has waned, and that there will be no second volume. We must therefore take what we have as a record of a phase in Fugard’s life that has closed, a phase in which, in a spirit of total engagement, he searched in daily experience and in books for the germs of truth. Even the reader only sketchily familiar with Fugard’s plays will find it an absorbing experience to follow him on his search.
J. M. Coetzee is the author most recently of Life and Times of Michael K (Viking), winner of the 1983 Booker Prize. | <urn:uuid:33276deb-f9f7-491d-9f23-58ca7bc2aaaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newrepublic.com/article/the-back-the-book/95913/art-and-apartheid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974613 | 3,154 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Electric Shock Capital Punishment
A selection of articles related to electric shock capital punishment.
Original articles from our library related to the Electric Shock Capital Punishment. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Electric Shock Capital Punishment.
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- Survivalists' Guide for the New Millennium: Chapter 2
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Electric Shock Capital Punishment is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Electric Shock Capital Punishment books and related discussion.
Suggested Pdf Resources
- Billy Budd and Capital Punishment: A Tale of Three Centuries
- as by an electric shock," the movement against the death penalty is growing "so rapidly that there is small likelihood of its modifica- tion by new forms.
- Judiciary Committee Colorado - Death Penalty Information Center
- of capital punishment. There are many controversial aspects to the death penalty debate and the . including a controversy over the electric chair.
- 42 E n g a g e Volume 4, Issue 2
- Claims that the death penalty is enforced in a man- ner that to throw out the capital punishment laws then in existence, but the . The shock and dismay that accompa- nied the .
- Capital Punishment Gary Gilmore Sirhan Sirhan Electric Chair
- GG_Deathrow_101090/Bernstein/1. Capital Punishment. Gary Gilmore.
Suggested Web Resources
- Electrocution & Electric Shock Punishment
- Read all about electric shock punishment, electrocution as a capital punishment, tasers and stun guns, electric fencing and shock-colars.
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Electric Shock Capital Punishment Topics
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dream dictionary prostitute | <urn:uuid:72115339-8a1f-41f4-a3be-b0567c2541b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realmagick.com/electric-shock-capital-punishment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901223 | 900 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Water right sanitizers need to be checked every few years. The KDF media is what kills the iron bacteria and neutralize the chlorine. I have found many dealers do not put the KDF (min-plus) in the softener for several reasons.
1. They find the cost of KDF too expensive
2. They do not understand its use in the system
3. KDF requires high backwash flow rates so it it mis-applied frequently.
If the system was applied for PH adjustment the media is sacrificial and has to be topped off after several years.
The chlorine generator is used to sanitize the media and prevent buildup of iron bacteria on the media. Sanitizers use a form of zeolite media so it is impervious to chlorine. There is also a max amount of H2S that a sanitizer will remove.
If their sanitizer is the old ASC (2510 valve) the chlorine generator may not be working properly especially if they have run out of salt frequently.
Shock chlorinating the well is BIG band aid and as you stated causes more problems than it helps. You keep asking the same questions and we keep replying with the same answers. Do NOT buy another greensand filter or fart around with the present one. Replace it something that works. You have not done any testing or flushing of well which we suggested. Until these things are done and results confirmed all of this is moot. | <urn:uuid:740f0a3f-16c7-4e06-b1cf-f2dc74d41cc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?42503-Greensand-Filter-Frequent-Clogging&p=305397&viewfull=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963283 | 300 | 1.695313 | 2 |
On this page you can search for: (i) National Laws
(typically laws that have been passed by the national legislative body of a country’s government); (ii) National Regulations
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Playing time: 70'
Recording date: June 1994
Instruments: harpsichord, Cornelius Bom (after Giovanni Battista Giusti, c.1650); virginal, Klaus Ahrend (after Marten van der Biest, c. 1580) - meantone tuning
Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) was the last of the English Virginalists. After him, the style died out entirely. Although he was something of a late starter (being the Chapel Royal's junior organist to Gibbons, despite being more than ten years older), he spent much of the later part of his life writing keyboard music (whereas Gibbons died thirty years earlier). Although he was content largely to adopt the forms and figures of the old masters, Tomkins did this expertly, due to his large collection of manuscript sources. By that time, no one cared about the English keyboard style at all (a fact Tomkins lamented), but he nonetheless sojourned on -- to one of the largest and most varied outputs in this style. In fact, only Byrd's output is comparable in size, and he was the primary initiator of the style. Therefore, this music (in spite of its artistic weaknesses) provides a fine endmark to an artistic endeavor that was all too brief.
The remainder of the present series:
Now Tomkins is best-known for his cathedral anthems. He also wrote consort music. Recordings featuring more of this variety:
And a recording in a cathedral setting:
To purchasing information for this disc.
To FAQ references to this recording.
To FAQ CD index page.Todd M. McComb | <urn:uuid:1b9e79f6-b5af-4c55-9402-e5eedf53222c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/mdg0563.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960307 | 347 | 2.03125 | 2 |
HANDS ON HISTORY
Use this page to link to our lesson plans and other materials designed to help teachers use the resources of Stones River National Battlefield in their classrooms.
Did You Know?
Nathan Bedford Forrest and his men were defeated by a Union force in a small battle along the Wilkinson Pike. The Battle of the Cedars was fought on December 7, 1864. | <urn:uuid:3add3476-2809-4e01-a443-9a06d5ea45f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/stri/forteachers/curriculummaterials.htm | 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 | 0.973876 | 78 | 2.953125 | 3 |
RAY: Here's the Puzzler. This is the last Puzzler of the season.
RAY: Of the scholastic season.
TOM: Of the scholastic year.
RAY: Yeah. We use the scholastic year.
TOM: We take the summer off.
RAY: Yeah, like the kids. I mean what the heck. They take it off and the Puzzler will be going on vacation and...
TOM: And all those academics -- those professors. They have a hard life and they have to take the summer off.
RAY: Yes. And those Art History graduate students...
TOM: They've got a lot of resumes to write. And they've got to learn to say, "Do you want fries with that?"
RAY: Well not everyone is familiar with Doug Mayer, our erstwhile web lackey/web master. Dougie lives up in the wilds of New Hampshire, in the mountains someplace -- and because he's been working so hard on our web site he has no more social life. In fact, his social life has been confined to tending his flock of sheep. And while out one day looking over his ewes he noticed that one was missing. His favorite was missing.
RAY: Yeah. I don't know what her name was but -- And he went and he talked to some of the neighbors and asked if they had noticed any strange cars in the area -- if someone had kidnapped one of his sheep. One of the neighbors said, "Yeah. I did see a car, but I couldn't tell you what the make or the model is but it did have an unusual license plate." Now, considering that there are only about 7 people that live up there he would stake out the feed store and find this car -- he thought it would be nice to know the license plate number. He could go to the police with it, if he had to, and he asked what the license plate was. And his neighbor said "The license plate was 4 x 4 x 8." Like a 4 x 4 truck. I know what kind of car that is and I know who stole Elsie.
RAY: Was it Elsie was her name? Doris? Oh, Honey. Her name is Honey. So what kind of car -- he knows what kind of car just by seeing this license plate that was identified as reading 4 x 4 x 8.
TOM: He was able to tell what make and model the car was.
RAY: And therefore who was it that kidnapped Honey. If you think you know the answer...
TOM: Because he happened to know who owned such a car.
RAY: Exactly. He didn't recognize it by its license plate number...
RAY: But he recognized it by the make and model and he said "Ah! I know whose car that is." What was it about this plate that told him what make and model the car was?
Think you know? Drop Ray a note!
[ Car Talk Puzzler ] | <urn:uuid:5e49f849-e980-4752-bd8c-93a960bed9ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cartalk.com/content/wheres-honey?question | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987812 | 624 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Colleges See Rise In Mental Health Issues
They may not tell their roommates or even close friends, but on college campuses all across the United States, more students than ever before are seeking psychiatric help, according to recent national surveys of campus therapists.
And it's not just for homesickness and relationship problems, says the University of Michigan's Daniel Eisenberg. He directs the Healthy Minds Study, a multicenter study that queries primarily students, but also a sampling of college counselors, about mental health issues, including the prevalence of clinical depression, anxiety and eating disorders on campus. Eisenberg says his findings dovetail with those of a large national survey of counseling center directors, led by the University of Pittsburgh's Robert Gallagher.
"One of the questions is whether they're seeing an increase in the number and severity of students with mental health problems," Eisenberg says. "And over 90 percent [of college counseling services] are saying yes to that question." Just one example: In 2007, around 15 percent of students reported having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives; that's up from 10 percent in 2000.
Better Diagnosis And Treatment
Eisenberg and other experts say they haven't yet teased out all the reasons behind the surge of mental health issues on campus, but think it doubtful that today's teenagers are more psychologically disturbed than past generations. Other explanations seem more likely.
Better screening and earlier diagnosis of mental illness in high school and even before may be one factor, Eisenberg says.
"Especially when Prozac and other antidepressant drugs like that came onto the scene in the late '80s and in the '90s, the likelihood of teenagers getting treatment went way up," he says. Now, many of those teens getting treatment are in college and are accustomed to turning to therapists for help.
Researchers suspect the increased severity of mental illness that counselors are seeing may be partly the consequence of a good thing: better treatment. Twenty years ago, many high school students with an illness as difficult as bipolar disorder or deep, persistent depression might never have made it to college or been able to stay there. Now such students are on every campus. Many are thriving, but in need of significant support to make it through.
Knowing When To Ask For Help
Some are first hit with the illness in college. Stanford University senior Amanda Gelender found herself battling a deep depression for the first time her freshman year. After weeks of going it alone, exhausted and "crying under the covers for hours" in the dorm, she says, she finally called her doctor. She was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder and found significant relief, she says, with the right medication and other support that enabled her to stay on campus and even keep up her near 4.0 grade average.
Still, for years, she never told friends, professors or dorm-mates of her diagnosis or ongoing struggle. "I felt like the most isolated person in the world," she says of that time. "I didn't feel like anybody would understand what I was going through."
Last January, Gelender broke her silence. She's the co-founder of a student theater group called Stanford Theatre Activist Mobilization Project (STAMP), and for a project last winter, STAMP solicited anonymous true-life letters from classmates living with depression, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other mental health problems. In January, Gelender and the group dramatized the accounts as monologues in their theater production, Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
The student actors performed the monologues in various venues around campus — including 13 student dorms. After each performance, Gelender and several other students acknowledged their own diagnoses and took questions.
The campus response to Out of Sight, Out of Mind, was overwhelmingly positive, Gelender says. One student residence adviser told her it was "probably the best thing that has been done for mental health on campus in a long time. He could really sense a change in his dorm."
"Just giving voice to these thoughts can open a floodgate," says Alex Holtzman, one of the student actors. Holtzman performed the anonymous monologue about a student with obsessive-compulsive disorder. "There were many people at these performances in the dorms who had never talked about their mental illness to anybody else.
"I used to hide all these things," Gelender says. "But I don't want to do that anymore. It's a big part of my life, and I'm trying to be more upfront about it." Her classmates and professors know about all her accomplishments — her academic scholarships and public service awards. Why not, when appropriate, let them in on her struggles, too?
"I think that some people definitely look at you differently when they find out," she says. But she's also convinced that the only way to change that is if more people are willing to be open and show classmates just how many people on college campuses — roughly 18 million by some estimates — are dealing with mental health issues today.
Radio story and Web audio produced by Cindy Carpien
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
They may not even tell their roommates but according to recent surveys, the number of college students seeking help for serious psychological problems has soared in recent years.
All across the U.S., campus counseling centers are straining to keep up. And in the first of two stories, we'll hear the perspective from the students. NPR's Deborah Franklin has this report, which involves a group of students in California who created a theater production that got their campus talking.
DEBORAH FRANKLIN: Amanda Gelender is a senior at Stanford University - confident, with a big laugh. As she recalls, she was having coffee off campus last winter with a new friend, a freshman, when it struck her that he might not be as happy as he seemed.
Ms. AMANDA GELENDER (Senior, Stanford University): He starts talking about his friend in the dorm who's really, really depressed. And like, he feels really bad for this kid. And I just had an instinct. I don't know why I did it, but I just told him, I'm bipolar and I know how hard that is.
FRANKLIN: Amanda had spent her freshman year depressed, too, crying under the covers for hours and exhausted, trying to hold everything together.
Ms. GELENDER: And I would cry on my way to class. And every day when I got home from class, I told my roommate that I had to take naps. And it wasn't about anything in particular, it was just sadness - a sadness that I couldn't shake. And I didn't care about anything. I didn't care about my friends. I didn't want to socialize with anyone in my dorm. And this was very uncharacteristic of me. I'm someone who dives into activities and academics. I didn't want to get help. I thought I could do it on my own. So it was just a very lonely time.
FRANKLIN: The young man listened to her story and confessed that the depressed friend was really him. It was a relief to them both to come clean. But Amanda and her friend wondered how many others were suffering. And that's when they got their big idea. Both are members of a student theater group that shines a spotlight on social issues: homelessness and AIDS, farm workers and pesticides.
Ms. GELENDER: We decided that it would be great if we could get stories to show that there is such life happening under the surface, about mental illness -that there is so much struggle and triumph going on.
FRANKLIN: So they sent out an email to everyone they knew on campus, asking for anonymous, true-life stories. And within half an hour, Amanda got the first response. She brings it up on her laptop.
Ms. GELENDER: (Reading) Am I the only person who never feels good? I've always felt this way from as long as I can remember. And all I've wanted is for somebody to say: I know how you feel. I am the same. We are all the same.
FRANKLIN: Dozens more letters poured in - what it's like to be hauled off to the psych ward for observation, or to stand at the edge of a high balcony and fight with yourself to keep from jumping.
Before we tell you what Amanda Gelender and her friends did with all that email, you first need to know these kids' struggles are not unusual. A Stanford task force on student mental health last year reported what it called an unprecedented demand for psychological services on campus - roughly twice as many students seeking help as a decade ago. To try to keep up, Stanford increased its staff from 10 therapists to 16 in just the last year. Other schools are even more swamped.
Dr. DANIEL EISENBERG (University of Michigan): We're not seeing that it's specific to elite schools, by any means.
FRANKLIN: Daniel Eisenberg is a mental health researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He cites surveys of college counseling directors published over the last decade - schools ranging from small community colleges to the largest universities.
Dr. EISENBERG: And one of questions is whether they're seeing an increase in the number and severity of students with mental health problems. And over 90 percent are saying yes to that question.
FRANKLIN: Here are some more stats from colleges nationwide. More than twice as many students are on psychiatric medications as a decade ago. And there's been a 50 percent increase in the diagnosis of depression.
Last January, Amanda Gelender, the Stanford student you heard earlier, was determined to go deeper, to give all those numbers a human face. So she and her troupe of actors turned some of the letters they'd collected into 25 monologues. One even came in from a student resident adviser in the dorms.
Student Actor #1: (Reading) One night, I sobbed in bed until 5 a.m. I imagine depression feels different for different people. For me, it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest, constricting my heart and I could barely breathe. I'm not supposed to be like this, I kept telling myself. I need to be strong. Other people come to me for help. I started to panic. What if I can't graduate? What if I have to drop out of medical school? What if I can't take care of a family?
FRANKLIN: The actors took their show to various places around campus, making sure faculty and the counseling center had a chance to hear the stories. But Amanda Gelender says there were two audiences that were most important.
Ms. GELENDER: First and foremost, people who were struggling with mental illness and thought, there's no one else out there like me. Secondly, we're trying to reach people in dorms who are complicit in creating an environment that is hostile to people with mental illness, even if they don't know it.
FRANKLIN: And so they performed in 13 student dorms, too, stories of severe anxiety problems, obsessive-compulsive disorder and eating disorders.
Student Actor #2: (Reading): It doesn't help my self-esteem that people think of bulimia as a joke problem, gross and unrespectable. It's an issue of control. Who overeats like a dumb animal and then has to vomit because they have no self-restraint? Me, apparently. It's embarrassing but beyond that, it was also that I was on a varsity team and knew that if news got to my coach or the sports medicine, I would risk my spot on the team.
Student Actor #3: (Reading)When you hear OCD, you probably think of some Jack Nicholson type: neat freak, really uptight. But that's not me at all. Hell, in terms of neat, I live in a frat.
Student Actor #4: (Reading) My junior year of high school, I couldn't even listen to the radio during a traffic report because I would just know that my family had been in an accident. I started thinking that every furtive-looking man on the street was a terrorist, that every plane flying overhead was going to crash into my house. Twenty milligrams of Prozac a day changed my life. So I went to Stanford relatively healthy, happy and excited. In December, my young grandmother died of a sudden aneurysm. That winter quarter, I had a panic attack in the middle of a math exam. It was time to seek help again.
FRANKLIN: The stories inspired lots of Facebook discussion about mental illness. Some students found the production too disturbing, but Amanda Gelender got a lot of positive feedback, especially from resident advisers, the RAs.
Ms. GELENDER: I spoke with an RA who said that this was probably the best thing that has been done for mental health on campus in a long time. He could really sense a change in his dorm.
FRANKLIN: So, the Stanford student actors got what they most wanted, to dispel some of the stigma of mental illness. It's a good start, but is there really some new epidemic of psychological problems on campus? Researchers say it's doubtful that today's teens are actually sicker than past generations. Instead, they suspect what we're seeing is partly the unintended consequence of a good thing. Twenty years ago, many high school kids with an illness as difficult as bipolar disorder or major depression might not have gotten treatment or even made it to college. Again, the University of Michigan's Daniel Eisenberg.
Prof. EISENBERG: When Prozac and other antidepressant drugs came onto the scene in the late '80s and in the '90s, the likelihood of teenagers getting mental health treatment went way up.
FRANKLIN: Now, with earlier diagnosis and better treatment, they're on every campus. And when they have problems, many more are turning to therapists for help.
Deborah Franklin, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: And we have more of the Stanford monologues at npr.org.
Ms. GELENDER (Reading): Why did I let myself sleep all day, stay up all night, stop eating, stop caring, and a few times almost stop breathing?
MONTAGNE: Next Monday, we'll hear how colleges are reacting to this big increase in demand for mental health services, especially at a time of tight budgets.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:b0d289e2-1f2b-4054-b6f9-4da153c5484d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbur.org/npr/113835383/colleges-see-rise-in-mental-health-issues | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978097 | 3,059 | 2.203125 | 2 |
South Dakota held its first state-wide Local Foods Conference on November 11-12th in Huron, S.D. In conjunction with the South Dakota Department of Agriculture (SDDA), South Dakota USDA Rural Development sponsored the two day event meant to continue the dialogue on local foods among producers, consumers, school nutrition programs, grocers, restaurants and resource providers.
Topics covered at the Local Foods Conference on the first day included high tunnels, community gardening, food safety, Farm-to-School, community-supported agriculture, value-added agriculture products, organics and farmers’ markets. The South Dakota State University Extension Service hosted a Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) training on the second day. Other sponsors included the South Dakota Value Added Ag Development Center, Buy Fresh Buy Local and Dakota Rural Action. Read more » | <urn:uuid:d18394aa-794f-4d82-a99d-bdc397e52d93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/mission-hill/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929695 | 167 | 1.75 | 2 |
WebMD Medical News
Laura J. Martin, MD
April 13, 2011 -- An experimental epilepsy drug may help reduce seizures in as many as one-third of people with epilepsy who either don’t tolerate or don’t respond adequately to existing seizure drugs.
The finding is slated to be presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Honolulu.
The new drug, perampanel, works by blocking chemical receptors in the brain that may play a role in epilepsy. The new study was supported by perampanel manufacturer Eisai Inc.
Of 387 people with uncontrolled epilepsy who were taking one to three other seizure drugs, those who took 8 or 12 milligrams of the new agent for 19 weeks along with their regular treatment showed a greater reduction in seizures, compared with those who received a placebo pill in addition to their regular treatment.
Those who took the 12-milligram dose of perampanel had a 14% reduction in seizures in a 28-day period compared to those who took placebo. Those who took the 8-milligram dose of the new drug reduced their seizure frequency by nearly 6% compared to those who took the placebo.
Perampanel side effects included dizziness, drowsiness, irritability, headache, falls, and ataxia (lack of muscle coordination).
The company plans to submit the drug for FDA approval this year. “If this drug is approved by the FDA, it will be another tool in our arsenal for combating or reducing seizures in people with difficult-to-treat epilepsy,” says study researcher Jacqueline French, MD, a neurologist at New York University in New York City, in a news release.
This drug may prove to be a valuable addition for people with hard-to-treat epilepsy, says Steven Pacia, MD, chief of neurology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
“If we can demonstrate efficacy, safety, and tolerability, it’s worthwhile to have another drug that works in difficult patients with difficult seizures,” he says.
“This will be the first group of people it is used on, if approved,” Pacia says. “If it has a broader role, we will find out after that when it has been used by more people for longer periods of time.”
“While the reduction in seizures seen in the new study was small percentage-wise, it can mean the difference of having a seizure that causes falling and one that doesn’t, and that can be a big difference,” he says.
This study was presented at a medical conference. The findings should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the "peer review" process, in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal.
SOURCES:63rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Honolulu, April 9-16, 2011.Steven Pacia, MD, chief of neurology, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City.News release, American Academy of Neurology.
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The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of FOX16 - Breaking News and Weather to Plan Your Day for Little Rock and Central Arkansas
The Health News section does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information. | <urn:uuid:3146197c-f2a0-46a6-9e01-7bf281855a18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fox16.com/webmd/epilepsy/story/New-Drug-May-Help-Control-Epilepsy-Seizures/G8uw1Rnr4EStWNAGY6ZLGQ.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956904 | 704 | 2.75 | 3 |
A water tower in Golden City, Missouri was hit by lightning this morning and resulted in an eight inch underground pipe breaking. Once that surged through the ground they had quite the geyser.
The damage led to some flooding at the nearby Golden Homes Apartments and left City Hall without water.
The manager for Golden Homes apartments tells us the fire department helped with draining the water to keep it away from the apartments.
Fortunately, the city has two water towers so no residents were without water.
"I don't know what we would have done but it all worked out and I was thankful that it did," says city superintendent Josh Bandy. "It was pretty busy and a little bit stressful there for about an hour and a half I guess."
No one was injured as a result of the lightning strike. | <urn:uuid:034be366-d4e1-4cf4-82ff-2ed53e0a23d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koamtv.com/story/21302987/golden-city-water-tower-hit-by-lightning-strike | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990358 | 165 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The mission of the department is to prepare students to use mathematics and/or statistics in a variety of settings. Such settings include problem solving in industry or government agencies. We also prepare students for teaching mathematics at all levels and for careers as research mathematicians.The mathematics graduate program offers the degrees of Master of Arts (M.A.), including MA program for Secondary Teachers, Master of Science (M.S.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in either pure or applied mathematics.
The Master's program in either pure or applied math is intended for those students who want a professional education in mathematics beyond the Bachelor's degree level. The Master's program for Secondary Teachers is aimed at in-service teachers and features both mathematics and education classes. The Ph.D. program is designed for students interested in becoming professional scholars, college and university teachers, or independent workers in private, industrial, or government research institutions. Our Ph.D. program is one of six mathematics Ph.D. programs in the state public university system, and one of only two in northeast Ohio.
In broad terms, the faculty areas of research lie in functional analysis and operator theory, representation theory, approximation theory, convex geometry, harmonic analysis, finite groups, character theory, number theory, large scale systems of equations, numerical and scientific computation and probability and stochastic processes.
QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR PROGRAM? To contact someone about the graduate program, please email email@example.com, or call 330-672-2430 and ask for the Graduate Coordinator. | <urn:uuid:eb6f3264-4405-47d8-bdb6-0b65f0cab008> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kent.edu/math/graduate/index.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927907 | 318 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Objective: College student survey data were examined to assess the impact of campus levels of heavy episodic drinking on non-heavy episodic drinking college students.
Method: Analyses are based on a survey mailed to a random sample of college students at 140 American colleges. A total of 17,592 students (69%) at participating colleges responded. The study defined "heavy" drinking as the consumption of five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more for women, and divided schools into approximately equal categories: lower drinking level schools where 35% or fewer students were heavy drinkers; mid-level schools (36-50% heavy drinkers); and high drinking level schools where over 50% of the students were heavy drinkers.
Results: Residing on campus at high drinking level schools adversely affected students who were not engaging in heavy drinking. The odds of experiencing at least one problem from other students' drinking was 3.6 to 1 when nonheavy drinking students at high drinking level schools were compared to nonheavy drinking students at lower drinking level schools. Examples of such secondary heavy drinking effects included being hit or assaulted, having one's property damaged or experiencing an unwanted sexual advance.
Conclusions: College alcohol prevention efforts should include a focus on the needs of students who are not engaging in heavy drinking yet may be adversely impacted by other students' heavy drinking. | <urn:uuid:29d529c4-312e-41ea-bf1f-1c59ee66f133> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/cas/Documents/adverse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977481 | 272 | 1.945313 | 2 |
CALGARY — A Canmore teenager whose life revolved around kayaking is presumed dead after going over a waterfall on the Cheakamus River in B.C. and not resurfacing.
Identified as Peter Thompson, 19, he was a master on the river, acting as the head coach for the Bow Valley Kayak Club, teaching the sport to kids with disabilities, and paddling all over the world.
Rob McIntyre, president of the club, said Thompson was with a group of friends Friday at a six-metre waterfall in B.C. he had done many times before.
He went over and never resurfaced. Two friends reported him missing.
RCMP called in search-and-rescue and dive teams, but after two days, the search has been called off.
“We called out Search and Rescue and have not located him or his kayak yet, but we did locate the paddle,” said Sgt. Rob Knapton of the Whistler RCMP.
The RCMP dive team was in the area to evaluate the scene on Saturday. Knapton said the biggest issue with the recovery effort is safety for the rescue workers because of the hydraulic pressure of the waterfall on the Cheakamus River.
“We are looking at our options,” he said.
McIntyre said Thompson always preached safety to his students, but tragedies happen.
“You can prepare, you can do everything right and bad things happen,” he said. “It’s an inherit risk with the sport, especially at the elite level that Peter paddles.”
Born and raised in Canmore, Thompson’s life focused on the mountains: kayaking during the summer and skiing during the winter.
He had paddled elite level rivers in Africa, the United States and all over Canada, winning numerous awards and sponsored by a number of kayaking companies.
This summer, he took on the role of head coach for the Bow Valley Kayak Club, often spending more than 60 hours a week spreading his love of the sport to local kids.
As well, he helped develop the adaptive kayaking program run through the club. Kids with disabilities would be outfitted with specially designed kayaks for the river.
“We have a tonne of young kids come through who just idolize him,” McIntyre said. “This is going to shock them.
“He just inspired so many young kids and his work with the adaptive kids was amazing.”
One of the highlights for Thompson was the 30-metre (100-foot) drop at the Ram Falls near Nordegg that he talked about in his blog.
“Once I got to a certain point I knew there was no turning back and I recall saying to myself ‘there is no turning back now better enjoy it,’ ” he wrote in an Aug. 17 post. “The free fall was awesome, the impact was super soft. I had a good line and came out at the bottom smiling. The boys both had good lines and we were all stoked to have fired up a drop like that.”
Tanya Foubert is an editor for the Whistler Question | <urn:uuid:2aa251ee-b695-404a-94c3-05dfc89b9968> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/alberta/Search+called+after+Canmore+kayaker+disappears+after+going/7321923/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982055 | 670 | 1.59375 | 2 |
In preparation for my upcoming jewelry and bead classes at Michaels (see yesterday’s post), I’ve made samples of the projects taught in the first two classes. In “Fundamentals of Bead Stringing,” the students will make a memory wire bracelet, and in “Fundamentals of Wire Wrapping,” the students will make a pair of earrings.
Michaels provided me an instructor kit with all the materials I’ll need, including items to make several samples of each project. As I cracked open the kit over the weekend, I was initially quite excited. The tools they provided (pliers, wire cutters, etc) are very high quality, with nice rubberized, ergonomic handles and excellent action. Over the weekend I didn’t have time to dig past the tools, but I assumed the rest of the materials would be just as nice. After all, isn’t that the best way to encourage students to purchase the nicer (aka more expensive) items – to allow them to see how great those items are in action?
However, last night, when I sat down to make my first samples, I was somewhat disappointed. The tools contained in the kit may be great, but the selection of beads is obviously castoffs from the warehouse. I found a few nice beads and charms, but mostly it’s a hodgepodge of beads and findings that don’t go well together, making it difficult to design and create truly attractive samples for my students.
After a bit of trial and error, I decided that, in the spirit of entrepreneurship, I would make do with what I had, rather than substituting from my own vast bead collection. My past 8 months with JennJill Designs have been an exercise in resourcefulness and creativity, forcing me to constantly reuse and repurpose, and just those skills were what I needed to make my sample projects. As I continued working with the instructor materials provided, it became somewhat of a game: could I really put together nice pieces of jewelry from the selections they provided?
Here are my first two attempts. You be the judge as to whether or not I succeeded.
In the memory wire bracelet, I decided to go for contrasts of texture rather than color. The beads are all silver and black, but the textures are quite varied: faceted, smooth, brushed, and stamped. The bracelet isn’t quite my style, so I probably wouldn’t wear it, but I do like how it turned out. | <urn:uuid:77848c11-02a5-4c1a-b8b8-f3623e6936cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jennjilldesigns.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/entrepreneurship-working-with-whats-available/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967568 | 524 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The importance of a balanced diet is becoming heavily featured in today’s press with reports on statistics about childhood obesity and obesity related illnesses on the uprise; so it is evermore important for children to be given a head start by eating healthy foods which will be beneficial to them throughout their life.
A balanced diet among children is especially important because they are constantly growing and their bodies and brains are still developing.
A combination of a healthy balanced diet with exercise will help a child stay at what medical professionals call a ‘healthy’ weight. As a general rule, children who have a healthy body weight have plenty of fruit and veg, wholegrain foods and lean proteins in their diets rather than sugary items as well as exercising regularly.
It is thought that children who eat a balanced diet whilst growing up have a decreased risk of being overweight as an adult as the healthy eating habits are more likely to stick with them for life.
Making sure that children consume a sufficient amount of calcium and vitamin D will decrease the risk of bone related issues at a later point in life.
It is also important to think of your child’s immune system. A strong immune system is vital so that the body can fight off illness and infection which is very important for a child as it means less time spent ill form school and important lessons. This will even have a positive effect on concentration at school as well!
What are the health risks that can be associated with having a poor diet?
One of the biggest worries that doctors have today is childhood obesity, which is regularly linked with type 2 diabetes, problems with joints and a higher risk of heart complications later in life. Children who have fewer fruit and vegetables in their diet and consume a high amount of junk and processed foot have an increased risk of childhood obesity. Up until a few years ago type 2 diabetes was associated with older people (40+) but now this form of diabetes is beginning to present in young children as well. Diabetes itself puts people at increased health risks such as kidney conditions.
Vitamins and minerals are, as well all know, very important for our bodies. A child who has an iron deficiency can become tired and lethargic as well as suffering from poor concentration. Vitamin B 12 is also beneficial for brain health and aids concentration.
Despite already touching on calcium and vitamin D, what are the actual health risks from having a deficiency? Vitamin D deficiency can cause a disease found in children called rickets, which has popped back into the press this past year due to cases of the disease creeping back up. The risks of rickets include skeletal malformations and stunted growth.
How can we prevent it?
Naturally, this doesn’t mean that your children will necessarily be affected by childhood obesity as these are pure facts.
There are multiple things to help your children to avoid these types of health related problems and the majority of you will be doing all of them already!
The most important meal of the day is of course breakfast, despite many adults getting into a bad habit of skipping breakfast due to busy schedules, it is incredibly important that children go to school on a full stomach. If not they may find that they start to feel very hungry during the morning which affects their concentration levels.
One good way for your children to eat healthily is to lead by example, children will (usually) be far more open to trying new foods if they see their parents eating them. By making healthy food choices, children will feel fuller for longer and aren’t as likely to want junk food after their meal, which won’t fill the void for long. Eating junk food causes your blood sugar level to increase temporarily but then it will crash back down which will have an affect on mood and concentration.
Promoting an active lifestyle is also incredibly important, which we realise can be difficult with an increasing culture of video games and sitting watching television programmes. One of the best ways to motivate your children to get off the couch and outdoors is to buy them a wooden climbing frame. Here at Climbing Frames Ireland we are firm believers that outdoor play is very important for children, and a climbing frame is a perfect way for them to be outdoors but enjoy it without realising that in actual fact it counts as exercise! | <urn:uuid:10f3dfb7-ae9c-4d4c-947d-c4d8d5102d83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.climbingframes.ie/special-offers-news-reviews/tag/wooden-climbing-frames/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978381 | 869 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Uganda has secured its borders with the DR Congo to ensure that the conflict in North Kivu province does not spill over to Uganda, the Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi has said.
He said Uganda is non-partisan in the conflict.
Mbabazi assured the country of stability, noting that the UPDF had degraded the capacity of the rebel Allied Democratic Force (ADF's) ability to cause insecurity on the common border with Congo.
There have been reports that the ADF was regrouping in Eastern Congo.
Mbabazi said Uganda was committed to promoting stability, peace and co-existence in the wider region beyond East Africa, including South Sudan, Somalia, Congo and the Central African Republic.
He said the conflict in North Kivu was a localised problem caused by armed militias, which could be solved by dialogue, according to statement by the Premier's press unit.
The statement said Mbabazi made the comments on Saturday while addressing journalists at his Akii Bua Road office in Nakasero, Kampala during the second edition of the 'Ask the PM' Tweet-Up platform.
"We recognise the sovereign integrity of DRC" said Mbabazi who has over 4,000 followers on twitter. "We support both the International Criminal Court and Congo's effort to stabilise," he added.
He said Uganda benefitted from a stable and peaceful Congo and did not support a split because it was against the will of the majority of the Congolese nationals who preferred a united DRC.
There had been suggestions that Congo should be split to provide lasting peace.
Mbabazi noted that the conflict had negatively affected trade between Uganda and Congo in addition to straining the provision of social services, especially in areas hosting over 15,000 refugees in the country.
On fuel shortage, Mbabazi said Cabinet had decided to open an alternative route through Tanzania and make it competitive to attract more fuel dealers.
The Government was also taking steps to revamp the fuel reserves in Jinja and to construct other reserves in a number of places, including Kasese and Nakasongola.
Mbabazi also said it was unnecessary for teachers to strike since the Government has prioritised them in the 2012/13 financial year budget by increasing their salaries.
He explained that out of the projected increase in revenue amounting to sh528b, teachers would take sh290b, while the rest of the civil servants would have sh23b for salary enhancement.
Another sh215b was committed to the construction of the Karuma hydro-electric power dam.
Mbabazi also said a Cabinet paper on the reforms in the public service for improved service delivery had been prepared and would soon be tabled in Cabinet for discussion.
He supported the creation of more districts, saying it was aimed at bringing services closer to the people. | <urn:uuid:28bed9fd-8816-4c8e-bcfd-a8f4493028ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/201207181053.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973822 | 591 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Theatrical release poster
|Directed by||Mervyn LeRoy|
|Based on||Anthony Adverse
by Hervey Allen
|Music by||Erich Wolfgang Korngold|
|Editing by||Ralph Dawson|
|Studio||Warner Bros. Pictures|
|Distributed by||Warner Bros. Pictures|
|Running time||141 minutes|
Anthony Adverse is a 1936 American drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Fredric March and Olivia de Havilland. Based on the novel Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen, with a screenplay by Sheridan Gibney, the film is about an orphan whose debt to the man who raised him threatens to separate him forever from the woman he loves.
The plot of the epic costume drama follows the globe-trotting adventures of the title character, the illegitimate offspring of Maria Bonnyfeather, the bride of the cruel and devious middle-aged nobleman Marquis Don Luis, and Denis Moore. After he learns of his wife's affair, Don Luis takes her away but Denis tracks them down at an inn, where Don Luis kills him in a duel of swords. Months later Maria dies giving birth to her son at a chalet in the Alps. Don Luis leaves the infant at a convent near Leghorn, Italy, (where the nuns christen him Anthony) and lies to Maria's father, wealthy merchant John Bonnyfeather, telling him that the infant is also dead. Ten years later, completely by coincidence, the child is apprenticed to Bonnyfeather, his real grandfather, who discovers his relationship to the boy but keeps it a secret from him. He gives the boy the surname Adverse in acknowledgement of the difficult life he has led.
As an adult, Anthony falls in love with Angela Giuseppe, the cook's daughter, and the couple wed. Soon after the ceremony, Anthony departs for Havana to save Bonnyfeather's fortune. The note Angela leaves Anthony is blown away and he is unaware that she has gone to another city. Instead, assuming he has abandoned her, she pursues a career as an opera singer. Anthony leaves Cuba for Africa, where he becomes corrupted by his involvement with the slave trade. He is redeemed by his friendship with Brother François, and following the friar's death he returns to Italy to find Bonnyfeather has died and his housekeeper, Faith Paleologus (now married to Don Luis), will inherit the man's estate fortune unless Anthony goes to Paris to claim his inheritance.
In Paris, Anthony is reunited with his friend, prominent banker Vincent Nolte, whom he saves from bankruptcy by giving him his fortune. Through the intercession of impresario Debrulle, Anthony finds Angela and discovers she bore him a son. She fails to reveal she is Mlle. Georges, a famous opera star and the mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte. When Anthony learns her secret, he departs for America with his son in search of a better life.
- Fredric March as Anthony Adverse
- Olivia de Havilland as Angela Giuseppe
- Donald Woods as Vincent Nolte
- Anita Louise as Maria
- Edmund Gwenn as John Bonnyfeather
- Claude Rains as Marquis Don Luis
- Gale Sondergaard as Faith Paleologus
- Akim Tamiroff as Carlo Cibo
- Pedro de Cordoba as Brother François
- Louis Hayward as Denis Moore
- Ralph Morgan as Debrulle
- Henry O'Neill as Father Xavier
- Billy Mauch as Anthony Adverse (age 10)
Awards and nominations
- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Gale Sondergaard, winner)
- Academy Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
- Academy Award for Best Film Editing (winner)
- Academy Award for Best Musical Scoring (Leo F. Forbstein, winner)
- Academy Award for Best Assistant Director (nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Art Direction (nominee)
- Academy Award for Best Picture (nominee)
Critical reception
In his review in the New York Times, Frank S. Nugent described the film as "a bulky, rambling and indecisive photoplay which has not merely taken liberties with the letter of the original but with its spirit . . . For all its sprawling length, [the novel] was cohesive and well rounded. Most of its picaresque quality has been lost in the screen version; its philosophy is vague, its characterization blurred and its story so loosely knit and episodic that its telling seems interminable."
In culture
The initial theme of the second movement of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's violin concerto was drawn from the music he composed for this film. English singer Julia Gilbert adopted the name of the film's main character when recording for the London-based él record label in the late 1980s.
Screen legend Tony Curtis (1925–2010), who was born Bernard Schwartz, named himself for the titular character; the novel from which this film was adapted was the actor's favorite. Curtis, who soared to fame with his role in Houdini as the legendary illusionist, was buried with a Stetson hat, an Armani scarf, driving gloves, an iPhone and a copy of his favorite novel, Anthony Adverse.
In the 1934 short comedy What, No Men!, when their plane lands in "Indian Country" and Gus (El Brendel) is told to throw out the anchor, he tosses out a rope attached to a huge book titled "Anthony Adverse."
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anthony Adverse| | <urn:uuid:65ebf6d7-7f7f-4dea-a35c-6318bf784bed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Adverse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958213 | 1,189 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The Meridian Family Program consists of consultations, educational group topics, and individual family counseling. The Family Program is tailored to assist clients and their loved ones in improving relationship development while providing information on the disease of addiction. The Family Program is available to all clients and their loved ones, sponsors or members of their primary support group.
Programs and Services
These sessions are held once weekly in the evenings. They are available to all clients and their family members and loved ones, as well as members of their primary support. Group discussion topics include:
- The Nature of Addiction
- Stages of Change and the Family Stages of Recovery
- Al-Anon (a support group for families dealing with addiction)
- Relapse Prevention
Individual Family counseling
These sessions are held at the client/family member’s convenience. Individual family counseling is designed to provide insight and assist in relationship development. Like the group sessions, individual family counseling is available to all clients and their family members, loved ones and members of their primary support group.
This service is provided to assist the client’s family members, loved ones or members of their primary support group in gaining insight regarding the disease of addiction and services offered in treatment. Additionally, information regarding the Family Program, referrals to counseling and information on Al-Anon are provided.
Common Q & A’s
Why is addiction a family disease?
Addiction is a family disease because it affects the entire family. The addicted person becomes the central figure around whom family members organize their behaviors and reactions. As a result of this unhealthy living, “wounds” are formed and activated. These wounds may be long-lasting and require counseling and/or attendance at groups such as Al-Anon, Ala-teen, etc. However, with improved communication and support, healthy patterns can be integrated into the family system.
Why is family important to the recovery process?
When a family member begins recovery, they start a new life – they speak and act in ways that are different from before. They might go to meetings frequently or avoid situations where they might experience a relapse trigger. Without family interaction, the recovering person learns to speak one language while family members are left to decode that language without much support. Joining a loved one in the recovery process — with education and support — will help family members best respond in these situations.
How long does the Family Program last?
The Family Program group schedule is “open.” This means that there is no definitive beginning or end of sessions. Clients and their family members are free to attend as many sessions as they would like. Educational group sessions and individual family counseling are offered as long as the client is involved with services at Meridian Community Care.
I don’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol. Why should I attend the Family Program?
Addiction is a family disease; every member of the family is generally affected in some way by an individual’s substance use. While other family members may not have an addiction problem, the Family Program can still provide valuable insight and information regarding their loved one’s addiction. The Family Program can assist in providing information on supporting an individual as he or she starts on the road to Recovery. | <urn:uuid:3a2c1745-4f6f-43b2-b5ba-2b5c16cb86c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.recoverybymeridian.org/family-programs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966857 | 664 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The method works by using an army of zombie PCs (those that have been compromised by malicious software and can be remotely controlled) and a remote computer server to handle image decoding.
It’s not the first time Microsoft’s system has been compromised, and it likely won’t be the last. Other online accounts aren’t immune either. Spammers need lots of fake accounts in order to send emails and publish splogs. read more
MSN and Endemol have partnered to bring to the UK what they claim is the first ever online interactive sci-fi show.
Kirill takes a linear series of ten three-minute episodes and layers them with blogs, images, video and audio files online, as well as “secret websites”. The aim? “To tell an intricate story of a man on a quest to make contact with a young woman who holds the key to the future of humanity.”
Happily for Microsoft, it’ll push a range of the company’s services too, with the storyline taking place across Vista, Live Search, Live Messenger, Live Spaces and MSN. read more
This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer IE8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default. The dirty secret is buried deep down in the «Compatibility view» configuration panel, where the «Display intranet sites in Compatibility View» box is checked by default. Thus, by default, intranet pages are not viewed in standards mode.
This is yet another reason why more than five years ago, I switched to using Firefox.
Yet, putting such personal conflicts aside, I predict Twitter will begin selling ads outside Japan, which is no doubt a usability test. American users will see banner ads soon, and don’t be surprised if your message on dining out gets side-saddled with an ad for a local restaurant. And to be fair, Microsoft’s deal valued Facebook at 100 times its then-$150 million in estimated revenues. Similar hyperbole could turn Twitter’s $28 million revenue potential into a $2.8 billion valuation.
But response rates will be low, since other social media, such as Facebook and MySpace, have fared poorly selling stuff to their users. It seems social media users are too busy being social to pay much attention to ads. As marketers see poor results, they will move their ad budgets to other, more responsive ad media. The social media value bubble will be pricked by reality.
The article covers a number of possible revenue streams for the short-messenging service used by millions worldwide… but in the end predicts that they will be acquired by a company like Google or Microsoft as a “hood ornament” to their other services.
The affair has become so large (or bad, depending on your point of view) that non-geeks are even starting to talk about it (at least around this author anyways). But while some argue in favor of the “inevitable merger,” the Microsoft-Yahoo deal (aka MicroHoo) may potentially affect the entire blogosphere–for the worse. read more
While the beta browser is not recommended for the masses, geeks and bloggers (or both) will probably want to install it on their machine in order to see if their site passes the “beauty test” (translation: does IE8 make my blog look fat ugly?).
After downloading the browser (which is only for Vista and Windows XP users) I noticed that the beta browser had different effects on different blogs. read more
A recent web server statistics report by Netcraft shows that Apache showed a small gain in market share during the month of December 2007, taking back some of the ground it lost to Microsoft and Google in the previous two years.
Interestingly (for web server statistics, at least) some of that could be attributable to the increased popularity of WordPress. The report singles out WordPress.com as a contributor, though I would have thought standalone implementations of WordPress (via WordPress.org) would also play a significant part.
In mid-2006, Microsoft’s own blogging and social networking platform, Windows Live Spaces, saw a revival which is attributed to the increased usage of Windows Server.
Google’s shift of Blogger to its own servers also enabled it to make modest gains, albeit on a much smaller scale.
It would be foolish to conclude that blogging software alone could be a deciding factor in the market share of web servers, but it does seem to have some significance. | <urn:uuid:2c8ba046-29b9-40f5-b62d-ddf2fb6443a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blogherald.com/tag/microsoft/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937482 | 967 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The mission of the Student Green Fund is to make The University of Toledo a more sustainable institution and to enhance its mission of improving the human condition by supporting Green ideas and initiatives proposed, decided upon, implemented by, and ultimately funded directly by students. The Student Green Fund will bring to campus an increased level of competence in the areas of renewable energy and environmental sustainability, an increased level of student engagement in these areas, and a heightened student sense of ownership of the University’s responsibility as an Ohio Center of Excellence in Advanced Renewable Energy and the Environment.
What is the Student Green Fund?
The UT Student Green Fund (SGF) will serve to finance student proposed and executed projects that promote sustainability, renewable energy, efficiency, waste reduction, and educational initiatives such as conferences, workshops, public classes, and internships. The UT Student Green Fund is a student conceived, student created, and student led program. To put it simply, it is a self-replenishing pool of money collected from students that is used to finance student-backed projects that serve to support the SGF’s mission to make The University of Toledo a greener, more sustainable, and environmentally friendly campus.
Why is the Student Green Fund on my bill?
The "Student Green Fund Fee" will only show up on your bill after you have logged into your myUT portal and accepted the fee by opting in. If you have changed your mind and opted-out, the line may remain but show a balance of zero dollars. We hope that you opt-in!
How much does it cost?
The fund will be supported by a voluntary, opt-in fee of $5 available to students each semester. Faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and community members who wish to donate to the SGF may contact the Student Green Fund Committee at UTGreenFund@utoledo.edu.
Why should I pay?
- $5 is less than the cost of a Chipotle burrito! You can skip your foil-wrapped lunch one day and help save the world.
- Each person on campus is responsible for an average of 3.4 metric tons of equivalent CO2 waste emissions. That’s about 7500 pounds! The weight of a loaded H2 Hummer, or 50 times the weight of the average person! Lowering our carbon footprint is good for everyone
- By reducing waste, increasing efficiency, and increasing sustainability, you can make UT a better place for all students.
- Lowering the cost of dealing with our energy use and waste could possibly lower the cost of your education by much more than the $5 you spent!
- Be a part of a student run and funded group focusing on progress and sustainable ideas.
- Makes more resources available to you to do something meaningful on campus and the community.
- Great opportunity to build leadership skills and project management, which are very useful life and career skills.
- You will be able to see your small contribution used to complete real, tangible projects on campus and the community.
- You will help make UT and Toledo more sustainable!
Why do we have one?
On October 28th, 2009, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland named UT as “A Center of Excellence for Advanced Renewable Energy and the Environment”. UT President Lloyd Jacobs has also signed The American College & University President’s Climate Commitment, pledging that UT will strive to be carbon neutral as soon as possible. While the administration of UT as a whole has made great strides to uphold these commitments, to date there has been little in the way of student involvement. The SGF seeks to change this and empower students to actively transform their campus into a greener, more sustainable, and ultimately more modern institution by providing grant money to students with actionable ideas. By providing funding to student-proposed sustainability initiatives, the SGF will also provide real-world experience for students across all majors. Funded projects will serve to improve the image of UT, and will benefit all students, faculty, and staff both directly and indirectly.
How did the Student Green Fund get started?
During the fall semester of 2011, several students met to outline their collective goal to implement a voluntary, $5 per semester fee that would dramatically increase the speed at which students and student organizations could receive funding to make impactful, eco-friendly changes to our campus. The inspiration for this idea came after students attended the 3rd annual “Sustainable U” conference at Bowling Green State University. This conference will be hosted by UT for the first time in the 2012-2013 academic year. For details about this conference and to learn about more sustainability issues in higher education, please visit http://www.utoledo.edu/dl/sustainableu/index.html.
Where will the money for the Student Green Fund come from?
The fund will be supported by a voluntary, opt-in fee of $5 available to students each semester. Faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and community members who wish to donate to the SGF may contact the Student Green Fund Committee at UTGreenFund@utoledo.edu. Students that would like to pledge more than $5 may also contact the SGFC as well.
How much money will be available for projects?
The amount of money raised by the SGF will be directly dependent on the level of participation by students. Universities with similar voluntary programs, such as Bowling Green State University’s “Student Green Initiative Fund”, have seen participation rates of about 70% of the student population. With a similar level of participation at UT, the SGF has the potential to raise over $80,000 per semester from students alone. This amount could grow even higher with donations from faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and individuals and businesses in the community.
What kind of projects will be funded by the Student Green Fund?
Projects funded by the SGF may range from campus-wide sustainability initiatives such as free high-quality water bottles and filtered water refill stations to cut down on plastic waste, providing capital for senior capstone projects or research and internship stipends, and possibly implementing more renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power, lowering the utility cost and carbon footprint associated with every UT community member. A larger list of possible projects that have been suggested by students will be available soon
Who can apply for funds from the Student Green Fund?
Any currently enrolled student or recognized student organization may apply for funding from the SGF. University faculty, staff, and administrators may also apply for funding, with the requirement that the funds directly involve one or more students for initiatives such as sustainability-focused internships or research projects.
Who will decide how the money raised is allocated?
Monies raised by the SGF will be administered by the Student Green Fund Committee (SGFC), a governing body which will be composed of UT students, staff, and faculty. The SGFC will decide which proposals to support and release funds to those students/organizations. The funding recipients will be required to implement their proposed projects and submit regular follow-up reports to the SGFC regarding each project’s adherence to proposed completion timelines and budgets.
The SGFC will be composed of the following members:
- 1 undergraduate representative approved by Student Government
- 1 graduate representative approved by the UT Graduate Student Association
- 1 faculty member approved by Faculty Senate
- 1 administrative member approved by the VP of Facilities and Construction
- 4 at large undergraduates – to be approved via an application process
- 1 at large graduate student – to be approved via an application process
One or more non-voting oversight members may also be present at SGFC meetings, as well as non-voting “experts” wanting to provide details on projects that have more specific impacts.
How will the application process work?
Each semester, applicants will be encouraged to submit proposals requesting funds from the SGF. Proposals must serve to meet the mission statement of the SGF, must have an appropriate budget, reporting guidelines for implementation and impact, and a sufficient timeline for completion.
Complete proposals will be reviewed by the SGFC twice each semester and actionable proposals will be chosen for funding. Awarded proposals will be required to submit progress reports and photos to the SGFC for publication on the SGFC website. Proposals that are thought to have good potential but insufficient support or documentation will be returned to applicants with comments and suggestions from the SGFC. Incomplete proposals and those that do not have actionable goals or potential will be declined with minimal comment.
Full application guidelines, timelines, forms, and procedures will be available soon.
I’m sold. How do I contribute my part?
Thanks for asking, it’s super easy! If you are a student and you would like to opt-in to contribute your $5 to the SGF, you may do so by logging into your myUT portal and following these directions:
1) Log in to your myUT portal
2) Click the “Student Green Fund” link that appears in the first section called “My Registration Steps”
3) Click on the Green “I wish to contribute to the Green Fund” button.
4) Encourage your friends to do their part too!
I am not a Student, how can I contribute?
Thanks to help from the UT Foundation, we now have an account set up to allow anyone to donate a sum of their choosing to the Green Fund. This includes not only Faculty, Staff, Administrators and Alumni, but local community members, family members, and students who wish to go beyond the $5 pledge (or prefer not to have the fee on their bill) who wish to help the Student Green Fund achieve its mission of empowering students to transform our campus.
To donate, please follow these instructions!
Unlimited Donation Amount via the University of Toledo Foundation
- Employees: Visit: https://give2ut.utoledo.edu/FacultyStaff.asp
- Everyone Else: Visit https://give2ut.utoledo.edu/Default.asp
- Fill out all required information, and any additional fields that you would like in the first three sections.
- Under the section “Choose the area(s) your contribution will support:” please enter : 2402087 - UT Student Green Fund
- In the box to the right, enter the dollar amount that you would like to give to the fund.
- Choose a payment method
- Fill out the rest of the form as needed
*Note: Employees may select payroll deductions as a funding option* | <urn:uuid:e1a43885-1546-4467-8281-39264b11d26e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utoledo.edu/sustainability/greenfund/faq/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944326 | 2,189 | 1.898438 | 2 |
House Speaker John A. Boehner’s lofty pledges to break with precedent and run Congress in a more inclusive, transparent manner ended up a mixed bag over the past two years, as he fulfilled many of his vows, but had others fall to political pressure or circumstances.
The Ohio Republican oversaw the end of spending earmarks, but occasionally fell short of his pledge to give lawmakers the promised three days to read bills before they were scheduled to vote on them.
His chief vow, though, was to open the legislative process to amendments. He wanted to reverse a trend under the previous Democratic majority that offered limited opportunities for individual lawmakers to propose their own measures on the House floor.
“H.R. 1 was really quite remarkable,” said Sarah A. Binder, a specialist on Congress and legislative politics at the Brookings Institution. “They did let the process open up. It’s rare that parties have that leisure, and it’s rare they want to give up that kind of control.”
Ms. Binder, however, also described that first piece of legislation as an “aberration” and that other measures of the 112th Congress — such as the deal in the summer of 2011 to raise the federal debt ceiling — did not receive the kind of freewheeling debate of decades ago.
“The Republican majority did not pull us back to that period,” she said.
Mr. Boehner, who was re-elected as speaker on Thursday, called on members to devote themselves to service for the sake of the public. He avoided grand pledges about how he would run the chamber for the next two years.
His first address after taking the gavel two years ago focused heavily on the kinds of parliamentary changes that he said were necessary to free the chamber.
“Legislators and the public will have three days to read a bill before it comes to a vote,” he vowed. “Legislation will be more focused, properly scrutinized and constitutionally sound. Committees, once bloated, will be smaller with a renewed mission, including oversight. Old rules that have made it easy to increase spending will be replaced by new rules that make it easier to cut spending. And we will start by cutting Congress‘ own budget.”
The speaker lived up to many of those goals. The chamber’s rules do make it easier to cut spending, and every bill introduced in the House now must include a statement pointing to the specific constitutional authority that backs it up — though many lawmakers still don’t take the requirement seriously.
The three-day rule has fallen victim to circumstance. On Friday, the House leadership will push through a $9 billion package of aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy on the second day of the 113th Congress. Also, the final text of the “fiscal cliff” deal that Mr. Boehner pushed through the House on Tuesday was written less than 24 hours earlier.
The 2011 deal to raise the debt ceiling also was made available to lawmakers less than a day before it was put to a vote.
Staffers said the three-day pledge didn’t apply to back-and-forth amendments between the House and Senate.
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland wasn’t buying it.View Entire Story
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
David Sherfinski covers politics for The Washington Times. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Cinco de Mayo on the Mall | <urn:uuid:06cd77f4-5531-4c99-a249-0dd641c4f91d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/3/boehner-has-mixed-house-rules-record/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965672 | 836 | 1.828125 | 2 |
LANSING -- Supporters of a ballot drive aimed at loosening Michigan's restrictions on embryonic stem cell research have submitted their petition language to state elections officials.
The Stem Cell Research Ballot Question Committee needs to collect more than 380,000 valid signatures from registered voters in Michigan to have the proposal qualify for the November election. Petitions must be turned in to state officials by July 7.
The Board of State Canvassers could soon review the form of petitions and language turned in by supporters last week.
"This is an important first step toward giving voters the opportunity to make cutting edge research available to our friends, family and neighbors who are suffering from previously incurable diseases," campaign director Mark Burton said Tuesday in a statement.
The proposal language says it is not intended to change Michigan's laws prohibiting or criminalizing human cloning.
Michigan has some of the nation's most restrictive laws on embryonic stem cell research. Those behind the ballot measure say the state could lose scientists and business opportunities -- as well as the chance to make important discoveries -- if the laws aren't changed.
Under the proposal, state law would be changed so researchers would be allowed to use donated embryos created for fertility treatment. The embryos would have to be more than those needed for fertility treatment or unsuitable for implantation. The embryos otherwise would be discarded unless used for research.
The proposal is opposed by some, including the Michigan Catholic Conference and Right to Life of Michigan, because it includes the destruction of embryos.
"It is terribly unfortunate that this campaign has decided to pursue a radical and highly divisive amendment to the state constitution that will destroy millions of living human embryos," Dave Maluchnik, a spokesman for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said in a statement.
Scientists say stem cell research has substantial promise to help cure diseases and chronic ailments such as Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries and juvenile diabetes.
Supporters of the ballot drive say embryonic research holds the most promise, while opponents say the state should focus on adult or umbilical cord stem cell research. | <urn:uuid:ca4ab223-2e22-4da0-b40d-008f8ed3caf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2008/01/stem_cell_research_backers_sub.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951251 | 412 | 1.859375 | 2 |
"We couldn't be happier with French for Tots. The program gave our child something he could really sink his teeth into and challenged his intellectual curiosity. Language has become a playtoy for him now. I think French for Tots is the right choice for parents who care in a very deep way about their children. Mr. Thibaut is a unique and terrific teacher.”
"As you know this was Jackie's first exposure to Spanish .. she loved the songs (she sang them every night while she was supposed to be sleeping)."
"I see how eager the children in the class are to learn. For them, learning Spanish is play. I am a physician, and I know that the brain develops fastest when children learn language early. They grasp concepts easier and their pronunciation is perfect. That is why I am sending my children to Spanish for Tots."
"A professionally run, well-rounded program."
"Having tried two other "french playgroups for children," I can say with no hesitation that there is no program that can possibly compare with the LWFC. This is the only school that has exposed my child to another language in a way that she can retain."
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TUCSON, Ariz. -- A new book on the methods and applications of repeat photography that showcases its international usage in monitoring landscape change on five continents has been released.
“Repeat Photography: Methods and Applications in the Natural Sciences,” is both a review of the state-of-the-art for this well-established technique, as well as a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Desert Laboratory Repeat Photography Collection – the largest archive of its kind in the world.
The scientific technique of taking photographs from the same vantage point at different times is one of the earliest methods for documenting landscape change, getting its start with the monitoring of glacier retreat in Europe in the late 19th century.
This book explores the broad technical and geographic scope of the technique, focusing particularly on the intertwined influences of climatic variation and land-use practices in sculpting landscapes. It illustrates the wide scope of application, examines some new techniques for acquiring data from repeat photography, and demonstrates that this remains a valuable and cost-effective means for monitoring future changes, particularly in developing countries.
A product of the USGS’ project on landscape change in the southwestern United States, based in Tucson, the book was edited Robert H. Webb, hydrologist; Diane E. Boyer, photo archivist; and Raymond M. Turner, botanist. Published by Island Press, it includes contributions by several other USGS scientists as well as other practitioners of repeat photography from around the world. | <urn:uuid:c6af35d3-79ba-4e02-ae16-082ef16a3757> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article_pf.asp?ID=2635 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93845 | 312 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The increased patrols, DWI checkpoints and constant pleas from elected officials to celebrate responsibility have become part of New Mexico's fabric as the state continues to fight the pervasive problem of drunken driving.
"Too often we hear about the pain and heartache caused by a DWI fatality around this time of year," Gov. Susana Martinez said in a statement. "Law enforcement is on the lookout for intoxicated drivers so I hope all New Mexicans will do the right thing by not drinking and driving."
New Mexico was once among the worst states in the nation for DWI-related deaths. Efforts to toughen the laws began to get serious traction following a Christmas Eve crash in 1992 in which a wrong-way drunken driver smashed head-on into a family on their way home from midnight Mass. Melanie Cravens and her three young daughters were killed, and her husband was seriously injured.
The Cravens case changed the way people in New Mexico thought about drinking and driving, and her family members were instrumental in leading the crusade to change things.
Now, New Mexico has some of the toughest penalties and greater enforcement. The number of people killed in alcohol-related accidents also has dropped dramatically since the year of the crash - from 274 down to less than 150 in 2011.
And as of mid-December, state officials say
The weekend before Christmas, officers were busy setting up orange cones in preparation for DWI checkpoints on Christmas Eve. The officers are in the midst of their Winter Superblitz and drivers can expect increased patrols in addition to the checkpoints.
In Albuquerque, more than 20 officers are being assigned full time to look for drunken drivers throughout the city. Two checkpoints are planned within city limits before the end of the year.
A total of 75 people were nabbed in Bernalillo County during last year's holiday patrols.
Bernalillo County Sheriff's Capt. Greg Rees recently told the Albuquerque Journal that deputies have been seeing more charges associated with driving under the influence due to prescription drugs.
"People aren't really taking the time to think about whether their prescriptions interact with even one or two drinks," he said.
Police departments and elected officials around the state have spent the past several days encouraging people to take advantage of safe-ride programs and to use designated drivers.
Among the possible punishments facing first-time DWI offenders are 90 days in jail, a year without a driver's license, community service and installation of an ignition interlock on their vehicle for up to a year. For those with multiple DWI convictions, their vehicles can be seized, they can lose their license for good and face three years in prison. | <urn:uuid:0c543abc-7b4b-4496-9c4a-46d298ef163d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.demingheadlight.com/deming-news/ci_22254406/new-mexico-officers-watching-drunken-drivers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976838 | 537 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I first saw President Mugabe during a prize giving ceremony at a local high school. He was still Prime Minister and adorned in a brown safari suit. The school was special because it was used as a base by ZIPRA forces, the armed wing of Zapu PF the party of the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo.
It was grand occasions as we sang and danced and settled down to take in the wisdom he dished in his speech. An eloquent speaker till this day, Mugabe reminded us why it was necessary never to forget the ideals of the struggle. He described that they went to war simply because of the land. That was the driving force. That was in the 80s!
Fast forward to the millennium and I listened to his speech when Zimbabwe buried a cabinet Minister recently. This was the same man who I had heard more than two decades ago with the same message. But this time as you may all know, the land had been given back to the rightful owners. There is no disputing historical fact. When white settlers arrived in Zimbabwe back in the 1890s, they drove the indigenous people from the good agricultural land into the rocky and infertile reserves.
It was a brutal occupation characterized by the hanging to death those who refused. Those who resisted were hanged in public for all to see. The cold facts are that 700 000 blacks were squeezed on 53% of land in Zimbabwe while 6 000 whites occupied the 46 %. After independence in 1980, none of the then commercial farmer were willing to sell back the land. After all who will sell a goose that lays the golden egg?
But I digress for this article is not about to school anyone on history. This is about Mugabe, hated by almost every member of the white community. I tend to ask myself why all this anger at Mugabe? Are the blacks meant to be confined to the rocky reserves for their entire lives and the generations to come? The answer is a big no. Other African countries also had to wage war with colonial forces in order to gain self rule. They too are faced with similar circumstances where the majority of the indigenous people are crowded on small pieces of land, while the minority enjoys tracts of land as big as 3000 hectares for one man. Why did Mugabe stick his neck out and order the land reform of 2000?
He is a very intelligent man and should have anticipated the backlash. There would be famine, there would be a fall out with the international community and his name would be dragged through the mud. The answer is principles. Mugabe is a loyal servant. When thousands of blacks died during the war in was on the premise of getting to the biblical Promised Land. The land of their ancestors. I understand the ire of the former colonial masters, but it is a pity that you find a lot of blacks claiming Mugabe has brought suffering. I beg to strongly differ.
Contrary to the media portraying the land reform as a failure, the opposite is quite true. Only 7% of the land is currently owned by black commercial farmers. These are verifiable facts. The rest of the land was given to the ordinary communal farmers for resettlement with their families. Most of these communal farmers have raised their standards of living. Before the year 2000, a few white commercial farmers would converge at the tobacco auction floors. Today a single day sees thousands of communal farmers selling the golden leaf. In the past wealth was for a few, but today thousands enjoy the fruits of the land.
Perhaps this is what drove Mugabe. To produce successful farmers takes years. It might not be the current crop of farmers who will make Zimbabwe a bread basket, but I can bet with anyone who dares, that the children of these farmers will grow up on the farms and take the baton.
Zimbabwe will be a bread basket within the next 30 years. The colonial masters also took years to master the art of farming. Instead of joining in the ruckus about Mugabe’s rule causing suffering, blacks should be proud of a leader who has delivered on the promise of how a free country should be. Forget the propaganda spread by hateful people. The very people who made us slaves, but today will claim they have our interests at heart.
My final thought is ,if men like Nkrumah, Machel, Mandela, Nujoma, Kaunda and Mugabe had not stood up against apartheid would the colonial master have voluntarily agreed to dismantle the system? Again the answer is a resounding no. We would still be treated like slaves
So let’s forget the current struggles. These are but teething problems. The greater good will still come. United we stand, divided we crumble.
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received. | <urn:uuid:5f0ade0e-0040-45a2-b0d2-873c663b266a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Mugabe-My-legend-20130304 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97952 | 1,022 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Irish Peace Group Helping to Combat Gang Violence in Haiti
A group of Irish peacemakers has helped resolve gang warfare in disaster-hit Haiti.
Members of Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation travelled to the Caribbean nation, parts of which were destroyed in the devastating 2010 earthquake.
"For a peace process to work you don't have to trust each other, you just have to trust in the process"
Former UVF paramilitary Martin Snodden was among those who encouraged gang lords in one of the country's poorest and most dangerous slums to decommission their weapons.
Irish charity Concern invited them to work with Haitian peace-building group 3PSM in St Martin, where 70,000 people live in severe poverty and children as young as 11 are initiated into gangs.
They used the Northern Ireland peace process as an example of how conflicting communities can live without violence.
Glencree international programme director Ian White, who first visited Haiti in 2004 and has returned numerous times, said methods for achieving peace are the same the world over.
"For a peace process to work you don't have to trust each other, you just have to trust in the process," said Mr White.
"We wanted to open up dialogue between these people who hate each other."
As the annual Haiti Week in Ireland begins tomorrow, when organisations try to raise awareness of the poverty-stricken country, Mr White said people should put themselves in the shoes of those living out there.
He said he understood why members of the community were forced to join gangs.
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